Coram Deo (June 2017)

God is not going to negotiate His holiness in order to accommodate us. —R.C. Sproul

Coram Deo: John Calvin, commenting on Romans 3:20, writes, “[The law] is indeed by itself, as it teaches us what righteousness is, the way to salvation: but our depravity and corruption prevent it from being in this respect of any advantage to us.” It is futile for us to try to claim righteousness before God based on our obedience. If we do that, we must have perfection, and since we do not have perfection, trying to use the law to justify ourselves brings only condemnation.

If we want to love God more, we have to know Him more deeply. And the more we search the Scriptures, and the more we focus our minds’ attention on who God is and what He does, the more we understand just a tiny little bit more about Him and the more our souls break out in flame. We have a greater ardor to honor Him. The more we understand God with our minds, the more we love Him with our minds. —R.C. Sproul in June's Tabletalk Magazine

Coram Deo: With Augustine before them, the Protestant Reformers insisted that we are not born neutral but rather are born guilty and corrupted. This is what the Apostles taught, and it is what we must remember lest we give unbelievers hope that they can be good enough to merit salvation. All people need the renewal of the Holy Spirit if they are to look to Christ for salvation and do what is pleasing to Him.

Though sin often brings immediate pleasure, it gives no lasting joy. —R.C. Sproul

Coram Deo: The good news of the gospel is that Christ obeyed for us. He took upon Himself the yoke of the law, fulfilling it perfectly on our behalf. There is no righteousness of any creature that can be added to the righteousness of Christ, for it is perfect. Let us rejoice in His righteousness and tell others that they can stand before God unafraid if they are clothed with Christ’s righteousness by faith alone.

It’s tempting in some churches to think the pastors should be the ones doing all the ministry in the church. This is neither wise nor biblical. Pastors and teachers are to equip the saints for the work of ministry and to encourage the body of Christ to use their gifts so that the body grows and builds itself up in love. —Kevin Struyk in June's Tabletalk Magazine

Coram Deo: God uses Word and sacrament, according to His good pleasure, to create and sustain faith in His elect. We will benefit from God’s promises only by faith, so merely hearing God’s Word preached and receiving baptism and the Lord’s Supper guarantee nothing. But these things necessarily reveal the promises of God, and our faith cannot be sustained without them.

The Christian life is not lived in a moment, and it seldom progresses by major triumphs. Rather, most often, in Christ, we grow by degrees. Like the kindergartner who shows up for the first day of class and decries his classmates’ inability to answer calculus questions, so the Christian who despairs of seeing little progress in the moment proves rash. Few moments rise to the monumental. Rather, our growth in Christ happens by degrees and small alterations. This should encourage the Christian to read his Bible and pray daily, walk humbly, and keep persevering, even when it feels as though little occurs. —Jason Helopoulos in June's Tabletalk Magazine

Coram Deo: It is easy to look at the wickedness in the world and believe that since we are comparatively more righteous, God approves of us based on our works. In reality, however, none of us has met the perfect standard, so trying to stand on our own works is foolish. We must rest in Christ alone, continually rejecting any claim to a righteousness of our own that will avail before our Creator.

While most evangelicals were watching Gunsmoke and taking their kids to the newly opened Walt Disney World, Schaeffer was listening and watching as a new worldview was taking hold of the larger culture. He was right when he looked to developments such as Roe v. Wade and knew that something seismic had shifted in the culture, and that bigger shocks were yet to come. —Albert Mohler in June's Tabletalk Magazine

Coram Deo: On an earthly level, we consider it unjust for a person to be tried for the same crime twice. So it is in our justification by God. It would be unjust for Him to declare us righteous and then go back and pronounce us unrighteous. Once God declares us righteous in His sight, we enjoy that verdict forever. We no longer have to fear the judicial sentence of condemnation if we are in Christ.

The crucial prerequisite for salvation is a work of the Holy Spirit in us. —R.C. Sproul

Coram Deo: Nothing can change the fact that we have sinned. But what can change is our status before God’s judgment seat. In justification, our sin and guilt are removed and we are covered by Christ’s obedience, enabling God to declare us righteous in His sight. If we are in Christ, our sins will never be held against us on the day of judgment. In Christ, we are truly free of condemnation. That is a cause for great rejoicing.

Coram Deo: Justification is by faith alone. We must be clear on that word alone, for without it we do not have the gospel. If we try to add one work of ours to Christ, then we are accountable to do all the law and to do it perfectly for our justification (Gal. 5:3). And of course, we cannot do this. We must stand firm on the doctrine of justification by faith alone and never compromise it lest we be cut off from Christ and His perfect righteousness.

