With so many of us snowed in this week, I’m hoping you have a bit more time to read today, and so present a sermon for today, titled “The Saving Christ.” This sermon is drawn from a slim volume entitled The Power of God unto Salvation, a book consisting of eight sermons preached in the chapel of the Theological Seminary at Princeton by the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, who served as professor at Princeton from 1887 until his death on this day, February 16th, in 1921. 

While Dr. Warfield was a brilliant writer, known primarily for his theological and academic works, he is perhaps most accessible in his sermons. If you have put off reading anything by Warfield for fear it might be too difficult, please let me encourage you to take up this volume and read. I know you will find it rewarding:—

THE SAVING CHRIST.

“Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”—1 Timothy 1:15 (Revised Version).

In these words we have the first of a short series of five “faithful sayings,” or current Christian commonplaces, incidentally adduced by the apostle Paul in the course of his letters to his helpers in the gospel—Timothy and Titus—i.e., in what we commonly call his Pastoral Epistles. They are a remarkable series of five “words,” and their appearance on the face of these New Testament writings is almost as remarkable as their contents.

Consider what the phenomenon is that is brought before us in these “faithful sayings.” Here is the apostle writing to his assistants in the proclamation of the gospel, little more than a third of a century, say, after the crucifixion of his Lord—scarcely thirty-three years after he had himself entered upon the great ministry that had been committed to him of preaching to the Gentiles the words of this life. Yet he is already able to remind them of the blessed contents of the gospel message in words that are the product of Christian experience in the hearts of the community. For just what these “faithful sayings” are, is a body of utterances in which the essence of the gospel has been crystallized by those who have tasted and seen its preciousness. Obviously the days when this gospel was brought as a novelty to their attention are past. The church has been founded, and in it throbs the pulses of a vigorous life. The gospel has been embraced and lived; it has been trusted and not found wanting; and the souls that have found its blessedness have had time to frame its precious turths into formulas. Formulas, I do not say, merely, that have passed from mouth to mouth, and been enshrined in memory after memory until they have become proverbs in the Christian community. Formulas rather, which have embedded themselves in the hearts of the whole congregation, have been beaten there into shape, as the deeper emotions of redeemed souls have played round them, and have emerged again suffused with the feelings which they have awakened and satisfied, and molded into that balanced and rhythmic form which is the hallmark of utterances that come really out of the living and throbbing hearts of the people.

If we were to judge of the spiritual attainments of the primitive Church solely by these specimens of its Christian thought, we should assuredly conceive exceedingly highly of them. Where can we go to find a truer or deeper insight into the heart of the gospel—a richer or fuller expression of all that the religious life at its highest turns upon? Certainly not to the apocryphal fragments of so-called “utterances of Jesus” raked out of the trash-heaps of some Oxyrhynchus or other. But just as truly not to the authentic remains of the early ages of the Church; which witness, indeed, to a living, vitalizing Christianity ordering all its life, but which distinctly reach to no such level of Christian thinking and feeling as these fragments point to. We are thus bidden to remember that in these five “sayings” we have, not the total product of the Christian thought of the age, perhaps not even a fair sample of it, but such items of it only as commended themselves to the mind and heart of a Paul, and rose joyously to his lips when he would fain exhort his fellows in the gospel to embrace and live by its essence. They come to us accordingly not merely as valuable fragments of the Christian thinking of the first period—of absorbing interest as they would be even from that point of view—but with the imprimatur of the apostle upon them as consonant with the mind of the Holy Spirit. They are dug from the mine of the Christian heart indeed, but they come to us stamped in the mintage of apostolic authority. The primitive Christian community it may have been that gave them form and substance, but it is the apostle who assures us that they are “faithful sayings, and worthy of all acceptation.”

