1 RTC Monthly News November 2020 Issue # 137 College News Undoubtedly 2020 has been a very unusual year. The situation in Melbourne had become more complicated and challenging between July and October, and as a result college life in semester 2 revolved around virtual connections (even the 2020 College photo had to be taken remotely). Yet by God’s grace we could deliver our final lectures last week. Our students successfully finished taking all their lectures online and now have a reading week, after which they will be starting their exams. Please keep our students in your prayers. Many of them will be completing their degrees and, Lord willing, graduating, and it is our prayer that they finish well despite this rather unusual situation. 2 We are about to conclude our fourth year in Melbourne. Despite all the strange things that happened this year, we are still very thankful for the many things that God has blessed us with. We look back with deep thankfulness to God as He provided for us, protected us, and opened various doors for us. And in doing so we cannot but acknowledge your generous support too. In times like this we can more clearly see how valuable it is to have you as our supporters, partners, and co‐workers in the Lord. Thank you for your support of RTC through a very challenging time. RTC Open Day | January and February 2021 3 Are you considering theological study in semester one 2021? You are welcome to attend our Melbourne Campus on 19 Jan and 2 Feb, 3 – 7pm (Tuesdays). You can meet Principal Phillip Scheepers and Registrar Paul Lucas, have a look around the campus, and discuss full‐time, part‐time, online and flexible study options for semester one, 2021. Enrollments for semester one are now open so take the opportunity to explore your options at the RTC Open Day. RSVP online at rtc.edu.au/openday or contact the RTC office for more information on 03 5244 8600. Book Review: Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Suffers by Dane Ortlund. Wheaton: Crossway, 2020. (Dr Martin Williams) How do you feel when you approach Christ for forgiveness after you have sinned? How do you feel when you approach Christ for forgiveness for the same sins as yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, and…? I think if we were honest, most of us would say that we feel ashamed, embarrassed, uncomfortable, reluctant, guilty, and frustrated. Christians “know” that Christ loves them, but can easily “feel” that he is perpetually disappointed, frustrated, even on the verge of throwing his hands up in despair and giving up on them. But how does Christ actually feel about his people amid their sins and sufferings, foibles and failures? In 23 crisp chapters, Dane Ortlund (re)introduces us to “the heart of Christ for sinners and sufferers.” Ortlund wants us to know who he is really, what animates him most deeply, what is most true of him when he exposes the innermost recesses of his being (19). Answer: “This is one whose deepest heart is, more than anything else, gentle and lowly” (Matt 11:29) (24). Ortlund writes, “Jesus is not trigger happy. Not harsh, reactionary, easily exasperated with struggling and sinning saints. The posture most natural to him is not a pointed finger but open arms” (19). Christ’s heart is most fundamentally a gentle and tender, welcoming and willing, accommodating and understanding heart (21). Ortlund wants us to really understand Christ’s sympathy for sinning and suffering believers, his readiness to receive the wayward wanderer returning home, and his patience and gentleness with his endlessly erring people. 4 Through 23 brief chapters, Ortlund reveals, verse after verse, what the deepest heart of Christ is toward his people. Standing on the shoulders of the 17th‐century Puritans and their heirs— Thomas Goodwin, John Bunyan, John Owen, Richard Sibbes, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, B. B. Warfield—the author has written in such a way as to leave the reader in no doubt as to what Christ’s heart really is towards them. In fact, Christ’s heart is more enlarged towards us when we come to him in our sin and suffering because it gives him the opportunity to glorify his “grace and mercy, in pardoning, relieving, and comforting his members here on earth” (Thomas Goodwin) (36). And thus, “when you come to Christ for mercy and love and help in your anguish and perplexity and sinfulness, you are going with the flow of his own deepest wishes, not against them” (38). And as one who is truly God and truly man, “Christ’s heart is not drained by our coming to him; his heart is filled up all the more by our coming to him,” says Ortlund (38). This book is a soothing and healing balm for the sinner and sufferer. Each chapter is short, readable, and accessible, but packed with such rich and refreshing content as to leave the reader lingering. It aims (and succeeds) to comfort and to console, to welcome and to woo its readers into an enlarged and enlivening experience and enjoyment of Christ. Read it, and read it slowly, prayerfully, and meditatively, with your Bible open. Ministry Spot: When Times Are Tough: Confess! (Dr Phillip Scheepers) In a small park in the Belgian city of Tournai (Doornik in Dutch) there are some very old walls that are completely covered in scaffolding and netting. Although there is nothing there to mark it, this was the scene of a momentous event that is still remembered by Reformed churches around the world (particularly those in the Dutch Reformed tradition). Those walls in Tournai are all that remains of an imposing castle that was manned by Spanish troops during the Dutch Revolt (1568–1648). A significant part of the agenda of the Spanish forces in the Netherlands was to bring it back to obedience to the Roman Catholic church, after many people in the ’17 Provinces’ went over to the teachings of the Reformation. One of the leaders of the Reformed church in the Tournai area was Guido de Bres (1522– 1567). Originally from Mons, not too far from Tournai, De Bres studied under John Calvin in Geneva and came back to the southern Netherlands (now part of Belgium) in 1559 to preach the gospel. As he engaged in this ministry, he experienced intense persecution along with his 5 flock. Not only that, but they also had to constantly contend with the charge that they were heretics who were proclaiming ‘new teachings’. Towards the end of 1561 De Bres decided to act. He sat down and wrote a confession of faith to show that the Reformed believers of Tournai were part of the ‘church of all ages’ and that they were not preaching innovative new doctrines but were rather calling the people of the southern Netherlands back to gospel purity. On the night of 1 November 1561, when Margaret of Parma (representative of the hyper‐ Catholic Spanish king Philip II) was in residence, De Bres put his confession in a bag and threw it over the wall of Tournai Castle. This was an audacious act of witnessing to the truth of the gospel. A gospel for which De Bres would eventually be put to death. In 1567 he was arrested in the city of Valenciennes (Valencijn in Dutch) and brought before the Spanish Inquisition on a charge of heresy. Spurning multiple opportunities to recant his beliefs De Bres was eventually hanged, before a crowd of thousands, on the town square of Valenciennes (31 May 1567). According to a contemporary account he was still proclaiming his beliefs as he was pushed off the scaffold! The confession that De Bres wrote eventually became known as the Belgic Confession and is still a key confessional standard for Reformed churches around the world. The origin story of the Belgic Confession stands in a long tradition of Christians responding to persecution or difficulties by confessing their faith. Here are some other examples: One of the very first Christian apologists (defenders of the faith), Justin Martyr (AD 100–165), focused heavily on the fact that the Christian faith was built on ancient foundations and that the Roman empire’s persecution was fundamentally unjust. As he declared in the ‘Second Apologia’: “And if these things seem to you to be reasonable and true, honour them; but if they seem nonsensical, despise them as nonsense, and do not decree death against those who have done no wrong, as you would against enemies. For we forewarn you, that you shall not escape the coming judgment of God, if you continue in your injustice; and we ourselves will invite you to do that which is pleasing to God.” Tertullian (AD 122–212) pointed to the fact that those in power often used Christians as handy scapegoats: “If the Tiber rises too high or the Nile is too low the cry is: ‘The Christians to the Lions!’” In response he carefully explained the fundamentals of the Christian faith and made a stirring appeal that the followers of Christ should be afforded the same rights at the rest of society: “If, again, it is certain that we are the most wicked of men, why do you treat us so differently from our fellows, that is, from other criminals, it being only fair that the same crime should get the same treatment? When the charges made against us are made against others, they are permitted to 6 make use both of their own lips and of hired pleaders to show their innocence.