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Post by Admin on Oct 2, 2023 12:05:15 GMT -5
“According to My Gospel”
TOM NETTLES
“According to My Gospel”
This article is part 3 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ. You can read part 1, and part 2.
The gospel was no matter of human construction, nor a philosophy to be shaped by critical interaction. It was not Paul’s gospel in the sense that he deduced it from a clever, or even a profound, integration of secular cultural ideals. He did not invent it nor construct it by logical extension from his thorough knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures. His gospel was indeed the culmination of the Holy Scriptures and the perfect and intended fulfillment of their meaning in historical narrative, prophetic utterance, typological events and persons, wisdom literature, and worship material. He told Timothy that the “Holy Scriptures … are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15). These Scriptures, which Timothy had been taught from childhood by Lois his grandmother and Eunice his mother were to be seen in their perfect meaning when he viewed them in light of “the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you learned them” (2 Timothy 3:13). Paul referred to his own instruction, for Timothy had “carefully followed my doctrine” (2 Timothy 3:10). What Paul called “my doctrine” here, he had called “my gospel” a few paragraphs earlier.
In Romans 1, Paul begins describing his ministry, indeed his authority, to the Romans, immediately dictating, “Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.” He then summarized this gospel in terms virtually synonymous with our text: “which he promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by his resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Then he adds the particular idea we are considering, “through whom we have received grace and apostleship,” or perhaps, “this particular grace of apostleship.” He goes on to say, in light of the large Gentile admixture in the church at Rome, “to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake” (Romans 1:1-5). As Paul closed Romans, he told the church that God “is able to establish you according to my gospel, even the preaching of Jesus Christ.” His gospel was the “revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began.” Though kept hidden as to the kind of person who could fulfill all the requirements of prophecy, who could judge justly and yet forgive sins and remove them as far as the east is from the west, in that revelation it was “made manifest.” Then in a way perfectly consistent with the Scriptures of the prophets, this gospel that he calls “my gospel” was “made known” to the nations.
Similarly, to the Ephesians he wrote that “this grace was given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8). The gospel that he preached carried the authority of his apostleship, his independent understanding of the gospel of Christ revealed to him: ”that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery” (Ephesians 3:3). As he told Timothy, this gospel now constitutes a part of the Holy Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16) and brings all of its parts into perfect harmony. By the gospel certain mysteries that lingered in the prophets were given clarity. Peter referred to this in 1 Peter 1:10-12, asserting that “those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven” gave clarity to both “the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow.” Mysteries left buzzing in the heads of the prophets found their resting place in “Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of a seed of David.” Paul goes on to tell the church in Ephesus about his “insight into the mystery of Christ” that was not made known in previous generations but “has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit” (Ephesians 3:4, 5). Of this gospel God’s powerful grace made Paul a minister, a steward of the revealed truth concerning “the unfathomable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:7, 8).
When among the church at Corinth false teachers came who taught that there is no such thing as a resurrection of bodies, Paul began his instruction with a strong assertion of the absolute truthfulness of the gospel that he had preached. By his gospel they would be saved; if his gospel was not true, their faith would be empty. Note how insistent he is on the certainty of his message. To counteract these heretics, Paul reviewed “the gospel which I preached to you” and asserted the certainty of their salvation “if you hold fast the word which I preached to you” (1 Corinthians 15:1, 2). What did he preach? “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.” From whom did he receive this message that he preached? As he argues throughout his corpus of letters, he received it by divine revelation so that his gospel was for certain the gospel of God.
The first necessary theological truth is precisely this: preaching by an apostle. “So we preached and so you believed. Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the Dead?” (11, 12). Preached, therefore believed. If taught otherwise than preached by an apostle, the message is false, even without further investigation. Other doctrinal ideas of major importance are eventually discussed—forgiveness of sins, the conquering of death, the reigning of the man from heaven—but it is striking that the first thing Paul mentioned is the unity of the apostolic witness on this issue. Only a revelation could accomplish such unanimity.
If unalterably true as Paul claimed, his gospel would bear the scrutiny of critical examination in places where it touched on matters open to investigation. True belief, however, would arise in the context of the apostolic word, not the scrutiny. The resurrection of Christ and the consequent resurrection of believers were unambiguous facts of this divine revelation. The divine grace that captured him, making him an apostle, also confirmed to him the content of the gospel that he preached. His gospel, as revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, was a message of salvation grounded both in Scripture and in history. “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3). “Christ died” was historical; “for our sins” was theological, a matter of divine revelation and in perfect harmony with the prophetic words, “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all; … he bore the sins of many” (Isaiah 53:6, 12). “That he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,” relates two historical facts—buried, raised—that Paul proceeds to verify by historical evidence—multiple eyewitnesses of the risen Christ—including his own remarkable conversion and call to preach (1 Corinthians 15:5-10). Then with the historical evidence he interweaves truths of consistent biblical witness such as the Lord Messiah would be seated at the right hand of the Lord “till I make your enemies your footstool” (Psalm 110:1). Also, he would come in power as the “Son of man, coming on the clouds of heaven” and would be given “dominion and glory and a kingdom” (Daniel 7:13, 14). Only the resurrection of the crucified Messiah can explain such events.
In his letter to the churches of Galatia, Paul was shocked and amazed that someone could come among them, preaching a supposed gospel other than what Paul preached, and actually be credited as truthful. Paul had no room for suavity, politeness, or deference on this issue but instead said in no uncertain terms, “If we, or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, accursed be him” (Galatians 1:8). Why is Paul so certain of the correctness of his anathematization? “The gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11, 12). Paul had no doubts that his gospel was THE gospel; he had no doubt that his gospel was the same as that preached by the other apostles; he had no doubt that he received his gospel by divine revelation.
“Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, out of a seed of David, according to my gospel” (2 Timothy 2:8).
This article is part 3 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ.
Join us at the 2024 National Founders Conference on January 18-20 as we consider what it means to “Remember Jesus Christ” under the teaching of Tom Ascol, Joel Beeke, Paul Washer, Phil Johnson, Conrad Mbewe and Travis Allen.
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Post by Admin on Oct 29, 2023 12:55:45 GMT -5
The theme of the 2024 Founders Conference surrounds Paul’s admonition, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, out of the seed of David, according to my gospel.” God willing, and according to his enlightenment and strength, I want to discuss this sobering theme in a series of posts focusing on the biblical developments of “remember.” The word points to events that are both pivotal and central. Not only do they give a swift alteration of direction for humanity, but they rise to a culmination and a subsequent response in thought and deed. The flow of the entire biblical text presses forward to this command, “Remember Jesus Christ.” It summarizes every other call to remember. I intend also to describe historical manifestations of the loss (forgetting) and recovery (remembering) of this culminating event in the history of redemption.
“Remember” calls to mind central admonitions in the history of God’s revelation of redemptive power to his people. The command is not for a mere mental recall of an event or a casual reminder of a person’s name or status. It is a critical summons to put an event or person or commitment so at the center of your concern that the weight of its importance transforms your thinking. When the thief said to Jesus, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom,” (Luke 23:42) he wanted to be taken personally by Jesus into that status of perfect, sinless, beneficent rulership. Jesus responded with an answer commensurate with the purpose of the request, “Truly I say to you, this day with me you will be in paradise” (Luke 23:44). “As surely as my work of atonement will bring me into the glory of heaven in the presence of the Father, so it will do for you.” The request of the crucified thief was for Jesus’ personal investment in the eternal well-being of his mind, body, and soul—”Remember.”
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8), involves more than simple mental recall, but an investment of life in the rhythm of divine labor. As God worked for six days in creation, so should these redeemed people labor for six days at life-sustaining tasks that deserved their energy. As God had finished creation and then rested, so were the people rescued from relentless labor in Egypt to embrace a sabbath as instituted and practiced by God on the seventh day. All the animals, each member of the family, all the nation would so esteem the glory of the Creator/Redeemer/Covenant God that their lives individually and corporately would be defined by it. “Remember Jesus Christ” has that same claim on the lives of his redeemed ones but with an even greater intensity in light of an even more powerful delivery.
In Genesis 9:15, God said to Noah that he would “remember my covenant” made with the whole earth never again to destroy all flesh by flood. At the appearance of the rainbow in the cloud (which God himself makes), “I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature.” God’s promise to remember reflects a decree set in the context of his own integrity, a promise made by the unlying God (Titus 1:2).
In Leviticus 26:42 and 45 God refers to remembering his covenant with Abraham and Isaac so that he does not destroy the people entirely when they go into captivity: “I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt.” When God remembers, he conducts himself in accord with his eternal decree to redeem sinners through a man that would come in the context of a nation and a family, a man whose genealogy is traceable to Abraham and to Adam. The theology of “remember” means that God’s purpose and consequent action of redemption captures the mind and determines the actions.
Deuteronomy 6:12 gives a stern warning “lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of Egypt.” God gave a formula for protection against their fatal forgettings. Generation upon generation should follow this system of instruction? “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9). The whole life should be lived in the conscious awareness of God’s authority, his commands, his sovereign mercy, the fearful wonder of his distinguishing grace. The words of revelation that he has given by which the meaning of his historical acts of grace are disclosed must be an ever-present body of informative truth to his people. We must not forget; it must not pass away from our present consciousness that we are saved by free, unmerited, sovereign mercy.
Deuteronomy 8 verses 2, 11, 14, 18, 19 have an antiphonal chorus that works between the seriousness of the command to remember and the devastation wrought by the tragedy of forgetting. “And you shall remember” (2) refers to the Lord’s provisions and testing in the forty years of wilderness wanderings. This was to focus their lives, their hearts, on the revealed word of God as the source of life (3). Should his temporal blessings make them flatter themselves with a sense of independence, they are warned not to “forget the Lord your God” (11) and ignore his commandments. Again verse 14 warns against allowing success in the Promised Land to push aside the obvious dependence that they have on the Lord presently, even as it was undeniable during the testing of the forty years. If they are tempted to say, “My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth,” they again are commanded, “You shall remember the Lord our God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which he swore to your fathers” (18). “Remember” challenges the mind to grasp the covenantal mercy of God with such conscientious commitment that nothing can drive a wedge of temporal delusion between the moral and spiritual mind of a person and the infinite power and mercy of divine provision.
When Jesus established the symbol of the final, ultimate, perfect redemptive act, he commanded his followers, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). When Paul recounted the event for the Corinthians, he connected Jesus’ command of remembrance, do this “in remembrance of me,” with the breaking of the bread and the taking of the cup. “This do,” he said, “as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me” (1 Corinthians 11:24, 25). Paul added that such an action was a proclamation of the “Lord’s death till he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26).
The command of Paul to Timothy to “Remember Jesus Christ,” therefore, reaches deep into the biblical text as a prompt to take to heart the covenantal faithfulness of God. “Remember” means to be in active reflection on the saving mercy contained in the eternal covenant and the consequent redemptive action of God in Jesus Christ.
This article is part 1 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ. You can read part 2 here.
Join us at the 2024 National Founders Conference on January 18-20 as we consider what it means to “Remember Jesus Christ” under the teaching of Tom Ascol, Joel Beeke, Paul Washer, Phil Johnson, Conrad Mbewe and Travis Allen.
Tom has most recently served as the Professor of Historical Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He previously taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where he was Professor of Church History and Chair of the Department of Church History. Prior to that, he taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. Along with numerous journal articles and scholarly papers, Dr. Nettles is the author and editor of fifteen books. Among his books are By His Grace and For His Glory; Baptists and the Bible, James Petigru Boyce: A Southern Baptist Statesman, and Living by Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles H. Spurgeon.
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Post by Admin on Oct 29, 2023 12:58:13 GMT -5
Remember Jesus Christ
TOM NETTLES
Remember Jesus Christ
This article is part 2 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ. You can read part 1 here.
“Remember Jesus Christ, risen out of death, arising from the seed of David, according to my gospel” (2 Timothy 2:8).
In supplying the name of the one that we are to remember, he also supplies the reasons that forgetfulness in this matter is fatal. Paul supplies the name of the person who embodies the full range of truth and saving grace that counters the falsehoods, errors, and aggressive evil of fallen humanity. As he reminded the Corinthians, “As in Adam all die; even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). In the context of this letter to Timothy, Paul uses the combination “Christ Jesus” or “Jesus Christ” fourteen times. Two of these also employ the word “Lord” with the name “Jesus” and the office, “Christ.” Also, there are fifteen other uses of the word “Lord” to refer to Jesus Christ. The book is saturated with Jesus Christ, his lordship, his mercy, his purpose, his truthful word, his conquering of death, his promise of life, his salvation, his status as judge, and his personal presence with the believer. Paul aimed to make it impossible to forget either the person or the work of Jesus Christ. To forget is to deny; to deny is to give surety of an absence of grace.
