Daily Meditation

Accepting the Atonement of the Cross

Ligonier Ministries

The apostle Paul wasn’t even present at the crucifixion of Christ, yet he declared that this act was an act of cosmic and supernatural proportions. This was a real drama of theological redemption. Here the curse of God’s law was visited on a man who bore the sins of His people. For Paul, the crucifixion was the pivotal point of all history. Paul was not satisfied to give an account of the event. While affirming the historicity of the crucifixion, Paul added the apostolic interpretation of the meaning of the event. He set forth propositions about the death of Christ.

The issue before the church is this: Is the apostolic propositional interpretation of the cross correct or not? Is Paul’s view merely a first-century Jewish scholar’s speculation on the matter, or is it a view inspired by God Himself?

What difference does it make? This is not a trifling matter or a pedantic point of Christian doctrine. Here nothing less than salvation is at stake. To reject the biblical view of atonement is to reject the atonement itself. To reject the atonement is to reject Christ. To reject Christ is to perish in your sin.

Please let us not soften this with an appeasing dance. Let us be clear. Those teachers in the church who deny that the death of Christ was a supernatural act of atonement are simply not Christians. They are enemies of Christ who trample Jesus underfoot and crucify Him afresh. 

Coram Deo

Make this declaration: “Heavenly Father, I accept without reservation the supernatural atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross.”

Passages for Further Study

Galatians 6:14
John 3:16–17

Gems From Jonathan Edwards On the Cost of Redemption

The "Champions of the World" Vs. the Lord of Righteousness

The Western world in general is filled with a spirit of self-righteousness.  "We," it is claimed, "are the champions of the world."  

The lyrics to Queen's anthem say it all. 

I've paid my dues
Time after time
I've done my sentence
But committed no crime
And bad mistakes
I've made a few
I've had my share of sand kicked in my face
But I've come through

We are the champions, my friends
And we'll keep on fighting 'til the end
We are the champions
We are the champions
No time for losers
'Cause we are the champions of the world

When it comes to that great and dreadful day when we shall all appear before the judgement seat of God most folk in the West think they have enough leverage.  They are not losers.  They have sufficient moral credit to persuade God to look favorably upon them.  They tell themselves, "I've come through." 

Jonathan Edwards writes:

"It's For Your Own Good, Little Children"

Meet the Calorie Gestapo! 

UK Government to Bring Back Rationing

James Delingpole
Breitbart London


For the first time since wartime restrictions were finally lifted in 1954, the British government is planning a return to rationing.
This has nothing to do with food shortages caused by Hitler’s Germany but with a different kind of totalitarian menace: health and safety Nazis.

The lunatic plan emanates from a body of grotesquely overpaid bureaucrats called Public Health England (PHE)

According to the Daily Telegraph:

Calorie limits will be imposed on thousands of foods sold in supermarkets and restaurants in a bid to combat obesity.  Draft proposals seen by The Telegraph set out detailed caps for ready meals, sandwiches and even portions of vegetables served across the country.

The plans, drawn up by Public Health England (PHE), suggest a limit of 544 calories for any convenience meal – far below many of those sold today.  Sandwiches and main meal salads would be capped at 550 calories, with a limit of 951 calories for restaurant main courses, and varying limits for other specific foods depending on where they are consumed.  The efforts are part of a Government childhood obesity strategy which promises to cut the calories in common foods by a fifth by 2024.

There are a number of problems with these proposals, starting with the fact that – as Christopher Snowdon of the Institute of Economic Affairs notes – they will effectively ban many of Britain’s most popular dishes, including fish and chips.

Daily Meditation

Understanding the Cross

Ligonier Ministries

What really happened on the cross? Was the death of Jesus a human tragedy whereby a good man was brutally and unfairly slain? Was His death an example of faith, obedience, and self-sacrifice? Was it a ransom paid to the Devil? A victory over the Devil? A manifestation of moral influence?

Was the cross an atonement? Did it involve expiation and propitiation for sin? Was it a supernatural act done to satisfy the wrath and justice of God? Each of these individually and several in combination have been set forth as the real meaning of Christ’s death.

