“The basic difference between Bible reading and Bible study is simply a pencil and a piece of paper. Write down observations about the text as you read and record questions that come to your mind” (Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 37).

“It was the particularity of biblical faith that frustrated paganism: this God, this elect people, in this time and place. The typical pagan would (and still does) find such a restriction on sacred manifestation offensive. Still scandalous is the notion that God reveals himself as our Savior in the history of redemption through Jesus Christ and not just anywhere we happen to look for him” (Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 41).

“A tithe purloined cankers the whole estate.”

You can keep 100% of your income, but 100% will be cursed, or you can keep 90% of your income, and 100% will be blessed.

“Our only hope of progress in gradual sanctification (growing in likeness to Jesus) is that we already have a right standing with God by faith alone. By this justification we are accepted into God’s favor and enjoy a reconciled position. This right standing establishes the very relationship in which we find the help and power to make progress in love” (John Piper, Counted Righteous in Christ, 49).

God works with the grain of the created-order: “Our God is a God who works by means [e.g., “Bible-reading, private prayer, regular attendance on public worship, regular hearing of God’s Word, and regular reception of the Lord’s Supper”], and He will never bless the soul of that man who pretends to be so high and spiritual that he can get on without them” (J. C. Ryle, Holiness, 21).

The following excerpt from George Herbert’s The Temple – The Church-Porch, Perirrhanterium (the 64th stanza):

Man is God’s image; but a poor man is

Christ’s stamp to boot: both images regard.

God reckons for him, counts the favour his:

Write, So much giv’n to God; thou shalt be heard.

     Let thy alms go before, and keep heav’n gate

     Open for thee; or both may come too late. 

God is the Master and Creator of the Universe. He is the Divine Head, the Lord of creation, and as Lord he self-discloses himself to man “by way [mode] of covenant” (Westminster Confession of Faith, VII.I).

God is distinct from and sovereign over all of creation. This means that there is a permanent-and-ontological difference at back the relationship between God and the creation. Thus, we can say that there are two ontological realities in this world:

     1) the eternal and infinite Triune-God.

     2) the temporal and finite creation.

What are the implications?

For starters, this means that creation is ontologically and metaphysically dependent upon God. In John 1:3, God revealed that through the Word, Jesus Christ, all things were created: “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Therefore, Jesus Christ is the “source of all activity and life” (Marcus Dods, The Gospel of John, vol. 1, The Expositor’s Greek Testament, ed. W. Robertson Nicoll, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, reprint 1983), 684).

Since man is temporal and finite and distinct from the eternal and infinite Triune-Creator, there must be some way that God relates-to and relationships-with Creation. According to Scripture, God freely chose to reveal and relate to creation by way of covenant, that is, covenantally (Genesis 2:17, 6:18, 9:11; Exodus 6:4, Deuteronomy 5:3, Psalm 25:14, 89:3; Luke 1:72; Romans 10:5-20, 11:27; Hebrews 12:24, 13:20). The milieu of God’s covenant with man is God’s law. “The law of God expresses God’s holy nature to man (Greg Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics, (Nacogdoches: Covenant Media Press, 3rd ed.), 141). Therefore, God’s law is the axiomatic system of the covenant.

God expresses his holy nature to all of creation; God relates covenantally with all of creation, but since man was specifically created in God’s image, and as such is a representative of God to the rest of creation, this implies that man has a moral and an ethical obligation to obey the stipulations of God’s law. Since man has this ethical obligation to keep the law of God, there are conditions and promises tied to God’s covenant with man. The covenantal conditions and promises are sanctioned by God’s authoritative declaration: on the one hand, blessings and life will be rewarded for covenantal faithfulness and obedience, while on the other hand, curses and punishment unto death will be rewarded for covenantal unfaithfulness and disobedience (see Deuteronomy 27-30).

We see in Scripture that God has made two covenants with man: the first was a “covenant of works” made with Adam, the first federal head of humanity; the second was a “covenant of grace” made with Jesus Christ, the second Adam, the federal head of restored humanity.

Adam failed to keep the ethical obligations of the “covenant of works” that God made with him, and as the federal head of humanity sanctioned curses and judgment unto death for himself as well as all of his descendants. Thus, ever since Adam’s fall mankind has attempted to make himself the measure of all things: sinful man’s aim is to be absolute, sinful man’s aim is to be autonomous. By this vain attempt, sinful man attempts to usurp God the glory for which He alone is due. Because of sin, the relationship (covenant) is broken that exits between man and the Divine. Secondarily, it is also important to note that man’s relationship with the entire created-universe is broken.

