Pastor Chuck to Take Some Time for Rest & Refreshment

Pastor Chuck, whom you probably know posts the majority of articles on this blog site has taken a much needed Sabbatical so that he can have a time of uninterrupted physical rest and refreshment. During this time, he will not be posting to the blog site.

Please keep Pastor Chuck in your prayers during this time of Sabbatical, and know that he will return to his normal routine of education and edification sometime in mid-October.

The Biblical Portrait of Women: Setting the Record Straight By John MacArthur

The Bible is, and has always been, a revolutionary book. It stands like a coastal rock cliff to resist the surging, crashing waves of cultural change. And there may be no clearer demonstration of the Bible's immutable word than what it teaches about genuine femininity. The Bible rightly exalts women against cultures that distort, degrade, and debase them. Many in our society tout the sexual and reproductive liberation of women against the supposed oppressive, outmoded strictures of the Bible. I have to ask, "In what way are women truly free? In what way does our culture honor them?" Sure they can vote; sure they have opportunities to compete in the marketplace. But are they really free? Is their dignity and honor intact? I contend that women are used and abused more today than at any time in history. Pornography turns women into objects and victims of dirty, cowardly Peeping Toms who leer at them with greedy eyes. Throughout the world, women are traded like animals for sexual slavery. In more "civilized" places, men routinely use women for no-consequence, no-commitment sex only to leave them pregnant, without care and support. Abortion rights groups aid and abet male selfishness and irresponsibility, and they "free" women to murder their unborn children. Women are left alone, emotionally scarred, financially destitute, and experientially guilty, ashamed, and abandoned. Where's the freedom, dignity, and honor in that? Modern technological advances have enabled the culture to mainstream the degradation of women like never before; but ancient cultures were no better. Women in pagan societies during biblical times were often treated with little more dignity than animals. Some of the best-known Greek philosophers--considered the brightest minds of their era--taught that women are inferior creatures by nature. Even in the Roman Empire (perhaps the very pinnacle of pre-Christian civilization) women were usually regarded as mere chattel--personal possessions of their husbands or fathers, with hardly any better standing than household slaves. That was vastly different from the Hebrew (and biblical) concepts of marriage as a joint inheritance, and parenthood as a partnership where both father and mother are to be revered and obeyed by the children (Leviticus 19:3). Pagan religion tended to fuel and encourage the devaluation of women even more. Of course, Greek and Roman mythology had its goddesses (such as Diana and Aphrodite). But don't imagine for a moment that goddess-worship in any way raised the status of women in society. The opposite was true. Most temples devoted to goddesses were served by sacred prostitutes--priestesses who sold themselves for money, supposing they were performing a religious sacrament. Both the mythology and the practice of pagan religion have usually been overtly demeaning to women. Male pagan deities were capricious and sometimes wantonly misogynistic. Religious ceremonies were often blatantly obscene--including such things as erotic fertility rites, drunken temple orgies, perverted homosexual practices, and in the very worst cases, even human sacrifices. Contrast all of that, ancient and contemporary, with the Bible. From cover to cover, the Bible exalts women. In fact, it often seems to go out of the way to pay homage to them, to ennoble their roles in society and family, to acknowledge the importance of their influence, and to exalt the virtues of women who were particularly godly examples. From the very first chapter of the Bible, we are taught that women, like men, bear the stamp of God's own image (Genesis 1:27; 5:1-2)--men and women were created equal. Women play prominent roles in many key biblical narratives. Wives are seen as venerated partners and cherished companions to their husbands, not merely slaves or pieces of household furniture (Genesis 2:20-24; Proverbs 19:14; Ecclesiastes 9:9). At Sinai, God commanded children to honor both father and mother (Exodus 20:12). Of course, the Bible teaches divinely ordained role distinctions between men and women--many of which are perfectly evident from the circumstances of creation alone. For example, women have a unique and vital role in childbearing and the nurture of little ones. Women themselves also have a particular need for support and protection, because physically, they are "weaker vessels" (1 Peter 3:7 NKJV). Scripture establishes the proper order in the family and in the church accordingly, assigning the duties of headship and protection in the home to husbands (Ephesians 5:23) and appointing men in the church to the teaching and leadership roles (1 Timothy 2:11-15). Yet women are by no means marginalized or relegated to any second-class status. The Bible teaches women are not only equals with men (Galatians 3:28), but are also set apart for special honor (1 Peter 3:7). Husbands are commanded to love their wives sacrificially, as Christ loves the church--even, if necessary, at the cost of their own lives (Ephesians 5:25-31). The Bible acknowledges and celebrates the priceless value of a virtuous woman (Proverbs 12:4; 31:10; 1 Corinthians 11:7). Christianity, born at the intersection of East and West, elevated the status of women to an unprecedented height. Jesus' disciples included several women (Luke 8:1-3), a practice almost unheard of among the rabbis of His day. Not only that, He encouraged their discipleship by portraying it as something more needful than domestic service (Luke 10:38-42). In fact, Christ's first recorded, explicit disclosure of His own identity as the true Messiah was made to a Samaritan woman (John 4:25-26). He always treated women with the utmost dignity--even women who might otherwise be regarded as outcasts (Matthew 9:20-22; Luke 7:37-50; John 4:7-27). He blessed their children (Luke 18:15-16), raised their dead (Luke 7:12-15), forgave their sin (Luke 7:44-48), and restored their virtue and honor (John 8:4-11). Thus He exalted the position of womanhood itself. It is no surprise therefore that women became prominent in the ministry of the early church (Acts 12:12-15; 1 Corinthians 11:11-15). On the day of Pentecost, when the New Testament church was born, women were there with the chief disciples, praying (Acts 1:12-14). Some were renowned for their good deeds (Acts 9:36); others for their hospitality (Acts 12:12; 16:14-15); still others for their understanding of sound doctrine and their spiritual giftedness (Acts 18:26; 21:8-9). John's second epistle was addressed to a prominent woman in one of the churches under his oversight. Even the apostle Paul, sometimes falsely caricatured by critics of Scripture as a male chauvinist, regularly ministered alongside women (Philippians 4:3). He recognized and applauded their faithfulness and their giftedness (Romans 16:1-6; 2 Timothy 1:5). Naturally, as Christianity began to influence Western society, the status of women was dramatically improved. One of the early church fathers, Tertullian, wrote a work titled On the Apparel of Women, sometime near the end of the second century. He said pagan women who wore elaborate hair ornaments, immodest clothing, and body decorations had actually been forced by society and fashion to abandon the superior splendor of true femininity. He noted by way of contrast that as the church had grown and the gospel had borne fruit, one of the visible results was the rise of a trend toward modesty in women's dress and a corresponding elevation of the status of women. He acknowledged that pagan men commonly complained, "Ever since she became a Christian, she walks in poorer garb!" Christian women even became known as "modesty's priestesses." But, Tertullian said, as believers who lived under the lordship of Christ, women were spiritually wealthier, more pure, and thus more glorious than the most extravagant women in pagan society. Clothed "with the silk of uprightness, the fine linen of holiness, the purple of modesty," they elevated feminine virtue to an unprecedented height. Even the pagans recognized that. Chrysostom, perhaps the most eloquent preacher of the fourth century, recorded that one of his teachers, a pagan philosopher named Libanius, once said: "Heavens! What women you Christians have!" What prompted Libanius's outburst was hearing how Chrysostom's mother had remained chaste for more than two decades since becoming a widow at age twenty. As the influence of Christianity was felt more and more, women were less and less vilified or mistreated as objects for the amusement of men. Instead, women began to be honored for their virtue and faith. In fact, Christian women converted out of pagan society were automatically freed from a host of demeaning practices. Emancipated from the public debauchery of temples and theaters (where women were systematically dishonored and devalued), they rose to prominence in home and church, where they were honored and admired for feminine virtues like hospitality, ministry to the sick, the care and nurture of their own families, and the loving labor of their hands (Acts 9:39). That's always been the trend. Wherever the gospel has spread, the social, legal, and spiritual status of women has, as a rule, been elevated. When the gospel has been eclipsed (whether by repression, false religion, secularism, humanistic philosophy, or spiritual decay within the church), the status of women has declined accordingly. Even when secular movements have arisen claiming to be concerned with women's rights, their efforts have generally been detrimental to the status of women. The feminist movement of our generation, for example, is a case in point. Feminism has devalued and defamed femininity. Natural gender distinctions are usually downplayed, dismissed, despised, or denied. As a result, women are now being sent into combat situations, subjected to grueling physical labor once reserved for men, exposed to all kinds of indignities in the workplace, and otherwise encouraged to act and talk like men. Meanwhile, modern feminists heap scorn on women who want family and household to be their first priorities; in so doing they disparage the role of motherhood, the one calling that is most uniquely and exclusively feminine. The whole message of feminist egalitarianism is that there is really nothing extraordinary about women. That is certainly not the message of Scripture. Scripture honors women as women, and it encourages them to seek honor in a uniquely feminine way (Proverbs 31:10-30). Scripture never discounts the female intellect, downplays the talents and abilities of women, or discourages the right use of women's spiritual gifts. But whenever the Bible expressly talks about the marks of an excellent woman, the stress is always on feminine virtue. The most significant women in Scripture were influential not because of their careers, but because of their character. The message these women collectively give is not about "gender equality"; it's about true feminine excellence. And that is always exemplified in moral and spiritual qualities rather than by social standing, wealth, or physical appearance. And that's setting the record straight. Far from denigrating women, the Bible promotes feminine freedom, dignity, and honor. Scripture paints for every culture the portrait of a truly beautiful woman. True feminine beauty is not about external adornment, "arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel"; real beauty is manifest instead in "the hidden person of the heart ... the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God" (1 Peter 3:3-4 NKJV).

