Category Archives: Books

Adoption – Not a Fairy Tale

November 19, 2009 By in Books Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

John Owen, the Puritan divine, called the biblical doctrine of adoption “our fountain privilege.” J. I. Packer calls it the highest privilege the gospel affords to those who believe.

The London Baptist 1689 Confession of Faith defines adoption this way:

FOR the sake of His only Son, Jesus Christ, God has been pleased to make all justified persons sharers in the grace of adoption, by means of which they are numbered with, and enjoy the liberties and privileges of children of God. Furthermore, God’s name is put upon them, they receive the spirit of adoption, and they are enabled to come boldly to the throne of grace and to cry ‘Abba, Father’. They are pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened by God as by a Father.He never casts them off, but, as they remain sealed to the day of redemption, they inherit the promises as heirs of everlasting salvation (Chap. 12).

Knowing GodIn Packer’s book Knowing God, he writes of what he calls deep insights from the Epistles of the New Testament that adoption gives us. First on the list is that our adoption shows us the greatness of God’s love. Indeed, the apostle John declares in 1 John 3:1, See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

The implications of this are staggering. More from Packer:

God receives us as sons, and loves us with the same steadfast affection with which he eternally loves his beloved only-begotten. There are no distinctions of affection in the divine family. We are all loved just as fully as Jesus is loved. It is like a fairy story–the reigning monarch adopts waifs and strays to make princes of them. But, praise God, it is not a fairy story: it is hard and solid fact, founded on the bedrock of free and sovereign grace. This, and nothing less than this, is what adoption means. No wonder John cries, “Behold what manner of love!” When once you understand adoption, your heart will cry the same (IVP, 1993, p. 216).

Men, do you want to understand adoption better? This Saturday at 7 AM at the church office Oxford Club meets. Bring your own breakfast and join in the discussion of chapter nineteen, Sons of God, in J. I. Packer’s Knowing God. May we all understand this precious doctrine better and actually believe that this is true: We are all loved just as fully as Jesus is loved!

Powerful Incentive to Pray

November 16, 2009 By in Books Tags: , , , 2 Comments

CarsonJesus taught His followers to open their prayers this way: “Our Father in heaven” (Matt. 6:9). Paul wrote in Eph. 3:14, “For this reason I bow my knees before the  Father.” Before both the Lord and the apostle revealed the content of their praying, they prescribed and modeled a certain manner of address toward God in praying. Call Him “Father.”

This is no small thing, particularly in the ancient eastern culture. The ancients revered their fathers as those who led the family unit and cared for its well being, doing it good and bestowing upon it favors. So by using the term “Father” as a means of addressing the Lord, we should see a ground of our praying that can powerfully motivate our praying. God is no mere transcendent Other to which we bring our petitions; He is the ultimate Father.

Once again, D. A. Carson, in his terribly helpful book on prayer, A Call to Spiritual Reformation (Baker, 1992, 230 pages), helps to motivate and equip in the all important means of grace that is intercessory prayer.

So as Paul approaches God with his petitions, he reminds himself that the God he addresses is his heavenly Father, the archetypal Father, the Father of all who are truly his people in heaven and on earth. He is a good God; he knows how to give good gifts. Paul dares to approach this God with these requests because he knows God to be good God, a heavenly Father. Thus the nature and character of God become for Paul the fundamental ground for intercessory prayer (p. 201).

Now here is where Carson takes the truth and brings it home to our prayer lives.

The more we reflect on the kind of God who is there, the kind of God who has disclosed himself in Scripture and supremely in Jesus Christ, the kind of God who has revealed his plans and purposes for his own “household,” the kind of God who hears and answers prayer–the more we shall be encouraged to pray. Prayerlessness is often an index to our ignorance of God. Real and vital knowledge of God not only teaches us what to pray, but gives us powerful incentive to prayer (p. 201, emphasis mine).

How is your prayer life? Do you need some incentive? Contemplate the nature of your God in Jesus Christ as Father. And then, when you pray, bow your knees and begin with, “Our Father in heaven.”

Why Pray for Power?

November 11, 2009 By in Books Tags: , , , 2 Comments

CarsonWe have biblical precedent to pray for God’s power in our lives. For example, Paul prays this way for the Ephesians in 3:16 – that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being.

The question remains why? The answer comes in v. 17 – so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

The key to understanding what Paul means by this purpose lies within the word dwell. D. A. Carson, in his book A Call to Spiritual Reformation, observes:

The verb rendered “to dwell” is a strong one. Paul’s hope is that Christ will truly take up his residence in the hearts of believers, as they trust him (that’s what “through faith” means), so as to make their hearts his home. . . . Make no mistake: when Christ first moves into our lives, he finds us in very bad repair. It takes a great deal of power to change us; and that is why Paul prays for power. He asks that God may so strengthen us by his power in our inner being that Christ may genuinely take up residence within us, transforming us into a house that pervasively reflects his own character (Baker, 1992, pp. 186-87).

Pray for power in your own life and in the lives of others to this end – that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

What True Practical Holiness Is

November 4, 2009 By in Books Tags: Leave a comment

Holiness

In chapter three of J. C. Ryle’s Holiness he offers these twelve marks of true and practical holiness in the believer.

  1. Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God, according as we find His mind described in Scripture.
  2. A holy man will endeavour to shun every known sin, and to keep every known commandment.
  3. A holy man will strive to be like our Lord Jesus Christ.
  4. A holy man will follow after meekness, longsuffering, gentleness, patience, kind tempers, government of his tongue.
  5. A holy man will follow after temperance and self-denial.
  6. A holy man will follow after charity and brotherly kindness.
  7. A holy man will follow after a spirit of mercy and benevolence toward others. Do good.
  8. A holy man will follow after purity of heart.
  9. A holy man will follow after the fear of God.
  10. A holy man will follow after humility. “He will see more evil in his own heart than in any other in the world.”
  11. A holy man will follow after faithfulness in all the duties and relations in life.
  12. A holy man will follow after spiritual mindedness.

In short, a holy man follows hard after God (Psalm 63:8). How vigorous is your pursuit of God and His holiness today?

In the same chapter, Ryle adds this clarification about our pursuit of hoiness:

It is the greatest misery of a holy man that he carries about with him a “body of death”;—that often when he would do good “evil is present with him”; that the old man is clogging all his movements, and, as it were, trying to draw him back at every step he takes (Rom. vii. 21). But it is the excellence of a holy man that he is not at peace with indwelling sin, as others are. He hates it, mourns over it, and longs to be free from its company. The work of sanctification within him is like the wall of Jerusalem—the building goes forward “even in troublous times” (Dan. ix. 25).

May we know the great misery of indwelling sin and the excellence of no peace with it.