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THE GOSPEL-SHAPED LIFE

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THEGOSPEL-SHAPED LIFE

Ian Hamilton

the banner of truth trust

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T H E BA N N E R OF T RU T H T RU S T3 Murrayfield Road, Edinburgh EH12 6EL, UK

P.O. Box 621, Carlisle, PA 17013, USA

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© Ian Hamilton 2017

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ISBNPrint: 978 1 84871 721 3EPUB: 978 1 84871 722 0Kindle: 978 1 84871 723 7

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Typeset in 10/14 pt Sabon Oldstyle Figures atthe Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh

Printed in the USA byVersa Press, Inc., East Peoria, IL

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, © 2001 Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked niv are from taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

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To my dear friends in Second Presbyterian Church, Yazoo City,

with thanks to God for your love and encouragement over many years.

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Contents

Introduction xi

1. God Is Trinity: The Gospel’s God 1

2. What Is a Christian? Gospel Foundations 4

3. A New Covenant Command: Gospel Fear 7

4. Isaiah’s Life-Changing Encounter: The Gospel’s Transforming Power 12

5. The Duplex Gratia: The Gospel’s Double Grace 16

6. The God Who Hides Himself: Trusting the God of the Gospel 20

7. Loved with Everlasting Love: The Gospel’s Wonder 24

8. Extravagant Grace: The Scandal of the Gospel 27

9. Trust and Obey: Gospel Inseparables 30

10. Resisting a Diet of False Illusions: The Need for Gospel Saturation 33

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11. ‘This Is Our Beloved’: The Heart of the Gospel 35

12. Reasons Why You Should Not Believe: The Gospel and Unbelief 38

13. When Is a Church Not a Church? Gospel Catholicity 42

14. Seventy Thousand Fathoms Deep: The Gospel’s Unfathomable Depth 45

15. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Gospel Preaching in Spirit and Power 48

16. The Obedience of Faith: The Gospel Works 54

17. Ups and Downs: The Erratic Nature of the Gospel-Shaped Life 57

18. Living by the Means of Grace: How We Grow Up in the Gospel (1) 61






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24. Living in a Fallen World: Practising the Gospel 87

25. De Servo Arbitrio: Gospel Humbling Words 89

26. Contentment: A Neglected Gospel Grace 93

27. The Great Commission: Commitment to Gospel Advance 96

28. Not Losing Heart: Cultivating Gospel and Ministerial Perseverance 101

29. Being a Witness: Sharing the Gospel 106

30. ‘My Father Is Always Working’: Gospel Confidence 108

31. The Sweetness of God: The Gospel’s Marrow 111

32. The Faithful God: The Gospel’s Firm Foundation 114

33. The Covenant of Redemption: The Gospel’s Eternal Roots 117

34. The Grace of Election: What Gospel Life Looks Like 125

35. The Spirit and Practice of Sabbath- Keeping: Enjoying Gospel Rest 131

36. Less than the Least: The Soil of Gospel Usefulness 140

37. Samuel Rutherford: Gospel-Shaped Spirituality 143

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38. Lyrical Beauty from Augustine: Gospel Ecstasy 148

39. Thomas Goodwin: Gospel Assurance 151

40. ‘The Crook in the Lot’: Gospel Living in a Fallen World 156

41. When I Don’t Feel Forgiven: How the Gospel Gives Us Comfort 161

42. Learning from Solomon: True and Needful Gospel Wisdom 165

43. The Heart of Calvinism: Gospel Humility 169

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Introduction

The word ‘gospel’ means ‘good news’. The best-known and perhaps best-loved verse in the Bible

admirably captures what this good news is: ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life’ (John 3:16). The gospel is first good news about God (‘God so loved the world’). Second, the gospel is good news about a Son given by God to be the Saviour of the world (‘that he gave his only Son’). Third, the gospel is good news for a world of judgment-deserving sinners (‘that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life’). Sadly, however, many people’s understand-ing of the gospel begins and ends with John 3:16. The gospel is not one iota less than John 3:16; but it is very much more.

