This article by Mark Noll is REALLY thought provoking.

Praise the Lord: Song, culture, divine bounty, and issues of harmonization

One great sentence:

The increasing number of such examples makes it possible to imagine a fully harmonious and spiritually edifying service of Christian worship where new Christian believers played Palestrina on the indigenous musical instruments of Burkina Faso, where an African American gospel choir led in a chorale of Heinrich Schütz, where white middle-class Presbyterians surged with Christian ecstasy to the beat of a drum, where teenaged believers filled up their iPods with the Robert Shaw Chorale, and where learned Western theologians delighted in a nearly infinite repetition of “God is so good, he’s so good to me.”

(HT: Scott Anderson)

*Part one in this series raised some comments / questions that I intend to address in parts 3 or 4.

Central to this perspective on congregational worship is the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union. In the Person of Christ we find the objective movement of God-to-man and the objective and vicarious responding movement of man-to-God. This double movement is united in the one Person of the Incarnate Son. Therefore, from the first moment of Christ’s earthly existence we have in the one Person of Christ the objective saving activity of God and the objective and vicarious responding activity of man. We must not look at the Hypostatic Union as merely the means of our salvation. Rather, we must recognize that it is actually the place where salvation was accomplished. T. F. Torrance writes:

The vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ…fulfills a representative and substitutionary role in all our relations with God…such as trusting and obeying, understanding and knowing, loving and worshipping…Jesus Christ…in and through His humanity took our place, acting in our name and on our behalf before God, freely offering in Himself what we could not offer and offering it in our stead, the perfect response of man to God in a holy life of faith and prayer and praise, the self-offering of the Beloved Son with whom the Father is well pleased” (God and Rationality, 145).

Moreover, the Epistle to the Hebrews makes it clear that Christ continues to be the place where God’s movement to man and man’s responding movement to God resides. It is because of this double movement that was brought to its climax in the death and resurrection of Christ and that continues as Christ ministers in the Holy Place (Hebrews 8:1-2) that we now have objective confidence to enter the Holy Place, to draw near to God with a true heart in full assurance of faith (Hebrews 10:19-22). This is why the writer of Hebrews closes his epistle by exhorting us to continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God through our High Priest, Jesus (Hebrews 13:15). T.F. Torrance writes:

Jesus Christ in his own self-oblation to the Father is our worship and prayer in an acutely personalized form, so that it is only through him and with him and in him that we may draw near to God with the hands of faith filled with no other offering but that which he has made on our behalf and in our place once and for all (T.F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, 87).

If my understanding of the Hypostatic Union and its implications is correct, thinking of congregational worship, as I argued in my last post, simply in terms of what we are offering to God is worship that is not as gospel-centered as we might think. It is worship, it seems to me, that has lost sight of Christ’s vicarious life and continued priestly ministry. Therefore, I believe, pastors would do well not only to teach the congregation about these things but also to lead it in corporate worship in such a way that those present are consciously aware of the fact that “all our worship of the Father takes place properly within the circle of the life of Jesus Christ which he lived in our human nature in such a way that his whole life formed itself into worship, prayer and praise which he offered to the Father on our behalf” (T.F. Torrance, Theology in Reconciliation, 210-211).

I often wonder what Christians are actually thinking about worship as they worship together through the singing of hymn texts, the giving of offerings, the responsive reading of Scripture, etc.  If we could quietly pull a few aside who are engaged in these corporate expressions of worship to ask them what they think worship is, I wonder what they might say.  I wonder if their answers would be more man-centered than God-centered.  In A Passion for Christ: The Vision that Ignites Ministry, James B. Torrance suggests that more answers would come out on the man-centered side than they would on the God-centered side.  Torrance believes that there is one particular view of worship that seems to dominate the evangelical landscape, namely, that worship is something which we do in response to who God is and what He’s done.  Although that view appears God-centered at first look,  when it’s really examined its true man-centered colors begin to show.  He describes the thinking behind this view like this:

We go to Church, we sing our psalms to God, we intercede…, we listen to the sermon (too often simply an exhortation), we offer our money, time and talents to God.  No doubt we need God’s grace to help us do it; we do it because Jesus taught us to do it and left us an example to show us how to do it.  But worship is what WE do (36).

