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Concerned and Established

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Concerned and Established

8 minuten leestijd Arcering uitzetten

In the Dutch weekly De Saambinder, the periodical of our sister denomination in the Netherlands, Rev. G. H. Kersten answered a question about being concerned and about being established. The original answer was published on August 25, 1938; later it was placed in De Saambinder again on February 23, 1978. It is profitable and instructive in our days as well.

The person who asked this question is of the opinion that quite a bit of disagreement exists about these matters. That is possible, but I do not see why disagreement needs to exist. The matter in question here is simple and can be understood by a child. I fear, however, that some like to think more of themselves than they are in reality, and for this reason they cannot stand the simple truth. God grant us to bow under His Word; at that place it is not difficult for anybody.

To the point:

A. God the Father has elected His people in Christ before the foundation of the world. In the covenant of grace from eternity, in which Christ represented the elect as their Covenant-Head, these elect were given unto Him on the basis of His becoming Surety. By virtue of this covenant, all the elect are irrevocably partakers of salvation in God’s immutable counsel.

B. In the fulness of time the Lord Jesus has put Himself in the place of His elect, borne the wrath of God for them, paid their debt, bruised Satan’s head, and placed them with Him in heaven. In Him they all have obtained full glory.

C. Now in the time of God’s good pleasure, the elect, who are in themselves sinners wholly worthy of condemnation, are cut off by God the Holy Spirit from their covenant-head Adam, in whom they are subject to death, and incorporated into their Covenant-Head Christ, in whom they all actually become partakers of salvation. God’s people know a change of state. They are translated from the state of death into the state of reconciliation, from death into life, from Adam into Christ. No partial, but the only, complete Savior is imputed unto them, with all His benefits, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. They cannot perish. They are the sheep whom Christ brings in.

D. In all these matters the elect are one, without distinction. Now the Lord wants to cause His people to appropriate this salvation, granted unto them of God, by the exercises of faith which He wrought in the soul in the quickening. And here God’s children are at Christ’s school of learning, so that they come “unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children...but...may grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ” (Ephesians 4:13-15). In that exercise of faith, which is indispensable unto spiritual increase, God’s people are continually and entirely dependent on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Of themselves they cannot believe.

Moreover, in those exercises of faith there is a great distinction. There are concerned souls, who are continually taken captive by unbelief. God has discovered unto them their guilt, by which they judge themselves as deserving eternal death; they fell before God uprightly and wholeheartedly, and they had to consider Him righteous even if He would condemn them forever. Sin has become death unto them; the Lord knows it! They have an upright choice to live and to die with the people of God, even if they would have to beg their bread. In one word, they bear the marks of a quickened person in a hungering and thirsting after God and His blessed communion.

However, the assaults have such a force that they oftentimes fear that their heart is not upright before God. God’s justice demands a complete satisfaction, and they have no quarter-penny to pay. Eternal death awaits them. They are in many concerns, and sigh and cry to God day and night. As well, many are concerned whether they really are partakers of Christ. He has become precious unto their soul, because He revealed Himself in them; but seeing is not possessing. And, after all, missing Him is missing everything. They see themselves for their own account and that on the way to an all-decisive eternity. When God’s justice in its inflexible demand weighs upon their soul, all grounds underneath their feet fall away. Oh, their souls are straitened. They cry out, “I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me!” (Jeremiah 4:19). Are those people not concerned? They are missing the strength and the liberty of the exercise of faith to appropriate that which they have in Christ. Even if the entire world pronounces them blessed, it cannot profit them. God must pronounce them blessed. And the Lord does this. He does so in His Word and (He does this) to all His people.

However, we have no hold on the statements in the Word other than by the operation of the Holy Spirit in our heart. Many contemplate the promises with a historical knowledge and comfort themselves with it. “Jesus has died for sinners,” they say; “I believe that, and thus I will be saved.” However, they deceive themselves. Christ must be given unto us by the Holy Spirit and faith can only appropriate that which has been first granted unto the soul. This holds true for every exercise of faith. And thus it is not possible for the concerned soul to accept that he is reconciled with God and has received the adoption to sons. The daughters of Jerusalem were converted people; however, they had but a very small knowledge of Christ and missed the actual property right of which the bride spoke, My Beloved is mine. At Peniel Jacob was justified of sin and sanctified in the loss of his strength in Christ. Prior to that he spoke of the God of his father Abraham and Isaac, but afterwards he built an altar at Shechem and called it El-elohe-Israel: the God of Israel is God. The God of his fathers had also become his God. Well, the Lord assures His people of their interest in Christ and His righteousness, as the basis on which they are acquitted from guilt and punishment and receive a right to life eternal.

The Holy Spirit assures them, after they have believed, that they are children of God, so that they cry, “Abba, Father.” He assures them also of their election because they are graven in the palms of God’s hands. He assures them also of their eternal bliss, which is kept in heaven for them. This assurance is so certain and has such a soul-persuading power that even in the darkest times it does not disappear altogether. Job even exclaimed in the gates of death, under the hiding of God, the assaults of Satan, and the suspicion of his friends, “For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth” (Job 19:25).

Behold, that is the portion of the established people. A concerned soul misses the joy of faith and the assurance of his salvation, which assurance is granted unto him who is set at liberty by God. There are, therefore, steps in faith, which Paul has in view when he speaks in Philippians 3 of perfect ones. While many of God’s children walk their way in concern, the Lord assures others of their salvation in Christ.

It is necessary to consider this. In the first place it is profitable for God’s people to be convinced of the lack of assurance, so that they grow up in the knowledge of Christ and with a holy yearning press toward the union with Him in whom salvation alone lies. Would that, especially in our days, the people be more believingly active regarding Christ and rest less in the received benefits. Most of the time this missing is an illness which we can bear, and many times this takes away the strong desiring and blessed hungering and thirsting after Christ, and causes us to rest outside of the eternal rest which remains for the people of God. Let us, indeed, point to Christ and not rest in the experiences of our mind, as many do, who gladly count themselves among the concerned ones and the little ones, but of whom it must be feared that they never became rightly concerned about their sins.

On the other hand, the Lord does not exclude His oppressed and concerned people. Oh, that we do not deal with the poor people of God out of pride. They who set limits and fences around the work of the Holy Spirit may indeed consider that they grieve the Spirit, harm God’s people, and are entirely contrary to the testimony of the apostle, who does surely count the children, who are placed under tutors and governors, among the heirs. It is our high duty not to exclude them and yet also not to give them rest, except in Christ only. They are partakers of salvation; Christ and His benefits have been imputed unto them by God. May the Lord privilege His people also to appropriate by faith the spiritual blessings which He granted unto them. Do run then in the race to win Christ.

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Bekijk de hele uitgave van woensdag 1 februari 1995

The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's

Concerned and Established

Bekijk de hele uitgave van woensdag 1 februari 1995

The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's