What We Believe: God the Son

November 12, 2009 in BFM 2000, The Person of Christ, Theology with Leave a Comment

THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST
The Son: Forever Fully God
BFM: Christ is the eternal Son of God.
1. It has been well said that unbelievers have stumble over Jesus’ divinity, while believers stumble over his humanity. We should remember that the Bible affirms both.
2. In all his work and ways, Jesus Christ is fully and completely God the Son, eternally, with his Father and the Holy Spirit. He is not the Father, and he relates to the Father as Son, but he is still co-equal, co-eternal, and co-divine with the Father.  “There was not when he was not,” as it has been said. The Son has existed eternally as God the Son with both the Father and the Spirit.
3. The Scriptures throughout demonstrate the fact that Jesus is God.
a. The NT consistently correlates Jesus with Yahweh (YHWH in Hebrew), the only true God.
i. YHWH thunders to Moses, “I AM who I AM” (Ex 3:14), and Jesus tells the Pharisees, “Before Abraham was, I Am!” (John 8:58).
ii. Isaiah 8:13 says, “But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy.” And Peter says, “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy” (1 Peter 3:15).
iii. In Isaiah 45:23 YHWH says, “To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.” Then, in the NT we see that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil 2:10-11).
iv. In Isaiah 40, we see a prophecy of one who will “prepare the way for YHWH” (40:3). In the NT, this person is John the Baptist, who prepares the way for Jesus (Mark 1:1:-3).
v. Clearly, in the NT Jesus receives the worship that in the OT is due to YHWH, the one true God, alone—because the NT exclaims that Jesus is YHWH, come in human flesh.
b. The NT calls Jesus God explicitly in a number of places.
i. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
ii. Paul the Apostle refers to Jesus as “God over all” (Rom 9:5).
c. The NT ascribes to Jesus things that are true only of God.
i. Jesus forgives sin (Mark 2:1-12).
ii. Jesus walks on water (Mark 6:45-52).
iii. Jesus receives worship (Matt 14:33).

The Son: Now Also Fully Man
BFM: In His incarnation as Jesus Christ He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Jesus perfectly revealed and did the will of God, taking upon Himself human nature with its demands and necessities and identifying Himself completely with mankind yet without sin.
1. There are several important things the point out about the conception of Jesus.
a. God keeps his promises. Immediately after Adam sinned and spiraled creation into rebellion, God promises that the woman will have a “seed”, or “descendent” who will crush the head of the serpent’s seed. God keeps this promise when the Holy Spirit creates human life in Mary’s womb. Similarly, God promised Abraham (Gen 12:7) and David (2 Sam 7) that a seed would arise from each: for Abraham a seed who would be heir of the promised land; for David a seed who would sit eternally on his throne. God kept his promises: Jesus came as the seed of the woman, Abraham, and David.
b. Jesus came “from above.” He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. B.B. Warfield says, “Though true man, therefore, he is not without differences from other men; and these differences do not concern merely the condition (as sinful) in which men presently find themselves; but also from their very origin: they are from below, He from above—‘the first man is from earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven’ (1 Cor 15:47). This is His peculiarity: He was born of a woman like other men; yet He descended from Heaven.”
c. The virgin conception is a crucial doctrine. It indicates that though Jesus is fully man, he is not conceived in the likeness of sinful man. Though Jesus is born as the seed of the woman, Abraham, and David, he is not born as the seed of Adam.  Whereas all other human conceptions are in the likeness of the first man, Adam, Jesus is conceived in Mary’s womb by the purifyingly creative power of the Holy Spirit. Of course, this touches on the heart of the profound mystery: “fullness of God in helpless babe.”
2. Jesus took on human nature. Humans are “soul-and-body” (psychosomatic) creatures, a unity which God never intended for ultimate separation. When we affirm that Jesus took on human nature, we affirm that he had both a human body and a human soul.
a. Jesus took on a human body. This means that Jesus was a real, flesh and blood man, with all that humanity entails. When he was whipped, he felt the searing pain in his back in wounds that spilled real blood. He was hungry (Mark 11:12), thirsty (John 19:28), and, to put it delicately, had to go to the bathroom.
b. Jesus took on a human soul. Jesus was not simply God wearing a human suit. He truly experienced life as a man because he truly became a man. He felt human emotions, weeping at the death of Lazarus (John 11:35) and over the rebellion of his beloved Jerusalem (Luke 19:41). Calvin says, “Christ has put on our feelings along with our flesh.”
c. This should amaze us, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15). Jesus knows, truly, our human experience.
3.  “Yet Without Sin.” The crucial difference (between salvation and damnation!) is that Jesus was truly man, flesh and bone, heart and soul, yet without sin. Jesus triumphed over the sin of the first Adam by living a life in complete obedience. As the BFM says, “Jesus perfectly…did the will of God.” Think of your worst sin, the one you can’t seem to shake. The one you keep asking for forgiveness for; the one you keep promising God you will never do again. The one that pushes you down to your knees with the weight of guilt, over and over and over. That sin, Jesus conquered. He always obeyed God in that way. He never caved in. He never failed. And the beauty of our salvation is that God clothes us in that righteousness of Jesus, after he put that sin of ours onto his beloved Son. It was the only way. And God did it.
4. Jesus’ incarnation continues today. Luke tells us, “As they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:9-11). As Gerrit Scott Dawson says, “In the same body in which he was crucified, Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and in that very flesh he ascended into heaven.” We will discuss this more in the next section on the work of Christ, but it should amaze us: Jesus took on human nature, flesh and blood and soul, and did not shed that humanity. It continues. And one day, we will, by God’s grace, touch his wounds and cry, “My Lord and My God!” (John 20:29).

