Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: The coming of new life, which is the life of Christ, makes it possible for us to have our whole life transformed. If you are not living the transformed life, it is simply because you do not wish to avail yourself of the power that is present within you when you have received Christ as your Savior. If, of course, you've never believed in Him, you must come first to the cross. But if you have believed in Him, then the power is there available for you.

Since the principle is presented to us in our text as a command, we must consider the aspect of this truth that presents it as a possibility within the reach of an act of our will. We say to ourselves, and to all who have believed in Christ, reach out your hand and open the dikes which will let the floods of grace and power come in to transform the lower parts of your life. Your spirit has been renewed. Let that renewal flow into your life at every moment. Then the life of triumph is possible.

Guest (Male): Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio ministry which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. The application of God's word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago.

The message we'll be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled, "How God Transforms the Christian." Every baby wants his own way and cries when he does not get it. We are all born with a nature that wants to be gratified, and we continue following our selfish desires into adulthood. But when the Lord brings us to salvation, He begins the lifelong process of growing us toward spiritual maturity.

How does God transform rebellious sinners into His obedient children who live in yielded submission to Jesus Christ? The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is Romans chapter 12 and verse 2. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled, "How God Transforms the Christian."

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto Thee, our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. There is so much need in the world today that we do not know where to begin, but we thank Thee that Thou art on the throne and that Thou doest all things well. Even when we see the world in disorder and chaos, we know that Thou art working all things together for the good of those who love Thee and who are the called according to Thy purpose. So bless Thy word in this hour that it may meet the need of all who listen as Thou dost see the need. We ask it in the name and for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

We come now in our study of Romans 12 to the second verse, where we read, "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewal of your mind." Not conformed, but transformed. This is the life of the true believer in Christ. The first of these two words, "conformed," we saw in our last study, is the translation of a Greek word in the New Testament which means literally that we are not to go along with the world's schemes.

The second of these words, "transformed," is a Greek word which means a very radical change from one nature and life to another. It is the word *metamorphoomai*, which has given us our word "metamorphosis." When a tadpole is changed into a frog, or when a grub becomes a butterfly, we speak of it as metamorphosis. There has been a marked and more or less abrupt change in the form and structure of the creature.

Our English word "transformed" carries this same idea. The prefix "trans," we know it well in such words as transcontinental and transatlantic. And when we analyze "transformed," we realize that the form or shape or substance is carried across into something entirely different. The word *metamorphoomai*, transformed, is found four times in the New Testament. Twice in the gospels to describe an extraordinary event in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, once here in our text, and once in another epistle to describe the ultimate end of our transformation into the full likeness of Christ.

Let us look first at the instances in the gospels. Critics have often attacked the Bible on the grounds that something Christ said was going to happen did not happen. He said to the disciples, as we read in Matthew 16:28, "Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." Or, as Mark puts it in chapter 9 and verse 1, "until they see the kingdom of God come with power."

Critics say that this did not take place. If this prophecy refers to the ultimate fulfillment of the Bible prophecies concerning the second coming of Christ, then of course they're right. But since the Bible flatly states that something else is in view, it's the critics who are wrong and the Bible which is right. For in both gospels, the promise is followed immediately by the extraordinary incident which is described in Greek as the metamorphosis of Christ, and in English as His transfiguration.

For the word "transfigured" and the word "transformed" in our text are the same Greek word. What was the transfiguration of Christ? The question is fully answered in the epistle of Peter, where we're told that God set forth a pageant of the future in order that the disciples might see Christ as He would be when He comes again in His second coming.

Peter says, "For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to Him by the majestic glory, 'This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased,' we heard this voice borne from heaven, for we were with Him on the holy mount. And thus, we have the prophetic word made more sure." Those are verses 16 to 19 in 2 Peter 1.

Now, in the whole development of spiritual truth, the transformation, the transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ, has an important place. Let us turn from our text for a moment to outline this. Back in the Hebrew sacrifices of the Old Testament, the Passover lamb had to be without spot and blemish. The householder would take one lamb and examine it, and finding it defective, would examine another, and perhaps find it defective. After examining several, he would come to one which seemed to be without spot and blemish.

This lamb was taken into the house and kept for three days, then examined once more and, finally, put to death. Every care had to be taken to see that the lamb, which was to picture Christ in the pageant of the sacrifices, should be without spot and blemish. There came the moment when the Lord Jesus Christ was to be manifested as the Savior of men. God sent before Him John the Baptist, the forerunner, to prepare the way of Christ.

