Transforming Grace

The two images below are taken from Wayne Grudem’s section on sanctification in his Systematic Theology. The first graph is as it appears in the book and the second as it appears in my copy (my thanks is due to Chris Green, vice-principal of Oak Hill College, who taught me that it is good to write in books, even if my writing is practically illegible). Can you spot the difference?

The first graph represents the way I used to think about Christian life. I had been saved from slavery to sin at conversion; with great gratitude for what Christ had done, I struggled on in the strength of the Holy Spirit and the word to grow in holiness; at death I thought I’d finally be made perfect in holiness. My life was shaped by wanting to be what I wasn’t yet but would be. I now realise that this way of thinking brings about joyless obedience and a nagging sense of guilt.

The true gospel is represented in the second graph. At conversion I was sanctified by Christ (1 Cor 1:2). I am already graciously made perfect, justified, righteous, holy in his eyes. I now look back to the cross with gratitude and forward to glory (1 Peter 1:3-5). The rest of my life is shaped by wanting to be what I already am.

One ongoing struggle I have with myself is my inbuilt desire to be seen to be successful. I seek to achieve success so that others will say “well done Neil”. As I read Leviticus 11:45 this morning, “You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy”, my response is to strive for perfect personal holiness so that God will say “well done Neil”. If God left me to do this on my own, I’d chase the rainbow and hate myself for not finding the pot of gold. I’d eventually burn out from the slog of trying to be holy and the guilt of failure. I’d never know God’s smile and his “well done Neil”. I know, because I’ve been there and done that.

That’s why the gospel is so beautiful. In his book The Passion of Jesus Christ: Fifty reasons why he came to die John Piper points me to one reason why Christ’s death meets my deepest felt need. Christ Suffered and Died …To Make us HOLY, BLAMELESS, AND PERFECT

For by a single offering he has perfected for all time
those who are being sanctified.
Hebrews 10:14

He has now reconciled [you] in his body of flesh by his death,
in order to present you holy and blameless and
above reproach before him.
Colossians 1:22

Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump,
as you really are unleavened.
For Christ, our Passover lamb,
has been sacrificed.
1 Corinthians 5:7

One of the greatest heartaches in the Christian life is the slowness of our change. We hear the summons of God to love him with all our heart and soul and mind and strength (Mark 12:30). But do we ever rise to that totality of affection and devotion? We cry out regularly with the apostle Paul, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). We groan even as we take fresh resolves: “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Philippians 3:12).

That very statement is the key to endurance and joy. “Christ Jesus has made me his own.” All my reaching and yearning and striving is not to belong to Christ (which has already happened), but to complete what is lacking in my likeness to him.

One of the greatest sources of joy and endurance for the Christian is knowing that in the imperfection of our progress we have already been perfected—and that this is owing to the suffering and death of Christ. “For by a single offering [namely, himself!] he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). This is amazing! In the same sentence he says we are “being sanctified” and we are already “perfected.”

Being sanctified means that we are imperfect and in process. We are becoming holy—but are not yet fully holy. And it is precisely these—and only these—who are already perfected. The joyful encouragement here is that the evidence of our perfection before God is not our experienced perfection, but our experienced progress. The good news is that being on the way is proof that we have arrived.

The Bible pictures this again in the old language of dough and leaven (yeast). In the picture, leaven is evil. We are the lump of dough. It says, “Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7). Christians are “unleavened.” There is no leaven—no evil. We are perfected. For this reason we are to “cleanse out the old leaven.” We have been made unleavened in Christ. So we should now become unleavened in practice. In other words, we should become what we are.

The basis of all this? “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” The suffering of Christ secures our perfection so firmly that it is already now a reality. Therefore, we fight against our sin not simply to become perfect, but because we are. The death of Jesus is the key to battling our imperfections on the firm foundation of our perfection.

