spurgeon explaining the atonement to an irishmen. this is why an understanding of the atonement is so important; it's about who God is and what He did. He's just and merciful...
The
following excerpt is from "A Mighty Savior," a sermon delivered Sunday
morning, January 4, 1857, at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
 nce
a poor Irishman came to me in my vestry. He announced himself something
in this way: "Your reverence, I'm come to ax you a question."
"In
the first place," said I, "I am not a reverend, nor do I claim the
title; and in the next place, why don't you go and ask your priest that
question?"
Said he "Well, your riv—sir, I meant—I did go to him,
but he did not answer me to my satisfaction exactly; so I have come to
ask you, and if you will answer this you will set my mind at peace, for
I am much disturbed about it."
"What is the question?" said I.
"Why
this. You say, and others say too, that God is able to forgive sin.
Now, I can't see how he can be just, and yet forgive sin: for," said
this poor man, "I have been so greatly guilty that if God Almighty does
not punish me he ought, I feel that he would not be just if he were to
suffer me to go without punishment. How, then, sir, can it be true that
he can forgive, and still remain the title of just?"
"Well," said I, "it is through the blood and merits of Jesus Christ."
"And"
said he, "but then I do not understand what you mean by that. It is the
kind of answer I got from the priest, but I wanted him to explain it to
me more fully, how it was that the blood of Christ could make God just.
You say it does, but I want to know how."
"Well, then," said I,
"I will tell you what I think to be the whole system of atonement which
I think is the sum and substance, the root, the marrow, and the essence
of all the gospel. This is the way Christ is able to forgive. Suppose,"
said I, "you had killed some one. You were a murderer; you were
condemned to die, and you deserved it."
"Faith," said he, "yes I should deserve it."
"Well,
her Majesty is very desirous of saving your life, and yet at the same
time universal justice demands that someone should die on account of
the deed that is done. Now, how is she to manage?"
Said he, "That is the question. I cannot see how she can be inflexibly just, and yet suffer me to escape."
"Well,"
said I, "suppose, Pat, I should go to her and say, "Here is this poor
Irishman, he deserves to be hanged, your Majesty. I don't want to
quarrel with the sentence, because I think it just, but, if you please,
I so love him that if you were to hang me instead of him should be very
willing.
"Pat, suppose she should agree to it, and hang me instead of you, what then? would she be just in letting you go?"
"Ay"
said he, "I should think she would. Would she hang two for one thing? I
should say not I'd walk away, and there isn't a policeman that would
touch me for it."
"Ah!" said I, "that is how Jesus saves.
'Father,' he said, 'I love these poor sinners, let me suffer instead of
them!' 'Yes,' said God, 'thou shalt' and on the tree he died, and
suffered the punishment which all his elect people ought to have
suffered, so that now all who believe on him, thus proving themselves
to be his chosen, may conclude that he was punished for them, and that
therefore they never can be punished."
"Well,"
said he, looking me in the face once more, "I understand what you mean;
but how is it, if Christ died for all men, that notwithstanding, some
men are punished again? For that is unjust."
"Ah!" said I, "I
never told you that. I say to you that he has died for all that believe
on him, and all who repent, and that was punished for their sins so
absolutely and so really, that none of them shall ever be punished
again."
"Faith," said the man, clapping his hands, "that's the
gospel, if it isn't, then I don't know anything, for no man could have
made that up, it is so wonderful. Ah!" he said, as he went down the
stairs, "Pat's safe now, with all his sins about him he'll trust in the
man that died for him, and so he shall be saved."
Dear hearer,
Christ is mighty to save, because God did not turn away the sword, but
he sheathed it in his own Son's heart; he did not remit the debt, for
it was paid in drops of precious blood, and now the great receipt is
nailed to the cross, and our sins with it, so that we may go free if we
are believers in him. For this reason he is "mighty to save," in the
true sense of the word.
