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Tragedy and Things Happening for a Reason

There are two things you should probably think twice about saying to someone who is going through a hard time: 1) It’s a tragedy and 2) Everything happens for a reason.

You shouldn’t say it is a tragedy because typically tragedies end without hope. To use Tolkien’s language, they are catastrophes without eucatastrophe. In other words, they are like law without gospel, or death without resurrection, or a cross without redemption. The idea of pure tragedy is certainly consistent with an atheistic way of looking at the world, but the Christian might think twice about this.

  • 1 Thessalonians 4:13 ¶ But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

We have hope. Let’s not act as though we don’t.

The opposite way of viewing such events is to say, ‘everything happens for a reason.’ My family has been through a tough time lately, so have lots of other families, and (this really happened) an agnostic tells me that everything happens for a reason. I thought about that. I believe that the Scriptures are infallible. I believe, ‘we know that all things work together for good to those who loved God and are called according to his purpose’ (Rom. 8:28). I believe that there was a ‘reason’ behind Joseph’s enslavement and imprisonment in Egypt:

  • Psalm 105:16 When he summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread, 17 he had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave.

So, I ask, do you really know what you are saying when you say ‘everything happens for a reason?’ What reason?

The answer of Scripture is that the reason behind everything is the goal of the glory of God. And our pain glorifies God.

Recall the story of Elijah’s miracle of raising the widow’s son:

  • 1 Kings 17:21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the LORD, “O LORD my God, let this child’s life come into him again.”

Elijah stretched out in anguish. He was desperate. He was perplexed. He wanted a miracle. That’s what tough times do to us, they cause us to stretch out on our beds in anguish. And we don’t always get the miracle.

Jesus told Peter that he would stretch out as well:

  • John 21:18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.”

Peter would die by crucifixion, to the glory of God:

  • John 21:19 (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”

Jesus himself stretched his own hands out on a cross in anguish, feeling forsaken by God.

It all happened for a reason. But that doesn’t take away the fact that it is painful. It all happened for a reason. But that doesn’t take away the fact the glory of God is not cheap.

Learn the lesson of Job’s miserable comforters. Choose your words and actions carefully in dealing with those who are suffering. Don’t show your terrible theology in times like these, for even your good theology is terrible if you don’t know how to apply it. A hug is much better theology than ‘what a tragedy’ or ‘everything happens for a reason.’ And prayer is better still.

Snippets: Creation Will Be Set Free From Its Bondage to Decay (Rom. 8:20-21)

*In these snippets posts I share some of the fruits of my study in a given week as I prepare to preach. These are brief outlines of main points. Think of it as a short commentary on a passage without the application that would be made in preaching.
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  • Romans 8:20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

1. ‘Creation’ refers to irrational and inanimate creation. Not rational humans, angels, or fallen angels.

2. Irrational and inanimate creation, as we saw in the previous post, is personified as  ‘on tiptoe’ and ‘groaning’ for the return of Christ and the resurrection and glorification of mankind.

3. The creation has been subjected to futility and decay because of man’s sin, yet, personified again, it has hope of renewal

4. Objection: Isn’t everything going to burn?

  • 2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. 11 ¶ Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!

We must finish the passage:

  • 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

This ‘burning,’ then, must be the fire of purification and refinement rather than complete destruction. The ‘dissolved’ heavens and earth will become, or be replaced by, a ‘new heavens and a new earth.’

5. Jesus Christ speaks of this as ‘the regeneration’:

  • Matthew 19:28 Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world (regeneration), when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

The old heavens and earth will be regenerated, born again, and become new.

6. Biblical sketch of the regeneration:
A. The Heavens

  • At least four times in Scripture we read of ‘new heavens’ (Isaiah 65:17,22; 2Pet. 3:13, Rev. 21:1).
  • Four times in Revelation Christ is said to hold the ‘seven stars’ in his hand (Rev. 1:16, 20; 2:1; 3:1). These stars are explicitly said to be ‘the angels of the seven churches’ (1:20). Yet the symbolism involved is possibly that of the seven planets of ancient cosmology (C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy is built loosely on this concept. The important idea is that the image displays Christ closeness to, and care and concern for, the galaxy. Many other passages of Scripture could be quoted to describe God’s intimate knowledge of, and care for, the heavens.

