Puritan Reformed Conference – Friday, August 23, 2013

 

Ian Hamilton BA, BD, MPHIL, DD. Graduate of Strathclyde University, Glasgow, Edinburgh University, and Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary (GPTS). He is a Trustee of Banner of Truth and a Board member of GPTS and London Theological Seminary. He is an Adjunct Professor at GPTS and the author of The Erosion of Calvinist Orthodoxy: Drifting from the Truth in Confessional Scottish Churches, The Letters of John, John Calvin’s Doctrine of Holy Scripture, and The Faith Shaped Life (forthcoming in May). Serves as minister of Cambridge Presbyterian Church, England and formerly in Loudoun Church of Scotland, Ayrshire. He and his wife, Joan, have four children and one granddaughter.

 

 

 

Isaiah 50:4-6; Romans 8:28-30

God purposefully and passionately wills to beautify his children. Our Lord Jesus Chrst gave himself up for his church nit merely to rescue his people from sin and satan and hell but that he might present it to himself pure and spotless. It is God’s passionate purpose to beautify his children.

God’s ultimate purpose does not concern the beautifying of his children but the glorifying of his son. God’s ultimate purpose (Romans 8) is to conform his people to the likeness of his son in order that HE might be the firstborn among many brethren.

The great gospel of God in Jesus Christ has come to us not ultimately terminate on us, but on His Son, whom He would have enthroned in the heavens.

We live in a day of narcissist. We think that the gospel is all about us. The gospel is about our great Savior Jesus Christ. God’s first priority does not terminate on us, but on Jesus.

Jesus Christ is the essence, the epitome, the ultimate paradigm of the beauty which God has purposed to conform us to. Jesus alone is altogether lovely.

The Savior’s beauty is preeminently moral and spiritual and not physical. The beauty of which shows through the humanity of Jesus is the moral beauty of God.

We are to be analogues of Jesus Christ: “little Christ’s” in our fallenness and in our redeemed humanity.

The elect of God are to look like the ultimate One Elect of God: Colossians 3:12

Are we being conformed to this pattern of beauty that brings glory to God? How often the elect of God do not remotely look like this.

How does God beautify his children – conform us to the image of his son?

Negatively: There is no one experience no matter how deeply profound or transformative that beautifies God’s children. We must run from every “second blessing” theology. We need to guard against this false thinking that there are second blessings that will bring us into deeper conformity to Jesus Christ. We are called to GROW in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Christ’s growth was from perfection to perfection. Our growth is from imperfection to creaturely analogical perfection, but will not be attained this side of glory.

Conformity to Jesus Christ doesn’t just happen. The primary reality of conformity to Jesus is that we grow up almost imperceptibly. (Philippians 2 – “I press on – this one thing I do”). The dominating impulse in the apostle’s life was this relentless resolve to be a “this one thing I do” man. A relentless pursuer of the upward call of Jesus Christ, which is nothing less than conformity to Jesus Christ. Peter exhorts us to “give all diligence to add to our faith;” Paul says to “work out our salvation.”

Positively: God beautifies his children supremely, if not only, by the ordinary means of grace.

Why “supremely but not only”? For the simple reason that God works all things together for the good of those who love him. God presses all things into His service as means of grace to His people. The preaching and hearing of God’s word, the sacraments, corporate and private prayer.

Growth in grace is not tied to those formally ordained moments when the means of grace are opened up to us. God bends the cosmos to the beautifying of His children in sovereignly ordained moments where “all things” are pressed into God’s service to conform us to the image of His son.

God can use the kind words of his people to bless and beautify his children (Ambrose was kind to Augustine)

Every incident and circumstance of life can be a means of grace in the wise providence of God.

God’s principle means for maturing and nourishing and beautifying his children rests in what we call the ordinary means of grace.

The Context in Which the Ordinary Means of Grace are Ministered to Us

The principle context is the fellowship of the people of God. We need to be reminded of the importance of the church. We must resist being influenced by the individualism of our day. The default of the Christian life is “we and ours” – corporate and covenantal.

The church is the primary context in which the means of grace work in the gathered elect. God has gifted the church uniquely for the transmission of grace: Ephesians 4

We don’t appreciate how easily we can become infected by the age in which we live.

John Calvin on the church as mother of the elect.

Do we give to the church the place it ought to have in our lives? The reason many Christians struggle so much is because they are not committed heart and soul to the church.

The need of our lives is to be grounded every day of our lives in the basics of the gospel. You’re never as far along as you think you are.

