|
|
| |
 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
|
| |
| The Nashville Statement
|
| |
|
|
| |
Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
My complete profile...
|
| |
Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich
His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole
[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train
This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos
Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead
There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
|
| |
|
email
|
|
| Obligatory Grace? Part III |
As I closed the last installment of this series, I mentioned that in order for God to extend grace to a person that person has to exist.
Here is where we come up against a temporal difficulty in that God dwells eternally in eternity, and we dwell temporally in creation. To speak of something happening "before" creation is to use language that has no application. There is no such thing as before or after in eternity.
Whatever eternity is, one thing is certain, it exists apart from, and is not bound by (or to) creation in any way, and since time is part of God's creation, eternity and time are necessarily and consequently incompatible. Time (like space) is a function of, and only has meaning with regards to, God's creation. Since we (as creatures) know no other frame of reference to describe events that happen in eternity, we borrow temporal language ("before the world was created") to describe events that actually took place outside of this creation, and not before it or following it.
In other words, when we speak of God making a decision "before" He created time, we are using temporal language to describe something that invalidates (in practice) the very temporal distinctions we are using. There is no such thing as "before" creation, because outside of this creation time and space do not exist and therefore have meaning. Thus when Christ says, that God loved Him "before the foundation of the world", we leave room in our understanding for this allowance: that our Lord is not so much expressing the event in chronological language, as He is describing the event as being outside of our chronological fishbowl. He is saying that God loved Him in eternity, that is that God's love for Him stands apart from such things as time and space.
We allow therefore (given that God inhabits eternity and is [thus] not bound to [or by] time) that such distinctions are not being made to paint God into time, so much as to paint an event as having its being outside of, or apart from, time.
It has been my experience that people who focus on the "when" of predestination/election often miss the emphasis on the "who" of predestination/election. I could be biased of course, but that is what I have seen.
What the scriptures stress is that our faith is a gift from God, a response to something God has initiated - faith is the inevitable child of grace. Where God extends grace, faith flows in. That is the point that scripture is making, that God has authored our faith as a result of, and therefore "through" a consummating grace. in this way God is the Author of our salvation. The point is that God chooses who is going to be saved, and affects this salvation as an act of grace that produces faith in the (former,) chosen unbeliever.
That brings up that original thought on grace which was expanded in Part I of the series: grace is not grace if God is obliged to provide it to anyone (or everyone).
We all know, or should know by now, that we are saved by grace. This Paul states plainly in the second chapter of his letter to the believers at Ephesus, and it is probably a verse that most Christians have memorized simply because they have heard it stated again and again, we are saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves it is the gift of God, lest anyone should boast [about their own salvation]. If we are saved by grace, then this grace which God extended to us in eternity, has waiting for its fruition since creation began. Creation has been pregnant since the beginning, waiting, as it were, for the birth of God's children, or said another way, Creation has intentionally progressed moment by moment from the beginning until this very moment, in order to bring into being those whom God has "already" bestowed grace on in eternity.
Of course even in stating this much you will notice that I was forced to use temporal language. As though God were bestowing grace "before" rather than "outside" of creation.
Imagine that a farmer rented out individual rows in a crop field, and that you bought every other row, such that you own rows 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, etc. and other people whom you don't even know owned rows 2, 4, 6, 8, etc. Each row is irrigated from the same well, but the machinery from the well has broken down so that the whole field is in jeopardy. Now let us say that all the other "row renters" have treated the farmer poorly so that he owes them nothing, and would otherwise be satisfied to let the well remain broken and see their crops perish in the field. But because you have been a faithful customer, for your sake the farmer fixes the well. In a very practical sense, these other row renters benefit directly from the kindness the farmer is showing to you. His kindness is not directed at those who have mistreated him, but is directed at you, even though every one's crop drinks in the same water.
