The Atonement (Mark 15:33–40) — A Sermon by R.C. Sproul



SPROUL: Let’s look this morning at Mark, chapter 15 where I’ll be reading again the later portion of the text we looked at last week. I’ll be beginning at verse 33 and reading through verse 40. And I’d like to ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word of God.

“Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’

Some of those who stood by, when they heard that, said, ‘Look, He is calling for Elijah!’ Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink, saying, ‘Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to take Him down.’

And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last. Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. So when the centurion, who stood opposite Him, saw that He cried out like this and breathed His last, he said, ‘Truly this Man was the Son of God!’

There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, and Salome, who also followed Him and ministered to Him when He was in Galilee, and many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem.”

Again in your hearing this morning, you have heard that word that comes to us from God Himself. He who has ears to hear it, let them hear. Please be seated. Let us pray. Our Father and our God, there is no more important, no more unfathomable treasure for us to contemplate

Than the meaning of the cross, and so we pray that in this hour, you would lend your help to us who are Your frail creatures. Give us insight into the meaning and the significance of our Savior’s death, for we ask it in His name. Amen.

Last week we looked at the narrative of the execution of Jesus by way of my normal method of biblical exposition, but I mentioned that this week I would depart from that and focus on a theological interpretation of the meaning of the cross. Again, I mentioned last week

That anyone who was an eyewitness of that event would likely not understand what was taking place in the cosmic realm that day, and that was left for the apostles in their epistles to give to us that added revelation of the meaning and of the significance of

The death of Jesus. We remember that Paul announced that he was determined to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified, that is Paul’s focus was on the cross, and of course that statement was something of hyperbole, which is a literary form of intentional exaggeration

In order to make a point, but really it’s not too far as an exaggeration that we know Paul knew other things besides the cross; nevertheless, all that he knew and all that he taught had its convergence in that central message of what took place that day on the cross.

I remember my first year of seminary where a student in our class in preaching gave a moving and eloquent sermon on the substitutionary satisfaction view of the atonement. And in that class on preaching, it was customary when the student finished for the professor

Of homiletics to give a critique. And the idea was to be a constructive critique on the art of preaching. But that day the professor was furious, and he glared at the student, and he said, “How dare you preach the substitutionary satisfactory view of the atonement in this

Day and age.” And I heard that and I was thinking within myself, “How dare this professor question the legitimacy of preaching on the satisfaction substitutionary view of the atonement.” What is it in this day and age that makes this central understanding of the cross suddenly

No longer acceptable? And I mused on that for many years to come because when we talk about the satisfaction substitutionary view of the atonement, we’re trying to answer the question: What really happened there on the cross? And one of the questions that attends

That question is the question: Was Jesus death on the cross really necessary at all? And there have been different answers to that question throughout church history. Early on, the Pelagians taught that Jesus’ death and atonement was not necessary at all, that

God could have redeemed His people by many different ways. He simply could have waved His wand of mercy and grace and pronounced His pardon on sinners without such a grizzly method of execution. Others took an intermediate position saying that the cross was hypothetically necessary

But not absolutely necessary. It was only necessary because though God had many ways He could have done it. From all eternity He chose to do it this way and was in agreement with His Son and with the Holy Spirit to reconcile the world by way of an atoning death. And

So the atonement was not necessary “de facto.” It was not necessary “de jure,” that is legally. But it was necessary “de pacto,” that is because an agreement had been reached, a covenant had been made between the Father and the Son, and once that covenant was made, it had to be carried out.

But then the third view, which is the classic orthodox Christian view is that the atoning death of Jesus was absolutely necessary. We reach back in time to one of the greatest thinkers God ever blessed the church with, the philosopher theologian Saint Anselm of

Canterbury, whose little book, “Cur Deus Homo?,” has become a Christian classic, and that little book that is really a question is translated by the words, “Why the God Man?” And in that little book Anselm spelled out the reasons why the cross was absolutely

Necessary. And the grounds and the necessity for Christ offering payment and satisfaction for our sins was to be found in the character of God Himself. The reason why an atonement was necessary, dear friends, is because God is just, because God is righteous, and because God is holy.

But we’ve lost sight of the character of God in our age. We conceive of God some celestial grandfather, a cosmic bellhop who is on duty 24/7 to give us all of our needs. And we allow the love of God to swallow up His justice, to swallow up His righteousness, and to obscure

His holiness, and we think that not only will God forgive all of our sins without an atonement, but we believe that He must do it if He’s really going to be good and loving. And yet at the other side of that coin always stands His holy, righteous, justice that must be satisfied.

I remember the story of Abraham in the Old Testament where he got word that God was about to bring judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah, which cities clearly invited that judgment from God, and Abraham was concerned about the few innocent folks there in those cities

That might possibly be punished along with the guilty, and so he raised the question to God, “Lord, will you punish the innocent or the righteous with the guilty?” And the reply was God forbid that God would ever do such a thing. And then the statement came

Out of that narrative, “Will not the Judge of all of the earth do what is right?” To ask that question, dear friends, is to answer it because the God of heaven and earth doesn’t know how to do anything except that which is right. The God of heaven and earth has

Never done anything that is wrong. Now according to our sensibilities, there are times in the Scriptures that we object to what God does. I’ve told you before how when I was in my first year as a Christian

As a college student, and I was reading the Old Testament, that I used to pace the halls of my college dormitory long into the night, three o’clock to four o’clock in the morning because I’d never heard of this God that was being revealed to me in the Old Testament.

And all I can remember from that is thinking that wow, if I’m going to be a Christian, I’m going to have to be a Christian because God plays for keeps. If you don’t believe that, let me just direct your attention to one passage in the Old Testament, the passage

That you’ve already heard this morning. When God delivered His law to Moses, after He had rescued His people from slavery and the focus of that law was a prohibition against idolatry. And while Moses was speaking with God on the mountain, Aaron and the people

Made for themselves a golden calf and worshipped it. And the Scriptures tell us that when God saw that, He was outraged, and He demanded satisfaction for that sacrilege, for that work of idolatry. I remind you, dear friends, that that episode in the Old Testament chronicles for us the

Most successful worship service in human history. The attendance that day at the worship of the golden calf surpassed all statistics before or after in Israel. The singing was so lusty, that miles away Joshua hears the music, and he thinks he’s hearing the sound of warfare.

The church was filled to the brim, and the people loved the music as they danced around an idol that distorted the very character of God. Do you think that was the last time that happened in church history? That’s our propensity.

It’s to exchange the God of heaven and earth for an idol and fashion for ourselves a God who requires no satisfaction, who requires no payment for sin. And in a day and age when we preach that God loves all people unconditionally, who in the world needs an atonement? You do.

And I do. Because the righteousness and the justice of God must be satisfied. Now when we look at the concept of the atonement in the New Testament, it’s not monochromatic. I like to use the metaphor of a gorgeous tapestry that is woven by several strands. And I don’t

Even have time this morning to even touch on some of the strands that the New Testament uses to describe what took place on the cross. But one of the major themes in the New Testament is the theme of reconciliation, that Christ is the reconciliation for us. And one of the

Things of course that is absolutely necessary for reconciliation to take place anywhere is a previous estrangement because parties that are not estranged have no need of reconciliation. I gave a message many years ago in a university to the atheists’ club that invited me to

Speak there. And they wanted to hear my case for the existence of God, and I gave it to them. And after I was finished with that part of the message, I said, “I’m happy to deal with these intellectual issues that come up.” I said, “But you have to know where

I’m coming from. I believe that for you the issue of the existence of God is not an intellectual issue at all. It’s a moral issue. Your problem is not that you don’t know that God exists. Your problem is you hate the God whom you know does exist.”

That’s the closest I ever came to being tarred and feathered. I was lucky to get out of there with my life. They were vehement in their denials and protests, “We don’t hate God.” Well, if the Word of God is the truth of God then by nature, dear friends, we are His enemies.

We are at war with Him. We despise Him. But we don’t get angry at the golden calf. If we create a new God, then we can live in comfort with that God. But the biblical God is the

Object of our wrath to such a degree that the Scripture says, “We will not have Him in our thinking.” That’s where the estrangement is. That’s where we are at war with God. That’s where we are at enmity with God. And that enmity was mediated for us on the

Cross, so that Christ became an enemy of the Father to satisfy your hostility and your enmity toward Him. Another dimension about which the New Testament describes the cross, the atonement is the dimension of ransom. Earlier in our study of Mark’s gospel, we read where Jesus said

That He did not come into the world to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. And because of that statement and others, the church has developed what’s called the ransom theory of the atonement. In fact, there is more than one ransom theory

Of the atonement. There’s a good one and there’s a bad one. The bad one that is popular in some circles is the idea that Jesus paid a ransom to Satan, after all Satan is the prince of the power of the air. He’s the prince of this world.

He holds us captive and hostage. In a sense he has kidnapped the people of God and now demands payment or ransom for our release, and so Jesus makes a deal with the devil. He pays him what he wants to purchase our freedom from him. No, no, no, no. In that

Case the cross would not represent “Christus Victor” but “Satanas Victor,” Satan would be the winner. He would get the payment and enjoy it forever. No, there is a ransom paid, dear friends, but it’s not paid to Satan. It’s paid

To the Father. A debt has been incurred to Him that has to be paid. Now quickly, we think of the New Testament speaking that we are debtors to God, and not only are we mildly in debt but that we are hopelessly in debt, and the way in which the New Testament sets

It forth is that we are debtors who can’t possibly their debt. We have an IOU that can never be redeemed. But there’s different ways to understand that concept of debt. I’ve told you on another occasion in another concept my favorite illustration of that. I tell the story of the little boy

Who goes to the ice cream store, and he asks for an ice cream cone with two scoops of ice cream, and when the lady behind the counter hands the little boy the cone, she says, “That will be two dollars,” and the boy’s face sinks. He’s crestfallen. His lip begins

To tremble, and he said, “But my Mommy only gave me one dollar.” So what do you do if you’re watching that transaction? You know what you do. You reach your hand in your pocket, and you get out a dollar bill, and you hand it to the lady, and you say, “Here, this

Is legal tender. I’ll pay the little boy’s debt, and we all can go home happy.” And she has to accept that payment because it’s a pecuniary payment, a monetary payment of commercial debt. But that’s not the kind of debt that we’re in here. The debt that we have before God

Is not that we owe Him money that we can’t pay. It’s a moral debt. It is a moral obligation that He has imposed upon us, which we have not paid. Now we turn the story around with the little boy. Now he comes to the ice cream store and

He said, “I’d like to have an ice cream cone with two scoops, and the lady comes and hands him the ice cream cone, and she says, “That will be two dollars.” He sticks his tongue out at her, runs out the door, doesn’t pay her anything, and she’s chasing

Him, yelling, “Stop, thief.” And the little boy runs right into the arms of the patrolman who’s walking down the block. He grabs the boy by the scruff of the neck, brings him back into the shop, said, “What’s going on here?” And the lady said, “That boy

Just stole two dollars worth of ice cream.” And I’m watching that. I reach in my pocket and I take out two dollars instead of one, and I say, “Look, everybody settle down here. Here’s the two dollars. No harm. No fowl. Let the boy go.” Now does the owner

Have to accept it? Absolutely not. Because now a crime has been committed. Now a moral debt has been incurred. And a policeman can look at me and my two dollars and look at the woman in the store and say, “Do you want to press charges?” And the storekeeper

Has that option on this occasion. Now with God we have a moral debt. And even when His Son pays the debt as our Substitute, when He pays the debt vicariously, the Father does not have to accept it. The fact that

The debt is paid means that justice is satisfied. The fact that the Father accepts the payment expresses His mercy and His grace, that as the Apostle says, “He may be both just and justifier of His people.” The justice is there insofar as Christ paid what was required, and that God wasn’t playing.

As the text I read indicated, the Son of God was forsaken, completely forsaken. And as Paul uses the other metaphor later in Galatians, “He was cursed by God.” He became a curse to fulfill the law of the Old Testament because all who break the law of God, all who sin

Are exposed to the curse of God’s wrath. And you say, “But that’s not fair.” But as I mentioned last week, once Christ willingly took upon Himself your sin and my sin, God didn’t play games. He punished Him to the fullest extent of the law. Christ

Didn’t just go to the cross. When He was on the cross, He went to Hell, not after He died but while He was on the cross. He experienced the full measure of God’s wrath when the Father turned His back on the Son and cursed Him for you and for me.

