One of the crucial differences between the new covenant and the old is that in the new covenant, the entire covenant community knows the Lord: “For they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest” (Jer 31:34; cf. Isa 54:13). Under the Mosaic administration the covenant community was an ethnic entity marked off by circumcision. To answer the question, Who’s in the covenant?, you would point to all the circumcised offspring of Abraham and their families. Those families were part of the covenant community regardless of whether they knew the Lord. And the covenant itself was administrated by prophets, priests, and kings who were to mediate the knowledge of God to the people. Yet now the new covenant partakes of both a new nature and a new structure. The new covenant’s structure is new in that there’s no need for a set of covenant mediators. Through the work of the covenant’s one mediator, Jesus the Messiah (Heb 8:6; 9:15; 12:24; cf. 1 Tim 2:5), and the indwelling Holy Spi...

  Recently, I read an article that made the case for bringing back hymnals to the local church. It was excellent.  You can read it here-   Why Churches Should Ditch Projector Screens and Bring Back Hymnals To be clear, there is room for both but sadly the issues of today in corporate worship gatherings are more than the return of the hymnals to the pew. However, I'm in favor of bringing them back! I'm going to offer a few suggestions on this.  :) 1. Let Scripture regulate the gatherings of the church (its leading officers, song choices, prayers offered, ordinances administered, and sermons), not trends or creative ideas. It will only further strengthen the congregation's view of the sufficiency of the Scriptures. 2. Let the hymns we sing be rich in biblical theology, the gospel, and the glory of God. Rehearse the precious and specific doctrinal truths that lead to deep affections for Christ in our music. 3. Let the songs (rooted in the Word) be...

Isaiah gives layers of images and words here. But verse 11 focuses them into a laser beam to draw our attention: “By his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.” The Messiah-Servant will do two things in his death . First, he will take what is ours—our iniquities. And second, he will give us what is his—his righteousness. He will provide an obedient covenant partner. All of this points us ahead to the future death of Messiah Jesus. The crowd at the cross sees a bloody, weak man who must die. With Isaiah’s prophetic insight, we see the Lord of glory, Immanuel, God with us, the divine Son become man on the cross, dying to take our sin and to give us his righteousness. As the New Testament will say, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). On the cross, the black hole of the human heart devoured the light of the world, but as John wrote, “The light shines in the ...

Because he is zealous to rescue you from you, God’s care can be violent. He rips you from what is dangerous to give you what is better. When you think of God’s care, what picture comes into your mind? When you consider God’s grace, what mental images does the term grace conjure up? Could it be that there are times in your life when you are crying out for the grace of God even though you’re getting it? God’s grace does not always come in the form of comfort and encouragement. His care doesn’t always mean relief and release. Could it be that the “care” that we often cry out for is not the care that we really need? Judg. 2:11–19 says   And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals. And they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the LORD to anger.… So the...

Paul’s command to the Ephesian Christians, “Be filled with the Spirit,” is binding on all of us Christians everywhere in every age. There are no exceptions.  We must conclude that since we are ordered to be filled with the Spirit, we are sinning if we are not filled. And our failure to be filled with the Spirit constitutes one of the greatest sins against the Holy Spirit. It is interesting to note that the command to “Be filled with the Spirit” actually has the idea of continuously being filled in the original Greek language Paul used. We are not filled once for all, like a bucket. Instead, we are to be filled constantly. It might be translated, “Be filled and keep on being filled,” or “Be being filled.” Ephesians 5:18 literally says, “Keep on being filled with the Spirit.” Graham, B. (2010). Unto the hills: a daily devotional. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

This then is our problem: to associate with and love those who are involved in the world without being contaminated, influenced, or swayed by them. This distinction can only be achieved by a close walk with Christ, by constant prayer, and by seeking the Holy Spirit’s leadership every hour of the day. God has provided us the power to resist the world and be separated from it, and it is ours to appropriate that power every hour of our lives. We are in the world, but the world is not to be in us. It is good for a ship to be in the sea, but bad when the sea gets into the ship. As our Lord prayed, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from evil” (John 17:15). Graham, B. (2010). Unto the hills: a daily devotional. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

Isaiah, the mighty prophet of God, knew by experience that one must bow the knee in mourning before one can lift the voice in jubilation. When his sin appeared ugly and venomous in the bright light of God’s holiness, he said: “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips . . . for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6:5). We cannot be satisfied with our goodness after beholding the holiness of God. But our mourning over our unworthiness and sinfulness should be of short duration, for God has said: “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isaiah 43:25). Isaiah had to experience the mourning of inadequacy before he could realize the joy of forgiveness. If I have no sense of sorrow for sin, how can I know the need of repentance? In God’s economy, a person must go down into the valley of grief before he or she can scale the heights of spiritual glory. One must become tired and wea...

The infinite God would hardly choose any but the highest end in creation, and this end could only be found in Himself. If whole nations, as compared with Him, are but as a drop in a bucket and as the small dust of the balance, then, surely, His declarative glory is intrinsically of far greater value than the good of His creatures, Isa. 40:15, 16. (3) The glory of God is the only end that is consistent with His independence and sovereignty. Everyone is dependent on whomsoever or whatsoever he makes his ultimate end. If God chooses anything in the creature as His final end, this would make Him dependent on the creature to that extent. (4) No other end would be sufficiently comprehensive to be the true end of all God’s ways and works in creation. It has the advantage of comprising, in subordination, several other ends. (5) It is the only end that is actually and perfectly attained in the universe. We cannot imagine that a wise and omnipotent God would choose an end destined to fail who...

This view of the God-world relationship shapes our understanding of “double agency.” God wills and works and we will and work, but at no point do we trip over each other. God’s agency operates over, in, and with creaturely agency, because God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In every external work of the Trinity, the Father is the source, the Son is the mediator, and the Spirit is at work within creation to bring about the appropriate effect. Yet in all of these works, the triune God and his agency transcend us. Therefore, God cannot limit his freedom any more than he can limit his love, knowledge, holiness, or any other attribute. “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof” (Ps. 24:1). Yet this in no way implies that God deprives us of the kind of freedom that he deemed appropriate for creatures. On the contrary, God is generous and liberal in his gifts. Tyrants stalk the earth, consuming the freedom of others in order to amass their own oppressive dominion, b...

King Hezekiah prayed for God's salvation of Judah in Isaiah 37 v 20. 20 Now, O LORD our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God.” Hezekiah finally sees what Isaiah has been saying all along. It is not this world with whom we have to deal, primarily; it is always God. The nations and powers and ideas and fashions of human making are not ultimate and definitional of us; God is. It is not human power that we need; what we need is God. He has allied himself with us not to serve our will but to defend his own glory as we serve his will. Have you come to realize how the God-centeredness of God is good news for you? For one thing, it means that your unworthiness is irrelevant to God’s readiness to save you. He is not responding to what you deserve; he is proving what a good Savior he is. Don’t you see? This opens up a new definition of happiness. Happiness is God being God to you. Stop praying, “Lord, I want you to mak...