Cross-centered life

Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy

Tony Reinke BR > Crossway, Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, Gospel, Paul David Tripp, Sin, spurgeon

9781433502309Surely one of the most valuable gifts God has given the church are surgeons of the soul. Men capable of cutting with the sharp edge of scripture, separating the outward surface of the torso, cutting through the muscle and spreading the chest, looking for the most dangerous problems, those not obvious on the outside, surgeons with determination to find the source of a deep root, a deadly problem found in the now exposed heart, a sin that can be cured only through precise wisdom and the sober application of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if you can find one of these surgeons—one who knows his way around the deep inner workings of the heart, one who can scale to the very heights of the glorious gospel, and one who is a gifted communicator, able to write his words carefully for the benefit of us all—you have uncovered a gem.

Paul David Tripp is one of these treasures.

In his book Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy (Crossway, 2008), Tripp has written for us, partly in prose and partly in poetry, 52 brief devotional pieces that cover the scope of Psalm 51—covering the many contours of David’s sin with Bathsheba, and the experience of God’s grace in light of David’s sin. If you are brave enough to go under the surgeon’s knife, Tripp will guide you to see the darkness of sin at work in your own heart, before skillfully applying the restorative grace of the gospel.

There are a number of excerpts I want to share, but the one that I return to most often is a poem that recounts the ministry of Nathan in confronting David for his sin (see 2 Samuel 12:1-15). In part Tripp writes:

…Just a humble prophet
Telling a simple story
A sinner with a sinner
Not standing above
Alongside, together
Wanting to be an instrument
Hoping to assist a blind man to see
But no trust in self
Speaking calmly
Speaking simply
And letting God
Do through a familiar example
Painted with plain words
What only God can do
Crack the hard-shell heart
Of a wayward man
And make it feel again
See again
Cry again
Pray again
Plead again
Hope again
Love again
Commit again
To a new and better way. (p. 63-64)

Tripp’s poem is a beautiful epigraph upon the granite of Nathan’s legacy. And a video of the author reading from this chapter is available online. Enjoy:

Title: Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy
Author: Paul David Tripp
Boards: paper
Pages: 154
Topical index: no
Scriptural index: no
Text: perfect type
Publisher: Crossway
Year: 2008
Price USD: $12.99 / $8.96 at Westminster
ISBNs: 9781433502309, 1433502305

The mark of the wounds

Tony Reinke Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, Jonathan Edwards, Puritans

From the end of a letter written by Jonathan Edwards to Deborah Hatheway (June 3, 1741):

“Don’t talk of things
of religion
and matters of experience
with an air of lightness and laughter,
which is too much the manner in many places.
In all your course,
walk with God
and follow Christ
as a little,
poor,
helpless child,
taking hold of Christ’s hand,
keeping your eye
on the mark of the wounds
on his hands
and side,
whence came the blood
that cleanses you from sin
and hides
your nakedness
under the skirt of the white shining robe
of his righteousness.”

God loves us because he loves us

Tony Reinke Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, God, God's love, God's motives, Thomas Manton

In a sermon on John 3:16 (“God so loved, that he gave…”), Puritan Thomas Manton makes the following point on God’s indescribable love towards sinners in sending His Son:

“Love is at the bottom of all. We may give a reason of other things, but we cannot give a reason of his love, God showed his wisdom, power, justice, and holiness in our redemption by Christ. If you ask, Why he made so much ado about a worthless creature, raised out of the dust of the ground at first, and had now disordered himself, and could be of no use to him? We have an answer at hand, Because he loved us. If you continue to ask, But why did he love us? We have no other answer but because he loved us; for beyond the first rise of things we cannot go. And the same reason is given by Moses, Deuteronomy 7:7-8: ‘The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people, for ye were the fewest of all people; but because the Lord loved you…’ That is, in short, he loved you because he loved you. All came from his free and undeserved mercy; higher we cannot go in seeking after the causes of what is done for our salvation.”

-Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, 2:340-341.

The Cross in the Preaching of Jonathan Edwards

Tony Reinke BR > Banner of Truth, Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, Jonathan Edwards, Preaching

“The great eighteenth-century New England preacher was no preacher of moralism—he was no peddler of ethics without the gospel. He was a preacher of the gospel of Christ; and it is his powerful and undeniably beautiful Christocentricity that both establishes his evangelical orthodoxy and distinguishes him from the moralists of Rome and (more significantly still) from the moralists of the eighteenth century.