What We Believe: God the Father (Pt 2)

November 6, 2009 in BFM 2000, PRBC, Theology with Leave a Comment
Tags: baptist faith and message, confession of faith, God, statement of faith, the Bible, Theology

READ PART 1 HERE.

THE KING IS A FATHER
BFM: God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men.

The Great Either/Or
All humanity stands on a side of a great chasm, a great either/or. All mean are either “in Adam” or “in Christ.” Those in Adam still bear the guilt of sin upon their souls and stand under God’s wrath. God the Father relates in two different ways to these two groups.  Those in Christ have been forgiven of their sin and now live to God.

The Father and those in Christ: Adoption.
1. Some have called adoption the pinnacle of salvation. Jesus explains the reality of adoption in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15); likewise, Paul explains in Galatians “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal 4:4-5). Paul explains that the reason God send his Son was to redeem those under the law; and he explains that the reason God redeemed those under the law was so that he might adopt them as sons.
2. Martyn Lloyd-Jones explains the comfort that this doctrine of adoption provides: “My relationship to God is not a variable one. The case is not that I am a child of God, and then again not a child of God. That is not the basis of my standing, that is not the position. When God had mercy upon me, He made me His child, and I remain his child. A very sinful, and a very unworthy one, perhaps, but still his child! And now, when I fall into sin, I have not sinned against the law, I have sinned against love. Like the prodigal, I will go back to my Father and I will tell Him, “Father, I am not worthy to be called your son.” But He will embrace me, and He will say, “Do not talk nonsense, you are My child,” and He will shower his love upon me! That is the meaning of putting on the breastplate of righteousness! Never allow the devil to get you into a state of ccondemnation. Never allow a particular sin to call into question your standing before God. That question has been settled” (The Christian Soldier: An Exposition of Ephesians 6:10-20, 255).

The Father and those in Adam: Fatherly.
1. Another way to explain this reality is the theological reality of common grace. “He sends rain on the just and the unjust” (Matt 5:45). It important to recognize, however, that there is an infinite chasm between God being the Father of someone and being fatherly toward someone. One is a settled relational reality, a permanent salvation; the other is an attitude that does not ultimately change someone’s eternal state. My dad is nice to a lot of people, even a “father-figure” to them; but only his sons are truly his sons. I am his son, and he is my father.
2. There is a deep tension in the Bible expressed in two true statements. First, God is angry at sinners and they stand under his wrath. Second, God is patient with sinners and does not desire to damn them. Much of this reality goes beyond the scope of this section, but the important part to recognize here is this: God is patient with sinners. He is fatherly toward them.  This, however, does not save them, anymore than my dad being “fatherly” toward someone makes them his son.
3. This statement, in part, combats the teaching of Protestant liberalism, which taught the universal “Fatherhood of God” (as seen in the writings of someone like Adolf von Harnack. Compare this to John Calvin’s deep doctrine of God’s adoption of sinners and fatherhood).

