Random Update #8: Neurology → Nephrology

Well, my blog has reached a low ebb in the last few weeks. For one reason or another I've lacked all inspiration to write. But there have been a few things happening...

1. I just spent a month working on the inpatient neurology service at the hospital, taking care of mostly stroke patients, seizure patients and a random assortment of other neurological disorders. Even with some very long hours at times it was an enjoyable month which makes me realize I'm finally settling into this doctor thing a little bit. I got to do another lumbar puncture which ended up going very well - I got a "champagne tap" which means there were no red blood cells in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples I collected. Frequently you will nick a small blood vessel as you insert the needle deep into the patient's back, thus contaminating your sample with a small amount of blood. I was able to avoid this complication and received the traditional gift of a bottle of white wine - CSF (without blood in it) is clear - from my attending. Technically the traditional gift is a bottle of champagne but the colonel reasoned that no one really drinks champagne. Unfortunately I'm not much of a wine drinker either.

2. Today I started working in the Nephrology clinic and that's where I'll be for the next month except for a week of leave I'm taking starting on the 18th.

3. I've occasionally been able to read a few pages of the Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation. It's an amazing work of history and of literature. Two men about whom I knew little were St. Augustine of Canterbury (d. AD 604) (not to be confused with "of Hippo") and Pope Gregory the Great (AD 540 - 604). Both of these men played a great role in the evangelization of my ancestors and the formation of the English Church. For that I am grateful to them and more so to God who chooses such sinners for tasks so great.

A snowy drive to work

4. I passed my final board exam (USMLE Step 3) to be a licensed physician. I took it in Puyallup, Washington just before most people in the Puget Sound area got socked-in by a huge snow and ice-storm or "snowpocalypse 2012" as us residents who had to drive to the hospital each morning at 4:30AM in spite of the weather referred to it (and yes I grew up on the West-side of the Cascade Mountains so I am a snow-wimp like the majority of Portlanders and Seattleites).



5. While I haven't been writing on my blog I have gotten myself involved in a facebook debate about baptism with a bunch of Lutherans (with whom I mostly agree) and Baptists (with whom I mostly disagree). And by Baptist I mean "Non-denominational," "Charismatic," "Pentecostal," and also all those with the honesty just to call themselves "Baptist." With that said I know a lot of great Christians who are Baptists (heck, just look at my favorite Christians blogs on the right-hand of your screen - 4 out of the 7 are Baptists). But the debate I've been in has made me examine my own thoughts on baptism, and to be honest it's something I've probably tried not to think too much about in order to avoid debates with a good percentage of my Christian friends. A friend challenged me on a statement I made denying the intrinsic efficacy of baptism as a means of grace. He confronted me not with some systematic theology and not with some sappy platitude but with a fairly clear and plain-sounding statement from God's word: "Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience." Hmm... Doesn't really seem to fit with what I had written.

6. St. Augustine wrote: "For whatever unbaptized persons die confessing Christ, this confession is of the same efficacy for the remission of sins as if they were washed in the sacred font of baptism." (City of God, Book XIII, chapter 7.)

"Baptism of St. Augustine" (of Hippo) - Troyes 

7. John Calvin wrote: "We must at the same time beware of another evil, such as prevails among the Papists; for as they distinguish not as they ought between the thing and the sign, they stop at the outward element, and on that fix their hope of salvation. Therefore the sight of the water takes away their thoughts from the blood of Christ and the power of the Spirit. They do not regard Christ as the only author of all the blessings therein offered to us; they transfer the glory of his death to the water, they tie the secret power of the Spirit to the visible sign." (Commentary on 1st Peter 3:21)

8. On the subject of Baptists and scriptural fidelity, I recently visited a nearby "Non-denominational" (read Baptist) church because they had a Saturday night service and it was my only chance to go to church that week. It was a pretty hip place, lots of 20-somethings with cool-looking clothes and the very latest in praise music. But I was thoroughly unimpressed by the preaching, which was topical and during which a very few Bible verses were used (likely misused) in making the preacher's somewhat questionable points. And then I started thinking about how the Lutheran church I sometimes attend when I'm in the Portland area and the Anglican church I like to worship at in Olympia have sermons that are absolutely saturated with Scripture. I can also think of quite a few other Non-denominational churches I've been to where very little Scripture is read during the service. The thing that gets me is that it's often these same people who will accuse Lutherans and Anglicans of being too beholden to "tradition" while they supposedly simply follow the Word of God.

