Sine Qua Non
By David B. Garner
Saving Faith, Pt 3: The Holy Embrace
Blessed with the gift of saving faith, the believer is now able to hear what he could not hear before, to believe sincerely what he rejected outrightly. The sheep hear the voice of the One they now know as “my Shepherd” (Psalm 23:1). Because of the radical change, such active listening streams eagerly and earnestly from the heart.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Saving Faith, Pt 2: Trust in God's Word
Saving Faith, as we considered in part 1, is a gift of God. It comes from him. Though we exercise that faith, the privilege and power of its exercise draw solely from the font of his grace. Having received the gift from God, we exercise that gift for him and unto him.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Uncreating Adam: Part Two
With magisterial grace, the Bible weds Christian theology to the male/female distinctions in God’s creation of marriage. Space permits only a brief consideration of this mysterious and intricate knot.
Adam and Eve are one flesh, but they are not one person. Their union is vital and real, yet for that to be the case, their distinct identities endure. Adam is not Eve, and Eve is not Adam. This personal and gender distinction is a sine qua non of marriage itself.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Uncreating Adam: Part One
As creatures made in God’s image (imago Dei), we finitely reflect the Triune God. We are not God, but his image bearers. We are not part of him, but made by him and for him. Absolutely distinct from him, we are in essential ways, like him. Different from yet derivative of him, we do not replace or equal him; rather as mirrors of him, we owe him faith, honor, and obedience. The blessed intricacy and inscrutability of this reflection of the Creator continues to fascinate.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...A Sanctified Syllogism
Larger than life itself, Paul’s God is a big God. The God of the prophets and apostles, in fact, created life. Creator and Redeemer, he becomes the awesome Benefactor of new life. Words fall short of the splendor. To say God is great is to call Niagara Falls a quaint and serene stream.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Jesus is Head of the Churches
Jesus is Head of the Church. He is Head of his Church. This we believe. This we confess. And yet how quickly this we dismiss!
Honestly, how significantly does Jesus’ lordship over the Church shape our thinking, our lives, and our priorities? How seriously do we take his throne, his reign, and rule? What weight do we give his kingly session? Does my life align with the priorities Jesus has established in his reign in and over his Church?
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Theological Fidelity: An Interview
Some have enjoyed a deep sense of call since childhood; others have longed for certain vocations or ministry destinations, and found their steps markedly (and not always easily) redirected. Irrespective of anecdotes, calling consists of more than personal intuitions. The Lord uses the church’s “objective” voice to issue and confirm calling.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Vos 121
Very little writing warrants reading more than once. Less still deserves numerous readings. An exclusive group of writings rises to the level of “must read once a year” for me. One of them is Geerhardus Vos’ inaugural lecture to his new post as Professor of Biblical Theology at Princeton on May 8, 1894. Today’s 121st anniversary of that lecture warrants remembering some of Vos’ fruitful insights.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Consent of All the Parts, Scope of the Whole
The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) paints Scripture’s beauty with its own eloquent verbal strokes: “the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole” (WCF 1.5).
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Fruition
Many in evangelical and even reformed churches lack appreciation for the biblical concept of covenant, finding it obscure and even arcane. The irony is stark. What many perceive as academic smoke is actually just the opposite.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Truth and Idolatry: Call Discontent What It Is
At the memorial service of a dear friend of mine nearly 20 years ago, a sibling of the deceased stood up and affirmed his brother’s integrity. “Mark believed the gospel and he lived the gospel. What you saw in public, I saw in private. Mark did not lead two lives, but only one. He loved Christ Jesus and followed him with all his heart.” I knew Mark well. His brother was right. He was not perfect. But even his repentance evidenced this purifying love of his Savior.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Truth and Idolatry: Call Theological Error What It Is
Golden statues, empty rituals, and corrupting bondage. Many conceptions flood our minds when we hear the word “idolatry.” We envision everything from crass idol worship to sophisticated religions like Hinduism, Shintoism, Animism, and even Islam.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Truth and Idolatry: Call the Gospel What It Is
Idolatry lacks nuance. It knows no degrees, and before a jealous God, delivers no passable excuses, no matter how sophisticated they may sound. No one is sort-of guilty of idolatry; no one is guilty of sort-of idolatry.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Truth and Idolatry: I Am Not an Idol Worshiper
As believers in the one true God, we know that idolatry is wrong. We know God hates it. We know first two of the Ten Commandments explicitly demand exclusive worship of the one true God. We even know that idolatry is not merely worshiping a false god, but even worshiping the true God by our own methods. Some of us have prudently made the connection between the first two commandments and the tenth—we know that coveting is a form of idolatry.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...'Cross Fit' Godliness
Writing the Pastoral Epistles, the Apostle Paul makes “godliness” (Greek, eusébeia) primary. Some have perceived here a theologically incompatible, and hardly “pastoral,” fixation. It might sound strange to hear the apostle of grace making such a big deal about our godliness, our works. Wasn’t he himself saved from moralism (cf. Galatians 1:11–17)? Isn’t the redemption he preached all about the freedom of grace rather than the condemning chains of personal piety?
