Puritans

Christ Crucified by James Durham

Tony Reinke Book reviews, BR > Naphtali, Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, Puritan Library, Puritans , , , , ,

Book review
Christ Crucified by James Durham

Inside the cover of his personal copy of Christ Crucified, 19th century preacher C.H. Spurgeon wrote two words: “Much prized.”

Without question, author James Durham (1622-1658) left the Church with a precious treatise on the Cross of Christ. But, sadly, this “much prized” Puritan work never found itself printed in the 19th century, and the last printed edition appeared in 1792! The work may be prized for its content, but we lament that it’s so far outside the reach of contemporary readers.

This absence temporarily ended in 2001 when Chris Coldwell and publisher Naphtali Press (Dallas, TX) released a retypset, edited, and beautiful edition of Durham’s classic. But the 500 copies – even selling at $75 each to cover high expenses of a short print run – sold out by the Fall of 2003. The classic, while back for a flash, returned quickly to the status of “rare” and again outside the reach of most readers.

Just in the past few weeks (August of 2007), Naphtali finished their second (and much larger) printing. The 2001 Naphtali edition is back, fully stocked, and now available for $30!

So why is Durham’s classic so treasured?

“Much Prized”

Admittedly, Durham is a lesser-known of the Puritan divines and probably because the Scottish preacher died in 1658 at the age of 36. His productive ministry lasted a mere decade and the 11 books that bear his name were all printed posthumously. The 72 sermons in Christ Crucified were transcribed by Durham’s ministry partner John Carstairs. Carstairs edited and first published the sermons 25 years after Durham’s death. The full title is Christ Crucified: The Marrow of the Gospel in 72 Sermons on Isaiah 53 and was originally published in Edinburgh in 1683.

Christ Crucified is traditionally classified and used as a commentary on Isaiah 53:1-12. And it certainly contains an encyclopedia of biblical exegesis and deep doctrine you would expect from a Puritan commentary. But Durham’s sermons go further, being filled with rich application, exhortation, encouragement and fuel for the Cross-centered life. It’s a Puritan work that, when carefully digested, molds Gospel-centered preachers like Spurgeon.

In these 72 sermons, Durham patiently and carefully walks verse-by-verse through the great OT prophecy of Christ. His aim is not merely exegesis or theology, but rich application. He wants us to experience the Cross, and he moves the reader frequently from doctrine to application.

For example, in sermon 22 Durham traverses the mystery of Christ’s substitution, of His absorbing the wrath of God and being “wounded for our transgressions” (v. 5). The sermon ends with a plea for us to feel our dire condition as sinners. Our sin deserves the wounding of judgment. The suffering of Christ should lead us to despair in our empty self-righteousness. The sermon concludes with these words:

“O let these things sink in your hearts, that you are sinners, great sinners, under wrath, and at feud with God; that Jesus Christ is the savior of lost sinners, and that there is no way to pardon and peace, but by closing with him, and laying hold on his satisfaction, that you may be drawn to cast yourselves over on this everlasting covenant, for obtaining the benefits that Christ has purchased” (p. 252).

From beginning to end, Durham’s work is rich and applicable but the book is perhaps best remembered for the final six sermons on Isaiah 53:12, covering the intercessory work of Christ. Here Durham is at his best, reminding us our salvation, sanctification, and all other spiritual victories are a direct result of the Melchizedek-like eternal priesthood of Christ.

Christ intercedes for the elect, that they be justified, pardoned, and receive “favor, friendship, and fellowship” with God and kept from temptation. He intercedes so our service will being acceptable before God, our prayers be heard, that we be armed against the fear of death, always advancing in sanctification towards our ultimate salvation and glorification. “In a word, he intercedes for everything needful, and for everything promised to them, his intercession being as broad as his purchase” (p. 626).

Durham contends that we fail to comprehend the far-reaching influence of Christ’s intercession. He seeks to comfort his readers by opening our mind beyond Calvary and into the eternal holy of holies where Christ is now interceding for the saints.

Throughout the volume Durham presses his readers into Scripture, presses them into the Cross, and then applies the Cross for their salvation, sanctification, joy and comfort.

