The Reformation Fellowship Magazine Issue 05

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REFORMATION F E L L OWS H I P Magazine

JUSTIFICATION CALMS THE HEART THOMAS R. SCHREINER MARY, DID YOU KNOW? SARAH ALLEN FINISHED REDEMPTION CHRISTMAS EVANS

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Reformation Fellowship provides support and fellowship for all who would stand for the reformation of Christ’s church worldwide.

EDITORIAL BOARD Michael Reeves Daniel Hames Joel Morris Natalie Brand Managing Editor: Chance Faulkner Copy Editor: C. Rebecca Rine DESIGN Something More Creative® somethingmorecreative.com

reffellowship.org Reformation Fellowship is a ministry of Union Union Foundation, Bridgend, CF31 4DX Registered Charity Number 517324

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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“We are applying the gospel in very particular ways in the lives of people.”

“Let’s calm our hearts with the promise of God’s forgiveness in Christ Jesus, with the grace that is so freely and lovingly granted to us.”

Reeves, Ortlund, and Cruver L O O KI N G BAC K AT N A P E RV I L L E , L O O K I N G F O R WA R D T O A T L A N T A

Thomas R. Schreiner J U S T I F I CAT I O N CA L M S T H E H EA RT

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Steffen Jenkins J U S T I F I C AT I O N B Y FA I T H FROM THE BEGINNING

“Freely justifying sinners, from top to bottom, despite any merit which we think we might have, entirely through crediting to us the merit of another, is what God does.”

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Sarah Allen M A RY, D I D Y O U K N O W ?

“As she heard the Word of God, obeyed, and bore fruit, she modelled for us life in the Spirit.”

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J. Stephen Yuille T H E E XC LU S I V I T Y AND SUFFICIENCY OF C H R I S T , O U R S AV I O U R “He came so close as to experience life in a fallen world, bear our sin and shame, and taste death for us.”

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Christmas Evans FINISHED REDEMPTION

“But hark! The dying Saviour exclaims, “It is finished!” and the great dragon and his host retreat, howling, from the cross.”

What does it mean to be people of the gospel? And how can the church be renewed by the gospel today?

Join with pastors, leaders, and believers in Atlanta this Fall for our upcoming conference, The Gospel: Our Hope, Our Banner, as we consider these questions and rally under the gospel banner of Jesus Christ.

$220 Book your place at www.reffellowship.org ATLANTA CONFERENCE 2022 2

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Be renewed through teaching from God’s Word with Michael Reeves, Dane Ortlund, Philip Ryken, and Jeff Norris; be refreshed through fellowship and prayer with other believers; and be revitalised in your ministry and mission.

Scan the QR to find our full schedule, more information, and group discounts. #RFCON22 THE REFORMATION FELLOWSHIP MAGAZINE

NOVEMBER 11–12 3

Conversation

L O O KI N G BAC K AT N A P E RV I L L E , L O O K I N G F O R WA R D T O A T L A N T A MICHAEL REEVES, DANE ORTLUND, AND DAN CRUVER

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Reeves: Brothers, I was so encouraged after our first Reformation Fellowship gathering. I was encouraged because it felt like the gospel was both impacting people and pulling them together. Our time together created this sense of vulnerable brotherhood in men who were feeling quite lonely, isolated, and going through a really hard time. To see them come together, sit under the same gospel, and see the work that that gospel can do in lives—to be praying together, hearing from God’s Word together—felt enormously special to me. It felt like there was a noteworthy moment that will be fruitful in lives for a long time.

Ortlund: I strongly agree. The gospel was going way down deep into us and into our hearts, and walls between us were coming crashing down as well. And we had fellowship, brotherhood, and love, but it wasn’t mushy sentiment; it was based on the clear contour of the gospel that we love and are celebrating. A very rich time.

Cruver: Often after a sermon at a conference, I’ll hear people say something like, “That THE REFORMATION FELLOWSHIP MAGAZINE

was a great message.” But when we broke up into groups during the lunch hour, what I heard were comments about the truth of the gospel preached and applied. And the men began speaking freely and openly about their struggles. That is a testimony to what the gospel actually does. It frees us both from self-protectiveness and our unwillingness to be vulnerable and talk about what’s going on inside us. The Spirit was really gracious to us in enabling us to open up and say, “This is how the gospel met me today.”

Reeves: And that is what I am hoping for and anticipating for Atlanta—that it won’t simply be a downloading of information for people’s heads, but that gospel light in our heads would impact our hearts and affect us.

But also that the lifting up of Christ will draw us together so that we fellowship around the gospel, and fellowship in an honest way.

Ortlund: I cannot wait to be in Atlanta with you men and many other fellow Christians.

It’s “reformation” and “fellowship”: those two things joined together. The great, grand, 5

glorious truths of the Reformation, which are being recovered in our time, alongside that filling and flowing into, and fostering and nurturing fellowship. And enjoying that together. I do not want to do life and ministry alone. I want to do it next to you guys and many others. And that is what we are going to enjoy together in Atlanta.

Cruver: And I’m confident that those who participated in Naperville will go back to their churches and share what the Lord did in their hearts. They will want their people to participate in Atlanta so that they can experience this kind of preaching that seeks to win the heart. That is what we are trying to do—go after the heart. We are not merely trying to create theologians who live in the abstract.

Reeves: Something we are going to be doing in Atlanta that we didn’t get to do in Naperville is something called “tracks.” We are going to have a track for women, a track for pastors, a track for theologians so that we can drive the gospel a little deeper in close fellowship— in groups together, into people’s lives, so that that theology is felt. It affects and transforms us.

Cruver: We are applying the gospel in very particular ways in the lives of people.

Ortlund: And we are creating space so that it isn’t an event where you are going from one big talk to another, then back to your hotel room to collapse, then get back up the next day and do it all over again. But self-consciously we are creating space for brothers and sisters to talk and open their hearts to one another in light of the content/ gospel/doctrine we are receiving. That is one of the driving purposes of our coming together in Atlanta. I am really fired up about it.

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Cruver: For me, hearing the men pray at two different tables was a blessing. The prayers were heartfelt—rich theologically but also touching very tender areas of their lives both personally and pastorally. When someone hears the gospel preached, and then you hear them pray like that—that’s clear evidence that the Spirit has taken what was proclaimed and applied it. It becomes an “Abba, Father” prayer. They are actually praying to the Father about that which the Father has given through the messenger.

Ortlund: I love that. That’s when you hear what someone’s theology actually is—when you hear them praying. It’s their “on-the-street theology.”

Reeves: When you look at the Reformation five hundred years ago, you see that not only is the gospel being recovered, but there is something so beautifully attractive about the fellowship. Luther and his friends sit around the table, and they talk and they get to know each other. They needed each other’s support.

To think what they were up against! And now, today, we hear of so many who feel isolated, unsupported—we need fellowship.

Cruver: Too many pastors are pulling out of the pastorate because they do not have what they so desperately need.

Reformation Fellowship held its first one-day gathering in Naperville, IL, on March 22, 2022, at Naperville Presbyterian Church. The next conference will be held at Perimeter Church in Atlanta on November 11–12, 2022.

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Article

T H E E XC LU S I V I T Y AND SUFFICIENCY OF C H R I S T , O U R S AV I O U R J. STEPHEN YUILLE

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Centuries ago, Martin Luther declared, “God accepts only the forsaken, cures only the sick, gives sight only to the blind, restores life only to the dead, sanctifies only sinners, gives wisdom only to the unwise. In short, he has mercy only on those who are wretched.”1 Luther’s point was well made. “I have not come to call the righteous,” declares Jesus Christ, “but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32). In other words, the good news of salvation is only for those who acknowledge their sin. The reason is straightforward: we will never rest in Christ alone until we are convinced of our need for Christ alone.

Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 55 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1957), 14:163.

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The Reformation was in many ways a struggle for this simple truth. The Roman Catholic Church affirmed that salvation is accomplished by grace and works; furthermore, it pointed people to Christ and saints, masses, pilgrimages, penances, and indulgences as the way to obtain favour with God. In sharp contrast, the Reformers affirmed that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

They were convinced, in the words of John Calvin, “that our whole salvation is found in Christ,” and that we must, therefore, “drink our fill from this fountain and from no other.”2 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, The Library of Christian Classics, vols. 20–21, ed. J. T. McNeill and trans. F. L. Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 2.16.19.

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The apostle Paul takes up the theme of Christ’s sole sufficiency in his epistle to the Galatians. The fundamental question that he wants to resolve for his readers is this: How do we receive the “grace” and “peace” that come from “God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:3)? In a wonderfully worded declaration, he grounds his answer in a historical event: Christ “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” (v. 4).

