The Joy of 2 Corinthians 5:21 (in verse)

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. -- 2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV)

The Way of Access
by John Newton

One glance of Thine, eternal Lord,
Pierces all nature through;
Nor heaven, nor earth, nor hell afford
A shelter from Thy view.

The mighty whole, each smaller part,
At once before Thee lies;
And every thought of every heart
Is open to Thine eyes.

Though greatly from myself concealed,
Thou seest my inward frame;
To Thee I always stand revealed,
Exactly as I am.

Since, therefore, I can hardly bear
What in myself I see;
How vile and black must I appear,
Most holy God, to Thee?

But since my Savior stands between,
In garments dyed in blood,
'Tis He, instead of me, is seen,
When I approach to God.

Thus, though a sinner, I am safe;
He pleads before the throne,
His life and death in my behalf,
And calls my sins His own.

What wondrous love, what mysteries,
In this appointment shine!
My breaches of the law are His,
And His obedience mine.

The Benefits of Poetry (or Why Reading This Blog Is Good for You)

I do not mean for the parenthetical title of this post to be self-serving (though I realize it might sound that way). But with a blog called "Theology in Verse," should it really surprise you that I think you will benefit from reading the poetry and hymnody that I frequently post? Turns out, I am not the only one who feels that way.

Below are a number of quotes about the value of poetry taken from David Gordon's book, Why Johnny Can't Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers. The last one, which you should definitely take to heart, is actually a quote that Gordon includes from Sven Birkerts in his The Electric Life: Essays on Modern Poetry. Hopefully, the following will encourage you to become a regular reader of verse.

Reading verse rescues us from the mundaneness of life; it permits us to observe again with wonder, and shocks us out of our cynicism and joylessness.

The poet stops and stares at that which most of us merely glance at; he pauses to notice what is humane, significant, and important.

Verse is a common-grace gift that enables us, through the fog of images and sounds, to again see ourselves and others as bearers of the image of God.

When the poet stares at that which the rest of us merely glance at, he invites us to take a longer look with him. It is precisely this longer look that is necessary to cultivate a sensibility for the significant.

Reading texts (and especially verse) cultivates the sensibility of significance. Verse is comparatively dense; line for line, more is in it than prose, and much of what is there is an eye for what is significant about life.

The harder it is for you to slow down, the more you need to be rescued from the twentieth century; the more you need poetry.

Thomas Watson on Loving the Saints

This is a call for humility, a call for gracious love, and a sober reminder that even "the best of the saints have their failings." Ponder that last line!

We love a saint, though he has many personal failings. There is no perfection here. In some, rash anger prevails; in some, inconstancy; in some, too much love of the world. A saint in this life is like gold in the ore, much dross of infirmity cleaves to him, yet we love him for the grace that is in him. A saint is like a fair face with a scar: we love the beautiful face of holiness, though there be a scar in it. The best emerald has its blemishes, the brightest star their twinklings, and the best of the saints have their failings. You that cannot love another because of his infirmities, how would you have God love you?

--Taken from All Things for Good (Puritan Paperbacks), Thomas Watson

O Pulpit, Where Art Thou?

I discovered this interesting post (via Tim Challies) by Erik Kowalker (you may remember him from his old site, Gospel Reminders). It contains both his observations and his thoughts on the absence of pulpits in so many of the churches he visited in the Portland area where he lives. It is aptly titled "O Pulpit, Where Art Thou?"

Three Questions to Ask about a Sermon (and Possibly a Fourth)

You may remember my post from earlier this week on David Gordon's book, Why Johnny Can't Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers. Well, there is something else from that book that I'd like to share as we approach the Lord's Day tomorrow and have the opportunity to hear his Word proclaimed. Gordon mentions three questions that listeners ought to be able to answer about a sermon:

1. What was the point or thrust of the sermon?
2. Was this point adequately established in the text that was read?
3. Were the applications legitimate applications of the point, from which we can have further fruitful conversation about other possible applications?
   

Personally, I would want to add a fourth question to the three above: Did the sermon clearly point us to Jesus Christ, demonstrating how the biblical text preached relates to his person and/or work?