The fact that the world exists today testifies to the grace that is held waiting for those whom God has chosen to save who have not yet been born. The rest of the world benefits from the grace that is directed at those whom God has chosen, in that the world itself is allowed to continue until these are born and come to faith by that grace that has been pregnantly awaiting their arrival.
Surely by now you have heard, or even asked the question yourself, "If God is love, why does He allow pain, suffering, and death to take place in the world?"
The answer is that pain, suffering, and death are the consequences of God's temporal judgment against mankind concerning the rebellion of our race in Adam in the Garden of Eden. That none of us deserves life itself, let alone a life free from pain, suffering, and death - that all God owes any one of us is condemnation and eternal torment, that anything less than this is grace.
Those whom God has not chosen to save, nevertheless receive life and sustenance in this world as a consequence of the grace that God is directing elsewhere. Like those rows that received the irrigation on account of the other rows for which the irrigation has been provided, so also those whom God has not determined to save, nevertheless receive benefit from the grace that God is directing towards His chosen ones.
Each new day exists, not for the benefit of those who will eternally reject God, but for the benefit of those who will, by God's grace, repent and be reconciled to God. It is for these (the elect) that the world continues to exist. For these elect the sun shines in the sky, and the rains come in their season - that each generation may continue until all the elect are born and (through grace by faith) come to Christ.
So one can say that all the pain and suffering in the world, as well as any joy and pleasure, in fact all things exist in this world for the sake of God's elect, and those who are not elect are partakers of these benefits, even as they reject their maker, and blaspheme His name. Suffering continues, because God withholds the judgment against mankind, and this judgment is being withheld until every last elect sinner is born again.
If God were to end pain and suffering today, He would have to judge mankind, and no one would be found righteous, nor would anyone stand uncondemned (except those who have by grace through faith, trusted in Christ, and thereby have passed through the judgment in Christ already).
To that end (and in that way) I don't think that God has two kinds of grace. I don't believe He has a "special" grace for the elect, and "normal" grace for the unelect. Rather God, for the sake of that (one) grace which is reserved for the elect, endures the sins of men, in order that He may pour out that (one) grace, in due time, on those for whom it pregantly waits. Until then, the world, and all that is in it is allowed to continue, and so those who are in it, who reject God, are allowed to continue - not that God is directing His grace at them, but because in directing saving grace at the elect, these who are not elect are endured as condemned partakers of this world.
Grace (then) is reserved for, and directed at, those whom God is presently redeeming; but this same grace that is reserved for the elect is more than just a universal kindness, it is the very reason that the earth continues, for the earth has waited since "before" its foundation for the birth of God's redeemed. It has tolerated all the sin of mankind for the sake of giving birth to God's elect. This same grace that waits for those predestined to receive it is what supplies breath and life to all who are born into this world. This same grace waits to eventually quicken those whom God has chosen to redeem, but in the meantime it is the reason why the rest are tolerated - the reason why, as I said, creation is allowed to continue: the reason why judgment tarries.
That was Peter's point - God isn't slack concerning the promised judgment, it is rather that God is not willing for any of the elect to perish; so in order to ensure they are born, the world continues day by day (C.f. 2 Peter 3:9).
If God has determined to save every elect sinner (and He has), then we do not marvel that the world continues, because it must continue until every last elect sinner that is ever going to be born has been redeemed by grace through faith.
What should we call this divine plan?
This plan to allow creation to continue until all of the elect receive God's grace?
Covenant Theology calls this a covenant, the "Covenant of Grace" to be exact. But as I have intoned already, I find that particular label misleading (at best). Misleading because it paints grace as though God has obligated Himself in the past to show grace in the future rather than painting God has having done something in eternity that will not be experienced in creation until it's proper time. Perhaps the distinction can be seen in an example: it is one thing to wait until you are allowed to view a picture that has already been painted, and another thing to have a painter who is obligated to paint you a picture.
