John 3:7
“YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN”

I have today decided I want to work through a series of sermons John Piper recently finished giving at his church. I would encourage you to join me. There can be nothing more important than to get ourselves clear about being born again, being regenerated. Are YOU sure that you have experienced the new birth? Are you sure you are on your way to heaven? What exactly happens when someone is born again? What changes? What are the results?

Allow John Piper to teach us together about this most critical subject. We must understand well for the sake of our own souls, and for the souls of those we love. So please, join me. The sermons are available in written, video, and audio forms.

I encourage you to watch as many as you can for maximum spiritual impact short of being in the same room. We are looking for a miraculous work of the Spirit to quicken God's words to our hearts and enlighten us. It is not just an intellectual exercise. Don't let's rush this. If you have a blog, consider yourself tagged. Write about this series on your own blog. What else could be more important?

The sermons are available from the Desiring God website, and the series is entitled You Must Be Born Again.

"Another reason I am eager to focus on the new birth is to help you know what really happened to you when you were born again. It is far more glorious than you think it is. It is also more glorious than I think it is. It is wonderful beyond all human comprehension. But that mystery is not because there is little about it in the Bible. There is much about it in the Bible. It’s because when all is comprehended there is still more. So I hope that you will know more and know better what happened to you when you were born again . . .

And the reason I want you to know what happened to you in your new birth and others to know what must yet happen to them is threefold. 1) When you are truly born again and grow in the grace and knowledge of what the Lord has done for you, your fellowship with God will be sweet, and your assurance that he is your Father will be deep. I want that for you. 2) If God would be pleased to bring this kind of awakening to his church, then the world will get the real deal of radical love and sacrifice and courage from the church and not all these fake Christians that live just like the world. 3) If you know what really happened to you in your new birth, you will treasure God and his Spirit and his Son and his word more highly than you ever have. And he will be glorified."

— John Piper, You Must Be Born Again

My grandfather, Edwin Warnock, was an evangelistic tent preacher. He was from Scotland, but came down to England, where he married a Londoner but lived in Suffolk. He had six children—five boys and one girl. Sadly, one boy died young. Each of the other boys married and had two boys. In my father's and one other case, they also had a girl. My auntie also married and had two girls and one boy. Many of those thirteen Warnock cousins of mine are now married themselves and have begun their own families. The vast majority of this extended family continue to go to church and love the Lord. Many of the men have also preached, at least to some extent.

It was a real delight to meet with a significant portion of the surviving descendants of Edwin Warnock and their wives this past Monday—a national holiday in the UK. I was thrilled also to receive a precious gift from one of my uncles. As far as I know, this is the last surviving tape of my grandfather preaching. His passion is clear, even amidst the English politeness of communication that was still common in churches back in 1968. The gospel message is strong and clearly identifiable. I could have preached this message. May God prosper the cause of my grandfather's gospel, which is now mine, and is, of course, also faithfully preached by many millions throughout the world.

You can download the message or listen to it right here:



The following photos are of Edwin and include his marriage to Muriel Driver, a river baptism, his children's camps and the tent he used for evangelism.

I found this great quote about what the gospel is meant to do to our opinions of ourselves from Tim Keller on "theocentricview":

“The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less.”

— Timothy Keller, The Reason For God, New York, NY: Dutton, 2008, p. 181.

We have now arrived at the countdown of the top ten most popular posts of all time with readers of this blog. No. 10 appeared on July 19, 2007, and of all the posts I have written, this one is probably my own personal favorite. It is a rallying call to a kind of Christianity that is not ashamed to embrace the best from many different backgrounds.

The last four words of the above title are not new to me, but they are certainly resonating with me at the moment — "I Want It All!" Why should I have to choose, for example, between being enthusiastic about theology and being charismatic?

I know what some of you are thinking as you've been reading my posts on the Together On a Mission conference. You're wondering why it is that someone who is so enthusiastic about what was obviously a very charismatic conference can also be deeply committed to defending and understanding biblical doctrine. I know it's hard for some of you to believe, but it really is the same me who wrote all those posts on the atonement who also was so deeply touched by this latest conference. For those of you who have never met one, I am indeed that rare breed — a Reformed Charismatic.