Here is the context in which Gordon discusses these questions in the book:

I've really desired something fairly simple for my family: to be able to talk intelligently about the sermon on Sunday afternoon or throughout the week. And to do this, all I really desire is the ability to answer three questions: What was the point or thrust of the sermon? Was this point adequately established in the text that was read? Were the applications legitimate applications of the point, from which we can have further fruitful conversation about other possible applications? Frequently, indeed more commonly that not, I have heard sermons about which my family cannot even answer the first question. And even when we can, it is very rare to find the point adequately established from the passage. Further, the applications suggested almost never have anything to do with the text.

So, spend some time working through these questions with your own family on Sunday afternoons. If you can answer them, give thanks to God that you have a pastor who faithfully preaches the Scriptures. If you can't answer them, pray for your pastor to be more faithful to God's Word.

Calvin on Christ as the Focal Point of the Whole Bible

Calvin believed that all of Scripture pointed to Christ - and, specifically, to Christ's death and resurrection for sinners: "Whenever we take the sacred books [of Scripture] into our hands, the blood of Christ ought to occur to our minds, as if the whole of its sacred instruction were written therewith" (Four Last Books of Moses III:320). In his Commentary on Corinthians, he wrote, "All the wisdom of believers is comprehended in the cross of Christ" (1:74). Further interpreting Paul, he adds, "There is no tribunal so magnificent, no throne so stately, no show of triumph so distinguished, no chariot so elevated, as is the gibbet on which Christ has subdued death and the devil" (Commentary on Philippians-Colossians, 191).

-- Taken from Michael Horton's article, "Is Calvin Still Relevant after 500 Years?", in the June/July 2009 issue of Modern Reformation

New Edition of a True Classic

I am very happy to see that a new edition of J. Gresham Machen's classic work, Christianity and Liberalism, is being published (with a foreword by Carl Trueman). Few books have stated more clearly and more accurately what was (and still is) at stake with liberalism. If you want to get a pulse on 20th Century Christianity in the West (especially in America) and hear a first-rate theologian defend Christian orthodoxy, this is the best book you can read. It is a true classic!

Here are a few words of praise about this important work:

"Christianity and Liberalism is a masterpiece and without doubt the single most important book ever written by a Westminster professor." - Carl R. Trueman

"This is an admirable book . . . a cool and stringent defense of orthodox Protestantism."
- Walter Lippmann

World Magazine: One of the Centuries Top 100 Books (1999)

Christianity Today: Top 100 Books of the 20th Century (2000)

And if you're looking for a helpful introduction to Machen's life and work, I would highly recommend Stephen Nichol's excellent little book, J. Gresham Machen: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought.

Why Christians Should Read Fiction

This article by Mary DeMuth, from BreakPoint Worldview Magazine, is a helpful reminder to us why we should be reading good fiction. You can read it here.

A Great Hymn on Christ and His Church

Shame on most of our hymnals for not including all these verses!

The Church's One Foundation
Samuel John Stone, 1866

The church's one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is his new creation
By water and the Word:
From heav'n he came and sought her
To be his holy bride;
With his own blood he bought her,
And for her life he died.

Elect from ev'ry nation,
Yet one o'er all the earth.
Her charter of salvation
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food.
And to one hope she presses,
With ev'ry grace endued.

The church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain and cherish
Is with her to the end;
Though there be those who hate her,
And false sons in her pale,
Against both foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail.

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, "How long?"
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song.

'Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace for evermore;
Till with the vision glorious
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great church victorious
Shall be the church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won,
With all her sons and daughters
Who, by the Master's hand
Led through the deathly waters,
Repose in Eden land.

O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we,
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee:
There, past the border mountains,
Where in sweet vales the Bride
With Thee by living fountains
Forever shall abide!

The Sad State of Preaching Today

The quote below is from the opening sentences of Chapter 1 in T. David Gordon's new book, Why Johnny Can't Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers, which I highly recommend for both preachers and hearers of preaching. It is a brief (only 108 pages) but needed addition to the ongoing conversation and discussion about preaching today.

What Gordon says below is something that we all must lament and, more, something that we must strive to correct. Preachers must become more faithful to their God-ordained task, and churches must demand more faithfulness from their preachers. Otherwise, these same sentences are going to be written again by the next generation.