Can women serve as elders in the church? Rev. Charles J. Paul

I don't believe there's a place for women elders in the church. When the apostle Paul said that a woman should not "teach or exercise authority over a man" (1 Timothy 2:12), he did not follow that statement with a cultural argument. Rather he went all the way back to creation to show that women weren't intended to dominate men (vv. 13-14). The reasons he gave are that the woman was created after the man, and that she was deceived when acting independently of his leadership.
Paul goes on to say in 1 Timothy 2:15 that "women shall be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint." That verse is not talking about women's eternal destiny, but means that they are saved from being second-class citizens through the privilege of rearing children. God designed a woman to fulfill a role in the home that no man ever can (Proverbs 31:10-31; Titus 2:4-5).
Our society's current thinking on the woman's role is contrary to the priorities revealed in the Bible. Genesis 3 explains why that conflict exists. After the Fall, God told the woman, "Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you" (Genesis 3:16). Genesis 4:7 helps us to understand what that verse means. There God told Cain, "Sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it." Exactly the same phrase is used in both passages.
So in the same way sin tries to dominate us all, fallen women desire to overpower their husbands, and fallen men tend to oppress them in the same way sin oppresses the sinner. The intended balance, of course, is achieved when men and women lead and submit in a godly manner (Ephesians 5:22-33).

WORD OF THE DAY From The Pastor's Study

ordo salutis

(Latin, “order of salvation”)

Refers to the successive order of events in the process or event of salvation. This order includes necessities such as predestination, regeneration, faith, justification, repentance, atonement, and glorification. Depending on ones particular stance on theological issues having to do with salvation, he or she will see these events in differing successions. For example, the Calvinist would normally place regeneration before faith in their ordo, while the Arminian would see regeneration as a result of faith. The Roman Catholic would see justification as an event and a process that takes place throughout the Christian’s life, while Protestants would see justification as a definite event resulting from faith. Therefore, the Roman Catholic and Protestant ordo would differ respectively.

This We Believe By Dr Carl R. Trueman

Many evangelical Christians are instinctively suspicious of the whole idea of creeds and confessions, those set forms of words that certain churches have used throughout the ages to give concise expression to the Christian faith. For such people, the very idea of such extra-scriptural authoritative statements of faith seems to strike at the very heart of their belief that the Bible is the unique revelation of God, the all-sufficient basis for our knowledge of Him, and the supreme authority in matters of religion.
Certainly, creeds and confessions can be used in a way that undermines the orthodox Protestant view of scripture. Both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches invest such authority in the declaration of the institutional church that the church creeds can seem to carry an authority that is derived from the church's approval rather than conformity with the teaching of Scripture. Evangelicals are right to want to avoid anything that smacks of such an attitude. Yet I would like to argue that creeds and confessions should fulfill a useful function in the life of the church and in the lives of individual believers.
First, Christians with no creed simply do not exist. To declare that one has "no creed but the Bible" is a creed, for the Bible nowhere expresses itself in such a fashion. It is an extra-biblical formulation. There are really only two types of Christian: those who are honest about the fact they have a creed and those who deny they have a creed yet possess one nonetheless. Ask any Christian what they believe, and, if they are at all thoughtful, they will not simply recite Bible texts to you; they will rather offer a summary account of what they see to be the Bible's teaching in a form of words which are, to a greater or lesser extent, extra-biblical. All Christians have creeds -- forms of words -- that attempt to express in short compass great swathes of biblical teaching. And no one should ever see creeds and confessions as independent of Scripture; they were formulated in the context of elaborate biblical exegesis and were self-consciously dependent upon God's unique revelation in and through Scripture.
Given this fact, the second point is that some Christians have creeds that have been tried and tested by the church over the centuries, while others have those that their pastor made up, or that they put together themselves. Now, there is no necessary reason why the latter should be inferior to the former; but, on the basis that there is no need to reinvent the wheel, there is surely no virtue in turning our backs on those forms of sound words that have done a good job for hundreds of years in articulating aspects of the Christian faith and facilitating its transmission from place to place and generation to generation. If you want to, say, reject the Nicene Creed, you are of course free to do so; but you should at least try to replace it with a formula that will do the job just as effectively for so many people for the next 1,500 years. If you cannot do so, perhaps modesty and gratitude, rather than iconoclasm, are the appropriate responses to the ancient creed.
Third, the creeds and confessions of the church offer us points of continuity with the church of the past. As I noted above, there is no need to reinvent Christianity every Sunday, and in an anti-historical, future-oriented age like ours, what more counter-cultural move can we as Christians make than to self-consciously identify with so many brothers and sisters who have gone before? Furthermore, while Protestants take justifiable pride in the fact that every believer has the right to read the Scriptures and has direct access to God in Christ, we should still acknowledge that Christianity is first and foremost a corporate religion. God's means of working in history has been the church; the contributions of individual Christians have been great, but these all pale in comparison with God's great work in and through the church as a whole. This holds good for theology as for any other area. The insights of individual teachers and theologians over the centuries have been profound, but nothing quite matches the corporate wisdom of the godly when gathered together in the great councils and assemblies in the history of the church.
This brings me to my fourth point: Creeds and confessions generally focus on what is significant. The early creeds, such as the Apostles' and the Nicene are very brief and deal with the absolute essentials. Yet this is true even of the more elaborate statements of faith, such as the Lutheran Augsburg Confession or the Westminster Confession of Faith. Indeed, when you look at the points of doctrine that these various documents cover, it is difficult to see what could be left out without abandoning something central and significant. Far from being exhaustive statements of faith, they are summaries of the bare essentials. As such, they are singularly useful.
Evangelicals should love the great creeds and confessions for all of the above reasons. Yet we should ultimately follow them only so far as they make sense of Scripture, but it is surely foolish and curmudgeonly to reject one of the primary ways in which the church has painstakingly transmitted her faith from age to age.

