Declension in Love

Yesterday I shared some thoughts from the first chapter of Octavius Winslow’s Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the Soul. In the second chapter Winslow narrows his focus to address a declension in the grace of love. It is possible for our love to grow cold (Matthew 24:12), and since love is “the spring-head of all the kindred graces,” it only makes sense to explain how we tend to abandon our first love (Revelation 2:4).

 

Winslow begins this chapter by explaining the importance of love in the Christian life. Love to God is “the primary and grand requirement of the Divine Law.” Jesus teaches that loving God with the whole being is the greatest commandment in the Law (Matthew 22:37-38). God is wise and good to require us to love him: “His wisdom saw the necessity of having one center of supreme and adoring affection, and one object of supreme and spiritual worship to angels and to men. His goodness suggested that that center and that that object should be himself, the perfection of infinite excellence, the fountain of infinite good.”

 

          In addition to being the essence of God’s Law, love is “the great influential principle of the Gospel.” God’s love is the first cause of the plan of salvation (John 3:16), and the motive of our religion is love: “the love of Christ controls us” (2 Corinthians 5:14). Winslow explains why this is the case: “Apart from the constraining influence of Christ’s love in the heart, there cannot possibly be a willing, prompt, and holy obedience to his commandments.”

         

          God’s love assures us of our adoption as his children. “The relation in which the believer stands to God, under the new covenant dispensation, is not that of a slave to his master, but of a child to its father.” He continues: “A holy, self-denying, cross-bearing life, is not the drudgery of a slave, but the filial, loving obedience of a child: it springs from love to the person, and gratitude for the work of Jesus; and is the blessed effort of the spirit of adoption in the heart.”

 

          Love is an active grace in the believer’s life. Faith works by love (Galatians 5:6). Love labors (Hebrews 6:10). “There is nothing indolent in the nature of true love; it is not an inert, sluggish principle: where it dwells in the heart in a healthy and vigorous state, it constrains the believer to live not to himself, but unto Him who loved and gave Himself for him; it awakes the soul to watchfulness, sets it upon the work of frequent self-examination, influences it to prayer, daily walking in his precepts, acts of kindness, benevolence, and charity, all springing from love to God, and flowing in a channel of love to man."

         

          Love is an essential part of the Christian’s armor. We are to put on the breastplate of faith and love (1 Thessalonians 5:8). “Who can overcome a child of God whose heart is overflowing with Divine love? What enemy can prevail against him thus armed?”

 

          Winslow reminds us that love exceeds all the other Christian virtues because “love is immortal; it is the grace of the Spirit that will never die.” Drawing on 1 Corinthians 13:13, he observes, “The day is not far distant, when faith will be turned to sight, and hope will be lost in full fruition, but love will never die; it will live on, and expand the heart, and tune the lip, and inspire the song, through the unceasing ages of eternity.”

 

          Before moving to the main theme of this second chapter, which is the declension of love in the soul of the Christian, Winslow invites us to consider our first encounter with the love of Christ. “For one moment let the Christian reader call to mind the period and circumstances of his first espousals to Jesus.” Let us remember that “blissful moment” when we were able to say, “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine!” Recalling our first love awakens a desire to recapture the sweetness of the love of Christ in our hearts.

 

          Since it is true that “the grace of love in a child of God may greatly and sadly decline,” Winslow gives us characteristics of love’s decline in the soul.

 

Love has declined when we think of God and desire him less than before. “If there is coldness in the affections, if the mind grows earthly, carnal and selfish, dark and gloomy shadows will gather round the character and glory of God. He will become less an object of supreme attachment, unmingled delight, adoring contemplation, and filial trust.” If we sense that we think of God and desire God less than before, we must remember that God hasn’t changed. We have changed.  


Love has declined when we do not approach God as our loving Father as we did before. “The sweet confidence and simple trust of the child is lost.” “The tender, loving, childlike spirit, that marked the walk of the believer in the days of his espousals, when no object was so glorious to him as God, no being so loved as his heavenly Father, no spot so sacred as the throne of communion, no theme so sweet as his free grace of adoption, has in a great degree departed; and distrust, and legal fears, and bondage of spirit, have succeeded it.”


