“Patristics for Busy Pastors”: An Interview with Dr. Ligon Duncan

April 9, 2008April 9, 2008 Tony Reinke spurgeon

Today I posted my interview with Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III on “Patristics for Busy Pastors.” The interview was posted over at the Sovereign Grace blog.

Here is one excerpt:

“When we go back to the church fathers we see them defending the important Christian doctrines that are very basic to us, those doctrines that—if we’ve been Christians for a long time—we may well take for granted, doctrines we don’t question, or have any qualms about. Sometimes as important as they are, we don’t think about them much, and we don’t weave them into our teaching, nor do we express the passion for the importance of them to our people as we ought. When we go back to the patristic period and we see the church fathers defending the reality of, for example, the incarnation of Christ and showing the importance of it, we may—who have fully embraced the incarnation of Christ and never questioned it in our Christian experience—suddenly have a new sense of the significance and the absolute essentialness of the doctrine of the incarnation in a way we hadn’t before.

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PS- Please be praying for Dr. Duncan, First Presbyterian, and the people of Jackson, MS who recently experienced destructive storms. Please pray specifically–in the middle of a busy conference schedule–for his strength as he ministers to the needs of his congregation.

New: Night of Weeping & Morning of Joy

April 8, 2008April 8, 2008 Tony Reinke Augustine, BR > Reformation Heritage Books, Horatius Bonar, Idolatry, Idols, Tragedy, Trials, Unbelief

Night of Weeping & Morning of Joy by Horatius Bonar

In his exposition of Psalm 80, Augustine defines idolatry as the inability to break from “earthbound thoughts.” His understanding of idolatry stretches to encompass a communion of idolaters—of “pagans” and “heretics,” of both the polytheistic man clutching an armful of gods, and the man who identifies himself as a Christian yet whose so-called faith does not extend beyond what is seen. For Augustine, the link here between the “pagan” and the “heretic” is a paralleled inability to interpret this world by the eternal hope and promise in Christ. The antithesis of idolatry, for Augustine, is not to gain more “spirituality,” but to “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2).

Augustine’s understanding of idolatry must surely have been shocking, especially to the professing Christians who were forced to stop and ask themselves a simple question: Is my religion based upon anything more than “earthbound thoughts”?

The echo of Augustine’s exhortation—delivered almost 1600 years ago—continues to be an important in light of various influences (like theological liberalism) where it’s not uncommon to hear Christianity described in words that carry little more significance than “earthbound thoughts.” Talk of heaven and talk of hell—both used by Christ as motivating factors for decisions in this life—can too easily become unpopular themes in contemporary books and sermons. And too frequently they are not part of our thinking as individual Christians.

Night of Weeping & Morning of Joy

I was reminded of Augustine’s challenge to the “communion of idolaters” when I saw Reformation Heritage Book’s new title, Night of Weeping & Morning of Joy by Horatius Bonar (1808-1889). Here Bonar models for us how to interpret the difficult circumstances of our life on earth in light of the eternal promises and purposes of God.

Let me briefly outline the content of the book, and provide an “above-minded” excerpt at the end.

Night of Weeping

In the first half of the book, Bonar explains the nature of God’s discipline towards his children. God disciplines his children out of his eternal character—his love, wisdom, faithfulness, and power. This discipline is a training of the mind, will, heart, and conscience. God uses bodily sickness, bereavement, and adversity as he sets to work refining, sifting, pruning, and polishing. During this discipline our comforts come in several forms—Jesus weeps with us as we partake of his suffering, he reassures us in his word that all things work together for our good, he pours out special grace in every trial, he uses our afflictions as an opportunity to glorify God, he makes us useful here on earth, he supplies the means of mortifying sin, and he provides the Holy Spirit to comfort us.

In our age, which sometimes teeters on an overdose of “temporal spirituality,” the eternal spirituality and glory we are being prepared for can be easily forgotten. Life in Christ is preparation for something greater—”the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). Bonar calls us to pay attention to the suffering and trials of this life because God is at work in all of the trials and struggles of this life, to prepare us for something greater, more gracious, and more glorious.

Simply stated, our trials are God’s means of purifying our desires and preparing us for the “pleasures forevermore” awaiting those who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb!

Morning of Joy

The second half of the book details these eternally glorious promises of God. God disciplines us now, to prepare us eternally. This connection is important as we fend of the encroaching idolatry in our own hearts. Throughout the book, Bonar encourages us to look beyond the circumstances in life and to the eternal weight of glory. Here is a lengthy excerpt from chapter 12, “The Glory.”