Making Atheism Enchanting by Gene Edward Veith

The old atheists maintained that belief in God is not true. The new atheists maintain that belief in God is not good. The atheists' problem, though, is that however much they attack belief in God, their own worldview lacks all appeal. They get hung up on the last remaining absolute: Atheism is not beautiful. It is so depressing.

If there is no God and this physical realm is all there is, life is pretty much pointless. A person might believe such a bleak worldview, but no one is going to like it. The old atheists, to their great credit, usually faced up to the implications of their disbelief. Walter Berns, writing in The Weekly Standard (February 4, 2008), sums up the worldview of Albert Camus, as expressed in his novel The Stranger:
Meursault, its hero (actually, its antihero), is a murderer, but a different kind of murderer. What is different about him is that he murdered for no reason -- he did it because the sun got in his eyes, à cause du solei -- and because he neither loves nor hates, and unlike the other people who inhabit his world, does not pretend to love or hate. ...As he said, the universe "is benignly indifferent" to how he lives. It is a bleak picture, and Camus was criticized for painting it, but as he wrote in reply, "there is no other life possible for a man deprived of God, and all men are [now] in that position.
But although Camus may have anticipated the mindless, non-reflective godlessness of our culture, his world-view has little to commend it. By his own admission, throwing out God also throws out meaning, joy, and everything that makes life worth living.
Enter Philip Pullman, the British author of children's stories. Out of his hatred for C. S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia," Pullman resolved to write a fantasy series that would do for atheism what Lewis' fantasy series did for Christianity. Thus was born the trilogy "His Dark Materials."
The first volume, The Golden Compass, was recently made into a movie, which, despite its elaborate and expensive special effects, bombed at the box office, illustrating what he is up against. But the trilogy is enormously popular, especially among teenagers and young adults, having sold some fifteen million copies.
The story has to do with multiple worlds, marvelous adventures, and an epic conflict between good and evil. Except that, in line with the new atheism, God is the evil one and Satan is the good guy.
Pullman, as in the old Gnostic texts, portrays God the creator as a cruel, tyrannical "Authority"; Satan is the liberator; and Adam and Eve were right to eat the forbidden fruit. In Pullman's fantasy, the church, headed by Pope John Calvin, is all about black-robed clerics sneaking around establishing inquisitions and spoiling everyone's fun.
The books, though, are imaginatively stimulating. The fantasy is exciting, well-written, and pleasurable. And, as with other fantasies, the story is idealistic and even inspiring.
Here, in a quote from the second volume of the trilogy, The Subtle Knife, is how Pullman portrays the virtue of Satan's rebellion and of the cosmic struggle against the Authority:
There are two great powers...and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.
The prose evokes a stirring heroism -- again, like traditional fantasies -- but the enemy of knowledge, wisdom, and decency in this anti-Narnia is God and His evil minions in the church!
The central image of the Pullman books is the "dark materials," a term taken from Milton, whose Paradise Lost the author turns upside down. This "dust" is the stuff of love and consciousness. In fact, it turns out that everything is made out of this dust, which is the essence of both spiritual and physical existence. This is true even of the Authority, who turns out to be just another physical being, an old, senile relic who dissolves back into dust once he is dragged into the light.
This is nothing more than classic materialism, of course, which insists that matter is all there is, so that everything that exists is made out of particular tiny bits of matter called atoms. Pullman glorifies and mystifies this "dust." How wonderful it is to have evolved into so many wonderful things! And when we die, we go back to dust. As Pullman puts it in the last volume, The Amber Spyglass, when people die "all the atoms that were them, they've gone into the air and the wind and the trees and the earth and all the living things. They'll never vanish. They're just part of everything. And that's exactly what'll happen to you."
Pullman mystifies materialism and turns atheism into an actual religion. In doing so, however, he does what the old atheists have always falsely accused believers of doing: indulging in irrational wish-fulfillment and constructing an escapist fantasy.

Science, Faith, & the Creator By Nathan Busenitz

Today’s post is adapted from Nathan’s new book, Reasons We Believe: Fifty Lines of Evidence that Confirm the Christian Faith (Crossway, 2008). This article was adapted from part of reason no. 2, discussing the existence of God from the standpoint of His Creation. We will be running excerpts from the book each day this week.

Why do evolutionary scientists deny the existence of God? The answer is found in what they believe (namely, that nothing outside of the material universe exists), and has little if anything to do with true science. As much as any religion, atheistic naturalism is built on faith. “Evolution has deep religious connections,” explains Notre Dame philosophy professor Alvin Plantinga. “A good deal more than reason goes into the acceptance of such a theory at the Grand Evolutionary Story.”[1] Former NASA scientist Robert Jastrow agrees:
There is a kind of religion in science. . . . The religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover.[2]
Because of its prior “faith” commitment to a materialistic worldview, naturalism denies the existence of God even in the face of contrary evidence. Speaking candidly, Richard Lewontin, former professor of zoology and biology at Harvard admits:
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, . . . because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes . . . no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.[3]
More succinctly, immunologist Scott Todd notes, “Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not materialistic.”[4] Such admissions confirm that evolution, in actuality, “isn’t science. [It] is dogmatism.”[5]
When the “faith” of evolution, and the faith of biblical Christianity are compared, only one can adequately answer the question of origins. There is “a possible explanation of equal intellectual respectability [to naturalism]—and to my mind, greater elegance,” notes theoretical physicist John Polkinghorne, former president of Queen’s College, Cambridge. It is “that this one world is the way it is because it is the creation of the will of a Creator who purposes that it should be so.” [6]
Thus, the existence of our universe points to God, because without a Creator there can be no creation. In the words of eminent British philosopher Richard Swinburne, longtime professor at Oxford University: “Why believe that there is a God at all? My answer is that to suppose that there is a God explains why there is a world at all . . . and so much else. In fact, the hypothesis of the existence of God makes sense of the whole of our experience, and it does better than any other explanation which can be put forward, and that is the grounds for believing it to be true.”[7]

No Compromise By John MacArthur

It was Martin Luther who said:

“The world at the present time is sagaciously discussing how to quell the controversy and strife over doctrine and faith, and how to effect a compromise between the Church and the Papacy. Let the learned, the wise, it is said, bishops, emperor and princes, arbitrate. Each side can easily yield something, and it is better to concede some things which can be construed according to individual interpretation, than that so much persecution, bloodshed, war, and terrible, endless dissension and destruction be permitted.

