Posts Tagged ‘Christ’
Christ our mediator
“If, then, we should seek for another mediator who would be favorably inclined toward us, whom could we find who loved us more than He who laid down His life for us, even while we were his enemies?” — The Belgic Confession, Article 26
HT: Nathan S
Christ is Lord
Christ is Lord of all. He is great beyond our understanding, and he is greatly to be feared. But he is also good, and he deserving of the deepest love and trust.
Christ is Lord of our salvation.
Christ is Lord of the whole of Christian life and of his church.
Christ is Lord of our children.
Christ is Lord of our family life.
Christ is Lord of our vocations.
Christ is Lord over all spheres of life; such as politics, science and art.
Christ is Lord of the convinced atheist.
Christ is Lord of the unbeliever, and his compassion toward unbelievers compels us to love them as well.
Christ is Lord over all his enemies.
The Christian conversion is not an event; conversion is an ongoing way of life that ”sees” Christ’s lordship over all, rejoices in it, continually entrusts oneself to him, and embraces his people. The Christian’s life of faith is not an exercise merely of the mind and will, but of the whole man; it covers all of the human existence, involves every human faculty, and shapes every vocation and relationship. The Christian hope is not a mere future hope that sees this world as nothing; it is a hope that desires this world to enjoy the fruit of Christ’s redemptive lordship as much as heaven. The Christian mission is not merely a mission to save individuals but one to redeem an entire people.
The Christian life is all-encompassing. But by embracing and transforming ”all” of life, the Christian life thus becomes ”ordinary”.
Piper on justification and sanctification
“The only sin we can fight against successfully is a forgiven sin”:
All the sins of God’s people, past, present and future, are forgiven because of the death of Christ once for all. . . . This justification on the basis of Christ’s death for us is the foundation of sanctification — not the other way around. I put it like this: the only sin we can fight against successfully is a forgiven sin. Without a once-for-all justification through Christ, the only thing that our striving for holiness produces is despair or self-righteousness.
But I did not say that the work of God in justification makes the work of God in sanctification optional. I didn’t say (the Bible doesn’t say) that forgiveness makes holiness optional. It doesn’t make it optional, it makes it possible. What we will see today is that the God who justifies also sanctifies. The faith that justifies also satisfies — it satisfies the human heart and frees it from the deceptive satisfactions of sin. Faith is the expulsive power of a new affection (Thomas Chalmers). That is why justification and the process of sanctification always go together. They both come from the same faith. Perfection comes at the end of life when we die or when Christ returns, but the pursuit of holy living begins with the first mustard seed of faith. That’s the nature of saving faith. It finds satisfaction in Christ and so is weaned away from the satisfactions of sin.
— John Piper, God Sanctifies His People
Immanuel
Christ our Immanuel (God with us)
In the year 325, the first council of Nicea gathered to condemn Arius for his teaching that Jesus was not fully God. Nicholas of Myra attended this council, who you may know as Saint Nicholas, the inspiration for Santa Claus. At this council, Nicholas rebuked Arius for his heresy, growing so upset that he slapped him in the face! So there you have it — Santa Claus the valiant defender of the divinity of Christ! From this we get such Christmas classics as “Deck them all for all their folly” and “Santa Claus is coming to town.”
Like Nicholas, it is vital that we see that Jesus is both fully God and fully man. Most importantly, this is the only way that he can serve as our mediator, and bear the wrath of God in our place. But there are other ways that this brings comfort to us. Jesus is our Immanuel, God with us (Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:22-23). This doesn’t simply mean that he showed up in person once, two thousand years ago. God’s word is full of encouragement that he is God-with-us here and now.
First, Jesus is our Immanuel because he is the image of God our Father. John says that “no one has ever seen God,” but that Jesus, “the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:18). Jesus says that “whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Paul writes that “in [Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:19). Even though we have never seen God, when we see Jesus on display in the word—his love, his kindness, his demand of our complete loyalty — we are seeing God himself. Through his word, we see God! Jesus is God with us.
