pre-anesthesia musings

Getting ready to head to my wisdom-teeth surgery in about an hour, I had a few thoughts about how our soul kept through faith if we are unconscious...

Although it is by faith that the soul experiences saving union with Jesus Christ, and without faith in Christ, there is no life or salvation - it is not ultimately our faith which keeps us united to Christ, but the loving decree of God to save us and make us His own. If this were not so, and our faith were the primary and ultimate factor in our salvation, we would lose our salvation every time we sleep. But He who watches over Israel does not slumber or sleep, and He preserves our souls when our minds are in such a state that they cannot continue to exercise faith. Still we are called in all our waking moments to believe the promises of God in Jesus Christ, for He only is our life and our salvation. To do otherwise than believe in Him for all that He is to us is to deny Him to be our life and salvation. Therefore, when we believe anything, we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; and when we can neither think nor have any faith at all, the promises in which we believe remain true, and the God whom we believe remains faithful. Thus it is shown that He, and not us, is the ultimate source of salvation....

"...be not afraid"

A storm? But He who rules all things,
From rolling dice to hearts of kings,
Still speaks; my frightened heart is stayed
By, "It is I; be not afraid."

AFC-6-22-09

comprehended in Christ

"When we see that the whole sum of our salvation, and every single part of it, are comprehended in Christ, we must beware of deriving even the minutes portion of it from any other quarter.
If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that he possesses it; if we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, we shall find them in his unction; strength in his government; purity in his conception; indulgence in his nativity, in which he was made like us in all respects, in order that he might learn to sympathise with us: if we seek redemption, we shall find it in his passion; acquittal in his condemnation; remission of the curse in his cross; satisfaction in his sacrifice; purification in his blood; reconciliation in his descent to hell; mortification of the flesh in his sepulchre; newness of life in his resurrection; immortality also in his resurrection; the inheritance of a celestial kingdom in his entrance into heaven; protection, security, and the abundant supply of all blessings, in his kingdom; secure anticipation of judgment in the power of judging committed to him.
...since in him all kinds of blessings are treasured up, let us draw a full supply from him, and none from any other quarter."
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion. II.XVI.19

Jesus didn't have children - does that mean something?

Last night there were questions stirring in my mind about covenants, families and children…God works through families…at least, He did…does He still? …What is the significance of the New Testament biological family? It’s quite important, but is it the same as it was in the Old Testament? Maybe it is not…

This morning, I had one helpful thought: Jesus did not have children. So I stirred that in and dished out a few paragraphs of thoughts:

A promise of blessing was made to Abraham and his “offspring” (which Paul says refers to Christ, Gal. 3:16). During the Old Testament the blessing was transferred through the physical offspring - a physical offspring through which ultimately Christ would come. But after Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, in the line of Abraham and of David, he himself had no children. Instead, “to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God - who were born not of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God.” (John 1) After Jesus completed His earthly work and inaugurated His kingdom with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the promise of blessing was announced both to the Jews and to those who were far off “whom the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2).

In Christ and the New Testament, those things which were physically foreshadowed in the Old Testament were spiritually fulfilled - the spiritual reality being more real than the physical reality had been. For example, the physical sacrifices of the Old Testament were fulfilled with the final sacrifice of Christ, which was both physical and spiritual, and through which now believers “offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

Is it not the same with the idea of offspring? The physical generations of the Jews, to whom the law and the promises came, reached the fruition of its purpose in the generation of Jesus Christ, which was both physical and spiritual, and through whom all believers in Christ are now the spiritual children of God.

"that He may rule without distinction"

John Calvin has a beautiful description of the unfolding of the Testaments.

