The Spirit’s Application of the Gospel (3.1)

May 8, 2007May 8, 2007 Tony Reinke Cross of Christ, Faith, Gospel, Gospel in Culture, Humble Calvinism, Humble orthodoxy, John Calvin, spurgeon

Part 18: The Spirit’s Application of the Gospel (3.1)

Here at The Shepherd’s Scrapbook we are taking time in 2007 to work through John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (McNeill/Battles edition). The Humble Calvinism series was intended to prepare for the Banner of Truth Minister’s Conference and to promote the humble orthodoxy of the New Attitude conference (both are later this month). Time is running out and the series has been sidetracked by other important concerns over the past several weeks. To speed the series up a bit, we’ll be jumping into book three of the Institutes. To catch up, we recommend reading the earlier archives in the Humble Calvinism series index.

Well, we have flown over a very large and important section detailing the work of Christ as our Mediator. I do not intend to downplay book 2, but jump into the content of the Holy Spirit’s application of redemption and Calvin’s teaching on godliness (our series goal). Where possible I’ll be threading the themes of the second book into our study of book three. Let’s jump in!

The Cross applied

We can learn about the offices and work of Christ, of His fitness as our Redeemer, of the death He endured for sinners, the Law-inflamed guilt He bore in His body, the wrath He absorbed, the righteousness He emanates, and yet not experience this Atonement work. “As long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us” (537). So how is Christ applied in us?

In short, it’s through the “secret energy of the Spirit, by which we come to enjoy Christ and all his benefits” (537). We must be “grafted into” and “put on” Christ (Rom. 11:17; Gal. 3:27). This application of the Gospel by genuine faith is the work of the Holy Spirit.

Holy and hopeful

But the Holy Spirit not only applies the precious Blood of the Son to our hearts, He also works to “separate us from the world and to gather us unto the hope of the eternal inheritance” (538). First, He separates us from the world system as our “Spirit of sanctification” (2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Pet. 1:2; Rom. 1:4). The Spirit becomes “the root and seed” of holiness in our lives (538).

This is an amazing truth given the spiritual dullness and deadness we display as sinners, being ignorant enemies of God, chained in our sin, “having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). But the Spirit of God breaks into our darkness and deadness to sovereignly plant the seed of life and holiness in our hearts!

Secondly, the indwelling Spirit gives us the hope of eternal life! “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11). If you have the Spirit, you have the same resurrection hope of Christ!

This gift of the Holy Spirit — indwelling sinners with the application of the Gospel, holiness and hope — flows from a very gracious Redeemer. Everything for Calvin returns to the Cross. The work of the Holy Spirit is no different. Every gracious, divine gift (which includes the work of the Holy Spirit) is given to each soul “according to the measure of Christ’s gift” (Eph. 4:7). For Paul, the “grace of the Lord Jesus Christ” is never far removed from “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” (2 Cor. 13:14). “The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam [Christ] became a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). Christ is the “life-giving spirit.”

Calvin then breaks into a fuller (but concise) list of the Spirit’s work in the lives of the redeemed.

1. He is the “Spirit of adoption” (Rom. 8:15). The Spirit, through the work of Christ, is the means whereby the Father “embraced us” as His adopted children (540)! It’s this “Spirit of adoption” that supplies us the words so we can pray to our Father. “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Rom. 8:15).

2. The Holy Spirit is the “guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (Eph. 1:14). Our eternal hope is safely ensured in the hands of God the Holy Spirit. He has given us righteousness and this is to give life and the hope of life eternal. “But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness” (Rom. 8:10).

3. The Spirit is the One who waters our lives for spiritual refreshment and fruitfulness. “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants” (Isa. 44:3). This water of life and refreshment is given to sinners from Christ, the “life-giving spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45 with John 7:37).

4. The Holy Spirit “restores and nourishes unto vigor of life those on whom he has poured the stream of his grace” (540). Thus, the Holy Spirit is called “oil” and “anointing” (1 John 2:20, 27).

