Many years ago, on October 31 something took place that changed the course of my life. I am not talking about Martin Luther’s seemingly innocuous act in 1517 of nailing 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg. In ways that he could never have anticipated that act did come to symbolize the beginning of a movement that rocked the world as the Protestant Reformation recovered the full and final authority of God’s written Word and its message of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone for the glory of God alone. Luther, along with those who stood with him and followed him in proclaiming this gospel message, most definitely have impacted my life. The Reformation has impacted all Western civilization.

But I am reminded of October 31, 1978. On that Tuesday night I accepted a call to become the pastor of the Rock Prairie Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. Two days before that, the church let me know that they wanted me to become their pastor. That phone call was unexpected. The previous pastor had moved and I had preached for the congregation several times in the previous weeks. Though I had enjoyed worshiping with them and getting to know some of the members more personally, I had no thought that they would consider asking me to become their pastor.

I was not a great candidate. I was a single, twenty-one-year-old sociology major at a state university. I had taken a couple of seminary extension courses and preached intermittently over the previous five years. But by any reasonable metric I was ill-prepared to be a pastor. In fact, when the call came from the church, I was actively trying to avoid entering a life of pastoral ministry. The church in which the Lord saved me and that had nurtured me as a child and young person believed that God had called me to preach and had given me a license to do so (that was fifty years ago next month). But my antipathy for pastors caused me to shrink from the thought of pursuing vocational ministry.

Looking back, though I had many reasons for my lack of regard for pastors, the bottom line was that they were mainly rooted in pride and arrogance. I was a self-righteous prig when God saved me and much of that remained (and remains) unmortified in me. Because of that, as I embarked on my last year of college I was developing a plan that I hoped might satisfy God and ease my own conscience. Since pastors help people, I thought that if I entered a “helping profession” that would do the trick. 

Through a connection with some professors, early in my senior year I was offered a contract to work for an organization that provided care and counseling for troubled youth. The job was to begin upon my graduation the next semester. I let the contract sit on my desk for the month of October with a growing sense that this was a wonderful opportunity that would allow me to help young people, be active in the life of a church, and perhaps fill in preaching and teaching on occasion. 

Those plans were disrupted when the chairman of deacons told me that Rock Prairie wanted me to be their pastor. Donna (who was seven months away from becoming my fiancé) and I decided to go to the church’s “harvest festival” two days later on the 31st. The church provided this each year as an alternative to trick-or-treating for kids in the community. As we watched the members of that small church work together to serve children and parents the few remaining doubts I had about accepting their call vanished. I had harbored many doubts and fears and my list of reasons for saying no was long, but several trusted counselors urged me to give the call serious consideration. So, that night, October 31, 1978, I told the deacon chairman, Arthur Olden that I believed it was God’s will for me to accept their call and that I would start immediately. 

One relative, as we discussed my new role, pulled out a handheld calculator (which was a novelty at the time) and jokingly congratulated me for taking a job that paid $15 an hour (which was $12.35 more than minimum wage!) while requiring only three hours of preaching a week. In reality, that move cost the church much more than money and what they gave me cannot be measured in finances. The people of Rock Prairie Baptist Church loved me and patiently endured with my inexperience and ineptitude. They genuinely cared for me and, after we were married, for Donna and me. They were forgiving of my many mistakes. And they genuinely loved me. 

I only served that church for two years but doing so led me to pursue theological training that I would have otherwise eschewed. The discipline of preaching week after week was good for me. I still have notes from those sermons and though much of the understanding of God’s Word that they reflect now make me cringe, I would not trade anything for the lessons I learned in those early years of pastoral preaching. That church gave me a start. They were used by God to put me into pastoral ministry and on a path that continues today, 45 years later. 

I thank the Lord for His faithfulness through those years. I am grateful for the way that He providentially overruled my plans and changed my desires about being a pastor. To me it is the most wonderful calling in the world and I am still amazed at the privilege of being a servant of God’s people in a local church of Jesus Christ. All of it is a testimony to the steadfast love and immeasurable grace of our sovereign God. 

