What is the Gospel?

Tim Keller, Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC, a champion for gospel and gospel-centered ministry expounds Isaiah 53 and 54, to explain what the gospel does. He begins by noting that the gospel is neither “moral conformity religion” nor is it “self-discovery secularism”.  

From this passage in Isaiah, Keller points out three results that come from the gospel. The gospel brings, Keller says, “restructuring of your heart, removal of your sin and reversal of your values.” Keller preaches persuasively about the “costly grace” of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and how change happens in us only “when the gospel is intellectually coherent and existentially melting”. This sermon beautifully pictures the kind of people the gospel produces.

The Gospel  Listen  | Download

Contending For Truth : History of the Modern Gospel - 3

History of the Modern Gospel is a video series from RTM ministries, which tracks the history of the modern, sub-biblical gospel, espoused by a vast majority of Evangelicals today. As it tracks the history of the Evangelical church, it highlights key theological compromises committed by Christians of the previous century. Hosted by Michael Durham, this video series also presents a biblical response to these errors in the popular understanding of the gospel. Presented in a very interesting manner, these videos are both entertaining and enlightening.  Theoblogy had blogged about this series in two parts earlier. Watch the first part here and second here. In this third and final part, we have the two final clips which complete this series. The whole series can be bought in DVD here.

7. Session#6 – Good for Goodness’ Sake
 God cares for the poor. God cares for the downtrodden. But social justice for all is not the gospel. A growing number of churches and people in American Christianity are making the gospel more about helping others and being charitable than men being reconciled to God in righteousness. This is not new, yet each generation sees a new birth of the philosophy called the social gospel.

8. Session#7 - Jesus is the Gospel

 So far, this series has looked at what the Gospel is not, giving glimpses along the way of what the gospel is. In our final session, we simply look to Jesus to discover the good news.

The Sum of the Christian Life

In one of his sermons, preached towards the end of his life, the reformer Martin Luther, expounding I Tim 1:5-7, explains the difference between faith and love, justification before God and that before man. He concludes how faith in the one Mediator and clinging to Him and His righteousness alone is the sum of the Christian life. He says,

This, then, is the right, pure doctrine, which should be cultivated and in which the people should be instructed so they can tell how they are to be justified both before God and before men, and so that they will not interchange and mix up faith and love or life toward God and life toward men.  This is what those vainglorious preachers should be doing, since they want to be regarded as masters of the law, in order that it may be well known and observed in Christendom.  For even when it is taught in the best possible way it is difficult enough to learn it well, especially for us, who have been so habituated and trained in the doctrine of works and pointed only to the law and ourselves.  And besides this add our own nature, which is itself inclined in this direction.  It is thus so rooted and strengthened by habit and the heart so strongly influenced that we cannot get away from it or think anything except that, if I have lived a holy life and done many great works, God will be gracious to me.  Thus we must contend both with our nature and with strong habit.  And it will be exceedingly difficult to get into another habit of thinking in which we clearly separate faith and love for the muck still sticks and clings to us, even though we are now in faith, so that the heart is always ready to boast of itself before God and say:  After all, I have preached so long and lived so well and done so much, surely he will take this into account.  We even want to haggle with God to make him regard our life and for our sake turn his judgment seat into a mercy seat.  But it cannot be done.  With men you may boast:  I have done the best I could toward everyone, and if anything is lacking I will still try to make recompense.  But when you come before God, leave all that boasting at home and remember to appeal from justice to grace.

Let anybody try this and he will see and experience how exceedingly hard and bitter a thing it is for a man, who all his life has been mired in his work righteousness, to pull himself out of it and with all his heart rise up through faith in this one Mediator.  I myself have now been preaching and cultivating it through reading and writing for almost twenty years and still I feel the old clinging dirt of wanting to deal so with God that I may contribute something, so that he will have to give me his grace in exchange for my holiness.  And still I cannot get it into my head that I should surrender myself completely to sheer grace;  yet this is what I should and must do.  The mercy seat alone must prevail and remain, because he himself has established it;  otherwise no man can come before God. [1]