What God has done, God has done. From our perspective we are "waiting" to see the manifestation of it, but from God's perspective, it is already complete. God has not promised to do something, rather God has done something already, we just haven't experienced it yet because we are not in eternity where God has done this thing, but in creation where what God has already done in eternity has yet to manifest itself.
Said another way, it wasn't that God made a "promise" in the past that He is now obligated to fulfill in the future, rather it is that God is doing (has done?) something in eternity, that is will not be manifested in creation until its proper time.
What I find disturbing about pressing an eternal reality into the mold of a temporal contract is that if we entertain this notion here, we are more likely to introduce similar notions and clever innovations elsewhere - notions that may well chafe against, rather than harmonize with, what really happened.
I hold that a God who has obligated Himself in the past to do something in the future is not the same as a God who has already finished a work in eternity that simply hasn't been played out yet in creation.
You might ask at this point, what's the big deal?
So what if one person believes God has made a promise, and another believes that God has done something in eternity that is playing out temporally? What does that change?
Well to start with, if I believe that God's dealings with the elect are founded upon, and brokered through, an implicit "covenant of grace", it follows that the other explicit covenants in scripture must be interpreted through the lens of this implicit covenant. Certainly that is going to have some effect on my theology.
If there is no covenant of grace through which all other covenants are filtered/understood, then it is an entirely arbitrary and (strikingly) artificial thing to presume a continuation between the old and new covenant. If there is not under girding "covenant of grace" how could anyone say, for example, that baptism replaces circumcision? Since both are pictures of facts of the same under girding covenant?
My point is simply that the distinction is more significant than you might imagine.
If you ask me why I reject infant baptism, I will tell you it is because I don't believe that there is such a thing as a covenant of grace uniting the old and new covenants. I therefore find no reason to equate baptism with circumcision, as though one replaced the other. Thus I do not believe one can bring a babe into the covenant community through infant baptism in the same way one could identify their children with Israel under the Mosaic Covenant. Apples and oranges.
Not that the point of this discussion on grace is intended to end in an explanation of why I reject infant baptism. Rather I demonstrate that simply understanding what took place in eternity concerning the elect, can, when described imprecisely, or understood loosely, can have a theological butterfly effect that ends with people doing things, not because the scriptures tell them to do so, but because their theology demands it.
That is significant stuff. My hope in writing this series was that I would provoke serious consideration of these things, perhaps even persuading some of what I presently hold to be true. I hope in examining these things you have been stretched a bit in a Godward direction.Labels: grace |
posted by Daniel @
9:21 AM
2 comment(s)
 
|
|
|
|
| The word of grace |
And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. - Acts 20:32 [ESV]
Paul was about to depart from Ephesus, on his way to Jerusalem where the Holy Spirit had informed him he would be incarcerated. He knew this was going to happen, but if he was daunted by it at all, it is clear that his willingness to obey God in the matter overcame this concern.
The verse reveals not only the heart of the Apostle in his concern for those at Ephesus, but also his understanding that the gospel was, at its very core, the message (word) of God's grace, which was able, not only to justify those who were presently lost, but also to sanctify those who were presently justified.
To be so certain that God has done something for you that you not only did not merit, but could never "deserve" is to trust in the grace of God. Unless a person is able to trust that God will show them grace, they do not have a faith that can save them. If they are lost and cannot trust that God will be gracious, they will remain lost, and again if they have trusted in God's grace to justify them, and there found their trust arrested, so that they will not trust God to sanctify them, then they will not be sanctified.
I want you to understand the relationship between sanctification and trusting in the grace of God. The person who has trusted in God's grace for justification is certainly able to trust in God's grace for sanctification - but the flesh doesn't want to. The flesh -did- want to trust in God's grace for justification, because it wanted to avoid wrath, but the flesh has no interest in sanctification, and so the the work of sanctification is harder for the one who has learned to love his flesh.
