In many ways, I see the great Reformation truths that you and I have examined together throughout this book as being much like buried treasure. Imagine that you are walking through the woods, and you literally stumble over a large wooden chest that lies partially buried in the dirt. Curious, you take the time to unearth a very old and ornate trunk. You open the lid, and gasp in amazement and delight when you see that the trunk is packed full with hundreds of gold coins, sparkling diamonds, and precious jewels! Stunned, you rock back on your heels, realizing that you have just found a fortune of incalculable worth.
Suddenly you are startled by a voice behind you: “So, you’ve finally found it!” You whirl around to confront an old, old man, bony and thin, hunched over a gnarled walking stick. For all that the years have done to his body, his eyes still sparkle with the light of love and wisdom. Your mind supplies a name: Ambrose. Years ago this same old man visited your church, and when you asked him how he had enjoyed the service, he told you sadly that he saw a great display of zeal without knowledge. The brief exchange has haunted you ever since, although you couldn’t say why.
Now an even more disquieting thought pops into your mind, and your heart sinks. “This is your treasure?” you ask. Surely Ambrose is here to prevent you from taking his buried treasure.
The old man beams back at you. “I have riches of which you know nothing. This is all yours. You are the rightful owner. Take it and use it to the glory of God.”
Once again, your heart begins to pound heavily in your chest, but in spite of your relief you cannot help but marvel at the fact that no one else ever discovered this fortune. You peer up at Ambrose. “Sir, how long has this been here?”
He shakes his head with an air of sorrowful resignation. “These great riches have been lying here for hundreds of years. Yet no one has ever come looking for them. You, yourself, were not looking for them. Yet God decreed for you to discover this priceless treasure. It is my prayer that you will use it wisely and well.”
Dear Reader, it is my prayer that you will use the treasure in this book in just that way. The words of Christ to the church at Laodicea could well have been directed to the modern Church in America: “You say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’--and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.” How horribly true these words ring today! We live in a land that has been abundantly blessed by God. Even those who live in what Americans define as “poverty” enjoy a standard of living that greatly exceeds that of millions who live in many third-world nations. Our church buildings are lush and carpeted, and we drive to church in expensive automobiles, free from any fear that we might face the slightest persecution for our public allegiance to Christ. Yet our churches are spiritually impoverished. We have no capital to spend on our neighbors or on our nation because we have ignored our godly inheritance--our spiritual legacy. Christ’s remedy for the Laodicean church is the same one that we must follow: “I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.”1
The truths that have been handed down to us from the Reformation, but which have been largely ignored for centuries, are a treasure that has been refined in the fires of persecution, and even the torture and death of those who sought to proclaim the truth of historical, biblical Christianity. These great, blood-bought scriptural truths will revitalize our churches, and ultimately our nation, if we will but use them wisely and well.
The Legacy
Let us take a brief survey of the riches of truth that we discovered in Legacy. The first golden nugget we uncovered was the most important: We looked at the axiom--the Bible alone is the Word of God--and we determined to Let the Word be the Word. This approach takes man out of the picture. The Bible is the Book that is unmatched and inerrant. Scripture is our one and only source for the truth, because it is the only book that is God-breathed, authored by the very Spirit of God! We saw how the Reformation was a brilliant light that burst onto the black plain of the Dark Ages, because Martin Luther and others insisted that truth was found only in the Word of God, and not in the teaching and traditions of men.
We devoted two chapters of this book to the study of logic. I insisted that we must let reason be reason, because logical thinking is a gift of God. Only God is all-wise. Jesus Christ is the Logos, the logic of God. It is only when we reason correctly from the perfect truth of Scripture that we will draw the proper conclusions. The wizards and so-called “wise” men of the age--Maslow, Freud, Thomas Aquinas, Sagan, et. al., did not and do not reflect God’s truth. I have labored throughout this book to demonstrate that the great Reformation cry of Sola Scriptura, “Scripture Alone,” accurately reflected the truth that the Bible--God’s truth--is all we need to address life’s issues and problems.2
Once we were standing firmly on the unshakeable foundation of God’s revelation, we saw that we must let God be God, a sovereign God who never reacts to any of the events of history, but rather foreordains them all. We learned to worship Him in harmony with who He is. We don’t give praise to a “semi-sovereign” God, who is racing around the universe putting out fires that are set by Satan. Rather, we glorify the God of Scripture, who decrees both evil and good, who declared the end from the beginning is never disappointed or surprised by anything.