How we understand the cross of Jesus in large part is determined by our view of the Bible. If we view the Bible as a primitive, pre-scientific expression of human religion, we will be inclined toward a purely natural view of the death of Jesus. It will represent at best an example of a heroic human act of self-sacrifice. Jesus is the existential hero of self-giving.

If we take the popular so-called neoorthodox view of Scripture, we will take a different approach to the cross. The neoorthodox view of the Bible denies that the Bible gives us propositional revelation. Rather, the Bible is seen as a witness to revelation that takes place in events.

To divide event revelation from propositional revelation is to leave us with a story without an interpretation. The Bible teaches that there was a crucial event, the event of the cross. Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. The significance of that death was not agreed upon by those who were a party to it or spectators of it. For the Sanhedrin, it was an act of expediency. It was necessary for Jesus to die, lest the Jews experience the wrath of the Romans. Likewise from Pilate’s vantage point, it was a matter of expediency for him to satisfy the demand of a raging mob. The thief on the cross saw it as an expression of injustice. 

Coram Deo

How do you view the death of Jesus on the cross? What do you believe really happened at the cross? How does it affect you?

Passages for Further Study

Colossians 1:19–20
Colossians 2:13–14
1 Corinthians 1:17–18

Pagans Show Their Teeth

There's Rotten Apples Abroad

Spit The Diseased Apple Out

Disturbing News From The Christian Daily Reporter

Apple Bans Ministry's App for Teaching Biblical View of Sexuality

12/27/2018 -- Apple has banned and removed from its App Store an app by Living Hope Ministries, a Christian nonprofit which, according to its website, "proclaims a Christ-centered, biblical world-view of sexual expression rooted in one man and one woman in a committed, monogamous, heterosexual marriage for life" and describes its mission as "to proclaim God’s truth as we journey with those seeking sexual and relational wholeness through a more intimate relationship with Jesus Christ."

Apple banned the app after a national gay rights organization called Truth Wins Out started a petition to have it removed as "bigoted," "hateful," and "dangerous, homophobic garbage" created by "hateful bigots and bullies" intent on "tormenting LGBT youth." The petition proved successful in getting the app yanked despite only receiving 356 signatures as of this writing.

Real Perfection

Down’s Daughter Taught Mum Lesson About ‘Perfection’


Cathy Yeulet
The Christian Institute

A mother whose daughter was born with Down’s syndrome has shared how her child has helped redefine her ideas of perfection.  Writing for The Telegraph, Rachel Stevenson explains that hearing the news of Tilly’s diagnosis “was like someone had punched me in the face”.

But two and a half years later she says: “My heart bursts with love for her”.

‘The perfect family’

Rachel and husband James lived in a small flat in London with two young children, when they discovered that they were having twins.  Rachel said, “my main worry wasn’t space, but how I could be a good mum to them all. But the silver lining was knowing the twins were a boy and a girl; we’d have two of each – the perfect family”.

After the midwife revealed that Tilly had Down’s syndrome, the family was devastated.  “I could barely breathe for guilt”, Rachel said.

New perspective

Initially her life was filled with sadness and grief for the loss of her ‘perfect’ family. Now Rachel realises how wrong she was.  Whilst explaining Tilly’s condition to her oldest daughter Elizabeth, the child interrupted to say: “But Mummy, everybody is different”. Rachel agreed that her daughter was “spot on.”

“In the early days, I imagined that I could somehow fix everything and make Tilly ‘normal’. But now we would never want to change her.  She is who she is – beautiful, determined, funny, joyous”.

Abortion rise

Rachel said: “Looking back to my reaction when Tilly was born, I realise how ignorant I was about disabilities. James and I assumed that her life would be half-lived – how wrong we were.”  The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children has expressed concern after new figures revealed that the number of abortions for Down’s babies has increased by 50 per cent in the last ten years.

The figures show that the number of abortions is at its highest in a decade.

