Yep: what Kevin DeYoung said

Could be this is Quote Day at BibChr, but that's fine.

Squishy universalist wannabes try to crowbar impenitent unbelievers into a Heaven they would hate with all their beings by fiddling with passages like (of all things) John 14:6.  "Through Me," Jesus says. "Ah yes," they say; "not through faith in Him, but through Him, thought His saving work."

After this by the estimable Kevin DeYoung, whatever ground they had for that pathetic dodge is gone, long gone.

Terrific brief essay on security/perseverance

M'man Pastor Chris Anderson has blessed us with a brief, pointed look at the Biblical doctrine of security and perseverance of the believer. On the essay itself, I don't have much to say beyond go! read!

Chris is highlighting a crucial truth. The Bible teaches we are saved through faith — not by claiming to have faith. I fear many are hoping for Heaven and heading for Hell, thanks to a false notion of eternal security. Never forget: the lost in Matthew 7:21-23 were all sure they would be saved.

Last night, something absolutely new and unprecedented happened

New? Unprecedented? Can't be. Doesn't Solomon write, "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9)?

Yet last night something happened that has never happened, not since the first molecule spun, nor ever before that.

Last night — or some 2000 years ago on the Thursday evening we marked last night — the Father told the Son "No."

This had never happened, ever, in all of recorded history. Never was a relationship closer, without the slightest stir of alienation, as that between God the Father and His dear Son.

Yet on that Thursday, we read

36 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” 37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” 40 And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? 41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” 43 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. 44 So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. 45 Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.” (Matthew 26)

Once, the Son asked His Father if there was any way — any way — that the cup could pass from Him.

The Father evidently said "No, Son; there is no other way."

Again, the Son came back. Same answer. And again — same answer.

Of course, we know we are not reading of a pitting of wills against each other. Each time, Jesus framed His request "if it be possible," and each time He added, "not as I will, but as you will."

But in the correct rush to keep theology straight, don't miss the drama, don't miss the point.

If there had been a way, the Son would have chosen it!


If there had been a way, the Father would have granted it!


So great was the devastation, the disaster caused by our sin. So dire was our condition. So unsalvageable, so irreparable, so (if I may say it) irredeemable was our plight that nothing less than the Son dying in the stead of sinners would work salvation. All the blither-blather about other ways and broader hope are smashed to shivers in the Garden.

But consider one more thought, the thought that had tears pouring from my eyes as I dwelt on it.

What must it have been for the Father to say "No" to His Son? What must it have been for the Son to hear "No" from Heaven? To say it, to hear it once, let alone twice... let alone three times?

Clearly, no matter how well-schooled we might be, we don't grasp the full horror of what Jesus faced, if we can consider it without a touch of that horror ourselves.

Yet what love. What love of the Father to give His Son for such appalling rebels. What love of the Son to give Himself for such wrecks as we. What love of the Holy Spirit to open our eyes, and draw us to repent and trust Jesus alone.

What great salvation, what a great Savior.

Commemorating the anniversary of a miracle

I believe, with all my heart, that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Packed into that tiny little phrase is the conviction that everything He said was and is true. Packed into that short little statement is the conviction that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, that He lived a perfectly righteous life before God and man, that He was the focus and fulfillment of all the long ages of prophetic anticipation. It entails the confession that the Gospels — as He predicted — perfectly record His words and deeds. That in turn means that He worked unparalleled, jawdropping miracles, which combined with the fulfillment of prophecy and His perfect teaching to form His résumé, His calling-card, His bona fides.

All that in turn means that I accept Jesus Christ's retrospective affirmation of the Old Testament as the inerrant and abiding Word of God. It means I accept His prospective affirmation of the New Testament as the inerrant and abiding Word of God.

It means I affirm the Bible's teaching that God is the infinite-personal Creator of all, that I affirm His perfection in holiness, righteousness, wisdom, power and knowledge. It also means that I recognize my unholiness, my guilt, my helpless and deserving vulnerability to His eternally damning judgment for the sinner that I am and the sins that I have done.

It involves my affirming Jesus Christ's word as central and foundational to my worldview — which means nothing less than the fact that I try to think the specific thoughts He holds out as true, but means more than that. It means I try to construct my worldview with His truths at the foundation, and forming the very frame, the matrix, the grid for all else. It influences not merely what I think, but also how I think.

...and you're thinking, "Uh, was that title a goof? Was that supposed to be for another post? Here you got Adrian Warnock all excited, and it's just about dumb old doctrine and truth and Bible and stuff."

Read the first sentence one more time.


That's the miracle.

Thirty-seven years ago today I was converted. The day before I went to bed not believing in Jesus, but at the end of February 11, 1973, I was a convinced believer.

It was not a natural progression. You can read the whole tale starting here. I hated Christianity, hated the Biblical Christ, despised Christians. I loved my autonomy. I was arrogant and self-willed, and bowed the knee to none. I was dead to God —not to "god," but to the actual true and living God of Scripture.

But God the Holy Spirit showed me my sin and need, showed me God's greatness and transcendent holiness, and showed me Christ's truth and beauty — and He showed me how much I needed Christ, and led me to grab a hold of Him by faith.