Too often, however, the temptation for me is to downplay one side of that equation or the other in order to appear "balanced." When I am with the charismatics, my reformed doctrine often appears alien to them, although in the UK, Newfrontiers offers a major exception to that with over 200 churches that are broadly reformed and charismatic. When I'm with the reformed, I'm tempted to soften my charismatic viewpoint and not speak too much of the things I have seen and experienced. Why is it that on this issue, as on so many others, the Church seems to be split in half? Why can't we be both radically reformed and radically charismatic? Why do we see a conflict and therefore try to play down both in order to be "balanced?" I don't want to be balanced, I want it all!

On the one hand there are those who care about theology enough to study God's Word in detail, weigh scripture against scripture, study great theological minds, and preach intellectually stimulating messages that would stretch even a PhD in Theology — which, incidentally, I am certainly not! Why is it that for the majority of us, if we want such a feast for our minds, we must sacrifice certain other things? Why are some leaders in the Church committed to theology almost exclusively? Is even great theology so captivating that it is the only need of the Church? I don't believe it can be, or God would have given us a Bible that was a systematic theology and not the one we have, which is essentially a collection of lots of stories with a few doctrinal portions.

Read more . . . I Don't Want Balance! I Want It All!

No. 25 on the list of the all-time most popular posts with readers of this blog appeared on July 2, 2007, and summarized some of my series on the atonement. It also included links to a number of other posts on the subject. There were many other posts within this series—the most popular of which was entitled "J. I. Packer on the Atonement."

As we finally draw near to the conclusion of this long-running series on the atonement, it has struck me just how the lines are being drawn. On the one hand there are those of us who feel PSA is essential to the gospel. It’s not that we think it’s the only thing—or indeed that every gospel presentation must major on it. It’s just that we think it’s essential, and that gospel presentations can’t deny it.

Just yesterday I heard what, to me, was the best gospel message I’ve ever heard. In fact, it didn't major on an explanation of the exact mechanism of the atonement, but there was a line about the coming wrath of God and how that had to be taken away. I was reminded as I was listening that the gospel shouldn’t become merely a battleground for us to fight over. It should, instead, be something we hold precious. I can't encourage you enough to download and listen to Tope’s sermon on the prodigal son. Many Christians heard the impact of this message of God's love and forgiveness with a fresh insight. Several visitors made a response to the gospel. I loved what he said at the close of the sermon—“It may be free, but it wasn't cheap. It cost the life of his son.”

It seems impossible for those of us who love the gospel of the Savior suffering the punishment of our sins to simply agree to disagree with those on the other hand who claim it is “divine child abuse.” I suspect the divisions in the visible church over this issue will grow more prominent rather than less so. This is just one of several reasons that, as Andrew Cottingham spoke of today, makes ecumenicalism so difficult for some of us who really care.

Today the American magazine, Christianity Today, published an article about the recent UK controversies over the atonement online. They were kind enough to quote me in the article, acknowledging my role in breaking the Word Alive / Spring Harvest story.

9Marks has this month published a whole issue about defining the gospel. They were eager to point out that PSA is essential to it, and the controversy over PSA is mentioned in one of their editorials. Others (including myself) were asked to write 100-word contributions explaining the gospel. I would love to read such a brief outline by someone from the other side of this debate.

There has also recently been an article by D. A. Carson on Penal Substitutionary Atonement which, not surprisingly, comes down firmly on the side of the authors of PFOT and makes plain that PSA is at the heart of the gospel. . . .

Read more of . . . "PSA—Precious Gospel or Divine Child Abuse?"

You can count on John Owen to bring some light and clarity into a debate. The following lightly edited quote was sent in by a reader and is really helpful:

"That which we affirm is that our sins were so transferred on Christ as that thereby he became responsible to God and liable to punishment in the justice of God for them. He was perfectly innocent in himself; but took our guilt on him, or our liability to punishment for sin. He may be said to be the greatest debtor in the world, who never borrowed nor owed one farthing on his own account, if he became guarantor for the greatest debt of others . . .

In order to declare the righteousness of God in this setting forth of Christ to be a propitiation and to bear our iniquities, the guilt of our sins was transferred to him in an act of the righteous judgement of God accepting and evaluating him as the guilty person—as it is with a guarantor in every case . . .