“Here is lack of understanding, for understanding proves by the Word that such patchwork is not according to God’s will, but that doctrine, faith and worship must be preserved pure and unadulterated; there must be no mingling with human nonsense, human opinions or wisdom.


“The Scriptures give us this rule: ‘We must obey God rather than men’ (Acts 5:29).”
It is interesting to speculate what the church would be like today if Martin Luther had been prone to compromise. The pressure was heavy on him to tone down his teaching, soften his message, stop poking his finger in the eye of the papacy. Even many of his friends and supporters urged Luther to come to terms with Rome for the sake of harmony in the church. Luther himself prayed earnestly that the effect of his teaching would not be divisive.

When he nailed his 95 Theses to the door, the last thing he wanted to do was split the church.
Yet sometimes division is fitting, even healthy, for the church. Especially in times like Luther’s—and like ours—when the visible church seems full of counterfeit Christians, it is right for the true people of God to declare themselves. Compromise is sometimes a worse evil than division. Second Corinthians 6:14-17 isn’t speaking only of marriage when it says,

Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; And I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord.

WORD OF THE DAY From The Pastor's Study

extra ecclesiam nulla salus

(Latin, “outside the church, no salvation”)

This phrase has a long theological history, being coined by Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, in third century, but its meaning today is debated among scholars. While it expresses the belief that the church is necessary for salvation, this does not speak to the issues raised by the multiple divisions within the church that followed through the Middle Ages and into the Reformation and what is meant, in light of such, by the word “church.” All traditions of Christianity - Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox - can claim this phrase as substantially correct, but all three traditions would define it with a particular nuance which would be rejected by the others. Protestants would define “church” as the universal or invisible body of Christ that is not necessarily represented by one visible expression, tradition, or denomination. Both Catholics and Orthodox would claim that their tradition is the true representation of the “church” today, outside of which there is no salvation. However, one might find themselves within this “church” without knowledge of his or her membership.

God’s Purpose or Mine? By Oswald Chambers

He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side . . . —Mark 6:45

We tend to think that if Jesus Christ compels us to do something and we are obedient to Him, He will lead us to great success. We should never have the thought that our dreams of success are God’s purpose for us. In fact, His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have the idea that God is leading us toward a particular end or a desired goal, but He is not. The question of whether or not we arrive at a particular goal is of little importance, and reaching it becomes merely an episode along the way. What we see as only the process of reaching a particular end, God sees as the goal itself.
What is my vision of God’s purpose for me? Whatever it may be, His purpose is for me to depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay calm, faithful, and unconfused while in the middle of the turmoil of life, the goal of the purpose of God is being accomplished in me. God is not working toward a particular finish— His purpose is the process itself. What He desires for me is that I see "Him walking on the sea" with no shore, no success, nor goal in sight, but simply having the absolute certainty that everything is all right because I see "Him walking on the sea" ( Mark 6:49 ). It is the process, not the outcome, that is glorifying to God.
God’s training is for now, not later. His purpose is for this very minute, not for sometime in the future. We have nothing to do with what will follow our obedience, and we are wrong to concern ourselves with it. What people call preparation, God sees as the goal itself.
God’s purpose is to enable me to see that He can walk on the storms of my life right now. If we have a further goal in mind, we are not paying enough attention to the present time. However, if we realize that moment-by-moment obedience is the goal, then each moment as it comes is precious.

What difference is there between the Lord's Supper and the Roman Catholic Mass?

Q80: What difference is there between the Lord's Supper and the Pope's Mass?

A80: The Lord's Supper testifies to us that we have full forgiveness of all our sins by the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which He Himself once accomplished on the cross;[1] and that by the Holy Ghost we are ingrafted into Christ,[2] who, with His true body, is now in heaven at the right hand of the Father,[3] and is there to be worshiped.[4] But the Mass teaches that the living and the dead do not have forgiveness of sins through the sufferings of Christ, unless Christ is still daily offered for them by the priests, and that Christ is bodily under the form of bread and wine, and is therefore to be worshiped in them. And thus the Mass at bottom is nothing else than a denial of the one sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ,[5] and an accursed idolatry.
1. Heb. 7:27; 9:12, 25-28; 10:10, 12, 14; 19:302. I Cor. 6:173. Heb. 1:3; 8:14. John 4:21-24; 20:17; Luke 24:52; Acts 7:55; Col. 3:1; Phil. 3:20-21; I Thess. 1:9-105. Heb. ch. 9-10

Q81: Who are to come to the table of the Lord?

A81: Those who are displeased with themselves for their sins, yet trust that these are forgiven them, and that their remaining infirmity is covered by the suffering and death of Christ; who also desire more and more to strengthen their faith and to amend their life. But the impenitent and hypocrites eat and drink judgment to themselves.[1]
1. I Cor. 10:19-22; 11:28-29; Psa. 51:3; 103:1-4; John 7:37-38; Matt. 5:6

Q82: Are they, then, also to be admitted to this Supper who show themselves by their confession and life to be unbelieving and ungodly?

A82: No, for thereby the covenant of God is profaned and His wrath provoked against the whole congregation;[1] therefore, the Christian Church is bound, according to the order of Christ and His Apostles, to exclude such persons by the Office of the Keys until they amend their lives.
1. I Cor. 11:20, 30-32, 34a; Isa. 1:11-15; 66:3; Jer. 7:21-23; Psa. 50:16-17; Matt. 7:6; Titus 3:10-11; II Thess. 3:6

He Descended into Hell by Mark Johnston

There is nothing more central to the Christian message than the cross of Christ. It is there in the shadows of the Old Testament. It explodes to the fore in the New, dominating the landscape of the Gospel records. And from the very first sermon preached by Peter on the Day of Pentecost it becomes the hallmark of authentic apostolic ministry. As Paul tells the church in Corinth: 'For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified' (1Co 2.2).Paradoxically, as church history unfolds in the post-apostolic era, it is the cross that is chosen as the emblem of the Christian Faith. In an age when death by crucifixion was still commonplace and the very shape of the cross was enough to send a chill down anyone's spine, the church opted, not for a dove, or an image of the empty tomb; but for the cross to be its corporate logo.