9. Much of the best, most Scripture-saturated and Christ-centered preaching I've ever heard was at Cornerstone Bible Church (Baptistic in theology) in Riverside, California during medical school. It's a complicated world we live in.

The acceptable heresy

A couple of months ago I had a theological sparring session with a fellow young Anglican over the issue of Open Theism. He had written a post on his blog in which he referred to one of Open Theism's chief advocates, Greg Boyd, as "orthodox." I challenged him on this but was somehow not surprised that there was no retreat on his part from his claim that Open Theism can somehow fit into Christian orthodoxy. It also surprises me to see this heresy raising it's ugly head in "evangelical" Anglicanism, a movement that so many have joined out of a deep respect for the tradition and thought of great men and women of God throughout the history of Christ's holy Church. But there is no precedent for the acceptance of Open Theism in Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Reformed or any other major strain of Christian thought throughout the history of the Church. For all of their faults none of those groups claiming to be the "true church" have ever sought to deprecate their concept of God by denying His omniscience. In the quote below, St. Augustine gives a strong refutation of that which has become, in many circles, an acceptable "orthodox" heresy.

For He does not pass from this to that by transition of thought, but beholds all things with absolute unchangeableness; so that of those things which emerge in time, the future, indeed, are not yet, and the present are now, and the past no longer are; but all of these are by Him comprehended in His stable and eternal presence. Neither does He see in one fashion by the eye, in another by the mind, for He is not composed of mind and body; nor does His present knowledge differ from that which it ever was or shall be, for those variations of time, past, present, and future, though they alter our knowledge, do not affect His, "with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Neither is there any growth from thought to thought in the conceptions of Him in whose spiritual vision all things which He knows are at once embraced. For as without any movement that time can measure, He Himself moves all temporal things, so He knows all times with a knowledge that time cannot measure. And therefore He saw that what He had made was good, when He saw that it was good to make it. And when He saw it made, He had not on that account a twofold nor any way increased knowledge of it; as if He had less knowledge before He made what He saw. For certainly He would not be the perfect worker He is, unless His knowledge were so perfect as to receive no addition from His finished works.

- St. Augustine, City of God

For our God is a consuming fire

I picked up a new book yesterday after getting off of work for the weekend. I'm still reading St. Augustine's The City of God but that is going to be a long-term project. The book I picked up yesterday was written by a man for whom I have gained ever-increasing respect over the past few years. The man is R.C. Sproul and the book is The Holiness of God.

Also over the past few years I've become more and more convinced that it is God's holiness which is His attribute most frequently distorted or forgotten in our modern context among Christians from many different churches and denominations. It is this forgetfulness about God's holiness which leads to people rejecting certain stories of the Old Testament which they find unsettling, such as the conquest of Canaan under Joshua or the death of Uzzah as he reached out to steady the Ark of the Covenant. In my opinion, the New Testament presents even greater problems for those who distort or forget God's holiness. This is because when God's holiness is down-played or distorted there is no way to understand the cross while being faithful to Scripture. There is no way that Isaiah 53 can be affirmed as a prophecy concerning the crucifixion of our Lord, much less the words of St. Paul who wrote that Christ saved us from God's wrath in Romans 5:9. Without a proper understanding of God's holiness one can make no sense of the wrath of God which is frequently mentioned in Scripture. It would make no sense that in the saving of sinners that Christ was "crushed for our iniquities," and that upon Him, "was the chastisement that brought us peace (Isaiah 53:5)," much less that, "it was the will of the Lord to crush him (Isaiah 53:10)."

I respect R.C. Sproul for a number of reasons, most importantly for his obvious love of the Lord, but also because he strikes me as a very intelligent man and because he seems to be well-read in Church History. I was very impressed that in the first chapter of The Holiness of God, Sproul interacts a lot with the writings of St. Augustine and even cites Augustine's writings as something which first caused him to be intrigued by the holiness of God. Sproul begins his third chapter with an amazing quote from St. Augustine touching on the holiness of God which I will conclude with:

What is that which gleams through me

and smites my heart without wounding it?

I am both a-shudder and aglow.