The Beatitudes do not teach us what we must do to earn the kingdom; the Beatitudes speak of the blessings of those who have been redeemed. Thus, the Beatitudes refer first of all to what we already are in Christ. To be sure, they also speak of those spiritual characteristics into which we ought to strive, by God’s grace, to grow more and more. —Brandon Crowe in June's Tabletalk Magazine

It’s easy to waste our words with gossip, grumbling, complaining, and unkindness. By the Spirit’s work we are invited to offer healing as we encourage, exhort, rebuke, teach, sing, and pray for one another. May our words be thoughtful and wise, full of kindness and compassion, and may they glorify our God, who by His word spoke all of creation into existence. —Melissa Kruger in June's Tabletalk Magazine

Coram Deo: By placing ourselves in Christ’s hands for salvation, we are not denying that saving faith is essentially something that one receives. That is because when we trust in Christ, we are not saying, “Here we are, and you are lucky to have us. Look what we can do.” Rather, we are saying, “Lord, we have nothing and are owed nothing; please take us and use us as you will.” In giving ourselves to Christ, we are still asking for Him to give us everything, for we have nothing.

Coram Deo: Our good works do not justify us, but if we do not have them, we do not have the faith through which we lay hold of the justifying righteousness of Christ. John Calvin comments that the doctrine of justification by faith alone does not make good works superfluous, but it only takes “away from them the power of conferring righteousness, because they cannot stand before the tribunal of God.”

The church cannot be a family without close ties, and if young adults are not truly invited into the family and are not living as integral members of the family—enmeshed in all the glorious and messy things that accompany any family life—then their weak ties to the church body can be easily broken when new temptations and challenges appear on the horizon. This is a potential threat to students regardless of what college they attend. —Derek Halvorson in June's Tabletalk Magazine

Coram Deo: All true Christians have a desire to obey God, but how do we separate that from our trusting in our own works? We know that we are trusting in our righteousness when we begin to think that our standing before God is based on our obedience. When we find ourselves thinking this way, we must return to the gospel and remember that we stand before God unafraid only when we are covered by the obedience of Christ.

We are secure, not because we hold tightly to Jesus, but because He holds tightly to us. —R.C. Sproul

Coram Deo: Even our progressive sanctification—our life of growing in holiness that is the necessary fruit of justification—depends on faith. By faith, we grow in Christ, trusting in the promises of God so completely that we actually end up following His commandments. When we feed our faith with the truths of God’s Word, we are equipping ourselves to grow in holiness.

We have all experienced the painful persistence of unresolved conflict. Like a fox in the field, it eats away at the harvest of our joy. Christians who are supposed to enjoy a closeness sealed by love are tripped up by the common tactics of this fallen world. As a result, we distance ourselves from each other physically only after we do so emotionally. Reconciliation is needed. —Erik Raymond in June's Tabletalk Magazine

Coram Deo: God has two “choices”: He can keep His promise or He can die. But since God, in fact, cannot die because of His very nature, there is only one real option left to Him when He makes a covenant, and that is to keep His promise. Because of who the Lord is, there is no way He can fail to keep His oaths. We can trust God because His very nature precludes Him from breaking His promises.

Church membership begins when we recognize one another (through baptism and the Lord’s Supper) as members of the body of Christ. Church membership is you becoming a bigger you. And the joy of church membership resides here—in this bigger you. If the hand hurts, the whole body hurts. If the head rejoices, the whole body rejoices. The joy in your friend is the joy in you because you’re both united to Christ, who transmits the very joy of God. —Jonathan Leeman in June's Tabletalk Magazine

Coram Deo: God has revealed Himself throughout history and He has kept the promises that He has made in that revelation. Seeing how the Lord has revealed His plan and fulfilled it gives us confidence that He is a trustworthy God. If we want to bolster our trust in the Lord, we must study His promises and how He has kept them throughout the ages.

Coram Deo: God is both just and the justifier. He shows mercy without compromising His character. Because He is always true to Himself, we know that we can trust Him. He does not tell us that He is one thing and then act like another. No, because He cannot deny Himself, we know that He can be trusted in all things.

Dear reader, do you hunger for righteousness? Do you pursue holiness? Personally? In society? Or are you satisfied with a nibble of righteousness—a few moments of justice and love? Do you have a passionless routine, a dull, dutiful life, where you fit in and drift along, with the years passing like a lazy summer day? Real disciples yearn for God’s righteousness and pursue it. I hope you do, and so reach for the righteousness of our Lord. —Dan Doriani in June's Tabletalk Magazine

Coram Deo: It can be easy to see the injustice around us and believe that things will never be set right. However, God’s Word proclaims that a day of perfect justice is coming. Those who live by faith do not lose sight of the justice to come. They are encouraged to keep fighting for what is right, knowing that their efforts will not ultimately be futile. God will finally reward all those who do what is right in obedience to Him.

Coram Deo: Authentic faith does not trust God only when times are good. It also believes God and acts upon His Word when doing so guarantees great difficulties. Resolve now to trust God even when it is hard, and ask the Lord to give you the courage, conviction, and stamina to continue following Him even when doing so means you must pay a high cost.