Daily Meditation

Adopting Christ’s Attitude

Ligonier Ministries

“Each of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on the cross!” (Phil. 2:4–8, NIV).

Here the attribute of glory is ascribed to all three members of the Trinity. This glory is then confirmed as a glory that is eternal. It is not something added to or acquired by Jesus at some point in His earthly life and ministry. He held this glory at the beginning and will possess it for eternity:

“Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9–11, NIV).

Though the form of servanthood covered Jesus and His life was marked by a willing humiliation, nevertheless there were moments in His ministry where the glory of His deity burst through. It was these moments that provoked John to write, “And we beheld His glory” (John 1:14). 

Coram Deo

Ask God for an ever-increasing revelation of His glory.

Passages for Further Study

Philippians 2:5–9

The Mess of State Education in NZ

Desperately Seeking Susan

The NZ Government education system is contradiction in terms.  In just about every other area of human existence in the country, government control is regarded not just with scepticism, but as something to be avoided like the plague. 

True, back in the day New Zealand used to be as socialistic as any small tin-pot Eastern European country.  But that is now long, long gone.  However, a few rusting remnants of socialism remain in this country.  The compulsory state education system is one.  It is patently failing.  New Zealand's educational standards are slipping down OECD rankings to a beat more steady than a metronome. 

But, have no fear.  The Ministry of Education (the very name of the beast sounds Orwellian) has proposed a BIG REFORM.  It involves a lurch back towards a more pure Stalinism.  At least that's what some of our leading (and successful) educators are saying.

. . . at some of the bigger secondary schools, especially in Auckland, anger is mounting. In this week's strongly-worded attack, Macleans College principal Steven Hargreaves wrote to parents and staff in the holidays to say the proposed changes would "destroy the school system in New Zealand as we know it".

Hargreaves joined other heads, including Auckland Grammar's Tim O'Connor, in revolting against the proposals.   Taking power away from boards would create "bland, one-size-fits-all" institutions and destroy the role of communities in schools, Hargreaves said.  He called on parents to oppose the recommendations and said parents had already been quick to voice their backing for him.

Parents wanted to know they could have an impact on their children's education through the board of trustees' parent representatives, he said. "To think that that's going to be passed over to another faceless bureaucracy is what really worries them," he said.  [Stuff]

 Imagine a world in which New Zealand decided ice-cream was so important to the national wellbeing that it required central government planning to produce a product that universally met the very highest of standards.

Eastern Orthodox Churches Assert Independence From Russia

In Ukraine, a Seismic Ecclesiastical Shift

By George Weigel
National Review Online


Independence from Russian Orthodoxy could have serious geopolitical implications.

The creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) on December 15, at a Unification Council in Kyiv attended by representatives of three previously divided Orthodox jurisdictions in Ukraine, is a seismic event in world Christian history that could also have significant geopolitical repercussions.

For centuries, Orthodoxy in Ukraine was subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, as Ukraine itself was subjected to Russian suzerainty (sometimes under the guise of Soviet “republicanism”). After the Soviet crack-up, Ukrainian Orthodoxy fractured into contentious, rival churches. Now, an independent Ukraine insisting on cultural as well as political independence from Russia will have an “autocephalous,” nationwide church independent of the Moscow Patriarchate. That new reality will be formalized once the “first among equals” in world Orthodoxy, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, grants the OCU what is known as the “tomos of autocephaly” — a kind of ecclesiastical diplomatic recognition of the OCU’s self-governing status and its independence from Moscow.

Speaking to a large crowd in Kyiv’s Sofiivska Square after the Unification Council created the new, unified church and elected 39-year-old Metropolitan Epiphanius as its leader, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko said that the establishment of the OCU was as significant an event in modern Ukrainian history as the country’s 1991 declaration of independence from a crumbling Soviet Union.  . . .

Daily Meditation

Accepting His Deity

Ligonier Ministries

In Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17, He says: “And now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (v. 5). Here Jesus alludes to a position He held before creation. It is a tacit claim to His participation in the eternal glory of God.