Sadly, I think most of us would have to agree with and could even confirm what he says here:

Part of me wishes to avoid proving the sordid truth: that preaching today is ordinarily poor. But I have come to recognize that many, many individuals today have never been under a steady diet of competent preaching. As a consequence, they are satisfied with what they hear because they have nothing better with which to compare it. Therefore, for many individuals, the kettle in which they live has always been at the boiling point, and they've simply adjusted to it. As starving children in Manila sift through the landfill for food, Christians in many churches today have never experienced genuinely soul-nourishing preaching, and so they just pick away at what is available to them, trying to find a morsel of spiritual sustenance or helpful counsel here or there.

An Overview of Puritanism by Mark Dever

I stumbled across an address on the Puritans by Mark Dever given on Reformation Day back in 1999. It is a great historical and theological overview of Puritanism. You can listen to it here.

For good books on the Puritans, I would recommend the following:

Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were, Leland Ryken

A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life, J.I. Packer

Meet the Puritans, Joel Beeke and Randall Pederson

The Westminster Directory of Public Worship: Discussed by Mark Dever and Sinclair Ferguson, Mark Dever and Sinclair Ferguson

Of course, Banner of Truth's Puritan Paperbacks are excellent primary sources.

A Wonderful But Rarely Sung Hymn by John Newton

Without a doubt, "Amazing Grace" is John Newton's most famous hymn. Almost every church knows and sings that hymn (as well they should!). But it seems that many of his other hymns are largely neglected, which is a shame because they are beautiful texts. Not to mention, most of them are in the Common Meter and thus very sing-able to familiar tunes.

Here is one such hymn that is rarely sung but should be added to all our churches' song libraries. It can be sung to the tune of "O God, Our Help in Ages Past" or "O, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing" or even "Amazing Grace." It is a wonderfully reassuring hymn that should provide God's people with gospel comfort.

How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds
John Newton, 1725-1807

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
In a believer's ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.

It makes the wounded spirit whole
And calms the troubled breast;
'Tis manna to the hungry soul,
And to the weary rest.

Dear name! the rock on which I build,
My shield and hiding place;
My never-failing treasury filled
With boundless stores of grace.

By Thee my prayers acceptance gain,
Altho' with sin defiled;
Satan accuses me in vain,
And I am owned a child.

Jesus! my Shepherd, Husband, Friend,
My Prophet, Priest, and King;
My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End,
Accept the praise I bring.

Weak is the effort of my heart,
And cold my warmest thought;
But when I see Thee as Thou art,
I'll praise Thee as I ought.

'Till then I would Thy love proclaim,
With ev'ry fleeting breath;
And may the music of Thy name
Refresh my soul in death.

Marilynne Robinson, God, and Calvin

Marilynne Robinson is the author of my favorite contemporary novel, Gilead. She was recently awarded the Orange Prize for fiction. She was also recently interviewed byAndrew Brown, who posted some of the excerpts from the interview on his blog. In the interview, she discusses Calvin's influence on her thinking and writing.

If you haven't read Gilead, it is a must-read. Move it to the top of your summer reading list!

Calvin on the Catholic Church's Teaching of Purgatory

Let us grant, however, that all this might have been tolerated for a time as a thing of no great moment; yet when the expiation of sins is sought elsewhere than in the blood of Christ, and satisfaction is transferred to others, silence were most perilous. We are bound, therefore, to raise our voice to its highest pitch, and cry aloud that purgatory is a deadly device of Satan; that it makes void the cross of Christ; that it offers intolerable insult to the divine mercy; that it undermines and overthrows our faith. For what is this purgatory but the satisfaction for sin paid after death by the souls of the dead? Hence when this idea of satisfaction is refuted, purgatory itself is forthwith completely overturned. But if it is perfectly clear, from what was lately said, that the blood of Christ is the only satisfaction, expiation, and cleansing for the sins of believers, what remains but to hold that purgatory is mere blasphemy, horrid blasphemy against Christ?

-- John Calvin, Institutes (3.5.6)

Monday with Mounce

Since I have Greek on the brain (see my previous post below), I thought I would direct your attention to today's edition of Monday with Mounce, Bill Mounce's weekly blog posts about Greek. It is a discussion of Romans 8:13, but especially helpful are his last few paragraphs on how to use BDAG.