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.

Chatting with John Reisinger

The subjects of New Covenant Theology in general, and John Reisinger in particular, came up on this thread. As a nice surprise, commenter CR contacted Pastor Reisinger, who wanted to add some thoughts of his own.

John Reisinger was an evangelist for 10 years and a pastor for 45 years. He planted four congregations, and has authored eight books and 10 booklets. You can access his material at the Sound of Grace website.

Just last week I finished listening to a series by Pastor Reisinger on the sovereignty of God, which you can access here. It was a blessing and an encouragement to me.

I've encouraged Pastor Reisinger to make his comments on this thread, and invite you-all to join in as well.

Warfield: the Christian ever a debtor to God's grace in Christ

B. B. Warfield nails it:

IT belongs to the very essence of the type of Christianity propagated by the Reformation that the believer should feel himself continuously unworthy of the grace by which he lives. At the center of this type of Christianity lies the contrast of sin and grace; and about this center everything else revolves. This is in large part the meaning of the emphasis put in this type of Christianity on justification by faith. It is its conviction that there is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only “when we believe.” It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in Christian behavior may be. It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest. There is never anything that we are or have or do that can take His place, or that can take a place along with Him. We are always unworthy, and all that we have or do of good is always of pure grace. Though blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, we are still in ourselves just “miserable sinners”: “miserable sinners” saved by grace to be sure, but “miserable sinners” still, deserving in ourselves nothing but everlasting wrath. That is the attitude which the Reformers took, and that is the attitude which the Protestant world has learned from the Reformers to take, toward the relation of believers to Christ. There is emphasized in this attitude the believer’s continued sinfulness in fact and in act; and his continued sense of his sinfulness. And this carries with it recognition of the necessity of unbroken penitence throughout life. The Christian is conceived fundamentally in other words as a penitent sinner. (Benjamin B. Warfield, Perfectionism, Volume 1 , chapter 3)

Warfield does not have the reputation of being the most easily-accessible theologian ever to write. That's because he isn't. He's better than Edwards... but that isn't saying much.

(If this is dense to you, try reading it aloud slowly and thoughtfully. It's worth the effort.)

Warfield makes a rich, important, central, and richly Gospelly point: we never get beyond needing grace, needing Christ, needing all the rich benefits purchased for believers on the Cross. Any teaching that in any way implies that Christ is where we start, that grace is Square A and we get beyond it into the really good stuff, is sub-Christian and un-Biblical.

Paul didn't reminisce about the old days, when he was a sinner who needed grace. It was a present and rich reality to him, to the end of his course (1 Timothy 1:15).

Thank God for Christ! Thank God for the Gospel! Thank God for the Cross! Thank God for His rich and overflowing grace — today, no less than the day I believed, nor less than a million years from now!

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
(Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, Robert Robinson 1758)