Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse. Stand beside the highway and watch the death toll of automobile accidents rise. What is the cause of most of the accidents? The attitude of "get out of my way." How many times we see the baleful glare of a driver who comes up beside us in the next lane of traffic, his whole attitude showing his compulsion to be first. Even when we become believers in Christ, the old Adamic nature still remains with us, and we discover the warfare of the spirit against the flesh.

Guest (Male): Over a half 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 The Debt of Love. The Apostle Paul sent Timothy to the church at Philippi to settle a conflict between two believers. In his epistle, Paul explained that Timothy was willing to put the interest of others before his own and added, "For all look after their own interest and not those of Jesus Christ." Do you spend your life looking after your own interest, or do you put others and the Lord before yourself? The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans Chapter 15 and verse 3. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled The Debt of Love.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto the Father and our God and in the Holy Spirit. We thank thee for all that has come to us because of the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank thee that we can come to thee directly without any other mediator than our savior God. Because he for our sakes became poor, we can through his poverty enter into all the spiritual blessings that thou hast provided for us. Use the truth in this hour to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts that we may learn to know thee better in him and to love thee more through him. We ask it in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus. Amen.

The text which we consider today is to me one of the most wonderful in all of the Bible. We find it in Romans 15:3, "For even Christ did not please himself." Himself. The Greek word for the first person is ego, and its equivalent in our language is self. To be selfish is to be egotistical. Our text says that the Lord Jesus Christ did not please himself. In this, he is marked with a true humanity that is totally different from the fallen humanity of the sons of Adam.

We live in a selfish world, and selfishness is the principal mark of the human race. When two people in the church at Philippi were fighting with each other, Paul thought it necessary to send one of the apostolic company to settle the matter. He explained why he was sending Timothy, perhaps the youngest of the group, because Timothy was willing to put the interest of others before his own and Paul adds, "For all look after their own interest and not those of Jesus Christ."

The purpose of our text is to bring us to see that we are to be like Timothy in the way that he was like Christ, who has given us the example that we should follow in our daily living. One does not need to be a close observer to note that the direction of the world's thinking is toward the interests of self. We switch on the radio and the song comes lilting forth, "Oh, what a beautiful morning, Oh, what a beautiful day. I've got a beautiful feeling everything's going my way."

Well, we may turn the dial and hear a sermon on unselfishness and the glory of becoming like Christ and serving others. But the next program tells you how you can get out of helping others. The most popular musical comedy of the day brings you another catchy melody, the words of which say, "The Lord above made man to help his neighbor, no matter where on land or sea or foam. But with a little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck, when he comes around for help you won't be home."

Well, let us turn back to the word of God and to the life of Christ and learn that with a little bit of grace, with a little bit of grace, when your brother comes for help you will be home. Where would we be if Christ had pleased himself? He asked this question of his disciples and precipitated a crisis. In the sixth of John, the Lord began to explain the principles of the doctrine of election, pointing out that he alone was the bread from heaven to whom all must come for life and that no man can come unless the Father draw him.

Many of his disciples when they heard it said, "This is a hard saying, who can listen to it?" But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, "Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending where he was before?" We can paraphrase this, what would happen if I pleased myself? And in the same context he said, "For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me."

Let us find from the word of God first how Christ did not please himself and why Christ did not please himself. And if we find the answers to those two questions, we shall be able easily to make the application to ourselves and to learn why we should not please ourselves. From his own lips we have the answer to the question, how did Christ not please himself?

When Christ came into the world, he said, "Sacrifice and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me. In burnt offerings and in sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, 'Lo, I have come to do thy will, Oh God, as it is written of me in the roll of the book.'" And he added, "Lo, I have come to do thy will." And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Again and again he reaffirmed his purpose to do the Father's will and not his own. When the disciples wondered because he did not eat, he answered, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work." When he spoke to them of the bread of life, he said, "For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me."

There might be those who cavil at this point and ask, is not the Lord Jesus God? And if he is, what difference could there be between his will and the will of the Father? Here of course, we enter into the mystery of the incarnation. Paul wrote to Timothy, "Great indeed we confess is the mystery of our religion. God was manifested in the flesh." Now if we attempt to go into this subject, we would find it never ending, and we would soon exhaust our feeble attempts to plumb the inner depths of its meaning.

God was manifested in the flesh. Here is the wonder of the incarnation. The eternal moves into time. The infinite takes on that which is finite. The divine adds to itself humanity. That which was invisible spirit manifests itself in tangible flesh. When this mystery became a fact in human history, something happened in the Godhead. It is described for us in the epistle to the Philippians.

"Have this mind among yourselves," we read, "which you have in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross."