Christ “gave himself ” Christ gave himself in becoming a man, taking the form of a servant, living in a fallen world, ministering to those in need, enduring man’s opposition, overcoming Satan’s temptation, and suffering mistreatment. But far eclipsing all these, he “gave himself ” by dying on the cross. As he suffered an agonising death, he did not hurl screams of rage toward the heavens or threats of defiance toward the crowds. There were no sobs of selfpity. He did not claim his rights or promote his interests. Rather, “for the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb. 12:2).

Because of his love, Christ left a glorious crown and walked in our flesh. Because of his love, he was hungry, thirsty, and weary. Because of his love, he was betrayed, arrested, and condemned. Because of his love, he was crowned with thorns, scourged with whips, and pierced with nails. Because of his love, he hung on a shameful cross, 10

bearing our guilt. Because of his love, he “poured out his soul to death” (Isa. 53:12). Because of his love, Christ gave himself.

Because of his love, Christ left a glorious crown and walked in our flesh. ... Because of his love, he “poured out his soul to death” (Isa. 53:12). Because of his love, Christ gave himself.

Christ “gave himself for our sins” The expression “for our sins” points back to the sin offering in the Old Testament (Lev. 5:11; Num. 8:8).3 By employing this expression, Paul is emphasising the fact that Christ offered himself to atone for our sins (Rom. 3:21–26). Elsewhere, he proclaims that “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:2). Because of our sin, we deserve his severity, not his mercy; we deserve his judgement, not his forgiveness; we deserve his wrath, not his love. But Christ has “redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13). God reckoned our sin and guilt to Christ when he was suspended between heaven and earth upon the cross, and he annulled the law when Christ satisfied its demand of perfect obedience, bore its curse, and fulfilled its shadows, types, and ceremonies. The charge against us was nailed to the cross with Christ, For a similar expression, see Romans 8:3; Hebrews 10:26; 13:11; 1 Peter 3:18; 1 John 4:10.

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and it was cancelled by his death (Col. 2:14).

We often use the phrase “the crux of the matter” to describe the most important point. The term crux is Latin—the origin of our English words crucial and cross. In other words, the cross is crucial. The central message of the Bible is the inauguration and consummation of God’s kingdom in Christ. This means that the central message of the Bible is the cross. There is something intrinsic to the character of God that requires death as a payment for sin. Christ has rendered that payment in full, thereby satisfying God’s justice and securing God’s mercy.

Christ “gave himself to deliver us from the present evil age” As Paul makes clear in his epistles, there are two ages: “this age” (night) and “the age to come” (day)

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(Eph. 1:21; Rom. 13:12). The “present age” began at the fall and continues to the consummation; it is the fallen creation (the old humanity in Adam). The “age to come” was inaugurated at Christ’s first coming and will be consummated at his second coming. It “does not begin at the conclusion of all things but in the middle of history.”4 It is the renewed creation (the new humanity in Christ). The present age is “evil” because sin permeates it, but Christ rescues us from it, and we now belong to the age to come. As a result, we are no longer enslaved to the pride, greed, anger, pessimism, darkness, rebellion, selfishness, and foolishness that mark this present age.

Moreover, Paul declares that “the appointed time has grown very J. V. Fesko, Galatians, The Lectio Continua Expository Commentary on the New Testament (Powder Springs: Tolle Lege Press, 2012), xxvii.

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short,” that “the present form of this world is passing away,” and that “the end of the ages has come [upon us]” (1 Cor. 7:29, 31; 10:11).

By “short,” Paul means limited. He is saying that the time between Christ’s two advents is restricted, meaning it will not continue forever.

The eternal kingdom is about to break into time, and when it does, it will usher in the consummation.

But we are assured that Christ has delivered us “from the present evil age”—both its present bondage and future destruction.

But we are assured that Christ has delivered us “ from the present evil age”—both its present bondage and future destruction.

Christ “gave himself according to the will of our God and Father” This is a wonderful way of saying that Christ’s atoning work at Calvary’s cross was God’s eternal plan. “He made me a polished arrow; in his quiver he hid me” (Isa. 49:2). Here Christ (the Servant of God) makes a distinction between common arrows and “polished” arrows. A polished arrow is given extra care and attention. It is hidden away for a special day and special use. This is how God cherishes his Servant (Isa. 42:1). He keeps him for just the right moment—what Paul calls “the fullness of time” (Gal. 4:4). And then, he sets him in his bow, and releases him to accomplish his design.

There was nothing compelling in us that caused God to send his Son. THE REFORMATION FELLOWSHIP MAGAZINE

He was not motivated by something good, worthy, or honourable in us.

He was not stirred by something laudable or loveable in us. We are all “under sin” (Gal. 3:22). We are sinful in what we think, what we want, what we choose, what we say, and what we do (Rom. 3:10–18). We stand, therefore, in need of God’s sovereign grace.

Here is the wonder of wonders: having set his love upon us before the foundation of the world, God freely “sent forth his Son” in the fullness of time to give himself for us (Gal. 4:4). For this reason, we echo Paul’s cry: “To [him] be the glory forever and ever. Amen” (Gal. 1:5).

Christ’s Sole Sufficiency This emphasis on Christ’s sole sufficiency is a needed tonic in today’s church. Regrettably, an increasing number of “evangelicals” question the belief that salvation is found in Christ alone. A recent survey revealed that two-thirds of evangelicals are comfortable with the following statement: “Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and others all pray to the same God, even though they use different names for that God.”5 Yet this notion of a “Christ-less” approach to God stands in clear opposition to the testimony of Scripture. As Paul affirms, “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). Because of our sin, we George Barna, Third Millennium Teens (Ventura: The Barna Research Group, 1999), 48.

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are cut off from God. Yet Christ— fully God and fully man—bridged the expanse. He who made all things was carried in the womb of a woman, and he who upholds all things was held in the arms of a woman. He came so close as to experience life in a fallen world, bear our sin and shame, and taste death for us.

What happens if we add something to this good news? Intentionally or not, we end up denying the sole sufficiency of Christ. “What this means in practice is spelled out in what we can call … theological mathematics. … Whenever you add, you subtract. Adding more to the Lord Jesus makes him less than he should be. Whenever you put a plus sign after Jesus, you are taking something away from his supremacy and sufficiency.”6 Allan Chapple, True Devotion: In Search of Authentic Spirituality (London: The Latimer Trust, 2014), 31.

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Christ does it all. “He stripped himself of the robes of his glory and covered himself with the rags of our humanity,” declares Thomas Watson.7 He “took our misery that we might have his glory,” writes Thomas Manton.8 In short, he clothed himself with our humanity—body and soul. Because he is related to us, he is able to act on our behalf. As Redeemer, he paid our debt and purchased our inheritance. Christ’s work, therefore, is enough to atone for our sin and reconcile us to God. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18).

We simply receive him (and all his benefits) through faith. Faith does Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1958), 196–198.

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Thomas Manton, The Works of Thomas Manton, 22 vols. (Birmingham: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2008), 3:266.

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nothing. It pays nothing, earns nothing, and contributes nothing.

It simply receives. Do we believe that Christ was crucified for us— that he stood in our place while our sins were applied to him? As we hear of Christ agonising in the garden, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matt. 26:39), do we think of our sins that brought such pain upon him? As we hear of Christ’s condemnation before Pilate, do we marvel at God’s infinite mercy toward sinners? As we hear of Christ naked upon the cross, do we remember that he covers our shame with his righteousness?

As we hear of Christ’s cry from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

(Matt. 27:46), do we think of how he suffered the torment of hell in our place? As we hear of the trembling of the earth, do we think of how we deserved to descend to hell? This is to believe in a sufficient Saviour.

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Are we convinced that God offers Christ to sinners for their salvation? We do not need to fulfil any conditions. We do not need to get our act together, to meet a certain standard of behaviour, to be sorry enough, ashamed enough, good enough, or holy enough. We simply need to receive God’s offer.

In the words of Horatius Bonar, “Upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die, another’s life, another’s death, I stake my whole eternity.”9 We look away from ourselves to Christ, who has done all. This makes Christ’s sole sufficiency the sweetest truth known to man. It is the difference between feast and famine, fullness and emptiness, an eternity of joy and an eternity of sorrow.

Horatius Bonar, “Upon a Life I Have Not Lived” (1881).

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Meditation

J U S T I F I CAT I O N CA LMS T H E H EA RT THOMAS R. SCHREINER

In what follows I will offer a meditation on Galatians 3:1–9, where Paul reminds the Galatians of the gospel. In doing so, he intends to calm their hearts, to fix their eyes back on the gospel, to give them the assurance they lost when they started listening to the message of outside teachers. We should begin by hearing the text:

You foolish Galatians! Who has cast a spell on you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? I only want to learn this from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by the Spirit, are you now finishing by the flesh?

Did you experience so much for nothing—if in fact it was for nothing? So then, does God give you the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law? Or is it by believing what you heard—just like Abraham who believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness? You know, then, that those who have faith, these are Abraham’s sons. Now the Scripture saw in advance that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and proclaimed the gospel ahead of time to Abraham, saying, All the nations will be blessed through you.