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Clear and Present Manger
Promises. We’ve received them, and we have made them. We have trusted others and been entrusted by others. We have suffered let downs; and we have let others down—probably more frequently than we would care to admit.
With vacuous words, we speak either to ourselves or openly to surrounding skeptics,
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...One Incarnation Under God
Lost on many is that by turning the incarnation into a model of ministry, we forfeit the real import of the incarnation itself.4 The emulation interpretation or application of the incarnation robs it of its integrity. Turning the incarnation into our task rather than a redemptively critical, divinely accomplished act effectively disembodies the incarnation!
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Rejoicing in the Holy Spirit
The Apostle Paul exhorts the church: “giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20). Ripped out of its theological context, such an appeal would clang like a hammer upon a steely heart. But Paul’s exhortation springs from the transcending power of the gospel. Appropriately grasped, this mandate to thanksgiving gently and super-naturally overflows in the heart of the redeemed. The transforming realties of grace in Christ Jesus propel the heart to sing a new song of thanksgiving.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...A Gift and a Mandate
We conclude with a reminder of our opening questions. Rejecting the closed circle of human reason, we have exposed an entirely different Source for understanding ultimate questions. The answers to such questions come not from within (by human ingenuity), but from without (by divine intervention). Understanding comes by divine, gracious, and redemptive intrusion. How? By the Spirit of the Word working with the Word of the Spirit.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...The Holy Spirit and The Redeemed Mind
The questions of life plague our souls, shake us mercilessly, and even cast us into a tailspin of desperation. Into this chaos, we have considered a universally pressing question, drawing upon a booklet entitled, How Can We Know For Sure?
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...The Holy Spirit and the Word of God
Both confidence and contentment have eluded many of us. Feet firmly planted in mid-air, we drift from one thought to another and one opinion to another, persuaded by the rhetoric of the speaker’s voice that has most recently stirred our emotions and captured our interest. But any peace, resolve and assurance flee with heartless cruetly, the moment a new crisis faces us or a new argument compels us.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...The Uniqueness of the Bible
The search is on. Can we find confidence in anyone or anything at all? Or are we left to our own devices and just dumb luck? Is life a meaningless series of serendipitous events, weaving moments of happiness into an ethereal fabric of emptiness?
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...How Can I Know for Sure? God Has Spoken
In our prior article, we raised a number of pressing questions that could lead us to conclude that the only certainty is uncertainty! Yet in the midst of relentless questions, gnawing ambiguities, and the cacophony of voices offering inconclusive and unsatisfactory answers, we turn elsewhere.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...How Can I Know for Sure? Certain Uncertainty
For many, certainty has gone the way of fairy tales. Like Robin Hood and Cinderella, certainty once intrigued us; it drew us into its wonder. It compelled, enraptured, and even produced a deep sense of peace. But now we know better. We know that we cannot really know. We have put away such childish things. Confidence has shot off like an arrow into the darkness; it has gone the way of glass slippers.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...The Jesus of the Old and New
As faithful Christians, we prize our Bibles. And so we should. The almighty God of heaven and earth has spoken, and he has spoken understandably in words of grace and truth to us! Truly astounding.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Church, Stay Out of Missions!
Many evangelicals find the “organized” Church something to be avoided, even dismissed and detested. Denominations, it is frequently thought, represent all that is wrong with the Church and can go wrong with the Church. The logic goes as follows. The structures, authority, and formal processes of the Church stifle the ministry of the Spirit; the machinery of Church polity militates against the gospel itself!
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Missions: The Kingdom of Christ or the Church?