Particularly Paul does not want us to forget the significance of the name and the title given to him. His name is Jesus. The angel told Joseph, calling him “son of David,” that the child with whom Mary was impregnated by the Holy Spirit was to be called “Jesus” (Matthew 1:20, 21). The significance of this designated name was related to the child’s office as Savior—“for he shall save his people from their sins.” The name means, “Jehovah is salvation.”
For Joshua (the same name), his name was a testimony to the promise of Jehovah in giving to Israel the land of Abraham. It signified that Jehovah was strong, mighty, faithful, the only God, and would accomplish all his promises, both of blessing and of cursing. He would work through Joshua to fulfill these promises and establish the context where the people would respond to this miraculous deliverance and strikingly clear revelation. Some of the promises were unconditional and unilateral. No alterations among the Israelites could change the ability and determination of God to carry through. Others were conditional and were, in one sense, dependent on the faithfulness of the people (2 Kings 23:26, 27).
The task of Joshua was typological; the task for Jesus was the substance and absolute. Joshua set the stage for the powerful display of divine purpose; Jesus embodied the mystery of godliness. Joshua testified of the power of God to save and called the people to follow him in serving the Lord (Joshua 24); Jesus did not merely testify to the power of God to save, but he possessed and executed his saving power by own righteous acts and perfect obedience. Not only like Joshua did he testify to the power of God to save, but he constituted the saving purpose of God. Though “Jesus” is his human name, it also is a testimony to his divine nature–”Jehovah is salvation.”
As “Christ,” the God-man Jesus is the anointed one. Every office and type established by anointing, the Christ culminated in himself. Did God give prophets to reveal and speak and write his word to his people? Jesus is the prophet promised through Moses, the “Word made flesh,” the Son through whom God “has spoken” (Deuteronomy 18:15, 18; John 1:14; Hebrews 1:2). Is he not the true Elisha, the God of supplication, anointed by Elijah (1 Kings 19: 16; Luke 1:17; 3:21, 22; Luke 23:34; John 1:29-34). Does the Lord not set forth the prophet as a special representative of his anointing? (1 Chronicles 16:22; Psalm 105:15). “Do not touch my anointed ones, and do my prophets no harm.” Does not Jesus claim that he is the fulfillment of the anointed prophet sent to preach good tidings to the poor, and proclaim liberty to the captives? (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18).
He is Priest. As the priest was anointed to offer sacrifice (Leviticus 4:4, 5) and sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice. Christ, therefore, offered himself once-for-all putting an end to all of the typological sacrifices. Though not of the tribe of Levi, he received a special commission for this purpose (Hebrews 7:20; 8:6; 9:12, 24-26). So, Jesus Christ, having served as the anointed prophet, then completed his anointed work of priesthood, altar, and sacrifice. Nothing in the sacrificial system was left unfulfilled by him.
David was anointed king by Samuel (1 Samuel 16:13). In consequence of the Christ’s completed prophetic work and the perfection of his priesthood, he was given his seat at the right hand “of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3), fulfilling the promise to David of the forever king established by God. “And I will establish him in my house and in My kingdom forever; and his throne shall be established forever” (1 Chronicles 17:14). Jesus Christ alone, in all three of these offices can say, “I have been anointed with fresh oil” (Psalm 92:10).
Nothing else would matter if the next phrase were not vital to the way we are called upon to “Remember Jesus Christ.” Both the soteriological power and the apologetic coherence of the gospel would fall to the ground, no more to rise, without it. “Risen from the dead” denotes the conquering of the scheme of Satan to oppose the purpose of God in lifting up non-angelic creatures to a position higher than the angels—in fact, to share in some way with the glory of his Son. Jesus did not give aid to angels but was “made like his brethren,” made propitiation “for the sins of the people,” and “having purged our sins,” destroyed him that has the “power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14-17; 1:3). The wages of sin, the penalty of death for disobedience, unpropitiated through the ages, held as a threat by the Devil and verified by divine justice, lost its sting when Jesus “bore our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). Jesus Christ, who bore those death-dealing sins, was “raised from the dead by the glory of the Father” (Romans 6:4). This means that all the holy, righteous, and just attributes of God, the entire weightiness of God, were honored completely by Christ’s death and thus called for the granting of life to the successful sin-bearer. Death, therefore, no longer has any hold on Christ or his people and Satan’s tool of intimidation has been removed. The work of Christ and the verdict of the Father are communicated in power to the redeemed by the Spirit. “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11). God, therefore, instead of being against us is for us. Why? Because he “spared not His own Son but delivered him up for us all.” Having given us Him, he freely gives us all that Christ has gained. None can now condemn for “it is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God.” On top of that he “makes intercession for us” (Romans 8:32-34).
Under the name of Christ, we already have looked briefly at the significance of the phrase, “out of a seed of David.” The anarthrous use of spermatos has the force of isolating the word to a specific person, Mary. Jesus was born, was conceived in and then came out of Mary, a seed of David. Luke 1:27 has the phrase, “out of the house of David,” a phrase to be applied both to Mary and Joseph. The seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15) was also the seed of David. He descended from David in his human nature and has a right to the throne. “He will be great,” the angel told Mary, “and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David.” (Luke 1:32). How low the House had fallen that a teenage virgin was to bear the seed of David to the Messiah and his legal father would be a mere carpenter. Luke 2:4 again emphasizes that Joseph was “of the house and lineage of David” because the enrollment must take place legally according to the male of the household. When the angel addressed Joseph to inform him of the source of Mary’s impregnation, he said “Joseph, son of David” (Matthew 1:20). Jeremiah 30:9 predicts, “They shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king.” In Ezekiel we read, “And my servant David shall be king over them” (34:24; 37:24). Hosea predicts that after a time of devastation, Israel will “seek the Lord their God and David their king” (Hosea 3:5). This descent from David confirms the prophetic material concerning the Messiah, seals the reality of his humanity, and shows that the true “Man after God’s own heart” saves us, rules over us with lovingkindness until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.
Paul has given a thick distillation of biblical doctrine on the person of Christ in his paternal admonition to Timothy. For his preaching, his instruction of elders, and for his personal joy and assurance Paul instructed Timothy, and so instructs us, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of a seed of David.”
This article is part 2 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ.
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Post by Admin on Oct 29, 2023 12:59:16 GMT -5
“According to My Gospel”
TOM NETTLES
“According to My Gospel”
This article is part 3 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ. You can read part 1, and part 2.
The gospel was no matter of human construction, nor a philosophy to be shaped by critical interaction. It was not Paul’s gospel in the sense that he deduced it from a clever, or even a profound, integration of secular cultural ideals. He did not invent it nor construct it by logical extension from his thorough knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures. His gospel was indeed the culmination of the Holy Scriptures and the perfect and intended fulfillment of their meaning in historical narrative, prophetic utterance, typological events and persons, wisdom literature, and worship material. He told Timothy that the “Holy Scriptures … are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15). These Scriptures, which Timothy had been taught from childhood by Lois his grandmother and Eunice his mother were to be seen in their perfect meaning when he viewed them in light of “the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you learned them” (2 Timothy 3:13). Paul referred to his own instruction, for Timothy had “carefully followed my doctrine” (2 Timothy 3:10). What Paul called “my doctrine” here, he had called “my gospel” a few paragraphs earlier.
In Romans 1, Paul begins describing his ministry, indeed his authority, to the Romans, immediately dictating, “Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.” He then summarized this gospel in terms virtually synonymous with our text: “which he promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by his resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Then he adds the particular idea we are considering, “through whom we have received grace and apostleship,” or perhaps, “this particular grace of apostleship.” He goes on to say, in light of the large Gentile admixture in the church at Rome, “to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake” (Romans 1:1-5). As Paul closed Romans, he told the church that God “is able to establish you according to my gospel, even the preaching of Jesus Christ.” His gospel was the “revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began.” Though kept hidden as to the kind of person who could fulfill all the requirements of prophecy, who could judge justly and yet forgive sins and remove them as far as the east is from the west, in that revelation it was “made manifest.” Then in a way perfectly consistent with the Scriptures of the prophets, this gospel that he calls “my gospel” was “made known” to the nations.
Similarly, to the Ephesians he wrote that “this grace was given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8). The gospel that he preached carried the authority of his apostleship, his independent understanding of the gospel of Christ revealed to him: ”that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery” (Ephesians 3:3). As he told Timothy, this gospel now constitutes a part of the Holy Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16) and brings all of its parts into perfect harmony. By the gospel certain mysteries that lingered in the prophets were given clarity. Peter referred to this in 1 Peter 1:10-12, asserting that “those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven” gave clarity to both “the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow.” Mysteries left buzzing in the heads of the prophets found their resting place in “Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of a seed of David.” Paul goes on to tell the church in Ephesus about his “insight into the mystery of Christ” that was not made known in previous generations but “has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit” (Ephesians 3:4, 5). Of this gospel God’s powerful grace made Paul a minister, a steward of the revealed truth concerning “the unfathomable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:7, 8).
When among the church at Corinth false teachers came who taught that there is no such thing as a resurrection of bodies, Paul began his instruction with a strong assertion of the absolute truthfulness of the gospel that he had preached. By his gospel they would be saved; if his gospel was not true, their faith would be empty. Note how insistent he is on the certainty of his message. To counteract these heretics, Paul reviewed “the gospel which I preached to you” and asserted the certainty of their salvation “if you hold fast the word which I preached to you” (1 Corinthians 15:1, 2). What did he preach? “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.” From whom did he receive this message that he preached? As he argues throughout his corpus of letters, he received it by divine revelation so that his gospel was for certain the gospel of God.
The first necessary theological truth is precisely this: preaching by an apostle. “So we preached and so you believed. Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the Dead?” (11, 12). Preached, therefore believed. If taught otherwise than preached by an apostle, the message is false, even without further investigation. Other doctrinal ideas of major importance are eventually discussed—forgiveness of sins, the conquering of death, the reigning of the man from heaven—but it is striking that the first thing Paul mentioned is the unity of the apostolic witness on this issue. Only a revelation could accomplish such unanimity.
If unalterably true as Paul claimed, his gospel would bear the scrutiny of critical examination in places where it touched on matters open to investigation. True belief, however, would arise in the context of the apostolic word, not the scrutiny. The resurrection of Christ and the consequent resurrection of believers were unambiguous facts of this divine revelation. The divine grace that captured him, making him an apostle, also confirmed to him the content of the gospel that he preached. His gospel, as revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, was a message of salvation grounded both in Scripture and in history. “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3). “Christ died” was historical; “for our sins” was theological, a matter of divine revelation and in perfect harmony with the prophetic words, “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all; … he bore the sins of many” (Isaiah 53:6, 12). “That he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,” relates two historical facts—buried, raised—that Paul proceeds to verify by historical evidence—multiple eyewitnesses of the risen Christ—including his own remarkable conversion and call to preach (1 Corinthians 15:5-10). Then with the historical evidence he interweaves truths of consistent biblical witness such as the Lord Messiah would be seated at the right hand of the Lord “till I make your enemies your footstool” (Psalm 110:1). Also, he would come in power as the “Son of man, coming on the clouds of heaven” and would be given “dominion and glory and a kingdom” (Daniel 7:13, 14). Only the resurrection of the crucified Messiah can explain such events.
In his letter to the churches of Galatia, Paul was shocked and amazed that someone could come among them, preaching a supposed gospel other than what Paul preached, and actually be credited as truthful. Paul had no room for suavity, politeness, or deference on this issue but instead said in no uncertain terms, “If we, or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, accursed be him” (Galatians 1:8). Why is Paul so certain of the correctness of his anathematization? “The gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11, 12). Paul had no doubts that his gospel was THE gospel; he had no doubt that his gospel was the same as that preached by the other apostles; he had no doubt that he received his gospel by divine revelation.
“Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, out of a seed of David, according to my gospel” (2 Timothy 2:8).
This article is part 3 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ.
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Post by Admin on Oct 29, 2023 13:00:18 GMT -5
A Survey of the New Testament Call to Remember
TOM NETTLES
A Survey of the New Testament Call to Remember
This article is part 4 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ. You can read part 1, part 2 and part 3.
Having examined the theological importance of the call “Remember,” we want to examine some points of New Testament admonition in which the substance of the command is at work. As Jesus prepared his disciples for his departure, he promised them the help of the Holy Spirit. One operation of the Spirit that served the cause of redemption and the full truthfulness of the apostolic recording of it was couched in the promise of Jesus: “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you” (John 14:25, 26). The faculty of memory under the teaching of the Holy Spirit became the avenue for a theological and spiritual transformation. They had heard the words of Jesus, but none of the disciples grasped their meaning, and certainly not their world-transforming importance. But, when the Spirit of truth came and brought these words to their “remembrance,” the message was sealed in their thought and its overturning power in an upside-down world became the theme of their lives and their hope of eternal life.