Corporate, covenantal thinking is being lost. Reformation Christianity not only magnified justifying grace, it also labored to set justifying righteousness in its corporate and covenantal context. How we worship God covenantal is more important than salvation. If you don’t worship as God has decreed and ordained, your doctrine of salvation will be lost.

The Ordinary Means of Grace

1. The Beautifying Ministry of The Word Preached.

The word made visible in the sacraments. The word voiced in Spirit inspired prayer that the Spirit uses to make us more like our Lord Jesus Christ. What the HS first produced in Jesus Christ He comes in his new covenant ministry to reproduce in the people of Jesus. We need to appreciate first the sanctifying ministry of the Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ through the Word.

Jesus was sanctified by the Spirit from his mother’s womb, but he also INCREASED in wisdom and favor with God and man and learned obedience. How?

He did that by living under the word of God. Isaiah 50

As the Lord’s servant he was taught morning by morning when Yahweh opened his ear to hear. Because he is bein taught the word of the Lord, he is able to speak a word in season to him that as weary. Our covenant head in our frail flesh needed the Lord to open his ear to hear. The Word was absolutely instrumental in developing his sanctification. So when tempted in the wilderness, He plunders Deuteronomy – to armour his mind and heart against the assaults of the enemy.

How did Jesus acquire this knowledge of the word of God? Was it immediately and indelibly impressed upon his DNA in the womb? If so, then his humanity is not my humanity. He took on our human nature. He learned the word of God. No shortcuts. His mind and heart became saturated with the word of God. “Morning by morning he awakeneth mine ear.”

How does this apply to the people of God:

John 17:17
Truth has no adequate efficiency to sanctify by itself, it has adequate adaptation to be the means of grace in the hands of the Holy Spirit.

Psalm 119:18

The Psalmist’s faith, even as a believer he needs the Lord to open his eyes.

The Psalmist’s humility, his divine giftedness is no assurance that he is able to understand the word of God.

The Bible isn’t enough without the Holy Spirit. 1 Cor 2:9-12

2. The Beautifying Ministry of the Sacraments:

John Calvin on the Sacraments: to sustain the weakness of our faith, the divine accommodation to our sinful weakness.

3. The Beautifying Ministry of Prayer

The most Christlike Christians are the most prayerful Christians. You become like the people you live with.

Samuel Rutherford was a man of prayer and therefore he could preach the way he did.

4. The Beautifying Ministry of Church Discipline

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Puritan Reformed Conference: Thursday, August 22, 2013
Grand Rapids, Michigan

Michael Barrett is Academic Dean and Professor of Old Testament at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. He is a minister in the Free Presbyterian Church of North America. Formerly, Dr. Barrett served as president of Geneva Reformed Seminary. He earned his doctorate in Old Testament Text with a special focus on Semitic languages. His dissertation was titled A Methodology for Investigating the Translation Philosophies and Techniques of the Septuagint. For almost thirty years, he was professor of Ancient Languages and Old Testament Theology and Interpretation at Bob Jones University. Dr. Barrett has had an active role in the ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church since its inception in North America. He is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and has published numerous articles in both professional and popular journals. His other published works include Beginning at Moses: A Guide to Finding Christ in the Old Testament; Complete in Him: A Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Gospel; God’s Unfailing Purpose: The Message of Daniel; The Beauty of Holiness: A Guide to Biblical Worship; Love Divine and Unfailing: The Gospel According to Hosea and The Hebrew Handbook. Dr. Barrett and his wife, Sandra, have two sons and five grandchildren.

 

Colossians 3:1-17

Many Christians have a problem with the Christian life. Faith loses its attractiveness and disillusionment sets in. Christianity is a set of rigid beliefs. Every new seminar seems to be an effort to capitalize on the Christians dissastifcation and failure to understand what the Bible says about the Christian life.

The Scripture connects what we believe with what we do, our creed and practice, linking what we believe with our living. he truths of the NT that gripped the hearts of first century Christians never seem to cross the minds of Christians in the 21st Century. When Christians ignore

Christians define their Christianity in terms of a decision they made in the past. The power of the gospel and the truth of the gospel must influence and direct our Christian life. It is Christ his cross and the completeness of the gospel that must interfere with life. It is the cross that must stand int he way of every sin, to point us to piety. It is right thinking that produces right living. If we can learn what it means to think right about the gospel, then we are on our way to living right. For those looking for genuine friendship, faith, connection, and community with others, Christian Social Hub offers a welcoming space to connect with people who share these values.

