How Easily We Forget Our Own Mortality!

This passage from Calvin is not only one of the best things I've ever read in him, but it belongs up there next to Dostoevsky or Walker Percy in terms of its grasp of the human psyche:

That human life is like smoke or shadow is not only obvious to the learned, but even ordinary folk have no proverb more commonplace than this...But there is almost nothing that we regard more negligently or remember less. For we undertake all things as if we were establishing immortality for ourselves on earth. If some corpse is being buried, or we walk among graves, because the likeness of death then meets our eyes, we, I confess, philosophize brilliantly concerning the vanity of this life. Yet even this we do not do consistently, for often all these things affect us not one bit. But when it happens, our philosophy is for the moment; it vanishes as soon as we turn our backs, and leaves not a trace of remembrance behind it. In the end, like applause in the theater for some pleasing spectacle, it evaporates. Forgetful not only of death but also of mortality itself, as if no inkling of it had ever reached us, we return to our thoughtless assurance of earthly immortality. (Institutes 1:714)

Indeed, how easily we forget!

Puritan Worship and Shakespeare

Puritan worship resembles the plays of Shakespeare. Shakespeare was content with the scantiest of stage props and built scenery and imagery into the text of the plays themselves. In a similar way, the Puritan got rid of the 'stage scenery' of the Catholic/Anglican worship and relied on the verbal imagery and symbolism, most of it based on the Bible... Once we grant the validity of the verbal image it becomes clear that the Puritan worship service did not starve the imagination or even the senses of the worshipper.

-Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints, 125.

Calvin's Distinctions Between the Kingdoms

I've been reading David VanDrunen's chapter on Calvin in Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, and I couldn't help but wonder if any Neo-Kuyperian or transformationalist would ever make the following distinctions between the two kingdoms like Calvin does:

Now, these two [kingdoms], as we have divided them, are always to be viewed apart from each other. When the one is considered, we should call off our minds, and not allow them to think of the other. For there exists in man a kind of two worlds, over which different kings and different laws can preside...the spiritual kingdom of Christ and civil government are things very widely separated...[to]seek and include the kingdom of Christ under the elements of this world [is a] Jewish vanity.

Calvin's Institutes, 3.19.15; 4.11.1

Quote of the Day

"It's hard to imagine what sort of public meltdown would be necessary to dislodge Tom Hanks from the world’s affections. The near-supernatural amiability of the star is such that it would probably require televised puppy murder while brandishing a copy of Mein Kampf to so much as dent his likability."

-Helen O'Hara, in her review of the new film Larry Crowne

Is Westminster a Garment or a Straightjacket?

According to Tim Keller, nearly all Presbyterian Church in America presbyters subscribe to The Westminster Confession of Faith 'with only the most minor exceptions (the only common one being with regard to the Sabbath).' If, however, such an exception amounts to a wholesale rejection of the confessions's approach to the Sabbath, its authors might have judged Keller a master of understatement. Were the Westminster Confession a garment, you would not want to pull this 'minor' thread, unless you wanted to be altogether defrocked. And perhaps the reason that some people pull at this thread is because they regard the confession as more of straightjacket than a garment. Unbuckle the Sabbath, and you are well on your way to mastering theological escapology.

Phillip Ross, From the Finger of God: The Biblical and Theological Basis for the Threefold Division of the Law

A Refreshing Appearance by Edwards

While I'm waiting for Sean Lucas' forthcoming volume on Edwards to see an affirmative take, contra Helm/Hart, I wanted to share a newly found quote of Edwards that reminded me of why it is, once again, that Jonathan Edwards has been so crucial in the formation of my own deep-thinking/deep-feeling approach to Christian doctrine. I found this in the Piper festschrift, but to the best of my knowledge, it is a quote that I have never seen before.

Now what is glorifying God, but a rejoicing at that glory he has displayed? An understanding of the perfections of God, merely, cannot be the end of creation; for he had as good [i.e., might as well] not understand it, as see it and not be at all moved with joy at the sight. Neither can the highest end of creation be the declaring God's glory to others; for the declaring God's glory is good for nothing otherwise than to raise joy in ourselves and others at what is declared.

(Jonathan Edwards; The "Miscellanies": Entry Nos. a-z, aa-zz, 1-500,)

"Neither can the highest end... be the declaring God's glory to others..." What a difficult charge to lay upon someone like myself who always has his eye on the horizon of pastoral ministry. But a thought like this is necessary. I can declare the glory and majesty of God until I am blue in the face, but if I am not, myself captivated by, rejoicing in, and "enjoying" (to quote the Confession) God in my preaching, then my first duty has not been done.