In the fourth century, the church faced a serious crisis with respect to the deity of Christ. The Arian heretics denied the deity of Christ, claiming that Jesus was a creature who was adopted into a special relationship with God. In their controversy with orthodox Christians, they used ribald and derogatory songs as a method of propaganda.

In response to the Arian attacks, the orthodox Christians composed their own songs, one of which was the Gloria Patri. Note the words of this well-known song:

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.

In its inception, the Gloria Patri functioned as a type of fight song, a rallying cry for orthodox Christianity. That original function has been lost through the passing of time so that it is now used as a liturgical response. We no longer sense the extraordinary significance of ascribing glory to Christ. 

Coram Deo

Try using the Gloria Patri in this reading as a spiritual warfare song. Quote or sing it out loud.

Passages for Further Study

John 17:5
John 17:22
John 17:24

Wasted Space

Idiots Worthy of the Name

The Scottish Parliament clearly is underworked and overpaid.  It has laboured long and hard into the night and passed some of the most significant legislation ever to be debated and approved in that hallowed place.

Confronted with a raft of weighty issues of moment and history it has passed into law a matter so significant it would have revivified John Knox himself had he not long ago passed from the sight of mortal men.

Scotland’s Parliament has made the decision to ban “gingerbread men” from a coffee shop at its capitol over concerns that the name of the cookie perpetuates sexism.   Each of these cookies will now instead be called a “gingerbread person,” according to an article in Express.

Precisely what this will actually do or achieve for women is unclear.  However, it is almost certain that the radical move will result in trivialising discrimination against women.  The Parliament has managed to make discrimination against women not a weighty matter of state, but the butt of a sarcastic joke.   Congratulations, Holyrood.

Herein lies the point. By making institutional discrimination against the female sex such a matter of moment that the phrase "gingerbread man" must needs be outlawed at its local coffee, the Parliament has served to achieve just one weighty goal: it has held itself up to public ridicule.  It's just one more example of the law of unintended consequences at work.

Our advice would be for all Scottish women and men to rise up and condemn the Parliament for its trivialising of the female sex.  That might serve as a truly positive outcome.  A second positive result which we hope will fast-follow the first would be for the Scottish parliamentarians to be hit with at least a 20 percent reduction in their parliamentary salaries, if not substantially more.

Monsters Preying Upon Children

Why Puberty Blockers Are A Clear Danger To Children’s Health

As much as transgender ideologues disguised as doctors want to claim otherwise, some drugs pose serious and lasting risks to children.

By Jane Robbins
The Federalist

I have written (see here and here) about physicians who push the boundaries of ethical practice by administering untested medical treatments to children and adolescents suffering from gender dysphoria (or transgender patients). Such treatments include puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and so-called sex-reassignment surgery.

Citing guidelines issued by the political advocacy group World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), these physicians admit that the effects of cross-sex hormones are generally irreversible. Vulnerable patients who agree to this treatment are thus crossing the Rubicon into permanent bodily impairment.

However, most doctors insist that puberty blockers are safe and fully reversible, so that patients who decide not to continue with the “transition” can get their healthy bodies back. But mounting medical evidence shows the fallacy of the cavalier implication that puberty blockers are as harmless as aspirin and can be discontinued with as little effect.

Time To ‘Explore Their Identity,’ But At What Cost?

One of the puberty blockers frequently administered to girls who identify as boys (female-to-male, or FtM) is called Lupron. Lupron belongs to a class of drugs called gonadotrophin hormone-releasing (GnRH) agonists and is used to suppress estrogen production, thereby delaying the physical changes of puberty in a pre-pubescent female patient.

The argument is that this will give the girl more time to “explore her identity,” an easier path to physical transitioning before her body matures, and a chance to decide if she wants to pursue more serious measures such as cross-sex hormones and surgery. (More on that later.) The first claim is that Lupron is safe. But thousands of patients who have been treated with Lupron for non-sex-related conditions would disagree.

