For my friends, my brothers and sisters, and those who happen to visit the page: this is, I think, the most important thing I will ever say to you.
I am convinced of this: The Cross is not a peripheral issue; as a Christian, it is not something we believe once and move on; as a non-Christian, it is not something you can accept or reject with impunity. Our grasping of the Cross defines us, yes, in eternity, but our present consideration of this also defines us now, who we are, who we want to be, and ultimately, it defines our present reality in Christ.
Don't believe me? Paul says this: "For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received--that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." (1 Cor. 15:3-4)\
Is the Cross "of first importance" to us?
It was to Paul. It was, arguably, to Jesus Christ. I'm afraid we treat it too lightly. Or at the very least, I treat it too lightly. I hope to turn from my vanity, from the lesser important things, and direct my attention toward the Cross, toward that which is of first importance.
Perhaps a bit of clarification is in order. What do we mean by "the Cross"? It is an historical event, but is this the beginning and end of it? I think it is proper to speak of the meaning of the Cross and its purpose. That is what we mean, and I think that is what Paul was getting at. It isn't just that Christ died: He died for our sins. It wasn't just that He was buried and raised again: he was raised for our vindication.
And here's the crux of the issue: we won't really ever understand the meaning of the cross (Christ died for my sins) until we come to grips with the problem: we are sinners.
Is that a throw-away phrase today? "We are sinners". What does that mean? Maybe we should take a short journey toward understanding this. What is God like? What are we like by comparison?
Isaiah describes Him: the seraphim, the "burning angels" fly about His throne, cover their feet and their faces, crying out "Holy, Holy, Holy! The whole earth is full of His glory!" (Isa. 6) God is holy: there is absolutely no one else like Him. The whole earth trembles at His feet. To witness His glory would be our undoing. He is terrifyingly, absolutely, beautiful, wholly other, and righteous. This is how the Word of God describes Him. Our generation needs to learn this: to fear the Lord is not just to reverence Him. It is to tremble at His presence, knowing that He is God and we are only a part of His Creation.
We, by contrast, are blighted and ruined. The Word of God tells us about the beginning of the tragic affair in Genesis 3. It also tells us about the continued state of this tragedy through nearly all of the rest of the Bible. The entire world holds its breath to behold the Holy One, our awesomely beautiful Maker. This King is rightly owed His due allegiance. We owe Him our homage, our very lives; every breath we take is His gift to us. Yet we, like dirty little thieves, take His gifts, His mercies, and snatch them up as if they were ours by rights. We ignore the throne of majesty and set up our own cheap little chairs on pathetic little pedestals, supplanting His rightful authority in place of our own. Moreover, we have broken His law.
We are beggarly, poor, weak, filthy, twisted, wretched, dead. We are all murderers, adulterers, liars. If you say otherwise, you perjure yourself.
And the Judge of the Earth must mete His judgment righteously: the verdict is in, the gavel falls, the courtroom stands as He announces His verdict: guilty as charged. The punishment is pronounced: eternal death.
And this is a righteous judgment. The glory and majesty of the King of the Earth has been impugned. I, you, we all have maligned Him.
To the degree we understand this problem is the degree to which we will grasp the meaning of the Cross. Jesus Christ died for my sin. The Glorious One, who sat upon His throne, condescended to become part of His Creation so that He would stand in my place. This is what we mean by "Substitution". The righteous God-man stood in the sinner's place so the verdict would fall upon Himself.
And let me add: we never move beyond this. We come to an initial understanding of it; we dwell on it, ponder it, consider it, work it in our hearts and minds. But we must never think that we can move past this to greater doctrines.
If you think you have adequately understood the Cross, you have not. We do not master this doctrine; it masters us.
A final note: if you are reading this and scoff at these things, I understand. I once scoffed at them myself. Unless God Himself enables us to gain an initial glimpse of the Cross, we are helpless to do it ourselves. If, on the other hand, God has opened your eyes to the truths of the Cross, we can thank Him that He will continue to do so. But let us never turn our back on the truth of the Cross, as if we move to better doctrines. Let us rather always move ever closer to it, knowing that the better we understand this issue, the more that the rest of our problems (doctrinal or otherwise) will pale by comparison.