The enduring value of Christ Crucified is quite evident.

Naphtali edition

The Naphtali edition is more than 700-pages long and noticeably tall and wide. You can see how it stands alongside Meet the Puritans.

The retypeset text is clean and easy to read. Archaic words are underlined with a brief definition in brackets. The text includes sidebar headings for each subheading, and these headings are all listed in the extensive table of contents (download a PDF copy of the full table of contents here). The outside columns provide great room for notes.

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Publishers of Puritan works should take careful note of Chris Coldwell’s work. Here is a retypeset Puritan classic, with the following admirable features:

  • Uses original sources for careful edits and corrections.
  • Notes variants and archaic words in the footnotes with a glossary in the back.
  • Provides an excellent introduction and author biography.
  • Supplies extensive table of contents in the front.
  • Adds a Scriptural index and topical index in the back.
  • Brought together with durable Smyth-sewn binding and housed in a cloth cover.

It’s doubtful the Naphtali edition could be improved.

Recommendations

I first learned of Durham four years ago when reading Spurgeon. In an early sermon Spurgeon said, “If I had lived in his [Durham’s] time, I should never, I think, have wanted to hear any other preacher; I would have sat, both by night and day, to receive the sweet droppings of his honeyed lips” (sermon 172). Obviously, Durham played a significant role in Spurgeon’s early ministry development.

As I mentioned earlier, in his personal copy of Christ Crucified, Spurgeon simply wrote “Much prized” (Autobiography, vol. 4). In Commenting and Commentaries – a book where Spurgeon freely assaults poor commentaries and their authors – he writes Christ Crucified is “marrow indeed” and “We need say no more: Durham is a prince among spiritual expositors.”

From contemporary reviewers Joel Beeke and Randall Peterson in Meet the Puritans (RHB: 2006) Christ Crucified is said to be “an excellent book for believers who yearn for a more intimate fellowship with Christ in His sufferings” (p. 678). Later they make the amazing claim that Christ Crucified is “one of the best commentaries ever written on Christ’s person and work in redemption” (p. 679). On this Naphtali edition they write, “The present reprint is carefully and beautifully done” (p. 678).

We agree with all of the above.

Take the advice of Beeke and Spurgeon. Christ Crucified: The Marrow of the Gospel in 72 Sermons on Isaiah 53 is a classic Puritan work that has been beautifully reproduced. Your soul will be drawn to fellowship with Christ and stirred to deeper discoveries of the Cross. Since 1792, Durham’s classic has never been more available and never more affordable.

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Title: Christ Crucified: The Marrow of the Gospel in 72 Sermons on Isaiah 53
Author: James Durham (1622-1658)
Editor: Chris Coldwell
Reading level: 3.0/5.0 > Easier thanks to excellent editing and glossary
Boards: cloth spine, embossed
Pages: 704
Volumes: 1
Dust jacket: no
Binding: Smyth-sewn
Paper: white and clean
Topical index: yes
Scriptural index: yes
Text: perfect type, re-typeset
Publisher: Naphtali Press
Year: 2001 ed., 2007 printing
Price USD: $45 retail; $30 pub.; $29 RHB
ISBN: 094107546x

         
 

Some verses upon the burning of our house

Tony Reinke Anne Bradstreet, Great Quotes, Humility, Puritans, Tragedy, Trials

“Some verses upon the burning of our house”
a poem by Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)

tss-baseball.jpgThe Puritans wrote beautiful poetry and Anne Bradstreet, a faithful Puritan wife and mother of several children, wrote some of the most compelling.

Several recent events — a garage and vehicle destroyed in the fire of close family members, Baylor University’s Roger Olson and his now infamous comments, the recent collapse of the 35W bridge in Minneapolis, flooding here in Minnesota and a personal reading through Job – have brought this poem to mind.

On July 18, 1666, at the age of 54, Bradstreet’s home burned to the ground. She recounts the horrors and her godly, humble, Calvinistic response.

In silent night when rest I took,
For sorrow neer I did not look,
I waken’d was with thundring noise
And Piteous shreiks of dreadfull voice.
That fearfull sound of fire and fire,
Let no man know is my Desire.

