Now Why This Fear from Sovereign Grace Ministries on Vimeo.

Now Why This Fear

Verse 1
Now why this fear and unbelief?
Has not the Father put to grief
His spotless Son for us?
And will the righteous Judge of men,
Condemn me for that debt of sin,
Now cancelled at the cross?

Chorus
Jesus, all my trust
Is in Your blood
Jesus, You’ve rescued us
Through Your great love!

Verse 2
Complete atonement You have made,
And by Your death completely paid
The debt Your people owed
No wrath remains for us to face
We’re sheltered by Your saving grace,
And sprinkled with Your blood.

Verse 3
Be still, my soul, and know this peace
The merits of your Great High Priest
Have bought your liberty
Rely then on His precious blood,
Don’t fear your banishment from God
Since Jesus sets you free

Tag
How sweet the sound of saving grace
How sweet the sound of saving grace
Christ died for me

Music and alt. and additional words by Doug Plank, original verses by Augustus Toplady (1772).
© 2011 Sovereign Grace Worship (ASCAP).

— John Stott
The Cross of Christ

John Calvin

O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time forth and forevermore.
(Psalm 131 ESV)

The picture here is a lovely and comforting one. David acknowledges the absolute brain cramp that can accompany trying to understand the Sovereign God of Heaven and Earth. Even that phrase, the Sovereign God of Heaven and Earth, sounds the alarm:  mere mortals need not tread here! And well it should. He is beyond understanding. To quote Spurgeon: “As well might a gnat seek to drink in the ocean, as a finite creature to comprehend the Eternal God. A God whom we could understand would be no God. If we could grasp Him, He could not be infinite. If we could understand Him, He could not be divine.”

And yet….

We are told by our Lord Jesus, “and this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3) The Apostle Paul urges us to , “ to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” (Colossians 1:10 )   Seek me and you will find me, declares the Lord (Jer.29:13) and yet  ”it is the glory of God to conceal things…” (Prov. 25:2)

The Puritan writer Thomas Manton says it well:

“We know God but as men born blind know the fire: they know that there is such a thing as fire, for they feel it warm them, but what it is they know not.  So, that there is a God we know, but what He is we know little, and indeed we can never search Him out to perfection; a finite creature can never fully comprehend that which is infinite.”

We are to seek to know the unknowable. That should promote a bit of humility.

In his wonderful book Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC, Frederick Buechner writes the following about theology:

“Theology is the study of God and his ways. For all we know, dung beetles may study man and his ways and call it humanology. If so, we would probably be more touched and amused than irritated. One hopes that God feels likewise.”

One of the criticisms leveled at those in the Reformed camp is that there tends to be a scholastic arrogance that oozes from their pores. A little over the top but not far from the mark. Eliot Grudem, a pastor at Mars Hill in Seattle, wrote an article called “Elect or Elite? Why Arrogance Has No Place in Reformed Theology” in which he addressed this issue. In the article he quoted J.I. Packer from his introduction to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ:

“To Calvinism there is really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology: the point that God saves sinners.”

That includes me. And you. There is no room for boasting and even if tempted to do so we should boast in nothing but the cross of Christ! (Gal. 6:14)  Christian men of scholarship should be oozing nothing but humility.

In reading Calvin’s Institutes (Kindle Edition) I was encouraged by a part of his discourse on the subject of “election” in which he cautions us to remember our limits.

“The subject of predestination, which in itself is attended with considerable difficulty is rendered very perplexed and hence perilous by human curiosity, which cannot be restrained from wandering into forbidden paths and climbing to the clouds determined if it can that none of the secret things of God shall remain unexplored. For it is not right that man should with impunity pry into things which the Lord has been pleased to conceal within himself, and scan that sublime eternal wisdom which it is his pleasure that we should not apprehend but adore, that therein also his perfections may appear.” (1)

He continues:

“… the moment we go beyond the bounds of the word we are out of the course, in darkness, and must every now and then stumble, go astray, and fall. Let it, therefore, be our first principle that to desire any other knowledge of predestination than that which is expounded by the word of God, is no less infatuated than to walk where there is no path, or to seek light in darkness. Let us not be ashamed to be ignorant in a matter in which ignorance is learning. Rather let us willingly abstain from the search after knowledge, to which it is both foolish as well as perilous, and even fatal to aspire. If an unrestrained imagination urges us, our proper course is to oppose it with these words, “It is not good to eat much honey: so for men to search their own glory is not glory,” (Prov. 25:27).

