A Site for the Teaching Ministry of Nick Batzig
Many tend to think of sanctification as something entirely progressive, and, therefore, miss out on understanding one of the richest and most spiritually impacting gospel truths. In order for us to understand why both definitive and positional sanctification are two aspects of the doctrine of sanctification most frequently overlooked, it will help us to consider what they are, why they have frequently been overlooked, and how it ought to impact our Christian lives. ...
In his book The Bruised Reed, Richard Sibbes famously wrote, "We have this for a foundation truth, that there is more mercy in Christ than sin in us." Here is one of those oft repeated statements of Gospel assurance with which believers love to comfort one another. ...
Almost no word so well captures the heart of the message of Scripture as does the word salvation. It appears more than 170 times in our English translations of the Old and New Testament. The related word, saved, appears approximately one hundred times throughout the pages of Scripture. But what is salvation? What does it mean for someone to be saved? The Scriptures provide us with several distinct answers to this question. The Bible reveals that God saves believers from their sin, the power of Satan, death, and the judgment to come. Taken together, these four aspects of the work of redemption help us understand the full-orbed biblical teaching about the salvation that God provides through the person and work of Christ. In his birth announcement concerning the coming Christ, the angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary that the Redeemer would be called “Jesus” because He would “save his people from their sin” (Matt. 1:21). Since sin is man’s great problem, we needed One who would save us from its guilt and power. Jesus is such a Savior. Since He is God (John 1:1–4; Rom. 9:5), He can conquer our greatest enemies: sin, death, and Satan. Since He is man (John 1:14; Rom. 1:1–4), He can represent all those for whom He died. On the cross, Jesus became the atoning sacrifice for the sin of His people. All the sins of the elect were imputed to Christ on the cross (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus died to deliver men and women from the guilt of their sin. Additionally, Christ died to break the power of sin in the lives of His people (Rom. 6:1–11). Because of the death of Christ, God has forgiven His people all their trespasses (Col. 2:13; Eph. 1:7). God’s Word also reveals that Jesus died to save His people from the evil one. Since Satan was the one who led our first parents in rebellion against God, he needed to be conquered by the Redeemer. There is a close connection to our sinful bondage and the power of the evil one. The Apostle John explained that Christ came to destroy the works of Satan. He wrote: “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). In order to deal with the sin of His people, the Son of God had to simultaneously “disarm principalities and powers.” This means that believers have been saved from the power of Satan as well as from the ultimate efficacy of his accusations. Once Christ has redeemed someone from the dominion of Satan, He sets them free from his recurrent accusations (Rom. 8:1, 33). Scripture speaks of the salvation of believers in three tenses. Christians have been saved, they are being saved, and they will be saved. Scripture teaches that the “wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Far from being something natural and normal, death is the result of Adam’s trespass in the garden. God warned Adam that in the day that he would eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil “in dying he would die” (Gen. 2:17). The Hebrew denotes the concurrent and sequential aspects of death. When he sinned, Adam brought the just consequence of spiritual, physical, and eternal death on himself and all his posterity. Because death is the terrible consequence of sin, Scripture calls it “the last enemy to be destroyed” (1 Cor. 15:26). By His death and resurrection, Christ defeated death. The Lord foretold this aspect of salvation when He said: I shall ransom them from the power of Sheol; I shall redeem them from Death. O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting?” (Hos. 13:14) The writer of Hebrews tells us that Christ “tasted death” for all those for whom He died (Heb. 2:9). Believers have already been saved from the second (i.e., eternal) death (Rev. 20:14) in the here and now (John 5:24), and they also await the full revelation of their salvation from death. The believer’s ultimate hope is the resurrection of their bodies unto eternal life on the last day (Rom. 6:5; 8:11; Phil. 3:10–11, 20–21). Believers are not only saved from sin, the evil one, and death; they are also saved from the wrath of God and the judgment to come. Theologians have sometimes explained this aspect of salvation in the following way: “We are saved by God, from God, and for God.” This is typified in the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt. With the last plague, God gave His people a gospel type in the Passover lamb (Ex. 12; 1 Cor. 5:7). The covenant people were to put the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of their homes so that they would not fall under the wrath of God. They, no less than the Egyptians, deserved the wrath and judgment of God. God provided a substitutionary lamb that would serve as a type of Jesus—the Passover lamb who delivers believers from the wrath to come (1 Thess. 1:10). Jesus became the object of God’s wrath in the place of His sinful people. In His death, Christ propitiates the wrath of God so that it does not fall on those He came to save. Finally, Scripture speaks of the salvation of believers in three tenses. Christians have been saved, they are being saved, and they will be saved. In redemption accomplished, Christ truly and really saved His people when He died and rose again. In the application of redemption, believers are being saved as Christ intercedes for them, sustaining them through their pilgrimage and enabling them to persevere in the faith. At the consummation, believers will experience the full application of the salvation wrought by Christ in the resurrection....