Consequently, those who have faith are blessed with Abraham, who had faith.

(CSB here and onwards; emphasis original)

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Bewitched and Beguiled We see from the outset that genuine believers can become fools, since Paul says, “You foolish Galatians!”

Surely, many of those who were tempted to rely on circumcision and the observance of the law for salvation were truly believers. And yet they had lost their heads and had forgotten where wisdom is to be found.

own incapacity, about their inability to please God on their own. Once we start concentrating on our works, we have forgotten the importance of Christ and him crucified; we no longer consider his righteousness but our own. Paul’s public preaching of the cross was now a distant memory, so they were now trying to gain right standing with God based on their virtue.

And the same can happen to us today, since we are no better than they were, since we share the same human foibles and follies. Paul isn’t judging the Galatians’ intelligence, of course, but their spiritual wisdom. It is as if they had become bewitched, as if someone had cast a spell over them, charmed them, and deceived them. Though Paul doesn’t name Satan, he must surely lurk in the background, for he is the arch deceiver and tempter.

How easy it is to forget about our justification, and this is true no matter how long we have been believers. Martin Luther often comments in his writings on how prone we are to forget the comfort that comes from justification in our daily lives, on how easily we begin to believe in a false Christ and begin to ingest a message that is contrary to the gospel. We are inclined to do this because we desperately want to be recognised and applauded for our own goodness. We have to be reminded regularly that in ourselves we are “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17).

The Galatians had become fools by turning back to the law for their righteousness. We all easily fall back into old habits, into wrong ways of thinking, which is why we are told that we must not be conformed to this world but should renew our minds (Rom. 12:2).

In this instance we see that the Galatians had become foolish by beginning in the Spirit and then turning to the flesh for completion and for perfection. They were enchanted, captivated, and duped by false teaching. Someone had waved a wand over them, as it were, and they could no longer see the significance of Christ crucified.

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Go Back to the Beginning Paul calls the Galatians back to first principles, to the outset of their Christian lives. How did they first “receive the Spirit” (3:2)? The language of “receiving” points to conversion, to how they first became Christians, and the reference to the Spirit also indicates that Paul attends here to the beginning of the Christian life.

The reception of the Spirit is the mark that one is a believer, that one is truly a Christian. Paul makes this plain in Romans 8:9: “You, however, are not in the flesh, but 19

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in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.”

It is clear, then, that when Paul asks the Galatians how they received the Spirit, he asks how they became Christians. And the answer in Galatians 3:2 is that they didn’t become believers by their works or their obedience. They became believers by hearing the message and believing it.

As Paul says in Romans 10:17, “Faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.” We receive the Spirit when we put our trust in the message of the gospel, when we embrace Jesus Christ as our fortress, our rock, and our deliverer, when we trust him to save us from sin. Paul makes the same point in Galatians 3:5: God supplies the Spirit and works miracles not on the basis of our obedience, but because we simply hear the message and embrace it in faith.

“Faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.”

ROMANS 10:17 What does this mean for us? For our hearts to be calm, for our hearts to be assured, for our hearts to be confident, we need to listen— really listen—to the gospel. And we are easily distracted from the good news of the gospel. We can condemn ourselves when God isn’t condemning us. We can listen to THE REFORMATION FELLOWSHIP MAGAZINE

the messages that come from our minds instead of the message of the gospel. Yes, we can even read the Bible and not hear the gospel! Thus, we can become convinced that we are no good in God’s sight, that we are utter failures, that God stands against us when he is actually “for us” (Rom. 8:31)!

Martin Luther tells the story of a doctor who killed himself because he came to believe that Christ was accusing him before the Father. This tragedy came in part because the doctor was listening to the wrong message. Christ doesn’t accuse us before the Father but intercedes for us based on his self-giving sacrifice (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25).

We are reminded that our hearts will be stirred up with all kinds of anxiety and fear if we listen to the wrong message, if we pay heed to the lies that Satan whispers in our quiet moments.

Remember the Beginning In verses 1–5, Paul appeals to the Galatians’ own experience. They received the Spirit by faith instead of works. In the subsequent verses (3:6–9), he appeals to Scripture, for the Old Testament teaches that justification has always been by faith. Thus we are introduced to the beginning of the people of God, to our forefather in the faith— Abraham. Paul instructs his readers that their experience when they were converted matches the father of the Jewish people—the first Jew, Abraham.

Paul summons Genesis 15:6 (see Gal. 3:6) as a witness to explain to 21

the Galatians how Abraham was righteous before God. It seems that according to Genesis 15, Abraham (he was actually called “Abram” then) was rather depressed, since he had been promised offspring but still didn’t have any children.

He somewhat despairingly tells the Lord that his heir must be his servant Eliezer. The Lord tells Abraham to step outside on a clear night where myriads of stars blazed from the sky. The Lord promised that Abraham would have as many children as there are stars. In other words, the offspring of Abraham would be as immeasurable and as incalculable as the number of stars. Abraham could have dismissed the promise as pure nonsense, but he put his trust in the Lord and believed his promise (see Gen. 15:1–6).

Abraham did not do any great work for God upon hearing the promise, and we must admit that there is nothing he could do to ensure that the promise would become a reality. Abraham honoured God by believing God could do the miraculous, that God could do the impossible. It is the same faith, as Paul tells us in Romans 4, that believes that God raised Jesus from the dead (v. 24). Faith and trust honour the person in whom we put our trust.

We honour our spouses when we trust them, our auto mechanics when we entrust our vehicle to them for repair, and coaches when we believe that the play they call is fitting. So too, when we put our faith in God, we honour him as trustworthy.

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According to Galatians 3:7, we are Abraham’s children, members of his family, when we believe as Abraham did. We become children of Abraham not by working for God but by trusting in him, not by achieving but believing, not by performing but by resting, not by keeping the law but by looking to God’s promise. As Paul says in verse 8, quoting Genesis 12:3, it was always God’s intention to bless all nations through Abraham, and those of us who believe are now the recipients of that promise.

Following the pathway of Genesis 15:6—believing God and having it counted as righteousness—is the way that the entire world will be blessed.

Faith is crucial in our lives because it gives us assurance. If righteousness depended on us and our goodness and our achievements, we would think that we always had to work harder and would be filled with doubt about whether our work is sufficient in God’s sight.

Thus our lives would be filled with uncertainty, and we would wonder if God really loves us or if we have to do more for him to smile upon us. But faith takes all of that out of our hands, because ultimately it isn’t our faith that saves us, as if our faith is a work. The object of our faith—Jesus Christ—saves us. Faith looks away from self to Jesus Christ, and in him we find our assurance, our calm, our serenity, our boldness.

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remarkable. Paul not only teaches in these verses that we are justified by faith; he also teaches that we are sanctified by faith. I am not denying that there are differences between justification and sanctification.

Progressive sanctification differs from justification because human beings cooperate in a way that we don’t with respect to justification.

After all, we do certain works as we are progressively sanctified. To put it another way, in sanctification we progress and grow in holiness, but justification is perfect the moment we believe.

Still, we tend to miss the message of Galatians 3:3, where Paul asks the Galatians, “After beginning by the Spirit, are you now finishing by the flesh?” I understand Paul to say that sanctification is also by faith. Yes, there are differences from justification (see above), but we continue the Christian life the way we began it. We began by 24

believing, and we need to continue to trust in Christ as we grow into his likeness. We don’t begin by the Spirit and then take the next steps by the flesh. We continue the way we began, by trusting God and relying on the Spirit for everything. Paul gives thanks for the Thessalonians’ work of faith in 1 Thessalonians 1:3, but it is a work that flows from faith. Faith is the root, and obedience is the fruit.

In sanctification, we progress in holiness, but sanctification is also by faith.

I heard a person say once that our Christian lives could be compared to a car engine. If something is wrong, we look under the hood, and we know that one of two things is wrong with the engine: either faith or obedience. The problem with this illustration is that it separates faith and obedience into two different categories. We don’t OCTOBER 2022 | ISSUE 05

begin in faith and then continue in obedience. Instead, we always know that if we are not obeying, it is because we are not trusting.

If someone says to you, “Don’t take methamphetamines, for they will destroy you,” and you hear that and take methamphetamines anyway, why didn’t you obey?

You don’t trust him. You think methamphetamines will bring pleasure. Paul speaks of “the obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5; 16:26) because all obedience flows from faith.

We see, then, that we progress in the Christian life in the same way we are justified—by trusting in God for everything. I am not saying that justification and sanctification are the same in every respect, for justification refers to the initial verdict that we are right before God by faith. I am merely saying that progress in the Christian life is not by works apart from faith. Works THE REFORMATION FELLOWSHIP MAGAZINE

that are pleasing to God always stem from trust in him. Furthermore, we always rely on the righteousness of Christ in our sanctification because we continue to fall short in many ways (James 3:2). Our righteousness is never complete in this life. We can’t use our progress in sanctification as a basis for right standing before God, because our lives are still stained by sin. Our assurance comes from belonging to Christ, from being united to him by faith.

