Chapter 1: What transformative experience did R.C. Sproul have regarding the holiness of God?
I suddenly had a whole new understanding of the character of God the Father. Now when I say a new understanding, I mean a different understanding. No longer could I look at God as kind of a celestial Santa Claus, a cosmic bellhop who was on call to respond to every one of my requests and my commands. No longer could I think of faith as being something that began and ended in my experience.
Now my attention was not on the one who was saved, namely myself, but on the one who had reached out from heaven to meet me, to redeem me, to forgive me, and to claim my life for him.
Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and thank you for joining us for this Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Today's episode is significant, not only because it is from R.C. Sproul's classic series, The Holiness of God, but also because the message you'll hear today was the first message ever broadcast on Renewing Your Mind more than three decades ago.
Since that first episode, by God's grace, countless minds have been renewed and lives transformed. And this program would not exist without your support. So when you give a donation before midnight tonight at renewingyourmind.org,
or by using the link in the podcast show notes, we'll unlock digital access to The Holiness of God, The Holiness of God Extended Edition, The Study Guide, and we'll send you a special 40th anniversary edition of Dr. Sproul's book, The Holiness of God. Thank you so much for your generosity. Well, here's R.C. Sproul on the otherness of God.
Sometimes I think it seems to us that Nothing ever changes. We feel like we're in a personal rut and that our lives just repeat a certain sameness over and over again. But that is not reality. The reality is that we do change and that we change every single day of our lives. But most of the changes that we undergo are superficial. We add some weight. We reduce and so on.
But changes in our personality, in the very direction of our lives, are for the most part gradual and almost imperceptible. But I think every one of us has experienced crisis moments in our lives that have radically altered the direction of our personalities and of our careers.
If you think back over your life, you will be able to identify, I'm sure, a handful of crisis experiences, crisis moments that forever afterwards changed the course of your life. But when I think over my own life, I always go back to a moment in the year 1958. It took place in the dead of winter during my years in college.
I was lying in bed one night and it was close to midnight and my body was tired.
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Chapter 2: How did R.C. Sproul's understanding of God change after his crisis moment?
I'd had a big day. but I couldn't get to sleep. I remember turning my head from one side of the pillow to the other side, trying to find a way that I would be able to drift off into peaceful slumber, but I couldn't do it. My mind was racing, and I had this overwhelming urge to get up out of bed and leave the building where I was staying.
And so I swung my legs out over the bed, and I got into my clothes, and I went out into the night. And it was a bitter cold night. I remember it vividly. It had snowed the entire day long into the evening. But by now, nearing midnight, the skies had cleared. There was a full moon. The stars were bright in the heavens.
And it was one of those ghostly moments in a country rural setting after a fresh snowfall where the night was silent and still, and we had this beautiful blanket of snow across the fields and hanging from the limbs of the trees. And I began to make my way up the street in this little college town in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania.
No one else was out, and there was this eerie silence, and I was left alone with my thoughts. I could hear the ice crunching under my feet as I was walking up the street, and I made my way deliberately to the college chapel. If you can visualize it, the college chapel was adjacent to the chief administration building of the college that was called Old Main.
And Old Main was adorned with this huge tower And in the tower, there was this large clock like Big Ben, and every 15 minutes, the chimes from that clock would reverberate clear across the quadrangle of the central portion of that campus. And as I was walking toward the chapel, it was so quiet, and it was almost exactly midnight,
that I could hear the gears in the mechanism of the clock shift and change and sort of clunk together before the chimes rang at midnight. And then following the chimes, there was the striking of the hour. And it was always my custom in those days because I could hear those hours being chimed even as far away as I was staying.
I would lie in bed and I would listen to the chimes and count them every time to make sure that the clock was correct. But this night, it happened to be exactly midnight as I approached the front entrance to the chapel, and I counted the striking of the chimes to the number 12.
And then I opened the front door of the chapel, and it was a huge oak arched doorway into a gothic mini cathedral, if you will. And as I walked in that door, hearing every sound that the door made as I opened it, the creaking door, it was spooky.
Because normally when we'd walk into the chapel, we'd be going in there with hundreds and a couple of thousand students at the same time milling about, and all of those sounds would be muffled by clothing and footsteps and people having conversation. But this night, every single sound was accentuated by the silence, and I walked in there.
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Chapter 3: What significant event in R.C. Sproul's life led him to the chapel that night?
I had to stand in the foyer of the chapel to allow my eyes to adjust to the darkness because the only light was that light from the moon that was kind of seeping through the stained glass windows. And I waited a few moments and then began to walk down the center aisle of the chapel. And have you ever been in a church at night that is adorned with stained glass windows?
