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C O N T E N T SHelping People Know God

C O R A M D E O B e f o r e t h e F a c e o f G o d B U R K P A R S O N S

In 1971, god used R.C. and Vesta Sproul to establish the Ligonier Valley Study Center. What began as a small study center in the countryside of western Pennsyl-vania fifty years ago has become, by God’s amazing grace, a discipleship teaching ministry reaching millions of people around the world. When I first encountered Ligonier Ministries more than twenty-five years ago, what amazed me most was that Ligonier was unlike any other ministry that I knew of. I immediately rec-ognized that Dr. Sproul not only was concerned with reaching unbelievers with

the gospel but that he was also passionate about reaching professing Christians with the gospel. But he didn’t stop there. His concern was to help believers be thoughtful and articulate Christians who know not only the gospel but also the whole counsel of God, the theology of God’s Word, the history of that theology, and how to defend the entirety of their faith. Dr. Sproul’s driving passion was to help the world know God and to help the church know God—not the God of our own making but the one and only sovereign, gracious, loving, and holy God of Scripture.

Early in his ministry, Dr. Sproul observed that many people in the world are living their entire lives focused merely on temporal matters, on the here and now, with little attention on eternal matters. His concern fed his passion to help people know God so that in knowing God they might know what really matters in life. Moreover, knowing God helps us understand that our lives matter, that what we do matters, and that know-ing, loving, and glorifying God give meaning and purpose to our lives. This is one reason that Dr. Sproul taught with such passion. It is the reason many of us were drawn to him, because we believed that he cared about us enough that he was willing to teach us the difficult truths about God. Dr. Sproul didn’t want us to have a superficial view of God. He wanted us to grow up in our understanding of God so that we would know just how gracious and holy our God really is.

Because of Dr. Sproul’s passion and commitment to God’s Word, Ligonier Ministries has always been a home for Christians who aren’t afraid to think deeply about what mat-ters most in life and in eternity. For R.C., saying that right now counts forever wasn’t just a tagline or a clever name for his Tabletalk column. He really believed it, and he lived his life to help us believe it. At Ligonier, we believe it too, and we exist simply to serve God by helping people know God and glorify Him forever.

4 Theology,

Theology, Theology: Why Ligonier?

Chris Larson

8 What Is Our

Theology? Sinclair B. Ferguson

14 Theology and

the Church W. Robert Godfrey

18 Theology and Everyday Life Derek W.H. Thomas

24 Theology for the

Glory of God Steven J. Lawson

DR. BURK PARSONS is editor of Tabletalk magazine and serves as senior pastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Fla.

He is cotranslator and coeditor of A Little Book on the Christian Life by John Calvin. He is on Twitter at @BurkParsons.

29 Into the Word

30 The Names of God Donny Friederichsen

38 An Uncomfortable Table? William C. Godfrey

46 Stewarding Power Eric Kamoga

54 Weeping, Sowing, and Harvesting Robert VanDoodewaard

62 A Sure Foundation Thomas Brewer

66 h e a r t a f l a m e Love for Jesus

Robert Rothwell

68 fo r t h e c h u r c h For the Old Church in the New Dark Age

Aaron L. Garriott

70 c i t y o n a h i l l An Honest Witness

Kevin D. Gardner

72 l a s t t h i n g s The History of Ligonier Ministries

Stephen J. Nichols

C O L U M N SS T U D I E S

Tabletalk (USPS 009-013; ISSN 1064881X) is published monthly by Ligonier Ministries, Inc., 421 Ligonier Court, Sanford, FL 32771. Annual subscription price (12 issues): $23.00. Periodicals postage paid at Lake Mary, FL, and additional mailing offices. The daily Bible studies are copyright 2014, Ligonier Ministries, Inc. Unless noted, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Postmaster: Send address changes to Ligonier Ministries, 421 Ligonier Court, Sanford, FL 32771.

AN OUTREACH OF LIGONIER MINISTRIESEDITOR Burk Parsons SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR Thomas Brewer ASSOCIATE EDITORS Kevin D. Gardner and Robert Rothwell MANAGING EDITOR Aaron L. Garriott ASSISTANT EDITOR Karrie Hahn EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Meredith L. Myers CREATIVE DIRECTION & DESIGN Metaleap Creative MARKETING AND CIRCULATION J.D. Bridges and Nathan W. Bingham

COVER AND FEATURES Tobias Hägg

T A B L E T A L K M A G A Z I N E . C O M 5

L IGONIER MINISTRIES has continued to grow since our beloved founder, Dr. R.C. Sproul, died in 2017. Many new team members have joined us, adding

their expertise and skills. It is encourag-ing to see the outreach grow through their remarkable efforts. But any enduring en-terprise must retain its focus on the origi-nal mission and be on guard against drift. Therefore, in many of our team meetings, I will often reiterate the one thing we do at Ligonier: theology, theology, theology. No, I haven’t forgotten how to count. The point is to remember how vital theology is not just to our mission as a ministry but to our very lives as individuals. Let me illustrate this.

Perhaps you’ve been to the British Mu-seum in London. It’s one of my favorite places. To walk past marvelous antiquities from several millennia of world history is awe-inspiring. Each artifact tells a story. But on a recent visit, I learned that not every artifact tells the whole story.

There is an area in the Mesopotamian collection with artifacts from Assyria, including some from Sennacherib, that violent king we read about in the Old Testament. In his day, he was the terror of the Middle East, laying siege to cities and subduing nations. There is a relief in the British Museum of the siege of La-chish, a small, fortified city on the route to Jerusalem. Conquering pagan kings often commissioned such monuments to boast of their victories. The scene depicts Sennacherib’s gruesome slaughter of the Israelites at Lachish.

What’s missing from the British Muse-um? We know that Sennacherib was on his way to destroy Jerusalem and complete his conquest of Judah (2 Kings 18:13–19:37). When the armies came to besiege the cap-ital, the prophet Isaiah counseled King

Hezekiah to trust the Lord for deliverance. There is no artifact telling of Sennach-erib’s victory over Jerusalem because it never happened. The Bible says that an angel of the Lord destroyed the foreign king’s army overnight, and he broke off the campaign and returned to Nineveh.

The Lord fights for His people. The might of the Assyrians was no match. Passing down through the generations of Israel was the truth that there is only one God and He is not silent (Ex. 20:1–20; Deut. 6:4; Isa. 44:6–8).

The word theology simply means the study of or about God. Theology is no dry and dusty academic pursuit. Theology is a razor’s edge with life and death on either side. The Israelites had a correct theology and lived. The Assyrians had a corrupt theology and perished. The stakes could not be higher for each soul. Jesus Christ said that to know God and the One whom He has sent is to enter into eternal life (John 17:3).

Adam and Eve at first knew God truly, and then they suppressed that truth in unrighteousness, and so unbelief wrecked the cosmos and ruined us to the very core. Since that tragic moment of exile from Eden, in our natural state we are in an unholy battle pitched against the holy Creator. That there is war among nations and a lack of peace with one an-other is only a manifestation of our first rebellion. What a mess of sin we have made, with no way to save ourselves. If we are to be saved, it must come from outside us. Without good theology, re-ality is like a jigsaw puzzle with little pieces strewn about, having no unified picture. Theology, rightly understood, gives us a picture of reality to help us make sense of the puzzle. It guides us in putting the pieces back together, just like that picture on the jigsaw puzzle box, so that we understand the world

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and ourselves properly. Thus, theology informs every domain of human knowl-edge and experience.

Dr. R.C. Sproul focused on theology as a discipline, encompassing all that God has revealed generally and specially. Human-ity is alienated from God. Like our first parents, we are born truth-suppressors. Yes, everyone knows that God is, but not everyone knows who God is. That is our fundamental problem—we don’t know who God is. And because we do not know who God is, we do not know who we are.

Ligonier Ministries began in the sum-mer of 1971 just as the United States was emerging out of the turbulent decade of the 1960s. Christians faced rampant rel-ativism and social upheaval. Secularism accelerated in the culture, and liberal the-ology metastasized in many churches and denominations. There in the foothills of Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains near a small town called Ligonier, a lit-tle ministry began to equip Christians to know God in a better, deeper way and to make Him known. This discipleship and training effort was driven by a de-sire to defend classical Christianity and, hopefully, to help flood the culture with knowledgeable and articulate Christians who sought to be faithful in furthering the Great Commission. By design, this was an end run around the much stron-ger mainstream media and well-funded mainline churches.

With the overt cultural animosity that the church faces today in increasing mea-sure, those who are Christians in name only are falling away. The syncretistic mainline churches are evaporating. The future of the church belongs to Christians of con-viction. All the problems we face are ulti-mately theological; to repair the ruins, the solutions must be theological.

Thankfully, over the years, God has brought many students of Dr. Sproul’s

mission strategies focused on growth for growth’s sake may deliver temporal bene-fits, but such strategies will neither grow healthy disciples nor plant healthy church-es. Short-sighted ministry busyness is not sustainable. Theological compromise for the sake of mere numbers is fatal.

Although God’s people have often found themselves dismayed at circum-stances beyond their control, the progress of God’s mission in this world is certain. We, like Elisha’s servant in another har-rowing moment when the Israelites were threatened, are tempted to fret at gathering storm clouds of opposition. Yet we must remember that “those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (2 Kings 6:16).

vision who are committed to spreading the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and seeing theology rooted in the Scriptures grow in churches everywhere. Labor in-tensive, yes, yet the promise is sure: “For the earth will be filled with the knowl-edge of the glory of the Lord as the wa-ters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14). We are enlisted in that effort. It is a wonder of the gospel that sinful men and women are used to advance God’s mission in this fallen world, working in and through our battles with the world, our own flesh, and the devil.

In his classic book The Holiness of God, Dr. Sproul comments on Romans 12:2:

The key method Paul underscores as the means to the transformed life is by the “renewal of the mind.” This means nothing more and nothing less than education. Serious education. In-depth education. Disciplined education in the things of God. It calls for a mastery of the Word of God. We need to be people whose lives have changed because our minds have changed.

By God’s grace, Dr. Sproul’s tight focus on teaching theology has changed many lives. He believed everyone is a theolo-gian and that it matters now and forever whether you are a good theologian or a poor one. Merely imparting information to a human mind is insufficient. Through the light of Scripture and the work of the Holy Spirit, we begin to understand God’s holy character and realize our sinfulness. The church must rediscover an unwavering commitment to proclaim, teach, and de-fend the holiness of God in all its fullness. That is not just a Ligonier Ministries mis-sion statement; it is the calling for every believer. Dilute the character of God and we blunt our ability to reach the unbe-liever with the gospel. Well-intentioned

As Ligonier marks its fiftieth year of ministry, we give thanks for God’s bless-ing on our past. However, it is evident we have an opportunity to serve God’s people like never before. There is much work to be done among the nations. Would you pray that God would awak-en more people to who He really is? May we see a recovery of true theology where men and women, boys and girls have a restored relationship with God the Fa-ther through God the Son and through the powerful grace of God the Holy Spirit and live fruitful lives right now and forever.

CHRIS LARSON is president and CEO of Ligonier

Ministries. He is on Twitter at @ChrisLarson.



S EVERAL IMPORTANT con-victions drive Tabletalk magazine just as they have driven the entire history of Ligonier’s ministry. One of these convictions was

expressed some five hundred years ago by Martin Luther—who else?

All are theologians; that means every Christian. All are said to be theologians, so that all may be Christians.

But what is theology? And, in particular, what is our theology?

theologyTheology is God-talk (in the best and highest sense)—thinking and speaking about God in a coherent, logical way. And for the Christian believer, that means a theology rooted in and expressive of the revelation God has given. There is therefore a right sense in which we are called to have a “theology of every-thing” because in one way or another the entire cosmos—the unfolding of history, the discoveries we make—are all part and parcel of the unfolding of God’s self-revelation in creation, provi-dence, redemption, and consummation. As Abraham Kuyper noted, nothing in the cosmos is atheistic in the absolute sense. Or to cite a higher authority, “From him and through him and to him are all things” (Rom. 11:36). This is why omnes sumus theologi—all are theologians—whether we are nuclear physicists, as-tronauts, literature-lovers, gardeners, trash collectors, or even for that matter “theologians.” This is the privilege, the challenge, the romance of our lives—in every conceivable calling. Ultimately, to borrow Paul’s words, we are doing only one thing (Phil. 3:13). Was Paul ever doing only one thing? Surely not.

But yes, he was doing only one thing but in a thousand different activities. So with ourselves. In all things we are theologians because we know that all of life is for knowing God.

But how does theology work? Perhaps an illustration may help. There is a pro-gram on BBC television I enjoy. It is called The Repair Shop, and—in the midst of so much on TV that is depressing or immor-al or both—it is the ultimate feel-good show. Ordinary people bring their dam-aged, decayed, distorted, and well-nigh destroyed heirlooms for repair. They of-ten tell profoundly moving stories—of why the article (which may be of little value in itself) is so important to them because of its connection to a loved one. We then watch the extraordinary skills of craftsmen and -women—experts in woodwork and metalwork, mechanical work and furniture work, musical instru-ments and mechanisms, soft and hard items—working what seems to be magic. Whereas people like me patch up and hope for the best, they first deconstruct and only then reconstruct and restore the long-lost glory to the precious objects. Then the wonderful denouement: we witness (and share) the various owners’ overwhelming gratitude, their praise, and often their joy as they are moved to tears as the restored object is unveiled in all its finished glory—usually from underneath a very ordinary blanket (how suggestive of a greater restoration).

Theology is the gospel repair shop. Its various “loci” or topics (God, creation, fall, providence, redemption, glorification) are, as it were, so many departments of experts that first deconstruct our personal damage and then reconstruct us until the original vision in our creation is realized. In this way, what our forefathers called the the-ology of pilgrimage, in which we see in a mirror dimly, becomes the theology of


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vision in which we will see face-to-face. Having been created in the image of God to glorify and enjoy Him forever, we will at last be made like Him.

What, then, is the content of our theology?

our theologyAs Thomas Aquinas is reported to have said, theology comes from God, teaches us about God, and leads us to God. And since eternal life is to know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (and we do this only through the Spirit; John 17:3; see 14:23, 25) our theology begins (and ends) with God. It tells us who He is—one God who is three persons, the ever-blessed Trinity, in the eternal fellowship of His tripersonal being as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Such theology leads to knowing His wonderful unified, simple character, which in our lim-ited capacity we manage to grasp aspect by aspect in what we call His attributes. These are in fact only so many ways of describing His perfection, His Godness, His infinite and glorious deity.

So, our theology is a theology of the triune God who is sufficient to Himself and in Him-self and who in all His self-manifestations is holy love. It is not surprising then that our theology is driven by the twin visions of the Prophet of Holiness and the Apostle of Love—in Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4–5. It is a striking fact that in these two vi-sions the whole of our theology seems to be summarized.

They reflect the Godness of God “who was and is and is to come” (Rev. 4:8) and the story of creation (v. 11): that all things in heaven and earth were made by the triune God, “the Father Almighty the Cre-ator of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible” (the Nicene Creed), through His Word the Eternal Son, and by the ordering, filling, completing min-istry of the Spirit who hovered over the original waters.

They provide us with a mirror in which we see our created destiny lying behind us almost unrecognizable. We were made by God for His glory and to enjoy Him—in a word, for fellowship with Him and doxol-ogy to Him. But now we find ourselves Isa-iah-like overwhelmed by the discovery of who God is—the holy One—and we realize we are, like an ancient Scottish castle that has become a ruined heirloom, destroyed by the assaults of Satan. We are derelict, incapable of self-restoration, undone, and unclean. None of us is capable of opening a scroll that might contain a plan for our salvation and restoration (Rev. 5:4).

But this is not how our theology ends. God wants His image back. True, we must discover we are ruined before we can see our need for restoration work. But then our Isaianic-Johannine theology tells us that it is not a different God, but one and the same thrice-holy God whose messenger brings restoration through an altar-of-sacrifice burning coal that first incinerates and then restores. And this biblically crafted theol-ogy tells us that in his vision Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord Jesus (John 12:41). Then, since our theology holds that reve-lation is both progressive and cumulative, we understand that the person to whom Isaiah’s vision points is none other than the Lion of Judah, the slain Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (Rev. 5:6–10). And as we delve deeper to “learn Christ” (Eph. 4:20), we contemplate His one divine person in His two natures united in that one person, in His two states of hu-miliation and exaltation, and in His three offices as Prophet, Priest, and King—one Lord Jesus Christ.

In this context, we discover that some-thing happens to us: by the seraphic Spirit, our lives are brought into living contact with Christ in His atoning sacrifice. We are forgiven and justified from the guilt of sin. And in that same moment the burning

away of sin in us is inaugurated. It cannot be any other way, for as Calvin regularly noted, to think that we can have Christ for justification without having Him for sanctification is to rend Him asunder since He has been given to us for both. The Spirit unites us to one Christ who is both “righ-teousness and sanctification” to us (1 Cor. 1:30). Therefore, the sinner who is justified also and simultaneously shares in His death to the dominion of sin and His resurrection to a new life to God (Rom. 6:2–4). To have any other theology is to misunderstand how grace reigns “through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (5:21).