Love has declined when we misinterpret God’s acts of providence as if he is against us. “The mark of a vigorous love to God is when the soul justifies God in all his wise and gracious dealings with it; rebels not, murmurs not, repines not, but meekly and silently acquiesces in the dispensation, but it never so trying.”


Love has declined when there is little desire to spend time with God and when we do spend time, we do so more out of a sense of duty than delight. If we truly love the Lord, we want to commune with him in secret prayer. We desire to talk to him and experience the blessing of his presence. A Christian “cannot live in the neglect of constant, secret, and close fellowship with his God, his best and most faithful Friend.”


Love has declined when there is less tenderness and sensitivity in our walk with God. The lover of God fears offending his Father and dreads to slight his Friend. Nothing is sweeter to him than the nearness of God.


Love has declined when Christ is perceived as less glorious to the eye and less precious to the heart. “When there is but little dealing with his atoning blood, leaning upon his righteousness, drawing from his fullness, and bearing daily the cross of Christ, the love of a believer waxeth cold.”


Love has declined when we love less the people of God. If we love God, we love all who bear his image. 1 John makes it clear that if we say that we love God and hate our brother, we are liars (5:20-21). “If we love not the visible resemblance, how can we love the invisible Archetype?”


Love has declined when we desire less and less to advance his kingdom and glorify his name. “A true, spiritual, and lively interest in the increase of Christ’s kingdom, in the diffusion of his truth, the deepening of holiness in the church, the conversion of sinners, will invariably decline with the declension of the love to God.”

 

After sharing the characteristics of a loss of love for God, Winslow then moves to the causes of love’s declension.

 

Love for the World
“Love to God will expel love to the world; love to the world will deaden the soul’s love to God.” See James 4:4 and 1 John 2:15-17 for the biblical teaching on the danger of loving the world. Winslow warns, “No Christian man can maintain his spirituality unimpaired, his love uninjured, his robe unspotted, his walk irreproachable, who secretly admits the world to his heart.”  


Making Idols of God’s Creation
When we worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, we will always lose our love for God. He doesn’t want to be second place to anything or anyone. Winslow warns about the grave danger of transferring our love to objects inferior to the Lord. Our idols never satisfy and always disappoint.


Misunderstanding God’s Dealings
When bad things happen in our lives, and we assume that God is out to get us or that he is against us, we will lose our love for God. Acknowledging God’s smiling face behind all his bitter providences is the key to maintaining a holy love for God. In the life of God’s children, bad things are the fruits of his love, not the result of his judgment.


Finally, in a manner similar to the counsel of chapter one, Winslow tells us what to do in order to return to our first love.
 
You need to find out the cause of your loss of love for God and do something about it. “Love to God is a tender flower; it is a sensitive plant, soon and easily crushed; perpetual vigilance is needed to preserve it in a healthy, growing state.” Consider the possibility that one of the three causes mentioned above is the root of the problem. Clear all obstacles to loving God supremely.


Draw continually from the fountain of God’s love. God’s love comes first. “We love him because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). “O heart-melting truth! The love of God to us when yet we were sinners, who can unfold it? What mortal tongue can describe it?” As the sun is always shining, so God is always loving; yet we must stay in the sunshine of God’s love. We must bask in the glory of his unending love to us in Christ. “Seek to be filled with it, that you may know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, and that your heart in return may ascend in a flame of love to God.”

 

Deal much and closely with a crucified Savior. “Here is the grand secret of a constant ascending of the affections to God. If thou dost find it difficult to comprehend the love of God towards thee, read it in the cross of his dear Son.” “Deal upon this amazing fact; drink into this precious truth; muse upon it, ponder it, search into it, pray over it, until your heart is melted down, and broken, and overwhelmed with God’s wondrous love to you, in the gift of Jesus.” “Whenever thou detectest a waning of love, a reluctance to take up the daily cross, a shrinking from the precept, go immediately to Calvary; go simply and directly to Jesus; get thy heart warmed with ardent love by contemplating him upon the cross, and soon will the frosts that gather round it melt away, the congealed current shall begin to flow, and the ‘chariots of Amminadib’ shall bear thy soul away to communion and fellowship with God.”