In the daylight, each one of those windows acts something as a prism, and the illumination and the effulgence of the light that comes makes the stained glass window a spectacle of unspeakable beauty. When the light is almost non-existent, what you see standing out on the lights are the lead portions that separate the panes in the windows. And that's what I remember.
As I walked in there, it was frightening. And I carefully went down the center aisle, and my footsteps sounded like hobnail boots of German soldiers marching on cobblestone streets. I could hear them reverberating throughout the chapel. And finally, I reached the front of the chapel, and there was a rug on the chancel stairs, and I knelt at that place.
And the first sensation that I had was a sensation of a foreboding loneliness. I sensed that I was absolutely alone. And then almost in an instant, I was overcome by the sense of another presence. It was almost tactile. It was like I could reach out and touch the massive presence of God. And I didn't say anything. I didn't pray, either aloud or silently.
I just knelt there and more or less basked in this sensation of being in the presence of God. And I had an inner conflict of two emotions that seemed to be colliding in my heart. On the one hand, I had this dreadful fear. I had this sensation, this chill that began at the base of my spine and ran all the way up my back and into my fingers, and I had goose bumps on my flesh.
I was clearly frightened by the sense of the presence of God, and yet at the same time I felt drawn. to luxuriate, to bask in that moment, and I sensed an overwhelming flood of peace come into my soul. And it was one of those experiences that I wanted to continue forever. I didn't want to move. I just wanted to stay there in quiet, peaceful ecstasy. Now, the reason I went there
The reason I walked through this cold night and along the snow and the streets and I saw the icicles that had formed on the eaves of the buildings as I was walking up the streets almost like gargoyles of nature, they added to the terror somewhat. The reason I made this mini pilgrimage was because of what had happened that afternoon
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Chapter 4: What emotions did R.C. Sproul experience in the presence of God?
in a classroom. I had been a Christian for a little over a year, and my conversion to Christ was, up until this evening, obviously the most dramatic changing point in my life. I had fallen in love with Jesus, and my life turned upside down. My friends thought I had lost my mind. They couldn't get over this transformation and concern that had marked my personality.
And I was obsessed with learning the Bible in that first year. In fact, my first semester as a freshman, I made an A in gym and an A in Bible and all the rest D's because I didn't care to learn anything else but the Scriptures. I just spent my whole time devouring the Bible.
And we had a course that was required in our freshman year in the introduction of the Old Testament the first semester and introduction to the New Testament the second semester, and I resolved that the professor would never be able to ask me a question on an examination that I couldn't answer.
And he gave these long objective tests, whose uncle was married to whose grandmother and so on, and it was almost a game with me. I wanted to master every one of the details of Scripture because that's and I made my major Bible. Now, the second year, I was still finishing up course requirements that I needed in order to graduate, and one of them was a course in the introduction to philosophy.
I hated it. I thought it was the most boring, dry waste of time that I had yet to this point experienced in my academic training. And what I used to do in philosophy class was sit at the last row where the professor would have a hard time seeing me, and I would prop up my notebook
in front of me and hide inside that notebook a little printed version of the latest sermon from Billy Graham because that's all I wanted to read about was religion and to hear about was things of Christianity. I could care less about Kant and Hume and Locke and the philosophers that were so dull to my ears. But that day, the professor was lecturing on Saint Augustine.
And he was speaking about Augustine's understanding of the creation of the universe. And he read to us portions from the works of Saint Augustine. And almost against my will, even though I was trying not to listen, couldn't help but hear what the man was saying. And so slowly and reluctantly, I put the Billy Graham sermon aside and began to pay attention to this teaching from St. Augustine.
And Augustine was talking about the transcendent power of God by which he could bring an entire universe into being by the sheer force of his command. He was describing what Augustine called the divine imperative or the divine fiat, that powerful command by which God could say simply, let there be light, and the lights would come on.
And as I listened to this, I had a sudden epiphany of the grandeur of the otherness, of the majesty of God, that even in my first year of absorption of interest in studying the Scriptures, I had never fully realized. And what happened was almost like a second conversion experience for me.
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Chapter 5: How did the teachings of St. Augustine impact R.C. Sproul's view of God?
I had gone through this conversion to Christ. I had fallen in love with Jesus, the second person of the Trinity. But on this occasion, listening to this exposition of Genesis from one of the greatest minds in church history, St. Augustine, suddenly had a whole new understanding of the character of God the Father. Now, when I say a new understanding, I mean a different understanding.
No longer could I look at God as kind of a celestial Santa Claus, a cosmic bellhop who was on call to respond to every one of my requests and my commands. No longer could I think of faith as being something that began and ended in my experience.