How many within evangelical churches would describe corporate worship in this way?  Worship, after all, is a response to God, our response to God, is it not?  In worship we offer to God that which He rightly deserves, correct?  Torrance argues that this way of thinking “falls short of the New Testament understanding of participation through the Spirit in what Christ has done and in what Christ is doing for us in our humanity.  It is human-centered.” (38).  He adds:

Its weakness is that it falls short of an adequate understanding of the role of the vicarious humanity of Christ (emphasis mine) and of the Spirit in our worship of the Father - of why Christ became man for us and our salvation (38).

(If you want to hear an entire sermon that considers the significance of the vicarious humanity of Christ for Christian living / worship, check out my audio sermon here.)  Torrance is essentially arguing that the dominant view of worship fails to give the doctrine of Christ’s vicarious humanity its rightful place.  It is a view that has lost sight , in many (most?) cases, not of Christ’s vicarious death but of His vicarious humanity, his vicarious life.  Sure, our church may sing songs about Christ, corportately read biblical texts that explicitly reference Christ, and listen to sermons that speak of Christ, but if our understanding of corporate worship centers on what we do in response to what God has done, it’s really not as gospel-centered as we think it is. Torrance writes:

Although [this view] stresses how God comes to meet us in Christ, the movement from us to God is still our movement, our faith, our response (emphasis mine)!  This theology short-circuits the vicarious humanity of Christ and belittles union with Christ.  While it seems to emphasize the vicarious work of Christ on the cross to bring forgiveness and make our faith a real human possibility, it fails to see the place of the High Priesthood of Christ as the One who leads our worship, bears our sorrows on his heart and intercedes for us, presenting us to the Father in himself as God’s dear children and uniting us with himself in his life in the Spirit.

To reduce worship to this two-dimensional thing (God and ourselves today) is to imply that God throws us back on ourselves to make our response, and to ignore the fact that God has already provided for us that Response which alone is acceptable to him - the Offering made for humankind in the life, obedience and passion of Jesus Christ.  But is this not to lose the comfort and peace of the Gospel, as well as the secret of true Christian prayer as the gift of sharing in the intercessions of Christ, that we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit makes intercession for us?  Whatever else our faith is, it is a response to a Response already made for us and continually being made for us in Christ (41).

Torrance is arguing that true Christian worship is worship that is swallowed up into what Christ has done in his vicarious life and death and what he continues to do as our Heavenly Intercessor. We may well be aware of Christ’s vicarious death as we gather to worship but we must not lose sight of his vicarious life and continued priestly ministry.  Gospel-centered worship actively recognizes that God has not only provided us with His gracious movement toward us in Christ but also with our responding movement toward Him in Christ as well. God has not only provided that which we must respond to, namely, the gospel, but also our Response.  The Gospel teaches us that Christ is our acceptable response to the Father given to us by the Father.  Christian worship is never simply something we do.  It is both something that already has been done in the life and death of Jesus and something that Jesus is doing for us in his High Priestly ministry.  As we worship we must be careful to understand Christian worship as participation in what Christ has done in His vicarious life and death and presently is doing as our heavenly High Priest.  It is never simply a response to who God is and what He has done.

As I mentioned in part one, the writer of Hebrews is not so much thinking of believers approaching God privately in Hebrews 10:19-25 as he is about believers approaching God corporately. Evidently, there were some believers who were neglecting to meet together (Hebrews 10:25). So, he exhorts them to make it their habit to gather together given that they all have confidence or boldness to enter the sanctuary—the place where God is encountered (Hebrews 10:19). That in itself is a remarkable statement. The writer states that every believer has objective confidence or authorization to enter the sanctuary.

A question came to mind as I was studying these verses: What was hindering these believers from gathering? Why were some neglecting to meet together? I think Hebrews indicates what was hindering these believers from gathering with the Christian assembly, namely, reproach from outsiders. A few verses after this paragraph he asks that these believers recall former days when they were “publicly exposed to reproach” (Hebrews 10:32-33). In Hebrews 11:26, he tells them that Moses “considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt. In Hebrews 13:13, he exhorts them “go to [Jesus] outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.”

