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 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
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| The Nashville Statement
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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...
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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
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| Repentance and Obedience |
I was reading in the third chapter of Matthew's account of the gospel this morning, where John the Baptist was preaching that men should repent on account of the kingdom of heaven being at hand, when I was struck again, with that same old hunger that has infected me so many times in my Christian walk - a hunger to clarify, to articulate, and to educate.
The truth sets a man free, but in order to be set free, that man must actually hear and understand the truth. We have a murderous enemy in this world, an enemy whose greatest weapon is deceit and falsehood. An enemy who would wash the truth away by setting it afloat upon a flood of lies. Such that I fully expect that many if not most professing believers have, at the very least, an incomplete understanding of what it means to repent.
I recall talking to another believer about a decade back. He attended a larger church where he "ministered" as a sound man for the various local house bands church worship teams. From what I gathered, the church was the sort where one could go and remain anonymous, and fellowship meant singing with others who are singing, and smiling at others who are smiling - then going home to live the next six days with no contact with any of your "church" friends.
The one thing I knew, was that this fellow did not know his bible. I had asked him what repentance was, not as one who was trying to learn for himself, but as one who was probing to see where this guy was at. His answer was shallow and vague, but he dutifully looked into it for me, and came back with a written description he had, no doubt, lifted from some web page somewhere, which was a very well written specimen of that same vague and shallow answer he had formerly given me.
I recall that my challenges to investigate this definition together in scripture were met with the sort of practiced doctrinal inertia that surrounds people who have settled a matter in their mind, and are happy with what they settled on. To press the matter was to challenge what he had already decided was true, and only a hater would ever do such a thing.
I explained in brief why and where I thought his definition could be improved upon, but I was speaking to a mind that was already settled in the matter, and not open to any instruction in that direction. Perhaps a seed was planted that day, the Lord knows, but I don't. He moved to another city shortly after that, but I have thought about that exchange often in the years since.
Not that I am pining for an opportunity to follow-up on this conversation, but rather that it stands out in my thinking as an exchange that is typical of many such discussions with other believers. People can become settled in what they believe, even if what they believe is wrong.
I recall this exchange today because the text I was reading mentioned repentance, and I this was an example in my life where a very genuine Christian was not only confused about what repentance was, but was even satisfied to remain confused, having convinced himself otherwise. Like to untangle knots, and the more so when they are theological, and so very important to a right and healthy faith. To that end I want to take a moment or two more and describe what it means to repent, as I understand it and to do so in the service of God's truth - that He might be exalted. That we may as one draw nearer to Him in love through a deeper understanding of this old truth, and through all that this same truth will provoke in us.
Let's start with a truism: Christianity never allows a person to become content (i.e. make peace) with their sin.
Christ does not lead Christians into failure, He leads them into victory. But not every believer has learned to follow Christ's lead. Hear this: the only way a Christian can fail to overcome sin is if he or she attempts to overcome that sin apart from a settled surrender to Christ. If the believer isn't trying to overcome sin, is is because he or she is ignoring, and therefore grieving, the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is not provoking the "believer" by convicting them of their own sin and of the righteousness of Christ they are to apply to their lives, then that "believer" is suffering from a false conversion. He or she thinks he or she is a Christian, but they are not in Christ, and were never given the Holy Spirit. They may be convinced of their faith, but they have no (biblical) reason to presume themselves to be saved. One does not become or remain a Christian according to his or her ability to convince himself or herself that he or she is a Christian.
All of this is to set the stage, as it were, for a quick lesson on repentance. What does it mean to repent? Those who are confused in the matter might say that repentance means that you stop sinning. I mean, that is exactly what the Pharisees believed. They believed that if they obeyed the letter of the law, suppressing in themselves any outward disobedience, they were being penitent and righteous. Christ told them that they were hypocrites cleaning the outside of their cup, while leaving the inside full of sin.
Repentance then, is not a suppressing of the outward expression of sin in your life. It is not a keeping of yourself from lying, and from stealing from or abusing others. Even if you keep yourself from these things, what more have you done than the faithful Muslim, or stoic humanist? Repentance is something that happens inwardly and can be seen in outward expressions. But those same outward expressions can be aped religiously, and consistently, without ever the hint of a penitent heart.
Our Lord said "blessed be the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven". Note, the present tense in this blessing? It isn't that they will one day receive it, it is that theirs is presently the kingdom of heaven. Most of the other blessings will follow later, but being poor in spirit means being in the kingdom of heaven right now.
What does it mean to be poor in spirit? Well, it doesn't mean blessed are those who are financially stricken, but happen to be spiritual, as some teach. Material poverty is no more a virtue than material abundance is a blessing. The same Holy Spirit who through Agur the son of Jakeh wrote, "Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God." (Proverbs 30:8-9 [ESV]) is not suggesting through Christ in Matthew 5 that suddenly material poverty is to be preferred spiritually. There is nothing spiritual about want or abundance - Paul was content in either (c.f. Philippians 4:11-12).
The poverty here, is a poverty in spirit. It means that you understand that nothing in yourself can produce eternal life. It means that you do not look to your own efforts as a means of pacifying or appeasing God's wrath. It means that you do not think you can avoid God's wrath by being good, because you know that all your good deeds are in fact unclean rags before the Lord (c.f. Isaiah 64:6). It means that you have entirely abandoned self effort as a means of righteousness - that you do not imagine that there is some purity in your own spirit that counts as valid currency in God's economy. You know that you deserve condemnation, and that no amount of changed behavior will undo that. It is a total an utter bankruptcy - a recognition that you have nothing with which you may barter with God concerning your sin. It means that you see and understand that you can only come to God as one who has a debt that cannot be repaid by anything you do, or will do. It is to understand that you are entirely guilty, and have cast yourself upon God for mercy. It is the thief on the cross who has nothing to commend himself to Christ, whose appeal for mercy that is entirely absent of any sense of entitlement, "remember me in your kingdom".
Every true believer knows this as surely as they know themselves. Anyone who is convinced that they have some good in them is confused, and anyone who trusts in this imagined goodness, has fallen short of grace, that is, fallen short of the kingdom of heaven.
So what then is repentance? To repent is to change what your mind is set upon. In order to have a mind that is set on the things of the Spirit, you must repent of having a mind that is set on the things of the flesh.
A lot of people would define repentance with a simpler arithmetic: stop sinning. I both love that simple equation, and hate it. I love it because it is perfectly correct, but I hate it because most people have a doctrinally stunted or truncated understanding of sin.
What makes something you do sinful is if whatever you are doing is being done as an act of rebellion against God. It is the rebellion against God that is the sin, this rebellion may express itself a million different ways, but it is the rebellion itself that is the sin.
Why is that an important concept? It is important because unless you understand the difference, you will never comprehend what is going on inside of you when you stop these five sins over here, but indulge this other sin over there. It is important because it identifies why your version of Christianity may not "work".
Imagine a modern day Jonadab (the son of Rechab, c.f. Jeremiah 35:14), asking his four sons not to drink wine. Now imagine that upon his death, only one son continues to abstain. Which of these has obeyed their father? All have obeyed. But which of these has done the will of his father? Only the one who set his heart upon doing his father's will. The others obeyed, but not from the heart. They did not set their hearts upon doing the will of their father, instead they regarded his command as a stricture they obeyed externally, but never accepted internally.
I am trying to draw out the difference between obedience and obedience from the heart. The one is external only, the other is both external and internal - in fact the other is external because it is internal, and the former is external in spite of the internal.
In the above example, only one son "repented" of drinking wine. The other three did not set their heart on obedience, that is, they obeyed but did so without setting their hearts on obeying. They went through the motions, but their obedience did not reflect what was in their hearts.