Now my attention was not on the one who was saved, namely myself, but on the one who had reached out from heaven to meet me, to redeem me, to forgive me, and to claim my life for him. And I began to get a new understanding of the God I had to deal with. And I remember when the class was over, I was stunned. I didn't say anything to the professor. I didn't say anything to my friends in the class.
I walked out of the room, not in a spirit of excitement, but in a sober sense almost of reservation. That is, I had surrendered something in my soul, and I walked downstairs from the classroom. I went to the registrar's office, and I went in there and changed my major from Bible to philosophy.
Now when I did that, some of my friends thought that I had gone through a crisis of faith and that I'd lost my faith. They said, you mean you're not going to be studying the Bible anymore? I said, oh no, I'm going to study every class that I can possibly take in the Bible. I haven't changed my view of Scripture at all. They said, but why would you get involved in the study of philosophy?
I said, because I want to read the writings of men like Augustine and others who have penetrated to the depth of understanding that is humanly possible of the character and the nature of God. This God, whom I received a glimpse of today, I have to know in greater depth. I have to know more about this one who bestows and who reveals and who manifests such magnificent greatness and excellence.
And so I changed my major for that reason, not because I was interested in speculative philosophy, but because I wanted to get the tools in order to go as deeply as I possibly could in my soul's quest for God. You see, what I experienced that afternoon would not let me sleep. It wasn't enough for me to think about it. It wasn't enough for me to study it.
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Chapter 6: What realization did R.C. Sproul have about the character of God?
I didn't want simply an abstract understanding of ideas. What now I wanted more than anything else was to meet this God alone. And when I went to my bed that night, before I went to bed, I got on my knees and I sought him there by the bed. But it wasn't enough. Now, I know that God is not isolated to the confines of a church building. But there is something about a sanctuary.
that is holy ground. There's something about the front door to a church that marks a threshold from the profane to the sacred, from the secular to the holy. Even in Israel, in the tabernacle and the temple, there was a place within that sanctuary that was called the holy place.
and even the holy place was separated by this massive veil from the inner sanctum that was called the sanctus sanctorum, the holy of holies, where only the high priest could go, and that only after elaborate rituals of ceremonial cleansing, and then only once a year. I was looking for a place like And that's why I had to get out of bed.
And that's why I had to walk through the cold and through the snow to go to that chapel. Again, not because I believed that was the only place God was present, but in there somehow I found a refuge, a haven, a sanctuary where I could be still and know that he was God. And I was not disappointed. That private and personal experience that I had in that chapel was a life-changing experience for me.
And it was the beginning of a lifelong pursuit of the holiness of God. And what we're going to do on this program for the days that are to come, God willing, is to explore that theme that is not only vital to my life, but is central to the biblical revelation of the character of God and is absolutely crucial for every Christian's personal growth.
to investigate, to reflect upon, to seek an understanding of what the Scriptures mean when they declare that God is holy. It is my desire with each of these programs to have a few moments of reflection at the end to look for possible personal and practical applications for the material that we have covered. I'm going to call these vignettes of closing comments our Quorum Deo segment.
Drawing from that slogan that was central to the Reformation of the 16th century were men like Martin Luther and John Calvin understood that the quest of the Christian life was to live quorum Deo, which means simply before the face of God. to understand that all of our life is to be lived with an awareness that we are living in His presence.
and that we are living under His authority, and that we are to live to His glory. So in the days to come, we will be looking for gentle reminders of ways that we can apply what we learn to our own pursuit of living our lives quorum Deo, before the face of God.
And that was a lifelong pursuit. And the Lord used R.C. Sproul to help others better understand who God is. This is the Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind.
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Chapter 7: Why did R.C. Sproul change his major from Bible to philosophy?
I'm Nathan W. Bingham. This series, The Holiness of God, had a profound impact on my life, and that story is shared by so many. Almost everyone I meet at Ligonier events tells me the same thing. I read The Holiness of God, or I listened to Dr. Sproul teach on it, and my view of God and the Christian life was never the same again.
If you have not read the book or watched the entire series, I encourage you to respond today. When you give a donation at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes, we'll unlock the Holiness of God series, the extended edition, the study guide, and we'll send you a 40th anniversary edition of the book.
If you've read the book or you own the series, why not respond now to help extend the reach of Renewing Your Mind and then give the book away to someone in your family or a friend? Simply donate at renewingyourmind.org before this offer ends at midnight. Thank you. Join us next time for a message titled, The Holy Place. That'll be next Saturday here on Renewing Your Mind.