At the empty tomb we have the first post-resurrection call to “Remember.” When women arrived very early in the morning following the sabbath and found the tomb empty, an angel said to them, “Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again’” (Luke 24:6, 7). As they gazed into the empty grave where they had observed that his body was laid, the angel asked them to gather the words of Jesus into their minds and to consider with their hearts that the dark emptiness they saw was in itself a settled and infallible proof of the truth of Jesus’ words and the confirmation of his person and work. Had they remembered these words before the angel prompted them, they would have known what had happened. “Jesus has risen just as he said. Death is conquered, sin is forgiven; eternal life is the unfading, immutable reality.”
When Paul wrote of his amazement that some in Galatia were “turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel,” (Galatians 1:6) he expressed the result of a failure to “Remember Jesus Christ.” When he gave his statement of being “crucified with Christ” and the results of that identity in death with Christ (Galatians 2:20, 21), he was showing what it means to “Remember Jesus Christ.” When he told the Galatians, “If you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing,” he showed what it means to “Remember Jesus Christ.” If you remember Jesus Christ the gospel is clear, the cross is dear, and the ceremonial law with its burdensome reminders—sin not yet atoned, hearts still in need of circumcision—will disappear.
When Paul closed his letter to the Ephesians with the benediction, “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity” (Ephesians 6:24), he highlighted the benefit of a remembrance of Jesus Christ. When he told the Philippians that neither endearment nor rivalry was of importance to him as compared to the greatness of the gospel, he remembered Jesus Christ. Paul expressed it on that occasion in this way: “What then? Only that in every way whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice” (Philippians 1:18). When Paul gave his extended and exalted expositions of the person and work of Christ in Colossians, he pressed those believers, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving“ (Colossians 2:6, 7). This is a way of saying, “Remember Jesus Christ.” And when he reminded them that all of the ceremonial law had been fulfilled and put to rest with the words, “but the substance is of Christ,” (Colossians 2:17), he was telling them that the answer to every challenge of philosophy and short-circuited theology is to “Remember Jesus Christ.” When he told the Thessalonians to “stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or epistle,” (2 Thessalonians 2:15), he is saying “Remember Jesus Christ.” In demonstration of this, Paul goes on to say, “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work” (2 Thessalonians 2:16, 17). To stand fast in those things handed down from the apostles is to find safety in Jesus Christ for he has manifested saving grace in that the Father in grace has given him to us for comfort now and everlasting hope in the eternal future. What courage, conviction and consolation is found in the gracious call, “Remember Jesus Christ!”
When Paul highlighted the extent of the saving grace of Christ, he told Timothy, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Timothy 1:15). Paul pointed to his saving confrontation with Christ as the pattern of how deep and infinitely gracious and powerful and how certain is the determination of Christ to save: “In me Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life.” Looking at his life and seeing its subjection to the one whom he persecuted, Paul was saying, “Remember Jesus Christ.”
When John warned against false prophets and gave the test, “Every spirit that confesses, ‘Jesus Christ has come in the flesh,’ that one is of God; and every spirit that does not confess that very Jesus, that spirit is not of God” (1 John 4:2, 3). By his revelation in a body when the eternal word was made flesh (John 1:14), the eternally covenanted grace of God made the way for righteousness, forgiveness, resurrection, and glorification. Only “the man, Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5) has done, and even could do, such deeds of grace and power. You have not remembered Jesus Christ if you do not remember that the incarnation was the sphere in which every redemptive act must of necessity be accomplished.
Jude changed from writing an expressive exposition of the shared faith of Christians (Jude 3) in order to present a distilled warning against men of heretical doctrine and perverse lives. He told them “Remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 17). In addition to their pursuit of all the “ungodly deeds” recorded in Scripture, a fatal doctrinal error undergirded their energy in turning the “grace of our God into lewdness;” that is, “they deny the only Lord, even our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 4). They denied the Lord because they did not remember “the words” previously spoken “by the apostles.” Had they remembered, in the biblical sense of mental submission to the eternal truths of the covenant, they would have been warned of the perversity of unbelief and have kept themselves “in the love of God, looking to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life” (Jude 21). How salubrious and safe is the command, “Remember Jesus Christ.”
This article is part 4 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ.
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Post by Admin on Oct 29, 2023 13:01:15 GMT -5
Remembering Jesus Christ In Our Suffering
TOM NETTLES
Remembering Jesus Christ In Our Suffering
This article is part 5 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)
Paul’s strong emphasis on the central points of Christ’s person and work is designed to elevate the thinking of Timothy above the concerns any might have for safety and acceptance in this life, if at the same time it means proving untrue to Christ. We must remember—see the eternal covenantal purpose of God as centered on Jesus Christ—so that nothing in this life can draw us away.
One specific concern that Paul has is the power of physical and political intimidation to make us forget. He already has admonished Timothy not to be “ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me his prisoner” (1:8). The “testimony of our Lord,” in light of this context could refer to the words of Jesus in Mark 8:38 where Jesus is explaining what is involved in denying oneself, or losing one’s life for the sake of Christ, in order to follow Christ. “Whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
That Paul in this instance has in mind physical persecution for the gospel as the challenge to the professing Christian is clear when he states, “for which I suffer hardship even to imprisonment as a criminal” (9). His suffering was well-known by Timothy (3:10, 11). Paul admonished him, “Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2:3).
Paul had a two-fold purpose in referring to his various sufferings for “my gospel.” One, his suffering sealed in his experience the absoluteness of the gospel. He was willing to lose all including life because of the “surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things.” He even desired to know “the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death” (Philippians 3:8, 10). He was, in fact, at that moment contemplating that soon his life would be taken for he knew that “the time of my departure has come” (4:6). Nothing, therefore, could dissuade Paul from his clear and convinced proclamation of the finality, absoluteness, and consummate truthfulness of “Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of a seed of David, as preached in my gospel.” He had come to believe, embrace, cast the very essence of his existence on the truth of the proposition that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). If the former enemy, willing to imprison and kill those who believed the gospel had changed so radically that he now gladly suffered imprisonment and the prospect of a martyr’s death, who could doubt the certainty of his conviction? Who, but the most irrational skeptic, could deny the truth of Paul’s message?
The gospel will not fail; it will prevail, and its power will be manifest in the faithful suffering of his people.
Second, Paul not only used his suffering to glory in the truth of the gospel, but also its power. “The word of God is not chained, imprisoned, or bound in any way” (9). The divinely-ordained harmony in the use of means in service of absolute sovereignty must be contemplated with reverence when we read, “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of the elect, those who are chosen, so that they also, along with me, may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory” (10). Elect in Christ in eternity past, saved in Christ in this present age, secured in Christ for undiminished joy for the eternal age yet to be. The gospel will not fail; it will prevail, and its power will be manifest in the faithful suffering of his people. Even in the face of heresy, Paul can affirm, “Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal, ‘The Lord knows those who are His.’”(19).
The gospel proceeds into the world through suffering, succeeds through suffering, and gives power to endure suffering. The gospel certainly will succeed, and Christ will lose none of his sheep; not a one for whom the Shepherd has died will fail to enter the sheepfold. But such certainty arises and is perfected in suffering: Christ suffered and died; the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church; and believers will choose eternal life in Christ even in the face of the threat of death for believing. “How unworthy it is,” Calvin proposes, “that we should think more of the fleeting life of this world than of the Holy Name of the Son of God.”
Paul summarizes this amazing integration of certainty secured through endurance by means of a confession or hymn called a “faithful saying” used in the apostolic church to teach this truth. It has a memorable pattern of rhyme and rhythm in Greek. Responses and results of true belief are set in parallel with responses and results of faithlessness to Paul’s gospel. The one whose faith arises from the electing purpose of God endures; the one left to his own faculties, will wilt under pressure.
For if together with him we die, also together with him we live;
If we endure the load, we will also reign with him.
If we shall deny him, also that very one He will deny.
If we prove to be without faith, He remains faithful,
For to deny Himself he is unable.
Dying with Christ refers to His propitiatory substitution for his people and implies their willingness to share his earthly suffering. Atoned for objectively and suffering experientially means that we attain the resurrection of the just. The other points of the confession naturally follow. It ends with the strong affirmation of the unperturbed eternal decree of God and the immutable truthfulness of his threats toward unbelief.
The gospel proceeds into the world through suffering, succeeds through suffering, and gives power to endure suffering.
This hymn also is reminiscent of the words of Jesus when he commissioned and instructed the twelve prior to their mission including warnings about persecution: “Whoever confesses me before men, him will I also confess before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32, 33). Jesus words were meant for the hearer and the preacher, of whom one was Judas. Remarking on this passage in 2 Timothy, Calvin wrote, “His threat is directed to those who from terror of persecution give up their profession of Christ’s name.” The admonition that has led to this sobering discussion is “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of a seed of David, according to my gospel.”
In discussing this passage with a PhD student from SBTS, Michael Carlino, he sent the following response after looking at both the language and the entire theological context of the hymnic confession. I found his remarks helpful and faithful to the text. “It would seem irresponsible exegetically to suggest that God will be faithful to the faithless by granting salvation in 13, because Paul is explaining in 13 why God is just and good in denying the apostate. For God to not deny the one who doesn’t endure/denies him, would be for God to deny his own character/nature. And it would then take away from the glory of verse 11, which promises that those who share in Christ’s sufferings will indeed reign with him. For, if God can deny himself and grant salvation to the apostate, the elect who endure unto death have no confidence in God’s trustworthiness. In other words, Paul is teaching that God’s denying of the apostate flows from God’s immutable character, just as the assurance of God’s receiving of his saints flows from God’s immutable character.”
Those who are apostate, those who fall away from what they have professed, have never had the root of the new birth. That heaven-wrought transaction shifts the affections from the world to the glory of God as seen in Christ. Something else—arising from threat, covetousness, intellectual fascination, or flattery—has shown that their most abiding affection is for the world and not Christ. Paul assures us that “He who began the good work in you will bring it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).
Again, we see what a pervasive and existentially profound theological admonition Paul gives in saying, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of a seed of David, according to my gospel.”
This article is part 5 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ.
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Post by Admin on Oct 29, 2023 13:02:18 GMT -5
Paul’s alarm at the gullibility of the Corinthians in receiving false teachers arose from the implications this had for several issues of vital truth, all of which impinged on the genuineness of their faith. One, their undiscerning spirit questioned the authenticity of his appointment as an apostle. Could these false teachers relativize Pauls’ apostleship, they would do the same to his preaching. Paul, therefore, spent chapters 11 and 12 of 2 Corinthians demonstrating the genuineness of his apostleship in order for them not to be “led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3). A second issue concerned the nature of the spirit, or Spirit, at work in them. Receiving the message of these false apostles would mean that they did not believe by the work of the Holy Spirit but actually had been duped, even as Eve was, by Satan disguised as an angel of light. John gives a succinct statement concerning the work of the Holy Spirit in relation to true belief when he asserts, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God” (1 John 5:1). Third, if they received the alternative being offered to them, and departed from Paul’s gospel, then they had a different gospel, which, as he told the Galatians, is no gospel at all. Contrary to the claims of these false apostles, messengers of the great deceiver, what they toyed with had no saving power. A fourth difficulty enveloped all the others. Such a shift in their religious persuasion would finally mean that they received “another Jesus than the one we proclaimed.” Another gospel and another Spirit means another Christ, for the Spirit is given by Christ and the gospel is defined absolutely in terms of the person and work of Christ.
As argued earlier, the admonition, “Remember Jesus Christ,” with the parameters established concerning person and work, implies a comprehensive commitment to a large range of doctrinal ideas. The unshakeable confidence that Paul had in the absolute authority of his gospel inhabits the words, “whom we have not preached.” We find both on the pages of the New Testament and in the history of the church a number of ways in which the Pauline exhortation, “Remember Jesus Christ,” has been disobeyed. Usually this amounts to a denial of some element of Christ’s person and a consequent modification—i.e. denial—of his work and thus a severe alteration of the gospel preached by Paul.
Another gospel and another Spirit means another Christ, for the Spirit is given by Christ and the gospel is defined absolutely in terms of the person and work of Christ.
One way that Jesus is forgotten is by a denial of his true humanity. John confronts this error when he says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). He also had in mind a group that hesitated to embrace the apostolic teaching of the full humanity of Christ when he assured the readers of 1 John that the very one who was from the beginning “we have seen with our eyes, … we have looked upon and have touched with our hands” (1 John 1:1). Added strength to this doctrine is seen when John says, “The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Paul’s concern about the nature of the spirit at work in the temptation of the Corinthians to believe on a Jesus whom he had not preached is joined by John when he states, “By this you know the Spirit of God; every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist” (1 John 4:2, 3). As he observed the developments among those who desired to find a position of teaching in Christian congregations, John warned that they should watch themselves “so that you do not lose what we have worked for.” Specifically, he referred to the “many deceivers” that had “gone out into the world” who “do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh” (2 John 7, 8).