B. The Earth

  • As above, a ‘new earth’ is spoken of multiple times in Scripture.

The earth is often personified as playing apart in the coming of that Day, for example:

  • Psalm 98:8 Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together 9 before the LORD, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.
  • Isaiah 55:12 “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the LORD, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

C. Things of the earth: Animals (for extended treatment see HERE)

1. Animals are included in the Covenant of Grace via the Noahic Covenant and are protected from the waters of wrath in the ark. The ‘bow in the clouds’ is just as much a sign for them as for us:

  • Genesis 9:12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations

2. In the new covenant, Jesus explicitly declares all animals ceremonially clean:

  • Mark 7:19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” ( Thus he declared all foods clean.)
  • Acts 10:15 And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”

3. Language of animals in the new created order is repeatedly used in Scripture:

  • Isaiah 11:6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. 7 The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. 9 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
  • Isaiah 65:25 The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,” says the LORD.
  • Christ himself is depicted in the vision of Revelation as both a Lion and Lamb (Rev. 5:5-6), which would be nonsensical without the existence of the actual creatures. There continuing existence will point to his glory.

D. Things on the earth: Plants

  • We are invited to the future ‘marriage supper of the Lamb’ which will, of course, entail food (Rev. 19:9), and specifically plants. Grapes and grain will surely be involved:
  • Luke 22:15 And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”

Objection: What about death? Don’t plants have to die to become food? Answer: Biblically, death entails the shedding of blood:

  • Leviticus 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood…

Plant death is in a different category than that spoken of so often in Scripture. It is considered natural rather than unnatural, since plants were eaten in pre-fall Paradise:

  • Genesis 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden…”

But the great hope: God and the Lamb will be in the midst:

  • Revelation 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

That is the day that all of creation is on its tiptoe, and groaning, to see. On that day all creation will experience the liberty of the sons of God. The gospel is for us, but it is much bigger than us – it is for all of creation in some sense. In our renewal, the creation will be renewed on account of the work of Christ.

The Whole Creation Is On Its Tiptoes (Rom. 8:19)

Here is a snippet from my studies from this week so far:

  • ESV Romans 8:19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

The verse in question is Romans 8:19, and we have in view specifically the phrase ‘the creation waits with eager longing‘ or ‘earnest expectation.’

In George MacDonald’s book, The Hope of the Gospel (p. 218), he notes poet Henry Vaughan’s Latin rendition of Romans 8:19 can be translated, ‘For the things created, watching with head thrust out, await the revelation of the sons of God.’ In the poem that goes with this verse, Vaughan writes,

Sometimes I sit with Thee, and tarry
An hour or so, then vary.
Thy other creatures in this scene
Thee only aim, and mean ;
Some rise to seek Thee, and with heads
            Erect, peep from their beds ;
Others, whose birth is in the tomb,
And cannot quit the womb,
Sigh there, and groan for Thee,
Their liberty.

Friberg defines ἀποκαραδοκία, ‘watching with the head stretched forward alertly.’ Thayer defines it,’ to watch with head erect or outstretched, to direct attention to anything, to wait for in suspense.’

J.B. Phillips translates the verse in question, ‘The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own.’

So, then, what are they stretching out their heads, craning their necks, and standing on tiptoes to see?

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare…There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal…it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors…(C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory).

They are standing on tiptoes to see men and women, boys and girls, conformed to the image of Christ, coming in glory.

The bullies of The Silver Chair got a glimpse like this as Eustace, Jill, and the resurrected King Caspian appeared in our world on their return from Narnia (near the very end of the book). The bullies saw the revelation of the children from Narnia:

Aslan turned to Jill and Eustace and breathed upon them and touched their foreheads with his tongue. Then he lay down amid the gap he had made in the wall and turned his golden back to England, and his lordly face towards his own lands…Most of the gang were there…But suddenly they stopped. Their faces changed, and all the meanness, conceit, cruelty, and sneakishness almost disappeared in one single expression of terror. For they saw the wall fallen down, and a lion as large as a young elephant lying in the gap, and three figures in glittering clothes with weapons in their hands rushing down upon them…

The hymn, Amazing Grace puts it like this: ‘When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun…

The Apostle John puts it this way:

  • 1 John 3:2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

The creation is on its tiptoes to see this revelation, this manifestation. It is coming. The creation is ‘groaning’ for it. Every earthquake is as a labor pain. Every tornado brings us closer to glory. Are you groaning? Are you standing on your tiptoes with the inanimate creation?

