As we introduced in the previous post, many people and churches in our world have forgotten, overlooked, and ignored the holiness of God. We outlined four disastrous consequences for failing to appreciate, love, and proclaim God’s holiness: frivolous and trivial worship, a lost Great Commission in churches, worldly and ungodly lives, and countless false believers who incorrectly think they know God.

Thankfully, there is a remedy to this widespread problem of forgetting God’s holiness. If we would know and love the living and holy God, we must be people who have truly encountered Him as the God who is holy.

Someone might ask, “How do I know if I’ve encountered this holy God?” Three illustrations from Scripture show us what happens when creatures encounter this holy God. In light of these illustrations, we might put our hearts to the test, to see if we have really understood and grasped that we believe in Scripture’s revelation of God as unchangeably, eternally, and perfectly holy.

The first illustration is that of Moses in Exodus 3:1-6; 33:13-34:8.

Moses encountered God perhaps more than anyone else in the Old Testament, and it’s fascinating to observe how encountering God in His perfect holiness affected Moses. When reading how God revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush, we see three facts about sinners encountering God in His holiness.

If we would know and love the living and holy God, we must be people who have truly encountered Him as the God who is holy.

First, the holiness of God put distance between God and Moses. Second, God commanded Moses to show reverence for His holiness. Third, when Moses realized he had encountered God (the true and living God who is holy), he hid his face and was terrified to look at God. At this point in Moses’ relationship with the Lord, he was a believer in the God of Israel, but he also appears to know very little about sacrifice, redemption, or forgiveness. Moses’ fear in this episode of the burning bush makes perfect sense. As time goes on, however, Moses begins to learn about the compassion of this holy God, the way of salvation provided through sacrifice, and the forgiveness that comes to sinners. Consequently, Moses’ interactions with God change to reflect Moses’ greater understanding of God’s holiness in its fullness.

In Exodus 33, we observe a significant contrast. Moses has seen the mercy, forgiveness, grace, and compassion of this holy God. Now, rather than desiring to hide his face from God, he wants to know this holy God and be in the Lord’s presence.

God granted Moses’ request to see His glory as much as his sinful humanity could handle, allowing Moses to see the rear parts of His glory and declaring His name before Moses. We see, though, that Moses’ fear and reverence for God were unchanged. Moses never lost that sense of awe before the majesty of God’s infinite holiness. God’s holiness no longer terrified him as someone who wanted to run from God because he knew God had forgiven and accepted him. Nevertheless, the holiness of God still caused Moses to bow in worship, to reverence God, and to fear Him.

The church today has too much familiarity with the Holy One of Israel – a glibness, and a lack of reverence and awe. If we have truly encountered God in His majestic holiness, we will never trifle with Him. Instead, we will long for Him, love Him, adore Him; we will want to be with Him, and we will want Him to be with us – but we will never lose the sense that He is God, and we are not.

Isaiah was another man who encountered God face to face.

In Isaiah 6, we see both Isaiah (a sinful man) and holy angels encountering God. Even the angels in the presence of God – angels who never fell into sin – are overwhelmed by God’s holiness. They cover their face because of the awesomeness of God’s holiness, and they cover their feet as a sign of honor and reverence before this holy God. If such mighty angels, who have never sinned, revere and fear the Holy One of Israel, what would the response of a sinner be to His glorious holiness?

That answer is given to us in Isaiah’s response to this vision. He pronounces a curse on himself, recognizing that no matter how good he thought he was before this moment, he was accursed because of his sin in the presence of the holy God seated on the throne. Isaiah confesses that he is totally and completely defiled before a God so perfect and holy.

Isaiah’s reaction to seeing the holiness of God is similar to Moses’: fear, dread, and impending doom. This is the correct response when a sinner encounters God in His holiness and recognizes that he is fully unworthy and stands under the just penalty of death for his sin.

Once Isaiah’s sins are forgiven later in the passage, the scene’s tone completely changes. Isaiah turns from pronouncing a curse upon himself for his sinfulness to volunteering to serve the Lord. This is a total transformation: seeing the holiness of the Lord in the context of forgiveness produces holiness in the life of the sinner. Isaiah leaves the presence of the holy Lord, realizing his one aim in life moving forward is to be holy, to be obedient, and to submit himself to the will of his holy Lord.

Peter also encountered the holiness of the Lord in Luke 5.

