Herman Bavinck is best known as a Reformed theologian from the early 20th Century. His four volume Reformed Dogmatics has been widely respected and embraced in the English speaking Reformed community. I am currently reading a small book he wrote on the importance of public confession of faith that has been reissued with a new English translation by Hendrickson Publishers.
In an almost Spurgeon-esque way, Bavinck’s writing abounds with Scriptural allusions and references. Here is a gem from this book, focused on the role of the Word of God in the believer’s life.
…it is a true mark of spiritual life when our heart yearns after and longs for that word. It is completely natural, just as one who is hungry longs for bread, the thirsty for water, and the sick for medicine. Just as naturally, the one who is spiritual with a holy longing reaches for the word of God and for Christ, who is offered in that word. Those who are spiritual never grow beyond that word. Unlike the mystic’s dreams, the word is not used as a ladder to ascend to a certain height, and then to spread one’s own wings and support oneself. Anyone who tries to do so will soon fall to earth broken. Anyone who refuses food will soon starve. Anyone who does not heed the word of Christ does not love him [1 John 5:3]. Anyone who rejects medicine has no need of a physician.
But the spiritual person, as long as one lives and with all one’s soul, feels bound to that word as the means of communion and fellowship with God, because God has bound himself to that word. It is only in the proportion one is planted in that word that one grows and becomes stronger. As ivy to a wall, the spiritual person holds fast to the word. As one leans upon a rod or a staff on a pilgrimage, so one leans on the word. One becomes increasingly attached to it, and increasingly devoted to it. The spiritual person’s love for the word becomes stronger, considers it ever increasing in value, and always finds in it a rich treasure for both heart and life. For the one who is spiritual, it becomes increasingly God’s word, a word that comes to that person from God, a letter from one’s Father sent from heaven, to be a guide to the Father’s house. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” [Ps. 119:105]. “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day” [Ps. 119:97].
Therefore parents must feed their covenant child, even from early childhood , with this word….
~ Bavinck, Herman, The Sacrifice of Praise (Hendrickson Publishers, 2019), translated and edited by Cameron Clausing and Gregory Parker Jr., pp. 24-25.
One of my favorite books in the Bible is 1 Peter. Earlier this year I was privileged to fill the pulpit at our church and the text of my sermon was 1 Peter 1:3-12 (you can download that sermon for free here). In studying for that message I came across a gem from John Calvin in his commentary on 1 Peter. I share the quotation here for your benefit.
The design of Peter in this Epistle is to exhort the faithful to a denial of the world and a contempt of it, so that being freed from carnal affections and all earthly hindrances, they might with their whole soul aspire after the celestial kingdom of Christ, that being elevated by hope, supported by patience, and fortified by courage and perseverance, they might overcome all kinds of temptations, and pursue this course and practice throughout life.
Hence at the very beginning he proclaims in express words the grace of God made known to us in Christ; and at the same time he adds, that it is received by faith and possessed by hope, so that the godly might raise up their minds and hearts above the world. Hence he exhorts them to holiness, lest they should render void the price by which they were redeemed, and lest they should suffer the incorruptible seed of the Word, by which they had been regenerated into eternal life, to be destroyed or to die. And as he had said, that they had been born again by God’s Word he makes mention of their spiritual infancy. Moreover, that their faith might not vacillate or stagger, because they saw that Christ was despised and rejected almost by the whole world, he reminds them that this was only the fulfilment of what had been written of him, that he would be the stone of stumbling. But he further teaches them that he would be a firm foundation to those who believe in him. Hence he again refers to the great honour to which God had raised them, that they might be animated by the contemplation of their former state, and by the perception of their present benefits, to devote themselves to a godly life.
~ Calvin’s Commentaries, vol. 22 [Baker], Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles, p. 21-22
Calvin captures the heart of Peter’s theme in 1 Peter. He goes on to walk through the epistle in broad sweeping strokes. Reading this stirs my soul and reminds me that the “classics” really are classic, and Calvin’s genius really should be appreciated (and made use of for my own spiritual growth).
