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How deep the Father’s love for us How vast beyond all measure That He should give His only Son To make a wretch His treasure How great the pain of searing loss, The Father turns His face away As wounds which mar the chosen One Bring many sons to glory Behold the Man upon a cross, My sin upon His shoulders Ashamed I hear my mocking voice Call out among the scoffers It was my sin that held Him there Until it was accomplished His dying breath has brought me life I know that it is finished I will not...

CHAPTER 3 The Epistle to the Galatians Of this epistle, both chapter one and chapter two, as far as verse 14, are historical and introductory, and the proper argument of the epistle is not fully entered upon until this preliminary or prefatory portion is passed. But, so soon as we touch the body of the epistle proper, we find the phrase in Christ or its equivalent, with Christ, abounding. See 2:15-20. ["15 We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, 16 knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law, but by...

The Epistles to the Corinthians In the first epistle, the first chapter and the second verse, we first meet the phrase which we seek: "Sanctified in Christ Jesus," ["1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, 2 unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be Saints, with all that in every place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ our LORD, both theirs and ours" (1Corinthians 1:1-2).] and, according to the rule that has been found to...

CHAPTER 1 The Epistle to the Romans At the very opening of this letter (1:5), we read these words: "By whom [or, through whom] we have received grace" ( i.e., through God's Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord); and, in 3:24, "Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Here then we have the key to the Epistle to the Romans: Grace, justification, redemption, in and through Christ Jesus; or, to put it briefly, Justified in Christ. This is manifestly the first step, for this conception belongs first in order. We can have, in Christ...

Soli Deo gloria is the motto that grew out of the Protestant Reformation and was used on every composition by Johann Sebastian Bach. He affixed the initials SDG at the bottom of each manuscript to communicate the idea that it is God and God alone who is to receive the glory for the wonders of His work of creation and of redemption. At the heart of the sixteenth-century controversy over salvation was the issue of grace. It was not a question of man’s need for grace. It was a question as to the extent of that need. The church had...

The Nature of the Influence by Which Inspiration is Accomplished The evangelical Christian churches have never held what has been stigmatized the "mechanical" theory of inspiration, despite the charges often made to the contrary. Instead of reducing the writers of Scripture to the level of machines or typewriters we have insisted that, while they wrote or spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, they nevertheless remained thinking, willing, self-conscious beings whose peculiar styles and mannerisms are clearly traceable in their writings. If their native tongue was Hebrew, they wrote Hebrew; if it was Greek, they wrote Greek; if...

"Have ye not read?...Have ye not read?...If ye had known what this meaneth."—Matthew 12:3-7. HE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES were great readers of the law. They studied the sacred books continually, poring over each word and letter. They made notes of very little importance, but still very curious notes—as to which was the middle verse of the entire old Testament, which verse was halfway to the middle, and how many times such a word occurred, and even how many times a letter occurred, and the size of the letter, and its peculiar position. They have left us a mass of wonderful...

Christianity is often called a book-religion. It would be more exact to say that it is a religion which has a book. Its foundations are laid in apostles and prophets, upon which its courses are built up in the sanctified lives of men; but Christ Jesus alone is its chief cornerstone. He is its only basis; he, its only head; and he alone has authority in his Church. But he has chosen to found his Church not directly by his own hands, speaking the word of God, say for instance, in thunder-tones from heaven; but through the instrumentality of a...

Introduction Has God made himself known only in the Bible and/or Jesus? Are there any other ways in which He has revealed himself to us? If so, how? What is the nature, extent, and value of that revelation and how does it compare with the knowledge we have of God through Christ and Scripture? Does everyone inherently know God? If so, in what way(s)? These are just some of the questions we will treat in this brief paper. Our use of the term “revelation” comes from the Greek term ajpokavluyi" (apokalupsis) and means “to uncover, reveal, disclose,” or “make known”...

1 Thessalonians 2:9-16 "For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. 10 You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers; 11 just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, 12 so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory....

My biographical message at the pastors’ conference this year was on Athanasius who was born in A. D. 298. So I spent a good bit of time studying the doctrinal disputes of the fourth century. The main dispute was over the deity of Christ. Arius (and the Arians) said that the Son of God was a creature and did not always exist. Athanasius defended the eternal deity of the Son and helped win that battle with the wording of the Council of Nicaea: “We believe in . . . the Son of God . . . of the essence of...

THERE are certain maxims which are applicable not only to the subject of Bible Study but also to every other form of human endeavour. The secret of success in every department of life is hard work. The man who wants to have a competent knowledge of his Bible must be prepared to work hard at it. Lightly come, lightly go ; but for real value and permanent worth there must be steady and sustained effort, and the results accruing will always be in proportion to the sacrifices made, the pains taken, and the industry displayed. Nothing can come out of...

Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home; All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin. God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied; Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home. All the world is God’s own field, fruit unto His praise to yield; Wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrow grown. First the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear; Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be. For the Lord our God shall come, and...

Justification Eternal life is Christ dwelling in His righteousness in the soul of the justified person. Eternal life is union with Jesus Christ. And the word for that union with Jesus Christ is faith. The sinner comes to Him, rests in Him, trusts in Him, is one with Him, abides in Him; and this is life because it never, ever, ends. The united soul abides in the Vine eternally. Weakness, sin, proneness to sin never brings separation, but only the Father’s pruning, which cements the union even and ever tighter. This is the heart of the Bible. This is the...

The God-Centered Ground of Saving Grace Our Goal: The Grace of God or the God of Grace? In the material I received about the aims of this conference, one sentence seemed to me tremendously important: "Our goal [in this conference] is to examine the nature of God as evidenced through His bountiful grace." What was so characteristically Ligonier about that – and I believe Biblical – was the order of things: "examine the nature of God as evidenced through his grace." The goal is God through grace. Not grace through God. I wonder if that difference sounds significant to you....

THE EMERGENCE OF SIN AND MISERY Biblical history is unintelligible without the doctrine of creation. The record of events from Adam and Eve through the history of Israel, the coming of Christ, the rise of the church and the coming consummation make no sense apart from this truth: God the Father, through the agency of the Son, created out of nothing all that is not God by his word of command, and by this same word he so upholds all things that the emergence of every new being is his peculiar creation. The reason Biblical history does not make sense...

HOW TO MASTER THE BIBLE Chapter 4E 5-THE CYCLOPAEDIC METHOD, OR BIBLE STUDY BY BIBLE DICTIONARY We have now dealt with the four primary methods of Bible Study-the Synthetic, the Parallel, the Topical, and the Typical. In a sense it may be said that there are these four methods of Bible Study and these four only, for the remaining three methods are concerned with the use of books of reference of three different kinds. In these three books of reference, the knowledge gained by the application of the foregoing methods is gathered up and placed together in such a form...

HOW TO MASTER THE BIBLE Chapter 4D IV--THE TYPICAL METHOD, OR BIBLE STUDY BY TYPES It is not good to despise any part of Scripture, least of all such parts as are directly related to Jesus Christ. It is our great misfortune that the study of the types has fallen on evil times, and that as a method of Bible Study it has almost ceased to be taught or used. It is even treated with contempt, and there are books on Bible Study in which the attempt to trace the hidden spiritual meaning and intention of the regulations of the...