Let us, then, be moved toward the Cross. I can only point the way, even as weak and incompetent as I myself am before such a great truth.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
For my Brothers and Sisters Struggling with Habitual Sin
Please read to the end of this post: it is a magnificent presentation of the beauty both our faith and the object of our faith. I have included the link to the full sermon here.
My summary of Chalmers is this: You cannot hope to be rid of sin simply by extinguishing the habit from your life. You must replace your affection of your sin with the Spirit-led affection for God. Chalmers says it more eloquently, so please read!
Excerpts taken from Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), "The Explosive Power of a New Affection":
"There are two ways in which a practical moralist may attempt to displace from the human heart its love of the world; either by a demonstration of the world's vanity, so that the heart shall be prevailed upon simply to withdraw its regards from an object that is not worthy of it; or, by setting forth another object, even God, as more worthy of its attachment; so as that the heart shall be prevailed upon, not to resign an old affection which shall have nothing to succeed it, but to exchange an old affection for a new one. . .the former method is altogether incompetent and ineffectual and. . .the latter method will alone suffice for the rescue and recovery of the heart from the wrong affection that domineers over it"
(Translation: there are two approaches to ridding oneself of habitual sin: (1) hope that we can prove to ourselves the utter vanity of sin, or (2) replace the affection for sin with a better affection for God. The first cannot work, and the second is the only sufficient means of ridding ourselves of habitual sin.)
"The ascendant power of a second affection will do what no exposition, however forcible, of the folly and worthlessness of the first, ever could effectuate. And it is the same in the great world. You never will be able to arrest any of its leading pursuits by a naked demonstration of their vanity. It is quite in vain to think of stopping one of these pursuits in any way else but by stimulating to another. In attempting to bring a worthy man, intent and busied with the prosecution of his objects, to a dead stand, you have not merely to encounter the charm which he annexes to these objects, but you have to encounter the pleasure which he feels in the very prosecution of them. It is not enough, then, that you dissipate the charm by your moral and eloquent and affecting exposure of its illusiveness. You must address to the eye of his mind another object, with a charm powerful enough to dispossess the first of its influence, and to engage him in some other prosecution as full of interest and hope and congenial activity as the former. It is this which stamps an impotency on all moral and pathetic declamation about the insignificance of the world. A man will no more consent to the misery of being without an object, because that object is a trifle, or of being without a pursuit, because that pursuit terminates in some frivolous or fugitive acquirement, than he will voluntarily submit himself to torture, because that torture is to be of short duration. If to be without desire and without exertion altogether is a state of violence and discomfort, then the present desire, with its correspondent train of exertion, is not to be got rid of simply by destroying it. It must be by substituting another desire, and another line or habit of exertion in its place, and the most effectual way of withdrawing the mind from one object is not by turning it away from desolate and unpeopled vacancy, but by presenting to its regards another object still more alluring."
(Translation: It doesn't matter how well you argue with yourself about the vanity and worthlessness of sin. The problem is the sense of pleasure you feel in the pursuit. It is wholly unnatural for man to be without desire and without an acting upon desire. Therefore, you cannot simply destroy the desire to sin; you must, rather, replace the desire to sin with a more attractive pursuit.)
"It is seldom that any of our tastes are made to disappear by a mere process of natural extinction. At least, it is very seldom that this is done through the instrumentality of reasoning. . . It is almost never done by the mere force of mental determination. By what can not be thus destroyed, may be dispossest--and one taste may be made to give way to another, and to lose its power entirely as the reigning affection of the mind."
(Translation: it is rare that reason alone will remove a person from a habitual attitude. Similarly, it is almost never the case that one can set oneself by the power of willful determination to destroy a habit. It is, however, the case that one habit gives way to another in the course of life.)
"To bid a man into whom there is not yet entered the great and ascendant influence of the principle of regeneration, to bid him withdraw his love from all the things that are in the world, is to bid him give up all the affections that are in his heart. The world is the all of a natural man. He has not a taste, nor a desire, that points not to a something placed within the confines of its visible horizon. He loves nothing above it, and he cares for nothing beyond it; and to bid him love not the world is to pass a sentence of expulsion on all the inmates of his bosom. To estimate the magnitude and the difficulty of such a surrender, let us only think that it were just as arduous to prevail on him not to love wealth, which is but one of the things in the world, as to prevail upon him to set wilful fire to his own property. This he might do with sore and painful reluctance, if he saw that the salvation of his life hung upon it. But this he would do willingly if he saw that a new property of tenfold value was instantly to emerge from the wreck of the old one."