Zanchi on Divine Causality

But since God by His providence doth preserve second causes which He useth in governing the world, everyone in her proper nature, yea, and is the mover of them--and of them, some are ordained of their own nature to certain and sure effects, and other some [others] are indefinite--we know and confess that although in respect of God, without whose foreknowledge and will nothing can happen in the world, all things are done necessarily (Matt. 10:29-30). Yet in respect of us, and of the second causes, many things happen and come to pass chanceably [by chance]. For what can be more chanceable [?] and casual, to a carpenter and travailer [traveller ?] than if the ax fall out of his hand and kill the other (Ex. 21:13)? Yet the Lord saith [sayeth] that it is he which killed the travailer [traveller]. And our Lord Jesus died willingly; yet He said, Christ must suffer (Luke 24:46). Herod and Pilate, of their free will, condemned Jesus; yet the apostles say they did nothing but what the hand and counsel of God had decreed to be done (Acts 4:28).

Jerome Zanchi
Confession of the Christian Religion
Chapter 6, Section 5

Machen: Liberalism Worse than Rome

We would not indeed obscure the difference which divides us from Rome. The gulf is indeed profound. But profound as it is, it seems almost trifling compared to the abyss which stands between us and many ministers of our own Church. The Church of Rome may represent a perversion of the Christian religion; but naturalistic liberalism is not Christianity at all.

-J. Gresham Machen
Christianity & Liberalism

Watson's Six Ingredients of True Repentance

I recently found a used copy of Thomas Watson's book The Doctrine of Repentance. I have merely perused my copy so far, but I wanted to share Watson's summary of the six ingredients which he argues from Scripture, combine to produce true repentance. None of these six things are optional. "If any one ingredient is left out," Watson says, "it loses its virtue."

1. Sight of sin
2. Sorrow for sin
3. Confession of sin
4. Shame for sin
5. Hatred for sin
6. Turning from sin

Grace Gems has the book for free on their site.

A White Stone and a Secret Name

I just stumbled across this nugget from Lewis regarding a verse in the book of Revelation. The part about God loving all infinitely might be uncool, but the rest is liquid gold.

It is said 'To him that overcometh I will give a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it'. What can be more a man's own than this new name which even in eternity remains a secret between God and him? And what shall we take this secrecy to mean? Surely, that each of the redeemed shall forever know and praise some one aspect of the divine beauty better than any other creature can. Why else were individuals created, but that God, loving all infinitely, should love each differently? And this difference, so far from impairing, floods with meaning the love of all blessed creatures for one another, the communion of the saints. If all experienced God in the same way and returned Him an identical worship, the song of the Church triumphant would have no symphony, it would be like an orchestra in which all the instruments played the same note... . For doubtless the continually successful, yet never completed, attempt by each soul to communicate its unique vision to all others (and that by means whereof earthly art and philosophy are but clumsy imitations) is also among the ends for which the individual was created.

C.S. Lewis; The Problem of Pain, ch. 10

Thankful Thomas

G.K. Chesterton relates in his biography of Thomas Aquinas that Thomas was once asked what he is most grateful to God for. His response was, "I have understood every page I ever read." Clearly, Thomas had never read N.T. Wright on justification. Although I'm not willing to say he wouldn't have liked him.

SLAM!

What It Takes

The Christian knows the truth about the non-Christian. He knows this because he is himself what he is by grace alone. He has been saved from the blindness of mind and the hardness of heart that marks the "natural man." The Christian has the "doctor's book." The Scriptures tell him of the origin and of the nature of sin. Man is dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1). He hates God. His inability to see the facts as they are and to reason about them as he ought to reason about them is, at bottom, a matter of sin. He has the God-created ability of reasoning within him. He is made in the image of God. God's revelation is before him and within him He is in his own constitution a manifestation of the revelation and therefore of the requirement of God. God made a covenant with him through Adam (Rom. 5:12). He is therefore now, in Adam, a covenant-breaker. He is also against God and therefore against the revelation of God (Rom. 8:6-8). This revelation of God constantly and inescapably reminds him of his creaturely responsibility. As a sinner he has, in Adam, declared himself autonomous.

Thus, intellectual argument will not, as such, convince and convert the non-Christian. It takes the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit to do that. But as in the case of preaching, so in the case of apologetical reasoning, the Holy Spirit may has a mediate approach to the minds and hearts of men The natural man is quite able intellectually to follow the argument that the Christian offers for the truth of his position. He can therefore see that the wisdom of this world has been made foolishness by God. Christianity can be shown to be, not "just as good as" or even "better than" the non-Christian position, but the only position that does not make nonsense of human experience.

Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge, P&R 1969, Pg. 18-19.

"You have never talked to a mere mortal..."

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. . . . There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors."

-C.S. Lewis; The Weight of Glory, p. 15.

Individualism

"…Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. . . . And immortality makes this other difference, which, by the by, has a connection with the difference between totalitarianism and democracy. If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilisation, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of the state or civilisation, compared with his, is only a moment."

~ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity