Toni Saad, Cardiff

Which verses would you take to the desert island?

Since Scripture is an organic unity, it is difficult to pick only a handful of desert island verses. Nevertheless, verses which I would return to on the island include some of Christ’s words to his disciples:

I will ask the Father to send you another Helper, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you know will know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you. John 14:15-20

Not only will Christ return, but, in the meantime, he will send the Holy Spirit to indwell us. He shall be in us, just as Christ is in us and we are in him. This is the glorious reconciliation between man and God in Christ, and the union and communion which we have in Christ. By giving us the Holy Spirit to unite us to himself, Christ gives us himself, and we are made to share in the Triune God. These are verses which helped me understand that Christ is the gravitational centre of redemption, and that none of God’s benefits (justification, adoption, sanctification etc.) can be abstracted from our union with Christ. Our salvation is as concrete as Christ is, and so can our assurance be.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him… So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions … For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. Romans 6:5-13

This great summary of Christ’s work is also an exposition of its significance regarding the life to come and the life we live now. No longer are we slaves to sin, if we are in Christ, since we are under grace. Paul presents us with the lifelong challenge of killing sin, but it comes sandwiched between whole-grain gospel truth. This passage is justifiably optimistic about sanctification in Christ, and dispels the perverse passivity that I and other Christians sometimes deceive themselves with in the face of sin. I have learnt from these verses that being a sinner is no excuse for sinning if I am in Christ. And this lesson is the source of lasting joy.

Who would you like to find on the island for company?

There are many greats at whose feet I would gladly learn all day. Thomas Aquinas would be a highly intellectually-stimulating fellow castaway. The great Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck would be an excellent tutor of reformed theology. But my pick would be the Swiss reformed theologian Francis Turretin (1623-1687), author of Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Turretin’s theology is a distillation of Reformation doctrine blended with the very best of the Christian philosophical and scholastic tradition, which makes for a rich system of theology of lasting influence on the great theologians of yesteryear. To share an island with Turretin would be a marvellous opportunity to learn to see Christ and Scripture in all their kaleidoscopic glory and think about these with philosophical rigour. There is perhaps nothing better for a marooned soul to do.

Which song would you take to the island?

Perhaps Turretin would join in The Church’s One Foundation (SJ Stone, 1886) with me. This hymn beautifully summarises the story of Christ’s redemption. But it is also a humble confession of the Church’s troubled, sinful and divided state, a lament of faith to God. Singing it reminds me that not all is well for now in Christ’s Church, so there is no place for complacency or self-satisfaction. We cannot rest on our laurels. But, however bad the mess of the Church gets, Christ is picking up the pieces, building his church—and so there is no room for self-pity either. The Church is Christ’s, as I am, and our destinies are entrusted to his eternal wisdom.

The church’s one Foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord;
she is His new creation, by water and the Word;
from heav’n He came and sought her to be His holy bride;
with His own blood He bought her, and for her life He died.

Elect from ev’ry nation, yet one o’er all the earth,
her charter of salvation, one Lord, one faith, one birth;
one holy Name she blesses, partakes one holy food,
and to one hope she presses, with ev’ry grace endued.

Tho’ with a scornful wonder, men see her sore oppressed,
by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed,
yet saints their watch are keeping, their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping shall be the morn of song.

The church shall never perish! Her dear Lord, to defend,
to guide, sustain, and cherish, is with her to the end;
tho’ there be those that hate her and false sons in her pale,
against the foe or traitor she ever shall prevail.

‘Mid toil and tribulation, and tumult of her war,
she waits the consummation of peace for evermore;
till with the vision glorious her longing eyes are blest,
and the great church victorious shall be the church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union with God the Three in One,
and mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won.
O happy ones and holy! Lord, give us grace that we,
like them, the meek and lowly, on high may dwell with Thee.