A-shudder, in so far as I am unlike it,

aglow in so far as I am like it.

- St. Augustine

Augustine on end-times nonsense

Augustine isn't going camping...

But He said, "It is not for you to know the times, which the Father hath put in His own power." When they got that answer, they had not at all questioned Him about the hour, or day, or year, but about the time. In vain, then, do we attempt to compute definitely the years that may remain to this world, when we may hear from the mouth of the Truth that it is not for us to know this. Yet some have said that four hundred, some five hundred, others a thousand years, may be completed from the ascension of the Lord up to His final coming. But to point out how each of them supports his own opinion would take too long, and is not necessary; for indeed they use human conjectures, and bring forward, nothing certain from the authority of the canonical Scriptures. But on this subject He puts aside the figures of the calculators, and orders silence, who says, "It is not for you to know the times, which the Father hath put in His own power."

-St. Augustine, City of God

Augustine: "No man but Himself has raised Him"

Let us hear, then, how Israel, when dying in Egypt, in blessing his sons, prophetically blessed Judah. He says: "Judah, thy brethren shall praise thee: thy hands shall be on the back of thine enemies; thy father's children shall adore thee. Judah is a lion's whelp: from the sprouting, my son, thou art gone up: lying down, thou hast slept as a lion, and as a lion's whelp; who shall awake him? A prince shall not be lacking out of Judah, and a leader from his thighs, until the things come that are laid up for him; and He shall be the expectation of the nations. Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's foal to the choice vine; he shall wash his robe in wine, and his teeth are whiter than milk." I have expounded these words in disputing against Faustus the Manichaean; and I think it is enough to make the truth of this prophecy shine, to remark that the death of Christ is predicted by the word about his lying down, and not the necessity, but the voluntary character of His death, in the title of lion. That power He Himself proclaims in the gospel, saying, "I have the power of laying down my life, and I have the power of taking it again. No man taketh it from me; but I lay it down of myself, and take it again." So the lion roared, so He fulfilled what He said. For to this power what is added about the resurrection refers, "Who shall awake him?" This means that no man but Himself has raised Him, who also said of His own body, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." And the very nature of His death, that is, the height of the cross, is understood by the single word, "Thou art gone up." The evangelist explains what is added, "Lying down, thou hast slept," when he says, "He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost." Or at least His burial is to be understood, in which He lay down sleeping, and whence no man raised Him, as the prophets did some, and as He Himself did others; but He Himself rose up as if from sleep.

- St. Augustine, City of God

Dust and Ashes: A race towards death

And therefore it is agreed among all Christians who truthfully hold the catholic faith, that we are subject to the death of the body, not by the law of nature, by which God ordained no death for man, but by His righteous infliction on account of sin; for God, taking vengeance on sin, said to the man, in whom we all then were, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

* * *

For no sooner do we begin to live in this dying body, than we begin to move ceaselessly towards death. For in the whole course of this life (if life we must call it) its mutability tends towards death. Certainly there is no one who is not nearer it this year than last year, and tomorrow than today, and today than yesterday, and a short while hence than now, and now than a short while ago. For whatever time we live is deducted from our whole term of life, and that which remains is daily becoming less and less; so that our whole life is nothing but a race towards death, in which no one is allowed to stand still for a little space, or to go somewhat more slowly, but all are driven forwards with an impartial movement, and with equal rapidity. For he whose life is short spends a day no more swiftly than he whose life is longer. But while the equal moments are impartially snatched from both, the one has a nearer and the other a more remote goal to reach with this their equal speed. It is one thing to make a longer journey, and another to walk more slowly. He, therefore, who spends longer time on his way to death does not proceed at a more leisurely pace, but goes over more ground. Further, if every man begins to die, that is, is in death, as soon as death has begun to show itself in him (by taking away life, to wit; for when life is all taken away, the man will be then not in death, but after death), then he begins to die so soon as he begins to live. For what else is going on in all his days, hours, and moments, until this slow-working death is fully consummated? And then comes the time after death, instead of that in which life was being withdrawn, and which we called being in death. Man, then, is never in life from the moment he dwells in this dying rather than living body - if, at least, he cannot be in life and death at once. Or rather, shall we say, he is in both? - in life, namely, which he lives till all is consumed? For if he is not in life, what is it which is consumed till all be gone? And if he is not in death, what is this consumption itself? For when the whole of life has been consumed, the expression "after death" would be meaningless, had that consumption not been death. And if, when it has all been consumed, a man is not in death but after death, when is he in death, unless when life is being consumed away?