The sad story of Emma Gough, the 22 year-old Jehovah’s Witness mother-to-be who died after giving birth to healthy twins because she refused to accept a blood transfusion, hit the headlines recently. She lived in Telford, 45 minutes from Wolverhampton and her death has affected many local people, including a sister of someone in our congregation, because the JWs are thriving in Wolverhampton with around 13 congregations. It must be so hard for Emma’s husband and family to be left with infant twins and no mother, especially when a simple blood transfusion would have saved her life. It must also be hard for those who adhere to the strict blood transfusion law of the Watchtower. I’ve decided to post this blog to help anyone who is affected by this teaching to ask; does the bible prohibit blood transfusions? If you are a Jehovah’s Witness, I have used the New World Translation in this work in the hope that you will read this post and think prayerfully about what the bible teaches.

I understand that this is a sensitive and controversial subject for Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Watchtower has changed its position on the use of blood products but maintains a policy of automatic self-disfellowshipping for any transgressors of this “law”.

I also understand that the “law” on the use of blood products stems from the letter to the Gentiles recorded in Acts chapter 15, which asks Gentile believers to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat strangled animals and from sexual immorality.

The context and reason for the Jerusalem council edict must be understood before we can answer the question “does the bible prohibited blood transfusions?” Two questions apply to Acts 15 before the issue can be properly understood:

1. What it is the context in which the Jerusalem council made it’s decision?
2. Why were the Gentiles asked to abstain from these four areas and not from stealing, lying, coveting and other such biblical laws?

In Luke’s account in Acts, James said to the council, most especially the circumcision party, that they must recognize and embrace Gentile believers as brothers and sisters in Christ, and not burden them or put stumbling blocks in the way of the salvation of other Gentiles by asking them to add to their faith in Jesus either circumcision or the whole code of Jewish practices (v13-18). At the same time, having established the principle that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, without works (v8-11), it was necessary to appeal to these Gentile believers to respect the consciences of their Jewish fellow-believers by abstaining from a few practices which caused offence to them and which put stumbling blocks in the way of fellow Jews coming to faith in Christ. For, James went on to explain, Moses had been preached in every city from the earliest times and is still being read in the synagogues on every Sabbath (v21). In such contexts, where the teachings of Moses were well known and highly respected, Jewish scruples were sensitive and out of charity should not have been violated by Gentile believers. Paul applied the same argument in 1 Corinthians 8. He knew that food was not defiled by being sacrificed to idols and so it could be eaten by followers of Christ. Some immature Christians, however, were uneasy when they saw other Christians eat idol-food. Paul was, therefore, willing to stop eating meat for the sake of his weaker brother.

In the case of the four abstentions listed in Acts 15, the “weaker brother” appears to be the Jewish believers whose ceremonial customs, all matters of external purity, were being violated by the Gentile believers and this made the Jewish brothers uneasy, their conscience was defiled. So by eating meat sacrificed to idols, eating or drinking ‘blood’ and ‘eating the meat of strangled animals’ Gentile believers broke the ceremonial food laws recorded in Leviticus (Lev. 17:6-15). Sexual immorality was also a matter of Jewish purity, outlawed in Leviticus (Lev 15:16-33). For Gentile believers who came from a background of temple prostitution and general promiscuity the issue needed addressing. This sexual immortality was associated with cultic practice and so it overlapped with both the ceremonial and moral aspects of God’s law.

In essence, the Jerusalem council agreed that all believers in Christ are saved by God’s grace though faith. They are justified and made righteous by hating their moral sin and loving Christ for dying in their place on the cross. As for the law, it is divided into moral and ceremonial and whilst the moral law still stands today the ceremonial law is swallowed up in the cross as Christ fulfills the requirements of the sacrificial system. All believers are held to the moral law of God but not the ceremonial. Whilst the Jews who had come to trust in Christ is their Messiah knew that he had fulfilled the ceremonial laws and so abolished them, it still pricked their conscience when they saw their Gentile brothers breaking those ceremonial laws. God had already revealed through Peter’s visions in Acts 10 and 11 that the food laws were abolished under Christ. All things were now “clean” to eat because the ceremonial law was fulfilled in Christ. Jewish believers could now eat all sorts of meat and blood products, yet it left them feeling uneasy, so Gentiles were asked to abstain for the love of their Jewish brethren.