We shall never be able to understand completely all that happened here. We do know from certain verses in the gospels that this emptying meant the setting aside of the outward appurtenances of his manifestations of glory. No one would have thought to look at him either as baby or man that here was the creator of the universe. In that emptying, there was the voluntary laying aside of the divine omniscience.

In his one person, there were the two natures, divine and human. The divine nature retained its omniscience, its all wisdom, and occasionally shone through and came forth in his actions. So that he knew the thoughts of men, both of those who were near and those who were far from him. He knew the movements of fish in the sea, the location of a coin that would be found in the mouth of a fish. And he knew future events that depended on the wills of men, such as the betrayal of Judas and the denial by Peter.

Yet, there were things that he did not know. Who touched him in a crowd? And when the time of the second coming would be. In this incarnation, the Lord Jesus had a definite will of his own, but it was always subordinated to the will of his father. Never did he have a thought that was not in line with the Father's purpose for him.

This is why he could say, "I can do nothing on my own authority. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek not my own will but the will of him that sent me." At another time they asked him who he was. He answered, "Even what I have told you from the beginning. I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him."

They did not understand that he spoke to them of the Father, so Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own authority but speak thus as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him." How all this reveals his love. From the point of view of our fallen human nature, the tensions would have seemed almost unbearable.

Let me give you an illustration. A few years ago, while I was speaking in England, a German Lutheran deaconess came to my wife and me with a problem. She had formerly been a missionary in China and all went well with her life until the arrival of the Japanese made it necessary for her to be evacuated to Germany. She was ready to do any type of work that the mission authorities assigned to her. They asked her to become the matron in a home for fallen women, a home for unwed mothers.

Her duty was to help rehabilitate prostitutes and to help girls who were going to have children for whom there was no father. She was appalled by what she found there. She knew of course of the sin that was back of the condition of her wards, but she found it difficult to tolerate the day-by-day gutter conversation of these girls. "Oh, the foulness of their talk," she exclaimed. "From morning till night they talk about sex experiences and tell smutty jokes to one another. I try to close my ears to it, but it seems to me each night as though I had spent the day in the sewer."

We consoled her by reminding her what an experience it must have been for the Lord Jesus, the Lord of glory, to leave the purity of heaven and come down to live in the foulness of this world. The outrage to the purity of that deaconess cannot be compared with that which the Lord Jesus underwent for us. But he pleased not himself. And when the hour of his trial and suffering drew near, he faced it, knowing what was coming.

And they were on the road we read, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them, and they were amazed and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again he began to tell them what was going to happen to him, saying, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him to the Gentiles, and they will mock him and spit upon him and scourge him and kill him."

Could this please any man? With his whole being the Lord Jesus faced this, knowing that it would be horrible to the extreme. Yet he knew that this would please the Father, for it would be the means of providing for our salvation. Therefore Christ pleased not himself, but walked steadfastly to Jerusalem in order that these things should happen to him.

The classic example of the Lord's abnegation is that in the garden where he prayed with strong crying and tears unto him who was able to save him from death. "Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me. Yet, not my will but thine be done." I am convinced that the cup was not his physical death on the cross, but the second death, which would have been his due as the one who was made sin for us, who was made a curse for us. For the wages for such a condition is nothing less than the second death.

And we are delighted that God reveals to us in Hebrews that this prayer was heard. The cup did pass from him and therefore he rose from the dead. But how profound is this supreme climax of the yieldedness of the Son to the Father, "Not my will but thine be done." Here is the heart of the Son.

Now having seen many of the instances in which Christ did not please himself, let us turn our attention now to the reason why he chose the will of the Father rather than taking on an easier way which might have pleased a nature in which self was exalted. The answer is to be found in his relationship to the Father. He loved the Father. He wanted to please the Father. We're so accustomed to thinking of the cross in terms of ourselves that we forget the teaching of the gospels concerning the cross as a covenant bond between the Son and the Father.

There is a remarkable statement of this truth made by Christ in the upper room in the last moment before the group departed from the upper room for the garden of Gethsemane and the passion that was to follow. "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, 'I go away and I will come to you.' If you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I."

"And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you for the ruler of this world, the devil, is coming. He has nothing in me, but I do as the Father has commanded me so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go hence." Listen to that again. "So that the world may know that I love the Father."

Oh, there are so many hymns in our hymnbooks that talk about the love of Christ in connection with the sinner. "Jesus loves me, he died for me." We sing it in a hundred different ways. "Because he loved me so, because he loved me so, he gave himself to ransom me, it was because he loved me so." Well, this is partly true, but there is a greater reason. He loved the Father so.

We sing, "I am so glad that my Father in heaven tells of his love in the book he has given. Wonderful things in the Bible I see, this is the dearest that Jesus loves me." Well, I'll tell you something that is even dearer. He loves the Father. And the Father loves him. It is this mutual love inside the Trinity that is the motive power for everything that has been done in creation and redemption. The Lord Jesus Christ loves the Father, and the Father loves the Son.

Oh, listen to me you who flout Jesus Christ. It is said in the word of God that the reason the judgment will be so terrible is that the Father loves the Son and has committed all judgment unto him. But the reason that our salvation is so wonderful is that the Son loves the Father. Hidden in that interlove, that locking love within the heart of the Trinity, is the secret for everything that God has done. Because the Father loves the Son, because the Son loves the Father, this is the reason why all things are coming to pass in the way that they are so that ultimately the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he will reign forever. And that he will turn back the kingdom to the Father that God may be all and in all.

The Lord Jesus Christ loves the Father. There have been times when I've been preparing a message for broadcasting in which I have thought of the method of emitting sound waves. A great transmitter sends out these waves in every direction. There is no spot where these rays do not penetrate. Take a portable radio receiver and you can go from place to place with it, still receiving the continuity of the message. If you drive in your car and a mile a minute, you can hear a complete sentence that might take a minute to read, and you will hear every syllable of it as it came down from the sky and struck the antenna of your car throughout the entire 5,280 feet of the mile.

It makes no difference whether you're at mile post 276 or 277. The word that I speak to you is at both mile posts and everywhere in between and everywhere off the road and in every flower and piece of grass and stone and rock. The rays are hitting everywhere. Well, you know, I've thought of sentences that I would like to speak that would give me very great joy in knowing that they were in the air, in the rooms of unbelievers even though the unbelievers would turn them off. That they were striking every rock and flower and every hillside and that they were giving dust to all the forces of the prince of the power of the air.

Oh, what a joy it is to say certain things over the air and know that they go out over a nation and that they're available everywhere. God loves you. Christ died for you. But among all the sentences that it gives me great joy to speak abroad, I can think of no greater than these words of Christ, "Let us go hence so that the world may know that I love the Father, so I go to the cross. That the world may know that I love the Father."

Well, when this has been well assimilated, then we can come down to his love for us. The Father and the Son both love us, and the Son was pleased to love the Father and to desire to do his will and to please him. And surely we can understand the words that came down from heaven at the Transfiguration, "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Hear him."

And when I see him and get a small glimpse into his heart and am surprised with no small wonder as I come upon the Father and the Son looking at each other, I can understand a little better why I should please him and not myself. Now I can understand how he has placed me here to represent himself, ready to bear the infirmities of the weak, ready to live so that I am not hurt by the weakness of those with whom I have to do.

Now I can pray, "Thy will be done in me as it is in heaven." Now I can ask him to put my flesh on the cross and keep it crucified so that his love can flow out through me. Love that is patient and kind. Love that is not jealous or boastful. Love that is not arrogant or rude. Love that does not insist on its own way. Love that is not irritable or resentful. Love that does not rejoice at the wrong but does rejoice in the right. Love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love that does not end. Even Christ pleased not himself, and this was because he loved the Father.

Oh, Lord, grant that we shall so love thee that we may turn away from our own will and way and cleave to thee and delight to do thy will. And our Father and our God, we pray thee in this closing moment that thou shalt take these words to each heart. That there may be those who are thine that shall from this moment determine to do thy will because thou hast loved them. Oh, we do love thee and thank thee, Lord Jesus, that thou hast so loved the Father. Bless to every heart in this hour these words in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Male): We must seek to fulfill the debt of love to the Lord and to others and put their interest before our own. We hope you have benefited from today's message entitled The Debt of Love. To listen to more Bible teachings by Dr. Barnhouse, visit us online at Alliancenet.org. An audio copy of today's teaching is available by calling us toll-free, 1-800-488-1888. That's 1-800-488-1888. Today's message is entitled The Debt of Love, message number R-15-2.

We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled Led by the Spirit. In this booklet, Dr. Barnhouse discusses how the Holy Spirit works in the lives of his people. The four chapters cover the topics Led by the Spirit, How to Know God's Will, God's Leading, and God's Sufficiency. These biblical insights can help you understand and grow in your walk with God. Ask for your free copy of Led by the Spirit 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 list of radio stations carrying our programs, visit our website at Alliancenet.org.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of listeners like you. If you have benefited from the broadcast and would like it to continue, please prayerfully consider a donation to help us keep this ministry on the air. For more information or to make a contribution to help further our work, contact us by calling toll-free 1-800-488-1888. Again, that's 1-800-488-1888. You may also write to us at Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103 or visit us online at Alliancenet.org. 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 Doctors Donald Grey Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Philip Graham Ryken. Thank you for listening today. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.