The writer of Hebrews, after a clear exposition of the deity of Jesus (Hebrews 1:1-13) and a warning about ignoring “such a great salvation” (Hebrews 2:1-4), shows the ontological necessity of the true humanity of Christ. “He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have the same nature” (Hebrews 2:11 – My translation). Again he writes, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things” (Hebrews 2:14). Then further, as he argues more concerning the necessary qualifications of one who is to redeem fallen humanity, says, “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17). Unless he were like us—that is, a man of full human nature, corruption of soul excepted—he could not make propitiation for the sins of the people.
Likewise, Paul argues in a number of places that Christ’s work of reconciliation would be impossible apart from the reality of the Son of God taking a real human nature to himself when he was “found in fashion as a man” (Philippians 2:8). In that way “he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death” (Philippians 2:9). Another way Paul said it is found in his instructions to the church in Colossae when he reminds them, “And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds, he has reconciled in his body of flesh by his death” (Colossians 1:21, 22).
All that we are in our bodies, Jesus became.
Peter joins the apostolic chorus in celebrating the condescending grace of God in sending his Son to take our human nature to perform the work of redemption. Peter affirms that sinners are “ransomed … with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18, 19). He intensifies this strong assertion with the words, “Christ suffered for you, … He Himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:21, 24). All that we are in our bodies, Jesus became; if not, we have none of our race through whom God’s wrath and expectation for righteousness can be covenantally fulfilled.
We must take time to admire and adore the great display and wisdom, power, and mercy found in the confession, “risen from the dead, of a seed of David.” None can explain but only believe the marvel displayed when the angel told Mary, “that holy thing conceived in you shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). The one who slept in the boat, and sweat great drops of blood, also forgave sins, silenced demons, and said “I and the Father are one.” Come, let us adore him.
This article is part 6 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ.
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Post by Admin on Oct 29, 2023 13:15:31 GMT -5
The Reformation: A Barrage of Confessional Correction
TOM NETTLES
The Reformation: A Barrage of Confessional CorrectionThe Reformation: A Barrage of Confessional Correction
As Reformation theology developed, its leading voices found it necessary to summarize their doctrine into the time-honored method of writing confessions of faith. This became necessary as they wanted to set forth their doctrine for investigation so that caricatures and other misrepresentations could be set aside. Positively, the creeds universally accepted by Christians through the centuries, they affirmed. Thus we have confessional positions as diversely constructed from the Book of Concord of the Lutherans, the French Confession of Faith of the Calvinists, to the Orthodox Creed of the General Baptists affirming the three “symbols” of the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed as statements of faith. Both Lutherans and Reformed would agree with the General Baptist assertion that these statements “ought thoroughly to be received, and believed. For we believe, they may be proved, by most undoubted authority of holy scripture, and are necessary to be understood of all Christians.” The confessions, therefore, were not authorities in and of themselves but only as they truly and clearly summarized the revealed truth of Scripture. The preface to the Scots Confession of 1560 invited its reader to note “any article or sentence repugnant to God’s holy word” and admonish the composers of the “the same in writing.” They pledged to give “satisfaction from the mouth of God, that is, from his Holy Scriptures, or else reformation of that which he shall prove to be amiss.
1. The Reformed confessions rejected error.
Negatively, those doctrinal positions universally condemned by the church through the centuries as out of harmony with divine revelation, the incarnation, and the principle of salvation by grace were rejected in name and in substance in Reformation Confessions. Often, therefore, one reads of condemnations of Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Arianism, Nestorianism, Eutychianism, Donatism, and Pelagianism. When the Anabaptists rejected infant baptism and sought a church of true believers disciplined fittingly according to the Bible, this was seen as a species of Donatism. Balthasar Hubmaier reflected on Christ’s commission by observing, “But infants cannot be taught, therefore one may not baptize them. That argument is as strong as a wall.” Lutheran and Reformed confessions condemned them (e.g. “On this account the Anabaptists who teach that infant baptism is not right are rejected” Augsburg Confession). John Smyth, the first Baptist follower of this Anabaptist position, wrote to the contrary in his “Short Confession,” that “baptism is the external sign of the remission of sins, of dying and of being made alive, and therefore does not belong to infants.” Thomas Helwys wrote confessionally that members are to be received by baptism “upon the confession of their faith and sins wrought by the preaching of the gospel” and churches formed in any other way “or of any other persons are not according to Christ’s Testament.” Donatism or not, or only partially, Baptists saw it as a scriptural point to be included.
More to the historical point, however, was the overall rejection of those offending doctrines of Roman Catholicism that canonized as God’s truth mere human traditions, conciliar decisions, and papal pronouncements. Reformers, for the most part, believed that Romans Catholicism had brought back the errors of Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism in establishing certain degrees of human merit to be combined with divine grace for salvation. As pronounced by the Second Scots Confession, 1580, “We detest and refuse the usurped authority of the Roman Antichrist upon the scriptures of God, upon the Kirk, the civil magistrates, and consciences of men; his erroneous doctrine against the sufficiency of the written word . . . the office of Christ, and his blessed evangel: his corrupted doctrine concerning original sin, our natural inability and rebellion to God’s law, our justification by faith only, our imperfect sanctification and obedience to the law; the nature, number, and use of the holy sacraments: His five bastard sacraments, with all his rites, ceremonies, and false doctrine, . . . his absolute necessity of baptism, his blasphemous opinion of transubstantiation . . . his purgatory, prayers for the dead, .. . his satisfactions of men for their sins, his justification by works, opus operatum, works of supererogation, merits, pardons, peregrinations, and stations; . . .His erroneous and bloody decrees made at Trent, with all the subscribers and approvers of the cruel and bloody band [covenant] conjured against the Kirk of God.” And that is not even half of the things that they detest!
2. The Reformed confessions affirmed the truth.
In addition, the confession would serve as an apologetic presentation of those things they most sincerely believed to be true. In order for their doctrine to be set forth concisely, clearly, and in its most rudimentary form, Reformation pastors/theologians set forth confessions as the basis for discussion with those who disagreed or those with whom they sought a broader fellowship or alliance. Ulrich Zwingli wrote his Exposition of the Faith to Francis I in 1529 after the breakdown of the Marburg Colloquy. He sought to instruct him in basic Reformation doctrine and convince him to throw his influence to the side of the Reformation in its heightening, and more dangerous, conflict with Catholicism. We see the earnestness of Zwingli’s appeal in the manner in which he addressed the king and the conclusions to which he sought to bring him. “I will make everything clear to your highness, O king. . . . When you think of all the things which we men habitually do either in passion or desire, you will be terrified, and so far as your own righteousness is concerned, in your own judgment you will declare yourself undeserving of eternal salvation. . . When you comfort yourself in Christ . . . then you spiritually eat his body, that is, trusting in the humanity which he assumed for your sake, you stand unafraid in God against all the onslaughts of despair.” The Lutherans presented the Augsburg Confession of Faith to Charles V in 1530 much for some of the same reasons, but also as a clear announcement of their unwillingness to compromise on the doctrinal issues that they considered had been corrected in their reformation of the church. They affirmed, “To these we declare our continuing adherence, and we shall not be turned aside from our position by these or any following negotiations . . . as we herewith publicly witness and assert.” The Schleitheim Confession of the Anabaptists pointed to seven specific areas of conviction that differed from Zwingli in addition to a correction of some of the more untethered proclamations of spiritual authority and freedom in the Anabaptist movement. They wrote against “certain false brethren among us [who] observe the freedom of the Spirit [through] lasciviousness and self-indulgence.” In their first article distancing themselves from Zwingli’s remaining errors they wrote that baptism is for those “who believe truly that their sins are taken away by Christ;” this conviction, therefore, “excludes all infant baptism, the highest and chief abomination of the pope.” The French Confession of Faith of 1559 was addressed to Charles IX with the hope “that it will prove a sufficient answer to the blame and opprobrium unjustly laid upon us by those who have always made a point of condemning us without having any knowledge of our cause.”
3. The Reformed confessions taught the churches.
Finally, their confessions served as a source of instruction for people, who through some means had become part of the churches that were involved in Reformation. In 1536, in the same year in which he published the first edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin wrote a confession for the church in Geneva. We find both the imitable desire for thorough training in basic comprehensive theology as well as the error of the commitment to Christendom in the introductory statement: “Confession of faith which all the citizens and inhabitants of Geneva and the subjects of the country must promise to keep and hold.” Also in 1536, the First Helvetic Confession written largely by Heinrich Bullinger was to be used as a teaching instrument for all the Zwinglian Reformed churches. It was replaced by the Second Helvetic Confession in 1566, more comprehensive and discursive, but designed to protect the churches from pernicious error and preserve them in orthodoxy. The Scots Confession of 1560 was written to let the rest of the Reformed world know of their soundness in the faith, to reject errors, to “stop the mouths of impudent blasphemers,” but chiefly “with respect to our weak and infirme brethren, to whom we would communicate the bottom of our hearts, lest that they be troubled or carried away by diverse rumors which Satan spreads against us to the defeating of this our godly enterprise.”
Upcoming, we will look at some specific confessions of the Reformation.
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Post by Admin on Oct 30, 2023 20:21:45 GMT -5
The Reformation: The Augsburg Confession
TOM NETTLES
The Reformation: The Augsburg Confession
In a continuing effort to maintain Christian unity without denying what they considered revealed truth, Lutheran Princes and theologians met in Augsburg on June 25, 1530, to discuss points of agreement and disagreement between the Lutherans and the Romans Catholics. Setting forth the theological convictions of Luther through the compositional powers of Philip Melancthon (1497-1560), they presented to Emperor Charles V, in both Latin and German what is known as the Augsburg Confession. The reading of it took two hours and created an atmosphere of spiritual exuberance for one party and of distress and tactical perplexity for the other. Luther, stowed in safe territory at the castle of Coburg in light of his outlawed status in both church and empire, heard daily reports and responded with his approval or suggestions and marveled that the gospel had been preached by princes before the Emperor himself. He saw Melancthon as more fit for the task than himself; indeed, Melancthon was given the task of answering the Catholic refutation of the Augsburg Confession, an elaborate work known as Apology of the Augsburg Confession. It represents a remarkable recovery of Melancthon after having almost conceded all to Rome in the pressures of the weeks of discussion in Augsburg that followed the presentation of the confession. That work itself became a highly valued doctrinal standard and is one of the parts of the Lutheran Book of Concord. J. A. Wylie called Melancthon “the clearest intellect and most accomplished scholar in the Lutheran host.”
The Confession began with twenty-one articles that the Lutherans contended had nothing “contrary to the Holy Scriptures or what is common to the Christian church.” The substance of these twenty-one articles was preached regularly in their churches for “proper Christian instruction, the consolation of consciences, and the amendment of believers.” They had no desire to put either their souls or their consciences in peril by teaching what does not accord with the pure word of God and Christian truth. They were convinced that they set forth nothing that was not common to the universal Christian church or even the Roman church as seen through the writing of the ancient western fathers.
Perhaps this claim was in earnest but also quite strategic in seeking to prompt the Roman theologians to respond with specific points of divergence, which they did, and right soon. From there, the Lutherans could point out that the differences came from innovations on the part of the Roman church, not from the Scriptures or the discussions of the Fathers. One must suspect this is the case when we read the statement on justification, article IV.
It is also taught among us that we cannot obtain forgiveness of sin and righteousness before God by our own merits, works, or satisfactions, but that we receive forgiveness of sin and become righteous before God by grace, for Christ’s sake, through faith, when we believe that Christ suffered for us and that for his sake our sin is forgiven and eternal life are given to us. For God will regard and reckon this faith as righteousness, as Paul says in Romans 3:21-26 and 4:5.
Though many of the words, and indeed the concepts, were not alien to Roman theology, the particular arrangement, synthesis, and notable omissions would call for some clarification and correction on the part of the opponents. Certainly, the same would be true of a sentence in article V on “the office of the ministry:” “And the Gospel teaches that we have a gracious God, not by our own merits but by the merit of Christ, when we believe this.” Finally, in fact, it was a clinging to the merit of good works that doomed the Romanist attempt to make Melancthon cave to their strong-armed proposals of concessions.
