Tag Archives: Phillip Powers

04/09/2024

On the Old Testament’s Relevance for New Testament Believers

By Phillip Powers

TEXT
7 “Are these things true?” the high priest asked.

2 “Brothers and fathers,” he replied, “listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he settled in Haran, 3 and said to him: Leave your country and relatives, and come to the land that I will show you. 4 “Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. From there, after his father died, God had him move to this land in which you are now living. 5 He didn’t give him an inheritance in it—not even a foot of ground—but he promised to give it to him as a possession, and to his descendants after him, even though he was childless. 6 God spoke in this way: His descendants would be strangers in a foreign country, and they would enslave and oppress them for four hundred years. 7 I will judge the nation that they will serve as slaves, God said. After this, they will come out and worship me in this place. 8 And so he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. After this, he fathered Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.

9 “The patriarchs became jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt, but God was with him 10 and rescued him out of all his troubles. He gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who appointed him ruler over Egypt and over his whole household. 11 Now a famine and great suffering came over all of Egypt and Canaan, and our ancestors could find no food. 12 When Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there the first time. 13 The second time, Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh. 14 Joseph invited his father Jacob and all his relatives, seventy-five people in all, 15 and Jacob went down to Egypt. He and our ancestors died there, 16 were carried back to Shechem, and were placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

17 “As the time was approaching to fulfill the promise that God had made to Abraham, the people flourished and multiplied in Egypt 18 until a different king who did not know Joseph ruled over Egypt. 19 He dealt deceitfully with our race and oppressed our ancestors by making them abandon their infants outside so that they wouldn’t survive. 20 At this time Moses was born, and he was beautiful in God’s sight. He was cared for in his father’s home for three months. 21 When he was put outside, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted and raised him as her own son. 22 So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his speech and actions.

23 “When he was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites. 24 When he saw one of them being mistreated, he came to his rescue and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian. 25 He assumed his people would understand that God would give them deliverance through him, but they did not understand. 26 The next day he showed up while they were fighting and tried to reconcile them peacefully, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you mistreating each other?’ 27 “But the one who was mistreating his neighbor pushed Moses aside, saying: Who appointed you a ruler and a judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me, the same way you killed the Egyptian yesterday?

29 “When he heard this, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. 30 After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush. 31 When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. As he was approaching to look at it, the voice of the Lord came: 32 I am the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. Moses began to tremble and did not dare to look. 33 “The Lord said to him: Take off the sandals from your feet, because the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34 I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. And now, come, I will send you to Egypt. 35 “This Moses, whom they rejected when they said, Who appointed you a ruler and a judge?—this one God sent as a ruler and a deliverer through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 This man led them out and performed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.

37 “This is the Moses who said to the Israelites: God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. 38 He is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors. He received living oracles to give to us. 39 Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him. Instead, they pushed him aside, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. 40 They told Aaron: Make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what’s happened to him. 41 They even made a calf in those days, offered sacrifice to the idol, and were celebrating what their hands had made. 42 God turned away and gave them up to worship the stars of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: House of Israel, did you bring me offerings and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness? 43 You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship. So I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.

44 “Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it according to the pattern he had seen. 45 Our ancestors in turn received it and with Joshua brought it in when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before them, until the days of David. 46 He found favor in God’s sight and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. 47 It was Solomon, rather, who built him a house, 48 but the Most High does not dwell in sanctuaries made with hands, as the prophet says: 49 Heaven is my throne, and the earth my footstool. What sort of house will you build for me? says the Lord, or what will be my resting place? 50 Did not my hand make all these things?

51 “You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit. As your ancestors did, you do also. 52 Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become. 53 You received the law under the direction of angels and yet have not kept it.”

~Acts 7.1-53

Title: On the Value and Relevance of the Old Testament
Text: Acts 7.1-53
Series: The Book of Acts
Church: Redeemer Baptist Church, Jonesboro, AR
Date: April 7, 2024

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04/04/2024

On the Logic of the Resurrection

By Phillip Powers

The New Testament is clear that the Christian Gospel rises and falls on the historical factuality of this truth, that Jesus Christ truly lived, truly died, and truly rose again. There simply is no way around it; as the Apostle Paul writes, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain, and so is your faith. … And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.” (1 Cor 15.13-14, 17) Jesus had to truly die in our place to satisfy the wrath of God toward sin, and he had to truly be raised from the dead in victory over sin and death. The work of Christ in His death and resurrection is the means by which he secures our salvation; His death achieves for us our forgiveness, and His resurrections assures us of our life eternal.

However, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is more than simply a historical event; it is more than merely a transaction between the Father and the Son. No, the logic of the Gospel is that the work of Christ in his crucifixion is the pattern for our life as well. By faith, we are united with Christ; we have died with him to sin and we have been raised with him in newness of life. (Romans 6.4-5) This is the logic of the Gospel, namely that His death becomes our death and his resurrection becomes our resurrection. In the space that follows, I would like to spend just a few brief moments reflecting on the implications of this essential principle of the Christian Gospel.

On the one hand, we participate in his death and resurrection spiritually, which means we experience it through the indwelling of His Holy Spirit. This happens at the point of conversion; when someone trusts in Christ, they die with Him to the tyranny and slavery of sin, they die with Him to the old self and its fleshly desires. “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin.” (Romans 6.6) Consequently, they are, then, indwelt by the Holy Spirit who gives life. As Paul goes on to write, “Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.” (Romans 8.10) We are renewed and transformed by the Spirit that we might walk in righteousness and holiness before God and others in this life. This is what it means to be resurrected with Him spiritually; as Paul says elsewhere, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!” (2 Cor 5.17) This is the good news of the Gospel.

However, we must also affirm that we will participate in his death and resurrection physically. This is also essential to the logic of the Gospel. Death is the consequence of sin and its corruption in a fallen creation. As the author of Hebrews writes, “it is appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgment.” Every human being, saved and unsaved, will die physically, but those who die in Christ will also be resurrected physically.  The Apostle Paul writes, “the dead in Christ will rise,” (1 Thess. 4.16) or again, “the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.” (1 Cor 15.52) In the same way that he was raised in a glorified and perfected physical body, so also we will be raised in a glorified and perfected body. “We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is.” (1 John 3.2) This is the hope; this is the promise. This is the logic of the Gospel. “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.” (1 Cor 15.49)

Of course, we may be tempted to conclude that the position that I have sketched out here is hopelessly illogical. How can it be possible that we must die and be raised both spiritually and physically? This seems like a contradiction in terms. How can Paul claim that we have been raised with Christ but then claim that we will one day be raised with Christ. I believe the answer to this apparent contradiction lies in the New Testament reality of the already and the not yet. In fact, I believe that this hermeneutical principle is fundamental for understanding the New Testament in general. In Christ, the last days have already been inaugurated. The fulfillment of God’s work of salvation has begun in the person and work of Christ. Christ has been raised from the dead as the “firstfruits”, and he has given us the eschatological indwelling of the Spirit. We already live the life of the age to come, aka eternal life, and we stand redeemed under the promise of the New Covenant.

And yet, we understand that the full consequences of the redeeming work of Christ have not yet been completely realized. We await the day when he will come again in power and glory to do away with sin once and for all, and it is then that we will be raised in glorified bodies. This is how the Apostle Paul describes the order of the resurrection, “Christ, the firstfruits; afterward, at his coming, those who belong to Christ.” (1 Cor 15.23) Yes, those who are in Christ by faith have already been made new; we are already regenerated by the indwelling Spirit,. But we await the day when our faith will be made sight. “We ourselves have the Spirit as the firstfruits, [yet] we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8.23) Christ is risen; he came up out of the grave – physically, bodily, gloriously, and one day we too will be raised from the dead physically, bodily, and gloriously.

The point of all this is to say that the inherent logic of Christ’s resurrection requires the physical bodily resurrection of believers. To deny this truth is to deny the gospel itself. We cannot have a gospel, we cannot have a salvation, we cannot have a redemption, that does not find its completion in the physical bodily resurrection of those who have been united with Christ by faith. One article I recently read sums up this truth by saying, “The end of the work of God, as regards man, is the glorification of his restored and sanctified nature—body and soul—in eternity. Without this, salvation and restitution would be incomplete. The adoption cannot be consummated without the redemption of the body.” Or to put it more sharply, a gospel that denies the physical resurrection of believers at the physical second coming of Christ is a false gospel, as the Apostle Paul would say, “If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, a curse be on him!” (Galatians 1.9)

For further study, see:
On Christian Hope: Heaven or Resurrection
On the Ground of Christian Hope
On Eschatology and the Gospel
On Grief and Hope

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04/03/2024

On Resurrection and the Path of Glory

By Phillip Powers
TEXT
10 My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, 11 assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.

