Are you blue in the face?
Going without oxygen, or with too little oxygen makes one blue. And going too long without meditating on God’s Word makes one blue as well.
Yesterday’s sermon, by my pastor John Piper (will be available for download here from Desiring God) emphasized our need to be meditating on the Gospel and reading our Bibles. His text was James 1:21.
Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
He focused on the second half of the verse. Why do we receive the word, when it is already implanted? This is the “word of truth” by which we have been born again, already (vs. 18). So why do we still need to be receiving the word?
Just because we are alive, doesn’t mean we don’t need to breathe. Rather, since we are alive, our bodies demand that we breathe. Breathing is necessary for life, but breathing doesn’t make our hearts beat.
Similarly, Piper reasons, if we are genuinely saved, and spiritually alive, we will want to breathe. And breathing is necessary for our life. The word is able to save our souls, but only if we receive it with meekness. Of course, a genuinely saved person will receive it with meekness.
So the Bible, and particularly the gospel message contained in it (“word of truth” primarily refers to the message of Gospel–good news of Jesus) is vital for our spiritual well being. If we don’t humble ourselves and fill ourselves with it continually, we prove that we have no real life. And availing ourselves of the Bible, reminding ourselves constantly of the Gospel, proves to sustain and nourish our spiritual life.
So aim with me this year to do a better job of oxygenating your spiritual life, by God’s grace and for His glory and our joy.
Note: I’ll add the link to Piper’s message, when it is available. I hope also to recap last year’s blogging and focus on 2008 in a post here soon.
UPDATE: Check out these Bible Reading plans available for download from NavPress. Our church uses the Discipleship Journal plan.
UPDATE 2: Here is the link to Piper’s sermon.
What a great and refreshing article!
I’ve felt like that picture looks far too often, and often due to my own neglect of communing with God via meditating on the redemption for which my Savior paid with his life.
I wish the whole world of evangelical Christianity remembered that “the Word” primarily refers to the Good News, not just the principles (“Truth,” or better, Law) by which saved people are to live. We aren’t living it because the living is the cart, to which the gospel is the horse. Breathing the gospel through constant corporate, family and personal (note the order) meditation on it is the only way the living will take place.
If I remember properly, John Piper was in a bit of a quandry. How are we supposed to meekly receive the Word implanted, which is able to save our souls, if we need to be regenerated in order to receive the Word, and yet we are born again through the living and abiding Word. He couldn’t use the biblical illustration given in both texts, because it contradicts his doctrinal perspective. So, instead he makes an illustration about oxygen up.
The “Word implanted” fits 2 biblical illustrations. Both James and Peter use the illustraion of childbirth. James 1:18 tells us that God brought us forth by the Word of truth, which is common venacular for childbirth. Childbirth is the result of Seed that had been planted earlier. The Seed is not sown and birthed in the same day.
1Peter 1:23 tells us that we are born again from seed, the living and abiding word of God, the word preached to us. (v. 1:23, 25). The result of the planted word is a new birth, a babe in Christ whom Peter encourages to feed on the milk of the Word.
In the agricultural analogy, the word is sown into the ground. If the ground is too hard to receive the word, Satan comes to take away the Word so the the individual will not believe and be saved (Luke 8:12). Paul tells us that there are some who sow, and others need to water, and all the while God is bringing forth the increase. (1Cor. 3: 5-7). Someone altogether different may be there when it is time for the harvest.
Reformed Doctrine neglects the power of the Word of God and the work of the Spirit of God in a persons life before regeneration. It is that work that helps to move an individual to faith and repentance. God’s saves the individual through that faith. They are saved by the washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5). Paul said that they would be saved by Christ’s life (Rom. 5:10), because it is Christ who is our life (Col. 3:4). In Ephesians Paul tells us when we are made alive with Jesus Christ, by grace we have been saved! (Eph. 2:5). It is Christ who is our life (Col. 3:4). He who has the son has the life, and he who does not ave the son does not have the life (1 John 5:12).
But I think that He may have gotten himself in a real pickle with the last sermon that was online on the new birth. The message on Jan 13 distinctly put the regeneration after the resurrection. (Previously he taught that there was regeneration in the OT.)
Look at his second point first:
“The second objective historical event that had to happen for us to be born again with eternal life was the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. First Peter 1:3-4: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.†“Born again . . . through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.†So the second way that God brings about the new birth is by raising Jesus from the dead. ”
“The new birth is something that happens in us when the Holy Spirit takes our dead hearts and unites us to Christ by faith so that his life becomes our life. So it makes sense that Jesus must be raised from the dead if we are to have new life in union with him. New birth happens, you remember, in union with the incarnate Christ, not simply the spiritual Son of God. The new life we get in the new birth is the life of the historical Jesus. Therefore, if he does not rise from the dead, there is no new life to have. So the second way God brings about the new birth is to raise Jesus from the dead. ”
The first point also points to regeneration coming after the historical Jesus dies:
1) God ransomed us by the blood of Christ.
Verses 18-19: “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.†The point here, in regard to the new birth, is that new eternal life is not possible for enslaved sinners without a ransom being paid. This text implies that we were all in bondage or captivity to ways of thinking and feeling and acting that would have destroyed us. We were under the wrath of God who had handed us over to these futile ways (Romans 1:21, 24, 26, 28). Slavery to these sinful ways would destroy us if we could not be ransomed from this slavery. God paid this ransom price by sending Christ to bear his own wrath (Romans 8:3; Galatians 3:13). ”
“This is the rock-solid foundation of our new birth. As a basis for God to unite us to Christ and create faith and give us new life, there had to be some objective, historical events in the life of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said in Mark 10:45, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.†This is why the historical event of the incarnation happened. The Son of Man came “to give his life a ransom for many.†This had to happen as the basis of any new birth. And since the new birth is the gift of eternal life, not just new life, the ransom price had to be imperishable—not like silver or gold. The blood of Christ in infinitely valuable and, therefore, can never lose its ransoming power. The life it obtains lasts forever. So the way God brings about the new birth is by paying a ransom for the eternal life it imparts. ”
So how were people born again before they could be united with the “incarnate Christ, not simply the spiritual Son of God”? How could Christ be our life, before the historical Jesus is raised from the dead, since we are “born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead?
OT individuals were enslaved sinners every bit as much as we are. How could they have been regenerated if “it is not possible for enslaved sinners to receive eternal life before the ransom is paid? Remembering that the Ransom was paid by Christ. “THis is why the historical eventof the incarnation happened…This had to happen as the basis of any new birth. The new birth is the gift of eternal life, not just new life”.
John Piper was so careful trying to maintain the regeneration before the faith in this series so far, that he seems to miss the fact that He clearly now places regeneration after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That one point alone decimates Reformed Theology.
Therefore, if I was a wagering man, I would bet that he will shortly change his tune, and contradict what he has said here to get himself in line with His doctrine very soon.
I would be interested in hearing your response to this.
2B4HisGlory@gmail.com