We must remember that all of us, no matter how long we have been Christians, may become fools. Satan will try to cast a spell over us. We may know the gospel in our heads and actually live on the basis of works, and thus, as Luther said, we must relearn the gospel daily. Let’s calm our hearts with the promise of God’s forgiveness in Christ Jesus, with the grace that is so freely and lovingly granted to us.

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J U S T I F I CAT I O N B Y FA I T H F R O M THE BEGINNING STEFFEN JENKINS

A great deal that is written and taught about the Old Testament assumes that God was a legalist who “saved” people through their good works and only cared about one nation, and that then Jesus came and changed all that.

It would be easy to look at texts from all over the Old Testament showing the opposite of each of these assumptions: for instance, the impossibility of self-righteousness in Psalm 51:1–3 and Psalm 130:3–4, 7–8, or the evangelical inclusion of the nations in Psalm 117:1, Isaiah 2:1–4, and Habakkuk 2:14. The two ideas are combined in Psalm 2:8–12.

However, the evangelical nature of God’s Word is not a matter of a few scattered texts: it is evangelical through and through, because God is evangelical from eternity to eternity. We can begin to see this by paying attention to the first book, Genesis, where Moses taught the Old Testament saints that they could not save themselves and to look forward to God saving the nations.

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Christians know that we are justified entirely by God’s grace, by faith alone, apart from any merit of our own, and entirely by the merit of Jesus. Yet often, from the way that we misread some New Testament passages, we can come away with the impression that “justification by faith alone” was only invented once Jesus came. We miss the glorious and comforting reality that God has always been the Saviour “who justifies the ungodly” and “counts righteousness apart from works” (Rom. 4:5–6).

Our salvation is guaranteed by who God is. In our personal relationships, we can bump into each other on a good day or a bad day. Not so with God: we haven’t caught God on a good millennium.

Freely justifying sinners, from top to bottom, despite any merit which we think we might have, entirely through crediting to us the merit of another, is what God does. Below, we will see why both Paul and James kept turning to Genesis to prove that OCTOBER 2022 | ISSUE 05

we are only ever justified by faith alone. (Spoiler: it’s because there is no other God in Genesis than in the Gospels.)

Genesis 3: Redemption Restores Creation How does God choose to save people? How does he add them to the people he is saving? We will see that God is fulfilling his original purpose for creation, even after it has been marred by sin, and that his way of saving people is through their trust in him, quite apart from what we deserve.

In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve made sure to reject God in the only way they could—by disobeying the one and only thing he had forbidden. They distrusted his kindness and believed the lie that he was withholding blessing from them.

Yet God’s purpose continues.

He saves us so that we will do what he created us to do in the first place.

God’s punishment is itself a reminder of his purposes and his promises. For example:

Genesis 1 & 2: Creation

Genesis 3: Fall

Command to tend to the ground (1:28) and to enjoy the food that it would produce (1:29); God’s provision of pre-tended ground with food (2:8–9, 16)

Difficulty in working the ground and eating (3:17)

Command to be fruitful and to multiply and fill the world (1:28); God’s provision of male and female (2:18, 22)

Difficulty in childbirth (3:16)

Chiefly, all God’s original commands were rooted in God’s blessing (1:28)

Now, Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden, and the one who blesses them is no longer accessible (3:24). He had walked in the garden with them, but no longer.

From here on, God’s work and ours would be not merely creation, but redemption. Most significantly, the mandate to multiply, the command to fill the world with people, had always meant to fill it with righteous people: the only kind that were THE REFORMATION FELLOWSHIP MAGAZINE

around. That would no longer be so simple. Filling the world with righteous people in right relationship with the God who made them now requires that universally sinful people should be made righteous worshippers. How? 27

The curses of Genesis 3 show us that God’s punishment is itself a reminder of his purposes and his promises. The curse on the enemy, in 3:15, is salvation for God’s people: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

The judgement on the serpent is a promise of a future fight. The betting shops aren’t giving odds, though, because the issue has already been decided: “He shall bruise your head.”

What will it mean that “you shall bruise his heel”? How will that be salvation for his people?

Noah: Alien Righteousness Let’s look at the first act of judgement-and-salvation through re-creation: Noah.

The whole world was filled with the opposite of God’s purpose: people’s wickedness turned to violence in every corner (Gen. 6:11–12). That was the opposite of God’s mandate to multiply humanity, since violence reduces the number of people. The God who loves people and wants more of them doesn’t sit back and watch as people destroy and harm each other.

To save humanity, God acts to remove the violent in Noah’s day, and he chooses a man by grace.

That man is labelled a “herald of righteousness” (2 Pet. 2:5), but most significantly he serves as an example of saving faith: Noah “became an 28

heir of the righteousness that comes by faith” (Heb. 11:7). By trusting in God’s promise about the ark, he and his family were saved to be the new humanity.

Nevertheless, on this occasion, the one who was saved by faith alone was already relatively righteous (Gen. 6:9). Therefore, we could end up with completely the wrong idea. But Moses squashes that misunderstanding as soon as it raises itself, with Noah himself.

Compare God’s assessment of humanity before and after the flood:

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Gen. 6:5).

B So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” (Gen. 6:7).

C The judgement of the flood (Gen. 7–8:19).

Cʼ Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma (Gen. 8:20–21), Bʼ the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, Aʼ for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.

Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.” (emphasis added) A

Twice the Lord observes that people’s hearts are thoroughly corrupt: the first time he decides to judge and sends the flood; the second time he determines not to judge, and that’s because of a sacrifice. That phrase for “pleasing aroma” will reappear OCTOBER 2022 | ISSUE 05

throughout the Law, describing animal sacrifices that pay for sin as substitutes for sinners. Noah’s own righteousness (such as it was) turns out not to be what saved him.1 If anyone reading Genesis were to think of being saved by being righteous, Moses immediately corrects us when he tells us at length about Abraham.

Abraham: The Father of Faith Let’s say that you read Genesis to this point and get the impression that God saves those who are of above average righteousness. You get a sense that God will deal with sin by destroying those who are insufficiently righteous. We’ve already seen, with Noah, that this cannot be. When God explains his purposes for the world to Abraham, it becomes crystal clear.

Moses tells us clearly that it is only by faith that God counts Abraham righteous (15:6): And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

Counted Righteous by Faith Alone, apart from Good Works, in Genesis What does it mean to count righteousness to him? Ordinarily, someone is justified when they are in fact in the right and they are publicly shown to be in the right.

For instance, when an innocent man is acquitted in a court of law, he is See especially Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, 1987), 189–90.

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justified. When God, who is always right, is publicly shown to be right, he is “justified” (Ps. 51:4, also quoted in Romans 3).

That isn’t how Moses describes what happened to Abraham.

Here, we find that Abraham is not righteous, because God counts something to him as righteousness.

The link between faith and righteousness is one of the most comforting truths in the Bible, so it’s worth getting it right. Faith is not a substitute for righteousness.

Faith is how we receive a righteousness that comes from outside of us. Faith receives God’s promise. And those who receive his promise, as Abraham did, God counts as righteous. He “justifies” them in such a way that it breaks the bounds of what the word “justify” can bear. For example, this is the entry for “justify” in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary:

justify • verb (justifies, justifying, justified) 1 prove to be right or reasonable.

• be a good reason for.

2 Theology: declare or make righteous in the sight of God.

Christians have to write our own dictionaries as a result:

justification • noun an act of God’s free grace, in which he pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only because of the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.2 2

The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q&A 33.

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Notice that we’re only fifteen chapters into Genesis, the first book of Moses, the opening of the Law, and we already we have seen that: •

Salvation has to come from God providing a Saviour (3:15) Salvation is universally needed because of sin (before and after Noah) Salvation requires payment for sin which we ourselves do not make (Noah’s sacrifice) God saves, not by making us righteous, but by counting us righteous (15:6) God chooses to count righteous those who trust in his promises (15:6).

•

•

•

•

There is no other way of salvation, anywhere in the Bible, than justification by faith alone.

Shown to Be Righteous by Good Works, in Genesis Later on in Abraham’s life, in one very significant incident, God tests him. Will Abraham prove himself righteous? He trusts in God’s ability to supernaturally return Isaac from the dead (Heb. 11:19). His faith in God, at that point, produces the fruit of obedience. At that point, God justifies Abraham in the more conventional sense: he demonstrates that he is righteous. God hasn’t given up on producing a righteous humanity.

James 2 picks up on this point: Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works. (vv. 21–22) 30

Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works. And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

JAMES 2:21–24

Does that undermine what we think we have discovered in Genesis?

