MUSINGS ON HOLY SCRIPTURE
Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.
1 John 1:3
When John, the contemplative cousin of Jesus, is about to receive his vision outlined in the book Revelation he receives the invitation of the Lord in words of amazing divine condescension “Come up here” [Revelation 4:1b]. The Lord confers the privilege upon the apostle of being apprised of salvation-process in highly dramatic imagery and apocalyptic configuration. Revelation is equivalent to a tableau in which themes and scenes of sin’s judgment, sinners’ doom, the conquest of evil, and the prevalence of merciful divine intervention are related in a series of symbolic theological detail that prevail, that are ever-present, and yet moving to a convulsive conclusion, shutting down the reign of evil and heralding the universal dominion of the sovereign and righteous God. In the providence of God he has permitted and stored up the challenge of the forces of darkness to crush them at the peak of their fury. At the wane of the flow of history God will prove his omnipotence. He is pleased to wait until Satan gains his utmost strength and craziest boasting and bluster prior to casting him into the deepest and most dismal abyss for evermore.
The call of God proffered to St. John the seer was clearly unique, but the warm invitation to ask earnestly of God and be taught by him is general. “Come up here” is a gracious bidding of the Lord to every believer without exception who cares to respond. The desire of the Lord is to enjoy the company of his people and spoil them with his close attention and beautiful instruction, brimful of wisdom and affection. Such close and intimate connection with him is mutual delight. The Lord wants the fellowship of his people. St Bernard of Clairvaux and his fellow early Cistercian’s knew how to cultivate this closeness of God, and the spirituality of John Calvin is confidently matched to that of Bernard (his and Luther’s favorite church father following Augustine). We recognize two pious Frenchman following the stream of spiritual formation initiated by the former Bishop of Hippo.
Classic Anglicanism of the Reformation is Augustinian and meant to continue exclusively as such. Where do the Welby’s and Cottrells come from? But so many alien elements are imported into the various editions of spurious Anglicanism foisted upon us in our day. It is enough to make Augustinians weep. But we go far further than fellowship with saints and theologians. Look at our ever available attachment to the Lord mediated by prophets and apostles in the testimony of the Word. Our ultimate fellowship, yet the first at hand, is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. All subsidiary spiritual companionship is meant to enhance and strengthen our bonding with the Lord. We are looking for this bonding with the Lord in our fellow confessors of the gospel and we are under obligation to provide genuine togetherness in the Spirit with every member of the family of God. When Mary called on Elizabeth the expectant mother of John the Baptist the baby leapt in her womb. We should be drawn to the regenerate with the leap of our hearts and the embrace of our outstretched arms. We should steadfastly linger in the heavenly places with Christ [Ephesians 2:6] where we are seated through his resurrection. We are a people of devotion to a sweet and regnant Lord.
In Revelation 3:20 the Lord Jesus is portrayed as earnestly seeking our attention knocking at the door of our heart. This is not a reference to conversion but an appeal for restored fellowship with a believer whose ardor for companionship with the Savior has seriously cooled. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and will dine with him, and he with me.” The passage does not advert to a gentle knock of short duration, but to a knocking that is persistent and very audible. The desire of God is for a keen time of fellowship enjoyed leisurely over a superb meal. To share a table was of huge significance in ancient culture. God does not want to hurry our occasions of closeness with himself.
RJS
It is so wide a thing that God alone in all his fulness can fill a human heart.
John “Rabbi” Duncan.
There is reason to fear that professing Christians in general, and even ministers of the gospel, are too apt to rest satisfied with very vague and indefinite conceptions of the person of Christ, and to contemplate him too much merely in general as a glorious and exalted being, who came down from heaven to save sinners, without distinctly regarding him as being at once very God and very man,—a real possessor of the divine nature, and at the same time as truly and fully a partaker of flesh and blood like ourselves. This is the view given us in Scripture of the person of our Redeemer; and it is only when this view of his person, in all its completeness, is understood and realized, that we are truly honoring the Son, and that we are at all fitted to cherish and express the feelings and to discharge the duties of which he is the appropriate object,—to love him with all our hearts, at once as our Creator and our elder Brother,—to rest in him alone for salvation,—to yield ourselves unto him as alive from the dead,—and to rely with implicit confidence on his ability and willingness to make all things work together for our welfare, and to admit us at length into his own presence and glory.
The Person of Christ, Historical Theology, Vol One, page 320, William Cunningham, Banner of Truth.
Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.
1 John 1:3
When John, the contemplative cousin of Jesus, is about to receive his vision outlined in the book Revelation he receives the invitation of the Lord in words of amazing divine condescension “Come up here” [Revelation 4:1b]. The Lord confers the privilege upon the apostle of being apprised of salvation-process in highly dramatic imagery and apocalyptic configuration. Revelation is equivalent to a tableau in which themes and scenes of sin’s judgment, sinners’ doom, the conquest of evil, and the prevalence of merciful divine intervention are related in a series of symbolic theological detail that prevail, that are ever-present, and yet moving to a convulsive conclusion, shutting down the reign of evil and heralding the universal dominion of the sovereign and righteous God. In the providence of God he has permitted and stored up the challenge of the forces of darkness to crush them at the peak of their fury. At the wane of the flow of history God will prove his omnipotence. He is pleased to wait until Satan gains his utmost strength and craziest boasting and bluster prior to casting him into the deepest and most dismal abyss for evermore.
The call of God proffered to St. John the seer was clearly unique, but the warm invitation to ask earnestly of God and be taught by him is general. “Come up here” is a gracious bidding of the Lord to every believer without exception who cares to respond. The desire of the Lord is to enjoy the company of his people and spoil them with his close attention and beautiful instruction, brimful of wisdom and affection. Such close and intimate connection with him is mutual delight. The Lord wants the fellowship of his people. St Bernard of Clairvaux and his fellow early Cistercian’s knew how to cultivate this closeness of God, and the spirituality of John Calvin is confidently matched to that of Bernard (his and Luther’s favorite church father following Augustine). We recognize two pious Frenchman following the stream of spiritual formation initiated by the former Bishop of Hippo.
Classic Anglicanism of the Reformation is Augustinian and meant to continue exclusively as such. Where do the Welby’s and Cottrells come from? But so many alien elements are imported into the various editions of spurious Anglicanism foisted upon us in our day. It is enough to make Augustinians weep. But we go far further than fellowship with saints and theologians. Look at our ever available attachment to the Lord mediated by prophets and apostles in the testimony of the Word. Our ultimate fellowship, yet the first at hand, is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. All subsidiary spiritual companionship is meant to enhance and strengthen our bonding with the Lord. We are looking for this bonding with the Lord in our fellow confessors of the gospel and we are under obligation to provide genuine togetherness in the Spirit with every member of the family of God. When Mary called on Elizabeth the expectant mother of John the Baptist the baby leapt in her womb. We should be drawn to the regenerate with the leap of our hearts and the embrace of our outstretched arms. We should steadfastly linger in the heavenly places with Christ [Ephesians 2:6] where we are seated through his resurrection. We are a people of devotion to a sweet and regnant Lord.
In Revelation 3:20 the Lord Jesus is portrayed as earnestly seeking our attention knocking at the door of our heart. This is not a reference to conversion but an appeal for restored fellowship with a believer whose ardor for companionship with the Savior has seriously cooled. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and will dine with him, and he with me.” The passage does not advert to a gentle knock of short duration, but to a knocking that is persistent and very audible. The desire of God is for a keen time of fellowship enjoyed leisurely over a superb meal. To share a table was of huge significance in ancient culture. God does not want to hurry our occasions of closeness with himself.
RJS
It is so wide a thing that God alone in all his fulness can fill a human heart.
John “Rabbi” Duncan.
There is reason to fear that professing Christians in general, and even ministers of the gospel, are too apt to rest satisfied with very vague and indefinite conceptions of the person of Christ, and to contemplate him too much merely in general as a glorious and exalted being, who came down from heaven to save sinners, without distinctly regarding him as being at once very God and very man,—a real possessor of the divine nature, and at the same time as truly and fully a partaker of flesh and blood like ourselves. This is the view given us in Scripture of the person of our Redeemer; and it is only when this view of his person, in all its completeness, is understood and realized, that we are truly honoring the Son, and that we are at all fitted to cherish and express the feelings and to discharge the duties of which he is the appropriate object,—to love him with all our hearts, at once as our Creator and our elder Brother,—to rest in him alone for salvation,—to yield ourselves unto him as alive from the dead,—and to rely with implicit confidence on his ability and willingness to make all things work together for our welfare, and to admit us at length into his own presence and glory.
The Person of Christ, Historical Theology, Vol One, page 320, William Cunningham, Banner of Truth.
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