Understanding the relationship between the Kingdom of God and the Church has proven to be a perennial interpretive challenge. Jesus infrequently speaks of the “Church” and instead preaches the Kingdom of God/Heaven. The epistles, on the other hand, dwell on the Church.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Who am I and Who Says?
Since the events recorded in the third chapter of the Bible, a subtle and dangerous impetus frequently rebounds in the church to doubt God’s Word, to add to God’s Word, to compartmentalize God’s Word in a way that limits its relevance only to the topics we choose. “Did God really say?” we ask ourselves.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Old Trumps New or New Trumps Old?
IM advocate and author, Kevin Higgins, summarizes common affirmations: “Proponents of Insider Movements, especially among Muslims, have . . . argued that a biblical precedent exists for new believers from Islam to remain in the mosque and continue to practice other religious expressions of Islamic life.” Applications of this approach vary.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Stay In or Come Out
Because of its shared faith and shared confession in the risen Christ, the worldwide confessing Church must maintain mutual accountability in the advance of the gospel. To safeguard faithful missions in the global Church is an act of faith and obedience to the Church’s Christ. To neglect a compromise in missions is itself a culpable compromise.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Outside the Camp
The recipients of the letter to the Hebrews faced uncompromising pressure to compromise. Ridiculed for abandoning their own religious heritage and for extracting themselves from their very own people, these early followers of Christ anguished under tremendous pressures to return to their former life.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Explaining the Gospel Away
Extreme practices of the Insider Movement Paradigm (IMP), like those missionaries who publicly convert to Islam in order to “reach” those in the mosque, are rejected even by most IM advocates. But the concerns before the Church of Jesus Christ around the world are not merely fringe excesses in IMP, but its wide and prevalent center and what we might call its “soft” forms.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...The Insider Movement Rage
Missions is not what it used to be, because the study of missions and missions theories, called missiology, has taken a life of its own.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Only Jesus’ Grace Works
Theology regularly gets a bad rap. “Don’t give me doctrine. I want something practical.” “I like sermons that touch my heart, not those that fill my head.” Or, “Come on. I’m not interested in all this theology. I just want to love Jesus.”
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Sympathy Made Perfect
In our last column, we surveyed the importance of Jesus’ life as signaled in Luke 2:52: “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.” More needs be said. So we return to this theme of Jesus’ life, with an eye to appreciating further Jesus’ biography of personal growth and maturity, as the means toward his real redemptive sympathy for us.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...God's Work in Jesus
“I have come to do your will, O God,” Jesus says to his Father (Heb 10:7). With this declaration, Jesus circumscribes his earthly life. He knows his purpose on earth is to work, to carry out God’s work. He came to do the will of God.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...God Works Grace
Grace is no arbitrary decision or arbitrary act. Grace is not an illusion or a pretension. God does not look at us with a nod and a wink. Real redemptive grace is ours because, as the psalmist puts it, God’s “right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him” (Psalm 98:1b). Grace works because God works grace. Or as we put it in the last column, salvation is by works alone.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Salvation is by Works Alone
Many treat gospel grace with frightful flippancy, and much of this abuse spawns from a misunderstanding of how grace works. In the next few SQN columns, we will work through the all-important theme of biblical grace and its essential relationship to works.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...I am David and So Are You
My name is David. So, it seems, is nearly every other man I meet. OK. I am exaggerating a bit, but my entire life I have been surrounded by Davids – grade school, sports teams, church, the neighborhood. Family moves prove the name is no respecter of geography: North Carolina, Texas, Illinois, Washington, New York, Pennsylvania, and even Eastern Europe. Davids occupy the earth.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Wonder
One chief evidence of gospel grace in the life of the believer is wonder. The Lord God himself and his care for us should dumbfound us. Any attention to them catapults the soul into an orbit of awe. The fact is, the more we consider creation and redemption, the more we discover that we simply cannot take it all in. Contemplation of God, his Word, and his works cause the soul nearly to burst.
Continue reading this article at Sine Qua Non...Sine Qua Non
You may think this quasi strange, but I have an affinity for certain Latin words. The fact is, you actually know and use many of them too. Have you ever felt like a persona non grata? Do you cheer for your alma mater or depend on a per diem for business travels? How great is it when lawyers agree to work pro bono? Do you invest in stocks sold by a man in his garage or do you prefer a bona fide company? Et cetera, et cetera…
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