If this be not so, I desire to know what is become of the guilt of the sins of believers. If it were not transferred onto Christ, it remains still upon themselves, or it is nothing. It will be said that guilt is taken away by the free pardon of sin. But if that were so, there was no need of punishment for it at all—for if punishment is not for guilt, it is not punishment."

This is from page 200 of volume 5 of Owen's "The Doctrine of Justification by Faith Through the Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ Explained, Confirmed and Vindicated." (!!)

My reader said slightly cheekily, "I love the way Puritans give the game away in the title to their books. At least you know where he would be coming from in a discussion with Bishop N. T. Wright without having to read his book!"

Many of the opponents of the doctrine of justification and penal substitution criticize us for not being as interested in the resurrection as the cross. I increasingly think that it is not so fair to accuse most evangelical theologians of not having a place for the resurrection in our system of beliefs. I do feel, however, that we perhaps under-emphasize the resurrection at times.

As I was reading this book, I was aware that, of course, Piper was interacting with Wright's views of the cross, so it was perhaps no wonder that the resurrection was featured less. Indeed, Wright's massive work on the resurrection did not feature in the bibliography.

As I was pondering this new obsession of mine with the place of the resurrection, I found myself asking—was Piper wrong not to look at it in more detail in this book? I concluded that probably this was influenced by the constraints of the length of the book. Perhaps an interaction with Wright on the resurrection should be the subject of another book.

I was surprised, however, to note that on two different occasions within the book Piper fell into an all-too-common evangelical trap. On both pages—89 and 212—he cites 1 Corinthians 15:3, omitting to continue the verse to include the resurrection. The Piper quotations omit the bolded phrase below:

"Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

Now, I suppose I shouldn't get overly legalistic about this, but I wish that we would all learn not to do that with that particular verse. Paul goes on to make the point that without the resurrection we would, in fact, still be in our sins, something that surely undermines any system of theology that does not require the resurrection to perform anything for us, altering our position in any way.

But I should not be unfair to Piper, for as we saw in an earlier post, when he summarizes his position on justification he states the following propositions:

(1) a person is in union with Christ by faith alone. In this union, (2) the believer is identified with Christ in his (a) wrath-absorbing death, (b) his perfect obedience to the Father, and (c) his vindication-securing resurrection. All of these are reckoned—that is, imputed—to the believer in Christ. On this basis, (3) the "dead," "righteous," "raised" believer is accepted and assured of final vindication and eternal fellowship with God.

So Piper, it seems, is NOT guilty of the charge of neglect of the resurrection. I wonder, though, how often do my own presentations of the gospel include the concept of Jesus' resurrection being credited to our account? Do I sometimes forget to even mention the resurrection of Jesus? The samples of Billy Graham's preaching I listened to at the Billy Graham Center certainly did speak of the resurrection of Jesus as part of what he had done for us. The phrase that keeps recurring in my mind from those sermons was simply "He is a living Jesus." Could it be that the preaching of the cross AND the resurrection is more spiritually potent for producing salvation than simply preaching on the cross?

John Piper has delivered an amazing lecture on the vital place of justification to the ETS. The manuscript, video, and audio are available online, and this sets his new book, The Future of Justification, into context. The whole talk is fantastic, but these couple of paragraphs stuck out for me, especially considering his audience!

I’m aware that for some in the academic world, perhaps some of you, this very confession calls my fitness into question as a competent exegete. “This fellow has so much personal and pastoral allegiance to what he believes about justification, and feels such a great need for it, and has so much joy in it, that there is no way he can be objective when he comes to the biblical text, or be open to finding that his view is mistaken.” Well, that may be true. But there is another way to look at a person’s passion for particular truths.

A passion for a particular truth may be a blinding passion. That’s true. But it may also be the very means that God uses to make some truths visible and beautiful. I say that because of what Jesus said in John 7:17: “If anyone wills (or desires or wants, thele) to do God’s will, he will know (gnosetai) whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.” In other words, Jesus taught that, at least in some matters, right willing precedes right knowing. Jesus is saying, “If you want the will of God, you will have the disposition of heart to recognize it when you see it in his word.” He does not say, “If you don’t want the truth God is revealing—if you have no passion for this truth—and therefore have a measure of objective distance and detachment from the truth, you will be able to assess clearly whether something is of God.” He says the opposite. There are some matters in which prior neutrality does not serve the truth, but serves death.