The relation of justification to faith on the one hand and good works on the other constitutes one of the most pervasive elements of the statement. Again, though set in the section of commonly held points, this clearly was a difference and was an item of perennial contention, as it is today. The Lutherans stated in article VI, “The New Obedience,” that “faith should produce good fruits and good works and that we must do all such good works as God has commanded.” These should be done for “God’s sake” with no trust in them as meriting favor before God. To align any obedience of ours with the perfect obedience of Christ, or to make any level of penitence of ours a partner with the death of Christ in achieving forgiveness and also righteousness makes a grotesque mongrelized absurdity of the character of right standing before God. The Lutherans stated simply, “For we receive forgiveness of sin and righteousness through faith in Christ, as Christ himself say, ‘So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you say, We are unworthy servants (Luke 17:10).’”
The same theme dominates the longest article in this supposed positive realm, article XX, on “Faith and Good Works.” This begins with a sentence that shows that several erroneous ideas had been confronted by the Lutherans. It begins, “Our teachers have been falsely accused of forbidding good works.” Not so, they responded, but true good works such as are required by Scripture are established instead of the inventions of men such as rosaries, monasticism, pilgrimages, and worship of the saints. It is true, they explained, that Lutheran preachers eliminate good works from any share of achieving right standing before God, but rather they point to the merit of Christ received by faith alone. In this sense faith and good works are hostile to each other. Both Paul and Augustine so taught. Scripture is honored and consciences benefit from this teaching, for all sense that they have not done all good and, in fact, all that they have done is plagued with sinful weakness in some way. But when faith comes, then true good works may be done. “When through faith the Holy Spirit is given, the heart is moved to do good works” for the honor of Christ and in true love of righteousness. “Consequently,” they concluded, “this teaching concerning faith is not to be accused of forbidding good works but is rather to be praised for teaching that good works are to be done and for offering help as to how they may be done.” Patience in suffering, loving one’s neighbor, pursuing one’s calling faithfully, avoiding evil lusts—“Such great and genuine works cannot be done without the help of Christ.”
In spite of the emphasis on the merits of Christ and reception of the gospel by faith, sacramental elements remain. “Baptism is necessary [for salvation in the Latin text]” and “grace is offered through it.” Children should be baptized “for in baptism they are committed to God and became acceptable to him.” Of course, those who “teach that infant baptism is not right are rejected.”
Articles XXII through XXVIII deal with issues in which the Lutherans propound that “abuses have been corrected” but not in an “unchristian and frivolous manner.” Instead, these abuses were corrected in order to be more truly aligned with God’s commands and not hide the gospel. The Lutherans gave both bread and wine in the sacrament. They permitted the marriage of all men and women, including those who formerly had taken vows as monks, priests, or nuns. In the Mass, people are instructed what they need to know about Christ and also about the false teachings that had been imposed on the sacrament such as private masses, transubstantiation, and the mass as a sacrifice. This article gave opportunity for the evangelical commitment to be expressed again: “St. Paul taught that we obtain grace before God through faith and not through works. Manifestly contrary to this teaching is the misuse of the Mass by those who think that grace is obtained through the performance of this work.” Errors in confession, distinction in foods, monastic vows, and the power of bishops in temporal matters round out the articles. Another example of the Lutheran concern that such falsely contrived traditions and practices ignore Scripture and obscure the gospel may be seen in an introductory remark on foods: “In the first place, it has obscured the doctrine concerning grace and the righteousness of faith, which is the chief part of the gospel and ought above all else to be in the church, and to be prominent in it, so that the merit of Christ may be well known and that faith which believes that sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake may be exalted far above works and above all other acts of worship.”
Several colloquies over the next decade and a half failed to achieve agreement. Attempts to reconcile Luther and the Pope were, according to the former Augustinian monk, like seeking to reconcile Christ and Belial. These failures led to the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and the Schmalkaldic Wars (1546-1555). The contemporary “Lutheran-Catholic Joint Dialogue” has not solved these basic issues of merit and the relation of justification to sanctification though it has cut through some of the purposeful misrepresentation of differing positions and has ameliorated much of the spirit of anathematization.
Any attempts at dialogue must not minimize the importance of any of the solas of the Reformation. Their deep and systemic implications for the whole of biblical doctrine turns any compromise into a cascading collapse of vital saving truth. While we recognize many common themes of revealed truth and their orthodox formulations and share the framework of a common worldview, the doctrines that give cohesiveness and spiritual power are not on the auction table.
Viewed atomistically, we share some assumptions about the plight of humanity in a world created by God and governed by his law. We affirm that we live in a world created by the triune God, that we are fallen persons in a fallen race and now can know him only on the basis of special revelation. We can be restored to a right relationship with God only by the mercy and grace of Christ, the great mystery and wisdom of God manifest as eternal Son and created child of Mary united in one person. The righteousness of his life and death is communicated to us in some manner by the Holy Spirit. We should desire holiness and the restoration of the divine image to our sadly corrupted souls and yearn for the glory of his presence in heaven as our final and eternally satisfying abode.
The details, however, that give holistic power to this atomized list can be surrendered only at the peril of a voided gospel. We know, and can never relativize the biblical conviction, that we embrace these truths and experience this reality only by the sovereign effectual operation of the Holy Spirit. This is so because concupiscence blinded our eyes to Christ’s meritorious glory, shut our ears from hearing graciously revealed truth, and imprisoned our hearts to aggressive godlessness. We are accepted and preserved in the Beloved, therefore, on account of his righteousness alone imputed to us by grace alone. Any blurring of the distinction between Christ’s merit and our demerit is fatal to saving truth. Any attempt to collapse justification and sanctification destroys absolute righteousness and suspends the hope of eternal life on the thread of unfulfilled law and incomplete holiness. This saving work of Spirit and Son is a perfect outworking of an eternal intra-trinitarian covenant flowing from the will of God the Father in his eternal electing love. These truths come to us by the consistent witness of Scripture alone.
While we recognize that, in God’s purpose, those truths commonly held, such as the Nicene Creed, may descend in saving power on those who do not share the holistic framework within which the saving operation of God comes, no principle of compromise or minimization should ever govern our ministry of preaching or our attempts at fraternal discussion. We have a stewardship of truth through which sinners will be rescued out of the power of condemning darkness and may also embrace the pure doctrine of the grace of God.
CHURCH HISTORY, CONFESSIONS, REFORMATION
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Post by Admin on Nov 9, 2023 18:58:14 GMT -5
The Rule of Faith and the Apostles’ Creed
TOM NETTLES
The Rule of Faith and the Apostles’ Creed
This article is part 8 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7).
Parts of this post were published on this site in 2016.
What we find on the pages of the New Testament concerning the true humanity of Christ and the concerns stated by the Apostles concerning those that deny it continued into the second and third centuries in a variety of forms of Gnosticism. Among other problems presented by Gnosticism, two embrace all the others. One, salvation comes through intuitive knowledge resident within certain spiritual persons. Two, the world of matter is intrinsically evil and was generated by an inferior deity. Implications include a denial of the final authority of the written word of the apostles and a denial of the full humanity of Christ, particularly the redemptive work accomplished in his flesh. In short, they denied all that Paul included in his admonition to “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of a seed of David, according to my gospel” (2 Timothy 2:8).
In response to the insidious influence of this dualistic mysticism, the post-apostolic church developed the “rule of faith.” The various recensions of the rule of faith eventually were synthesized into a statement that most succinctly, clearly, and economically expressed universally received Christian truth known as the Apostle’s Creed. The finalized text of the Apostles’ Creed appeared in the work of Pirminius (d ca. 753) in A. D. 750. Pirminius used the succinct outline of biblical assertions to give instructions in Christian doctrine and morals to recently baptized Christians. Its twelve articles, according to pious legend, were given in order by the twelve apostles beginning with Peter and ending with Matthias. The creed is trinitarian.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth, And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell: the third day he rose again from the dead: He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, the life eternal. Amen.
One can see the immediate significance, in light of the claims of Gnosticism, of phrases such as “the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the flesh.” What claims our energy presently are those early numbered 3 through 8, beginning “And in Jesus Christ,” and ending with “judge the living and dead.” Its affirmative sentences give a simple reflection of the facts of redemptive history as presented in biblical revelation. One can see in the focus on Christ’s incarnation and redemptive labors in the human nature as of central concern. As we found it in its incipient stage in the New Testament, Gnosticism in its denial of the true humanity of Christ had come to full flower.
Likewise, in the letters of Ignatius at the end of the first decade of the second century, we find a deep and clear commitment to Trinitarian doctrine, the real humanity as well as true divine sonship of Jesus Christ, the efficacy of his true bodily suffering and resurrection, the person of the Holy Spirit, and the necessity of unity of doctrine in the church. He warned the church at Trallia, to “partake only of Christian food, and keep away from every strange plant, which is heresy.” “There is only one physician,” Ignatius insisted, “who is both flesh and spirit, born and unborn, God in man, true life in death, both from Mary and from God, first subject to suffering and then beyond it, Jesus Christ our Lord.” [ Holmes, 88.]. Again, focused on the false teachers that presented Christ as a phantom-like creature, Ignatius proclaimed, “For our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived by Mary according to God’s plan, both from the seed of David and of the Holy Spirit.” [Holmes, 92] In writing to the Trallians, Ignatius gives evidence of a confessional formula similar to this creed. His language shows that he understood the trickery of the verbal circumlocutions used by heretics in seeming to exalt Christ while in truth they denied both his true humanity and his eternal deity. Note how Ignatius seeks to cut through their façade. “Be deaf, therefore, whenever anyone speaks to you apart from Jesus Christ, who was of the family of David, who was the son of Mary, who really was born, who both ate and drank, who really was persecuted under Pontius Pilate, who really was crucified, and died while those in heaven and on earth and under the earth looked on; who, moreover, really was raised from the dead when his Father raised him up, who—his Father, that is, in the same way will likewise raise us up in Christ Jesus who believe in him, apart from whom we have no true life.” [Holmes, 100].
Throughout the writings of Justin Martyr (ca. 150) we find doctrinal assertions and phrases that show his familiarity with an early development of the “rule of faith” and his ability to apply those doctrinal principles in a variety of situations. For example, in his first Apology, Justin argued, “From all that has been said an intelligent man can understand why, through the power of the Word, in accordance with the will of God, the Father and Lord of all, he [the Word, or Son] was born as a man, was named Jesus, was crucified, died, rose again, and ascended into heaven.” [Apology, 46] Scattered throughout his Apology, we find these phrases “Jesus Christ our Savior was made flesh through the word of God, and took flesh and blood for out salvation.” Another says, “by the will of God he became man,… he came as a man among men.” In showing the truthfulness of the prophets, Justin narrated, “In these books, then, of the prophets we have found it predicted that Jesus our Christ would come, born of a virgin, growing up to manhood, and healing every disease and every sickness and raising the dead, and hated, and unrecognized and crucified, and dying and rising again and ascending into heaven, and both being and being called Son of God.” [Apology, 44] In his second Apology, Justin wrote, “For next to God [the Father], we worship and love the logos who is from the unbegotten and ineffable God, since also He became man for our sakes, that, becoming partaker of our sufferings, he might also bring us healing.”
So it is in the writings of Irenaeus (ca. 180), who in writing Against Heresies, said, “The church . . . received from the apostles and their disciples the faith in one God, the Father almighty, ‘who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is,’ and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, incarnate for our salvation, and in the Holy Ghost, who preached through the prophets the dispensations of God and the comings and the birth of the virgin and the passion and the resurrection from the dead, and the reception into heaven of the beloved, Christ Jesus our Lord, in the flesh, and his coming from heaven in the glory of the Father to sum up all things and to raise up all flesh of all mankind, that unto Christ Jesus our Lord and God our Saviour and King, according to the good pleasure of the invisible Father, ‘every knee should bow, of things in the heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess’ him, and to execute just judgment upon all.” In describing how in the person of Christ we discover both god and man, Irenaeus wrote, “His word is out Lord Jesus Christ who in these last times became man among men, the he might unite the end with the beginning, that is, Man with God..” Later Irenaeus again summarized a discussion in saying “Our Lord Jesus Christ, the word of God, of his boundless love, became what we are that he might make us what he himself is.” Irenaeus’s description of Christ’s incarnation includes a description as to how each stage of human life was sanctified by him from infancy to adulthood. This led to his statement on recapitulation in which the unity of his person in both natures, God and man, is essential. “Therefore the Lord confesses himself to be the Son of man, restoring in himself that original man from whom is derived that part of creation which is born of woman; that as it was through a man that our race was overcome and went down to death, so through a victorious man we may rise up to life; and as through a man death won the prize of victory over us, so through a man we may win the prize of victory over death. … He has been united with his own handiwork and made man, capable of suffering. …. He existed always with the Father; but he was incarnate and made man.”