It is, therefore, very important to note that the New England preacher, whose reputation rests so powerfully on the minatory, also excelled in the consolatory. It is, moreover, precisely because of the recalcitrant issue of the general perception of Edwards as a preacher of judgment, and even of terror, that it is so important to note the sweetness and the beauty of his descriptions of Christ. It was clearly a fundamental part of his homiletical philosophy that he should not only provide what might be described as ‘the element of attack’, but that he should also administer the healing ‘balm of Gilead’ to the soul. Indeed, his sermons, considered in toto, reveal what might be described as a kind of homiletical pincer movement. ‘For by the law is the knowledge of sin, insists the Apostle; and Edwards’ great concern in preaching the law of God was that men should ‘flee from the wrath to come’ into the open arms of Christ. Thus, if in his sermons there is often great emphasis upon the terrors of Mount Sinai, there is also great emphasis upon the wonder and the glory of Calvary’s hill. This balance may not always be evident in the same sermon; it is, however, evident in his preaching ministry as a whole. The sweetness of his preaching at this point is, of course, no saccharine sentimentalism about the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. The New England preacher never says, ‘Peace, peace, when there is no peace’; he never ‘heals the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly’.

The encouragement, the consolation, and the peace that Edwards offers in his preaching are always on the basis of the gospel of Christ. It is important to note that he has no encouragement or consolation to offer apart from Christ; he has, therefore, no hope to offer to those who persist in remaining outside of Christ. The encouragement and the consolation that he repeatedly holds forth in his sermons are rooted and grounded in ‘Jesus Christ and him crucified’.

Moreover, it is this rare ability to depict the beauty and the glory of Christ that many have found to be so attractive and so winsome in Edwards’ preaching. In 1825, on the morning of his sudden death, John Williams, the first pastor of the Oliver Street Baptist Church in New York City, made this observation to a friend: ‘I love President Edwards; he always speaks so sweetly of Christ.’”

–John Carrick, The Preaching of Jonathan Edwards (Banner of Truth, 2008) pp. 111-112.

Related: Edwards, Cross-Centeredness, and Application (7/16/08)
Related: Was Jonathan Edwards Cross-Centered? (7/11/08)
Related: A Sense of Christ’s Sufficiency (7/9/08)

Thomas Foxcroft, 1697–1769

Tony Reinke BR > Reformation Heritage Books, Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, Preaching, spurgeon

Puritan Thomas Foxcroft (1697–1769) was a Harvard graduate and pastored for 50+ years at the First Congregational Church in Boston, Massachusetts. Foxcroft supported the Great Awakening, and became a close friend, ally, and literary agent for Jonathan Edwards. But Foxcroft wrote books himself and one of these gems is being prepared for re-issue in August.

Foxcroft’s ordination sermon delivered in Boston on Wednesday, November 20, 1717 was originally collected and edited under the title A Practical Discourse Related to the Gospel Ministry. A new edition edited by Dr. Don Kistler will be published as The Gospel Ministry by Reformation Heritage Books next month [I’ll let you know here when it’s available].

In this book, Foxcroft exhorts ministers to focus the center of their sermons on Christ. His doctrinal summaries include: “Christ is the grand Subject which the ministers of the gospel should mainly insist upon in their preaching” and “In all their ministerial labors, pastors should make the conversion and edification of men in Christ their governing view and sovereign aim.”

Such Christ/cross-centeredness is not surprising to find in 18th century Boston region often visited by revival. As we have seen, Edwards himself was very carefully cross-centered in his preaching and application. But here Foxcroft is cross-centered in his public exhortation to all preachers. This exhortation to preach Christ and Him crucified shows us that ‘American’ Puritans were careful to preach Christ because they understood the cross was at the heart of the preachers formal public ministry responsibility.

And as we would expect, a robust understanding of the cross will work itself out in the application of the Christian life and pursuit of holiness. Foxcroft writes, “All the arrows of sharp rebuke are to be steeped in the blood of Christ; and this to prevent those desponding fears and frights of guilt which sometimes awfully work to a fatal issue.” Foxcroft’s statement not only shows concern over legalism and the necessity of the full atonement of Christ in light of personal holiness, but also provides an illuminating glimpse into 18th century ‘American’ Puritan homiletics.

I could go on, but this is a gem all readers of Puritans should read and a book all preachers will benefit from. And it will prove to be a book that will ax at the root of the awful misrepresentation that all Puritan preachers (English, Scottish, American or otherwise) were negligent to preach Christ and Him crucified.

I’ll close with an extended cross-centered excerpt from the RHB edition:

————-

“They who are friends of the Bridegroom, who have so learned Christ as He is taught in the school of the prophets and apostles, and with whom the truth of the gospel continues, are not ashamed to preach the cross, and count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ and Him crucified. “What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord (Jer.23:28). What is the vain philosophy of the Greeks and the exact righteousness of the Pharisees but dung and dross to the riches of the glory of this mystery?

Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life, and nothing but this will suit the nature and inclination of the spiritual appetite; nothing but this will beget and maintain the vital flame of spiritual life. Everything else will prove either a stone or a serpent, unnatural and insubstantial or poison and pernicious.

