Tag Archive - Jesus

Completed by the Spirit Part 21: Do Not Submit Again to a Yoke of Slavery

August 23, 2011 in Completed by the Spirit, Law, New Covenant Theology, Papers, Sanctification, Theology with 0 Comments

This is the 21st part of a series of posts adapted from a paper I pre­sented at a New Covenant The­ol­ogy think tank in upstate New York in July 2010.

Given all that we’ve stud­ied in this series, how do we apply what is shown to us about sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion in Scripture?

How do we grow in holi­ness or coun­sel those who are com­bat­ing sin by rely­ing on the Holy Spirit and fol­low­ing imper­a­tives grounded in the indica­tive of the gospel and the gift of the Spirit of Christ to dwell in us?

Our study has pro­vided us two answers: one pos­i­tive and one negative.

We do focus on the gospel.

We do not focus on the law.

When we set our eyes on Christ and look at His per­son and work, we behold more and more what it is that our union with Him has granted to us. Con­tinue Reading…

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Sowing the Seed

August 22, 2011 in Evangelism, Posts from other blogs with 0 Comments

And no, I’m not talk­ing about the sort of “seed” that “pros­per­ity gospel” huck­sters on TV try to con­nive you to send them.

Over at his blog today, Tim Bris­ter reminds us about the para­ble of the sower, found in all three syn­op­tic Gospels, includ­ing Mark 4:1–20.

The point of Jesus’ para­ble is that the seed, the gospel, is spread over all kinds of soil, but only takes root in good soil. Tim is right when he says that we’re too stingy in spread­ing the seed — only look­ing for a place where it can sprout — rather than trust­ing God to give the increase.

Tim’s full post is at his blog Provo­ca­tions and Pant­i­ngs.

 

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Completed by the Spirit Part 19: Imperatives Rooted in the Indicative

August 16, 2011 in Completed by the Spirit, Law, New Covenant Theology, Papers, Sanctification, Theology with 0 Comments

This is the 19th part of a series of posts adapted from a paper I pre­sented at a New Covenant The­ol­ogy think tank in upstate New York in July 2010.

We cer­tainly are given imper­a­tives — com­mands — in the New Tes­ta­ment. Indeed, many imper­a­tives are included in Paul’s epistles.

But it is vitally impor­tant to under­stand that Paul’s imper­a­tives are not in the form of laws, but are imper­a­tives that are depen­dent upon the indica­tive of the gospel.

Pro­fes­sor and the­olo­gian Thomas Schreiner explains:

Paul’s exhor­ta­tions do not fall prey to legal­ism, for they are rooted in his gospel and the promises of God. Another way of say­ing this is that the imper­a­tive (God’s com­mand) is rooted in the indica­tive (what God has done for believ­ers in Christ). Believ­ers are saved, redeemed, rec­on­ciled, and jus­ti­fied even now, and yet we have seen that each of these bless­ings is fun­da­men­tally esc­a­ha­to­log­i­cal. Believ­ers are already redeemed, and yet they await final redemp­tion. Jus­ti­fi­ca­tion belongs to believ­ers by faith, and yet they await the hope of right­eous­ness on the last day (Gal. 5:5). Believ­ers would not need any eth­i­cal exhor­ta­tions if they were already per­fected. But in the inter­val between the “already” and the “not yet,” eth­i­cal exhor­ta­tion is needed. If the pri­or­ity of the indica­tive is lost, then the grace of the Pauline gospel is under­mined. The imper­a­tive must always flow from the indica­tive. On the other hand, the indica­tive must must not swal­low up the imper­a­tive so that the lat­ter dis­ap­pears. The imper­a­tives do not com­pro­mise Paul’s gospel. They should not be con­strued as law opposed to gospel. The imper­a­tives are part and par­cel of the gospel as long as they are woven into the story line of the Pauline gospel and flow from the indica­tive of what God has accom­plished for us in Christ.[1]

Con­tinue Reading…

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Completed by the Spirit Part 17: The Gospel Brings About All Aspects of Our Salvation

August 8, 2011 in Completed by the Spirit, Law, New Covenant Theology, Papers, Sanctification, Theology with 0 Comments

This is the 17th part of a series of posts adapted from a paper I pre­sented at a New Covenant The­ol­ogy think tank in upstate New York in July 2010.