(Translation: Regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential to the process of renewing and replacing our affections properly. The natural man cares for natural things, and it is only by the recognition that something of far greater worth is found in the rejection of the love of the natural world that man is capable of rejecting his love for the world.)
"Let us not cease then to ply the only instrument of powerful and positive operation, to do away from you the love of the world. Let us try every legitimate method of finding access to your hearts for the love of Him who is greater than the world. For this purpose let us, if possible, clear away that shroud of unbelief which so hides and darkens the face of Deity. Let us insist on His claims to your affection; and whether in the shape of gratitude, or in the shape of esteem, let us never cease to affirm that in the whole of that wondrous economy, the purpose of which is to reclaim a sinful world unto Himself, He, the God of love, so sets Himself forth in characters of endearment that naught but faith, and naught but understanding are wanting, on your part, to call forth the love of your hearts back again. . . When (a man) is told to love God supremely, this may startle another, but it will not startle him to whom God has been revealed in peace, and in pardon, and in all the freeness of an offered reconciliation. When told to shut out the world from his heart, this may be impossible with him who has nothing to replace it--but not impossible with him who has found in God a sure and satisfying portion. When told to withdraw his affections from the things that are beneath, this were laying an order of self-extinction upon the man, who knows not another quarter in the whole sphere of his contemplation to which he could transfer them, but it were not grievous to him whose view had been opened to the loveliness and glory of the things that are above, and can there find, for every feeling of his soul, a most ample and delighted occupation. When told to look not to the things that are seen and temporal, this were blotting out the light of all that is visible from the prospect of him in whose eye there is a wall of partition between guilty nature and the joys of eternity--but he who believes that Christ has broken down this wall finds a gathering radiance upon his soul, as he looks onward in faith to the things that are unseen and eternal. Tell a man to be holy--and how can he compass such a performance, when his fellowship with holiness is a fellowship with despair? It is the atonement of the cross reconciling the holiness of the lawgiver with the safety of the offender, that hath opened the way for a sanctifying influence into the sinner's heart, and he can take a kindred impression from the character of god now brought nigh, and now at peace with him."
My summary of Chalmers is this: You cannot hope to be rid of sin simply by extinguishing the habit from your life. You must replace your affection of your sin with the Spirit-led affection for God. Chalmers says it more eloquently, so please read!
Excerpts taken from Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), "The Explosive Power of a New Affection":
"There are two ways in which a practical moralist may attempt to displace from the human heart its love of the world; either by a demonstration of the world's vanity, so that the heart shall be prevailed upon simply to withdraw its regards from an object that is not worthy of it; or, by setting forth another object, even God, as more worthy of its attachment; so as that the heart shall be prevailed upon, not to resign an old affection which shall have nothing to succeed it, but to exchange an old affection for a new one. . .the former method is altogether incompetent and ineffectual and. . .the latter method will alone suffice for the rescue and recovery of the heart from the wrong affection that domineers over it"
(Translation: there are two approaches to ridding oneself of habitual sin: (1) hope that we can prove to ourselves the utter vanity of sin, or (2) replace the affection for sin with a better affection for God. The first cannot work, and the second is the only sufficient means of ridding ourselves of habitual sin.)
"The ascendant power of a second affection will do what no exposition, however forcible, of the folly and worthlessness of the first, ever could effectuate. And it is the same in the great world. You never will be able to arrest any of its leading pursuits by a naked demonstration of their vanity. It is quite in vain to think of stopping one of these pursuits in any way else but by stimulating to another. In attempting to bring a worthy man, intent and busied with the prosecution of his objects, to a dead stand, you have not merely to encounter the charm which he annexes to these objects, but you have to encounter the pleasure which he feels in the very prosecution of them. It is not enough, then, that you dissipate the charm by your moral and eloquent and affecting exposure of its illusiveness. You must address to the eye of his mind another object, with a charm powerful enough to dispossess the first of its influence, and to engage him in some other prosecution as full of interest and hope and congenial activity as the former. It is this which stamps an impotency on all moral and pathetic declamation about the insignificance of the world. A man will no more consent to the misery of being without an object, because that object is a trifle, or of being without a pursuit, because that pursuit terminates in some frivolous or fugitive acquirement, than he will voluntarily submit himself to torture, because that torture is to be of short duration. If to be without desire and without exertion altogether is a state of violence and discomfort, then the present desire, with its correspondent train of exertion, is not to be got rid of simply by destroying it. It must be by substituting another desire, and another line or habit of exertion in its place, and the most effectual way of withdrawing the mind from one object is not by turning it away from desolate and unpeopled vacancy, but by presenting to its regards another object still more alluring."