Again, I’m terrified when people come to me and say, “I don’t need Jesus.” I want to grab them by the throat and say, “O foolish one, don’t you understand that there’s nothing in the universe that you need more than Jesus. Don’t you realize that at the

End of your life, you will stand before God and you will be held accountable by God. And the God before whom you stand will be holy and just and righteous. And you either stand in front of Him on your own merit—and the only thing you have to bring is demerit, friends—or

You stand covered in the righteousness of Christ. If you deny Christ, you face the curse on your own, a debtor who can’t possibly pay your debt.” Karl Barth, the late Swiss theologian with whom I disagree more often than I agree, made

A comment once many years ago that I agree with completely. He said the single most important word in the New Testament Greek is the word “huper,” which is the Greek word that is translated by three English words, “in behalf of.” And that’s how the New Testament

Describes the death of Jesus, “in behalf of” His sheep, “in behalf of” the godless, “in behalf of” God’s enemies, He paid this price and He purchased you, so that the apostle says, “You are not your own.” You see the thing that we tend to think even

As Christians is we may not own the biggest house in the community, we may not own the biggest car in the community, but one thing we own, there’s no mortgage on, is ourselves. I own me. No, you don’t. No I don’t. Paul said, “You are not your own. You don’t

Own yourself. You’ve been bought. You’ve been purchased.” Paul said, “You’ve been bought with a price.” And the price tag is the blood of Christ. Finally, my friend John Guest once preached a sermon on the blood of Jesus. He said, “If

Jesus would have come to Jerusalem and scratched His finger on a nail, would that have done it?” There’s blood. It wouldn’t have done it. It took more than a scratch. The figurative significance to the Jew of blood means life. Jesus didn’t just give His blood.

He had to give His life. He had to pour out His blood unto death, and that was the price tag. That was the ransom. That was the purchase price. And the New Testament tells us that in God’s eyes at the top of the cross was not simply

The accusation written by Pilate, but the words, “It is paid,” appear on that cross. God is satisfied, propitiation. Our sins are removed, expiation. As I told you before, every time you come down that aisle, look at that cross. You come down the center aisle

Of the church. You remember that the architectural form of this building is a cruciform. It’s built in the shape of the cross. If you look from an airplane, and you cross over Saint Andrews, you’ll see the form of a cross. The center aisle if the vertical beam of the

Cross. The transepts in which you are sitting are the crossbeams. And I said the vertical beam points to heaven in the sense that propitiation was made. The Son satisfied the Father. And in doing that on the horizontal level was expiation, our sins were removed as far as

The east is from the west. Therefore, dear friends, come let us reason together, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be as crimson, they shall be as wool, for He bought you with His life. Let’s pray.

O Lord, if we had a thousand tongues to sing the praise of our great Redeemer, that would not be enough to express our gratitude, which gratitude carries on for us into eternity. Thank you for the cross. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

#Atonement #Mark #Sermon #R.C #Sproul

Why You Need Jesus As Your Substitutionary Atonement — @MyNameIsJackieHill



How are you saints i heard about 1200 of you i said how are you  saints okay because i’ve seen about 50 of y’all   getting starbucks all day so i know you’re woke  uh i i i say this every tgc conference that i  

Have the opportunity to teach it i i need to let  you know i’m from a country called black church   okay you might have heard me say that before  what that means is when someone is speaking or   teaching it’s not a monologue it’s a conversation  okay so when when i say something that moves  

You in your spirit you have the right and  the authority and the permission to talk   back to me you can clap you can speak in the  tongue just find a translator but don’t throw don’t throw no shoes though okay you can do  everything else but don’t throw your shoes  

Up here unless i like them throw the other  one and i’m gonna take it take it back home   please turn in your bibles to genesis chapter 22. say amen when you got it sorry to get verse one it says after these things  god tested abraham and said to him abraham and he  

Said here i am he said take your son your only  son isaac whom you love and go to the land of   moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering  on one of the mountains of which i shall tell you  

So abraham rose early in the morning  saddled his donkey and took two of his   young men with him and his son isaac and he  cut the wood for the burnt offering and rose   and went to the place of which god had told  him on the third day abraham lifted up his eyes  

And saw the place from afar then abraham said  to his young men stay here with the donkey i   and the boy will go over there and worship and  come again to you and abraham took the wood of  

The burnt offering and laid it on isaac his son  and he took in his hand the fire and the knife so   they went both of them together and isaac said to  his father abraham my father and he said here i am  

My son he said behold the fire and the wood  but where is the lamb for a burnt offering   abraham said god will provide for himself the lamb  for a burnt offering my son so they went both of  

Them together when they came to the place of which  god had told him abraham built the altar there   and laid the wood in order and bound isaac his son  and laid him on the altar on top of the wood then  

Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to  slaughter his son but the angel of the lord called   to him from heaven and said abraham abraham and  he said here i am he said do not lay your hand on  

The boy or do anything to him for now i know that  you fear god seeing you have not withheld your son   your only son from me and abraham lifted up his  eyes and looked and behold behind him was a ram  

Caught in a thicket by his thorns horns and  abraham went and took the ram and offered it   up as a burnt offering instead of his son so  abraham called the name of that place the lord  

Will provide as it is said to this day on the  mount of the lord it shall be provided let’s   pray lord i thank you for this moment thank  you for your word i thank you for your spirit  

I thank you for your church i thank you for our  feelings and our emotions and how they are so   involved in the way we read your scriptures i pray  that you would do whatever it is that you want to  

Do with us in this moment i pray that you would  help me that you would use me that you would speak   in jesus name amen this narrative opens up  with the words after these things god tested  

Abraham i think before we even get to the nature  of the test we need to know something about the   one being tested we are introduced to abram his  original name in genesis 12. when out of nowhere  

God calls abram an idol worshiper to leave his  home leave his family leave his country and then   god gives abram a promise he tells them that he  will make him a great nation and that all the   families of the earth shall be blessed through  him we also learn some about his wife’s arrive  

And how she is barren they have no children which  makes god’s promise a smidge complicated because   if abram is going to be a nation then abram needs  a child in genesis 15 god speaks to abram again  

This time he expands on his original promise he  made he tells abram he’s going to give him a son   but not only that god gets all built now the  science guy on him and tells him to head outside  

Look at the stars and that the amount of stars  he sees is the amount of offspring abram will   have this is a big promise because remember abram  ain’t got no kids sarah’s womb is bearing barren  

So abraham is like god how i know that’s going  to happen this is the jhp version by the way so god backs up his promise by entering into  a covenant with abel a covenant is a promise   made between two parties to perform certain duties  one party might promise to share their resources  

Their strength and protection while the other  party promises their loyalty if abram were one   of us hypothetically speaking and he wanted  to buy a house in 2022. he would have to get   a realtor get on zillow redfin whatever’s  your your thing find a house hopefully his  

Credit score is in order that’s a word for some of  y’all know some of y’all in the 500s god is able   he’s able to do exceedingly and abundantly  above all we can never ask i think his lender  

Would then have to give him a decent loan to  purchase the house when it’s time to close on   the house he would sit down with a lawyer with  a realtor they would give him a big old stack of  

Papers for him to sign these papers and contracts  between him and the bank he’s getting the loan   from the contracts have a bunch of words but the  bank is basically saying hey we promise to give  

You this money you promise to give us the money  back if you don’t you’re going to be homeless so   when you purchase a home then you are entering  into a loose kind of covenant both parties  

Are making a promise to do a certain thing and  if one party fails to keep that promise there’s a   consequence in abram’s cultural context covenants  weren’t ratified by signing a bunch of contracts   they were a little bit more dramatic than that  what would happen is that uh they would get  

Some particular animals who would be killed sliced  in half laid side by side creating a path for both   parties to walk through the bodies by making a  covenant this way the parties were reenacting what  

Would happen to them if they didn’t do what they  said they would do is them saying if i don’t keep   my promise to you let me be put to death like  these dead animals that i just walked through   to establish his covenant with abram  then god has abram get a heifer  

A goat a ram two birds basically the whole  meat section of the grocery store and abram   cuts the animals in half except the birds because  that’s odd and lays them side by side usually both   parties that are ratifying the covenant would walk  through the animals but this time shockingly abram  

Isn’t awake for the ceremony abram goes into a  deep sleep similar to the one that adam went into   in genesis 3 and the bible says that a great and  dreadful darkness came over him but what i don’t  

Want you to do is take this as a abram laying  down and taking a nap taking going to bed it’s   probable as some commentators say that he is made  unconscious by god’s presence and as that happens   god manifests himself as a smoking  fire pot and a flaming torch and god  

Himself walks in between the dead animals  god himself all alone walks in between   their bodies walks in between their blood and  by doing so god is saying that he is putting   his very own nature on the line so as to make  sure that this covenant is maintained remember  

Abram asked god to give him evidence that god  was going to do what he said he would do and god   responded by saying if i don’t give you what  i promised you the blood will be on my hands  

Now that didn’t convince abram that god was worthy  to be trusted i don’t know what else god could do   moving forward you might be thinking okay now god  then showed up as a pot in the torch and walked  

Through some heifer blood sari is definitely  going to get pregnant next week but nope abram   and sarah just get old and older and older making  god’s promise seem that much more impossible   in genesis 17 when abram is 99 and sarai is 90  god shows up again adding even more specificity to  

His promise he tells abram that sarah will have a  son from her own womb whose name will be isaac in   genesis 18 god shows up again and tells abram now  named abraham that this time next year god will  

Give him a son sarai now called sarah was being a  little nosy don’t know if you remember the story   she heard what the lord had said and the text  says that by this time the way of women had  

Ceased with sarah what does that mean it means  sis ain’t got no time in the month no more okay her uterine lining ain’t shedding  nothing but dust she ain’t used always she ain’t had kotex in her cabinet in decades and now god is saying it’s a  women’s conference i can say that

Now god is saying she’s going to give birth  to a son which is absolutely crazy so sarah   laughs she like god must don’t know how old i am  how in the world am i going to have a whole baby  

This is one of my favorite parts of the bible  the lord says to abraham because sarah had   laughed when god said what he has said uh  god says why does sarah laugh is anything   too hard for the lord to which sarah responds  like she ain’t talking to god i didn’t laugh

Then god was like no but you did  let’s be clear but in all seriousness i think we all need to remember the reality of  god and that there is nothing too hard for him   all of us have something in our life  where this truth needs to be applied  

It may be the salvation of a family  member the restoration of a marriage   deliverance from addiction the opening of a  barren womb the resources to adopt the power   to forgive the ability to put to death your  favorite sins whatever it is god can do it  

Because this is the thing god is not like anyone  you have or will ever know he has no limitations   he is the one that made the heavens and the earth  he is the one who has all power he is completely  

Sovereign always strong and never tired but  unbelief will move you to construct a god in   your own image and therefore you will start  to believe that either god has a weakness and   cannot do the impossible or that god isn’t good  and therefore he won’t do the impossible for you  

Which isn’t to say though everything  we ask of god he is obligated to do   god is god so he has the right to move however  and whenever and wherever he pleases but the   challenge is this to believe that god is god  which means god can answer my impossible prayers  

And god can give me an impossible  faith to still trust him if he doesn’t   is anything too hard for the lord in genesis 22  or 21 the impossible happens it says the lord   visited sarah as he had said and the lord did  to sarah as he had promised and sarah conceived  

And bore abraham a son in his old age at the  time of which god had spoken god is not a liar   so by quickly walking through genesis chapter  12 to genesis 21 we are clear on three things  

God has promised to make a nation out of  abraham that all families of the earth will   be blessed through him and that god will do this  through abraham seed isaac with that in mind now   when we get to genesis 22 the first two verses  should be shocking it says after these things god  

Tested abraham and said to him take your son  your only son isaac whom you love and offer him   there as a burnt offering if you’re like me the  first time i read this passage i was like now god  

You promised this man that all nations of  the earth will be blessed through his seed   isaac you don’t make covenants you don’t walk  through blood and became pots and stuff and now   you’re telling him to sacrifice the son he done  waited decades for not only that god’s promise  