I, starting up, the light did spye,
And to my God my heart did cry
To strengthen me in my Distresse
And not to leave me succourlesse [helpless].
Then coming out beheld a space,
The flame consume my dwelling place.

And, when I could no longer look,
I blest his Name that gave and took,
That layd my goods now in the dust:
Yea so it was, and so ’twas just.
It was his own: it was not mine;
Far be it that I should repine [complain].

He might of All justly bereft,
But yet sufficient for us left.
When by the Ruines oft I past,
My sorrowing eyes aside did cast,
And here and there the places spye
Where oft I sate, and long did lye.

Here stood that Trunk, and there that chest;
There lay that store I counted best:
My pleasant things in ashes lye,
And them behold no more shall I.
Under thy roof no guest shall sitt,
Nor at thy Table eat a bitt.

No pleasant tale shall ‘ere be told,
Nor things recounted done of old.
No Candle ‘ere shall shine in Thee,
Nor bridegroom’s voice ere heard shall bee.
In silence ever shalt thou lye;
Adeiu, Adeiu; All’s vanity.

Then streight I gin my heart to chide,
And did thy wealth on earth abide?
Didst fix thy hope on mouldring dust,
The arm of flesh didst make thy trust?
Raise up thy thoughts above the skye
That dunghill mists away may flie.

Thou hast an house on high erect,
Fram’d by that mighty Architect,
With glory richly furnished,
Stands permanent though: this bee fled.
It’s purchased, and paid for too
By him who hath enough to doe.

A Prise so vast as is unknown,
Yet, by his Gift, is made thine own.
Ther’s wealth enough, I need no more;
Farewell my Pelf [money], farewell my Store.
The world no longer let me Love,
My hope and Treasure lyes Above.

——————-

The poem originates from The Puritans: A Sourcebook of Their Writings edited by Perry Miller (pp. 577-579).

The Inner Sanctum of Puritan Piety: John Flavel’s Doctrine of Mystical Union with Christ

Tony Reinke Abide in Christ, Book reviews, BP > Reformation Heritage Books, Communion with God, Joel R. Beeke, John Flavel, Puritans, spurgeon

tsslogo.jpgBook Review
The Inner Sanctum of Puritan Piety: John Flavel’s Doctrine of Mystical Union with Christ
by J. Stephen Yuille

At the very heart of Puritanism is the saints’ mystical union with Christ. We are in Christ! He is our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption. From this union to Christ we experience all the blessings and delights of communion with God and find spiritual vitality for obedience, prayer, ministry and sacrificial love. This powerful union is mystical because we cannot see it with our eyes. It is a spiritually-revealed truth.

Puritan John Flavel is certainly one of the most valuable (and perhaps one of the more overlooked) of the Puritans. The theme of mystical union with Christ is threaded throughout his entire ministry. A study of Flavel on this theme has become one of my favorite books of the year: The Inner Sanctum of Puritan Piety: John Flavel’s Doctrine of Mystical Union with Christ by J. Stephen Yuille (Reformation Heritage, 2007).

John Flavel (1628-1691) had an eventful life on the run as a nonconformist preacher (see Beeke’s bio of Flavel here). He is remembered for his books The Mystery of Providence, The Method of Grace, Christ Knocking at the Door of the Heart, The Fountain of Life, and Keeping the Heart. His complete works are still in print and available from the Banner of Truth in six volumes. These works remain strikingly valuable for contemporary readers. Almost a year ago I wrote this review.

Back to our specific theme. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “If you have got hold of this idea [i.e., mystical union with Christ] you will have discovered the most glorious truth you will ever know in your life.” It is glorious because it reminds us that in all things, at all times, Christ is central to our lives. All of our spiritual vitality and life comes through Christ. Christ is the “Head” from whom the whole Body is nourished, knit together and grows (Col. 2:19). Paul’s phrase for Christ is simply “who is your life” (3:4) and says our lives are hidden in Christ (3:3). This glorious truth of being united to Christ is at the core of the Christian life.

