Here are you and I, miserable worms in this world, miserable worms with our arrogance and our pride and our appalling ignorance.
We deserve nothing but to be blotted off the face of the earth. But what has happened is that before the foundation of the world this blessed God, these three blessed Persons, considered us, considered our condition, considered what would happen to us, and the consequence was that these Three Persons, God, whom man hath never seen, stooped to consider us and planned a way whereby we might be forgiven and redeemed.
The Son said, I will leave this glory for a while, I will dwell in the womb of a woman, I will be born as a babe, I will become a pauper, I will suffer insult in the world, I will even allow them to nail Me to a Cross and spit in My face. He volunteered to do all that for us, and at this very moment this blessed Second Person in the Trinity is seated at the right hand of God to represent you and me.
He came down to earth and did all that, and rose again, and ascended to heaven; and it was all planned ‘before the world’ for you and for me.
Martin Lloyd-Jones
A former pastor of mine, when we were discussing hymns, realized during the conversation that I believed this (quote above). He turned to me and said, "So...you believe in 'Worm Theology'?"
ReplyDeleteNot having a catchy answer at the time, I just said, "yes".
...I still would like to have a "catchy answer" for that question.
Wow..someone stumped the etymological astute Eddie Eddings??
DeleteIt was one of those moments that catch you totally off guard. I had assumed this pastor believed the truth about human nature. I later found out that he believed you could reach a point where you didn't sin. He used the faulty logic that if you could go without sinning for a minute...then you could go without sinning for two minutes. He reasoned that minutes could be turned into hours and days until you reach a sort of perfection.
DeleteThat, to me, is like saying if you can hold a hundred pounds over your head for a minute...you could do so for the rest of your life!
I don't remember him ever preaching this from the pulpit, but I do remember him sharing this with smaller groups.