John the Baptist announced that the Messiah was coming, but he did not yet know who He was. There must have been several moments in the life of John when his heart quickened, almost skipping a beat, thinking that some noble human character could be the Messiah for whom he was looking. But then a further look would see some spot or blemish. Then suddenly, the spirit of God came upon John and, seeing Jesus, he cried, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."

In what followed, it was manifest that God acted in such a way as to say, "You can call Him the lamb from what you see outwardly, but I must declare what I see within Him." Thus it was that the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus in the form of a dove and the voice of the Father spoke out of heaven saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Then Jesus Christ was taken into the house of Israel for three years.

During those years, He moved among men, living with the worst of them. The Pharisees derided Him because He was so often seen in the company of publicans and harlots. They called Him a glutton and a winebibber. Three years of this life passed, and the time drew near when the lamb was to be put to death. The Lord Jesus had rubbed shoulders with outcasts during these three years. Immoral women had looked Him in the eye.

Well, during these three years, has He become tainted in any way through these contacts? So God takes Him up in the mount of transfiguration and examines Him over again in the presence of the universe. The story of this examination is remarkable. Christ took three of the disciples with Him and they went into a mountain. The disciples fell asleep. Waking suddenly, they were startled to see the Lord Jesus transformed, transfigured.

His garments became glistening, intensely white, as no fuller on earth could bleach them. His face shone like the sun and His garments became white as light. Peter did not understand what was happening and suggested that they make three booths there, tents, booths like those that the Jews made for the feast of the tabernacles. And God spoke out of heaven, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him."

You see, God the Father examines the lamb over again and finds Him perfect after His three years with wicked men. Now He is seen as the lamb proclaimed eligible to die. He could not otherwise have been the Savior without spot and blemish. But the glory which came through at that moment, Peter tells us, was the glory of His majesty. When Jesus was here as a man, He was not seen in majesty, but in humiliation.

When the Lord Jesus was dying on the cross, He was not exhibiting majesty, but grace and love in the most agonized form of seeming defeat. When Jesus arose from the dead, He still did not show Himself in majesty, but in lesser ways He moved among them as He weaned them away from dependence upon His physical presence. But there, on the mount of transfiguration, He was transformed for a moment into the glory that He will have when He comes again.

This was His majesty. This is the way He will be when He comes again to rule upon this earth. And our text uses this word that describes the glory of Christ to call us to a transformation of life that will change us more and more into the likeness of that glory of the risen Christ. This process is described in 2 Corinthians chapter 3. For after recounting the great change from law to grace, the Apostle says, "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed, transfigured, transformed, *metamorphoomai*, into the likeness of our Lord Jesus from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the spirit."

Now this, all summed up, brings us to the great purpose which God has for those whom He is saving through Jesus Christ, and tells us how this purpose is being accomplished. Back in the eighth chapter of Romans, it is announced that God has a purpose for those who are saved through Jesus Christ. This purpose is nothing less than that they shall be like the Lord Jesus Christ. Our English translation reads, "For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son."

Having spoken of the metamorphosis in our text, we can realize what God is getting at when we realize that the goal He has for us is nothing less than what He calls a *summorphos*. That is to say, we are to have the same form as the Lord Jesus Christ. John puts it, "It does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."

We know from Paul's epistle to the Philippians that we shall have resurrection bodies like that which the Lord Jesus had when He came forth from the tomb. Never forget that the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ was not merely the resurrection of the spirit, but a bodily resurrection. The body in which He died came forth from the grave with new characteristics, and God tells us that we are waiting for the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like His glorious body, His glorified body, by the power which enables Him even to subject all things to Himself.

Wonderful as it will be to have a resurrection body like that of the Lord Jesus Christ, even more wonderful is the fact that we shall have His moral and intellectual likeness. Then shall we understand fully, even as we have been fully understood. Our present text tells us that this transformation, while completed in the future, is in progress even now. If we're honest with the text, we shall admit at once that the matter is placed in the form of a double command.

We are told that we are not to go along with the schemes of this age, but that we are to be transformed, transfigured, by the renewal of our minds. We can easily understand the first of these commands. We're not to live and act with the ideals, the methods, the goals, that make up the life of the one who does not believe in Christ. And especially, we are not to follow the whole of the manner of life of society and civilization, which life is the sum total of all the lives of the unbelievers, faintly perfumed by the presence of some Christians in the midst of the general swamp of this age.