And Flavel “got hold” of this idea. It became central to his ministry and from this center flowed his understanding of pursuing obedience, prayer and communion with God. Now, Yuille has taken the highlights of Flavel’s teaching on this theme and systematized them into one short volume (128 pages).

Yuille covers the full spectrum of the doctrine in this book. I have taken the index and provided it to the right (click for larger image). The comprehensiveness of this volume does not make it unreadable or overly academic. Yuille is a professor at Toronto Baptist Seminary, but he is also a pastor and this book shows the intellectual awareness of a scholar and the experiential sensitivities of a pastor.

Whether this is your introduction to the full scope of the mystical union with Christ, or your introduction to John Flavel (or both!) this short work will richly bless your soul. Yuille has well-captured the precious truth of our union with Christ through the ministry of a first-rate Puritan. The result is a contender for the 2007 TSS book of the year award.

———–

Title: The Inner Sanctum of Puritan Piety: John Flavel’s Doctrine of Mystical Union with Christ
Author: J. Stephen Yuille (forward by Michael A. G. Haykin)
Table of Contents: scanned and posted online by TSS [click here]
Reading level: 2.75/5.0 > moderate
Boards: paperback
Pages: 128
Volumes: 1
Dust jacket: no
Binding: glue
Paper: normal
Topical index: yes
Scriptural index: no
Text: perfect type
Publisher: Reformation Heritage Books
Year: 2007
Price USD: $12.00/$9.00 from RHB
ISBNs: 9781601780171

The Puritans: A Sourcebook of their Writings by Perry Miller

Tony Reinke Art, BR > Dover, Contextualizing, Culture, Gospel in Culture, Missiology, Puritans, Richard Sibbes, spurgeon

tsslogo.jpgPuritan fashion is hot! No kidding. A top designer recently announced the resurgence of the Puritan doily! Yes, that white thing around Richard Sibbes’ neck is coming back. [Once for a college video project to portray John Winthrop I cut a neck hole in a table doily. Yes, there are pictures of me sportin’ the thing. No, you’ll never see them.]

There is more to the Puritans than hip doily fashion. So who were they? This question receives a great deal of answers but one book relinquishes definition of Puritan culture to the words of the Puritans. The book is titled The Puritans: A Sourcebook of their Writings (Dover: 2001) edited by Perry Miller and Thomas H. Johnson.

Perry Miller (1905-1963) was a professor at Harvard and is remembered as a fine Puritan scholar and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Narrowed specifically on the American Puritans, this 1,000 book is loaded with original source writings and helpful introductions covering the true Puritan in their manners, customs, behaviors, poetry and their thoughts on art, education, politiks and science. It provides a fascinating background in the search to understand true Puritan culture.

Here are a few choice cuts from the intro:

“Without some understanding of Puritanism, it may be safely said, there is no understanding of America … In the mood of revolt against the ideals of previous generations which has swept over our period, Puritanism has become a shining target for many sorts of marksmen. Confusion becomes worse confounded if we attempt to correlate modern usages with anything that can be proved pertinent to the original Puritans themselves. To seek no further, it was the habit of proponents for the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment during the 1920’s to dub Prohibitionists ‘Puritans,’ and the cartoonists made the nation familiar with an image of the Puritan: a gaunt, lank-haired kill-joy, wearing a black steeple hat and compounding for sins he was inclined to by damning those to which he had no mind. Yet any acquaintance with the Puritans of the seventeenth century will reveal at once, not only that they did not wear such hats, but also that they attired themselves in all the hues of the rainbow, and furthermore that in their daily life they imbibed what seem to us prodigious quantities of alcoholic beverages, with never the slightest inkling that they were doing anything sinful. … if first of all we wish to take Puritan culture as a whole, we shall find, let us say, that about ninety per cent of the intellectual life, scientific knowledge, morality, manners and customs, notions and prejudices, was that of all Englishmen … They were not unique or extreme in thinking that religion was the primary and all-engrossing business of man, or that all human though and action should tend to the glory of God.”

This book is not Cross-centered but very useful in illustrating the Puritan Cross-centered spirituality existed within a cultural sensitivity to art, politiks, education, science and the world around them. Very useful to confront the caricature that the Puritans were dry, culturally withdrawn and excessive zealots.