In those vast blocks of unquarried rock what various forms are lying concealed! What shapes of statuary or architecture are there! Yet they have no history. They can have none. They are but parts of a hideous block, in which not one line or curve of beauty is visible. But the noise of hammers is heard. Man lifts up his tool. A single block is severed. Again he lifts up his tool, and it begins to assume a form; till, as stroke after stroke falls on it, and touch after touch smooths and shapes it, the perfect image of the human form is seen, and it seems as if the hand of the artist had only been employed in unwrapping the stony folds from that fair form, and awakening it from the slumber of its marble tomb. From the moment that the chisel touched that piece of rock its history began.

Such is the case of a saint. From the moment that the hand of the Spirit is laid on him to begin the process of separation, from that moment his history begins. He then receives a conscious, outstanding personality, that fits him for having a history—a history entirely marvelous; a history whose pages are both written and read in heaven; a history which in its divine brightness spreads over eternity. His true dignity now commences. He is fit to take a place in history. Each event in his life becomes worthy of a record. “The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance.” …

“The wise shall inherit glory” (Prov. 3:35). “The saints shall be joyful in glory” (Ps. 149:5). They are “vessels of mercy, afore prepared unto glory” (Rom. 9:23). That to which we are called is “eternal glory” (1 Peter 5:10). That which we obtain is “salvation in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Tim. 2:10). It is to glory that God is “bringing many sons” (Heb. 2:10); so that as He, through whom we are brought to it, is “crowned with glory and honour,” so shall we be (Heb. 2:9). We are “to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). We are not only “witnesses of the sufferings of Christ, but partakers of the glory that shall be revealed” (1 Peter 5:1). So that the word of exhortation runs thus: “Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy” (1 Peter 4:13). And the promise is not only, “if we suffer we shall also reign with him;” but, “if we suffer with him, we shall be also glorified together” (Rom. 8:17). …

Glory, then, is our inheritance. The best, the richest, the brightest, the most beautiful of all that is in God, of good, and rich, and bright, and beautiful, shall be ours. The glory that fills heaven above, the glory that spreads over the earth beneath, shall be ours. But while “the glory of the terrestrial” shall be ours, yet in a truer sense “the glory of the celestial shall be ours.” Already by faith we have taken our place amid things celestial, “being quickened together with Christ, and raised up with him, and made to sit with him in heavenly places” (Eph. 2:6). Thus we have already claimed the celestial as, our own; and having risen with Christ, we “set our affection upon things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:2). Far-ranging dominion shall be ours; with all varying shades and kinds of glory shall we be encompassed, circle beyond circle stretching over the universe; but it is the celestial glory that is so truly ours, as the redeemed and the risen; and in the midst of that celestial glory shall be the family mansion, the church’s dwelling-place and palace—our true home for eternity. …

All that awaits us is glorious. There is an inheritance in reversion; and it is “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away” (1 Peter 1:4). There is a rest, a sabbath-keeping in store for us (Heb. 4:9); and this “rest shall be glorious” (Isa. 11:10). The kingdom which we claim is a glorious kingdom. The crown which we are to wear is a glorious crown. The city of our habitation is a glorious city. The garments which shall clothe us are garments “for glory and for beauty.” Our bodies shall be glorious bodies, fashioned after the likeness of Christ’s “glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). Our society shall be that of the glorified. Our songs shall be songs of glory. And of the region which we are to inhabit it is said, that “the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” (Rev. 21:23).

The hope of this glory cheers us. From under a canopy of night we look out upon these promised scenes of blessedness, and we are comforted. Our dark thoughts are softened down, even when they are not wholly brightened. For day is near, and joy is near, and the warfare is ending, and the tear shall be dried up, and the shame be lost in the glory, and “we shall be presented faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.”

-Horatius Bonar, Night of Weeping & Morning of Joy (Reformation Heritage, 2008), pp. 227-232.

Not Your Father’s L’Abri

April 4, 2008April 6, 2008 Tony Reinke BR > Crossway, Francis Schaeffer

… Though they sometimes come seeking debate, students and workers today [at L’Abri] have no use for Schaeffer’s presuppositionalist apologetics, which he adapted from the teachings of his professor at Westminster Theological Seminary, Cornelius Van Til. …

New: Young, Restless, Reformed

April 3, 2008April 3, 2008 Tony Reinke BR > Crossway

In our culture the influences upon young men and women include everything from vocal atheism (God Is Not Great) to influences within the church culture towards postmodern originality (Everything Must Change). Yet the demographic of young Calvinists—those returning to ancient theological roots—is growing. Young men and women are confessing that God is great and the need for all-out change within the church is exaggerated alarmism.

This fascinating growth in Calvinism among young Christians caught the attention of Christianity Today editor Collin Hansen. Hansen invites others to ride “shotgun” as he travels across the country discovering the far reaches of the emerging Calvinism in his new book—Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey With the New Calvinists (Crossway, 2008).