The second command, however, demands deep and straight thinking. We are to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. There are several steps to this. First, we must face the fact that our minds need renewing. Just what is this renewal process? Again, I believe we must find the true answer by going back to the Greek word in the New Testament. It is a word, *anakainosis*, that is found only here and in one other text in the New Testament.

But when we put these two texts together, we can find the inner meaning of the thought that is expressed here. In the epistle to Titus, there is a description of the radical transformation that takes place in the life of the man who passes out of death and into life through the regenerating work which God performs in a man who comes to Him through Jesus Christ. We read in Titus 3, "For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by men and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit."

Let us see what this means. When God first created man, He did so by breathing into his nostrils the breath, the *ruach* of life, and thus man became a living soul. When Adam sinned, the spirit of God left him and Adam could do no more than beget sons and daughters in his own image and after his own likeness. The human race from that moment consisted of beings who had physical bodies and an inner nature which was depraved and fallen.

This inner nature was the soul of Adam into which the spirit had fallen as the third floor of a bombed building might fall into the second floor. But when a man is born again, God creates a new life within him. Instead of being a man of two parts, body and soul-spirit, he becomes a being of three parts: body and soul and spirit. Now God tells us that this coming in of the Holy Spirit is to be the means of the transformation of our life.

We are no longer to live the life of the soul, but the life of the spirit. The new creation is the creation of the new spirit, as the new third story of the building which is to have its influence on all the rest. We are to be dominated by this presence of the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ within our being. This principle is expressed in many verses of the New Testament.

When Saint Peter got out of line to the point where it became necessary for Saint Paul to rebuke him terribly, the following words were included in the rebuke: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." This, too, is the thought in the eighth of Romans, where Paul describes the glorious position of the one who is in Christ.

He says, "God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh so that the righteousness demanded by the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit." Now the reason I'm able to speak of the renewal of the mind as being the renewal of the spirit is that God states that our mind, our thinking process, is a part of our spirit.

We read in the First Corinthian Epistle: "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him, God has revealed to us through the spirit. For the spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what person knows a man's thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thought of God except the spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed upon us by God."

And now you see the whole picture takes shape. We lost true understanding when the human race fell in Adam. We regain true understanding by the renewal of our mind when God creates within us anew at our new birth the life of the spirit. The coming of new life, which is the life of Christ, makes it possible for us to have our whole life transformed.

If you are not living the transformed life, it is simply because you do not wish to avail yourself of the power that is present within you when you have received Christ as your Savior. If, of course, you've never believed in Him, you must come first to the cross. But if you have believed in Him, then the power is there available for you. Since the principle is presented to us in our text as a command, we must consider the aspect of this truth that presents it as a possibility within the reach of an act of our will.

We know well the other side that presents this truth as the continuing work of the Holy Spirit within us. But here, we say to ourselves, and to all who have believed in Christ, reach out your hand and open the dikes which will let the floods of grace and power come in to transform the lower parts of your life. Your spirit has been renewed. Let that renewal flow into your life at every moment. Then the life of triumph is possible. And our God and Father, we pray Thee that Thou shalt bless this teaching to the hearts of each listener. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Guest (Male): God is well pleased when we rest completely in the finished work of Jesus Christ and present ourselves as living sacrifices for His service and His glory. You have been listening to Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, a ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. We hope you have benefited from today's message entitled, "How God Transforms the Christian."

To listen to more Bible teachings by Dr. Barnhouse, tune in anytime via the internet. Visit us at alliancenet.org. An audio copy of today's teaching is also available by calling us toll-free: 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled, "How God Transforms the Christian," or simply request message number R12-7.

We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled, "All Things Work Together." Romans 8:28 declares, "We know that all things work together for good to them who love the Lord, even to them who are called according to His purposes." Yet many times, we may feel that nothing good could ever come out of our problems and circumstances.

This free booklet shows how this precious and powerful promise applies to any situation you may be facing and can fill you with hope and encouragement when you need it the most. Ask for your free copy of "All Things Work Together" when you call or write.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We exist to promote a biblical understanding and worldview. Drawing upon the insight and wisdom of reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by, we seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place.

The Alliance also produces the radio broadcast, "The Bible Study Hour," featuring the teachings of the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice, and "Every Last Word," featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. For a full listing of radio stations carrying our programs, visit us online at alliancenet.org.

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Be sure to ask for a free resource catalog featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding reformed teachers and theologians, including Donald Grey Barnhouse, Dr. James Montgomery Boice, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. Thank you for listening. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.