Laboring after Assurance > pt. 1

Tony Reinke Assurance, Communion with God, Cross-centered life, John Owen, Puritans

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I like to think, inquire and pursue answers to pressing questions. Theologically, there is no end to the potential questions and so inquiries begin compiling. On occasion I need to take a few days to search after specific answers. This is my intention over the next week.

For the past several months I’ve had a number of questions floating around that I thought were disconnected. But the more I have thought about these questions, the most closely related they have become. The questions include: What assurances do we have and pursue to give us confidence that we are truly children of God? How does this laboring after assurance intrude or enhance the Cross-centered life? Are the trials and triumphs of the Psalmist a reflection of the normative Christian life, or an ancient pre-Cross lifestyle that we can avoid? Why is the intense internal life of the Puritans foreign to my own personal experience? Were they overly introspective and legalistic, or do they leave a discernable pattern for the Christian life today?

Like I said, these questions appear on the surface to all be unrelated. However, I’ve come to see them all overlapping into one large question that I want to explore in a short series called “Laboring after Assurance” (words of Puritan John Owen). It is impossible to understand the Puritans until we understand what it meant for them to “labor after assurance.” In fact, if we are to understand the Puritans at all we must understand how they understood assurance of salvation. As Joel Beeke puts it, “assurance was the most critical issue of the post-Reformation” (Quest, 275).

To begin formulating an answer to these questions I turn to several passages in the Psalms, 1 John, and Peter, along with some excerpts I’ve come across in the Westminster Confession of Faith, Francis Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology, John Owen’s long exposition of Psalm 130 (Works, 6:323-648), The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification by Puritan Walter Marshall (RHB: 1999 ed.), Joel Beeke’s Ph.D. dissertation, The Quest for Full Assurance: The legacy of Calvin and his successors (Banner of Truth: 1999) along with Derek Thomas’ final message at the Banner of Truth Conference.

Tomorrow we will begin a journey of sorts to see what Owen meant when he wrote, “It is the duty of every believer to labor after an assurance of a personal interest in forgiveness, and to be diligent in the cherishing and preservation of it when it is attained” (6:413). To find out what Owen means here, I think, will help us make sense of the Psalmist and the reflective lives of the Puritans.

BoT > Session 6 > Derek Thomas on John Calvin

Tony Reinke 2007 BOT MC, Banner of Truth, BR > Banner of Truth, Calvinism, Derek Thomas, Doctrine, Doctrines of Grace, Emotion, Humble Calvinism, J.I. Packer, John Calvin, John Owen, Meditation, Mortification, Puritans, Reformation, Reformed spirituality, Reformed theology, Worship

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Session 6 – (Thurs. 10:45 AM)
“Meditation and the Future Life: The Goal of Holiness in Calvin’s Institutes”
Derek Thomas

GRANTHAM, PA – Thomas began his final session with some background and advice to reading Calvin’s Institutes. He recommended using a guide to help get through them for the first time. [I would agree having been greatly helped by T.H.L. Parker’s, Calvin: An Introduction to His Thought (Westminster/John Knox: 1995)]. Thomas cautioned against using the Institutes as ones introduction to John Calvin but rather recommended readers begin with Calvin’s rich sermons. Sermons on the Beatitudes (Banner of Truth: 2006) was presented as a particularly marvelous and fresh exposition although the cover image is one of the most awful images of Calvin, he said. “I’ve seen bad images of Calvin but this one takes the biscuit.”

Thomas highly recommends others read Calvin’s chapter on prayer in the Institutes. The chapter is one of the longest (see 3.20.1-52, pp. 1:850-920). Why, he asked, is Calvin’s teaching on prayer not better known? Calvin’s treatment on prayer is marvelous and all should read it.

Thomas then began his final message with three Scripture readings: Romans 8:1-11, Ephesians 4:17-24, Colossians 3:1-4. It’s important to note that Calvin’s teaching on mortification ends with this chapter: “Meditation on the Future Life” (3.9.1-6, pp. 1:712-719).