- St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei

Random Update #6

1. I spent two weeks learning to read and also reading a multitude of EKGs, which are graphical representations of electric currents in the heart. If you've ever gone to the ER with chest pain, fainting or lightheadedness they should have performed an EKG on you by hooking a few wires up to your chest. It is amazing how much information we can get from this simple, non-invasive technology that's been around since the late 19th Century.

A classic right bundle branch block on EKG.

2. I finished Luther's The Bondage of the Will. It was an excellent book written by a passionate man and it has cemented for me a belief which I already held, that our salvation is all of grace, that is, monergistically given to us by God in Christ.

3. After finishing my EKG course I had two weeks without any class or rotation planned so I worked on a nephrology case report that I'm going to try to publish in a journal along with one of the nephrology fellows at Loma Linda.

4. At the beginning of those two weeks I decided I wanted to try to get through some great work of literature or theology. Three works which initially came to mind were Sailhamer's The Meaning of the Pentateuch, David Bentley Hart's The Beauty of the Infinite and St. Augustine's The City of God.

5. Augustine won out. It turns out that I won out too. The City of God is an amazing and excellent work, surpassing whatever expectations I had for it. I thought this book would be a difficult thing to trudge through, instead I have often been captivated by it, not wanting to put it down. Augustine deals masterfully with many questions of theology that I've had for many years, especially dealing with the rebellion of Satan and then our first parents in the Garden. I can see why the Reformers liked Augustine. Every argument he puts forward is very well argued from Scripture and he writes very logically. In his writing you can sense his great intelligence and also his great devotion to God which he would have ascribed only to God's grace in Christ and not to any good work on his part. I had considered reading The Meaning of the Pentateuch to be enlightened on those first five books of the Bible, but it turns out that in The City of God, Augustine provides a profound overview and commentary of the Old Testament. While I know that The Meaning of the Pentateuch is an excellent and probably enlightening book, I can't imagine it gives much more enlightenment on the Old Testament than does The City of God.

6. During my two weeks of freedom I went and saw some local sights I've wanted to check out for a while. I circumnavigated (in my car) the Salton Sea and I spent a day hiking on Santa Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles. I was very unimpressed by one of these outings while I was amazed by the beauty of the other. I'll make one or two blog posts out of these trips sometime soon.

7. For the past week I've been on an elective called Whole Person Care where we hang out with chaplains, shadow them in their visits with patients and then do our own visits where we attempt to talk about emotional and spiritual issues connected with patient's illnesses and hospitalizations. There is a required paper for the elective so I'm going to research PTSD and interview a VA chaplain about how to help patients with PTSD.

Who Maketh Thee to Differ?

Yesterday I was blessed by a great time of fellowship and Bible study, the topic of which was the sin of pride. This is a sin which vexes me and I was surprised by the "divine appointment" of walking unexpecting into this Bible study. I saw it as a "divine appointment" because I have felt particularly convicted of this sin this week and I had just asked a brother pray for me earlier that day that God would humble me. Asking for humbling from God is not something that I take lightly at all and it is actually a prayer that causes me to fear. A brother once prayed for me that I would be humbled a few years ago, without my asking, and the Lord did humble me, and it was painful - a necessary and painful blessing. But that is not really the topic I want to write about now.

As we were talking about pride yesterday one portion of Scripture which came up was the beginning of 1st Corinthians chapter 4. The context of this passage seems to me primarily to be Paul's concerns about the divisions in the Corinthian church and the prideful sects that had arisen, saying things like "I follow Paul," or "I follow Apollos (3:4)." Paul points out that he and Apollos were nothing but servants who "planted" and "watered," and that "God gave the growth (3:5, 6)." Paul then concludes that, "neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth (3:7)." Paul then seems to diverge briefly in verses 11-20 but then comes back to writing about the sects that had arisen. In verses 21-23 he writes, "So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future - all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's." The thing that caught my eye in these verses was Paul's mention of boasting. I think the idea of boasting is very important for understanding the nature of God's grace and the salvation of sinners. Paul uses a word translated as "boast" or "boasting" at least 37 times in his letters in the ESV. Often he speaks of boasting as it is related to our salvation which is by grace alone in Christ alone. In communicating the kind of salvation which sinners have in Christ, Paul writes that it is a kind of salvation, "so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:9)." We can offer nothing for the procurement of salvation, it is only a free gift from a merciful and just God, therefore we have nothing in ourselves of which to boast. And the salvation which God freely makes available by His grace was purchased with an infinite price, the shed blood of the spotless Lamb of God and King of the Universe, Jesus Christ.

