What I Read Online - 01/12/2012 (p.m.)

• Union and Imitation – White Horse Inn Blog

  • Union with Christ is different from imitation of Christ. There are calls in Scripture to imitate Christ, but this is only possible because of that deeper reality of our being actually united to Christ through faith alone. The best analogy is marriage or adoption: in both cases, we grow more and more into “oneness” and, along with our different personalities, share the common family resemblances because we are legally and organically connected.
  • Because we are “in Christ,” we should make every effort to be “like Christ.
  • In other words, while sanctification finds its direction in the law, it finds its ground in the gospel.
  • As a result of this justification, we actually begin to love God and neighbor—not only out of gratitude or all-consumming passion for God’s glory, but out of the magnificent fact that we are united to Christ.
  • Assured of our place “in Christ,” we see the imperatives to grow, to mature, to move on, to continue earnestly, to love, to struggle against indwelling sin, and so forth, no longer as threats or conditions of sharing in Christ and his kingdom, but as commands that we are called to obey and, because of the indwelling Spirit working through the gospel, can obey imperfectly.
  • So instead of issuing an imperative with a threat, Paul proclaims an indicative with a promise. The answer to the antinomian and legalist alike is the gospel. The antinomian has too narrow a view of the gospel, as if it were mere fire insurance—cancelling our debt without actually marrying us to Christ—while the legalist turns the gospel into law. However, Paul returns to the gospel and simply announces that through our union with Christ by faith we have not only justification but sanctification.

• Sexual Dirt and a Gospel Backhoe

  • A godly couple has a rollicking good time when the kids are all asleep, and afterwards they say, “That was fun. Let’s do it again sometime soon.” The ravenous man, who wants to sate a gargantuan appetite with an anise seed, has to go on a sexual snipe hunt. He can do that for a long time, but until he finds contentment in Christ, he will never find what he is looking for.

• Carl Trueman: Three Classic Articles Worth Reading – Justin Taylor

  • • R. V. G. Tasker, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Wrath of God“
    • Martin Luther, “Two Kinds of Righteousness“
    • George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” [Trueman writes: "This is the most brilliant statement (and example) of clear prose---something which pastors and theologians need to grasp."]

• Bryan Chapell: Three Classic Articles Worth Reading – Justin Taylor

  • Here is what he passed along:

     

    • J.I. Packer, “What Did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution“
    • Francis Schaeffer, “A Day of Sober Rejoicing“
    • Thomas Chalmers, “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection“

• How Young Men Prepare for Marriage – Desiring God

  • How Young Men Prepare for Marriage

• Assurance in the Reformed Confessions (2) – Kevin DeYoung

  • Assurance is a gift available to every true believer. Although it is possible for “hypocrites and other unregenerate men” to deceive themselves with false hope of eternal life, God wants his children to be “certainly assured that they are in the state of grace.”
  • If you want to know if you are truly in Christ, forgiven of your sins, and sealed for eternal life, you should rest in the good news of justification by faith alone, listen for the Spirit speaking to your spirit that you are a child of God, and discern (with the help of others) that God is slowly but surely changing you from one degree of glory to the next.

• AlbertMohler.com – Learning from Christopher Hitchens: Lessons Evangelicals Must Not Miss

  • Hitchens understood the power of ideas, and he never left a field of intellectual combat without giving his best.
  • Hitchens committed his life to the production of words, believing that the printed and spoken word can change the world.
  • He believed that the power of language drove the world of ideas, and that ideas require verbal expression.
  • Hitchens was a man of passion and personal intensity, and he made friends across ideological boundaries.
  • Hitchens did not hide behind intellectual scorn and he did not fear the open exchange of ideas.
  • Hitchens revealed the danger of cultural Christianity and exposure to tepid, lifeless, superficial Christian teaching.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.