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. He wanted nothing but to serve Christ Jesus. Paul uses the word “sinner,” a word which is rarely said today. He says still I “am” the worst sinner. Dever was anxious to point out that even the best Christian remains in some sense a sinner. Sin has ruined our world. None of us are immune from its effects.

Paul was shown mercy, not because his ignorance and unbelief were mitigating factors—rather his ignorance was culpable. He was shown mercy, not because his sins were more excusable, but precisely because they were so great. So Paul's ignorance was part of what made Paul into the greatest sinner. His very opposition to the Gospel demonstrated God's power. Paul became a pattern for those who would follow. God saved Paul to demonstrate his patience towards sinners to the world.

God uses people we feel are beyond the reach of God's mercy to display his glory to the maximum. It is through us that his glory is revealed!

On Saturday, September 22nd I attended the Theology For All Conference in central London at which Mark Dever spoke. To be honest, I was a bit apprehensive about attending as I wondered if I would be the only charismatic in attendance. Since the concept of Together for the Gospel hasn't really crossed the Atlantic, I almost felt like an interloper.

It was great then to arrive and to feel so welcomed by a good number of my readers who were also attending. It still surprises and pleases me when I meet readers in real life—somehow thinking of them as eyes gazing at a screen is totally different from meeting them in real life. I was also greatly encouraged to discover that apparently my blog is widely read in such circles as the students of Oak Hill or the Cornhill training program. I was just disappointed not to have exchanged contact details with some of the people who I met that day. If you were there, or indeed if you are a lurking reader, feel free to make contact with me via e-mail, or still better, by asking me to be a friend on Facebook.

Listening to Mark Dever was a great blessing, and over the next few days I will share my notes. At the end of the conference I was able to sit with Mark over dinner and we recorded an informal interview. We discussed his latest book, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, among other subjects. The book is a useful introduction to personal evangelism, what it is, and how we should go about evangelizing. I believe the book is a great introduction to the subject, and certainly reading it challenged me to seek God for more opportunities to share the Gospel with others on a one-to-one basis.

The interview was a lot of fun, and at times it felt more like I was being interviewed by Mark! You can download it or listen to it right here:

There are few places where one can go to study church history more rewarding than Dr. John Piper's biographical talks. He has a way of opening up the life of a great hero of the faith and showing us what we can learn from them. I'm finding myself in John Owen's Communion with the Triune God quite consistently at the moment, and am now over half-way through the book. I am finding it to be sweet to the soul and, thanks to Justin & Company, relatively easy going on the eyes!

I thought I would have a look at what the modern John has to say about his namesake. Piper begins his biography by emphasizing just how prominent an influence Owen has had in the centuries since his death. He even quotes approvingly those who elevate John Owen above Piper's other theological hero, Jonathan Edwards! Certainly his list of modern greats who express their debt to Owen is impressive.

But what I want to draw your attention to this Friday is the section which speaks about the experiential nature of an event that happened to John Owen years after he had become intellectually convinced of Calvinism. The event below is often described as Owen's conversion, although Piper, in introdcucing it, expresses some doubt about that. When confronted with events as experiential as those described below, we are faced with a dilemma. Many Christians today never experience this kind of personalized assurance of salvation. For many of those who have come before us, until they knew something of the love of God shed abroad in their own hearts, they could not confidently claim to be Christians.

Thus, one of two conclusions become possible. First, we might infer from reading about previous heroes of the faith that all salvation MUST be accompanied by an experience. Thus, we would have to conclude that many alive today in our churches have never truly been saved. Second, we could infer that while it is possible to become a Christian without any great emotional fireworks being set off, there is a distinct experience of God's Spirit that is available and brings assurance.

Ironically, a doctrine of a distinct experience of God could, in fact, be necessary precisely to allow for the fact that believers differ in the extent of their awareness of the presence and love of God. Far from creating "second class" Christians, it could be that this doctrine is necessary to ensure that people whose conversion expereince is not as dramatic as those outlined below can still be classed as Christians.

Can anyone read these accounts and be satisfied with an inferior experience of God? Or, like me, does reading them make you yearn for more of God? If the latter, let me encourage you to pray that God will reveal himself personally to you in the way he has to so many others before you. Then, read the Bible, sit under sermons, and continue to trust in God irrespective of what you feel while earnestly seeking the God who loved you so much that he came and died for you.

Let's see how John Piper describes the conversion of John Owen, which he writes about in a section detailing five events that shaped Owen's life:

The first is his conversion—or his assurance of salvation and deepening of his personal communion with God. It is remarkable that it happened in a way almost identical to Charles Spurgeon's conversion two centuries later. On January 6, 1850 Spurgeon was driven by a snow storm into a Primitive Methodist Chapel where a layman stood in for the pastor and took the text from Isaiah 45:22, "Look to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth." Spurgeon looked and was saved.