~Philippians 3.10-11

Title: On Resurrection and the Path of Glory
Text: Philippians 3.10-11
Church: Redeemer Baptist Church, Jonesboro, AR
Date: March 31, 2024

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03/29/2024

On the Trinity, the Cross, and the Cry of Dereliction

By Phillip Powers

Today is Good Friday, a day when Christians around the world will pause to think about the death of Jesus Christ. It is a scene that has gripped the imaginations of Christian artists and sculptors now for two millennia, the Son of God hanging, naked, beaten, and bleeding, nailed to a Roman cross, and left to die. The brutal and gory realities of the scene would probably turn even the strongest of stomachs. And yet, for followers of Jesus, the words of the old hymn writer capture it well, “O that old rugged cross, so despised by the world, has a wondrous attraction for me.” This is because for those whose sins have been washed away by the shed blood of Christ, there is simply nothing more beautiful, nothing more deeply profound, than the substitutionary death of Son of God.

The profundity of the scene is best expressed in the words of Jesus; “About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Elí, Elí, lemá sabachtháni?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Matthew 27.46) This “cry of dereliction”, which Jesus quotes from Psalm 22.1, is typically explained as the moment in which the full weight of God’s wrath toward sin was placed on the Son, and because God is essentially holy and cannot look upon sin, “the father turned his face away”, as we often sing. Of course, I am not sure that we will ever understand what Jesus was feeling in that moment, but the significance of the moment invites us to spend the next few moments attempting to understanding its theological implications.

And our reflection on this scene must begin with the affirmation of the hypostatic union, or the truth that Jesus was both God and man. He was God the Son incarnate. So, what might it mean for the Son to be “abandoned” by the Father? From a trinitarian perspective, it cannot mean that the godhead was divided in any kind of way. We confess that the God of the Bible is three in one – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – one in essence, three in person. As a corollary, we confess that there is one God; we are not tri-theists. So, if there is only one God, then, it is metaphysically impossible for God to be divided from himself. In other words, the “cry of dereliction” cannot be understood to imply a separation or a division of the Father from the Son, or of God from himself.

Secondly, the doctrine of the Trinity also implies the idea of inseparable operations, meaning that whatever the Father does, the Son and the Holy Spirit do also, because there is only one God. This means that when the Father poured out His wrath on Jesus at the cross, that wrath belonged equally to the Son and the Spirit as well. So, it is completely accurate to say that the Son poured out His own wrath toward sin on Himself at the cross. This is the beauty of the Gospel, namely that what the justice of God required the love of God supplied. God took into Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, the wrath that we deserve, so that we could be saved from His wrath. This truth should always leave us absolutely breathless and without words.

So, can we still sing the words “the father turned His face away”? I think yes; as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us.” One commentator that I recently read explains, “In a sense beyond human comprehension, God treated Christ as ‘sin,’ aligning him so totally with sin and its dire consequences that from God’s viewpoint he became indistinguishable from sin itself.” Jesus knew this to be his fate. He was fully and completely human, and, on the night He was betrayed, the burden of this task was so heavy that it caused even to sweat great drops of blood. Whatever the god-man felt in that moment, hanging there as the perfect and final sacrifice for our sin, is simply beyond our capability to fathom. Nevertheless, it was a fate that He willingly embraced for the sake of our salvation. And so we sing,

In that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
a wondrous beauty I see,
for ’twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
to pardon and sanctify me.

For further study, see
Matthew Emerson, “Parameters for Talking about the the Cry of Dereliction” (March 27, 2018)
and “Canonical Parameters for Talking about the Cry of Dereliction” (April 3, 2018)

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03/18/2024

On Sanctification and the Christian Life

By Phillip Powers
TEXT

1. Those who are united to Christ and effectually called and regenerated have a new heart and a new spirit created in them through the power of Christ’s death and resurrection. They are also further sanctified, really and personally, through the same power, by his Word and Spirit dwelling in them. The dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed, and the various evil desires that arise from it are more and more weakened and put to death.  At the same time, those called and regenerated are more and more enlivened and strengthened in all saving graces so that they practice true holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.

2. This sanctification extends throughout the whole person, though it is never completed in this life. Some corruption remains in every part.  From this arises a continual and irreconcilable war, with the desires of the flesh against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.

