The Evangelical Reformed Fellowship Perspectives blog has provided a short but nice quotation from the real Francis Turretin on the importance of meditating on the cross (link).
-TurretinFan
Thursday, August 27, 2009
1 comment:
Comment Guidelines:
1. Thanks for posting a comment. Without you, this blog would not be interactive.
2. Please be polite. That doesn't mean you have to use kid gloves, but please try not to flame others, even if they are heretics, infidels, or worse.
3. If you insult me, I'm more likely to delete your comment than if you butter me up. After all, I'm human. I prefer praise to insults. If you prefer insults, there's something wrong with you.
4. Please be concise. The comment box is not your blog. Your blog is your blog. If you have a really long comment, post it on your blog and post a short summary of it here.
5. Please don't just spam. It's one thing to be concise, it's another thing to simply use the comment box to advertise.
6. Please note, by commenting here, you are relinquishing your (C) in your comments to me.
7. Remember that you will give an account on judgment day for your words, including those typed in comment boxes. Try to write so you will not be ashamed if it is read back before the entire world.
8. Stay on topic. If your comment has nothing to do with the post, email it to me (my email can be obtained through my blogger profile), or simply don't post it.
9. Don't post as "Anonymous." If you are going to post anonymously, at least use some kind of recognizable "handle," so we can tell you apart from all the other anonymous folks. (This is moot at the moment, since recent abuse has forced me to turn off "anonymous" commenting.)
10. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; and abstain from doing to others what you would not wish upon yourself.
Francis' quote:::>
ReplyDelete"As the suffering of Christ is the principal part of the ransom paid for us by him and the special foundation of our confidence and consolation, it should also be the primary object of our faith and the theme of meditation, that with Paul we may count all things for loss but the knowledge of the crucified Jesus. We should attend to it more diligently as Satan the more impotently rages to obscure the truth of those sufferings and to deprive us of their saving fruit.”
I have often meditated on the fact that a "portion" of the sufferings was the beatings, being struck.
I say that in light of this:
Isa 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.
I am especially thinking these things in light of the national debate on "health" in America.
It seems to me from my experience, having been beaten up for Christ's sake, that the pain and sorrow and suffering of the stripes exceeded the impaling his hands and feet to the cross. By then, He must have been numb to much of the conflict that followed and He felt. And He was "alive" before death came.
Again, this is just my way of seeing the verse, "by His Stripes" we are healed!
Anyway, I do not wish to take away from the idea of "meditating" on the sufferings and sorrows of the Innocent, Sinless Lamb!
I would equally say, living in this world for thirty three years among sinners such as we are must have been an anquish and grief few if any of us could know?