Revelation 12:10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.

Jesus is the constant mediator. Jesus is the constant advocate.

Satan is the constant accuser.

The law of God also accuses our conscience. And the grace of God in the Gospel, Jesus himself, answers the law’s thunderings.

Satan has plenty to work with in the law, and in my life and yours. It is no wonder he accuses us “day and night” before God.

Have you thought what the devil would do if he took to the pulpit of a church? [Continue reading]

UPDATE: A great intro to Luther is “Luther for Armchair Theologians” written by Steven Paulson, a speaker at the recent Mockingbird Conference. Also, New Reformation Press has lots of Lutheran theology resources at 10% off right now.

Apparently, by the email count, I’ve said something right.

Earlier in the day, Blue Raja and I had a discussion at the Boar’s Head Tavern about an earlier post where I quoted a Semi-Pelagian IM commenter. It’s discouraging to read that the atonement “opened the door” for us to now live a life worthy of the Kingdom of God. As I usually do, I expressed my despair at these kinds of “living to please God” systems of salvation and the blatant dishonesty they encourage and despair they induce.

So here was one of my replies.

The Gospel was never good news for me until Luther helped me see that life could continue to be tragic. I never worry about abundant life doing more than the occasional appearance in the present. I’m content with Christ in the shadowlands if he guarantees to raise me from the dead and bring me home.

This keeps coming back to me from readers who say it’s hit home with them, and where can they find more.

Before I talk about finding more of that, let me assure you that I responded to the Lutheran altar call a very long time ago. [Continue reading]

NOTE: Despite the fact that this post is law, you should still read it

I want to talk about a specific problem in preaching and teaching: the problem of preferring law over Gospel.

I consider the primary problem with preaching and teaching in my Southern Baptist tradition these days to be an obsession with (or addiction to?) preaching the “law.” To put it mildly, it’s brutal out there. In many churches and ministries, you’re getting clubbed into putty with the law and hearing slightly less Gospel than what you’d get in fifteen minutes of country music, all courtesy of a preacher who has no excuse not to know better.

I’m using the simple Lutheran “law/Gospel” division here: all of scripture is either what God commands/demands under penalty or what he promises/provides freely by grace. This is law and Gospel. “Do” or “Done.” Moses or Jesus. God the accountant older brother or God the Father of the Prodigal. Advice or announcement. Sinai or the cross. Threat or comfort. Blessing or curse. You do it or else. God did and praise.

If you get this, Luther said, you are a theologian even without the degree. So if you don’t know this, learn it, and if ou learn it, use it. Go to New Reformation Press and get you some Rod Rosenbladt or, if you’re up for it, the book by Walther. (Lutherans can make suggestions for the rest of us on this.) [Continue reading]

6: 9 Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, 10 or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. 11 Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. -Paul the Apostle, First Letter to the Corinthians

I’ve always been encouraged that there is so much discussion of the Gospel in the Christian blogosphere, but I’ve been disappointed where most of that discussion has focused. I’m sure there’s a great need to clarify the differences between Piper and Wright on the nature of justification, but I doubt that the church on the corner has many people walking in the doors who particularly care. (Oh, I know that the theologians among us can tell us why they should care, but the theological class has never suffered from a lack of confidence in the significance of their particular areas of interest, yours truly included.) [Continue reading]

I’ve got a new hot button. I experienced it this week and I think it’s best to warn the general public that until I make some progress in sanctification, pushing this button could result in an ugly scene.

(Before I say this, I know there are a bunch of books on this subject and I’ve read some of them. I could just recommend a good book, but I need to get this off my chest.)

My new hot button is “You need to pray until you find God’s will.”

First of all, I believe in God, and I believe he has a will. I believe God sovereignly runs the universe pretty much like the Westminister/Second London Confessions say, though I have absolutely no idea what that means other than God is in control in a way I can’t understand and am not capable of understanding. (My brain is too small.) It’s an assertion, and as much as I know God only in Jesus, it’s a comfort. [Continue reading]

Riffs are commentary on other blog posts that Michael feels are particularly significant.

Read Tim Brister’s post, Where Extraordinary Grace and Celestial Joy Meet.