To abraham hinges on isaac being alive it’s  crazy but what helps us to give us some pause is   the beginning of this verse and how it begins by  saying that this is a test the concept of testing  

Is all throughout scripture usually it’s explicit  like in exodus when god said he allowed israel to   be in the wilderness for 40 years to test them or  in luke 4 when it says that the holy spirit led  

Jesus in the wilderness to be tested god tests for  two reasons usually to reveal and to refine when a   test is used to reveal something what is exposed  is whatever is in your heart testing reveals  

What you really believe if you really have faith  if there are a few idols hiding in a corner   somewhere a little pride that you didn’t know you  had which is such a merciful thing for god to do   because i don’t know if you know this we  tend to think really highly of ourselves  

The natural state of the sinner as described in  romans 1 is that we think we are wise when we are   full so we may have a self-conception that has  nothing to do with reality but also we can get  

Therapy we can take enneagram tests enneagram  three wing four and b as be as self-aware as   possible and even then it is impossible for you  to discern everything about yourself so in god’s   sovereign compassion he will allow your kids  to act up so you can see how impatient you are  

He’ll let your money get funny so you can discern  your greed or your distrust in god’s provision   tests reveal but tests also refine peter  said in first peter 1 6 though now for   a little while if necessary you have been  grieved by various trials so that the tested  

Genuineness of your faith more precious than gold  that perishes though it is tested by fire imagine   who you’d be if you didn’t go through anything if  your faith was never challenged if life never got   hard intense if you never had any angst or  confusion or anxiety about what to do or where  

To go and and who to trust without the refiners  fire what would the quality of your life look like   i can bet that it might be easier but  would it be fruitful why because tests   purify your faith it is only fire that refines  gold and it is only trials that will refine  

You and yes i know trust me no discipline seems  enjoyable at the time but it will yield the   peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who  are trained by it circling back to genesis 22   since this narrative is fr as a test we can know  that whatever god is doing with abraham it will  

Reveal something to him and reveal something out  of him and what greater test is there for abraham   than for god to tell him to sacrifice his son the  son he loves note that this is the first mention  

Of the word love in the bible which is really  fascinating to me that it’s set in the context of   sacrifice and not self-centeredness but that’s a  completely different conversation anyone one thing   about this test is that if you’re  familiar with abraham’s story at all  

If you followed his life up until this point you  know that this test actually isn’t unfamiliar   do you remember when god commanded abraham in  the beginning in genesis 14 what he commanded   him to do he told him to leave his country leave  his family leave his home and go where god wanted  

Him to go abraham then is well acquainted with  god telling him to sacrifice stuff that he loves   since abraham was called he was repeatedly tested  so even though sacrificing isaac is an extreme   test god didn’t start there he has been readying  abraham’s faith so as the test got more intense he  

Had the stamina to endure it charles spurgeon said  this he said the lord knows how to educate you up   to such a point that you can endure in your  years to come what you could not endure today  

Just as today he may make you stand firm under a  burden which ten years ago would have crushed you   into dust perhaps this is the reason you don’t he  read anything about abraham pushing back or asking  

Questions he just he just gets up and obeys verse  three abraham rose early in the morning saddled   his donkey and took two of his men with him and  his son isaac and they cut the wood for the burnt  

Offering and arose and went to the place of which  god had told him in other words abraham obeyed   immediately why because he had faith the writer  of hebrews says that faith is the assurance of  

Things hoped for the conviction of things not seen  another way to see it is that faith is an inner   certainty regarding things you cannot see that  engages your will leading you to act in relation   to what you believe i’ll say it again because  y’all taking notes faith is an inner certainty  

Regarding things you cannot see that engages your  will leading you to act in relation to what you   believe for example you ever seen one of those  team-building exercises called the trust fall   it’s weird basically one person stands on  a platform with their eyes clock closed and  

Their arms folded looks like they’re  about to die beneath them behind them   are co-workers or their team standing in the line  with their arms out ready to catch not the bouquet   but the person the reason it’s a trust fall is  that the person on the platform can’t see nobody  

Can’t see the people behind them so they have  to trust what they cannot see but it wouldn’t   be enough for them to just say they trusted their  team like yeah i trust you and stay there that’s   not good enough words are easy trust is actually  realized when the person chooses to fall backwards  

The inner certainty gave them confidence that  their team would catch them even though they   couldn’t see them and that certainty engaged  their will which was why they chose to fall i   use this example because faith cannot be separated  from behavior faith is at work in abraham because  

Remember god has made him a promise and isaac  is a pivotal piece of that promise is isaac dies   the promise does too the irrationality of it all  doesn’t seem to hinder abraham though i think any  

Rational person would be like um god this test  ain’t it there has to be another way tell people   to steal my donkeys and burn down my tents but  don’t make me sacrifice my son but the thing  

Is abraham isn’t like me he doesn’t barter with  god he is certain that god is going to do what   he said he would do because he is god so because  he believes and trusts god he behaves accordingly  

It says that he woke up early in the morning  cut the wood that he would sacrifice his son on   and he goes to the place that god told him to  go to then we finally get an idea of what’s in  

Abraham’s mind in verses five and six look at  it it says on the third day abraham lifted up   his eyes and saw the place from afar then abraham  said to his young men stay here with the donkey  

I and the boy will go over there and worship  and come again to you do you hear his faith   somewhere in between god telling him to sacrifice  isaac and him getting the wood he has concluded   that after he has killed his son isaac is  going to come back how does he know that  

Who or what is he trusting to make  him so certain it’s simple he believes   god not merely the promise of god but the person  of god because the promise is only trustworthy   because the one who made the promise cannot lie  so so it’s the very nature of god that abraham has  

Considered and in so doing he has reckoned that  because god cannot lie he is obviously going to do   something to ensure that isaac ultimately doesn’t  die the writer of hebrews said this by faith   abraham when he was tested offered up isaac  and he who had received the promises was in  

The act of offering up his only son of whom it was  said through isaac shall your offspring be named   he considered that god was able even to raise  him from the dead wait we are in genesis 22 right  

Amen no yes okay so we are centuries before  elijah raises a widow’s son from the dead   we are we are centuries more for when jesus  raised lazarus easter ain’t on abraham’s radar   he don’t got a clue about pastel outfits and shiny  white shoes there has yet there has yet to be an  

Empty tomb for him to base his faith on so how  is it then that abraham knew the very concept of   resurrection was even possible i think that before  abraham rose early in the morning while he thought  

About what god was calling him to do and that it  meant that he have to put his son to death i think   i think abraham remembered his own body and  how god had brought life from death before  

So surely he could do it again unless you think  i’m just making up stuff i want you to remind   your romans 4 19 which says this he abraham did  not weaken in faith when he considered his own  

Body which was as good as dead or when he  considered the barrenness of life or lifelessness   of sarah’s womb the word dead here literally  means corpse-like so then god had to resurrect   their bodies in a real sense so as to give  them the power to create life in the form of  

Isaac abraham had the audacity to say that  he and isaac would go worship and return   because he remembered that god had did it before  in 1953 this guy by the name of henry malaysian   went in for brain surgery to treat his  epilepsy during the procedure the doctor  

Removed a piece of henry’s brain affected  his memory especially his short-term memory   and one recording a doctor doing a study this  on netflix by the way i ain’t making it up a doctor doing a study on the brain in  memory asked henry if he remembered what  

He did yesterday henry said i don’t know the  doctor asked him again what he did that morning   henry said i don’t remember that either then they  asked him if he knew what he’d do tomorrow to   which henry responded whatever is beneficial you’d  expect henry to have some kind of loose schedule  

I’m gonna wake up i’m gonna get some coffee  i’ma watch the news but he didn’t because   henry couldn’t tell you what he would do tomorrow  because he couldn’t remember what he did yesterday   he answered the question the way that he did  because the portion of henry’s brain that was  

Removed affected henry’s ability to make new  memories and since henry couldn’t remember the   past he had no context for how to imagine  his future without his memories henry had   no expectation when abraham thought about the  sacrifice that he had to make in the future  

He remembered the resurrection in the past and  that if god could do a miracle then then god   could do a miracle now almost all of us have  a hard time trusting god to do what he said  

He would do in his word through his son and  it might be because we have a memory problem   how quickly we forget that he made the heavens and  the earth that he split the sea and delivered his  

People out of bondage how he brought life from a  dead womb we forget how faithful he’s been to us   and our family how he’s provided for us when we  didn’t even ask how he’s protected us from all  

Kinds of mess but when trials show up now all of  a sudden is i don’t know if god is going to come   through i don’t know if god is going to do this  i don’t know if god is going to do that i don’t  

Know if god is going to show up hasn’t god always  showed up hasn’t god always been good hasn’t god   always been faithful just because you change your  mind every six seconds doesn’t mean that god does  

He is the same god today as he was yesterday  some of us don’t need to fast we need to remember   and it isn’t isn’t this true that the word  of god has provided for us 66 books worth  

Of memories of who god is and how god works which  will inform our faith so that we can obey without   hesitation because abraham has faith in his  god he is willing to sacrifice his only son the text says abraham took  the word of the burnt offering  

And laid it on his son isaac he took in his hand  the fire and the knife and they went both of them   together to the place that god had told  him i want to be clear about something   a burnt offering was a total sacrifice there  were other offerings that would allow you  

To sacrifice an animal and the priest  could take a portion of it home to eat   but a burnt offering was the one offering where  the whole animal was totally consumed the process   went something like this as described in leviticus  1 a male animal without blemish was taken  

The offerer would lay his hand on the animal which  was symbolic of the transferring of the offer   ascends onto the sacrifice an act of atonement  then they’d kill the animal blood would be   collected and thrown on the altar then the animal  would be cut into pieces and arranged on the wood  

Then the animal would be burned and totally  consumed and as the smoke of the animal   rose towards heaven it was said to be a pleasing  aroma to the lord and god told abraham to do that  

To his son the son he loved if this were not a  test god’s character would be questionable at best   seeing that god himself said that human sacrifice  was detestable in deuteronomy 12 and 18.   but since it is a test sacrificing isaac or at  least being willing to do it resolves god of any  

Guilt and refines abraham of any potential sin  this test solidifies abraham’s loyalty to god   over and above love for his son it is clear  that abraham has a deep affection for isaac   god even acknowledges it by saying take  your son your only son isaac whom you love  

And this love is natural this love is good  we should love our children they are good   gifts from a creative god but how easy it is  to take these good gifts and make them god   isaac was special he was the promised  child the seed through whom the whole world  

Would be blessed abraham had parted ways with  his son ishmael years earlier so this was the   only son he had and maybe god knew abraham’s  potential abraham was an idol worshiper before   he was called so it wouldn’t have been out of  character for him to worship something other than  

God maybe god knew that the son he loved could  become the lord he worshiped so to set him free   from any inkling of idolatry god had to put him in  a position to choose and he did he built the altar

He laid the wood he took some rope and wrapped  it around his son’s body so he couldn’t move   and i can only imagine the pain because it  wouldn’t be a sacrifice if it didn’t hurt   a sacrifice isn’t a sacrifice  if it doesn’t cost you something  

This body on this altar is his boy who  he saw every day ate dinner with every   night on the altar he probably looked at  him and saw his own features in his face   alongside fear but either way even with all the  faith in the world sacrificing what you love is  

Devastating but even then god must be worthy of it  all and abraham knows that so with inner certainty   engaging his will leading him to act in a way that  is relative to what he believes he takes the knife  

Ready to slaughter his son then he hears his  name verse 11 abraham abraham and he said   here i am he said do not lay your hand on  the boy or do anything to him for now i know   that you fear god seeing you have not  withheld your son your only son from me  

If there was any doubt who abraham’s god was  this moment made it clear god had refined   abraham’s heart removing any other allegiances  and now he’d revealed it to for god to say   i know that you fear god this anthropomorphic  language god knows everything so it doesn’t  

Mean that god didn’t know it it means that  god is affirming that abraham’s faith is real   and isn’t that what we all want the affirmation  that our faith is authentic because there are   those who will present themselves before jesus  with a bunch of evidence for why they deserve  