With all of these things in mind, last night during this Bible study I read 1st Corinthians 4:7, "For who makes you to differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?" First of all I must point out that I was reading an NKJV last night as my trusty ESV is currently MIA. So perhaps the reason this verse, which I've read many times, stood out to me so profoundly was that I read it in a version I'm not used to reading. And with further research on this verse today I see that there is a lot of variation in the way it's translated in different versions. The line which stood out particularly to me was, "For who makes you to differ from another?" Had I been reading my ESV I would have read, "For who sees anything different in you?" Without my ESV I've also been using my NLT a lot lately which has, "For what gives you the right to make such a judgment?" The NIV is surprisingly close to the NKJV with "For who makes you different from anyone else."

But it was the NKJV which struck me last night so I'll focus on that translation. Once again 1 Corinthians 4:7, "For who makes you to differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?" When Paul asks that question in the last part of the verse, "why do you boast as if you had not received it?" I think the same thought could be expressed positively as, "why do you boast as if you had whatever you're boasting of as an inherent quality or possession in yourself." It is clear that Paul is saying that whatever the Corinthians have, that it is a gift from God and therefore something they have no right to boast about. The second part of this verse helps to clarify the first part. Paul asks, "for who makes you to differ from another?" Paul obviously asks this question with various blessings a person might possess in mind. I think this question, "who makes you to differ from another?" is applicable to every gift we have from God whether it be some "innate" ability in areas such as academics or sports or more particular spiritual gifts like healing, prophecy or tongues (1 Cor. 12:9-10). But above our "natural" abilities and spiritual gifts is the gift of salvation in Christ itself.

It is this gift of salvation which I first thought of when I read, "who makes you to differ?" I thought of this because about five years ago when I vehemently claimed the label "Arminian" for myself, I asked a friend this very question as I wrestled with what I saw as the inconsistency of Arminianism with salvation by grace alone. I asked my friend, a man whom I respect greatly to this day and who remains an Arminian, a question very similar to the one Paul asked in 1 Corinthians 4:7. We were talking about "prevenient" grace and salvation and I asked him, if I and another man both heard the gospel preached and both received the grace to either decide to follow Christ or to deny him, what was it in me that caused me to follow Christ while the other man rejected Him? I was asking my friend, what made us to differ? To me this question, which I think is inevitable in the Arminian system, is a significant problem. It seems to me that if this question can even be asked it must imply that there was something better in those who in the end choose Christ even if they were brought to that point of decision by God's grace. They must be smarter or holier or luckier but the thought of any of these things being a cause of salvation must be rejected in light of Paul's rejection of boasting in ourselves concerning our salvation. If I chose Christ, if I "differed," because I was smarter or holier or luckier then I have something to boast of in myself and I have my own self to thank for my salvation. But boasting is excluded. And it is obvious what the answer is to Paul's question, "who makes you to differ from another?" The answer is that God by His grace makes you to differ. The answer to Paul's rhetorical question, "what do you have that you did not receive?" is "nothing."

So it was surprising to me to see Paul asking in Scripture the very question I had posed years ago and years prior to my rejection of Arminianism or a least what passes for Arminianism today. My friend didn't have any answer for my question, by the way, and if I remember right he basically said that it was a question that shouldn't be asked. Maybe he is right but at least for the present I have come to different conclusions. Whenever I think I see something in Scripture which I hadn't seen before I always like to check and see if others have seen the same thing. I think this is especially important in a verse like 1st Corinthians 4:7 where there is a lot of variation in the way it is translated. So as usual I went to my favorite Bible commentator, John Calvin, to see what he had to say. What I found did not disappoint. In regards to the words. "to differ," or in Calvin's version, "to distinguish," the reformer wrote:

To distinguish here means to render eminent. Augustine, however, does not ineptly make frequent use of this declaration for maintaining, in opposition to the Pelagians, that whatever there is of excellence in mankind, is not implanted in him by nature, so that it could be ascribed either to nature or to descent; and farther, that it is not acquired by free will, so as to bring God under obligation, but flows from his pure and undeserved mercy. For there can be no doubt that Paul here contrasts the grace of God with the merit or worthiness of men.