The next step in building a solid, storm-proof theological house is to let man be man. We saw that man is the image of God, but he is a fallen image. If we are to worship God in harmony with who He is, we must begin by being honest about who man really is: blind, dead, depraved, and doomed. We have read the Scriptures that establish that man does not seek God; man loves sin and hates God. The doctrine of total depravity prepares us to exalt the sovereign grace of God, so that God receives all the glory for man’s salvation.
This historical, biblical understanding of human nature allows us to truly let grace be grace. God alone is glorified, because it is Solo Christo--the work of “Christ Alone,” Sola Gratia--by “Grace Alone,” that rescues vile, depraved sinners from eternal damnation. Man is not reborn to eternal life by any desire, effort, or intelligence of his own; it is solely due to the sovereign grace of God. It is His eternal plan that graciously provides salvation to His elect.
Finally, we learned that if we are to properly honor the truth of Scripture, we must let faith be faith. We worship God in spirit and in truth by understanding and proclaiming that while salvation is Sola Fide--by “Faith Alone”--man may claim no credit even for the appropriation of this so-great salvation! It is God who is the author and finisher of our faith. He is Author because faith originates with Him; our faith is a sovereign gift from God. He is Finisher, the completer of our faith, because He brings us to heaven. He saves us completely. We are incapable of contributing to the plan of salvation in any way. Even the good works we perform after we are adopted into the family of God were “prepared [by God] beforehand that we should walk in them.”3 Faith is all of God. If man contributed some measure of faith in order to “acquire” eternal life, then man would share some measure of the glory for salvation.
We have reviewed the great Solas of the Reformation in order to come to the last of the Five Fingerprints of the Reformation: Soli Deo Gloria, “To God Alone be the Glory.” God’s glory is the manifestation of His eternal excellence--His infinite internal perfections. God alone is glorified in Sola Scriptura, because He alone is the Author of truth; Man never discovers truth. At his very best, man may merely echo God’s truth from God’s truth. God alone is glorified in a salvation that is Sola Gratia and Solo Christo, because man can do nothing to earn eternal life. There is no way that man will ever be “good enough” to earn a place in heaven. A man who attempts to “earn” salvation is denying God’s verdict that all people are ungodly.4 Salvation is a free gift to God’s people, dispensed solely by God’s sovereign grace, earned by the work of Christ alone. God is glorified in Sola Fide, because even saving faith is a sovereign gift of God. Man may not claim that he had “sense enough to come in out of the rain” of eternal damnation that was waiting to envelop him; it was God who chose him, and called him, and opened his eyes to the truth of the gospel, and gave him the faith to believe in the gospel message and trust in the finished work of Christ on the cross for salvation. God--and God alone--saves sinners, and to God alone belongs all glory and honor and praise for that salvation.
The great problem that we see reappearing throughout theological history is the heresy that creeps into the church which seeks to elevate the nature of man. Satan deceived Eve with his oily promise that “You will be like God.” Throughout the centuries man continues to cling to Satan’s lie by seeking to grasp for himself some of the glory that is rightfully due to God alone. We see this in the past and present teaching of the Roman state church, which proclaims that the Scriptures plus the words of man are true; the work of Christ plus the efforts of man provide justification for sinful souls; grace plus the foreseen faith and works of man provides salvation; and faith plus the cooperative efforts of man and Spirit appropriate salvation. From the days of the Pharisees and Sadducees, man has insisted that he must add something to the Word and the work of God.
Our God is a jealous God. He will not share His glory with His creatures.5 If man contributes even the tiniest fraction to the perfection of any of the areas we’ve discussed in the book--truth, wisdom, sovereignty, grace, and faith--then God is robbed of His glory, because salvation becomes a co-op program! Man steps forward to make up for what God is lacking in these areas. Man contributes where God fails to provide. Man contributes his traditions to the truth, adds his work to the cross, and takes the steps to bridge a gap that God either fails or refuses to span. The moment we accept the semi-Pelagian notion that man possesses the free will to choose or to deny God’s gracious offer of salvation, we are also deciding that man rightfully deserves some portion of the credit for his salvation. This, of course, is an out-an-out contradiction of scriptural truth and a damnable heresy.
Is Your Focus Redemption-centered? Or God-centered?
