Bowling Green Covenant Church

The Traveler’s Advisory

I recently discovered an old hymn titled By Christ Redeemed, In Christ Restored. It was written over 150 years ago by George Rawson, with music by John B. Dykes. It is a sacramental hymn to be sung whenever the Lord’s Supper is celebrated.

By Christ redeemed, in Christ restored,
We keep the memory adored,
And show the death of our dear Lord,
Until He come.

His body broken in our stead
Is here in this memorial bread,
And so our feeble love is fed
Until He come.

The streams of His dread agony,
His life blood shed for us, we see;
The wine shall tell the mystery
Until He come.

And thus that dark betrayal night
With the last advent we unite
By one blest chain of loving rite
Until He come.

Until the trump of God be heard,
Until the ancient graves be stirred,
And, with the great commanding word,
The Lord shall come.

O blessed hope! with this elate
Let not our hearts be desolate,
But, strong in faith, in patience wait
Until He come.

The last words of each stanza point us toward the hope we have in Christ. Were we not by Christ redeemed, His return would terrify us rather than cause us to rejoice. Were we not in Christ restored, His second coming would cause us to flee His presence rather than fall at His feet in worship. Rawson’s words may not be inspired in the same way Scripture is inspired, but they contain a weightiness sorely lacking in much of our contemporary worship.

The hymn preaches a Biblical anthropology, a sound Christology, an orthodox theology and a hope-filled eschatology. The Biblical anthropology of the hymn declares that by Christ alone we are redeemed from God’s wrath against us for our sin. In Christ alone we are restored to a state of righteousness, holiness and purity before God. The Christology of the hymn is found in such lyrics as His body broken in our stead/Is here our memorial bread and The streams of His dread agony/His life blood shed for us we see. When Christ broke the bread and blessed the cup He established the New Covenant. The very moment He said the words of institution, “This is my body,…This is my blood…,” the Old Covenant was fulfilled the culmination of which was His crucifixion the next day. Thus the wine shall tell the mystery that we are redeemed and restored by His active obedience (He lived a sinless life) as well as His passive obedience (He laid down His life as a voluntary sacrifice). An orthodox theology permeates the entire hymn summarized by the words of another songwriter/theologian, Michael Card, We in our helpless thought we were strong/He became helpless to show we were wrong/We in our foolishness thought we were wise/He played the fool to open our eyes.

The eschatology of the hymn is captured in the refrain, Until He come. Now there is much debate in Evangelical circles as to when Christ will return. And the hymn gives no indication as to what Rawson thought about the timing of Christ’s second coming. That said, I do not believe the Church is a parenthesis in the plan of God, nor do I believe that God has one plan for the Church and another for the present-day nation of Israel. Nor do I believe the Church must be removed from this world in order for God’s plan of salvation to be fulfilled. I do believe the Church, comprised of Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free, is the Israel of God. I believe that all people, regardless of their ethnicity, race or gender are by Christ redeemed, in Christ restored. I believe that for anyone to have the hope of eternal life with Christ they must confess their hope in in His body broken in our stead; in His life blood shed for us.

Then and only then can any of us say with confidence — O blessed hope! with this elate/Let not our hearts be desolate/But, strong in faith, in patience wait/Until He come.

You think about that.

MM

The Traveler’s Advisory

Friday 12 January 2007

When Rick Warren began his best-selling book, The Purpose Life with the statement, “It’s not about you,” he simply put in popular language what Augustine wrote circa 400 A.D., “You made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You.” The same idea is expressed in the first question and answer in The Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Confession of Faith:

What is the chief end of man?

Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

Still, Augustine’s statement remains the preeminent expression of why we are here. God made us for Himself. We have been made to worship God. And it is He who awakens us to delight in His praise—to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. And yet it is the last part of Augustine’s statement that remains most memorable, “our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You.”

Now, we Reformed types will debate whether or not unregenerate humanity wants to praise God. However, when we examine his statement from the perspective that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God, Augustine’s point becomes clear. At the heart of Adam and Eve’s rebellion was the desire to replace the worship of God with the worship of self. In believing the lie that they would become like God by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the Garden couple became enslaved by that which they were created to rule. Instead of giving their hearts rest, their self-rule and its new religion of self placed them and us in a cauldron of rebellious restlessness, anxiety, and despair. Once the truth that God made us for Himself is forgotten, the lie that it is all about us becomes infinitely more attractive and, unfortunately for us, infinitely more deadly.