These are words worth heeding. They are words that admit the limitations of finite men in the face of an infinite God. They are words that call for the sure boundaries of revealed scripture and boundaries upon the curiosity driven by pride in knowledge.
Now Calvin insists that we do not keep from people what can be known about the subject and, indeed,  to do so would be to deprive the saints. Yet, his call for humility is unmistakable. Wisely he states:

“Let us, I say, allow the Christian to unlock his mind and ears to all the words of God which are addressed to him, provided he do it with this moderation – viz. that whenever the Lord shuts his sacred mouth, he also desist from inquiry. The best rule of sobriety is, not only in learning to follow wherever God leads, but also when he makes an end of teaching, to cease also from wishing to be wise.”

John Chrysostom said that a comprehended God is no God at all. The Sovereign God of Heaven and Earth is, without question, incomprehensible. Even so, He has chosen to reveal Himself to us in nature, in scripture and in the face of Jesus Christ. May we press on to know Him. May we with humility seek  to know His character and understand His ways and may we extend much grace to our fellow travelers who seek the same, knowing that it is a wonder that we understand anything at all.

(1) All quotes from : Calvin, John; Beveridge, Henry (2011-01-26). Institutes Of The Christian Religion (pp. 607-609). Kindle Edition.

This is really excellent. I think from time to time that I’m making progress in a move from a man-centered gospel to a Christ-centered gospel. The truth is that what I discover more and more is how insidiously entrenched pride is in my own life. The temptation to make it all about me is ever present. Matt Chandler gives a great example of this in the video above. May we make it always and only about the triumph of Jesus. For more info on The Gospel Project, click here.

“In the New Testament, grace means God’s love in action toward people who merited the opposite of love. Grace means God moving heaven and earth to save sinners who could not lift a finger to save themselves. Grace means God sending his only Son to the cross to descend into hell so that we guilty ones might be reconciled to God and received into heaven.”
? J.I. Packer, Knowing God

Do you have a plan for reading the Scriptures this year?

 Here are 5 different plans to take a look at. Why not start the year off right?

1) The Two Year Bible Reading Plan prepared by Stephen Witmer. Here’s a link to downloadable PDF.

2) Lifeway Publishers have a page dedicated to several reading plans including the 4+1 Plan and a Chronological Plan

“Welcome to the Read the Bible for Life 4 + 1 Plan. In using this plan you will read through the entire Bible in a year and through the Psalms twice. The advantage of this type of plan is that you will be exposed to various parts of the Old and New Testaments simultaneously, which will keep your reading very fresh and remind you of “the whole counsel of God”! The plan is “semi-chronological” at points, the prophets of the Old Testament and the letters of the New Testament placed in rough chronological order. There are 6 days of reading each week, giving you a day to rest or catch up with a missed reading.”

3) One of the most challenging but most rewarding is Dr. Grant Horner’s Bible-Reading System.

“Professor Grant Horner’s unusual, challenging, and life-changing Bible Reading System is unlike any other you have ever seen. Try it for ONE MONTH and find out for yourself! You will never be the same.”

4) A plan adapted from a book by James M. Gray (1851-1935), How to Master the English Bible. This is a great system that will help you master any book of the Bible. It’s pretty simple: 1. Choose a book of the Bible. 2. Read it in its entirety. 3. Repeat step #2 twenty times. 4. Repeat this process for all books of the Bible. There are some great tips and good reasons for trying this here.

5) Finally, the English Standard Version website offers several plans, the Navigators do as well and the M’Cheyne Bible Calendar is a favorite of many.

So find a plan and get started! Don’t let failure to be consistent discourage you and get you off track. This isn’t about God’s acceptance of you. That’s settled by the cross – the blood plus nothing! This IS about you knowing the God who loves you and being equipped to speak the truth to yourself and others in love. Just keep going.

Adoration of the Shepherds by Fray Juan Bautista

Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again. Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of man. If the holiness and the awful power and majesty of God were present in this least auspicious of all events, this birth of a peasant’s child, then there is no place or time so lowly and earthbound but that holiness can be present there too.

And this means that we are never safe, that there is no place where we can hide from God, no place where we are safe from his power to break in two and re-create the human heart, because it is just where he seems most helpless that he is most strong, and just where we least expect him that he comes most fully.

– Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark (Harper San Francisco, 1985)

- Augustine of Hippo (Sermons 191.1)