There is a much more subtle--and therefore much more pervasive--strain of man-centered theology that permeates even the most conservative congregations. All too often today the preeminence for worship is placed on the work of God over the Being of God. Primarily, this emphasis is revealed by the way most churches direct the primacy of their attention toward God’s work of redemption for fallen humanity, rather than reserving the highest point of praise and adoration for the celebration of who the God of Scripture really is.
The focal point of all biblical theology is God’s glory--not man’s redemption. As glorious and praiseworthy as God’s eternal plan of salvation is, it is not the major theme of the Bible. At first glance such a statement seems heretical, because it would appear to rob redemption of its rightful place in the plan of God. However, upon closer examination of the Bible, we see that the glory of God is the ultimate outcome of God’s sovereign plan for all time and eternity. When we exalt the glory of God over the redemption of man, we honor the emphasis God places in His own Word on the primacy of His glory. In the book of Ephesians, for example, we read three times that God’s plan of salvation was created--not for the happiness or benefit of man--but rather for “the praise of the glory of His grace.”6 Proverbs 16:4 tells us that “The Lord has made all for Himself.” Colossians 1:16 and Hebrews 2:10 reinforce this truth that God created all things for Himself. The ultimate end of creation is “that He may be glorified.”7 Jesus Christ, the God-Man Himself, said, “I do not seek My own glory; there is One who seeks and judges.”8As I stated earlier in this book, God’s chief purpose is to glorify Himself. God seeks His own glory, and it is this exalted purpose which the Church should uphold and proclaim as her central message.
Recall that during the chapter on God’s sovereignty we reviewed some of the Scriptures that warn that it is sinful for man to seek to glorify himself. There is a much greater good for man to seek, and that good, of course, is God. The Lord God Almighty is the sunnum bonum, the highest good, the zenith of righteousness and purity and justice. Is there a greater good for God to seek, a good higher than Himself? Impossible! He is the highest good! For God not toseek Himself would be sin, because He would then be seeking something less than sinless perfection! Everything in created reality exists for this one grand and glorious purpose: God is seeking to glorify Himself through His creation. This is the dominant theme of Scripture, one which is repeated throughout both the Old and New Testaments.9
When we establish a Godly, biblical order for our thinking, we construct the proper framework for our theological house. God’s plan for all of time and eternity is like a grand and glorious theological symphony. The major theme that resplendently reveals itself throughout every musical expression is the glory of God. It is true that the dominant note, which winsomely captures the mind of the believer and leads it into an eternal chorus of praise and worship, is the redemption of man. However, if we misinterpret the Composer’s intent and seek to remake the dominant note of redemption into the major theme of the entire symphony, we malign the wisdom of the Composer and create a rebellious cacophony of man-centered sounds.
We must always give the nature of God greater emphasis than the activities of God. Who God is determines the significance, the value, and the greatness of what He does. Romans 11:36 provides a succinct summary of the need for a correct, biblical focus of worship: “Of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.”10 All things come of Him, who is the decretive first cause behind all things; all things come through Him, who is the governing and sustaining cause behind all things; and all things come to Him, who is the ultimate final cause behind all things. Just as we cannot glorify any aspect of man’s involvement in the plan of salvation, because salvation is completely of God, we must not glorify the plan of salvation itself over the Being of God, because that implies that God is only glorified through His gracious actions toward man!
God is First, Foremost, and Always!
Many Christians have been taught that biblical theology begins with the fall of man. This has led to a distorted view of a redemption-centered God, or a man-centered God, whose primary purpose is to minister to mankind. This theology does not start with God in Himself, but with God’s work in blessing and redeeming His creation. God, however, does not begin His revelation with man, but with Himself: the eternal, self-contained, self-existent, and self-sufficient One. “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: 'I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me there is no God.”11 From God’s declaration of Himself to Abraham, to Christ’s revelation of His identity to John on the island of Patmos, it is His nature and His Being that is declared, which takes preeminence over His work. “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,’ says the Lord, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’”12
Man, in his state of sin and depravity wants everything to begin and end with himself. In man’s mind, HE should be the alpha and omega. If our theology begins with man, then man becomes the center and circumference of our theology. However, God is the beginning and the end of all things--not man! Man looks at life through a sin-tainted human viewpoint, and relates all reality--including God’s revealed truth--to himself and for himself. It is an unhappy fact that most Christians are more interested in God’s redemptive work on their behalf than they are in God Himself. Man carries his self-centeredness into all spiritual matters, which gives him a distorted view of God, the Bible, and the very purpose of his life on this earth--and for eternity. Paul told the Corinthian Christians, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”13 Peter conveyed the very same idea to Christian believers: “If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”14
The ultimate purpose of the Christian life is not to enjoy health, wealth, and prosperity, as theological liberals blasphemously proclaim, nor is it to enjoy the “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control”15 which are the fruits of the indwelling Holy Spirit. No, the ultimate purpose of the Christian life is to give glory to God, which is the purpose that God ordained for all created things! Our lives, with reference to intelligent worship and praise of God, should be centered around all aspects of the living God, not merely His benevolence and mercy. Martin Luther is said to have prayed, “We come to You on the basis of who You know Yourself to be, not on the basis of our feeble understanding of You.” This godly maxim should be the preface for all our prayers.
God is Glorified in All Things!
We will better comprehend why the Church must place primacy on God’s glory over man’s redemption when we learn from the Scriptures that God’s glory is connected to all of His attributes, not just those that are related to salvation. A visitor to several American churches might well ask the question, “Is God worthy of praise and worship apart from anything that He has done? Are we to only worship God because of His acts of creation and redemption?” Our visitor has probably gotten the impression that the emphasis of our worship is on God’s kindness to us. However, the scriptural truth is that the significance of Calvary is only understood in relation to the greatness of the Person who died on Calvary’s cross, i.e., “the Lord of Glory”16 who was crucified by sinful men. Only as we understand Christ’s Person as the very Being of God Almighty17 do we truly understand and value the awesome meaning of His work on the cross!
Revelation 4:8 speaks of the creatures in heaven worshiping God for who He is in Himself, the One who is “Holy, holy, holy... Who was and is and is to come!” I believe it was Augustine who wrote: “If a woman loves her husband for what he does, she does not love him purely. Instead she must love him for who he is.” We Christians, who are the bride of Christ, should first love God for who He is, then adore Him for what He has done and will continue to do for us! To do otherwise is to be like a child who looks at his father on Christmas day and says, “I love you, Daddy, because you give me such nice presents!” The child may mean well, but the father would immediately hope that there is some other basis for his child’s love than merely the expense of the presents arranged under the tree!
Colossians 1:10 speaks of the importance of increasing in the knowledge of God. Peter also commanded believers to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”18 Jesus said that salvation is the knowledge of God.19 These Scriptures are admonishing us to order our thoughts properly. We appreciate the work of God, and we praise Him for it, but we must first appreciate the Being behind the work. We love and adore the Lord of Glory for who He is. Yes, we recognize that all things were made by Him and through Him and for Him.20 However, we also keep in the very forefront of our spiritual consciousness the understanding that He is infinitely greater than anything He has ever done or ever will do. All of creation is an expression of who He is, but creation is not an exhaustive expression of who He is. He is greater than all His creative acts. Redemption speaks of the incomprehensible love and mercy of God, but redemption does not express the totality of His manifold glory.
The significance of a sacrifice is predicated solely on understanding the value of the one performing the sacrifice. The quality of the adulation over the sacrifice increases in proportion to who it is that is doing the sacrifice. When we begin to take in the awesome magnificence of who the Lord God Almighty is, and then stop to reflect that this is the One who died for us, our sense of awe and worship grows dramatically. As our understanding of God grows, the significance of the sacrifice is exalted. Then we fall to our knees in thanksgiving and adoration for what He has done!
We have already seen the godly actions of Job, immediately after the most crushing disasters possible had befallen him and his family. Job’s worshipful response to God taking everything that he had was due to his correct understanding of who God is. He never charged God with wrongdoing, because of his knowledge that God is a good God, holy and just and sovereign. Job was able to praise God for what He did (“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away”21) because he knew and trusted in the nature of the God who had decreed these this evil.22
Spiritual Theft in the Church
How is the church robbed when the primary focus of the body is on redemption, rather than on the glory of God? If the pastors and lay people of the church see the main message of the church as God’s redemption of unsaved man, they rob the body of the God-honoring interpretive lens through which it can correctly praise God for the unique goal behind all human history--which is the praise of His glory. The magnificent preacher and theologian, Jonathan Edwards, wrote of “the wonderful power, the great and dreadful majesty and authority and the awful justice and holiness of God.”23 We lose sight of these magnificent qualities when we focus solely on God’s sovereign grace in salvation. As marvelous as that grace is, that is only one aspect of the Being of God.
We must not hesitate to learn--and to preach--the whole counsel of God.24 I have already stressed the idea that, as important as redemption is to the message of Scripture, it is not the main theme of the Bible. The first verse of Scripture begins with God creating the heavens and the earth; The last verse foretells the second coming of Christ, signaling the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. Man is not mentioned in either of these verses! God is lifted up, not man. The Five Fingerprints of the Reformation--the Five Solas--discussed throughout this book give all glory to God. None of the glory belongs to man. I wrote in the first chapter of this book that the Church in America is not making any appreciable impact on the culture. I believe this is true in no small measure because even the most conservative churches have become redemption-centered, rather than glory-centered. The church whose primary focus is on redemption is a weakened church which is man-centered and God related. It is only when our churches’ chief aim is to glorify God that they are properly God-centered and man-related.
I have been personally acquainted with a large ministry which built itself on John 3:16. They set out to proclaim the gospel of salvation to all the world. The ministry grew, and they decided to build a Bible college dedicated to spreading the gospel throughout the world. All the motives of the leadership were God-honoring, and most people would never notice the flaw in their ministry. Yet the Bible college has never flourished, nor has it turned out any notable Christian leaders. Why? The Church of Jesus Christ stands on the rock of God’s revelation--the axiom--and the central theme of God’s revealed Word is Soli Deo Gloria--To God Alone be the Glory! When a ministry is built exclusively on the salvation of men, rather than the glory of God, that ministry misses the mark of God’s high calling for His church, which is to do all things to the glory of God. There is one exalted purpose behind all of God’s created reality, and that is the proclamation of His ineffable glory, not the salvation of fallen creatures. The doxological theme (i.e., declaring and praising God’s glory) must always take primacy over the soteriological (salvational) elements of the Bible.
We see far too many churches today that are so anxious not to offend “seekers”--those unsaved men and women who visit the church out of curiosity about what the Christian message is--that they teach no doctrine, avoid the reading of the Scriptures, and do everything possible to make their message sound as worldly as possible so as to make the lost feel right at home. This does nothing to honor God, but rather honors the will and nature of sinful man. We honor God by preaching the whole counsel of God, by urging believers to live a life worthy of their calling, by presenting the lost with a clear, biblical message of salvation through faith in Christ alone,
and by lifting up the Five Solas at any and every opportunity: God’s inerrant Word, God’s gift of His Son, God’s unmerited grace, God’s gift of saving faith, and all this to the praise of God’s sovereign glory!
If there was ever one church in America that exemplified this clear focus on God’s glory rather than man’s salvation, it was the early Puritan settlers in America. If you could have walked through a Puritan village and stopped a farmer plowing his field to ask him what his purpose in plowing was, he would have replied that his chief aim was to give glory to God. It was from this God-honoring attitude that we received the famous “Puritan work ethic.” All work should be performed in excellence, because all work was for God’s glory. That farmer’s wife, changing her newborn’s diaper inside the log cabin, if asked what her chief aim in raising children and keeping a good home was, would have responded with exactly the same words. Her goal was to glorify God. The town’s preacher, responding to a query about the primary goal of his ministry would not have said that his primary focus was evangelizing the lost. As vitally important as that duty is, there is a higher calling for the preacher and teacher of God’s Word: to give glory to God for all that He does!
Proclaiming the Primacy of God’s Glory Does Not Diminish Evangelism
Dear Reader, please don’t think for a moment that I am seeking to minimize the importance of evangelism and missionary work. I have labored in evangelistic efforts for virtually all of my adult life, and I have personally shared the gospel with tens of thousands of people. One of the chief objections that I hear from those who rail against Reformation theology is the notion that preaching the primacy of God’s glory, the predestination of the elect, and the sovereignty of God discourages or discredits evangelism. Nothing could be further from the truth! Those who have proclaimed the five Solas, from the apostle Paul to Charles Spurgeon and George Whitefield, have been some of the most passionate soul winners who ever lived! They correctly understood that their obligation before the Lord was to preach the Word of truth to the very best of their abilities. They confidently left the results to God, neither taking credit for the souls that were saved, nor shouldering the blame for the souls who rejected the message, for they knew that salvation is of God!
When I go out to speak to the lost, armed with the truths of historical, biblical Christianity, I go with complete confidence. I have no fear of “failure,” for I know that God’s Word will not return to Him void; that it is He who gives the increase; and that all that the Father has given to Christ will come to Him!25 I preach and witness with total trust and confidence, knowing that God will save His elect. All I must do is obey the great command of Jesus: “Go into all the world and make disciples.” We are the vessels that God has chosen to proclaim His message of salvation and to teach His adopted children the truth of His Word. We must be good and faithful servants of the Word; we may leave the results to Him--and to His glory.
In What Ways Does God Receive Glory, Other than the Redemption of Man?
If the redemption of man is not the major theme of the Bible, then how else is God glorified? One answer that we have already discussed is that God is glorified through His creation. Psalm 19:1 springs immediately to mind: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.” God’s great and glorious creation, with its tremendous intricacy and interdependency, is but a hint--a foretaste--of the majesty which we will witness for eternity in heaven, but it is still a reflection of God’s awesome power.26
Exodus 14:17-18 glorifies His sovereign power over man and history. “[The Lord said to Moses] I indeed will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall follow them. So I will gain honor over Pharaoh and over all his army, his chariots, and his horsemen. Then the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gained honor for Myself over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.”27 The term “gain honor” used here means “I will be glorified” in the original Hebrew. God is glorified in the fact that not one event in human history lies outside of His immutable decrees and sovereign control.
Created angels give glory to God. The Lord spoke to Job about how “the sons of God [the elect angels] shouted for joy” at the creation of the earth.28 Jesus related how “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”29 Angelic beings were created to praise Him,30
God is Glorified in His Wrath and in His Justice
Something that we hear very little about in an age which consistently seeks to magnify God’s love and mercy is that God is glorified by His justice. Scripture asserts that the day will come when “Every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”31 The Lord God Almighty warns unbelievers, saying, “You thought that I was altogether like you; But I will rebuke you.”32 Yet this is a message that could be given to the Church, as well. We sing and we preach about God’s magnanimous forgiveness of sins, and we virtually ignore God’s wrath and justice! We forget the truth that “Our God is a consuming fire.”33 The God of judgment thunders to the wicked, “You shall not be unpunished, for I will call for a sword on all the inhabitants of the earth.”34
I must repeat: The church is obligated to teach the whole counsel of God,35 not a truncated theological philosophy of man that exalts the grace and mercy of God to the exclusion of His justice and wrath. We have seen throughout this book that the Scriptures are an entire system of truth, and we must not ignore the parts which we find less flattering to our erring egos, or less comforting to our sinful souls. As we read the whole Bible, we see that God receives glory for all of His attributes, and not just the ones that reveal His love and grace. We see that God is glorified as a God of wrath as much as He is as a God of mercy.36 It is a fact that if you search a concordance, you will discover more entries relating to God’s wrath and God’s judgment than you will find extolling His love and mercy. He is to be adored for His inexorable justice just as much as He is to be praised for His glorious grace, for apart from the exercise of His holy justice and wrath, we could not be the recipients of His mercy and grace.
We often fail to remember that God did not leave the sins of the elect unpunished. His mercy and grace are extended to His people only after the perfection of His justice and wrath have been fully satisfied by the sacrifice of the God-Man, Jesus Christ. At Calvary, the sword of God’s vengeance pierced the heart of Christ, and the arrows of God’s wrath and anger were drunk with the blood of the Lamb of God.37 You may think that I have become a little overheated in the imagery employed in the last sentence. Dear Reader, I am merely reciting the truth of Scripture. Deuteronomy 32:35 clearly teaches that God will have His vengeance upon sin. God is of eyes too pure to so much as look upon evil,38 and He therefore hates sin with a holy hatred. For the Lord God Almighty to do anything less than despise and detest sin and punish it with all of His fury would be to deny the holy nature of His Being!39 However, He cannot deny Himself, which means He has always been, and will always be, true to His nature. In other words, God has always been, and can only be Himself,40 and His wrath is rooted in His perfect holiness.
Psalm 7:11-13 reports that the Lord is sharpening His sword for the day of judgment; He is preparing arrows and “other instruments of death” to punish the wicked, for He is angry with them “every day.” When we see the brazen wickedness of so many in this day and age, we need not wonder if God will ever repay them for their iniquity. He has prepared“the wicked for the day of doom,”41 and the Scriptures promise that judgment will come! On that day, His arrows will be “drunk with blood, and [His] sword will devour flesh.”42 One of the greatest anthems of praise in Scripture, sung by the Hallelujah Choir of the Redeemed in heaven, praises God for the righteous exercise of His vengeance on the damned.43 This is the true nature of the wrath of God, for which we are to give Him all praise and adoration!44
Lamb of God, Lord of Vengeance
We do not preach this truth from our pulpits because we do not wish to frighten or offend. You will not hear many pastors reading these words of the Lord to the congregation: “I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with Me. For I have trodden them in My anger, and trampled them in My fury; their blood is sprinkled upon My garments, and I have stained all My robes. For the day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year of My redeemed has come.”45 These timid “shepherds” fear that the flock will drift nervously away, seeking to find someone who will make them feel “good” about themselves.
We must remember that we have been called by Christ to worship the Father “in spirit and truth.”46 Let us stand on the truth that God receives glory for all His attributes. We are to praise the Father for ordaining the Lord Jesus Christ, not only as the Savior of His people, but also as the Judge of the damned,47 because in this awful judgment we see God’s holy detestation of all sin manifested in the glorious satisfaction of His righteous wrath and vengeance. Joshua fell on His face and worshiped the Lord Jesus Christ, who did not appear as a meek and gentle Lamb, but as the Commander of the army of the Lord, who stood before Joshua with a drawn sword.48 It is only when we behold Christ seated on the great white throne--not a throne of grace but a throne of fiery judgment49--as the supreme Judge over the wicked, displaying all the terrible wrath of the Lamb,50 that we understand that God desires and deserves to receive glory, honor, and praise for His vengeance and wrath as well as His grace and mercy.51 Therefore, as we learn of the fierceness of God’s anger--a holy hatred for sin which we justly deserve--we praise Him all the more for His sovereign grace, because we learn from Scripture that grace is optional, but judgment is not.52 God’s judgment is inevitable; His mercy is a gift that is given solely at His sovereign discretion.
Never forget, Dear Saint, that the cross of Christ was the supreme manifestation of the wrath of God. The terrible judgment of the world-wide flood, the horrific destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by brimstone and fire, the staggering slaughter of 185,000 Assyrians by the hand of Jesus53--all these pale in significance as a display of God’s holy wrath compared to Christ enduring all the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God on behalf of His elect on Calvary. God, in matchless grace, turned the cross into a bloody altar to satisfy His awful wrath, in order to demonstrate His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus... to the praise of the glory of His grace.54The sins of the elect were punished, and the debt they owed for their sins was paid--paid in full--by the sacrificial Lamb of God.
Both Salvation AND Damnation Glorify God
Not only is God glorified through His justice, He is also glorified through His treatment of the non-elect. There are those who object to the doctrine of predestination on the grounds that it is “not fair.” They reject the truth of Scripture on the grounds that God must, in their opinion, give all men an equal chance at salvation. Paul thoroughly discredited such a notion in the epistle to the Romans: “What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory...?”55 These vessels of wrath, prepared for destruction, glorify His righteousness and His justice. Similarly, the non-elect angels, like non-elect human beings, are created for the praise of His wrath, justice, righteousness, and holiness. There is no salvation “offered” to either the elect or to non-elect angels. The elect angels, whom God foreordained to praise Him for eternity, were chosen before their creation; the non-elect angels, whom God has prepared for destruction along with their leader, Satan, are vessels of wrath, prepared for destruction.
Was God glorified in John 17:9, when Jesus specifically prayed, NOT for the whole world, but for the elect only? Yes! God’s justice is glorified! He is the Potter who makes some lumps of clay for noble purposes and some for ignoble; He is the Master who can do what He wants with His own things.56 He blinds the eyes of the non-elect, so that they may not see the truth of the gospel of Christ,57 in order that He will be glorified through those to whom He does mercifully grant spiritual sight. Jesus said quite clearly in Matthew 13:15 that His parables were not intended to be understood by all men--only those whom His Father had given Him. In Mark’s Gospel, the language is even more specific.
Too many of our shepherds are well fed and comfortable. Their churches are comfortably full every Sunday morning with people who want to hear words which assuage their sin, rather than convict them of their man-centered theology. The flock is scattered, and the ravening beasts of humanism and relativism are devouring the sheep one by one. Our culture is dying, Dear Reader, and there is no set of laws, no fiscal reform, no government program which can possibly save us from the societal collapse which seems to be looming just ahead of us, like the iceberg which suddenly appeared out of the darkness directly in front of the speeding Titanic. We have allowed ourselves to heed the bewitching song of the sirens, which have urged us to “Do whatever feels right to us,” and we are careening toward the rocks.
Only one thing will save us: revival. Revive means, literally, to live again. Our churches must live again. We must seek that which has been lost: doctrinal truth. It is only when the heart of the Church is beating strongly with the truths that made her the most powerful force on earth, one which hell itself can not prevail against, that she will impact the culture and steer America away from the impending disaster. When our shepherds preach from the Scriptures alone, proclaiming the message of salvation by grace alone, through Christ alone, appropriated by faith alone, so that God and God alone is glorified--when our pulpits are aflame with the preaching of the righteousness of God, not the righteousness of man--then the Church in America will live again, and America will once again be a shining city set upon a hill, a beacon of hope and truth for all the world to see.
Perhaps you’re wondering, “Who is equal to such a task?”65Dear Reader, YOU are! You are equal to the task, because you are armed with something that Satan himself is powerless to defeat: the inspired, inerrant, infallible truth of God’s Word. You are not carrying a “dead letter.” You are proclaiming the living and active truth of the very out-breathing of Almighty God! “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth,” the Lord said to Joshua, “but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”66
Jesus Christ commanded us to “Go... and make disciples of all the nations.”67 So be strong and courageous! Give a copy of this book to your pastor, and another copy to whoever presides over the leaders (the deacons, the board of elders, etc.) in your fellowship. Follow up with them periodically to discuss what they’re learning. Insist, politely but firmly, that you wish to attend a church which is committed to teaching the truths of historical, biblical Christianity. If you feel so led, start a class at your church and use this book as the text. Don’t be afraid or dismayed! God has promised not to leave you as an orphan; He will richly bless you for your prayerful efforts to proclaim the truth.
Become an intellectual sponge. Examine the recommended reading list in the appendix which immediately follows this chapter. My friend and mentor, Dr. John Robbins, labored to condense a lifetime of study and research in order to write this fabulous article. These books are the best you could possibly own, books which will help you to become a spiritual giant and a fountain of biblical wisdom. Dr. Robbins commented that he wishes that he had been presented with such a list forty years ago! Make a commitment to read at least three of these books each year. Pore over them, study them, devour them! And always, always, always search the Scriptures daily to be sure that what you are reading is true. Share the truth of what you are learning with your friends, your neighbors, your Sunday School class, and most importantly, with your family.
If our churches are to live again, we must start teaching our spiritual legacy in our own homes, to our own children. The root meaning of the word orthodox means “straight belief.” We must teach our children the orthodox truths of our faith. It is straight teaching, just as the plumb line that a bricklayer uses is straight. The keys of salvation, sanity, and civilization are clearly laid out in Scripture for our kids to follow. They are the plumb line68 that will allow us to build our homes, our churches, and our communities straight and true. We must pass the legacy on to the next generation, so that they can continue the work. Jesus told His disciples, “Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing.”69 Dear Reader, we have been called to be faithful to proclaim the truth. We must feed the sheep of God’s flock with the solid food of the truth. It is God who grants the increase; we need only be diligent to proclaim the message.
Dear Reader, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for staying with me all the way through to the end of what has been a long and, likely, a difficult book for you. I have presented you with several concepts that may have been completely foreign to your thinking. I expect that you were forced to wrestle with a number of different emotions as you worked your way through Legacy, such as surprise, confusion, and perhaps even anger. You may have even put this book down for awhile, only to pick it up again later.
However, I am confident that as you studied the Bible, you understood that everything I have presented throughout these pages is in complete harmony with the inerrant truth of Scripture. A woman who attended the church I pastored confessed to me that it took her years to come to a complete understanding of the doctrines contained in the Scripture, because this God-centered teaching had to displace the old, man-centered teaching she had been exposed to ever since she was a child! However, she delightedly declared that she now reads the Bible through a God-centered lens, rather than a man-centered one. She now worships the Lord in harmony with who He really is!
May that be true of us all. May we worship the sovereign God of Scripture with joyful hearts, knowing that He has not left us as orphans; He has given us a legacy of truth by which we can order our lives, and He has generously given us of His Spirit, so that we may understand the truth, and live by it. Let us “press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called [us] heavenward in Christ Jesus.”70 Let us boldly proclaim the incomparable legacy--the Word of God--that has been bequeathed to us by our Father in heaven, that His church will truly be a radiant bride, rejoicing in His return.