And surely, when we come to look narrowly at the particular one of these “sayings” which we have chosen as our text, it is a great assertion that it brings us—an assertion which, if it be truly a “faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation,” is well adapted to become even in this late and, it would fain believe itself, more instructed age, the watchword of the Christian Church and of every Christian heart. On the face of it, you will observe, it simply announces the purpose or, we may perhaps say, the philosophy, of the incarnation: “This is a faithfl saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” But it announces the purpose of the incarnation in a manner that at once attracts attention. Even the very language in which it is expressed is startling, meeting us here in the midst of one of Paul’s letters. For this is not Pauling phraseology that stands before us here; as, indeed, it professes not to be—for does not Paul tell us that he is not speaking in his own person, but is adducing one of the jewels of the Church’s faith? At all events, it is the language of John that here confronts us, and whoever first cast the Church’s heart-conviction into this compressed sentence had assuredly learned in John’s school. For to John only belongs this phrase as applied to Christ: “He came into the world.” It is John only who preserves the Master’s declarations: “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world”; “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on Me should not abide in darkness.” It is he only who, adopting, as is his wont, the very phraseology of his Master to express his own thought, tells us in his prologue that “the true Light—that lighteth every man—was coming into the world,” but though He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, yet the world knew Him not.

Hence emerges a useful hint for the interpretation of our passage. For in the Johannean phraseology which we have before us here—though certainly not in the Johannean phraseology only—the term “the world” does not express a purely local idea, but is suffused with a deep ethical significance. When we read accordingly of Christ Jesus coming into the “world,” we are not reading of a mere change of place on the part of our Lord—of a mere descent on His part from heaven to earth, as we may say. We are reading of the light coming into the darkness: “the world” is the sphere of darkness and shame and sin. It is, in a word, the great ethical contrast that is intended to be brought prominently before us, and in this lies the whole point of the incarnation as conceived by John, and as embodied in our passage. Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, came into “the world”—into the realm of evil and the kingdom of sin. In our present passage this idea is enhanced by the sharp collocation with it of the term “sinners.” For, in the original, the word “sinners” stands next to the word “world,” with the effect of throwing the strongest possible emphasis on the ethical connotation. This is the faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that the apostle commends to us—that “Christ Jesus came into the world, sinners to save.” What else, indeed, could He have come into “the world,” the sphere of evil, for—except to save sinners?

Surely, there meets us here a point that is worthy of our closest attention. We might have heard of Christ coming into the world, if the term could be taken in a merely local sense, with but a languid interest. But when we catch the ethical import of the term an explanation is at once demanded. What could such an one as Christ have to do in coming to such a place as the world? The incongruity of the thing requires accounting for. It is much as if we saw a fellow Christian in some compromising position. We might meet with him here, there, and elsewhere, and no remark be aroused. But by some change swing of the shutter as we pass by we see him standing in the midst of a drinking-saloon; we see him emerge from the door of a well-known gambling hell, or of some dreadful abode of shame. At once the need of an explanation rises within our puzzled minds, and the whole stress of the situation turns on the explanation. What was his purpose there? we anxiously inquire. So it is with Christ Jesus coming into the world; and so we feel in proportion as we realize the ethical contrariety suggested by the term. Thus it comes about that the primary emphasis of the passage is felt to rest on the account it gives of the situation it brings before us—on its explanation of how it happens that Christ Jesus could and did come into the world.

We despair of finding an English phraseology which will reproduce with exactitude the nice distribution of the stress. Suffice it to say that the strong emphasis falls on the fact that it was specifically to save sinners that Christ Jesus came, and that the way for this strength of emphasis is prepared by the use of phraseology which implies that there was no other conceivable end that He could have had in view in coming into such a place as the world except to deal with sinners, of which the world consists. He might indeed have come to judge the world; and in contrast with that the emphasis falls on the word “to save.” But He could not conceivably, being what He was, the Holy One and the Just, have come to such a place as the world is—the seat of shame and evil—save to deal with sinners. The essence of the whole declaration, therefore, is found in the joyful cry that it was specifically to save sinners that Christ Jesus came into this world of evil. And if that be true—simply true, broadly true, true just as it stands, and in all the reach of its meaning—why, then, from that alone we may learn what man is and what God is—what Christ Jesus is and His work in this world of ours—what hopes may illumine our darkness here below, and what joys shall be ours when this darkness passes away.