As we continue looking at John Piper's book we have now reached page 200 and following. I want to highlight Piper's attitude to the law. What, according to Piper, is the purpose of the law?

“The reason the law is not against the promise is precisely that it was designed not to give life but to hold under sin and lead to Christ who gives life. Paul says that if the law had given life, then it would have been against the promise. It would have short-circuited the purpose of the promise to make Christ the basis of life and righteousness. . . .

[Piper then addresses Galatians 5:6, arguing that this verse] tells what kind of faith avails justification. Therefore, love as an expression of faith is not the instrument of justification—it does not unite us to Christ who is our perfection. Only faith does. But this faith is the kind of faith that inevitably gives rise to love.”

[He continues stating that 1 Timothy 1 shows us that] to use the law lawfully (v. 8) is to understand that it is designed to lead people to the gospel of Christ and to indict what is not in accord with the gospel. In this way, the lawful use of the law leads to the transformation of the heart through “sincere faith” (v. 5) and thus leads to love, which is in turn the aim of Paul's preaching (v. 5) and the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:8). The key defining criterion of the life-change that Paul is pursuing is whether it is “in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God” (v. 11). Using the law lawfully means using it to convict people of living out of accordance with the gospel. . . .

We bear fruit for God (love) by being joined through faith to Jesus, not through the law. That is what the law was ultimately designed to show."

Today I want to share how John Piper brings two passages to bear on the justification debate. The quotes are all from his new book, The Future of Justification, and come from pages 170-180. The two passages are Romans 5 and 2 Corinthians 5. Piper is responding to Wright's slightly odd way of speaking about them. If you are interested in seeing an example of this, there is an article by Wright on 2 Corinthians 5:21 that I must say I found wholly unconvincing. This is what John Piper says about these passages:

Justification . . . happens to all who are connected to Christ the same way condemnation happened to those who were connected to Adam. How is that? Adam acted sinfully, and because we were connected to him, we were condemned in him. Christ acted righteously, and because we are connected to Christ we are justified in Christ. Adam's sin is counted as ours. Christ's “act of righteousness” is counted as ours.

. . . his being made sin is consistent with his being in himself free from sin; and our being made righteous is consistent with our being in ourselves ungodly. What is so illumining here is specifically the parallel between Christ's being “made sin” and our “becoming righteous.”

George Ladd brings this out with its crucial implication for imputation. Christ was made sin for our sake. We might say that our sins were reckoned to Christ. He, although sinless, identified himself with our sins, suffered their penalty and doom—death. So we have reckoned to us Christ's righteousness even though in character and deed we remain sinners. It is an unavoidable logical conclusion that men of faith are justified because Christ's righteousness is imputed to them.

[Piper goes on to quote Hodge.] “There is probably no passage in the Scriptures in which the doctrine of justification is more concisely or clearly stated than in [2 Corinthians 5:21]. Our sins were imputed to Christ, and his righteousness is imputed to us. He bore our sins; we are clothed in his righteousness. . . . Christ bearing our sins did not make him morally a sinner . . . nor does Christ's righteousness become subjectively ours, it is not the moral quality of our souls. . . . Our sins were the judicial ground of the sufferings of Christ, so that they were a satisfaction of justice; and his righteousness is the judicial ground of our acceptance with God, so that our pardon is an act of justice.” (Hodge, An Exposition of the Second Letter to the Corinthians, pp. 150–151, cited in John Piper, The Future of Justification, p. 180.)

Book photo courtesy Tony S. Reinke, The Shepherd's Scrapbook. Used by permission.

In his book, The Future of Justification, John Piper addresses the issue of legalism and the first century Jew. Piper responds to some of the notions of the New Perspectives people who claim that first century Jews had not drifted from the grace message of the Old Testament into legalism. He explains . . .