The question above was followed by another question: What hinders Western Christians from gathering with the saints? Why are some Western Christians neglecting to meet together? I don’t think, at least in my cultural context, that believers are hindered because of reproach from outsiders. So, I thought, if it is not external reproach that hinders, what does? Three quick answer came to mind (I’m sure I could think of several more if I took the time). First, I’m convinced that laziness hinders many. It takes hard work to gather in the way that Hebrews is calling on believers to gather. We are to make it our habit to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24). Hebrews does not allow for spectator Christianity. Christianity, as Hebrews understands it, demands participation, and participation demands hard work. Second, I believe that some neglect to meet together because they dislike some of their fellow-gathers. Some people don’t regularly gather with the Christian assembly because there are certain people at the gathering that they just do not like. They might think something like, “I’m just tired of having to deal with this person week after week. His personality really rubs me the wrong way!” Third, others don’t gather out of fear. They are afraid that others will learn what’s really in their hearts or what they are actually like at home. “If they find out what I’m really struggling with, they’ll think this or that about me and my family.”

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m preaching from Hebrews 10:19-25 tomorrow on the necessity and privilege of the gathering of the church. My default mode is to read “enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus” and “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” from an individualistic perspective. I can read those words and think primarily about the great privilege I have to approach the Majesty on High (Hebrews 1:3) privately. But the writer of Hebrews is not so much thinking of believers approaching God privately as he is about believers approaching God corporately, that is, together. Just consider the repetition of “let us” in these verses (vv. 22, 23, & 24). The writer’s point is that believers are to enter the holy places together . He’s thinking primarily about believers drawing near corporately. Approaching the Majesty on High as a corporate body is the incomparable opportunity and privilege of the blood bought church.

What I find striking about these verses that call for believers to approach together is that the writer says that we together have confidence to do this. He writes, “We have confidence to enter the holy places” (Hebrews 10:19). He doesn’t say that some believers do and some don’t have confidence to enter based upon how they may or may not have lived the previous week. No, he just declares that believers have confidence period.

I find this striking for two reasons. First, if I’m not vigilant, I tend to base my confidence in drawing near to God on how I have “measured up” the previous several days. If I think I’ve lived up to a particular list of standards, I have confidence. If I consider myself to have failed in living as I believe I ought, I don’t have confidence. But the writer doesn’t appear to be thinking in these categories at all. He just says, “Brothers, we have confidence.” Second, if you read the accounts of Israel approaching God through the sacrificial system in the Old Testament, the word confidence is not what immediately comes to mind. Rather, “fear and trembling” comes to mind (cf. Hebrews 12:18-24; Numbers 4:20; 17:13).

So what accounts for this confidence? How is it that people who sin in word and deed can be said to have objective confidence to enter the holy places, a confidence that doesn’t dissipate in the wake of personal sin and in the contemplation of the God who is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29)? The writer answers this question for us? “We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh (Hebrews 10:19-20). Our confidence to enter is not based upon what we have or have not done but upon what Christ has done through the shedding of his own blood. It’s based upon the work of Christ. It is Christ who “entered once for all time into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12).

The implications here are many. Let me highlight just one. The work of Christ frees us to gather together not as those who have our lives together but as those who don’t. The fact that our confidence is based upon the work of someone else, namely, Christ, means that we all gather with the freedom to acknowledge our sin and not hide it from other believers. I have gathered with the saints with a plastic, “I’m-doing-well-spiritually-this-week” smile upon my face too many times. This smile is a sad attempt to feign confidence, to fake it, and it’s evidence that I’ve forgotten the gospel. Only when I gather with the saints knowing that I have objective confidence to enter by the blood of Jesus will I be free to acknowledge my sin of the previous week before others. Only when I approach in the truth of the gospel will I not have to conceal my sin from myself or from the fellowship of believers. The gospel frees us to gather as we really are, namely, as people who are in need of drawing near to God by the blood of Jesus. Ultimately, the only alternative is to gather with the saints in loneliness though we are surrounded by people who are just like we are. Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood this very well.