That perhaps more than anything is an indicator not only of its significance, but also its centrality to all that the gospel says.We see the scale of its significance reflected in the Apostles' Creed in the way that it skips immediately from confessing the incarnation of Christ to confessing his death upon the cross: He suffered under Pontius Pilate,Was crucified, died and was buried;He descended into hell.Without so much as the blink of an eye, the architects of the Creed gloss over 33 years of Jesus' life on earth and three years of his earthly ministry almost as though they were of no consequence! In so doing they signal the cross as being the defining moment of salvation history and therefore also the keynote of the good news of redemption we preach to the world.That said we cannot help but wonder at what seems like an unusual choice of words in this particular clause: 'He descended into hell'. It is made all the more intriguing when we realise that this third line of the triplet was a much later addition to the Creed - most likely in the latter part of the Fourth Century AD. Not surprisingly it is an addition that has sparked no small measure of controversy and debate as to its precise meaning.Some have argued that it simply signifies Jesus' burial; but that has little merit since it would represent a redundancy of language given the previous clause. Others have argued cogently on the basis of its Greek form as being 'Hades' that it speaks of his descent into the realm of the dead for the period between his death and resurrection.

This view is argued by a shining galaxy of theologians and preachers and cannot be dismissed lightly. But the problem with that interpretation is that it does not reflect the weight and balance of the biblical exposition of the cross and all that it accomplished. So, given the economy of words employed in the Creed, it seems odd to include a statement that reflects something of a mere footnote in the biblical account and its explanation.It seems more sensible to follow John Calvin (as he in turn followed expositors of the Creed before him) and see its inclusion in the Creed as a summary of the two clauses about the death of Christ that precede it. So on the one hand it sums up the full horror of what is stated almost in a matter-of-fact way in those lines; but on the other hand it provides us with the key to seeing all that the cross accomplished for God's people.

Nowhere is the saving significance of Calvary more dramatically expressed than in the words of John the Baptist at as Jesus began his earthly ministry. Pointing the crowds to Jesus he says, 'Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world' (Jn 1.29). Indeed, it bears noting that, in a way that is reflected in the emphasis of the Creed, John the Evangelist skips from confessing the incarnation of Christ to proclaiming his death! On these two great truths the gospel hangs. Three things are worth highlighting in relation to what the two Johns say as a means of explicating what is said in the Creed about the death of Christ.The Innocent Suffering in the Place of the GuiltyJohn the Baptist's ministry as the forerunner of the Christ was geared to expose human sin and guilt and the need for both pardon and cleansing. Its limitation was the fact that he could expose this need, but he could do nothing to deal with it. So, when pressed by a delegation from the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem to say who he was, responded by saying: 'I am not the Christ' (Jn 1.20). Indeed he systematically denied that he was to be identified with any of the messianic figures bound up with the hope of salvation in the Old Testament. His only message was that they should be looking to the One 'who comes after me' (Jn 1.19-28).However, when Jesus appeared among the crowds, without any prompting or collusion between himself and John, John declared, 'Behold the Lamb!' In language that spoke unmistakably of death, the Evangelist uses the testimony of the Baptist to introduce the ministry of Jesus at its inception by pointing to its climax and conclusion. In other words, both Johns are saying that the entire purpose of Jesus' coming was to do for guilty sinners what they could not do for themselves - die to take their sin away!By introducing Jesus in this way, John was not only pointing to the fact that he was destined to die, but also explaining in advance the significance of his death: it would be death as a sacrifice. His language is drawn unmistakably from the world of Old Testament ceremonial practice in which an innocent and unblemished creature (that did not deserve to die) was taken and ritually slaughtered in the place of guilty sinners. God was willing to accept - albeit in symbolic fashion - the death of the innocent in order to preserve the life of the guilty. In that sense it was more than merely the language of some arcane ritual; but rather the language of divine justice. On the one hand it speaks of death as the just consequence of sin. To the ears of our present generation, that sounds harsh, but that is only because today's generation has little or no appreciation of the seriousness of sin. But when we realise that sin is in its very essence defying the authority of God as Lord of the Universe and disrupting the entire equilibrium of the universe he has made, then it makes perfect sense that grand treason on that scale demands the ultimate sanction. The God of the Bible is the Lord of Righteousness whose justice is not to be mocked.The glory of the gospel is that this very same God has instituted a judicial measure by which sin and guilt can be transferred to a third party so that the guilty individual can be pardoned - the entire Old Testament system of sacrifices is built around this fact. God wanted it ingrained into the very psyche of his people that he was simultaneously the Judge of all the Earth and the Saviour of the World without any contradiction.The question for any Jew and indeed for any serious reader of the Old Testament was, 'Where, when and how does the symbol become reality?' God makes it clear repeatedly in the Hebrew Bible that the blood of bulls and goats can never actually atone for the sins of men and women, boys and girls because there is no equivalence between them. Indeed, even if God had sanctioned human sacrifice as a means of making atonement, even then it could be no more than the life of one individual for that of another. So where is the fulfilment? The answer can only be found in one Person and one place: Jesus the God-man providing the only sacrifice with the capacity to atone as one for many and the cross of Calvary as the place where that supreme transaction is made.The judicial element of that transaction is highlighted by Jesus' trial before Pilate. In what in so many ways seems a complete travesty of justice and the ultimate blemish on the judicial system of the Roman Empire, a drama of infinitely deeper significance was unfolding. We have a breathtaking hint of it in the words of Caiaphas the High Priest when he told the Sanhedrin, 'It is better for you that one man should die for the people than that the whole nation perish' (Jn 12.50). Then we see it plainly, as Calvin points out, in the fact that the two charges on which Jesus is convicted before the court of Pilate are treason and blasphemy - the very crimes of which the entire human race is guilty before the court of heaven. The proceedings of the court then climax in what becomes a living allegory in what happens to Barabbas - the criminal convicted of insurrection and murder - when he is released in order that the innocent Jesus might die. The justice being transacted that day as Jesus 'suffered under Pontius Pilate' was the justice of God himself. The innocent suffered so that the guilty might go free.The Blessed One Cursed that the Cursed might be BlessedIf it was true that Jesus' trial before Pilate indicated that there was more going on that day than met the eye, then the manner of Jesus' death made that even more clear.Many people (preachers included) are inclined to look at the fact that Christ died on a cross merely from the perspective of its being a hideous form of the death penalty. If that is all there was to it, then Mel Gibson was entirely justified in doing what he did in The Passion of the Christ. More than that, the atheist who got into trouble recently for saying that by the standard of crucifixions generally Jesus got off pretty lightly, was actually right. The physical torment of crucifixion was undeniably horrendous, but other evil empires have found even more hideous ways to extinguish human life. So physical suffering cannot be the sum total of the anguish Jesus went through that day.The real anguish of the cross can only be understood against the Old Testament backdrop to all that was taking place. In particular, the fact that God had said, '...anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse' (Dt 21.23). That statement probably needs a little unpacking for it to make sense to 21st Century Western minds. In the first place it should be borne in mind that 'hanging' in the ancient Near East meant impalement and not suspension by a rope. So for Jesus to be impaled on a Roman gibbet, meant that this sobering anathema settled on him like a cloud - to the horror of those who loved him and the delight of those who wanted him dead. And in the second place, the idea of cursing in the Old Testament was not some primitive version of what is practiced by witch doctors or Voodoo practitioners today; but rather the judicial element of God's holy covenant. While on the one hand God promises blessing to all who believe the promises of his covenant and submit to its stipulations; on the other hand he warns of cursing for all who spurn his overtures of covenant grace and who refuse to bow to his rule. If the essence of blessing is happiness and harmony as the expression of divine favour, then the essence of cursing is unhappiness and chaos as the expression of divine displeasure.So, when Jesus was put to death on a cross that Friday morning, to all the Jews who were watching, he was seen as accursed. And it wasn't just that there was chaos, confusion and disorder all around in the scene at Golgotha; but that smell of divine displeasure filled the air. It was a scene that was made all the more incongruous because the One on the cross exposed to God's curse was the very one of whom the Father had said just three years previously, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased' (Mt 3.17). But the greatest of all disruptions that day came, not in the turmoil that surrounded Jesus, but in the disruption of body and spirit that brought his earthly life to an end - the dis-integration that is the supreme anathema of death.It falls to the apostle Paul to explain the sheer bewilderment of this scene when he tells the Galatians: 'Christ redeems us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree"' (Ga 3.13). The Blessed One is cursed so that those who deserve cursing will be blessed!The Supreme Judge facing the Final JudgmentIt is only when we put these pieces of jigsaw into place as we try to understand what the cross meant that we then appreciate final clause in the Creed's statement about Christ's passion. What could otherwise be seen as something bland and, though tragic, still somewhat innocuous, is in fact utterly extraordinary.'He descended into hell' is the starkest and yet most accurate way of summing up what happened on cross that there is. The Blessed One who, for all eternity had known nothing but the highest heaven of intimacy with God, on the cross plumbed deepest depths of the anguish of hell in order to secure salvation for all his people. The intensity of what that meant is distilled into the words that pierced darkness when Jesus cried out, 'My God, why have you forsaken me?' (Mt 27.46).There was a magnitude to the events played out that day in the drama of Calvary that had eternal proportions. This was nothing less than the drama of Day of Judgment being played out in human history to show where sin ultimately leads. Christ's cry of abandonment is the preview of the final and eternal alienation of hell - permanent separation from God.It stands as a sobering warning to all who think that keeping God at a distance in this life is a choice worth making. But at the same time it is proof of God's promise to save all those who dare to put their hope and trust in his grace and mercy. God has not only made a promise, but has fulfilled its own requirements by satisfying the demands of his perfect justice to the full, so that he can justly throw open floodgates of his love.The cross means that God is able to save with clean conscience! It is nothing less than the One who will one day be the Judge of all mankind taking full force of final judgment so that sinners might be spared.'He descended into hell' may be the most controversial clause in the Apostles' Creed, but when seen this way, it becomes the most glorious, because it speaks most eloquently about the justice and grace of God's salvation!