“In regard to the second objection to the general view that “the Jew keeps the law out of gratitude, as the proper response to grace,” it is important to see that, from Jesus’ standpoint, relational exclusivism (ethnic or otherwise) is rooted in self-righteousness, which means that ethnocentrism and legalism have the same root. This connection between self-righteousness and exclusivism is one of the points of Jesus’ parable that begins, “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous [dikaioi], and treated others with contempt” (Luke 18:9). A deep root of “treating others with contempt” (whether the others are ethnically similar publicans or ethnically different Gentiles) is: “[They] trusted in themselves that they were righteous. . . . In other words, the exclusivistic treatment of others is one manifestation of the self-righteousness that trusts in its own law-keeping. Legalism and ethnocentrism have the same root. They are not separate conditions of the soul. Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector also shows that the branches of this root of exclusivistic self-righteousness can, amazingly, make protests and prayers to the effect that all is of grace. Thus, the Pharisee prays, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector” (Luke 18:11).

Is this not a clear warning to us that finding grace dependent statements in Second-Temple Judaism does not demonstrate that the hearts of those who made those statements were not at root self-righteous (pp. 156-157).

It is interesting to note this idea that legalism and racism are closely entwined. At their core they are both rooted in pride and a superior view of ourselves and our cultural groups.

There is a very interesting quote from Matt Perman, one of John Piper's students, which Piper includes in his book, The Future of Justification. It addresses N. T. Wright's view that Judaism was not legalistic. Matt argues that there are, in fact, two types of legalism. Speaking of Wright and others he says:

“They appear to be thinking only in terms of hard legalism, which is the notion that either your works bribe God or that they are self-produced by your own effort. But, as you flesh it out, hard legalism does not exhaust the definition of legalism.

There is also soft legalism, which is the belief that your God-empowered obedience justifies you before God, or that you ‘become saved’ by faith but ‘remain saved’ by God-produced works (which includes the idea that final justification is based on obedience). In fact, Sanders acknowledged that the first century Jews believed that they got into the covenant by grace but ‘stayed in’ by works. But he failed to realize that this is legalism. The new perspective—and those taking their initial cues from it—typically conflate legalism and Pelagianism, seeming to think that because they (or the first century Jews) are not Pelagians, they therefore cannot be legalists. It needs to be made crystal-clear that these are distinct issues. You can utterly reject Pelagianism and yet be a legalist. You can be a Calvinist legalist, an Augustinian legalist, a believing-in-grace-empowered-works legalist. . . . This is perhaps the central issue of the debate and is probably a big part of the reason that they are going wrong. The essence of legalism is the belief that our right standing with God is based on, comes by means of, or is sustained by our works—regardless of whether those works are self-produced (hard legalism) or whether they are completely produced by God's grace in us (soft legalism). . . .” (Matt Perman, cited in John Piper, The Future of Justification (p. 152).

Reading that quote, I realized that with the emphasis of people like Wright on the need for us to demonstrate that we have changed in order for God to finally justify us in the end has an interesting effect. It is ironic indeed that in trying to claim Judaism was not legalistic, it is possible to argue that the new perspective has created a new form of what Matt calls ‘soft’ legalism.

In fact, if first century Judaism was not in any sense legalistic this would be most remarkable. Surely they would have been the only religious group in the history of the world who escaped its ugly stain. Anyone with much history within the evangelical movement should appreciate that, for all our talk about grace, we have all too often succumbed to the deceptive allure of legalism. This would most likely not be obvious in a review of our doctrinal statements and other written documents, but would be true nonetheless.

Book photo courtesy of Tony S. Reinke, The Shepherd's Scrapbook. Used by permission.

Anyone who has read anything about the New Perspectives on Paul will realize that one of the key arguments is that we have misunderstood the Pharisees through the perspective of the Reformation. The first century Jews were never legalists, we are told. There are a number of problems with that position. The first is looking at Jesus' own perspective on the Pharisees seen most prominently in Luke 18. The second is that while we should acknowledge that the original message of the OT was one of grace, even if the official documents of the first century do indeed point to grace, that does not mean that grace was what was practiced. John Piper explains this further:

"Legalism may also exist in practice, even if grace is trumpeted in theory. Religionists may easily proclaim the primacy of grace and actually live as if the determining factor was human effort. The history of the Christian church amply demonstrates that a theology of grace does not preclude legalism in practice. It would be surprising if Judaism did not suffer from the same problem. Legalism threatens even those who hold to a theology of grace since pride and self-boasting are deeply rooted in human nature. . . ."

