Safety, Certainty and Enjoyment

• About this site

Aric Stickfort

• About this site

Marriage and the Family

• About this site

 Marriage and the Family - Dr. Sandy Higgins explores the roles of parents, raising children, abortion, courtship, the Basis of Christian Living in the Home, God's Pattern Under Pressure, Heartbroken Homes, Being Single, Failing Fathers and other topics from the Bible's point of view.

• About this site

How to Build a Learning Unit

• About this site

Heidi McCandless - Procrastination.  Every one of us deals with this to some degree.  In some situations it doesn’t make much difference, in others, it can change the course of your life!  I almost missed the most important thing ever because I was too slow to realize how important it was.  I’m speaking of course of my own life – eternal life that is.

• About this site

• About this site

• About this site

• About this site

• About this site

Why did our Lord, though not partaking of the bread when instituting His supper, drink of the cup?

Can there be some spiritual truth hidden in this?

We think the idea that the Lord partook of the cup (as above) is based on a misunderstanding of the accounts of the Institution, and on a false inference. The misunderstanding arises from the position of the words, “I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine,” in the Matthew and Mark accounts, and the false inference, from the idea that the Lord had necessarily that moment drunk of the cup in question. It is clear from the Luke 22" TARGET="_blank">Luke 22: account that there were two cups, that in the 17th verse which was the passover cup, and the other the cup of the new supper, the memorials of His body and blood. It was to the former (see v. 18) that the Lord’s words, above quoted, refer. The Lord did not Himself partake of the emblems of His death in either kind, as Luke’s account shews.

W.H.

• About this site

Does God ever refuse to forgive in this life?

If one is COflSCIOUS of having resisted the call of God, may not that make it impossible for Him to forgive?

It is quite certain that God will never refuse forgiveness in this life to anyone who comes to Him as a sinner in the Name of the Lord Jesus, pleading in faith His atoning work. No other plea can suffice, but that will always reach the ear of God. “To Christ give all the prophets witness, that through His Name, whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43)." TARGET="_blank">Acts 10:43). “We have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Ephesians 1:7)." TARGET="_blank">Ephesians 1:7). This is the forgiveness of God as Judge. Then to believers, the Father’s forgiveness, for the restoration of communion, is granted on confession. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9)." TARGET="_blank">1 John 1:9).

As to Divine forgiveness, there may seem to be an exception in Matthew 12:31," TARGET="_blank">Matthew 12:31, where the assurance of “forgiveness of all manner of sin and blasphemy” is qualified by the Lord with the words, “but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men,” the reason of His saying this being, “because they said He hath an unclean spirit.” I know this is usually taken as proving that the Pharisees had actually committed the “unpardonable sin;” for myself I feel more and more persuaded, taking other Scriptures into consideration, that the Lord was rather warning them of the terrible danger of refusing the future testimony of the Spirit, at and after Pentecost.

The rejection of Christ did not shut the door of forgiveness, for the Spirit was poured forth; but if His testimony were rejected there could only remain judgment. No one who finally rejects that testimony will ever, I believe, feel the need of forgiveness, much less ask for it. How many there are who did at first resist the offers of God’s mercy, and the pleadings of His Spirit, but who afterwards were led to repentance. Was not Paul’s “kicking against the pricks” a case in point? But it is not poor, timid, anxious souls who have finally resisted the appeal of the Spirit, but hardened and impenitent sinners like the murderers of Stephen.

W.H.

• About this site

THE SEALING
Is the sealing of the Holy Spirit in this dispensation, a sealing on the forehead, seen outwardly, or is it experienced inwardly?

Does not John Bunyan refer to an outward sealing in the Pilgrim's Progress?

The sign of the old covenant was circumcision, an outward mark in the flesh. It is said in the case of Abraham to have been the “seal of the righteousness of the faith, which he had yet being uncircumcised” (Romans 4:9)," TARGET="_blank">Romans 4:9), which was of course exceptional, as infants of eight days old have no righteousness. The Lord seals His people as His own by giving them His Holy Spirit. “In whom having believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13" TARGET="_blank">Ephesians 1:13 R.V.; see also Ephesians 4:30;" TARGET="_blank">Ephesians 4:30; and 2 Corinthians 1:22)." TARGET="_blank">2 Corinthians 1:22). This is not an experience subsequent to conversion, but at conversion; nor is it an outward mark on the flesh, but a spiritual reality, which no doubt will come out in life. John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” is an allegory: that is, a spiritual truth conveyed under the form of a literal story. We should get into no end of difficulties, if we interpreted the figures literally.