No wonder that the transcendent vi-sion of Isaiah ends in unconditional obe-dience: “Here am I! Send me” (no matter how rough the road; Isa. 6:8–13). And no wonder that the vision of Isaiah echoes in John’s experience of the heavenly chant: “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come” (Rev. 4:8); and climaxes in endless adoration: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever” (5:13). It is no accident that Ligonier National Conferences tradi-tionally end with the singing of Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus.”

Yes, this is our theology. It has been Li-gonier’s heartbeat from the earliest days of “The Teaching Fellowship of R.C. Sproul”—expressed now for fifty years in a multitude of ways. Here we all be-come part of that teaching fellowship. And this theology, our theology, becomes the divine repair shop, bringing us from ruin through redemption to final resto-ration. Soli Deo gloria!

DR. SINCLAIR B. FERGUSON is a Ligonier Ministries

teaching fellow and Chancellor’s Professor of Systematic

Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary. He is author

of numerous books, including Maturity.

OUR THEOLOGY

IS A THEOLOGY OF

THE TRIUNE GOD

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TO HIMSELF AND

IN HIMSELF AND WHO

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calling for the proper response to those promises. Baptism truly brings disciples in, calling them to begin the life of faith.

Baptism in this sense is properly foun-dational to being a disciple because bap-tism holds forth the promises of God and also calls for the faith and commitment of those baptized. The central promise of God to sinners in baptism is that God will wash away their sins and forgive them. When Jesus in the Great Commission specifies that His disciples will baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spir-it, He shows that the promise of baptism comes from the triune God and is guaran-teed by the Trinity.

The baptismal liturgy of the Dutch Re-formed churches, written in the sixteenth century and used for centuries in those churches, helpfully elaborates on the dis-tinctive roles and promises that relate to each person of the Trinity. This liturgy declares what baptism means and what baptism promises to the people of God, not what the water of baptism accomplishes in each person baptized. In baptism, God the Father promises that He “makes an eter-nal covenant of grace with us and adopts us for his children and heirs.” In baptism, God the Son promises that He “washes us in His blood from all our sins, incorporat-ing us into the fellowship of his death and resurrection, so that we are freed from our sins and accounted righteous before God.” In baptism, God the Holy Spirit promises that He “will dwell in us, and sanctify us . . . till we shall finally be presented without spot among the assembly of the elect in life eternal.” These promises in baptism declare the heart and center of our gospel hope. Baptism is not simply an external ceremo-ny or simply the action of the church or of a believer. It is in the first place “a visible Word” expressing the preached Word of the gospel promise as we read, “John ap-peared, baptizing in the wilderness and

HEOLOGY, THE TRUTH that is from God and about God, is for the life of the church. Jesus is building His church by making dis-ciples who follow Him,

confessing the truth that He is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). Dis-ciples are those to whom Jesus gives life so that they will walk in His way according to His truth. As Jesus said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32).

In the Great Commission, Jesus sends His disciples to make disciples and build His church throughout the world. How are the disciples to make disciples? Jesus sums up that huge task in two remarkably brief points: His disciples will make dis-ciples by baptizing them and by teaching them. If these words of Jesus were not so familiar, many of us might find this sum-mary somewhat surprising. We might well expect the commission to teach, but including the commission to baptize in such a short summary is perhaps unex-pected. But surprises invite reflection and meditation. As we think about it, we can see how appropriate and helpful this is.

We see in this commission that the making of disciples has two parts: bring-ing them in and building them up. Disci-ples are those who have been brought in by baptism and are built up by teaching that changes lives.

Jesus directs our attention to baptism not in the narrow sense of just the water ceremony but in the broader sense of all that baptism involves. We can see this clear-ly in the ministry of John the Baptist. His ministry of baptism includes his preach-ing of good news (Luke 3:18), his call to repentance (v. 3), and his insistence on the fruit of repentance (v. 8). Baptism includes both preaching the promises of God and

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proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4).

In this Dutch Reformed baptismal lit-urgy, the theology of baptism is laid out for the church. It shows the meaning of baptism from God’s side in the promis-es proclaimed, but also from the human side in the call to commitment. That call to commitment is powerfully expressed:

Whereas in all covenants there are con-tained two parts, therefore are we by God, through baptism, admonished of and obliged unto new obedience, name-ly, that we cleave to this one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit; that we trust in Him, and love Him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength; that we forsake the world, crucify our old nature, and walk in a godly life. And if we sometimes through weak-ness fall into sins, we must not therefore despair of God’s mercy, nor continue in sin, since baptism is a seal and indubi-table testimony that we have an eternal covenant with God.

To be a disciple is to hear the promises and then believe and live them.

Baptism necessarily connects us to the church. Baptism is never simply individual because it must be done by another. Bap-tism is by the church and into the church. The Christian life is not a solitary life but is lived in the community of faith. Christ is building His church, and we are to be mem-bers of it, not just as a formal connection but as a key part of our lives as disciples.

In addition to commanding baptism, Jesus directs us to teaching to build up the lives of God’s people. Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus taught the truth as to what His disciples should know and how they should live for Him. His Apostles continued that work of teaching with His full author-ity. Jesus’ teachings, both from His earthly

I, brothers, could not address you as spir-itual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still in the flesh” (1 Cor. 3:1–3). The same point is made in Hebrews:

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need some-one to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (5:11–14)

Immature churches and immature Chris-tians are still caught up in the flesh and so have become dull of hearing. The ma-

ministry and from His Apostles, were gath-ered and preserved for His church in the Holy Scriptures. The church that follows Christ faithfully teaches His theology from the Bible so that Christians will know the truth and live it.

Such teaching is a great undertaking. Je-sus does not call His church to teach basic truths or some of the truths or even many of the truths of God’s Word. He commissions us to teach all that He has commanded. We may prioritize truths, but we have no right to eliminate any of them. He calls us to a comprehensive knowledge of this will and a complete and full life consecrated to Him.

One of the most serious dangers that churches can create for themselves is to tamper with the teaching of the Bible. They can do that by rejecting, distorting, ignoring, or adding to some of the teaching of Jesus. Liberal churches eliminate teachings that are not intellectually or morally acceptable to their minds. Evangelical churches have too often tried to make Christianity more attractive to unbelievers by teaching only a simple or streamlined gospel.

By contrast, the Reformed churches have tried to be comprehensively biblical in their teaching, which is reflected in their confes-sional standards, full of doctrine and ethics.

In the church, both the ministers and the people are responsible for thorough teaching. The ministers must plan carefully what they will teach and how to commu-nicate in a way that truly builds the people up. The Word of God is the repository of truth for the church, and the ministers must teach it. They must resist the pressure to become entertainers or pop psychologists.

The people of God, especially in a demo-cratic culture, also have a very serious duty. They must encourage the ministers to teach the whole counsel of God and eagerly seek and support such teaching. Otherwise, the church will remain seriously immature. Paul wrote warning the Corinthians: “But

ture church listens eagerly to the Word to learn and be trained in discernment and righteousness. The church needs theolo-gy to make disciples, both those who are brought into the church and those who are built up in the truth. Ligonier is dedicated to providing faithful teaching materials to help build up disciples in the truth.

Jesus’ Great Commission to make dis-ciples will not be fulfilled completely un-til all God’s elect have been brought into the church. We have much to do in difficult circumstances. But we have the great prom-ise of Jesus to sustain us in our calling: “Be-hold, I am with you always to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).

DR. W. ROBERT GODFREY is a Ligonier Ministries

teaching fellow and president emeritus and professor

emeritus of church history at Westminster Seminary

California. He is also the featured teacher for the six-

part Ligonier teaching series A Survey of Church

History and author of several books, including Saving

the Reformation.

THE MATURE CHURCH LISTENS EAGERLY

TO THE WORD TO LEARN AND BE TRAINED IN

DISCERNMENT AND RIGHTEOUSNESS.


HE PURITAN WILLIAM PER-KINS famously defined theology as “the science of living blessedly forever.” His contemporary Wil-liam Ames mimicked

Perkins by calling theology “the science of living for God.” Since living for God is every Christian’s duty and joy, every Chris-tian must be a theologian—a good one. The connection between theology and everyday life is clearly seen in the following three examples from Paul.

First, at Philippi. Two named women are in public dispute in the church at Philippi, and Paul feels he must address it (Phil. 4:2). Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Perhaps, but Paul is an Apostle, and the church’s good reputation and witness are at stake, and the issue cannot be brushed under the carpet.

What does he do? He brings into play the most massive theology he can mus-ter: the incarnation of the eternal Son of God. Jesus, who was “in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped”—in the sense, perhaps, that He did not grasp at His deity in a manner that would say no to the lowliness of His incarnation (Phil. 2:6). Though Jesus was “very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things are made,” as the Nicene Creed of 325 stated, He “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” (v. 7). So fraught with theological danger is the term “emptied” that many translations have shied away from the literal transla-tion, employing a euphemism in its place (e.g., “made himself of no reputation,” KJV). The passage in question deserves a fuller treatment, but the point needs to be underlined. Paul wants the Philip-pians (and you and me) to demonstrate the mind-set of Christ: “Let each of you

look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus” (vv. 4–5). The colossal doctrine of the incarnation is employed in the interest of demonstrating humil-ity; the “truth, which accords with god-liness” (Titus 1:1).

Second, at Corinth. Paul desires a dis-play of benevolence toward the suffering church in Jerusalem, an issue that occu-pied the Apostle for some time (2 Cor. 8–9). What incentive can he employ to encourage generous giving? Among other things, such giving will prove the “gen-uineness” of their faith (8:8, 24). At one point he makes what almost sounds like an appeal to their vanity: the Corinthians do not want to be outdone by churches in the north (9:1–5). But his key argument is a theological one: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (8:9). Once again, the incar-nation is employed in the interests of a practical matter.

Third, at Rome. Having written elev-en chapters outlining the nature and shape of the gospel, Paul makes the mor-phology of practical godliness clear: you (Christians in the church in Rome) will be transformed “by the renewal of your mind” (Rom. 12:1–2). The manifesto that is Paul’s letter to the Romans is for the purpose of practical godliness: demon-strating brotherly love (vv. 9–10), ridding oneself of laziness (v. 11), demonstrating patience in trials (v. 12), contributing to the needs of the saints in acts of hospitality (v. 13), preventing peacock feathers rising in displays of self-importance (v. 16), do-ing the honorable thing (v. 17), living as peaceably as possible with one’s neighbor (v. 18), feeding one’s enemy (vv. 19–20), and responding to acts of unkindness in

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a non-retaliatory fashion (v. 21). It doesn’t get more practical than that.

But Paul is merely exercising the wis-dom he saw in his Savior. How practical is theology? Consider the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ comprehensive coverage of everyday life. Jesus’ view of holiness was physical. Sanctification doesn’t take place merely in our minds but in our bodies. Jesus talks about eyes and hands, feet and lips. The point is that we use our bodies either to sin or to express holiness. Speaking of lust, for example, Jesus suggests that we should pluck out our right eye and/or cut off our right hand rather than use them in acts of sin (Matt. 5:27–30).

Do you have anxiety issues? Do you worry about daily provision in a manner that suggests a lack of trust in your heav-enly Father? Then take a look at the birds that fly into your garden every day. They look healthy and strong. God takes care of them. And you are of more value to Him (Matt. 6:25–34). Are you judgmental in a manner that delights in seeing the sin in others and exaggerates it? Say to yourself, “There go I but for the grace of God!” (see 7:1–6). Treat people with re-spect, in a manner that you would want others to treat you. Live by the Golden Rule (v. 12).

Take the issue of guidance. Jesus prom-ises: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” (v. 8). As the twenty-third psalm promises, “He leads me” (v. 2). The verb suggests that our Heavenly Father, our Shepherd-King, will grant us the wisdom and discretion we need to make the right decisions in order to walk through this life in a manner that brings Him glory. Our Father loves us and isn’t about to

greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness and mercy. (5.1)

The confession’s chapter on providence touches on some rather difficult issues (the nature of God’s control of history and its relationship to free agency and evil, for example), but its basic thrust is to assure us that nothing happens without God's willing it to happen, before it happens, in the way that it happens.

Briefly, this definition of providence is an expression of Paul’s statement in Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work to-gether for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” To a mother who loses her first child, a sister who learns of a malignant tumor, a college graduate who fails his first job inter-view, and to people in a thousand oth-er scenarios, God’s providence serves as a reminder that while we may not have all the answers, God does. And when all is said and done, that is what really matters most. It is a doctrine that brings with it an abundance of calm and serenity in the midst of life’s storms. It doesn’t get more practical than that. All of us are theologians to some degree. The real question is, Are we good theo-logians? Are we using our knowledge of God in every aspect of our lives for His glory?

DR. DEREK W.H. THOMAS is senior minister of the First

Presbyterian Church in Columbia, S.C., and Chancellor’s

Professor of Systematic and Pastoral Theology at Reformed

Theological Seminary. He is a Ligonier Ministries teaching

fellow and author of many books, including How the

Gospel Brings Us All the Way Home.

stop loving us. His covenant ensures that His word is His bond. But He leads us “in paths of righteousness” (v. 3) and not in stray paths of unrighteousness. He will never lead us to acts of impropriety or to sin. Those come by not listening to His Word, not praying for wisdom, or giving in to choices that are less than the best.

perspicuity and providence How practical can theology be? Consider two doctrines: perspicuity and providence.

Perspicuity is a theological term that ex-presses the truth that “ordinary” Christians may read the Scriptures for themselves, and by using the right means (sermons, Bible study aids, mentors, commentar-ies, and even Tabletalk) they may come to a “sufficient” (though not necessarily comprehensive) understanding of “those things which are necessary to be known . . . for salvation” (Westminster Confession of Faith 1:7). This point was, of course, contested in the medieval church when the Bible was largely unavailable, trapped in a language that only the clergy under-stood, and used as a ploy to keep the mass-es chained to the restraints of papal and church authority. The doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture encourages us to love the Bible, read it often and well, and grow in our practice of putting its precepts into visible, tangible action. It is a doctrine that teaches us to be like those noble believers in Berea, described by Luke as those who “received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11).

What is providence? It is not a term em-ployed in Scripture, but it is a basic Chris-tian truth. The Westminster Confession defines it this way:

God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose and govern all creatures, actions and things, from the

20 T A B L E T A L K A U G U S T 2 0 2 1

THE DOCTRINE

OF THE PERSPICUITY

OF SCRIPTURE

ENCOURAGES US

TO LOVE THE BIBLE,

READ IT OFTEN

AND WELL , AND GROW

IN OUR PRACTICE

OF PUTTING ITS

PRECEPTS INTO

VISIBLE, TANGIBLE

ACTION.

“We established Ligonier Ministries to help people inside and

outside the church know WHO GOD IS,

particularly in His majestic holiness.”

— R . C . S P R O U L

Since its founding in August 1971, the Lord has used Ligonier Ministries to lead people around the world into a greater understanding of God and of themselves. We give Him all the

glory for fifty years of minds renewed and lives transformed through the

faithful teaching of His Word.


HE STUDY OF THEOLOGY must never become an end in itself. The goal of sound doctrine is never to produce people who have full heads but emp-

ty hearts and barren lives. The purpose of Reformed theology is never to produce the “frozen chosen.” Instead, the knowledge of God and His truth is intended to lead us to know and worship Him. The teaching of Scripture is given to ignite our hearts with devotion for God and to propel us to live for Him. In short, robust theology must produce vibrant doxology.

We study theology not to be educated for the sake of appearances. Theology is merely a means to the highest end. We study the truth about God to know Him better and to mature us. Theology renews our minds. It ignites our hearts. It elevates our worship. It directs our prayers. It hum-bles our souls. It enlightens our path. It energizes our walk. It sanctifies our lives. It strengthens our faith. It deepens our pas-sion. It sharpens our ministries. It fortifies our witness. Theology does all this—and much more. Every aspect of this life pur-suit brings glory to God.

We are to glorify God in everything we do. Paul writes, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). This charge to honor God includes even the study of theology. The Apostle warns, “Knowledge makes arrogant” (8:1, NASB) if it does not lead to loving God and others. We must study “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3) ultimately for “the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord” (2 Peter 1:2). This truth, in turn, will prompt us to give Him the glory due His name.

One important verse makes this truth especially clear. Paul writes: “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen”

(Rom. 11:36). This confession concludes Paul’s most profound teaching on God’s salvation of perishing sinners. Paul has expounded the great doctrines of con-demnation, justification, sanctification, glorification, and election, and then he bursts forth in this fervent praise to God. Let us carefully consider this doxology and emulate the Apostle’s response of giving glory to God.