Calvin’s Commentaries are available for purchase at Amazon, or you can access them online for free here.
I am currently reading through a soon-to-be-released devotional on the topic of assurance. The book is Assurance: Resting in God’s Salvation by William P. Smith and it will release on May 1 (from P & R Publishing).
The book contains 31 days of devotional readings. One of those readings hits home with a helpful reflection on uncut altar stones and how they teach us about assurance. I wanted to share that quote here and encourage you to pre-order a copy of this book.
Many times people wonder if they were sincere enough when they accepted Christ or when they repented over a stubborn sin. To this, Smith responds with the following:
Even before God established the tabernacle or the temple, he told his people that they could make an earthen or stone altar on which to offer their sacrifices (see Ex. 20:24-26). But he gave them explicit instructions not to shape or cut the stones (see v. 25). They had to use them as they found them. This didn’t simply distinguish the appearance of their altars from those of their surrounding neighbors. It clarified the role that his people played in atoning for their sin: none at all. They didn’t create or give life to the creatures that they sacrificed, nor did they create the materials that were used to sacrifice them. They couldn’t even set their own stamp on those materials.
The altar pictured the mind-set that the people needed to approach God. It was a mind-set that said, “I have no part in fixing the problem I have created between God and me. All that I bring to this altar is my sin. The only reason I don’t die for my sin, as God’s presence comes near, is that he has offered to accept a substitute for me. If he’s satisfied with the sacrifice, then I live. If he isn’t, then there’s nothing I can do to satisfy him.
It was never a matter of doing enough, because there was never anything you could do. By asking, “Did I do enough? Well enough?” you’re really asking, “Is God satisfied with what I’ve done?” The question that you need to ask instead is “Is God satisfied with what Christ has done?”
From time to time, I’ll be mining the archives around here. I’m digging up my blog’s best posts from the past. I hope these reruns will still serve my readers.
This post is long but especially appropriate for today (Good Friday). I have taken the liberty of slightly editing the original post.
Today is Good Friday. We celebrate the death of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ today. When we think back to all that happened on Good Friday, we of course focus on Jesus’ becoming the “propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:2).
But I want you to also think about all the signs and wonders which were on display that day. The sky turned dark, there was an earthquake and many who were dead came back to life. The veil of the Temple ripped from the top down. And on top of all of this, the weeks leading up to Jesus’ death were filled with all the talk of his many miracles including the raising of Lazarus from the dead.
Peter’s Sermon at Pentectost
Keep these signs and wonders in view as you look at Acts 2 with me, as Peter tries to explain another miraculous event – the mighty, rushing wind, tongues of fire, and the miraculous speech that enabled the 120 who were gathered in the upper room to tell the Good News to people of a multitude of languages, who all heard the Gospel in their native tongue.
For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:
“And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” [quoted from Joel 2:28-32]
Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it….
This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. (Acts 2:15-24, 32-33)
Put in this light, you can see what Peter is doing. He’s comparing both the signs and wonders that were seen on Pentecost with the larger story of all that was seen surrounding Jesus – and all of this is the fulfillment of Joel’s prophesy, which Peter quotes. We have the men and women speaking in tongues (the first part of Joel’s prophecy), and we have a darkened sky and other wonders (the second part). Peter is making a point that the “last days” have now come. He adds the words “last days” to Joel’s prophecy for this very reason (Joel has “and afterward”). The “signs of the times” as it were, were already being seen – and Peter felt like he was living with the “day of the Lord” in the near future.
Some object to this view of Peter’s sermon in Acts 2. They claim that Peter was just making an anlogy with Joel 2 to the current situation. Others claim that just the first part was being fulfilled, not the heavenly signs – which would obviously be in the future tribulation period. I won’t delve into all the arguments, but suffice it to say that the view that the New Testament authors understood the “last days” to have begun is quite strong and is attested to throughout the New Testament (see 1 Cor. 10:11, Heb. 1:2, 1 Pet. 1:20, 1 John 2:18).