Discipline of Grace cover

The Dis­ci­pline of Grace by Jerry Bridges

Paul’s repeated expla­na­tions of the gospel and his dox­olo­gies to Christ are not given because the peo­ple to whom he writes do not have Christ — or don’t know Him — but because they do know him. Paul writes to the Romans words that echo those we saw last time from 1 Thess 4:9:

[14] I myself am sat­is­fied about you, my broth­ers, that you your­selves are full of good­ness, filled with all knowl­edge and able to instruct one another. [15] But on some points I have writ­ten to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God [16] to be a min­is­ter of Christ Jesus to the Gen­tiles in the priestly ser­vice of the gospel of God, so that the offer­ing of the Gen­tiles may be accept­able, sanc­ti­fied by the Holy Spirit. (Rom 15:14–16)

Paul is bring­ing the words and truth of Christ to remem­brance, because it is the gospel of Christ that brings about all aspects of sal­va­tion: jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion and glorification.

But that’s not new infor­ma­tion to these saints. Con­tinue Reading…

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Apologetics That Brings Glory to Christ

July 28, 2011 in Apologetics, Evangelism, New Covenant Theology, Papers, Posts from other blogs with 0 Comments

Pas­tor Dustin Segers

I had the great bless­ing of par­tic­i­pat­ing in the 2011 Earth Stove Soci­ety Think Tank this week with sev­eral pre­sen­ters, includ­ing Pas­tor Dustin Segers of Greens­boro, N.C. He is an active evan­ge­list on the streets of his city and on col­lege campuses.

One of his two pre­sen­ta­tions was on the topic of Apolo­get­ics and New Covenant Theology.

Dustin reminded us to “defend the Bib­li­cal God and the Bib­li­cal gospel with the Bible. Stand on the Hill of God’s word to defend that self­same Hill. Jesus and the apos­tles did it, and you should too.”

You can read a sum­mary of what he pre­sented on his blog, Grace in the Triad.

Video of his pre­sen­ta­tion will be avail­able soon. I rec­om­mend both.

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Completed by the Spirit Part 14: The Very Stuff of New Covenant Ethics

July 28, 2011 in Completed by the Spirit, Law, New Covenant Theology, Papers, Sanctification, Theology with 0 Comments

This is the 14th part of a series of posts adapted from a paper I pre­sented at a New Covenant The­ol­ogy think tank in upstate New York in July 2010.

In our last install­ment in this series, we noted that love is a God-given, Spirit-provided qual­ity that impels actions in the believer and that it is that same Spirit-provided love that forms the out­work­ing of the New Covenant ethic.

Love In Hard Places by D. A. Carson

Love In Hard Places by D. A. Carson

We’ll con­tinue and wrap up our look at love with a rather long quo­ta­tion from D. A. Car­son, in which he sum­ma­rizes Paul’s view on love as it relates to those two loves – God and neigh­bor – which have their expo­si­tion in the two tables of the Old Covenant:

Sim­i­larly, Paul insists that what is ful­filled in one word, viz. Leviti­cus 19:18, the com­mand to love one’s neigh­bor as one­self, is the entire sec­ond table of the Deca­logue: love is the ful­fill­ment of the law (Rom. 13:8– 10). Despite argu­ments to the con­trary, the dou­ble com­mand to love is not some sort of deep prin­ci­ple from which all the other com­mand­ments of Scrip­ture can be deduced; nor is it a hermeneu­ti­cal grid to weed out the laws of the old covenant that no longer have to be obeyed while bless­ing those that are still oper­a­tive; nor is it offered as a kind of reduc­tion­is­tic sub­sti­tute for all the Old Tes­ta­ment laws. In some ways, the twin laws of love, love for God and love for neigh­bor, inte­grate all the other laws. They estab­lish the proper motives for all the other imper­a­tives, viz. lov­ing God and lov­ing one’s neighbor.

But the “ful­fill­ment” lan­guage sug­gests some­thing more. All the laws of the old rev­e­la­tion, indeed all the old covenant Scrip­tures, con­spire to antic­i­pate some­thing more, to point to some­thing beyond them­selves. They point to the com­ing of the king­dom, the gospel of the king­dom; they point to a time when life prop­erly lived in God’s uni­verse can be summed up by obe­di­ence to the com­mand­ment to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength and by the com­mand­ment to love your neigh­bor as your­self.[1]

Con­tinue Reading…

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Completed by the Spirit Part 13: Love Poured Into Us

July 12, 2011 in Completed by the Spirit, Law, New Covenant Theology, Papers, Sanctification with 0 Comments

This is the 13th part of a series of posts adapted from a paper I pre­sented at a New Covenant The­ol­ogy think tank in upstate New York in July 2010.

Water pouring from pitcher into a glassLove is a repeated theme for Paul.

