The Bread of the Nativity Scene

The Nativity Scene.  Thinking back at this past Christmas season I remember seeing less and less of Nativity Scenes set up in public places.  Perhaps ceramic figurines depicting a mother, child, father, wise men and some lambs offers too much trauma for some people to handle.  What a commentary on the weak mindedness and whiney nature of some individuals and organizations, but that is another matter entirely.  What I do want to do is explore an aspect of the Nativity story that I find fascinating.

 In Luke chapter 2 we read, “now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth.  2 This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.  3 And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city.  4 Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David,  5 in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child.  6 While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth.  7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.  8 In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night.  9 And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened.  10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people;  11 for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  12 “This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”  

I find it amazing and quite unexpected that the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, almighty, all powerful, God incarnate be born in a stable and be swaddled and placed in a manger.  Kings and dignitaries such as this should be housed in great palaces or castles, not a lowly stable.  The babe should have been wrapped in scarlet and purple robes and placed amongst the finest of beddings with scores of cushions and pillows and blankets, not a dirty animal trough; and yet there was the Son of the almighty Father, in a manger, helpless and forsaken except for His poor, low born parents and of course His Father in heaven.  God certainly works in mysterious ways. 

 But, why a manger?  Well, I believe that He was right where God wanted Him to be, showing us something of this Child’s nature.  Jesus says in John 6:33,35, “For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.” and,35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.  

Jesus is described as bread or drink, those things that human beings need to sustain themselves, that which we must have to be kept alive.  Jesus came to give life, and those who come to Him will not perish but have everlasting life.  He has granted life to all who are born, and He has secured eternal life for all that are His.  The purpose of His visitation was to establish reconciliation between God and man, that sinful man may have life and that God the Father may look upon sinners with compassion and not wrath.  Life, for us was His goal and life to us was granted.  For the believer, eating and drinking is an appropriate illustration to convey the reality of what Christ has donefor us, for He is our food, our drink, our nourishment.  As a sacrament we eat bread to remember His broken body, we drink wine to remember His shed blood.  We feast on Christ and are given life. 

Christ is called the good Shepherd; those for whom He died for are called His sheep.  We feed on the bread of life are sustained and we drink from living waters and shall never thirst.  How appropriate then, for Christ to begin His life by being laid in a trough where dirty sheep feed, foreshadowing His ministry to His sinful sheep.  The plan and purpose of God was prefigured in this simple act of necessity, from a mother and father who only wanted to keep their newborn warm and as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.  The angel of the Lord said to the shepherds that night, “This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”  Was this sign of the manger only given as a way to locate the Baby King in a crowded city, or was their something more to it, something that pointed to the shepherd’s utter deficiency in life, a deficiency that only this Child could remedy? 

God has always used prophets to give us signs and shadows of a truth that would manifest into reality at the given time.  Christ, swaddled in that manger, prophesies of His own ministry as bread for His sheep.  Next time you see the baby in the manger, remember Christ as the bread of life.

 Clay

Don’t Wait for the New Year

A new year is coming upon us, indeed. However, why do we wait until January 1st to start pursuing a goal of sorts? Well, there is a Christian duty (one of several) in which we should never be found dull, neglect, or waning. It is one in which we must be constant, consistent, and continuous if we profess to know the God of Scripture. This duty, this absolute necessity, this practice is called Mortifying Sin.

As I have alluded to elsewhere, John Owen once wrote, “Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.” This is precisely why one cannot wait until January 1st. In fact, you cannot afford to defer another moment from this duty! You must resolve yourself this instant to dedicate your very essence of existence to this task. Why? Because the wages of sin are DEATH. Now surely I have some qualifications to make.

First, in order to engage in this distinctly Christian duty, you must be a Christian. If you’re not a Christian, it is not only the height of arrogance to think for a moment that you can effectively engage in the duty of mortification, but it is also sheer futility and the compounding of your condemnation to do so. If this applies to you, I implore you to read this. If you are a Christian, read on.