I say that, if we are ever to stand before God with a right and uncolored faith, we must come to the point where we learn clearly to distinguish and separate between ourselves, our life, and Christ the mercy seat. But he who will not do this, but immediately runs headlong to the judgment seat, will find it all right and get a good knock on the head.  I have been there myself and was so burnt that I was glad I was able to come to the mercy seat.  And now I am compelled to say:  Even though I may have lived a good life before men, let everything I have done or failed to do remain there under the judgment seat as God sees fit, but, as for me, I know of no other comfort, help, or counsel for my salvation except that Christ is my mercy seat, who did no sin or evil and both died and rose again for me, and now sits at the right hand of the Father and takes me to himself under his shadow and protection, so that I need have no doubt that through him I am safe before God from all wrath and terror.  Thus faith remains pure and unalloyed, because then it makes no pretensions and seeks no glory or comfort save in the Lord Christ alone. [2]

 

Footnotes  

----------------

[1] Martin Luther, The Sum of the Christian Life, Luther's Works Vol. 51, p. 284;

[2] Ibid, p. 282

 

What is Covenant Theology?

Here is an excerpt of the excellent answer given by Ligon Duncan III PhD, Senior Minister of First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi, to the question of what covenant theology is,

Covenant theology is the Gospel set in the context of God’s eternal plan of communion with his people, and its historical outworking in the covenants of works and grace (as well as in the various progressive stages of the covenant of grace).  Covenant theology explains the meaning of the death of Christ in light of the fullness of the biblical teaching on the divine covenants, undergirds our understanding of the nature and use of the sacraments, and provides the fullest possible explanation of the grounds of our assurance.

To put it another way, Covenant theology is the Bible’s way of explaining and deepening our understanding of: (1) the atonement [the meaning of the death of Christ]; (2) assurance [the basis of our confidence of communion with God and enjoyment of his promises]; (3) the sacraments [signs and seals of God’s covenant promises — what they are and how they work]; and (4) the continuity of redemptive history [the unified plan of God’s salvation]. Covenant theology is also an hermeneutic, an approach to understanding the Scripture — an approach that attempts to biblically explain the unity of biblical revelation.

 When Jesus wanted to explain the significance of His death to His disciples, He went to the doctrine of the covenants (see Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, 1 Corinthians 11). When God wanted to assure Abraham of the certainty of His word of promise, He went to the covenant (Genesis 12, 15, and 17).  When God wanted to set apart His people, ingrain His work in their minds, tangibly reveal Himself in love and mercy, and confirm their future inheritance, He gave the covenant signs (Genesis 17, Exodus 12, 17, and 31, Matthew 28, Acts 2, Luke 22).  When Luke wanted to show early Christians that Jesus’ life and ministry were the fulfillment of God’s ancient purposes for His chosen people, he went to the covenants and quoted Zacharias’ prophecy which shows that believers in the very earliest days of  ‘the Jesus movement’ understood Jesus and His messianic work as a fulfillment (not a ‘Plan B’) of God’s covenant with Abraham (Luke 1:72-73). When the Psalmist and the author of Hebrews want to show how God’s redemptive plan is ordered and on what basis it unfolds in history, they went to the covenants (see Psalm 78, 89, Hebrews 6-10).

“The doctrine of the covenant lies at the root of all true theology.  It has been said that he who well understands the distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, is a master of divinity.  I am persuaded that most of the mistakes which men make concerning the doctrines of Scripture, are based upon fundamental errors with regard to the covenant of law and of grace.  May God grant us now the power to instruct, and you the grace to receive instruction on this vital subject.” Who said this?  C.H. Spurgeon — the great English Baptist preacher!  Certainly a man beyond our suspicion of secretly purveying a Presbyterian view of the sacraments to the unsuspecting evangelical masses.

Covenant theology flows from the trinitarian life and work of God.  God’s covenant communion with us is modeled on and a reflection of the intra-trinitarian relationships.  The shared life, the fellowship of the persons of the Holy Trinity, what theologians call perichoresis or circumincessio, is the archetype of the relationship the gracious covenant God shares with His elect and redeemed people.  God’s commitments in the eternal covenant of redemptive find space-time realization in the covenant of grace. [1]

Footnotes  

----------------

[1]  Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III, What is Covenant Theology, FPC Jackson Sermons.