Note that this moment of the holiness of Christ was veiled in human flesh. This was not the same level of majestic holiness Isaiah saw when he observed Christ seated on the heavenly throne with all the angels around Him. Jesus was, to all outward appearances, a normal human man; but even this glimpse of the holiness of Christ overwhelmed Peter when his Lord caused a great miracle during his fishing expedition.

Seeing the holiness of the Lord in the context of forgiveness produces holiness in the life of the sinner.

Peter’s response was exactly like that of Isaiah. He told Jesus to leave because Jesus had exposed his sin. Peter knew immediately that Jesus was holy, but he was not. Peter was filled with dread, with awe, and with reverence; he bowed down at Jesus’ feet. It was here Peter became a full-time disciple of Jesus Christ. He stacked up the value of a lucrative fishing trade and the value of the holiness of Christ that called him as a disciple – and the choice was obvious.

Those comparing the narratives of Isaiah and Peter should note there is exactly zero difference between the holy God of the Old Testament and the Holy Son of God who came to seek and to save that which was lost. The holiness, response, and reverence are all the same.

Hebrews 12:18-29 perfectly encapsulates what it means for the new covenant believer to encounter our holy God. Verses 18-21 remind us of the holiness of God and what a terror it is to sinners under the Law, so that even Moses trembled at the sight! Verses 22-24 explain that we have not come to an earthly mountain, but to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem. We have the blood of Christ covering us; we have a new covenant in which our sins are forgiven; and we have a mediator in Christ who brings us to God so that we might joyfully dwell in His presence forever!

Verses 28-29 summarize the result of this glorious new covenant relationship we have with our holy God as we encounter Him. We come before our holy God with gratitude that He has provided for us a perfect High Priest, a perfect Mediator, a better covenant based on better promises, and blood that has washed away our sins. With that gratitude, we come with reverence and awe because our God is still a consuming fire.

Have we encountered the God who is holy, holy, holy – the God of Moses, the God of Isaiah, the God of Peter, the God who is a consuming fire? Have we heard through the promises in His Word that through faith in Christ He has taken away our sin through the blood of His Son, welcomed us into His holy presence, and transformed us through our encounters with His holiness? These are weighty questions we do well to ask ourselves today.

This article is Part 2 in a series, you can read Part 1 here.

In the last post, we considered Charles Spurgeon’s public evangelism in terms of his support and practice of open-air preaching. In this post, we will consider the other means that Spurgeon used to wield the sword of the Spirit and the gospel of salvation in the public square.

Personal Evangelism

First, Spurgeon wholeheartedly believed that sinners must be sought on a personal, one-to-one basis. In many cases, open-air preaching, and personal evangelism work in harmony together when the local church goes on mission in the public square. Spurgeon writes:

True-hearted open-air preachers will be sure to join with their preaching very much earnest private talk … Every open-air preacher should not only address the hundreds, but he should be ready to pounce upon the ones, and he should have others with him who have the same happy art. How much more good would come of preaching in the streets if every open-air preacher were accompanied by a batch of persons who would drive his nails home for him by personal conversation.[1]

Though open-air preaching can reach the masses, personal evangelism can reach the individual directly and personally: “One advantage of dealing personally with souls is, that it is not so easy for them to turn aside the message as when they are spoken to in the mass.”[2] Again, Spurgeon emphasized that “many precious souls have been brought to Christ by the loving personal exhortations of Christian people who have learned this holy art! It is wonderful how God blesses very little efforts to serve him.”[3]

Now, one may ask, did Spurgeon actually take the time to practice this “holy art” in the public square? Indeed, he did! In his autobiography, Spurgeon told of a time when he met a man on a boat. After conversing with this man for some time, Spurgeon was burdened for this man’s soul. This lost sinner was confronted with the reality of death in his own life. Prior to their encounter, this poor man lost more than thirteen children due to the cholera outbreak. Knowing this man’s greatest need, Spurgeon proceeded to ask him if he would be going to heaven or hell once he died. Sadly, the man told Spurgeon that he had no hope for life or death. Commenting on the man’s response, Spurgeon writes, “then I told him, as plainly as I could, how the Lord Jesus Christ had taken the place of sinners, and how those who trusted in him, and rested in his blood and righteousness, would find pardon and peace.”[4]

After pointing this man to Jesus Christ, Spurgeon concluded with the following statement: “I cannot say what was the final result of our conversation, but I had the satisfaction of knowing that I had at least set before him God’s way of salvation in language that he could easily understand.”[5] From Spurgeon’s example, we must learn that every conversation with sinners in an opportunity to point them to Jesus Christ.