  • Isaiah 55:12 “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
  • Psalm 97:1 The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad! 2 Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. 3 Fire goes before him and burns up his adversaries all around. 4 His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles. 5 The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the Lord of all the earth. 6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all the peoples see his glory.
  • Psalm 98:7 Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who dwell in it! 8 Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together 9 before the LORD, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.

The hills will sing. Are you singing? The clouds gather in his presence. Do you have his presence? The rivers will clap their hands. Do you clap yours? Get on your tiptoes. You won’t believe what you are going to see.

The Human Situation Writ Large: Christ’s Suffering in Mine and Mine in His – C.S. Lewis

I planned to do a ‘Recent Reading’ post on C.S. Lewis’ Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, but have decided that I have gained too much from this book to collect my thoughts as a summary. Instead, I plan to write a few posts dealing with important issues tackled by the book. There are certain ideas in the book that I find deeply problematic, such as Lewis’ idea of purgatory. But there is gold to be found as well. In this post, I deal with some gold in the form of Lewis’ ideas about the relation of the suffering of the Christian to the suffering of Christ and vice versa.

First, let me cite some of the relevant section of the book. The context of the ‘letter’ is that Lewis is writing to a friend who has just suffered a tragic loss:

Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith. I don’t agree at all. They are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the Passion of Christ. For the beginning of the Passion – the first move, so to speak – is in Gethsemane. In Gethsemane a very strange and significant thing seems to have happened (from Letter 8).

We know that in Gethsemane our Lord faced severe anxiety at the thought of the wrath of God, which, he was to experience, and which, indeed, it appears, he was already beginning to face in some sense:

  • Matthew 26:38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.”

Jesus’ soul is περίλυπος. Friberg defines the word as ‘afflicted beyond measure, deeply grieved, very sad.’ The idea is that he is overwhelmed, or that his soul is surrounded (peri = around) by sadness (lupos = sadness). In a different context, the words of Charlotte Elliot’s hymn, Just as I am, Without one Plea come to mind: ‘Just as I am, though tossed about
With many a conflict, many a doubt, fightings and fears within, without… ‘This was Christ’s position at Gethsemane, plagued within and without with grief and anxiety at the thought of the impending wrath of God.

He contemplates a way of escape from the wrath of God, and so he prays,

  • “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (26:39).

Lewis notes that Jesus had biblical precedent to pray such a prayer:

He just conceivably might…be spared the supreme horror. There was precedent. Isaac had been spared: he too at the last possible moment, he also against all apparent probability. It was not quite impossible.

Isaac had gone up the hill with the wood on his back. He had been bound. He was helpless. Yet he was spared. A voice rang out from heaven. A ram was caught in the thicket and took his place. The Lord saw to it, the Lord provided a replacement. But now, there was no one to take the place of Christ. He was the only sacrifice sufficient. He was the greater Isaac, and the true ram caught in the thicket. No voice would ring out from heaven for him. Instead, he experiences just the opposite. Lewis summarizes Christ’s passion:

…First, the prayer of anguish; not granted. Then he turns to his friends. They are asleep…Then he faces the Church [i.e. the Jewish Church]; the very Church that he brought into existence. It condemns Him….But there seems to be another chance. There is the State; in this case, the Roman state…It claims to be just…Yes, but only as far as is consistent with political expediency…But even now all is not lost. There is still an appeal to the People – the poor and simple whom He had blessed, whom He had healed and fed and taught…But they have become over-night…a murderous rabble shouting for His blood. There is, then, nothing left but God. And to God, God’s [i.e. Christ’s] last words are, ‘why hast thou forsaken me?’

All along Lewis is applying Christ’s suffering to the human condition in general. He summarizes it this way:

You see how characteristic, how representative it all is. The human situation writ large.

Sadness, loss, grief, anxiety, pain, affliction, suffering, betrayal, abandonment, and the experience of the wrath of God are the touchstones of humanity. To experience them is to be human, and Christ, the true Man, experienced them all – for us. When we suffer, Lewis writes to his fictional friend,

I think it is only in a shared darkness that you and I can really meet at present; shared with one another, and what matters most, with our Master. We are not on an untrodden path. Rather, on the main road.

