Covenant Protestant Reformed Church
83 Clarence Street, Ballymena BT43 5DR
Rev. Angus Stewart
Lord’s Day, 6 November, 2022
“And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and
heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29)
Morning Service – 11:00 AM
Faith or Works? (9)
Clothed With Christ [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 61
Text: Galatians 3:27
I. The Profound Meaning
II. The Powerful Means
Psalms: 93:1-5; 46:1-6; 104:1-7; 132:9-16
Evening Service – 6:00 PM
Faith or Works? (10)
The Church’s Privileges After “the Faith” Has Come [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Galatians 3:15-29
Text: Galatians 3:25-29
I. The Abrogation of the Mosaic Law
II. The Blessings of the Messianic Era
III. The Fulfilment of the Abrahamic Covenant
Psalms: 27:1-5; 46:7-11; 68:16-20; 87:1-7
For CDs of the sermons and DVDs of the worship services, contact Stephen Murray
If you desire a pastoral visit, please contact Rev. Stewart or the elders
CPRC Website: www.cprc.co.uk • Live Webcast: www.cprc.co.uk/live-streaming
CPRC YouTube: www.youtube.com/cprcni
CPRC Facebook: www.facebook.com/CovenantPRC
Quotes to Consider
John Calvin on Galatians 3:27: “The greater and loftier the privilege is of being the children of God, the farther is it removed from our senses, and the more difficult to obtain belief. He therefore explains, in a few words, what is implied in our being united, or rather, made one with the Son of God; so as to remove all doubt, that what belongs to him is communicated to us. He employs the metaphor of a garment, when he says that the Galatians have put on Christ; but he means that they are so closely united to him, that, in the presence of God, they bear the name and character of Christ, and are viewed in him rather than in themselves.”
Martin Luther on Galatians 3:28: “The list might be extended indefinitely: There is neither preacher nor hearer, neither teacher nor scholar, neither master nor servant, etc. In the matter of salvation, rank, learning, righteousness, influence count for nothing. With this statement Paul deals a death blow to the Law. When a person has put on Christ nothing else matters. Whether a person is a Jew, a punctilious and circumcised observer of the law of Moses, or whether a person is a noble and wise Greek does not matter. Circumstances, personal worth, character, achievements have no bearing upon justification. Before God they count for nothing. What counts is that we put on Christ.”
Announcements (subject to God’s will)
A new Covenant Reformed News, with articles on the first use of the law and workers of miracles, is available on the back table.
Monday catechism classes:
5:00PM: Corey, Jason, Katelyn, Maisie & Sebastian (Seniors OT)
5:45PM: Eleanora, Felicity, Hannah, Jorja, Keagan, Lucas, Sammy, Somaya, Sophie & Yossef (Beginners NT)
6:30PM: Penelope & Xander (Juniors OT)
7:15PM: Angelica, Bradley, Jack, Josh, Samuel & Taylor (Heidelberg, Book 2)
The Council meets tomorrow night at 8 PM at church.
Tuesday Bible study at 11 AM will meet to continue our discussion on faith and reason, looking at how they are rightly and wrongly related.
Belgic Confession Class meets this Wednesday at 7:30 PM. We will consider further the positive exposition of Daniel 9:24-27 (in connection with Article 37).
The Reformed Witness Hour broadcast next Lord’s day (Gospel 846 MW at 8:30 AM) by Rev. Bruinsma is entitled, “God’s Promise Confirmed (2)” (Acts 2:39).
Offerings: £1,011.53. Donation: £100 (Malaysia).
Translation Additions: 1 Russian and 2 Spanish.
PRC News: First PRC called Rev. Spronk (Faith, MI). Zion PRC called Rev. J. Laning (Hull, IA) for domestic missionary. Rev. Smidstra (Holland, MI) declined the call from Randolph PRC. Rev. Maatman (Southeast, MI) declined the call from Doon PRC.
Life as Pilgrimage
Prof. David J. Engelsma (an excerpt from The Reformed Worldview)
The Reformed worldview instructs the Christian that he is a pilgrim on the earth. The Christian outlook on life is that of pilgrimage.
The Christian is to be active in the world, in all institutions and ordinances—marriage and family, business and labour, church and civil government, education. He may use and enjoy every creature, as I Timothy 4:4 teaches: “Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused.”
Because he is active in the world as a servant of the Lord Christ, he must be diligent in his activity—hard-working, honest, faithful, reliable, and as able as lies in his powers. What the apostle enjoins upon Christian working men applies to all the Christian’s conduct and relations:
[Work] with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men (Eph. 6:5-7).