Owen was a convinced Calvinist with large doctrinal knowledge, but he lacked the sense of the reality of his own salvation. That sense of personal reality in all that he wrote was going to make all the difference in the world for Owen in the years to come. So what happened one Sunday in 1642 is very important.

When Owen was 26 years old he went with his cousin to hear the famous Presbyterian, Edmund Calamy, at St. Mary's Church Aldermanbury. But it turned out Calamy could not preach and a country preacher took his place. Owen's cousin wanted to leave. But something held Owen to his seat. The simple preacher took as his text Matthew 8:26, "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" It was God's appointed word and appointed time for Owen's awakening. His doubts and fears and worries as to whether he was truly born anew by the Holy Spirit were gone. He felt himself liberated and adopted as a Son of God. When you read the penetrating practical works of Owen on the work of the Spirit and the nature of true communion with God it is hard to doubt the reality of what God did on this Sunday in 1642.

Later in this biographical article Piper quotes Packer to further elaborate on this vital issue of communion with God:

Packer says that the Puritans differ from evangelicals today because with them ". . . communion with God was a great thing; to evangelicals today it is a comparatively small thing. The Puritans were concerned about communion with God in a way that we are not. The measure of our unconcern is the little that we say about it. When Christians meet, they talk to each other about their Christian work and Christian interests, their Christian acquaintances, the state of the churches, and the problems of theology—but rarely of their daily experience of God."

But God was seeing to it that Owen and the suffering Puritans of his day lived closer to God and sought after communion with God more earnestly than we. Writing a letter during an illness in 1674 he said to a friend, "Christ is our best friend, and ere long will be our only friend. I pray God with all my heart that I may be weary of everything else but converse and communion with Him." God was using illness and all the other pressures of Owen's life to drive him into communion with God and not away from it.

But Owen was also very intentional about his communion with God. He said, "Friendship is most maintained and kept up by visits; and these, the more free and less occasioned by urgent business . . ." In other words, in the midst of all his academic and political and ecclesiastical labors he made many visits to his Friend, Jesus Christ.

And when he went he did not just go with petitions for things or even for deliverance in his many hardships. He went to see his glorious friend and to contemplate his greatness. The last book he wrote—he was finishing it as he died—is called Meditations on the Glory of Christ. That says a great deal about the focus and outcome of Owen's life. In it he said:

"The revelation . . . of Christ . . . deserves the severest of our thoughts, the best of our meditations and our utmost diligence in them . . . What better preparation can there be for [our future enjoyment of the glory of Christ] than in a constant previous contemplation of that glory in the revelation that is made in the Gospel?"

Lest we be in any doubt about how personally challenging John Piper finds the life of Owen, he states:

"Owen was authentic in commending in public only what he had experienced in private.

One great hindrance to holiness in the ministry of the word is that we are prone to preach and write without pressing into the things we say and making them real to our own souls. Over the years words begin to come easy, and we find we can speak of mysteries without standing in awe; we can speak of purity without feeling pure; we can speak of zeal without spiritual passion; we can speak of God's holiness without trembling; we can speak of sin without sorrow; we can speak of heaven without eagerness. And the result is a terrible hardening of the spiritual life."

Piper goes on to quote Owen as follows:

"A man preacheth that sermon only well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul. And he that doth not feed on and thrive in the digestion of the food which he provides for others will scarce make it savoury unto them; yea, he knows not but the food he hath provided may be poison, unless he have really tasted of it himself. If the word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us."

This is some notes from a sermon I preached last Sunday. You can download the audio or listen to it right here with this player.

The following notes havent gone through my usual 'tidying up' process and I thought I would share them with you without any real editorial input just so you can see quite how chaotic my mind truly is! If they don't make much sense to you, hopefully the audio will be clearer!

Paul begins this second chapter in the context of a glorious description of the power of God at the end of the last chapter – there were no chapter breaks when he wrote it. As we will see that amazing power of God was necessary to bring salvation to us.

1. the state of the sinner: OUR Problem without God - “Dead in sins”
life without God – is death
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
DEAD to God but alive to SIN. Look pretty alive dont we! But, we are not in the doghouse but dead. God made us for himself! Might feed the hungry and it is still sin - coz not done for the glory of God - Rom 1 falling short of glory .....its all sin if God is neglected our righteous acts are as filthy rags....Until we understand this, we willl never apprecaite our need of a saviour

It is not that we have too low a self esteem but that we dont think badly enough of ourselves without God!

