Lenten Devotional (2) & the Importance of the Historia Salutis

Lent confronts the sin of isolation by providing a path of communal renewal through the power of the Spirit.

In the pathless mazes of the desert, Yahweh makes way for his people. This season provides a more straightforward path to spiritual renewal through the readings, hymns, and themes. If we seek his face, God will lead us in the way we should go (Isa. 48:17).

The desert paths of Lent can be filled with frustrations, complaining, hunger, and thirst. But if we delight in the cross and the defeat of death, we will find life. That knowledge can only guide us if we pursue it doggedly. If we are going to face these next thirty-nine days, we need to know the paths of the Lord (Ps. 17:5). We cannot presume on his grace. We cannot walk in pride as if we have special access to the city without our master architect and guide.

In Psalm 107, God moves his people from desert to city and from ruin to a rebuilt Garden. He is forming through his people a new citizenship (I Pet. 2:9) as we journey through the wilderness to a land that shines brighter than all other cities.

The desert is only an enemy if we fail to accept divine assistance from heaven. If we receive Lent as a gift from God, then that desert is the cruciform life of repentance and self-giving. It's a necessary track to the green pastures of forgiveness. As we walk wounded or wavering to that promised rest of Easter, we "improve our baptisms”¹ in every act of faith. The journey to Calvary is long, but its rewards are everlasting.

Let us not mistake the walk to Calvary as a call to isolation. Instead, the cross restores us into unity with one another. The Lenten journey must bind us together. Lent is not forming our separate track but joining others in a community journey through liturgy and songs.

Lent confronts the sin of isolation by providing a path of communal renewal through the power of the Spirit.

Sin calls us to take our own ways in the desert rather than following the cloud by day and pillar by night. Sin prefers to wander than to confess. Sin desires darkness rather than light and blindness rather than sight. But the Gospel message this season is to walk together side by side, prayer by prayer, confession by confession, until we reach the great city where the resurrected Jesus awaits us.

Prayer: Great God, who rules the deserts and cities, sea and dry land, rule over my heart today. May I not wander from your ways, but may you give me light to shine my path towards that great city where your blessing flows world without end, Amen!

Notations

• Tipton and Bucey do an excellent service in accentuating the importance of the historia salutis in theology. They argue that looking to the history of salvation over the order of salvation takes our eyes off personal and subjective experiences to “the ascended Christ and the outpoured Spirit” (16). Then, echoing James Jordan, the book notes a transition from infancy to adolescence, from Old to New, or we might say, from the history of Law to the history of the Spirit. This doesn’t mean that the Spirit wasn’t present in the Old nor that the Law is not present in the New, but that they indicate different epochs of history.

  The Old Testament saints weren’t immature in their understanding of personal salvation. Instead, they were naturally immature in their grasp of historical salvation. They were not yet prepared to live under the Ascended glory of Jesus. Pentecost (Acts 2) was the prerequisite to embolden the saints to live in a new reality. Without the Spirit, they would live perpetually in the milk of history.

• James Jordan notes that our task as interpreters is to “read and study the Bible, immersing ourselves in its worldview, and then we will be able to discern valid symbols and allusions (TNE, 15).

• Thankful for the good reception of my book in all sorts of corners and the quality of it as well:

  

  Nuntium

• I have several upcoming interviews on my new book, including Crosspolitic and one with Dr. Jared Longshore. Once February is over, the advertisement campaign will decrease significantly, but I am using these final days to put my work out there. I really trust this work will prove helpful to many.

• I also spent 90 minutes with a new friend, Mr. YourCalvinist himself. He interviewed me on the Presbyterian CREC world, and I returned the favor and interviewed him for the Perspectivalist podcast on the role of comedy in the Christian life. Stay tuned for that interview to go live next week. Oh, and the Perspectivalist Podcast has a new face. Further, every audio behind a whopping $1 paywall is now accessible to all.

  

• This Sunday, I begin a new series on III John. You can find sermons/lectures on our YouTube Page.

Hymn of the Day: When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

1. The needful but much neglected duty of improving our baptism, is to be performed by us all our life long, especially in the time of temptation, and when we are present at the administration of it to others; by serious and thankful consideration of the nature of it, and of the ends for which Christ instituted it, the privileges and benefits conferred and sealed thereby, and our solemn vow made therein; by being humbled for our sinful defilement, our falling short of, and walking contrary to, the grace of baptism, and our engagements; by growing up to assurance of pardon of sin, and of all other blessings sealed to us in that sacrament; by drawing strength from the death and resurrection of Christ, into whom we are baptized, for the mortifying of sin, and quickening of grace; and by endeavoring to live by faith, to have our conversation in holiness and righteousness, as those that have therein given up their names to Christ; and to walk in brotherly love, as being baptized by the same Spirit into one body (WLC, 167).

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