Tag Archives: Christ Jesus

God’s Will

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I was reading God’s word and stumbled across this passage again:

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.

And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

1 John 5:13-15 English Standard Version (ESV)

It hit me that very few things are as sure as this. You can say we have God’s word on it.

All that’s left for us is to discern His will. Impossible you say? Well not for the things He has revealed to us. For other things, He has promised He, Himself, will intercede for us.

Now, what kinds of things are His will?

Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God [bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God], just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.

For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality.

For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

1 Thessalonians 4:1-3, 7-8 (ESV)

Here we have our first example of His will; that we walk so as to please God (bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God,) that we be sanctified. Note, here, that the Apostle uses ‘moral purity’ vice ‘set apart’ which he exemplifies by ‘sexual immorality.’ It’s as prevalent now as then. Fruit is grown in us by His agency and though our submission to His will.

What else is explicitly His will that we may ask for it and be confident that we will receive it? In our churches, we should:

We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work.

Be at peace among yourselves.

And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.

See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances;

for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.

1 Thessalonians 5:12-21 (ESV)

Pray that you do these things.

But, what else? In society we should:

Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.

For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.

Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

Honor everyone.

Love the brotherhood.

Fear God.

Honor the emperor.

1 Peter 2:13-17 (ESV)

At our work places, we should:

Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free.

Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.

Ephesians 6:5-9 (ESV)

And, to sum up, we should be good stewards of God’s grace:

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.

1 Peter 4:1-3 (ESV)

Each of us, then, praying that we submit to His will and bear these fruits, open ourselves to the following glorious promise:

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.

For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:3-11 (ESV)

Resolve, then, to pray for God’s will to be done in our lives from this point on.

Why Don’t Christians Care That They Sin? Ligonier Ministries, Published on Jan 17, 2013

Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences?

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Eugene Wigner, theoretical physicist and mathematician, famously addressed the effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences in a lecture delivered at NYU on May 11, 1959. The Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi) recently held their spring 2015 essay contest on the same topic.

According to Wikipedia, there are three main responses to Wigner’s lecture:

Richard Hamming, applied mathematician and a founder of computer science, extended Wigner’s arguments. But finally, he considered them unsatisfactory. They were:

  1. Humans see what they look for.
  2. Humans create and select the mathematics that fit a situation.
  3. Mathematics addresses only part of the human experience.
  4. Evolution has primed humans to think mathematically.

Max Tegmark, physicist and Scientific Director of FQXi, suggests Our external physical reality is a mathematical structure, which posits we are living in Platonic reality.

Ivor Grattan-Guinness, historian of mathematics and logic, found mathematics’ effectiveness explainable in terms of analogy, generalization, and metaphor.

The same Wikipedia article offers quotes from famous scientists on the subject. Many more responses can be found on the FQXi site. They are complicated and some are bewildering.

In all these musings, no one even contemplates the possibility that humans can describe the world mathematically because both mathematics and the world were created by the man, Christ Jesus. The Apostle Paul declares:

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. Romans 1:19-20 English Standard Version (ESV)

This truth holds for Astronomy through Zoology and all the sciences that derive from them. Yet no one considers Him:

For thus says the Lord,

who created the heavens

    (he is God!),

who formed the earth and made it

    (he established it;

he did not create it empty,

    he formed it to be inhabited!):

“I am the Lord, and there is no other.”

Isaiah 45:18 (ESV)

Take into account, however, that these scientists have been given gifts by virtue of bearing God’s image as His creations. They’re just like any of us. Ask the Lord that these men’s and women’s eyes be opened and that they’d be saved.

Lightning

Lightning, NOAA, in the Public Domain

Sanctification

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Paul writes to the church in Rome:

I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:19-23 English Standard Version (ESV)

The Westminster Confession Shorter Catechism Question and Answer number 35 states:

What is sanctification? Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.

What does John Calvin say about these verses in Romans here and here?

I speak what is human, etc. He says that he speaks after the manner of men, not as to the substance but as to the manner. So Christ says, in John 3:12, that he announced earthly things, while yet he spoke of heavenly mysteries, though not so magnificently as the dignity of the things required, because he accommodated himself to the capacities of a people ignorant and simple.

…As though [the Apostle] had said, “I might, by comparing sin and righteousness, show how much more ardently you ought to be led to render obedience to the latter [righteousness], than to serve the former [sin]; but from regard to your infirmity I omit this comparison: nevertheless, though I treat you with great indulgence, I may yet surely make this just demand — that you should not at least obey righteousness more coldly or negligently than you served sin…”

As you have presented, etc.; that is, “As you were formerly ready with all your faculties to serve sin, it is hence sufficiently evident how wretchedly enslaved and bound did your depravity hold you to itself: now then you ought to be equally prompt and ready to execute the commands of God; let not your activity in doing good be now less than it was formerly in doing evil.” He does not indeed observe the same order in the antithesis, by adapting different parts to each other, as he does in 1 Thessalonians 4:7, where he sets uncleanness in opposition to holiness; but the meaning is still evident…

For when you were, etc. He still repeats the difference, which he had before mentioned, between the yoke of righteousness and that of sin; for these two things, sin and righteousness, are so contrary, that he who devotes himself to the one, necessarily departs from the other. And he thus represents both, that by viewing them apart we may see more clearly what is to be expected from each; for to set things thus apart enables us to understand better their distinctive character. He then sets sin on one side, and righteousness on the other; and having stated this distinction, he afterwards shows what results from each of them…

What fruit, then, etc. He could not more strikingly express what he intended than by appealing to their conscience, and by confessing shame as it were in their person. Indeed the godly, as soon as they begin to be illuminated by the Spirit of Christ and the preaching of the gospel, do freely acknowledge their past life, which they have lived without Christ, to have been worthy of condemnation; and so far are they from endeavoring to excuse it, that, on the contrary, they feel ashamed of themselves. Yea, further, they call to mind the remembrance of their own disgrace, that being thus ashamed, they may more truly and more readily be humbled before God…

Ye have your fruit unto holiness, etc. As he had before mentioned a twofold end of sin, so he does now as to righteousness. Sin in this life brings the torments of an accusing conscience, and in the next eternal death. We now gather the fruit of righteousness, even holiness; we hope in future to gain eternal life. These things, unless we are beyond measure stupid, ought to generate in our minds a hatred and horror of sin, and also a love and desire for righteousness…

For the wages of sin, etc. …This verse is a conclusion to the former, and as it were an epilogue to it. He does not, however, in vain repeat the same thing again; but by doubling the terror, he intended to render sin an object of still greater hatred.

But the gift of God. They are mistaken who thus render the sentence, “Eternal life is the gift of God,” as though eternal life were the subject, and the gift of God the predicate; for this does not preserve the contrast. But as he has already taught us, that sin produces nothing but death; so now he subjoins, that this gift of God, even our justification and sanctification, brings to us the happiness of eternal life. Or, if you prefer, it may be thus stated, — “As the cause of death is sin, so righteousness, which we obtain through Christ, restores to us eternal life…”

I Could Laugh (feat. Chris Taylor) performed at BD’s House, 2014, by Michael Roe