Tertullian (ca. 225) in his Prescriptions Against Heretics put much confidence in the reception of “The Rule of Faith” given, at least in its essential content, by Christ himself and proclaimed in the apostolic teaching, preserved in Scripture, and retained in the teaching of the apostolic churches. He wavered not in his conviction that “Christ laid down one definite system of truth which the world must believe without qualification, and which we must seek precisely in order to believe it when we find it.” He went on to report that the Rule of Faith is “that by which we believe that there is but one God, who is none other than the Creator of the world, who produced everything from nothing through his Word, sent forth before all things; that this Word is called his Son, and in the name of God was seen in divers ways by the patriarchs, was ever heard in the prophets and finally was brought down by the Spirit and Power of God the Father into the Virgin Mary, was made flesh in her womb, was born of her and lived as Jesus Christ; who thereafter proclaimed a new law and a new promise of the kingdom of heaven, worked miracles, was crucified, on the third day rose again, was caught up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Father; that he sent in his place the power of the Holy Spirit to guide believers; that he will come with glory to take the saints up into the fruition of the life eternal and the heavenly promises and to judge the wicked to everlasting fire, after the resurrection of both good and evil with restoration of their flesh.”
Augustine (ca. 421) used the order of the creed in writing his Enchiridion probably alternating between the version of Hippo and the version of Milan for precise wording. The Creed served as the basis for several other writings and sermons. He pointed to the Lord’s Prayer and “the Creed” as easily memorized and constituting the sum of faith, hope and love. “Because the human race was oppressed with great misery because of sin, and stood in need of the divine mercy, the prophet foretold the time of God’s grace and said Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved (Jl 2:32). That is the reason for the prayer. But when the apostle quoted this testimony of the prophet in order actually to proclaim God’s grace, he immediately added But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? (Rom 10:14). That is why we have the Creed.”
Having its basis in the biblical revelation of the Trinity and the focus on the work of Christ in his incarnation, these teachers shared the truth of the apostolic revelation that had Christ not been truly like us in all things pertaining to our humanity, the corrupting power of original sin excepted, he could in no sense be a redeemer of this race. While Gnostics such as Valentinus sought to deny the true humanity of Christ and Marcion sought to destroy the unity between the God of creation and the God of redemption, biblically sound Christian teachers found these synthesized assertions helpful in exposing the faulty steps of heresy. They focused on the unity of Scripture, the unity of God, the truth and necessity of the incarnation, the reality of Christ’s fully redemptive death and resurrection accomplished in his human nature in indivisible unity with his eternal sonship. The presence of the Holy Spirit, the unity of the church, the resurrection of the just and the unjust, and the reality of eternal states of each gave biblical symmetry to the whole of the truths confessed. In order to defend, teach, and confess the truth as well as test its existence in others this creed served the cause of orthodoxy well and still stands as one of the truly ecumenical expressions of biblical faith.
Those who saw the “Rule of Faith” as faithful to Scripture, who served in the development of this rule into the Apostles’ Creed did so in obedience to the Pauline admonition, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of a seed of David, according to my gospel.”
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Post by Admin on Dec 11, 2023 16:10:03 GMT -5
John Heard and Observed the Lord God
TOM NETTLES
John Heard and Observed the Lord God
This article is part 11 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10).
When John summarized the narrative of his gospel (20:31), he acknowledged a strategic selectivity to the signs performed by Jesus. His purpose was “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that by believing you may have life in His name.” In fact, not just the signs, but all that John recorded compels the reader to a confession that Jesus is Lord and God (John 20:28, 29), peculiarly qualified to effect salvation for those whom the Father had given him (John 6:39). He gives the historically observable evidence for the theological conclusion, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory” (John 1:1, 14).
The “signs”—seven of them recorded by John—are works of Jesus that required omnipotent power and benevolent purpose. For those who saw them and understood, they should conclude that God is with us and is working for our well-being. Jesus changed water into wine to salvage a wedding celebration (John 2:1-11). At that, his disciples believed. He healed an official’s son with a spoken word from afar (4:46-54). At that, he and his household believed. He healed a man who had been an invalid for almost forty years by telling him, “Take up your bed and walk” (5:1-15). At that the Jews reviled him, and Jesus called God his Father, “making himself equal with God.” The opposing Jews, understanding the implications of the Father/Son reference, began their contrivances to kill him. He fed a multitude of 5000 men plus women and children by multiplying five loaves of bread and two fish to satisfy the hunger of all (6:5-13). At that, the people said, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” In the presence of weather-beaten, frightened disciples he walked through a stormy sea to comfort them and quiet the storm (6:16-21). At that, those in the boat worshipped him and said, “Truly, you are the Son of God” (Matthew 14:33). For a man born blind, with the use of mud made from Jesus’ saliva and water for washing, Jesus restored his sight, prompting the man’s worship (John 9). Jesus’ friend Lazarus, dead for four days, he raised from the dead by calling him forth by command. Beforehand, he prayed showing that the purpose of this astounding sign was that those standing around would “believe that You sent Me.” He wanted to make sure that observers knew that he operated in perfect conjunction with the power and purpose of the Father (John 11:1-44). At that, “many of the Jews believed in him.” When Jesus assured Martha that Lazarus would be raised, she confessed, “Yes Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world” (11:27). These signs identified Jesus as the one who told Moses, “I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation” (Exodus 34:10).
He also records seven times that Jesus stated metaphors using the ontological identity for God, “I am.” In doing so he sets himself forth as the one in whom safety, life, sustenance, and eternity is secured. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life, …the light of the world, … the door of the sheep, … the good shepherd, …the resurrection and the life, … the way, the truth, and the life, … the true vine” (John 6:35, 48, 51; 8:12, 9:5; 10:7, 9: 10:11, 14; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1). John records Jesus’ use of “I am” without any metaphorical reference on five occasions (6:20; 8:24, 28, 58; 18:5). Both the metaphorical and absolute use of “I am” identify Jesus as the God who created all that is in the world and by whose word light was separated from the darkness. He is the one who protected and fed Israel in the wilderness and the true David, the killer of giant death and the eternally reigning king. As the vine, he embodies Israel, the true man of God. As the Good Shepherd, He is the gate through whom they enter the fold, He calls them by name, and He dies for them in order to secure eternal life for them. He is the ransom and the Redeemer for Job by whose power believers will in their flesh see God (Job 19:25-27; 33:24, 25). His Person and Work exclude the possibility of any other person, philosophy, or religious system leading to a knowledge of the Father, but ascertain that his way is infallibly certain.
As the Good Shepherd, Jesus is the gate through whom they enter the fold, He calls them by name, and He dies for them in order to secure eternal life for them.
Jesus identifies himself with no equivocation, no embarrassment, no apology, no mollifying explanation as the one who identified himself to Moses as “I am” (Exodus 3:14). What astounding connections must have trammeled the pedestrian thoughts of the people as one stood among them who identified himself to Moses by that name—”I am that I am; I eternally exist; I am unchangeable; I alone have non-dependent existence; it is to me that all moral beings, of all times, from all places will answer in final judgment.” His claim meant that he was, therefore, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation” (Exodus 34:6, 7).
Jesus told his detractors, “Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” (John 5:45-47). Moses wrote about the Creator, the Righteous Judge, the Covenant Maker, the God of Abraham, the God of Deliverance, the Great Lawgiver, the angry God, the compassionate God, the God who reveals his glory, the God whose justice cannot be violated, the God who makes a way of forgiveness. Jesus said, “I am that God.”
The discourses recorded by John give Jesus’ interpretation of confrontations of varying intensities with increasingly bold claims. In his discussion with Nicodemus, Jesus calls himself the Son of Man “who descended from heaven” and gives eternal life to believers (John 4:13, 15). To the woman of Samaria, Jesus told her plainly concerning the identity of Messiah, “I who speak to you am” (John 4:26). In a discourse with hostile Jews, Jesus enraged them even further by saying that the Father has committed all judgment to the Son “so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him” (John 5:23). In speaking in strong images about the necessity of his incarnation and death, Jesus again offended the grumblers by saying, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves” (John 6:53). In another discussion with the confused and increasingly agitated Jews, Jesus laid claim to a perfect knowledge of and conformity to the Father’s purpose: “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am, and I do nothing on my own initiative, but I speak those things as the Father taught me. And He who sent me is with me; He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him” (8:28, 29). In his Good Shepherd discourse Jesus said, “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (10:29, 30). When that claim prompted an effort to stone him immediately, he pointed to their irrationality in disconnecting his words from his works, and continued, “Though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father” (10:38). Identity in deity while maintaining distinction of personhood was too big an idea to absorb but was perfectly consistent with the witness of the Old Testament. In the discourse given at the Lord’s Supper, Jesus made several summarizing statements, “You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am; … he who receives Me, receives Him who sent Me. … Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; … I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; … He who hates me hates my Father also; … He [the Holy Spirit] will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things the Father has are mine; … Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed [that I am Lord and God]” (13: 13, 20, 31; 14:10, 11; 15:23; 16:14, 15; 20:29).
John saw and heard these things, testified to these things, and wrote these things. He remembered Jesus Christ and under the superintending purpose of the Holy Spirit recorded with the same revelatory value and infallible authority with which Paul preached his gospel.
This article is part 10 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ.
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Post by Admin on Mar 7, 2024 10:24:27 GMT -5
What About Prophets Today? – Part 1
TOM NETTLES
What About Prophets Today? - Part 1
This article is part 1 of a 6-part series entitled What About Prophets Today?
A Legitimate Challenge
Discussions about continuationism vis-à-vis cessationism have left me with two related challenges. One challenge calls for a verse, a credible proof-text, that can be fairly understood to say, “The gifts of special revelation will end after the generation of the apostles.” The second challenge then asks, “If prophecy in the New Testament is the infallible communication of revealed truth, and these gifts have ended, how does one explain the two witnesses of Revelation 11:3 and 6?” The text says they “will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days,” and “during the days of their prophesying” are given extraordinary powers. I personally view that reference to prophesying as a summary statement of the faithful proclamation of the revealed truth of Scripture through the ages as a consistent confrontation of the world with the issues of sin, righteousness, and judgment as fully expressed in the gospel.
The response to that view in substance says, “Suddenly prophecy, instead of accurate communication of immediately revealed truth, becomes preaching the inscripturated Word of God.” This redefinition of “prophecy to be nothing more than preaching” appears to be “a convenient, last-minute adjustment in the meaning of prophecy solely designed to evade the conclusion that the NT gift is itself still operative throughout the course of the present church age.”
I cannot meet the challenge of providing a single proof-text. Most texts concerning these gifts of revelation have to do with the proper use of them—regulation, repression, and encouragement—in the New Testament churches. As is true in the development of theological ideas, a credible proof-text can be seen only in light of a more comprehensive synthesis of relevant passages in their larger context. This interpretive essay, therefore, is an attempt to provide that synthesis that affirms cessationism and is then applied to the larger context of the prophets of Revelation 11.
Preaching, Prophesying, Teaching, and Revelation
When Jesus went about preaching and teaching (Matthew 4:17, 23; 5:1,2; 7:28, 29), none would doubt that he spoke truth absolutely. He thus spoke out of his perfect knowledge of the written word of God and his knowledge of other things not revealed up to that time, for he had “descended from heaven” (John 3:13). He knew revealed truth both in its present written form and by way of special knowledge intrinsic to his being the Son of God; He was granted the fullness of the Spirit without measure, and intrinsically had a perfect knowledge of the Father. With him when he preached, the words were revelation; when he taught, the words were revelation. With Jesus no lines were drawn between revelation and the manner of communication either through teaching or proclamation.
During the apostolic era, preaching, teaching, and special revelation also went hand in hand. Apostles and prophets were appointed for receiving and communicating the revelation of the “deep things of God,” and the “mystery of Christ,” the “unsearchable riches of Christ,” and the “manifold wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10; Ephesians 3:4, 8, 10). Paul was appointed “a preacher and an apostle . . . a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth” (1 Timothy 2:7). In speaking of the deposit of the gospel given to him by special revelation, Paul again refers to himself as having been appointed as “a preacher, and apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles” (2 Timothy 1:11). His office was that of apostle, by which he served as an eyewitness to the glory of the resurrected Christ. In the office of apostle, he received a deposit of truth, a “pattern of sound words” that those who followed him were to guard” (2 Timothy 1:12, 13). He was given special appointment by Christ as a witness and a teacher of its implications, teaching that was accompanied by a variety of signs (Romans 15:18, 19; 2 Corinthians 12:12).
Paul and other apostles would serve as authoritative guides for the ordering and teaching of the churches to be founded in the immediate post-Pentecost era. He, along with others, would eventually write the revealed message as a perpetual authority for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16 “profitable for doctrine . . . that the man of God may be complete”; 2 Corinthians 13:10 – “Therefore I write these things being absent, . . . according to the authority which the Lord has given me for edification and not for destruction;”). Or as Peter admonished, “I am writing [this second letter to stir you up] that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandments of the Lord and Savior through your apostles” (2 Peter 3:1,2).
