A place of shame and victory

The place the gospel holds out for us is where God's kindness and severity meet. This place is called the cross, and it is where grace and wrath intersect. It is a place of shame and victory that God, in the form of the man Jesus of Nazareth, the long-expected Messiah, offered in his death the blood atonement necessary to satisfy God's justice and secure our salvation. (Chandler, Matt, and Jared C. Wilson. The Explicit Gospel. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012. Print. 54)

Things and worship

In Explicit Gospel, Matt Chandler explains why so many things in life, though in themselves they are amoral,  can be good things that bring glory to God and are beneficial or can be negative things that dishonour God and harm us. We are talking about a myriad of things in our life: Macbeth and monster trucks, hockey and hamburgers, fishing and flying, Picasso and peonies. If the things we have and the things we do and the things we enjoy terminate on themselves and are their own end, they fall short of their design and divine intention. However, if they terminate on God in gratitude and glory-giving, then partaking in them is worship. Chandler writes,

Worship ... is larger and more encompassing than singing some songs at a church service a couple of times a week. It is the way of life for those entranced by and passionate for the glory of God. We worship God when, while we partake of his good gifts, something occurs in the deepest parts of or soul that forbids glory terminating on the gift itself or on our enjoyment of it but that runs deeper into and extends out to the Giver.


Apart from understanding God and worshiping him in this way, everything become superficial. Everything-from dinner to sex to kids to work to arts and literature-it's all shallow, all trivial. But when you understand the driving force behind everything, all of a sudden there's an eternal amount of joy at our disposal, because everything we do is enlightened and enlivened by the endless glory of the eternal God. (36)

This explains why sin is always evil and harmful; sin never terminates on God. Sin always terminates on itself and will not, can not, make God and his glory an end. And that is also why all the good things we enjoy in life can also become heinous and hurtful things.

Not that close to center

Most have us have been told that God created the universe, created all that exists within the universe, and employed the depths of his omnipotence and omniscience to create this because he desired fellowship with man. Have you heard of this line of thinking before? It's a very sweet idea, and it would be a great slogan for a Christian motivational poster if it weren't for what the Bible actually teaches, which is that this idea is almost blasphemous. Are we to believe that God-in his infinite perfection-was lonely? And that the response to this loneliness was to create a bunch of glory thieves? Is that the infinite God's solution to this hypothetical imbalance in his relational well-being? This is what many of us have been led to believe. And out of our self-regard, we like to picture that a holy, glorious, splendid God-perfect solely within his Trinitarian awesomeness-wanted to be able to stand in a warm-hued living room, romantic music swelling, and look across at us to say, "You complete me."


No. We are not created as some missing link in God;s emotional experience. To think this way makes us the centerpiece of the puzzle of the universe! But we are not that close to center.

(Chandler, Matt, and Jared C. Wilson. The Explicit Gospel. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012. Print. 32)

Explicit Gospel, Chandler, and creation

Matt Chandler is a dynamic preacher whose sermons and lectures resonate with me. He is a gifted communicator who has been blessed by God with a fruitful ministry. He recently added the title of author to his resume with the publication of Explicit Gospel (Chandler, Matt, and Jared C. Wilson. The Explicit Gospel. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012. Print.). This is a solid read which captures much of Chandler's ubiquitous humour and unique seriousness. I'll be sharing some excerpts on the blog over the next few weeks. Here is Chandler on God the Creator:

According to the Scriptures,  every sky on every planet in every solar system in every corner of the universe belongs to God.  He is the owner and creator of them all and sovereign over them all. Nothing that exists belongs to anyone else other than God. As Abraham Kuyper famously said, "There is not a square inch n the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'"
...
God creates anything he wants, and as much of it as he wants, and he does it all out of nothing. He doesn't need raw material. He makes raw material. God is not limited like you and I are. We are always limited by what's available and always dependent on outside considerations and constraints ... No scientist has ever been able or will ever be able to stare into an empty petri dish and wish the nothing it holds into something. (23-25)

Edwards, Storms, and Chandler on raising your affections for Christ

Today I will be speaking at a youth convention at Wifrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. If you read this in time, and could say a quick prayer for me, that would be great. In preparing for my session, I came across a couple of helpful excerpts and quotes and I thought I would share them.