Meditating on the Glory of Christ

In the 1680s when the greatest theologian of the English speaking world, John Owen was dying, he came up with his last book, a discourse on the glory of Christ. The book is packed with meditations on the glory of Christ – His person, office and grace. In the preface, Owen notes why meditating on the glory of Christ ought be the diligent business of every Christian.  Owen says,

The revelation made of Christ in the blessed gospel is far more excellent, more glorious, and more filled with rays of divine wisdom and goodness, than the whole creation and the just comprehension of it, if attainable, can contain or afford. Without the knowledge hereof, the mind of man, however priding itself in other inventions and discoveries, is wrapped up in darkness and confusion. This, therefore, deserves the severest of our thoughts, the best of our meditations, and our utmost diligence in them. For if our future blessedness shill consist in being where he is, and beholding of his glory, what better preparation can there be for it than in a constant preview contemplation of that glory in the revelation that is made in the Gospel, unto this very end, that by a view of it we may be gradually transformed into the same glory? [1]

When William Payne, the editor of Owen’s book on the glory of Christ, visited him near the end, Owen said to him, “O, brother Payne, the long-wished for day is come at last, in which I shall see the glory in another manner than I have ever done or was capable of doing in this world.” [2] John Owen thus died meditating on the glory of Christ and with a deep and joyful conviction that death is not the termination but the consummation of his enjoyment of Christ.  Owen describes the kind of restful life one would live if meditating on the gospel glories of Jesus Christ is one’s chief delight,

Our beholding by faith things that see not seen, things spiritual and eternal, will alienate all our afflictions, — make their burden light, and preserve our souls from fainting under them. Of these things the glory of Christ, whereof we treat, is the principal, and in due sense comprehensive of them all. For we behold the glory of God himself "in the face of Jesus Christ." He that can at all times retreat unto the contemplation of this glory, will be carried above the perplexing prevailing sense of any of these evils, of a confluence of them all. "Crux nil sentit in nervo, dum animus est in coelo." (One does not feel the pain of the cross when his mind is on heavenly things.) [3]

Footnotes  

----------------

[1]  John Owen, Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ in His Person, Office, and Grace, in The Works of John Owen, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965), 275.

[2] Peter Toon, God’s Statesman: The Life and Work of John Owen (1971; reprint, Eugene, Ore.:Wipf & Stock, 2005), 171.

[3] John Owen, Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ in His Person, Office, and Grace, in The Works of John Owen, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965), 278.

Why Justification Is Not By Works

The Bible is emphatic in its teaching that God’s justification of sinful mankind is not by works of the law, but by faith alone in Christ alone. Despite the clarity of the Scriptures regarding this most crucial doctrine, much of Christendom is caught up in a works-driven religion. Justification as a free gift appropriated by faith alone is truly a humbling doctrine for our proud race. 

  

Expounding Paul from Galatians 2:15-21, Jonathan Christman, pastor of Heritage Baptist church, Owensboro, Kentucky, states four main reasons why justification is not by works alone. Christman argues that justification by works of the law is first of all futile, secondly sinful, thirdly self-centered and finally blasphemous. This message is not just for unbelievers but also for believers to know what kind of salvation they have received. To fully grow in our salvation, we need constant reminders of our justification and how it is entirely by grace alone and through faith alone. This will help believers from drifting into a works based relationship with God and enable them to stand on Christ alone.  At the end of the day, none of us are accepted before God due to our piety or devotion or obedience. Rather it is only on the basis of the atonement work and  the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ alone. Grasping this truth is of utmost importance in a believers life. A believer who embraces this liberating truth of God’s gracious justification in Christ would make much progress in his sanctification, daily disciplines and in his ministry to others.

A large section of Christians sadly do not believe in preaching these gospel truths to believers. They have moved away from the gospel into some “weighty doctrines”, not understanding that we cannot divorce our teachings on the Christian life from the central message of the Bible – the gospel of God’s grace. At the center of this central message lies justification by faith alone in Christ alone.

Note To Self : Death To Self  Listen | Download

Treasuring Christ Above All Things

Living Dangerously For the Glory of God

Albert Mohler Jr. serves as the President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Here is an excerpt from a recent convocation message, Mohler preached  at Southern Seminary, entitled "The Year of Living Dangerously". 