It is important for the believer to repent according to what the bible teaches repentance to be. If our repentance does not line up with what our Lord, through the scriptures, describes it to be, then our "repentance" will neither satisfy standard we are called to, or be producing a rich, fruitful, and especially joy-filled walk with the Lord.
I hear/read people almost complaining about their Christian "experience". Why is it that no matter how much I try, I can't seem to break through to God? How come I pray and read my bible, but still God doesn't answer my prayers, and I feel no closer to Him today, than I did ten years ago? Why is it that I never have lasting victory over my sin??
That last question is perhaps the most common, and one that I believe some answer too quickly with empty platitudes. I can tell you why your struggle against sin is so fruitless - it is because you refuse to repent.
Try saying that to a person who is struggling against sin, and you will hear pretty quickly that their struggle is genuine. They sincerely -want- to stop doing things that are sinful, but they want to achieve apart from sacrificing utter control of their lives over to God. They want to be obedient without committing themselves to obedience.
You have read in Paul's letter to the Romans (c.f. chapter 8) that the carnal mind is set on the things of the flesh, rather than the things of God. That the carnal mind not only isn't subject to God's rule, but it cannot be brought into subjugation. The problem with understanding that is you have to understand what Paul means by "carnal mind". By "mind" he doesn't mean your "brain" - he means your settled disposition. I say settled because that is what he is talking about when he says, "the mind that is set on..." - it is set in the sense that concrete sets. It describes a disposition that is set-in-stone.
What does that look like in practice? It looks this way: your heart is either going to be set-in-stone on pursuing an uncompromising, and all encompassing surrender to God such that your obedience is the natural outflow of this same surrender, or your heart is set-in-stone on preserving your own rule, such that your obedience will ever remain only skin deep, and that because we have no power in ourselves to do anything beyond this. The former is an expression of humility which becomes the fount of grace by which we overcome, and the later is an expression of sustained rebellion, dressed up in religious garb, which receives no grace, and keeps the one appealing for it in the rags of his own suppressed sin.
Repentance then, is the turning away from this heart-deep rebellion against God. It is a decided and willful change in disposition. It is an uncompromised and all encompassing abandoning of oneself to God's rule. It is a heart that has become settled in its course - obedience at =all= costs. It is what Christ is talking about when he describes "taking up your cross" - because this is not something you simply do, it is nothing less than dying to self, or the demands of self; it is what Bunyun is talking about when he speaks of the mortification. It is a down-to-the-roots-deep work of the Spirit in you, whereby you choose for yourself, while it is yet today, to serve God. It is an unhitching of your carriage of your soul from the black horse of self rule, and hitching anew the same to the white horse of Christ's rule.
Do you want to know, brother, sister, why you cannot overcome sin? It is because you are trying to overcome sin before you're able. You will never overcome sin in this life if you remain in a state of settled rebellion - if you reserve for yourself the "right" to obey God and disobey God as it pleases you. So long as you retain this "right" - your carnal mind will continue to "live" and continue to rule over you - no matter how many times you obey a little here and a little there. Your obedience is not the obedience of one who accepts God's will, but the begrudging obedience of one who is conquered, but hasn't surrendered.
Like those in Christ's day, who, although they obeyed Roman law, nevertheless did not bow their knee to Rome. Such is one who obeys the commands of Christ without first surrendering the rule of his life to Christ. They are the ones who have built their house on the sand (the rules) rather than the rock (the rule giver). They are the ones jumped in before they counted the cost, the ones who have attempted to follow Christ apart from taking up the yoke of the cross. They have come into the sheepfold, but not through the gate. They cry, "Lord, Lord" but do not do what Christ commands.
If this is you, you have a problem. The problem is you have found the Pearl of great price, or the treasure in the field, but you don't want it enough to surrender the rest of what (you think) you have to lay a legal hold on it. You have instead unearthed it, and taken it, but it doesn't belong to you and all that it promises is being withheld from you because you refuse to let Christ rule over you.
The solution is pretty simple: Surrender to Christ, or, to use the biblical terms: repent. Stop hedging between two opinions - you cannot serve Christ and mammon at the same time - either you are determined to obey your own desires, or you are determined to obey Christ's - the two are mutually exclusive. It is one or the other, and never both.
Can't do it? Talk to God about it - but not that wishy-washy-whiny kind of talk. Get down on the knees of your heart, and cry out to Him who is able to lift you up out of this mire, and set your feet on the rock. You cannot set your own feet there, it is a work of grace - but it is a grace you can cry out for so long as you have breath and the Spirit is willing.
Repentance is more than simply obeying God - it is a surrender to God that, once settled, expresses itself in obedience. It is not (and cannot be) an obedience that exists apart from this same surrender.Labels: repentance |
posted by Daniel @
7:19 AM
3 comment(s)
 
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| Faith? |
Why did so many of the prominent Jews of Christ's day reject Him as their Messiah?
Think this through for a second: Was it because those Jews rejected the idea that God was going to send a Messiah? I don't think so - these Jews were described by Paul in the book or Romans as zealous. I don't think they were ignorant, and I don't think they were denying the fact that God was going to send a Messiah - what they were denying was that Jesus was this Messiah.
I believe I am describing what an empty faith looks like.
James, the brother of our Lord and author of the epistle that bears his name, spoke of two kinds of faith, one that cannot apprehend good works, and the other which cannot help but to apprehend good works. As I understand it, when James teaches that good works flow from a legitimate faith, and that the same do not flow from an illegitimate faith, he is not suggesting that the way to correct an illegitimate faith is to append a regiment of good works to your illegitimate faith. What he is saying is that unless living water is flowing out of your innermost being, the faith that you have isn't the kind that saves.
That is the kind of faith the Jews who rejected Christ had. They believed that there was a God, and that He was indeed the God of the scriptures. They even believed that God was going to send His Messiah - but when that Messiah came and they rejected Him, they demonstrated to all of creation the illegitimacy of their faith. It wasn't that they didn't believe the facts to be true. They believed in God so long as He remained a distant and unknowable entity. They believed in God so long as He remained impersonal and unapproachable. They believed in God so long as their belief never had to be more than an intellectual assent to certain facts. But their "faith" showed itself for what it really was (insufficient) the moment they had the opportunity to believe God was actually doing something in their midst.
When I share the gospel, I don't ask people to pray a prayer. I just let them know the truth: that God is not neutral towards them. That God has in fact damned them to suffer the full weight of His wrath the very moment they die, and this on account of their rebellion against Him. That God, as their Creator, is right to demand their obedience, and right to condemn them on account of their ongoing and continual disobedience. I explain from passages in scripture† that God Himself blinds and confuses those who are being damned on account of their day by day rebellion, in order that they may continue in it without fear of the inescapable day that the consequences of their rebellion catch up with them. I let them know, in as much as I am able, that God is not neutral towards them but hates‡ them - that the only reason they are alive right now is because God has granted them, in His profound grace, an opportunity to be reconciled to Him through Christ, and I do all in my power to encourage them to be reconciled to God.
