Some of my earliest childhood memories center on being with my family in worship on the Lord’s Day. In the Reformed and Presbyterian churches that we attended, expository preaching, hymn-singing, and prayer were fixed elements of worship, as were the historic creeds and confessions of the Christian church. We regularly confessed the Apostles’ Creed and…
Even just a cursory reading of the Old Testament demonstrates the importance of sacred space under the old covenant. The patriarchs, for example, frequently commemorated occasions on which they met with God by consecrating the location where they encountered Him (for example, Gen. 12:1–9; 28:10–22). As the Israelites prepared to conquer Canaan, the Lord told them…
What happens in worship? You might say: “We work our way through a familiar liturgy.” “We respond to the pastor’s invitation.” “We wait for a fresh experience with the Holy Spirit.” “We see how sinful we are.” “We struggle to follow another long sermon.” Each of these answers unveils something of the true nature of…
Anticipating a hunting trip with my brothers, I have been doing a lot of preparation lately. We are updating a spreadsheet, buying supplies, counting calories, weighing our packs, and exercising to get in shape. Most people frequently do a lot of preparation for a variety of things in life that are important to them. But…
Who is considered a member of Christ’s church? How does the Westminster Confession of Faith help us answer this question?
Although the whole matter delivered thus by this Evangelist be so admirable and excellent, yet this seventeenth chapter hath some appropriated reasons for a more peculiar attention and affection towards it. Hence it hath always had a peculiar presidency in the hearts of believers, so that the opening of this precious box of ointment must needs send forth a refreshing fragrant smell to those that are spiritual. This prayer of Christ may be compared to a land flowing with milk and honey, in respect of that treasure of consolation which is contained therein.
Therefore, he alone has duly denied himself who has so totally resigned himself to the Lord that he permits every part of his life to be governed by God’s will. He who will be thus composed in mind, whatever happens, will not consider himself miserable nor complain of his lot with ill will toward God.
The speaker is God. The time is before time was. The word is omnipotence. The result is the grandest of gifts. Darkness heard and vanished. “God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” Reader, strive to imagine the scene, when this first voice called this first blessing into being. This world of full delights was then one huge mass of unarranged material. It had no form, and therefore it had no beauty. It was vacancy, and vacancy lacks all that pleases. It would have been cheerless, even if robed in cheering light. But impenetrable night shrouded the lifeless void.
The expression ‘disciples of mine’ is worthy of notice. It seems to show that the meaning is not exhausted by the thought of that language so often quoted in connection with it, ‘Behold how these Christians love one another.’ It directs our thoughts, not to the disciples only, but to Jesus Himself. He was love: in the love of the Christian community, the love of its members ‘with’ one another, it was to be seen not merely what they were, but what He was, and more particularly that He was love.
It is said of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, “beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he declared unto his disciples in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself,” Luke 24: 27. It is therefore manifest that Moses, and the Prophets, and all the Scriptures, do give testimony unto him and his glory. This is the line of life and light which runs through the whole Old Testament; without the conduct whereof we can understand nothing aright therein: and the neglect hereof is that which makes many as blind in reading the books of it as are the Jews, – the veil being upon their minds. It is faith alone, discovering the glory of Christ, that can remove that veil of darkness which covers the minds of men in reading the Old Testament, as the apostle declares, 2 Cor. 3: 14-16. I shall, therefore, consider briefly some of those ways and means whereby the glory of Christ was represented unto believers under the Old Testament.