Carrying this principle forward to today’s ethical dilemma created by the Watchtower, it is clear that blood transfusions do not fit the category of Jewish ceremonial law as no sacrifice for sin or guilt is performed in the donation of blood. Blood donors may believe that they are making a small sacrifice to make them right with God but the bible teaches that only one sacrifice is acceptable to God, the death of Jesus on the cross (1 Peter 3:18). Blood given for transfusion and the blood of animals used in sacrifice are not in the same ceremonial category.

So, do blood transfusions fall into the category of something believers should abstain from because of the uneasy conscience of some? It might be true that Jehovah’s witnesses feel uncomfortable with the idea of having the blood of another person pumped into their veins. The question remains, does the Bible ask people to abstain from the practice of blood transfusion for this reason?

I believe the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 12 sheds some light on the situation. The disciples go into a grain field, pluck heads of grain and eat them on the Sabbath. The Pharisees are angry because Jesus’ disciples are breaking the Sabbath law “do no work”.

Jesus’ reply takes the following line of argument:

1. The priests “worked” every Sabbath in the temple and so “broke” the law yet remained innocent because their temple work took precedent over the law not to work on the Sabbath. The authority of God’s law allowed them to work (v5).
2. Jesus himself is greater than the temple system, he fulfills the law for people and has authority to allow them to do acts of mercy on the Sabbath (v7)
3. Mercy takes precedent over sacrifice (v7)

To prove his point, Jesus then healed a man with a withered hand, on the Sabbath in the synagogue (v9-13) and the strict law keepers wanted to kill him, not for showing mercy but for breaking the law which said “do not work on the Sabbath” (v14). Yet, the same Pharisees would work on Sabbath by rescuing a sheep from a ditch! And Jesus said that a man’s life is worth more than a sheep’s. So, as healing people is a work of re-creation, Jesus himself taught and demonstrated that mercy takes president over sacrifice.

Presuming that someone still argued that the laws of Leviticus 17 stand today, that they were not swallowed up in the sacrificial death of Christ, and that blood transfusions break those laws, Jesus teaches and demonstrates that healing someone is more important than keeping such laws. Jesus “went through the land doing good and healing all those oppressed by the Devil; because God was with him” (Acts 10:38). Saving the lives of people and healing them falls into the category of mercy. Jesus said “I want mercy, not sacrifice”. It is, therefore, necessary for believers to show and receive mercy, to heal people, before adhering to any ceremonial laws on blood.

If you are a Jehovah’s Witness I hope this gives you the courage to accept a blood transfusion as an act of mercy and not to be concerned about breaking ceremonial laws concerning blood.

I have just finished an 11 week sermon series in Genesis 37 to 50 and have realised for the first time that Joseph is the preeminent OT type of Christ, the suffering servant king. I need to write this down before I forget. The patterns of Joseph’s life foreshadow and point forward to the life of Christ. The chronological order of Joseph’s life differs somewhat from the life of Christ but the patterns of innocent suffering as saviour of God’s people and risen king of the world are clearly present:

Joseph is hated by his brothers for his righteousness relationship with his father (Gen 37:2 cf John 15:24) and for having received the privileged status and honour of firstborn son from his father who loves him above all (Gen 37:3-4 cf Mark 1:11). He is hated by his brothers for revealing God’s truth about his future at that of his brothers (Gen 37:5ff cf Mark 12:10-12) and for his words (Gen 37:8). The is no direct evidence in the text for Joseph deserving his brothers hatred due to any character flaw such as arrogance (cf John 15:25).

His brothers wander away from the close fellowship and security of Hebron to Schehem and finally Dothan, a place of godless material prosperity (Gen 37:12-17). They were spiritually lost. Joseph’s father sent his son to search for his lost brothers (Gen 37:13a & 14 cf John 3:17). Joseph willingly obeys his Father in the knowledge of how his brothers might treat him (Gen 37:13b cf Mark 14:36).

When he comes to them, his brothers treat Joseph with disrespect and plan to kill him (Gen 37:18 cf Mark 14:1). He is stripped of his robe and descends into the pit (Gen 37:23 cf Mark 15:20). His death causes great mourning (Gen 37:34-35 cf Zech 12:10).