Second, Jesus is our Immanuel because he is God “become flesh” (John 1:14). He identified with us and understands us. Paul reminds us that Jesus stooped low to become a man — “though he was in the form of God, [he] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:5-8). Hebrews encourages us that Jesus’s becoming flesh means that he can “sympathize with our weaknesses,” since “in every respect [he] has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Not only does he sympathize with us, but since he also served as a perfect substitute in our place, he is able to give us “mercy and grace to help [us] in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16). As John writes, he is “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14) to us.
Third, Jesus is our Immanuel because he gave us the “Spirit of [God’s] son” (Galatians 4:6). Jesus promised that he would “send to you from the Father [the Helper], the Spirit of truth” (John 15:26). John says that Jesus “gives the Spirit without measure” (John 3:34). Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus fulfills his promise to be “with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 8:20). The Holy Spirit is the very presence and power and comfort of God in our lives. The Spirit is near to us in a much greater and better way than Israel ever experienced as God dwelled with them in the Old Testament. Through his life-giving Spirit, Jesus is God with us.
Finally, the most precious way that Jesus is near to us is that we are united to him in our salvation. This is the root of our very life. Our salvation isn’t dispensed from afar, like a mail-order pharmacy. When we are saved, we are joined to Jesus our savior. Paul declares that “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Jesus says that “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). And in a powerful passage in Romans, Paul declares this:
We were buried therefore with [Christ Jesus] by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:3-11)
From this we know that in Jesus’s own death, we died with him to sin. And in Jesus’s own resurrection, we are raised to life. His death is our death, and his life is our life. In our salvation, we are joined to him and receive his very life! What comfort and power and assurance there is in this nearness to him!
Because of this nearness that we enjoy in Jesus, we experience adoption as God’s own children (Galatians 4:4-5), and Jesus becomes our refuge and protection (Isaiah 8:10, Psalm 46:7, Zechariah 8:23). In fact, scripture says that we receive “every spiritual blessing” (Ephesians 1:3-5) in Jesus. And in turn, he uses us as his people to bring himself near to others (John 20:21-22).
Thanks be to Christ our Immanuel!
Toplady on mercy, first and last
A debtor to mercy alone, of covenant mercy I sing;
I come with Your righteousness on, my humble offering to bring.
The judgments of Your holy law with me can have nothing to do;
My Savior’s obedience and blood hide all my transgressions from view.The work which Your goodness began, the arm of Your strength will complete;
Your promise is yes and amen, and never was forfeited yet.
The future or things that are now, no power below or above,
Can make You Your purpose forgo, or sever my soul from Your love.My name from the palms of Your hands eternity will not erase;
Impressed on Your heart it remains, in marks of indelible grace.
Yes I to the end will endure, until I bow down at Your throne;
Forever and always secure, a debtor to mercy alone.— Augustus Toplady, A Debtor to Mercy Alone, as modified by Bob Kauflin
Packer on the incarnation
How are we to think of the Incarnation? The New Testament does not encourage us to puzzle our heads over the physical and psychological problems that it raises, but to worship God for the love that was shown in it. For it was a great act of condescension and self-humbling. “He, who had always been God by nature,” writes Paul, “did not cling to his privileges as God’s equal, but stripped Himself of every advantage by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born a man. And, plainly seen as a human being, he humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience, to the point of death, and the death he died was the death of a common criminal” (Phil 2:6-8 Phillips). And all this was for our salvation. . . .
The crucial significance of the cradle at Bethlehem lies in its place in the sequence of steps down that led the Son of God to the cross of Calvary, and we do not understand it till we see it in this context. . . . The taking of manhood by the Son is set before us in a way which shows us how we should ever view it — not simply as a marvel of nature, but rather as a wonder of grace.
– J. I. Packer, Knowing God, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993; pp. 58-59.