Some notice that Paul appears to agree with us (as we see also in Romans 4), and that James here contradicts Paul. But read the next verses: And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. (vv. 23–24) James is well aware that two events in Genesis happened one after the other, and the order matters. Abraham was justified (counted righteous, despite his lack of righteousness) first. He believed God’s promise. His trust in God later caused him to obey God in a certain matter (Genesis 22).

When Abraham passed that test, God justified him (vindicated him, demonstrated that he acted OCTOBER 2022 | ISSUE 05

righteously). James’ point (one which Paul will also make in Romans) is that you can’t say that you trust God to save you and yet never trust God to instruct you in how to live.

So much has been written about “Romans 4 versus James 2.” Much of the confusion could have been spared by noticing the order of events in Genesis and what Moses in Genesis already teaches about how God counts sinners righteous, apart from good works.

The Nations Counted Righteous

by Faith Alone, apart from Good Works, in Genesis One might have expected that after the flood, given a bit of time, violence would cause God to send another flood. God swore not to, but in Abraham provided a different way of ridding the world of sin. Not only was Abraham himself justified by faith, but he was also promised that the unrighteous world would be blessed through him: “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). It is true that (as with Noah) God will protect the people whom he is creating against attack (“him who dishonors you I will curse”).

However, he also promises to create a righteous humanity by using sinners like Abraham to redeem the sinful nations.

Abraham is the classic New Testament example of justification by faith alone (for example, see Romans 4). But don’t miss the fact that Abraham is not chosen, THE REFORMATION FELLOWSHIP MAGAZINE

from among many Sunday school characters from the Old Testament, as one who happens to be justified by faith. As we have seen, Paul didn’t have to go far in his Bible to find Abraham. Abraham is the father of Israel, the ancestor, the beginning of how God saved the world through a people. The Old Testament is full of reminders that all the blessings to God’s people flow from his promise to Abraham.

If the New Testament reminds us that Abraham was justified by faith alone, that’s because the Old Testament keeps reminding us that God’s dealings with Abraham are the foundation of his plan to save: “And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen. 12:2–3) God’s overarching purpose is to bless and save the world.

Someone has rightly said that it is God’s ordinary work to save, but his strange work to condemn.

We see this throughout the Old

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

GENESIS 12:2–3 31

Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. ... For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.

ROMANS 4:9, 13

Testament—for example, in Ezekiel 18:23: “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?”

That’s not an idea that developed later on; rather, we see it in Genesis in the wording of the promise to Abraham about the enemy and the nations. As Gordon Wenham points out, there would have been little unusual in the ancient world about saying something more balanced, like “those who bless you I will bless, and those who curse you I will curse.” Yet in Genesis 12, Wenham notes: We have the singular “he who disdains you.” … This appears to imply that those who disdain Abram will be far fewer than those who bless him. He will flourish to such an extent that few will fail to recognize that God is indeed on his side.3 In Abraham, God is on the march against sin among the nations, but as Saviour of nations. How does Paul explain what we have to do with Jesus? He tells us what was promised to Abraham, namely: 3

Wenham, Genesis 1–15, 277.

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For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. (Rom. 4:13, emphasis added) That is why, before the nation of Israel was invented, before Abraham was even circumcised (in Genesis 17), the promise of salvation was by faith (Genesis 15) so that it would eventually include the nations (Genesis 12).

Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. (Rom. 4:9) For most of us reading this, that’s just as well. This is how the gospel began to be preached after Jesus died and rose—first to Israel:

You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, “And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”

ACTS 3:25 OCTOBER 2022 | ISSUE 05

You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, “And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”

(Acts 3:25) But first is not last: And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” … so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. (Gal. 3:8, 14) One Bible, One Jesus, One Gospel This all comes down to the fact that God has not changed, and that is a great comfort. Imagine if it were not so.

I build others up in Christ by reading the two Testaments together?

If the God who saves me through the work of Jesus now “saved” quite differently back then, could I delight in the God I meet in the pages of the Old Covenant?

Most importantly, if the way the nations are saved now isn’t how they were always saved, would I dare to copy the apostles when they preached Jesus to the nations from the Old Testament?

It doesn’t bear thinking about.

Whenever you open any part of the Old Testament, God is speaking to you there as the one who “justifies the ungodly.” He does not change.

We’re resting on his very character, his eternal nature: the most solid rock imaginable. Especially as a member of the nations, I’m glad:

If the Old Testament were teaching a way of salvation based on our own merit, would it be useful reading when I want to grow in Christ—the one whose yoke is easy?

If the God I meet in the Old Testament were a different God from the one whom I meet in Christ, could

We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs that fall from your table. But you are the same Lord, whose nature is always to have mercy.4 Book of Common Prayer, alluding to Jesus’ encounter with the Syrophoenician woman.

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And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” … so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

GALATIANS 3:8, 14 THE REFORMATION FELLOWSHIP MAGAZINE

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Article

M A RY, D I D Y O U K N O W ?

SARAH ALLEN

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When did you last think about Mary?

Perhaps it was in Advent when Luke 1 was read and preached, or maybe you reflected on her when you sang Christmas carols, though most say more about shepherds and “kings of Orient” than about the “mother mild.”

Anglicans might say Mary’s song (Luke 1:46–55) regularly at Evensong, but its first singer doesn’t get a mention in the liturgy.

For the large part, it seems, Protestants, and especially reformed ones, aren’t very used to considering the “mother of [our] Lord” (Luke 1:43). The modern carol might ask, “Mary, did you know?”1 but it doesn’t answer the question. What Mary knows, and who she is, remain quite a blank.

When the church avoids Mary, however, we all miss out. An opportunity to understand the incarnation is lost, and an important theme in God’s salvation plan is muted. We limit our understanding of life in Christ and the nature of womanhood when we sideline Mary. At a time when Christianity is attacked as misogynistic and reams are written about the role of women in the Bible and the church, it makes no sense to pass over one who is arguably the most important female of all.

Christians need to get familiar with Mary.

What She’s Not The main reason why reformed Christians avoid Mary is obvious. We want to distance ourselves from the reverence for Mary which is rooted in extra-biblical doctrines and results in both misplaced adoration and a confused view of salvation. We want to honour Jesus, not his mother, and we are horrified that in some traditions, the two overlap. The apocryphal Gospel of James, written in the second century, introduced ideas of Mary’s perpetual virginity (acknowledged as orthodox at the Synod 1

Mark Lowry, “Mary, Did You Know?” (1991).

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of Milan in AD 390) and her immaculate conception (the idea that Mary herself was conceived without original sin), which, along with some other beliefs, was officially recognised by some denominations as late as the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.2 Although the current pope has stated that Mary is not to be considered “co-redemptrix” (having an active role with Christ in redemption), he still regards her as the “first apostle” and a “path [to Jesus].”3 Whatever the official status of doctrines, though, Mary has for centuries inspired devotion in individuals and been elevated in many folk cultures. Religious art very often illustrates her cultic status and the emotions she evokes in ways that dogma only hints at. One image from the Middle Ages shows Saint Bridget receiving inspiration from Christ and Mary, who stand side by side in heaven.4 A fifteenth-century statue of Mary opens to reveal, encased within, God the Father holding his crucified Son, surrounded by worshipping kings and priests.5 The messages are clear: Mary is a powerful source of grace, the mother of the church who gathers the faithful under her protection in ways more immediate and sympathetic than the Trinity. For many throughout The idea of Mary’s perpetual virginity was accepted as orthodox at the Synod of Milan in 390. The doctrine of immaculate conception was adopted as a dogma by the Roman Catholic Church in 1854, and the belief that she was bodily transported into heaven on her death was only acknowledged by this church as official doctrine in 1950. Orthodox churches hold some slightly different versions of these beliefs.

2

Inés San Martín, “Once Again, Pope Francis Says Mary Is Not the ‘Co-Redemptrix,’” Crux Now, March 24, 2021, https:// angelusnews.com/faith/once-again-pope-francis-says-maryis-not-the-co-redemptrix.

3

You can find this image reproduced in Prudence Allen, The Concept of Woman, Volume 2: The Early Humanist Reformation, 1250–1500 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 368–369.

4

This image can be seen in Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay “On the Trinity” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 244.

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history and still today—both traditionalists and some Christian feminists—Mary is an almost-divine provider of hope and comfort.6 It is easy to see how these views originated, in part, from anxiety around Jesus’ illegitimacy, as well as from the influence of pagan goddess religion in the Roman Empire. Make Mary a super-powered woman who was never sexually active, and Jesus’ family history becomes acceptable.

It is no wonder, then, that though the elevation of Mary to pseudo-goddess may well have contributed to an improvement in the social understanding and treatment of women, Protestant, and especially reformed, churches have wanted to depict her as just another woman.

There is a danger, however, in this insistence on Mary’s ordinariness. Giles Fraser, an Anglican vicar who is also a regular Guardian columnist and BBC Radio 4 contributor, writes against belief in Mary’s virginity.7 Perhaps Mary had been raped, he surmises, or maybe she had sex with Joseph whilst betrothed. For Fraser, such explanations aren’t needed just because a virgin birth is hard to believe in; rather, his version of Christianity “refuses the familiar distinction between the pure and the impure.” He claims that focusing on virginity “damaged the basics of Christian philosophy by persuading too many that sex is dirty and that women ought to model the impossible combination of virgin and mother.”