As Joseph is typological for Christ, Judah is typological for God’s lost people. He sleeps with his daughter-in-law and declares that in spite of her unrighteous deceit and prostitution that she is more righteous than him (Gen 38:26). He is deserving of righteous punishment.

Joseph demonstrates God’s presence with him during his life as a slave (Gen 39:3) and his wisdom brings prosperity and blessing wherever he is (Gen 39:5-6).

Joseph is severely and persistently tempted by Potiphar’s wife (Gen 39:7-12a cf Mark 1:13) but does not sin (Gen 39:12b). In spite of his moral innocence he is falsely accused (Gen 39:17-18 cf Mark 14:57-59) and is punished without a just trial (Gen 39:19-20 cf Mark 15:7-15). He descends into prison (Gen 39:20) but again prospers because the Lord is with him and he is wise (Gen 39:21-23).

He shares his punishment with two criminals (Gen 40:1-4 cf Luke 23:33). The criminals ask Joseph to help them (Gen 40:7-8 cf Luke 23:39). Joseph reveals their future (Gen 40:8bff cf Luke 23:43). God has mercy on one of the criminals and shows no mercy to the other (Gen 40:21-22 cf Luke 23:43).

Joseph is resurrected from prison (Gen 41:14 cf Mark 16:6). He ascends to the right hand of Pharaoh (Gen 41:39-40 cf Luke 24:51). Joseph rules over the kingdom of Egypt and his rule spreads to all nations on earth (Gen 41:56-57 cf Mark 14:62). All peoples of the earth come to Joseph for salvation (Gen 41:57 cf Matt 28:18-19).

Joseph tests his brothers and by their testing their hearts are changed. Judah is reformed (Gen 42-45). Judah is reconciled to his brother and saviour (Gen 45:4-5).

When Judah tells his father, Jacob, that Joseph is alive and ruling the whole of Egypt, Judah can’t believe it (Gen 45:26). Three things convince him that Judah is telling the truth. First, Judah repeats Joseph’s words (Gen 45:27 cf Mark 16:7). He then shows his father the physical evidence of Joseph’s life (Gen 45:27 cf Mark 16:6). Judah is a character witness who has been transformed from being murderous, nervous and deceitful to being confident, humble and magnanimous (cf Acts 2:14).

When Jacob is reunited with Joseph, he is introduced to Pharaoh. Judah confesses his sin to Pharaoh (Gen 47:9). He is then given the best part of the land of Egypt and all the provisions for his family, including Judah, as an act of grace by God (Gen 47:11-12 cf Mark 10:29-30). The gift Jacob receives is life (cf John 3:16). The value of this free gift is highlighted by what it costs the Egyptians to buy their life; all their money, livestock, land and freedom (Gen 47:13-25 cf Mark 10:17-21).

God’s sovereignty, goodness and grace are revealed through his suffering servant, king Joseph (Gen 50:19-21).

In this month’s edition of The Briefing in an article on justification by faith, Christopher Ash compares God’s grace to the Koh-i-Noor diamond, the most precious stone in the world. It is a brilliant illustration. As we imagine holding that diamond up to the sun and gazing at its beauty, it almost defies description. Words alone cannot describe either the purity, clarity and refracted light in all its complexity nor their collective breath-taking effect on the observer. We should gaze likewise on the gift of grace in Christ and allow it to inspire our words and hearts to adoration and appreciation.

Thomas Watson makes this point well when he writes about blessedness:

Blessedness stands in the fruition of the chief good.
(i)) It consists in fruition; there must not be only possession, but fruition. A man may possess an estate, yet not enjoy it. He may have the dominion of it, but not the comfort, as when he is in a lethargy or under the predominance of melancholy. But in true blessedness there must be a sensible enjoyment of that which the soul possesses.