Going back to Acts 2 now, let me quote from a book I’ve been reading: 40 Questions About the End Times by Eckhard Schnabel (Kregel, 2012):
The connections of the “wonders” and “signs” of Joel’s prophecy with Jesus’ ministry and death provide the basis for Peter’s subsequent arguments concerning the status and the significance of Jesus. The reference to the “last days” establishes how Peter reads the prophets: God has begun to fulfill his promises; the last days have arrived with Jesus’ ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension, and his bestowal of the Spirit. (pg. 21-22)
I agree with Schnabel’s conclusion, but I was especially intrigued with another point he made, almost in passing, in this chapter.
The Moon Turned to Blood
The suggestion that Acts 2:19 refers to a lunar eclipse during which the moon assumes a dull, red color, which was visible in Jerusalem at Passover in A.D. 33, is intriguing; however, it requires a later date for Jesus’ crucifixion, which is more plausibly dated in the year A.D. 30. (pg. 20)
Ever since I read Harold Hoehner’s Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ (Zondervan, 1978), I have held to a Friday crucifixion and to April 3, A.D. 33 as the most likely date for Jesus’ death. This view, that A.D. 33 to be the most likely year of Christ’s death and resurrection, is commonly held by a wide number of evangelical scholars. So I was not put off by Schnabel’s preference for A.D. 30. Instead I was very much intrigued by his reference to the moon turning to blood being explained by a lunar eclipse.
I must be honest in admitting that while I have understood Peter to be saying Joel 2 is fulfilled, I was thinking the literal fulfillment focused on the Pentecost event not on the darkening of the sun at Christ’s death. Or at least I hadn’t thought very much about this. So I was eager to read the paper that Schnabel cited which dealt with this lunar eclipse. I was happy to find that the paper is freely available online. It is titled, “The Jewish Calendar, a Lunar Eclipse and the Date of Christ’s Crucifixion” by Colin J. Humphreys and W. Graeme Waddington (Tyndale Bulletin 43, 1992).
I encourage you to read the entire paper (available here), but for my purposes I will excerpt the chief evidence presented for understanding a lunar eclipse to be in view with the prophecy that the moon would turn to blood.
Evidence from Early Christian Writings
In addition to quoting from the apocryphal “Report of Pilate”, the authors of the paper cite Cyril of Alexandria (A.D. 412) as evidence:
The so-called ‘Report of Pilate’, a New Testament apocryphal fragment states, ‘Jesus was delivered to him by Herod, Archelaus, Philip, Annas, Caiphas, and all the people. At his Crucifixion the sun was darkened; the stars appeared and in all the world people lighted lamps from the sixth hour till evening; the moon appeared like blood’. [No matter the authenticity of this later document,] there must have been a tradition that at the Crucifixion the moon appeared like blood….
Further evidence is provided by Cyril of Alexandria, the orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria in AD 412. After stating that there was darkness at the Crucifixion he adds, ‘Something unusual occurred about the circular rotation of the moon so that it even seemed to be turned into blood’, and notes that the prophet Joel foretold such signs. (pg. 342)
The Technical Nature of the Phrase “Moon Turned to Blood”:
The moon turning to blood is a graphic description of a lunar eclipse. The reason an eclipsed moon appears blood-red is well known and the effect has been well documented. Even though during an eclipse the moon is geometrically in the earth’s shadow, some sunlight still reaches it by the refraction of light passing through the earth’s atmosphere. The light reaching the moon is red since scattering by air molecules and very small particles along its long path through the atmosphere preferentially removes the blue end of the spectrum. The phrase ‘moon turned to blood’ has been used by writers and historians to describe lunar eclipses for many centuries, and the expression dates back to at least 300 BC….