What We Believe: God the Father (Pt 1)

November 5, 2009 in BFM 2000, PRBC, Theology with 1 Comment
Tags: baptist faith and message, confession of faith, God, statement of faith, the Bible, Theology

THE FATHER IS THE KING
BFM: God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace. He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, and all wise.

The Fact of the Father’s Reign
1. The biblical data testifies that God the Father reigns as King over all. In theological history, no one has ever seriously debated this point. Simply, the Bible is too explicit, too often for any serious challenge to be made on this point. In the NT, specifically, “God” refers most often to the person of the the Father. Jesus explains that the Great I AM, the self-existing, self-sustaining of Exodus 3:14 is “the Father” who “has life in himself” (John 5:26).
2. The Bible explains that there clearly a “firstness” for God the Father. Paul explains that the Son will deliver “the kingdom to God the Father” (1 Cor 15:24). He goes on to indicate a clear ordering in the relationships of the Trinity: “ For ‘God has put all things in subjection under his feet.’ But when it says, ‘all things are put in subjection,’ it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all” (1 Cor 15:27-28). Scripture therefore clearly indicates an order (Gk: taxis) between the persons of the Trinity; but it is an order of role and not nature or “Godness”. The Son lovingly submits to the Father, but he and the Father are equally and fully God.
3. Historically, theologians have referred to this reality as the monarchy or “kingship” of the Father. The nature of this monarchy has chafed relationships in theological circles and in different areas of the church. This issue, in part, splintered the church, resulting in the Great Schism in 1054 between East and West.

The Nature of the Father’s Reign
1. A Reign of Control. Control means “the power to influence or direct people’s behavior or the course of events.”  Control means sovereignty, total supremacy, dominion, power, authority, and jurisdiction.We often associate the word with negative pictures of a manipulative mother-in-law or demanding boss or unilateral dictator; in their hands, control is a bad thing. However, when the loving Creator wields control he does so rightfully and lovingly, though nonetheless unilaterally.
2. A Reign of Purpose. The Psalmist says, “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations” (Ps 33:11). Isaiah worships this planning God, “for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure” (25:1).
3. A Reign of Grace. God’s plans are plans or purposes of grace. The sum of his purpose was to reconcile the world back to himself through Jesus. Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). God cuts the feet out from the entire universe so that it will bow to his grace. God planned to send Jesus. Jesus saved us from the Father’s wrath, but the Father also saved us from the Father’s wrath! The Father is a gracious Father.
4. A Reign of Fullness. The generic way to describe God’s reign is to say he reigns over everything, and specifically we can see his reign over three spheres.
a. The Father Reigns Over Creation. Again, this is a catch-all, as the Psalmist says, “The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all” (Ps 103:19). God the Father is King over all things.
b. The Father Reigns Over Humanity. The Father’s reign extends specifically over humanity. This is evident throughout Scripture, from the moment of God’s creative, life-installing inbreathing of the formed dust called Adam.
c. The Father Reigns Over History. The cheesy and churchy statement that history is “his story” is, in fact, profoundly true. It is the story written by God the Father about saving the world through God the Son. Scripture shows that God stands over and above human actions and historical phenomena. God moves the human movers of history, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will” (Prov 21:1). For example, Isaiah 45 tells of the pagan king Cyrus, whom God raises up to accomplish his will.  He also reigns over the cataclysmic events of history, quaking or flooding the earth for his own good purposes.

The Person of the Father’s Reign
1. The Father is Omnipotent.
2. The Father is Omniscient.
3. The Father is Loving.
4. The Father is Wise.

Moses Was a Baptist

November 3, 2009 in Meditations with Leave a Comment

God tells Moses, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex. 3:6); Jesus quotes this verse against the Sadducees to prove the Resurrection: “He is not God of the dead, but of the living” (Mark 12:27).

How does this prove the Resurrection? Because this phrase is spoken by the Great I AM (Ex. 3:14), who is life; when this God of life and existence enters into a covenant of faithfulness with a person or people (Father Abraham and his many sons…), they will by definition be a people who are alive. He is God of the living. Obviously, this demonstrates, as Jesus shows, the Resurrection.

But I also think it implies regenerate church membership, or the doctrine that the church is made up of only those who are truly born again. Baptists not only believe this, they practice it (at least in theory). They admit to church membership only those who have been born again, converted, regenerated, given new life. Those who have been given new life by God then follow Jesus in baptism. They are baptized because they are alive. Baptism draws a picture of dying with Christ to sin and self (going under the water) and being raised with Christ to a new life of authentic worship (coming up out of the water). Baptism shouts in a picture: “He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is not God of the dead, but of the living!”