Paul expounds the completeness of Christ – His humanity and deity – and then our completeness in him – v. 10 Our completeness is defined in terms of our union with Christ – how we meditate and apply and live in the reality of our union with Christ that gives meaning to living ourt our faith.

Living Out of Faith from the Inside and the Outside: The Principles and the Practice of the Christian Life

There is nothing more practical for us than Christian truth – as we understand doctrine we have the basis for living out what we believe.

The Principle of Christian Life (The Hidden Life)

The opening four verses expounds the theology that is essential for the Christian life: our union with Christ that is equally true of every believer. Every genuine believer is equally united with Christ but nit every believer enjoys their union with Christ.

The Fact of the Hidden Life – v. 3 “For ye are dead” – indisputable fact: you died. This past death must refer to something that is spiritual, mystical – spiritual truth that surpasses human comprehension.  We are taken to the mysterious union that every believer has with Jesus Christ in His death on the cross. Over and again the Scripture makes it clear, and makes that remarkable statement – “I am crucified with Christ,”

Christ is our federal representative head, standing in the place of all those who are united in him. On the cross satisfaction for our sin was secured, where the connection to sin was severed. We should look down on sin and the old life from the vantage place of the cross. The sin that is so alluring when in our face loses its appeal when the viewed from the old rugged cross. Although we died, our life has been hidden with Christ in God. This mystical death did nt produce a lifeless corpse. Union with Christ union with his death always produces resurrection with Christ. Since this is a fact – since you have been raised with Christ – then on that basis there is a community with his death that always results in a community with his life. The form of the verb speaks of a constant “staying hidden” with Christ. When we died with Christ we were at that time hidden in Christ and there we constantly remain.

The implications regarding our security with God and our duty to the world are far reaching. The world cannot see us hidden in Christ. But God sees his elect hidden in Christ. God sees the body in terms of the head and there is the sobering reality that the world sees the Head through the body. The world sees Christ through those who profess Jesus as Savior. What does how we live say about the wonder and the beauty and the glory of our Head? The world’s estimation of our Christ will very often depend on what they see in the body.

The Imperatives of the Hidden Life

1. Seek –  involves thinking directed at our wills. We are under the obligation as believers to do these things.

Be seeking the above things through an habitual process

Not simply an investigation but a thorough going effort to obtain that which is sought

To regard Christ as our treasure is to have our earthly heart focused on where he is.

This is more than an examination of doctrine, but a striving to experience the blessing and the fulness.

Sometimes theologians can suck the joy right out of truth.

We seek truth not to examine it but to experience it. We as believers tend to live on the borders of blessing (like the ten spies).

2. Set our affection on things above – be thinking about above things.

Habitual thinking grooves the brain – Phil 4:8

Groove the brain in thinking about Christ. It doesn’t mean that we never think about other things, but all other things we think about is governed by the fact that we are in Christ.

The Prospect of the Hidden Life – v. 4

The hidden life does not and will not remain hidden. Faith transitions to sight, the invisible becomes the visible.

Christ, who is our life, the essence of our life, the object of our passions, what defines us, that will one day be openly revealed, and we will be manifested in the same glory with him. There is no separating Christ and his peole.

It is occupation with Christ that is the secret to everything in the Christian life.

Living out our faith means that we live now with a view to then. We keep t=eternity in view and we keep the gospel in focus.

The Procedure of the Christian Life (The Seen Life): vv. 5 – 17

What is true on the inside will show itself on the outside. The evidences of our hidden union with Christ should be seen – it is going to look like the way we live.

The implications of what it means to be in Christ.

1. Dying to sin: believers are to put off all of the old vices of our life outside of Christ. We should die practically to sin as we live in union with His life in the resurrection. Paul demands the duty of death, imperatives that demand obedience:

Mortify our earthly members – the physical limbs or body parts – but includes whatever in us that is of this world that is bent to sin

The biggest threat to our sanctification is self

This death is not by natural causes. “Mortify” means to kill self – spiritual suicide – the language is blunt, forceful and shocking. We must kill off the stuff of the sinful life that we have in our earthly existence. The consequence of our dying with Christ is that we should no longer live with a view to ourselves, our own desires, our own ambitions.

Put off the sinful practices. Uses the metaphor of changing clothes – life in Christ cannot look like what you looked like before you were in Christ. The Bible knows nothing of a gospel that makes no demands on life, that requires no change in life.

Identifies sins that are subject to death: vv. 5-8 The principle point that the Apostle is making. Go through these two lists which have five sins, both have bearing on the second division of God’s moral law. In v. 5 the list progresses from outward transgressions to inward transgressions. v. 8 begins with inward transgressions that show themselves outward.