While we have seen pre­vi­ously in this series that love ful­fills the law and that God’s love is poured into us by the Holy Spirit, let’s look at how Paul describes that love. In 1 Corinthi­ans 13, Paul writes:

[1] If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clang­ing cym­bal. [2] And if I have prophetic pow­ers, and under­stand all mys­ter­ies and all knowl­edge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove moun­tains, but have not love, I am noth­ing. [3] If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

First, let’s note that in accor­dance with love being some­thing poured into us by the Holy Spirit, that love is not some­thing that would be described by Paul as “prac­ti­cal benev­o­lence. In fact, he cau­tions, “If I give away all I have … but have not love, I gain noth­ing.” Love is not the result of our actions; rather it is a God-given, Spirit-provided qual­ity that impels actions in the believer.

It is that same Spirit-provided love that forms the out­work­ing of the New Covenant ethic.

Con­tinue Reading…

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Completed by the Spirit Part 12: Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

July 7, 2011 in Completed by the Spirit, Law, New Covenant Theology, Papers, Sanctification, Theology with 0 Comments

This is the 12th part of a series of posts adapted from a paper I pre­sented at a New Covenant The­ol­ogy think tank in upstate New York in July 2010.

Love graffiti on red garage doorIf an exter­nal code is the antithe­sis of a life in the Spirit (as we noted in our last install­ment), what is the expres­sion of a life in the Spirit? Love. “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5).

That love, that love from God via the Holy Spirit given to dwell in us is, as Paul tells us, the ful­fill­ing of the law:

[8] Owe no one any­thing, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has ful­filled the law. [9] For the com­mand­ments, “You shall not com­mit adul­tery, You shall not mur­der, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other com­mand­ment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neigh­bor as your­self.” [10] Love does no wrong to a neigh­bor; there­fore love is the ful­fill­ing of the law. (Romans 13:8–10)

Con­tinue Reading…

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Virgo: ‘The law always kills in the end’

July 2, 2011 in Law, Sanctification, Theology with 0 Comments

Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hear­ing with faith? Are you so fool­ish? Hav­ing begun by the Spirit, are you now being per­fected by the flesh? (Gala­tians 3:2–3)

The Spirit-Filled Church by Terry Virgo

The Spirit-Filled Church: Find­ing Your Place in God’s Purpose

We recently noted an ongo­ing dis­cus­sion about the effort we’re called to make in our sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion. I believe Scrip­ture tells us that although we can do things that look like sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion, if those actions are done in the flesh they are sim­ply behav­ior mod­i­fi­ca­tion. It’s a change in the heart that is desired, not sim­ply an out­ward change in actions.

I’m cur­rently read­ing The Spirit-Filled Church: Find­ing Your Place in God’s Pur­pose, by Terry Virgo. Virgo takes this argu­ment one step fur­ther, show­ing us that using the law for sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion gives Satan the oppor­tu­nity to heap con­dem­na­tion on us. “The law always kills in the end,” Virgo notes.

This por­tion of The Spirit-Filled Church (avail­able for pre-order at Ama­zon and via Ama­zon in the U.K. here or world­wide from the U.K here) out­lines Virgo’s case. It’s in agree­ment with what we’re advo­cat­ing in our cur­rent Com­pleted by the Spirit series:

It is essen­tial for us con­stantly to rec­og­nize our death to law. It is no longer the basis for our rela­tion­ship with God and never will be. We are mar­ried to Christ and our ful­fil­ment as Chris­tians is bound up in our love rela­tion­ship with him.

Con­tinue Reading…

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Completed by the Spirit Part 10: The Law of the Spirit of Life Has Set You Free

June 28, 2011 in Completed by the Spirit, Law, New Covenant Theology, Papers, Sanctification, Theology with 0 Comments

This is the 10th part of a series of posts adapted from a paper I pre­sented at a New Covenant The­ol­ogy think tank in upstate New York in July 2010.

Bent over runner, out of breath

You were run­ning well. Who hin­dered you from obey­ing the truth?

In Romans 8, Paul pro­vides the solu­tion to the wretched state of the chap­ter 7 man, as he joy­fully pro­claims, “[1] There is there­fore now no con­dem­na­tion for those who are in Christ Jesus. [2] For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” (Rom 8:1–2). But that does not mean that the law is now harm­less to the regen­er­ate man who nev­er­the­less still has remain­ing sin – and as we noted above – will con­tinue to have remain­ing sin in his flesh until glory. Paul issues this stern warning:

[5] For those who live accord­ing to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live accord­ing to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. [6] For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. [7] For the mind that is set on the flesh is hos­tile to God, for it does not sub­mit to God’s law; indeed, it can­not. [8] Those who are in the flesh can­not please God. (Romans 8:5–8)

Con­tinue Reading…

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