So, in a way, Moses, when he believed in “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” proved that he was a Baptist.

Authentic Worship and Revival

November 2, 2009 in Monday Morning Quarterback with Leave a Comment

I preached yesterday on Mark 12:13-27, where we examined the “Why?” of life. “Why do we exist?” “Why did God create us as a species, as a church, and as individuals?”

Our answer: for authentic worship.

In Mark 12:13-27, we identified two elements of authentic worship:
1. Giving to God what is rightfully his, by faith in Jesus
2. Knowing God’s Word and God’s Power

We ended with giving four options for a person, church, or community:
1. Absence of Knowledge or Power = Spiritual deception/death
2. Knowledge – Power = Dead Orthodoxy
3. Power – Knowledge = Fanatacism
4. Knowledge + Power = Revival

We then defined revival:
“A great swell of authentic worship of God through Christ in a person, church, or community.”

We ended with a prayer that we might see revival breakout on all three levels:
1. “In my heart”
2. “In our church”
3. “In our community”

Join me in praying that the living God be pleased to send us revival as we magnify Jesus and his Gospel in word and deed!

 

What We Believe: Our Triune God (part 2)

October 30, 2009 in BFM 2000, PRBC, Theology with Leave a Comment
Tags: baptist faith and message, confession of faith, God, statement of faith, the Bible, Theology

See Part 1 here.

Our God: Infinity
BFM: God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections.

There are several ways to think about God’s “infinity”: he is infinite in terms of time (eternal), he is infinite in terms of space (omnipresent); and he is infinite in terms of attributes, meaning all things that are true of God are completely true.  When we say he is “infinite in holiness”, we mean that he is perfectly and completely holy. This is true in everything we say about God. There are no flaws in anything about him. His love, wisdom, justice, knowledge, grace, mercy are all completely and totally true, all at the same time, in every way, in every action. This is why they are called “perfections.”

Two of God’s most fundamental perfections are:
1. Holiness. God is holy, the whole Bible tells us over and over. He commands Israel to be holy, because he is holy (Lev 19:2). Bruce Ware explains that God’s attributes of love, grace, and mercy flow from his infinite goodness.
2. Goodness. The Psalmist cries, “You are good and do good” (Ps 119:68). Wayne Grudem says, “The goodness of God means that God is the final standard of good, and that all that God is and does is worthy of approval.”  Ultimately, God has demonstrated his goodness through Jesus and the Gospel, saving from damnation all who believe. Bruce Ware explains that God’s righteousness and justice flow from his holiness.

Our God: Immensity
BFM: God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures.

1. God is all powerful (omnipotent). Jeremiahs 32:27 says, “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” Likewise, Isaiah 59:1 says, “The Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save.” These are just two verses that affirm the same truth: God is all-powerful. John Frame says God’s omnipotence refers to “two biblical ideas, closely related to one another: God can do anything he pleases” and that  “nothing is too hard for God.”  Three things to keep in mind in view of God’s omnipotence are:
a. God is free. This is the idea that God “does whatever he pleases” (Ps 115:3, 135:6; Eccl 8:3; Job 23:13). Humans can make “free” choices that, in reality, are constrained to an incredible degree by time and space and ability, not to mention financial, emotional, and health considerations. God is not limited in these ways. He has done, can do, and will do “whatever he pleases.” This is why the Gospel is good news. Because did not have to save us, but he freely chose to.
b. God is sovereign. This is closely related to both omnipotence and freedom. This is the idea that God is the King, the Ruler.
c. God is good. All of the talk about God being all powerful and free and sovereign terrifies the one who does not recognize his goodness. But he is good, and he has proven this in the Gospel.

2. God is all knowing (omniscient).
a. Recently, a heresy called “Open Theism” has arisen in the church, which says that God does not know the future decisions of free creatures (people). This statement in BFM 2000, in part, was drafted to combat this teaching. The Scripture clearly teaches that God knows the future, including the decisions people will make.
b. God also, in a mysterious way, knows what would have been. Matthew 11:21 says, “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”

Our God: Worthy
BFM: To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience.