As apostles, they received, as the prophets did under the old covenant, special revelation of all the provisions of the new covenant inaugurated by Christ in his ministry and brought to culmination in his death, burial, and resurrection. Paul’s preaching was a manifestation of this special revelation (Galatians 1:11, 12): “But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.” In his office as an apostle, therefore, his function as a preacher had as its content the special revelation of the gospel in all of its implications.
Paul called his preaching of the new covenant a ministry (2 Corinthians 4:1-6). He also served as a teacher. For a year and six months, Paul labored in Corinth “teaching the word of God among them” (Acts 18:11). Was this teaching confined only to exposition of Old Testament texts, or did it include prophetic revelation he received in his apostolic office? We can only draw the conclusion that the word “teaching” in this case included the prophetic revelation that consistently penetrated his ministry. In addition, as a preacher, he executed his office as apostle. When he preached he prophesied.
Later, he sent Timothy to them “who will remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church.” Again, we see Paul employing the word “teach” as inclusive of his total content. Timothy was to minister according to an authoritative content that consisted of Paul’s revelatory teaching. In both his preaching and his teaching, Paul did Christ-centered exposition of the Old Testament enlightened and complemented with the revelation given him by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 1:18-25; 2:1-16). He built this entire exposition of the preaching of the cross on two sources of special revelation—citations from the Old Testament (1 Corinthians 1:19, 31; 2:9, 16) and revealed truth in the context of his calling as an apostle (1 Corinthians 2:10-13). Both of these elements of the single revelation of God permeated the entire declaratory ministry of Paul: preaching, speech, writing (1:21-23; 2:4, 6; 5:11; 11:17; 14: 37; 15:1, 2, 12).
Paul also indicated that, like others who received revelatory gifts in the churches, he spoke in tongues and prophesied (1 Corinthians 13:9; 14:6, 18). His capacity, therefore as an apostle involved his reception of revelation in a variety of manners and distributing such revelation in a variety of functions. His reception of revelation manifest in prophetic utterance could also be communicated as teaching or preaching.
An Interlude on the Witnesses of Revelation 11
When I interpret, therefore, the witness of the “prophets” in Revelation 11 as the faithful preaching of the church in opposition to the errors of the world, it is not a mere “redefining of prophecy to be nothing more than preaching.” It is a distillation of the inescapable conclusion based on the Bible’s presentation of language. It recognizes not only these etymological crossovers but the Bible’s movement toward the finalization of the prophetic word in the apostolic writings by the end of the apostolic era. John gives a picture of the power of unwavering commitment to proclaim God’s written revelation and the world’s hatred of that unwearied witness.
If, however, one asserts that the prophesying of these Revelation 11 witnesses is the setting forth of immediately received revelation, a prima facie problem emerges. By this interpretation, the main witness against the opposition of antichrist during the entire post-apostolic age will be done by means of those who maintain the New Testament gift of prophetic revelation (even if it is deemed as subject to misinterpretation [as contemporary defenders of continuationism affirm], misapplication, and erroneous transfer of the revealed information). According to this view of the witnesses, we have nothing about a preaching ministry built on the infallible word of God.
By identifying the “prophecy” of these witnesses as continuing revealed utterances, we must assert that the world hates the church and its message not because it preaches the Bible, but because it continues to proclaim a message as yet unwritten and unrevealed. Because of continuing revelation, so goes this view, power is invested in that message and the church undergoes rejection, martyrdoms, and its message is resisted and even hated by the world. Jesus clearly forewarned his disciples, “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18). He also said that a blessing accompanied that hatred: “Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man” (Luke 6:22). They expected this for themselves and forwarded the warning to those who believed on the Son of Man through their words. But, are we to expect that this resistance comes because of ongoing revelation and prophetic utterance and not because of preaching the prophetic word of the apostles?
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Post by Admin on Apr 18, 2024 21:15:15 GMT -5
“According to My Gospel”
TOM NETTLES
“According to My Gospel”
This article is part 3 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ. You can read part 1, and part 2.
The gospel was no matter of human construction, nor a philosophy to be shaped by critical interaction. It was not Paul’s gospel in the sense that he deduced it from a clever, or even a profound, integration of secular cultural ideals. He did not invent it nor construct it by logical extension from his thorough knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures. His gospel was indeed the culmination of the Holy Scriptures and the perfect and intended fulfillment of their meaning in historical narrative, prophetic utterance, typological events and persons, wisdom literature, and worship material. He told Timothy that the “Holy Scriptures … are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15). These Scriptures, which Timothy had been taught from childhood by Lois his grandmother and Eunice his mother were to be seen in their perfect meaning when he viewed them in light of “the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you learned them” (2 Timothy 3:13). Paul referred to his own instruction, for Timothy had “carefully followed my doctrine” (2 Timothy 3:10). What Paul called “my doctrine” here, he had called “my gospel” a few paragraphs earlier.
In Romans 1, Paul begins describing his ministry, indeed his authority, to the Romans, immediately dictating, “Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.” He then summarized this gospel in terms virtually synonymous with our text: “which he promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by his resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Then he adds the particular idea we are considering, “through whom we have received grace and apostleship,” or perhaps, “this particular grace of apostleship.” He goes on to say, in light of the large Gentile admixture in the church at Rome, “to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake” (Romans 1:1-5). As Paul closed Romans, he told the church that God “is able to establish you according to my gospel, even the preaching of Jesus Christ.” His gospel was the “revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began.” Though kept hidden as to the kind of person who could fulfill all the requirements of prophecy, who could judge justly and yet forgive sins and remove them as far as the east is from the west, in that revelation it was “made manifest.” Then in a way perfectly consistent with the Scriptures of the prophets, this gospel that he calls “my gospel” was “made known” to the nations.
Similarly, to the Ephesians he wrote that “this grace was given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8). The gospel that he preached carried the authority of his apostleship, his independent understanding of the gospel of Christ revealed to him: ”that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery” (Ephesians 3:3). As he told Timothy, this gospel now constitutes a part of the Holy Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16) and brings all of its parts into perfect harmony. By the gospel certain mysteries that lingered in the prophets were given clarity. Peter referred to this in 1 Peter 1:10-12, asserting that “those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven” gave clarity to both “the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow.” Mysteries left buzzing in the heads of the prophets found their resting place in “Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of a seed of David.” Paul goes on to tell the church in Ephesus about his “insight into the mystery of Christ” that was not made known in previous generations but “has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit” (Ephesians 3:4, 5). Of this gospel God’s powerful grace made Paul a minister, a steward of the revealed truth concerning “the unfathomable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:7, 8).
When among the church at Corinth false teachers came who taught that there is no such thing as a resurrection of bodies, Paul began his instruction with a strong assertion of the absolute truthfulness of the gospel that he had preached. By his gospel they would be saved; if his gospel was not true, their faith would be empty. Note how insistent he is on the certainty of his message. To counteract these heretics, Paul reviewed “the gospel which I preached to you” and asserted the certainty of their salvation “if you hold fast the word which I preached to you” (1 Corinthians 15:1, 2). What did he preach? “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.” From whom did he receive this message that he preached? As he argues throughout his corpus of letters, he received it by divine revelation so that his gospel was for certain the gospel of God.
The first necessary theological truth is precisely this: preaching by an apostle. “So we preached and so you believed. Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the Dead?” (11, 12). Preached, therefore believed. If taught otherwise than preached by an apostle, the message is false, even without further investigation. Other doctrinal ideas of major importance are eventually discussed—forgiveness of sins, the conquering of death, the reigning of the man from heaven—but it is striking that the first thing Paul mentioned is the unity of the apostolic witness on this issue. Only a revelation could accomplish such unanimity.
If unalterably true as Paul claimed, his gospel would bear the scrutiny of critical examination in places where it touched on matters open to investigation. True belief, however, would arise in the context of the apostolic word, not the scrutiny. The resurrection of Christ and the consequent resurrection of believers were unambiguous facts of this divine revelation. The divine grace that captured him, making him an apostle, also confirmed to him the content of the gospel that he preached. His gospel, as revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, was a message of salvation grounded both in Scripture and in history. “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3). “Christ died” was historical; “for our sins” was theological, a matter of divine revelation and in perfect harmony with the prophetic words, “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all; … he bore the sins of many” (Isaiah 53:6, 12). “That he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,” relates two historical facts—buried, raised—that Paul proceeds to verify by historical evidence—multiple eyewitnesses of the risen Christ—including his own remarkable conversion and call to preach (1 Corinthians 15:5-10). Then with the historical evidence he interweaves truths of consistent biblical witness such as the Lord Messiah would be seated at the right hand of the Lord “till I make your enemies your footstool” (Psalm 110:1). Also, he would come in power as the “Son of man, coming on the clouds of heaven” and would be given “dominion and glory and a kingdom” (Daniel 7:13, 14). Only the resurrection of the crucified Messiah can explain such events.
In his letter to the churches of Galatia, Paul was shocked and amazed that someone could come among them, preaching a supposed gospel other than what Paul preached, and actually be credited as truthful. Paul had no room for suavity, politeness, or deference on this issue but instead said in no uncertain terms, “If we, or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, accursed be him” (Galatians 1:8). Why is Paul so certain of the correctness of his anathematization? “The gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11, 12). Paul had no doubts that his gospel was THE gospel; he had no doubt that his gospel was the same as that preached by the other apostles; he had no doubt that he received his gospel by divine revelation.
“Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, out of a seed of David, according to my gospel” (2 Timothy 2:8).
This article is part 3 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ.
Join us at the 2024 National Founders Conference on January 18-20 as we consider what it means to “Remember Jesus Christ” under the teaching of Tom Ascol, Joel Beeke, Paul Washer, Phil Johnson, Conrad Mbewe and Travis Allen.
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Post by Admin on Apr 25, 2024 12:19:43 GMT -5
“Another Jesus Whom We Have Not Preached”
TOM NETTLES
“Another Jesus Whom We Have Not Preached”
This article is part 6 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5).
Paul’s alarm at the gullibility of the Corinthians in receiving false teachers arose from the implications this had for several issues of vital truth, all of which impinged on the genuineness of their faith. One, their undiscerning spirit questioned the authenticity of his appointment as an apostle. Could these false teachers relativize Pauls’ apostleship, they would do the same to his preaching. Paul, therefore, spent chapters 11 and 12 of 2 Corinthians demonstrating the genuineness of his apostleship in order for them not to be “led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3). A second issue concerned the nature of the spirit, or Spirit, at work in them. Receiving the message of these false apostles would mean that they did not believe by the work of the Holy Spirit but actually had been duped, even as Eve was, by Satan disguised as an angel of light. John gives a succinct statement concerning the work of the Holy Spirit in relation to true belief when he asserts, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God” (1 John 5:1). Third, if they received the alternative being offered to them, and departed from Paul’s gospel, then they had a different gospel, which, as he told the Galatians, is no gospel at all. Contrary to the claims of these false apostles, messengers of the great deceiver, what they toyed with had no saving power. A fourth difficulty enveloped all the others. Such a shift in their religious persuasion would finally mean that they received “another Jesus than the one we proclaimed.” Another gospel and another Spirit means another Christ, for the Spirit is given by Christ and the gospel is defined absolutely in terms of the person and work of Christ.
As argued earlier, the admonition, “Remember Jesus Christ,” with the parameters established concerning person and work, implies a comprehensive commitment to a large range of doctrinal ideas. The unshakeable confidence that Paul had in the absolute authority of his gospel inhabits the words, “whom we have not preached.” We find both on the pages of the New Testament and in the history of the church a number of ways in which the Pauline exhortation, “Remember Jesus Christ,” has been disobeyed. Usually this amounts to a denial of some element of Christ’s person and a consequent modification—i.e. denial—of his work and thus a severe alteration of the gospel preached by Paul.
Another gospel and another Spirit means another Christ, for the Spirit is given by Christ and the gospel is defined absolutely in terms of the person and work of Christ.
One way that Jesus is forgotten is by a denial of his true humanity. John confronts this error when he says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). He also had in mind a group that hesitated to embrace the apostolic teaching of the full humanity of Christ when he assured the readers of 1 John that the very one who was from the beginning “we have seen with our eyes, … we have looked upon and have touched with our hands” (1 John 1:1). Added strength to this doctrine is seen when John says, “The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Paul’s concern about the nature of the spirit at work in the temptation of the Corinthians to believe on a Jesus whom he had not preached is joined by John when he states, “By this you know the Spirit of God; every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist” (1 John 4:2, 3). As he observed the developments among those who desired to find a position of teaching in Christian congregations, John warned that they should watch themselves “so that you do not lose what we have worked for.” Specifically, he referred to the “many deceivers” that had “gone out into the world” who “do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh” (2 John 7, 8).