It is the purpose of this little book, what the Puritans would have called a vade mecum (literally, a ‘go with me’, a book that would fit easily into a pocket), to explore the multi-faceted character of the gospel and to show how the gospel comes to shape every aspect and detail of our lives.

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In Romans 6:17 Paul tells the church in Rome that though they were once ‘slaves of sin’, they ‘have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching’ to which God had committed them. ‘Standard of teaching’ could be better translated ‘mould of teaching’. What Paul has in mind is the life-shaping influence and power of gospel truth. The gospel not only rescues us from hell and brings us to heaven, it also takes possession of our lives to remake them into the image and likeness of our Saviour, Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:29). This is God’s ultimate purpose for all his blood-bought and dearly-loved children. He purposes not only to bring us to heaven, but in doing so to conform us to the likeness of his Son. Jesus is himself the gospel-shaped life.

If there is one thing this book seeks to say it is this: Jesus Christ is himself the glory and grace of the gospel. He is the good news that God in his love and grace has given as a free gift to the world (2 Cor. 9:15). This is why the New Testa-ment’s most common description of a Christian is someone who is ‘in Christ’. It is only in union with Christ that the rich blessings of the gospel become our personal posses-sion. In Ephesians 1:3-14 Paul highlights this foundational truth in a series of ‘in Christ’ statements. ‘In Christ’ God the Father has blessed us ‘with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places’. ‘In Christ’ he chose us, adopted us, redeemed us, made known to us the mystery of his will, and has given us a predestined inheritance. Christ cannot be separated from his blessings.

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No one has better understood this than John Calvin. In a memorable passage in his Institutes, Calvin writes almost lyrically about the ‘whole salvation’ that God has provided for this fallen, lost world in his Son Jesus Christ. Read these following words slowly and prayerfully:

We see that our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ (Acts 4:12). We should therefore take care not to derive the least portion of it from anywhere else. If we seek salva-tion, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is ‘of him’ (1 Cor. 1:30). If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they will be found in his anoint-ing. If we seek strength, it lies in his dominion; if purity, in his conception; if gentleness, it appears in his birth. For by his birth he was made like us in all respects (Heb. 2:17) that he might learn to feel our pain (Heb. 5:2). If we seek redemption, it lies in his passion; if acquittal, in his condemnation; if remission of the curse, in his cross (Gal. 3:13); if satisfaction, in his sacrifice; if purification, in his blood; if reconciliation, in his descent into hell; if mortification of the flesh, in his tomb; if newness of life, in his resurrection; if immortal ity, in the same; if inheritance of the heavenly kingdom, in his entrance into heaven; if protection, if security, if abundant supply of all blessings, in his king-dom; if untroubled expectation of judgment, in the power given him to judge. In short, since rich store of every kind of good abounds in him, let

Introduction

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us drink our fill from this fountain, and from no other (II.xvi.19).

IAN HAMILTONInverness, April 2017

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1. God Is Trinity:

The Gospel’s God

One of the remarkable features of the early church was its preoccupation with the doctrine of God.

Initially the concern of men like Athanasius (ad 300–371) was to establish and defend the deity of Christ against men like Arius who taught that Jesus was a creature. Athanasius believed that Arius did not understand the Scriptures. He also understood that if Jesus was not God in the fullest sense, we have no Saviour and we are still in our sins. So at the Council of Nicea in 325 the church publicly acknowledged the teaching of God’s word that Jesus was ‘homoousios’, of the same substance or being as the Father, that is, equally God (read John 1:1-2).

This, however, was only the beginning of the church’s exploration of the Bible’s teaching about God. During the remainder of the fourth century and well into the fifth, the church came increasingly to acknowledge both the unity and plurality of God’s self-revelation. The climax of these explorations came in the statements of the Council of Chalcedon in 451. In these statements, the biblical

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doctrine of the Holy Trinity was profoundly and beauti-fully explained. God is truly one, but he is also truly three. He is not three gods but one God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

This foundational biblical truth absolutely separates Christianity from Islam. In Islam, Allah is a solitary being, a monad. Because he is a monad he cannot be love, for who was there for him to love in eternity? But ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:8). In eternity the Father loved the Son and the Son loved the Father. The Son loved the Spirit and the Spirit loved the Son. The Father loved the Spirit and the Spirit loved the Father. God is a communion of love, an eternal, outgoing communion of love.