Here Fraser joins plenty of twentieth-century voices—from Sigmund Freud to Simone Giles Fraser, “The Story of the Virgin Birth Runs Against the Grain of Christianity,” The Guardian, December 24, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/24/ story-virgin-birth-christianity-mary-sex-femininity.

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See, for example, Gavin D’Costa, Sexing the Trinity: Gender, Culture, and the Divine (London: SCM Press, 2000).

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de Beauvoir—who argue that to venerate a virgin mother is very bad news for both women and men. Venerating the impossible combination of virginity and motherhood, the argument goes, means that most women never measure up. Add to this what critics see as Mary’s extreme submissiveness, and a dangerous ideal of womanhood is formed. It’s better then, they say, to present Mary as no different from anyone else.

Neither of these perspectives on Mary fit the biblical material, however. She is not semi-divine, nor is she just another ordinary woman. In addition, neither position accounts for the utter holiness of God and his extraordinary grace in the incarnation, as we shall see below. The truth is that when we don’t get Mary right, we don’t get Christ right, and when we don’t get him right, salvation is impossible. Thus, to try to reassert a faithful understanding THE REFORMATION FELLOWSHIP MAGAZINE

of Mary, we need to consider her in terms of biblical theology. Our guide in this task will be Irenaeus, the second-century Bishop of Lyon.

Mary, the Mother of God Irenaeus was writing in an age when Gnosticism was a significant threat to the church. Gnosticism was a set of beliefs which centred on an understanding that the physical world had been created by a force opposed to God and that salvation came through secret knowledge which allowed the soul to ascend to a higher non-material plane.

Traces of gnostic tendencies still appear today in our secular world—when inner knowledge of the self is valued more highly than external reality—as well as in church cultures which chase special knowledge or experience over the truth revealed to all in the Scriptures. To meet the dangers of Gnosticism in his day, Irenaeus turned to 41

Mary; his argument helps us, too, as we face the gnostic inclinations of our own era.

Gnostics couldn’t accept that God would take on flesh, because all flesh was corrupt, part of a world which had not been directly made by God and which had to be escaped.

To evade the incarnation, they devised a heretical view that Christ was fully God and passed through Mary as if she were a tube, untouched by her flesh. He might have seemed like a man, but this was really a pretence, a fake. We call this heresy Docetism, from the Greek for “to seem.”

Irenaeus confronts it head-on: If He did not receive the substance of flesh from a human being, He neither was made man nor the Son of man; and if He was not made what we were, He did no great thing in what He suffered and endured.8 The argument is, if the Word did not take on real flesh, then he didn’t take our place—and Christ can’t be the second Adam, putting right what the first Adam got wrong—and if this is the case, then the cross achieves nothing. To win salvation, Christ must be punished in our place; to be punished in our place, he must be really human; to be really human is to have a body. And where does he get his body from?

Irenaeus argues that it comes from Mary.

She really is the mother of Christ, as Mark 6:3 and Galatians 4:4 say. His human nature came from her. This means that Mary’s body is necessary to our salvation. We cannot give her the title “co-redemptrix,” but we must take into account her unique role in Christ’s work of salvation. Mary reminds us that bodies matter; hers did, Christ’s does, and ours do, too.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson et al., The Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325, vol. 1 (Buffalo, NY: The Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1886), 3.22.1.

Other Gnostics evaded the incarnation in a different way. They held (just as Giles Fraser appears to be contending for) that Jesus was a real man simply selected by God to be his Son. The result of this is clear: if Jesus was adopted to be God’s Son, then he had no real divine nature. Irenaeus neatly spells out what this means for our salvation: “How could we be joined to incorruptibility and immortality, unless, first, incorruptibility and immortality had become that which we also are?”9 By this he means that there can be no union with Christ for us if Jesus was not himself human nature in union with God. The cross cannot lift us up to God if Christ is not truly God. A man, no matter how holy, can’t pay for our sins on his own. Though the title may stick in Protestant throats as it seems so redolent of Catholic excess, Mary really was “mother of God.” Mary, the Blessed Virgin This all means, Irenaeus argues, that Mary’s virginity is really important. It teaches us that without doubt, God was the Father of Christ.

There was no man who could claim that Christ was his Son. Implicit in this argument is an idea that challenges common attitudes held in the second century and still today: Mary’s virginity is not a sign of great holiness, as if marital sex is somehow sinful or sexual assault taints the victim. Rather, it is about the display of God’s power. This impossible conception could only come about through his will. Irenaeus presents a human mother, and therefore Mary, as crucial to the incarnation and so to our salvation. It is for this reason that at the Council of Ephesus in 431 she was called theotokos—“God-bearer”—to emphasise the fact that in her Son, divinity and humanity were truly united, not loosely tied together.

Christ did not “[empty] himself of all but love,” as we sometimes sing, but took to his divine nature a human one.10

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Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.19.1.

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Charles Wesley, “And Can it Be” (1738).

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This is a breathtaking thought. Among all the wonderful men and women in Scripture who figure so large in salvation history and who were empowered to great acts of faith—the prophets, the patriarchs, judges, and kings, as well as the later apostles who gave their lives for the spread of the gospel—none have a role like Mary’s. Other mothers had extraordinary conceptions and rescuing sons, but Mary isn’t just one amongst these; they foreshadow incompletely her unique role. Sarah, Hannah, and Elizabeth are barren, but they are married. Their sons have earthly fathers. For them, and in the case of other notable births (such as Samson’s and Joseph’s), conception has been longed for, and it brings joy, not the shame of illegitimacy. In the mysterious beauty of God’s plan, he chose one who seemed weak and insignificant to show his glory as the heavens were rent and he came down (Isa. 64:1).

So it is that Mary’s high and unique position raises Christ higher. She enables us to see Christ’s extraordinary condescension and compassion in coming to earth and in taking on flesh. Mary allows us to see the Holy Spirit’s power in his new creation work as he comes upon her, as he did at the first creation, hovering over the waters in Genesis 1:2. Mary causes us to marvel at the Father’s plan of salvation, so intricately worked out. Irenaeus reflects worshipfully on this very fact: The Lord Himself gave us a sign, in the depth below, and in the height above, which man did not ask for, because he never expected that a virgin could conceive, or that it was possible that one remaining a virgin could bring forth a son, and that what was thus born should be “God with us,” and descend to those things which are of the earth beneath, seeking the sheep which had perished.11 11

Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.19.3.

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This humble virgin shows us the greater humility of Christ as he stoops down to save his people; her own salvation is found in her Son. God chose Mary, not through anything she had done, and poured out on her his grace. In Luke 1:28, Gabriel arrives and greets Mary, saying that she is a “favored one,” and later he says that she has “found favor” (v. 30). This is nothing earned; it is what God has done.

Mary is described as blessed by God (vv. 42, 45, 48). In her song (vv. 46–55), Mary speaks of God’s economy, how he raises up the humble and shows mercy to those who fear him, and she includes herself in that.

Contrary to Giles Fraser’s argument that God has abolished the categories of pure and profane, Mary shows us here that Christ can dwell with sinners, not because purity is an obsolete idea, or because everything is pure, but because God is able to purify. The second person of the Trinity did not come to Mary because a virgin’s womb is pure, or because she had been kept free from original sin through her own immaculate conception, but because he is graciously able to make sinners pure. Just as Jesus touched the woman with bleeding and healed her, making the unclean clean, he came to Mary’s womb and made her clean by his presence. Unlike Elizabeth and Zechariah, whose “righteous” status is underlined and who are both descended from the priestly line (Luke 1:5–8), the only description of Mary Luke gives us is that she is of David’s family. Rather than being linked by family or habit to the temple, she becomes instead a new picture of the sanctuary as she bears Christ, the one who is the true and final temple.

Mary, the Believer When Gabriel speaks to Mary in Luke 1, announcing to her God’s plan, she responds famously, “May your word to OCTOBER 2022 | ISSUE 05

me be fulfilled” (v. 38 NIV).12 The Greek expresses not a grudging “alright then,” or a passive submission, but a positive desire.

Many early church theologians contrast this willing obedience with Eve’s desire for disobedience. Irenaeus claims that Mary “recapitulates” Eve. By this he means that just as Jesus is the second and last Adam, taking Adam’s path, putting things right where Adam got things wrong (Rom. 5:12–19; 1 Cor. 15:45–49), so Mary is the last Eve, putting right her wrong. Eve listened to the serpent and disobeyed God; Mary listened to God’s Word and obeyed. Eve gave birth to a line of sinners bound to sin and death; Mary gave birth to the one who brings holiness and eternal life. It is a neat and The Greek verb here, genoito, is an aorist optative. To modern ears, the NIV’s “may [it] be [to me]” expresses more of this desire than the traditional “let it be” (ESV, AV, and others), perhaps because of the rather fatalist Beatles song “Let It Be.”

illuminating comparison, though certainly not as developed in Scripture as that between Adam and Christ, and while the incarnation depends upon Mary, as we have already seen, it is not at all correct to say that her obedience overturns the fall.13 Still, her obedience is notable, and it has significance both symbolically and as an example, which we will sketch here.