Our response should be:
1. Love. It’s interesting that Moses, after announcing the grand truth of the unity of the one true God in the Shema, immediately adds: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut 6:5). Jesus said this command from Deuteronomy is the greatest and summary commandment of the Old Testament. The truth of who God is should always lead to love for him, a love that transcends all other competitors (especially the most lovely ones) and leads to likewise loving others.
2. Reverence. All of Old Testament faith is summed up in the injunction, “Fear the Lord.” We should have a healthy trepidation for a God so holy and majestic, yet approach with confidence as his beloved children.
3. Obedience. True love and true reverence will have legs; the person who loves God will obey God; the person who fears God will obey God. God says “to obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Sam 15:22). Theology should breed doxology, a life of worship (Rom 12:2).

OUR GOD IS THREE
BFM: The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.

There is one God. This is the absolute, clear testimony of the Bible. But even in the Old Testament there are hints of plurality within this unity; when we get to the New Testament this plurality becomes explicit. Theologians early in the church began working through this testimony of the Scripture regarding God’s oneness and threeness, and eventually formulated the term “trinity” to describe God’s “tri-unity” (three-and-one-ness). There are a number of facets of the doctrine of the Trinity that are seen Scripture.
1.  There is only one God.
2.  This one God exists as three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
3.  Each Person (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) is God:
a. Equally. Though each Person has a different “role” within the Godhead, all three are “co-equals” as God.
b. Eternally. God has existed as a Trinity for all eternity. “There was not, when the Son (or Spirit) was not,” as the fathers of the church would have said.
c. Distinctly. The Father is not the Son or the Spirit, and so on. There was an early heresy in the early church called Sabellianism or Modalism, which taught that each Person was a really only a different “mask” that God would wear at different times, for different reasons.
d. Indivisibly. Though there are three Persons, there is only one God, “without division of nature, essence, or being.”

The Trinity stretches the limits of our understanding. And it should more than stretch us; it should knock our legs out from under us and put us on our faces in worship of our ineffable God.

What We Believe: Our Triune God (part 1)

October 29, 2009 in BFM 2000, PRBC, Theology with 1 Comment
Tags: Theology, baptist faith and message, confession of faith, statement of faith, the Bible, God

If you missed our study last night, get caught up here (and come next week!).

OUR GOD IS ONE
Attributes of Our God
An attribute is a quality, a characteristic, an inherent, “built-in” part of someone or something. An attribute of God is an aspect of who God is “in himself”, for all eternity. When we look at various attributes, we should not think of them as “pieces”—as if God were partly holy, partly love, and partly infinite. All of these attributes describe God’s total being. For example, God is totally and completely holy, powerful, and loving in every way, all the time, forever. Many theologians have referred to God’s attributes as “perfections”, because God, in his every attribute, is perfect, or complete, in every way, for all eternity. Richard Lovelace says, “All of God’s qualities or attributes are different in the same mysterious way. God is not beautiful; he is beauty itself, the fountain from which all beautiful creatures draw their excellence. God is not loving; he is love. His attributes are the infinite standard against which all limited perfections are measured.”

Our God: Unity and Uniqueness
BFM: There is one and only one living and true God.

1. Our God is One.
a. Moses encapsulates all of the Old Testament with a single statement, the Shema (from the Hebrew for “hear”): “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!” (Deut 6:4). The entirety of the Bible, Jewish faith, and Christian faith assumes and proclaims the truth that there is only one God. Many would impose supposed deity upon man-conceived beings, but the Scripture says, “All the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens” (Ps 96:5).
b. This unity is important to remember as God reveals more of himself and the “multiplicity” within his being.

2. Our God is Unique.
a. Scripture shouts out all over the place: “There is none like our God!” 1 Samuel 2:2 is just one example: “There is none holy like the Lord / there is none besides you / there is no rock like our God.”
b. Scripture is not naïve; it acknowledges that others, imposters, would claim god-hood. But they differ from the one true God: he is God; they are not.

Our God: Self-Existence
BFM: He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe.