A Reformed Missiology

In 1987 John Piper preached at a missions conference on the importance of having a biblical foundation for missions. Piper’s presentation can be divided into three broad sections. In the first section, he argues from present day realities, the biblical mandate and historical facts, how missions need to have a strong doctrinal basis for its healthy progress. In his second section, Piper moves onto expounding a theology for missions from the gospel of John. After having developed a picture of missions from the Word, he comes to his final section of application. 

  

He began his sermon by considering the present status of missions across the globe. He lamented over three observations : i) the greatness of the unfinished task,  ii) the superficiality of the faith of professing Christians and iii) absence of strong leaders who can feed and fire the churches.  To all of these three problems, Piper suggests one crucial answer which is, The doctrinal basis of faith and missions is too narrow.

Piper says, The depth and breadth of doctrinal understanding thought to be important for Christians and missionaries has been too shallow and too narrow. This low standard of biblical understanding is then passed on to the younger churches. The result is that the initial enthusiasm has no deep roots, and leadership in biblical study is not prized, and nominalism sets in.  The erroneous notion prevails that a broad and deep understanding of biblical doctrine is for the advanced saints or, perhaps, just for scholars, but not for simple missionaries and certainly not for their converts. But this is not true. Paul says in Ephesians 4:13-14 that the only way ordinary people will cease to be children tossed to and fro by winds of false teaching and by the cunning of men is if they come to full manhood in knowledge—the knowledge of the Son of God. This is not the goal of an elite, educated few! It is the biblical mandate for every believer! You!

He then goes onto list 11 values of biblical truth as follows :

Biblical truth frees from Satan (John 8:32; 2 Timothy 2:24-26).

Biblical truth mediates grace and peace (2 Peter 1:2).

Biblical truth sanctifies (John 17:17; 2 Peter 1:3, 5, 12; 2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Biblical truth serves love (Philippians 1:9).

Biblical truth protects from error (Ephesians 4:11-15; 2 Peter 3:17-18).

Biblical truth saves (1 Timothy 4:16; Acts 20:26-27; 2 Thessalonians 2:10).

Biblical truth is the ideal of heaven (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Biblical truth will be resisted by some (2 Timothy 4:1-5).

Biblical truth is the duty of elders (Titus 1:9).

Biblical truth is approved by God (2 Timothy 2:15).

Biblical truth should continually increase (2 Peter 3:18; Colossians 1:10; Hebrews 5:12).

Piper then argues from history how the state of affairs were different in the bygone age, especially during the beginning days of the modern missionary movement. He illustrates this using William Carey’s experience in India and then notes,  So the modern missionary movement got its start in an atmosphere of strong doctrinal commitments. They were the commitments of the great American pastor and theologian, Jonathan Edwards. Edwards wrote the Life of David Brainerd, the young New England missionary—a biography that deeply influenced Carey….The keynote of Edwards' and Carey's theology was the centrality of God and the glory of his sovereign grace. The origin of Baptist missions sprang up among pastors in England who were decidedly doctrinal in their life and preaching. Andrew Fuller, Samuel Pearce, John Sutcliffe and William Carey were all of this sort. Their majestic view of God moved them to lay claim to the nations on his behalf and the modern missionary movement was born. Later on such names as David Livingstone, Adoniram Judson, Alexander Duff, John Paton, etc. were driven by the same vision. They were what some people call Calvinists though none of them cared for labels. They loved the historic doctrines of Biblical Christianity, and if Calvin taught them so be it.

In the next section of his sermon, he focuses on the gospel of John and develops a doctrinal basis for doing missions by knowing the God of John’s gospel, Whose sovereignty, Piper argues,  is the glorious and gracious foundation for missions.  His key text is John 10:16 and Piper argues that to understand this missionary promise of Christ we have to take notice of at least six things in the context of John 10.

The six observations are  :

1) Jesus calls himself a shepherd.

2) This leads to the second observation, namely, that in John 10 some sheep are Christ’s and some are not.

3) A third observation: The reason some sheep belonged to Jesus so that he could call them his own is that God the Father had given them to the Son.

