But the salvation of the righteous is from the LORD; He is their strength in the time of trouble.
—Psalm 37:39

The Reformed Resurgence

Christianity Today has posted last month's cover story, "Young, Restless, Reformed" by Collin Hansen on their website.

It is a fascinating and balanced look at the ascendancy of Reformed doctrine among younger twenty-something Christians like myself. One of my college friends from dorm 5-2 at Liberty like Brad Cochran whom I profiled in August was featured in this article in fact:

Mohler's analysis brought to mind one Southern seminarian I met in Louisville. Bradley Cochran grew up attending a mainline church with his family in rural Kentucky. He hated Sunday mornings, and by age 15 he had racked up a police rap sheet and developed a drug problem. But Cochran's troubles softened his heart to the gospel, and he fled his hometown to enroll at Liberty University. While there, he eagerly shared the Good News and earned an award for his evangelistic enthusiasm. A classmate loaned him some Sproul books, where he learned about predestination. He grew to accept this doctrine, but he said other students criticized his Calvinism before he even understood what the term meant. They couldn't understand how he squared God's sovereign choice with evangelism. Those challenges only intensified his study of Reformed theology. He became emboldened to persuade others.

"I felt like Calvinism was more than abstract points of theology," said Cochran, 25. "I felt you would get a much bigger view of God if you accepted these things, an understanding of justice and grace that would so deepen your affections for God, that would make you so much more grateful for his grace."

Cochran bolstered his arguments by boasting that he had never even read Calvin. Indeed, the renowned reformer appears not to be a major figure among the latest generation to claim the theology he made famous. Centuries ago, George Whitefield, the Calvinistic Methodist evangelist of the First Great Awakening, similarly argued: "Alas, I never read anything that Calvin wrote; my doctrines I had from Christ and his apostles; I was taught them of God."
—"Young, Restless, and Reformed." Christianity Today. September 2006.

One night in 2002, I believe I spent several hours on our dorm talking with Brad about faith, grace, justification, sanctification, and other doctrinal issues. I was thoroughly impressed by his testimony, by his humility, by his recognition of the demands of God, by his esteem of God's Holy immutable standards, by his esteem of sound doctrine, and his embrace of radical discipleship. Brad came to this state of mind, not by any intrinsic goodness or because he was smarter than the next guy, but because he was born again, and had the Word of God impressed upon his heart. His humility came about only by the grace of God. Brad's heart was in awe of a just and holy God, and taken captive by the Word of God. Brad, like myself, was enamored with the the doctrines of grace and traumatized by God's Holiness to paraphrase a chapter from Sproul's book The Holiness of God. I crossed paths with Brad participating in evangelical outreach and doing tent preaching in 2002 as well.

By God's grace, I embraced the Reformed Faith shortly after the turn of the millennium following an intense systematic study of Scripture. I struggled with Divine Sovereignty. Frankly, I loathed Romans chapter nine, but I came to grips with it. Divine Sovereignty became a sweet doctrine. It became a comforting doctrine. It became reassuring doctrine. I learned of Reformed theology as I reflected on this doctrine. I discovered supplementary books thereafter like The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul. When we begin to fathom God's overarching attribute, namely his Holiness, as it is revealed to us in sacred Scripture, we sinners start to gain cognizance of His attendant attributes. From the Lord's Holiness emanates not only His much heralded love, but also His divine justice against sin. As John Calvin avowed, "Men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God." From God the Father's love emanates His grace, and the intercession of His Son Jesus Christ, whom satisfied the Father's righteous demand of justice. We as believers lay hold of Christ's righteousness which is imputed to us by faith alone. When we believe, we accept the finished work of the Risen Savior.

As C.S. Lewis declared, "God doesn't love us because we are good, but He makes us good because He loves us." I loved God because He first loved me, and destined me to be conformed to the image of the Son.