Our words of description will effect our appreciation. We must, therefore, be careful not to limit our description of the gift of grace to concise theological jargon-based statements. If we do, our fruition of grace is reduced to the equivalent of describing the worlds most beautiful diamond as a piece of cut transparent carbon or Buckingham Palace as a large detached house in central London. What is grace? How can it be described? More will follow…

In his book The Pleasures of God, John Piper uses this quote from a 1976 John Kilby lecture on keeping alive to God’s glory. Kilby said:

“I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the, child of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder.”‘

One of the tragedies of growing up is that we get used to things. It has its good side of course, since irritations may cease to be irritations. But there is immense loss when we get used to the redness of the rising sun, and the roundness of the moon, and the whiteness of the snow, the wetness of rain, the blueness of the sky, the buzzing of bumble bees, the stitching of crickets, the invisibility of wind, the unconscious constancy of heart and diaphragm, the weirdness of noses and ears, the number of the grains of sand on a thousand beaches, the never-ceasing crash crash crash of countless waves, and ten million kingly-clad flowers flourishing and withering in woods and mountain valleys where no one sees but God. I invite you, with Clyde Kilby, to seek a “freshness of vision,” to look, as though it were the first time, not at the empty product of accu­mulated millennia of aimless evolutionary accidents (which no child ever dreamed of), but at the personal handiwork of an infinitely strong, creative, and exuberant Artist who made the earth and the sea and every­thing in them. I invite you to believe (like the children believe) “that today, this very day, some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that in due course you shall understand with joy as a stroke made by the Architect who calls Himself Alpha and Omega” (note 11, resolution 10).

I’ve found the same sort of familiarity with God’s grace had seeped into my Christian life. I have discovered the need for the freshness of vision I had at the outset, as an adopted child of God through pure unclouded faith in Christ as Saviour.

Before Christmas this year I discovered, by accident, two of my presents from Amanda. Skyscraper Top Trumps (I was a structural engineer afterall) and a CD, The Valley of Vision. Strangely I was not disappointed but was looking forward to Christmas all the more.

I bumped into a widower from our congregation before Christmas who told me his son had gone to New Zealand leaving him to dread Christmas on his own for the first time ever. I asked him to join us for Christmas lunch. He was delighted.

A few days later, he said he could not come after all. His brother had had to admit that the family had organised a surprise Christmas for him lunch with his sister in Torquay. The family were well meaning, but by keeping Christmas day a surprise they had denied my friend the joy of expectation.

God has not kept the gift of his Kingdom as a surprise. These abridged thoughts from Thomas Watson’s beatitudes on the Kingdom of God have increased my expectation. We can look forward to the reality with joy.

In regard of God’s free grace, ‘It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom’ (Luke 12: 32). It is not any desert in us but free grace in God.

Having shown wherein the saints in glory are like kings, let us see wherein the kingdom of heaven excels other kingdoms.

1 It excels in the Founder and Maker. Other kingdoms have men for their builders, but this kingdom has God for its builder (Hebrews 11: 10)…

2 This kingdom excels in the riches of it. Gold does not so much surpass iron as this kingdom does all other riches. ‘The gates are of pearl’ (Revelation 21: 21)…

3 This kingdom excels in the perfection of it. Other kingdoms are defective. They have not all provisions within themselves, nor have they all commodities of their own growth, but are forced to traffic abroad to supply their wants at home…

4 It excels in security. Other kingdoms fear either foreign invasions or intestine divisions. The gates of this celestial kingdom ‘are not shut at all by day’ (Revelation 21: 25). We shut the gates of the city in a time of danger, but the gates of that kingdom always stand open to show that there is no fear of the approach of an enemy…

5 This kingdom excels in its stability. Other kingdoms have vanity written upon them. They cease and are changed; though they may have a head of gold, yet feet of clay…

Thanks to Peter Cockrell who recently posted an excerpt from a C.J. Mahaney sermon on the doctrine of adoption. At the end of the quote Mahaney says:

If you are a Christian and you are not convinced of God’s love for you then I would recommend you confine yourself to this topic. Confine yourself to your study to this passage and other passages that reference adoption. Confine yourself for a season of time to the study of the doctrine of adoption.

I recently borrowed a book from Wolverhampton Central Library by Mark Stibbe, Vicar of St Andrew’s, Chorleywood. Mark was adopted as a child and has authored a book on the doctrine of adoption, From Orphans to Heirs. The title of the book itself nicely highlights the change of status of the believer. I don’t agree with everything Mark writes, one of his conclusions is that adoption leads to antinomianism.  On p126, however, he wonderfully captures something of the nature of God’s grace expressed in the doctrine adoption:

Our acceptance by the Father is therefore the foundation of our Christian lives. Before we do anything for God, we know that we are beloved by God. By grace, we have brand new identities as sons and daughters, and we are brand new creatures. Being loved by the Father becomes the very core of our existence. This is both our legal and actual status before God.