Mark Johnston is the Senior Minister of Grove Chapel in Camberwell, London

Fully Man and Fully God By Dr. John MacArthur

Did Jesus really claim to be God incarnate in human flesh? Or, as skeptics argue, did His followers later invent those claims and attribute them to Him? Thankfully, the biblical account of His life and ministry leaves no doubt about who Jesus declared Himself to be.

Jesus frequently spoke of His unique, otherworldly origin, of having preexisted in heaven before coming into this world. To the hostile Jews He declared, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world” (John 8:23). “What then,” He asked, “if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?” (John 6:62). In His high-priestly prayer Jesus spoke of the glory which He had with the Father before the world existed (John 17:5). In John 16:28 He told His disciples, “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father.” Thus, John described Jesus in the prologue of his gospel with these words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
Amazingly, Jesus assumed the prerogatives of deity. He claimed to have control over the eternal destinies of people (John 8:24; cf. Luke 12:8–9; John 5:22, 27–29), to have authority over the divinely-ordained institution of the Sabbath (Matt. 12:8; Mark 2:28; Luke 6:5), to have the power to answer prayer (John 14:13–14; cf. Acts 7:59; 9:10–17), and to have the right to receive worship and faith due to God alone (Matt. 21:16; John 14:1; cf. John 5:23). He also assumed the ability to forgive sins (Mark 2:5–11)—something which, as His shocked opponents correctly understood, only God can do (v. 7).
Jesus also called God’s angels (Gen. 28:12; Luke 12:8–9; 15:10; John 1:51) His angels (Matt. 13:41; 24:30–31); God’s elect (Luke 18:7; Rom. 8:33) His elect (Matt. 24:30–31); and God’s kingdom (Matt. 12:28; 19:24; 21:31; Mark 1:15; Luke 4:43; John 3:3) His kingdom (Matt. 13:41; 16:28; cf. Luke 1:33; 2 Tim. 4:1).
When a Samaritan woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us” (John 4:25) Jesus replied, “I who speak to you am He” (v. 26). In His high-priestly prayer to the Father, He referred to Himself as “Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3); “Christ” is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word translated “Messiah.” When asked at His trial by the high priest, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” (Mark 14:61) Jesus replied simply, “I am” (v. 62). He also accepted, without correction or amendment, the testimonies of Peter (Matt. 16:16–17), Martha (John 11:27), and others (e.g., Matt. 9:27; 20:30–31) that He was the Messiah. He was the One of whom Isaiah prophesied, “His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).
The Lord’s favorite description of Himself was “Son of Man” (cf. Matt. 8:20; Mark 2:28; Luke 6:22; John 9:35–37, etc.). Although that title seems to stress His humanity, it also speaks of His deity. Jesus’ use of the term derives from Daniel 7:13–14, where the Son of Man is on equal terms with God the Father, the Ancient of Days.
The Jews viewed themselves collectively as sons of God. Jesus, however, claimed to be God’s Son in a unique sense. “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father,” Jesus affirmed, “and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matt. 11:27). In John 5:25–26 He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.” After receiving word that Lazarus was ill Jesus said to the disciples, “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it” (John 11:4). When asked at His trial, “Are You the Son of God, then?” Jesus replied, “Yes, I am” (Luke 22:70; cf. Mark 14:61–62). Instead of rejecting the title, the Lord embraced it without apology or embarrassment (Matt. 4:3, 6; 8:29; Mark 3:11–12; Luke 4:41; John 1:49–50; 11:27).
The hostile authorities clearly understood that Jesus’ use of the title Son of God was a claim to deity. Otherwise, they would not have accused Him of blasphemy (cf. John 10:46). In fact, it was Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God that led the Jews to demand His death: “The Jews answered [Pilate], ‘We have a law, and by that law He ought to die because He made Himself out to be the Son of God’” (John 19:7). And in John 5:18 — “The Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.” Even while He was on the cross, some mocked Him, sneering, “He trusts in God; let God rescue Him now, if He delights in Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God’” (Matt. 27:43).
Jesus further outraged the unbelieving Jews by taking for Himself the covenant name of God, “I am” (Yahweh). That name was so sacred to the Jews that they refused to even pronounce it, lest they take it vain (cf. Exod. 20:7). In John 8:24 Jesus warned that those who refuse to believe He is Yahweh will perish eternally: “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” (The word “He” is not in the original Greek.) Later in that chapter “Jesus said to [His hearers], ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am’” (v. 58). Unlike many modern deniers of His deity, the Jews knew exactly what He was claiming, as their subsequent attempt to stone Him for blasphemy makes clear (v. 59). In John 13:19 Jesus told His disciples that when what He predicted came to pass, they would believe that He is Yahweh. Even His enemies, coming to arrest Him in Gethsemane, were overwhelmed by His divine power and fell to the ground when Jesus said “I am” (John 18:5–8).
All of the above lines of evidence converge on one inescapable point: Jesus Christ claimed absolute equality with God. Thus He could say, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30); “He who sees Me sees the One who sent Me” (John 12:45); and “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (14:9–10). And thus we can conclude that “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9), and we can worship Him accordingly as “our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus” (Titus 2:13).