I’ve been around Tom Ascol on occasion for more than 20 years. If you know much about the (dreaded) Founder’s movement, then you know everything I am about to say here, and everything that Timmy says in this post on an incident of restoration at Grace Baptist, Cape Coral, Florida, last night.

If Tom Ascol were Michael Spencer, or just about anyone else, the Founder’s movement, and the good fruit that has come from it (and you have no idea, folks. Really) would have almost certainly never come about. Grace Church would be on pastor five and the big issue would be whether to turn the music up to 11.

Tom is smart and articulate and ten other things, but he’s a pretty average guy in a lot of others. With all due respect to Tom, he’s what we call where I work “a plodder.” He’s not slow, he’s just not in a hurry. He does what’s right today, and twenty years later he’s still doing what’s right. He’s not out to grab hold of the next new thing or be credited for jaw-dropping innovation. He’s content to do the faithful thing that others have given up on, to show you that it can be done. When you’ve given up, quit, burned out and otherwise become of little use, Tom is still there, doing what he was doing when you started, keeping his hand to the plow and not looking back. [Continue reading]

Read: The Merger of Calvinism With Worldliness by Peter Masters.

The current reformed and Calvinist revival loves Spurgeon, as well they should. It’s a regular feature of the most influential new-Calvinism web sites and ministries to quote Spurgeon for and against whatever the issue of the week happens to be. Spurgeon’s face is as much a brand logo of the new Calvinism as you will find.

Spurgeon’s church, The Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, is still in business, and that church has a prominent pastor, Dr. Peter Masters, who has a very influential voice for Calvinism across the pond. Dr. Masters isn’t a major voice in America, but many of the Calvinists you like, especially of the Macarthur variety, have been to the Tabernacle and preached at Dr. Master’s conferences.

His newsletter is still The Sword and Trowel, an obvious indicator that it remains the voice of Spurgeon’s kind of Christianity. It is not an exaggeration to say that Dr. Peter Masters sees himself as a successor to Spurgeon’s brand of particular Baptist Calvinism, and he writes and preaches with this responsibility frequently in view. Be careful. I am not saying Dr. Masters claims any of the authority of Spurgeon, but he does not run from representing his views on Biblical Calvinism as in line with the Calvinism and overall theology of Spurgeon.

So, if you will, please take a cold drink, follow the link to Dr. Master’s column on the current condition of American Calvinism, and when you’re done, return to this web site for a few observations. [Continue reading]

Hey Michael,

Love your podcasts…and your take on Christianity in general…so, in 3 sentences or less, what is your take on the Doctrine of Election?

Can’t wait to read what you have to say.

bobby

Scripture teaches it in the context of God’s overall redemptive purposes and in the Christian doctrine of assurance.
When it is abused, it is almost always in the context of evangelism, ecclesiology or Christian experience.
It’s a doctrine that is expressed in revelation, but is understood only as a mystery, so quit explaining it.

BeAttitude gives his reasons for Why He Walked Away From Christianity. Don’t skip this. Read it carefully and don’t start talking. Just listen.

1. I always want to commend anyone who moves to a position of authenticity for themselves. If you don’t believe the claims of your own Christian community, then by all means please move to a position where you are able to say “This is what I do believe.” What you don’t believe is a step along the way. We’ve got thousands of Christians who are actually unbelievers, agnostics and atheists. We’d all be better off to ring a bell and go to our real position. Even if it makes mom and dad cry, which it will.

2. The hand of the new atheists is heavily apparent here. If you don’t believe their assault on the Christian faith and religion in general are making an impact, you’re out to lunch. Their arguments may be weak and answerable, but they are persuasive to millions of ordinary people. Most Christians won’t be professional apologists and they aren’t coming to your seminar or class. For many people, a Chris Hitchens or a Sam Harris are devastatingly confident voices of self-proclaimed reason. Investigation may prove otherwise, but that’s hardly well-publicized or well communicated.

3. The hand of shallow evangelical thinking is just as apparent. Does this read like Bart Ehrman’s discovery that inerrancy wasn’t true? Yes, and I say where are the evangelicals with the courage- and that’s what it will take- to say that simplistic inerrancy isn’t the default Christian position? Where is the awareness that the vast majority of the Christian world isn’t playing by the rules of a minority segment of evangelicalism determined to make their ideas of inerrancy the definition of Christianity. Read the Catholic Catechism on the inspiration of scripture, for goodness sake. Find out why you don’t have to have your faith detonated like Ehrman did, by a bomb that was defused long, long ago. [Continue reading]

UPDATE: Interesting column on the paradoxes of Calvinism.