God is self-existent. People who like Latin call this God’s “aseity.” God does not depend on anyone or anything for existence. He thundered to Moses from the bush of flame: “I AM” (Ex 3:14), “I have no beginning or end; I exist from all eternity; I was not born, I was not made, and I will not die. I AM!” We see that likewise of the great I AM:
1. God is intelligent. As we will see below, God knows all things in all times and places. But he is also a God all and “only wise” (Rom 16:27), always applying his perfect knowledge in perfect wisdom, accomplishing his perfect purposes in perfect ways.
2. God is spiritual. Jesus said, “God is spirit” (John 4:24). Most broadly, this means that God is not made up of physical “stuff.” His fundamental existence is spiritual; everything physical and material is created.
3. God is personal. This does not mean that God is material, or physical, or human. It means that he is a Person. This is difficult for us sometimes, because we tend to think of personhood as a physical phenomenon. However, if we stop and consider the most important aspects of being a person, we realize that personhood and personality are mainly non-physical. For example, rational thoughts, anger, commitment, anxiety, hope, fear, and love all are non-physical experiences and capabilities that makes us persons. As persons, we were made in the image of God (Gen 1:27), in the image of the ultimate and fundamental Person. One theologian has said that the universe is fundamentally personal, because the fundamental reality of the universe is a Person, the Triune God Almighty. John Frame says, “God relates to us as a whole person, not as a collection of attributes. The attributes are a kind of shorthand for talking about that person. Everything he says and does is good, right, true, eternal, wise, and so on.”

Our self-existent God reveals himself in two primary ways:
1. God is the Creator. The first statement in the Bible says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1). This introduces the most important distinction of existence: the unbridgeable gap between the Creator and the Creation. Creation, all of it, from galaxies to giraffes to clouds to children depends on God for existence; all of creation is fundamentally dependent. God is fundamentally independent. This ties into the BFM statement that God is Ruler of the universe. He created it, so he owns it and rules over it. He is the Lord.
2. God is the Redeemer. God reveals himself to be the loving, kind, sovereign “fixer” of his rebellious creation. As Creator, he owes no debt to his Creation. But in his infinite mercy and wisdom and love, he decided to set his plan in motion, promising to send a Redeemer (Gen 3:15). He tells his people, “Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I am the one who helps you, declares the Lord; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel” (Is 41:14). This connects to his role as Preserver, and actually “one ups” it. He preserves his creation, but more wonderfully, he redeems it.

What We Believe: The Scriptures

October 22, 2009 in BFM 2000, PRBC with 1 Comment
Tags: Theology, baptist faith and message, confession of faith, statement of faith, the Bible

Last night we started our first full-swing week of our study of our Statement of Faith (the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 — click here for a link). The first section of our statement of faith is on The Scriptures. If you weren’t able to come last night, read on and be caught up for next week:

THE AUTHOR OF SCRIPTURE
BFM: The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man.

1. God’s part: expired.
a. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is ‘God-breathed’” or “exhaled,” giving the picture of physical speech. The point is that God himself has spoken through the written words of the Bible.
b. God has spoken truly and also understandably. John Calvin the Reformer says, “For who even of slight intelligence does not understand that, as nurses commonly do with infants, God is wont [accustomed] to ‘lisp’ in speaking to us.” By this he means, not that God’s word is babbling and gobble-de-gook, but that he communicates with us on our level; God doesn’t use “big words”, so to speak, he talks to us like we are preschoolers.

2. Men’s part: inspired.
a. God used a variety of ways to communicate his word through human authors.
b. Dictation: God told the Apostle John on the island of Patmos and the OT Prophets, for example, “Write or say, ‘Thus says the Lord’.”
c.  Historical Research: Luke says he wrote Luke and Acts after doing a great deal of research (Luke 1:1-4).
d. “Carried Along by the Spirit”(2 Pet 1:21): in a mysterious way, God used different men, with different personalities and writing styles to communicate perfectly and exactly what he wanted to communicate.

THE ANATOMY OF SCRIPTURE
BFM: It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction.

1. The Bible is perfect on many levels. Most importantly, it is complete, sufficient and clear.
a. The Bible is complete. The “canon” of the Bible (from the Greek for “list” or “rule”) is the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, which contain all that we need for life and godliness.
b. The Bible is sufficient to know all that we need for the most important part of existence: who God is and what he requires of us.
c. The Bible is also clear, meaning that though some things are “hard to understand” (2 Pet 3:16), they are not impossible to understand. But it is important to remember that those who do not have God’s Spirit are “not able to understand them [the things of God] because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:14).

2. The Bible is a treasure more precious than anything this life might offer. David tells us God’s Word is more valuable than gold and sweeter than honey (Ps 19:10). The prophet Jeremiah echoes the Psalmist, “Your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart” (Jer. 15:16).

3. Likewise, the Bible is a book of instruction (Rom 15:4), or teaching from God on who he is, who we are, how we might know him and be reconciled to him through Jesus.