"Theology . . . is not measured only by formal statements but also by what it stresses. Any theology that claims to stress God's grace but rarely mentions it and that elaborates human responsibility in detail inevitably becomes legalistic in practice, if not theory." (Schreiner, Law and Its Fulfillment, pp. 115–116, cited in John Piper, The Future of Justification, p. 147.)

On Friday I introduced a series on John Piper’s response to N. T. Wright in The Future of Justification. We saw that to Piper the most critical difference between N. T. Wright and himself is that Wright does not believe that Christ's righteousness is in any way transferred to our account. This is a vital, vital point. Without this concept of an alien righteousness either credited or transferred to us, ironically, both the Protestant and the Roman Catholic understandings of salvation unravel. Wright seems to believe that he and other modern theologians have discovered something that every theologian for millennia have missed. We should therefore be very careful before we accept such assertions. Men as epoch-shattering as Luther only come along very rarely. Is Wright such a man? Or is he deluded and quite plainly wrong?

This is how Piper elaborates on the dilemma we finished with on Friday:

“The omniscience of the judge implies that the defendant must have a different righteousness than Wright would concede, that is, a righteousness that is more than the mere status of being acquitted, regardless of innocence or guilt. Wright stresses that for the defendant, righteousness is not a character quality (i.e., not a moral righteousness) but a status, namely, that the court has found in the defendant’s favor. The defendant may or may not have committed the crime with which he was charged. Regardless, if the court finds in his favor, he is “righteous.” He has that status.

This definition of “righteous” may work in ordinary human law-courts where judges are fallible and their judgments must stand, whether they are right or wrong. But there’s a catch. In God’s courtroom, the Judge is omniscient and just. Now everyone in the first century would agree that in a courtroom where the Judge knows everything and is just, there can never be a case where there is a discrepancy between the truth of the charge and the truth of the verdict. In this court, what would be the basis of saying, “I bestow on you the status of righteous, and I find you guilty as charged”? How could such a finding be intelligible, not to mention just? One right answer that I think Wright would agree with is that this is what the atonement is all about. Christ died for our sins to provide a basis for this finding, and therefore, though guilty, the court can exercise clemency (or in God’s case, forgiveness) because of Christ and we go free.” (p. 74)

Piper goes on to summarize his understanding of what happens in justification in the following simple, but wonderful way:

“Wherever sins are not counted—righteousness is counted. That is, the forgiven person is not considered by God merely as a sinful forgiven person, but as a righteous person—a person “to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.” (p. 75)

Book photo courtesy Tony S. Reinke, The Shepherd's Scrapbook. Used by permission.

The Doctor defines grace and our salvation in such a way in this quote that I simply HAD to share it with you:

. . . we are Christians entirely and solely as the result of the grace of God. Let us remind ourselves once more that ‘grace’ means unmerited, undeserved favour. It is an action which arises entirely from the gracious character of God. So the fundamental proposition is that salvation is something that comes to us entirely from God's side. What is still more important is this, that it not only comes from God's side, it comes to us in spite of ourselves—‘unmerited’ favour. In other words, it is not God's response to anything in us. Now there are many people who seem to think that it is—that salvation is God's response to something in us. But the word ‘grace’ excludes that. It is in spite of us. . . .

Salvation is not in any sense God's response to anything in us. It is not something that we in any sense deserve or merit. The whole essence of the teaching at this point, and everywhere in all the New Testament, is that we have no sort or kind of right whatsoever to salvation, that the whole glory of salvation is, that though we deserved nothing but punishment and hell and banishment out of the sight of God to all eternity, yet God, of His own love and grace and wondrous mercy, has granted us this salvation. Now that is the entire meaning of this term ‘grace’. . . .

Creatures who were spiritually dead are now alive—how has it happened? Can a dead man raise himself? It is impossible. There is only one answer, ‘By grace ye are saved’. . . .

I must confess it passes my comprehension to understand how any Christian looking at himself or herself can say anything different. If when you get on your knees before God you do not realise that you are a 'debtor to mercy alone’, I confess I do not understand you. There is something tragically defective, either in your sense of sin or in your realisation of the greatness of God's love.

Lloyd-Jones, D. Martyn. God's Way of Reconciliation—An Exposition of Ephesians 2, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Book House, 1972, p. 130.