To listen to modern American television ‘preachers,’ you would think that all Jesus did was, say, walk on water, heal the sick, open the eyes of the blind, raise the dead, and perform miracle after miracle. But this is simply not true. Jesus did not come into the world to be Superman. He came to enter into our position. He came to suffer. The Apostle Paul summarizes his suffering in relation to ours in this way:

  • Romans 8:16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Paul doesn’t write this in order to discourage us. He wants us to realize that if we are heirs with Christ, then we must share with Christ – and that includes sharing in his suffering. He comes in order to suffer for you, and, now, you must be encouraged that your own suffering is for him. Do you have eyes to see that?

How can you suffer with him? Or, as the NIV puts it, how can you ‘share in his suffering’? Persecution is certainly one way we suffer with him. Self-denial is another. But these are obvious. What about anxiety, grief, and sadness? ‘Be anxious for nothing’ certainly does not mean that we must never face anxiety. Jesus himself faced it. There are certain anxieties that we should, and must, face – but not the kind that question God’s ability to care for us.

First, realize that when you suffer, you are not in strange, or bad, company. All humanity suffers physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Our Lord himself suffered supremely in all of these areas. To suffer is to be human. Thank God that Christ is your brother. You have inherited a condition of affliction from your father Adam. But your brother, Jesus Christ, has entered into this condition with you, though he did not deserve it. He suffers with you, that your suffering might be with, and for, him.

In another place, C.S. Lewis writes about the way in which man may work to God’s glory when his work is not something that is inherently glorifying to God:

Most men must glorify God by doing to His glory something which is not per se an act of glorifying but which becomes so by being offered (From his essay, Christianity and Culture, from Christian Reflections).

This is the position of the suffering Christian. Suffering is not inherently glorifying to God, yet it becomes so when it is offered up to Him. The Christian says, ‘Father, I do not know why this is happening. I do not understand it. I do not like it. But I offer myself and my pains up to you. Use them for your glory.’ Let me try to illustrate this.

In another place, the Apostle writes,

  • Colossians 1:24 ¶ Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,

Paul begins by saying that he ‘rejoices in his sufferings.’ What kind of fool would say such a thing? Is he a sadist? He also says that he is ‘making up for what is lacking in the suffering of Christ.’ Is he out of his mind? How dare anyone say that anything is lacking in Christ’s afflictions?

The fact of the matter is that only one thing is lacking in Christ’s affliction – the present tense. He suffered once:

  • 1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God…

He suffered then. We suffer now. The Father used Christ’s suffering to redeem the world. He used Paul’s suffering to spread the message of Christ’s redemption to the world. What is he using yours for? He is using it for something. It is easy to turn completely inward in the midst of our pain, but God calls us to turn outward for the sake, and good, of others:

  • 2 Corinthians 1:4 [God] comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Don’t waste your suffering. Your suffering now can lead others to rejoice in ‘once for all suffering’ of Christ. There is an old idea that the Lord’s supper is a ‘reenactment’ of the suffering of Christ. But the true reenactment of his suffering should take place in us, as we suffer with him, determining that our suffering will be for the glory of God and the good of others.

Lastly, let me return to Romans 8. As heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, we share with Christ in all things. That ‘all things’ includes his suffering, but it also includes his glory. He writes,

  • Romans 8:18 ¶ For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

The pain looks big now, as we live in it, as we focus on it. But it has no comparison to what we will experience in that great Day when Christ returns for his bride. As we drink from the crystal sea, we will look back on the cup of sorrow, and it will seem like a small thing by way of comparison. As we eat from the Tree of Life, we will look back on the bread of our affliction, and it will seem like a distant dream long forgotten. As we stand before our Savior, and see the scars on his body, scars like our scars, and scars received for us, it will somehow all seem worth it. That’s the point of the Apostle.

The pain Christ endured was worth it. His pain was not pointless or wasted. And in him we have assurance of the same for ourselves – it’s worth it. Don’t waste it. Even if the pain presses to the point that it seems you have been abandoned by God – ‘My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?’ – remember that this road has been traveled before. And it is a road that leads to glory, if we have eyes to see.