In Luke 1, Mary is described to us not as a wife, nor a daughter, but as an individual accountable to God and able to give her consent to him. Her status, when she says, “I am the Lord’s servant” (Luke 1:38, NIV), was revolutionary for the society in which it was spoken and still is radical today. Mary’s call was to obey God first—her first identity

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Reading along these lines, Revelation 12 can be interpreted as containing reference to Mary, and John’s use of “woman” to refer to Mary in John 2:4 and 19:26 could be seen as an echo of Genesis 2:23.

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is as a servant of God—and in this she is a model for us.

Although Eve was called to be a helper (Gen. 2:20), she failed and hindered Adam. Mary, in contrast, is a true helper, the suitable ally of God as mother of the serpent-crusher. She reminds us of previous judges, kings, and warriors who, endowed with the Holy Spirit, acted courageously in the progress of God’s kingdom. Bearing Christ, she obeyed, with and through him, the cultural mandate to rule and fill the earth.

There is more, though, than obedience to a command. Mary can be seen as a type of the church. Like Israel and the temple, Mary’s pregnancy and motherhood show us a picture of union with Christ and of that participation in the divine nature which all believers share (2 Pet. 1:4). As she heard the Word of God, obeyed, and bore fruit, she modelled for us life in the Spirit. This is made explicit by Jesus himself, when, in Matthew 12:50, he states, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my … mother.” Rather than discrediting Mary, this moment reveals the kinship relationship believers are invited into. The intimacy of union with God and familial relationship that Mary exemplifies is ours.

As well as being a type, Mary appears also to be a prototype. Particularly in Luke, but also in the other Gospels, she presents a pattern of belief other believers will replicate.

Mary follows Christ; she ponders, praises, serves, provides for, prays, gets things wrong, misunderstands, and suffers. She is also there at the cross in John’s Gospel and is with the apostles praying in Acts 1. Mary is not primarily a symbol or physical vessel for Christ, but a believer who walked with her Lord.

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A Woman’s Worth Far from the doctrine of Mary’s virginity at Jesus’ conception representing an unhealthy preoccupation in Christianity with sexual morality and thus a restriction of women, we can see that her place in the Gospel accounts represents a radical departure from the misogyny of the Roman empire. Her pivotal role in the incarnation and her presence among the disciples revealed clearly the value of women as women in God’s economy. Mary the virgin mother rubbed shoulders with an ex-prostitute Mary in the life of the church, as they prayed and served together, disrupting pagan understandings of female shame and dignity. Her stories were valued and recorded for us, highlighting the importance of female testimony. No wonder, then, that as Christianity spread, so attitudes to women changed.14 For our day, when many would say that the church excludes women, makes them “other,” and promotes an unhealthy sexual ethic, Mary shows us the centrality of women in Christianity, not as passive figures of temptation or untouchable purity, but as key actors in the gospel drama.

These changes are acknowledged by secular historians.

See, for example, Kyle Harper, From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016) and Tom Holland, Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind (London: Little Brown, 2019).

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— Sinclair B. Ferguson

— Joel R. Beeke OCTOBER 2022 | ISSUE 05

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Sermon

FINISHED REDEMPTION CHRISTMAS EVANS

“It is finished!”

This exclamation derives all its importance from the magnitude of the work alluded to, and the glorious character of the agent. The work is the redemption of the world; the agent is God manifest in the flesh. He who finished the creation of the heavens and the earth in six days is laying the foundation of a new creation on Calvary. Four thousand years he has been giving notice of his intention to mankind; more than thirty years he has been personally upon earth, preparing the material; and now he lays the chief cornerstone in Zion, exclaiming, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

We will first consider the special import of the exclamation, and then offer a few remarks of a more general character.

The Special Import of Christ’s Exclamation “It is finished.” This saying of the Son of God is a very striking one, and uttered, as it was, while he hung in dying agonies upon the cross, it cannot fail to make a strong impression upon the mind. It is natural for us to inquire, “What does it mean? To what does the glorious victim refer?” A complete answer to THE REFORMATION FELLOWSHIP MAGAZINE

the question would develop the whole scheme of redemption. We can only glance at a few leading ideas.

The sufferings of Christ are ended. Never again will he be persecuted from city to city as an impostor and servant of Satan. Never again will he say, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Matt. 26:38). Never again will he agonise in Gethsemane and sweat great drops of blood. Never again will he be derided by the rabble and insulted by men in power. Never again will he be crowned with thorns, lacerated by the scourge, and nailed to the accursed tree. Never again will he cry out in the anguish of his soul and the baptism of blood: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).

The predictions of his death are fulfilled. The prophets had spoken of his crucifixion many hundred years before his birth. They foresaw the Governor who was to come forth from Bethlehem. They knew the babe in the manger as he whose goings forth are of old, even from everlasting. They drew an accurate chart of 51

his travels, from the manger to the cross, and from the cross to the throne. All these things must be fulfilled. Jesus knew the necessity, and seemed anxious that every jot and tittle should receive an exact accomplishment.

His whole life was a fulfillment of prophecy.

On every path he walked, on every house he entered, on every city he visited, and especially on the mysterious phenomena which accompanied his crucifixion, it was written: “That the Scriptures might be fulfilled.”

The great sacrifice for sin is accomplished.

For this purpose Christ came into the world.

He is our appointed High Priest, the elect of the Father and the desire of nations. He alone who was in the bosom of the Father could offer a sacrifice of sufficient merit to atone for human transgression.

But it was necessary also that he should have somewhat to offer. Therefore, a body was prepared for him. He assumed the seed of Abraham and suffered in the flesh. This was a sacrifice of infinite value, being sanctified by the altar of divinity on which it was offered.

All the ceremonial sacrifices could not obtain the bond from the hand of the creditor. They were only acknowledgments of the debt. But Jesus, by one offering, paid the whole, took up the bond—the handwriting that was against us—and nailed it to his cross; and when driving the last nail, he cried, “It is finished!”

The satisfaction of divine justice is completed.

The violated law must be vindicated; the deserved penalty must be endured; if not by the sinner himself, yet by the sinner’s substitute. This was the great undertaking of the Son of God. He “bore our sins”—that is, the punishment of our sins—“in his body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24). He was made “to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). There was no other way by which the honour of God and the dignity of 52

his law could be sustained, and therefore “the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6). He “died to sin, once”—not merely for sin, enduring its punishment in our stead, but also “to sin,” abolishing its power and putting it away (Rom. 6:10).

Therefore it is said he “put away sin”— destroyed its condemning and tormenting power on behalf of all them that believe (Heb. 9:26). His sufferings were equal to the claims of justice; and his dying cry was the voice of Justice himself proclaiming the satisfaction.

Here, then, may the dying thief and the persecutor of the holy lay down their load of guilt and mourn at the foot of the cross.

The new and living way to God is consecrated. A veil has until now concealed the holy of holies. None but the high priest has seen the ark of the covenant and the glory of God resting upon the mercy seat between the cherubim. He alone might enter, and he but once a year, and then with fear and trembling, and the sprinkling of atoning blood, after the most careful purification and sacrifice for himself and the people.

But our Great High Priest has made an end of sacrifice by the one offering of himself. He has filled his hands with his own blood, and entered into heaven itself, there to appear in the presence of God for us. The sweet incense which he offers fills the temple, and the merit of his sacrifice remains the same through all time, superseding all other offering forever.

Therefore we are exhorted to come boldly to the throne of grace. The tunnel under the Thames could not be completed, on account of an accident which greatly damaged the work, without a new subscription for raising money; but Jesus found infinite riches in himself, sufficient for the completion of a new way to the Father—a living way through the valley of the shadow of death to “the city of the great King” (Ps. 48:2).

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The conquest of the powers of darkness is achieved. When their hour was come, the prince and his hosts were on the alert to accomplish the destruction of the Son of God. They assailed him with peculiar temptations and levelled against him their heaviest artillery. They instigated one disciple to betray him and another to deny him. They fired the rage of the multitude against him, so that the same tongues that lately sung, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” now shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

They filled the priests and scribes with envy, that they might accuse him without a cause; and inspired Pilate with an accursed ambition, that he might condemn him without a fault. They seared the conscience of the false witnesses, that they might charge the Just One with the most flagrant crimes; and cauterised the hearts of the Roman soldiers, that they might mock him in his sufferings and nail him to the cross.