BFM: Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter.

1. Because God is true, his Word is true (John 17:17). We can trust his promises and all that he tells us in the Bible. The Bible illuminates our otherwise dimly lit walk through the shadowland of this life (Ps 119:105).

2. The Bible’s “end” or “goal” or “climax” is the salvation of rebels, who will then forever extol the wonder of a gracious God (Eph 1:5-6). Everything we need to know about salvation God gave to us in Scripture, which “is able to make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim 3:15).

3. The Bible is “inerrant”, meaning that it does not contain mistakes or errors in anything that it teaches. God’s Word is pure, because God who wrote it is pure (Lev 11:44).

THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE
BFM: It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried.

1. The Bible’s authority is divine, based on the fact that it is God’s word, who is the rule of the world (Ps 103:19). God has revealed his standards or principles to us in the Bible, and he will judge us by these standards (Ps 50:6).

2.The Bible’s authority is eternal, because God’s word is eternal (Ps 119:89). Jesus himself said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Luke 21:33).

3. The Bible’s authority is unifying; its truth binds believers in Christ together under the banner of their great King. Any church or group or organization under the name of Jesus must have the Scripture at its center to experience deep fellowship and unity.

4. The Bible’s authority is universal, meaning that it stands over every person who has ever lived in any place at any time. This authority extends from the universal authority of God, “who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph 1:11).

THE “ALL” OF SCRIPTURE
BFM: All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.

The best stories have a hero; that is because the best stories shadow the Grand Story of the Bible. The Hero of the Bible is Jesus. From Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, God reveals himself through Jesus Christ, the Anointed One, Messiah, Savior, and King.

FOR REFLECTION AND WORSHIP:
Thursday: Psalm 19:1-6
Friday: Psalm 19:7-14
Saturday: Luke 24:44-49
Sunday: 2 Timothy 3:15-17
Monday: 2 Peter 1:16-21
Tuesday: Psalm 119:129-136
Wednesday: Psalm 119:137-144

It’s Almost Like the Sabbath was Made for Man, or something…

September 24, 2009 in Quotes with 2 Comments

A Harvard study recently came out, saying that regular, predictable time off increases productivity. Sue Shellenbarger of the Wall Street Journal writes:

“It was 4 p.m. on a recent Friday—a time of the week when I usually relax and leave the rest of my to-do list to finish over the weekend. But as this recent weekend approached, I kept pushing myself, heart pumping, to get to the bottom of my list of planned tasks for the week.

After years of working on and off throughout most weekends, I was trying a new approach by taking off at least one entire day every weekend this month, away from reporting, writing and all other work. Early on, I hated it. As simple as it seemed, sticking to a time-off plan stressed me out at first. What I didn’t see right away was that my little test was forcing me to improve the way I work.

Amid layoffs and burgeoning workloads, it seems, working any time, all the time, has become a habit. A survey of 605 U.S. workers last spring by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 70% of employees work beyond scheduled time and on weekends; more than half blame ’self-imposed pressure.’ Now, new research suggests some have reached the point where a paradoxical truth applies: To get more done, we need to stop working so much.“

From the WSJ, via Lifehacker.

The Gospel

September 21, 2009 in PRBC with 6 Comments

We framed our membership class at Pembroke Road around the three-fold value of Gospel, Community, and Mission.

Below is an outline of our first session, which is an overview of the class in general and the Gospel itself in particular. Let me know what you think.

The Big Picture

Question: Why does PRBC exist?
Answer: PRBC exists (a) for the glory of God and (b) for the good of our community and world.

Question: What does a church that exists for the glory of God and the good of its community look like?
Answer: We believe that such a church will exhibit the following three core values: Gospel, Community, and Mission.
a. Gospel: The Gospel is the foundational belief of Christianity. Without Christ crucified for our sins, we might have a religious organization or a social club, but we do not have a right relationship with God.
b. Community: We believe that the Gospel changes people and enables them to live together in a way that would be impossible without Christ. In short, the Gospel creates the church, a Christian community or family, where sin is not hidden but forgiven and where we all stand as equally undeserving sinners underneath the shadow of the Cross.
c. Mission: The Gospel also demands that we live as missionaries in a lost and dying world. That means that if we belong to Christ we are missionaries whether we are in Miramar or in Mumbai. Our goal is proclaim Christ crucified to all people.