That is a miracle on the scale of the creation of the universe and the resurrection of Christ.

Overstatement? Not to Paul.

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6)

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:1-10)

What's more, the Lord Jesus has kept me. That's a miracle.

That I would still make the exact same profession I made 37 years ago today, unwavering and with absolute conviction, is a miracle. My conversion so pressed on me my duplicity, my capacity for shallowness and inconstancy, I thought I'd be lost any moment. I was convinced of Christ's truth, but equally convinced of my depravity, and feared I'd fall away in a heartbeat. But He has kept me.

I was singing "Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come" with great feeling not long after my conversion. But then I could also sing, "'Tis grace that brought be safe thus far, And grace will lead me home." That is a miracle.

"I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. 30 I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30)

So I write to you today to commemorate a great miracle, the grand miracle of this inter-Advent age: the miracle of regeneration.

And I just cannot praise, glorify, nor credit GOD ALONE enough for His sovereign, redeeming, transforming, keeping grace.

"I was born that way... so it's OK" (Josef Fritzi, "gays," and us)

Why do homosexuals work so hard to say that their disordered affections are genetic, that their "orientation" is determined by DNA? It's been transparent to most, I think, that the notion of determinism removes moral onus. If you "don't have to be that way," then you carry the responsibility for being that way. If it isn't a choice, then you're unaccountable. The activists don't want that; they want acceptance, enabling free indulgence of their perversion. Ergo....

They gin up scientific studies (which later prove to be bogus) locating the cause of homosexuality in the brain, somewhere. Mission Accomplished.

This tactic clashes with the other arm of their public assault on public moral borders. This approach labors hard to portray the homosexual lifestyle as beautiful, happy, wonderful, and... well, gay! (IOW, you'd be nuts not to choose it if you could.) If only people would stop being so mean to these happy, carefree souls, everything would be peachy.

Increasingly, Biblically-faithful Christians have begun to mount a different response than proving homosexuality not to be hard-wired. We've focused on arguing that it doesn't really matter, morally. The specific case I've made, a number of times, is that we're all hard-wired for sin.

For instance, it's been often indicated that men are not by nature monogamous. Yet most have not argued that this rationalizes adultery. "I was born that way" isn't a great cover. Don't try it at home, or anywhere else.

I've also made the argument, "If that behavior is acceptable, because it's natural to you — then why doesn't the same argument work for lying, theft, child molesting, rape?" Add a sprinkling of Darwinian evolution, subtract the Biblical worldview, and I think you have an air-tight theoretical case.

And so now along comes a monstrous figure named Josef Fritzi. I'll let you read of his abominations here, rather than rehearsing them.

In explaining himself to a psychologist, Fritzi says that he was "was born to be a rapist."

Now, my questions for homosexual agenda activists, so desperate to force their particular perversion down the gullet of every society on the planet:

1. Can you prove Frtizi wasn't "born to be a rapist"?
2. If he was "born to be a rapist," does that make Frtizi's behavior okay?
3. If not, why not? Because it's immoral? How do you know?
4. If your argument is that what feels natural must be right, how would you tell Josef Fritzi that what he is doing is not right?

Biblical Christianity has the whole answer.

Might people be born inclined to perverse desires? Oh, yes. Not might, but are — without exception.

Originally, man was designed to represent God (Genesis 1:26-28). That is what is natural, in that it is what we were created and designed for: to be a whole, fully-integrated reflection of the glory of God. But while "God made man upright...they have sought out many schemes" (Ecclesiastes 7:29). The first, righteous man plunged into sin (Romans 5:12).

Sin brought dis-integration. Sin marred the image. The fall into sin hard-wired all of Adam's progeny into a predisposition in the wrong direction, body and soul.

And so, the truth is, we're all born with perverse desires. We're all born dominated by the desire to be gods, to make our wills absolute, to turn away from the true God and to our own ways (Genesis 3:5; 5:3; Romans 3:1-18).

Those desires for self-deification are perverse desires, they're unnatural desires. They are every bit as deviant as the desires of the rapist, the murderer, the child molester, the homosexual. In fact, they are worse, because they are the fountainhead of all those other desires (Romans 1:18-32).

You look at Josef Fritzi, and you recoil in horror. You see a wreck. Fritzi needs something, badly.

But what Fritzi needs is the same as the moralistic atheist, the New Age navel-gazer, the fuzzy PoMo, or the walking question-mark, who reads these words. Fritzi needs reconciliation to God. He needs his sins to be dealt with; but not only that, he needs the womb of those sins plucked out and replaced. He needs a new heart, a new nature. He needs to be born again.

Fritzi needs what you need, what we all need. He needs what can be found only in Jesus Christ. Only Jesus Christ was born without those perverse desires. Only Jesus Christ was motivated, 24/7/365, by pure, God-given, genuinely natural desires for the glory and will of God above all. Only Jesus Christ was without sin, and with the perfect righteousness we lack.

And so, Jesus Christ could offer himself as a sacrifice for sins, a sacrifice of infinite value and supernatural efficacy.

Interested in knowing more?

Read this.