O Jesus, Savior of my life,
My hope, my joy, my sacrifice,
I’ve searched and found no other one
Who loves me more than you have done.

So I denounce my lingering sin
Whose power You have broke within
My ever weak and faithless frame.
Its vigor’s crushed in Jesus name.

For your death did at once proclaim,
The Godhead’s glory and my shame.
And you did seize my cup of guilt
And drank all that the chalice spilled.

No condemnation now I dread
Because you went for me instead
To bear the curse and wrath and rage,
To pay the debt I would have paid.

Yet your work finished not with death,
Nor with your final murdered breath.
For death’s blows could not ever quell
The One whose life is in Himself.

Your passion broke forth full with life,
And foiled the adversary’s wiles.
You broke the chains, destroyed the sting
With which death had afflicted me.

O Savior, who died in my stead,
You firstborn from among the dead,
O Savior, you who saved my life,
Will take me whole to paradise.

So on this resurrection day
I lift my voice with all the saints
And sing with all my ransomed might
Of You, the Savior of my life!

“God put [Christ] forward as a propitiation in His blood through faith, in order to demonstrate His righteousness.”
-Romans 3:25

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us– for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.’”
-Galatians 3:13

“It is those who cannot come to terms with any concept of the wrath of God who repudiate any concept of propitiation… It is God himself who in holy wrath needs to be propitiated, God himself who in holy love undertook to do the propitiating and God himself who in the person of his Son died for the propitiation of our sins. Thus God took his own loving initiative to appease his own righteous anger by bearing it his own self in his own Son when he took our place and died for us.”
-John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p. 167, 172

“God dealt with him as if he had been exceedingly angry with him, and as though he had been the object of his dreadful wrath. This made all the sufferings of Christ the more terrible to him, because they were from the hand of his Father, whom he infinitely loved… It was an effect of God’s wrath, that he forsook Christ. This caused Christ to cry out once and again, ‘My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?’”
–Jonathan Edwards, “Of Satisfaction for Sin” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 2, p. 575

“Can you now think what a vast aggregate of misery there would have been in the sufferings of all God’s people, if they had been punished through all eternity? And recollect that Christ had to suffer an equivalent for all the hells of all His redeemed. I can never express that thought better than by using those oft-repeated words: it seemed as if Hell were put into His cup; He seized it, and, ‘At one tremendous draught of love, He drank damnation dry.’ So that there was nothing left of all the pangs and miseries of Hell for His people ever to endure. I say not that He suffered the same, but He did endure an equivalent for all this, and gave God the satisfaction for all the sins of all His people, and consequently gave Him an equivalent for all their punishment. Now can ye dream, can ye guess the great redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ?”
-Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “Particular Redemption”

“Jesus Christ our Lord, moved by a love that was determined to do everything necessary to save us, endured and exhausted the destructive divine judgment for which we were otherwise inescapably destined, and so won us forgiveness, adoption and glory. To affirm penal substitution is to say that believers are in debt to Christ specifically for this, and that this is the mainspring of all their joy, peace and praise both now and for eternity.”
-J. I. Packer, “What Did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution,” Tyndale Bulletin 25 (1974): 25.

“The words of [Romans 3:25-26] afford an insight into the innermost meaning of the cross as Paul understands it… It involves nothing less than God’s bearing the intolerable burden of that evil Himself in the person of His own dear Son, the disclosure of the fullness of God’s hatred of man’s evil at the same time as it is its real and complete forgiveness.”
-C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans, 1:213-214

“God saw his glory being despised by sinners (like David) — he saw his worth belittled and his name dishonored by our sins — and rather than vindicating the worth of his glory by slaying his people, he vindicated his glory by slaying his Son. God could have settled accounts by punishing all sinners with hell. This would have demonstrated that he does not minimize our falling short of his glory — our belittling his honor. But God did not will to destroy. ‘God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him’ (John 3:17).”
-John Piper, “Did Christ Die for Us or for God?” (January 1, 1995)

But over these last three years, he’s been in an all-out fist fight with advanced stage cancer. On March 6, he posted this note to his congregation:

Unfortunately, my body is running out of steam. Because I am so weak, I’m not mobile any longer. Even trying to sit up is impossible… Every time I do, my BP drops to the point where I either faint or I begin to get so light headed and have to lay right back down. 