Do not fail to honor the Holy Spirit in the great work of personal revival. “It is he that will fan to a flame thy waning love, by unfolding the cross, and directing your heart into the love of God.”


Remember that though your love has grown cold, the love of your God and Father towards you has undergone no change. “Retrace thy steps and return again to God.”

Personal Renewal

         In addition to reading the Scriptures, I find the reading of solid devotional literature to be a tremendous benefit to my soul. Since most of the best works of Reformed devotion were written in previous generations, this usually means that I turn to the old books. I’m currently reading OctaviusWinslow’s Personal Declension and theRevival of Religion in the Soul. Winslow was a 19^th century minister who preached at the opening of Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle. His writing is profoundly theological, deeply heart-searching, and immensely practical.

I have just completed the first chapter of the book entitled, “Incipient Declension,” which is a general treatment of the problem of backsliding in the Christian life. Winslow calls this “soul declension.” Sadly, this spiritual regression usually happens “by a process of slow and gradual steps,” and may be undetected even by the person who is experiencing it.

Winslow doesn’t want to be misunderstood about the nature of this backsliding. He doesn’t believe that true grace may be lost. He affirms “the indestructible nature of true grace.” However, he does teach that we may lose “the health, vigor, and exercise of that grace in the soul.” True Christians may lose an enjoyment of all their privileges in Jesus Christ.

What is especially alarming about this first chapter is that we may be backsliding in our spiritual lives when all appears to be well. The Christian may be spiritually declining while still affirming the same theological truths. “The Word of God shall be assented to; but as the instrument of sanctification, of abasement, of nourishment, the believer may be an utter stranger to it; yea, he must necessarily be so, while this process of secret declension is going forward in his soul.”

Since we must know the problem before we look for a solution and probe the depth of the wound before we find the cure, Winslow spends time identifying the characteristics of the person who is backsliding.

Winslow places his finger on the central danger: “when there is more knowledge of the truth than experience of its power—more light in the understanding than grace in the affections.”

In point of fact, we may make a diligent use of the means of grace (the Word, Sacraments, and Prayer) without a true spiritual vitality. This formalism can serve as “the lullaby of the soul” which puts us to sleep, making us unaware of the true nature of our spiritual state. “Rocked to sleep by a mere formal religion, the believer is beguiled into the delusion that his heart is right, and his soul prosperous in the sight of God.”

“When a professing man can proceed with his accustomed religious duties, strictly, regularly, formally, and yet experience no enjoyment of God in them, no filial nearness, no brokenness and tenderness, and no consciousness of sweet return, he may suspect that his soul is in a state of secret and incipient backsliding from God.”

We may discover this coldness in our reading of the Scriptures. When we can read the Scriptures in a purely literary manner without relishing the spiritual truth contained in them, we may be sure that we have fallen into this unfortunate condition. “Nothing perhaps more strongly indicates the tone of a believer’s spirituality, than the light in which the Scriptures are regarded by him.”

Prayer becomes formal and dead when there is incipient declension of the soul. We lack an experience of the nearness of God and a taste of the sweetness of his presence.

Even more telling is the way that we relate to Christ. When we have “few dealings with Christ” we have regressed in our spiritual life. “We would be willing to test a man’s religion, both as to its nature and its growth, by his reply to the question, ‘What think ye of Christ?’

Here is where Winslow really shines. He explains how the essence of the Christian life is having Christ in the heart. He is the substance of our life, the source of our sanctification, the spring of our joys, the theme of our song, and “the one glorious object on which thine eye is ever resting.” We must “raise and fix the eye of faith simply and solely upon Jesus” if we are to return to spiritual health.