Jesus, Made in America Review by Nathan Williams

“So it may be argued . . . that America has its own quest for Jesus, its own reshaping of the Son of God, fashioning Him into something more palatable to American tastes and acceptable to American sensibilities.” (p. 10)
The above quote accurately captures the main idea proposed by Stephen Nichols in his new book, Jesus, Made in America. In this book, Nichols guides the reader chronologically through American history, beginning with the Puritans, and ending with the current evangelical obsession with political activism. With every new era in American history comes a new transformation of the Son of God by the surrounding culture.
Essentially, Jesus, Made in America, provides a study of the way in which the church’s perception and teaching about Christ have been shaped by the culture. Nichols begins with the era of the Puritans in America. Although not perfect, in many ways the early American Puritans were the apex of the American perception and teaching about Christ. They welded together deep personal piety and a theological precision that the church today is severely lacking.
After the Puritans, the American perception of Jesus has been in severe decline and this is the story told throughout the rest of this book.
This decline began with the influence of the founding fathers on the national idea of Christ. Men such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were eager to strip Jesus of divinity and reduce Christianity to a set of good moral teachings. Next, through the 19th century Jesus was first a masculine frontiersmen and next a feminized Victorian depending on the bent of the culture. As the 20th century dawned it brought the fundamentalist/modernist controversy and with it another period of emphasis on the character and lifestyle of Jesus rather than the truth of who Jesus is.
Nichols spends the second half of the book all in the 20th and 21st century. These 4 chapters provide some of the most bizarre ways in which culture has influenced teaching on Jesus including the WWJD? craze, the book Jesus in Blue Jeans and the (often) shallow and money-driven Contemporary Christian Music industry.
Worldliness continues to plague the church and always will. I believe one of the major problems for Christians is identifying exactly what worldliness means and how to apply biblical commands to not be conformed to the world. Perhaps we make it more difficult than it should be. As I read through this book, I felt like the veil was being pulled back and I was getting an inside look at exactly how worldly the church has become. All throughout the history of America, we have allowed the surrounding culture to influence how we think of our Savior. Having a Jesus who has been molded by the fad of the moment has become such a “normal” part of evangelicalism that we can’t even see it anymore. It’s almost as if we believe Jesus should reflect the societal obsession of the moment.
One of the major reasons for the malleable Jesus we have created is the complex nature of Christ presented in the gospels. More often than not, problems arise when one generation focuses on one aspect of the character of Christ to the exclusion or at least minimization of the other facets of who He is. We must remember that Jesus is not only human but divine, He is loving and at the same time so angry over sin that He will send many to Hell for eternity. We must balance the tensions of the complex character of Christ. When we get out of balance in our perception of who He is, we create massive problems. This book is a clear and accurate description of the history of those problems in America.
The value of understanding history cannot be overstated. Many of the modern currents of evangelicalism make perfect sense when seen from the vantage point of the bridge overlooking the entire river. In other words, through the historical study of the misconceptions of Jesus, many of the problems in the church today become easily identifiable.
My favorite chapter and the one I found to be most helpful was the chapter dealing with Jesus and politics. Obviously we are in the middle of an election year and the political system has captured the mind of the country. Nichols offers insightful analysis of the way the “right” and the “left” have claimed Jesus as one of their own. Then he briefly offers a helpful strategy for Christian political engagement without cheapening the gospel or Jesus as so much Christian political activism does today.
Overall, this is a book that is enjoyable to read and one full of fascinating wisdom on the way American culture has shaped Jesus.

Justification by Faith (pt. 2) by John H. Gerstner

The epistle to the Romans has already shown us that man is guilty before God. Their sins have incurred the wrath of God: "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness" (Romans 1:18). And this wrath is further intensified by every sin that is committed: "thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God" (Romans 2:5).
Later, the same epistle tells us that "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). Death refers to eternal death in hell because it is set in contrast with eternal life. Did not Christ Himself say the same thing? "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28). He said, "This is My body which is given for you" (Luke 22:19). Did He not say that like "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up" (John 3:14)? Why would the Son of man be lifted up as a vile serpent, the symbol of sin, to become sin and cry out in His desolation, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46) except that, as Paul says, God "made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Christ Himself did not say so much about His death. He was making the sacrifice, so He left to others the privilege of explaining it. For 2000 years now the church has been glorying in His cross and exploring its wondrous meaning.
The positive element, making sinners just or righteous, is really the central aspect of justification, though it is commonly less noticed. But, as we have said, if Christ did not procure our righteousness as well as secure our remission, the latter would have been of no avail to us, for we would still be outside paradise and exposed to the recurrence of sin and ultimate damnation. God could not bestow righteousness on us, to be sure, without removing our filthy guilt. But on the other hand, it would have been no use to remove our guilt if He did not bestow a new righteousness on us. This is what the first Adam failed to do. He was never asked to die for the remission of sin, but he was placed on probation to fulfill the law and secure the perpetual favor of God upon all whom he represented--and he failed in this. The second Adam, the man Christ Jesus, both washed us from our sins by His blood and clothed us in the white raiment of His righteousness, justified.
In order to do this great thing, Christ had first to be justified Himself so that those whom He represented might share in His justification; and this He did. He fulfilled the law perfectly, not for Himself alone, but for His people. He was holy and undefiled, a Lamb without blemish. He was the only one who could say, "The prince of this world cometh, and he hath nothing in Me." He was the Son in whom the Father was well-pleased, made in all points like as we are, but without sin. Therefore God vindicated the second Adam, as we read in 1 Peter 3:18: "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit." And 1 Timothy 3:16: "Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." Here we see that the man Christ Jesus was justified by His own keeping of the law; but in Romans 4:25 we see that this justification was not for Himself alone, but representatively for His people; "Who was delivered up for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification." So 1 Timothy tells us that He was raised again for His own justification, and Romans 4:25 shows that He was raised again for our justification.
In justification, as in all other works as a Mediator, Christ does not act as a private person, but as a public one; not for Himself alone, but for all of His own; not for the Head only, but for the members of the body as well. So that we are quickened, raised up, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. You are Christ's, and Christ is God's. Again, Romans 8:34: "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." So, being justified, being endowed with a title to life as well as a reprieve from death, "we have peace with God . . .access into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice [triumphantly] in hope of the glory of God."
That these two elements together constitute justification is shown in Acts 26:18: "that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me." And John 5:24: "He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation."
You may ask, "Why is faith the means of justification? Is it a kind of good work?"
I answer, no; the Bible is very plain in teaching that salvation is not by works of any kind. If it were, we would have something to glory about; we could not boast that we did this or that, but we could glory in our belief. We could alter Toplady's hymn like this: "Nothing in my hands I bring, except my faith!" No other work could avail, only the work of believing. If faith were a kind of good work, we would be back again at the old heresy of salvation by works--and the work that saves would be the work of faith. Romans 4:5 makes it clear that we are not saved by faith as a good work; for that text says that we are justified while still ungodly in ourselves. God "justifieth the ungodly." So, at the moment of justification, we are still ungodly. If we are still ungodly then, our faith cannot be a good work.
But if you ask why faith is the means of justification, it is simply because it is the act of union with Jesus Christ. Faith is our coming to Him, our trusting Him, our resting in Him. The moment we are united to Him, we are immediately endowed with all that He has secured for us. We are immediately justified before we have done a single good deed, because we are His and He is God's. A very poor woman is a very poor woman until the very moment that she marries a wealthy man; but at the moment that she becomes his wife, she becomes a wealthy woman. It is by means of her acceptance that she becomes a wealthy woman; but her acceptance does not make her wealthy--it is her husband's wealth that makes her so. And faith does not justify, Christ does--but faith unites us to Christ.