Secondly, not only must you be a Christian, but you must engage in this duty by the Spirit. If you attempt to mortify your sin apart from dependance upon the Holy Spirit, your efforts are just as vain as that of an unbeliever. Though you are now a Christian, you are still affected by that residue of indwelling sin, which is exactly why you must engage in this duty! So then, you must be a Christian to do this, and you must also do it by the Spirit.

You say, “That’s great, Josh. Thanks for telling me what I need to do (and why), but then totally leave me hanging by not telling me how.” Well, my friend, this is where the Big Guns come in. I can absolutely no better exhort you in this manner than has already been exhorted by some of the godliest men of the past. Therefore, I will give you a few brief pointers, and then suggest a book or two concerning the pointers.

What is Sin?

To kill sin, you must know sin intimately. Now, don’t twist that. Don’t misunderstand. I am not saying to engage more heavily in sinning so that you might know it better. That’s utter foolishness. I am saying that you must know your enemy– that is, Sin– and know it intimately within the context of Scripture’s light. In doing this, as a Christian, you will come to have a holy hatred for your sin. Book Suggestions:

The Sinfulness of Sin-by Ralph Venning (Banner of Truth)

The Evil of Evils-by Jeremiah Burroughs (Soli Deo Gloria-buy it used if you can)

How Does Sin Work?

You must also know sin personally. By that, I mean you must know how sin approaches you, specifically. How does Satan use your own sinful nature to tempt you and bring you to a halt. You must learn his strategies. Book Suggestion:

Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices-by Thomas Brooks (Banner of Truth)

How Do I Mortify Sin?

Now we come to the clencher. And I’m not gonna say a thing. I’m going to suggest three books. One of them is a compilation of three works by John Owen. The other two are more contemporary works on the subject of mortification. Obviously, I’m partial to Owen. However, he can be a stickler to read most of the time for many, and some of the time for some. Therefore, the latter of the three suggestions are recommended, and are theologically solid, sound, and from a Reformed understanding of Scripture and the Christian Faith.

Overcoming Sin and Temptation: Three Classic Works by John Owen-edited by Justin Taylor & Kelly Kapic (Crossway)

The Enemy Within-by Kris Lundgaard (P & R)

A Fight to the Death-by Wayne & Joshua Mack (P & R)

Don’t wait for the New Year. Start killing sin now. Develop a more holy hatred of sin, YOUR SIN, each passing moment. We must truly seek to know the sinfulness of sin, and the wretched vile stinch it is in the nostrils of God. I’ll leave you with some applicable quotes from the grand ole Puritan Divines:

We do not want sin covered, but cured-Thomas Watson

Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who hath once smitten a serpent, if he follow not on his blow until he be slain, may repent that ever he began the quarrel. And so will he who undertakes to deal with sin, and pursues it not constantly to the death.-John Owen

If you wish to stand firm in the midst of suffering, forewarn yourself of this fact: Temptation is never stronger than when relief seems to dress itself in the very sin that Satan is suggesting.-William Gurnall

Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world.-John Owen

When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone; but as sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet, and its waters are for the most part deep when they are still, so ought our contrivances against it to be vigorous at all times and in all conditions, even where there is least suspicion.-John Owen

Presuppositionalism, Evidentialism, and Gordon H. Clark

(In Response)

Just to measure carefully, if one is using arguments, one is providing evidence.

Now sometimes the best evidence for something is that everything else is shown to be false or self contradictory (incoherent) and so this or that must be true even if we are not providing empirical substantiation. Providing empirical evidence for someone that we claim is not empirical (God) has always been a bit of a stretch because of the problem of induction. Bahnsen in “the Great Debate” certainly thought he was proving the existence of God. The Van Tillian methodology as a whole is peculiarly about proving the existence of God, even if by the mere impossibility of the contrary, which is a rationalistic argument. X’ is the only rational answer therefore the correct answer; y’ an impossible answer therefore a false answer.

If God is the necessary precondition of intelligibility, the argument holds, but the presupposition is then, intelligibility, not God, because the validity of the logic is the precondition of the deduction that God exists as the conclusion of the argument. Thus God is proved to exist because He is the precondition of proving that He exists. i.e., circularity.