5. In short, the Holy Spirit is the “spring” where all heavenly riches flow. “For by the inspiration of his power he so breathes divine life into us that we are no longer actuated by ourselves, but are ruled by his actions and promptings” (541). Whatever is good in our hearts is from Him, everything that flows from our own hearts is perversity and sinfulness (Gal. 5:19-21).

Hearing about the Gospel is insufficient! We must experience the Cross through the application of the Holy Spirit! “As has already been clearly explained, until our minds become intent upon the Spirit, Christ, so to speak, lies idle because we coldly contemplate him as outside ourselves – indeed, far from us” (541).

To know Christ personally in a saving way is not to simply know about Christ and His Cross. To know Christ is to experience the saving, sanctifying, purifying and hope-sustaining work of the Holy Spirit.

Faith

So where does personal faith fit? It fits here because “faith is the principal work of the Holy Spirit” (541). Calvin brings out the beauty of God’s sovereignty in personal faith. We are sinners and that means we don’t get spiritual truth. As our earlier studies in the Humble Calvinism series revealed, sinners like us are deaf and blind to God in the world (Rom. 1:18-32). God must give us wisdom and the eyes of our mind must be enlightened by the Spirit (Eph. 1:17-18). Without the Spirit, all is dark and dim.

Earlier in book 2, Calvin illustrated the fallen mind of the philosopher like the traveler in the black darkness of a stormy night.

“The (philosophers) are like a traveler passing through a field at night who in a momentary lightning flash sees far and wide, but the sight vanishes so swiftly that he is plunged again into the darkness of the night before he can take even a step – let alone be directed on his way by its help. Besides, although they may chance to sprinkle their books with droplets of truth, how many monstrous lies defile them! In short, they never even sensed that assurance of God’s benevolence toward us (without which man’s understanding can only be filled with boundless confusion). Human reason, therefore, neither approaches, nor strives toward, nor even takes a straight aim at, this truth: to understand who the true God is or what sort of God he wishes to be towards us” (277-278).

Without the Spirit, all is hopeless. Our personal faith is a special work of God! “Paul shows the Spirit to be the inner teacher by whose effort the promise of salvation penetrates into our minds, a promise that would otherwise only strike the air or beat upon our ears” (541). Indeed, without the Spirit, the Gospel message and the hope of the Cross would have fallen upon deaf ears! Genuine belief in the Gospel is a profound spiritual work of God. Just begin by reading a few examples for yourself: John 1:12-13, 6:44, 12:32, 14:17, 17:6; Matt. 16:17; 2 Thess. 2:13.

Faith, for Calvin, is no mere intellectual conviction of truth, but a Spirit-given relationship of the sinner’s soul to Christ. We must experience the Christ of the Gospel! This experienced relationship of Christ is what Calvin means when he talks of “faith.” And it’s this faith that will provide the content for Calvin’s next (very lengthy) chapter in the Institutes.

“Go as a sinner”: Bonar on humbly approaching Christ

December 18, 2006December 18, 2006 Tony Reinke Come to Jesus, Evangelism, Faith, Horatius Bonar, Sin, Unbelief

“Go as a sinner”: Bonar on humbly approaching Christ

“God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13) were the words that brought me to saving faith in the Fall of 1999. To this day, those simple words and others like them (i.e. “Just as I am”) are so profound that I simply don’t fully grasp the depth of God’s mercy that He would invite me to come to Him, honestly, with all my sin. I naturally seek to please God through self-improvement and compare myself to other worse sinners. I naturally want to appease Him by being good and doing good. This is Cross-neglecting legalism!

God wants us to press close to Him in the honest truth – I am a sinner, empty of righteousness and undeserving of everything but hell forever and that I don’t typically feel like it.

We need to impress our friends, our hearers, our congregations to come to Jesus. Be honest, sincere and open. Even if you cannot feel your sin, take that honesty to Him. And even there, in the honesty of ignorance and in spiritual numbness, you may find truth and rest for your souls in the everlasting righteousness of Christ!

O, that we would stop trying to appease ‘seekers’ with scientific proofs and stop trying to appease legalists with more duties. Let us press everyone we know to go to Jesus honestly, just as they are, in the soiled garments of sin and ignorance. Let sinners come in their tattered rags!