Daily Meditation

Witnessing His Glory

Ligonier Ministries

The book of James has an unusual sentence construction that links the word glory with the name of Jesus: “My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality” (James 2:1). In this verse the words “Lord of glory” have alternate renditions. Some translations read, “Our glorious Lord.” Still another possible translation reads, “Jesus Christ, who is the glory.”

B. B. Warfield, in his book The Lord of Glory, says,  that Jesus was the glory of God, the shekinah. According to the Old Testament, the shekinah was the visible manifestation of the invisible God. The shekinah was a radiant cloud or brilliant light within a cloud that signaled the immediate presence of God. For Jesus to be identified with the shekinah was to be equated with the presence of God Himself. In Jesus we see the full manifestation of the majesty of God.

That the New Testament writers ascribed glory to Jesus was a clear indication of their confession of His full deity. Glory, in the sense it is used with reference to Jesus, is a divine attribute. It is the glory of God that He refuses to share with any man.

Coram Deo

The angels sang “Glory to God” at Christ’s birth. The heavenly elders give glory to God around His throne. Why don’t you follow their example and give God glory today in every circumstance of your life?

Passages for Further Study

John 1:14
Psalm 104:31
Psalm 138:5

A Need For Honest Brokers

Moral Imperatives in One's Foreign Policy

The Saudi execution of Jamal Khashoggi is now "old news".  Nevertheless it keeps being raised by officials and commentators.  Nikki Haley, former US ambassador to the United Nations, has raised the matter again, as well she might.

During an interview broadcast on Friday’s edition of the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley stated that the United States must continue “to have harsh conversations with the Saudis” about how the U.S. “can’t continue to partner with someone that continues to brutalize people in this way.”

Haley said, “First of all, if you have Saudi officials going into a Saudi consulate, the Saudi government is responsible, which makes MBS responsible [for the killing of Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi], period. That’s just what we know. Secondly, our United States principles, values will not allow us to give them a pass, and we shouldn’t. And I think that the president made a good first step when he sanctioned the 17 individuals. I think we need to continue to have harsh conversations with the Saudis about how this doesn’t fit the means of international norms, it’s not accepted by the United States, and we can’t continue to partner with someone that continues to brutalize people in this way.”  [Breitbart News]

 This is well and good: Haley's criticism is doubtless apposite and well meant.  One imagines it would be endorsed by most folk in the United States.  Yet at the same time it is beholden upon such critics that they also acknowledge and "confess" the sins of their own respective countries.  The United States, for example, like many Western nations,  has an official murder "factory": it has a legalized abortion industry--as has New Zealand, and most Western countries for that matter.

Now that does not mean that criticisms like Haley's ought not to be made.  They should.  But such just accusations need to be made in the context of acknowledging the log in one's own national eye, whilst pointing out a splinter in the eye of someone else's country.

Were such acknowledgments to be made regularly by critics and spokespeople it would make their criticisms of others more powerful, reasoned, and weighty.  In the case of the United States in particular, it would go a long way to achieving the goal of being able to talk softly whilst carrying a big stick.  We would likely see very different conversations and discussions amongst nations.  We would also likely see an early disclosure of those truly rogue nations whose malice and deceit is reprehensible.

A Professing Christian Country Targets Its International Aid

Aid To Persecuted Middle East Christians


U.S. Teams Up with Orban’s Hungary 

Thomas D. Williams
Breitbart News


Hungary and the United States have partnered in an alliance to assist Christians in the Middle East, helping them “recover from genocide and persecution by the Islamic State”.  On Tuesday, the government of Hungary and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) “to increase coordination to help communities in the Middle East recover from genocide and persecution by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).”

According to a statement from the Hungarian government, the agreement between the two nations follows Hungary’s stated strategy of taking assistance “to the troubled spots where it’s needed, instead of bringing the trouble and instability to Europe.”  The MOU establishes an “official partnership” between the government of Hungary’s Secretariat for the Aid of Persecuted Christians and the US international assistance agency, the statement said.