Briefly, there are some who are not saved but think they are because they have assented to the orthodoxy of some profession - that is, they assent to the fact that the gospel is real, and rest their hope in the fact that they have "rested their hope" in the "right" gospel. They are not trusting God to save them so much as they are trusting their faith to save them. It's subtle, but their hope isn't in God, it is really in themselves - they trust that they have believed the appropriate belief, and having checked that off the salvation list, God is required to save them. If you ask them they will give you the orthodox expression of faith, but for all that, they still are not trusting in God personally, rather they are trusting that what they have done will require God to do something, and their trust, at the core, is in themselves for choosing the right way to make God do something.
These who are not saved, but imagine themselves to be saved, will likewise fail to pursue sanctification by trusting in God - they may not pursue sanctification at all, but it is likely that they will, and this because it is something that others expect of them, and again, their religion expects of them. In order to convince themselves that their faith is real, they must do what faithful people do - even if pursuing sanctification is utterly alien to their unregenerate condition. That is what being deceived looks like - you try to do everything a legitimate believer does, not because you trust God, but because that is what you are convinced "proves" you are a Christian.
So when I speak of the justified believer who accepts sonship by having rested his trust in the certainty that God has indeed extended grace to him, but thereafter halts or stutters in the walk of sanctification because the flesh has no desire it, I want to be clear that both genuine believers, and false believers will have the same struggle. The genuine believer still has the same sinful desires as the false believer - and those desires are more than sufficient to overcome all his affections for God. The difference between the true believer and the false believer is that the true believer will have an uncompromised and unquenchable desire to become holy in order that he or she may be more pleasing to God, while the false believer will desire only that God would accept him as he is, and resent (deep down) the call to holiness - pursuing it begrudgingly, and self-servingly - as one might willingly embark on a healthy diet and course of exercise in order to avoid health problems, and not out of a love for healthy eating and exercise.
I make the distinction between the false and genuine believer on this point because the encouragement I intend to offer will be of little benefit to anyone but a genuine believer, and again will be entirely different than the advice I would give someone who is a false convert and deceived into believing his faith is the genuine article.
I encourage you, if you are trusting your orthodox expression of faith to justify you before God, to reconsider. The Pharisees mistook the correctness of what they believed and did as meritorious, and you are making the same mistake. God isn't obliged to passover you in judgment because you have acknowledged that the gospel is in fact true, nor is God obliged to spare you His wrath simply because you have believed the truth and thereafter began worshipping God and trying to be a better person. Unless you repent of your rebellion against God you will not be reconciled to God through Christ, and you will not repent of your rebellion against God until you trust God personally. Don't put your trust in the things you do or believe, but your trust in God - trust that He will extend grace to you when you repent of your rebellion against Him, and you will be baptized into Christ even as God has promised. This is the new covenant, and you cannot enter into it sideways.
I encourage you, genuine believer, who are halting at your sanctification - to remember the gospel by which you entered into God's grace. It was not anything you did that brought you here, but that work in your heart whereby you surrendered your whole self, not only in the here and now, but all your being and all you would ever be, to Christ. In this humility you entered through the gate, and now, and it is in this same humility you must walk. The desires of your flesh kept you away from God, and almost damned you eternally - these can produce only death, if not in you, it will fortify it in others - do not lay down in peace with these desires, but rise up and make war. Yet do not war as a fool wars, but pick up the weapons that are effective for the fight - they are spiritual weapons - humility (willing obedience) is the greatest - but it finds its strength in Gods grace. That is, all the surrender in the world counts for nothing if I don't believe God is going to be gracious. I must trust in God's grace as I surrender.