“He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their…service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final break through to fellowship does not occur, because though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among them. So we remain alone with our sin, living lies and hypocrisy. The fact is we are sinners. But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great desperate sinner; now come as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you…He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone. God has come to save the sinner.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Bonhoeffer describes what happens to us when our confidence is based not upon the work of Christ but upon our own attempts to measure up. So, the writer of Hebrews says, “since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:19-21). The confidence that Hebrews 10:19 says we have comes to us through the work of the Messiah. It is ours by the blood of Jesus. When the work of Christ is our confidence, it changes our mindset when we draw near to God and in how we relate to our fellow-gathers.

I had the privilege of attending the same conference that Sam Storms did this past weekend. It was Desiring God’s national conference. This year’s theme was “Suffering & the Sovereignty of God.” Joni Eareckson Tada was one of the speakers. The thoughts that Sam shares below were thoughts that I had while watching Joni sing. Her dancing was a remarkable thing for me to behold. Those at the conference with whom I talked about Joni’s dancing agreed with me that it was a beautiful testimony to the grace of God in the midst of suffering.

I Saw Joni Dance
Sam Storms
Oct 10, 2005

One of the highlights of the Desiring God National Conference this past weekend was the appearance of Joni Eareckson Tada on Saturday night. As most of you know, Joni, a quadriplegic, was paralyzed 38 years ago in a diving accident. She is going to turn 56 years of age next week.

Joni, together with her husband Ken, and a team from Joni and Friends Ministries, were on their way to England and then to Africa, but arranged to stop over in Minneapolis at John Piper’s request and address the conference on the theme of Suffering and the Sovereignty of God. Needless to say, it is doubtful that anyone present, whether those of us in the audience or any of the speakers, has suffered the way Joni has. And few understand its relation to the sovereignty of God with the biblical clarity and wisdom that she does.

She delivered a stunningly great message. That in itself isn’t news, for Joni has been speaking on this theme for many years and the clarity of her convictions remains strong and articulate. I first met Joni in 1991 when we were speakers at a Ligonier Conference hosted by R. C. Sproul in Orlando, Florida. I felt so honored to meet her and even more so when she agreed to write the Foreword to my book, “To Love Mercy: Becoming a Person of Love, Acceptance, and Forgiveness” (NavPress; now out of print).

But this past Saturday night I saw something that was as impressive, if not more so, than anything I heard. The worship that night began with the rousing song, “We are Marching in the Light of God” (at least, I think that’s the title). It was great to hear so many Reformed folk singing and, yes, actually moving (ever so slightly!) while they sang! But nothing could compare with what was happening on the right hand side of the stage. Read the rest of this entry »

This hymn text was written this past week by David McGrew, a friend and colleague of mine. It is meant to be sung to “Come Thou Fount” [tune name: NETTLETON]

Praise our Savior—He who bought us
We are truly owned by Him.
Praise His willingness to suffer
He—though God—to call us Kin!
This is why we join together:
Christ has born the wrath of God
What a King—to love His people
Loved to death . . . New Life He brought!

Sing together Church of Jesus,
Center all your thoughts on Him.
He the Maker of all nature
Great Redeemer from our sin.
God bestowed on Him the Name-of-names;
None shall stand before His face
Bow your soul in pure surrender
Humbly grasp the Gospel’s grace.

“More love, more power, more of you in my life.” What should Christians be thinking when they sing the song “More Love, More Power”? What light might the gospel shed on this particular song text? It seems to me that too often Christians tend to sing songs like this utterly disconnected from the truth of the gospel. What do I mean? Is it wrong to long for more of God’s love and power at work in our lives? Is it improper for us to thirst for God? Absolutely not. Consider these verses:

Philippians 3:10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection…

Ephesians 3:19 [Paul prays that the Ephesians might] know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Psalm 63:1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

The desire for God’s love and power and Person is a very good desire. But a problem arises when this good desire is disconnected from the gospel in our thinking. Let me explain. What might we be thinking when our request to know more of God’s love is disconnected from the gospel? Might we be hoping that God will somehow mysteriously inject more of His love into our spiritual veins? Do we hope that somehow we will wake up one morning with a deeper sense of His transforming love? “Wow, God has answered my prayer! He’s given me more of His love!”

Consider the desire for God’s love in light of Romans 5:8. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Paul does not say that God showed His love for us at the cross. He says that God shows His love for us at the cross. The tense of the verb is utterly important. If it is true that God continuously demonstrates His love for us through something that happened in the distant past, some 2000 years ago, what should we do if we desire to know and experience more of His love?