Udo Middleman on “The Islamization of Christianity.”

This post is, without a doubt, an experiment in exploration and articulation. Many won’t care for where it goes, but I think a basic question must be answered, not just for the sake of answering atheists, but for understanding our own faith as “Christian humanism.”

A Facebook friend just asked me if I wanted to become a “fan” of Jonathan Edwards.

Too bad there’s isn’t a “NOT a fan” option, because I’m not a fan.

One of my consistent critics- who is also a respected friend- called to mind a statement I’d made in the past about the problem of being “too God-centered.” He was obviously wondering it, with time and reflection, I’d thought better of that phrase and wanted to repent.

Answer: No. It still concerns me. Not whether all things are centered in, related to, dependent on, destined for and exist to glorify God, but whether some expressions of Christianity can become so God-focused that the significance of what is not God- including all things in human experience- are devalued and even distorted to the point of confusion in the minds of God loving/God believing people.

I’ve sensed, as long as I have been around my intensely theological Protestant (mostly reformed and evangelical) brothers and sisters, a kind of clumsiness with the subject of the significance of anything in human experience. By clumsiness I mean that these matters are handled, but the constant pressure to be singularly God centered and God focused makes it difficult to handle both God and human life at once without one overwhelming the other. [Continue reading]

Some of you may not know that I moderate and contribute at Boarsheadtavern.com, one of the longest running group blogs in the blogosphere. Often, we will have a question addressed to the group as a “Question of the Day.” Yesterday, one of the “fellows” asked a question about how a Christian married couple could resolve what seemed to be an irreconcilable difference regarding how many children they should have.

It’s not a question I’ve eve experienced, but I’ve faced similar issues in counseling, so I jumped in with some comments, as did several other contributors, but upon reflection later, I posted again. Here’s that post. [Continue reading]

I’m thinking about grace a lot today after a bit of a mystical experience in church Sunday.

As we were preparing for communion, I was praying. The Spirit brought to mind a series of dark incidents from my own life where God was miraculously gracious to me. I’m not talking about small matters. I am talking about incidents and character failures- most of which I’ve exiled from my mind and memories- where God alone is responsible for the fact that I was not fired, humiliated, divorced, dead or immersed in grief and suffering. Incidents that, if God had allowed them to be, would have been life defining in consequence.

These are moments and situations I know about. Only God knows the very many I don’t know about. These are crossroads moments where my life could have easily gone the route of people whose names we all know for their failures and mistakes, but God graciously intervened or overruled. [Continue reading]

NOTE: Many of today’s commenters should go to New Reformation Press and buy that “Weak On Sanctification” shirt. You’d look good in it.

Some texts related to being “connected” to Jesus in salvation by faith and in growing as disciples into Christlikeness.

Justification by grace, Kingdom discipleship and growth following. No “”Jesus disconnect here”:

Colossians 1:9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

[Continue reading]

It appears to me that the most misunderstood of the solas is “sola deo Gloria.” I’m especially interested in the Catholic take that God “shares” his glory with the saints.

Do reformation Christians really believe that “glory” belongs to God alone? Or do we, like our Catholic friends, believe that God shares his glory with those who are “glorified?” What is the relationship between the “sola” glory of God and a “glorious” anything else? (Like the universe, for example?)

Question: What does it mean to say “Glory to God alone?” And how do we practice it?

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God…(Galatians 4:9a, English Standard Version)

I’ve been teaching Galatians for over a year, and I happened to cross this verse this week, a week marked by the passing of one of my most significant mentors. She exemplified many things in my life, but one of the most significant was her amazing hunger for the teaching of the Word of God. She had a quick and focused mind that was always taking in a sermon or a book of theology or Biblical teaching. Right up until her last few months, she was accumulating knowledge about God.

It’s interesting to me that Paul interrupts himself in Galatians 4- almost corrects himself- to say that the better way to describe the Christian experience is coming to be known rather than coming to know. People who make this kind of distinction can be a bit irritating.

But there’s a reason to make such a distinction, and it’s very important we make it. [Continue reading]