It would naturally be impossible for us to dip out all the fulness of such a great declaration in a half-hour’s meditation. It will be profitable for us, accordingly, to confine ourselves to bringing as clearly before us as may prove to be practicable two or three of its main implications. And may God the Holy Spirit help us to read it aright and to apply its lessons to our souls’ welfare!

First of all, then, let us observe that this “faithful saying” takes us back into the counsels of eternity and reveals to us the ground, in the decree of God, for the gift of His Son to the world, and the end sought to be obtained by His entrance into the likeness of sinful flesh. “Faithful is the saying,” says the apostle, “and worthy of all acceptation,” that Christ Jesus came into the world in order to save sinners.” That is to say, the occasion of the incarnation is rooted in sin, and the end of it is found in salvation from sin. And that is to say again, translating these facts into the terms of the decree, that the determination of God to send His Son and the determination of the Son to come into the world are grounded, in the counsel of God, on the contemplated fact of sin, and have as their design to provide a remedy for sin. 

To continue reading this sermon by Dr. Warfield, click here, and continue reading from page 38.

To read more about the death of Dr. Warfield, click here. 

Being a Reaper for the Lord

The revival was going strong in the little Virginia church on the McCormick farm. Minister after minister preached the Word of grace from the Word of God. One Sunday morning, the challenge went out to the audience gathered, “I want everyone who is on Christ’s side to stand up.” People stood up all over the sanctuary, except the young man named Cyrus McCormick. The twenty-one year old went back to his house where he went to bed. Before he fell asleep, his godly father came into his room and said, “Son, don’t you know that by being quiet, you are rejecting Christ?” Young Cy had not thought of it that way. He rose up, got dressed, and even though it was dark outside, went to see and talk with Billy McClung. He was a believer in Jesus. Waking up the young man, he asked how he could know Jesus and get peace with God. Billy McClung was used of the Lord to show the way, and that night Cyrus McCormick committed himself to Jesus as his Lord and Savior. The next Sunday morning, he did what he did not do the previous Sunday, and publicly gave his testimony of having trusted in Jesus Christ.

All the spiritual ground was prepared by his godly parents, and grandparents, and ancestors. He came from a Scotch-Irish heritage of Covenanters who had stood for King Jesus in the old country of Scotland and Ireland. Being persecuted for the old faith was part and parcel of the life which they lived and died for in the “Killing Times” of the mother country. Young Cyrus, born on February 15, 1809, had the spiritual upbringing of both the Bible and the Westminster Shorter Catechism. He was a spiritual product of the theology of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox. The twin truths of the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man were stamped into his character.

Living in the Virginia farm was not easy however. Especially was it difficult to harvest the grain before it spoiled. Cyrus’s father had tried for years to build a machine which could reap the wheat quickly, so it wouldn’t be lost by spoilage. Cyrus McCormick took over for his father and with the natural gifts of God upon him, in 1834 took out a patent for a reaper which could accomplish all which he and every farmer of the land had long desired. But he didn’t stop there with the invention. He mass-produced the machine for usage by farmers all across America. Of course, this brought in incredible wealth to this Christian man.

Many have had the sad testimony that riches has ruined them in their Christian testimony. But Cyrus McCormick was different. He simply brought his heritage of Christianity, and specifically the rich Presbyterian heritage into his business life, so that family and friends could not separate his religious life from his business life. Even after marriage to Miss Nettie Fowler, and a family of six sons and daughters, he gave away huge sums of money to Christian and especially Presbyterian ministries. After his death in 1884, his wife continued the ministry of using her wealth for Christian enterprises. McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago is named after him because of that generous financial support toward that institution.