This verse begins with three preposi-tional phrases—“from him and through him and to him”—followed by three all-inclusive words, “are all things” (Rom. 11:36). Here is the most comprehensive sentence ever penned. This is a complete Christian worldview. This is a virtual sys-tematic theology in itself. Here is the story line of the whole Bible in a few words. This is the history of the world in a nutshell. Nothing lies outside the parameters of this triad of phrases. “All things” includes everything in three major areas: creation, history, and salvation.

First, the Apostle writes that all things are “from him.” This points back to eter-nity past, when God designed His master plan for whatever would come to pass. God is the Author of His eternal purpose (“from him”), which includes everything that will occur. Before the foundation of the world, God designed the blueprint for all creation, including the detailed speci-fications of the earth (Job 38–39). Further, He drafted His eternal decree that included everything that would take place within time (Isa. 46:8–9). Long ago, God chose His elect (Rom. 8:29; Eph. 1:4; 2 Thess. 2:13). He then entrusted them to His Son to se-cure their salvation (John 6:37). All this pre-planning of creation, history, and sal-vation is “from him.”

Second, Paul states that all things are “through him.” This means that, within time, God brings to pass “all things” that He planned. He is the Creator who spoke

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This glory is to be given to God “forever”—or literally “to the ages.” Paul acknowledges that there will never be a moment in time or eternity when he will not be giving glory to God. This is his present preoccupation, and it will be his driving passion through-out the ages to come. This is the ultimate purpose for which he was created. And it is why we exist. We are to be consumed with living for the glory of God, both now and forever.

We will never cease praising God, be-cause He is immortal and will never come to an end: “Now to the King eternal, im-mortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” (1 Tim. 1:17). “Glory” will be “forever” given to Him because He will reign supremely as King throughout the ages to come.

The last word of this verse is Paul’s fi-

nal affirmation of the theology he has just taught. He concludes, “Amen.” This is a resounding, “It is true.” In other words, “It is right”; “Let it be so”; “Yes!” Theology should produce this fervent response in our hearts. This truth about God should create this one dominant, central theme in life. This must be our greatest heartbeat and strongest passion. This must be our deepest zeal and highest motivation. We must live and die—and then live forev-er—for the glory of God.

May our study of theology be for the glo-ry of God. May it lead us to give Him the praise that belongs to Him alone. Amen.

DR. STEVEN J. LAWSON is president and founder of

OnePassion Ministries, a Ligonier Ministries teaching

fellow, and author of many books, including Foundations

of Grace and The Moment of Truth.

the universe into existence (Gen. 1:1; Ps. 33:6–7) and who continually upholds it by His power (Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2). Further, He presides over the affairs of providence, working all things ac-cording to the counsel of His will (Eph. 1:11). He never deviates from His orig-inal plan in order to adopt an alternate strategy. Nothing happens, not even the smallest movement, apart from His sovereign purpose (Prov. 16:33; Matt. 10:29). Things such as good luck, bad luck, random occurrence, or blind fate are nonexistent. Further, God’s work in the salvation of all His elect is entire-ly effectual. Working through His Son and the Holy Spirit, God convicts, calls, draws, regenerates, sanctifies, preserves, and glorifies all His chosen ones (John 6:37–40, 44; Rom. 8:29–30).

Third, Paul then writes that “all things” are “to him.” This asserts that God directs everything toward His own glory. The highest purpose of the physical world is to showcase His majesty (Ps. 19:1). All that He orchestrates within history is to demonstrate the greatness of His name (Isa. 48:11). All that He does in salvation to rescue perishing sinners is for the praise of the glory of His grace (Eph. 1:3, 6, 12, 14). Everything has this highest end: soli Deo gloria—for the glory of God alone.

Everything is “from” God, proceed-ing from His sovereign will in eternity past. Everything is “through” Him, ac-complished by His sovereign activity within time. Everything is “to” Him, promoting His sovereign glory for all time. Whatever He planned and predes-tined, He performs and preserves for His own purpose and pleasure.

Paul then states that it is this transcen-dent theology—and only this theology—that produces the following doxology: “To him be the glory forever. Amen.” Here, this high doctrine about God leads to our

deep devotion to Him. The One who cre-ated and controls all things, who converts all His elect, deserves all the praise. No glory belongs to man. Nor should it be divided between God and man. Our jeal-ous God will not share His glory with an-other (Isa. 42:8).

The word glory (Greek doxa) includes the meaning of “a correct opinion or esti-mation of someone.” It carries the idea of the reputation someone has. From doxa we derive our English word orthodox, which means a correct belief about something. It came to refer to a high opinion about a notable person of great renown and repu-tation. It indicates the honor due a person of high standing. The greater the person, the greater he should be revered. In like manner, the more we study theology, the higher our view of God will be. In turn, the more we will praise Him.

The Bible speaks of glory in two differ-ent ways that must be distinguished. The first is God’s intrinsic glory. This is the sum and substance of all that God is. This glo-ry represents the whole of His divine be-ing. It includes all the perfections of His divine attributes. This intrinsic glory is forever the same, never increasing or de-creasing. From everlasting to everlasting, God is—He “who was and is and who is to come” (Rev. 4:8). We cannot give God intrinsic glory. We cannot add to or take away from who He is.

The Bible also speaks of His ascribed glory. This is the only rightful response to beholding His intrinsic glory. This is the glory we must give to Him. The more we apprehend God’s intrinsic glory, the more we will ascribe glory to Him. The greater our knowledge of God, the greater will be our worship of Him. A high view of God will invoke high praise for Him. The person who grows to know God more deeply will praise Him more fervently.



“IF CHRIST IS YOURS, ALL THINGS ARE

YOURS. ALL THINGS ARE IN CHRIST, SO, HAVING HIM, YOU

POSSESS ALL.”—Charles H. Spurgeon, from his sermon “All the Promises”

W hen we receive the gospel in faith, it is only because the Lord has intervened to give us

new hearts able to trust in Christ alone (John 3:3). Yet, that work of God in regeneration does not immediately remove the presence and effects of sin. We are given a new, God-ward direction that persists into eternity, but our fallenness plagues us until we are glorified. Christianity is not perfectionism before the return of Christ. Although one day sin will be gone and everything will be perfect, until we see Jesus face-to-face, sin will affect all that we do.

Continuing our study of the Corinthian epistles, this month we begin our

study of 2 Corinthians, looking at chapters 1–3. We will see how sin continued to affect the relationship between Paul and the Cor-inthians, even though they were on their way to full reconciliation. Yet, the Apostle could hope for their eventual restoration, for they lived under the new covenant, where God is fulfilling all His promises in Christ.

The glory of the new covenant is a key topic in 2 Corinthians 3. To get a

better understanding of divine glory and how it works itself out in our lives, we will turn to mes-sages by Dr. R.C. Sproul from the teaching series The Power and the Glory and Themes from Ecclesi-astes.

SECOND CORINTHIANS

ABIDING IN THE WORDThese verses parallel the themes of the studies each week. We encourage you to hide them in your heart so that you may not sin against the Lord:

Week of August 1 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 1 P E T E R 3 : 1 4

Week of August 8 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 2 CO R I N T H I A N S 1 : 2 0

Week of August 15 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 2 CO R I N T H I A N S 2 : 1 6

Week of August 22 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � P S A L M 2 9 : 2

Week of August 29 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � ECC L E S I A S T E S 1 2 : 1 3 – 1 4

I N T O the W O R DA U G U S T 2 0 2 1 D A I L Y B I B L E S T U D I E S

BIBLICAL INSIGHT DRAWN FROM A LIFETIME OF STUDY

How do you focus on what really matters? Where do you go to regain perspective?

Listen every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to Ultimately with R.C. Sproul. This

short podcast features insightful moments from Dr. Sproul’s decades of Bible

teaching, helping you to grow in your knowledge of God and to articulate it to

others. Search for “Ligonier Ministries” in your favorite podcast app to subscribe

today and to discover other podcasts in our library.

UltimatelyPodcast.com


CORAM DEOLiving before the

face of God

D O N N Y F R I E D E R I C H S E N

THE NAMES OF GOD

W E E K E N D D E V O T I O N A LA U G U S T 1

M oses and the people of Israel are in their darkest hour in Ex-odus 6. Moses has confronted

Pharaoh. But Pharaoh is unimpressed. In-stead of releasing the people, he increases his oppression. Moses expresses his frus-tration to God. In many ways, Moses seems broken. But God responds to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out” (Ex. 6:1).

Crucial to understanding this pas-sage is understanding the antecedents of the pronouns. The “them” who will be sent out are the people of Israel. The “he” who will send them out with a strong hand, however, is not the Lord. It is Pharaoh’s strong hand that will send the people out. Pharaoh might insist that he will not let God’s people go. But God’s mightier hand will force Pharaoh’s mighty hand.

No matter how loudly the enemy might roar against God’s people, none can thwart the will of the Lord God Al-mighty. God is with His people, and He is mighty to save.

To emphasize this point, Moses is re-minded of the Lord’s names: “I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them” (Ex. 6:3). There are two names mentioned here.

The first is the divine name Yahweh, usually denoted in English translations with the small caps “Lord.” This is the covenantal name the Lord gives to Mo-

ses out of the burning bush. There is a reflection of the covenantal transaction in which the covenant begins with the greater party declaring his name. The sec-ond name is El Shaddai, or God Almighty. This indicates that God is all-powerful. He is the God who can do anything He wills to do. There is no power greater than Him.

Here is the importance of these names. God is Almighty, and God is covenantal. If God were only El Shaddai, He would be powerful but would elicit only fear. Seeing Him would be like staring into the face of a tornado that is ripping houses off their foundations.

However, if God were only relational, then we could be comforted by His pres-ence, but we would never know if He was able to do anything about our situation. He would be with us, but He would be impotent to save us.

God is not only El Shaddai, but He is also the covenantal God Yahweh. He is almighty, and He is with us. He comes alongside us to comfort us, and He is able to rescue us. Moses came to the Lord in his darkest hour, and God answered by declaring that He is mighty to save. In the darkest hour of our sin, the Al-mighty God of the universe heard our plea. He has come near to us in the per-son of Jesus Christ. The Lord hears our need, and Christ is both with us and mighty to save.

REV. DONNY FRIEDERICHSEN is senior pastor of Lakeside

Presbyterian Church in Southlake, Tex.

2MONDAY

2 CORINTHIANS 1:1–2 “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God that is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

GRACE AND PEACE FROM THE FATHER AND THE SON

One of the precious truths of the gospel is that because God is gracious toward His

people, we have eternal peace with

Him when we trust in Christ alone. He does not establish a mere cease-fire that could erupt into a full-scale war again. He does not merely put us

back to the state of Adam in the garden where God’s eternal favor could be lost.

He establishes everlasting peace

with us in Christ. Let us seek to thank Him

for that by serving Him this day.

W hen people receive the gospel, they are made a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17) with a new direction. From the point of our conversion on, we are moving more and

more toward Christlikeness, though that does not mean sinlessness in this life. Sometimes we experience setbacks. Sometimes we find ourselves being conformed more to the world than to Jesus. After all, we are never wholly without sin until we are glorified (1 John 1:8–10). God will surely finish the good work He has begun in us (Phil. 1:6), but sometimes the progress of that work seems unbearably slow.

As we saw in our study of 1 Corinthians, the first-century church at Corinth was living proof that sanctification can be slow going and that professing believers can fall into serious sin. The wealthy, influential, and cosmopolitan city of Corinth presented all manner of temptations to sexual sin, pride, belief in vain philosophies, and more, and the Corinthian believers had succumbed to them. So, Paul wrote 1 Corinthians to correct the problem.

The Apostle’s first canonical letter to the Corinthians, however, did not turn things around in Corinth. Timothy, whom Paul had dispatched to Corinth to teach and to help address the church’s prob-lems there (1 Cor. 4:17; 16:10–11), brought news that troubles con-tinued. So, Paul abandoned his initial plans to visit Corinth again only after traveling through Macedonia (1 Cor. 16:5–9). Instead, he went straight to Corinth to deal with the church directly. This visit did not go well, for Paul faced much opposition from false apostles and a stubborn Corinthian congregation. The Apostle calls this his “painful visit” (2 Cor. 2:1). Returning to Ephesus, where he wrote 1 Corinthians, Paul then wrote a letter of rebuke, which Titus car-ried to Corinth. We do not have a copy of this letter, but when Paul was reunited with Titus, he learned that the letter had the intended effect. Many in the Corinthian church had repented and wanted reconciliation with the Apostle (7:5–9). Paul wrote 2 Corinthians in response to this good news. As our study progresses, we will look in more detail at the background of this epistle.

Paul’s opening greetings include a blessing of grace and peace from God the Father and God the Son (2 Cor. 1:1–2). The grace—un-merited favor—that our Creator has shown by sending the Lord Jesus Christ to save His people creates everlasting peace between God and all who trust in Jesus alone for salvation (Rom. 5:1).

FOR FURTHER STUDY Jeremiah 31:1–30

Luke 19:28–40 2 Corinthians 4:15;

8:9; 12:9; 13:11

THE BIBLE IN A YEAR Psalms 70–72

Romans 5



face of God


face of God

4WEDNESDAY

3TUESDAY

2 CORINTHIANS 1:3–7 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (vv. 3–4).

2 CORINTHIANS 1:8–10 “Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (v. 9).

THE GOD OF ALL COMFORT PAUL’S AFFLICTION IN ASIA

John Calvin comments on

today’s passage that “The riches of the

Spirit . . . are not to be kept by us to

ourselves, but every one must communi-cate to others what

he has received.” God allows us to suffer

for Christ so that we may encourage others who are

suffering for Christ. This means that our

suffering can actually be used for

the benefit of others.

Suffering has a way of taking away all

our illusions of self-reliance and

forcing us to depend only on God and His

goodness. In that sense, it is a

powerful reminder from the Lord to His

people. While we should not

necessarily look for suffering, when it

comes our way, we should allow it to focus our eyes on the Lord and our need of Him. In that way, it will

contribute mightily to our sanctification.

P aul the Apostle was born and raised a Jew (Phil. 3:4–5), and his Jewish heritage comes out in today’s passage. The Apos-tle’s opening benediction in 2 Corinthians 1:3–7 is similar

in form to the benedictions used in the Jewish synagogues during the first century. These benedictions, like the one Paul pronounces, offered blessings to God for His great mercy. That is no surprise, because the Old Testament frequently highlights the merciful na-ture of God (e.g., Ex. 34:6). However, Paul does not merely repeat the Jewish benediction; rather, he makes it distinctively Christian, referring to God as the “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 1:3).

In the benediction of 2 Corinthians 1:3–7, Paul also speaks of the Lord as the “God of all comfort” (v. 3). Indeed, the idea of comfort from God appears frequently in these opening verses and the rest of this epistle. The Apostle does this intentionally. Isaiah 40–66 highlights the comfort that the Lord will provide when He inaugurates the messianic age, so Paul’s stress on divine comfort is a subtle reminder that believers are living in the messianic age. Although the fullness of this age awaits the return of Christ to bring the new heavens and earth (see Rev. 21:1–22:5), we are in the era of His salvation even now and should expect to receive great comfort from the hand of God.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:4 that the comfort of God comes to us “in all our afflictions.” Here, “afflictions” refers to the inner turmoil and trouble we feel from external difficulties, particularly those dif-ficulties that we face from a world that is hostile to Christ. As we will see, the false apostles who troubled the church at Corinth called Paul’s Apostleship into question because of his suffering for the sake of Jesus (11:1–12:10). Paul will later expand on the idea that suffering actually demonstrates the validity of his Apostolic call, but here the idea that the Lord comforts believers in their afflictions is a reminder that suf-fering for the gospel is part of true Christian discipleship. Moreover, note that the comfort promised is for the inner turmoil we experience when we suffer. God never promises to free us from suffering entirely. Instead, He promises to be with us in our suffering to comfort us and to give us the grace to endure (Deut. 31:8; 2 Cor. 12:8–9).

Suffering is a gift from God. It is not that pain in itself is a good thing; rather, as we share in Christ’s sufferings—as we suffer for His name’s sake—we are granted the privilege of sharing in God’s com-fort. This, in turn, allows us to comfort others (2 Cor. 1:5–7).

H aving stated in general terms that God offers believers much comfort in affliction, Paul in today’s passage makes this principle more concrete by explaining how the Lord

has offered the Apostle specific comfort in a specific affliction. In so doing, he helps us better understand that the comfort given by the Lord moves us from self-reliance to utter dependence on Him.

The Apostle makes reference to “the affliction we experienced in Asia” (2 Cor. 1:8). Some commentators argue that the Apostle refers to the uproar at Ephesus that occurred when Demetrius the silver-smith and other craftsmen opposed Paul and the other Christians because belief in the gospel threatened their livelihood, which was centered on the sale of idols and other goods associated with the cult of Artemis (Acts 19). Other scholars believe Paul refers to an incident of suffering that Luke does not record in Acts. Either way, this trial was severe enough that Paul and his companions were led to despair even “of life itself” and felt that they “had received the sentence of death” (2 Cor. 1:8–9). The intensity of their suffering made them think that their lives might very well be lost through it.