Ministers then must study to feed their flocks with a continual feast on the glorious fullness there is in Christ; they must gather fruits from the branch of righteousness, from the tree of life for those who hunger, not feeding them with the meat which perishes, but with that which endures to everlasting life. They must open this fountain of living waters, the great mystery of godliness, into which all the doctrines of the gospel that are branched forth into so great a variety do, as so many rivulets or streams making glad the city of God flow and concenter.

They must endeavor to set forth Christ in the dignity of His Person, as the brightness of His Father’s glory, God manifest in the flesh; in the reality, necessity, nature, and exercise of His threefold office of Prophet, Priest, and King, in both His state of humiliation and exaltation; in the glorious benefits of His redemption, the justification of them who believe, the adoption of sons, sanctification, and an inheritance that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for the saints; in the wonderful methods and means in and by which we are called into the fellowship of the Son our Lord, and made partakers of the redemption by Christ; in the nature, and significance, the excellency and worth, of all the ordinances and institutions of Christ, with the obligations on all to attend upon them.

Whatever subject ministers are upon, it must somehow point to Christ.

All sin must be witnessed against and preached down as opposed to the holy nature, the wise and gracious designs, and the just government of Christ.

So all duty must be persuaded to and preached up with due regard unto Christ; to His authority commanding and to His Spirit of grace assisting, as well as to the merit of His blood commending—and this to dash the vain presumption that decoys so many into ruin, who will securely hang the weight of their hopes upon the horns of the altar without paying expected homage to the scepter of Christ.

All the arrows of sharp rebuke are to be steeped in the blood of Christ; and this to prevent those desponding fears and frights of guilt which sometimes awfully work to a fatal issue.

Dark and ignorant sinners are to be directed to Christ as the Sun of righteousness; convinced sinners are to be led to Christ as the Great Atonement and the only City of Refuge.

Christ is to be lifted up on high for the wounded in spirit to look to, as the bitten Israelites looked to the brazen serpent of old. The sick, the lame, and the diseased are to be carried to Christ as the great Physician, the Lord our Healer; the disconsolate and timorous are to be guided to Christ as the Consolation of Israel, and in us the hope of glory.

Every comfort administered is to be sweetened with pure water from this Well of salvation, which only can quench the fiery darts of the evil one. The promises of the gospel are to be applied as being in Christ “yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us” (2 Cor. 1:20).

So the threatenings of the law are to light and flash in the eyes of sinners as the terrors of the Lord and sparks of the holy resentment of an incensed Savior, which hover now over the children of disobedience and will one day unite and fall heavy upon them.

The love of Christ for us is to be held forth as the great constraining motive to religion, and the life of Christ as the bright, engaging pattern of it.

Progress and increase in holiness are to be represented under the notion of abiding in Christ and growing up unto Him who is the Head, even Christ. Perfection in grace is the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, and eternal life is a being forever with the Lord where He is, beholding His glory and dwelling in our Master’s joy.

Thus, in imitation of the apostolic way of preaching, there must be a beautiful texture of references to Christ, a golden thread twisted into every discourse to leaven and perfume it so as to make it express a savor of the knowledge of Christ. Thus every mite cast into the treasury of the temple must bear this inscription upon it, which was once the humble language of a pious martyr in the flames, “None but Christ, none but Christ,” so that everyone, beholding in the Word preached as in a glass the glory of the Lord, may be changed into the same image, from glory to glory.

-Thomas Foxcroft, The Gospel Ministry (RHB: 1717, 2008 ) pp. 7-11.

Evaluating Cross-Centered

Tony Reinke Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, Richard Baxter, spurgeon

No doubt there are severe limitations to text searches. Research methods (like the one I’m showing you today) can be too mechanical and overly simplistic and therefore lacking in accuracy. However, I have found them to sometimes illuminate interesting themes and their prominence in literature.

Recently I ran a text search on Richard Baxter’s massive book, Christian Directory to try and discover which terms he employs (and thereby create a wordle of sorts). Here is a sampling of words and phrases I searched for and the number of individual references within the book itself:

7,687 > “sin”
1,111 > “grace” [updated]
714 > “repent”
496 > “sanctif*”
479 > “wicked*”
366 > “hypocrit*”
123 > “forgive*”
58 > “wash*”
43 > “cleanse”
40 > “blood of Christ”
38 > “his blood”
18 > “the blood”
13 > “cross of Christ”
6 > “death of Christ”
1 > “atone*”

[It should be noted that since the word “cross” can be used simultaneously for the work of Christ and the hardship endured by the Christian I did not run a search on this term.]

I’m interested to hear from the TSS gallery.

What, if anything, does this chart tell us? Are there other more accurate terms to search? Even more broadly–and more importantly–what constitutes cross-centered preaching and writing? Merely the saturation of the terms? What other factors must be considered?

Thanks for the input!

Tony