“But when the sun rises, it does not happen the way a light comes on in a room when you flip the switch. The sun rises slowly. At first, you don’t know that anything has happened. It may be just as dark as it was a moment ago, but maybe not. And some time later, …
Undomesticated Grace
“God’s grace is a tsunami that will carry us away and deposit us in places we would not have anticipated — and all of it good. We analyze this carefully and say that we want our grace to be true and pure water, just like that tsunami, but we want it to be a placid …
Out of Our Hands Entirely
“We are afraid of grace getting carried away, and so we want to slap some conditions on it . . . Grace has a backbone and knows how to define itself. Grace is not the word that we are to use as the ‘open, sesame’ of the Church. Grace is not something we do. Grace …
Grace Is Not That Kind of Test
“Grace is one of the most difficult things in the world for sinners to grasp. And as soon as we realize that it is difficult, we turn the ‘grasping of it’ into a contest, giving those with the ‘right answer’ a ‘best in show’ award. But grace doesn’t follow our rules. Grace means that some …
It’s Joy to the World, Not Joy to the Remnant
“This vision of historical optimism is not all that common in the Christian world, and so it can get pretty lonely sometimes. But fortunately, once a year the entire nation appears to come around to our way of thinking. You might be shopping in Target for some last minute stocking stuffers and not be at …
A New Order Entirely
“The author of Hebrews is plainly teaching his readers that the shaking of heaven and earth is the removal of the old order of principalities and powers, which includes the old Judaic order, so that the kingdom of God can be firmly established throughout the earth” (Heaven Misplaced, p. 63).
After Tying Him Up
“What Satan offered Christ in the temptation in the wilderness, Christ refused. But Christ did not refuse the offer because He didn’t want what was offered. He didn’t want it on those terms, but the reason He had come down to earth was to obtain those very kingdoms. He refused the tempter’s offer because He …
Messiah the Prince
“God, by definition, has always exercised sovereign control over all the world and over every detail in it. The hair on every head has always been numbered. But in the accomplished mission of Christ, the cross and resurrection, God established a new mediatorial rule in the world. Christ as the eternal Word of God has …
The Intemperate Lynchee
“And we see here a deep irony in the problems that many modern Christians have with the imprecatory psalms and psalms of protested innocence. We think the language is over the top. The man is sitting on the back of a horse, hands tied behind his back, and a rope around his neck. He looks …
The Resurrection Develops the Negative
“We can take comfort in the love of God because the sin we must be delivered from is the sin of confounding the Spirit of God, the comforter, with the spirit of Satan, the accuser. And that is quite a confusion — one that the resurrection dispels entirely” (Heaven Misplaced, p. 54).