On this topic, yet another gem from Horatius Bonar (1808-1889):

Faith may seem a slight thing to some; and they may wonder how salvation can flow from believing. Hence they try to magnify it, to adorn it, to add to it, in order that it may appear some great thing, something worthy of having salvation as its reward. In so doing, they are actually transforming faith into a work, and introducing salvation by works, under the name of faith. They show that they understand neither the nature nor the office of faith. It saves, simply by handing us over to the Saviour. It saves, not on account of the good works which flow from it, not on account of the love which it kindles, not on account of the repentance which it produces, but solely because it connects us with the Saving One. Its saving efficacy does not lie in its connection with righteousness and holiness, but entirely in its connection with the Righteous and Holy One …

The blood of the cross is that which has ‘made peace;’ and to share this peace God freely calls us. This blood of the cross is that by which we are justified; and to this justification we are invited. This blood of the cross is that by which we are brought nigh to God; and to this blessed nearness we are invited. This blood of the cross is that by which we have redemption, even the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace; and this redemption, this forgiveness, is freely set before us. It is by this blood that we have liberty of entrance into the holiest; and God’s voice to each sinner is, ‘Enter in.’ It is by this blood that we are cleansed and washed; and this fountain is free, free as any of earth’s flowing streams, free as the mighty ocean itself, in which all may wash and be clean.

These are good news concerning the blood, — news which should make every sinner feel that it is just what he stands in need of. Nothing less than this; yet nothing more.

And these good news of the blood are no less good news of Him whose blood is shed. For it is by this blood-shedding that He is the Saviour. Without this He could not have been a Redeemer; but, with it, He is altogether such a Redeemer as suits the sinner’s case. In Him there is salvation, — salvation without a price, — salvation for the most totally and thoroughly lost that this fallen earth contains. Go and receive it.

Do you ask, How am I to find salvation, and how am I to go to that God, on the blood of whose Son I have trampled so long? I answer, Go to Him in your proper and present character — that of a sinner. Go with no lie upon your lips, professing to be what you are not, or to feel what you do not. Tell Him honestly what you are, and what you feel, and what you do not feel. ‘Take with you words;’ but let them be honest words, not the words of hypocrisy and deceit. Tell Him that your sin is piercing you; or tell Him that you have no sense of sin, no repentance, no relish for divine things, no right knowledge of your own worthlessness and guilt. Present yourself before Him just as you are, and not as you wish to be, or think you ought to be, or suppose He desires you to be …

Appear before Him, taking for granted just that you are what you are, a sinner; and that Christ is what He is, a Saviour; deal honestly with God, and be assured that it is most thoroughly impossible that you can miss your errand. ‘Seek the Lord while He may be found;’ and you will see that He is found of you. ‘Call upon Him while He is near;’ and you will find how near He is.

–Horatius Bonar, The Christian Treasury in The Life and Works of Horatius Bonar (CD-Rom, Lux Publications) pp. 584-585. (Posted with permission from publisher.)

John Owen: The excellency of genuine Christian faith

August 7, 2006August 7, 2006 Tony Reinke Cross of Christ, Faith, Great Quotes, Humility, John Owen, Obedience to Scripture, Unbelief

“Herein consists the excellency of faith above all other powers and acts of the soul – that it receives, assents unto, and rests in things in their own nature absolutely incomprehensible [Trinity, incarnation, Cross, etc.] … The more sublime and glorious – the more inaccessible unto sense and reason – the things are which we believe; the more are we changed into the image of God, in the exercise of faith upon them … faith which is truly divine, is never more in its proper exercise – doth never more elevate the soul into conformity unto God – than when it acts in the contemplation and admiration of the most incomprehensible mysteries which are proposed unto it by divine revelation.”