John Owen: Being Convinced Of Your Position Before God

One of my former pastors used to refer to this quote occasionally. I always found it helpful, so I finally dug around and found the reference. The kind of convincing Christians need to be engaged in:

1. To convince those in whom sin evidently hath the dominion that such indeed is their state and condition…

2. To satisfy some that sin hath not the dominion over them, notwithstanding its restless acting itself in them and warring against their souls…(Works of John Owen, Volume 7, p. 517).

This is the great chore for anyone who would win the lost and encourage the sanctification of Christians: convincing non-believers that they are under the dominion of sin and convincing Christians that they are free from that dominion.

  • Romans 8:9 ¶ You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

Are You My Father? (The Witness of the Spirit, Romans 8:16)

  • Romans 8:16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God

I have been memorizing, studying, and preaching on Romans 8 for the better part of a year now. I never cease to be amazed at the riches contained therein. I am now studying vv. 15-16, where Paul writes of the ‘Spirit of adoption’ who ‘bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.’ I have read numerous Puritan sermons, contemporary sermons, commentaries, and what Greek experts have to say. (The link is to an article by Daniel Wallace that I found to be extremely helpful). They have all been helpful. But I found insight in an unlikely place.

A couple of weeks ago I read a book to my 3 year-old. I had read the book several times before. It is called, ‘Are You My Mother?’, by P.D. Eastman. In the book, a freshly hatched baby bird goes on a quest of sorts in search of its missing mother. The tiny bird approaches several animals (a cat, a dog, a cow, etc) and even an inanimate object. To each it poses the same question: ‘Are you my mother?’ With the other animals they simply respond with, ‘no.’ With the inanimate object, which appears to be a backhoe of some sort, the answer is clear enough without a direct answer. In the end, he finally meets his mother. He knows her immediately without being told.

Forgive me for waxing philosophical about a children’s book, but I couldn’t help but relate this to what I had been reading in Romans 8. All human beings are in the position of this baby bird – except they’re not looking for their mother. Rather, they are looking for a Father. We are walking around, like the little chick, asking one object, one person, after another, ‘Are you my Father?’ This is how idolatry happens. Scripture speaks of this explicitly:

  • Jeremiah 2:26 “As a thief is shamed when caught, so the house of Israel shall be shamed: they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets, 27 who say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ For they have turned their back to me, and not their face. But in the time of their trouble they say, ‘Arise and save us!'”

So then, we are walking around looking for a father, making things that are no fathers into fathers. Douglas Wilson calls this ‘father hunger.’ Recently, on his blog, he shared a little quote from William Bridge that I found intriguing. I found it in its context and it was even more intriguing:

If you should see a child, a pretty child, lie in the open streets, and none own it, would it not make your bowels yearn within you? Come to the little one, and say, ‘Child, where’s thy father?’

‘I know not,’ saith the child.

‘Where’s thy Mother, Child?’ ‘I know not.’

‘ Who is thy father? What’s thy father’s name, child? ‘I know not.’

Would it  not make your heart ache to see such a little one in the streets? But for a poor soul to lie in the street, as it were, and not know his Father, whether God be his Father, or the Devil be his father; for a soul to say, ‘I do not know my Father, whether God in Christ, be my Father, yea or no;’ this is pitiful indeed. The word ‘Father’ is a sweet word, for it sweetens all our duties; take the word Father out of prayer and how sour it is. Surely therefore it is a sad and sore affliction to want the assurance of God’s love in Christ.

This is the natural position of man, and Bridge relates it directly to assurance, which, by the way, is Paul’s grand theme in Romans 8. In vv. 15-16 the work of the Spirit is described as having to do with assurance that God is our Father and that we are his children through adoption in Christ. Following the line of thinking in this post, let me summarize the ‘witness’ of the Spirit in this way:

We are walking around searching for a father, making fathers out of things that are no father (idolatry), and then as we deduce from the gospel in Scripture that God indeed is our true Father, the Spirit comes along and adds his ‘amen’ in your soul. Let me put it this way: You come to God, having heard/read the gospel message, and say, ‘Are you my Father?’ And the Spirit responds with a resounding, ‘Yes, and you are his child in Christ!’ He preaches to us the message, using the words of Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee,: ‘God our Father, Christ our brother…’

And when this happens, like the baby bird in the children’s book, we are filled with joy.

Read William Bridge’s entire sermon HERE.