This is one of the most engaging and adventurous books we’ve seen in 2008. Read it to meet the cast of characters behind this rise; read it to discover the far-reaching influences of Calvinism on the lives of young men and women; read it for the excellent and descriptive perception of the author.

Young, Restless, Reformed is a must-read and now available from Crossway.

New: Select Works of Robert Rollock

April 2, 2008April 2, 2008 Tony Reinke BR > Reformation Heritage Books

“The long overdue republication of Robert Rollock’s Select Works introduces us to one of the greatest Reformed thinkers of the sixteenth century. Robert Rollock (c. 1555-1598), first principal of Edinburgh University, able preacher and philosopher, and a renowned biblical commentator in his own day, was a seminal Reformed theologian particularly as an early exponent of covenant theology in Scotland. His treatises on Gods effectual calling and the passion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ are themselves worth the purchase of this two-volume Select Works. These volumes represent the cream of sixteenth-century Reformed theology, and should be treasured by all who love biblical truth. May they whet the appetite for more of this prolific Scotsman, who wrote five volumes of sermons and nine commentaries.” – Joel R. Beeke

“Partly because of his reluctance to engage in the rough and tumble of church and state relationships, Robert Rollock’s name has been almost unknown outside of a small circle of scholars interested in the history of covenant theology—in which he features significantly. But for all his irenic spirit, Rollock was a powerfully intellectual and spiritual influence in late sixteenth-century Scotland. He was wonderfully endowed with remarkable intellectual gifts, possessed a rare ability to inspire University students, and was an outstanding preacher whom the common people of Scotland’s capital listened to gladly. An added bonus to this edition of Rollock’s long unavailable Select Works is a splendidly informative and sensitive introduction by Dr. Andrew Woolsey—further underlining that the republication of these volumes is an event to be celebrated by scholars, pastors, and ordinary Christians alike.” — Sinclair Ferguson

Download the table of contents in PDF (1.4 MB)

Title: Select Works of Robert Rollock
Author: Robert Rollock; bio by Andrew Woolsey
Reading level: 3.0/5.0 > moderate
Boards: hardcover (not cloth)
Pages: 1,334
Volumes: 2
Dust jacket: no
Binding: sewn
Paper: white and clean
Topical index: no
Scriptural index: no
Text: facsimile from the 1844-1849 Woodrow Society ed.
Publisher: Reformation Heritage Books
Year: 2008
Price USD: $68.00
ISBN: 9781601780362

Bonar on the Cross

April 1, 2008 Tony Reinke BR > Reformation Heritage Books, Cross of Christ, Horatius Bonar

The Shed Blood of Christ: The Foundation of Christianity

What is Christianity? Not metaphysics, not mysticism, not a compilation of guesses at truth. It is the history of the seed of the woman—that seed the Word made flesh—the Word made flesh, the revelation of the invisible Jehovah, the representative of the eternal God, the medium of communication between the Creator and the creature, between earth and heaven.

And of this Christianity, what is the essential characteristic, the indispensable feature from first to last? Is it incarnation or blood-shedding? Is it the cradle or the cross? Is it the scene at Bethlehem or at Golgotha? Assuredly the latter! “Eh, Eli, lama sabachthani,” is no mere outcry of suffering nature, the cross is no mere scene of human martyrdom, and the great sepulchre is no mere Hebrew tomb. It is only through blood-shedding that conscience is purged; it is only at the cross that the sinner can meet with God; it is the cross that knits heaven and earth together; it is the cross that bears up the collapsing universe; it is the pierced hand that holds the golden sceptre; it is at Calvary that we find the open gate of Paradise regained, and the gospel is good news to the sinner, of liberty to enter in.

Let men, with the newly sharpened axes of rationalism, do their utmost to hew down that cross; it will stand in spite of them. Let them apply their ecclesiastical paint-brush, and daub it all over with the most approved of mediaeval pigments to cover its nakedness, its glory will shine through all. Let them scoff at the legal transference of the sinner’s guilt to a divine substitute, and of that Surety’s righteousness to the sinner, as a Lutheran delusion, or a Puritan fiction, that mutual transference, that wondrous exchange, will be found to be wrapped up with Christianity itself. Let those who, like Cain of old, shrink from the touch of sacrificial blood, and mock the “religion of the shambles,” purge their consciences with the idea of God’s universal Fatherhood, and try to wash their robes and make them white in something else than the blood of the Lamb; to us, as to the saints of other days, there is but one purging of the conscience, one security for pardon, one way of access, one bond of reconciliation, one healing of our wounds, the death of Him on whom the chastisement of our peace was laid, and one everlasting song, “unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.”

-Horatius Bonar, Christ Is All: The Piety of Horatius Bonar (Reformation Heritage Books, 2007), pp. 79-80.