In the medieval European annals compiled by G.H. Pertz there are so many lunar eclipses described by ‘the moon turned to blood’ that the phrase appears to be used as a standard description. (pg. 343-344)
For additional corroboration, see the picture at the top of this post (taken from this article about a lunar eclipse in Brooklyn from 12/21/10). In that article, the moon is described as going “dark red” — very similar to the “blood red” description of the medieval era.
Conclusion
On this point, the authors put forth the following conclusion:
There is therefore strong evidence that when Peter, the ‘Report of Pilate’, and Cyril of Alexandria refer to the moon turning to blood on the evening of the Crucifixion, they were describing a lunar eclipse. It is surprising that this deduction does not appear to have been made before, although F.F. Bruce almost reaches this conclusion. He states, with reference to Peter’s Pentecost speech, ‘It was little more than seven weeks since the people in Jerusalem had indeed seen the sun turned into darkness, during the early afternoon of the day of our Lord’s Crucifixion. And on the same afternoon the paschal full moon may well have appeared blood-red in the sky in consequence of that preternatural gloom’. Presumably Bruce and other commentators have not been aware that a blood-red moon is a well-documented description of a lunar eclipse. (pg. 344)
The paper goes on to document how there was only one lunar eclipse that would have been visible from Jerusalem during the Passover in any of the years that are possible dates for his death. That eclipse is dated to Friday, April 3, A.D. 33 – the most likely date of the crucifixion.
This study has forced me to see the Crucifixion anew — to realize what a world-shattering event it really was! The death of Christ and His resurrection marked the end of the old age and the beginning of a new one. And miraculous signs in the heavens and on earth all attest to the prophetic undertones of what is happening. This also should serve to wake us up to the importance of the Cross of Christ and the Empty Tomb. The Gospel of Christ really is world-shattering. The realities we are sharing through the indwelling Spirit and our present realization of the blessings of the Gospel are all a brand new experience which is a foretaste of even greater things to come!
We are living in the last days and Jesus’ return draws near. May we live soberly and righteously in light of all that Christ has done for us. And may we not forget that the power of His resurrection has been given to us — we can live lives that testify to the glory of the age to come.
UPDATE: You can read my review of 40 Questions About the End Timeshere.
“In the Box” posts highlight new books I’ve received in the mail.
In this post, I want to showcase two of the new titles that at arrived at my doorstep in the last few weeks. I’m truly blessed to be able to read so many great books, and Christian publishers seem to never let up in their race to get high quality materials out the door. We are truly blessed with an abundance of Christian resources to help us in our walk with Christ.
The Love of Loves in the Song of Songs by Philip Ryken
This book is a meditation on Song of Solomon, and helpfully includes the entire biblical text (ESV) of that book. Ryken’s style is easy to read and he shares a wealth of insight from others on this fascinating (and often troubling) book. I appreciate that from the start he does not shy away from appreciating the parallels between Christ and the Church that have historically dominated the interpretation of this book, even as he rejects outright allegoricalism. He also does not eagerly proclaim the book as a manifesto on sexual liberation either, finding its instruction on marital love appropriately muted by the poetic nature of the book, and not as graphic or explicit as quite a few modern writers envision.
Parenting with Loving Correction: Practical Help for Raising Young Children by Sam Crabtree
The next Crossway title I received is by Pastor Sam Crabtree of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis (where I was a member for several years). Knowing Pastor Crabtree personally, I am eager to dig into this work. Like the title of his other book Practicing Affirmation, Pastor Sam is warm and encouraging, and I expect his parental advice to be refreshing and uplifting – while also insightful.
Herman Bavinck is best known as a Reformed theologian from the early 20th Century. His four volume Reformed Dogmatics has been widely respected and embraced in the English speaking Reformed community. I am currently reading a small book he wrote on the importance of public confession of faith that has been reissued with a new English translation by Hendrickson Publishers.
Today is Good Friday. We celebrate the death of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ today. When we think back to all that happened on Good Friday, we of course focus on Jesus’ becoming the “propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:2).
