Biblical Grace and the Exclusion of Boasting - Pastor Patrick Hines Reformed Podcast

Biblical Grace and the Exclusion of Boasting - Pastor Patrick Hines Reformed Podcast

How the bible's exclusion of boasting destroys all forms of salvation by works to any degree at all, even as the smallest ingredient! John Brown of Haddington wrote:

"It is not the gospel of Christ or glad tidings of salvation to sinful men as such, though the preacher should all his life discourse of the person, natures, and offices of Christ; or of His birth, life, obedience, suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, sitting at God’s right hand, intercession, and coming to judgment; or of His merits and purchase, • Unless that the preacher truly state the nature of His surety-undertaking for us, the substitution of Himself in our room and stead, as the second Adam; • Unless he truly state His relation to the new covenant of grace as mediator, surety, and administrator of it; His relation to sinful men as their appointed Savior, offered and given to them in the gracious declarations, promises, and invitations of God; His relation to His people as their spiritual head and husband; as their only righteousness before God their judge; as the source of their sanctification by His blood sprinkled on their conscience, to free them from the law—or broken covenant of works, as the strength of sin—and purge their conscience from dead works to serve the living God; and by Himself and His Spirit dwelling in them, as a vital principle of holiness, enabling them to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world;

• Unless he truly represent the perfect freedom of God’s sovereign grace in the offers of the gospel and show that therein Christ (as a savior, husband, and portion) and eternal life of holiness and happiness (as completely purchased by and lodged in Him) are freely—without any regard to their good resolutions, sincerity, repentance, or good works as the cause—presented, offered, and urged on men as sinners, even the chief;

• Unless he truly represent the state of sinners’ justification before God—only through the imputed righteousness of Christ offered in the gospel and received by faith, uniting their persons to Him as their surety and husband, who has completely paid their debt to the law, as a broken covenant of works—and show that no works of theirs, no, not those which some call evangelical, have any influence as any part or ingredient of the condition and ground of it;

• Or if he does not represent faith in its true nature, as a persuasion of the infallible truth of God’s record, that there is eternal life in His Son for us lost sinners; as a receiving and resting upon Christ alone for salvation, as He is freely offered to us in the gospel;

• If he does not urge our receiving of Christ as the means of renewing our heart and our living on Him by the daily exercise of faith, according to our new-covenant state, as the means of producing good works and serving God in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our lives;

• If he states not union and communion with Christ and gracious communications from His fullness as the foundation of all our holy obedience; and inculcate holiness in heart and practice as a privilege as well as a duty; and as a duty only to be performed by our living on Christ as the Lord our righteousness, our quickening head and vital principle dwelling in our heart by faith.

In short, the least neglect to hold forth Christ as God’s free gift and our all in all in any privilege or duty; or the least recommendation of sincerity, repentance, good purposes, or works as the ground of our warrant and welcome to receive Jesus Christ as a savior; or as a cause or condition of our title to salvation, or a ground of our full possession of it, tends to pervert the glorious gospel."

of Haddington, John Brown. Counsel to Gospel Ministers: Letters on Preaching, Exemplary Behavior, and the Pastoral Call (pp. 18-19). Reformation Heritage Books. Kindle Edition.