Soli Deo Gloria

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Solomon advises us that there is nothing new under the sun.  Indeed, in the history of Christian thought, one would expect that under the Lordship of Christ and his church, the essentials of the gospel would remain consistent over time.  Thus, while they need repeating in every generation because slippage is always a threat, there remains a kind of harmony that exists among theologians who make the Bible first order.  Likewise, as one dives into reading pastors and theologians from different eras and different places, one can expect to find echoes.  Sometimes these are organically related, sometime they are not but cause for curiosity how it is possible that two statements made by independent thinkers could be so similar.

George Smeaton on Christ’s Universal Reign

Such an occasion happened a few months ago as I read George Smeaton’s eminently helpful book, The Doctrine of the Atonement As Taught By Christ Himself (Edinburgh, 1871) now retitled and republished as Christ’s Doctrine of the Atonement.  In it, Smeaton gives his final exhortation from the text John 12:31, which reads, “Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.”  In his thorough exegesis, the nineteenth-century Scot shows how Satan’s overthrow means simply, that Christ is the sole possessor of all things. He has stripped the god of this age of his title to this world, and he now rightly possesses the earth (cf. Matt 28:18). Therefore he writes,

This text [John 12:31], important in many aspects, is capable of being viewed in many applications.  It throws a steady light on the great and momentous doctrine, that the world is, in consequence of the vicarious work of Christ, no more Satan’s, and that Christ’s people are now to be far from the impression that they are only captives in an enemy’s territory, and unable warrantably to occupy a place in the world, either as citizens or magistrates.

Moving from Christ’s substitutionary cross to the the universal themes of victory and dominion, Smeaton makes this final, global and glorious statement,

On the contrary, this testimony shows that every foot of ground in the world belongs to Christ, that His followers can be loyal to Him in every position, and that in every country and corner where they may placed they have to act their part for their Lord.  The world is judicially awarded to Christ as its owner and Lord (p. 300).

This is a glorious truth that deserves time for consideration and meditation.  Yet, in first hearing it, I could not help but think of Abraham Kuyper, who said something almost identical.  Yet, as it will be shown, Kuyper’s context is different than Smeaton, and Kuyper actually spoke his word’s later.

Abraham Kuyper on Christ’s Universal Reign

In his lecture on “Sphere Sovereignty” delivered on October 20, 1880, Kuyper uttered what is today his most famous quotation.  It reads:

There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: “Mine!“  (Abraham Kuyper, “Sphere Sovereignty,” in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed. James D. Bratt [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998], 488). 

In context, Kuyper’s statement comes at the end of a long list of academic sciences–medicine, law, natural science, letters– which the great educator of the Netherlands argued should be brought underneath the rule of Christ.  Since all wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ (Col 2:3), all mental disciplines should find their origin and telos in Christ. In full context, he states,

Man in his antithesis as fallen sinner or self-developing natural creature returns again as the ‘subject that thinks’ or ‘the object that prompts thought’ in every department, in every discipline, and with every investigator.  Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’ (488).

This concluding statement has been repeated again and again.  It is a favorite of Reformed thinkers and others too.  It is wonderful thought to realize that all things have been and should be put in submission to Christ.  But interestingly the application of Kuyper’s words (as I have used them and have heard others use them) are slightly out of context.

Often Kuyper’s turn of phrase is used in spatial, geographical ways, as if he was explaining Psalm 2 which says that all the nations have been given to the Son.  Since the Lord possesses all the earth, he has a right to put his finger on it and exlaim “Mine!”  However, in context, Kuyper’s statement is more specific.  He is speaking more exactly of the “mental world,” not the spatial world.  I doubt he would deny the broader application, but to read Kuyper closely, we find that his statement is more narrow. This point does not mean that we need to abandon the use of Kuyper’s quote, so much as perhaps we should include Smeaton’s, too.

