When we sin, if we find our natural reaction to busy ourselves with other tasks—to take a shower and get out of the house and listen to music, that might be an indicator that we are refusing to think of God. But if when we sin, we think of our kind Father, and feel the weight of our guilt, and bow before him, confessing our sin and deciding no longer to hold it dear, then the Father welcomes us into his arms and prepares a banquet for us, clothing us in the finest of robes—the righteousness of Christ.

The biblical authors had weighty things to say about sin. For instance, Paul tells Titus that sinful works can silence and negate professed faith (Titus 1:16). Paul also writes, through tears, that those who set their thoughts on earthly things will eventually be destroyed (Phil 3:19). And the preacher of Hebrews pleads with believers not to be “hardened” by sin (Heb 3:13).
Have you ever stopped to consider what it means that sin “hardens”? If you’ve seen concrete poured, you get the idea. If wet concrete sits for long enough, you can drive a dump truck over it. That’s what happens to sin if it sits on a soul for long enough, baked in by the day-in-day-out little compromises we make. The preacher of Hebrews says one more thing about sin in that verse. He calls it “deceitful.” Sin whispers to us that we have more time before the concrete settles, that our ways are still malleable. But it’s lying.
One of the scariest verses in the New Testament is found a few chapters later in Hebrews. Speaking of Esau, the preacher tells us that after he had given up his birthright, “he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears” (Heb 12:17). This verse tells us a tough reality: Esau tried to repent and couldn’t. The concrete had hardened. And how did this all happen? It must have been an enormous sin that Esau did that would lead him there, right? No. He “sold his birthright for a single meal.” A bowl of stew. It was a moment of immediate gratification. Then another. Then another. Though he eventually realized how far his heart had withered, it was too late. He had become sin’s slave.
And yet, the NT also offers hope to the weary sinner. The letter of 1 John clearly says that believers still wrestle with sin (1:8) and that Christ will “forgive” and “cleanse” those who confess those sins and run to him (1:9).
In his book Spiritual-Mindedness, John Owen asks the question that we, as sin-stained travelers, probably ask after reading what the NT says about sin: “How, then, can one tell the difference between the occasional breaking out of any lust or corruption in the face of temptation, and a person in whom sin still reigns and has dominion?” (90) In other words, how do I know if sin owns me? To put it more bluntly, how hard is the concrete of my heart?
Owen, in a careful and fruitful way, asks questions that probe our hearts.
What are we truly troubled by?
 As we look into our heart and ask the honest question: How do I know if the sin in my life is the “occasional breaking out of lust in the face of temptation or sin still sitting on the throne of my heart?” Owen provides a response: “Quite frankly, it does not matter whether we are able to tell the difference” (90). In other words, we’re asking the wrong question.
The better question is: What are we troubled by? Yes, we may hate the corruption of our hearts. Yes, we may long to be rid of sin. But we would be no different than Esau. The real question is: Do we hate our sin and long to be rid of it because it is sinful, or because of what will happen if our sin is found out (90–91)? Are we humbled by the filth that still lingers in our soul or scared of its consequences? Are our tears and pangs of conscience no more than first cries over the things we’re about to lose as a consequence of our actions?
As depraved humans grimacing through the consequences of our sinful hearts, the sad reality is that we can be selfish even in our sorrow. Here’s the critical test: Are we willing to accept all the consequences for our sin as kindnesses from the Lord? If we are, that’s a good sign that what troubles us is missing sweet communion with our Father, not the things he might pull from our hand.
Owen presses further. He asks his readers what they think of death. Has sin become such a thorn in our lives that the thought of death is pleasant because it means waving goodbye to sin once and for all (92)?
Read More

The Nicene Creed and the Definition of Chalcedon are vitally important subordinate theological standards in the Church. Both have been received and confessed by the historic Reformed churches. Their doctrinal content was affirmed by the early Reformed theologians and embedded in our confessions of faith because they express the teaching of Scripture.