Orange

I recently saw an interesting reference to the Council of Orange on a friend's blog and decided to check it out. I pulled down one of my church history books from seminary and found that there were actually two councils which took place at Orange in southern France, the first in 473 and the second in 529. It is the second of these councils which I found so interesting and also encouraging.

The Catholic Encyclopedia says of the second Council of Orange:

It was attended by fourteen bishops with St. Cæsarius of Arles as president, and its deliberations bore on the current errors concerning the doctrine of grace and free will, i.e. Semipelagianism. Cæsarius had informed Felix IV of the pernicious activity of the Semipelagians in Gaul and had applied to him for support. The pope, in response, sent him a series of "Capitula", i.e. propositions or decrees drawn almost in their entirety from the works of St. Augustine and the "Sententiæ" of St. Prosper of Aquitaine.

These “capitula” became the basis of the canons of the Council of Orange. The council published twenty-five canons. Here are some of the ones which I found the most interesting:

1. If anyone denies that it is the whole man, that is, both body and soul, that was "changed for the worse" through the offense of Adam's sin, but believes that the freedom of the soul remains unimpaired and that only the body is subject to corruption, he is deceived by the error of Pelagius and contradicts the scripture which says, "The soul that sins shall die" (Ezek. 18:20); and, "Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey?" (Rom. 6:16); and, "For whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved" (2 Pet. 2:19).

3. If anyone says that the grace of God can be conferred as a result of human prayer, but that it is not grace itself which makes us pray to God, he contradicts the prophet Isaiah, or the Apostle who says the same thing, "I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me" (Rom 10:20, quoting Isa. 65:1).

6. If anyone says that God has mercy upon us when, apart from his grace, we believe, will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock, but does not confess that it is by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit within us that we have the faith, the will, or the strength to do all these things as we ought; or if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, "What have you that you did not receive?" (1 Cor. 4:7), and, "But by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10).

7. If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life, as is expedient for us, or that we can be saved, that is, assent to the preaching of the gospel through our natural powers without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who makes all men gladly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray by a heretical spirit, and does not understand the voice of God who says in the Gospel, "For apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), and the word of the Apostle, "Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God" (2 Cor. 3:5).

21. Concerning nature and grace. As the Apostle most truly says to those who would be justified by the law and have fallen from grace, "If justification were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose" (Gal. 2:21), so it is most truly declared to those who imagine that grace, which faith in Christ advocates and lays hold of, is nature: "If justification were through nature, then Christ died to no purpose." Now there was indeed the law, but it did not justify, and there was indeed nature, but it did not justify. Not in vain did Christ therefore die, so that the law might be fulfilled by him who said, "I have come not to abolish them, but to fulfil them" (Matt. 5:17), and that the nature which had been destroyed by Adam might be restored by him who said that he had come "to seek and to save the lost" (Luke 19:10).

Come Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit, powerful Consoler, sacred Bond of the Father and the Son, Hope of the afflicted, descend into my heart and establish in it your loving dominion. Enkindle in my tepid soul the fire of your Love so that I may be wholly subject to you. We believe that when you dwell in us, you also prepare a dwelling for the Father and the Son. Deign, therefore, to come to me, Consoler of abandoned souls, and Protector of the needy. Help the afflicted, strengthen the weak, and support the wavering. Come and purify me. Let no evil desire take possession of me. You love the humble and resist the proud. Come to me, glory of the living, and hope of the dying. Lead me by your grace that I may always be pleasing to you.