Words to Live By: Cyrus McCormick’s favorite Bible passage was Romans 8:31 – 39.  That is our application, or words to live by portion for today. Turn to it now and read the gracious promises of the elect of God.

READING OWEN FOR THE FIRST TIME

I had not read much of John Owen until recently, and like many, found his writing difficult to wade through. Dr. R.J.K. Law’s edited edition makes all the difference, and it has been a delight to read these volumes in the new boxed set from Banner of Truth. With every few pages it seems there is some shining example like this:—

“Only a steady view of Christ by faith will graciously revive from inward spiritual declensions and decays and fill with fresh springs of grace, even in old age. This truth is confirmed by Scripture, and is the joyful experience of multitudes of believers.

There are two things that elderly Christians, who have for many long years believed and lived by faith in Christ, long for when they are nearing eternity. The first is, that all their spiritual backslidings will be healed and that they may be spiritually revived and recovered from all the spiritual declensions and decays to which they were liable in their daily walk with God. The other is, that they may flourish in holiness and fruitfulness to the praise of God, the honor of the Gospel, and the increase of their own peace and joy. They value these things more than all the world. They cannot stop thinking about them and longing to experience more of them.

Those who have no interest in these things, whatever their claim to faith in Christ, are completely ignorant of their true condition. For it is the nature of grace to grow and increase to the end. Like rivers, the nearer they come to the ocean, the more is their water content increased, and they flow more swiftly. So will grace flow more freely and fully the nearer it approaches the ocean of eternal glory. Where this is not so, there is no saving grace. Paul tells us that ‘though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day’ (2 Cor. 4:16). This is of great comfort in our old age. The weaker our physical bodies become, the greater is our spiritual renewal. This promise gives great strength to elderly believers.

Owen continues. . .

There is often a late Spring in the year, a Spring in Autumn. It is faint and weak but useful to the farmer for it is a clear sign to him that if his ground is not barren it will flourish afresh towards the end of the year. So God, the good farmer, looks for the same from us, especially if we have had a summer drought in our lives (Psa. 32:4). True, the late spring does not produce the same fruit as does early spring but it is evidence that the ground is in good heart and puts forth what is right for that time of year. It may be that the graces which were active in a person newly converted will not abound in the late spring of old age. But those graces which are right for that time of life will flourish, such as spirituality, heavenly mindedness, being weaned from the world and readiness for the cross and for death. These are necessary even in old age, to prove that we have a living power of grace and to show by this that God is indeed ‘our rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.’

—John Owen, The Glory of Christ. (Abridged and made easy to read by R.J.K. Law. Banner of Truth, 2020), pp. 147-148, 152.

Warrior Presbytery Leaves the Southern Presbyterian Church

[text from an article in The Southern Presbyterian, vol. 1, no. 2 (February 1973):

Twenty-one churches and five ministers were dismissed, at their own request, from Tuscaloosa Presbytery (PCUS), on Tuesday, February 13, 1973 at Linden, Alabama. The Presbytery included the phrase “with their property” in each of the actions. It also passed a legally worded “quit claim” to cover all the churches dismissed. The congregations of these churches had voted to request this, most of them unanimously. The parent group is the Presbyterian Church in the United States, formed in Augusta, Georgia in 1861.

The Presbytery Meeting was, for the most part, congenial and quiet. There was a spirit of understanding and of helpfulness among the men of opposing sides. At the close, several shook hands and expressed Christian love for one another and wished the blessings of God upon the other. The Moderator of this meeting was a revered minister of the Presbytery who had recently retired, Rev. John Preston Simmons of Aliceville. His prayers and general spirit were used by God to bring about this separation in relative peace and clam.

Only one church and minister were disappointed. Although they were dismissed, the action was contested by a complaint addressed to Synod and will have to be settled before the action can become effective (under the rule that one-third of the members of Presbytery supported the complaint).