If they are willing to be reconciled, I explain the way of salvation: That man cannot by himself, or through his own effort reconcile himself to God, that no one on earth can even desireϑ to be reconciled to God, such is the state of our depravity, that unless God grants them the grace to repent and believe, they will by no means be able to do so. Some may argue that this is putting an unnecessary burden on the person, but I would argue that it is in fact removing the unnecessary burden of trying to generate their own salvation through finding and applying the "correct" self effort that ends in their salvation. Instead I give them the simplicity of the gospel call; explaining that no one avoids God's wrath, that all must pass through it, whether "Christian" or non-Christian. That everyone who passes through God's wrath suffers the full effect of God's curse, just as it was in Noah's day - where all men on earth were made to share the same condemnation - the flooding of the whole earth a picture of the judgment that is to come - that all will face the flood of God's wrath, but that God has made a way to pass through this wrath unscathed just as Noah and his family passed through God's wrath safely in the ark, so also, God has made Jesus the Ark of our salvation - that everyone who is reconciled to God through repentance (surrendering the rule of their life to God) and trusting that God will save them in Christ if they call upon Him to do so. That every repentant soul who seeks to be reconciled again to God by calling upon the name of Christ will be baptized into the Spirit of Christψ by Christ Himself - what scripture calls the new birth, so that the wrath that God pours out on the believer is poured out on Christ whom the believer is "in" through that union with Christ that happens in the moment we are born from above, the very thing that our water baptism pictures - the moment we step out of the flood of damnation and into the ark of Christ we become partakers of Christ's eternal life. It isn't that our lives become eternal, it is that we become partakers of His eternal life - the same life that God raised from the dead, and in doing so, eternally secured all who have entered into Christ through this course of repentance and trust.
When I have presented this to someone who professes a willingness to be reconciled to God, I call on them to cry out to God for this salvation. I don't lead them in a prayer, and I don't try to provoke them into the kingdom with stories about people who have heard the gospel, and ignored it, then died suddenly on their way home because they didn't "make a decision" that night. I just let them know that they aren't saved until they are in Christ, and that the moment they are in Christ they will have full assurance that they are His.
If someone comes to me and says I have prayed and asked God to save me, but I am not sure that He did, I will tell them what I truly think: that they have not truly believed. That they are like the Pharisees who have assented to the truth of what is true without actually placing their trust in any of it. That they are not simply doubting because they are immature, but that it is more likely that they never really believed in the first place. I will sit with such a one and gladly spend as long as it takes to go over the promises of God with them until the truth becomes more to them than a formula for salvation - until they surrender to God for real, and in doing so come into life - not because they hope it worked, but because they have actually believed.
I think many in the church would consider me a real jerk because I don't fall all over myself telling people they are saved when they have doubts. I don't want to give these people a reason to continue believing they are the real deal if they aren't. Listen: if you don't know for sure that you are saved, you aren't saved. The Jews who believed there would be a Messiah but rejected Christ didn't have real faith - even as they assented to the truths of scripture.
The grand problem in our churches today is not that Christians are immature - though they are - it is that we are so politically correct and biblically ignorant, that we welcome people into the church who themselves couldn't tell you for sure that they are Christ's, and no one is willing to challenge them for fear of upsetting them or coming off as a jerk.
What kind of Christian are you, reader? Would you have recognized Christ, or would you have held onto your orthodox theology hoping to find salvation in the fact that you believe the words of Moses to be true, even as you deny in your heart the things they taught?
May God shake up the chaff, that it might turn and be saved.
| †The LORD will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke, in all you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken Me.- Deuteronomy 28:20 [NASB] | | ‡The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity. - Psalm 5:5 [NASB] | | ϑas it is written,"THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE. - Romans 3:10-12 [NASB] | | ψOr do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection. - Romans 6:3-5 [NASB] |
Labels: Christianity, encouragement, faith, gospel, repentance |
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posted by Daniel @
9:27 AM
2 comment(s)
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| 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 |
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posted by Daniel @
6:16 AM
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| The apathetic Christian |
I wish this weren't so, but I believe it is. I believe that the average person who professes faith in Jesus Christ does not make it his or her daily practice to walk in the Spirit.
Do you understand what that means? It means that I believe the average Christian is apathetic when it comes to living the Christian life.
Somewhere along the way the ability to articulate an orthodox expression of evangelical faith became trump, and it didn't really matter all that much if you were actually walking in that faith.
I can't imagine painting this picture with a bigger brush, and by that I mean I understand that I am making a statement so broad that there will likely be a great many exceptions to what I have said, nevertheless I believe it is true.
Yet why is that? Why do I think that the grand slice of Christianity is Christian in theology only, and not in actual practice? I think that way because I don't see a great deal of surrender in the church; perhaps I am blind or have a jaundiced eye - I allow the possibility that it is not the church that is suffering, but rather my discernment. I would prefer that this was the case, but if I am deceived, then I am wholeheartedly deceived, because I believe this thing will all my being. I do not see sacrificial living, rather I see a sort of Christianized paganism, and let me be the first to say, I am not guiltless in the charge I bring.
Whenever I have heard this person or that person say, "this is my 'life verse'", I have always wondered what that meant. I supposed that it meant that this particular verse was definitive to them in some way - that is, it defined for them some principle that they had settled on as the primary principle by which they lived. If that is the case, I think Paul said it best when He said, "For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain", I think if I were going to choose one single teaching from the scriptures to set up as the primary "goal" or though - Paul's thought there would be a good one.
But really, I could find dozens of texts that would be just as suited to that purpose, in fact I would be hard pressed to actually choose just one verse - though I think I might be able, if pressed, to select a single theme; knowing Christ for instance. Yet I would not find it difficult to find a single verse to describe the way Christians are supposed to be living their day to day lives. For that I would choose, "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh." (Galatians 5:16 [ESV]).
But I don't see surrender in the church, more often than not, I see religion. I see people who profess a faith that they are unwilling to surrender their lives and live. They have grabbed hold of a better afterlife, but haven't let go of this one in their heart.
Worse still, if they are genuine... they know they are doing this.
I encourage you, therefore, believer who is apathetic, to repent while you are still able.Labels: apathy, repentance, sanctification |
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posted by Daniel @
11:41 AM
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| Thoughts on James 2:14-17 |
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. - James 2:14-17 [ESV]
If one regards the teachings of Christ (as recorded by the authors of the New Testament) to be accurate and truthful (and I count myself in this group), then one is forced to conclude that whenever anyone is saved they are necessarily saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and that no other way of salvation exists.
It is not only possible, but all too common for people who call themselves Christians to agree entirely with the words I have used to summarize my own understanding - yet when you compare what they believe to what I believe concerning the gospel, you will find that we are far from one another in our understanding of what it meant.
Starting with the word faith. Do you remember the old School House Rocks cartoon vignettes that used to be played on Saturday mornings? I liked the Grammar ones the best, though I have a soft spot in my heart for the one where the bill becomes a law. In the vignette on conjunctions ("Conjunction Junction") - the conductor who is singing the song introduces the conjunction "or" with the words, "And then there's or: Oh or!" If you know the tune, and the part, I want you to inject that exact inflection into these words as you read them: And then there's faith. Ohhhhh faith. If you aren't familiar with School House Rocks, well, that's your loss. The one on pronouns is quite a hoot.
I have heard some whom I would regard as doctrinally astray, describe faith in terms of intellectual assent. They would define faith as having sufficient conviction that a thing is true. Thus faith, for the "easy believer" or "free gracer" is nothing more than an intellectual conviction.
Now, while I won't go so far as to defend someone who is so confused about what faith is that they reduce it to an intellectual conviction, I will say that I can understand why some of them (at least) want to define faith in such superficial terms - they think they are guarding the gospel of grace from a gospel of works.
Scripture everywhere teaches that the way to draw near to God is through contrition, ie., through surrender to God's rule. We cannot draw near to God except through our own humility. Unfortunately when we think of humiliation we don't tend to think of someone surrendering their will to another, rather we think of someone feeling grossly embarrassed about something. So also when we say "humble" we tend to think of being humble as simply having a very low opinion of our selves. But when the bible says humble it means willing to obey, and not that we have a low self image.