Having succeeded so far in their hellish plot, they doubtless deemed their victory certain. I see them crowding around the cross, waiting impatiently to witness his last breath, ready to shout with infernal triumph to the depths of hell till the brazen walls should send back their echoes to the gates of the heavenly city. But hark! The dying Saviour exclaims, “It is finished!” and the great dragon and his host retreat, howling, from the cross. The Prince of our salvation turned back all their artillery upon themselves, and their own stratagems become their ruin. The old serpent seized the Messiah’s heel, but the Messiah stamped upon the serpent’s head. The dying cry of Jesus shook the dominions of death, so that the bodies of many that slept arose, and rang through all the depths of hell the knell of its departed power.

Thus the prince of this world was foiled in his schemes and disappointed in his hopes, 54

“But hark! The dying Saviour exclaims, “It is finished!” and the great dragon and his host retreat, howling, from the cross.” like the men of Gaza when they locked up Samson at night, thinking to kill him in the morning, but awoke to find that he was gone, with the gates of the city upon his shoulders. When the Philistines caught Samson and brought him to their temple to make sport for them, they never dreamed of the disaster in which it would result—they never dreamed that their triumph over the poor blind captive would be the occasion of their destruction. Suffer me, said he, to lean on the two pillars. Then he bowed himself and died with his enemies. So Christ on Calvary, while the powers of darkness exulted over their victim, seized the main pillars of sin and death and brought down the temple of Satan upon its occupants; but on the morning of the third day, he left them all in the ruins, where they will remain forever, and commenced his journey home to his Father’s house.

The Significance of Christ’s Finished Work So much concerning the import of our Saviour’s exclamation. Such was the work which he finished upon the cross. We add a few remarks of a more general character.

The sufferings of Christ were vicarious.

He died not for his own sins but for ours.

He humbled himself so that we might be exalted. He became poor so that we might be made rich. He was wounded so that we might be healed. He drained the cup of wrath so that we might drink the waters of salvation. He died the shameful and excruciating death of the cross so that we might live and reign with him forever.

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“Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to have entered into his glory?”

This “ought” is the ought of mercy and of covenant engagement. He must discharge the obligation which he had voluntarily assumed. He must finish the work which he had graciously begun. There was no other Saviour—no other being in the universe— willing to undertake the work; or, if any willing to undertake, none able to accomplish it. The salvation of one human soul would have been too mighty an achievement for Gabriel—for all the angels in heaven. Had not “the Only Begotten of the Father” become our surety, we must have lain forever under the wrath of God, amid “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 13:42). None but the Lion of the tribe of Judah could break the seals of that mysterious book. None but God “manifested in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16) could deliver us from the second death.

The dying cry of Jesus indicates the dignity of his nature, and the power of life that was in him to the last. All men die of weakness—of inability to resist death—they die because they can live no longer. But this was not the case with the Son of God. He speaks of laying down his life as his own voluntary act: “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (John 10:18). He “poured out his soul to death” (Isa. 53:12)—did not wait for it to be torn from him—did not hang languishing upon the cross until life “ebbed out by slow degrees,” but poured it out freely, suddenly, and unexpectedly.

“No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.”

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As soon as the work was done for which he came into the world, he cried, “‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30). Then the sun was darkened, the earth quaked, the rocks rent, the graves opened, and the centurion said, “Truly this was the Son of God!” (Matt. 27:54). He cried “with a loud voice” (Matt. 27:50) to show that he was still unconquered by pain, mighty even upon the cross. He “bowed his head” that death might seize him. He was naturally far above the reach of death, his divine nature being self-existent and eternal, and his human nature entitled to immortality by its immaculate holiness; yet “he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8): he “bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

We may regard his last exclamation, also, as an expression of his joy at having accomplished the great “travail of his soul” in the work of our redemption. It was the work which the Father had given him, and which he had covenanted to do. It lay heavy upon his heart; and oh, how was he straitened until it was accomplished!

His soul was “very sorrowful, even to death” (Matt. 26:38), “and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). But upon the cross, he saw of the travail of his soul and was satisfied. He saw that his sacrifice was accepted, and the object of his agony secured—that death would not be able to detain him in the grave, nor hell to defeat the purposes of his grace—that the gates of the eternal city would soon open to receive him as a conqueror, and myriads of exultant angels shout him to his throne, where he would be followed by his redeemed, with songs of everlasting joy. He saw, and he was satisfied; and, not waiting for the morning of the third day but already confident of victory, he uttered this note of triumph, and died.

And if we may suppose them to have understood its import, what a source 55

of consolation must it have been to his sorrowing disciples! The sword had pierced through Mary’s heart, according to the prediction of old Simeon over the infant Jesus. Her affections had bled at the agony of her supernatural Son, and her wounded faith had nearly perished at his cross. And how must all his followers have felt, standing afar off, and beholding their supposed Redeemer suffering as a malefactor! And how must all their hopes have died within them as they gazed on the accursed tree! The tragedy was mysterious, and they deemed their enemies victorious.

Jesus is treading the winepress in Bozrah, and the earth is shaking, and the rocks are rending, and the luminaries of heaven are expiring, and all the powers of nature are fainting, in sympathy with his mighty agony.

Now he is lost in the fire and smoke of battle, and the dread artillery of justice is heard thundering through the thick darkness, and shouts of victory rise from the troops of hell, and who shall foretell the issue of the combat or the fate of the Champion? But lo!

He comes forth from the cloud of battle, with blood upon his garments! He is wounded, but he has the tread and the aspect of a conqueror. He waves his crimsoned sword and cries, “It is finished!”

Courage, you weepers at the cross! Courage, you tremblers standing afar off! The Prince of your salvation is victor, and this bulletin of the war will cheer myriads of believers in the house of their pilgrimage, and the achievement which it announces will constitute an everlasting theme of praise!

“It is finished!” The word smote on the walls of the celestial city and thrilled the hosts of heaven with ecstasy unspeakable.

How must “the spirits of just men made perfect” have leaped with joy to hear that the Captain of their salvation was victorious 56

over all his enemies, and that the work he had engaged to do for them and their brethren was completed! And with what wonder and delight must the holy angels have witnessed the triumph of him whom they were commanded to worship over the powers of darkness! It was the commencement of a new era in heaven, and never before had its happy denizens seen so much of God. “It is finished!” Go, you heralds of salvation, into all the world and proclaim the joyful tidings! Cry aloud, and spare not; lift up your voice like a trumpet and publish to all men that the work of the cross is finished—that the great Mediator, made “perfect through suffering” (Heb. 2:10), has become “the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (Heb. 5:9) and “became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). Go, teach the degraded pagan, the deluded Mohammedan, and the superstitious papist that the finished work of Jesus is the only way of acceptance with God. Go, tell the polished scholar, the profound philosopher, and the vaunting moralist that the doctrine of Christ crucified is the only knowledge that can save the soul. Go, say to the proud sceptic, the bold blasphemer, and the polluted libertine: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

(John 1:29). Preach it to the gasping sinner upon his deathbed and the sullen murderer in his cell. Let it ring in every human ear, and thrill in every human heart, until the gladness of earth is the counterpart of heaven!

From Christmas Evans, Sermons of Christmas Evans (Philadelphia: Leary & Getz, 1859), 189–195. Spelling and punctuation have been lightly modernised, and Scripture quotations conformed to the ESV. OCTOBER 2022 | ISSUE 05

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Translation

N ICEN E CR EED MICHAEL A.G. HAYKIN

W E BELIEV E …

I N O N E L O R D J E S U S C H R I S T, T H E O N LY- B E G O T T E N SON OF GOD, BEGOT T EN FROM T H E FAT H E R B E F O R E A L L AG E S , GOD FROM GOD, L I G H T F R O M L I G H T, T RU E G OD F ROM T RU E G OD, BEGOT TEN NOT M A DE, ON E B E I N G W I T H T H E FAT H E R , T H ROUGH W HOM A LL THI NGS W ER E M A DE, W HO, FOR TH E SA K E OF U S A N D O U R S A L VA T I O N , D E S C E N D E D F R O M H E AV E N 58

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A N D BECA M E F L ESH BY T H E HOLY S PI R I T A N D T H E V I RGI N M A RY A N D BEC A M E H U M A N, A N D WA S C R U C I F I E D O N OU R BEH A LF I N TH E TI M E OF PON T I US PI L AT E , A N D SU FFER ED, A N D WA S B U R I E D , A N D RO SE AG A I N ON T H E T H I R D DAY AC C OR DI N G TO THE SCR IPTUR ES, A N D A S C E N D E D T O H E AV E N , A N D IS SE AT ED AT TH E R IGHT H A N D OF T H E FAT H E R , A N D IS COM I NG AG A I N W I T H GL ORY TO JU DGE THE LI V ING A N D TH E DEA D; OF W HOSE K I NGDOM T H ER E IS NO EN D. THE REFORMATION FELLOWSHIP MAGAZINE

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