Just a few verses earlier in Romans 5:5, Paul says that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” What I find interesting is that the verses immediately preceding and following that statement are filled with gospel content.

Romans 5:1-2 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. [2] Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Romans 5:6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

I think what is indicated by these verses is that the Holy Spirit does not pour God’s love into our hearts in isolation from the gospel. After all, we’ve already seen in verse 8 that God’s love is being demonstrated to us at the cross. The Holy Spirit poured God’s love into our hearts by bringing us to the cross where we saw that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). And I believe that the Holy Spirit continues to pour God’s love into our hearts as we sit at the foot of the cross beholding its wondrous glory.

So, when you find yourself asking God for more love, more power, more of Him in your life, make sure you ask Him at the foot of the cross. It is there that we find all the love and power we could ever want. After all, the gospel is the very power of God unto everything we need in this life and the life to come (Romans 1:16).

My Grandma Seaver died tonight. In God’s kind providence I was able to spend a portion of this evening with her in the I.C.U. After kissing her and whispering in her ear one last time I left the hospital for home, a 50 minute drive. The Lord graciously took her Home minutes before I arrived at my earthly home here in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania. While I was on my way home to see my wonderful God-given wife and three children, Grandma was on her way Home to see her most wonderful God-given Savior (who loved her and gave himself for her) and reunite with her wonderful God-given husband (who went Home to be with the Lord on my 21st birthday). Yes, arriving home to be with my family was and always is sweet. But Grandma’s arrival Home to see her Blessed Savior is as sweet as eternity is unending. She is now Home never to leave home again. I love you, Grandma, and deeply envy the precious-beyond-description welcome you received when you met our blessed Savior face-to-face! Enjoy the worship in the Home where there is fulness of joy and pleasures forever more!!! There is home and there is HOME…

My daughter, Hannah, wrote a note to Grandma Great yesterday that my mom read to her mom today (or it may have been last night). I close this post with Hannah’s encouraging words (as best as I can remember them):

“Dear Grandma Great,

I love you! I remember all of those special times that we had together. If you die soon, remember that you will be with Jesus forever! Give Daniel a hug and kiss for me.

Love,

Hannah”

Original Post: “If it has been a while since you have read any articles by Tim Keller or Jerry Bridges, it may be time for you to give them another careful read. God has graciously grown these two men in their understand of the gospel and its implications. So we would do well to read what they have written fairly often. My personal goal is to read each of their articles at least three times a year. Why? I am so quick to functionally forget the objective truth of the gospel and its penetrating implications.

“Over the next 2 weeks I will be posting the links to particular articles they have written. Please receive these posts as encouragements to give your mind to the gospel afresh.”

Today’s recommended article is by Tim Keller. In it he briefly discusses the implications of the gospel as it pertains to the church’s worship.

Evangelistic Worship (pdf)

“We pray and worship in such a way as to make room in our prayer and worship for the living presence of Jesus as our Mediator in whom Offerer and Offering are one and the same, but in whom we are gathered up, with whom we are inseparably united, so that with Him we pray and worship as we could not otherwise do.

“At the end of the day when I kneel down and say my evening prayer, I know that no prayer of my own that I can offer to the heavenly Father is worthy of Him or of power to avail with Him, but all my prayer is made in the name of Jesus Christ alone as I rest in His vicarious prayer. It is then with utter peace and joy that I take into my mouth the Lord’s Prayer which I am invited to pray through Jesus Christ, with Him and in Him, to God the Father, for in that prayer my poor, faltering, sinful prayer is not allowed to fall to the ground but is gathered up and presented to the Father in holy and eternally prevailing form. At the same time, I recall that the Father has promised to send the Spirit of His Son, mediated through the name and vicarious humanity of Jesus, into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father; and I am assured that as I pray in the name of God’s beloved Son I am caught up with all my own infirmities within the inarticulate intercession of the eternal Spirit of the Father and of the Son from whose love nothing in heaven or earth, nothing in this world or in the world to come, can ever separate us” (T.F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, pp. 88-89).

