On the 14th of December one of the great defenders of the Christian Faith died namely RC Sproul. We will miss him for this very reason – that he was a faithful and very gifted and able defender of the Gospel truth.
That said as Tim Challies wrote: “I don’t think he would want you to cry about it. ‘You can grieve for me the week before I die, if I’m scared and hurting’ he once said, ‘but when I gasp that last fleeting breath and my immortal soul flees to heaven, I’m going to be jumping over fire hydrants down the golden streets…’ ” So, with Tim and RC himself, I rejoice that he is with the Lord, and for the legacy he left behind we will miss him.
I myself from time to time visited the Ligonier website and read some articles there and I once listened to a message of RC “The defence and confirmation of the Gospel” preached at a Together for the Gospel Conference in 2010, and this is where RC was at his best “defending and confirming” the Gospel using as his text 2 Cor 6:11-2 C0r 7:1. In this address he focused on two things that plagued the church over the last 50 years. He started of from a popular song he heard during his boyhood that went something like this: “You got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative, but, don’t mess with mister in between”. So the first part of his message dealt with “the danger of messing with mister in between”, and the second part dealt with “The danger of messing with the gospel itself” You have to listen to this address yourself to get his whole argument but basically he meant by “mister in between” the whole problem that plagued the church as early as the history of Israel, namely “syncretism”, blending pagan philosophy into Christianity and which always ended in disaster. And nothing has changed. Modern synthesism do the same. In the second part of his address, RC related that the greatest crisis that he witnessed in his lifetime is over the Gospel itself. When he graduated, American evangelicalism was solidly built on the rocks of Sola Scriptura (The bases of our faith is the inerrancy and the trustworthy self revelation of God and His will in His infallible Word the Bible) and Sola Fidei (justification by faith alone), but now we witness many evangelical institutions abandoning Sola Scriptura and even Sola Fidei itself. Well you have to listen to the address to see how he proves the points in an excellent way. But one thing I can say is that this address helped me to even better understand the troubled waters we currently find ourselves in today and how to carefully navigate your way through it by faith in Christ.
In my hand I also have a book I bought written by RC Sproul: “Essential truths of the Christian Faith” with a really helpful summary of all the essential truths of the Christian Faith namely: Revelation, Nature and Attributes of God, Works and decrees of God, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, Human beings and the Fall, Salvation, Church and Sacraments, Spirituality and living in this age and the End Times. I find it a handy resource for quick scriptural references on these topics in a very concise and easy to find way, as the key scripture references are in the text and in the left margin. It is also a great book to give as a gift to a new christian.
Lastly I will remember RC for a debate between him and John McArthur on the always controversial topic off believers baptism and covenant baptism. I will remember him for his friendly and humble way he defended the peado baptist position. If you struggle with this it is worthwile to listen to this messages or read the transcripts.
https://search.ligonier.org/?q=baptism+debate
or on the Grace to You site with transcripts
https://www.gty.org/articles/A360/case-for-believer-s-baptism-the-credo-baptist-position
https://www.gty.org/articles/A361/case-for-infant-baptism-the-historic-paedo-baptist-position
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.