This is action is parallel to that which brought into being the first Presbytery in the Continuing Presbyterian Church, Vanguard Presbytery. The new Presbytery in West Alabama will be named Warrior because most of the churches are in or near the basin of the Black Warrior river.

Ministers and Churches of this new Presbytery include William C. Dinwiddie, pastor of Greensboro, Akron, and Newbern; Virgil Pino, pastor of Uniontown, Gastonburg, and Faunsdale; Willard W. Scott, pastor of Brent; Cecil Williamson, Jr., pastor of Crescent Hill and Valley Creek; and Charles L. Wilson, pastor of Aliceville and Pleasant Ridge. The following churches are at present without a pastor : Cedar Grove (Epes), Coatopa, Emelle (pastoral relation was severed at the time of dismissal), Gainesville, Geneva, Myrtlewood, Sumterville (Bethel I), Oxford, Linden and York.  The action which was suspended by the complaint involved Woodland Heights Church and William H. Rose, pastor.

This is the action for which much prayer has been made. The men insist that this is a positive action intended to preserve Biblical Faith and Presbyterian Order. It is a part of a much larger move planned by many churches and ministers across the South under the leadership of four organizations of conservative churchmen.

Words to Live By: Division is always something to be entered into with great trepidation. Schism can be defined as a sinful, prideful division. But there is a division that truth itself requires. Jeremiah Burroughs, a Puritan especially noted for his efforts at healing divisions, said that “It is not enough that we are one, unless we are one in Christ” and “The division that comes by truth is better than the union that comes by error.” The measure of a biblical separation will always be one where there is brokenness over our own sins as well as over the sins of the Church, when staying would require us to sin.

Today’s post is an aside, a powerful pastoral prayer that I came across in my reading, one that is so very apt for our day.

A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT IN TROUBLING TIMES.

It was on August 24, 1662, on St. Bartholomew’s Day, that some 2000 ministers in England were forced to step down from their pulpits, prohibited from preaching and from the work of ministry to their flocks. In British church history, this event is known as the Great Ejection. And of those 2000 faithful pastors, many of their final sermons were gathered up and published. Here below are the concluding words of one of those faithful men, the Rev. John Whitlock:

            The silence of ministers calls aloud on us all to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. It bids us repent of our sins, the causes of God’s judgments. It calls on you to prize and improve ministers and ordinances better, if God shall continue, restore or further afford them to you. Yea, ministers silence should cause people to speak the more and louder to God in prayer for the continuance and restoring of ministers and ordinances to them.
            When you do not hear so much and so often from God in preaching, let God hear the more and oftener from you in prayer. Ply the throne of grace. Give God no rest till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. And as our silence should make you speak the more to God, so also the more and oftener one unto another in holy conference, to provoke to love and to good works.
            And I beseech you, brethren, pray for us. Whatever God may do with us, or whithersoever we may be driven, we shall carry you in our hearts; and when and while we remember ourselves to God, we shall never forget you, but present you and your souls’ concerns daily unto God at the throne of grace in our prayers.
            And we earnestly beg this of you, as you would remember what we have spoken to you in the name of the Lord, so you would remember us to God, and let us have a room and share in your hearts and prayers. When you get into a corner to pour out your hearts before God, carry us to God upon your hearts, Do not forget us, but lift up a prayer to God for us, your (we hope we may say) faithful, though weak, unworthy ministers, who have labored among you in the Word and doctrine.
            I shall say no more, but conclude with these two Scriptures: “An now, brethren, I commend you to God, and the Word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified,” (Acts 20:32).
            The other Scripture is that request of Paul to, and prayer for, the Hebrews in chapter 13:18-21: “Pray for us, for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly. But I beseech you the rather to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner. Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

—John Whitlock, Sermons of the Great Ejection (Banner of Truth, 1962), pp. 197-198.