The first comes from a Jonathan Edwards sermon called The Admirable Conjunction of Diverse Excellencies in Christ Jesus. The famous Puritan pastor makes his fist point with the following:

That which I would observe from the words, for the subject of my present discourse, is this, namely --


There is an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies in Jesus Christ.


The lion and the lamb, though very diverse kinds of creatures, yet have each their peculiar excellencies. The lion excels in strength, and in the majesty of his appearance and voice: the lamb excels in meekness and patience, besides the excellent nature of the creature as good for food, and yielding that which is fit for our clothing and being suitable to be offered in sacrifice to God. But we see that Christ is in the text compared to both, because the diverse excellencies of both wonderfully meet in him ...

Wonderfully unique and dissimilar characteristics all converge in our wonderful Saviour. Edwards continues by discussing how we might behold these "diverse excellencies":

  Having thus shown wherein there is an admirable conjunction of excellencies in Jesus Christ, I now proceed,

Secondly, To show how this admirable conjunction of excellencies appears in Christ's acts, [ namely:]

A) in his taking of human nature,
B) in his earthly life,
C) in his sacrificial death,
D) in his exaltation in heaven,
E) in his final subduing of all evil when he returns in glory.

This leads into two quotes and a paraphrase that speak to the Edwardsian idea that we need to avail ourselves to God in such a way that our affections for him are raised. One of the ways we do that is beholding Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18) and the above sermon points to that. But consider this idea of raising our affections.

Jonathon Edwards put it like this: “Endeavour to promote spiritual appetites by laying yourself in the way of allurement.” Sam Storms, in his companion book to Edwards' Religious Affections entitled Signs of the Spirit put this Edwards quote in his own words writing,  “Posture your life so that you may be easily enticed by the beauty of Christ.” Matt Chandler, pastor and author of Explicit Gospel, put this idea into practice suggesting that “[t]here is something about dark coffee and early mornings that raises my affections for Christ.” Chandler promotes the idea that we need to put ourselves in situations and do the things which lead to our affections for Christ being elevated. Sometimes, this is something as simple as a cup of dark roast coffee or setting the alarm a little earlier.

Put some thought into those things which cause your affections for Christ to be raised, and then do those things.

Dale and Chandler on the severity and kindness of God

Over a hundred years; that is the lapse in time between when R. W. Dale wrote his classic on atonement and Matt Chandler wrote his recently released book called Explicit Gospel. And yet, because they are both concerned with the great themes of Biblical Christianity, there are similar threads that run through both of these tapestries.

This morning in my reading one thread came into focus; the kindness and severity of God. Consider the Scripture passage below and the passages from these two works. And pause and reflect-because it is necessary for both evangelization and exaltation- on the wonderful and praiseworthy attributes of our God who is both just and merciful.

Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. (Romans 11:22 ESV)

In this hour — not of peril, but of fierce struggle — the Church must use all her varied and boundless resources — her science, her learning, her logic, her eloquence — and must use them with a patience, a courage, and an energy corresponding to the great issues of the strife.

But our true strength lies in those moral and spiritual forces by which, in all ages, the victories of the kingdom of heaven have been won. We must not be satisfied with an attempt to demonstrate the authority of the Christian Faith ; we must so preach it that, even apart from demonstration, its authority shall be confessed. The consciences of men must be made to apprehend the reality of sin, and their hearts must be filled with dread and with hope by the anger and the mercy of the living God.  (Dale, R. W. The Atonement. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1878. Print. 31. emphasis mine)

We have to feel the weight of God's severity, because without feeling the weight of his severity, we won't know the weight of his kindness, and we won't be able to worship him and him alone.
(Chandler, Matt, and Jared C. Wilson. The Explicit Gospel. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012. Print. 51)