There is a logic here that the Apostle is using: our attention is to be focused on the center, focusing all thoughts on the center statement and then developing out from that center.

When all ten sins are combined, we need to be careful not to think these are the only sins we need to deal with. This is a partial list that designates the totality. We have to deal with sin – not just particular sins.

Verse 7 gives us hope that it is possible to put off these sins. There is no Christian who is experientially is as holy as he should be, nor as holy as he will be.

The Reasons for Death to Sin

1. Negatively: sin angers God. We are no longer subject to God’s wrath because of Christ’s atoning work. God put the cross between our sin and Him. And the wrath of God for our sakes as believers is quenched by the cross of Christ. If God put the cross there, then we ought to as well. Thinking about why he died, and that we died in union with him, is reason enough for us to die to sin.

2. Positively: we are restored in the image of God: vv. 9-10 We dress according to what we are. Those who trust Christ no longer wear the clothes of those who are spiritually dead. Continually and habitually and progressively renewed in the Creator’s image. Without regard to our race or naationlity (v. 11). Every believer is to look like Christ.

The Marks of Spiritual Life/The Virtues of the New Man vv. 12ff

The Merits of the Christian Life: vv. 15-16

Let the Peace of God Rule

Let the Word of (about) Christ Dwell

Our relationship to fellow believers: we tech and admonish

Our relationship to God: singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord

Gratitude: Be thankful

The Motives of the Christian Life: v. 17

The name of Christ and the glory of Christ motivates us. Whatever we do, we do it for Jesus sake, consciously and intentionally in the name of Christ.

Living out our faith requires thinking and living in the reality of the religion we say we believe, belief and practice, doctrine and duty. In the head we must know the truth, in our hearts we believe the truth, with our hands we implement the truth.

 

Puritan Reformed Conference – Thursday, August 22, 2013
Grand Rapids, Michigan

David P. Murray is Professor of Old Testament and Practical Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He studied for the ministry at Glasgow University and the Free Church of Scotland College (Edinburgh). He was a pastor for 12 years, first at Lochcarron Free Church of Scotland and then at Stornoway Free Church of Scotland (Continuing). From 2002 to 2007, he was Lecturer in Hebrew and Old Testament at the Free Church Seminary in Inverness. He has a Doctor of Ministry degree from Reformation International Theological Seminary for his work relating Old Testament Introduction studies to the pastoral ministry. Dr. Murray joined the faculty of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in 2007. He is the author of Christians Get Depressed Too and the producer of God’s Technology: Training Our Children To Use Technology To God’s Glory. He also blogs at Head Heart Hand. David and his wife, Shona, have four children.

 

Philippians 4:1-9

We live in an increasingly negative culture – it’s difficult not to be dragged down as our minds and our hearts are overwhelmed.

Economic

The Church is increasingly marginalized, increasingly on the wrong side of the culture wars. Gradually pulls us down emotionally and spiritually.”

Relationships

As Christians we need to consciously change our “brain diet” – Phil 4:8

Not a call to live in an unrealistic way, in isolation.

Tilt the balance of what we feed our minds towards the positive things that are given to us in this verse.

The Philippians clearly had been dieting on the wrong intellectual food and the wrong spiritual food and as a result had become incredibly anxious.

We are inviting anxiety and discouragement to occupy the castle of our minds.

Verse 8 is bookended by two verses regarding peace – vv. 7 and 9

“keeping” in verse 7 is “garrison” building a fortress of peace, contentment, and joy.

“think” is a word that indicates incredible rigour, discipline, determination and force. This requires initiative, and discipline, and planning.

 

Our Media Diet

We are not just consumers. We are all media. We all decide what kind of information we will gather and pass on. We are responsible not only for what we take in but also for what we communicate.

1. True. We are to meditate upon what is true rather than what is false. There is so much misrepresentation in the media, both on the left and right. The media is a world of lies. We have to very deliberately choose not to be consumers of this kind of imbalance and misrepresentation. If we feast on falsehood we will become cynical and suspicious. We will have no good faith in anyone.

2. Honest – Noble. Majestic. Awe-inspiring. We are to mediate upon that which is noble and not base. Television is usually far from noble in its content, rather focused on the base and the seedy, splashing about in the cesspools of society, focusing n the corrupt and the dysfunctional. We must deliberately seek out and feast upon that which is noble. It will take Research, discipline and self-denial.