Gregory Nazianzen on the Trinity
This I give you to share, and to defend all your life, the one Godhead and power, found in the three in unity, and comprising the three separately; not unequal, in substances or natures, neither increased nor diminished by superiorities or inferiorities; in every respect equal, in every respect the same; just as the beauty and the greatness of the heavens is one; the infinite conjunction of three infinite ones, each God when considered in himself; as the Father, so the Son; as the Son, so the Holy Spirit; the three one God when contemplated together; each God because consubstantial; one God because of the monarchia. No sooner do I conceive of the one than I am illumined by the splendour of the three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the one. When I think of any one of the three I think of him as the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of that one so as to attribute a greater greatness to the rest. When I contemplate the three together, I see but one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the undivided light. — Gregory Nazianzen, Oration on Holy Baptism
As quoted by Robert Letham in The Holy Trinity.
Murray on our union with Christ
In his book, Redemption Accomplished and Applied, the late John Murray presents an excellent summary of what it means that believers live in union with Christ. He writes that “if we did not take account of [union with Christ], not only would our presentation of the application of redemption be defective but our view of the Christian life would be gravely distorted. Nothing is more central or basic than union and communion with Christ” (p. 161). On the following pages he goes on to enumerate what it means to be united with Christ:
The fountain of salvation itself in the eternal election of the Father is “in Christ.” . . . The Father elected from eternity, but he elected in Christ. . . .
It is also because the people of God were in Christ when he gave his life a ransom and redeemed by his blood that salvation has been secured for them; they are represented as united to Christ in his death, resurrection, and exaltation to heaven. . . .
It is in Christ that the people of God are created anew. “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (Eph. 2:10). . . .
But not only does the new life have its inception in Christ; it is also continued by virtue of the same relationship to him. It is in Christ that Christian life and behavior are conducted. . . .
It is in Christ that believers die. They have fallen asleep in Christ or through Christ and they are dead in Christ (1 Thess. 4:14, 16). . . .
Finally, it is in Christ that the people of God will be resurrected and glorified. It is in Christ they will be made alive when the last trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible (1 Cor. 15:22). It is with Christ they will be glorified (Rom. 8:17).
I gotta have my orange juice. 
Conviction and the cure
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My pastors have been preaching through Exodus, and just finished ten weeks in the ten commandments. They have done an incredible job of helping us to feel the weight and glory of God’s holiness; but without letting us forget that the law sits on the bedrock foundation of the gospel (“I am the Lord your God, who brought you . . . out of the house of slavery”), and that our reading of the law absolutely must be infused with gospel hope.
Yet it is still so tempting for me to hear such a message and nurse my conviction, without really going any farther. Perhaps I resolve to change some things, but in reality my ears are tuning out the very gospel hope and power that are the only way I can possibly move beyond conviction. Mark Lauterbach critiques his sermons on this point, but we should also critique our listening — are our ears tuned in to savor conviction, or savor the gospel:
We want to welcome the Holy Spirit’s conviction, and repent, but we shouldn’t get off the bus there. Our conviction should drive us to look upward to our Savior rather than inward on our sin; the gospel is our only hope and power for forgiveness and for real change.
How do we make that something more than a mantra? How can we practically seize this gospel power to change? Here are some regular practices that can strengthen our faith and empower our obedience; please comment to add more:
Crossposted to Reflections on Upchurch
Written by Scott Moonen
February 26, 2007 at 5:48 am
Posted in Commentary, Quotations
Tagged with adopt, adoption, application, C.-J.-Mahaney, Christ, Christian-living, Christianity, commands, Commentary, cross, ethics, Father, fatherhood, fatherhood-of-God, forgiveness, God, goodness-of-God, gospel, gospel-centrality, grace, gratitude, holiness, Holy-Spirit, Jerry-Bridges, John-Piper, joy, justification, law, lordship, love, Mark-Lauterbach, mediator, mercy, new-creation, obedience, quotation, redemption, righteousness, salvation, sanctification, sin, spiritual-disciplines, ten-commandments, thankfulness