This leaves me in a tough place. Ultimately, dialysis is what has kept me going as I am in renal failure. And since I can’t get up, I can’t do dialysis. Truth is, I don’t want to “live depended” on dialysis anyway. 

I returned home from the hospital last night for the last time. While only the Lord knows the number of my days, I don’t expect a long drawn out battle. 

Choosing hospice care is what needed to happen. So many have been (and are) praying for miracles. Please know, I am ready to go to Jesus. So please pray that God would be gracious to us in the time I have left. 

On Sunday Morning, we’ll show a short video during the church service, but please understand this is a busy weekend as my kids are in town.  

Some things have not changed.  

1. 1. I am confident that He who began His work in me, will be faithful to complete it (Phil 1:6).

1. 2. I am confident that God is able go guard what He has in store for those who’ve experienced the new birth in Jesus,  and that by His power, He is able to keep me for that inheritance (1 Peter 1:3- 6. 

So much more, but these truths bring me great comfort and hope. 

Love you!

Nate

The next day, I had the opportunity to talk and pray with Nate over the phone. I told him how much the words he posted meant to me and countless others. I told him that I know he may not be feeling super strong, but his words surely did honor the Lord.

I had been to preach at Nate’s church a little over a year ago. When we talked then, he told me about all the suffering he had faced with cancer, and it was significant. He told me about starting to talk to Amy about her and the kids’ lives after he was gone. He hadn’t given up, but he was planning for them. He also told me about what a challenge it was to experience the Lord’s nearness in the midst of this trial.

Nate is not the only one to have experienced such difficulty. Anyone who has read the Psalms knows how intense suffering can sometimes bring bring with it a sense of isolation and abandonment:

How long, O LORD? Wilt Thou hide Thyself forever?
Will Thy wrath burn like fire?
Remember what my span of life is;
For what vanity Thou hast created all the sons of men!
What man can live and not see death?
Can he deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?
–Psalm 89:46-48

He confessed that while he had been trusting the Lord through his battle with cancer, it was nevertheless a struggle. So my prayers over the last year, have not only been for his healing, but also earnestly for him to experience the nearness of the Lord.

When we spoke on the phone three weeks ago, Nate told me that the last month had been different. The Lord had shown up and given him peace, a real sense of His goodness and nearness. I was hearing the voice of a man who had been with Jesus and who was ready to see Him. My prayers and his were answered. The last thing he said to me was “Talk to you soon.”

We received word from Amy on Tuesday that Nate’s race had finished. Yesterday was the funeral at Trinity Baptist Church. Today is the burial. What a beautiful tribute from his congregation in the funeral service. The men who spoke bore witness not only to Nate’s faithfulness as a preacher of the word but also to his love for the congregation. Amy and the kids were there on the front row. It was beautiful.

In her book The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom talks about how her father helped her to face her fear of death–not only of her own death but also that of loved ones. She writes:

Father sat down on the edge of the narrow bed. “Corrie,” he began gently, “when you and I [take the train] to Amsterdam-when do I give you your ticket?”

I sniffed a few times, considering this.

“Why, just before we get on the train.”

“Exactly. And our wise Father in heaven knows when we’re going to need things, too. Don’t run out ahead of Him, Corrie. When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need-just in time.”

Nate Magloughlin (1976-2026). Husband, father, son, brother, faithful pastor, my friend. Talk to you soon.

“Errors of Reasoning: What Phil Vischer gets wrong about Christians, the creeds, and homosexuality”

Yesterday, the Kenwood Institute released post-debate reflections on the event that included yours truly, Jim Hamilton, and Tom Sculthorpe (watch below). Patrick Schreiner has penned some post-debate reflections as well.

The verses before us are not so much an explanation of that “parable” but an elaboration and expansion of some of its themes. The elaboration explains three things:

I. Jesus Is the Door (7-10)
II. Jesus Is the Shepherd (11-16)
III. Jesus Is the Begotten (17-21)

So they are interrogating the man born blind trying to find out where Jesus is. And in the process they end up in a conflict with the healed man and throw him out of the synagogue. Whereas the blind man has had his eyes opened, the Pharisees seem to have their eyes closed. The blind man now sees, but the Pharisees are now blind. So let’s divide our study of this passage into three parts:

I. The Son of Man Seen (9:35-38)
II. The Son of Man Concealed (9:39-41)
III. The Son of Man as Shepherd (10:1-6)

Watch below or listen at the Spotify or Apple Podcast links below.