4) A fourth observation follows: Since Jesus knows those who are his, he can call them by name; and because they are already his, they follow.

5) But that is not all that Jesus does for his sheep. Verse 11: I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

6) And on the basis of this sacrifice Jesus gives eternal life to his sheep and it can never be taken away.

Piper summarizes his observations as follows : The picture we have in John 10 is of a great shepherd who sovereignly saves his sheep. The Father gives them to him. He dies for them. He calls them by name. He gives them eternal life. And he keeps them safe forever. What a great salvation we have! What a great Savior!

Piper then moves on from exposition to application and begins with a word of warning that this teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ does not leave any room for complacency.  He condemns the Hyper-Calvinistic error and warns that the doctrine of election and predestination in John’s gospel cannot be twisted into an in-house, elitist doctrine for the private comfort of the chosen few, with no burden to reach the nations of the world.

After his warning, Piper offers four things in John 10:16 that should fill us to overflowing with confidence in our missions dreaming and planning and labor.  These are his concluding applications from the key text.

They are  :

1) Christ has people besides those already converted—other people besides us…“I have other sheep that are not of this fold.” It is a promise full of hope for those who dream about new fields of missionary labor.

2) The verse implies that the “other sheep” that Christ has are scattered outside the present fold… So we may be sure on the authority of God’s Word that among all the peoples of the world we will find people who belong to God's flock. That is a great encouragement to get on with the task of frontier missions and to reach the hidden peoples.

3) The third encouragement in John 10:16 is that the Lord has committed himself to bring his lost sheep home. He promises to do it….So we can take heart: all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to the Son of God and he declares, “I must bring in my other sheep.” He will do it.

4) Which implies the final word of hope from the text: If he brings them, they will come! “I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice.” None of Christ’s sheep finally reject his word. What else can keep you going in a hard and unresponsive place of ministry except the confidence that God reigns and that those whom the Father has chosen will heed the voice of the Son?

Piper ends his presentation with a prayer for Christians to take this Reformed missiology seriously and launch out into frontier missions for the glory of God. Piper prays for God to, deepen and broaden the biblical foundation of your vision for the world. May he open our eyes not only to the fields that are white to harvest, but also to the majesty and splendor and glory of his sovereign grace. And may we be carried over all the obstacles and discouragements by the great confidence that the Lord himself will gather the ransomed from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

Amen.

A Theology for Missions  Read

Footnotes  

----------------

[1] All quotations taken from John Piper,  A Theology for Missions, Conference on Missions Education, September 19, 1987

Dying Hard For Christ

More and more I am persuaded from Scripture and from the history of missions that God's design for the evangelization of the world and the consummation of his purposes includes the suffering of his ministers and missionaries. To put it more plainly and specifically, God designs that the suffering of his ministers and missionaries is one essential means in the joyful triumphant spread of the gospel among all the peoples of the world. [1]

With these words, John Piper begins his bio-sermon on Adoniram Judson, Jr. (9 August 1788 – 12 April 1850), the first significant missionary[2] to Burma. At the age of 25, Adoniram Judson became the first Protestant missionary sent from North America[3] to preach in Burma. In his sermon, Piper explores the sufferings and success in the life of Judson to show the cost he had to pay in bringing Christ to Burma.

Piper argues in his sermon, how this Calvinistic Baptist missionary’s death to his earthly life lead to much fruit.  Piper notes, Our Lord Jesus said to us in very solemn words, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24). Then he adds this: "Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life" (John 12:25). In other words, a fruitful life and an eternal life come from this: dying like a seed and hating your life in this world. What overwhelms me, as I ponder this and trace the life of Adoniram Judson, America's first foreign missionary, is how strategic it was that he died so many times and in so many ways.

Today the Myanmar Baptist Convention has 3,700 congregations with 617,781 members and 1,900,000 affiliates, which Piper calls is  the fruit of this dead seed.

The outline of the sermon is as follows :

1.  God's purpose to spread the gospel to all peoples.
2.  God's plan to make suffering a crucial means to accomplish this purpose.
3.  The position we are now in with regard to world evangelization.
4.  The pain of Adoniram Judson as an illustration of the truth.
5.  A plea to you to be a part of what Judson and Christ died for. 

