Cross of Christ

Preaching Christ

Tony Reinke Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, Faith, Preaching

“Faith is not built by preaching introspectively (constantly challenging people to question whether they have faith); faith is not built by preaching moralistically (which has exactly the opposite effect of focusing attention on the self rather than on Christ, in whom our faith is placed); faith is not built by joining the culture wars and taking potshots at what is wrong with our culture. Faith is built by careful, thorough exposition of the person, character, and work of Christ….

We feed on Christ himself, and we do so not by some physical eating of his body, but through faith in the Christ proclaimed in Word and sacrament. These four alternatives [moralism, how-to, introspection, and social gospel] have left much of the evangelical and Reformed church malnourished. People know what they ought to do, but they are dispirited and lethargic, without the vision, drive, or impetus to live with and for Christ. And the reason for this dispirited condition is that the pulpit is largely silent about Christ. He is mentioned only as an afterthought or appendage to a sermon; in many churches, he is never proclaimed as the central point of a sermon, and surely not on a regular, weekly basis.”

—T. David Gordon, Why Johnny Can’t Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers (P&R 2009) pp. 75—76, 88—89.

Bernard of Clairvaux Day

Tony Reinke Bernard of Clairvaux, Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, Patristics

Bernard of Clairvaux died on August 20, 1153. By all accounts, Bernard was a Church Father who understood the doctrine of imputation, that a righteous standing before God required the perfect merits of Christ, received by faith, as opposed to salvation based (even in part) upon personal merit. Missouri Synod (Lutheran) founder C. F. W. Walther wrote of Bernard:

St. Bernard, the famous abbot of Clairvaux, who died in 1153, is a noteworthy example how the most pious and the best of those in the papacy, when they came into great trials, rejected all of their trust in their own human holiness, in their own works and service, and in the intercession of the saints in heaven, and took sole comfort in the all sufficient service of JESUS Christ for their salvation. Even though in his life Bernard had most strictly pursued holiness and had ascribed such a high value to his position as a monk that he considered it as if it were another baptism (Apolog. Ad Builielm. Abb.), he nevertheless confessed when he suddenly cried out for his salvation because of a severe trial: “I confess that I am not worthy of myself nor can I receive heaven through my own service. But my LORD JESUS Christ has a double right to heaven; first because he is by nature its heir, and then because he has earned it through his meritorious suffering. That first right he has for himself, the second he gives me. Through this gift heaven is mine by rights, so I cannot be lost.

FYI: Calvin’s Institutes include over 40 references to the works of Bernard.

FYI: Dr. Danny Aiken’s PhD dissertation covered the soteriology of Bernard (unpublished).

FYI: Bernard wrote hymns, two you may know: O Jesus, King Most Wonderful and O Sacred Head, Now Wounded.

HT: CB via Veith

“love, love, love, love to thee”

Tony Reinke Cross of Christ, John Bradford, Preaching

In many ways, King Edward VI represented the Protestant hope of reformation in England. Edward was young, he was smart, he was sympathetic to the Protestants, and he put his royal money where his mouth was. But he was human, and a weak one. In the summer of 1553, at the age of 15, King Edward was struck ill and died. And so died much of the Protestant momentum.

Only a few days after his death, Edward’s sister, Mary I, became queen. Known as “Bloody Mary,” her first official acts were to reverse Edward’s pro-Protestant support, and for those laboring towards religious reform in England this meant that all hell was about to break loose.

John-Braford-preachingIn the week between the death of Edward VI and the beginning of Mary’s reign, John Bradford edited a sermon for the printer: “A Sermon of Repentance.” The death of Edward was a clear indication, Bradford wrote, that, “great and heavy is God’s anger against us.” If God took the life of their beloved king, what must God think of the sinfulness of the average man and woman? Bradford said, “now I beseech you all, all, all, and every mother’s child, to repent and lament your sin, to trust in God’s mercy, and to amend your lives.”

But that was all just a long intro to get to the sermon excerpt I want to feature today. The language is dated, but it’s worth your time to read it a few times. Toward the end of the sermon, as Bradford is calling sinners to trust in Christ he says the following about the grace and mercy of God in Christ:

O love incomprehensible! Who can otherwise think now but, if the gracious good Lord disdained not to give his own Son, his own heart’s joy, for us his very enemies, before we thought to beg any such thing at his hands, … who, I say, can think otherwise but that with him he will give us all good things? If, when we hated him and fled away from him, he sent his Son to seek us; who can think otherwise than that now we loving him, and lamenting because we love him no more, but that he will forever love us? He that gives the more to his enemies, will not he give the less, to you, to his friends? God hath given his own Son, than which thing nothing is greater, to us his enemies: and, we now being become his friends, will he deny us faith and pardon of our sins, which, though they be great, yet in comparison they are nothing at all? …

Jesus Christ gave his life for our evils, and by his death delivered us. O then, in that he lives now and cannot die, will he forsake us? His heart’s blood was not too dear for us when we asked it not: what can then be now too dear for us asking it? Is he a changeling? Is he mutable as man is? Can he repent him of his gifts? Did he not foresee our falls? Paid not he therefore the price? Because he saw we should fall sore, therefore would he suffer sore.

Yea, if his sufferings had not been enough, he would yet once more come again. God the Father, I am sure, if the death of his Son incarnate would not serve, would himself and the Holy Ghost also become incarnate, and die for us. This death of Christ therefore look on as the very pledge of God’s love towards thee, whosoever thou art, how deep soever thou hast sinned.