As Paul explains, he was delivered from this great affliction (v. 10). Yet, that did not occur before Paul realized the purpose of his intense suffering—namely, to make him and the other believers rely not on themselves “but on God who raises the dead” (v. 9). Here we find im-portant insight into why our Father allows suffering into our lives and what His comfort often looks like. Much of our suffering occurs so that we can realize that relying on ourselves is pointless and turn instead to rely ever more fully on God. Suffering in and for Christ is for the end of making us cry out to God and confess that He is ulti-mately all that we have and the goal of all that we desire (Ps. 73:25).

So often, we are a proud people who, even though we believe in Christ, do not fully understand our need to lean fully and complete-ly on Him. We want to do things our own way and in our own pow-er. But of course, we are frail and unreliable. The greatest comfort the Lord can give us is to turn our eyes away from ourselves and to Him, for only in Him is the power to face and overcome even death. He prompts this turn to Him by allowing us to suffer. John Calvin comments, “As this malady [of self-reliance] is so deeply rooted in the minds of men, that even the most advanced are not thoroughly purged from it, until God sets death before their eyes.”

FOR FURTHER STUDY Psalm 119:50

Zechariah 1:17 Colossians 1:24–27

1 Peter 3:14


Romans 6

FOR FURTHER STUDY Exodus 2:23–25

1 Samuel 17 Isaiah 50:10 1 Peter 5:6–7


Romans 7



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6FRIDAY

5THURSDAY

2 CORINTHIANS 1:11 “You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.”

2 CORINTHIANS 1:12–14 “Our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you” (v. 12).

THE PURPOSE OF PRAYER SIMPLICITY AND GODLY SINCERITY

Increasing the number of people

praying for a certain outcome does not

make the Lord more likely to grant that outcome. Instead, the purpose is to

make more people aware of a need so

that, when God moves, they become more convinced of

His power and trust Him all the more. In that way, our asking people to pray for us can become a strong

witness to the goodness and power

of our Lord.

It can be easy for us to deceive ourselves and to wrongly see impure motives as sincere. Neverthe-

less, let us endeavor to do our best

always to act with sincerity, simplicity, and godly wisdom. The more we are transparent with others about our

goals and the more willing we are to serve them, the more sincere we

will be.

D uring a great trial that Paul and his co-laborers in minis-try faced in Asia, their suffering was so intense that they thought they would die. This moved them to greater reli-

ance on God (2 Cor. 1:8–9). The Lord, in turn, delivered them from their affliction and fostered in them the confidence in future deliv-erance. Indeed, they came to set their hope only on the Lord that He would deliver them again (v. 10).

One might think that such confidence would not lead Paul to ask for others to pray for the deliverance that was sure to come. However, in today’s passage he asks the Corinthians to pray for them to be saved from their troubles, even saying that they “must help” the Apostle and his companions with their prayers (v. 11). The Apostle did not see the surety of God’s rescue as a reason to neglect praying for that rescue. We could say that he saw the surety of this rescue as making prayer all the more necessary. This touches on the greater question of the relationship between God’s sovereign providence and human action. We know that God has ordained whatsoever comes to pass (Eph. 1:11) and that His purposes will surely be achieved. No pur-pose of His can be thwarted (Job 42:2). But Scripture holds this truth alongside the truth that we must act, that “[we] do not have, because [we] do not ask” (James 4:2). The Lord works out His purposes in His sovereign power in and through the prayers and service of His people. Often we ask, “If God is sovereign, why should we pray?” In truth, we should be saying, “Since God is sovereign, we must pray,” for we know the Lord is pleased to make use of us in bringing His purposes to pass.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:11 that the Corinthians should pray “so that many will give thanks” for the blessing the Apostle and his co-ministers receive. Here we have a key insight into the purpose of intercessory prayer. We might think that asking many people to pray for us will somehow make God more willing to give us what we ask. But that is not why we should ask others to pray. Instead, we ask people to pray because God is pleased when His people are united in prayer. Further, asking others to pray gives them the opportunity to praise God when they see Him answer prayer. Charles Hodge com-ments: “The design of God in thus uniting his people in praying for each others when in affliction or danger, is that deliverance may be matter of common gratulation [or joy] and praise. Thus all hearts are drawn out to God and Christian fellowship is promoted.”

S econd Corinthians, we have noted, was written in the af-termath of a difficult visit of Paul to Corinth and a letter of rebuke to the congregation. Although the church had re-

pented of its behavior since that visit and letter (2 Cor. 7) and the relationship between Paul and the Corinthians was being restored, some points of tension remained. One remaining sticking point, we will see, had to do with accusations that Paul was prone to in-sincerity and duplicity on account of his changed travel plans. In today’s passage, the Apostle begins to answer those accusations.

Paul begins his response indirectly, not referencing the travel plans but speaking of his attitude and approach. He notes in 2 Corinthians 1:12 that his conscience was clear because he behaved in his ministry “with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God.” In other words, the Apostle’s decisions were not guided by craftiness or by a cunning spirit in which he sought to manipulate those to whom he ministered. Paul was not an insincere man who made plans knowing that he would not follow through. He never intended to deceive or to proceed according to his own design.

Jesus exhorted His people to “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matt. 10:16), and Paul’s description of his own behavior toward the Corinthians illustrates our Lord’s teaching. Paul was no fool. He was mature in his thinking and wise to the ways of the sinful world (1 Cor. 14:20). But he was not one who steered things to his own advantage or intentionally disappointed others. He was “innocent,” making his plans according to what he could see, know-ing that he could not hold on to them too tightly. He was unafraid to alter his itinerary when unforeseen circumstances arose, confident that God was working in and through even what he did not expect.

The Apostle strongly believed that this was evident to the Cor-inthians even if some were questioning him when he wrote 2 Cor-inthians. That is why he says that the Corinthian believers had at least partially understood him. He was even confident that they would fully understand that at the return of Christ, when Paul’s sincerity would be confirmed abundantly (2 Cor. 1:13–14). Let us follow his example by striving to be so sincere and godly in our actions that our consciences have no reason to question our mo-tives. As we do so, it will be evident to all that we are true to the Lord in our intentions.

FOR FURTHER STUDY Exodus 14

1 Thessalonians 5:25 2 Thess. 3:1–5 James 5:13–18


Romans 8

FOR FURTHER STUDY Joshua 24:14

1 Timothy 1:5


Romans 9:1–10:4

THE WEEKEND Psalms 85–90

Romans 10:5–11:12

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W I L L I A M C . G O D F R E Y

AN UNCOMFORTABLE TABLE?

W E E K E N D D E V O T I O N A LA U G U S T 7 – 8

I n Psalm 23:5, we find God preparing a table in the presence of our enemies. These words are so familiar to us that

perhaps we do not meditate on them as we should. The Lord does something or-dinary but in an extraordinary place. The table is set up right where our enemies are. The enemies are not lurking in the shadows; they are right where we can see them. The danger is obvious, both to us and to our Lord.

And yet, in the face of this danger, our Lord sets an elaborate table for us and invites us to sit and eat. This is quite a vivid picture. It seems at first glance that this would be a very uncomfortable meal to sit through together. Can we re-ally enjoy such a meal? What happens to a people who sit and feast in the face of their foe?

Thanks be to God that the psalm tells us exactly what happens to those who sit down at the Lord’s table. First, those who participate at this table will be revived. To be “anointed with oil” here has the sense of enjoying the fragrant and refreshing oil that anoints our heads and makes our faces shine (Ps. 104:15; Luke 7:46). Those who sit at the Lord’s table will be revived by His anointing oil.

Second, those who sit down at this table will be satisfied. We are told that our cups overflow when we sit at this table. Here is a celebration in which ev-ery need will be satisfied. Like the wed-ding at Cana offering great quantities of our Lord’s best vintage to meet every thirst, this cup will overflow with joy

and blessing to satisfy God’s people from His own superabundant resources. Like the wedding at Cana, there shall be no want at that table.

Finally, those who sit at this table will be pursued. If by this we meant that our enemies will pursue us, this would not be a happy end to the psalm. But we are pur-sued not by our enemies but by our Lord’s goodness and mercy. These two blessings do not just “follow” us, but David says that they energetically pursue us. So, the psalm begins with the Lord as our leading Shep-herd (Ps. 23:1), and it ends with His pur-suing graces. These graces will pursue us every day of our lives until we are home, safe and sound (v. 6).

The good news of Psalm 23 is that God accomplishes all this even in the pres-ence of our enemies. Those who enjoy fellowship with Christ by faith will be revived and satisfied in this life, even in spite of the best efforts of our enemies. They may oppose us, but Christ the Good Shepherd will lead us, and His goodness and mercy will pursue us, until we arrive safely home.

We enjoy these great blessings from our Lord now, even in the presence of our enemies. So then, imagine just how great will be our feasting together in glory, when the Lord Jesus Christ pre-pares for us a table in the absence of our enemies and in the presence of His revealed glory.

REV. WILLIAM C. GODFREY is pastor of Christ United

Reformed Church in Santee, Calif.

9MONDAY

2 CORINTHIANS 1:15–18 “Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to the flesh, ready to say ‘Yes, yes’ and ‘No, no’ at the same time? As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No” (vv. 17–18).

PAUL CHANGES HIS TRAVEL PLANS

Sometimes things happen that are

outside our control, and we are forced to change our plans. We should not be harsh with ourselves when this happens. At the same time, when we do make plans, we should be careful to

make room for unforeseen

circumstances and to take a full range of

factors into account. That will help keep us from making too

many course corrections and

changes midstream, even as we trust the

Lord and His providence.

U nderstanding something of Paul’s itinerary is vital for un-derstanding Paul’s argument in 2 Corinthians. Remember that in 1 Corinthians 16:1–9, Paul described his intent to

pass through Macedonia before again visiting the church in Corinth, from where he would travel to Jerusalem with funds to alleviate the suffering of the church there. However, that plan changed in light of news of continued problems in Corinth. Instead of traveling through Macedonia, Paul made a sudden trip to Corinth from Ephesus, where he wrote 1 Corinthians. This was the “painful visit” Paul mentions in 2 Corinthians 2:1, but it is not recorded in the book of Acts.

From today’s passage, we learn that as Paul was leaving Corinth to return to Ephesus after this painful visit, he told them that he changed his original plans laid out in 1 Corinthians 16. Instead of passing through Macedonia before coming back to Corinth, he said that his intent was to come back to Corinth, then travel through Macedonia, and then visit Corinth one last time to gather the collection for the church in Judea (2 Cor. 1:15–16). However, 2 Corinthians 1:17–18, 23 indicates that the Apostle did not follow the revised itinerary. The Apostle would indeed come back to Corinth, which occurred during Paul’s travels in Acts 20, though Corinth is not mentioned. His revised plans to visit Corinth twice after the painful visit were thus changed to something closer to what he said in 1 Corinthians 16, where he stated that he would visit Corinth only once after passing through Macedonia again.

These changes caused grief at Corinth, with some questioning Paul’s integrity. That is why Paul insists on his truthfulness and the nobleness of his intentions in 2 Corinthians 1:17–18. He was not a double-minded man, and his confidence in that is seen in his statement that as surely as God is faithful, so are his words. Paul truly did intend to come back to Corinth twice after the “painful visit” when he announced his intentions, but things outside his control had forced him to change course. He did not lack integrity.

We must keep these historical details in mind as we study the next few sections of 2 Corinthians. Nevertheless, we are not left without some practical application. If we vacillate and change course often, others may become suspicious of us. We should not be quick to change plans unless, as in Paul’s case, it is unavoidable. This is particularly important for leaders. If we are careful when we announce our inten-tions and then follow through, people will find it easier to trust us.

FOR FURTHER STUDY Proverbs 15:22; 16:3;

19:21; 21:5 Matthew 5:37

James 5:12


Romans 11:13–36



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11WEDNESDAY

10TUESDAY

2 CORINTHIANS 1:19–22 “All the promises of God find their Yes in [Christ]. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory” (v. 20).

2 CORINTHIANS 1:23–2:4 “I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you” (2:4).

GOD’S PROMISES FULFILLED IN CHRIST

PAUL’S SEVERE LETTER TO CORINTH

God keeps His promises in Jesus

Christ. This is one of the reasons that we insist that salvation comes only in and

through faith in the Son of God. There is

no other way to receive God’s

promises except through Christ, and we are duty-bound to tell others this

precious truth.

Matthew Henry comments on

today’s passage that “in reproofs,

admonitions, and acts of discipline, faithful ministers show their love.”

When we hear hard but needed words

from the pulpit and other places where

elders bring us God’s truth, let us keep

this in mind. We all need to be corrected at times, and when church leaders give this correction in love, grace, and

truth, let us heed it.

C hrist was so much the center of Paul’s life and thought that the Apostle had to speak even of seemingly mundane things with ultimate reference to Jesus. We see this in today’s pas-

sage. Paul has been referring to changes to his travel plans to defend himself against the charge that such changes made him untrust-worthy or double-minded. In 2 Corinthians 1:18, he remarked that his “word” to the Corinthians has been true and faithful, and this leads him in verses 19–22 to offer a substantive declaration regarding the greater “Word” from God—His Son, Jesus Christ (see John 1:1–18).

Paul was not lying when he revealed his original intent to visit Corinth twice after his in-person admonishment of the Corinthi-an Christians during his “painful visit” (2 Cor. 2:1; see 1:15–17), and he was not lying or being double-minded when he, Silvanus, and Timothy proclaimed Christ to them. That is because in Christ “it is always yes” (1:19). Paul here affirms the utter trustworthiness of Je-sus Christ, the “Faithful and True” (see Rev. 19:11). The Christ whom Paul proclaimed is the true Messiah. Paul reminds the Corinthians of this because, as we will see in due time, false apostles were troubling the church in Corinth by preaching another Christ (2 Cor. 11:3–4).

Not only is Christ Himself perfectly true, but He is the substance and fulfillment of all the promises of God. “All the promises of God find their Yes in him” (1:20). If we want to know how our Creator has fulfilled His promise of salvation and how He will complete our salva-tion, we need look only to Christ, who has purchased our redemption by His blood and will renew and restore creation at His return (Rom. 3:21–31; 8:1–30). Because of this, we “utter our Amen”—we say, “It is so”—to God through Christ (2 Cor. 1:20). In other words, we affirm the trustworthiness of God and affirm that Jesus is the “Yes” of God to us by agreeing with God that Jesus is Lord and Savior.

This provision of Christ as the “Yes” or fulfillment of God’s prom-ises and our response is thoroughly Trinitarian. God the Father makes the promises and God the Son is the substance of the promises (v. 20). We are then established in faith through God the Holy Spirit, who is the “guarantee” of God’s promises (vv. 21–22). A better translation of “guarantee” is “down payment.” Just as a down payment is a pledge of a full payment, the regeneration of the Spirit and His presence in our hearts proves that our redemption will be completed in our glo-rification, when our bodies and souls are made fully new.

I n the midst of Paul’s explanation of why he chose to change his plans and not visit the Corinthian church before going to Macedonia, the Apostle engaged in a short theological di-

gression on the surety of God’s promises in Christ (2 Cor. 1:12–22). That digression finished, Paul makes clear in today’s passage why he went to Macedonia and did not come back to Corinth first.

The Apostle tells us in 2 Corinthians 1:23 that he did not come to Corinth because he wanted to spare them. As 1:24–2:4 makes clear, Paul’s unplanned visit to Corinth to deal with problems there after writing 1 Corinthians was quite painful for both the Apostle and the church there. We do not know what happened during that meeting, but it was so difficult that the Apostle did not believe another visit would be fruitful, at least not before there had been some move toward reconciliation. Paul had enacted some kind of church discipline during that “painful visit,” the congregation had not responded well, and hard feelings existed on all sides. Thus, Paul did not return so that he would not exacerbate tensions.

Paul notes that in all his dealings with the Corinthians, he does not seek to lord himself over them but to work toward their joy alongside them (2 Cor. 1:24). The Corinthians needed to hear this so as to allevi-ate any suspicions they had regarding Paul’s motives in exercising his Apostolic authority. As a bit of an aside, Christian leaders and other believers with authority over others can learn from Paul’s words here. Those who possess authority in the Christian community have true authority, but before Christ we are brothers and sisters, not lords and servants. Thus, we should strive in the exercise of discipline to com-municate to others that we are not seeking to lord our power over them but are hoping to work with them for their good. Pastors and elders should take this approach with laypeople, Christian parents should take this approach with their children, Christian employers should take this approach with employees, and so forth.

Instead of coming to the Corinthians before going to Macedonia, Paul sent the Corinthians another letter, which we do not possess. This epistle, sometimes called the “severe letter,” evidently had many hard words for the Corinthians, but they were words of love (2:1–4). Paul was hoping that the Corinthians would repent of their treatment of him, believing his physical absence would be more conducive to achieving that aim. Thankfully, this letter achieved Paul’s intent.

