The Cataclysmic Cross

Tony Reinke Ben Witherington, Cross of Christ, Eschatology

Galatians 6:14–­15:

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

Ben Witherington III, Grace in Galatia, 450:

Paul is saying his conversion to a belief in a crucified messiah entailed an enormous transvaluation of values, and an adoption of a new paradigm of what God was really doing in the world, how he was doing it, and therefore what the believer’s life meant. But notice Paul is not simply talking about an experience that happened to him. He also says that the world was crucified to him, by which he means that he believes that the death of Christ on the cross changed the world, it had cosmic effects. Paul has partially addressed this subject when he spoke about what the Galatians had been freed from — the elementary principles of the universe which enslave fallen human beings, and it is attended to even more fully in the later Paulines (cf. especially Col. 2:15 to Eph. 4:7–10). Here Martyn is quite right to stress the importance of this phrase and the mention of the new creation [v. 15] and connect them both with Gal. 1:4.

In Paul’s view the present evil age exists, but has been dealt a deathblow by the crucifixion of Jesus. All of the world’s basic values and assumptions and operating procedures have been put on notice that they are passing away (cf. 1 Cor. 7:31). What really matters are the new eschatological realities brought about because of the death of Christ. In Paul’s view, even the Law, as well as other good things about the material world, are part of the things that are passing away or are fading in glory (cf. 2 Cor. 3). Having lost their controlling grip on a human life when Christ came and died, one must not submit to such forces again, but rather live on the basis of the new eschatological realities. The new age has already dawned and Christians should live by its light and follow the path it illuminates.

Lost, But Great

Tony Reinke Anthropology, Francis Schaeffer, spurgeon

Writes Francis Schaeffer [Works, 4:258­­–259]:

I am convinced that one of the great weaknesses in evangelical preaching in the last years is that we have lost sight of the biblical fact that man is wonderful. We have seen the unbiblical humanism which surrounds us, and to resist this in our emphasis on man’s lostness we have tended to reduce man to a zero.

Man is indeed lost, but that does not mean he is nothing. We must resist the humanism, but to make man a zero is not the right way to resist it. You can emphasize that man is totally lost and still have the biblical answer that man is really great. In fact, only the biblical position produces a real and proper “humanism.” Naturalistic humanism leads to a diminishing of man and eventually to a zeroing of man. But the Christian position is that man is made in the image of God and even though he is now a sinner, he can do those things that are tremendous—he can influence history for this life and the life to come, for himself and for others. …

In short, therefore, man is not a cog in a machine; he is not a piece of theater; he really can influence history. From the biblical viewpoint, man is lost, but great.

A Divine Promise For the Stuck

Tony Reinke Depression, Faith, John Piper

Pastors get stuck in the mud. Churches and denominations get stuck. Every Christian gets stuck in the affairs and demands of life. Or so it seems. As John Piper’s church began to feel mud creep around their ankles, he preached on the topic and concluded the sermon with this word of personal application:

Know this for your own personal life. Right now there’s not a person who is not stuck in something. You are stuck financially, or stuck in your health, or stuck in your marriage, or stuck in your vocation, or stuck in your spiritual growth. There’s not a person in this room who doesn’t feel in some sense: this is a moment when I’m not making any progress and everything seems futile that I try. That is never the case with the Christian! God is always doing more than you know — a thousand times more than you know. One of the great blessings of getting old is that you start to see the patterns and you can recognize them and not get so panicky as you were in your earlier years. [11/20/11 sermon video, 25:40­–26:40]

Where in life are you tempted to feel stuck?

Stabbing Public Pastoral Prayers

Tony Reinke Pastoral Ministry, Reading

Pastor Thomas R. Mckibbens in his article to pastors, “Prayer In Corporate Worship,” [Faith and Mission (SEBTS), 7.2:22–23]:

At the risk of seeming to waste your time, consider reading great fiction, poetry, and drama. Go back and pick up those books which you know you “should have read” back there in college or even high school, but that you have secretly kept quiet about when the book was discussed in your hearing. I am speaking of Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, and some of the Greek plays by Sophocles or Euripides. I am speaking of classics like Milton’s Paradise Lost and the great novels of Tolstoy.

Enjoy the imaginative writings of J. R. R. Tolkien or C. S. Lewis or Charles Williams. Or you may prefer to read American classics like Melville’s Moby Dick or Faulkner’s novels or contemporary writers like Walker Percy. I am not talking about forcing yourself to complete an agonizing book just so you can say you have read it; rather I am talking about leisure reading for fun! Why pollute your mind with junk novels when you could, with a little forethought, be reading the great works of the English language? After a number of years of this you will be surprised at how many of the great books you can call your friends.

The pleasure of all this reading is not only that it is fun, but also that you enrich your mind with a store of imagination. In the preparation of public prayer, it is a way of forming your sentences and shaping your thoughts which stabs the imagination of the congregation, and they are a vital part of the prayer you voice. It becomes their prayer, because you have said it just the way they wish they could have said it.

His point about the value of classic literature to sharpen (pun) one’s prayer language is a good one, as long as we do not underplay the value of the prayers, Psalms, and prophetic writings of Scripture to do the same.

At All Cost, Get This

Tony Reinke Grace, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Sin

Romans 5:20–21:

…but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: Assurance (Banner of Truth, 1971), pages 299–300:

What grace has done is not merely to counteract exactly what sin has done. If grace had done that, and that alone, it would still be something wonderful. If the effect of grace had merely been to wipe out, and to cancel, all that had happened on the other side, we should have had a theme for praising God sufficient to last us through all eternity.

But, says the Apostle, it is not an exact counterbalance; what I have on the right side does not exactly tally with that I have on the left. In fact there is no comparison; it is a superfluity, an abounding, and engulfing, it is an overflowing on the side of grace. We must hold on to this truth at all costs and get it clear in our minds. The point is that grace does not merely exactly balance, it does not just undo what sin has done; it does much more.

The Tone of Joy

Tony Reinke B.B. Warfield, Cross-centered life, Joy

Writes theologian B. B. Warfield (Works, 7:114):

We are sinners and we know ourselves to be sinners, lost and helpless in ourselves. But we are saved sinners; and it is our salvation which gives the tone to our life, a tone of joy which swells in exact proportion to the sense we have of our ill-desert; for it is he to whom much is forgiven who loves much, and who, loving, rejoices much.

Adolf Harnack declares that this mood was brought into Christianity by Augustine. Before Augustine the characteristic frame of mind of Christians was the racking unrest of alternating hopes and fears. Augustine, the first of the Evangelicals, created a new piety of assured rest in God our Savior, and the psychological form of this new piety was, as Harnack phrases it, “solaced contrition,” — affliction, for sin, yes, the deepest and most poignant remorse for sin, but not unrelieved remorse, but appeased remorse.

There is no other joy on earth like that of appeased remorse: it is not only in heaven but on earth also that the joy over one sinner that repents surpasses that over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance.