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Posts Tagged ‘John Piper’

Tweeting RTB Nairobi (Leviticus)

Posted in Leviticus, tagged , on 02/11/2015| 1 Comment »

In case you missed them:

Lev theme: 1. Holy God dwells with His people 2. provides atonement 2 makes it possible 3. calls His people 2 b holy 2 reflect new status

Leviticus: You cannot relate with God on your own terms. It has to be on His terms. Do not presume familiarity. Cf. Aaron’s Sons

No single OT sacrifice can you offer to give you access to God. Only 1 ultimate sacrifice of God the Son.

Lev theme = gospel = Acts 2:37-41  #RTB2015

Lev. 20:8; 21:8, 15, 23 – Be holy / I will make you holy  #Paradoxology #RTB2015

Lev starts with an “And” – ref back to book of Exodus, rescued people, tabernacle just built

< so Lev is God speaking directly from the tabernacle saying how his people can live with him dwelling in their midst  #RTB2015

Lev. structure: 1-16 God’s holiness / 17-27 our holiness

Lev. 9:1-2 – last time we saw Aaron with a bull it didn’t go well but here on the 8th day Aaron is reinstated for a new start (cf. John 21)

Applying Lev: Take everything through Jesus. Ask how the *Bible* takes different sacrifices through the Cross and out into NT. Not simple.

Lev23:9-14/Phil2:17: Paul doesnt see himself as burnt offering (BigThing) or even grain offering (their faith) but just drink offering ontop

Reading Heb 10:22 against background of Leviticus (esp Lev 8) – like putting on 3D glasses  #RTB2015

 

And a bit of video which captures something of the way that confidence (Heb. 10:19) and trembling (Heb. 12:29) might be held together:

“We are sinners, and God is infinitely holy and pure. If we drew near to him without Christ, we would be consumed. Christ is the asbestos righteousness that wraps us up in love so we can enjoy the blazing heat of God’s holiness and not be consumed by it.”
(John Piper, ‘What is the Philosophy of Worship That Unites Us?’, Sermon October 5, 2003)

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Total salvation

Posted in Gospel, Theology, tagged , , on 01/09/2015| Leave a Comment »

Can’t resist one more quote from Piper’s Christmas devotional, The Dawning of Indestructible Joy – discussing Hebrew 8:4-10:

First… Jesus fulfils and replaces the shadows of the Old Testament.
Second… God makes the reality of Christ real to us personally by the work of the new covenant when he writes his truth on our hearts. God moves powerfully into our hearts and minds to overcome our resistance to the beauty of his reality. He writes his will—the truth of the reality of Jesus—on our hearts, so that we see him for who he really is and are willing and eager to trust him and follow him—freely, from the inside out, not slavishly under constraint from outside.
That would be the greatest salvation imaginable—if God should offer us the greatest reality in the universe to enjoy and then move in us to see to it that we could enjoy it with the greatest freedom and the greatest pleasure possible… And that is exactly what he has done.
(Dawning, p. 67-68)

God does not send Christ into the world to die for sins and leave his salvation plan there. He goes the whole way, sending his Spirit right into our hearts and grabbing us and uniting us to the Son. God does not create a possibility of salvation or a system of salvation, he actually saves. This is one of those things where once you see it you start seeing it all over the Scriptures:

  • Acts 3:17-26 – from the suffering of Christ, foretold by the prophets, through to God grabbing us by our shoulders and turning us around;
  • Ephesians 1:1-2:10 – the Father choosing us before time, Christ bleeding for us at the Cross, God raising us from the dead and opening our eyes;
  • Titus 2:14 – cross and sanctification, Christ dies for a people to grab a people who he will make zealous;
  • Titus 3:1-7 – Christ and Spirit, justification and regeneration, the appearance of the Saviour and our personal salvation & transformation – wonderfully tied together;
  • 1 Peter 1:1-9 – from before eternity to last time, Father, Son, Spirit, death, resurrection, new birth, inexpressible joy.

He saves us
all the way
to the utmost.

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Behold the Lamb! God reveals as we look

Posted in John, tagged on 01/08/2015| Leave a Comment »

One of the most helpful things I read in 2014, a few days before it ended:

When people have doubts about the truth of Jesus, don’t send them away to seek special messages from God. Point them to Christ.
Why? Because this is where God breaks in with his revealing power. He loves to glorify his Son! He loves to open the eyes of the blind when they are looking at his Son! 
God does not reveal his Son to me by coming to me and saying, “Now, John, I know that you don’t see anything magnificent in my Son. You don’t see him as all glorious and divine and attractive above all worldly goods. You don’t see him as your all-satisfying treasure, and you don’t see his holiness and wisdom and power and love as beautiful beyond measure. But take my word for it, he is all that. Just believe it.”  No!
Such faith would be no honor to the Son of God. It cannot glorify the Son. Saving faith is based on a spiritual sight of Jesus as he is in himself, the all-glorious Son of God. And this spiritual sight is given to us through his inspired Word, the Scriptures.
(John Piper, The Dawning of Indestructible Joy, p. 65-66, some emphasis added)

So we should not expect that as an unbeliever lies on his bed or sits on his sofa thinking of nothing in particular that the Spirit will suddenly fly in the window, raise him from the dead, impart repentance and faith. It will be as he considers Christ. As he listens to the Word or as he mulls it over in his mind.

So the great command in the New Testament is not “Be born again” and is rarely even “Believe” but more “Behold” – look at the Son in the pages of Scripture and as you do so the Father will very often be pleased to open your eyes to see the glory of God in the face of Christ.

So preaching is important.

And particularly preaching that paints a picture of Christ.

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