FOR FURTHER STUDY Genesis 12:1–3 Psalm 130:7–8

Luke 1 Hebrews 9


Romans 12

FOR FURTHER STUDY Proverbs 5:7–14;

13:1; 27:5–6 1 Timothy 6:11

2 Timothy 4:1–2


Romans 13

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it will be—we should have ourselves in the middle of a

WORLDWIDE RENEWAL of the Reformed faith that we can’t even begin to anticipate from this perspective today.”

— R . C . S P R O U L

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are helping reach millions of people around the world every month with

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13FRIDAY

12THURSDAY

2 CORINTHIANS 3:5–8 “For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough, so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him” (vv. 6–8).

2 CORINTHIANS 2:9–11 “Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs” (vv. 10–11).

LOVE FOR THE PENITENT KNOWING SATAN’S DESIGNS

When discipline is brought against a sinner, forgiveness

and restoration must always be the goal. We cannot control whether the sinner will respond with

repentance, but we can stand ready to forgive when the

sinner turns from his transgression. As we

are engaged in church discipline or even when we are

facing someone who has sinned against us

personally in a less significant way, let us stand ready to forgive when the person repents.

If we want to keep the devil from

obtaining a foothold in our churches, we must be quick to

forgive and to restore those who

have fallen into sin. The church is

different from the world in that we

believe in true grace and do not seek to hold the transgres-sions of repentant

sinners against them forever.

A fter Paul’s “painful visit” to the church at Corinth, the Apostle thought it better not to visit the congregation there immediately but instead to send a letter of reproof

in hopes that the church would amend its ways and seek reconcili-ation. This was no easy choice for the Apostle, but it was necessary because an in-person visit would have made restoration more diffi-cult (2 Cor. 1:12–2:4). Second Corinthians 7:2–16 makes clear that this letter of reproof brought about the repentance that Paul was looking for among the Corinthians, but today’s passage gives us the first indication that the Apostle’s correspondence was successful.

Paul makes reference to one who has caused pain at Corinth and who has since endured some kind of “punishment by the majority” (2:5–6). The Apostle is speaking of someone who has come under the discipline of the church. Based on other passages such as 7:12, commentators believe that the man in question was someone who opposed him during his painful visit to Corinth, but identifying the man and his exact actions is difficult. Historically, many commen-tators have said that the man is the same man from 1 Corinthians 5 who was engaged in an incestuous relationship with his step-mother. This is possible, but many modern commentators view it as unlikely because the offender seems to have sinned specifically against Paul during the painful visit after 1 Corinthians was writ-ten. In any case, from 2 Corinthians 2:5–11, we see that the church, after the painful visit with Paul and the hard letter of reproof, had taken action against the man, most likely excommunicating him.

Certainly, Paul had wanted the church to take action as a necessary part of reconciling with the Apostle. The problem, however, was that the church had gone too far and was not forgiving and restoring the man to the congregation upon his repentance. They had missed the purpose of church discipline, which is to bring about restoration to Christian fellowship, not revenge (see Matt. 18:15–20). So, Paul calls the church to forgive and reaffirm their love for the sinner by restor-ing him to fellowship. John Calvin comments: “The end of excom-munication, so far as concerns the power of the offender, is this: that, overpowered with a sense of his sin, he may be humbled in the sight of God and the Church, and may solicit pardon with sincere dislike and confession of guilt. The man who has been brought to this, is now more in need of consolation, than of severe reproof.”

J ohn Chrysostom, one of the most important early church fathers and a celebrated preacher, draws our attention to an important fact regarding 2 Corinthians 2:5–11. Commenting on the Apos-

tle’s reference to the man who sinned against Paul, Chrysostom notes the significance of Paul’s silence concerning the nature of the transgression. Chrysostom says, “Paul nowhere mentions the crime, because the time had now come to forgive.” This is an im-portant aspect of forgiveness: when we truly forgive an offender, we do not again and again remind people of the sinner’s misdeed. As Proverbs 17:9 tells us, “Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.”

In not bringing up a sinner’s wickedness again and again once that person has repented, we show that we are not holding his transgres-sion against him any longer, which is the essence of forgiveness. That is what the Lord does with our sins when He pardons us. He casts our sins “into the depths of the sea” (Mic. 7:19) —not that God actually forgets our wicked deeds, but He puts them so far away that He will not rehash them with us, much as casting something into the depths of the sea keeps us from retrieving it again.

However, at the time Paul wrote 2 Corinthians, the church at Corinth was not operating by this principle of forgiveness. They continued to hold the sins of the man who opposed Paul against him, keeping him from fellowship with the church. Paul had written them a previous letter, telling them to discipline the man, and they had acted on his words. But they had gone too far and were failing to reconcile, which is the proper goal of church discipline. Now it was time to act in love and restore the man to fellowship (2 Cor. 2:5–8; see Matt. 18:15–20).

The Corinthians had obeyed Paul’s harsher letter of reproof and had disciplined the man. Lovingly restoring the man to fellowship would be their new act of obedience (2 Cor. 2:9–10). This forgiveness would keep them from being “outwitted by Satan” (v. 11). The idea here seems to be that Satan wants to sow discord among believers, and what better way to do it than to set forgiven sinners such as the congregation in Corinth against forgiven sinners such as the penitent man and any of his friends in the church who would be looking for his full restoration? When we do not forgive and restore professing believers who have repented, we risk giving the devil a foothold in our churches.

FOR FURTHER STUDY Genesis 44–45

Matthew 18:21–35 Luke 6:37–38

Colossians 3:12–13


Romans 14

FOR FURTHER STUDY Ezekiel 34:11–16

Luke 15:1–7

THE BIBLE IN A YEAR Psalms 102–104 Romans 15:1–21


Rom. 15:22–1 Cor. 1:17



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E R I C K A M O G A

STEWARDING POWER

W E E K E N D D E V O T I O N A LA U G U S T 1 4 – 1 5

A buse of power permeates history within and outside the church, through rulers, pastors, bosses,

parents, servants, and schoolyard bullies. Some blame hierarchical structures, men, or power itself for this abuse while exempt-ing themselves as those with little or no power. However, we all abuse power by wrongly exercising power, failing to ex-ercise power, or grasping for power that is not given by God.

God has entrusted all humans with power. To be in God’s image partly entails ruling, as God’s representatives, over the created realm (Gen. 1:26–28; 2:15). Humans were to exercise power, not arbitrarily, but in submission to God, resulting in blessing. However, fallen humans make power an instrument of oppression rather than good.

Just as abuse of power came through Ad-am’s prideful attempt to usurp God (Gen. 3:5), proper stewardship of power must be through humble leadership in submission to the Master. For example, Joseph was entrusted with everything in Potiphar’s house—except Potiphar’s wife—and he faithfully exercised this power even when tempted because he was mindful of his role as a steward of Poti-phar but ultimately of God (39:1–10). Joseph faithfully stewarded power, benefiting both his earthly masters and his subordinates. Both Adam and Joseph were stewards over specific realms, had limitations to their power, and were tempted, but Adam’s abuse of position brought misery into his realm, while Joseph’s faithful exercise of dominion brought bless-ing for his realms. Thus, sinful stewards, not power itself, are the problem.

What we see in Joseph in seed form is fully manifested in Christ, our represen-tative Head, through whom God restores us as His representative rulers. Christ lib-erates His people from bondage to sin and empowers them to steward power rightly. He models servant leadership in submission to the Father, neither grasping for power nor lording it over those under Him (Matt. 20:20–28; John 5:19, 30). God has put all things under Christ, the ultimate steward, who will reign until He subdues all things under Him and hands them over to the Fa-ther (1 Cor. 15:22–28).

God entrusts us with different spheres of influence and degrees of power. We who are in Christ, our Master, ought to rule in humility and be a blessing to those under us (Eph. 5:22–6:9). Because of residual sin within, we must, if we are to avoid abusing power, lean unceasingly on Christ’s grace as we wait for our perfection, when we will be perfect stewards of Christ’s rule that ends creation’s groaning due to its stewards’ fail-ures (Rom. 8:18–25).

Until then, God works through broken and imperfect image bearers, including those in the church and governments, who sometimes abuse power (Matt. 16:18–19; 18:16–18; Rom. 13:1–7). A godly exercise of power in response to such abuse can vary. It may range from extending grace for heal-ing to chastising the abuser.

ERIC KAMOGA is registrar and lecturer at Africa

Reformation Theological Seminary in Kampala, Uganda,

and a Ph.D. student at Westminster Theological Seminary

in Philadelphia.

16MONDAY

2 CORINTHIANS 2:12–14 “Thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere” (v. 14).

TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION IN CHRIST

We may not be Apostles, but we are like the Apostles in being the prize that

Christ won in defeating the devil. We are part of the joy that was set

before Christ (Heb. 12:2), and we are part

of His victory procession, called to spread the fragrance

of the gospel wherever we go. Let us do that by telling others about Jesus

and also by supporting the work and witness of the church through our

prayers and financial support.

R eturning to what happened in the immediate aftermath of Paul’s “painful visit” to Corinth that he made after 1 Cor-inthians, the Apostle in 2 Corinthians 2:12–13 gives a fur-

ther account of his travels. Having decided not to return so soon to Corinth, as he intended when he departed that city in much anguish, Paul went to Troas after sending a letter of rebuke to Corinth (v. 12). Troas was a port city in northwest Asia Minor from which ships were dispatched to various other ports in the Mediterranean Sea. Gospel ministry in Troas could have a far-reaching impact, since disciples made there could take the gospel elsewhere.

However, as today’s passage indicates, Paul did not stay long in Troas because he did not meet Titus there. From 2 Corinthians 7, we learn that Titus had carried Paul’s letter of reproof to Corinth and that he would have news of the Corinthians’ response. Apparent-ly, Paul had agreed to meet Titus in Troas for an update and then to move on to Macedonia as a second meeting point if the two men’s travels did not overlap in Troas. Not finding Titus in Troas, Paul went to Macedonia. His spirit was restless because he was still worried about the situation at Corinth, not knowing yet that the Corinthi-ans had responded to his letter with repentance and had disciplined the man who had opposed him (2:13; see vv. 5–11). Paul made this hard decision even though God had opened a door for ministry in Troas, presumably because if he stayed any longer than he did, he might miss Titus altogether. Note, however, that Paul later returned to Troas for a longer period of ministry, as recorded in Acts 20:1–12.

In 2 Corinthians 2:14, Paul breaks from his travel itinerary to begin a section (it continues until 7:1) on the nature of his new covenant ministry. The Apostle begins by thanking God that in and through all his travels, “Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere” (2:14). Paul’s image comes from the victory parades of Roman gener-als wherein they would lead captured prisoners through a city to announce military triumphs. In these processions, the prisoners would be tasked with spreading incense. Paul is saying that he and the oth-er Apostles are those whom Christ has captured, taking them from Satan, whom He defeated on the cross (see Col. 2:15). They are the prize of our Lord’s victory, and the sweet fragrance they spread is not that of incense but the precious truth of the gospel (2 Cor. 2:14).

FOR FURTHER STUDY 1 Chronicles 13 Matthew 4:1–11

Mark 1:39 Hebrews 2:14–15


1 Corinthians 1:18–31

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face of God


face of God

18WEDNESDAY

17TUESDAY

2 CORINTHIANS 2:15–17 “We are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?” (vv. 15–16).

2 CORINTHIANS 3:1–3 “You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all” (v. 2).

A FRAGRANCE OF DEATH AND LIFE

PAUL’S LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION

As we preach the gospel and suffer for Christ’s sake, we are

a kind of living picture of the grace

of God in Christ. Some people will see this and rejoice, com-ing to faith in Jesus. Others will hate us and our message

because it reminds them that they are under the wrath of

God and unwilling to escape it by trusting in Jesus. When this happens, we should not be surprised but must continue telling

the unvarnished truth of the gospel.

John Chrysostom comments that “the virtues of disciples

commend the teacher more than

any letter.” Paul was so confident in his

ministry among the Corinthians that they could serve as living

proof of the authenticity of his

teaching. In like manner, we can

serve as the best recommendation of the ministry of the teachers who have most affected us. If

we want to commend a teacher to others, our lives

will be the best witness.

P aul likens his Apostolic ministry to the victory parades of Roman generals. After a triumph, these generals would take their captured prisoners of war through a city in a procession

celebrating the win, and the prisoners scattered incense to draw attention to the victory. Similarly, Christ parades throughout the world Paul and the other Apostles, who spread the fragrance—the gospel—that announces Jesus’ victory over the devil (2 Cor. 2:14).

Adding another layer to this image, Paul in today’s passage says that he is the fragrance or “aroma of Christ to God” (v. 15). The picture is from sacrifices of the old covenant. When those sacrifices were of-fered rightly and burned, the scent of animal flesh on the altar was “a pleasing aroma to the Lord” (Lev. 1:9). Paul and the other Apostles in their preaching and suffering for the gospel are a pleasing fragrance to the Lord, an offering to Him connected to salvation. Of course, Paul does not mean that the Apostles’ sacrifice supplements the sacrifice of Jesus that alone purchases our salvation. Instead, he is highlighting how the preaching of the crucified Christ creates servants who suffer, in a sense, for the sake of our salvation, and this suffering is pleasing to God. The sacrifice of the Apostles does not save, but it points us to Christ’s sacrifice as a living picture of His travails.

Under the old covenant, the aroma of the sacrifices was a sweet smell of life for the repentant worshiper, for it signified divine for-giveness. But the only scent that the unrepentant experienced was the smell of death, for they did not know God’s pardon. The fragrance of the Apostles and their message operated similarly, and even now the same is true of believers in general. The suffering heralds are a sweet smell to those who believe, for by their preaching the mercy of Christ is received. The message is a horrible smell of death to those who reject it, for the graciousness of God in Jesus is being spurned (2 Cor. 2:15–16). This reminds us that the gospel, when preached rightly, is not received the same by all. Some believe, and some do not, and we may not change the gospel to bring about the effect we desire. John Calvin comments, “Whatever may be the issue of our preaching, it is, notwithstanding, well-pleasing to God, if the Gospel is preached, and our service will be acceptable to him; and also, that it does not detract in any degree from the dignity of the Gospel, that it does not do good to all; for God is glorified even in this, that the Gospel becomes an occasion of ruin to the wicked.”

A s we have seen, Paul wrote 2 Corinthians after hearing of the Corinthians’ repentance for failing to discipline the man who opposed him during his “painful visit” (see

2 Cor. 2:1–4). His purpose was to express joy that they were again acting according to the truth and wanted full reconciliation with him. Nevertheless, that was not his only purpose in writing. False apostles had also come to trouble the Corinthians, questioning Paul’s credentials as a true Apostle. Paul first makes reference to these false apostles in 2:17, though indirectly, by referring to a group of teachers as those who were “peddlers of God’s word.”

It is hard to identify these false teachers and the content of their instruction. Paul’s reference to them as “peddlers of God’s word” in-dicates that they were motivated by money. Perhaps they preached some kind of ancient prosperity gospel that promised wealth and success to believers. That would fit with their criticisms of Paul for his suffering, which Paul responds to in chapters 10–12. Paul’s em-phasis in chapter 3 on the superiority of the new covenant ministry to the ministry of Moses also seems to indicate that they clung to the Mosaic covenant more than they should have.

Today’s passage begins Paul’s contrast between the old and new covenants. In 2 Corinthians 3:2–3, Paul refers to the Corinthians as a letter of recommendation written by the Spirit of God on human hearts, not on tablets of stone. Paul is setting up a contrast between the external nature of the old covenant, which could command but not give the power to obey, and the internal, transformative work of the new covenant, which delivers the power to serve God. This was typified by the stone tablets on which God wrote the Ten Command-ments, the very laws Israel broke as Moses was receiving them (Ex. 32).

The Apostle sets up the contrast by pivoting from a demand for letters of recommendation to his theological exposition of the con-trast between the two covenants, as seen in 2 Corinthians 3:1. In the ancient world, teachers would often bring letters of recommen-dation from students and others when they came to a new place. Apparently, the false apostles were somehow questioning Paul’s credentials, perhaps because he did not carry such letters of rec-ommendation. Paul’s response is that the Corinthians themselves are that letter, as God has written His law on their hearts, fulfilling the new covenant promise (see Jer. 31:31–34; Heb. 8).

FOR FURTHER STUDY Isaiah 55:10–11

Jeremiah 38 John 15:18–25 Acts 5:12–42

THE BIBLE IN A YEAR Psalms 111–112 1 Corinthians 2

FOR FURTHER STUDY Deuteronomy 30:6 Ezekiel 11:14–21

John 16:1–11 Romans 2:25–29




face of God


face of God

20FRIDAY

19THURSDAY

2 CORINTHIANS 3:4–6 “Our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (vv. 5–6).

2 CORINTHIANS 3:7–8 “Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory?”

THE DEATH-DEALING LETTER THE GLORY OF THE OLD COVENANT

The problem with the old covenant was unregenerate hearts.

Many individual Israelites looked to

the law not as a way of salvation but as

something to obey to thank God for His

grace. But the nation as a whole erred by looking to establish their own righteous-

ness by it (Rom. 9:30–33). If we try to merit righteousness by keeping the law, the law will kill us. But if we reject our own merit and obey out of gratitude for

God’s grace, we show that the Spirit is at

work in us.