This is part three of Torrance’s thoughts on the Gospel and worship. You may wish to review part two in order to follow his flow of thought into this section.

“We do not come before God, then, worshipping Him and praying to Him in our own name, or in our own significance, but in the name and significance of Jesus Christ alone, for worship and prayer are not ways in which we express ourselves but ways in which we hold up before the Father His beloved Son, take refuge in His atoning sacrifice, and make that our only plea. ‘Nothing in my hands I bring; Simply to Thy Cross I c ling.’ In worship and prayer Jesus Christ acts in our place and on our behalf in both a representative and a substitutionary way so that what He does in our stead is nevertheless effected as our very own, issuing freely and spontaneously out of ourselves. Through His incarnational and atoning union Jesus Christ has united Himself with us in such a reconciling and sanctifying way that He interpenetrates and gathers up all our faltering, unclean worship and prayer into Himself, assimilates them to His own self-oblation to God, so that when He presents Himself as the worship and prayer of all creation, our worship and prayer are presented there also. When the Father accepts us in Jesus Christ His beloved Son, who then can distinguish our worship and prayer from Jesus’ worship and prayer, for they are one and the same, wholly His and wholly ours in Him?

“Thus in all our worship and prayer, private and public, informal or formal, we come before God in such a way as to let Jesus Christ take our place, replacing our offering with His own self-offering, for He is the vicarious worhip and prayer with which we respond to the love of the Father” (T.F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, p.88).

This section from Torrance’s The Mediation of Christ is NOT an easy read, but it is well worth the effort of mind and heart to work through his words. You may wish to reread Part One of The Gospel and Worship (February 18th post) before reading Part Two below. Have fun!

“In that perspective we must think…of Christian prayer as grounded in and governed by the fact that through His Incarnation Jesus Christ has stepped into that relationship as the Mediator, who not only brings God and man and man and God near to each other in propitiation but who in doing so stands in our place where we cry in prayer to God and makes Himself our prayer, a prayer not in word or even in an act only but a prayer which He is in His own personal Being. Just as in Jesus Christ God addresses His word to us in such a way that He Himself is wrapped up in His word in the form of personal being, so in Jesus Christ God has provided us with prayer that is identical with the personal self-offering and self-oblation of Jesus Christ to the Father on our behalf. It is as such that Jesus Christ stands in our place where we pray to the Father, so that from deep within our humanity, where He has united Himself to us, and from out of it, assimilated to His own self-consecration to God He prays: ‘Our Father who art in heaven. Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…’ That is to say, where we are unable to pray to the Father as we ought or in any way worthy of Him for all our prayers are unclean, Jesus Christ puts His prayer, prayed with us to the Father, into our unclean mouth that we may pray through Him and with Him and in Him to the Father, and be received by the Father in Him: ‘Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased’” (T.F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, pp. 87-88).

“Jesus Christ embodied in Himself in a vicarious form the response of human beings to God, so that all their worship and prayer to God henceforth became grounded and centered in Him. In short, Jesus Christ in His own self-oblation to the Father is our worship and prayer in an acutely personalized form, so that it is only through Him and with Him and in Him that we may draw near to God with the hands of our faith filled with no other offering but that which He has made on our behalf and in our place once and for all” (Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, p. 87).

We sang this song in chapel yesterday. It seemed to me that a profound awe fell over the student body and faculty/staff as we sang it. It’s entitled “The Look.” The original lyrics are by John Newton with new and alternate lyrics by Bob Kauflin.

Verse 1
I saw one hanging on a tree
In agony and blood
Who fixed His loving eyes on me
As near His cross I stood
And never till my dying breath
Will I forget that look
It seemed to charge me with His death
Though not a word He spoke.

VERSE 2
My conscience felt and owned the guilt
And plunged me in despair
I saw my sins His blood had spilt
And helped to nail Him there.
But with a second look he said,
“I freely all forgive
This blood is for your ransom paid
I died that you might live.”

CHORUS
Forever etched upon my mind
Is the look of Him who died
The Lamb I crucified
And now my life will sing the praise
Of pure atoning grace
That looked on me and
Gladly took my place.

VERSE 3
Thus while His death my sin displays
For all the world to view
Such is the mystery of grace
It seals my pardon too
With pleasing grief and mournful joy
My spirit now is filled
That I should such a life destroy
Yet live by Him I killed.