Cornelius Van Til noted, when God created Adam and put him in the Garden of Eden, Adam was supposed to be “a prophet, priest, and king under God in this created world” (Christian Apologetics, ed. William Edgar (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2nd edition, 2003), 41). God intended for Adam to “interpret,” “dedicate,” and “rule” the world, not for the sake of himself, but for God. That is, for God’s glory! Sinful man, however, does not execute the offices of prophet, priest, and king for God’s glory, rather he twists that ingrained-innate-calling as he attempts to be absolute and autonomous.

Thus, sinful man is always trying to do prophetic, priestly, and kingly things in this world, but he does them while in a broken relationship (covenant) with God. So, what proceeds is this: false interpretation, perverted dedication, and corrupted rule and judgment – these things are not of God but are of man, thus, the prophetic, priestly, and kingly things that fallen men accomplishes are after the “tradition of men” and “not after Christ.” (cf. Colossians 2:8: “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” Paul is saying you need to fashion knowledge and belief after (the knowledge and belief in) Christ, that is, after the Creator, not after knowledge and belief of the traditions purported by sinful men and a fallen created-universe.)

However, God freely chose to make a “covenant of grace” with Jesus Christ, the second Adam, the obedient prophet, priest, and king. Jesus Christ was obedient, he had covenantal faithfulness and entirely fulfilled the ethical obligations of God’s law as prophet, priest, and king. Jesus Christ, therefore, faithfully interprets, dedicates, and rules the world for the glory of God!

So, what we know about God by way of the covenant is that God is not only the Lord who created the universe, but that he is also the Lord who mercifully restores sinful men and renews creation. God does that by adopting sinners through propitiation, that is, through the obedient and atoning prophetic, priestly, and kingly work of Jesus Christ, with whom God made a “covenant of grace” – wherein God “offers unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in Him, that they may be saved” (Westminster Confession of Faith, VII.III).

“Preaching is necessary not because it’s a magic but because God has ordained it for the justification and sanctification of sinners” (Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 39).

Good insight on prayer by Pastor Mark Driscoll from Ephesians sermon series.

“God is your Father. If you understand that God is your Father, prayer makes a lot of sense and prayer becomes very easy. If you don’t understand that God is your Father, prayer becomes complicated and difficult.”

I recently read James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, a satirical jab at antinomian Calvinism, originally published anonymous in 1824. It was a disturbing read but beneficial.

The Confessions discloses a morbid story in three parts: an “Editor’s Narrative” bookends the protagonists’ “Memoirs” — together they provide objective and subjective accounts of the corruption unto evil-and-the-demonic of young Robert Wringhim, a boy born and raised as a strict-Calvinist in eighteenth-century Scotland. The Confessions is part gothic-novel and although it may be somewhat anachronistic to say so, it is replete with dark humor/black comedy. Here’s a zinger:

The dame [the mother of the protagonist] thanked him [Rev. Mr. Wringhim] most cordially, lauding his friendly zeal and powerful eloquence; and then the two again set keenly to the splitting of hairs, and making distinctions in religion where none existed (16).

The Confessions is insightful because of, not in spite of, its jab at Calvinism, performing the excellent service of illustrating the horrors of antinomian Calvinism, as well as providing a window into the psychology of the demonic — similar to C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters.

Biblically speaking, the only sure marks of Divine Election are those provided by the inner-testimony of the Holy Spirit and the good works of Sanctification, which are the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  In contrast, the protagonist of the Confessions is a gloomy character who hangs his eternal assurance of Divine Election upon the mystical-illumination decreed by his adoptive father, the Rev. Mr. Wringhim, who is a crack-pot Calvinistic preacher. (You know the variety: the mildew-Calvinist, the “high-as-a-kite-and-jacked-up-on-presumption”-Calvinist.) Rather than cling to the Biblical marks of Divine Election, Young Wringhim clings to the “oracles” of his quasi-father (the book insinuates that Robert may be the illegitimate son of Rev. Wringhim), which only greases the rails for absolutely horrific acts executed by the protagonist, e.g., assault, evil plotting, usurpation, murder(s).

This book truly is a horror novel, portraying both the power and acts of evil. The book is as sobering as it is terrifying, and that is what makes it a good read.