--- On Fri, 8/21/09, traever guingrich <trae...@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: traever guingrich <trae...@yahoo.com>
Subject:
To: galatians-...@googlegroups.com
Date: Friday, August 21, 2009, 9:03 AM
short article about fellowship vs. fighting for correct doctrine i thought you guys might find interesting...
(http://teampyro.blogspot.com/)
One thing you'll quickly notice if you make even a casual study of
historical theology is this: the history of the church is a long
chronicle of doctrinal development that runs from one profound
controversy to the next.
In one sense it is sad that the history
of the church is so marred by doctrinal conflicts, but in another sense
that is precisely what the apostles anticipated. Even while the New
Testament was still being written, the church was contending with
serious heresies and dangerous false teachers who seemed to spring up
everywhere. This was so much a universal problem that Paul made it one
of the qualifications of every elder that he be strong in doctrine and
able to refute those who contradict (Titus 1:9). So the church has always been beset by heretics and false teachings, and church history is full of the evidence of this.
Obviously,
then, we who love the truth cannot automatically shy away from every
fight over doctrine. Especially in an era like ours when virtually
every doctrine is deemed up for grabs, Christians need to be willing
and prepared to contend earnestly for the faith.
On the other
hand, even in an obsessively "tolerant" age such as ours, the opposite
danger looms large as well. There are some people who are always
spoiling for a fight over little matters, and no issue is too trivial
for them to overlook. It seems they are looking for reasons to
take offense, and if you're not careful what you say or how you say it,
they'll throw a major hissy. More often than not, it's an insignificant
issue, an unintentional slight, or an inadvertently indelicate "tone"
that provokes the tantrum. (Ironically, these same folks are sometimes
more than willing to tolerate major doctrinal errors in the name of
"charity.")
Scripture includes all the following commands: "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men" (Romans 12:18).
"It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should
earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the
saints" (Jude 3).
"If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him
not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him
God speed is partaker of his evil deeds" (2 John 10-11).
"I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences
contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them" (Romans 16:17). "Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations" (Romans 14:1). "Follow peace with all men, and holiness" (Hebrews 12:14).
Clearly, there are two extremes to be avoided. One is the danger of being so narrow and intolerant that you create unnecessary
divisions in the body of Christ. The other is the problem of being too
broad-minded and sinfully tolerant—so ecumenically minded that you
settle for a shallow, false unity with people whom we are commanded to avoid or whose errors we are morally obligated to refute.
It
would seem that the only way to be faithful to all the above commands
is to have a sound and biblical understanding of how to distinguish
between core doctrines and peripheral ones.
But search for
serious material that carefully discusses biblical guidelines for
making such distinctions wisely, and you'll come up mostly dry. This is
an issue I fear most Christians have not considered as soberly and
carefully as we should, and it would be my assessment that one of the
crying needs of the church in this age of mindless postmodern
subjectivity is a clear, careful, and thorough biblical understanding of when it's time to fight and when it's time to fellowship.
Few
subjects interest me more than this. It seems a pretty obvious and
foundational issue for the church and her leaders to settle. You might
think the early fundamentalists ought to have done extensive work on
the subject, but as far as I can see, they didn't. They treated several
key doctrines as fundamental, based mainly on what happened to be under
attack by the modernists, and they declared themselves devoted to "the
fundamentals."
But they didn't always keep very clear focus on
the distinction between what was fundamental and what was not. As a
result, later generations of fundamentalists often fought and
fragmented over issues no one could rationally argue were "fundamental." Predictably, the fundamentalist movement slowly collapsed on itself.
There
are some valiant efforts currently underway to improve and preserve the
best remnants of the fundamentalist movement. I sincerely wish them
success. But it seems to me that unless the brightest minds and most
careful theologians in that movement are willing to go back to this
basic question and carefully think through the biblical and theological
rationale for the original distinction between fundamental and
secondary truths, certain things that ought to be clear will remain
murky, and fundamentalism will be doomed to repeating cycles of failure.
If there's anyone left in the "evangelical movement" who is truly evangelical in the historic sense, the same thing applies to them, by the way.
Phil Johnson
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