I know that your flesh has no desire for surrender, and that is why you are halted - because although you are a believer, yet you are living as though you were not. You are living in the flesh, and being in the flesh, you refuse to surrender your will to God, and this you do because you don't believe God is going to do anything if you "do" obey. That is where you are making a critical error. God commands you to walk in the Spirit - to be filled (as a sail is filled with wind) by the Spirit, which means only that you are to be surrendered to the will of the God who is with you in the person of the Holy Spirit, who informs your conscience through the scriptures, and convicts you so that you know the path of righteousness. The reason you don't surrender to the Holy Spirit is not because you don't know how, it is because you don't believe that doing so is going to "work". The problem, as our Lord said, is that you have little faith. Not that your faith is small, for even the smallest faith can move mountains - but rather that you have little practice in exercising faith.
Become, therefore, experts in faith - and faith is just the resting in the certainty that the promises God has made will be applied to you as an act of grace on God's part. Christ walked in the promises of God, showing what faith looks like. We are supposed to do the same. My encouragement then is that, if you are rejecting sanctification for yourself, ultimately because you don't want to trust in God's grace, though you have known the saving power of it - that you get judgment-day honest with yourself and stop abusing God's grace. You are being like an insolent child who knows the will of his father, but resists him because you want to have your own way. What father does not chastise such a one? Every good father does, and my encouragement to you then is to avoid this, for if you are a genuine child of God, and you continue to resist that sanctification that He is working in you - you will be chastised, and I know that you know this, which makes your rebellion even more sour.
Not that I would encourage you with threats of chastisement only, let me also remind you of that joy of your salvation - the day that you surrendered your life to Christ, and basked in the sweetness of fellowship - would that this precious moment of unity, certainty and joy could wash over you again. It can. In fact it can be your every day experience. Christ came to give life, and that more abundantly. Why settle for less? Repent - that was Christ's final message (in scripture) for the church, and if ever it was relevant, it is relevant today. Repent, trust in the word of grace which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.Labels: grace, repentance, sanctification |
|
posted by Daniel @
6:16 AM
1 comment(s)
|
|
|
|
| Christians rot from the inside out. |
That isn't to say that all Christian are rotting - Lord knows there are enough people in the world today who would love to hear a Christian "admit" it; rather it is to describe the nature of spiritual rot as it (or perhaps when and if it) affects the believer.
I have never seen the rot of sin come in any other form - it begins internally - there is some temptation that is indulged, a little at the first, then with increasing fervour. The believer knows the thing is wrong, but finds some way to justify continuing to indulge it. Eventually the Christian realizes he or she has been duped by the sin, and begins to want to be free from it, but finds himself or herself too practiced in it to let it go.
None of this is mentioned by the Christian to others in the church. Like a child in a pool, the horrible death goes on in silence, with people all around utterly unaware that anything is amiss. The enemy uses the guilt of failure and fear of falseness to shame the Christian into isolation, so that for months or even years the Christian dies slowly inside even while acting, for the benefit of his or her Christian reputation amongst the body, as though everything were fine.
Were it not so common and tragic, I would make some pithy joke about it, but this is a serious matter. If I were to anonymously poll every christian reader, and able to get a real statistic, I suspect the count would be pretty high. We all, to one degree or another, are struggling against the sin that would destroy us. None of us cries out for help and prayer until some temptation or sin crosses that threshold whereby we realize we are in deeper than we can (with any celerity) extricate ourselves, so that every believer reading will know something of what I write. We all hold our struggle as a poker player holds his hand - close to our heart, and for the most part, secret.
We are called however to confess our faults to one another. I don't think that is supposed to mean that we get together as a large group and take turns at the podium trying to out do one another in confessing every sinful act in detail to the horror and amazement of the body. Nor do I think that means that we form "accountability" groups - though I know that many serious believers imagine themselves to have benefited from such groups. The believer is accountable to God - if a man will not set aside sin to satisfy God, but will set aside sin in order to satisfy other people, that man is not fleeing sin so much as playing church. I know that sounds harsh, but there it is. The bible does not tell us to confess our sins to one another in order that men can give us absolution, or again in order that we might hold one another accountable, rather we confess our transgressions to one another in order that we might:
[1] learn that our sin is a common thing, the knowledge of which dispels the enemy's efforts to isolate us on sin's account,
[2] learn from those who have experienced the same temptations and sin and overcome them, and be encouraged by the same,
[3] give opportunity to those who are serious about the purity of the believer and the church, to intercede in prayer on behalf of the sinner
[4] learn by the hearing, that every kind of sin, left to fester, will grow into something we cannot handle,
[5] learn therefore to tremble at our own sinfulness, and fall upon the Lord early in the temptation/sin cycle in order that we deal with sin and temptation before it gets out of control.