In the next post, we will pick up how and why we should incorporate Smeaton’s quotation into the discussion of Christ’s universal reign.

This article is part 9 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8).

Before John gives a narrative of his evidence, the signs and sayings that should produce belief, He gives a dense and powerful statement of the theological conclusion. We know from the beginning what he is driving toward.

“In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). John affirms that the living Word of God, that is, the Son of God, was there and the active agent of the events that began in Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning.” Genesis goes on to say, “God created.” John’s assumption of the language of the Genesis narrative indicates that this Word was the God who created. This is reiterated in verse 3 when John writes with economy and force, “All things through him” (as the intermediate but co-equal agent carrying out the full intention of the Father) “came into being, and without him came into being not even one thing” (3). Again, this is stated in verse 10, “The entire created order with all of its symmetry, inter-relations, and reciprocal dependencies and attractions [cosmos] through Him, as the intermediate and effecting agent, came into being.”

The verb “was,” the imperfect of eimi, is used three times in verse 1 and again in verse 2. It implies absolute continual existence. After implying that the Word is eternal and is the God who created, John says the “Word was with God.” This is a strong word of association, “face to face with God” (1:1), with the definite article, “the God.” This identifies another personal being who also is eternally divine, even as the Word is. Immediately John continues with a statement about the Word, “the Word was God.” The Word is not that God identified specifically in the previous phrase, but is himself, in his essence, a person of the same nature as “the God” that he was, is, and will continue to be “with.” A. T. Robertson says that this phrase “presents a plane of equality and intimacy.” When the same phrase appears in 1 John 1:2, he calls it “the accusative of intimate fellowship.” Later this relation is verbalized as “in the bosom of the Father” (18).

Verse 2 reiterates the assertion of verse 1 in short-hand style.  “He,” –this one that has just been called God– “was,”—again the imperfect of eimi meaning having continuing eternal existence without a beginning—“in the beginning”—when everything that has a beginning began—‘with God”—face to face in essential union with a distinct divine person whom we learn is the Father. The perfect bond of intimate communion between Son and Father is the Holy Spirit (John 15:26; 16:14, 15).

Verses 4, 5, 9 engage the idea of the Word being the source, not only of physical created light, but of the inextinguishable rationality and inner-witness in men called the “image of God” (Genesis 1:26, 27). As Jesus is the uncreated image of God (Colossians 1:15), even the “brightness of his glory and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3), so humanity by created constitution bears God’s image. The Son has created us as reflections of his own being. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (4). As the Father by eternal generation has given to the Son to have “life in himself” (John 5:26), so the Son has given us by creation life and light that is dependent upon him. The light is the rational morality and heart-law of humanity. The Word eternally exists as the true light (9), and every person that is conceived (that comes into being in this world), receives at that point the divine image as communicated by the eternal Word, the eternal radiance of the divine glory.

Sin, however, has darkened our perceptions. Bearers of the Light walk about in darkness and thus, though the light-giver was in the world, “the world did not know him” (10). Even his covenant people who had the fathers and the covenants and the written law did not receive him (11). Revelation of truth diminishes cognitive darkness but does not overcome the spiritual darkness of the soul. The personification of truth, light, faithfulness, glory, and grace came into the world and none of his image-bearers nor even his own covenanted people received him nor knew him.

Another divine operation, therefore, must open that heart and the rationality, banish the darkness and bring sinners of all sorts to belief. John asserts this happens by another birth in which we become “children of God, … not from bloods, nor of a will of the flesh, nor of a will of man, but of God having been begotten” (13). Here John rejects the genealogical pedigree of the Jews, the power of the human will, and all the powers present in humanity as a result of natural birth. This sinful darkness and spiritual deadness over Jew and Gentile can only be overcome by a birth from above.

Revelation of truth diminishes cognitive darkness but does not overcome the spiritual darkness of the soul.