(Translation: It doesn't matter how well you argue with yourself about the vanity and worthlessness of sin. The problem is the sense of pleasure you feel in the pursuit. It is wholly unnatural for man to be without desire and without an acting upon desire. Therefore, you cannot simply destroy the desire to sin; you must, rather, replace the desire to sin with a more attractive pursuit.)
"It is seldom that any of our tastes are made to disappear by a mere process of natural extinction. At least, it is very seldom that this is done through the instrumentality of reasoning. . . It is almost never done by the mere force of mental determination. By what can not be thus destroyed, may be dispossest--and one taste may be made to give way to another, and to lose its power entirely as the reigning affection of the mind."
(Translation: it is rare that reason alone will remove a person from a habitual attitude. Similarly, it is almost never the case that one can set oneself by the power of willful determination to destroy a habit. It is, however, the case that one habit gives way to another in the course of life.)
"To bid a man into whom there is not yet entered the great and ascendant influence of the principle of regeneration, to bid him withdraw his love from all the things that are in the world, is to bid him give up all the affections that are in his heart. The world is the all of a natural man. He has not a taste, nor a desire, that points not to a something placed within the confines of its visible horizon. He loves nothing above it, and he cares for nothing beyond it; and to bid him love not the world is to pass a sentence of expulsion on all the inmates of his bosom. To estimate the magnitude and the difficulty of such a surrender, let us only think that it were just as arduous to prevail on him not to love wealth, which is but one of the things in the world, as to prevail upon him to set wilful fire to his own property. This he might do with sore and painful reluctance, if he saw that the salvation of his life hung upon it. But this he would do willingly if he saw that a new property of tenfold value was instantly to emerge from the wreck of the old one."
(Translation: Regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential to the process of renewing and replacing our affections properly. The natural man cares for natural things, and it is only by the recognition that something of far greater worth is found in the rejection of the love of the natural world that man is capable of rejecting his love for the world.)
"Let us not cease then to ply the only instrument of powerful and positive operation, to do away from you the love of the world. Let us try every legitimate method of finding access to your hearts for the love of Him who is greater than the world. For this purpose let us, if possible, clear away that shroud of unbelief which so hides and darkens the face of Deity. Let us insist on His claims to your affection; and whether in the shape of gratitude, or in the shape of esteem, let us never cease to affirm that in the whole of that wondrous economy, the purpose of which is to reclaim a sinful world unto Himself, He, the God of love, so sets Himself forth in characters of endearment that naught but faith, and naught but understanding are wanting, on your part, to call forth the love of your hearts back again. . . When (a man) is told to love God supremely, this may startle another, but it will not startle him to whom God has been revealed in peace, and in pardon, and in all the freeness of an offered reconciliation. When told to shut out the world from his heart, this may be impossible with him who has nothing to replace it--but not impossible with him who has found in God a sure and satisfying portion. When told to withdraw his affections from the things that are beneath, this were laying an order of self-extinction upon the man, who knows not another quarter in the whole sphere of his contemplation to which he could transfer them, but it were not grievous to him whose view had been opened to the loveliness and glory of the things that are above, and can there find, for every feeling of his soul, a most ample and delighted occupation. When told to look not to the things that are seen and temporal, this were blotting out the light of all that is visible from the prospect of him in whose eye there is a wall of partition between guilty nature and the joys of eternity--but he who believes that Christ has broken down this wall finds a gathering radiance upon his soul, as he looks onward in faith to the things that are unseen and eternal. Tell a man to be holy--and how can he compass such a performance, when his fellowship with holiness is a fellowship with despair? It is the atonement of the cross reconciling the holiness of the lawgiver with the safety of the offender, that hath opened the way for a sanctifying influence into the sinner's heart, and he can take a kindred impression from the character of god now brought nigh, and now at peace with him."
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