For more information on Lloyd-Jones, his sermons, books, etc. see the  MLJ Recordings Trust.

During a brief trip to the USA this past week, I had a layover in the Chicago area. I had an amazing few hours. I ate lunch with two great friends who I had never met in the flesh before. It struck me that the impression I had of them when finally meeting face-to-face was almost identical to the one I already had through our electronic communications. I thank God for the people I have been privileged to meet through this blog.

What I want to focus on in this post is what happened next. I hadn't even realized that there was a connection between Billy Graham and the town I was visiting. At my friends' suggestion, I headed to the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College.

I am well aware that there are at least two different perceptions of Billy Graham among evangelicals. You can read about both perspectives in a 2006 MSNBC interview and the Wikipedia page about Billy Graham. There are many evangelicals who, although they might have some concerns, greatly rejoice in what God has accomplished through his preaching of the Gospel. In Philippians 1, Paul rejoices that Christ was preached even by those who had bad motives. Surely all Christians can rejoice at the preaching career of a man who has been in the media spotlight for five decades and yet has never been accused of a lack of integrity.

Wikipedia believes that 2 billion people have heard Billy Graham preach the Gospel and that 2.5 million of them made a public declaration of faith in response. There is no doubt that Billy has preached to more people than any other Christian minister in the last 2000 years. If there have been some weaknesses about Billy over the years (and certainly Billy himself believes that there are) then surely the fact that God chose to use someone weak in such a dramatic way only underlines the glory of his grace.

The Billy Graham Center moved me profoundly. An overview of evangelical history in America led into a more detailed report of the life of the man often called "America's pastor." The focus was not on his role as personal counselor to every president since Harry Truman. Rather it was his preaching and crusades that were reported in most detail. Walking past photographs of massive crowds while listening to clips of his preaching brought tears to my eyes. It seemed that in every era the extracts of the messages they had playing said almost the same thing, which I have paraphrased as follows:

Christ died, took the guilt for you, became sin for you, and rose again. He's a living Christ. He's here right now. He wants you to repent, trust him, and ask him to be Lord of your life, to come into your life so you can then follow him as Lord and Saviour.

The focus was not just on the death, but also on the resurrection. It was not just on sin and wrath, but also forgiveness and love. He was not content to speak only of God in heaven, but also of Jesus living in our hearts. I stood behind Billy's traveling pulpit and listened to his voice and wept that God would raise up more preachers of Christ in our day who can fill stadiums with the Gospel.

As the exhibition closes, if visitors are in any doubt about who the organizers really want to glorify, you are led through a passageway to the foot of an enormous cross. Then you are taken into a dark passageway clearly intended to be the grave. As you round the corner, a simple inscription is written on the wall "He is not here, but risen!" The passageway then opens into a light room clearly intended to reflect glory. I was quite simply undone by this and had tears welling in my eyes.

I was left with a strong impression of the need for us to preach the simple Gospel of Jesus' death AND resurrection. I also remember reading these words of Billy Graham there (which sadly I did not write down in a notebook, so they may not be 100 per cent accurate, although the sense is definitely there):

I find that when I preach the simple Gospel with authority, quoting the very words of the Bible, the Holy Spirit drives it home into the hearts of people.

The Holy Spirit was a major focus of the exhibition in several quotes. Oh, for a return to such an emphasis on the living Jesus sending his Spirit to convict the world and bring them salvation. Deliver us from an overly intellectual Christianity, oh God. Remind us that the Gospel is indeed simple enough that a farm boy with no theological degrees can become its most prolific ambassador!

The impression left on me was striking indeed. So much so that, somewhat surprisingly for such a fan as I am, seeing the writing desks of C. S. Lewis and J. R. Tolkein, not to mention the wardrobe which inspired The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, was frankly an anticlimax!

Hi! It's Mrs.W here again! The stage of life I am in currently involves spending a lot of time caring for my lovely 7 month old baby, George. He is now clapping his hands, rolling over, and sitting up. He also has his first tooth! He is such a cute little boy, and we all love him to bits. But he is also very vulnerable. He needs to be watched and cared for all the time, for he has no idea at all how to look after himself and keep himself safe. In Jesus' time I believe many children would die before reaching adulthood. Jesus made himself that vulnerable for us.