Before moving on to solutions, Winslow identifies another sign of spiritual declension. It is “an uncharitable walk towards other Christians.” He makes this moving statement: “The more entirely the heart is occupied with the love of Christ, the less room there will be for uncharitableness towards his saints.” We ought to love all those who love the Lord Jesus because we all are members of the same family.  

Winslow closes the first chapter with six practical exhortations for spiritual renewal. These are really helpful.

1. Be honest about the real state of your soul before God. If we ever want to return to the Lord, we must acknowledge our sin and guilt. Above all else, we must be honest with ourselves because the danger of self-deception is great. Seek to know where you stand with God, and ask the Holy Spirit to lay bare the secret sins of your soul.
    
2. Discover the root cause of your backsliding. What is feeding and at the root of your Christianity? What is the problem at the core of your declension? It may be “some spiritual duty secretly neglected, or some known sin secretly indulged.” “Your soul has lost ground; the Divine life has declined; the fruit of the Spirit has withered; the heart has lost its softness, the conscience its tenderness, the mind its seclusion, the throne of grace its sweetness, the cross of Jesus its attraction.”
    
3. Take the cause of your backsliding and lay it before the Lord in prayer. “This is just what God loves—an open, ingenuous confession of sin.” Admit your problem; ask for the Lord’s help. He alone can grant you repentance and revival.
    
4. Take action to put to death the cause of your backsliding. Drive the Sword of God’s Spirit into the root of your sin. Persevere in attacking the lust of your flesh and the deadness of your soul. Consider the principle upon which you were acting in sin and strike at that. Is it love of self? Kill it. Is it love of the world? Kill it. Is it a sin secretly indulged? Kill it. God will bless and work through the self-efforts of the believer to put sin away. We can kill our sin because our sin was killed in Jesus on the cross.
    
5. Enlarge your mind and heart with a greater love and enjoyment of Christ. Our minds must be “pre-occupied by Christ.” Love for Christ expels love for the world. When we enjoy the sweet fellowship and unparalleled glory of Jesus, we are able to resist the cancers of the soul.
    
6. Seek the filling of the Holy Spirit. Winslow calls this “the great secret of all personal revival.” He speaks of the need for “a fresh baptism of the Holy Ghost.” Winslow is not denying that the Holy Spirit permanently indwells all believers, but he is acknowledging a spiritual reality that is known in Christian experience. There are degrees of the influence and power of the Spirit in our lives. We must seek the Spirit earnestly, perseveringly, and believingly.
    

Finally, Winslow points out that God often uses a “deep trial, in order to recover you from your soul declension.” In order to get our attention, God graciously brings into our lives a bitter stroke of his providence so that he might win back our hearts. Although we do not want to suffer, we will rejoice if the trial is used by God to restore us to our former joy.

“O Lord, revive thy work! Quicken me, O Lord! Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation!”

First Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Waynesboro, Georgia

I am now the Pastor of First Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Waynesboro, Georgia.

First Presbyterian Church has a new church website available here. Our YouTube channel is available here.  

I should return to my devotional blog before too long.

Church Membership and Communion

When I invite Christians to partake of the Lord’s Supper at Grace Presbyterian Church, why do I invite baptized believers in Jesus Christ who are members in good standing of an evangelical church? Why is church membership required for Communion? Why is it not enough to be a Christian?

          Church membership is required because the Lord’s Supper is a covenant meal for God’s covenant people. Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper in place of the Passover (Luke 22:7-8, 11, 13, 15), which was the covenant meal of the old covenant (Exodus 12:43-51). Jesus referred to the cup as “the new covenant in his blood” (Luke 22:20). And when Jesus instituted the Supper, he gave it to his disciples in particular, not the world in general. It was a fellowship meal for his faithful followers.

          When we read the book of Acts, which chronicles the growth and spread of the early Christian Church, we can see that the Lord’s Supper is celebrated by members of the church. For example, in Acts 2:41 we read that God saved 3,000 people on the Day of Pentecost. It was only after they received the word and were baptized that they participated in the breaking of the bread, which refers to the Lord’s Supper (2:42). Later in Luke’s history, we see that the early Church celebrated Communion on the first day of the week when they were gathered together as a church (20:7).