The Membership Essentials class is structured around these three core values.

Gospel
Week 1: The Gospel
Week 2: Our Statement of Faith (spokes off the “hub” of the Gospel)

Community
Week 3: Church History (how did PRBC get here?)
Week 4: Being a Part of the Family (expectations of PRBC members)

Mission
Week 5: Biblical Foundations for Mission
Week 6: Practical Outworkings of Mission

The Gospel

The Gospel is a story, a grand story with God’s almighty fingerprints all over it. It is the ultimate drama of history. It is a majestic and true tale of Creation, Rebellion, Redemption and a New Creation.

This fabric of this story is woven into the Bible from the first chapter to the last:

Creation     →    Rebellion    →    Redemption    →     New Creation
(Gen. 1)                    (Gen. 3)                 (Gen. 3:15)                        (Rev. 21:1)

The “Creation-Rebellion-Redemption-New Creation” timeline is the big picture of what the Bible is about and what God is up to in saving people for his glory and their good. It is a birds-eye view of things.

On an individual level, the Gospel can be laid out like this:

God    →    Man    →    Christ    →    Response

This summary shows each person’s responsibility toward the Gospel message. It summarizes the key points of the good news:
1. God is the perfect, holy, loving, and righteous Creator of the world.
2. Man was created good, in God’s image, but rebelled against God’s commands and desired to rule his own life and the world apart from God. Man is now soaked-through with sin, being a sinner at heart.
3. Christ, both fully God and fully man, was sent by God at the appointed time to live a perfect life and die a sacrificial death in the place of rebellious sinners.
4. Response is required from sinners toward this wonderful news that Christ lived and died for sinners. Repentance and belief brings salvation, but rejection brings destruction.

The whole Bible is about Jesus Christ and the Gospel (Luke 24:45-47), and some sections are especially helpful in understanding what Jesus accomplished. For example, in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, the Apostle Paul explains a number of things about the Gospel. Here we see that the Gospel is:
1. A Message (15:1-2)
a. Preached (15:1)
b. Received; Held; Saving (15:1)
2. A Message “Of First Importance” (15:3)
3. The Content of the Message (15:3-8)
a. Christ died (15:3) (see 1 Cor. 2:1)
b. for our sins (15:3) (see 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 3:18)
c. according to the Scriptures (15:3) (see Is. 53; Dan. 9:26; Zech. 13:7)
d. he was buried (15:4)
e. he was raised (15:4) (see the Gospels; Hosea 6:2)
f. he appeared to: Cephas (Peter), the twelve (15:5), five hundred (15:6), James and the apostles (15:7), Paul (15:8)

Also, some other important verses explaining aspects of the Gospel are: Isaiah 53:6, Galatians 2:20, 2 Corinthians 5:21, 1 Peter 2:24 (and many more!).

As we think about the Gospel it is important to explain how it relates to religious or spiritual “good works”. Other faiths and religions (and even some streams of Christianity) teach that “I am accepted by God because I obey him”. The true Christian Gospel, however, teaches that “I obey God because I am accepted by him on the basis of Christ’s life and death alone.”

This means that no “good thing” we have done or could do is good enough. We can’t pray enough, we can’t give enough money, we can’t come to church enough times, we can’t study the Bible enough to make ourselves right before God. The Bible says that “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Is. 64:6). This means that our “best” isn’t nearly good enough for God.

We need the righteousness of another. We need the righteousness of Jesus, the perfect Son of God, to be “credited” to our account. A great exchange took place on the Cross when Jesus died. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Do you see the trade? God gave all of our sin to Christ and he gave all of Christ’s perfect, holy, obedient, righteous life to us!

At PRBC, we desire to live in the shade of the Gospel tree. We want to increasingly view the Gospel as not simply the “ABCs” of our faith, but as the
“A to Z” of everything we think, say, and do as Christ’s followers (see Galatians 3:1).

The Gospel has huge implications for our lives as Christians and, specifically, as members of PRBC. Some these are:
•    It should not surprise us when people fail (Christ would not have had to die if they didn’t!)
•    We ourselves should be open about our failures and not pretend we are “perfect Christians”
•    We should have a culture of grace, being patient and forgiving with other
•    We should see the solution to problems in our church as “more Jesus” and not “more rules”
•    Repentance and Gospel renewal should be our pattern of life
•    We should have a burning desire to share this good news with others