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” (Mat 23:27-28)

What does being dead to God look like?
1. “following the course of this world” (v2)
Lead by peer pressure (the world) Copying others, not wanting to stand out, go with the flow....

Goes deeper than this - behind that peer pressure is the devil.
2. “following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” Enslaved to an alien power! NB devil is as close to us as the air we we cant escape = even as christians easy to embibe satanic attitudes.... This is a world of darkness - how at home do you feel in the world? disobedient to God. We end up with the devil inside us, and become his tool in his battle against God. There are two kingdoms in this world. If you feel at home in the world, you are most likely full of the spirit that inspires it. If it feels alien to you then perhaps you are a believer!

3. “lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind”
In the 21st Century West we live by unfettered desire - our modern culture is based on this! Money (NB the things money reprs), sex, power (promotion, to be the best, etc)
but also FOOD!
NB when we want what we dont get we war with others over it...

So Paul goes on to summarise
“by nature children of wrath” (v3)

BY NATURE sinners BUT WE ALSO CHOOSE TO SIN... FREE CHOICE.\ NO ONE EVER HAS TO TRAIN a child to sin! Sin has been inherited - "original sin" though there's nothing original about sin!

NB - "like the rest of mankind" - removes boasting! Helps us to understand history with all its wars etc

Helps us to understand the size of Gods grace and power -its depth
People live a miserable life - uninterested in God....
WE REBEL AGAINST THE HUMBLING CONCEPT OF THE GOSPEL WANT TO BE SELF SUFICIENT.....

One of the greatest phrases in the whole bible - “But God”
2. The MERCY of God - GOD'S Solution - “But God....by grace..through faith”

Not so much a theological theory of salvation, more a description of what happens to us when we believe!

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
-unmerited mercy undeserved. Not about what I have done, but grace from start to finish – he is RICH in mercy
-grace – because of the great love he has for us, made possible by what Jesus has done NOT
to show “the immeasurable riches of his grace”
by faith but THROUGH faith. Faith is a gift!

3. The Position of believer The Results for the Christian- “Saved, raised, seated in heavenly places”
exact opposite – once were dead, now you are ALIVE, once you were earthbound – following the ways of this world, now you are RAISED to heaven, once you were “walking” and if you were even aware of God you were trying desperately to please him whilst all the time failing in sin, now you are “SEATED” with him! ie - rest, completion, and victory!

– our position is now ABOVE the circumstances!
It is like God the Father looked in a grave saw a stinking corpse and said I want him to live and turned to his son and said will you go live on earth, die, and be raised so that he can live (based on Piper) He was UNITED IN OUR DEATH so we were UNITED IN HIS LIFE

Paul doesn't mention the death of Christ here, partly because he did briefly in chapter one, partly because they would have known about it and partly because the resurrection presupposes Jesus died!

Gods irresistible call that causes rebirth. There are many things I can do, and many things I cannot do. Raising the dead is firmly in the category of things I cant do! I cant save anybody!

BANCRUPTCY AS an example of this.....

Raised together with Christ SYN-Raised etc

How are we united with Christ?
1. as our representative - yes like if our head of state declares war , we are at war even if we disagree! ie he died and was raised on our behalf but also
2. mystical = actually incorporated in Christ’s body in some way... "I have been crucified....I died" (Gal)
3 experiential - We belong to heaven! We have a "second life"....
We can begin to experience the truth of this here and now - that is the role of the Spirit who is the "foretaste" -are you aware of His presence?

NB Must be one or the other....are you spiritually alive or dead? Imagine a doctor "mmm....I think he might be dead" no in between!

ARE you alive to God? Do you have a longing for his presence? Does your heart yearn for him?
If not, how can you be sure that you really are a Christian?

4. The Mission of the Christian “created for good works”
– our evangelism should be driven by a true state of how people are and gratitude for what God has done for us, but more than that for God's glory.
– there are things about God we would never have known if it weren’t for our salvation! Angels marvel at the church, more than creation!
– NB as we have said dead men cant resurrect themselves. It is ALL from God, and it is designed to stop up boasting!
– Good works don’t make us become a Christian, becoming a Christian makes us able to do good works!
– Tim Keller - religion I obey so I can be accepted. Christianity - I am accepted so I can obey...
DONT TURN FAITH INTO A FORM OF WORKS±
WE are NOT saved by faith. We are saved THROUGH faith. But BY grace.
Faith is not the cause of salvation, rather Jesus is.

We are shaped for righteous living,
--11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. (Romans 6:11-12)
● also a DESIGN to match –

GOALS/Respsonse
1. For anyone unsure of their salvation to become sure – know you are spiritually alive alpha..
2. For the rest of us to be more excited about our salvation and eager to share it