From this time on, our sense of acceptance needs to be sustained in the right way or we will go back to the old life of striving to earn God’s acceptance through our achievements…

From now on, our sense of significance derives not from our performance but our position in Christ. Who we are, and indeed what we are, derives from the fact that we are adopted by grace. From this knowledge flows our sense of value. No longer are we preoccupied with the way others see us. We are wholly taken up with the way the Father sees us. No longer are we seeking the approval of others, we seek a deeper revelation of the Father’s exquisite perspective of us. When the devil tries to exasperate us with what was true about the old self, we respond by reasserting the truth about our new self:

I have been given the right to be [called] a child of God (John 1:12).
I am no longer a slave but a friend of Christ (John 15:15).
I have been bought for adoption through Christ’s blood (I Corinthians 6:20).
I was predestined for adoption (Ephesians 1:5).
I am a child of Abba by adoption (Romans 8:15).
I am God’s work of art (Ephesians 2:10).
I am no longer under any condemnation (Romans 8:1).
I cannot be separated from the Father’s love (Romans 8:35).
I am loved by the Father himself (John 16:27).
I have been redeemed and forgiven (Colossians 1:14).
I am a citizen of heaven (Philippians 3:20).
I have not been given a spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1: 7).
I am no longer a slave but a son (Galatians 4:7).
I am seated with the Son in heaven (Ephesians 2:6).
I am of the same family as Jesus (Hebrews 2:11).
I am a brother of the Lord Jesus (Hebrews 2:11).
I can approach the Father with confidence (Hebrews 4:16).
I am a brand new person in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17).

If our sense of significance derives from sonship not slavery, then we will be able to achieve God’s purpose for our lives. The reason for this is because we will be ministering for the Lord out of a sense of gratitude rather than a need for God’s approval.

In yesterday’s blog I quoted Francis Turretin on the right relationship between grace and works. Turretin states that the status of the believer is merited or conferred upon her by the efficacious action of God alone. The question which arises from this is: what is the nature of grace? Or, what merits are conferred by God upon the believer?

There are three distinct aspects of grace.
1. Grace is an efficacious action of God toward certain sinners. The giving of the gift of salvation is a work of God alone.
2. It follows that the gift has a nature. The qualities of the gift can be described.
3. It follows that the nature of the gift tells us something about the nature of the giver.

Evangelicals today are often clear that God gives salvation as an act of grace. But we talk very little about the nature of the gift itself and so underestimate the nature of the giver. This is, perhaps, at the root of the problem which Jerry Bridges highlights in the lives of many Christians.

The reality for such Christians is that their Christian life begins with a surge of God’s grace (justification) and they know it will end in grace (glorification) but they muddle through life with a mixture of grace and works and this stems, in part, from a misunderstanding of the nature of the gift of salvation.

For these Christians God can be compared to a man who gives his wife flowers on their first date and then puts a wreath of lilies on her grave. She knows little of her husbands love and grace, expressed in the giving of flowers, during most of their relationship. If, however, I were to give my wife, Amanda, a bunch of her favourite flowers in season every week from the time we met until she died, the gift would be rich and varied in nature: scented lilies, freesias, irises, stock, alstroemeria, tulips, daffodils, gerbera, gladioli and sunflowers. Amanda’s appreciation and love for her husband through the rich variety, beauty, scent and abundance of the gifts would be far higher than beginning and ending our relationship with a single act of grace. So it is with the way we need to view God’s grace. Not that God gives extra blessings as time goes on, believers already have have every spiritual blessing in Christ (Ephesians 1:3). Rather, the nature of grace necessitates our frequent appreciation of the gift in all its variety. We should ask: what merits are conferred by God upon the believer? What is the nature of the gift?

Thomas Watson begins his exposition of the beatitudes with this line: “I here present you with a subject full of sweet variety.” I’ll begin to explore this sweet variety in later posts.