Heavenly Springs

Holding Fast The Doctrines of Grace

Why did God Establish Marriage?

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Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. “The final and conclusive proof of all that I have been saying is in the truth that when God created us male and female and established the state of marriage, he did so for a definite purpose. What was it? It was to provide the best illustration – Ephesians 5:31-32

“The final and conclusive proof of all that I have been saying is in the truth that when God created us male and female and established the state of marriage, he did so for a definite purpose. What was it? It was to provide the best illustration in life of how God joins a man or woman to Jesus Christ and how he joins them to him forever.

Someone says, “Didn’t God create marriage so there would be children? Isn’t marriage for reproduction?” No, it is not. Oh, I know that this is one sideline of marriage, but it is secondary. If it were not, a marriage without children would be incomplete, a failure; and that is not true.

“Well, then, why did he establish it?” He established it as an illustration of the relationship between Christ and the church. Paul says in Ephesians 5 that a wife is to submit to her husband “as to the Lord.” He says that a husband is to love his wife “just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” He concludes by saying of marriage, “This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church” (v. 32). In other words, God established marriage so that a Christian husband and a Christian wife could act out in their own relationship the relationship that Christ has to you and me and thereby point men to him as the supreme love, bridegroom, husband, protector, and provider of his church.

To marry as God intends men and women to marry is to illustrate this most sublime of relationships—the relationship of the Lord Jesus Christ to those who believe on him, and the relationship of the church to Jesus, to the one who loved us and who gave himself for us. If you see this truth, then you are well on the way to a blessed and happy marriage. For you will have the spiritual motivation and overall orientation to make a happy marriage possible.”

Boice, J. M. (2002). The Sermon on the Mount: An expositional commentary (107–108). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

True Peace is Not the Absence of Conflict

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The_sinking_of_the_Steamship_Ville_du_HavreThe story behind one of my favorite Gospel hymns is recounted in James Boice’s commentary on John.  If you aren’t familiar with the history, take a moment to read.

“In 1874 a French steamer called the Ville du Havre was on a homeward voyage from America when a collision with a sailing vessel took place. The damage to the steamer was considerable, and as a result it sank quickly with the loss of nearly all who had been on board. One passenger, Mrs. Horatio G. Spafford, the wife of a lawyer in Chicago, had been en route to Europe with her four children. On being informed that the ship was sinking she knelt with her children and prayed that they might be saved or, if not, that they might be willing to die, if that was God’s will.

anna spafford cableWhen the ship went down, the children were all lost. Mrs. Spafford was rescued by a sailor who had been rowing over the spot where the ship had sunk and found her floating in the water. Ten days later, when she reached Cardiff, she sent her husband the message: “Saved alone.”

This was a great blow, a sadness hardly comprehensible to anyone who has not lost a child. But though a great shock, it did not destroy the peace that either of the parents, who were both Christians, had from Jesus.

Spafford wrote as a testimony to the grace of God in his experience:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea-billows roll-
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed his own blood for my soul.

This is the meaning of the Christian’s peace. It is not an absence of conflict or any other kind of trial or disappointment. Rather it is contentment and trust in God in spite of such circumstances.”

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled” (John 14:27).

Boice, J. M. (2005). The Gospel of John: An expositional commentary (1241–1242). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

The Centrality of the Cross by James Montgomery Boice

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Nail-in-cross-istockphoto

…if the death of Christ on the cross is the true meaning of the Incarnation, then there is no gospel without the cross. Christmas by itself is no gospel. The life of Christ is no gospel. Even the resurrection, important as it is in the total scheme of things, is no gospel by itself. For the good news is not just that God became man, nor that God has spoken to reveal a proper way of life for us, or even that death, the great enemy, is conquered. Rather, the good news is that sin has been dealt with (of which the resurrection is a proof); that Jesus has suffered its penalty for us as our representative, so that we might never have to suffer it; and that therefore all who believe in him can look forward to heaven. …Emulation of Christ’s life and teaching is possible only to those who enter into a new relationship with God through faith in Jesus as their substitute. The resurrection is not merely a victory over death (though it is that) but a proof that the atonement was a satisfactory atonement in the sight of the Father (Rom 4:25); and that death, the result of sin, is abolished on that basis.

Any gospel that talks merely of the Christ-event, meaning the Incarnation without the atonement, is a false gospel. Any gospel that talks about the love of God without pointing out that his love led him to pay the ultimate price for sin in the person of his Son on the cross is a false gospel. The only true gospel is of the ‘one mediator’ (1 Tim. 2:5-6), who gave himself for us.

Finally, just as there can be no gospel without the atonement as the reason for the Incarnation, so also there can be no Christian life without it. Without the atonement the Incarnation theme easily becomes a kind of deification of the human and leads to arrogance and self advancement. With the atonement the true message of the life of Christ, and therefore also of the the life of the Christian man or woman, is humility and self sacrifice for the obvious needs of others. The Christian life is not indifference to those who are hungry or sick or suffering from some other lack. It is not contentment with our own abundance, neither the abundance of middle class living with home and cars and clothes and vacations, nor the abundance of education or even the spiritual abundance of good churches, Bibles, Bible teaching or Christian friends and acquaintances. Rather, it is the awareness that others lack these things and that we must therefore sacrifice many of our own interests in order to identify with them and thus bring them increasingly into the abundance we enjoy… We will live for Christ fully only when we are willing to be impoverished, if necessary, in order that others might be helped.’

HT:  Monergism

Come to Jesus!

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“I give this appeal, too: Come to Jesus!

Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles, too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.

PreachingTheGospel

Is God the God of Americans only? Is he not the God of Asians, too? Yes, of Asians, too, since there is only one God, who will justify the Caucasian by faith and the Asian through that same faith.

Is God the God of Catholics only? Is he not the God of Protestants, too? Yes, of Protestants, too, since there is only one God, who will justify the Catholic by faith and the Protestant by that same faith.

Is God the God of upper-middle class people only? Is he not the God of working-class people, too? Yes, of working-class people, too, since there is only one God who will justify the upper-middle class by faith and the working class through that same faith.

Is God the God of elderly people only? Is he not the God of children, too? Yes, of children, too, since there is only one God who will justify the elderly by faith and children through that same faith.

I can only think of one thing that could possibly turn you away from this gracious, embracing, “all are welcome” gospel. And that is that you do not want to go into the Father’s house with all those other types of people. But if that is so, do not call Christianity narrow or bigoted or mean or self-righteous or sectarian. It is you who are sectarian, and Christianity is the only thing I know of that can cleanse you of that blight. Only Jesus can give you grace to place your pride aside and step through that wide door of salvation as the rebellious sinner you truly are.

No one else will go through—only sinners who have confessed their sin, turned from it, and believed on Jesus Christ as their Savior.”

Boice, J. M. (1991-). Romans, Volume 1: Justification by Faith (417–418). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.