In this tight framework, John has asserted the deity of the Word, the Word’s operation in creation, and his face-to-face connection with “the God.” Now the astounding mystery—this Word became flesh; he dwelt among men as a man. At the same time, he could not be absent of his eternal glory, but did not, nevertheless, exhibit the external form of that glory. The evidence of his deity was abundant, but its form was exhibited rarely.

John, nevertheless, claims, “We saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (14). He saw works of power befitting only God, but the glory he refers to here is the glory resident in the eternal relation between the Father and the Son. If his words do not arise from revelation, how else could John state these propositions with such certainty and in a didactic way? This kind of revealed insight into the historical phenomena experienced by the disciples was promised by Jesus when he said, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak.” Jesus then completes the trinitarian unity of knowledge and purpose by saying, “He will glorify me, for he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” (John 16:12-15).  Paul summarized by saying, “What eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man, God has revealed to us by his Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:9, 10). “In other ages,” Paul claimed, the mystery of Christ was not made known “as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets” (Ephesians 3:5).

Does this contradict John’s claims in 1 John? John says, “The One that was from the beginning, the One we have heard, the One we have seen with our eyes, the One we have gazed upon and our hands have touched, concerning the Word of life, … we are announcing to you, … and these things we are writing to you so that your joy may be completely full” (1 John 1:1, 3, 4 ). It is true that John saw all these things, heard the words of the Word, felt the flesh of the Word made flesh, and considered all this a sufficient demonstration of the actions, claims, and teachings of Jesus. For such clarity of perception of these transcendent historically certain truths, however, John had to partake of a two-fold work of the Holy Spirit.

First, he was the recipient of the revelation Jesus promised from the Spirit. His assertions about the deity of Jesus are not guesswork nor the mere product of rational deduction from abundance of evidence.  Though consistent with the evidence, John’s propositions are revealed truth.

Second, he received the Spiritually-generated true-seeing, true-tasting, true- hearing. He had experienced what Jesus said after the feeding of the 5000, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). He had experienced not only the revelation of cognitive propositions (like Balaam [Numbers 23:1-12]), but the internal apprehension of the truth taught by the Spirit, unlike Balaam (Jude 11, 19). True believers will not believe antichristian lies that deny either the deity or the humanity of Christ for they “have the anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things” (1 John 2:20). In reference to the particular knowledge of the Father and the Son, the Spirit anoints his chosen with that knowledge. Confirming this John wrote, “And the anointing that you received from him abides in you, even so you have no need that anyone teach you. But as his anointing teaches you concerning everything, and is true and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him” (1 John 2:27).

True belief consists of several constituent elements. First, the historical events effecting redemption must have taken place. “The Word became flesh and set himself up as a tabernacle among us” (John 1:14). He “bore our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24) and “died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3). He was buried, but “now is Christ risen from the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:20). Having made purification for sins, he has sat down at the right hand of the Father (Hebrews 1:3). Second, true belief accepts the meaning of these things as taught infallibly by revelation to chosen messengers (1 Timothy 2:5-7). Truth and error are divided along the lines of apostolic declaration and contrary opinion (1 John 4:5, 6). Third, true belief emerges with a restoration of the true light to the soul by the glory of Christ’s gospel, by a spiritual application of the historical truth that Jesus appeared as God in the flesh and accomplished his assigned work of redemption. Those who don’t believe have been blinded by Satan so that “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God,” does not enlighten them. On the other hand, those who believe are the recipients of an effectual operation of Christ Himself, who “commanded light to shine out of darkness” at creation. He does this through the Spirit [for in this work “the Lord is the Spirit”] and “has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 3:17, 18; 4:4-6).

We “Remember Jesus Christ” when we affirm, on the basis of apostolic revelation, and with a heart full of love and adoration, without a shadow of doubt that the Word who was with the Father, and was himself eternally of the essence of the Father, became flesh.

This article is part 9 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, Costi Hinn, Phil Johnson, Conrad Mbewe and Travis Allen.