The word scripture uses most often to describe contrition and humility is couched in the context of man's rebellion against God. Until a person accepts God's authority to rule over their life, they are in a state of rebellion against God. When a person changes their disposition towards God, and moves from rebellion to contrition - the bible refers to this change of heart as repentance.
Thus the way of salvation that is given again an again in the scriptures is that sinners should repent (of their rebellion against God) and believe the good news concerning Jesus Christ.
Martin Luther entered the history books because by his day, the Catholic church had so corrupted both the way of salvation and again the way of sanctification, that grace became something not only could earn through meritorious conduct, but indeed something you needed to earn in order to offset various sins by which you were condemning yourself all over again.
Without delving too deeply into the Catholic system, it is enough to say that evangelicals reject entirely the notion of meritorious works. Yet some have fallen off the horse on the other side, in that they not only reject meritorious works, but reject the teaching that contrition (giving up your rebellion against God, recognizing His authority over you, and surrendering your will to God) is a necessary component of saving faith. They would argue that this contrition (or repentance) is a "work of merit" - and so reject the teachings of Christ and the Apostles that we are to repent and believe the gospel, and supplant that with a thinner, easier version, whereby we need not repent at all, we need only to believe.
This is an old error. A very old error, for we find James the brother of our Lord correcting it in the passage that makes the header of this post. There we have, by way of an example, the gist of what James is saying on the matter.
When James speaks of "works" he is speaking of those works of contrition that necessarily testify to the validity of our surrender to God. We could call them "works of repentance" - meaning works that flow from our having turned away from rebelling against God's rule.
Thus James is saying that there is a difference between the faith of someone who has surrendered control of their life to God, and someone who hasn't. He likens it to one who sees another in need but rather than supply their need gives them empty words ("Go in peace, be warmed and filled,"). Faith without surrender is just lip service - that's what James is saying.
His argument is that the faith that saves flows from contrition, and not rebellion. The man who refuses to surrender to God's rule, and at the same time imagines that God is going to save him because he has managed to convince himself that the gospel is true - is not only mistaken, he is worse off than the man who has never heard the gospel in the first place - for who, after having become convinced that the way is broad, wants to embark on the narrow? The broad way is better they say, and so having set their foot on the road of ruin, are happy to boldly stomp their way into every increasing ignorance and folly.
Instructing a person out of such an error is a work and a half - because the person has rejected the notion of repentance, and believes themselves to be able to hold onto Christ without every letting go of the world.
Faith that never gives evidence of contrition is not saving faith. I say this with only one caution - and that is the caution that Christ gave with regards to the angels being unable to discern by looking between immature faith and false faith (ie. between the tares and the wheat). The purpose of such instruction is not to make you a "fruit inspector" who goes around judging the validity of anyone's profession of faith. Rather the purpose of this post is to make a distinction between easy believism and genuine saving faith - and thereafter to apply that teaching to ourselves, comparing it to what we believe.Labels: doctrine, edification, faith, foppy faith., repentance |
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posted by Daniel @
12:25 PM
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| 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 |
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posted by Daniel @
5:54 AM
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| 994: Repent vs. Repent |
If you google "define repent", the first link is to a survey of various "web" definitions - a sort of dictionary aggregator that lists definitions for "repent" from various sources: Princeton, Wikipedia, Wictionary, etc. etc. In order of appearance, here are the first ten definitions given (omitting references to things like plays or poems that have the word "repent" or "repentance" in the title):
[1] turn away from sin or do penitence; feel remorse for; feel sorry for; be contrite about
[2] Repentance is a change of thought and action to correct a wrong and gain forgiveness from a person who is wronged.
[3] In religious contexts it usually refers to confession to God, ceasing sin against God, and resolving to live according to religious law.
[4] To cause (oneself) to feel pain or regret; To cause to have sorrow or regret; To feel pain, sorrow, or regret for what one has done or omitted to do; to be sorry for; To feel pain on account of; to remember with sorrow
[5] remorse for your past conduct
[6] a stage in salvation where the believer turns away from sin.
[7] The condition of being penitent; A feeling of regret or remorse for doing wrong or sinning
[8] Acknowledge one's wrong and turn away from it.
[9] Feeling regret for sins committed and asking for forgiveness.
[10] A turning with sorrow from a past course or action
One could easily summarize the list by saying that repentance is "turning away from sin in the wake of personal remorse" or something similar to it.
I think that most people, even many Christians, if asked to define repentance would give an answer that falls in that ballpark. Many look to the NT Greek and focus on the verb "metanoeo" (μετανοηω) which is often translated as "repent" and noting that the most wooden English translation possible is to "change one's mind" they forever after flavor every English instance of the notion of repentance with the lexical salt of changing one's mind.
The verb itself is rather rare in scripture, and means first to make a note to oneself about a thing after it has transpired or is too late to have done it right the first time. It does mean to change one's mind, but in the sense of changing one's purpose or even feelings - that is, changing your mind in the sense that you no are no longer persuaded in the same manner as you previously were. If it is perceived that a previous mind set was wrong, the verb takes on the sense of regret, or remorse and often carries an ethical nuance.
You see, I knew that God granted repentance, so I was wondering why it was, with me at least, that I was not being spiritually manipulated by God into obeying Him.The noun, metanoia (μεταοια) can mean 'later knowledge' or in less clumsy English, 'subsequent emendation'. It more commonly denotes a change of mind, whether in feelings, will, or thought. Again it carries the notion of regret if there is dissatisfaction with the previous mind set and whatever pain or consequences the previous mind set invited.
All of which is to describe what the word itself means. But there is more to biblical repentance than a lucid and accurate definition of the verb or noun used in expressing the whole thought. We all know what the verb "spread" means, but that doesn't mean that spreading a bed sheet and spreading jam on toast are one and the same thing. In other words, knowing what the word repent means is very important, but we also must understand what exactly we are repenting of if we are to understand what biblical repentance is describing.
Here is a bible-reading tip for you. Just because a word is primarily used to describe some theological idea, does not mean that every time it is used it must describe that theological idea. The Greek word for baptize simply means to immerse fully. Pickling recipe's from Christ's day in Palestine speak of baptizing cucumbers in vinegar, and burial practices spoke of baptizing the body fully beneath the earth, etc. By the time the NT was translated into English, the word for "immerse" had picked up so much theological baggage, that rather than translate it as "immerse" they instead transliterated it into English - thereby avoiding the controversy that was sure to arise from those who, because of some latter day tradition, had learned to practice baptism by sprinkling.
My concern is not with baptism however, but just to make the reader understand that words can pick up a theological tradition over time, such that in latter days, after a word gains some tradition meaning, latter day interpreters may clumsily (though perhaps well meaningly) replace the original meaning in a text with a theologically charged meaning that is entirely alien to the context, and would never have been assumed by first century readers or writers.
So that when I speak of metanoeo or metanoia, I want to be on guard against projecting 20th century tradition and usage back into my understanding of what biblical repentance really is. I think most of us, if presented with the choice of understanding a text in accord with the intent of its author or in accord with our own some latter day spin on the text would choose the former.
That isn't to say that having a sound definition of the words we use is beside the point, for if one has a poor understanding of these words, one is necessarily going to have a skewed and errant understanding of biblical repentance. Consider the person who thinks of repentance as feeling remorse over something, and presumes the something he is to feel remorse over is the fact that he is condemned by sin. The gospel, under this persuasion, becomes: Feel bad that you're condemned, and believe the gospel and you will be saved!
What of the person who thinks that repentance means to stop doing evil, and to start doing good? To this one the gospel becomes, start doing good, stop doing evil, and also believe, and you will be saved. Can you see how a wrong understanding of what it means to repent can turn the gospel into a man centered, works based effort to save yourself? Don't laugh, there are Christians who reject the notion that repentance is necessary for salvation because they have failed to understand what repentance really is. They will argue till they are blue in the face that you can be saved without repentance, and that repentance is a work, but really they are beating up straw men.
