Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

God’s Promises

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Colin S. Smith, The Plan (The Gospel Coalition Booklets; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), pp. 15, 21–22, 29:

The Old Testament is the story of God’s amazing promises. Step back and try to take it in:

  1. God promises to give life to people who will reflect his glory.
  2. God promises to destroy evil and rid the world of its curse.
  3. God promises to bless people from all nations.
  4. God promises to reconcile sinners to himself through a sacrifice for sins.
  5. God promises that his people will live under the blessing of his rule forever.
  6. God promises that all his people will walk in all his ways.
  7. God promises to bring new life from the grave. . . .

Here is the breathtaking sweep of what God promises us in Jesus Christ. Jesus came and lived and died and rose again so that: [Read more…] about God’s Promises

Father, That Debt Is Paid

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Bryan Chapell, What Is the Gospel? (The Gospel Coalition Booklets; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), p. 10:

Since the Son of God had no sin, his willingness to suffer on a cross and accept the penalty we deserve is far beyond any recompense that humanity could provide. Christ’s righteousness so overbalances our unrighteousness that his sacrifice is sufficient to compensate for the sin of the entire world and of all ages (Rom. 5:15–19; Heb. 9:26–28; 1 Pet. 3:18; 1 John 2:2). God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice as a substitute for our punishment (1 Pet. 2:24). He paid the debt to justice we could not pay (Ps. 47:7–9; Titus 2:11–14). His suffering atones for (covers) our wrongs (1 John 4:10). His death rescues us from the hell we deserve (Gal. 3:13–14).

For those of us who wrestle with guilt, Christ’s provision is amazingly good news. In prison my brother David cannot pay the debt for crimes he has committed any more than we who are guilty of sin can clear the debt we owe a holy God for our breaking his law. Yet because Jesus came to pay our spiritual debt despite our spiritual destitution, David and you and I can live with hearts free of shame.

Chapell weaves the story of his brother throughout the 30-page booklet.

Eschatological Essentials

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Sam Storms, The Restoration of All Things (The Gospel Coalition Booklets; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), pp. 7–8 (numbering added):

The eschatological hope of the Christian is summarized well in the thirteenth and final article of The Gospel Coalition’s Confessional Statement. This statement does not address the variety of end-time scenarios present in the evangelical world but is designed to identify those essential elements of our eschatological hope that are embraced by all who affirm the authority of the inspired text. It is, therefore, a broadly evangelical statement that avoids the denominational and sectarian distinctives that have so often marred the discussion of God’s end-time purposes. It reads as follows:

  1. We believe in the personal, glorious, and bodily return of our Lord Jesus Christ with his holy angels,
  2. when he will exercise his role as final Judge,
  3. and his kingdom will be consummated.
  4. We believe in the bodily resurrection of both the just and the unjust—the unjust to judgment and eternal conscious punishment in hell, as our Lord himself taught,
  5. and the just to eternal blessedness in the presence of him who sits on the throne and of the Lamb, in the new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness.
  6. On that day the church will be presented faultless before God by the obedience, suffering, and triumph of Christ, all sin purged and its wretched effects forever banished.
  7. God will be all in all and his people will be enthralled by the immediacy of his ineffable holiness, and everything will be to the praise of his glorious grace.

Related:

  1. Schreiner: From Amil to Premil
  2. Are Millennial Views Essential?
  3. Mark Dever on the Function of Statements of Faith

 

Goldberg Variations

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It’s Bach around the clock at my house these days. God blessed us with the birth of our second child last weekend, and Gloria Grace is becoming well-acquainted with Bach’s masterful music, especially his “Goldberg Variations.”

Compare what I wrote in 2007:

Glenn Gould Plays Bach’s “Goldberg Variations”

Glenn Gould’s (Wikipedia) recordings of the Goldberg Variations by J. S. Bach are among my all-time favorites. Amazon has excerpts of both his 1955 and 1981 recordings.

My favorite is his 1981 recording, which I’ve probably listened to more than any other piece in my music collection (over 200 times according to iTunes, but that doesn’t count years of listening to it on cassette tape and then CD prior to importing it to iTunes).

You can also watch him play on Google video (though I admit that he is eccentric!).

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6984208089899995423#

Brilliant. Masterful. Edifying. And as Bach would say, Soli Deo gloria.