Calvin and the Puritans

Our love for the Puritans is a love of their experiential exposition of Scripture. We are drawn to the most obscure language of John Owen and endure the Ramist subdivisions of Owen’s subplot because he and other Puritans speak to our hearts. Today we long for God’s Word to be addressed not only to our mind and intellect but also to our hearts and affections. We long to have the question: So what? What is the purpose of the passage? What is it calling me to do and feel? The Puritans redress the mistakes of our day.

Calvin intimidates readers more than the Puritans because we think that Calvin does not speak to the heart as the Puritans. This is to buy into a division between Calvin and the Calvinists. The Puritans – all of them – knew, read and loved John Calvin. All the Puritans read Calvin’s Institutes, commentaries and sermons. Perhaps the best way to dismantle this error of separating Calvin from the Calvinists is to plumb the depths of book 3 in the Institutes because here Calvin teaches us that the heart is more important than all else.

Reformed Spirituality

For Calvin, piety was fundamental and the Institutes are a deliberate contrast to the medieval theology of Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas. Calvin’s Institutes are a Summa Pietas (sum of all piety) rather than a Summa Theologica (sum of all theology). For Calvin, his theology is a theology of the heart, addressing the totality of anthropology. If we don’t see this in the Reformers it shows a serious misunderstanding on our part.

The Reformers produced a Reformed spirituality! Reformed faith, by design, encompasses the totality of life including piety and the spiritual. Our theology informs our doctrine, prayers, understanding God’s means of grace, the imperatives of Scripture, preaching, corporate gatherings and liturgy. Their theology informed their spirituality. For Calvin and the Reformers there is a decided shape to spirituality and piety. There is a union with Christ first and then communion with Christ (as we saw earlier)!

So where did J.I. Packer get the title of his bestselling book, Knowing God? From the Institutes of course! Having sold over 1,000,000 copies, what makes it such a popular work? Because, who does not want to know God? This is Calvin’s intent in the Institutes. For Calvin piety in the sense of having a right relationship with God – in knowing Him, giving heartfelt worship, believing, offering filial prayers, etc. – is exactly what the Institutes are all about! Calvin says, “I call ‘piety’ that reverence joined with love of God which the knowledge of his benefits induces” (1.2.1, p. 1:41).

Future Together

For Calvin’s faculty psychology the mind is hugely important. “Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding” (Ps. 32:9). Calvin says the mind, yes, but also the heart, too! We are to be like newlyweds in their continual talking over their future together. They are thinking about the house and kids they want in the future. In book 3, Calvin says we need to be like newlyweds longing, ever more in love with Christ by which we have been drawn into union and anticipating our future together with Him.

But sin, the world and Satan all seek to draw us away from this anticipation. These are the enemies that prevent this love from blossoming. So we are required, with resolve and effort, to maintain and grow in this love. This resolve and effort comes, for Calvin, in the act of meditation on the future life. For Calvin, like that of the Puritans, they were following a line of sanctification with medieval roots. We live in this world but we anticipate the world to come.

Meditating on the Future Life

What shape does this anticipation take in Calvin?

1. Renovation of the Mind. Not only do we need a renovation in what we think but a renovation in how we think. In his book, The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded (7:260-497), Puritan John Owen asks: What is it you think about then you are not thinking? When your mind is in the default/neutral position, what is it you think about? We force our thoughts to Christian thoughts. Calvin says nearly the same thing as Owen (did Owen read Calvin’s Institutes?).

Colossians 3:1-4 is very significant here.

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

Calvin says Paul calls us to we are called to “assiduity” (or diligent effort) in our thinking of the things above. Calvin warns us of stopping at the resurrection of Christ. Christ was crucified, buried, raised and now is seated in heaven. Calvin’s thoughts follow redemptive history.

We have made too little of the ascension of Christ. By Christ’s being brought into heaven, we have been brought into heaven. We are with Him! This means the ascension of Christ is critical to meditation. “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1).

This renovation of our minds includes repentance and a rigorous discipline of our minds. “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. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” (Rom. 8:5-6).

