1646 London Baptist Confession - Article 30 Reconciliation

Greetings and salutations officially.

Yep, I mean that.

It's not just a saying.

I just, I like the way that sounds and I like to say it.

So we'll continue tonight on the course we've been on.

We've been cutting through the confession and we'll continue to do it tonight.

We'll speak about Article 30 Reconciliation and 31 Human Afflictions.

So I hope that will be beneficial to all of us and as normal let's open up with a word of prayer.

You know there's so much to pray about isn't there? I mean just, just the things that take place in our world just, just there's so many things that we should, to me there's so many things that just don't make sense and they don't make sense because they're not in line with God's Word and just sometimes wonder why so, and I know the reason, but why so many people will run so far away from the truth and just try to, try to see how fast they can go to hell.

I don't know how else to say it, but anyway let's open up with a word of prayer.

Our Father and our God again we thank you Lord.

We thank you for who you are.

We thank you for who our Savior is and we thank you for who we are in him to you.

Thank you Lord for our salvation.

We confess how little we appreciate and recognize and respond to such a great work in our own lives that you've taken us from, from rebellious sinners and have by your power and your grace granted us newness of life.

Father as we gather together tonight we do pray for the situations around the world Lord, so many in sorrow, so many in pain, so many hurting, so many in, in darkness Lord, both mostly spiritually Lord.

So many people called good evil and evil good.

So we pray Lord you'd be merciful.

We pray you'd be gracious Lord.

We pray that your hand would, would save Lord, that you would bring many to yourself before that great and terrible day.

For in that day the door will be shut, the goats will be separated from the sheep, and Lord you have said that your righteous judgment will be poured out.

So to that end tonight Lord may we be sober, but may we be joyful in the truth as it is in Christ.

Bless our thoughts, bless our words, bless our fellowship in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Okay so as I said the first half will be Article 30 which is Reconciliation.

It's a rather short article in the Confession so we certainly can handle reading it and kind of maybe dissecting it a little bit, but I want us to at least read it.

It's on page 17 if you have the Confession.

Article 30 which again the term Reconciliation has been added in as it seems to be that which the brothers are talking about.

So the article says this, all believers through the knowledge of that justification of life given by the Father and brought forth by the blood of Christ have as their great privilege of that new covenant peace with God and reconciliation whereby they that were afar off are made nigh by that blood and have peace passing all understanding yea joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have received the atonement.

So as I said in my time tonight I want to simply well I will say I want to look at a bunch of scriptures I don't know if we'll get through all of them but I think I'll have enough time to at least make the point of what I'm trying to set forth but let me say it this way we have been going through as of late especially when we talk about justification and we talk about sanctification and now we're going to talk about a reconciliation and we're talking about the things that too many people are very difficult to understand and and I want us to try to think of it this way that we ought not to make we ought to make a distinction between what justification is, sanctification, reconciliation, glorification, we ought to make clear distinctions of what the scriptures give to us concerning these truths but but I would ask us to remember that they they are all close relatives if I could use that term.

In other words you can't really separate them from each other because they are all within the redemption that is in Christ it just different ways in which God gives it to us and in different actions so I want us to think about that as we go through this.

Reconciliation is not just a topic or a doctrine that's floating out there in spiritual ozone somewhere and it's all by itself because it's not.

It's vitally connected even as we have been going through the doctrines of grace and we've been and I hope everybody understands at least at this point that what we had continually said will continually say is that you can't separate them they're inseparable they're linked together that the tulip is not just that they didn't just pick the tulip to use because it was just a fancy word or a nice word or a nice thought but because it represented really a chain of thoughts and that if you don't have total depravity as we say often if you don't have total poverty fixed perseverance of the Saints really doesn't make sense.

So again I just wanted us to think about that.

Okay so as we look at the article it the brothers thought this way all believers through the knowledge of that justification of life given by Father and brought forth by the blood of Christ and I wanted to ask us to think about this in the very beginning was the way they open it up and they say all believers.

So when you think about it whatever reconciliation is it is something that is given or something that is a possession of all believers and I think it's important that we remind ourselves of that that we realize that the truths of the Word of God are for all believers not only those who sometimes I think people think that some of the truths in the Bible are only good for the really spiritual people and that the rest you know they kind of suffer.

It's so important especially these these great doctrines of justification and sanctification and certainly reconciliation that we realize that every single believer has been reconciled to God and if we don't understand it that way don't understand it not only in its individual aspect but in its corporate aspect I think we're going to miss what's really behind that truth and so I think that's why in a sense they say all believers and they will repeat that word all and it's so important again do we really believe that every single child of God has the same positional relationship with God.

Now that does not mean that at times some of God's children please him in a way that at times others might grieve him.

I'm not discounting that I'm not saying that that doesn't take place but I think it's important for us to understand that these these great and glorious truths that God has given to us apply to all of us that there's no second tier child of God right and again I think sometimes we put people or we put positions on pedestals that God doesn't.