In the first three sections, Piper lays down key principles to understand the design of God for missions. In his fourth section, he moves onto biography and uses the life and ministry of Judson as an illustration of all these principles. The final section is a plea on the basis of these biblical principles, seen in Judson’s life.  The biography section is the lengthiest one and the most moving. If you are unfamiliar with the pain of Adoniram Judson, then you will be shocked to see how a man suffered so much in his earthly life. Here is an overview of his pain, from Piper’s sermon :

• They (Adoniram and Ann Judson) were married a year and a half later on February 5, 1812, and sailed for India 12 days later with two other couples and two single men divided among two ships in case one went down. After a time in India they chose to risk Rangoon and arrived there July 13, 1813. There began a life-long battle in the 108-degree heat with cholera, malaria, dysentery, and unknown miseries that would take two of Judson's wives and seven of his 13 children, and colleague after colleague in death. 

• Eight years into their mission Ann was so ill that the only hope was a trip home. She sailed on August 21, 1821. She returned on December 5, 1823, two years and four months later. And when she arrived he had not heard from her for 10 months. If you are married and you love your wife, this is the way you die day after day for a greater good and a greater joy. 

• In 1823 Adoniram and Ann moved from Rangoon to Ava, the capital, about 300 miles inland and further up the Irrawaddy River. It was risky to be that near the despotic emperor. In May of the next year the British fleet arrived in Rangoon and bombarded the harbor. All westerners were immediately viewed as spies, and Adoniram was dragged from his home and on June 8, 1824 and put in prison. His feet were fettered and at night a long horizontal bamboo pole was lowered and passed between the fettered legs and hoisted up till only the shoulder and heads of the prisoners rested on the ground. Ann was pregnant, but walked the two miles daily to the palace to plead that Judson was not a spy and that they should have mercy. 

• The daughter, Maria, had been born..  and Ann was almost as sick and thin as Adoniram, but still pursued him with her baby to take care of him as she could. Her milk dried up, and the jailer had mercy on them and actually let Judson take the baby each evening into the village and beg for women to nurse his baby. 

• On November 4, 1825 Judson was suddenly released. The government needed him as a translator in negotiations with Britain. The long ordeal was over - 17 months in prison and on the brink of death, with his wife sacrificing herself and her baby to care for him as she could. Ann's health was broken. Eleven months later she died (October 24, 1826). And six months later their daughter died (April 24, 1827). 

• In July, three months after the death of his little girl, he got word that his father had died eight months earlier. 

• The psychological effects of theses losses were devastating. Self-doubt overtook his mind, and he wondered if he had become a missionary for ambition and fame, not humility and self-denying love…. He wrote in one letter home to Ann's relatives: "My tears flow at the same time over the forsaken grave of my dear love and over the loathsome sepulcher of my own heart." 

• He married Sarah Boardman, a missionary widow, on April 10, 1834, eight years after Ann died. They had eight children. Five survived childhood. She was a gifted partner and knew the language better than any but himself. But 11 years later she was so sick that they both set sail for America with the three oldest children. They left the three youngest behind, one of whom died before Judson returned. Judson had not been to America now for 33 years and was only returning for the sake of his wife. As they rounded the tip of Africa in September, 1845, Sarah died. The ship dropped anchor at St. Helena Island long enough to dig a grave and bury a wife and mother and then sail on.   

•  ...The old sicknesses attacked Adoniram one last time. The only hope was to send the desperately ill Judson on a voyage. On April 3, 1850 they carried Adoniram onto the Aristide Marie bound for the Isle of France with one friend, Thomas Ranney, to care for him. In his misery he would be roused from time to time by terrible pain ending in vomiting. One of his last sentences was: "How few there are who . . . who die so hard!"  At 15 minutes after 4 on Friday afternoon April 12, 1850 Adoniram Judson died at sea, away from all his family and Burmese Church. 

 When he died, the ship that was carrying him had a pagan crew. No prayers were therefore offered for him, but they just dislodged the coffin to the port and moved on. It would take four more months for the news of his death to reach his family. Judson’s life was thus all about ‘falling into the ground and dying like a seed’ for the sake of Christ.

