Edwards on the Tragedy of the Fall & Redemption

Check this out from JE on the fall and redemption:

"The ruin which the Fall brought upon the soul of man consists very much in that he lost his nobler and more extensive principles, and fell wholly under the government of self-love. He is debased in his nature and become little and ignoble. Immediately upon the Fall the mind of man shrunk from its primitive greatness and extensiveness into an exceeding diminution and confinedness. As in other respects, so in this, that whereas before his soul was under the government of that noble principle of divine love whereby it was, as it were, enlarged to a kind of comprehension of all his fellow creatures; and not only so, but was not confined within such strait limits as the bounds of the creation but was extended to the Creator, and dispersed itself abroad in that infinite ocean of good and was, as it were, swallowed up by it, and become one with it. But as soon as he had transgressed, those nobler principles were immediately lost and all this excellent enlargedness of his soul was gone and he thenceforward shrunk into a little point, circumscribed and closely shut up within itself to the exclusion of others. God was forsaken and fellow creatures forsaken, and man retired within himself and became wholly governed by narrow, selfish principles. Self-love became absolute master of his soul, the more noble and spiritual principles having taken warning and fled. But God hath in mercy to miserable man contrived in the work of redemption, and by the glorious gospel of his Son, to bring the soul of man out of its confinement, and again to infuse those noble and divine principles by which it was governed at first. And so Christianity restores an excellent enlargement and extensiveness to the soul. It again possesses it of divine love or that Christian charity of which we read in the text, whereby it again embraces its fellow creatures and is devoted to and swallowed up in the Creator."

Charity & Its Fruits (Yale Ed. Vol. 8) Pg. 252-4

Keller on Alienation from God

It's been... ages I know... sorry no excuses.
Well I'll jump straight back in then with the fantastic input of Tim Keller (Redeemer Presby New York) on our 'alienation from God' as humanity. Here goes:

"One way to understand our alienation from God is to consider the solar system. There is harmony between the planets because they all agree on the center - the sun. But if each planet were to have a different center for its orbit, there would be cataclysmic collisions. God's 'center' is His own glory; he does everything because it is consistent with his own righteous, holy perfect nature. We, however, 'center' on our own comfort and happiness; we live for our own glory. Therefore, there is an inevitable collision between God and man. Man is traumatized by and and is hostile to the holy presence of God. Yet we are built for fellowship with God. We cannot live with God and we cannot live without God. This is the essence of man's condition [without Christ; see Gen 3]."

Good stuff hey? Helpful way to explain it and think it all through.

Simon

Jealousy

Reading Acts chapter 5 this morning. A passage which begins of course with that astonishing display of the continuity of the Holiness and splendor of God between Old & New Testament with the slaying of Ananais & Sapphira for lying to the Holy Spirit. But it was another verse (s) that grabbed my attention today.

What we see in the 16th verse referring to the Apostles are these words, "Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem..." Suddenly in the next verse we read (and this is the verse that got me), "Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy."

There it is that word that is not often referred to in the list of sins that are spoken against from the pulpit, but a powerful destructive sin all the same - JEALOUSY! And this jealousy was in the context of ministry, the place where it is most insidious and undermining. What has obviously happened here is the ministry of the apostles is the GLORY ministry of the time, it is the one drawing the crowds, the one receiving the air-time in the local papers, you know what I mean. This sends the high priest and the Sadducees into a spin as they feel outdone, old hat, forgotten, I'm sure you get the point. Their resulting actions are evil and conniving.

Confession time. I've felt this slip into my heart, into my attitude and it is sickening and destroys you inwardly. In this media age where great ministries from all over the world are brought right to your inbox or macbook screen there is endless opportunity to be drawn into the terrible grip of this sin.
In or out of ministry, where is your heart with regards to jealousy? What do you want that another has that causes you to speak bitterly of them, think wrong thoughts towards them?

We need to chop this weed at the root or it will cramp out the joy the Lord promises to us!

Simon