“Let men therefore acknowledge, that inasmuch as they are born of Adam, they are depraved creatures, and therefore can conceive only sinful thoughts, until they become the new workmanship of Christ, and are formed by his Spirit to a new life… Nor is it any proof to the contrary, that carnal and profane men often excel in generosity of disposition, undertake designs apparently honourable, and put forth certain evidences of virtue. For since their mind is corrupted with contempt of God, with pride, with self-love, ambition, hypocrisy, and fraud; it cannot be but that all their thoughts are contaminated with the same vices… We must, therefore, acquiesce in the judgment of God, which pronounces man to be so enslaved by sin that he can bring forth nothing sound and sincere. Yet, at the same time, we must remember, that no blame is to be cast upon God for that which has its origin in the defection of the first man, whereby the order of the creation was subverted. And further, it must be noted, that men are not exempted from guilt and condemnation, by the pretext of this bondage: because, although all rush to evil, yet they are not impelled by any extrinsic force, but by the direct inclination of their own hearts; and, lastly, they sin not otherwise than voluntarily.”
John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis 8:21.
“Then the Lord said in His heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth…'”
The Sign and the Thing Signified
September 30, 2014 in Baptism, Bible - NT - 1 Peter, Ecclesiology, Federal Vision, John Calvin, Justification, Quotations, Reformation, Regeneration, Sacraments, SanctificationWhen Peter writes “not the putting away of the filth of the flesh” (1 Pet 3:21) in reference to baptism, “he speaks not of the naked sign, but that the effect must also be connected with it… the external symbol is not sufficient except baptism be received really and effectually…
“But the fanatics…absurdly pervert this testimony, while they seek to take away from sacraments all their power and effect. For Peter did not mean here to teach that [baptism] is vain and inefficacious, but only to exclude hypocrites from the hope of salvation, who, as far as they can, deprave and corrupt baptism. Moreover, when we speak of sacraments, two things are to be considered, the sign and the thing itself. In baptism the sign is water, but the thing is the washing of the soul by the blood of Christ and the mortifying of the flesh. The institution of Christ includes these two things. Now that the sign often appears inefficacious and fruitless, this happens through the abuse of men, which does not take away the nature of the sacrament. Let us then learn not to tear away the thing signified from the sign. We must at the same time beware of another evil, such as prevails among the Papists; for as they distinguish not as they ought between the thing and the sign, they stop at the outward element, and on that fix their hope of salvation. Therefore the sight of the water takes away their thoughts from the blood of Christ and the power of the Spirit. They do not regard Christ as the only author of all the blessings therein offered to us; they transfer the glory of his death to the water, they tie the secret power of the Spirit to the visible sign.
“What then ought we to do? Not to separate what has been joined together by the Lord. We ought to acknowledge in baptism a spiritual washing, we ought to embrace therein the testimony of the remission of sin and the pledge of our renovation, and yet so as to leave to Christ his own honour, and also to the Holy Spirit; so that no part of our salvation should be transferred to the sign.”
John Calvin, Commentary on the First Epistle of Peter, pp. 118-119.
“Ironically, girlfriends are quick to justify seemingly bad behavior in their boyfriends and try to explain it away, while many wives are eager for everyone around them to know how awful their husband can be and how everyone should fee sorry for them for having to live with such a wreck of a human being… Would that it were the reverse, with girlfriends seriously discussing with their friends their boyfriends’ weaknesses so that they could make a wise decision, and wives seriously defending their husbands’ honor so that they could make a lasting marriage. Unfortunately, ignoring your boyfriend’s weaknesses and gossiping about your husband’s failures are two sure paths to divorce.”
Gary Thomas, The Sacred Search: What if it’s not about who you marry, but why?, p. 44.
“A Jesuit testified that ‘the hymns of Luther killed more souls than his sermons.'”
Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, p. 346.
Luther on Music
September 17, 2014 in Church History, Quotations, Singing Psalms, Thankfulness, Word of God, Worship“Music is a fair and lovely gift of God which has often wakened and moved me to the joy of preaching. St. Augustine was troubled in conscience whenever he caught himself delighting in music, which he took to be sinful. He was a choice spirit, and were he living today would agree with us. I have no use for cranks who despise music, because it is a gift of God. Music drives away the Devil and makes people happy; they forget thereby all wrath, unchastity, arrogance, and the like. Next after theology I give to music the highest place and the greatest honor. I would not exchange what little I know of music for something great. Experience proves that next to the Word of God only music deserves to be extolled as the mistress and governess of the feelings of the human heart. We know that to the devils music is distasteful and insufferable. My heart bubbles up and overflows in response to music, which has so often refreshed me and delivered me from dire plagues.”
Martin Luther in Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, p. 341.
Eternal Election and External Calling
September 16, 2014 in Bible - OT - Genesis, Ecclesiology, Election, Federal Vision, John Calvin, QuotationsJohn Calvin in his commentary on Genesis 6 defends the position that the “sons of God” are the descendants of Seth. Here he responds to a potential objection and illustrates the way in which Scripture speaks both of eternal election and external calling:
“Should any one object, that they who had shamefully departed from the faith, and the obedience which God required, were unworthy to be accounted the sons of God; the answer is easy, that the honour is not ascribed to them, but to the grace of God, which had hiterto been conspicuous in their families. For when Scripture speaks of the sons of God, sometimes it has respect to eternal election, which extends only to the lawful heirs; sometimes to external vocation [calling], according to which many wolves are within the fold; and though, in fact, they are strangers, yet they obtain the name of sons, until the Lord shall disown them.”
Justification in the Old Testament
August 5, 2014 in Church History, Federal Vision, Justification, Old Testament, Quotations, Sanctification“The faith of the fathers was grounded on Christ who was to come, as ours is on Christ who has now come. Different times do not change faith, nor the Holy Spirit, nor his gifts. There has been, there is, and there will always be one mind, one judgment and understanding concerning Christ, in the ancient fathers and in believers today and in the future.”
Luther, Galatians, p. 137.
“…it is a constant law of human nature that the more a man has to indulge in, the less disposed he is to endure the discipline of toil-that is to say, the less willing he is to produce that which is to be consumed. Labor ceases to be functional in life; it becomes something that is grudgingly traded for that competence, or that superfluity, which everyone has a ‘right’ to. A society spoiled in this manner may be compared to a drunkard: the more he imbibes the less he is able to work and acquire the means to indulge his habit. A great material establishment, by its very temptation to luxuriousness, unfits the owner for the labor necessary to maintain it, as has been observed countless times in the histories of individuals and of nations.”
Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, p. 15.
Why have we minimized preaching?
July 29, 2014 in Church History, Ecclesiology, Liturgy, Quotations, Word of God, Worship“I would not hesitate to put in the first position: the loss of belief in the authority of the Scriptures, and a diminution in the belief in the Truth. I put this first because I am sure it is the main factor. If you have not got authority, you cannot speak well, you cannot preach. Great preaching always depends upon great themes. Great themes always produce great speaking in any realm, and this is particularly true, of course, in the realm of the Church. While men believed in the Scriptures as the authoritative Word of God and spoke on the basis of that authority you had great preaching. But once that went, and men began to speculate, and to theorise, and to put up hypotheses and so on, the eloquence and greatness of the spoken word inevitably declined and began to wane. You cannot really deal with speculations and conjectures in the same way as preaching had formerly dealt with the great themes of the Scriptures. But as belief in the great doctrines of the Bible began to go out, and sermons were replaced by ethical addresses and homilies, and moral uplift and socio-political talk, it is not surprising that preaching declined.”
D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, p. 13.