When our Christian brothers and sisters in other denominational contexts see real blessing from God on their labors, let’s not let our various disagreements with them over doctrine and practice prevent us from recognizing the true work of God in their midst. Let’s not betray a belief that if God isn’t blessing us (or those most incredibly like us) whatever we are seeing must be a mere mirage of revival. Being different from us doesn’t put another group beyond the reach of God’s blessing anymore than it puts them beyond the reach of His grace.

Iain Murray describes biblical revival as consisting of “…a larger giving of God’s Spirit for the making known of Christ’s glory… a sense of God… not only in conviction of sin but equally in the bewildered amazement of Christians at the consciousness of the Lord who is in their midst” (Revival & Revivalism, p. 30). Revival is not a constant reality in church history or in the life of any specific congregation. Rather, it is descriptive of those extraordinary times when the Lord is pleased to pour out a greater abundance of saving grace, resulting in a greater zeal for Kingdom priorities and a vital spirituality characterizing the people of God. It is a time of unique energy and vigor regarding gospel labors, and of unique blessing from the Lord in those pursuits.
All churches would love to see such things become a reality in their own midst. Who would dare to say that they would not want the Lord to pour out such grace, to act in mighty ways to save sinners, to animate and revitalize His people? The desire for such blessing need not mean a depreciation of the normal, plodding rhythms of ministry and the ordinary means of grace.  Indeed, Biblical revival is not a circumventing of normal ministry activities; it is a fresh and dynamic outpouring of grace through those very same means.
It is true that some people take revival and do unbiblical things with the concept. In fact, much of Murray’s book is given over to distinguishing the difference between true God given revival and man’s foolish attempts to manufacture an outpouring of the Spirit- a pursuit he labels as revivalism.  To the historically minded, terms like revival sometimes evoke negative associations like Charles Finney’s anxious bench (a forerunner of the more modern altar call), and to the broader culture it often takes on a garish tent-huckster ethos, but we should never let other people’s errors define our practice. None of these abuses are the fault of authentic revival. And so quite aware of the dangers of a false and manufactured show of dramatic piety, even solidly Reformed men do say, “Lord, if it pleases you, send revival in our midst!”
But what about when you pray for revival and it comes…but to someone else? What are we to think of extraordinary measures of grace that God seems to pour out on others, while He seems pleased to withhold it from us? What am I to think of my neighbor’s revival?
To that question I offer three responses.
1. Avoid the temptation to adopt an elitist “narrow way” cynicism.
The present reality is that the Kingdom of God on earth is fractured into a multitude of church denominations, sects, movements, and coalitions. At this stage in church history, no matter what segment of evangelical Christianity you call home, there are always more people outside your circle than inside of it. No one group has the majority. What that means is that God is always doing more outside your narrow context than inside of it.
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If we do not interpret Scriptures concerning Christ correctly—in light of the reality they describe—we end up with a God who thirsts, sleeps, suffers, submits, and lacks knowledge. We also end up with a man who is omnipotent, omnipresent, and eternal. If we fail to retain the properties of each nature to themselves, we blend them and start on the short road to heresy.
 
“You just had to be there!”
We fall back on this excuse when words fail to capture the precise reality of an experience—often a comedic interaction or visual beauty. The reality is that reality itself is often hard to describe. We do our best to describe it with words, but we’ve all experienced the frustration of falling short.
This is especially true when we use our words to describe God. Herman Bavinck asks, “The moment we dare to speak about God the question arises: How can we?”[1] The same question can be asked of the person of Christ: When we dare to speak about the One who is both infinite God and finite man, how can we?
Scripture tells us Jesus slept, ate, walked, and learned new things. But it also tells us He created the universe, sustains it, and is omniscient. You can see the dilemma—how do we accurately describe Jesus when He has these seemingly contradictory categories?
We can navigate this difficulty through a practice known as partitive exegesis. Partitive exegesis presupposes that Christ’s two natures are unified in His person without confusion, change, division, or separation. Therefore, we must recognize and maintain the distinction between Christ’s two natures when we read the Bible.[2] While that may sound complicated, this practice arises from Scripture itself—it is an inspired way of describing the reality of the incarnation.
A Biblical Pattern
As we read through the New Testament, we see passages variously emphasize attributes of both Christ’s humanity and His divinity. Consider these five ways that the Bible makes statements about Christ.

When Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am,” the person is the subject, but the attribute (eternality) is only appropriate for the divine nature (John 8:58).
When Jesus said, “I thirst,” the person is the subject, but thirst is only appropriate for the human nature (John 19:28).
Titles like “Redeemer” or “King” are applied to Christ and is appropriate for both natures (Psalm 10:16; Luke 1:32–33).

So far, so good. But Scripture also contains more complicated statements about Christ.

