This Week in Housekeeping

This week I listened to two excellent (and brand new) lectures on the doctrine of the Trinity by James White. I’ve added links on the Theological Term page for the Trinity. These lectures are especially useful if you’re interested in learning how to give a scriptural defense of the doctrine of the Trinity to Jehovah’s Witnesses, Oneness Pentecostals, Mormons or Muslims. And you won’t find them boring or hard to understand, either. That’s not something I can say about some lectures on the Trinity.

• The Trinity Defended 1
• The Trinity Defended 2

I also added links a quiz and answers previously posted here. If you’ve not taken the quiz before, why not see how you do?

• Quiz on the Biblical and Historical Doctrine of the Trinity
• Answers to Quiz on the Trinity

Because, you know, those who don’t get the doctrine of the Trinity right aren’t going to have the gospel right, either. The good news of what the one true God has done to save includes all three—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—as equal but distinct persons.

The Word

Don Carson, from The God Who Is There, on John’s use of the term “Word” to refer to Jesus in chapter 1 of his gospel:

[T]he term “Word” is an interesting choice. What title or metaphorical expression should be applied to Jesus in the opening verses of John’s Gospel? I can imagine various possibilities going round and round in John’s head. But at some point John remembers, for example, that in the Old Testament we frequently read expressions like this: “The word of the Lord came to the prophet, saying… .” So God disclosed himself by his word in revelation. Then perhaps he remembers Genesis 1: God spoke, and the world came into being; otherwise put, by the word of the Lord the heavens and earth were made (see Ps. 33:6). So here we have God’s word in creation. Elsewhere, biblical writers speak of God sending forth his word to heal and help and transform his People (see for example Ps 107:20). All these things God’s word accomplishes: by his word, God reveals, he creates, he transforms, and John thinks to himself, “Yes, that’s the appropriate expression that summarizes all who Jesus is.” He is God’s self-expression, God’s revelation; he is God’s own agent in creation; and he comes to save and transform God’s people.

I’ve listened to all of the talks on which this book is based and recommend them. I’ve read some of the book, and recommend it, too, especially because the talks are dense, so it’s good to be able to work through the materially slowly and think on it, bit by bit, as the explanations build.

And now, if you prefer, you can watch the talks on free video made available recently by The Gospel Coalition. Here’s how the series of talks is described there:

This series will serve the church well because it simultaneously evangelizes non-Christians and edifies Christians by explaining the Bible’s storyline in a non-reductionistic way. The series is geared toward “seekers” and articulates Christianity in a way that causes hearers either to reject or embrace the gospel. It’s one thing to know the Bible’s storyline, but it’s another to know one’s role in God’s ongoing story of redemption. “The God Who Is There” engages people at the worldview-level.

The link in the quote is added by me. How could I resist?

If you are already a believer, don’t let the “geared toward ‘seekers’” thing throw you off. The lectures and book would be valuable to anyone who is a student of the Christian faith, and if you’re a believer, that should be you.

If you don’t have time for all the lectures, consider listening or viewing only The God Who Becomes a Human Being (the chapter/lecture that contains the above quoted bit) as part of your preparation for Christmas, our celebration of God becoming human.

Justification's Implications for Sanctification

Quoting D. A. Carson from his Crossway sponsored lecture on evangelicalism at the 2009 meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society:

Justification has huge implications for how you live. What is the opposite of justification? Non-justification? Pastorally, the opposite of justification is self-justification. Over against being justified by someone outside ourselves—being justified by God, through what he has done in Christ—we justify ourselves.

So the man, for example, who approaches Jesus: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”, whence Jesus gives him the first round of responses, he asks another question. Luke’s comment is, “He, wanting to justify himself, said….” And then a few chapters farther on, further people approach Jesus “wanting to justify themselves.” Or the parable of the Pharisee and the publican going up to the temple together, the Pharisee saying, “I thank you God that I am not as other men are, including this wretched publican over here.” What is that but self-justification?

So now you have come out of a rotten background where you never could gain enough of your parent’s approval. They were just so harsh and miserable all of the time. And you’ve become a Christian, and you know that you’re justified before God. What is it in you, then, that is constantly trying to show yourself good enough to be accepted by others, to be loved by church people, to be accepted by your siblings? Isn’t that a form of self-justification that is denying the justification that you have experienced in the onset of the gospel?

There is so much of Christian discipleship and growth that is bound up with the cross-work in justification. What sins do we commit where we are not tripping over self-justification? Self-justification in our publications, in our schools, in how our spouses think of us, in how we think about ourselves? Self-justification, even though at some level we know we’ve been justified by another?

If the gospel is rightly understood, if the gospel is rightly conceived, the glory of being justified by God himself through what he has provided in his Son by grace alone through faith alone begins to transform all of our relationships. In one sense, sanctification, understood in the Reformed sense (not always in the Pauline sense), is nothing other than the progressive application of justification.