Again, the person whose understanding of repentance is that you stop committing sin, they likewise will end up with a sort of works gospel - stop sinning, and believe, and you will be saved. Has ever a Christian, however pious, zealous, or holy, managed to stop sinning altogether? Some might say, "yes" - but in order to do so they have to redefine sin. The short answer is, "no". The gospel is not "become sinless and believe" not, "stop sinning and believe".
That is why it is important to have a right understanding of what repentance is, because if you don't it messes up your sanctification (drawing near to God in obedience) and can mess up the gospel that you preach.
So what exactly is it that the bible says you are to have a change of mind/purpose about?
I think the knee-jerk answer is actually wrong, and that because most people will say that you have to change your mind about "sinning" - and by sinning they mean, committing sins. They would say you have to decide once and for all that you are going to stop sinning, as a rule of life, so that the gospel is that you turn away from sinning, and believe the promises of God.
But I have a horse/cart kind of problem with that.
You see, sin is rebellion against God, and to speak of sin in terms of "doing" or "not doing" is to cut God out of the equation. I should think that the devil has his hand in any theology that essentially cuts God out of the picture.
Repentance, or so the scriptures say, is something God grants.
I write from the perspective of one who has spent many years as a fool on this front. You see, I knew that God granted repentance, so I was wondering why it was, with me at least, that I was not being spiritually manipulated by God into obeying Him. If repentance meant a stop to all sin, and God granted this - why was it that I was still sinning? When was God going to grant me repentance? How many times have I begged the Lord to grant me repentance? I cannot say.
But while genuine sanctification inevitably and inescapably flows from genuine repentance (and this is granted by God) yet the sort of "sanctification" I was looking for was not actually biblical (though I assumed it was at the time), but rather was my own invention. The idea that God was supposed to pony up and stop me from sinning became a silent thorn in my side. At times I felt like maybe this proved that Christianity was all bunk, that it was all in my head, that I was just kidding myself. At other times I felt like this proved that I was somehow illegitimate - a sad and confused person who was presuming upon his own salvation while having tragically failed grasp it for real.
It was only after I understood what both sin and repentance were, according to scripture, that I was able to understand how God grants repentance.
To start with, I had to stop thinking about sin as a shorthand way of saying committing sins -that is, I had to see sin for what it really was: rebellion against God. Here also I had to think properly about repentance - it was indeed a breaking away from some previous mind set, and wholly embracing a new one - a decisive turning away, but not turning away from "committing sins" rather turning away from rebellion against God.
You might, if you were biblically literate, describe rebellion against God as walking in the flesh, since the flesh, we're told in scripture, in enmity against God, not being subject to God's rule, and worse, being incapable of subjecting itself to God's rule. No one can, without direct intervention from God, respond to God in any other way than to rebel against His rule. This rebellion manifests itself in our lives as committing sins, but it is not the committing of sin that is the rebellion, but the state of the heart that is rebellious. The flesh is, and until redeemed, always will be, in a state of rebellion. Thus in order to "repent" one must be someone else, someone other than oneself, for left to our own devices we would only ever, continue to rebel against God. This someone else, as it turns out, is God in the Person of the Holy Spirit.
God initiates faith in this way: On the day that God chose before the foundation of the world, He imparts to that one whom He has providentially brought to this place, an ability whose origin is not in the person who is considering the gospel, but in the one who Authored it. That ability is the ability to genuinely desire to be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ.
This change of mind from not wanting to be reconciled to God, to suddenly, and irrevocably desire, with every fibre of your being, to be truly and eternally reconciled to your Lord and Creator, God. This change of mind did not originate in you, for your flesh could by no means produce it. In fact, it is the flesh that remains right now that continues to hate God's rule, and takes every opportunity to exert itself so that you find yourself torn between doing what you want to do on the one hand (indulge some sin) and doing what "you" want to do (obey God) on the other. you're not going mad, you're just experiencing the pull of two warring influences - your flesh, and the Holy Spirit.
The gospel then is simple: Stop rebelling against God, and instead receive that reconciliation which God has offered to all of mankind, and this is the offer, that if you believe that Christ's sacrifice will reconcile you to God, not because of your worth, but because of God's grace, and in the certainty of that truth, you cast yourself upon the Lord - you will be reconciled to God in Christ.
The moment you do so, in truth, you demonstrate that God has worked in you both to will (He made you desire it) and to do (He granted you repentance), what He had planned from the start for you. God granted you this repentance - this turning away from self rule, and embracing as right and proper God's rule, and God seals this with the Holy Spirit who immediately begins to indwell the new believer and continues to cause that new believer to draw near to God, and away from sin.
There are, therefore, several competing understandings of what it means to repent. Common to those understandings which paint repentance as stopping sinning, or doing good, or feeling bad, or changing your opinion about God etc. is the notion that you do something, and God responds to it. But when we understand repentance biblically, we understand that we come to the place of reconciliation because God has drawn us there, and that our change in purpose, from self rule, to God's rule, was not manufactured by our own righteousness, or desires, for such desires are foreign to the flesh, but were in fact put there by God in order to reconcile us to Himself through Christ - then and only then, do we understand that the nature of repentance depends on our relationship to the Author of repentance.
The trouble with language, and shallow definitions is that Person A can say "repent" and mean "x" and person B can say repent and mean "y" - and both can say, "repent and believe the gospel" and in doing so expressing two radically different gospels.
There is a world of difference between the message that, "if you stop sinning and change your opinion about God you will go to heaven", and the notion that God has made a promise that cannot be broken, a promise to accept any and all who are willing to forgo their rebellion against Him, and embrace His rightful rule over their conduct and life, that He will forgive them all their rebellion, and be reconciled to them for no other reason that because they [1] believed His promise, and [2] sought to be reconciled to Him under that promise - then He will, according to His promise, reconcile that person to Himself through Christ, that is, through faith in His promises concerning the Christ.
Hasn't the gospel been watered down in our generation? Of course it has. Say this prayer and you will be saved:
"Dear God, I repent of my sins, and believe that Jesus died for me, and committing myself to you, I embrace Christianity as your child. Thank you God for receiving me, amen."
I mean, ten people could pray that prayer with equal vigor, zeal, and sincerity, and only a few or none be saved. To say that you repent of your sins might simply mean to the one praying that he or she has changed his or her opinion about their sins, from, "you probably overlooked them anyway" to "You definitely were offended by them" , and believing that Jesus died for you can mean that the person believes that Jesus died on their behalf, or maybe that Jesus died as an example for them. Committing yourself to God might mean that you are embracing His rule for your life, or it may mean that you have decided to join God's team, and call yourself a "Christian" rather than say, a "Buddhist". You may say that you are embracing "Christianity" when in fact you are embracing a heresy that rejects the gospel itself.
It isn't a prayer that saves you, it is Jesus who saves you. I don't share the gospel by saying, follow me in this prayer, I say plainly that a person doesn't have the power within Himself to be saved. That he is a sinner at heart, and irrevocably so. That he will never, and can never desire to be reconciled to God, and yet that the gospel is this, that if you will turn away from your rebellion, and call out to God to be reconciled - yet God will save you. If they want to understand how all that works, I am happy to explain it, but the gospel isn't in the explanation, the gospel is in the call to repent and believe that God will keep His promises.Labels: repentance |
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posted by Daniel @
1:20 PM
4 comment(s)
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| The main prerequisite to revival... |
Revival, as described in scripture, doesn't resemble what most people think of when they hear the word revival.