Glory did not prophesy in your name did not cast  out demons and perform miracles on your name i   think some of us in this room we would say god  did not preach and expose at the passage correctly  

Did not tithe didn’t i go to seminary and  lead worship and go on mission trips and   vote though certain ways surely that’s proof  of my faith all of which looks impressive   it looks like power it looks like the fruit of  faith but jesus turns to these kinds of people  

And calls them workers of lawlessness god forbid  you have to wait till judgment to find out who   you really are but the irony of it is this the  very act of looking to what you’ve done for jesus  

As evidence of that you know jesus might be the  proof that you don’t because the truly faithful   ones know that they have never done anything  apart from jesus so when they stand before god   they stand before him like the men and the parable  of the talent saying this is what i’ve done with  

What you have given me and do you know what  the master will say to them he’ll say well done   my good and faithful servant and that  is the point of everything my friends   when all the tests and all the trials and all  the pain and all the angst and all the discipline  

And all the suffering is over the point of it  all is that the god of the glory the judge of   the universe the one who cannot lie seated on the  judgment say will say i know that you fear god  

Verse 13 and abraham lifted up his eyes and  looked and behold behind him was a ram caught   in a thicket by his stars and abraham went and  took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering   instead of his son so abraham called the  name of that place the lord will provide  

This moment right here is an  act of substitutionary atonement   instead of isaac being sacrificed  the ram is killed in his place   with substitution one person takes the place of  another bearing the penalty that we reserved for   someone else if isaac was killed as a burnt  offering a few things would have happened  

He would have experienced the death and thus  he would have been separated from his father   he also would have experienced the desecration  of his body as it burned in the fire   and all of this would have happened at  the hands of his father it is because  

God provided the ram that saved isaac from death  separation and destruction but there’s a problem   with all of this sacrificing the burnt offering  functioned as atonement abram and isaac were both   sinners and the wages of sin is dead god’s  justice had to be satisfied by virtue of blood  

Being spilled a life being taken either their  own life or somebody else’s life so the realm   was not only sacrificed instead of isaac before  isaac but even then the ram wasn’t good enough   why because hebrew 10 4 says it is impossible  for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin  

Meaning that this ram though it was a sacrifice it  wasn’t a sufficient one if anything this ram was a   shadow pointing forward to a better sacrifice  one that would not be accomplished by jehovah  

Providing a ram in a bush but by jehovah jireh  providing his son in the flesh and who is this son   i’ll tell you first of all the son was  born to a woman by virtue of a miracle  

His mother wasn’t barren but she was a virgin  named mary who by all accounts should not have   been able to get pregnant seeing as though she  had not been with a man but because nothing is   too hard for the lord she conceived by  the power of the spirit the son grew up  

Learned obedience through what he suffered  being tested by the devil to turn stones   into bread and to worship and thus love  anything more than god but he resisted   every single time to which god publicly affirmed  that his son’s faith was real by saying that this  

Is my beloved son with whom i am well pleased by  then or but then the scenario for which the son   habit was born came to pass the night before the  son had prayed to his daddy prayed to his father  

Said that he wanted this cup to pass from him  he was in a position where he had to choose he   had to choose either his will or his father’s will  and he did this son was made to carry his own wood  

On his own back as he walked toward the top of  a mountain and while up there this son’s body   was secured to the woods so that he couldn’t  move the people said if you are the son of god  

Come down the cross what they didn’t understand  is if he came down they would have had to go up   in his place not dying for them but receiving  the penalty of death that belonged to us because  

It’s easy to forget that since i was born a sinner  and the wages of sin is death that if jesus did my   sins i would have had to pay for my own that even  if i sinned once that meant i deserve the judgment  

That through this death i would be eternally  separated from the life of the father that i would   endure the the pain and the desecration of eternal  destruction and that all of this would happen   at the hands of god the father but for these  people to tell jesus to come down the cross  

They clearly didn’t realize that if he came down  there would be no substitution and that the reason   he stayed is because he loved them to death maybe  they didn’t remember that day when abraham was   asleep and god himself walked through a line  of death walked through blood making it known  

That he was going to keep his promise and do you  know what on the cross god got blood on his hands   god became man so that he could die so as to  maintain a covenant relationship with his people  

There he was god in the flesh being killed like  an animal being slaughtered like the animals   that he walked through becoming a lamb that he  promised to be and there were no rams this time   there was no voice to cry out from heaven to  stop it there was only silence and then those  

Three hours and the dreadful darkness of god’s  presence was the only begotten son whose very own   father was pleased to crush him jesus became  sin so that you could be declared righteous   jesus died so that you could have life jesus  was bruised so you could be healed jesus rose  

From the dead so that you could too that is  the beauty of substitution jesus is the ram   and the bush and jesus is the son who returned  from the dead to worship with his daddy and now   it is through this son jesus that all  who have faith in his name are called  

The sons and daughters of abraham and look at us a  people from every tribe and every tongue and every   nation a church that has lasted for centuries  with millions of saints that have gone before  

Us and who will come after us and if you just look  into the crowd don’t we look like stars what god   promised to abraham in genesis 12  has been realized in us the children   of the promise is there anything too hard for  the lord lord we thank you for this day we thank  

You for your faithfulness we thank you for your  nature and how you have revealed it through christ   by the spirit in the scriptures we pray god that  this would be more than words that this would be  

More than knowledge that it would actually inform  the way we do life the way we love people the way   we engage on social media the way we engage with  our families and our friends in our local churches  

I pray that it even changes the way we pray that  we would pray with power that we will pray with   confidence knowing that we are praying to a good  and a faithful god we love you in jesus name amen

#Jesus #Substitutionary #Atonement #MyNameIsJackieHill

Is Jesus Divine? 30% of “Evangelicals” Say No.



NICHOLS: You know, you’ve heard people say—I’ve heard people say all sorts of things about who Christ is. And in our State of Theology survey, one of the statements that we put on the survey directly gets at who Jesus Christ is.

And the statement is this: “Jesus was a great teacher, but he is not God”. Now, when we put that survey to the general U.S. population, 52%—that’s the majority—agree with that statement. That’s to say that the majority of Americans espouse a heretical view of the person of Christ.

And this is a truly crucial, essential doctrine, because the person of Christ is behind the work of Christ. When we’re talking about the work of Christ, we’re talking about the gospel. And without the true gospel, people are lost, and they are without hope in this world, and they are facing eternal damnation.

There could be nothing more important than getting the doctrine of the work and person of Christ right. And as this survey shows, there’s a lot of false understanding and confusion out there about who Christ is. But what’s even more tragic about this survey is that we put that same question to evangelicals.

Now, when you hear us use that term of “evangelicals” in this survey, let me explain to you what that means. It’s not someone just simply checking a box. We actually attached at the end of the survey four questions which have historically served as sort of a grid to identify evangelicals.

There’s a question regarding biblical authority; a question regarding the necessity of evangelism; there’s a statement regarding who Christ is and His atoning death on the cross; and then, fourthly, the exclusivity of Christ, that only faith in Christ can lead to salvation.

So, people who strongly affirm all four of those, they get considered “evangelicals.” We can pull that data out separately and analyze that. And here’s the tragedy. When it comes to that statement, “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God,”

Thirty percent, three out of 10, almost a third of evangelicals agree with that statement. So here are folks who want to say, “Yes, we must have the death of Christ in order to be saved. It is absolutely necessary for this work of Christ.”

But then they turn around, and they’re just so confused that they affirm a heretical view of who Christ is. What are we to do with this? What’s the takeaway? All of this underscores the importance of our studying the doctrine of Christology and teaching the doctrine of Christology.

We just can’t assume that folks sitting in our churches and the Christians we know and our family will just “get it” by osmosis. We have to be intentional and programmatic about teaching this cardinal doctrine. Because if this survey tells us anything, it tells us that we’ve got a lot of work

To be doing.

#Jesus #Divine #Evangelicals

Secularism: Christian Worldview with R.C. Sproul



SPROUL: There’s a real sense, I think, that every Christian is a missionary. If we go back to the New Testament, and we see in the book of Acts, that when persecution arose in Jerusalem we read that all of the Christians were scattered except the apostles.

And those who were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Gospel. That is the way the Christian church was born—not simply with the ministry of the clergy or the apostles or even of the deacons but it was the rank and file Christians that took the Gospel wherever they went in the ancient world.

But in our church today we make a distinction, don’t we, between a professional missionary and a layman who is not a missionary? But in Biblical categories every Christian, in a sense, is a missionary, because every Christian is called to participate in the mission that Christ has given to the church.

Well when I look at what we do with missionaries before we send them into a foreign country what do we have them do? We don’t just select a missionary, put them on an airplane, have them arrive in Timbuktu or someplace like that and say “ok, do your thing.”

Before a missionary can go to the foreign field that the person has to undergo in-depth study of the culture to which they are going. They have to learn the language; they have to learn the customs; they have to be able

To understand the way people think and the way they behave in the land to which they are sent as missionaries. Now let’s assume that you are missionaries to the United States. What’s your preparation? It’s not enough simply to know the Gospel, to know the content of Scriptures, the subject

Matter that you want to communicate and bear witness to your culture. It is also very important that you understand the culture in which you are acting out your role as a missionary. So that’s the purpose of this series of lectures.

It’s to try to get a handle on the culture as it now presents itself to us as Christians. I think it would be a dreadful mistake to assume that the American culture is predominantly a Christian culture. Certainly we live in a nation that has had an enormous influence from the church and

From Judeo-Christian value systems. It’s not that our country is pagan. Our country has been strongly influenced by Christianity. Some have said that we have been influenced in the degree that people are influenced when they receive a shot of inoculation to prevent a disease that you put a minor dose of the

Disease in the inoculation so that they have just enough of it to be immune to the real thing. And some have maintained that that’s what has happened here in the American culture, that we’ve had just enough Christianity impacting our society as to make us immune from the real thing.

There’s a sense, as I said, in which our nation is not pagan. Paganism is a pre-Christian situation. It’s a situation that exists where the Gospel and the light of the Gospel has never been manifest in a particular environment, but that’s not true about America.

Ours is what I call a “secular” environment, a “secular” society. And the secularization of the American culture is a post-Christian phenomenon, not a pre-Christian—”pre-Christian” is pagan; “post-Christian” is secularized. Now, I think it’s also important for us to understand that our culture is, and has been, a melting pot.

We don’t live in a culture that is monolithic. What is monolithic? A monolithic culture is a culture where only one definable worldview or value system is operating, and there’s kind of a uniformity as you find in some nations.

You go, for example, into Red China and you see a uniform system of thought that everybody is supposed to embrace—it’s taught in the schools, it’s advertised in posters, and even the uniformity comes down to literal uniforms. People dress in the same way as there is this enforced conformity, but that’s not been the

American ideal. The American ideal has been—we are a melting pot, so that there are all kinds of different beliefs and philosophies competing for acceptance within our society and within our culture. And if a Christian is going to be able to communicate to this culture, he has to be

Aware at least of the dominant systems that are operating within our culture. As I said, we’re not monolithic but the term that we use is pluralistic, and we’ll have a separate study, a separate lecture, just on pluralism. But the various schools of thought that are most dominant, I believe, in our culture today

Include the ones that I’m about to put up here on the blackboard, and we’re going to look at each one of those individually in the lectures to come. First of all, there is the influence of what we call humanism.

As I say, we will a separate lecture defining the content and the perspective of humanism. Secondly, there is the influence of existentialism. How many of you think that you could give a good definition of existentialism? How many of you have never heard the word existentialism? All right, just a couple.

Most of you have at least heard the term existentialism, but it’s one of those terms that we hear bandied about in the culture but very few people are able to give concrete definition—we will have a separate lecture on existentialism.

A third “ism” that has had a tremendous impact on our culture that most laymen have never heard of is the “ism” called positivism. How many of you have never heard of positivism? See, there’s some more here, more than have never heard of existentialism.

And also, there’s the influence of a very ancient perspective or philosophy that we call hedonism. How many of you have never heard of hedonism? How many of you have heard of hedonism? You have … You have heard of that. Ok, all right.