When we open any of the four Gospels, we read of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. If we look closely at what we read, one thing that will catch our attention is that Jesus often says and does things that only a human being can say or do, and He also often says and does things that only God can say or do. For example, He ate (Mark 2:15–16). He drank (John 19:30). He grew weary (John 4:6) and slept (Mark 4:38). In other words, He was truly human.
Yet, what else does Jesus say and do? He says things that imply He eternally existed prior to His incarnation (e.g., John 3:13; 6:62; 8:42). He forgives sins (Matt. 9:6; Mark 2:10; Luke 5:24). He hears and answers prayer (John 14:13–14). He receives worship and praise (Matt. 21:16). In short, He says and does things indicating that He understands Himself to be truly God.
After the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, the Church found itself having to answer questions about Jesus—questions that came not only from inquirers and skeptics outside the church but also from catechumens and laity within the church. How can we say both kinds of things about Jesus? Is He a human being? Is He a divine being? Is He a third kind of being, some mixture of deity and humanity? Scripture was forcing the Church to ask and answer philosophical questions, specifically, metaphysical questions about being.
The Docetist and Ebionite Heresies
These kinds of questions and others resulted in a large number of wrong answers. These wrong answers are the early Christological heresies. All of them are wrong because they all either fail to take into account everything Scripture says about Jesus or else deliberately reject one part or another of the biblical testimony. Some, for example, attempted to solve the difficulty by rejecting the true humanity of Jesus. These were the Docetists. The Ebionites solved the difficulty in the opposite way by denying the true deity of Christ.
The Adoptionist and Modalist Heresies
Adoptionists argued that Jesus was not the eternal Son of God. Instead He was a human being who was adopted as the Son of God at His baptism. Modalists, such as Noetus and Sabellius, argued that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were different “modes” of the one God. Sometimes this one God wears the Father mask. Sometimes He wears the Son mask. Other times He wears the Holy Spirit mask. All of these views were decisively rejected by the Church as being out of accord with the teaching of Scripture.
The Arian Heresy
The suggested solution offered by Arius ignited the fourth century Trinitarian controversy. In brief, Arius argued that the Son is a creature. He did not exist eternally, so there was a “time” when the Son was not. Various forms of Arianism developed during the fourth century. What they all have in common is a strong subordinationist strain. For example, the Second Creed of Sirmium, written by fourth-century Homoian Arians, states:

There is no uncertainty about the Father being greater: it cannot be doubted by anyone that the Father is greater in honor, in dignity, in glory, in majesty, in the very name of ‘Father.’

This teaching stood in direct contrast to the Nicene Creed which was produced at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. Because the controversies did not immediately end after 325, another council, the Council of Constantinople was called in AD 381. The original Nicene Creed was expanded into the form most are familiar with today:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

Read More
Related Posts:

We must ask what we’re trying to achieve before we can figure out the best way to achieve it. Unless we know why we are doing this thing we can’t possibly figure out how best to do it. 

It seems like an obvious thing to say, but let me say it anyway. What you are aiming to do will necessarily affect how you do it. That is to say, what you do is necessarily driven by what you are aiming to do. What you do should be driven by why you are doing it.
The problem we often have in our churches is that we get this backwards. Often, what we are doing is not driven in any way by why we might be doing it. In fact, why we are doing it is often little more than because it is what we do.
So, it is not uncommon to go into churches and find them doing all sorts of things. Sometimes some pretty peculiar things. When we ask why we are doing them and what are we trying to achieve by them, nobody is entirely sure. We are doing it because it is what has always been done. We may be doing it because someone once thought it was a good idea but the reasoning behind the idea have been lost in the mists of time. We are doing it because there was a good reason at the time we instituted it but that reason no longer exists but we kind of carried on doing it anyway.
Interestingly, some of these same sorts of impulses come up when somebody deigns to stop something that has always been done – or that has at least been done for ages – from being done anymore. It doesn’t matter what the thing is, or whether anybody has any reason for why it is still being done, we have always done this is the view that often prevails. I don’t have to justify the existence of the bizarre or irrelevant thing, you have to justify why you are determined to no longer do it. Apparently, I cannot fathom what its purpose is and you are doing very little to help me out with that does not compute.
Which brings me back to my original point. Why we are doing something ought to drive what we actually do. We ought to have a reason why we are doing everything that we do in church. If we aren’t entirely sure of the reason, it may be a prime candidate for something we are no longer going to do.
In order to have conversations that are helpful about this, we need to return to first principles. The ultimate reason for us to do anything as a church is because Jesus tells us that is what he wants his church to do. So, if Jesus says it, we ought to do (or not do) it. So, we have to think about what Jesus says his church exists to do. Why are we there and what does he want us to be doing? If we can’t answer that question first, we have no business moving onto thinking about how we might go about doing any of the things he wants us to do.
Read More
Related Posts: