PCRT 2008 - Day Two & Wrapup

Better late than never, it's the quick wrapup from PCRT this year. The sheer volume of teaching was a little overwhelming. I'm definitely planning to review my notes and listen to the messages again to gain a greater understanding of everything that was said. However, even what little I did manage to take out of it initially, really helped to flesh out my understanding of the different aspects of Christ's work on the cross.

1. Robert Godfrey - Redeeming Blood: Preached a sermon on redemption from Psalm 49, which is a text I hadn't heard tied into the atonement. He talked about the certainty of death for the wise and the foolish, rich and poor alike and the helplessness before God which is articulated by the psalmist. He noted that the language of redemption is throughout the law that God gives to Israel. Also, provided an excellent reminder about the power of Christ's blood. Our sins are not so great that they outweigh Christ's sacrifice for us.

2. Philip Ryken - Atoning Blood: Used to self-examination questions from a puritan writer to remind us how we can often have a light view of sin. Discussed the atonement in terms of redemption, justification and propitiation. Redemption is a picture of the atonement that comes from the marketplace, the procurement of a release by the payment of a price. Justification is a picture from a legal standpoint. It's not a making righteous but a declaring righteous. Propitiation is a picture of the atonement that comes from the Old Testament temple. It refers to the turning away of God's anger towards us. The application was to call us to be willing to sacrifice in every of our Christian lives.

3. Richard Phillips - Cleansing Blood: Preached on Hebrews 9:11-14. The message focused on expiation, the cleansing or removal of our sin. He mentioned the Old Testament laws regarding cleaness and noted that the priests did not have the power to make someone clean. However, Christ does not merely declare us pure but actually makes us clean from the stains of sin. He then went on to say that since Christ has cleansed us, we must be sure to accept ourselves as cleansed. Finally, in light of those facts, he encouraged us to draw near to God with confidence and that we would remember the cleansing of Christ's blood when our guility conscience is hesitant to draw near to God.

4. Carl Trueman - Seminar: I guess I should have known from reading his book, "The Wages of Spin", but Carl Trueman is fairly brilliant and essentially gave a seminary level lecture on a section of church history regarding the challenges to the atonement after the Reformation. I took some notes, but had a hard time following. I mostly understood what he was saying but keeping up with notes and side references was another thing entirely. I fully intend to listen to the recording to get more out of it, but what I most took away from being there was a good sense of humility in how far my knowledge really extends. I don't know very much at all, others out there are much smarter and more knowledgable and I still have a lot to learn.

5. Saturday Evening and Sunday Morning - I left the conference after the seminar on Saturday so I did not get to hear either Robert Godfrey's message on Saturday night or R.C. Sproul's message on Sunday morning. I plan to listen to them as soon as Julian lets me borrow the recordings.

Other highlights...

1. Qdoba - Peter and I stopped in for lunch. The shredded beef nachos were as delicious as always.

2. Book Purchases - Despite major temptation (and thanks to the help of friends), I refrained from buying any new books over the weekend. I guess that four volume set of "The Christian's Reasonable Service" will have to wait till next time.

3. Unity - It was great to interact and worship with people who are not from the same church family as I am. It is a joy to worship together with brothers and sisters in mutual gratitude and praise of God for saving us by sending his Son to die on the cross for our sins. Also, I become more aware of how much we have to learn from each other, despite our differences on some things outside the core beliefs of the gospel.

4. Expelled - I left the conference to see this movie. We had a lot of fun and the movie was very interesting. Ben Stein makes some good points about intellectual freedom, particularly in academia. However, I was actually more affected by some of the parts of the movie that reminded me of our sinful nature as humans and also how hard we can try to surpress the truth. This stuck out at me more than the whole Intelligent Design aspect of the movie, but overall it does make you think and if you bring someone along to see it, you're sure to have plenty to talk about afterwards.