God has made us for Himself. We have been made to worship God. And it is He who awakens us to delight in His praise. Augustine is correct. Humanity wants to praise God, but since sin has so twisted our nature and skewed our perspective, we do not worship Him. Rather, we worship what He has created. We worship ourselves. We worship nature. We make idols of created things rather than worshiping the God who created them and us.

God must awaken us to delight in His praise. His Holy Spirit must arrest us from the frantic restlessness caused by an idolatrous heart (Romans 8.15-17; Ephesians 1.13-14). It is only as God the Father draws us to Himself (John 6.44) that we will find the rest our hearts so desperately long for. And once we are drawn to the Father we find rest for our hearts as well as for our souls (Matthew 11.27-30).

So may you find rest for your heart this New Year. May you freely surrender that which makes you restless. May you joyfully let go of the delusion that it is all about you, that temporary, terminal things can satisfy the eternal, everlasting desire for rest God has planted in your heart. May you discover the joy of a God-awakened delight in His praise. May you discover the peace that accompanies those who resolve to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. May you explore what it means to know He made us for Himself and our hearts are truly restless until they find their true rest in Him. You think about that. MM

The Traveler’s Advisory

Friday 5 January 2007

They say, “Truth is stranger than fiction.” If so, the following Associated Press headline is further evidence in support of that axiom – “Saved By the Word” (This Associated Press story appeared on page 17 of The Sentinel-Tribune (Bowling Green, Ohio), Monday, November 20, 2006.)

The headline refers to an incident that took place near Jacksonville, Florida in November 2006. An unnamed a 54-year-old man, was ambushed by two attackers as he carried bags of garbage to a trash bin. Frustrated by the man’s resistance one of his attackers shot him in the chest at point blank range.

To the amazement of all three men, the 54-year-old man did not die. Yes, the bullet hit him, but he did not go down. Take another look at the headline and you can guess why. That’s right. Two small Bibles in his shirt pocket kept the bullet from penetrating into his chest. He was saved by the Word.

According to the police (who took the Bibles as evidence), the man had put the two New Testament Bibles in his shirt pocket to give to friends. Little did he know they would (or, could ) stop a bullet. Other than a red mark where the bullet would have been and a pain in his chest the man was not injured. As the headline reveals, he was saved by the Word.

Skeptics may dismiss this is as the stuff of urban legend. Yet as incredible as the story sounds, there is enough evidence to suggest the story is true. Even so, no one is advocating the use of New Testament Bibles as bulletproof vests. What ought not be overlooked is the fact that the Word of God is meant to save us from a fate far worse than being shot with a bullet from a gun at point-blank range.

The Word of God is meant to save us from the wrath of God aimed at us because of our sin. Now, strictly speaking we are not saved by the Word. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. It is through the preaching and the hearing of the Word that the Holy Spirit makes us aware of our sin thereby revealing our need for salvation by grace through faith in Christ. Without this work of the Spirit the Word is powerless to produce the faith we need to be saved. However, when the Spirit is at work He makes the Word effective for salvation.

In his letter to the Christians in Corinth, the apostle Paul wrote, “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on man’s wisdom, but on God’s power,” (1 Corinthians 2.4-5, NIV). And again in his letter to the Christians in Rome, the apostle Paul wrote this about the Word of God, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes…,” (Romans 1.16, NIV).

Had the bullet penetrated those two New Testament Bibles in that man’s shirt pocket the AP headline may have been written with different words. However, the original headline would still be true. To be “Saved By the Word” is to be saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. It is to know that no matter how our life ends here on earth, it continues in heaven with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. And “to be in heaven is not to cease to be human but to become perfectly human…perfectly obedient to God himself in every circumstance as we join him in exercising dominion over his creation,” (Scott J. Hafemann, The God of Promise and the Life of Faith, Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL © 2001, page 104).

So as this New Year begins may you know what it means to be saved by the Word. May you know the “demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on man’s wisdom, but on God’s power.”

And, like the apostle Paul, may we be “not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.”

You think about that.

MM