We should be grateful for the old covenant and the old covenant law.

Without it, we would have a less

complete view of sin and what is required

through substitu-tionary atonement to be reconciled to God. One way we

can show our gratitude is to take the Old Testament

seriously, to study it thoroughly, for both testaments are God’s

Word to us.

M any people have said that we should have no illusions that the Christian church has ever enjoyed a golden age when sin did not cause problems. That is clear from the New

Testament, where the early churches had all manner of difficulties. The church at Corinth is a prime example of this, and both 1 Corin-thians and what Paul says about his “painful visit” in 2 Corinthians indicate that the believers in Corinth were capable of serious sin.

Paul’s action to correct the Corinthians, however, did have an im-pact. We see this in 2 Corinthians 3, where Paul calls the Corinthians his letter of recommendation that validated his ministry. Their change as a result of his correspondence did not make them perfect, but it was plain enough that Paul could be confident that the congregation would be adequate evidence of his divinely appointed ministry. As he writes in verse 4, he had confidence “through Christ toward God” because the Corinthians’ lives proved they were letters of recommen-dation from the Spirit (see vv. 1–3). Yet, Paul does not praise himself for the Corinthians’ transformation or argue that he is sufficient to effect such change. Only the Lord can make the work of His servants effective (v. 5). As Augustine of Hippo writes, “Our sufficiency is from God, in whose power are our heart and our thoughts.”

The Apostle then says that he is a minister not of the old cove-nant but of the new covenant, arguing for the superiority of the new to the old (v. 6). He notes that he is a minister “not of the letter but of the Spirit.” This takes us back to 2 Corinthians 3:3 and the contrast between written external letters made with ink on stone and internal letters inscribed on hearts by the Spirit’s transforming work. Paul here contrasts the law with the gospel, the Mosaic ad-ministration with the administration of Christ. To be a minister of the new covenant in the Spirit is better because the Spirit gives life, but the letter of the old covenant kills. Any reading of old covenant history shows the appropriateness of Paul’s contrast. The law brought death to Israel. The people as a whole disobeyed it flagrantly, and the end was exile, a “death” insofar as God’s presence and life were associated with the Promised Land (2 Kings 17:7–23; 2 Chron. 36:15–21). Of course, this was the fault not of the law but of sin, which took God’s good law and twisted it to bring about death (Rom. 7:7–12). We will look at the death-dealing letter of the old covenant and the new covenant solution further in our next study.

H eirs of the Reformation confess the perspicuity or clarity of Scripture. This doctrine says that the plan of salvation and what God demands of His people for holiness are so

clear in the Bible that even a young child can discern them. How-ever, this doctrine also tells us that not everything in Scripture is equally clear. One of the harder things to understand is Scripture’s teaching on the inferiority of the old covenant to the new and how the old covenant law operates in the history of salvation.

As we see in 2 Corinthians 3:1–6, Paul says many things about the old covenant and the Mosaic law that seem negative. The letter of the Mosaic law, for instance, “kills” (v. 6). In today’s passage, the Apostle calls the old covenant the “ministry of death” (v. 7). This raises questions, for Paul also speaks of the law as a good thing. For instance, he turns to the law for guidance on Christian living (Eph. 6:1–3). Additionally, in today’s passage the Apostle notes that the old covenant came with glory (v. 7). So, do we have here a contra-diction in Paul’s teaching? Was the old covenant inherently bad? Were the people who lived during the old covenant era even saved if the old covenant kills?

Reconciling these things becomes simpler when we realize the unity of God’s plan of salvation and the role of the old covenant in the history of redemption. The old covenant saints were redeemed not by the old covenant but by Christ in and through the new covenant, which was yet future while they were alive. John Calvin has helpful comments on the death-dealing nature of the old covenant and the salvation of old covenant believers. He writes, “Paul here takes into view what belonged peculiarly to the law; for although God then [during the old covenant period] wrought by his Spirit, yet that did not take its rise from the ministry of Moses, but from the grace of Christ.” The old covenant saints benefited from the new covenant ministry of Jesus even though they did not live during the new covenant era.

The old covenant had its own particular glory, but it was not the means through which God brought salvation to the world. Its glory was in revealing the Lord’s character and pointing people to their need for the Savior (Gal. 3:15–29). Old covenant saints were redeemed not by the old covenant and its law but by trusting in God’s promises of grace. Anyone who looked to the law as a means of salvation and hoped to earn heaven by doing it was condemned (Rom. 9:30–33).

FOR FURTHER STUDY Ezekiel 37:1–14

John 6:63 1 Corinthians 15:56 Galatians 3:10–14

THE BIBLE IN A YEAR Psalms 116–119:48

1 Corinthians 4


John 1:17

THE BIBLE IN A YEAR Psalm 119:49–104

1 Corinthians 5

THE WEEKEND Psalm 119:105–176

1 Corinthians 6



face of God

R O B E R T V A N D O O D E W A A R D

WEEPING, SOWING, AND HARVESTING


T here are few events more joyful than a homecoming. From see-ing familiar faces to falling into

our beds, many of us love to come home. Psalm 126 recounts the happy song of for-mer slaves as they came home: “Our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them’ ” (Ps. 126:2). After many years of exile, a miraculous homecoming had oc-curred. This verse recounts what may have been one of the most joyful scenes in all the Scriptures.

Yet the same psalm also has some-thing to teach those who are struggling in verse 6: “He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.” Why would the psalmist turn to this scene of a farmer weeping continuously as he plants? Per-haps he remembered the prayers that were “sown” while in exile. This also would have been an encouraging thought for those returning to a land that was overgrown and neglected. Fields would have had to be reclaimed and reworked. Resettling the promised land was not easy. When the temple foundation was re-laid, many in the older generation wept for what had been lost, while the younger generation shouted with joy (Ezra 3:12–13). Having experienced God’s mighty work of deliverance, the psalm-ist could reassure others that a harvest would one day come.

The confident song of these liberated

exiles can teach us to hope for the prog-ress of the gospel today. They knew who their Redeemer was and testified that He is mighty to save. Now they turned and, through their songs, preached good news to the sorrowful. We know from the words of the Lord Jesus Christ that the sower is ultimately a representation of spread-ing the Word of God (Mark 4:14). It may seem that the work is difficult and even hopeless. It may seem that the preached Word and evangelism are fruitless. Par-ents may begin to despair that their chil-dren will never respond to God’s Word. Some of the older generation may recall the church of decades ago and weep as they look at what is left standing today in some places. Years may pass, and even decades, and there may seem to be no harvest.

Psalm 126 reminds us of the good news that the gospel will bear fruit. After Christ’s death on the cross, it seemed to the dis-ciples that all was lost, and yet He rose from the grave. After His departure to heaven, they appeared to be a tiny mi-nority, and yet the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost, and thousands were add-ed to their number. Church history in-cludes many cycles of plowing and sow-ing, working and waiting, and weeping and rejoicing. Whether we live in a time of slavery or sowing, let us never despair, for the sower “shall doubtless come again with rejoicing” (Ps. 126:6).

PASTOR ROBERT VANDOODEWAARD is pastor of

Hope Reformed Church in Powassan, Ontario.

23MONDAY

2 CORINTHIANS 3:9–11 “In this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory” (vv. 10–11).

THE GLORY OF THE NEW COVENANT

Matthew Henry comments, “As the

shining of a burning lamp is lost, or not regarded, when the sun arises and goes forth in his strength; so there was no glory in the Old Testament, in comparison with that of the New.” It

can be easy to forget the privilege we have

in living under the greater glory of the new covenant, but let us not take it for granted. We have a far greater view of God’s glory in Christ

than the old covenant saints ever enjoyed, so let us be

grateful.

G lory attended the old covenant between God and Israel. Scrip-ture testifies to this in many ways. For example, the thunder, lightning, thick clouds, and trumpets on Mount Sinai as the

Lord came to enact the old covenant signified His glorious presence (Ex. 19:16). In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul looks to the story of Moses’ hav-ing to cover his shining face, which reflected God’s glory after he met with the Lord, as proof of the glory of the old covenant (Ex. 34:29–35).

In arguing for the superiority of the new covenant to the old, there-fore, the Apostle does not deny that the old covenant had an associ-ated glory. In fact, he says directly in 2 Corinthians 3:9 that glory was present in the ministry of condemnation—the old covenant. But if this was true of the old covenant, how much more is it true of the new covenant (v. 9)? Here in verse 9, Paul calls the new covenant the “ministry of righteousness.” Given what he says about righteousness later in this epistle (see 5:21), the Apostle is thinking forensically or judicially. That is, Paul is referring to the declaration of righteousness that God pronounces on us based on the perfect righteousness of Christ, which is put on our accounts when we trust in Jesus alone for salvation. The new covenant is the ministry of righteousness because it provides the righteousness that the Lord demands for us to inherit eternal life through the perfect life, atoning death, and justifying res-urrection of Jesus (Rom. 3:21–31; 4:16–25). The old covenant delivers the verdict of “unrighteous” to sinners, for we have not perfectly kept its demands, but the new covenant delivers the verdict of “righteous” to sinners who trust in Jesus because He has met God’s demands in our place. Thus, the new covenant is more glorious than the old covenant. It more clearly reveals our Creator’s justice and mercy.

While the old covenant had glory, the new covenant is so much more glorious that it makes the old covenant have no glory in com-parison (2 Cor. 3:10). The new covenant so far exceeds the old in glo-ry that we cannot really talk in the same breath about the two cove-nants’ each having glory. This helps us understand texts such as John 1:17, which says, “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” John is not denying the presence of grace and truth under the old covenant; it is just that the grace and truth of God are seen so much more clearly in Christ that we cannot really even compare the old covenant to Him. So it is with the glory of the new covenant when set alongside the glory of the old.


Isaiah 40:1–5 Romans 9:1–5 Hebrews 3:3




face of God

24TUESDAY

2 CORINTHIANS 3:12–16 “When one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed” (v. 16).

REMOVING THE VEIL

Augustine of Hippo comments on

today’s passage that “it is not the Old Testament that is

done away with in Christ but the

concealing veil, so that it may be

understood through Christ.” In Christ, we do not cast the Old

Testament aside, but we begin to

understand its full significance. If we

are not reading the Old Testament

through the lens of Christ and the New Testament, we will

misunderstand God’s Word.

T he old covenant mediated through Moses had its own glo-ry, but it was not a permanent glory. This was Paul’s point in 2 Corinthians 3:7–11. In contrast, the glory of the new

covenant is forever. It will never come to an end (v. 11). Because of this, Paul says in today’s passage, he is very bold in declaring the new covenant and all its glory (v. 12).

One might ask where the Apostle is getting these ideas that the glory of the old covenant was temporary and that the new cove-nant glory is so much greater. Evidently, the false apostles who were troubling the Corinthian church asked this question, or at least Paul anticipated this objection to his teaching. So, Paul turns to an epi-sode from the old covenant’s inauguration to demonstrate that his teaching on the fading glory of the old covenant was revealed at the very beginning of the old covenant itself. The account to which he refers is found in Exodus 34:29–35, where we read that the face of Moses would come to reflect the glory of God whenever he was in the presence of God. Because of this, Moses would veil his face when he came back to the Israelites after speaking with the Lord, preventing them from seeing the full glory associated with the old covenant.

Paul says that Moses did this to keep the Israelites from seeing the glory of the old covenant because the glory was fleeting. Moses was not bold in declaring the glory of the old covenant, for he could not proclaim that which would finally end (2 Cor. 3:13). This had to be so because the hearts of the people were hard and they could not have handled seeing a glory that would eventually be superseded (v. 14). This hardness of the old covenant people—the Jews—as a whole continues, though many individual Jews do not have hard hearts but trust in Christ. Their hardness is a veil that now hides from them the glory of the new covenant whenever the old cove-nant Scriptures are read, much as Moses’ veil hid the glory of the old covenant from the Israelites at Mount Sinai (vv. 14–15). Their only hope is to have this veil removed, which happens when they trust in the Lord Jesus Christ (v. 16).

Paul’s tightly woven argument critiques the false apostles for failing to understand the temporary nature of the old covenant and points to the necessity of regeneration and faith in Christ to truly understand the revelation of the old covenant. Until people trust in Jesus, they cannot fully understand the Word of God.

FOR FURTHER STUDY Isaiah 52:11–53:12

Luke 24:13–35 Acts 8:26–40

2 Corinthians 1:20


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face of God

25WEDNESDAY

2 CORINTHIANS 3:17–18 “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

FROM GLORY TO GLORY

Transformation into the image of Christ is one of the benefits of salvation. Though

the process of spiritual growth can seem extremely slow at times, we are by God’s grace being

conformed to Jesus. Over time we will

see true progress in holiness even if it

seems to come in fits and starts, and even when it looks as if we are taking two steps forward and

one step back.

J ust as the glory of the old covenant was veiled to the Israelites at the time it was inaugurated because of their hard hearts, the glory of the new covenant is veiled or hidden until one is converted to

Christ (2 Cor. 3:12–16; see Ex. 34:29–35). The consequences of believ-ing in Jesus, therefore, include the ability to see Him in the Scriptures. However, that is not the only effect of believing in Jesus, and Paul unfolds further consequences of faith in Christ in today’s passage.

Paul says that the Lord to whom we turn for the removal of the veil hiding the glory of the new covenant is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). Yet, as we know that the Lord to whom he refers is Jesus, what can he mean? Does Paul mean the Lord Jesus is the Holy Spirit? The answer to this is no, for he refers also in the same verse to a different person, “the Spirit of the Lord”—namely, the Holy Spirit (v. 17). What the Apostle is doing here is giving us insight into the unified work of God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, two distinct persons who nevertheless are of the same essence. The Son and the Spirit are so fully united in their work that the work of the Spirit in giving life to people is the work of the Son and the work of the Son in giving life to people is the work of the Spirit. The Son of God is the source of life mediated in and through the regenerating and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. Thus, Paul says elsewhere that “the last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). Charles Hodge writes, “The Lord who is the Spirit means, the Lord who is one with the Spirit, the same in substance, equal in power and glory; who is where the Spirit is, and does what the Spirit does.”

The Lord who is the Spirit gives freedom where the Holy Spirit is present (2 Cor. 3:17). In context, Paul must be referring to freedom from the condemnation associated with the old covenant ministry. The new covenant provides freedom because it is the “ministry of righteousness” (v. 18) that gives the righteous status we need before God’s judgment seat, resulting in the glorious truth that there is “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).

Moreover, we get something in addition to freedom from condem-nation—transformation into Christ’s image from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18). This is our sanctification and finally our glorification, when we are made fully like Jesus. The old covenant could not provide this, but the new covenant gives it freely. So, any attempt to live under the old covenant, as the false apostles in Corinth were trying to do, is to move backward and away from the glory of God.

FOR FURTHER STUDY Deuteronomy 30:6

Isaiah 60:1–3 Colossians 3:9–10

1 John 3:9


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face of God


face of God

27FRIDAY

26THURSDAY

HEBREWS 12:18–29 “Let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (vv. 28–29).

GENESIS 1:27–28 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ ”

THE GLORY OF GOD IN WORSHIP THE GLORY OF GOD THROUGH MAN

When we come to corporate worship, it is vital that we come

not to be enter-tained but to show the Lord reverence and awe. We are meeting with the

Sovereign who loves us and who is

worthy of all the honor and glory we can ascribe to Him.

Let us keep the Lord’s glory in our

minds as we come to worship so that we will have the awe that is appropriate

to entering His presence.

In the fall of man, the image of God in us was marred but

not lost. As the Lord is repairing His image in us through Christ, our original call to

reflect God’s glory to creation is restored,

and we are tasked to rule, to labor, to

create art, and to do many other things so that the glory of the

Lord may be reflected in us. As we serve God and seek to honor Him where He has called us to work, we show His glory to the world.

S econd Corinthians 3 has much to say about the glory of the new covenant, emphasizing the permanence of this glory and its superiority to the old covenant’s glory. Of course,

2 Corinthians 3 is not the only chapter in Scripture where we find teaching on glory. From start to finish, the Word of God tells us about the glory of God and the practical ramifications that flow from it. In order that we might have a fuller understanding of the Bible’s presentation on glory and how it should shape our lives, we will now pause our studies in 2 Corinthians and base our next sev-eral days of devotions on messages by Dr. R.C. Sproul drawn from the Ligonier teaching series The Power and the Glory and Themes from Ecclesiastes.

One area of Christian faith and practice greatly shaped by an un-derstanding of God’s glory is corporate worship. When we have a proper understanding of divine glory and what is happening when we enter worship along with the people of God, our gatherings to praise the Lord cannot help but be transformed. Hebrews 12:18–29 is a key passage for understanding new covenant worship as a re-sponse to the glory of God.