2. Detachment from the present world. Like Augustine, Calvin warns against an improper love for the present world. It is dangerous to set our affections on the things of the world because it brings us into bondage and prevents services. But by nature we are slaves to this world. This world is a shadow and a vapor passing away. Even in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were meant to enjoy the provisions of the garden to see the beauty of the Creator of the beauty, to see the One Who is Beauty Himself. Sin, as Calvin says, turns our hearts into idol factories. We tease ourselves by thinking this world is all there is.

We see in our day the idolatry of health and exercise as though we can live to be 350 years old. Is this not a reflection that even Christians have set their minds on the things of this earth?

As this conference comes to a conclusion many of us have our bags packed and we are ready to leave to the airport to go home. Calvin says this is how we should live our lives on this earth. We should have our bags packed and on our way home. If this earth is not our homeland what is this life but an exile? Calvin has “gobs” of things to say on the proper value of enjoying Christian liberties in this life. But heaven is our home. Calvin says, “no one has made progress in the school of Christ who does not joyfully await the day of death and final resurrection” (3.9.5, p. 1:718). Calvin calls us to know how to die well.

For Calvin, meditation is not mindless humming but a cognitive discourse on the Word of God. Imagine a preacher in your head expounding, applying and reminding us not to set our roots deeply in this world.

Trails are the primary means God uses to detach us from this world. For the Christian, our crosses are ladders by which the mind and heart ascend into heaven. The Christian is a marcher on the way to glory.

We should maintain a proper contempt for this world. Calvin asks: Where will true and lasting joy be found? Not in this world or the relationships of this world. The greatest joy in this world will pale to the bursting joy of heaven when we shall see Jesus in His glory and splendor (1 John 3:2)!

3. Heaven as our ultimate destiny. There are three tenses to our salvation – we are saved, we are being saved and we will be saved. Only in glory will we be fully saved from the remnants of corruption and freed from the temptations of Satan.

The real world is the unseen world. “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:17-18). The Cherubim and Seraphim and archangels … this is the real world for Calvin. The privilege of being in Christ is that trouble does not shake us. We feel pain but Christ is always the rock beneath our feet and the security that cannot be taken away. In times of our greatest physical weakness we see beyond the groanings of this world to see with the eye of faith what cannot be shaken.

Psalter and Reformed Spirituality

So how do we meditate on the future life? The discipline of meditation is seen in the realities portrayed of this life in the Psalms. The Psalms are crucial to define the nature of the spirituality of the Christian life. Here we see the anatomy of all parts of the soul. This is why Calvin was adamant in commissioning a Psalter for his congregations to sing from. The Psalms are realistic. If the Psalmist is angry he says it. The Psalms range through a full spectrum of emotion and this displays the contours of our Christian lives. If we don’t sing the Psalms we miss the shape and identity of Reformed spirituality! If we do not sing of the brokenness of this world we will not anticipate the world to come.

And nothing portrays the anticipation of the future life more than prayer. The Psalms are prayers. Prayer is being drawn into heaven. The Holy Spirit groans to enables our voices to carry into heaven where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. Romans 8:26 is central for Calvin’s understanding of the Spirit. The Spirit is given to enable us to pray. The Spirit works for us and with us to bring our feeble voices into the presence of the Father in heaven! If you read the prayers of Calvin you will notice how many of them are eschatological in nature.

Thomas closed his session by reading some of these precious prayers of Calvin. I close with a personal favorite:

“Grant, Almighty God, that as we now carry about us this mortal body, yea, and nourish through sin a thousand deaths within us; O grant that we may ever by faith direct our eyes toward heaven, and to that incomprehensible power, which is to be manifested at the last day by Jesus Christ our Lord, so that in the midst of death we may hope that thou wilt be our Redeemer, and enjoy that redemption which he completed when he rose from the dead, and not doubt that the fruit which he then brought forth by his Spirit will come also to us when Christ himself shall come to judge the world; and may we thus walk in the fear of thy name, that we may be really gathered among his members, to be make partakers of that glory which by his death he has procured for us. Amen”

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Related: For more posts and pictures from the 2007 Banner of Truth Ministers’ Conference check out the complete TSS conference index.