CHORUS
Forever etched upon my mind
Is the look of Him who died
The Lamb I crucified
And now my life will sing the praise
Of pure atoning grace
That looked on me and
Gladly took my place.

Original lyrics by John Newton. New and alternate lyrics by Bob Kauflin. Music by Bob Kauflin.
© 2001 PDI Praise (BMI). Sovereign Grace Music, a division of Sovereign Grace Ministries.

“Our receiving of the Spirit is objectively grounded in and derives from Christ who as the incarnate Son was anointed by the Spirit in his humanity and endowed with the Spirit without measure, not for his own sake (for he was eternally one in being with the Spirit in God) but for our sakes, and who then mediates the Spirit to us through himself. As one of us and one with us he sanctified himself in the Spirit that we might be sanctified in him and thus be sanctified in the truth. Our receiving of the Spirit, therefore, is not independent of or different from the vicarious receiving of the Spirit by Christ himself but is a sharing in it. Since he received the Spirit in the humanity he took from us, we on our part receive the Spirit through union with him and through him with the Father” (T.F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, p. 148).

I’m leaving tomorrow (Saturday) for Minneapolis to attend John Piper’s pastors’ conference. The theme of this year’s conference is “This is My Beloved Son”: Exulting in the Trinitarian Relationships of Jesus Christ.” Bruce Ware of Southern Seminary is the keynote speaker. John Piper will also do a biographical sketch on the life and theological contributions of Athanasius. I’m confident that this year’s conference will be rich in Gospel food.

I have been reading Thomas F. Torrance on the Trinity in preparation for this conference’s emphasis on the Trinitarian relationships of Jesus Christ. As I was reading Torrance this morning I came across a beautiful comment by Athanasius on the trinitarian benediction of 2 Corinthians 13:14 (”The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”) that gave me great cause to worship our Triune God this morning. Anthanasius writes:

“For the grace and gift that is given is given in the Trinity, from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. As the grace given is from the Father through the Son, so we can have no communion in the gift except in the Holy Spirit. For it is when we partake of him that we have the love of the Father and the grace of the Son and the communion of the Spirit himself” (Athanasius, Ad Serapionem, 1.30.).

Indeed, the Gospel of God is a glorious Gospel!

Blessings,

Dan

http://www.chumpmonkey.com/totellyouthetruth/

“To know this God, who both condescends to share all that we are and makes us share in all that He is in Jesus Christ, is to be lifted up in His Spirit to share in God’s own self-knowing and self-loving until we are enabled to apprehend Him in some real measure in Himself beyond anything that we are capable of in ourselves. It is to be lifted out of ourselves, as it were, into God, until we know Him and love Him and enjoy Him in His eternal Reality as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in such a way that the Trinity enters into the fundamental fabric of our thinking of Him and constitutes the basic grammar of our worship and knowledge of the One God” (Thomas F. Torrance, The Ground and Grammar of Theology, p. 155).

Martin Luther wrote that when Jesus was on the cross, His Father was essentially saying to Him:

“You are now Peter, the liar; Paul, the persecutor; David, the adulterer; Adam, the disobedient; the thief on the cross. You, My Son, must pay for the world’s iniquity” (Luther’s Commentary on Galatians).

And the Father did this for our salvation!!!

When I left the house last Tuesday morning, there were 10 inches of snow on the ground. By 2:00pm the temperature was between 60 and 65 degrees. Obviously, the snow started melting. Then rain arrived sometime after midnight. When I took our dog out at 6:00am, it was still raining and there was no snow to be seen. The temperature was still around 60. Within an hour and a half the temperature dropped approximately 30 degrees, and the heavy rain turned into a heavy snow storm. By the time I left my office to walk to my 8:00am class the ground was once again covered with snow (and the snow showed no signs of letting up).

The picture below (taken of the trees in our front yard) demonstrates what happens when snow hits branches that have been drenched with rain for 6 hours. That is snow on those branches. It’s not ice! I was reminded afresh at how the glory of God is seen in turning a dreary rain into a beautiful snow that takes the breath away. God does this in creation, and He does it in redemption. Psalm 30:11-12, “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!”