Some things are ascribed to Christ that are appropriate to the human nature but predicated on Christ as divine. In Revelation 1:17–18, Christ identifies Himself as “the first and the last” (a divine title), then He says He “was dead” (something only possible for a human). A human quality (death) is applied to the person even though the Son as God is emphasized in this passage.
On the other hand, some things are ascribed to Christ that are appropriate to the divine nature but predicated on Christ as human. John 6:62 refers to “the Son of Man ascending to where He was before.” “Son of Man” emphasizes Christ’s humanity, but ascending to “where He was before” can only be truly said of Christ as divine.[3]

In each of these instances, Scripture applies a property true of one or both natures to the person. It is our job as interpreters to discern which attributes are appropriate for each nature.
While some people may object that we read too strong of a distinction between the natures, the Bible itself uses this logic as well. Romans 1:3 says that Christ “was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh.” Christ is not descended from David according to the divinity. This is logically obvious, but Paul makes it verbally explicit.[4]
Partitive exegesis is an attempt to apply this same inspired logic to every biblical statement about Christ. Some things are true of Christ according to His humanity and some things are true of Christ according to His divinity.
This way of thinking was worked out in the early church. As Chalcedon states, “The distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person.” Because the two natures are unified in the person of Christ, anything said of either nature is true of the person (“concurring in one Person”) while remaining untrue of the other nature (“the property of each nature being preserved”).
Yet, some confusion may arise in light of examples 4–5 above. How do we interpret those verses that apply the property of one nature to the other?
The Communication of Properties
The properties of both natures are predicated on the person. However, because both natures are united in the one person, Scripture seemingly attributes properties of one nature to the other. This biblical way of speaking has become known as the “communication of idioms” or “communication of properties.”
This is described in the 1689 London Baptist Confession, 8.7: “Christ, in the work of mediation, acts according to both natures, by each nature doing that which is proper to itself; yet by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in Scripture, attributed to the person denominated by the other nature.”
Consider these verses:

Acts 20:28, “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.”

1 Corinthians 2:8, “The wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”
Zechariah 12:10, [Yahweh says] “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.”

In each example, something human (blood, crucifixion, and death) is predicated of divinity (God, the Lord of Glory, and Yahweh). Does God, who is spirit (John 4:24) have blood? Can the Lord, who has life in Himself (John 5:26), be crucified? Can Yahweh be “pierced?”
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Paul repeatedly refers to sound doctrine in his Pastoral Epistles. He knows that sound, or healthy, doctrine does not give life; the Spirit of God. But anyone born the Spirit needs the know and grow in life-giving doctrines of God. 

Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching [doctrine].Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.—1 Timothy 4:16
Doctrine and life. Life and doctrine.
In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he calls his pastoral protegé to embrace both and not let go of the other. And for anyone who cares about life or doctrine, we must also care about the other also. For doctrine without life is dead and life without sound doctrine is leading to death.
In truth, when doing theology if it does not lead someone to the giver of life, it is dead theology. But simultaneously, life that downplays doctrine is equally deadly. This is why Paul repeatedly refers to sound doctrine in his Pastoral Epistles. He knows that sound, or healthy, doctrine does not give life; the Spirit of God. But anyone born [of] the Spirit needs [to] know and grow in life-giving doctrines of God. This is why he says that by paying attention to doctrine, ‘you will save both yourself and your hearers.”
Simultaneously, because he knows that knowledge by itself can puff up (1 Cor. 8:1), and that not all studies in the Law are lawful (1 Tim. 1:3–11), he calls for Timothy to guard his life and his doctrine. Too many are the knowledgable theologians who did not guard their lives. And too many are the false professors who have general sense of theology but no life. Thus, we must always pursue doctrine for the sake of knowing the life-giving God. To expound this idea further, let me turn to two theologians who knew both doctrine and life.
William Ames (1576–1633) on Theology as Living to God
The first is William Ames (1576–1633). And in his Marrow of Theology, he defines theology as the privilege and necessity of finding life in God. As the Puritans always remind us, theology is never an end in itself; it is always a means of communing with the triune God. Ames definition of theology reflects this approach. And in thirteen points, he helps us to see how and why living before God (Coram Deo) is the essence, or marrow, of theology.

Theology is the doctrine or teaching [doctrina] of living to God. John 6:68, The words of eternal life; Acts 5:20, The words of this life; Rom. 6:11, Consider yourselves alive to God.
It is called doctrine, not to separate it from understanding, wisdom, art, or prudence—for these go with every exact knowledge, discipline, and most of all with theology—but to mark it as a discipline which derives not from nature and human inquiry like others, but from divine revelation and appointment. Isa. 51:4, Doctrine shall go forth from me; Matt. 21:25, From heaven . . . Why then did you not believe him?; John 9:29, We know that God has spoken to Moses; Gal. 1:11-12, The gospel . . . is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation; John 6:45.
The principles of other arts, since they are inborn in us, can be developed through sense perception, observation, experience, and induction, and so brought to perfection. But the basic principles of theology, though they may be advanced by study and industry, are not in us by nature. Matt. 16:17, Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you.
Every art has its rules to which the work of the person practicing it corresponds. Since living is the noblest work of all, there cannot be any more proper study than the art of living.
Since the highest kind of life for a human being is that which approaches most closely the living and life-giving God, the nature of theological life is living to God.
Men live to God when they live in accord with the will of God, to the glory of God, and with God working in them. 1 Peter 4:2, 6, That he may live . . . by the will of God . . . according to God; Gal. 2:19-20, That I may live to God Christ who lives in me; 2 Cor. 4:10, That the life of Jesus may be manifest in our bodies; Phil. 1:20, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.
This life in essence remains one and the same from its beginning to eternity. John 3:36 and 5:24, He who believes in the Son has eter. nal life; 1 John 3:15, Eternal life abiding in him.
Although it is within the compass of this life to live both happily and well living well (eusōia, is more excellent than living happily (eudaimonia). What chiefly and finally ought to be striven for is not happiness which has to do with our own pleasure, but goodness which looks to God’s glory. For this reason, theology is better defined as that good life whereby we live to God than as that happy life whereby we live to ourselves. The apostle therefore called it by synecdoche, the teaching which accords with godliness, 1 Tim. 6:3.

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