The Reformed worldview is not “world flight.” This was the serious error of the ascetics in the early history of the postapostolic church, as more recently of the Anabaptists of the Reformation period.
The ascetics and Anabaptists taught that the material world is inherently evil, so that the Christian life consists of fleeing earthly life as much as possible: “forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats” (I Tim. 4:3). The apostle condemns these teachings as “doctrines of devils” (v. 1). Created by God in the beginning, the material world and its ordinances are “good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving” (v. 4). Indeed, the earthly creation, all its creatures, and all its ordinances were made by God for believers: “which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth” (v. 3). To try to live earthly life by running out of the world is not only impossible, but also a slap in the face of the Creator.
Jesus’ prayer for His disciples was “not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil” (John 17:15).
At the same time, the Reformed Christian is a pilgrim on the earth. His citizenship is dual. He is a citizen of Great Britain, Ireland, France, Portugal, the United States, or some other earthly nation. Of this nation, he is a good, upright, loyal, tax-paying, non-revolutionary citizen, for Christ’s sake.
He is also a citizen of the heavenly kingdom of Jesus Christ. This citizenship is primary and lasting. All his life, the believer is consciously on the way toward this heavenly country, his eternal homeland. His earthly nation has his allegiance. His heavenly country has his heart.
Although its life is already in the believer’s heart by the Holy Spirit and although it already takes form in the instituted church (which is why the worldview of Man detests and attacks the church, and why the believer loves the church, regardless of its imperfections), the kingdom of Christ in its perfected reality is above, where Jesus Christ is, at the right hand of God in heaven. The Christian pilgrim reaches his fatherland only through the swelling Jordan of death—first in the soul at the moment of death and then, fully, at the resurrection of the body in the day of Christ.
That the Christian is a stranger and a pilgrim does not only mean that he is estranged from the wickedness of the ungodly and moving in the opposite spiritual direction from those guided by the worldview of Man.
The Christian is not only a stranger and pilgrim with regard to the wicked world. He is also a stranger and a pilgrim with regard to this earth, his earthly nation, and earthly life itself. Hebrews 11:13 attributes to faith the confession that believers are “strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” The country they desire, and “seek,” is not Canaan in the Old Testament, or the United States in the New Testament, but a country “better” than any earthly country, that is, “an heavenly” (vv. 14-16).
As a pilgrim, the Christian is never absorbed in earthly life. He never sets his heart on earthly relations, including marriage and family, though they are dear; on earthly pleasures, no matter how legitimate and sweet; on earthly treasures, regardless how vast and valuable; on earthly achievements, be they never so impressive. He has a wife as though he had none. He weeps over earthly calamities as though he did not weep. He rejoices over earthly pleasures and successes as though he did not rejoice. He buys and owns possessions and properties as though he did not possess them. He uses this physical world while sitting loose to it (I Cor. 7:29-31).
Earthly life is not all there is. Earthly life is not the main thing. Earthly life is brief. Earthly life is not the goal. A successful earthly life is not the goal for the believer. Indeed, a successful earthly life is a temptation to lose sight of the goal. Therefore, God mercifully plagues our earthly life with sorrows, sicknesses, and struggles, so that we keep our eye of faith on the goal: the heavenly country, the “city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10), “an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (II Cor. 5:1).
Earthly life is only the way to the goal.
Pilgrimage is basic to the Christian worldview. When Jesus described the evil of the human race at His second coming, on account of which multitudes will perish, He said that the majority will simply be at home on the earth, wrapped up in earthly pursuits and pleasures: “For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage” (Matt. 24:38). Against this temptation—the giving up of pilgrimage—the disciples of Christ must “watch” (v. 42).
According to the correct translation of Philippians 3:20, our citizenship is in heaven. The sense of this citizenship so grips us that we are always looking for the coming of the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ.
For the worldview of Man, in contrast, earthly life is all there is. The worldview of Man is materialism. Death ends human existence (declare the advocates of the worldview of Man, although they know better, and tremble at the prospect of judgment to follow). Therefore, the worldview of Man is both meaningless and hopeless, no matter how its proponents—Richard Dawkins, and Bertrand Russell before him—try to put a good face on it: “One can lead a happy and fulfilled life without supernatural religion.”
Upon the worldview of Man, and the vain life lived in its shadow, Ecclesiastes passed judgment long ago—judgment that expresses the conviction and feeling of every human heart: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