          When Paul writes to the Corinthian Christians, he makes it clear that the Lord’s Supper is observed in the context of the local church gathering together as a church (1 Corinthians 1:2; 11:17, 18, 20, 23, 33). The Lord’s Supper is celebrated as a communal meal in the context of the gathered church. It is not only a time for the individual Christian to remember Christ’s death (1 Corinthians 11:24-25), but it is also a time for Christians to come together and realize that we are one body (1 Corinthians 10:16-17).  

          The other important consideration is the warning of 1 Corinthians 11:27-29: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.” The Lord’s Supper is a means of grace for believers, but it can be a means of judgment for unbelievers. We are told that we are not to eat with one who calls himself a brother and lives a life of unrepentant sin (1 Corinthians 5:11). Instead, we are supposed to enjoy fellowship with those who are members in good standing of the community established by Christ.

          The church membership requirement is unpopular in our culture. We live in a time of expressive individualism. We live in a day where the importance of the church is minimalized and marginalized. Sometimes people are confused by this requirement on account of the way many churches handle membership. But we must remain faithful to Christ’s instructions that his covenant meal is for his covenant people. We are, after all, communing with Christ and with each other. Let us do so in sincerity and truth.

           

           

           

Unrepentant Sin Undermines Prayer

“If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination” (Prov. 28:9).

“If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” (Ps. 66:18).

          Many people are under the mistaken impression that all prayers are equal in the eyes of God. Whether it’s a boy “wishing upon a star” or a Muslim praying in a mosque or a President asking for the prayers of the American people or a Christian praying in the name of Jesus, the judgment of our age is the same. Although these approaches differ in form, they are the same in substance. Nothing could be further from the truth! Our God does not hear all prayers equally.

          One preacher said, “The man who starts praying, stops sinning, and the man who stops sinning, starts praying.” There is a connection between our sin and the impact of our prayers. It should go without saying that all people are sinners (Rom. 3:23). So prayer does not require sinless perfection. If that were the case, nobody other than Jesus would be able to pray.

          But prayer does require a holy posture before the Lord. We must pray with the right spiritual attitude. Proverbs 28:9 teaches that we must be willing to listen to God’s law. If we do not listen to God, why should God listen to us? If we cherish what God hates (sin), why should God give us what he loves (righteousness)? God will not allow prayer to be a one-way conversation. We ought to pray under the authority of the Word. If we are not attentive to God’s Word, God will clip the wings from our prayers.

          Psalm 66:18 elaborates on the relationship between sin and prayer. If we want to be heard, we must be willing to forsake all known sin. We cannot cherish iniquity in our hearts and expect God to regard our prayer with favor. Cherishing iniquity in the heart is not merely being a sinner. It is loving sin and the unwillingness to part with it. This speaks of unrepentant sin.

Unrepentant sin undermines effective prayer. The man who prays to God with unrepentant sin is like the adulterous man who enters marriage counseling without any intentions of ending his affair. What is the point? Praying to God with unrepentant sin in our hearts is like going to a conversation with a hidden dagger. We are not coming to God with a good will. 

          Thus the prayers of the godly are always marked by attention to God’s Word and confession of sin. If we expect God to listen to us, we must be on praying ground. We must open our Bibles and listen to his truth. We must confess our sin and turn away from it by God's grace. We must come to God on his terms, not our own. Where do you stand? Are you on praying ground with the Lord? Or have you turned away from his law and cherish sin in your heart?  

The Covenant of Works

"And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, 'You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." Genesis 2:16-17

 

"But like Adam they transgressed the covenant. . ." Hosea 6:7

        

        Reformed theology divides the history of humanity into two covenants: a covenant of works with Adam before the Fall and a covenant of grace with Christ after the Fall. B.B. Warfield called these two covenants “the architectonic principle” of Reformed theology. It is the biblical scaffolding of the Reformed doctrine of God’s plan of salvation.

