Brent's Blogs

I heard and sang this hymn of Thomas Kelly for the first time last Sunday. It is fitting for Passion Week as we consider the death of our Savior.

Stricken, smitten, and afflicted,
See Him dying on the tree!
‘Tis the Christ by man rejected;
Yes, my soul, ‘tis He, ‘tis He!
‘Tis the long-expected prophet,
David’s Son, yet David’s Lord;
By His Son, God now has spoken
Tis the true and faithful Word.

Tell me, ye who hear him groaning,
Was there ever grief like his?
Friends thro’ fear his cause disowning,
Foes insulting his distress;
Many hands were raised to wound him,
None would interpose to save;
But the deepest stroke that pierced him
Was the stroke that Justice gave.

Ye who think of sin but lightly,
Nor suppose the evil great
Here may view its nature rightly,
Here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the sacrifice appointed,
See who bears the awful load;
‘tis the Word, the Lord’s Anointed,
Son of Man and Son of God.

Here we have a firm foundation,
Here the refuge of the lost;
Christ’s the Rock of our salvation,
His the name of which we boast.
Lamb of God, for sinners wounded,
Sacrifice to cancel guilt!
None shall ever be confounded
Who on him their hope have built.

Amen.

This hymn, translated from the German Grosser Gott, comes from the venerable Te Deum. I regret that I learned it only recently. It should be better known.

Holy God, we praise thy Name;
Lord of all, we bow before thee!
All on earth thy scepter claim,
all in heaven above adore thee;
Infinite thy vast domain,
everlasting is thy reign.

Full story »

As part of my requirements for this seminary term, I am reading Douglas Moo's commentary on Romans. Today, in his discussion of Romans 5:10, I ran across the following with regard to our reconciliation with God:

The language of reconciliation is seldom used in other religions because the relationship between human beings and the deity is not conceived there in the personal categories for which the language is appropriate. (p.311)

This caught my attention, and as I began to ponder it, I immediately thought of God walking with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

This points to a couple of the important things that distinguishes our God from other gods: He is a personal God, and He is interested in fellowship with the persons that He has created. His interest in us is so great that when the fellowship was broken because of our sin, then even though we were ungodly and helpless, He sent Jesus Christ to die in our place that we might be justified and reconciled to God.

Who is like unto our God!

I hope that you have a blessed Lord's Day.

Progressively more information is coming out about the climate bill recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. Whatever you think of the underlying issues, this is not the way to set wise, appropriate policy. Paul Greenberg has written a humorous, yet serious, critique of the process, which he begins this way:

Here's how to get a dubious bill into law, or at least past the U.S. House of Representatives, which of late has deserved to be called the lower chamber:

First, make the bill long. Very long. So long no one may actually read it, supporters or opponents. Introduce a 310-page horse-choker of an amendment at 3 in the morning on the day of the roll-call vote. So it can't be examined too closely or too long. Only after the bill passes may its true costs emerge. To cite an old proverb I just made up: Pass in haste, repent at leisure.

You can read the entire article here. Read it! Then contact your representative and senators and petition for the redress of grievances.

I found this AP article entitled Los Angeles Hospital Gets Rep for "Raising Dead" to be interesting. Underneath the sensationalism and strange language—for example, what does it mean to be "basically dead" if you are not actually dead?—there seems to be a genuine medical advance. Persons are being resuscitated who formerly would have been deemed to be beyond help. A UCLA expert referred to in the article, cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Gerald Buckberg, is quoted as saying,

[T]he window is wide open to new thinking … We can salvage [persons who hearts have quit beating] way beyond the current time frames that are used. We've changed the concept of when the heart is dead permanently.

It seems that this could have significant implications for medical ethics, including possibly decisions made regarding organ donations.