The writer of Hebrews, after a clear exposition of the deity of Jesus (Hebrews 1:1-13) and a warning about ignoring “such a great salvation” (Hebrews 2:1-4), shows the ontological necessity of the true humanity of Christ. “He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have the same nature” (Hebrews 2:11 – My translation). Again he writes, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things” (Hebrews 2:14). Then further, as he argues more concerning the necessary qualifications of one who is to redeem fallen humanity, says, “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17). Unless he were like us—that is, a man of full human nature, corruption of soul excepted—he could not make propitiation for the sins of the people.
Likewise, Paul argues in a number of places that Christ’s work of reconciliation would be impossible apart from the reality of the Son of God taking a real human nature to himself when he was “found in fashion as a man” (Philippians 2:8). In that way “he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death” (Philippians 2:9). Another way Paul said it is found in his instructions to the church in Colossae when he reminds them, “And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds, he has reconciled in his body of flesh by his death” (Colossians 1:21, 22).
All that we are in our bodies, Jesus became.
Peter joins the apostolic chorus in celebrating the condescending grace of God in sending his Son to take our human nature to perform the work of redemption. Peter affirms that sinners are “ransomed … with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18, 19). He intensifies this strong assertion with the words, “Christ suffered for you, … He Himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:21, 24). All that we are in our bodies, Jesus became; if not, we have none of our race through whom God’s wrath and expectation for righteousness can be covenantally fulfilled.
We must take time to admire and adore the great display and wisdom, power, and mercy found in the confession, “risen from the dead, of a seed of David.” None can explain but only believe the marvel displayed when the angel told Mary, “that holy thing conceived in you shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). The one who slept in the boat, and sweat great drops of blood, also forgave sins, silenced demons, and said “I and the Father are one.” Come, let us adore him.
This article is part 6 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ.
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Post by Admin on Apr 25, 2024 22:04:12 GMT -5
The Beauty of Duty
TOM NETTLES
CONTENTS
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Duty is defined as “that which one is morally or legally bound to do.” That defines duty in an absolute sense. Another definition is “action or conduct required by one’s profession or position.” That might, often does, involve absolutes, but the particular actions required are relative to the skill, qualification, interpersonal relations, and professional office of a person. My duties to my children are different from my duties to the children of others but are not on that account less than absolute.
On occasion, public speakers, including preachers of the gospel, will belittle “duty” as if it is an inferior motivation for action or compliance to standards. Delight is seen as a superior motivation while duty is—Well, if I have to do it, OK—synonymous with begrudging action. One brings his wife flowers because it is his delight to do so, for he is delighted with her. If he gives her flowers presenting them to her out of a sense of duty, this is connoted as a lackluster action deserving scorn. But this tendency to diminish the excellence of a sense of duty is misguided. It is a moral error. The husband’s duty is to love his wife as his own body, for he who loves his wife loves himself (Ephesians 5:28; Genesis 2:22, 23). To treat one’s wife tenderly, to look to her desires and happiness, to bring her flowers, to live with her according to knowledge is to love her, to delight in her, and at the same time to do one’s duty.
The bifurcation between duty and delight is one of the sinister results of the fall. That one can feel duty to be a burden is one evidence of how the flesh lusts against the Spirit. In Galatians 5, Paul investigates the relationship of the law to love and the operations of the Spirit. Through love, we serve one another (13). By the flesh, we “bite and devout one another” (15). The whole law, that is, the whole duty of one person to another, is fulfilled in this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” So how does one overcome the antipathy of the flesh to the law of love? “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh” (16). The Spirit, law, and love unite in giving expression to human duty. When one walks by the Spirit and bears the fruit that the Spirit produces (5:22, 23), he does nothing contrary to law but walks aligned with the law. God’s law constitutes the duty of man and at the same time is the perfect expression of love.
The bifurcation between duty and delight is one of the sinister results of the fall.
I will not seek to investigate vigorously the relation between benevolent love and complacent love but only this. God loves sinners out of benevolent love as far as his knowledge of their sin and rebellion is concerned and their consequent worthiness of eternal wrath. There is nothing lovely in us that would give God pleasure in loving us. He does nurture, however, a complacency in his unmerited favor toward sinners, for he does this to the praise of his glorious grace and the demonstration of the “depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God” (Ephesians 1:6; Romans 11:33). His benevolence toward us, therefore, finds it foundation in true complacence toward himself. On our part, both benevolent love and complacent love is due to God, first, foremost, and unstinted and then to all other things on his account. He has the most of being and is in fact the only thing that has being in and of himself, the only self-existent entity, and infinitely so, in all of reality—so benevolence is due him above all things. In addition, his being not only is large and indestructible but is beautiful, the sum of all goodness. Jonathan Edwards argues, “For as God is infinitely the greatest Being, so he is allowed to be infinitely the most beautiful and excellent.” Real virtue then, the faithful expression of duty, “must necessarily have a supreme love to God both of benevolence and complacence” at its core. All is derived from him and is absolutely dependent on him and his “being and beauty are, as it were, the sum and comprehension of all existence and excellence” [Works, BOT 1:125]. God’s comprehensive and infinite excellence, therefore, establishes the consuming duty of all intelligent creatures to love him in seamless devotion of all our parts.
Resistance to duty is resistance to moral perfection and resistance to love—both for God and man, neighbor and family. Nurturing selfishness and personal pleasure at the cost of loving service equals lawlessness rather than obedience, flesh-following rather than Spirit-walking, irregularity rather than duty. In the unfallen state of man, obedience to the law written on the heart was the supreme delight of Adam and Eve. To expand their vision of God’s attributes and to be more maturely conformed to his beautiful perfection was the goal that drove their obedience. This moral propensity was used perversely by Satan to entice them to disobedience—“His mercy is greater than his law and this act is the very path to be like him.” Such reasoning deceived Eve to take an independent path to these goals and brought about the fall. As uncorrupted image-bearers, however, their duty was their delight and the prospect of unwavering obedience their true happiness. Andrew Fuller stated in his confession of faith, “I believe if Adam or any holy being had had the making of a law for himself, he would have made just such an one as God’s law is; for it would be the greatest of hardships to a holy being not to be allowed to love God with all his heart.” In the unfallen state, they loved the duty that was theirs; the obligation that was perfectly commensurate with the righteousness set before them was no burden but their holy hope.
Presently, fallen creatures have no regard for God. Instead, they shut off from their contemplation the power and perfection that should be obvious from the witness of every created thing around them. Duty is reprehensible because the concept of divine beauty, power, and prerogative conflicts with the corrupt mind in its self-centered, rather than God-centered, goals. If any sinners are to be converted, each must come to grips with the distance between their affections and their duties.
The new birth involves a reconciliation of affections with duties. The faith that adheres to justifying righteousness approves God’s righteous law, righteous judgment, righteous atonement, and righteous reconciliation. Saving faith admits that our duty toward such righteous expressions of divine goodness infinitely transcends and is radically other than our pursuit. Sanctification progresses in proportion to the affections’ realignment with intrinsic duties. Again, Andrew Fuller presses this truth into a confessional article: “I believe that such is the excellence of this way of salvation, that every one who hears or has opportunity to hear it proclaimed in the gospel is bound [italics mine] to repent of his sin, believe, approve, and embrace it with all his heart; to consider himself, as he really is, a vile lost sinner; to reject all pretensions to life in any other way; and to cast himself upon Christ, that he may be saved in this way of God’s devising. This I think to be true faith, which whoever have, I believe will certainly be saved.” One’s being “bound” to these responses mean that every stage and trait of justifying faith arises from duty. Reconciliation with God necessarily involves reconciliation of our highest desire with our highest duty.
Nurturing selfishness and personal pleasure at the cost of loving service equals lawlessness rather than obedience.
When one grasps accurately the moral loveliness that requires the devotion of all moral beings, it is impossible to dismiss duty as an inferior motivation for action; rather one sees duty as a moral disposition, an aesthetic judgment, a true perception of fitness, a consent to perfect being, and a joyful submission to expressions of order, law, love, moral symmetry, infallible purpose, transcendent wisdom, and divine revelation. Duty permeates the entire calling of the minister of the gospel and the message that he preaches. Again, listen to the confession of Andrew Fuller:
I believe it is the duty of every minister of Christ plainly and faithfully to preach the gospel to all who will hear it; and as I believe the inability of men to spiritual things to be wholly of the moral, and therefore of the criminal kind, and that it is their duty to love the Lord Jesus Christ and trust in him for salvation though they do not; I therefore believe free and solemn addresses, invitations, calls, and warning to them to be not only consistent, but directly adapted, as means, in the hand of the Spirit of God, to bring them to Christ. I consider it as a part of my duty which I could not omit without being guilty of the blood of souls.
Why does Fuller say that it is the sinner’s “duty to love the Lord Jesus Christ and trust in him for salvation.” The first concerns the fullness of the law; before all things and with all the energy of the mind, the will, the understanding, and the affections the Lord Jesus, in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells, is to be loved. Having fallen short of that in Adam and in personal transgression, sinners need a path to righteousness and thus life. In Jesus that righteousness has been perfected and the merit of eternal life is found in him alone. A complete resting of the soul on his work (trust) as alone worthy unites the soul to him. He is the Lord, and, also, he has loved the Lord his Father with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength. He is the goal of the law and he is the perfect doer of the law. The duty, therefore, to love him absolutely and to trust him for salvation is based on the same moral excellence involved in both.
Duty, in reality, as indicated above is prior to love. The focus of love is determined by the duty implied in the excellence of the object. The greater the excellence, the greater the duty; the greater the duty, the higher and more focused the love. The infinitely perfect being calls forth our devotion and admiration; the law of such a being establishes our duty. That all things exist by his will and serve his purpose gives us varying degrees of duty toward all that he made and sustains. “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created” (Revelation 4:11). Though varied in degree, all duty is absolute. We have a duty to our pets as well as our parents, but the latter is of a higher degree of duty that the former. How the glory of God is manifest in each thing and in each relationship determines the intensity of duty involved. Food and drink are good and are partaken with gratitude and to God’s glory and with a fully-approving conscience, but may be omitted for the sake of the conscience of a brother (1 Corinthians 10:29-33). Fundamental to love, therefore, is the level of duty that defines each relation.
Articles in this edition of The Founders Journal treat those areas of duty that are of the highest order. The first is from the opening chapter of John L. Dagg’s Manual of Theology and explores the duty to love God. On this duty hang the reality and peculiar relevance of all other duties.
Another article by Paul Taylor deals with the duties of church membership. Christ has died for the church, has called and gifted every member and united all these members in one common goal to achieve the “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” {Ephesians 4:13). There is a duty, therefore, that each part of this body do its work which “causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:16).
Another article, by Ryan Denton, concerns the ongoing witness of the church, corporately and individually, with a view to the conversion of sinners. This is to occur until the final elect one is called. Benjamin Keach stated that the “task and calling of the minister as an ambassador” is “to persuade sinners to receive and embrace the Lord Jesus.” The truths of Christ’s seeking and finding all of his people should stir up ministers “to do their utmost in order to the conversion of sinners.” They should not be weary, nor faint, nor be discouraged even when reproached by men and Satan for “God has appointed preaching as his great ordinance, for the … conversion of lost sinners.” And though the minister has no power either of virtue or persuasion to change a heart and bring a sinner home, but only Christ alone by his Spirit can do that, nevertheless, ministers “are to do what they can, they are to invite them, press, them, entreat and persuade them to come.”[ii] A faithful ministry “will do what the Lord commands them to do” with the confidence that “in God’s heart is room enough for millions of souls; and in God’s house there is not only bread enough, and to spare, but room enough also.”[iii] A minister of Christ, in order “to accomplish his Ambassy, and to bring the King’s Enemies to accept of Peace,” must pray, entreat, and “beseech Sinners to be reconciled to God.” In fact, like the apostle who cried tears over the lost, “Faithful Ministers art willing to spend their Lives to win Souls to Christ, yea, to die upon the spot to save one poor Sinner.” Ryan Denton reminds us, in Keach-like fashion, that this duty cannot be transcended in demonstrating love to God and man.
Concluding this edition of the Founders Journal is a brief resume of the Nature of True Virtue by Jonathan Edwards. This work is perhaps the most profound discussion on duty—its true beauty and its intrinsic ethical absoluteness—in American evangelical literature. We pray that each of these articles and the impact of the whole will give unction for holiness and faithful service.
Benjamin Keach, Parables., 368-370.
[ii] Keach., 546.
[iii] Keach, 546.
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