You can look around in your body of believers and be certain that there are some amongst you whose exterior seems fine, but who are suffering within. This is not a call to embark on a ministry of sin-sniffing, i.e., if you are young in the faith and you find in your belly that sort of warm fire that comes when you agree that a thing is true, don't imagine that the purpose of that warmth is for you to go about and start challenging the reality of everyone else's facade. My intention, in all that I teach, is that we apply these things to ourselves. Is there any seed of rot in me that I am ignoring on purpose - some indulgence that I allow that no one else knows about, it is the seed of rot, and it cannot remain as it is - it will either be dealt with by repentance, or it will grow. If you find yourself without strength to take it to God today, you will be weaker by tomorrow, and weaker still the day after. Sin doesn't sleep, it eats you alive from the inside out.Labels: Advice, grace, repentance, sin |
|
posted by Daniel @
5:54 AM
2 comment(s)
|
|
|
|
| 1029: Grace and Faith |
I am guessing here, but I suspect that the average evangelical congregation, or even to be more specific, the average evangelical Christian, would not have a problem with a pastor who stood up one Sunday and preached from the pulpit that those who are being saved are being saved by their faith.
As someone who has preached, I have, from time to time, endured the unfortunate intellectual or academic pummelling of some carping caviler, who (however well intentioned) cannot help but express after some sermon or teaching, how much better it would have been had I expressed myself according to their fancy rather than my own.
I want (therefore) to be certain (and I want you the reader to be certain) that I am not engaging in that sort of nit pickery in the writing of this post. So I ask you in advance to be careful in how you hear what I have to say - to listen with scrutiny as it were, to chew on what is said before you attempt to digest it.
You see, I am not carping or caviling when I say that it is wrong to preach that we are saved by faith. I think, in fact, that many an error begins with just such a teaching.
Now, if you are a little confused by that statement, I hope that I will be able to both explain what I mean, and that having done so, you will not only agree with me, and be fed in the process, but more than this - that when you see the truth of it, you will find in that truth a path by which you may, should you exercise youself upon it, be drawn into a closer walk with God.
We are not justified by works, nor are we justified by works "plus" faith, nor (and here is the kicker) by faith alone. What the bible teaches is that we are saved by grace through faith. Most of us can quote Ephesians 2:8 in some form or other ("For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God"), but among those who know this passage, I suspect that many fail to see that we are saved by God's grace.
I suspect, I say, that many see grace in this passage as a theological precursor to the faith "that saves". Faith then, they reason, saves us, but it isn't a faith that comes from our own self, but a faith that springs up from grace.
I would agree, that faith does spring up from grace, but scripture presents the formula to us in this way: not that faith that saves, but rather that grace saves through faith.
If you fail to see the difference between "saved by faith" and "saved by grace", such that you believe yourself to be "saved by faith" - you are going to suffer the theological fallout of that error in discernment.
If I am saved by my faith, then, I am making faith the cause of my justification instead of God. Do you see the difference this (seemingly) small confusion introduces?
Now when I am want assurance, I do no look to the grace of God by which I was saved, instead I look to my faith. I put my trust (my hope of salvation) not in God, but in my own estimation of the legitimacy of my faith - my hope is that my faith is legitimate, rather than my hope being in God's grace.