From Genesis 1, where God’s unity and plurality are adumbrated, to John 1:1-18, where the mystery of God’s plurality in unity is most revealed, God declares himself to be a communion of three persons, equal in glory, majesty and power, and equally worthy of praise, honour, wor-ship, and service.

So far, so good. But what does the doctrine of the Holy Trinity have to do with my everyday life? Throughout the centuries some professing Christians have thought and taught that the truth of God’s triunity is at best a theological speculation and at worst an irrelevance to daily life. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no truth more vital to a Christian’s life, no truth more calculated to enrich, deepen, and delight a Christian’s heart than the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Believers and their

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children are baptised into the one name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:18-20). Christians are chosen, saved, and sealed by the triune God (Eph. 1:3-14; Heb. 9:14). Christian worship is directed to the Father, through the Son, and in the grace and power of the Spirit (Eph. 2:18).

Much could be said, but note this one thing: our Lord Jesus Christ taught that eternal life is to know God (John 17:3). But God is triune; he is not a monad. Jesus is teach-ing us that eternal life is not endless existence but life in fellowship with the triune God. Knowing God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is eternal life. What could possibly be more exhilarating than that?

If you knew, personally and intimately, the Queen of England, you would be deeply honoured and the envy of many. If you had access freely into her presence, you would be, in the truest sense of the word, a ‘celebrity’. A Christian has intimate fellowship with the triune God. A Christian has freedom of access, night and day, into the presence of the one who made the uncountable myriad of stars. A Christian possesses the unending, unfailing love of the triune God, a love that will never end because it never began (Jer. 31:3). And the astonishing thing about this love is that it is the very love with which the Father loves his Son (John 17:23, 26).

The Christian life is a life of communion with the Father who loved and loves us, with the Son who gave himself for us and who ever lives to protect and bless us, and with

God Is Trinity

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the Holy Spirit who brings us into the communion of the Holy Trinity and makes it his special delight to glorify Christ in us and to us (John 16:14).

Is there anything in life to rival such astounding privi-lege? John Owen wrote, ‘Our greatest hindrance in the Christian life is not our lack of effort, but our lack of acquaintedness with our privileges.’ How right he was! Your and my greatest privilege in life, this life and the life to come, is to know the Holy Trinity and, even more wonderfully, to be known by the Holy Trinity. May the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, give us all the grace to become more personally acquainted with our privileges, the greatest of which is knowing this triune God to be our God.

2. What Is a Christian?

Gospel Foundations

As we embark on our gospel-shaped journey, we need to be clear, absolutely clear, about one thing. The

question, ‘What is a Christian?’ has been given many answers, most of them having little to do with what the Bible says a Christian is. The Bible, it is true, has several ways to describe a Christian. A Christian is a forgiven

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sinner, a new creation in Christ, an adopted child of God, a heaven-bound pilgrim, and much more besides.

One of the most dramatic descriptions of a Christian, however, is found in Romans 6:13, where Paul tells us that a Christian, every Christian, is someone who has been ‘brought from death to life’. Paul is making a categorical statement. He is not highlighting a possibility but declar-ing a fact, an accomplished, once for all, unrepeatable and undeniable fact. If you are a Christian, you have been ‘brought from death to life’. You may not feel you have, but if you are a Christian you have!

First, what is this ‘death’ that Christians no longer live in? In the Bible death is principally a spiritual state. God said to Adam in the garden of Eden, ‘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’ (Gen. 2:17). Adam ate the forbidden fruit (God was testing Adam’s obedience), and he died. Physically, the process of death began to take over his life, but spiritually, at that moment he died. Death is the state of alienation from God. Death is the lifestyle of separation from God, the lifestyle of rebel-lion against the sovereign lordship of God. More than this, however, death is a dominion, a kingdom ruled over by a king, Satan. This is the kingdom that every single one of us belonged to because of our union with Adam our first head. When he disobeyed God, we disobeyed God in him. He was the head of humanity and when he fell, we all fell; ‘in Adam all die’ (1 Cor. 15:22).

What Is a Christian?

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