He Chose This Way

There are so very many things
That I will never know
But most of all I wonder why
You chose to stoop so low.

A birth amongst the cows and hay
Your earthly life began
Your babyhood and toddler days
Were all part of the plan.

You walked and talked and laughed and cried
And played as children do
But as you grew you never sinned
Because you were God, too.

Why did you choose to be a child
When you're the King of all
You suffered pain and took my shame
While I cared not at all?

You broke the power of sin and death
And freed me from the law
You rose again to give me life
And joy forever more.

What can I say but 'thank you, Lord'
What can I do but praise?
And by your grace to seek your face
And love you all my days.

— Andrée Warnock

Mark Dever is not a man who is shy of controversy. For example, during my recent interview with him, he stated concerning the book, Pierced For Our Transgressions, "If you don't like that book, you don't like Christianity!" Strong stuff!

Before we leave Mark for awhile, I want to share with you once again some excerpts from what I believe has been his best blog post ever. It was written in 2006 and is entitled "Undermining Tolerance of Egalitarianism." Whatever your views on this subject may be, you will surely see in these quotes his passion and the reasoning behind his strong belief in the crucial nature of the controversy facing the Church over this issue:

". . . it is my observation that those older than me who are complementarian generally want to downplay this issue, and those younger than me want to lead with it, or at least be very up front about it. . . .

The older group is among peers who see women's ordination as an extension of civil rights for people of different races. The younger group is among peers who see women's ordination as a precursor for creating legal categories of gay rights. But having a certain skin pigmentation is to the glory of God; having a sexual partner of the same gender is sin. The younger group is more alarmed not simply by the egalitarian position, but by what it is assumed that will eventually entail, either in those who allow it, or in those who come after them.

There are, of course, many evangelical feminists. Some Christians whom I most love and respect and have learned from are in this category. . . . 'Well then,' you might say, 'Why don't you leave this issue of complementarianism at the level of baptism or church polity? Surely you cooperate with those who disagree with you on such matters.' Because, though I could be wrong, it is my best and most sober judgment that this position is effectively an undermining of—a breach in—the authority of Scripture. As Lig [Duncan], the paedo-baptist, has often said, 'If there were a verse in 1 Timothy saying, 'I do not permit an infant to be baptized . . .' we wouldn't be having this conversation about baptism! There is such a verse about women serving as teacher/elders!'

Dear reader, you may not agree with me on this. And I don't desire to be right in my fears. But it seems to me and others (many who are younger than myself) that this issue of egalitarianism and complementarianism is increasingly acting as the watershed distinguishing those who will accomodate Scripture to culture, and those who will attempt to shape culture by Scripture. You may disagree, but this is our honest concern before God. It is no lack of charity, nor honesty. It is no desire for power or tradition for tradition's sake. It is our sober conclusion from observing the last 50 years."

For more information about Mark Dever, see the following sites: Together for the Gospel Blog, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, and 9Marks.

Last month Mark Dever was on tour. In the middle of central London, somewhere off Picadilly in a large church—complete with organ—I sat with a gathering of church leaders and others eager to hear Mark speak. (OK, so it's been a long time since I sang a hymn to an organ!) Anyway, Mark began the day by turning to 1 Timothy 1:12-17.

True to form, Dever began with the Gospel. Paul reminds his son in the faith of the dramatic call he himself had received to preach the Gospel. He wanted to be sure that his hearers who had decided to spend a day listening to theology were really saved. He established Paul's credentials. It was Jesus who had appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Paul's teaching came with the authority of God. Timothy had also received that call. Timothy's theology was critical. The Bible really is God's words.

Grace was abundantly poured out on Paul. In contrast to his previous life, God gave him the power to preach. Timothy was to be encouraged that God would provide. Christianity is not merely a religious way to talk about self-help, self-effort. Much modern "Christianity" is a-theological. We need God to actually act to change us. He gives us things we don't deserve, and loves us in ways that we can't imagine.

Paul is humble and joyful, yet also hopeful, as he is confessing where he has come from and what God has done for him in Christ. Paul is aware of great sin, but also of great grace. This chapter is almost like a personalized Ephesians 2—BUT GOD!

Paul was a wolf who had become a sheep. A man full of pride became humble. A persecutor became a pastor.