3. In this war, the remaining corruption may greatly prevail for a time.  Yet through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part overcomes.  So the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. They pursue a heavenly life, in gospel obedience to all the commands that Christ as Head and King has given them in his Word.

Series: The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith
Church: Redeemer Baptist Church, Jonesboro, AR
Date: February 28, 2024

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03/05/2024

On the Fatherhood of God and Our Adoption

By Phillip Powers

TEXT

1. God has granted that all those who are justified would receive the grace of adoption, in and for the sake of his only Son Jesus Christ. By this they are counted among the children of God and enjoy the freedom and privileges of that relationship. They inherit his name, receive the spirit of adoption, have access to the throne of grace with boldness, and are enabled to cry “Abba, Father!” They are given compassion, protected, provided for, and chastened by him as a father. Yet they are never cast off but are sealed for the day of redemption and inherit the promises as heirs of everlasting salvation.

~Second London Baptist Confession (1689), 12.1

Series: The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith
Church: Redeemer Baptist Church, Jonesboro, AR
Date: February 21, 2024

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02/19/2024

On the Covenants and the Story of Redemption

By Phillip Powers

2. Since humanity brought itself under the curse of the law by its fall, it pleased the Lord to make a covenant of grace.  In this covenant he freely offers to sinners life and salvation through Jesus Christ. On their part he requires faith in him, that they may be saved, and promises to give his Holy Spirit to all who are ordained to eternal life, to make them willing and able to believe.

3. This covenant is revealed in the gospel. It was revealed first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation through the seed of the woman.  After that, it was revealed step by step until the full revelation of it was completed in the New Testament. This covenant is based on the eternal covenant transaction between the Father and the Son concerning the redemption of the elect.  Only through the grace of this covenant have those saved from among the descendants of fallen Adam obtained life and blessed immortality. Humanity is now utterly incapable of being accepted by God on the same terms on which Adam was accepted in his state of innocence.

~Second London Baptist Confession (1689), 7.2, 7.3

Series: The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith
Church: South Caraway Baptist Church, Jonesboro, AR
Date: January 17, 2024

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12/18/2023

On Love as the Heart of Christmas

By Phillip Powers

TEXT

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. 16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.

God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. 17 In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.

~1 John 4.7-21

Title: On Love as the Heart of Christmas
Text: 1 John 4.7-21
Church: South Caraway Baptist Church, Jonesboro, AR
Date: December 17, 2023

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10/23/2023

On Ordinary Means for Interpreting the Bible

By Phillip Powers

TEXT

6. The whole counsel of God concerning everything essential for his own glory and man’s salvation, faith, and life is either explicitly stated or by necessary inference contained in the Holy Scriptures. Nothing is ever to be added to the Scriptures, either by new revelation of the Spirit or by human traditions.

Nevertheless, we acknowledge that the inward illumination of the Spirit of God is necessary for a saving understanding of what is revealed in the Word. We recognize that some circumstances concerning the worship of God and government of the church are common to human actions and organizations and are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian wisdom, following the general rules of the Word, which must always be observed.

7. Some things in Scripture are clearer than others, and some people understand the teachings more clearly than others. However, the things that must be known, believed, and obeyed for salvation are so clearly set forth and explained in one part of Scripture or another that both the educated and uneducated may achieve a sufficient understanding of them by properly using ordinary measures.

~Second London Baptist Confession (1689), 1.6, 1.7

Series: The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith
Church: South Caraway Baptist Church, Jonesboro, AR
Date: October 11, 2023

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10/09/2023

On the Testimonium and the Word

By Phillip Powers

TEXT

5. The testimony of the church of God may stir and persuade us to adopt a high and reverent respect for the Holy Scriptures. Moreover, the heavenliness of the contents, the power of the system of truth, the majesty of the style, the harmony of all the parts, the central focus on giving all glory to God, the full revelation of the only way of salvation, and many other incomparable qualities and complete perfections, all provide abundant evidence that the Scriptures are the Word of God. Even so, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority of the Scriptures comes from the internal work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.

~Second London Baptist Confession (1689), 1.5

Series: The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith
Church: South Caraway Baptist Church, Jonesboro, AR
Date: September 27, 2023

For further study, see also:
On the Spirit and the Word
On Biblical Interpretation and the Holy Spirit

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