Do you see the folly of trusting in faith? Scripture, and by extension God, does not call us to trust in our faith, but to trust in Him. Whether in the pulpit or the pew, whether we have inherited some clumsy theology, or have come to it of our own (sloppy) study, if we forget that we are saved by grace, and start saying we are saved by faith - we are in error, and that error is going to have consequences in our walk.
Oh I know for some the difference seems a trifle. What does it matter, some will argue. Sure, okay, "technically" we are saved by grace, but since we must exercise "faith" in order to be saved, the distinction is (more or less) moot. That sounds reasonable, I suppose. I mean we can be saved, and remain saved whether our understand of these things is precise or imprecise. What does it matter?
Well, if all we were concerned with was whether or not we were justified, then I suppose the distinction isn't all that important. But living the Christian life entails more than becoming justified by grace through faith - it involves being saved from sin by grace through faith.
I personally have spent a lot of time and effort showing that we are saved from sin (c.f. Matthew 1:21) just as surely as we are saved from God's wrath (c.f. Romans 5:9) - striving to show, over many posts, that sanctification is a work done by God in us through faith - but I suppose I have been neglect in showing that while this same work is the product of grace, that manifests itself in and through faith.
Why is this important to me, and why should it be important to you?
It is important because some of you who are reading are finding it difficult to plug God into your religion. You have a vibrant and perhaps even orthodox form of godliness, but you deny it's power (c.f. 2 Timothy 3:5). You are somewhat estranged from God in your affections because you either have forgotten or never properly understood that everything about your religion hinges on God's grace. It is God who is at work in you, to will and to do His good pleasure. If you are looking to your faith instead of to God, you are missing out on the relationship that ought to be the well from which you draw your strength, joy, and hope, and are instead drawing such things from the puddle of your own faith.
My hope, of course, is that if you find yourself looking to your own faith instead of to God's grace, you will adjust your gaze, and in doing so, be blessed.Labels: faith, grace, sanctification |
|
posted by Daniel @
8:30 AM
2 comment(s)
|
|
|
|
| The "Thing" About Grace... |
If you had bothered to read my last post, you will note that I ended on an important and rather spiritually satisfying note: Christ has the power to get the job done, and if Christ is in us, the power to get the job done is in us.
This post is an application of that truth, and for the new Christian it is perhaps the single most important biblical application, because it is foundational. To be sure, there are Christians who have worn the name of Christ for decades but never understood what is truly one of the first truths about Christianity. In fact, it is the tangible reality that springs from this truth that separates Christianity from every other self-help moral system.
The truth I am speaking of is that we are saved by grace through faith.
Huh? Wait Daniel, (you say), that isn't exactly something I don't know. Of course I am saved by grace through faith - I am a reformed Christian! I know that!
Well sir, or miss, maybe you do, but maybe you have only understood them halfway. Don't laugh - it's an epidemic in our day.
Question - what are we saved from? What exactly is it that our faith saves us from? In Matthew 1:21 scripture tells us that Jesus came to save us from something, and that something is sin. In Romans 6:6 we read that those who are truly in union with Christ receive a tangible benefit to that union - they are no longer slaves of sin. In 1 John 3:6 we read that no one who abides in Christ keeps on sinning.
Those are some pretty straight forward verses. I am not cherry picking them out of context either - read the immediate context of each, and you will find that the message is the same in the context as it is in the verse I bring up - the Christian has a new, victorious relationship with sin.
The trouble is, that many Christians don't.
What's wrong?
What is wrong is they were given a gospel that saves them from hell instead of a gospel that saves them from sin.
Hear again the truth made precise: We are saved from sin by faith through grace.
I am going to spell it out, because I know some who are reading this are in bondage, and won't see it, unless it is truly broken down into little tiny bite-sized morsels - such is the way that our flesh works against us. I don't mind breaking it down, in fact I take great joy in the possibility that doing so may open closed eyes, and in doing so bring profound joy to the individual, and great glory to Jesus Christ my God, my King, my eternal and benevolent Master.