-St. Augustine

He has loved us before the world was created

The work of atonement derives from God's love; therefore it has not established the latter:

For this reason, Paul says that the love with which God embraced us "before the creation of the world" was established and grounded in Christ [Eph. 1:4-5]. These things are plain and in agreement with Scripture, and beautifully harmonize those passages in which it is said that God declared his love toward us in giving his only-begotten Son to die [John 3:16]; and, conversely, that God was our enemy before he was again made favourable to us by Christ's death [Rom. 5:10]. But to render these things more certain among those who require the testimony of the ancient church, I shall quote a passage of Augustine where the very thing is taught: "God's love," says he, "is incomprehensible and unchangeable. For it was not after we were reconciled to him through the blood of his Son that he began to love us. Rather, he has loved us before the world was created, that we also might be his sons along with his only-begotten Son - before we became anything at all. The fact that we were reconciled through Christ's death must not be understood as if his Son reconciled us to him that he might now begin to love those whom he hated. Rather, we have already been reconciled to him who loves us, with whom we were enemies on account of sin. The apostle will testify whether I am speaking the truth: 'God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us' [Rom. 5:8]. Therefore, he loved us even when we practiced enmity toward him and committed wickedness. Thus in a marvelous and divine way he loved us even when he hated us. For he hated us for what we were that he had not made; yet because our wickedness had not entirely consumed his handiwork, he knew how, at the same time, to hate in each one of us what we had made, and to love what he had made."

- John Calvin, Institutes 2.16.4

Ten Lessons From Great Christian Minds

I thought this was a pretty cool post from the blog Between Two Worlds. I've read works from all of these men and Augustine, Calvin, Edwards, a Kempis, Wesley and Dostoyevsky have all done a lot to shape my thinking. The one Christian writer not on the list who has also had a big influence on me is John Bunyan and his work, The Pilgrim's Progress.

From philosophy professor James Spiegel:

1. Augustine (5th century): Remember that you are a citizen of another kingdom.
   
2. Martin Luther (16th century): Expect politicians to be corrupt.
3. Thomas Aquinas (13th century): God has made himself known in nature.
4. John Calvin (16th century): God is sovereign over all, including our suffering.
5. Jonathan Edwards (18th century): God is beautiful, and all beauty is divine.
6. Thomas a’Kempis (15th century): Practice self-denial with a passion.
7. John Wesley (18th century): Be disciplined and make the best use of your time.
   
8. Fyodor Dostoevsky (19th century): God’s grace can reach anyone.
9. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (20th century): Beware of cheap grace.
10. Alvin Plantinga (21st century): Moral virtue is crucial for intellectual health.

H/T: Between Two Worlds

Above All

Jesus Christ is not valued at all until He is valued above all.

--Saint Augustine

H/T: T19

Yea, Lord, we greet Thee

Let us then celebrate the coming of our salvation and redemption. Let us celebrate the festive day on which he who is the great and eternal day came from the great and endless day of eternity into our own short day of time.

He has become our justice, our sanctification, our redemption, so that, as it is written: Let him who glories glory in the Lord.

Truth, then, has arisen from the earth: Christ who said, I am the Truth, was born of the Virgin. And justice looked down from heaven: because believing in this new-born child, man is justified not by himself but by God.

Truth has arisen from the earth: because the Word was made flesh. And justice looked down from heaven: because every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.

Truth has arisen from the earth: flesh from Mary. And justice looked down from heaven: for man can receive nothing unless it has been given from heaven.

Justified by faith, let us be at peace with God: for justice and peace have embraced one another. Through our Lord Jesus Christ: for Truth has arisen from the earth. Through whom we have access to that grace in which we stand, and our boast is in our hope of God's glory. He does not say: "of our glory", but of God's glory: for justice has not come out of us but has looked down from heaven. Therefore he who glories, let him glory, not in himself, but in the Lord.

For this reason, when our Lord was born of the Virgin, the message of the angelic voices was: Glory to God on the highest, and peace to men of good will.

For how could there be peace on earth unless Truth has arisen from the earth, that is, unless Christ were born of our flesh? And he is our peace who made the two into one: that we might be men of good will, sweetly linked by the bond of unity.

Let us then rejoice in this grace, so that our glorying may bear witness to our good conscience by which we glory, not on ourselves, but in the Lord. This why Scripture says: He is my glory, the one who lifts up my head. For what greater grace could God have made to dawn on us than to make his only Son become the son of man, so that a son of man might in his turn become son of God?

Ask if this were merited; ask for its reason, for its justification, and see whether you will find any other answer but sheer grace.

- St. Augustine of Hippo