To our question on enduring such excruciating sufferings, Piper gives the answer by showing the Calvinistic roots of Judson and his family. Piper notes, Judson was a Calvinist, but did not wear his Calvinism on his sleeve… Adoniram inherited a deep belief in the sovereignty of God. The great importance this has for my purpose here is to stress that this deep confidence in God's overarching providence through all calamity and misery sustained him to the end. He said, "If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings." … When her second child died, Ann Judson wrote, "Our hearts were bound up with this child; we felt he was our earthly all, our only source of innocent recreation in this heathen land. But God saw it was necessary to remind us of our error, and to strip us of our only little all. O, may it not be vain that he has done it. May we so improve it that he will stay his hand and say 'It is enough.'" In other words, what sustained this man and his three wives was a rock-solid confidence that God is sovereign and God is good. And all things come from his hand for the good - the incredibly painful good - of his children.

 

A robust faith in the sovereignty of God was thus the source of sustaining grace in the life of Judson. In other words, for Adoniram Judson, Calvinism, contrary to all misrepresentation, was not a hindrance to missions but the source of hope for perseverance in missions. It is hoped that this will challenge pastors to see how a radical belief in the absolute sovereignty of God over all things including the salvation of sinners and the suffering of his ministers, is a fuel for missions and not something which kills it. The whole modern missionary movement was lead by men for whom the Reformed doctrines were central and nourishing to their preaching and missionary efforts.

How Few There Are Who Die So Hard!  Listen | Download

Footnotes  

----------------

[1] All quotations of Piper from : John Piper, How Few There Are Who Die So Hard!, 2003 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors

[2] Adoniram Judson is sometimes mistakenly referred to as the first missionary to Burma, but he was actually preceded by James Chater and Richard Mardon who arrived in 1807. They were followed by Felix Carey. However, since those who came earlier did not remain very long, Judson is remembered as the first significant missionary there, as well as one of the group of the very first missionaries from America to travel overseas.

[3] Robert Torbet, Venture of Faith: The Story of the American Baptist Missionary Society

The Sovereignty of God in Missions

One of the characteristic feature of popular missionary movements today, is sadly, a great lack of proper appreciation of the gospel message. Most missions make appeal to Christians to join their cause, by showing how much earthly need - spiritual or physical, there is among the people groups they are serving. Rarely does a missionary organization appeal to the glory of the gospel message and inform the hearers the radical and joyful implications of it - to take it to the ends of the earth. In reality, if someone gets gripped by the message of the gospel, he needs little prodding to be zealous for the Great Commission. 

It is in this matter that Reformed Christians have a distinct approach to missions. Reformed Christians work out their zeal purely by working hard on their theology. For if one properly understands and appreciates the theology of the Bible, then not only would one know that he ought to be taking part in the missionary work of the church, but also would have the proper, biblical, needed and liberating motivation for doing it.  A lot of cheap zeal without knowledge that is so rampant in popular missionary movements can thus be avoided by us.

Dr. Michael Horton, the J. Gresham Machen professor of apologetics and systematic theology at Westminster Seminary California, has written a very excellent article, explaining the rationale for the imperative of the Great Commission to "Go into all the world". Horton seeks to show how the purposes of God are based on the promises of God, by focusing on the triumphant indicative given by Jesus Christ, before He commanded His disciples to go, namely, “All authority in Heaven and Earth has been given to Me”.

Horton begins his article by noting how raw zeal can trump the content of what we have been given to communicate [1] and let the message be subordinate to the mission and the evangel to evangelism. He notices the danger of taking sides on this issue of zeal and knowledge, by noting that if "zeal without knowledge" is deadly (Rom. 10:2-3), then knowledge without zeal is dead. He warns us that the Great Commission doesn't give any quarter to either of these extremes.