In the modern church the term revival is almost synonymous with week-long evangelical meetings. When some think of revival they think of a great "movement of God" and by "movement of God" they can mean anything from an uncommon number of souls being saved all the way down to people falling on the ground and acting like barnyard animals. That is, the term itself, whether it has a proper meaning or not, is by no means use according to such limits - about the only thing universal about the term revival is that it is supposed to describe something out of the ordinary.
When I talk about revival, I therefore need to be specific, lest I speak about one thing, and the reader imagine I am describing some other thing that shares the label. When I say revival, I am talking about an orderly thing, not the slayings in the spirit, not the dog barking, and snake slithering, not the week-long focused evangelical meetings in another church, or in my own - I am talking about a work that takes place in the heart - a circumcision, if you will, whereby a soul whose affection has been divided between God and the world, finally let's go of the world and is able to grasp with both hands the Lord Jesus Christ (figuratively of course).
The work of revival is really a work of "true" repentance; which itself differs from what we typically call "repentance" in that it is a work that takes place in the heart, rather than in the hands. It isn't stopping what we do with our hands, but it is a surgical work that takes place in our heart; where we determine to have Christ above everything else.
I want to be clear on that, so follow me as I expound the thought. Most "serious" Christians - the ones who attend church, read their bible, attend prayer meetings, and have a real (though not necessarily "church-sponsored") ministry - most of those who typically make up the core group - the twenty percent who do eighty percent of the work - these believers typically love the Lord Jesus; and hate sin - but they are not sold out. That is, they love Jesus, alongside their love of many other things. Jesus might be the biggest love of their life - or maybe the second or third biggest, as some love family above their Lord, or even friends - but most of this group can say that Jesus is in one of the top three "slots" for the things they place their affection on.
Now, this might sound strident, but bear with me: it doesn't matter if Jesus is their number one affection or not; it doesn't matter because all this says is that Jesus is pretty high in a list of many affections.
Scripture says that we are not to love the world, or the things in the world. Meditate on that for a second... I'll wait.
Okay - consider this now. If we are not to love the world or the things in the world, then even if Christ is our first place affection, He is still just one affection amongst many - and the rest of our affection is put into things that are in, or of, this world.
When Christ calls the church to repent (no less than six times in the book of Revelation alone), He is not calling us to simply "stop sinning so much" - but rather to repent of the love of this world in order that He becomes our sole and only affection. Repentance - true repentance - happens when Christ becomes our only affection.
You cannot love the Lord with your whole heart if your heart continues to love other things. It is this love for other things, whether it be people, things in the world - or even spiritual "seeming" endeavors such as "ministry" - if we love a thing that isn't Christ, we are divided in our affection, and so long as we are in that state, we are not "revived" - but in need of the kind of repentance that is all consuming. When we turn our hearts to God in full - that is "revival" - that is "normal" Christianity.
We know that Christianity is almost universally "abnormal" and that knowledge can only serve to strengthen our acceptance of that which is abnormal - or maybe "sub"-normal.
I am fairly convinced that the moment Christ has all our affection, only then are we able to have a right affection for anything else.
Revival comes then, when we surrender every other affection. I think this is what Jesus was talking about when He taught that we are to count the cost. If we want to follow Him, we can't stay pacified and slumbering in the dormancy of half-hearted Christianity; either be hot or cold, but being lukewarm... yuck!
Here is the thing - we don't really want to put on the Lord Jesus Christ as our sole and only garment - what we really want is to wear Jesus as the primary accessory in our life - a masterful centerpeice on a table full of other things too. We want the Lord, and we have been trained to think that He must be first in our affection, when what we should have been trained to think is that He must be our only affection.
Having said that, let me mitigate against those who have eyes and are blind, and ears and are deaf - that is, let me quickly quantify my remarks here, so as to avoid having to explain myself later.
The one who loves Christ, and only Christ - this one (by definition) will loves all that Christ loves; he or she will still love his or her children, but not with something so base as that carnal affection that even pagans muster for their children, rather he or she will love his or her spouse and children, friends and family with the love that is superior to every other love - for they will love these as Christ loves these, and more - they will love those whom Christ loves to their own hurt - that is, they will love even those who will not reciprocate their love.
It's big and heady stuff, and many and most of you aren't really into that, I know. We have our organized religion, and that's hard enough to manage sometimes. What kind of burden am I suggesting?
Well, I am suggesting a yoke that is light and a burden that is easy, it only seems heavy and impossible because the thought of setting aside all the things in the world in favor of Christ will never, ever satisfy the flesh, and the flesh will by no means desire such a thing. But if Christ's Spirit is in you, I know that you will desire this, for deep calls unto deep.
Now, how do you go about repenting? You just do it. Period. You -can- do it if Christ is in you, the reason you don't is because you don't want to. It really is that simple. Rather than encourage you with "try this" and "try that" sort of advice, I will just say, God help you if you don't repent fully. The throne of grace is waiting, but it's a limited time offer.Labels: repentance, Revival |
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posted by Daniel @
8:22 AM
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| Jeremiah 7:8-10 |
I was struck by these verses the other day, and considered strongly writing a post on the subject found therein, but put it off for other things. It struck me as significant therefore when my pastor preached from this very text this past Sunday.
Here is the text (ESV):
"Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, 'We are delivered!'—only to go on doing all these abominations?
In the context, God is speaking to the people of Judah who, even though they have stopped following God in their hearts, never the less continue to perform all the religious duties associated with Judaism.
Sound doctrine is always best, but it in the hands of the unregenerate, it can give false hope; that is, those who call themselves Christians, but have never actually been reconciled to God by a repentant faith, will (for instance) use the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints to bolster them in their unbelief. They will tell themselves that it is okay that they sin and what not, because - hey - they're saved and going to heaven ... right? The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints provides the downhearted, but truly regenerate believer, strength to obey the Lord, as he will not look to his own feelings as the measure of his justification, but rest his hope continually and consistently on the finished work of our Lord at Calvary, and in the trustworthiness of our Lord's promise to those who truly repent in faith. But in the hands of a false convert, the idea of an ultra-secure salvation becomes a cloak for liberty.
It is all nice and good to have assurance that one's salvation is eternally secure, as long as one is actually justified - but to have that assurance when one is deceived by a false faith will only make a false faith more deadly.
When a modern Christian reads (therefore) a text like Jeremiah 7, I wonder about those who think nothing of the passage as they pass over it. Here is God calling Judah a bunch of murderers, adulterers, liars, and thieves. We read that and go, "Yeah, dumb old Judah! Why won't they get it?" rather than hear God's word as a living challenge to the remnants, large or small, of our own passing, besetting decay.
That is, I worry about any Christian who reads such a passage without a fearful, trembling reflection upon their own walk. When I read that I quake at my own sin because, while I believe in the perseverance of the saints, I do not for one moment tell myself that --because-- I am a Christian I do not have to worry about God's harsh words directed at my sin. Instead, because I am a Christian, I regard God's words as though they were directed at me, and I examine myself under the naked light of God's righteousness.
I read that passage and I don't muse about what a mess Judah was making of the old covenant. I read it and ask myself whether the slackness in my employment isn't a form of stealing? I ask myself about those things that persist in my life - things that I continue to give my energy and time to - are these not idols? When I think of any person who hates our Lord, is not my first impulse to desire that God would deliver them over to His wrath rather than to His mercy? Isn't this a form of hatred? Isn't hatred as the sin of murder? Is God always my first love in everything I do? If He is not, am I not committing spiritual "adultery" in my heart the moment I put any other thing before my relationship with God? When I consider such things I find myself trembling before God's word; not that I worry that my profession is false, but that I see in the reflection of God's word who I truly am, and worse, who I continue to be. I see therefore that unless God continues the work He has begun in me I am without hope in the world. Why I am like that? Here is the thought that came to mind: You have not because you ask not, or you ask in a way that would require God to bolster your flesh.