What do cessationists and continuationists have in common?

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Kevin DeYoung, The Holy Spirit (The Gospel Coalition Booklets; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), pp. 21–22:

Those Controversial Gifts

I would be remiss in talking about spiritual gifts if I didn’t say something about the debate over the “miraculous gifts.” On the one side are cessationists, who claim that some of the gifts, such as tongues and prophecy, ceased after the apostolic age. They contend:

  1. The miraculous gifts were needed only as authenticating signs for the initial establishing of the gospel and the church.
  2. First Corinthians 13:8–10 says that prophecy, tongues, and knowledge will cease “when the perfect comes.” A minority of cessationists contends that the “perfect” came with the completion of the Bible.
  3. Revelatory gifts such as tongues and prophecy undermine the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.
  4. The miraculous gifts we see today are not analogous to the gifts exercised in the New Testament.

On the other side are continuationists, who claim that all the gifts are available today. They argue:

  1. Without a clear word to the contrary, we should assume all the gifts are still in effect and earnestly desire them (1 Cor. 14:1).
  2. The “perfect” in 1 Corinthians 13 refers to the return of Christ, not to the close of the canon (and, it must be pointed out, many cessationists accept this exegesis, too, but draw different conclusions).
  3. Revelatory gifts do not have the same authority as Scripture. They must always be tested.
  4. Whether or not the gifts are identical with the first century, we should welcome the Spirit’s work in our midst.

I believe both sides have come to see that they agree on more than they once thought. They agree that: [Read more…] about What do cessationists and continuationists have in common?

KJB

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This 90-minute film releases in the United States today: KJB: The Book That Changed the World.

Jenni and I enjoyed watching it last week.

  • The film focuses on the intriguing politics behind the making of the KJV.
  • It’s superbly narrated by John Rhys-Davies, who played Gimli the dwarf in The Lord of the Rings.
  • The acting is well done.
  • It includes two brief commentaries by Carl Trueman.

Here’s a three-minute preview:

Do the TGC Council Members Agree on the Creation-Evolution Issue?

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Andrew M. Davis, Creation (The Gospel Coalition Booklets; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), p. 12 (numbering added):

The stakeholders of The Gospel Coalition are not on the same page with respect to all the details, but all of us insist

  1. that God alone is self-existing,
  2. that he is the creator of all,
  3. that he made everything good,
  4. that Adam and Eve were historical figures from whom the rest of the human race has sprung, and
  5. that the fundamental problem we face was introduced by human idolatry and rebellion and the curse they attracted.

The reasons for holding such matters to be nonnegotiable are bound up with many passages of Scripture, not just the opening chapters of Genesis. For example, Paul tells us that God “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26).

You can hear Andy Davis preach on Genesis 1–3 in his series on Genesis.

Beginning with God

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Why does The Gospel Coalition’s Confessional Statement begin with God instead of Scripture or epistemology?

D. A. Carson (who drafted the statement) and Tim Keller explain in Gospel-Centered Ministry (The Gospel Coalition Booklets; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), p. 6:

We also thought it was important to begin our confession with God rather than with Scripture. This is significant. The Enlightenment was overconfident about human rationality. Some strands of it assumed it was possible to build systems of thought on unassailable foundations that could be absolutely certain to unaided human reason. Despite their frequent vilification of the Enlightenment, many conservative evangelicals have nevertheless been shaped by it. This can be seen in how many evangelical statements of faith start with the Scripture, not with God. They proceed from Scripture to doctrine through rigorous exegesis in order to build (what they consider) an absolutely sure, guaranteed-true-to-Scripture theology.

The problem is that this is essentially a foundationalist approach to knowledge. It ignores the degree to which our cultural location affects our interpretation of the Bible, and it assumes a very rigid subject-object distinction. It ignores historical theology, philosophy, and cultural reflection. Starting with the Scripture leads readers to the overconfidence that their exegesis of biblical texts has produced a system of perfect doctrinal truth. This can create pride and rigidity because it may not sufficiently acknowledge the fallenness of human reason.

We believe it is best to start with God, to declare (with John Calvin, Institutes 1.1) that without knowledge of God we cannot know ourselves, our world, or anything else. If there is no God, we would have no reason to trust our reason.