In the next two sections, Horton beautifully explains the relationship between the purpose of God and the promise of God, grounding the imperative to “Go” on the triumphant indicative of Jesus' sovereign authority.  He shows how the whole Bible points to God's missionary purpose and how the church's role in missions is purely a derivative of the former. He then goes through the book of John to show how the Father, the Son and the Spirit are equally involved in the historic unfolding of the eternal covenant of redemption. Horton summarizes from the passages in John as follows, The Father chose a people in Christ from the mass of fallen humanity, giving them to Christ as their Mediator, with the Spirit as the one who will give them faith and keep them in that faith to the end. Not one of those whom the Father gave to the Son will be lost.  Horton then appeals to the unity of the Bible and uses this understanding of the covenant of redemption from John to understand what Jesus meant in the Great Commission. Horton argues that the entire covenant of redemption finds it efficacy in the sovereignty of God. It is precisely because Jesus alone has the authority to save and to condemn that there is a Great Commission.

Horton then moves onto discussing the new birth and shows how new birth is only possible for fallen sinners, due to the authority that Christ has to give eternal life to all those whom the Father has chosen. Horton notes, All authority in heaven and on earth is in Christ's hands. If it were in the hands of a despot, we would never be free. If it were in our hands, we would never be saved. Because Christ has the power of life and death, however, there is not only the possibility but the assurance that there will be a church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

After having thus established the truth that the rationale for the Great Commission is the sovereignty of God in Christ, Horton draws some massive implications for those who are involved in missionary work. For that he picks Apostle Paul as his example and observes, After explaining that God "saved us...not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began" (2 Tim. 1:9), Paul—on the verge of his execution in Rome—assured Timothy, "Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory" (2 Tim. 2:10). The greatest missionary in the history of the church was driven by the gospel indicatives. Because God chose sinners from a mass of spiritual death, Christ saved them, and the Spirit gave them faith through the preaching of the gospel, Paul could go on, enduring persecution and knowing that God's purposes would be realized. Not Caesar, nor the Jewish leaders, nor the sinners to whom he preached, nor Paul himself held the personal power to save or to condemn.

Horton then exhorts us to believe in the infallible surety of the success of God’s mission of gathering His elect in Christ Jesus, through our preaching of His gospel.  He says, Because Christ accomplished his mission, ours is guaranteed success—defined by God's purposes, not ours. It is this confidence that motivates a missionary in Saudi Arabia to labor for years before witnessing a single conversion… The Father's decision is irrevocable. Christ's mission is accomplished already, and the Spirit will be just as successful in his labors. Therefore, the Great Commission cannot fail.

Even though all true Christians who embrace this truth of the sovereignty of God over all things including missions can be joyfully optimistic, we should be aware of the fact that there will be oppositions to face and persecutions to endure.  Here again Horton comes with a comforting word from the same truth of Christ’s victorious work. He says, Caesars may still rule and demand the proper temporal allegiance of their subjects (Rom. 13:1-7), but they rule at the pleasure of the Sovereign of the universe. Disease may stalk and death may claim our bodies, but it no longer has the last word: "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (1 Cor. 15:55). Our fate does not lie in the impersonal forces of nature. We are not at the mercy of insurance companies and health-care providers. Jesus Christ—not the invisible hand of the market—is Lord of all powers and principalities.... Are you rattled by the magnitude of opposition to the gospel, increasingly even in the nations once nominally committed to a vaguely Christian culture? Does the Great Commission seem threatened by the gathering forces of secularism, militant Islam, consumerism, violence, and moral relativism? These are among the "principalities and powers" that Christ has vanquished objectively, although their effects have not yet been finally and forever eliminated.Oscar Cullman compared Christ's resurrection and return in glory to "D-Day" and "V-Day" during World War II. There was first of all the landing assault that broke the back of the Nazi forces, but insurgent battles raged until victory in Europe was fully realized. Even now, Christ has crushed the head of the serpent and is setting prisoners free. All authority in heaven and on earth is given to him. Are you distressed by your lack of understanding, zeal, or faithfulness in your own discipleship, much less in your appreciation for the Great Commission? Christ is Lord! He has forgiven you all of your sins and has given you a new heart. In spite of every setback, you are assured that your Shepherd-King has already won the war!

Horton concludes his article with an appeal to pause, ponder and wonder at the glorious, triumphant indicative of the gospel before there can be any mission or evangelism. All Christians would do well in taking heed to Horton’s words of wisdom.

The Great Announcement Read

Footnotes

----------------

All quotations taken from :

[1] "The Great Announcement" , Modern Reformation, Jan./Feb, Vol. 20, No. 1 2011, Pages 12-19