I am convinced from scripture that, because I am His child, God will refine me. I reason that in order for sanctification to happen to me as a believer, there must be something of rebellion in me - that is, there must be something in me that actually needs sanctifying! I also know that my sanctification will not happen spontaneously through passive indifference. When scripture says to work out your own salvation - it is talking about salvation from sin - Jesus came to save His people from their sin (c.f. Matthew 1:21) - Paul explains that we are to work out this same salvation with fear and trembling knowing that as we do so it is actually God who is working the desire to do his good pleasure into us, and more - even giving us the ability to do it. Every believer who sits like a bump on a log and waits for God to eliminate the sin in his or her life demonstrates a dangerous lack of understanding.
It works this way: We are motivated to cleanse our hands and purify our hearts (to use the words of James) by a God given desire to live a life that is pleasing to Him. If we act on the desire that God gives - the desire to draw near to him through pursuing holiness, we are given grace to do so when we seek to do so with a singleness of heart. If we attempt to draw near to God in some half hearted way, we shouldn't expect grace, and frankly, whatever me managed to muster up usually won't suffice, leaving us pretty much where we started.
The work of sanctification is a work of whole heartedness, but sadly, the pursuit of religion is something any half hearted believer can master and excel in. That includes such things as "Christian education", teaching, preaching, going to seminary, programs at church, etc. etc. It amazes me, and if you stop and consider it, it will amaze you too, that we are able to do as much as we do -- without any real holiness to speak of.
So when you read a passage like this one in Jeremiah - don't just say, "I am saved, ...what has this text to do with me?!" and move on. Drink it in, and examine your walk. Are you pursuing the holiness without which no one will see the Lord? Are you satisfied in your religion even though deep down you know it is empty? Let's be even more direct: Are you ready for judgment day, or do you think you have some things to make certain of before you die?
It is good and right to have no hope in our flesh, and to place all our hope in the finished work of Christ on calvary - and it is that alone that we rest on when it comes to our justification - but what kind of faith is satisfied with a mere "pass"? Consider the magnitude of slackness heart-hearted and bitterly sinful laziness it takes to willfully coast when you should be pedaling with regards to God's call for personal holiness. How thick must be the callouses on one's heart be to allow one to flippantly set aside the commandments of God (i.e. pursue holiness!) simply because one is certain that Christ's sacrifice covers their sin.
I burn with indignation at the thought of that. I bristle at Christians who scuttle past those words in scripture which, when rightly understood and applied would breath life into their dead bones. No, let me drill down on that so I am understood - I bristle at the bondage that makes that possible. I hate sin, I hate it in my life, and I hate it in your life too. I hate how it enslaves the world, and I especially hate it when Christians writhe and toil under it, trying to free themselves from it's rule, and fail because they're trying to free themselves from it by every other means than what scripture prescribes: faith from a full heart.
Do they never realize that the reason they fail is because they aren't fully committed to success? How many times must they put their hands in the fire before they learn it burns them? They are hungry, and willing to put their hand in the bowl, but then they become too lazy to bring their hand to their mouth in order to feed themselves. They want the crop, but refuse to go and plow, plant, and harvest, and then admire their religion because in it they have a desire that is good, even if they never answer that desire by engaging in the good work God has given them the desire to pursue. Yet, because these things are spiritual, and because ignorance is rampant in the church, many put off the pursuit of holiness because they really do presume that something mystical is supposed to happen so that they don't have to actually pursue holiness, it will just fall out of the sky and land on them one day. Of course, when that fails to happen, instead of adjusting their impotent religion, they surround themselves with people who make them feel at ease in their spiritual failure. Misery loves company after all.
The problem is almost always faith.
Listen, those who come to Christ because they have seen themselves as wretched the sinners they are, who see how they deserve death for their rebellion, and see how the Lord is entirely just in condemning them, and in the silent wake of that truth cry out to God for reconciliation, cry out, I say, to be taken out of their rebellion and put back into a right relationship with God - the kind where you obey God as you ought to - that is, who cry out to God from the well of their own brokenness not holding their hearts aloof from God, but presenting them to God as His to direct, own, and command - that is, they cry out to God in full repentance; these continue to pursue God because they haven't yet attained their goal - to be with God.
Yet those who come to Christ to escape their own damnation, whose interest is driven entirely by their own desire for self preservation - the very moment they are convinced that they are saved from hell - they believe themselves to have attained all that they came to Christ to secure, and once they have it, they care little for all the frills. Why pursue holiness, if you already have what you came to Christ to get - a ticket out of hell? They don't love God, they would be just as satisfied to live forever in their earthly flesh as is, and have there be no God at all.
Here then is a good, diagnostic question: Why did I become a Christian? Was it to escape hell, or was it to be reconciled to God? What is my desire? Do I desire God for God's sake, or do I desire God because I reason that is a better fate for me than hell? Is my desire for God nothing more than a selfish desire to avoid a miserable afterlife, or is it a desire to be loved by, and received into the family of, God?
Love the Lord your God is the first commandment, and I think it is first for a good reason. The bottom line is this: if you find that you are not at war with sin in your life - if you find that you have no loathing of sin, and no desire to fellowship with God - no aching for righteousness, it is no wonder you gloss over the verses that speak directly to you. You are a corpse - and unless the Lord breathes life into you, you will remain so.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Repentance follows.Labels: holiness, repentance |
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posted by Daniel @
5:51 AM
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| The Living Dead... |
"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." - Philippians 1:21 [NASB]
You're walking along in that part of downtown where there are a lot of street people begging. You feel justified in not giving a lot to these because you really don't know whether giving them money would do more damage than good. It is one thing to give to one who is in need, and quite another to give to a man who is unwilling to work (c.f. 2 Thessalonians 3:10). But it does happen that you will find, from time to time, someone who is in genuine need, and my presumption is that when you encounter such a one, you willingly give the change in your pocket up to help this one along.
My question to you is why do you stop there? Why, is it that when you see a legitimate need, and are even provoked within you to give something, you do as little as is humanly possible?
The question is actually a rhetorical one. I plan to tell you why you do that, and hope that in doing so you are edified.
Let's ask our selves that tired old cliche, "What would Jesus do?". But, let's not ask that question intending for the answer to become the motivational squeeze that forces our hand to act. That would be using our understanding to "guilt" us into activity. That would be using guilt as a motivation - or worse, fear of spiritual repercussion as a motivator. We don't want to ask that question in order to provide some motivation, we want to ask that question as a diagnostic, so that we can see the gulf between ourselves and Christ. If Christ would do more than we are willing to do, that tells us something.
You see, the reason we would do as little as possible is because our old man is dead in trespasses and sin. It is the old man who sees the situation, and has no love within him for someone else. The old man can be motivated by guilt and fear to a level of civic virtue, but there is nothing spiritual in a virtue that is born of guilt and/or fear.
I should explain what I mean by civic virtue. Anytime a person does something that outwardly is perceived as a charitable or good work - that person is performing a civic virtue. Whenever a Muslim gives money to the poor, the external act is indeed a civic virtue, but the Muslim is not performing this seemingly virtuous act in response to a prompting by God's spirit. From the Christian perspective, we reason that the Muslim is simply responding to guilt or fear of repercussion. The Muslim would disagree, but I am speaking from the perspective of a Christian. Now, what I say of the Muslim is true of any world religion, Buddhism, secular moralism, atheism, Hinduism, etc., and unless a person is acting in Christ, it is true of the Christian who performs a civic virtue also.
