Reformed Christian Studies

By Octavius Winslow - Posted at Grace Gems : "The Lord is my portion, says my soul." "I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you."-- John 13:15 In contending earnestly for the doctrine of the sacrificial nature of our Lord's atoning death, we may be in great danger of overlooking the fact that the whole life of Christ is constantly presented to us in the Scriptures as the model by which our own is to be molded. We needed a personal embodiment of the religion of the gospel--a perfect, peerless Example. In One only could we find it, even in Him whose gospel it was, and whose life was a pure and living reflection of the doctrines it taught, the precepts it inculcated, and the spirit it breathed. Let us, then, inquire briefly what are the arts of His holy life in which we may regard Him as imitable, and what the features of His character we may presume to transfer with humility and gratitude to ourselves. We are to follow the example

By Octavius Winslow - Posted at Grace Gems : "The Lord is my portion, says my soul." "You are a teacher come from God."-- John 3:2 We cannot dispense with any one mediatorial office of Christ, least of all with His office as a PROPHET, or, TEACHER. He came to make known Salvation. Before He could officiate at His altar as Priest, or sit upon His throne as King, He must reveal God's plan of redemption as a Prophet. Look, O my soul, at one or two of the qualifications of Jesus as your Teacher. He is a DIVINE Teacher, a "Teacher come from God," to make Him known, to reveal the mind and to unveil the heart of the Father. His own words are, "All things are delivered unto me of my Father, and no man knows the Son but the Father; neither knows any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will REVEAL Him." Oh, what a blessed Revealer of God is Jesus! He lifts the veil and shows me the Father as no planet in its glory could, a

By Octavius Winslow - Posted at Grace Gems : "The Lord is my portion, says my soul." "For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves." Luke 22:27 It is with the profoundest modesty and humility the pen traces the heading of this meditation! The Lord of life and glory, the Creator of all beings, the Maker of all worlds--our Servant! astounding truth! amazing condescension! fathomless grace! But, vast though it be, it is our privilege to receive this truth. Incredible as it may appear, we are bound to believe it, because He has Himself declared it. "I am among you as he that SERVES." Agreeable with this is the teaching of His apostle. "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God--but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a SERVANT." My soul, you have been contemplating the Lord your portion

By Octavius Winslow - Posted at Grace Gems : "The Lord is my portion, says my soul." "You call me 'Master' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am." John 13:13 Emancipated from the slavery of Satan, the believer becomes the servant of Christ, and his highest honor that, henceforth, Christ is his Master. What a blissful exchange--the liberty of the child, for the bondage of the slave; the service of holiness, for the wages of unrighteousness; Christ his Master, for Satan his despot; and Canaan, with its vine-clad hills and sunny plains, its flowing rivers and spicy breezes, for the furnaces, the brick kilns, and the darkness of Egypt! All this divine grace accomplishes--for, by the grace of God, we are what we are--and all this is involved in the relation which the Lord our portion sustains to us as our Master. It is clear that our Lord did not refuse to acknowledge the relation, but accepted and approved it. Not therefore as an empty

By Octavius Winslow - Posted at Grace Gems : "The Lord is my portion, says my soul." "Who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us." 2 Cor. 1:10 It was a needful and precious petition the Lord Jesus taught His disciples--and which we require daily to offer--"DELIVER us from evil." We are in constant need of deliverance, exposed, as we are, to continued, varied, and potent evils, visible and invisible, temporal and spiritual, to evade and overcome which we have no native power, and can therefore hope for no self-deliverance. But who is our true Deliverer? It is He who is our Portion, who taught us thus to pray, and who is Himself our Great Deliverer. Let us take the THREE TENSES employed by the apostle in the words at the head of this meditation, as illustrating the Lord's great deliverance of His people. And first, there is the Lord's PAST deliverance. "Who deliverED us

By Octavius Winslow - Posted at Grace Gems : "The Lord is my portion, says my soul" "And He healed those who had need of healing."-- Luke 9:11 How mercifully and marvelously is the Lord Jesus suited to the every condition of our sinful, fallen humanity. Take the present illustration. Sin is a deadly wound, a raging malady of the soul. Jesus is revealed as the Great Healer, His blood the sovereign remedy. His own gracious words teach this. "The whole need not a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." What joyful news is here! It is as though a royal proclamation had gone forth throughout a plague-smitten city that a sovereign remedy had been discovered and an infallible physician provided, and that whoever were willing to avail themselves of the provision, would be freely and effectually healed. Such is the royal announcement of the gospel to this sin-stricken world. What joyful tidings, O my

By Octavius Winslow - Posted at Grace Gems : "The Lord is my portion, says my soul" "He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."-- Mal. 3:3 This is one of the essential appointments of our Lord in His mediatorial mission--the office and work of a Refiner and Purifier of His Church. Redemption involved more than deliverance from the guilt and condemnation of sin; it equally secured our emancipation from sin's tyranny and power--our sanctification as well as our salvation, a fitness for, equally as a title to, glory. It was not enough that Christ should purchase the "Field"--the world--for the sake of the "Pearl"--the Church; but having found the precious jewel, it is His purpose to mold it into a coronet of beauty, wearing it Himself until 'the end comes' when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to His Father, and then shall His redeemed Church be a "crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in t