See, God’s hands are nailed, they cannot strike thee; his feet also, he cannot run from thee: his arms are wide open to embrace thee; his head hangs down to kiss thee; his very heart is open! So that therein see, search, look, spy; and you shall see nothing therein but love, love, love, love to thee. *

Under Mary’s reign, nearly 300 Protestants would by martyred. Bradford was one of them, burned at the stake in the summer of 1555. But not before Bradford traveled the country, proclaiming repentance and the free grace of our Savior Jesus Christ.

—–

NOTES:
* The Writings of John Bradford (Cambridge 1853), 1:75—76.

The Marvel of the Cross

Tony Reinke Cross of Christ

“…How amazing that God in Christ should do all this; that the Most High, the Most Holy should be the All Loving too; that the ineffable Majesty should stoop to take upon himself our flesh, subject to hunger and cold, death and desperation. We see him lying in the feedbox of a donkey, laboring in a carpenter’s shop, dying a derelict under the sins of the world. The gospel is not so much a miracle as a marvel, and every line is suffused with wonder.”

—Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Plume 1995), 63.

Preach Christ or go home—and 5 similar Spurgeon quotes I cherish

Tony Reinke C.H. Spurgeon, Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, Preaching

spurgeonI imagine pressurized steam shooting out of Charles Spurgeon’s ears at the mention of a preacher who neglects the topic of Calvary. Christless preaching was Spurgeon’s hot button. And on this topic he produced some choice quotes. Here are 6 of my favorites:

The motto of all true servants of God must be, “We preach Christ; and him crucified.” A sermon without Christ in it is like a loaf of bread without any flour in it. No Christ in your sermon, sir? Then go home, and never preach again until you have something worth preaching. [Exposition of Acts 13:13-49 published in 1904]

Leave Christ out? O my brethren, better leave the pulpit out altogether. If a man can preach one sermon without mentioning Christ’s name in it, it ought to be his last, certainly the last that any Christian ought to go to hear him preach. [sermon: “A Prayer for the Church” (1867)]

Leave Christ out of the preaching and you shall do nothing. Only advertize it all over London, Mr. Baker, that you are making bread without flour; put it in every paper, “Bread without flour” and you may soon shut up your shop, for your customers will hurry off to other tradesmen. … A sermon without Christ as its beginning, middle, and end is a mistake in conception and a crime in execution. However grand the language it will be merely much-ado-about-nothing if Christ be not there. And I mean by Christ not merely his example and the ethical precepts of his teaching, but his atoning blood, his wondrous satisfaction made for human sin, and the grand doctrine of “believe and live.” [sermon: “Christ the Glory of His People” (3/22/1868)]

Sooner by far would I go to a bare table, and eat from a wooden porringer something that would appease my appetite, than I would go to a well-spread table on which there was nothing to eat. Yes, it is Christ, Christ, Christ whom we have to preach; and if we leave him out, we leave out the very soul of the gospel. Christless sermons make merriment for hell. Christless preachers, Christless Sunday school teachers, Christless class leaders, Christless tract distributors—what are all these doing? They are simply setting the mill to grind without putting any grist into the hopper, all their labor is in vain. If you leave Jesus Christ out, you are simply beating the air, or going to war without any weapon with which you can smite the foe. [sermon: “Why the Gospel is Hidden” (2/11/1866)]

I know one who said I was always on the old string, and he would come and hear me no more; but if I preached a sermon without Christ in it, he would come. Ah, he will never come while this tongue moves, for a sermon without Christ in it—a Christless sermon! A brook without water; a cloud without rain; a well which mocks the traveler; a tree twice dead, plucked up by the root; a sky without a sun; a night without a star. It were a realm of death—a place of mourning for angels and laughter for devils. O Christian, we must have Christ! Do see to it that every day when you wake you give a fresh savor of Christ upon you by contemplating his person. Live all the day, trying as much as lieth in you, to season your hearts with him, and then at night, lie down with him upon your tongue. [sermon: “A Bundle of Myrrh” (3/6/1864)]

What was the subject? What was Peter preaching upon? He was preaching Christ and him crucified. No other subject ever does produce such effects as this. The Spirit of God bears no witness to Christless sermons. Leave Jesus out of your preaching, and the Holy Spirit will never come upon you. Why should he? Has he not come on purpose that he may testify of Christ? Did not Jesus say, “He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you”? Yes, the subject was Christ, and nothing but Christ, and such is the teaching which the Spirit of God will own. Be it ours never to wander from this central point: may we determine to know nothing among men but Christ and his cross. [sermon: “The Mediator, Judge, and Savior” (5/30/1880)]

A Habitual Sight of Christ

Tony Reinke Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, Thomas Goodwin

“The Indwelling of Christ by faith…is to have Jesus Christ continually in one’s eye, a habitual sight of Him. I call it so because a man actually does not always think of Christ; but as a man does not look up to the sun continually, yet he sees the light of it…. So you should carry along and bear along in your eye the sight and knowledge of Christ, so that at least a presence of Him accompanies you, which faith makes.”

—Thomas Goodwin (1600—1679), The Works of Thomas Goodwin (RHB), 2:411.

This quote inspired the title of the forthcoming book, “A Habitual Sight of Him”: The Christ-centered Piety of Thomas Goodwin by Joel Beeke and Mark Jones (RHB 2009).