Question: What is grace?
Answer: It is unmerited favor!
<buzzer sound>
Okay, yeah. Now let's get past that and really answer the question. I don't deny that grace is God's favor which we in no way can merit - but that answer doesn't really summarize the fullness of grace.
Follow my reasoning here: In Ephesians 3:7 Paul says that he was made a servant according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to him by the working of God's power. In 2 Corinthians 12:9 Paul explains that the grace of Christ is sufficient for Paul - why? because in the grace of Christ the power of Christ was resting in Paul. Understand this - no one overcomes sin without grace. The grace to overcome sin comes in and through the same power that raised Christ from the dead - the power to get the job done. Grace is not merely God's affectionate, undeserved favor - it is a channel of divine enabling that comes through faith.
Do you see that? We receive the power to overcome sin through faith. The Israelites received the power to overcome the Canaanites through going into the promised land and taking it in faith. We receive victory over sin not by struggling against it to try and please an angry God, but by agreeing in our hearts that we are miserable, spiritually bankrupt, sinners whose every effort to "get right" is tainted and therefore wicked beyond measure - that there is no good deed in us, that all of our works are utterly corrupt - and in the certainty of this knowledge we therefore turn to Christ believing that He and He alone will change us. Not a zillion years from now - but right now. We are told to pray in faith - without doubting. We are told that God gives to those who ask, to keep knocking.
The Christian who is walking worthy of the name of Christ is one who, like Christ before him, is walking in utter dependence upon God through the Holy Spirit. It is a walk of faith, because it isn't looking to itself to overcome sin, but exerting faith in Christ to overcome the sin in us.
Not that we are merely trusting Christ to overcome the penalty. Don't get derailed here and make this something beggarly and small. If you want to know why you are still sinning I will tell you right now - it is because you don't really believe that Jesus can or will save you from your sin - and therefore you have "fallen from grace" - the only power available to you to deal with sin. It isn't that you are no longer a justified believer - it is that you are acting like a spiritual babe, and perhaps it is because you truly are one.
Don't be mistaken - there are many in our seminaries, many who have memorized vast portions of scriptures, great teachers of the word who make you feel small and stupid when it comes to the bible, who are still spiritual babes because they never understood grace. They study, and study, and study, and get so smart about all kinds of other things, and they debate with others because in their study they have firmed up strong convictions - but there is nothing spiritual in having a good education, even if it is biblical.
A mature believer doesn't attempt to suppress sin in his own strength, and by no means mistakes the suppression of sin as victory over it - but rather is one who understands the meaning of being saved from sin's power by a continuing faith - a faith that causes God to give the grace to overcome the sin.
Listen: This is why John can say that if you continue in sin you are not abiding in Christ. Amen John a thousand Amens. If you continue in sin - if you keep sinning, you do so because you are -NOT- abiding in Christ, and not merely because "everybody else sins, so it is normal and okay". Do you get that?
We are saved from sin by our faith - by our faith. God grants grace when we exercise faith - faith cannot be exercised except in utter reliance upon God - we call that humility. God gives grace to the humble sinner, to the contrite one. Oh, get this little Christian - get this. You want to stop sinning? Start believing that Jesus isn't just some distant chap far away who is going to one day come back and take you to heaven - believe instead that you are united with Christ, believe that the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is in you, believe that Jesus is more than just the get-you-out-of-hell Guy - He is your present Savior, here to save you from your sin, as was told to Joseph in Matthew 1:21.
If you don't believe that Jesus is going to save you from your sin, you will never receive the grace to overcome sin. You will never attain to what Romans 1:5 refers to as the "obedience of faith". Can I add one more? You will never know joy unspeakable. Get this. Get this. Get this.Labels: grace |
|
posted by Daniel @
6:28 AM
11 comment(s)
|
|
|
|
|
|
