The Gospel for a Wounded Conscience
Last week I decided to re-visit Martin Luther’s Lectures on Galatians. Readers will remember, perhaps, that John Bunyan commends this book most warmly in Grace Abounding: " I do prefer this book of Martin Luther upon the Galatians , excepting the Holy Bible, before all books that ever I have seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience."
Hugh Martin (1822-1885) was one of a remarkable group of theologians produced by Scottish Presbyterianism in the mid-nineteenth century. Pre-eminent among them were Thomas Chalmers, William Cunningham and Robert Candlish, all of whom were household names in Victorian Scotland. The others were less prominent, but this bespeaks no inferiority in point of theological ability. Such men as Martin, James Buchanan and George Smeaton were not inspirational statesmen like Chalmers; nor formidable debaters like Cunningham; nor again brilliant administrators like Candlish. Nor have they had the same influence on subsequent theological developments as their American contemporaries, Charles Hodge, Robert Dabney, William Shedd, James Thornwell and Archibald Hodge. But as theologians they were in the very first rank.
Read more about 'Hugh Martin'...Pluralism is no new thing. In the world that the Apostle Paul evangelised there were ‘gods many and lords many’. In post-Reformation Scotland we briefly grew accustomed to a different world, in which Protestantism enjoyed an unquestioned hegemony. That world has now gone. Not only have other Christian traditions grown in strength, but immigration has brought all the world faiths to our shores. Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists have become our neighbours, and their children sit beside ours in school.
Read more about 'The Uniqueness of Christianity'...If you’re not prepared to believe in miracles there’s little hope of your having much patience with the Bible. It’s full of them. If you pick up the gospels, for example, you meet the Virgin Birth at the very beginning and the Resurrection at the end. These set the tone for the whole life of Jesus. He went about "doing good"; and many of these "doings" were miracles.
Read more about 'On Miracles'...My father was a hero. The word, of course, has military associations. The ancient Latins made no distinction between a hero and a man, taking the view that both had one function: to fight. As a child of the War I was happy to buy into the package. My foetal brain heard little music, but it heard much of war and my childhood was steeped in its memories: "the Crisis", Scapa Flo, the sinking of the Royal Oak,the Rawalpindi and the Hood and the countless friends who, in the moving Gaelic euphemism had "got in the way in the War" and never returned. I still have some of those obituaries from the early 40's, kept by my mother in the same black box as protected their insurance policies and other valuables.
Read more about 'The House My Father Built'...Samuel Rutherford was born in 1600 and died in 1661. These were turbulent years. They witnessed the reigns of the three most despotic Stewart kings, James VI, Charles I and Charles II; the signing of the National Covenant in 1638; the English Civil War; the deliberations of the Westminster Assembly; the beheading of the King; the occupation of Scotland by Cromwell's army; and the restoration of Charles II in 1660. No other period in British history saw such upheaval.
Read more about 'Samuel Rutherford'...Apart from variations in detail there is little disagreement among commentators, ancient or modern, on the exegesis of 1 Corinthians 6.1-11. The following summary represents in substance the views of Barrett, Calvin, Edwards, Fee, Findlay, Grosheide, Hodge, Prior, Sampley. These reflected such unanimity that there seemed little point in widening the search. The difficulty arises not in the exegesis, but in the application.
Read more about 'Exegesis of 1 Corinthians 6:1-11'...John Murray, with good reason, argues that obedience is the most inclusive concept available to us for describing the redeeming work of Christ (Redemption Accomplished and Applied, p.19). Other categories such as sacrifice and satisfaction cover some of the data, but obedience is by far the most comprehensive.
It is also, of course, utterly biblical. Christ came pre-eminently as the Servant, in fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy (especially Is. 52:13- 53:12). In accordance with this, he saw himself as one who had come not to do his own will, but the will of the Father who had sent him; and at the end of his life his claim was simply that he had finished the work given him to do (John 17:4).
Imagine it’s 1842 and in the thick dusk of an Edinburgh winter you’re walking across the Meadows. You take little notice of passers-by, but suddenly one approaches who commands instant attention. Dressed in tweeds and over-wrapped in a plaid, his tackety boots hit the road resolutely with every stride. An eccentric, perhaps even a poser, but not a man to be trifled with.
Read more about 'Hugh Miller'...The most fascinating thing about this book is that it is deadly boring. It took me two months to read its 197 pages, mainly because I kept putting it aside since, for sheer excitement, it couldn’t compete with Bavinck’s Prolegomena to Dogmatics or Kuyper’s Principles of Sacred Theology.
Yet if ever a book was designed with the single intention of being punchy, fast-paced and easily readable, this is it. Its allusions are straight from yesterdays’ headlines, it abounds with anecdotes and it is extravagant in self-disclosure. Here is someone with credentials a struggling minister might kill for: a regular broadcaster, a prolific author, a highly sought-after speaker, a builder of hospitals in India, a meeter of famous people; the sort of guy whom media flunkies take for a sports commentator, not a contributor to religious programmes.