– John Owen, The Glory of Christ, Works 1:50

An open letter of our future and Sovereign Grace Ministries

June 30, 2006June 28, 2008 Tony Reinke A.W. Tozer, Charles Bridges, Faith, Great Quotes, Hard decisions, Humble orthodoxy, Local church, Omaha NE, Pastoral Ministry, Sovereign Grace Ministries

June 30, 2006

Hello friends and family,

Having a calling into pastoral ministry is a great blessing. It means meeting people that are likeminded from all over the country, and having the great honor of opening the Bible to others. It also means prioritizing the ministry over personal ambitions, and pursuing a God who pulls people from their comforts. For the past several years, our family has lived under the tremendous blessing of being drawn towards pastoral ministry in the advancement of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

About two years ago, we began pursuing the training options that would fit us for the tasks ahead. We looked at many options in our home city of Omaha, considered four separate seminaries from the West coast to the East coast, and finally explored other church-based ministries. After several years of emails, travel, conversations and prayer we have concluded that the best training suitable for our family is with Sovereign Grace Ministries based in Gaithersburg, Maryland. We have begun building a relationship with them and have gained tremendous wisdom in meeting with many of their leaders at the Together for the Gospel conference in Louisville this past April. After more emails, prayer, wisdom from national leaders and travel, we intend to begin our journey within Sovereign Grace Ministries at Sovereign Grace Fellowship, a wonderful church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We have spent time with the pastors there and our hearts have been knit together in the Gospel. We are excited about the direction of their church and its successful leadership training.

Today our home will officially be for sale in Omaha. Having been in this terrific city for most of our lives, we will be leaving family whom we love, a business we have developed, a church family that we love, the home we built ourselves and many friends we will miss dearly.

In amazing ways, the provisions of God have been especially tangible in the past 6 months. We fully trust that God will continue to provide. Our sovereign God is in control of all our situations and especially promises blessing when we are willing to hand over family, homes and lands for the Gospel (Luke 18:28-30). We have seen, as God works in our lives, that gain comes through loss. We would appreciate your prayers that our home would sell, that we would have joy in this process, and that God would provide a job in Minneapolis as a writer.

While we are seeking pastoral training, the light burdens we are called to bear and the faith in God’s provisions are no different than the burdens and faith expected in the lives of each Christian.

We are grateful for the investments so many of you have made in our lives in Omaha. We are thankful also for your patience as we have come to these conclusions. We look forward to the coming weeks and months as we step out in faith to a future we cannot yet see.

The following quote from A.W. Tozer has been especially powerful in this time of our lives:

Pseudo faith always arranges a way out to serve in case God fails. Real faith knows only one way and gladly allows itself to be stripped of any second way or makeshift substitutes. For true faith, it is either God or total collapse. And not since Adam first stood up on earth has God failed a single man or woman who trusted Him.

The man of pseudo faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself to get into a predicament where his future must depend upon that creed being true. He always provides himself with secondary ways of escape so he will have a way out if the roof caves in.

The faith of Paul or Luther was a revolutionizing thing. It upset the whole life of the individual and made him into another person altogether. It laid hold on the life and brought it under obedience to Christ. It took up its cross and followed along after Jesus with no intention of going back. It said goodbye to its old friends as certainly as Elijah when he stepped into the fiery chariot and went away in the whirlwind. It had a finality about it … It realigned all life’s actions and brought them into accord with the will of God.

What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now, as they must do at the last day. For each of us the time is surely coming when we shall have nothing but God! Health and wealth and friends and hiding places will all be swept away and we shall have only God. To the man of pseudo faith that is a terrifying thought, but to real faith it is one of the most comforting thoughts the heart can entertain.

It would be a tragedy indeed to come to the place where we have no other but God and find that we had not really been trusting God during the days or our earthly sojourn. It would be better to invite God now to remove every false trust, to disengage our hearts from all secret hiding places and to bring us out into the open where we can discover for ourselves whether we actually trust Him. This is a harsh cure for our troubles, it is a sure one! Gentler cures may be too weak to do the work. And time is running out on us.

In the name of our loving, faithful and sovereign God who justifies His enemies and then takes pleasure in His children (Ps. 149:4),

Tony and K. Reinke
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P.S. We are aware that God’s sovereignty can override our own plans and wishes. Commenting on Proverbs 16:9, Charles Bridges writes, “As rational agents we think, consult, act freely. As dependent agents, the Lord exercises His own power in permitting, overruling, or furthering our acts. Thus man proposes; God disposes.” We are all too aware that God can sometimes dispose what we have proposed !