3. Just. We are to mediate upon that which conforms to God’s standards. These things are not harmless if they are not in accord with God’s standards. Think of not only what we are consuming but what we are also creating based in what we have heard and seen, what we pass on through what we speak about and what we share. Think of the impact you may be having on other people’s psychology, their souls.

4. Pure – Chastity, Modesty. When sit about the table what do we talk about – impure things or pure things? Marriages that are dysfunctional, children dressing immodestly.

5. Beautiful – “towards love”: whatever produces or creates love, draws out affection or admiration. Things that create, motivate and inspire love.

6. Praise not Complaint: Praiseworthy. Whatsoever things are of good report.

We have the opportunity to live differently from the world, to demonstrate the power of the gospel.

 

Our Media Ministry

We are all ministers in the sense that we are ministering the word to others: mothers to daughters, fathers to son. How does this then impact the content of our ministry.

1. More salvation than sin. We go to Sinai and tremble and weep at our sin, but we don’t stay there. We stay there as long as need be to drive us to our Savior. Do we focus on sin to the exclusion or the minimizing of our salvation?

2. Truth more than falsehood. Even in the church we tend to get focused on what’s wrong, exposing false doctrine. But if that’s all we do we will not produce peace and joy in our hearers. Our people would be better equipped to be apologusts and defenders of the faith if their focus was on what’s true rather than on what’s false.

3. More wooing than warning. Of course we must warn of hell, judgment, the devil. The balance of Scripture contains more wooing – holding up the beauty of holiness than the ugliness of sin, the beauty of heaven than the fearfulness of hell. Holding up the beauty of Christ and his willingness and delight to save sinners.

4. More victory than struggle. We believe in struggle, but we also find victory, growth, progress, fruit, usefulness. We are 100% in Romans 7 and the struggle with indwelling sin, but we also want to be 100% in Romans 8 where we live in the power of the Spirit.

5. Celebration more than Lamentation. Even secular people are recognizing a need for a balance. Ralph Dobelli – The Guardian

Bradley Wright: “Two thousand years ago, a book whose core was euaggelion—good news—began to be widely read. We of all people should be able to recognize and celebrate and express gratitude wherever we find it. For all good news is God’s good news, and to ignore it, hide it, minimize it, or distort it is neither mentally healthy nor spiritually sound.”

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the audio of Paul’s interview with Os Guinness about The Global Public Square.

http://www.godandculture.com/ra/Os_Guinness_08192013.mp3

About The Global Public Square: Religious Freedom and Making the World Safe for Diversity

How do we live with our deepest differences? In a world torn by religious conflict, the threats to human dignity are terrifyingly real. Some societies face harsh government repression and brutal sectarian violence, while others are divided by bitter conflicts over religion’s place in public life. Is there any hope for living together peacefully? Os Guinness argues that the way forward for the world lies in promoting freedom of religion and belief for people of all faiths and none. He sets out a vision of a civil and cosmopolitan global public square, and how it can be established by championing the freedom of the soul—the inviolable freedom of thought, conscience and religion. In particular he calls for leadership that has the courage to act on behalf of the common good. Far from utopian, this constructive vision charts a course for the future of the world. Soul freedom is not only a shining ideal but a dire necessity and an eminently practical solution to the predicaments of our time. We can indeed maximize freedom and justice and learn to negotiate deep differences in public life. For a world desperate for hope at a critical juncture of human history, here is a way forward, for the good of all.

About Os Guinness

OS GUINNESS (DPhil, Oxford University) is an author and social critic. Born in China, he was educated in England at the Universities of London and Oxford. He moved to the United States in 1984, and has been a Guest Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He was the lead drafter of both the Williamsburg Charter and the Global Carter of Conscience, as well as the founder of the Trinity Forum. He has written more than 25 books, including The Call, The American Hour, Time for Truth, Unspeakable, The Case for Civility, A Free People’s Suicide, and his latest: The Global Public Square. He lives with his wife Jenny in McLean, Virginia.

Glenn Beck recently called for a “Mock Obama Day” in response to the outcry over a rodeo clown wearing an Obama mask and subsequently having to quit his job.

Mocking our president is not the duty of a responsible citizenry. It is especially not what God expects of Christians.

In response to Mr. Beck’s call to mock the president, the Center for the Study of God & Culture is calling on all Americans, and especially Christians, to pray for our president this coming Friday, August 16. We’re asking you to commit just 5 minutes that day to hold up our president before the throne of grace, that God will give him wisdom and strength to carry out the duties of his office faithfully.

Please join us in praying for President Obama every day, but especially on Friday, August 16.