Tract and Literature Distribution

Second, where open-air preaching or personal conversations were not available, Spurgeon saw gospel tracts as a helpful tool in the hands of an evangelist. Spurgeon loved to distribute gospel tracts:

The very first service which my youthful heart rendered to Christ was the placing of tracts in envelopes, and then sealing them up, that I might send them … And I well remember taking other tracts, and distributing them in certain districts in the town of Newmarket, going from house to house … I used to write texts on little scraps of paper, and drop them anywhere, that some poor creatures might pick them up, and receive them as a message of mercy to their souls.[6]

Spurgeon’s high view of the sovereignty of God encouraged him in these evangelistic labours. Due to his Calvinistic theology, Spurgeon had great confidence that God may use a tract to save the lost. As a result, he earnestly sought to distribute as many tracts as possible, knowing that the Lord could use this literature for the advancement of the gospel.

A gospel tract is a helpful tool in the evangelist’s pocket. Spurgeon urged his hearers to always carry gospel tracts on them: “If I walked along the street, I must have a few tracts with me; if I went into a railway carriage, I must drop a tact out of the window; if I were in company, I must turn the subject of conversation to Christ, that I might serve my Master.”[7] In other words, “when preaching and private talk are not available, you have a tract ready, and this is often an effectual method. A telling, touching gospel tract may often be the seed of eternal life. Do not go out without your tracts.”[8]

Additionally, Spurgeon wrote evangelistic letters to the unconverted, urging them to come to Christ: “There is also power in a letter to an individual … When they get a sincere letter from a respected person such as yourself, they think a great deal of it. And who knows? Perhaps, a note received by post can hit the man your sermon missed.”[9] It is important to note that Spurgeon viewed a gospel tract or letter as a means for further follow up with an individual. It should not be viewed as an exclusive action. Rather, it should be a bridge for further conversation. Spurgeon writes, “I suppose, besides giving a tract, if you can, you try and find out where a person lives who frequently hears you, that you may give him a call. What a fine thing is a visit from an open-air preacher!”[10]

To conclude, after seeing Spurgeon’s Public Evangelism in these first two posts, namely, his open-air preaching, personal evangelism, and tract distribution, we will consider in the next post how Spurgeon trained evangelists in his local church. In the meantime, may we take heed to Spurgeon’s exhortation and do everything we can to seek the lost:

“Get on your feet; ye that have voices and knowledge, go forth and preach the gospel, preach it in every street and lane of this huge city … Let every one of us who knows the Lord seek to fight under his banner!”[11]

                  [1] C. H. Spurgeon, The Soul Winner: Advice on Effective Evangelism (1992; repr., Ross-shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus, 2015), 141.

            [2] Ibid., 377.

            [3] Spurgeon, Autobiography: The Early Years, 373.

                  [4] Ibid., 375.

                  [5] Ibid.

                  [6] Ibid., 156.

            [7] Ibid., 156.

                  [8] Spurgeon, The Soul Winner, 142.

            [9] Ibid., 142.

            [10] Ibid., 142.

                  [11] Spurgeon, Autobiography: The Early Years, 154.

This article is part 8 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7).

To remember Jesus Christ, we must affirm his deity. To reject the true eternal deity of the singular person, Jesus of Nazareth, is to deny him and bring on us the consequence that he will deny us. This mysterious reality that the man, Jesus of Nazareth, was at the same time and in the same person the Son of God constitutes our redemption and the source of our eternal worship.

Twice Luke tells us that Mary kept certain things “in her heart.” (Luke 2:19, 51). On the first occasion, Luke adds the words, “pondered them.” Both the events and the words that accompanied the event were too large for immediate comprehension. But that she kept them in her heart means that she remembered them intensely, she sought more expanded understanding of what had happened and what she had been told. Not only deeper cognition was needed, but a spirit of adoration and worship fitting for the eternal wonder of the event. 

As a virgin, she was told that the Holy Spirit would come upon her to impregnate her in order to bear a child that she would call Jesus (Luke 1:31). He would be called “the Son of the Most High” (1:32). She learned, therefore, that not only does the Holy Spirit make her pregnant with a child according to her seed to be established and nurtured in her womb, but the “Most High” Himself, God the Father, will overshadow her simultaneously with the Spirit’s coming upon her. The result of that is that not only will her child conceived by the Holy Spirit in her womb be a man called Jesus, but as the result of the overshadowing of the “power of the Most High,” the Holy One conceived in her would be called “the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).  