In its own separate statement, USAID said that the agreement with Hungary is “part of USAID’s continuing effort to expand its partnerships to help endangered, displaced, and persecuted religious and ethnic minorities return home and restore their communities across the Middle East, particularly in parts of Northern Iraq liberated from the tyranny of ISIS.”

In 2016, the Hungarian government established a Deputy State Secretariat for the Aid of Persecuted Christians, making it the only nation in the world with a department of this nature.

Daily Meditation

Eternal Punishment

“There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality” (vv. 9–11).

- Romans 2:6–11

Ligonier Ministries

If we ever go before a judge, one of the things we want most is for the justice he administers to be impartial. We are looking for judges to make their ruling based solely on the evidence at hand and not to show favoritism to our accuser. Sadly, we know that this desire is not always realized. There are corrupt judges even in the best systems of justice devised by human beings.

We can be sure, however, that one Judge is always impartial and deals only with the facts, namely, our God and Creator. As Paul says at the conclusion of today’s passage on the coming day of judgment, “God shows no partiality” (Rom. 2:11).

That might appear to be good news, but if we read further in Romans, we see that God’s impartiality should instill fear in human beings. Paul says that God will give “glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good” (2:10), but then in 3:9–20 he makes it clear that no one (except Christ) fulfills that condition. “None is righteous, no, not one” (3:10). When we go before God on the day of judgment, we know He will be impartial, and our only hope will be if we are covered in the righteousness of Christ (vv. 21–26; 2 Cor. 5:21). The Lord will take works into account when issuing His verdict of eternal life or eternal punishment. If we rest on our own works, eternal punishment will be our end. But if we rest on the works of Christ by faith alone, we will enjoy eternal life.

That some will receive eternal punishment does not mean everyone in hell endures the same punishment. God is just, and He will judge people based on the revelation they know. The person who dies never having heard of Christ will be punished for sinning against God’s revelation in nature, not because he never heard of Jesus. Those who had heard of Christ but rejected Him will be judged also for that sin. Throughout Romans 1–2, Paul drives home the point that we are judged by the revelation we have.

People will also be judged according to the degree of their sin. Although the slightest sin is enough to merit eternal punishment, the degree of suffering is not the same for all who receive eternal punishment. Scripture assumes degrees of sin and punishment. For example, in the Mosaic law, some sins merit the death penalty and some do not. In the New Testament, there is a love that covers a multitude of sins—a multitude of transgressions. Other sins, however, can merit excommunication (Matt. 18:15–20; 1 Peter 4:8).

Coram Deo

Eternal punishment is a sobering reality. All who stand before God on judgment day on the basis of their own works will find themselves under eternal condemnation. The people around us who do not know Christ are on their way to hell. Thus, we must pray for the salvation of non-Christians whom we know, and we must be prepared to share the gospel with them.

Passages for Further Study

Isaiah 66:15–24
Revelation 20:11–15

NZ's Rock Star Prime Minister

Untested, Untried, and Untrue

For many months now, NZ's Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern has appeared to us to be a girl attempting to do a woman's job.  Beyond the photo opportunities there just does not seem to be much of substance.  This makes us uneasy, to say the least.  

The latest bout of visceral discomfort arises from her inability to be transparent over her relationship with convicted criminal, Karel Sroubek and his friend/supporter Richie Hardcore.  The latter has connections and ties to the Labour Party and the Greens.

When the Minister of Immigration, Iain Lees-Galloway decided to grant  Sroubek (who is still in prison) residency, Ardern raced to his defence.

Jacinda Ardern threw herself all in from the get-go. Initially asked why the convicted drug smuggler was granted residency, the Prime Minister told us to "read between the lines". Between the lines she wanted us to know that Sroubek's safety - even his life - was in danger if he was forced to return to the Czech Republic. [Tova O'Brien, Newshub]

When she made that decision (only to backtrack later when more facts about Sroubek came into public purview) she was sent a congratulatory e-mail from her and Sroubek's mate, Richie Hardcore on her personal e-mail.  She has subsequently denied receiving such a communication, then has had to backtrack, without publishing the actual message.