"Until the advent of Christ, the Lord set apart one nation, to which he confined the covenant of his grace. Moses says, “When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance,” (Deut. 32:8, 9).
In another passage he thus addresses the people: “Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed, after them, even you, above all people, as it is this day,” (Deut. 10:14, 15). That people, therefore, as if they had been the only part of mankind belonging to him he favoured exclusively with the knowledge of his name, depositing his covenant, as it were, in their bosom, manifesting to them the presence of his divinity and honouring them with all privileges. But to say nothing of other favours, the only one here considered is his binding them to him by the communion of his word, so that he was called and regarded as their God.
Meanwhile, other nations, as if they had had no kind of intercourse with him, he allowed to wander in vanity not even supplying them with the only means of preventing their destructions—viz. the preaching of his word.
Israel was thus the Lord’s favourite child the others were aliens.
Israel was known and admitted to trust and guardianship, the others left in darkness;
Israel was made holy, the others were profane; Israel was honoured with the presence of God, the others kept far aloof from him.
But on the fulness of the time destined to renew all things, when the Mediator between God and man was manifested, the middle wall of partition, which had long kept the divine mercy within the confines of Israel, was broken down, peace was preached to them who were afar off, as well as to those who were nigh, that being, together reconciled to God, they might unite as one people. Wherefore, there is now no respect of Jew or Greek, of circumcision or uncircumcision, but Christ is all and in all. To him the heathen have been given for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession (Ps. 2:8), that he may rule without distinction “from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth,” (Ps. 72:8).

"... I must not be ashamed of them."

"Many gracious persons (for many such I am persuaded there are) who differ from me, more or less, in those points which are called Calvinistic, appear desirous that the Calvinists should, for their sakes, studiously avoid every expression which they cannot approve. Yet few of them, I believe. impose a like restraint upon themselves, but think the importance of what they deem to be truth, justifies them in speaking their sentiments plainly, and strongly. May I not plead for an equal liberty? The views I have received of the doctrines of grace are essential to my peace, I could not live comfortably a day or an hour without them. I likewise believe, yea, so far as my poor attainments warrant me to speak, I know them to be friendly to holiness, and to have a direct influence in producing and maintaining a gospel conversation, and therefore I must not be ashamed of them."

- John Newton, preface to Olney Hymns

...but what fetters?

Redemption from the curse and bondage of the law is not the retraction of the law's righteous directives. Through the Gospel, the curse of the law’s impossible-to-fulfill demands is removed from us, but the moral law itself remains a lamp to our feet and light to our path, the faithful instruction of a good Master, and a reflection of that holy Christ-like character which we long to attain. Let us not think these things fetters to be thrown off by the advent of the Gospel, but fruits gleaned from Gospel blessings.
John Calvin describes the usefulness of the moral law to the believer in Book II, chapter VII of the Institutes:

“we must be freed from the fetters of the Law, if we would not perish miserably under them. But what fetters? Those of rigid and austere exaction, which remits not one iota of the demand, and leaves no transgression unpunished. To redeem us from this curse, Christ was made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree (Deut. 21:23, compared with Gal. 3:13, 4:4). In the following chapter, indeed, he says, that “Christ was made under the law, in order that he might redeem those who are under the law;” but the meaning is the same. For he immediately adds, “That we might receive the adoption of sons.” What does this mean? That we might not be, all our lifetime, subject to bondage, having our consciences oppressed with the fear of death. Meanwhile, it must ever remain an indubitable truth, that the Law has lost none of its authority, but must always receive from us the same respect and obedience.”

- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion II.VII.15

He who enables me to fight....

“’Did not God assist us, we should not only not be able to conquer, but not able even to fight.’ [Augustine]”

- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion Book II, Chap. V, section 14

The very fact that I am able to fight against sin and pursue righteousness, however feebly, ought to give me hope, in that God’s Spirit helps me and gives me a will to do good. Indeed, my heart should take great courage in the remembrance that He who enables me to fight is just as able to make me a conqueror in His good time.

How can we attribute the same work to God, to Satan, and to man?

John Calvin answers this question beautifully in The Institutes:

...Let us refer to the calamities brought upon holy Job by the Chaldeans. They having slain his shepherds, carry off his flocks. The wickedness of their deed is manifest, as is also the hand of Satan, who, as the history informs us, was the instigator of the whole. Job, however, recognises it as the work of God, saying, that what the Chaldeans had plundered, “the Lord” had “taken away.” How can we attribute the same work to God, to Satan, and to man, without either excusing Satan by the interference of God, or making God the author of the crime? This is easily done, if we look first to the end, and then to the mode of acting. The Lord designs to exercise the patience of his servant by adversity; Satan’s plan is to drive him to despair; while the Chaldeans are bent on making unlawful gain by plunder. Such diversity of purpose makes a wide distinction in the act....there is no inconsistency in attributing the same act to God, to Satan, and to man, while, from the difference in the end and mode of action, the spotless righteousness of God shines forth at the same time that the iniquity of Satan and of man is manifested in all its deformity.