The author of Hebrews contrasts our new covenant worship with what happened at Mount Sinai when God met His people to deliver His law. That meeting happened on earth, as described in Exodus 19, and it was attended by fire, darkness, gloom, and tempest. On that occasion, the people had to maintain a certain distance lest they be destroyed by God’s holiness (Heb. 12:18–21). However, as the book of Hebrews makes clear, the atoning work of Jesus has changed how the Lord meets with His people. Now we enter heaven itself, for we come to the “heavenly Jerusalem . . . and to the spirits of righteous made perfect.” We gather in the Lord’s sanctuary in His heavenly abode with the angels and with the saints of all ages. We may not always sense this in our corporate worship services here on earth, but we are actually in the presence of God and His glory.

In light of this, what should our response be? Hebrews 12:28 tells us: we should “offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe.” Our corporate worship services should be appropriately weighty, designed to show the Lord the reverence He deserves. We must come to give Him the best we have to offer, respecting His awe and glory.

W hen it comes to divine glory, it can be easy to miss one of the primary ways that the Lord has purposed to show His glory in our world. We are speaking, of course, of

humanity. God intended from the very beginning to display His glory in and through the work of men and women.

Genesis 1:27–28 gives us the first evidence of this truth. As these verses indicate, our Creator made men and women in His image. Al-though there has been much discussion over the centuries as to the exact meaning of God’s image, we can at least say that our being made in the Lord’s image means that we are more like Him than the ani-mals and the other things in creation are. Like God, we have minds and wills. We are also able to create tools, art, and so forth. We are able to reflect the Creator to His creation because we are like Him, and in reflecting Him we are to reflect something of His glory.

How do we do this? The same verses give us an indication. Note that in Genesis 1:28, human beings are commanded to “have do-minion . . . over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Men and women have been ordained as the Lord’s vice-regents, as rulers who are to take care of creation in submission to God’s ultimate rule as the Maker and Sovereign over all things.

In taking dominion, we show forth the sovereign glory of the Lord to creation. Moreover, dominion manifests itself in various ways. It includes being fruitful and multiplying, creating more images of God through bearing children and raising them to know the Word of God (Gen. 1:28; Deut. 6:4–9). Showing forth God’s glory through dominion involves working and keeping creation (Gen. 2:15), engaging in fruit-ful labor just as the Lord labors to preserve and sustain all things. This labor consists of our ordinary vocations but also establishes broader disciplines such as science. As Dr. R.C. Sproul often observed in look-ing at Genesis 2, Adam was the first scientist because in naming the animals, he was the first to engage in taxonomy, the classification of living things that is so important to the study of biology.

Finally, we should not overlook the ways that human beings reflect the glory of God by creating beauty. The very first people in Scripture identified as filled with the Spirit were the craftsmen Bezalel and Oholiab. They were tasked with making the tabernacle and all its elements, which featured vibrant colors and precious metals, all of which pointed to the beauty and glory of God (Ex. 31:1–11).

FOR FURTHER STUDY Leviticus 26:2 Psalm 29:1–2

Matthew 27:45–54 Revelation 15:2–4



FOR FURTHER STUDY Exodus 28:2

Hebrews 1:1–4


1 Cor. 10:23–11:1





face of God

T H O M A S B R E W E R

A SURE FOUNDATION


I n Matthew 7:24–27, Jesus tells us about someone’s house: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does

them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Jesus goes on to say that when the rains, winds, and floods came, the house survived. I’ve often wondered what style of house Jesus is describing in this passage. In all likelihood, the ancient people who heard Jesus teaching that day would have thought of their mud and clay homes. Perhaps you think of your child-hood home or the house you live in now.

Everyone’s house is different. Even an-cient mud and clay homes differed from one another. They had different sizes, different decorations, and different loca-tions. But in Jesus’ metaphor, the house is meant to point to one’s life. This house is something we’re always building as we become who we are. What’s more, our lives are different from one another. Therefore, every life represented as a house in this passage will look different. We Christians are born in different time periods, with different families, different occupations, and different callings.

Jesus doesn’t comment on the style or particular qualities of the house in this passage. As a result, He doesn’t comment on exactly what our life looks like. What He emphasizes is what our life is built on. The house of the wise man is built on the rock. The wise man builds on the rock be-cause he hears and does Jesus’ words (v. 24). So, regardless of what our house looks like—who we are and what our lives con-sist of—we’re called to build on the same

foundation. We’re called to be hearers and doers of God’s Word. That doesn’t mean that what our lives look like doesn’t matter, but what Jesus is emphasizing here is the foundation. The foundation is the thing that imparts stability to everything else.

Contrast that with the foolish man, who also has a house: “And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand” (v. 26). I used to imagine the foolish man’s house as a dilapidated shack, but the text doesn’t say what kind of house he owns either. Per-haps, instead, it’s a very ornate home with large, well-furnished interiors. Or perhaps it’s your average mud and clay home that looks similar to everyone else’s home. Re-gardless of what it looks like, the foolish man’s house falls because he built it on the sand—he heard Jesus, but he didn’t heed His Word.

We all build our individual houses, and they are all different. Looks can be deceiv-ing, but what matters is the foundation. Are we hearing what Jesus says but not doing it? Or are we actually doing it? Let us pray that we will be faithful to build our hous-es—whatever they look like depending on our own particular circumstances, talents, and callings—on Jesus and His Word. It is only through building on this sure founda-tion that our lives will have any sense of true stability, both now and forever.

THOMAS BREWER is vice president of publishing for

Ligonier Ministries and a teaching elder in the Presbyterian

Church in America.

30MONDAY

1 JOHN 3:2 “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”

BEHOLDING HIS GLORY

Since the vision of God is the highest

end of human beings, that vision must be far more glorious, beautiful, and satisfying than we can imagine. The best experiences of this life cannot even

begin to be compared to what it

will be like to see God. Do we really

believe that? Do we long to see the face of God? Let us seek

the Lord and ask Him on a regular basis to give us a

longing to see Him as He is.

A stoundingly, and only by the grace of God, we enter the glo-rious presence of God every time we gather for corporate worship (Heb. 12:18–29). Furthermore, although the Lord

has His own glory that He will not give to others (Isa. 48:11), He has also created human beings in His image to reveal something of His glory to the rest of creation (Gen. 1:26–27). None of this means, however, that we have yet had a full experience or vision of divine glory. That day is coming, for in the final resurrection and consum-mation we will see God and His glory in its fullness (1 John 3:2).

The Bible promises us the beatific vision, the direct vision of God and His glory, but it does not give us a full picture of what that will be like. We do know that the resurrection of the body into a spiri-tual body—one glorified by the Holy Spirit, with the presence and effects of sin removed—will be necessary for the fullness of the vi-sion of God to occur. First Corinthians 15:35–56, as we have seen recently, is the most comprehensive passage on the resurrected body in all Scripture, but it is interesting that it does not give us a lot of information on what our resurrected bodies will be like. We can see that while there will be discontinuity between our bodies now and our resurrected bodies, there will also be continuity. Resurrection involves the continuation, in some sense, of what we have now. Christian salvation is not ultimately salvation from the body, or the escape of the soul permanently from the body, as the ancient Greeks looked for. Instead, it is the salvation of the body, the purifi-cation and transformation of what we possess now so that it will be free from the ravages of sin and fit to live in God’s presence forever.

In our glorified state, we will see God face-to-face (see also 1 Cor. 13:12). But how will that be possible, given that the Lord is invisible and thus cannot be seen with our physical eyes (1 Tim. 1:17)? Here, again, Scripture does not give us a full explanation. Over the cen-turies, theologians have suggested how this might be possible. Jon-athan Edwards said that perhaps the vision of God will be an im-mediate apprehension of Him by our minds. That is, there is nothing in the Bible that says the Lord could not bypass our eyes so that we have a direct encounter with Him using our minds and their capacities. Whether that will be the case, we do not know, but we do know that we will see God, and that the vision of Him will fully satisfy our deepest longings forever.

FOR FURTHER STUDY Exodus 33:12–34:9

Job 19:25–27 Matthew 5:8

Revelation 22:1–5





face of God

31TUESDAY

ECCLESIASTES 12 “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (vv. 13–14).

LIVING LIFE TO THE GLORY OF GOD

Because the Lord does not often

reveal Himself in spectacular ways in our everyday lives, it can be easy to forget

that His gaze is always on us. How

differently would we live if we were to

remember that He is ever with us and sees all that we

think, do, and feel? Let us seek to

remember that God’s gaze is always on us so that we will be

motivated to honor Him with our lives.

T oday, we are finishing our brief excursus on the glory of God and many practical issues related to it. As we have seen, the Bible in many ways presents the glory of God as

the chief end or purpose of human beings. He made us in His im-age to reflect His glory and to enter His glorious presence through Christ (Gen. 1:26–28; Heb. 12:18–29). Moreover, the Lord redeems us so that we will finally see Him face-to-face (1 John 3:3). In light of God’s purpose for us in creation, redemption, and worship, then, we should have as our ultimate aim to live our lives to the glory of God. If we want to bring ourselves in line with our Creator’s loving purpose for us, then seeking His glory is the way to do it.

Consequently we must ask this question: Since the meaning of life is the glory of God and living in such a way that we aim to know and make known that glory, how do we accomplish that goal? As the church has recognized for generations, Ecclesiastes 12:13 gives us the answer: “Fear God and keep his commandments.”

Ecclesiastes is a fascinating work that is often ignored in the Christian community today. Perhaps it is because the book has somewhat of a reputation for being depressing. Some might even say that Ecclesiastes teaches that this life is meaningless. After all, the author of Ecclesiastes frequently comments on the vanity of life.

However, Ecclesiastes is not teaching us the meaninglessness of life. Instead, it is emphasizing the transitory nature, the impermanence, of life in the present order and is calling us to live in light of that re-ality. We are, in fact, to enjoy the earthly gifts that the Lord has given us, including such things as loving spouses, worthwhile labor, and good food (9:7–11). However, we must do this with reference to God, recognizing that the best things of this life will pass away but that only He endures forever. We go astray when we make the good but temporary things of this life the ultimate things to which we aspire.

To keep us from doing this, Ecclesiastes 12 tells us to orient our whole lives toward the Lord. We are not to wait until the end of our lives to remember Him, for a life well lived entails remembering our Creator in the days of our youth (v. 1). Above all, seeking His glory means fearing God and seeking to keep His commandments (vv. 13–14). It involves living all of life coram Deo—before the face of God. In other words, we are to live ever aware that the Lord is always watching us, and so we ever aim to please Him.

FOR FURTHER STUDY Psalm 139:7–12 Jeremiah 23:24 Matthew 6:3–4

Hebrews 4:12–13



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H E A R T A F L A M E

WE DO NOT INH ERIT H EAVEN

B ECAUSE WE LOVE JESUS, B U T AL L

TH O SE WH O DO INH ERIT H EAVEN TH ROUGH FAITH

ALO NE INEVITAB LY, IF IMPERF ECTLY,

LOVE JESUS.

R ecently, my son jonathan was ex-amined by the elders at our church in preparation for his first time

taking the Lord’s Supper. As part of their job in providing spiritual oversight, the elders admit to the sacrament only those who make a credible profession of faith in Christ. That does not rule out children, for children can know and trust in Jesus. Their profession of faith may not be as sophisti-cated as an adult’s, but a profession of faith does not need to be sophisticated to take the Lord’s Supper; it only has to express the basics of the gospel. The elders are there to make sure the child’s understanding is sufficient and that his faith is genuine, insofar as they can tell. After all, only God knows the heart of my son perfectly.

The elders did an excellent job asking Jonathan about his awareness of sin and his need for Christ. One of their questions in particular has stuck with me during the past few weeks. At the end of the interview, one of the elders asked, “Jonathan, do you love Jesus?” As I have ruminated on that question, I have thought to myself, it re-ally does all come down to that. It really does come down to whether we love Jesus.

You might think that the elder’s question and my thoughts about it are too simple.

love for our holy and gracious God. But we cannot love God for you, of course, and this love of God exists only in those who receive Jesus as Savior and Lord by faith (John 5:30–47). And how do we know that we have received Jesus as Savior and Lord? As Dr. R.C. Sproul used to say, we know that we have trusted in Christ if we have even the smallest bit of love for Him, for such love is pleasing to God and those who have not been born of the Spirit but are in the flesh cannot please God (Rom. 8:8).

When it comes to knowing and loving God, then, it does come down to whether we love Jesus. But this does not mean loving just any Jesus, for it comes down to whether we love the Jesus who is revealed to us in sacred Scripture, not the Jesus of our imaginations. Do we love the Jesus who is very God of very God, the great I Am who spoke to Moses through the burning bush and who redeemed Israel from Egypt, crushing Pharaoh’s army with His mighty hand (John 8:58; Jude 5; see Ex. 3; 14)? Do we love the Jesus who is truly man, made like us in every respect except for sin, and who suffered and died to turn away the wrath of God on His people (Heb. 2:17–18)? Do we love the Jesus who is both the only permanent refuge we can find in creation and also the One who will break with a rod of iron all those who do not submit to His blessed reign (Acts 4:25–28; see Ps. 2)? Do we love the Jesus who is so tender with re-pentant sinners that He will not crush them even as He brings the fullness of justice in the consummation of His kingdom (Matt. 12:15–21; see Isa. 42:1–4)? Do we love the

My response is that yes, the question and my conclusion are simple, but they are not simplistic. There is a lot of deep theology behind both that emerges once we dig just a little deeper. Theology that acknowledges that if we love Jesus, it is because God has granted us that love in regeneration and because God first loved us (John 3:3; 1 John 4:19). Theology that says our love for God is a response to the great love of the Father in sending His only begotten Son, to the great love of the Son in offering Himself up as the atonement for our sin, and the great love of the Holy Spirit in applying that redemption to us (Rom. 8). Theology that confesses that God chose us in love, in eternity past, to be His children (Eph. 1:3–6). Theology that says the love of God for His people is so specific that He had believers—and only believers—in view when Christ laid down His life to pay the penalty for sin (John 10:1–18).

All this deep theology, when we engage with it rightly, makes our understanding of the God who loves us with an everlasting love more complete and makes our love for God richer. We do what we do at Ligonier Ministries because we want you to better know the One who loves you perfectly and eternally, and we want you to grow in your

Jesus who, astoundingly, is not ashamed to call us His brothers and sisters and to help us in our temptations even though we are plagued by sin and continue to fall short in many ways (Heb. 2:11–12, 18)? Do we love the Jesus who calls us to show our love for Him by keeping His commandments and by affirming what He defines as right and proper in all our relationships (John 14:15; see Matt. 19:1–9; John 13:34–35)?

Do we love the Jesus who alone is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6)?

Only those who love Jesus will live forever in glory. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone (Eph. 2:8–9). We do not inherit heaven because we love Jesus, but all those who do in-herit heaven through faith alone inevitably, if imperfectly, love Jesus. Those who have eternal

life love Jesus and no one who fails to love Jesus—as He is revealed in Scripture—has eternal life. Such love is not something that we can work up in ourselves, but it is the very gift of God. Once it is given to us, we exercise this love, seeking the growth of our love as the Savior becomes ever more the center of our affections and we are con-formed to His image. As this love increases, we see how far short it continues to fall, and we are driven to the cross again and again, where we renew our understanding of God’s grace and our love for the Savior is deepened and enlarged.

So, do you love Jesus?

ROBERT ROTHWELL is associate editor of Tabletalk

magazine, senior writer for Ligonier Ministries, and

resident adjunct professor at Reformation Bible College.

Love for JesusR O B E R T R O T H W E L L


F O R T H E C H U R C H

TAK E H EART—TH E LO RD JESUS CH RIST

IS B U IL DING H IS CH U RCH .

I n the month and year i was born—shortly after Tabletalk magazine transi-tioned from a newsletter to a digest-size

magazine—Dr. R.C. Sproul warned of a coming struggle where the honor of God would be at stake. In his Tabletalk column, he wrote of the dawning of the “new dark age.” The darkness, Dr. Sproul said, consists not in the absence of knowledge but in the absence of God. It is a darkness of the heart produced by a “shroud covering the face of God.” To use the Apostle Paul’s language, it’s a darkness produced by men who, “al-though they knew God, . . . did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Rom. 1:21). God is eclipsed and meaning is reduced to the here and now. Here in Romans 1 we find two of Dr. Sproul’s most well-known axioms: coram Deo and right now counts for-ever. Interestingly, both are captured in the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: “What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to en-joy Him forever.” The darkness of the nat-ural human heart reinvents the answer to this question. Apart from grace, man’s chief end has nothing to do with God. We live before our own face and give no thought

sensibilities must be sidelined or revoked. We’re only allowed to affirm what the world affirms. Regrettably, some churches have indeed capitulated. In reaction to such ca-pitulation, it’s common to fall into one of two errors. Like the tax collector in Jesus’ parable (Luke 18:9–14), we can thank God that we are not like other men who yield to the spirit of the age. The other tendency, which I am admittedly susceptible to, is to grow unduly discouraged like Elijah. He wrongly assumed that he was the only one left who hadn’t forsaken the Lord and bent the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19:10–14). Notice the Lord’s response to Elijah’s despair: “I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him” (v. 18). The “I will” of the Lord here brings to mind the promise of the Lord Jesus in Matthew 16:18: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” D. Ralph Da-vis, calling 1 Kings 19:18 the Old Testament equivalent of Matthew 16:18, reflects on the comfort that comes from the stubbornness of our covenant-keeping God:

This climactic declaration puts a thrill into one’s theological bones. Grace will have a remnant. The God of grace insists on it. Yahweh will always have a people to worship him upon the earth. He has decided that he will have a true people, and he will have them and keep them, and there is nothing any Jezebel can do about it. It is the infectious assurance, the defiant certainty, the holy dogmatism, of this text that keeps some of us on our feet.