          What is the covenant of works? The covenant of works is God’s promise of life to Adam and his descendants on the condition of perfect obedience. This covenant has been called the covenant of life because it promised life, the covenant of works because its condition was works, the covenant of nature because it was made in the state of original nature, the Adamic covenant because Adam was the representative head, and even the pre-lapsarian covenant because it was the covenant made before the Fall of mankind into sin. Regardless of what we call it, we must affirm that this concept is part of God’s revelation of the unfolding story of human fall and redemption.

          The covenant of works helps us not only to understand God’s relationship with Adam before the Fall but God’s chosen way of revealing his plan of salvation. Our God is a covenant God who has chosen to relate to man by way of a voluntary condescension we call covenant. According to Paul’s line of reasoning in Romans 5:12-21, we cannot understand the covenant of grace in Christ unless we understand the covenant of works in Adam. Adam’s disobedience resulting in death is parallel to Christ’s obedience resulting in life.

          Admittedly, the term “covenant” is not used in Genesis 1-3, and the phrase “covenant of works” is not found in the Bible. Although the phrases are absent, however, the concept is present. We might point out that the terms “Trinity” and “original sin” are not found in the Bible, but these terms refer to biblical concepts. And the concept of a covenant of works is certainly present in God’s pre-Fall relationship with Adam.

          We can see the concept in the following ways. First, we see God laying out the terms of the relationship in Genesis 2. It becomes clear that Adam is not merely in a Creator-creature relationship, but he is also in a Lord-servant relationship. God creates Adam and then places him in the Garden to exercise dominion by working and keeping it. God then places Adam under a period of probation or testing in which he gives to him a command. He may eat of any tree in the Garden, but he shall not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Secondly, God uses the language of blessing and cursing in his covenant with Adam. If Adam obeys, he will be blessed with life. If he disobeys, he will be cursed with death. The language of blessing and cursing is covenantal language and parallels the language that is used of Israel’s covenant with God.

Thirdly, the presence of covenant signs indicates that there is a covenant in place. There are two trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. These trees function sacramentally. The tree of life signifies God’s promise to confirm Adam in eternal life if he obeys God. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil signifies the test God has placed Adam under. Will Adam obey God or will he declare independence from God and seek to know good and evil in autonomy from him?

Fourthly, Adam appears here not as a private person but as a public person. Adam is not acting merely for the sake of his personal relationship with God. Adam is functioning as the federal head of the entire human race. His actions will have consequences for everyone. So goes Adam, so goes the human race. When God commanded Adam to abstain from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he gave the command to Adam as the representative head of the human race. This only makes sense in terms of a covenant arrangement where Adam is the head of the covenant of works and Christ is the head of the covenant of grace.

          We can pick up on concepts where the word is absent. For example, if I say, “It was the bottom of the ninth. The bases were loaded. And the batter stepped up to the plate,” you would know that I was talking about baseball even though I never used the word “baseball.” How did you know? You knew because there were clues that I was talking about baseball, and you picked up on it. In the same way, these realities mentioned above are clues that we are to understand Adam’s pre-Fall relationship with God as a covenant arrangement.

          In addition to the clues indicating a covenant arrangement, we also realize that later biblical passages treat God’s arrangement with Adam in a covenantal way. In Hosea 6:7 God explicitly says that Adam was in covenant with God: “But like Adam they transgressed the covenant. . .” Although some commentators understand “Adam” to refer to mankind in general or as a place designation, it makes the most sense to take it as a reference to Adam the father of the human race. Understood in this way, Hosea 6:7 is making a comparison between disobedient Adam and disobedient Israel. As Adam was in covenant with God and broke the covenant, so Israel was in covenant with God and broke covenant. So Hosea 6:7 assumes that the Jews would have known that Adam was in covenant with God.