And then there is, as I said, pluralism and relativism … And there’s one other “ism” that I’m going to incorporate up above with positivism which we call pragmatism, which is a distinctly American life and worldview. All right, let’s see how many I have there—five—humanism, existentialism, positivism, pragmatism, hedonism,

And pluralism and its corollary relativism. All right, those are going to be the systems of thought or philosophical perspectives that we will be examining in this brief course. But what I’m looking for today is this: is there an overarching, generic, holistic philosophy

Or value system that would in some sense incorporate all of these? It’s been said that no society can survive, no civilization can function without some unifying philosophical perspective. Even if you have all different kinds of views competing, there must be some kind of overarching

Atmosphere or environment that makes it possible even for these to coexist in a given society. And when the historians and the philosophers seek the common term, the common basic generic lowest common denominator that incorporates features of all of these, usually the term

That we hear is the term secularism, and that’s what I want to look at in the time that we have left today. Let me do my handiwork here with the eraser and we’ll start again with this word: secularism.

Obviously, when we see that word, we see that we have a root and a suffix. And my favorite method of teaching is to do word studies and break these concepts down into its constituent parts so that we can get a hold of them. There’s the word “secular,” and then there’s the suffix.

Now let’s start at the back and work our way forward. Anytime we see this three-letter suffix, “ism,” what do we see? What do we find? What’s it saying? What’s it do to the word? You’re allowed to answer my question, you know. What does it do? What does “ism” do to a word?

AUDIENCE: It makes it a state of being. SPROUL: It makes it a state of being. Little bit more than that. AUDIENCE: A philosophy. SPROUL: A philosophy, a system of thought. What we call a “veltunchung,” a way of looking at the world, a view of the world, a value system.

It’s one thing—how many of you believe in humans? And think that being human is a good thing? It’s one thing to be human; it’s another thing to be a humanist—that is one who embraces humanism. We all exist, but we’re not all existentialists, are we?

You put that “ism”, existentialism, on the end of the root for existence and you’re talking now about a philosophical system, a whole way of looking at things. You want to be practical, but does that make you a pragmatist? Of course not.

All right, so we see that the suffix “ism” takes the root and elevates it to the level of a philosophical system. Now the word “secular” is a perfectly good and positive word in the Christian’s vocabulary. Historically the church has always had a good view of that which was regarded as being secular.

I’m thinking in terms of the whole of the history of the church. In the Middle Ages, for example, men were ordained to a specific role in the priesthood that was called the secular priesthood, because those were men who had offices that took them

Out of the arena, or the institution, of the church to minister out in the world where they were specific needs that needed the healing touch of the church, or the priestly mission of the church. There’s a sense in which I was ordained as a secular clergyman, because I was ordained

To the teaching ministry, not to an ecclesiastical office within a local congregation. So I was commissioned to go to the university and to be a teacher out in the world, if you will, in the secular world that can be distinguished to some degree by that sphere that we’ve set

Apart and called the church, or the sacred realm. But so often in Christians’ minds the distinction between sacred and secular is the distinction between the good and the bad, but that’s not the way it was meant to be in the development of church history. It was simply a different sphere of operation. Ok?

Now the word secular has its origins and its roots in the Latin, in the Latin language. It comes from the Latin word “saeculum,” which means—Do we have any Latin scholars in here? What does the Latin word “saeculum” mean? What’s its translation?—It means the word “saeculum” means in the original Latin “world.” Ok?

I said a secular priest is one who ministers in the world. What does the Latin word “mundus” mean? Anybody know? “World.” Remember Athanasius? St. Athanasius, what was on his tombstone? “Athanasius Contra Mundum”—Athanasius against what? The world. All right, so that “mundus” also means world.

Well both words mean the same thing in the original Latin, what was the difference? Well, the people in the ancient world understood that as human beings they lived in time and in space. We still talk that way, don’t we?

That our life is spatial; it’s geographical; there is a certain “whereness” to my life. I live here. I am here; I’m not somewhere else. And there is also a time frame in which I live. Jesus talked about this place or this generation—this age. Ok? The present age.

So in the Latin the word for this world, thinking in terms of time is “saeculum,” and the word for this world in terms of space is “mundus.” Now what in the world, what in the “mundus” or the “saeculum” does this have to do with our culture?

Well “saeculum” or the secular had to do literally with this time, this world in the present time. The secular realm is this world in this world, in the present time. Now what happens to the word secular when you add the “ism”?

The basic overarching theme of secularism is this: That all of reality, all of life, every human value, every human activity must be understood in light of and judged by the value or the norm of this present time. Where’s the point of conflict between secularism and Christianity? Can you see it coming?

The New Testament Scriptures, the Biblical worldview is always concerned about long-range considerations. The Bible teaches us that we were created for eternity that the heart of the New Testament message is that Christ has come to give us life, a life that wells up into what?—eternal life.

And that at the very beginning of our understanding of the world we read in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning,” what? “God created the heavens and the earth.” So that if we look at the earth and we see that it has a beginning in space and time,

But before there is even a world, if I can use the term “before,” there is One who transcends the world; One who stands above the world; One is outside of the restrictions of this space and time order that we call the world—namely, God.

“In the beginning God …” And we as part of the most core dimension of the Christian faith, we believe in a transcendent God—a God out there, a God who is beyond the confines of this planet. A God who is transcendent and a God who is what?—eternal, and that all judgments that

God makes, all things that He does are done from the perspective of what?—of the eternal. Now in philosophy we call that that God considers everything “subspecies aeternitatis.” Now that’s just a fancy Latin phrase for a very simple idea that means that God considers

Everything under, “sub” means under, under the species or the “auspices,” the auspices, or from the perspective of the eternal. In fact, the admonition and the rebuke that Christ brings to this world is that men are only thinking short term; they’re thinking in terms of the now and only the now instead

Of the future consequences of their behavior—long term. And Jesus says that He comes from above; He descends from the eternal realm. And He calls the Christian to live his life in light of eternity, and that his values are to be measured by transcendent norms of eternal significance.

I have a column that you know of in “Tabletalk,” our magazine, and what’s the byline, what’s the title of the column? “Right Now Counts…” what? “Forever.” Why do I choose that byline? Just to be cute? I did it because I said if there’s only one message that I can give to my generation,

And I can say the same message over and over and over again until people begin to think about it, it’s that. That’s the one voice that I want to scream from the streets—right now counts forever. What you do now has eternal significance.

And I did that consciously aware of the fact that we are being pressed upon by every side from the philosophy of the secularist who says, bottom line, right now counts for what?—right now. There is no eternity; there is no eternal perspective.

You’ve heard it said a jillion times “there are no absolutes;” there are no abiding principles by which human life is to be judged, is to be embraced, is to be evaluated. All reality is restricted or limited to the now. We see it in different phraseology in theology.

We’ve seen an attempt in twentieth century theology to produce a secularized gospel. Remember the Death of God movement? One of the most important books that came out of the Death of God movement by Dr. Van Buren was called the “Secular Meaning of the Gospel,” in which he talked in terms of synthesizing

Classical Christianity with the philosophy of secularism. But how can you do that without declaring the death of God? And you see the death of God, in the terms of the loss of transcendence, the loss of the eternal, means for you the death of man—because it means that history has no transcendent

Goal, no eternal purpose, that the meaning of your life is summed up in the words on the tombstone—born 1925; died 1985—that’s it. You have a terminal point, a beginning and an ending with no ultimate significance. This is called the theology or the philosophy of the “hic et nunc”—”the here and the now.”

Do you have to go to the library and get a dusty tome of philosophy, a heavy weighty treatise on moral philosophy to be exposed to these ideas? Where else do you see it? AUDIENCE: The media’s full of it. SPROUL: The media is full of it.

You know my favorite illustration of it is the beer advertisement: “You only go around life once, so do it with gusto.” And you see the guy out in the sailboat and this wind is blowing his hair and the salt spray is splashing at his face, and he’s having a fantastic time right now.

Ok? Pepsi calls it what? “The now generation.” Do it now. Do it now, because the message that comes through—you better get it now, because there is no tomorrow ultimately. Now we’re going to consider hedonism later, but one of the themes of the Epicureans who

Were hedonists in antiquity, one of … the bottom line of their philosophy was, “Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die.” Contrast that with Jesus. “Lay up treasures in heaven.” Think in terms of eternity, long-range implications.

Do you see this touches us most heavily, not simply in how we handle our bank accounts or how we speculate philosophically, but it touches us at the level of how we invest our lives, because life is an investment?

And the question that modern man has to answer is he going to invest his life for short-term benefits or for long-term gain? And every time you are faced with a moral decision, the temptation to do something now that may have harmful after effects, you are caught up in the tension and the conflict

Between two worldviews right now. Do you live for the present? Or do we live for eternity? Because, again, at the core of our Biblical understanding of life and of our moral behavior is that there are actions and that every action not only has a cause but it also has what?—a

Result or a consequence. And the consequence takes us to tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow. What did Shakespeare say? “Creeps at its petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time.” But for the Christian there is no last syllable of recorded time.

Our lives are forever, but beyond the secular or the “saeculum” there is the eternal. And that’s what the Christian faith is all about. Why should a person be worried about salvation in terms of personal redemption if there is no eternal dimension? What is the mission of the church if secularism is correct?

Why should we be concerned about redemption of individuals? All we can really do—and churches get into this—all we can really do, is minimize pain and suffering for a season. We can never really offer ultimate answers to the human predicament, because for the

Secularist there is no ultimate answer because there is no ultimate realm. This side of eternity is the exclusive sphere of human activity. It’s not by accident, as we will see, that for the most part those who buy into secularism, who are thinking people, ultimately embrace a philosophy of despair.

And that despair, it’ll manifest itself in a host of ways—escapism, through drugs, alcohol, and other forms of behavior to dull the senses from the message that is being proclaimed and being screamed from every corner of our culture—There is no tomorrow ultimately.

It is a philosophy of despair, and it is right now competing for men’s minds in the United States of America. What we’re going to look at in the weeks to come are the constituent elements that make up secularism—humanism, you’ve heard of secular humanism, there’s also secularistic

Existentialism, positivism, and those different philosophies may be in the collision course with each other but they all embrace one common point; namely, the denial of the transcendent and of the eternal. Look for it in your culture. Be aware of it when you see it.

For we need to understand the world in which we live.

#Secularism #Christian #Worldview #R.C #Sproul

The Rise and Fall of Secular Humanism: Only Two Religions with Peter Jones



JONES: This second lecture will deal with one of the powerful influences on our culture today, namely I’m looking at the rise and demise of secular humanism. I think it’s important that we understand today’s culture. And I really am so happy that there are young people listening to me because while some

Of you my age will say, “You’re saying what exactly what I understand and have lived through.” Sometimes our young people have difficulty figuring out what’s happening because they have not lived through this kind of thing. So I address them in particular.

And to understand our culture, we need to see that there are two fundamental ideologies that I will show at the end of my lectures possibly are really the same because they’re Oneist, namely secular humanism and revive paganism. They’re very different but at the end of the day, they are in their fundamental orientations

Of the world — Oneist. You know when I first came in 1964, I mention how amazed I was to see Christian America. And the other thing that amazed me was how much people lived in fear of communism. There were commies behind every bush.

And of course the McCarthy investigation of communist agents was just finished and many on the left poopooed that but it’s actually been shown that there were many communist agents in America during that time. But we were worried because this godless system of communism or Marxism was spreading throughout

The world in this sort of a domino effect from the Soviet Union to China, to Korea, to Vietnam, to Cuba. And you know the ’60s revolution was very much a revolution against the Vietnam War whose motivation of course was to oppose communism.

So we have radicals who still actually now have power who were part of those refusing to denounce communism which is sort of interesting. So the threat in the ’60s was not a religious threat but a nonreligious materialism in its various forms. In its political form of course — atheistic Marxism.

But it is also had an intellectual form called secular humanism and that was something that we all realized and perhaps still realize as a fundamental opponent of the Christian faith. Humanism was celebrated in the Renaissance just before the Reformation as the rediscovery

Of the value of the individual human being and his reason over against the power of the church. And many of us have seen the importance of that movement and of course it’s easy to describe the work of Martin Luther as an expression, in a certain sense, of that humanistic understanding

Of the importance of the individual. But of course, like most things, its good parts can be turned to bad. And what you have you see is, from the intelligent use of individual reason which has produced the incredible successes of Western culture through science and technology.