We need to regularly reflect on this holy dogmatism if we are to keep on our feet. Rather than giving ourselves over to despair,

to forever. Although Dr. Sproul sounds ee-rily prophetic in his prediction that this eclipsing of God would engender moral and cultic chaos, he was merely applying the trajectory of Romans 1 to the spirit of the age at the turn of a decade:

When we trample on the flowers of divine dignity we sacrifice our own. The cultural struggles of the 90s will surely reflect this crisis. Abortion will continue to divide the nation, as the issue of the sanctity and dig-nity of human life will be debated. Law will be discussed and enacted not by ap-peals to the light of nature but by the test of collective preferences. Church and state issues will multiply. The state will become more jealous for its autonomy. Separation of church and state will progressively (or regressively) be more and more interpret-ed to mean separation of state and God. Some churches will capitulate.

It’s difficult for me to read that without having the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The world—with its darkened heart—has suppressed the truth of God in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18) and in turn has demanded that the church follow suit. Doc-trines that don’t gel with modern cultural

we ought to depend on God’s ancient prom-ises to preserve His people. He will have a true people for Himself, and there’s nothing anyone or anything can do to thwart that.

Professing Christians will continue to “swerve from the truth” (2 Tim. 2:18) until the Lord Jesus returns. We’ll continue to see once-orthodox churches hold up signs in support of abortion, ordain practicing ho-mosexual ministers, submit to statism, deny the divinity of Christ and the inerrancy of Scripture, and myriad other demands that the darkened world makes on the church. The faithful, however, will hold the line. Not against flesh and blood. Not with swords

and axes. Not for our own autonomy and happiness. But against the spirit of darkness, with the Word of God, and for the glory of God and for the church.

Dr. Sproul concluded his column on the new

dark age confident that not all churches will capitulate: “Other churches will fight for their lives. They will come home with their shields or on them.” God will preserve His people. Take heart—the Lord Jesus Christ is building His church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. It’s a project that cannot fail. As the old church continues onward and upward in this new dark age, let us toil with “all his energy that he pow-erfully works within [us]” (Col. 1:29) to “con-tend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), trusting the Lord to bring the His good work to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6) and to bring us home to be with Him (John 14:3)—wheth-er it’s with our shields or on them.

REV. AARON L. GARRIOTT is managing editor of

Tabletalk magazine, resident adjunct professor at

Reformation Bible College, and a teaching elder in the

Presbyterian Church in America.

For the Old Church in the New Dark AgeA A R O N L . G A R R I O T T


C I T Y O N A H I L L

STANDING ON THE SOLID ROCK

OF ORTHODOX BIBLICAL TEACHING,

IN A WORLD OF SHIFTING SAND,

IS A COMPELLING WITNESS.

I n 1923 , during the Fundamentalist- Modernist Controversy that would reshape American evangelicalism, J.

Gresham Machen wrote Christianity and Liberalism. It served two purposes.

First, it set out—clearly, exhaustively, and yet winsomely—how the liberal religion that had infiltrated American seminar-ies, churches, and denominations in the preceding decades was in fact a different faith altogether from orthodox Christianity. Liberal religion is not simply a different take on Christianity with different em-phases. No, it is something else, another religion with different answers to the big questions—on things such as God, man, Christ, the Bible, and salvation—than Christianity has always taught.

Second, Christianity and Liberalism was a plea for honesty. Machen perceived that his ideological opponents wanted to have their cake and eat it too—they wanted the name of Christianity without being saddled with what they saw as its embarassingly outdated and barbaric ideas. Toward that end, they claimed to be the true Christians, those who held to the kernel of faith (often defined simply as love for one’s neighbor or as the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man) while

But Machen’s call for honesty does not apply only to others; it applies to us as well. Nothing is gained—either for our neighbors or for the effectiveness of our witness—when we hold back on what we believe. As followers of the God who loves truth and who is truth, we must be honest. Here are three things that can be helpful to remember in this regard.

the sovereignty of godFailing to be honest about what we believe often comes from a de-sire to control the out-come of an encounter. But that is not in our power. It is, however, in God’s power, and He will direct the en-counter as He sees fit according to His good purposes. Our part is to be faithful to Him. We cannot control someone’s reaction to what we say, but we can control what we say and how we say it. Let us strive to be faithful in our proclamation of what the Bible teaches, and let us do so win-somely, with love for our neighbor; not obnoxiously, lest the offense come from our presentation rather than from the teaching itself.

the advantage of a confessionA robust confession of faith states plainly and publicly what we believe. As a faithful summary of what the Bible teaches, a con-fession gives believers something to study and to use in encounters with questioners.

A confession also helps believers indi-cate that their statements are not simply their own but issue from a long and dis-tinguished church tradition. It helps them say, “This is simply what the Bible teaches and what the church confesses.”

discarding the husk of others’ experience that had accumulated over the centuries.

And yet, as Machen demonstrated, what they called Christianity bore little resemblance to what had always been called Christianity. Machen would have preferred that they simply be honest. They could believe whatever they want, but they should come up with a new name for it rather than redefining Christianity as it had always been understood.

Machen wrote at a time when the land-scape of American Christianity was chang-ing rapidly. We might imagine that it was a time that was very different from ours. But the challenges then are much like the challenges we face today: the culture points to facets of our faith, denounces them as outdated or unloving, and demands that we renounce them. The theological liberals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries did just that in the hopes of gaining the approv-al of the culture. Today the danger is less that churches will negotiate fundamentals of the faith such as penal substitutionary atonement or the virgin birth. The issues now are frequently more cultural, and the temptation is to soft-pedal our beliefs for fear of causing offense and losing our hear-ing with the culture or with our neighbors.

A confession gives weight to encounters with questioners and bolsters believers’ honesty. Confessional churches cannot hide behind platitudes or a bare-bones statement of faith on a website. Their be-liefs are out in the open for all the world to see and to criticize. Having a confession helps churches and Christians be honest with the world.

the power of convictionMany people today lack strong convictions. They are blown this way and that by the demands of the culture. We ought not to be like that. We are grounded in the un-shakable, unchanging Word of God. We need not fear the culture.

When we show that we are not afraid, when we refuse to be cowed by the sinful demands of the culture, we demonstrate powerfully the worth of what we stand for and what we stand on. Standing on the solid rock of orthodox bib-lical teaching, in a world of shifting sand, is a compelling witness to the truth of what we proclaim.

Let us declare what we believe to all who ask and to all who will hear. Let us declare the whole counsel of God, and let us do so “from the heart, sincerely, freely, clearly, and fully” (Westminster Larger Catechism 144), without fear, and with a clear con-science. When we do so, we show our trust in the Lord who has saved us and who promises that His Word will not return to Him empty (Isa. 55:11).

REV. KEVIN D. GARDNER is associate editor of Tabletalk

magazine, resident adjunct professor at Reformation Bible

College, and a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church

in America.

An Honest WitnessK E V I N D . G A R D N E R


L A S T T H I N G S

E tched on a granite memorial in Point State Park in Pittsburgh are the words “A Place of International

Consequence.” This place, Three Rivers, played a pivotal role in the Colonial era. In the 1750s, however, few likely realized the full significance of the events transpiring in that place. But the ramifications were huge, and the impact would last for centuries. This place of international consequence was directly ten miles to the northwest of the childhood homes of R.C. Sproul and Vesta (Voorhis) Sproul.

before august 1971: the foundationR.C. had fond memories of his beloved Pittsburgh. This place shaped him; you could hear it in his accent decades after he had left. Pittsburgh was not only the Steel City; it was also the Presbyterian City. But by the 1950s and ’60s, it was a Presbyterianism void of its confessional commitments. R.C. went to a Presbyteri-an church, a Presbyterian college, and a Presbyterian seminary—all of which were patently liberal. This provided R.C. with two fundamental building blocks. First, when he finally did hear the truth of the gospel, he had an overwhelming gratitude

for the grace and kindness of God and a consuming desire and passion to know, serve, and worship the triune God of the gospel. That gratitude and passion marked his entire life; it drove him and the ministry he founded. Second, being surrounded by error honed his apologetic skills. R.C. was a communicator; he was also an apologist. He spoke often of Ligonier’s mission not only to teach and proclaim the truth but also to defend and contend for the truth. R.C. knew firsthand the ravaging effects of false teaching.

R.C.’s love and passion for truth, good-ness, and beauty—and his desire to fight for them—served as part of the foundation for Ligonier Ministries. Another part con-cerned the message. From the first time R.C. read the Bible as a Christian, he had the transformative realization that “God is a God who plays for keeps.” While so many in culture and in the church were taken by a shallow view of who God is, R.C. was brought to his knees, like Isaiah the prophet, before the refulgent splendor of the holiness of God. The holiness of God, in all its fullness, was not only the foundation for Ligonier; it permeates everything the ministry has done over the last fifty years, and it remains the North Star.

The History of Ligonier MinistriesS T E P H E N J . N I C H O L S

T A B L E T A L K E N C A P S U L A T E S R . C . ’ S

V I S I O N F O R E N C O U R A G I N G G O D ’ S

P E O P L E N O T O N L Y T O R E A D G O D ’ S W O R D

B U T A L S O T O S T U D Y G O D ’ S W O R D .

With a mission and a message in place, the foundation needs one more piece, and that is the audience. By the time he turned thirty years old, R.C. was a seminary pro-fessor at the top of his profession, and he was bored. Meanwhile, he was teaching a Sunday school class. There he discovered laity who were hungry not for crumbs but for the meat of God’s Word and of doctrine. Teacher and audience played off each other. The hungrier they were, the more excited R.C. was to teach them, which only caused them to come back for more.

1971–1984With the foundation laid, God brought two forces together to start building the struc-ture. One was R.C., Vesta, and the Sproul family. It is important to remember that from the beginning it was R.C. and Vesta. The other force was Dora Hillman, the wid-ow of a Pittsburgh industrialist. She lived in the Ligonier Valley, in western Penn-sylvania. Near her home, a fifty-two-acre property went up for sale. She bought it and built a house on it for the Sprouls that served as their family home, lecture hall, dining commons for students, and the of-fices for the Ligonier Valley Study Center. R.C. prepared and gave lectures and hosted the legendary “Gabfests,” Q&A sessions on Monday nights. Books were written.

Teaching series were recorded on audiocas-sette. Then, in 1975, a teaching series was recorded, for the first time, by video. Wear-ing his aviator sunglasses and a distinctly 1970s outfit, R.C. recorded The Holiness of God. There was nothing like it at the time. He had a chalkboard, a lectern, a passion, a message, and an audience. Those early years at the LVSC were a pioneering mo-ment in adult Christian education.

At the time, however, R.C. and Vesta were not thinking of it that way. They were simply being faithful and being obedient

to what God called them to do. As they were faithful, God blessed the study center with fruitfulness. Bob Ingram, who later served as Ligonier’s president and editor of Tabletalk (1988–1992), recalls going out to the study center, always with a carload from his singles group. He said succinctly, “The study center trained my generation.” From 1971 through 1984, tens of thousands would make their way up and down the back roads snaking through the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains to get to the study center in Stahlstown. They came with questions, and R.C. and the other teachers at the study center gave them answers from God’s Word. Far more would learn from R.C. through the teaching that was sent out on audio- and videocassettes. Many


L A S T T H I N G S

A S W E L O O K B A C K T O C E L E B R A T E

O U R F I F T I E T H A N N I V E R S A R Y T O G E T H E R

W I T H Y O U , P L E A S E K N O W T H A T W E A R E

L O O K I N G A H E A D , R E N E W E D I N O U R

C O M M I T M E N T T O P R O C L A I M T H E

H O L I N E S S O F G O D I N A L L I T S F U L L N E S S

T O A S M A N Y P E O P L E A S P O S S I B L E .

first heard and saw R.C. as they sat in a Sunday school class in a church basement watching a TV set.

1984–1994It soon became clear to the board that Li-gonier could be more effective without a large campus to upkeep. In 1984, Ligonier moved to Orlando, Fla. Orlando provided both a place where people could come for teaching and a place from where teaching could go out. In 1988, Ligonier hosted its first National Conference under the title Loving a Holy God. The National Conference continues to be the annual family reunion for Ligonier students and also serves as a focal point for Ligonier to release new books and teaching series.

The move to Orlando also coincided with a significant development regard-ing the publication Tabletalk. Started in 1977, Tabletalk was redesigned and refor-matted in 1989. Offering articles around a theme and daily devotionals, Tabletalk has continually grown in circulation, now with more than one hundred thousand copies distributed monthly. It encapsulates R.C.’s vision for encouraging God’s people not only to read God’s Word but also to study God’s Word. During this time, R.C. published two classic books: The Holiness of God in 1985, followed by Chosen by God in 1986. All the while, the teaching series continued to be produced, recorded, and distributed.

1994–2021R.C.’s first radio program, The R.C. Sproul Study Hour, aired in 1982. In 1986, Ask R.C. aired on six radio stations. These were build-ing up to the launch of Renewing Your Mind in 1994. Of course, the first episodes would be his series on the holiness of God. Chris-tian radio consisted mostly of sermons.

language version of Renewing Your Mind. These efforts also include translating many books by R.C. and others, as well as produc-ing translations of the Reformation Study Bible. Ligonier Ministries, like the point at Three Rivers, has become a place of inter-national consequence.

what’s next?Whenever a significant initiative was launched or a milestone reached, R.C. would take a moment to celebrate. Then he would turn to those around him and ask, “What’s next?” We continue to ask that question. The answer on the one hand is that we don’t know. We do know that God has been faithful to us from the very beginning and through challenging years. And as we mourned the passing of R.C. in the final days of 2017, God blessed Ligonier. In these past three years, we have seen the most expansive outreach in the history of Ligo-nier. For these past fifty years, we are grate-

RYM aired teaching episodes. You could hear the chalk as R.C. dotted i’s and crossed t’s. He made you feel like you were sitting in his class, that he was talking directly to you. There was nothing else like it on the air, and it soon became a staple for com-muters. It continues to be.

More books were written. Conferences continued to be held in Orlando, across the country, and, eventually, around the world. Ligonier also started hosting study tours in the Holy Land and in the fabled cities of the Reformers. As technology de-veloped, Ligonier expanded the means to communicate and promulgate the teaching. The website remains a signifi-cant and efficient tool to distribute teach-ing. Additionally, there is RefNet, a host of podcasts, Ligonier Connect, and Ask Ligonier. All these initiatives, and new ones under development, leverage tech-nology to proclaim the holiness of God to as many people as possible.

While Ligonier continued to expand its reach, in 2011 it returned to its roots by opening the doors of Reformation Bible College in central Florida. The college has around 140 students on campus, with an additional one hundred students taking courses online. Ligonier also expanded the teaching base in 2010 to include the teaching fellows. Alongside the vast array of teaching materials from R.C., Ligonier provides a platform for the writing and speaking of the teaching fellows and other trusted teachers. Since 1971, Ligonier has served to bring teachers to students.

Ligonier also expanded beyond the English language and currently operates websites in seven different languages, in-cluding Spanish, Arabic, Farsi, and Chi-nese. New content is added daily to each of these sites. In March 2018, Ligonier first aired Renovando tu Mente, the daily Spanish

ful. But may we never be presumptuous. Ligonier serves the church, and we serve by the divine prerogative of our holy God. Looking to God, we ask: What might the next fifty years bring? As we look back to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary together with you, please know that we are looking

ahead, renewed in our commitment to proclaim the holiness of God in all its full-ness to as many people as possible. We have set a course for faithfulness, not know-ing what comes next, but eagerly antici-pating what God will do.

DR. STEPHEN J. NICHOLS is president of Reformation

Bible College, chief academic officer for Ligonier Ministries,

and a Ligonier Ministries teaching fellow. He is host of

the podcasts 5 Minutes in Church History and Open

Book. He is author of many books, including Beyond the

95 Theses, A Time for Confidence, and R.C. Sproul:

A Life, and coeditor of Crossway’s Theologians on the

Christian Life series.

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L I G O N I E R . O R G / PA R T N E R

In our fiftieth year of ministry, we thank God for every

Ministry Partner. Because you stand with Ligonier,

millions of people around the world receive trusted

teaching each month that bears eternal significance.

RIGHT NOW COUNTS FOREVER.

right n o w counts forever

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