To reject the true eternal deity of the singular person, Jesus of Nazareth, is to deny him and bring on us the consequence that he will deny us.

Within the time span of a few minutes, the leading mysteries of classical orthodoxy were present in the very body of Mary. The Trinity and the duality of natures in the single person of Christ were concentrated in a moment in the angel’s announcement and in her own body. The fulfilling powers of redemptive history operated in perfect harmony to assure that “her seed” would bruise the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15) and destroy “him who had the power of death” (Hebrews 2:14). Paul said it succinctly, “When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4). Her womb was the location of the “fullness of the time,” and Holy Spirit, Holy Father, and Holy Son all converged, as it were, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” to bring into the world the Redeemer. This Redeemer could, and did, effect forgiveness, procure righteousness, rob Satan’s fold, reconcile God and sinners, overthrow death as sin’s boon companion, and fit his people for heaven. The glory of the Father would be most fully and beautifully expressed when “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10, 11). Just as was announced the name “Jesus” would designate the Savior and Lord. His humanity in the womb of Mary was due to the Holy Spirit’s impregnation of her seed; his deity as Son of God comes from the Most High’s extension of his eternal generation of the Son onto this fertile egg; his singularity of person with a complex combination of natures came from the Son of God’s condescension to take the form of a servant and be made in the likeness of men in Mary’s womb, though eternally he was “equal with God” (Philippians 2:6-8).

When she went to visit her relative, Elizabeth, Elizabeth exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed in the fruit of your womb! But why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43). This child was indeed the fruit of her womb, a seed of David but also was the Lord.

Mary’s immediate response to the words of Elizabeth were, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. … He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy” (Luke 1:46, 47, 54). When John the Baptist was born, Zacharias saw this child as “the prophet of the Highest,” as the one who would “go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways” This birth of John was in concert with the coming birth of “the horn of salvation in the house of His servant David” (Luke 1:76,69). These events were the action of God, “to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to our father Abraham” (Luke 172, 73). We remember Jesus Christ, because God remembers his covenant. In remembering, we confess with the mouth and believe in the heart the Person and the pre-ordained events by which we are “delivered from the hands of our enemies,” and that we “might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life” (Luke 1:74, 75). 

We remember Jesus Christ, because God remembers his covenant.

When the Shepherds heard the speech of the angel, they learned that a child was born in Bethlehem who was “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). Without doubt, this was told to Mary by the shepherds. The accumulation of titles of deity for this child surely startled and puzzled her, but she believed them. “Mary kept these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). Upon his presentation in the temple after the days of Mary’s purification, Simeon, under the immediate direction of the Holy Spirit and anticipation that he would see “the Lord’s Christ,” took the child and called him the Lord’s Salvation, with the affirmation that the child would be a “light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel” (Luke 30, 32). Upon that, Joseph and Mary “marveled at those things which were spoken of Him” (Luke 2:33). Marveling, pondering, and keeping are necessary and helpful responses to these events that are the fulcrum of time and eternity.

When he went to the temple during the week of Passover at twelve years of age, He took the position of a teacher, staying there several days beyond the week. He had gathered a fascinated and amazed group of scholars and teachers around him, answering their questions. As Joseph and his mother approached him, oppressed by worry at his whereabouts, He responded, “Why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” They were puzzled at the calmness and confidence of his demeanor and “did not understand the statement which he spoke to them” (Luke 2:49, 50). In spite of not understanding the fullness of Jesus’ meaning and how his business in the temple was his “Father’s business,” Mary “kept all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:51).

The “mystery of godliness” that “he appeared in flesh” (1 Timothy 3:15) will never be exhausted of its wonder and mystery. It is infinite as an expression of wisdom; it is inexhaustible as matter for worship now and in heaven; it is full as the substance of the covenant of redemption. The interpenetration of all the persons of the Trinity both in their fitting personal operations and their singularity of purpose, power, essence, mind, and will is startling to the soul. These actions of God with their ontological implications press the intellect with its insufficiency in investigating the ways of God. But the “hope of eternal life” is filled to overflowing with the prospects of living in the presence of this God and of observing and participating in the praise and worship of the man Jesus Christ in the eternal glory of his deity and his work of redemption. “Remember Jesus Christ.”

This article is part 8 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ.

Join us at the 2024 National Founders Conference on January 18-20 as we consider what it means to “Remember Jesus Christ” under the teaching of Tom Ascol, Joel Beeke, Paul Washer, Phil Johnson, Conrad Mbewe and Travis Allen.