While studying law, I got to hear and meet dedicated pastors like C.J. Mahaney having attended a church plant of the dynamic and growing Sovereign Grace Ministries. I became heartened by the radical ministry of John Piper who emphasizes a passion for the Gospel, the Reformation distinctives, and a plea for believers to seek an earnest desire to progress in sanctification and embrace discpleship.



The Doctrines of Grace

"The old truth that Calvin preached, that Augustine preached, that Paul preached, is the truth that I must preach to-day, or else be false to my conscience and my God. I cannot shape the truth; I know of no such thing as paring off the rough edges of a doctrine. John Knox's gospel is my gospel. That which thundered through Scotland must thunder through England again."
—C.H. Spurgeon

The doctrines of grace must thunder through the United States again! To say, one is 99% along the path to grace in giving God the glory isn't enough. As the Cambridge Declaration, produced by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals declares,

"Unwarranted confidence in human ability is a product of fallen human nature. This false confidence now fills the evangelical world; from the self-esteem gospel, to the health and wealth gospel, from those who have transformed the gospel into a product to be sold and sinners into consumers who want to buy, to others who treat Christian faith as being true simply because it works. This silences the doctrine of justification regardless of the official commitments of our churches."

We Reformed lay the diadem of our salvation on God from beginning to end. The Lord Jesus Christ is truly the author and perfector of our faith.

We are seeing a trend, and seeing the revival of Reformed distinctives and the growth of congregations that unashamedly uphold the Reformation faith. In general, many maturing evangelical Christians alienated by feel-good prosperity theology that errantly caricatures the Divine Sovereign as being a Santa Claus while missing the harsh reality of suffering which came following the fall of man. These believers are longing for the recovery of a deeper, more Biblical, and more substantive Gospel preaching; and they want the whole counsel of God. They find it in historic Reformation theology. And in Reformed theological circles, emphasis is placed profoundly on Biblical doctrine and the Reformation distinctives. Reformed pastors give impassioned messages on sovereign grace, justification by faith alone, the adoption of God's flock, imputation of Christ's righteousness, and the covenant succession to the perfect New Covenant.

In the Footsteps of Puritans and Reformers

"...the conversion of a sinner being not owing to a man's self determination, but to God's determination, and eternal election, which is absolute, and depending on the sovereign Will of God, and not on the free will of man; as is evident from what has been said : and it being very evident from the Scriptures, that the eternal election of saints to the faith and holiness, is also an election of them to eternal salvation; hence their appointment to salvation must also be absolute, and not depending on their contingent, self-determining will."
—Jonathan Edwards

For me, the doctrines of grace has been liberating. Discovering the treasure trove of theology and doctrine in the writings of the old Puritans and Reformers has been a great blessing.

As C.S. Lewis opined,

None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.

I too, love the old classics. Where the average Christian book store is full of mediocre titles, I have found wisdom and truth in older generations of Christian divines. I love reading Jonathan Edwards, John Gill, Thomas Goodwin, John Owen, and George Whitefield, as well as their more modern heirs, A.W. Pink, A.W. Tozer, C.H. Spurgeon, John MacArthur, John Piper, and most anybody named John, and R.C. Sproul. Contemporary pastors like John Piper of Desiring God Ministries have made the works of Jonathan Edwards integral to his ministry. C.J. Mahaney of Sovereign Grace Ministries encouraged his protege Joshua Harris to read and study Spurgeon.

By the Lord's grace, I now embrace the faith of my Puritan forefathers.

Related Articles:
Doctrines of Grace - Monergism.com

Related Audio:
How did John Piper come to believe in the sovereignty of God? by John Piper - Desiring God

A Testimony to Free and Sovereign Grace by C.H. Spurgeon - SermonAudio

Related Bibles:
The Reformation Study Bible

Related Reading:
So you'd like to... understand Reformed Protestant Theology - Amazon.com

Related Video:
Amazing Grace DVD

Related Web Sites:
Monergism.com

A Pilgrim's Progress, which is my devotional and theological blog has been updated again.

For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
—2 Corinthians 5:1 (NKJV)

For students of history and students of the Bible, I found this interactive historical map and timeline to be interesting.