Barth & The Incarnation

This is how Karl Barth, describes the Incarnate Immanuel (God with us) in his Church Dogmatics:

"God was with us, with us His enemies, with us who were visited and smitten by His wrath. God was with us in all the reality and fulness with which He does what He does. He was with us as one of us. His Word became flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood. His glory was seen here in the depths of our situation, and the full depths of our situation were disclosed for the first time when illumined then and there by the Lord's glory, when in His Word He came down to the lowest parts of the earth, in order that there and in that way He might rob death of its power and bring life and immortality to light."

Amen.

God's Work

"God hath a work to do; and not to help Him is to oppose Him."

-John Owen

We are part of a divine plan of redemption. It will be carried through. It has already been accomplished in Christ. But as the Church, we have the important duty of reverberating His Call to the lost and the perishing. How can we neglect such a great work? Indeed, we cannot. For we have not been called to disobedience, but to obedience. We have not been called to hatred and indifference, but to love. We have not been called to ourselves, but to Christ. Heed His Word, and answer His Call!

Luke 15:8-10

"Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

Luke 15:8-10

God leaves us not to our own self-destructive ways, but instead pursues His children in steadfast love and mercy. And what is the result? Repentance on earth, and joy in heaven.

There Is A Fountain Filled With Blood

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins

And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;

And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;

And there have I, as vile as he, washed all my sins away.

Washed all my sins away, washed all my sins away.

And there have I, as vile as he, washed all my sins away.

E'er since, by faith, I saw the stream your flowing wounds supply,

Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;

Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave,

Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I'll sing thy power to save;

I'll sing thy power to save, I'll sing thy power to save,

Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I'll sing thy power to save.

Dear dying Lamb, your precious blood shall never lose its power,

Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.

Be saved, to sin no more, be saved, to sin no more;

Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.

___

I don't know who wrote that hymn, but whoever it was, I can't wait to sing that song with them.

What is man, that You are mindful of him?

I am quite overwhelmed by several things.

1. The depth and spread and reach of God's love and mercy and grace and care and tenderness and faithfulness and intervention and Providence. There is nothing they cannot reach, there is nothing that can hide itself from them. And I rejoice in this.

2. The depth and spread and reach of God's love and mercy and grace and care and tenderness and faithfulness and intervention and Providence, in spite of my wayward heart and the slow pace I seem to be holding in sanctification. His patience blows my mind. His faithfulness, even more so.

3. How people can mistake the creature for the Creator. How even fellow Christians mistake the work of the Creator for the work of the creature. There is only One who can work goodness and love in us. There is only One who can fix the mess that we are born into and live in. There is only One who can say to me, You are justified in Christ, now walk in Him. There is only One who can put His exquisite and unique and satisfying love into a heart that has never known anything like it. 

4. How all of Creation shouts and proclaims the beauty of the Creator. And how magnificent common grace is - Who could have even thought of blessing all, both righteous and unrighteous, but a God whose character is that of love and grace and kindness? Who would have ever thought that Someone would care so much for what He has made - to the extent that He would sacrifice Himself! to salvage the good work of His hand, that had intentionally ship-wrecked itself for the selfish pleasure of it? But God who is rich in mercy...

...how can this not be overwhelming?

BB Warfield & Revelation

"The one [general revelation] is adapted to man as man; the other [special revelation] to man as sinner; and since man, on becoming sinner, has not ceased to be man, but has only acquired new needs requiring additional provisions to bring him to the end of his existence, so the revelation directed to man as sinner does not supersede that given to man as man, but supplements it with these new provisions for this attainment, in his new condition of blindness, helplessness and guilt induced by sin, of the end of his being."

- B. B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, 74.

This quote really helped clarify in my mind the purposes of both "stages" of divine revelation.

Os Guinness & Oswald Chambers

"If we have never had the experience of taking our commonplace religious shoes off our commonplace religious feet, and getting rid of all the undue familiarity with which we approach God, it is questionable whether we have ever stood in His presence."

- Oswald Chambers

Wow, what a powerful thought. It is true that God calls to His children as their loving Father, but we must never forget the nature of such a Father - One who is Holy and Utterly Separate from us. Indeed, we must approach Him with fear and trembling, and live a life that pants after holiness, for just as He is holy, so we too must be holy in all we do. We must unshod our feet from the worldly shoes that are quick to sprint off the narrow road, and we must (however slowly) endeavor to tread the Way with bare feet. For, as one great saint put it, "better to stumble along the narrow way, than to run quick and sure out of it."

Another quote that cut me to the quick was from Os Guinness.

"To follow the call of God is therefore to live before the heart of God. It is to live life coram Deo (before the heart of God) and thus to shift our awareness of audiences to the point where only the last and highest - God - counts."

 - Os Guinness, The Call

This is something that I struggle with on a day-to-day basis. How I long to repeat St. Paul's words after him, "If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ." (Gal. 1:10) But I find myself quite prone to living according to the affirmations of others, and worst of all, myself. May I ever seek to find my affirmation in Christ and by Christ - for it is only in Him that I am affirmed as an heir, and it is only because of Him that I am named a son.