Justification by Faith (pt. 1) by John H. Gerstner

From Romans 1:18 to 3:20, the Apostle Paul seeks to demonstrate the universal sinfulness of men. He shows the wrath of God revealed against the heathen because they would not have God in their thinking. He shows that the nominally religious people of Israel, by their condemning other persons for sins of which they were also guilty, were treasuring up "wrath against the day of wrath." In chapter 3 Paul shows that all have gone astray: "There is none that doeth good." With or without the law, men have sinned. Every mouth is stopped; the whole world is shut up under judgment. Then and only then does the apostle come back to this theme:
Now the righteousness of God without [or apart from] the law is manifested [revealed], being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God--to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness, that He might be just and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus (Romans 3:21-26).
Having shown most plainly that no man can be saved by the works of the law, Paul proceeds to show just as plainly that men may be saved by the faith that is in Christ Jesus. Now that he has shown men why they should not trust in themselves, he will show them how suitable it is to trust in Christ. Since their own works only condemn them, he will tell them of one whose works can save them. Furthermore, he says that this is no new or novel way of salvation; it is the only way of salvation in all ages. Abraham was saved in this way, and so was David.
In the beginning of chapter 4, Paul points out that "if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. For what saith the Scripture? 'Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness.' " Then in verse 5 he gives us a classic statement of justification by faith alone: "To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." Justification is by faith alone without works.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism has well summarized the abundance of biblical data on this great theme: "Justification is an act of God's grace wherein He pardoneth all our sins and accepteth us as righteous in His sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone."
Justification has a positive and a negative element. It consists at once in the removal of guilt and the imputation [or granting] of righteousness. It rescues the sinner as a brand from the burning, and at the same time gives him a title to heaven. If it failed to do either of these, it would fail to do anything; for man, as a sinner against God, must have that enormous guilt somehow removed. But, at the same time, if he had the guilt removed he would still be devoid of positive righteousness and with no title to heaven, and would also be certain to fall again into sin and condemnation. If Christ only canceled our guilt, He would merely return the sinner to Adam's original state without Adam's original perfection of nature. There must be a "double cure" then, as Augustus Toplady wrote in his beloved hymn, "Rock of Ages":
Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee; Let the water and the blood, From Thy riven side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure, Cleanse me from its guilt and power.

Oswald Chambers Story

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) was born July 24, 1874, in Aberdeen, Scotland. Converted in his teen years under the ministry of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, he studied art and archaeology at the University of Edinburgh before answering a call from God to the Christian ministry. He then studied theology at Dunoon College. From 1906-1910 he conducted an itinerant Bible-teaching ministry in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.
In 1910, Chambers married Gertrude Hobbs. They had one daughter, Kathleen.
In 1911 he founded and became principal of the Bible Training College in Clapham, London, where he lectured until the school was closed in 1915 because of World War I. In October 1915 he sailed for Zeitoun, Egypt (near Cairo), where he ministered to troops from Australia and New Zealand as a YMCA chaplain. He died there November 15, 1917, following surgery for a ruptured appendix.
Although Oswald Chambers wrote only one book, Baffled to Fight Better, more than thirty titles bear his name. With this one exception, published works were compiled by Mrs. Chambers, a court stenographer, from her verbatim shorthand notes of his messages taken during their seven years of marriage. For half a century following her husband's death she labored to give his words to the world.
My Utmost For His Highest, his best-known book, has been continuously in print in the United States since 1935 and remains in the top ten titles of the religious book bestseller list with millions of copies in print. It has become a Christian classic.

Dependent on God’s Presence By Oswald Chambers

There is no thrill for us in walking, yet it is the test for all of our steady and enduring qualities. To "walk and not faint" is the highest stretch possible as a measure of strength. The word walk is used in the Bible to express the character of a person— ". . . John . . . looking at Jesus as He walked. . . said, ’Behold the Lamb of God!’ " ( John 1:35-36 ). There is nothing abstract or obscure in the Bible; everything is vivid and real. God does not say, "Be spiritual," but He says, "Walk before Me. . ." ( Genesis 17:1 ).
When we are in an unhealthy condition either physically or emotionally, we always look for thrills in life. In our physical life this leads to our efforts to counterfeit the work of the Holy Spirit; in our emotional life it leads to obsessions and to the destruction of our morality; and in our spiritual life, if we insist on pursuing only thrills, on mounting up "with wings like eagles" ( Isaiah 40:31 ), it will result in the destruction of our spirituality.
Having the reality of God’s presence is not dependent on our being in a particular circumstance or place, but is only dependent on our determination to keep the Lord before us continually. Our problems arise when we refuse to place our trust in the reality of His presence. The experience the psalmist speaks of— "We will not fear, even though . . ." ( Psalm 46:2 )— will be ours once we are grounded on the truth of the reality of God’s presence, not just a simple awareness of it, but an understanding of the reality of it. Then we will exclaim, "He has been here all the time!" At critical moments in our lives it is necessary to ask God for guidance, but it should be unnecessary to be constantly saying, "Oh, Lord, direct me in this, and in that." Of course He will, and in fact, He is doing it already! If our everyday decisions are not according to His will, He will press through them, bringing restraint to our spirit. Then we must be quiet and wait for the direction of His presence.

What Does Jesus Demand From Us? By Paul Washer

CLICK HERE TO SEE VIDEO............http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBAcrDiITJ0&eurl=http://bloodtippedears.blogspot.com/2008/07/paul-washer-what-does-jesus-demand-from.html

Lakeland Healing Revival

Beware another false "prophet" is on the loose and his name is Todd Bentley and he's in the middle of 'healing revival' in Lakeland Florida. This man is nothing more than a new TBN type false prophet and minister. He blathers on about seeing angels and seeing Jesus and receiving personal revelations directly from Jesus. This man is dangerous and deceptive. When he's done with you, your wallet will be empty and your soul will be without Christ.

click for video.....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbBUMv0V-ZU&eurl=http://www.alittleleaven.com/