To put it another way, no matter how forcefully someone argues that “God” is the presupposition of the argument, at the end of the day, it is logic. This is necessary because God is the conclusion of the argument. Now Clark, dealt with this necessity by identifying God, His mind, His being, with logic itself, saying that God is logic, and so logic is neither the a priori condition of the conclusion that God exists nor the a posteriori learned response to God’s prior non-rational existence creating logic. (Both Bahnsen and John Frame seem to have followed him on this to the exclusion of Van Til’s theological eccentricities about God and logic. Clark had theological eccentricities of his own, but these were not them.)

If presupposing logic is not identical with presupposing God, one is essentially an Evidentialist, even if one’s methodological affirmations deny it. God is either the precondition of all intelligibility, or He is the logical consequence of intelligibility. If one has an argument that the existence of God is the consequence of, as in, “…therefore, God exists.” it is Evidential.

Because of the epistemological limitations imposed upon all finite beings by them not being God, like that we really cannot prove that our experiences of the external world are accurate representations of what actually exists, and that we cannot prove that other minds exist, that we can neither prove nor justify the laws of logic without using them, which is circular and so means that nothing is justifiable, everyone is really, in the ultimate and final analysis, no matter how hard we fight against the inevitability of it all, a fideist.

We either submit to God in His revelatory knowledge as the ground, beginning and end of all knowledge, or none can be had. We are either empty or full. Meaningful or meaningless. Something or nothing.

Still, the Christian only says this about what can be known by what we might call “natural”, or worldly, or autonomous methodologies. They all end in nothing. What we can actually show is that every version provided so far as an attempt at knowledge has failed; what we claim is that every future attempt will fail with every past attempt because to disregard God is to universally fail epistemologically and morally. Thus we really say that in a strange way the Christian is the only one that is not a fideist. Everyone else takes the world and themselves on faith, suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. It is really a moral and not an epistemological problem.

Really, everyone knows, innately, and without learning, the existence of God and some of His moral and metaphysical properties, and these are the ground for self knowledge and the knowledge of the external world. The reason these cannot be “proven” by objective or non-religious epistemological methods is because there are no objective or non-religious epistemological methods that can arrive at knowledge. The Christian would love to provide everything the natural man claims is necessary to proving the existence of God through some kind of rational empirical data apart from God, but there are none, so we can’t. This is not a flaw or a weakness in Christian Apologetic methods. This is its greatest strength. In Christ, everything can be known, apart from Him nothing that is claimed to be known can be known. The issue of justification in philosophy is the absolute bar to humanistic attempts at knowledge. There simply is none.

Some really sharp guys like J.P Moreland have the taken the epistemic dead end road of Aristotelian Empiricism, but because there is no reason to believe that our senses tell us the truth about the world it is just fideistic wishful thinking. We just keep saying that we really know the world until somebody believes us and call those that deny it preposterous (and then say that God ‘probably’ exists), but some of us need to be more reasonable. Plantinga says that our apprehension of the external world is a ‘Properly Basic Belief’, but he can’t prove it or even make it intelligible as a basis for knowledge, so really he is just saying that Moreland and those like him are right but we don’t need to have any reason why. But that is just ignoring all the problems by pretending they aren’t there. The reason the humanists are winning these debates is because we keep pretending they know what they claim they know, in ways that they can’t even begin to justify, in their claim or pretence to autonomous knowledge.

It’s crazy to say the scientific method is nonsense. Isn’t it? And yet it is nonsense.

This is the kind of thing that Clark was arguing, which is not that God is the necessary consequence of some apparent attributes of the neutrally apprehended world as we find it, but the condition of apprehension. Some people choose to know nothing; some people choose to know God. Really everybody already knows God, and so everyone already has real and true knowledge. These are the only two choices.