Are all sinners, for example, to wade through a literal “Slough of Despond” on their way to the wicket gate? Besides, even Bunyan must be checked by the Word of God, and no less, “experiences” that pious persons claim to have passed through. There is no such thing taught in the Bible, as a Christian “being sealed on the forehead,” and for anyone to claim such a thing is a mistaken pretension, which he should seek grace from God to abandon.

W.H.

• About this site

• About this site

How are we to reconcile the truth that Christ is God and Christ is Man, in one Person, or rightly to estimate what belongs to each?

Again, how could our Lord be tempted in all points, like as we are, sin apart, if, as we believe, sin had no appeal to Him, as it has to us?

It is noticeable that when our Lord affirms that “no one knoweth the Father save the Son,” He at once adds, “and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” Why did He not, when affirming as he had just done, that “no one knoweth the Son but the Father” add “and he to whomsoever the Father will reveal Him”? Is it not that there are mysteries in the Union of the two Perfect Natures, Divine and human, in the One Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the Father nowhere promises ever fully to reveal? Not only are they too deep for us (we do not even understand our own tripartite being), but it is unnecessary for us thus to analyse His Being. One thing we aught never to forget, our Lord was not a dual personality, that is two Persons, Divine and human, but ONE DIVINE Personality, in equal relation to His two perfect natures. “The Word was God. . . the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:1, 14)." TARGET="_blank">John 1:1, 14).

The Modernists, and alas, they have their representatives everywhere to-day, will not brook to be told that there are things their highest powers cannot grasp, and they so attempt to reconcile what has never been out of harmony, and explain what they ought rather to believe.

To some persons a glib bad answer, seems preferable to saying “I do not know.” As we read the Gospels under the influence of the Holy Spirit, it is not like chemists, with our test- tubes and reactives analysing all the mysteries of Christ, or like physiologists with our instruments dissecting His Personality, but as disciples and as worshippers.

The human sympathy of Christ is not a mere theory, which we must make real to ourselves by a certain manipulation of His Person to satisfy the logical deductions of some shallow minds, but a blessed reality, which He makes true in our experience when we embrace Him by faith. The effect of this wrought by the Spirit in our souls, will not be some philosophical demonstration that after all “He is altogether such an one as ourselves—sin apart,” but the adoring cry of Thomas, “My Lord and my God.” The question of the temptation of our Lord is not after all so far beyond our grasp, if we remember that temptation is used in two distinct senses in the New Testament: of allurement—’ ‘Every man is tempted when he is drawn aside of His own lust and enticed” (James 1:14)," TARGET="_blank">James 1:14), and of testing —“He was tempted (or tested) in all points,” according to the similitude, “apart from sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)." TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 4:15).

When we read that “God did tempt Abraham” (Genesis 22:1)" TARGET="_blank">Genesis 22:1) it was in this latter sense. He put him to the test. So Christ was tested by Satan in the wilderness, and proved to be the Son of God; but He was never tempted in the sense of being “drawn away of lust and enticed,” for He had none—He was “holy, harmless and undefiled” (Hebrews 7:26)." TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 7:26). “He did no sin” (1 Peter 2:22);" TARGET="_blank">1 Peter 2:22); “He knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21);" TARGET="_blank">2 Corinthians 5:21); “In Him is no sin” (1 John 3:5)." TARGET="_blank">1 John 3:5).

I am sadly Convinced that the attempts of modernist teachers to emphasise the humanity of our Lord, on the plea of establishing His power of sympathy with us, is for the most part quite unreal; for, taken as a class, they are a self-sufficient, self-satisfied type of man; but rather, unconsciously to themselves it may be, and we trust it is, they “cast Him down from His excellency,” through undermining His Divinity.

W.H.

• About this site

What Asaph is it who wrote the Psalms bearing such a name?
There seems no reasonable room for doubt that the Psalmist is Asaph —son of Berachiah, a Levite of the family of Gershon, one of the leaders of David’s choir (see 1 Chronicles 6:39)." TARGET="_blank">1 Chronicles 6:39). The only other Asaph is generally known as “the Recorder,” but this seems to be based on a mistake, owing to a certain ambiguity in the English version—it seems more correct to understand Joah as the recorder, of whom Asaph (quite possibly the one mentioned above) was the father or progenitor. In any case, if they are distinct persons, the role of psalmist fits in better with the first named. He was then the author of Psalm 50" TARGET="_blank">Psalm 50: , and of the first eleven Psalms of Book Three. There are passages which must be understood prophetically whether the author lived in the days of David or of Hezekiah (e.g., Psalm 74:6;" TARGET="_blank">Psalm 74:6; Psalm 80:16)." TARGET="_blank">Psalm 80:16). There is a didactic, historic character about Asaph’s Psalms. He was, like Apollos, “mighty in the Scriptures,” and he applied them to the present need.

W.H.

• About this site