So, that one day human beings would walk on the moon; this kind of thinking became more and more enamored of its own power and felt that it was the only way of relating to the world — that human reason was the source of truth.

And belief in a world created by God and of reason created by God was dismissed as religious superstition and myth. And so for modern man — religion had to go, and this is why we have known and recognized that secular humanism is a massive attack on Christianity.

So from the 18th Century on what’s called “The Enlightenment” — “the age of light” if you like; this view of reason as the ultimate source of authority for human existence developed in a powerful way. Optimism in what mankind could produce, its capacities to bring about a better world took

The minds of intellectuals by storm and of course invaded the university. So that, so many of our intellectuals bought into this system. Bringing about if you like this vision of a kingdom of man on earth, you can already see how Oneist that is, right?

If it’s simply depending on human beings to put the world together, it is a form of Oneism. It was known as the religion of humanism and it was particularly expressed by the French Revolution. I spent eighteen years in France, so I love the French but I see their weaknesses too.

In 1789, the Paris revolutionaries built an altar to the goddess ‘Reason’ in Notre Dame Cathedral, can you believe that? There was an altar right in the center of that incredible medieval church and they celebrated to goddess ‘Reason’. The French philosopher who was part of this French Revolution — Voltaire, was fundamentally anti-Christian.

He was a friend by the way of Benjamin Franklin, who himself was a very conflicted man because some of you know that Benjamin Franklin was fascinated by George Whitfield and helped pay for some of his campaign.

And yet he was also a friend of Voltaire, one of the leading atheists of the 18th Century. Voltaire came up with the famous phrase “écrasez l’infâme,” — “Crush that vile unspeakable thing.” This became the battle cry of The Enlightenment, but it was actually Christianity that was the vile and unspeakable thing.

And so there were thousands of heads of priests and so on that were separated from their bodies through the French Revolution. The Emperor Napoleon asked Pierre-Simon Laplace, — the great French scientist if he believed in God; he was reputed to have said, “I have no need of that hypothesis.”

This is a movement, a very powerful movement in the West, and as western history develops in the 18th and 19th Centuries, you find leading intellectuals actually predicting the end of religion. In the 21st Century, we should be seeing the end of religion according to these predictions.

Ludwig Feuerbach called Christianity a “delusion,” “a gigantic human projection.” You remember Karl Marx described religion as “the opiate of the people,” the sign of a wrongly ordered society. “Man,” said Marx, “is the supreme divinity.” By the way, another expression Oneism.

But these people didn’t want to be called religious by the way; they weren’t religious, they were rational. Of course why did they believe in their own rationality, that was a faith statement by the way. Friedrich Nietzsche declared “Gott ist tot,” “God is dead.”

The tradition of Christianity was now being buried by these leading philosophers. Sigmund Freud in his book “The Future of an Illusion” speaks about religion in particularism his own Judaism as a “mass delusion, a collective neurosis which enshrines our infantile longing.”

He actually describes it as a serious pathological condition from which one needed to be healed. Really massive anti-religious mindset going on amongst the intellectuals of the 19th and 20th centuries. And that continues to this day in 1976, Richard Dawkins, one of the new atheists, in his book

“The Selfish Gene,” describes faith, quote, “as a kind of mental illness.” So here we have this rationalistic approach to eliminate faith and religion as a form of illness. And of course we saw this kind of thinking invade the church; that’s what liberalism is, you see.

Liberalism is the adaptation of the world’s kind of thinking and trying to make it Christian, that’s what liberals have done all through the ages since the beginning. Christianity, beginning with the Gnostics, who were the original liberals who tried to take pagan notions of the mystery religions and make them Christian.

So that’s the mechanism that liberals use. And when I was studying New Testament at Harvard, of course that was the great goal — to reinterpret the New Testament by demythologizing the supernatural. Demythologizing means taking away the myths and getting to the heart which really the

Heart was sort of a sense of one’s own existential being faced with nothingness; that was the real meaning of Christianity in the New Testament. So there was no miracles and certainly no resurrection of Jesus. And then of course, the mainline churches buy into this kind of thinking.

But of course, someone has said, “If you marry the spirit of the age, you will soon be a widower.” And we’ve seen mainline churches going down in their effect in our culture. And Liberalism thus defined the Gospel as mere social work, and saw Jesus only as an

Example not as a divine Savior, that was myth of course you see, so myth had to go. The Gospel was redefined in terms of Marxist politics. Liberation theology became all the rage, and Jesus was little more than a cake of 20th century revolutionary theory.

On a different level, the secular humanists were greatly influenced by Darwin, who would effectively eliminated belief in “God the Creator,” and proposed in place of “God the Creator” the idea of an unguided and impersonal process of natural selection.

Life came about by mere chance, and man was seen as the result of purposelessness and a mere natural process, that did not have him in mind by the way, and so we are really the result of chance.

It’s incredible to see how far people can go with that as an explanation for the incredible beauty and power of what we represent as human beings. The way our bodies have put together. The way our minds can function. There’s no valid explanation of this in secular humanism and yet so many liberal thinkers

Adopted it. Science was the only way of knowing anything about anything. And so, there was a belief that religion would disappear. When I came to the states in the ’60s, I was asked to read books on ‘the death of God’.

And this was all the rage and we were sort of told that this was the proof (and I wasn’t at an evangelical school and I don’t really blame my professors for seeing it this way, I saw it that way) that the death of God was the proof of the success of secular humanism.

That man no longer needed God as a hypothesis, he was now fine on his own. The final triumph then of secular humanism is to declare in America in the ’70s that God had died. Secular humanism had won. Now in a certain sense, these predictions have come true.

We’re seeing the decline of the Christian faith in the population as a whole. No longer are many people influenced by a Christian way of thinking and I don’t think we should hide our eyes from that. And in that sense we’ve seen the decline of attachment to the Christian faith.

Now, this is a massive change. People no longer actually believe in God the Creator and so they can do anything they want to, but that was not always the case. In 1890, the Supreme Court in United States defined religion as “one’s view of one’s relation

To his Creator, to the obligations they impose of reverence for his being and character and obedience to His will.” That was the statement of the Supreme Court in 1890. There was no other definition of God but of a personal transcendent creator.

But thanks in many ways to secular humanism, this is no longer the case in public discourse. So what is ‘secularism’ or secular humanism? Let me give you a simple definition, it comes in various names. As an intellectual discipline, it is known as “philosophical materialism,” that matter is ultimate. That’s the philosophy of materialism. As a religious expression, it is called ‘Atheism’, the faith belief that there is no God. There’s no — you can’t prove that rationally, right? So an atheist has to be in some sense a religious believer.

As a political form, it is practiced as ‘Marxism’ and various forms of socialism. And for many people, it’s simply a default way of thinking of living without any notion that God exists. That’s probably the way most people practice this kind of thinking.

But in all these expressions of secularism, it’s a consistent rejection as a mere ancient superstition, a sort of a holdover from the Middle Ages and we must refuse that kind of mythology if we want to really do our world good. Now, this kind of a view still dominates the western universities.

Some of you young people that go to schools around here will confirm that your professors — many of them believe in this kind of rationalism or secular humanism. However, this is not the whole story. Just as these philosophers of the 19th and early 20th century were predicting the end

Of the withering away of religion in a kind of ironic turn of events. We are now seeing the withering away of secular humanism, did you realize that? You probably don’t always see it, but this is happening and many people are talking about it.

And the withering away of secular humanism, (oh let me just say it) the proof is, how many people now say, “I’m spiritual but not religious?” In other words, they are making a claim to spirituality which doesn’t fit with secular humanism, right? — That’s superstition. Any kind of faith is superstition.

Well, the reasons why this movement of secular humanism is on the decline and indeed is withering away, is that while it was so optimistic and full of self-confidence; secular humanism produced two devastating World Wars that produced the death of millions. In some of its socialistic expressions it became totalitarian fascism.

And some of its great leader was Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot that produced the murder of countless millions, in the name of secular humanism. That doesn’t give a movement too many honors. And of course from that — you have wild industrialization, ecological disasters; but as I was indicating

Earlier, one of the real problems is that many people have begun to feel that without some kind of spirituality they can’t exist in this world. And that’s what secular humanism does; it leaves us with a soulless materialism without any sense of a meaning in a spiritual way of thinking.

And so secular humanism produced a profound sense of alienation from the rest of the universe. So we human beings, you see, are isolated in this massive cosmos, and we have no real relationship with the outside and so we have a profound sense of alienation. Have you met people like that?

They are looking for a sense of wholeness. “W-H.” (I didn’t say holiness, I said whole-ness) they want to belong somehow to more than a mere physical. But there is another reason why secular humanism is in decline. It is severely weak as a philosophical system. What do I mean by that?

Well, you see, to be a secular humanist, you have to believe in the validity of human reason. But in order to believe in human reason, you have to presuppose it. So to demonstrate that, you have to presuppose it. So it’s a perfectly circular way of thinking, does that make sense?

In order to prove reason, you have to presuppose it. And to presuppose it, that’s a faith statement that the world is rational. You don’t have all the information, right? You don’t sit outside of the cosmos and look down, ‘Oh yeah, that’s rational’. You have to presuppose that.

And some scholars have realized that this is not a ground for establishing secular humanism. The postmodern critique of secular humanism which argued that all major ideas are simply human notions and they are not scientific or philosophical, included the critique of secular humanism oddly.

So postmodernism — the thinkers of whom were probably the sons and daughters of secular humanist turns around and eats up their parents. There are two reasons really why secular humanism is on the decline. The first, is it really cannot stand against true biblical theism.

The conversion of Antony Flew — the great atheist is an example of that. He stated this, “It is simply inconceivable that any material matrix or field can generate agents who think and act. Matter cannot produce conceptions and perceptions such a world has to originate in the living source, a mind.”

The greatest atheist of the 20th century finally has to admit that secularism cannot justify the human mind. Isn’t that beautiful? But then, finally, there’s a new way of thinking. It is the thinking of this new spirituality. David Miller, who was a professor at Syracuse University, and was one of the ‘death of God’

Theologians actually said, “At the death of God, you will see the rebirth of the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome.” That’s not secular humanism. That’s a justification of a belief in all the gods. What did Miller know that we didn’t know as we read him in the ’70s?

Well, he was a devout follower of Carl Jung. And that will be the subject of my next lecture. Thank you.

#Rise #Fall #Secular #Humanism #Religions #Peter #Jones

R.C. Sproul: The Resurrection of Christ



That will be glory when we see him in the power of the resurrection. Let’s pray. Our Father and our God, as we consider now the mighty work that you performed by the power of the Spirit to raise Him from the tomb.

That certain sign that you have given by which the whole world is judged. We pray that we may see the full import of that moment in history when you raised Him from the grave. For we ask it in Jesus’ name – Amen.

Just a couple of days ago I was reading an article in the newspaper about the recently discovered bones of Jesus, which I refer to as the journalistic phase and sensational phase of theology. To get the press’ attention in religion the more bizarre the proposition is, the more attention they give it.

I was somewhat surprised at the beginning of the article than the writer indicated that this recent assertion had be responded to by scholarly archeologists with a certain amount of scorn, revealing it for the absurdity that it was.

So I was beginning to warm up to this journalist, thinking “wow, finally we find one that fights for the angels.” Then he went on to give the results of the most recent poll in which he said 78 % of Americans (and that is how we determine truth you know – by counting noses.)

Believe in the resurrection of Jesus. The author inserted a little extra phrase there. He said “78% of Americans believe in the myth of the resurrection of Jesus.” He just couldn’t hold it back. He had to get it in there. The myth of resurrection.

One of the oldest questions if not the oldest question of theology was the one asked by Job “if a man dies shall he live again?” And before we get to the New Testament answer to that question as set forth by the greatest

Apologist of the Christian church, the apostle Paul, I want to spend a little bit of time in background to refer your attention to two watershed events that radically changed the world in the decade of the 70’s. But I am not thinking of the 1970’s. I am not even thinking of the 1870’s.

But I am thinking of the 1770’s where most Americans believe the most important watershed event took place in that decade when some disgruntled colonists on this side of the ocean rose in protest against certain illegal procedures by parliament by declaring their independence, and inaugurating this country’s birth as an independent nation.