Christopher Neiswonger

Presuppositionalism, Evidentialism, and Gordon H. Clark, Presuppositionalism, Evidentialism, and Gordon H. Clark, Presuppositionalism, Evidentialism, and Gordon H. Clark, Presuppositionalism, Evidentialism, and Gordon H. Clark

The Star and The Wise Men – Spurgeon

If wise men of old came to Jesus and worshipped, should not we come also? My intense desire this morning is that we all may pay homage to him of whom we sing, “Unto us a child is born; unto us a son is given.” Let those of us who have long worshipped, worship anew with yet lowlier reverence and intenser love. And God grant-oh, that he would grant it!—that some who are far off from him spiritually, as the Magi were far off locally, may come to-day and ask, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have come to worship him.” May feet that have been accustomed to broad roads, but unaccustomed to the narrow path, this day pursue that way till they see Jesus, and how before him with all their hearts, finding salvation in him. These wise men came naturally, traversing the desert; let us come spiritually, leaving our sins. These were guided by the sight of a star; let us be guided by faith in the divine Spirit, by the teaching of his word and all those blessed lights which the Lord uses to conduct men to himself. Only let us come to Jesus. It was well to come unto the babe Jesus, led by the feeble beams of a star; you shall find it still more blessed to come to him now that he is exalted in the highest heavens, and by his own light reveals his own perfect glory. Delay not, for this day he cries, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

C.H. Spurgeon – The Star and The Wise Men

The King of Kings

The King of Kings
by R.C. Sproul

The gospel of Luke ends with a supremely jarring statement: “Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God” (24:50-53).

What is jarring about this passage is, as Luke reports the departure of Jesus from this world, the response of His disciples was to return to Jerusalem with “great joy.” What about Jesus’ departure would instill in His disciples an emotion of sheer elation? This question is made all the more puzzling when we consider the emotions the disciples displayed when Jesus earlier had told them that His departure would come soon. At that time, the idea that their Lord would leave their earthly presence provoked in them a spirit of profound remorse. It would seem that nothing could be more depressing than to anticipate separation from the presence of Jesus. Yet, in a very short period of time, that depression changed to unspeakable joy.

We have to ask what is it that provoked such a radical change of emotion within the hearts of Jesus’ disciples. The answer to that question is plain in the New Testament. Between the time of Jesus’ announcement to them that He would soon be going away and the time of His actual departure, the disciples came to realize two things. First, they realized why it was that Jesus was leaving. Secondly, they understood the place to which He was going. Jesus was leaving not in order that they might be left alone and comfortless, but that He might ascend into heaven. The New Testament idea of ascension means something far more weighty than merely going up into the sky or even to the abode of the heavenlies. In His ascension, Jesus was going to a specific place for a specific reason. He was ascending into heaven for the purpose of His investiture and coronation as the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is King in the highest possible sense of kingship.

In biblical terms, it is unthinkable to have a king without a kingdom. Since Jesus ascends to His coronation as king, with that coronation comes the designation by the Father of a realm over which He rules. That realm is all creation.

The King is already in place. He has already received all authority on heaven and on earth. That means that at this very moment the supreme authority over the kingdoms of this world and over the entire cosmos is in the hands of King Jesus. There is no inch of real estate, no symbol of power in this world that is not under His ownership and His rule at this very moment. In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, in chapter 2, in the so-called kenotic hymn, it is said that Jesus is given the name that is above all names. The name that He is given that rises above all other titles that anyone can receive, is a name that is reserved for God. It is God’s title Adonai, which means the “One who is absolutely sovereign.” Again, this title is one of supreme governorship for the One who is the King of all of the earth.

The New Testament translation of the Old Testament title adonai is the name lord. When Paul says that at the name of Jesus every knee must bow and every tongue confess, the reason for the bowing in obeisance and for confessing is that they are to declare with their lips that Jesus is Lord – that is, He is the sovereign ruler. That was the first confession of faith of the early church.

The lordship of Jesus is not simply a hope of Christians that someday might be realized; it is a truth that has already taken place. It is the task of the church to bear witness to that invisible kingdom, or as Calvin put it, it is the task of the church to make the invisible kingdom of Christ visible. Though invisible, it is nevertheless real.

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Dr. R.C. Sproul is president and chairman of the board of Ligonier Ministries, and he is author of The Last Days According to Jesus.

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