          Romans 5:12-21 is the real clincher for the covenant of works. There Paul makes a comparison between Adam and Christ as the representative heads of the human race. Adam represents the old humanity, and Christ represents the new humanity. Adam disobeyed and all die in him as a consequence of his disobedience. Christ obeyed and all live in him as a consequence of his obedience. This means that Christ is a Second Adam who obeys where the first Adam disobeyed; he brings life where the first Adam brought death. This only makes sense on covenant grounds. The covenant of works in Adam explains why Adam’s sin and death has been transmitted to all his descendants. The covenant of grace in Christ explains why his righteousness and life is transmitted to all his spiritual descendants (believers). So the covenant of works anticipates for us what Christ had to do in order to secure salvation for the human race lost in Adam.

          Many Christians have objected to the representative role of Adam in the Garden. How can this one man and his one action have impacted so many? One answer is that this highlights the holiness of God. God placed a sentence of death on the entire human race on account of the one sin of one man. Of course, many other actual sins have proceeded from this, but in principle we see it all goes back to the first sin. God is so holy, and sin is that serious. Secondly, we could point out that we understand in our lives how one man’s actions have consequences for others. One football player jumps offside, and his entire team is penalized. Thirdly, although many believers complain about Adam being their representative, few complain about Christ. But we must understand that the principle upon which we are reckoned disobedient in Adam is the same principle upon which we are reckoned righteous in Christ. It is the federal headship principle. God willed the actions of Adam to impact his entire race. God willed the actions of Christ to impact his entire race. So the real question is this: who is your representative?

Jesus Loves Me

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

 

          The love of Christ is the believer’s greatest treasure. We read in our Bibles that God loved the world (John 3:16), but the Christian knows not only God’s love for the world in general but for him in particular. “Jesus loved me,” Paul says. Every Christian should be persuaded of Christ’s love for him in particular.

          Christ's love is a personal love. Paul says, “who loved me.” Paul knew in his heart that Christ had a personal and individual love for him. This does not refer to God’s general compassion for all his creatures, but this speaks of God’s redemptive love for his own. It refers to Christ's love for his Bride and all the individual members of it. Christians believe in God’s love for sinners in general, but this is a deeper assurance of God’s love in the heart. It comes with the full persuasion that Jesus loved me, even me!

          Christ's love is a sacrificial love. Paul goes on: “and gave himself for me.” Christ gave himself for sinners on the cross--do we know that he gave himself for this sinner? Am I able to say with confidence that Jesus Christ loved and gave himself up for Logan Patrick Almy? We may know this, and if we are Christians, it is our business to know this. The Spirit will testify with our spirit that we belong to Christ and that he has purchased us with his precious blood. We sing, “And can it be that I should gain an interest in my Savior’s blood?” And when we are sure that we have an interest in his blood, we will go on to sing, “Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?”

          Knowing Christ’s personal and sacrificial love for us is often misunderstood to be the warrant of faith, but we need to understand that it is rather the fruit of faith. For example, evangelists sometimes tell sinners, “God loves you. Christ died for you. Receive him into your life.” Such invitations make Christ’s love the warrant or grounds for faith. But the biblical presentation of the gospel differs from this. In the Bible we see God’s preachers telling sinners something like this: “God loves the world. God sent his Son to die for sinners and make full atonement. Whoever believes in Jesus shall be saved.” The warrant of faith in this presentation is God’s love for sinners in general and his promise to save those sinners who believe in Jesus. And it is only after the sinner believes in Jesus that he is persuaded that Christ died for him personally and sacrificially. This may seem like splitting theological hairs, but it makes a great difference in our experience of Christ’s love. In one approach, Christ’s personal love is a given, but in the other approach Christ’s love is the reward of having believed the gospel promise. There is a world of difference between these two and we ought to meditate on it.

          So what about you? Are you able to proclaim that Christ died for you? Are you able to say that he loved you with an everlasting love? Do you know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge? Are you able to say that he shed the blood of the everlasting covenant for your weak, ungodly, and sinful soul? Are you able to sing,

“O the deep, deep love of Jesus! Vast, unmeasured,

 boundless, free; rolling as a mighty ocean

in its fullness over me” ?