But I believe that something else happened in that same decade in Europe that had even far greater ramifications then the American Declaration of Independence. It was the work of a single man in Prussia who was a professor whose chief at the University of Cornisburg was the field of Astrophysics.

And he had contributed significantly by way of essays in the 18th century to the discipline of astro-physics. But his real claim to fame that catapulted him into international significance, this name who never traveled more than a hundred miles from his birth place and who was know

To take a walk every afternoon at exactly the same time, and was so punctual, indeed punctilious, was he that the villagers would check their timepieces by the afternoon stroll of this gentleman whose name ironically was Emmanuel, which hardly meant God with us, but came to mean “God unknown to us.”

This man was Emmanuel Kant who in the decade of the 70’s of the 18th century wrote the most definitive and comprehensive critique of the classical arguments for the existence of God in his book that was titled The Critique of Pure Reason, in which Emanuel Kant set

The bar for the centuries to follow for religious agnosticism. As a scientist he argued that we can not move from the visible world to the invisible world as the apostle Paul declares that not only can, but do in the first chapter of Romans.

He said we can’t move from the physical to the metaphysical, from the phenomenal world, as he called it, to the pneumenal world, which was the residence of God, the self, and the thing in itself. And so this critique of the classical arguments for the existence of God, given by Kant in

An effort not to save theology but to save science from the skepticism of David Hume, was as I say a watershed moment in western history because thereafter there was a seemingly un-breechable rift between science and theology.

But though Kant is known for ushering God out of the front door of the house, he ran around to the kitchen and opened the back door and tried to let God in through that entrance by the route not of metaphysical pursuit, but by reason of practical thinking.

Kant was very much concerned about morality and ethics. By the way when he considered his skeptical stance on the knowing of God, the one argument that he felt was most impressive was the argument to design. It was that which he could not explain.

But he was concerned with the study of man, that it would seem that in the heart of every human being there was this universally present sense of duty, or sense of “oughtness.” For which, he is famous for identifying as the categorical imperative.

It was Kant’s Germanic version of the golden rule if you will. But then he asks this question from a practical view point. Thinking transcendentally, what would the necessary conditions be to make this sense of oughtness, this sense of duty which provokes the pangs of conscience in human beings; what

Would be transcendentally necessary for this sense of duty to be meaningful? That is, he asked the question: What would have to be for ethics to be meaningful? And his concern, as I say, was practical. Because what he was concerned about was the survival of civilization.

And he understood that without some sense of ethics civilization can not survive for very long, as some of the other speakers have already addressed. And so, as he pondered that question: What would be necessary for ethics to be meaningful? He said the first thing is that there would have to be justice.

Because if there is no justice, then in the final analysis the person who acts according to this sense of ethic, this sense of duty would be involved in a fool’s errand in an exercise of meaninglessness. So, for ethics to be meaningful there must be justice.

And so then he looked around and he says that in the phenomenal world in which I live I notice that justice does not always prevail. And people were asking then as the Old Testament sages were asking “Why do the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer?”

And Kant said for justice to be true we must survive the grave. And not only must we survive the grave, in order for justice to prevail, but there must be beyond the grave to ensure justice a judge who would meet out and dispense pure justice.

And he went on to say: Well, what would the necessary conditions be for such a judge to ensure the distribution of justice? And he said, well first of all that judge would have to perfectly righteous and above reproach.

Because if the judge on the other side were an unjust judge then we would have no guarantee of the victory of justice and therefore no foundation for a meaningful ethic. Then he went on to say that judge would not only have to be righteous but we would also have to be omniscient.

Because for a judge to execute perfect justice, he would not only have to be just himself, but he would have to be free from being misinformed. A just judge could be responsible for a miscarriage of justice if he erred in his understanding of the case.

Then he went on the say that even if you say that you had a perfectly righteous omniscient judge, those two conditions would not guarantee the triumph of justice, because it would be possible that that perfect, just, and omniscient judge could give the correct sentence, but be powerless to carry it out.

So that judge in the next world would also have to have all power and authority within himself to guarantee justice. You see where Kant is going? He’s saying though on the basis of theoretical thought we can’t affirm the existence of God,

Metaphysically, never the less on the basis of practical considerations for a meaningful ethic we must assume the existence of God. Otherwise life is meaningless. And so we must live as if there were a God. Now that as it were, was the dyke that held back the full torrents of skepticism for a

Few years at the end of the enlightenment. But there were cracks in that dyke that soon gave way. And a metaphysical and ethical Katrina happened in western theoretical thought. Now, that is by way of introduction. Now, I’d like to show some parallel thinking that goes on between Kant and the apostle

Paul by looking at the fifteenth chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Hear the word of God, in chapter fifteen, verse twelve. And I don’t know which is going to come to an end first, my message or my voice. So far the voice is losing. But we read in the text.

“Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?” That’s the question. If Christ has proclaimed that God has raised Him from the dead, how is it that some of

You (and he is writing to people in the church who were trying to have a Christianity without resurrection.) say that there is no resurrection from the dead. Now, what follows is a particular kind of argument. It is a particular form of debate common to ancient philosophers and one that was used

Regularly by the apostle Paul as an apologist. It is called the “ad hominum” form of argumentation. Now, be careful. Some of you studied logic in college or in high school perhaps. And you learned to identify certain fallacies of reasoning, both formal and informal.

And one of the most frequent informal fallacies is the fallacy of reasoning called “ad hominum abusive.” That is where if you can’t attack the cogency of a man’s argument, you attack the man. You say how can you believe what this speaker says when he is an adulterer.

Well, even adulterers who do not live the truth can from time to time argue cogently. And so the man’s character does not vitiate the man’s argument. But we do that all the time, particularly in the criminalization of politics as we witness everyday in Washington D.C.

So there is a fallacious form of argument that is called “ad hominum abusive.” And frequently to save breath and time, there is a kind of short hand that refers to that fallacy by simply calling it the “ad hominum” fallacy without qualifying it by the term “abusive.”

Now, I mention all this for this reason. There is another form of “ad hominum” reasoning that is a sound form and that is a form that has been in use by philosophers from time immemorial. And that is simply arguing to the man.

And that means that I step into the shoes of my opponent. We stipulate at the beginning agreement on certain premises, and now I take my opponent’s premise and I say “I grant you, your premise. But let’s see where this premise goes out of logical necessity.”

And so I take my opponents argument to its logical conclusion showing that if his premise is sound and true his conclusion will be absurd. Again going back to Zeno the ancient philosopher; this form of argument was called “reduxio ad absurdum” – arguing from the opponents premise, taking it to its logical conclusion

And showing by a resistless logic that the conclusion would be absurd. That is exactly what the apostle Paul is doing here with these folks in Corinth who are denying the resurrection. And they say there is no resurrection of the dead. That is a universal negative. That means it admits to no exceptions.

It is universal in the sense that it encompasses everybody because no on escapes it. It is called a universal negative because it is articulated in the negative form. If, let’s go now, there is no resurrection of the dead. That is premise A – no resurrection of the dead.

If that is true, then what else would be true? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised, obviously. We get that from the laws of necessary inference. If there is a universal negative, there can not be one positive.

So if there is no resurrection, than that means Christ can not have been raised. So, let’s see where that leads us. If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain. So let’s face facts the apostle is saying.

Let’s not live like Alice in Wonderland in some kind of religious dream world. If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is an exercise in futility. I’m wasting my breath. I’m wasting my time. We’re all here wasting our time at a conference like this, if Christ has not been raised.

And not only is my preaching an exercise in meaninglessness, my faith is useless and worthless as is yours. Your faith is in vain, because you’ve invested your trust and your hope and your faith in a man whose man have just been dug up along with Mary Magdalene’s so recently.

Not only that but we are found, he says, to be misrepresenting God. Because we’ve said and testified that it is God who has raised Him from the dead. And if He has not been raised from the dead, then we ought to change the name of our church

To Jehovah’s False Witnesses because we have been attributing the power of this resurrection of Jesus to God. And that attribution is a false one. ”We have testified about God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.”

He has to keep rubbing our noses in the consequences there. “For if the dead are not raised,” if you missed it the first time and the second time, not even Christ has been raised. “And if Christ has not been raised your faith is futile. And you are still in your sins.”

You are still in it. You are contained in sin. You are still enmeshed in sin. You are still in jail to sin without bail; because our justification does not end with the cross, but Jesus was raised for our justification. The resurrection is God’s apologia, certifying to the world that He accepted atonement that

Jesus made on the cross. But if He is not raised from the dead you’re still in your sins. You see, you look at the world religions today, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism; the thing that they don’t have is an atonement and because they don’t have an atonement.

You can’t expect them to have a resurrection either. It wouldn’t cause any crisis of faith for any Muslim to dig up the bones of Muhammad. Muhammad is dead. Buddha is dead. Confucius is dead. But Christianity stands or falls with a resurrected Jesus. And that is what Paul is saying here.

If he is not raised, your faith is nonsense and you are still in your sins. Not only that, those also who have fallen asleep in Christ, (let’s face it) our beloved ones, our husbands, our wives, our children, our parents, our friends who have died in the faith have perished.

That’s the grim reality if there is no resurrection from the dead. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ we of all people, are the most to be pitied. I say to the enemies of the Christian faith; if you don’t like what we preach; if you don’t

Like what we teach, don’t be mad at us. Pity us. Because if we are preaching a false doctrine of resurrection, if we are conjuring up a hope with no real foundation for it, then we forfeit much of the fun, supposedly, of this world, where you only go around once.

And you might as well go around and get all the gusto you can because you are on a fast pace to oblivion, to perishing without hope. It is a pitiable condition to be in. That is why the Bible says without Christ you are without hope.

So, I am just going to stop for a second and consider what Paul has just done here. Paul has drawn for us a ghastly picture of the consequences of no resurrection, no life after death. He is saying that if there is no resurrection then life itself under the sun is meaningless.

As Kant understood, your ethic, your sense of duty, your conscience is meaningless and without ethics of our society, civilization can not last. You are doomed ultimately to barbarianism, which our nation right now is rushing toward with such a velocity one wonders if anything other than the direct intervention of God

Will ever restrain it and stop it. Dostoevsky understood what Kant was arguing for in his practical reasoning that if there is no God, all things are permitted. The post-modernist understands that if there is not God and since there is no God and since

There is no resurrection from the dead, then what is left are personal preferences. Which can only be maintained if enough of you can exercise power for your complete liberty, you will make is right by your might. For you know of know other recourse.

What Kant was saying was this, since the alternative to life after death is so grim, since the alternative to life after death would make ethics impossible except for the fool. And since life without ethics is meaningless, we must live as if there is a God.

Talk about a justification for using religion as a bromide or as a crutch against facing meaninglessness. Here it is with a vengeance. Didn’t I say this put up a dyke that only lasted a little bit of time in western civilization?

A guy like Nietzsche comes along, and says: hey, let’s quit playing Alice in Wonderland. I’m not going to affirm the existence of God or the existence of life after death simply because the alternatives are grim and unbearable. Why don’t we just face it? There is not God. There is no afterlife.

There is no meaning. We are left with the nothingness, the nihil, the abyss of absurdity. This motion was seconded by Jean Paul Sartre, particularly in his little monograph, which title gave to the world his final evaluation of human existence: Nausea. That’s the end of human existence: Nausea.

Albert Camus said the only serious question left for philosophers left to examine is the question of suicide, because we are overwhelmed with the pressing and oppressing reality of the absence of God and the absence of hope. So you see Kant’s arguments didn’t stand up for the next generation.

They said “Kant gird up your loins like a man, face the inevitable. Quit trying to argue for the practical necessity of believing in God. And some can look at what Paul is doing here as the same thing.

Where he is saying if there is no resurrection your faith is in vain, your false witnesses, you preaching is an exercise in futility. But Paul does not argue for the resurrection on the basis of the hopelessness of life without it.

Yes, in the section I just read he agrees with Kant that without it life is hopeless, but that is not the foundation for his assertion that Christ is risen. He goes on to talk about the analogy that exists in nature with animals and plants and grass and human beings.

That you put a seed in the ground and before the life can come out of the ground there is a sense in which, at least metaphorically, that seed must die. It must rot to such a point that it releases and germinates the essence of life within it.

