Sunday Hymn: Jesus Shall Reign

Jesus shall reign wher­e’er the sun
Does his suc­cess­ive jou­rneys run;
His king­dom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.

To Him shall end­less pray­er be made,
And prais­es throng to crown His head;
His name like sweet per­fume shall rise
With ev­ery morn­ing sac­ri­fice.

People and realms of ev­ery tongue
Dwell on His love with sweet­est song;
And in­fant voic­es shall pro­claim
Their ear­ly bless­ings on His name.

Blessings abound where’er He reigns;
The pri­son­er leaps to lose his chains;
The wea­ry find eter­nal rest,
And all the sons of want are blest.

Where He dis­plays His heal­ing pow­er,
Death and the curse are known no more:
In Him the tribes of Ad­am boast
More bless­ings than their fa­ther lost.

Let ev­ery crea­ture rise and bring
Peculiar hon­ors to our king;
Angels des­cend with songs again,
And earth re­peat the loud amen.

—Isaac Watts

Theological Term of the Week: Sensus Divinitatis

sensus divinitatis
A sense of God that all human beings are born with because they are created in the image of God; also called sensus, for short, or sense of deity. 

• From scripture:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened (Romans 1:21 ESV).

[H]e has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end (Ecclesiastes 3:11 ESV).

• From Institutes of the Christian Religion (1.3.1) by John Calvin

That there exists in the human minds and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity, we hold to be beyond dispute, since God himself, to prevent any man from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of his Godhead, the memory of which he constantly renews and occasionally enlarges, that all to a man being aware that there is a God, and that he is their Maker, may be condemned by their own conscience when they neither worship him nor consecrate their lives to his service. Certainly, if there is any quarter where it may be supposed that God is unknown, the most likely for such an instance to exist is among the dullest tribes farthest removed from civilisation. But, as a heathen tells us, there is no nation so barbarous, no race so brutish, as not to be imbued with the conviction that there is a God. Even those who, in other respects, seem to differ least from the lower animals, constantly retain some sense of religion; so thoroughly has this common conviction possessed the mind, so firmly is it stamped on the breasts of all men. Since, then, there never has been, from the very first, any quarter of the globe, any city, any household even, without religion, this amounts to a tacit confession, that a sense of Deity is inscribed on every heart. Nay, even idolatry is ample evidence of this fact. For we know how reluctant man is to lower himself, in order to set other creatures above him. Therefore, when he chooses to worship wood and stone rather than be thought to have no God, it is evident how very strong this impression of a Deity must be; since it is more difficult to obliterate it from the mind of man, than to break down the feelings of his nature,—these certainly being broken down, when, in opposition to his natural haughtiness, he spontaneously humbles himself before the meanest object as an act of reverence to God.

• From Covenantal Apologetics by K. Scott Oliphant: :

We know God not because we have reasoned our way to him, or have worked through the necessary scientific procedures, or have inferred his existence from other things that we know; rather, we know him by way of his revelation. We know what God is like “because God has shown it” to us.

The knowledge we have of God is knowledge that he has given to us. It is “implanted’ in us, “engraven” in our minds, “naturally inborn” in all of us, “fixed deep within” us, a knowledge “which nature permits none to forget.” As Creator, God has guaranteed that he will never be without witness to the creatures who have been made in his image. He has ensured that all of his human creatures will, and will always, know him. 

The sensus, then, is not a doctrine or teaching that is learned, but rather something that is present within us “from our mother’s womb.” Such is the case because this knowledge is not dependent on us to be acquired; it is givenby God. So we have the sensus because we are God’s image and God implants the knowledge of himself within each of us as his image. And this knowledge is, ipso facto, universal and infallible; to say otherwise would render those in Adam excused before God (cf. Rom. 1:20)

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: What is the sensus divinitatis?
2. Bruce P. Baugus: Is This Life All There Is?
3. John Frame: Unregenerate Knowledge of God
4. Louis Berkhof: The Knowability of God

Related terms:

• general revelation
• image of God
• noetic effects of sin

Filed under Anthropology

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The Good Portion: The Holy Spirit

Delighting in the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit by Keri Folmar

Anyone who wants to know God—the one true Christian God who exists as Trinity—needs to know something about the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead. If you recite the Nicene Creed (and I hope you do) you affirm your belief in the Holy Spirit, but how much do you know about him? Who is he? What is he? What does he do? 

These are some of the questions Keri Folmar answers in her new book, The Good Portion: The Holy Spirit, the most recent addition to the Good Portion series of theology books written by women for women, a series that also includes my own book, The Good Portion: God. Keri’s aim in this theologically deep but easy-to-understand book is to help women know God better by leavning about the Holy Spirit.

The beginning section of The Good Portion: The Holy Spirit is a discussion of the person of the Holy Spirit. First, Keri traces the appearances of the Spirit through the historical covenants of scripture. The Holy Spirit was at creation, for instance, breathing life into the first man Adam. He is the one who circumcises the hearts of the spiritual offspring of Abraham in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. He empowered the prophets, giving them words of warning about God’s approaching judgment, but also words of hope for a Deliverer to come. The Spirit was poured out in the New Covenant, giving God’s people confidence to proclaim the saving work of the Christ. There’s more, but let me  just say that this first chapter walking us through the Bible to show us where we see the Spirit was my favorite section of the book because I had never before seen it all put together the way Keri has done it.

Part one concludes with a discussion of who the Spirit is. He is of the same nature as the Father and the Son—the third person of the Trinity—so all the attributes of God belong to him. He, too, is all-knowing, all-powerful, holy, and loving. He is personal in the same way the Father and Son are, and those who think of him as an impersonal force have him all wrong. 

The bulk of The Good Portion: The Holy Spirit—the whole second section—examines the work of the Holy Spirit. He is creation’s life-giver, breathing life into all living things. Jesus was conceived and then resurrected by the Spirit’s life-giving power, and all those who believe in Jesus are likewise raised to new life by the Spirit. In God’s plan of salvation, he is the one who applies Christ’s finished work to those who believe. Christians are united to Christ through the Spirit’s work. It is through him that God dwells with his people, both individually and as a church body. We have God’s written word because the Spirit moved the authors of Scripture to write down what he wanted them to say, and we can understand and apply Scripture because he opens our minds and hearts to know what the words mean and how they pertain to our own lives. What’s more, the Spirit empowers believers to spread the gospel in their communities and around the world, and gives them gifts to use to serve their local churches. And last, the Spirit sanctifies those who believe, developing the fruit of the Spirit within them, and making them more like Christ. 

In other words, I breathe because of the Spirit. My garden grows through the Spirit’s life-giving work. I am born again by the Holy Spirit. The words on the pages of my Bible become alive to me by a work of the Spirit. I am becoming conformed to the image of Christ because of the work of the Spirit within me, work that is sometimes painful, but ultimately gives me true hope. 

Some people call the Spirit the “shy” person of the Trinity because his work is quiet and points away from himself to the Son and the Father, but it’s a blessing to focus on him for a while and rejoice in his extraordinary work. I am so pleased to have this latest book in The Good Portion series—one that celebrates the Holy Spirit and his work. I  hope you will pick it up and read it, too.