We need to be men who are continually digging into the Scripture, solid theological works, and the annals of church history. As we do, the Apostle says that our "progress will be evident to all." We need men who are humble, hungry, and teachable. We should also recognize that this is not merely something we should do in preparation for a preaching ministry–it is something that we will need to do this throughout the entirety of our ministries....
The Westminster Confession of Faith was a cooperative document–the product of men with a variety of theological beliefs coming together to articulate a unified statement of the Christian faith. This makes the Westminster Confession of Faith one of the most theologically mature and uniquely important documents in church history....
The coming of the Son of God into this fallen world for the salvation of His people occurred in the most counterintuitive way possible. If Jesus came after the expectations and desires of sinful men and women, He would have come in a display of pomp and power that leant itself to human wisdom and pride. Instead, He came in weakness, poverty, obscurity, and ignominy. When, by faith, we receive Him as the eternal Son of God, though veiled in the weakness of flesh and set in the context of these counterintuitive circumstances, we have our eyes opened to see the wisdom of God at work....
When we think of the priestly ministry of Christ–from His incarnation to His substitutionary atoning death on the cross–we should do so with an eye to what the Scriptures teach about the priestly act of the Father 'giving up' the Son for the salvation of His people. The Son is the priest who offers Himself without spot to God, and the Father is the priest in giving His eternally beloved Son as a sacrifice for the sin of His people. Jesus has been 'given for us' by the Father (Isaiah 9:6) so that we might be reconciled to God....
Those who have been swept up with various forms of theonomy (or Christian Nationalism) should reflect deeply on the redemptive-historical role of the Old Covenant civil law as well as on how the Apostles spiritually applied it to the New Covenant church. To move beyond these things is to impose an artificial, underdeveloped, and over realized worldview on the Scriptures rather than to allow Scripture to determine our understanding of the precise relationship between the Old Covenant theocracy and the New Covenant church. ...
We must ever remember that this is not our home. Our ultimate hope can never be in a Christianized America. Our ultimate hope lies in the fact that we confess that "here we have no lasting city" (Heb. 13:14) but are "looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God" (Heb. 11:10). ...
The following is the most recent update on our Reformed Presbyterian missionaries in Haiti, with specific ways to pray for them: Short-Term Team The short-term mission team made it out of Haiti and are safely home in Savannha, GA. They took a C-130 out of P-a-P to Homestead Airforce Base, and then a private jet to Savannah. They are tired and emotionally drained, but th...
Keep ReadingOver at the Reformed Forum, Jeff, Camden and Jim discuss the subject of whether pastoral ministry consists more of learning or doing. It is always nice when I am not on the show and can sit back and learn from my colleagues on Christ the Center. You can listen here....
Keep ReadingPresbyterian Mission in Haiti (PMI) is asking that financial support for the relief of our churches in Haiti be sent to Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church. If you find yourself wanting to help in some way but do not want to simply send money to an organization you know nothing about, know that PHM and the pastors there need help now more than ever. In the wake of this massi...
Keep ReadingIn his sermon "The Believing Thief," C.H. Spurgeon pointed out the remarkable way that the dying thief, who rebuked the other thief on the cross and asked Jesus to remember him, used the one thing he could to glorify Christ. The man had no use of his hands or feet. He could not response with anything but his tongue. Spurgeon explained, "He had no member that was free excep...
Keep ReadingThe account of Jesus and Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10) is a wonderful revelation of the sovereign grace of Christ in the salvation of sinners. In the context Jesus has told his disciples how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. He demonstrates the impossibility (i.e. human impossibility) by the account of the rich, young ruler. He then turns around, almost imm...
Keep ReadingLast May, Kevin DeYoung (Senior Minister of University Reformed Church in East Lansing, MI) and Lynn McClurg (Vice President of Covenant Eyes) gave a series of lectures on Sexual Sanity at Harvest Orthodox Presbyterian Church. You can listen to them below: Sexual Sanity (session 1) - Kevin DeYoung Sexual Sanity (session 2) - Lynn McClurg Sexual Sanity (session 3) - Kevi...
Keep ReadingJohn Piper recently engaged some of the prisoners at Angola Prison in LAÂ in a Question and Answer time. You can listen to the audio here. You can watch the video here....
Keep ReadingRichard J. Clifford points out some of the similarities between the OT experience of Israel in the Exodus and Wilderness, with the experience of believers in Christ in the NT. He writes: In the Gospels the Exodus appears in the voice of John the Baptist crying in the wilderness and the theme of the Way of the Lord. Matthew and Luke interpret the temptations of Jesus in th...
Keep ReadingDr. David Murray, Professor of Old Testament and Practical Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, has a blog called Head, Heart, Hand. Dr. Murray is a godly and thoughtful man, who has some edifying and interesting thoughts. You can watch several videos of Dr. Murray speaking on various subjects here....
Keep ReadingFaith Comes By Hearing has compiled their Audio Roundup: Top Audio of 2009 list. A few Christ the Center episodes made the list. We are thankful for all those who have faithfully listened to our shows....
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