And in like manner, when our bones go into the ground, they await their final metamorphosis where God takes that which was mortal, sewn in mortality, is raised in immortality, sewn in corruption, raised in incorruption. And this analogy that the apostle uses in this same chapter closely resembles the argument

That Plato had used centuries before in arguing for life after death based upon analogies drawn from nature. When you think of the almost infinite varieties of life forms on this planet, it is hard to imagine that our life form, as high as it is, is the zenith of all life in the universe.

It could be, but what are the odds. But again Paul does not rest his case on analogies drawn from the butterfly or the seed. But why does assert the reality of the resurrection? At the beginning of the chapter, he reminds his readers of something.

He says “I would remind you brothers of the gospel. I want to remind you of the gospel that I preached to you which you received in which you stand and by which you are being saved.

If you hold fast to the word I preach to you unless you believed in vain, for I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.” Now that was a compelling this to the Jew of the first century.

And it ought to be compelling to us. I said yesterday, or the day before that the two major tasks of apologetics is the defense of the existence of God, and secondly the defense of the scriptures as the word of God. And Paul now appeals to the scriptures.

“Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures.” So, Paul’s first line of apologetics is an appeal to sacred scripture. He is saying I believe in the first instance, in the resurrection of Christ because the

Word of God proclaims it. That is why I said it is so vital that we address this question of the veracity and authenticity and trustworthiness of the scriptures, because if you have that, the rest is easy. “That He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.”

And then listen to this, “and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, then He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all as to one untimely

Born, He appeared also to me.” When Peter wrote to the church he says “My brethren we declare to you not cleverly conceived myths and fables. What we declare to you is what we have seen with our eyes, and heard with our ears.”

We are not declaring to you, an unsubstantiated theory or even a religious proposition that we learned in Sunday School. We are declaring something of which we had an empirical experience. We saw it. We heard it. We beheld His glory on the plain of history. And this is what Paul is recounting here.

He is saying that He appeared to Cephas – that is to Peter, then to the twelve. He appeared. Again it is not like the disciples in the story of the resurrection, and the disciples ran to the tomb on Sunday morning and the stone was rolled away and they ran inside

The tomb and they found the grave cloths still in such beautiful arrangement. But there was no Jesus. There was no body – nobody. NO BODY there. There was nobody home. And then they came back and they scratched their heads. And they said “what happened to the body? We found an empty tomb.

What could that possibly mean?” And they figured it out. “Oh it must mean that He is risen so let’s go tell everybody that He is risen and let’s start celebrating Easter Sunday based on an inference drawn from an empty tomb.” No.

It is not the empty tomb that created the faith of the early church. It was the appearance of the risen Christ. He appeared to Peter, then to the twelve. Well, these two could have cooked this up among themselves. But Paul says “wait a minute.

He appeared to more than five hundred at one time, most of whom are still alive. Go and ask them.” That’s their story and they are sticking to it. Eye witnesses, five hundred of them. We have more witnesses from history to the resurrection of Christ than we had to the life of Plato.

Then He appeared to James and to all the apostles, but what I am writing to you my dear friends in Corinth is not something that I believe on the basis of hearsay. It is good hearsay. These are good witnesses who told me this. I trust James. I trust Peter.

I trust the twelve, and you understand my credentials that I was the number one enemy of this new Christian sect that was running around proclaiming that Christ was raised from the dead. I was dragging them from prison, breathing out fire.

But last as all, “as one born out of due time, He appeared unto me.” See, the text that I just read to you was written by an eye witness to the resurrection. You are going to have to decide whether this is a credible witness or not.

Now, the one reason why the newspaper reporter says that this is a myth is not because he thinks that Paul was an idiot and fell out of the stupid tree and hit head on every branch along the way, or that he was just an uneducated fanatic from the first century.

They understand that Paul was the most educated man in Palestine when he wrote this apologia for the resurrection of Christ. His scholarly credentials were impeccable. The reason why the newspaper reporter would say it is a myth is because judging from our

Twenty first century understanding of biology, if there is anything we know now that primitive pre-scientific people in the first century didn’t know is that when people die they stay dead. And that it is impossible for the dead to rise.

Given that it is impossible for the dead to rise, then obviously the New Testament story of the resurrection of Jesus has to be a myth. What else could it possibly be? And calling it a myth is being kind, it could be an outright lie; if it’s impossible for the dead to rise.

What a different view of reality and of life we find in the New Testament, where there the impossibility according to the New Testament writers was for Him not to rise. The impossibility the premise in the New Testament is that it was impossible for death to hold Him.

And it is true that if there is any universal finding of experimental empiricism it is that when people die, they stay dead. But if there is anything more universally in our experience it is that when those people who died and stay dead, are people who are sinful people.

Now what happens if you get a people who is not sinful? Now what happens to the premise? Biblically, morality, “thanatos” death itself is inseparably tied to sin. It is the soul who sins that dies. So that if the New Testament testimony is true, that there was in Christ no sin, why

Would anyone expect Him to die. I can’t even believe – the real thing that is hard to believe is that He would die at all on the cross. And He couldn’t even die on the cross if it weren’t first that He took upon Himself the imputation of our sin.

Having taken our sin, then He met the necessary condition for human mortality. Apart from that the second Adam would never have died. But having paid that price, and finished that work, the Father raised Him from the tomb for our justification.

I can’t remember which speaker said what in this conference there were so many wonderful things said. But, this was God’s proof of the person of Jesus. Paul debated with the philosophers in Athens at the Areopagus, and I mentioned that when

He debated with the stoics and the epicureans he called attention to their monument to an unknown god. The philosophers were hedging their bets just in case they missed one. Paul said “What you worship in ignorance I proclaim to you in power.

For the God who made the world and everything in it being Lord of heaven and earth does not live in temples made by man, nor is He served by human hands as if He needed anything since He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”

If you stumble at the resurrection, the recovery of life from the death let me take you back earlier. How about the beginning of Jesus’ life? How about the beginning of your life? How about the beginning of anybody’s life? How about life itself? Why is there life at all in this universe?

When we understand as Ravi so eloquently pointed out the necessary conditions for life can not be found in us. You did not create your own life. There was a time when you were not. There was a time when all of us were not.

But the only one who has the power of life in and of Himself eternally, the power of being in and of Himself eternally, the power of motion in and of Himself eternally, is the eternal self-existent living God who is the author of life, and the author of death.

He has the keys of life and death in His hands. And if the one who creates life in the first place in His Son can call a rotting corpse like Lazarus out of the tomb, so the same author of life can call His Son who touching

His humanity is now dead and bring Him back to life. What is so hard about that to believe? It is the opposite that is impossible. If there is such a thing as life in this universe, how can you attribute to the source of life

The fountain of life, the essence of life, the impossibility of bringing Jesus back to life and bringing you back to life? Paul goes on to say in Athens. “We ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.

The times of ignorance God overlooked, the former days.” Let me just stop here and insert something. A few minutes ago I said that the assumption of the newspaper writer is that the story of the resurrection must be a myth because resurrection is impossible.

And we know that by our sophisticated postmodern understanding of biology. And those poor people in the first century, pre-scientific, unsophisticated, people living in Palestine had no problem with the resurrection of Jesus because they saw resurrections all the time.

Every week they could go out to the cemetery and see somebody or other getting up out of a tomb. Let me tell you what folks. It was as foreign to the experience of first century man that a dead man would come out of the tomb, as it is today.

That’s why Thomas said “I’m not going to believe it just because you guys think you saw something. I’m not going to believe it unless I see the wounds, and unless I can put my finger in His hands.” And when that man showed up before Thomas and said “Here Thomas, put your fingers

In my hand. Touch me.” You know the Bible doesn’t say whether Thomas ever did. I don’t think he did. He didn’t have time to. He was on his knees. And he was saying “my Lord and my God.” No apologist was ever more sophisticated than the one who wrote “Sometimes it causes me

To tremble, were you there? Were you there when He rose up from the grave?” Sometimes it makes me shout “Glory, Glory.” You better believe glory. That’s why we’re here today folks. I hate to tell Al that it is Saturday and not Friday.

Would you believe an apologist that doesn’t even know what day it is? Somebody said it was impossible for us to make mistakes. But, here is the final point that I want you to get, the former times of ignorance God has overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent.

Because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed and of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead. There is no other sign that will be given to you except the sign of Jonah.

And if you don’t believe that sign you are in trouble because God has already set the day to judge the world. And His patience is not infinite. God as an evangelist never ever issues an invitation. That is something we do. God never invites people to receive Jesus. He commands them.

He commands all men everywhere to repent and to come to Jesus because He has proven that Jesus is the one through whom He will judge the world. How has God proven that? By raising Him from the dead. Well you say “I wasn’t there, so I can’t holler glory.

Other people God, but unless I see I’m not going to believe it. You’re going to have to send Jesus back again into my neighborhood, put Him to death again, and then raise Him for me to see. ” Too late. Too bad, He does it once for all.

And if that is not enough for you, you are in trouble. God is going to judge you by that historical act of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We believe in the resurrection, not because the alternative is grim. We believe the resurrection because of the Biblical testimony of it’s reality in time and space.

Paul ends this section by saying “Therefore” Here is the conclusion. “Be steadfast. Be steadfast. Immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for now you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” Your preaching is not in vain. Your faith is not in vain.

Your labor is not in vain because God has raised Him from the dead. And George Frederick Handel knew the only appropriate response to that was to say what? Hallelujah. Let’s pray. Father how we thank you for the testimony of scripture to the reality of resurrection

That transcends all levels of mythology and in which we find our hope and our justification. Amen

#R.C #Sproul #Resurrection #Christ

Since Jesus was born of “the substance” of the Virgin Mary, how was He without original sin?



SPROUL: Now, when we talk about Jesus receiving what you call “the substance” from His mother, the Virgin Mary, of course we’re talking about His human nature. And because we’re talking about His deriving His human nature from His mother, you would

Think that that human nature would pass along, as it is the case with every other human being, all of the ramifications of original sin. Now, that raises all kinds of theological questions that touch upon it. One of the oldest theological questions is the question of how the soul, for example,

Is transmitted from parents to their children. And the two schools of thought of that are called “creationism” and “traducianism.” Traducianism says that the whole person, body and soul, is transmitted from the parents to their progeny through the natural process of birth.

Others argue, which is called “creationism,” that every time a human being is born, that person is a brand new creation by the immediate and direct power of God’s creativity. And so it’s not a matter of transmitting human nature by natural processes.

Now the reason I say that this question you’ve raised touches on the dispute over creationism and traducianism is that if you’re a creationist, you have no problem with having a human nature coming from the mother of Jesus, yet at the same time being born without original sin

If it’s a direct and immediate act of divine creation. If you’re a traducianist, on the other hand, where you see the body and soul being transmitted through the natural process, then the question that you raise becomes a more difficult problem. However, others have argued, and particularly historically in the Roman Catholic Church

That the reason for the virgin birth and to bypass the male was not because they believe that original sin was transmitted by the male rather than the female, but rather that the miraculous dimension of Jesus’ birth being a virgin birth was partly designed by God

To interrupt the normal transmission of human nature from parents to their children in order to make it possible for a human being post-Adam to be born without original sin. Now in the mystery of the incarnation, we don’t know exactly what process God used to make that so in the birth of Jesus.

We do know, as the Scriptures teach us, that He was made like us in every respect except one, namely without sin and without original sin. Some have argued against that saying if Jesus didn’t have original sin, He wasn’t truly human.

But of course, the problem with that is this, that Adam before the fall was truly human, and we in our glorified state in heaven without sin then will still be human. So that original sin is not an inherent necessity for humanness.

So we know theologically that God could have this child born through the virgin birth from His mother and bypassing the normal process of original sin. WEBB: R.C., I’m just curious, did some of the earliest church councils wrestle with that question? SPROUL: Well yes, they did.

And of course, early on there was a debate and a dispute over from whence Jesus’ divine nature came? And Mary was called “theotokos”, the mother of God, but not in the sense that Jesus derived His divine nature from His mother, but only to point out that the One that she bore and

That she nurtured as His mother was God incarnate.

#Jesus #born #substance #Virgin #Mary #original #sin