When the moral wherewithal to help the needy descends upon me, it is always coupled to a carnal indifference, and my default reaction to this tension is to satisfy them both. Give to the needy satisfying the moral imperative, and give as little as possible, satisfying the carnal indifference. You do that too.
That is why at the moment the moral imperative comes, we ought to consider how far Jesus would go to help this person. Would Jesus dig into his pocket, set consciously push past the bigger bills, to find the smaller coins, and then hand them over, and move on? Would Jesus give all the money in his pocket and then move on? Would Jesus stop and talk to the person? How far would He go?
Now, why is it that "we" don't want to go that far? Because the "we" in that question is what the bible calls the old man. It is the old man that has no interest in the things of Christ. It is the old man that we obey by default. But that old man is twice dead and we need to reckon on both deaths if we are going to live as Christ lived.
Here is what I mean by twice dead. The old man is dead in his tresspasses and sin. What the old man desires is what death itself desires. The old man is a dead man, and the desires of the old man are the desires of death. Death, here means that which is void of life. Everything that the old man desires translates into that which has no life in it. The old man lives in, and thrives in death - that is, he thrives in all things in from which life is absent. The desire of the old man is to flee anything even remotely connected to life. This isn't meant to be some ethereal, metaphysical, and therefore vague and unfathomable thing I am saying. I am speaking in plain and literal English. I do not use metaphors here, I mean exactly this - the old man is not dead in some figurative sense - but is the well of death that flees from life in all that it desires. It has no desire for life - it hates life, and Jesus is Life.
That's the first dead. The second dead in what I meant by "twice dead" is the fact that the "old man" of every genuine believer was crucified with Christ. Our old man died on Calvary. The death of the old man on Calvary freed every believer from our bondage to sin, and through sin, our bondage to the death that the old man was "living" to produce. This may well be difficult to understand for some, so it is enough (for now) to understand this second "dead" as meaning that the desire of the old man to flee life, is no longer binding on you.
When you come to the beggar then, and the old man desires one thing, and the Spirit another, we are called to obey the one by reckoning on the death of the other. That is the way to fully obey the Spirit is not to compromise with the flesh, but to consider how Christ wrought the death of the old man on Calvary - consider that the thing which wants us to be indifferent is actually a dead man walking - a thing that flees from life, and has always and ever been at work to produce and maintain an absense of life in us - it is a murderous thing bent on our eternal destruction, a thing whose only desire is death, a desire that Christ Himself gave his life to free you from the power of.
You have heard it said, "Make war against sin" - don't take that to mean make war against individual sins as they come up - it means make war against giving into the desires of the living dead within you. Don't feed it by obeying it's desires, but reckon it dead - identify what it desires, and do more than simply turn away from them - for the sake of our Lord, turn to Christ, and obey the desires of the Spirit instead.
Let me tell you, the only thing that is stopping you from being like Christ is your own habitual willingness to compromise your obedience - your willingness to obey the death that lives on in you. If that thing and its desires find no purchase in you - let me tell you, you will not be the same person. You will be as the Apostle Paul described - crucified with Christ.
Knowing this puts you one step closer to acting on it. But you cannot act on it in your own strength. First you must be convinced from scripture that this is how is is supposed to be - then you must learn that you yourself need grace to act, and that grace comes from the throne of Christ. You cannot enter into this without deep, prayerful repentence.
Your days are numbered, so don't put it off for too long.Labels: repentance, Romans, sanctification, The Sinfulness Of Sin |
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posted by Daniel @
9:52 AM
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| God is not lost...you are. |
I was just chatting up my old pastor. He stopped in for a visit and during the course of that visit we spoke briefly about a mutual friend who is struggling to know God. This person has followed teacher after teacher, trying to find the Lord by having God explained in the best way possible - as though God could be known more intimately if someone else could just paint Him more clearly for us.
We all have this struggle at times. We often pursue teaching and teacher because we convince ourselves that if we just understood a thing better, we would respond to God better. We tell ourselves that our rebellion is a product of our ignorance, that if we could just overcome our ignorance we would find the *real* means to obey. We look for God in teachings, and in teacher - we look for God as though God were elusive. My old pastor put it right when he said, "We seek for God as though God was the one that was lost, but it isn't God who is lost, it is we who are lost. When we try to find God it shows, it cuts God out of the loop, we put pressure on ourselves to learn how to make God real, when what we need to do is stop trying to find God, and simply repent.
That is what is happening when you are trying to find God - you are trying to find God in teaching and information rather than in faith and repentance. It's just that simple. Most of us want to have the fellowship and relationship up front - because we hope that if we have this nice, experiential relationship - it will cause us to repent. We want repentance to overcome us, ... to overwhelm us. We think if we can just get the right clue or hint, or message, or read the right book, or hear the right sermon, or hang with the right people, or join the right church - these things will cause us to know God, to find God; we want something to knock the fight out of us so that there is nothing left in us but repentance.
But that hasn't happened. It hasn't happened for me, it hasn't happened for you, and guess what? It hasn't happened for the authors of the books you want to read, it hasn't happened in the church you admire more than you own - wherever the grass is greener, brother, sister ... it hasn't happened there either.
It doesn't work that way. Repentance happens when grace finds you, and grace finds you when you step into Canaan in the strength of God's promise, with your sword drawn. In other words don't wait for the divine zap. The divine zap doesn't come to those who excuse their spiritual dormancy, i.e. excuse their lack of repentance (to keep it simple) by telling themselves that because God's grace initiates repentance, they should wait around until God grants them repentance, and in the mean time try and figure out why He never seems to be doing that no matter how hard they pray or cry out for it. God will provide sustenance to those who are willing to lift their hand from the bowl of his provision and put the food in their mouth - but the man who is so lazy that he expects God not only to provide, but to feed him too - this man doesn't get it.
So if you are wondering where God is, I will tell you - He is on the other side of repentance, where He has always been.Labels: repentance |
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posted by Daniel @
9:41 PM
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| More on Repentance... |
In the meta of a previous post, Mitch writes: To me you are conflating a fruit of the gospel with the Gospel; the fruit (in this case repentance) is not the Gospel. We should not confuse the Gospel with the effects that result from the Gospel.
This is the sort of observation that I enjoy responding to, because it is not only a very legitimate concern, but it is a common one. I hope this post can clear up the conflation.
First, and perhaps most critical, we need to remember that in theology, in order to speak of individual facets of a single act of God, we artificially) dissect the single act into component parts. This we do in order to articulate as precisely as possible each facet of the single act.
What happens however is that once we separate related components, we then need to relate them back to one another, and typically part of this relation is the imposition of a chronological order. We like to say this causes that, this precedes that, etc.
To articulate the single act of salvation we typically splice it into two related facets:
[1] salvation from judgment (justification), and
[2] salvation from sin (sanctification).
This, for the sake of clarity, is a legitimate thing to do. It aids our understanding, of eternal security (for instance) to isolate what it means to be justified by grace through faith by describing justification as happening "in a single moment of time". Likewise, it helps our understanding of sanctification to see it as a process that is begun in the same moment that our justification "happened" etc.
Yet what can happen when we make these academic distinctions, is that we can forget that they are academic distinctions. When we begin to speak of justification as happening in an instance, for example we do so in order to highlight the immutability of justification - to underscore the reality that once we are justified eternally we do not flutter in and out of that justified state. The most efficient way to describe such a thing to temporal beings such as ourselves, is to speak in language that conveys these things chronologically. Justification happens in a moment, we say, and sanctification happens over time. Now, having introduced the concept of time into the equation, naturally we want to divide these two further, into antecedent and subsequent categories, and so we think of justification having happened "first, and sanctification as following that.
We make such distinctions, not because the bible does, but because it is easier to consider these acts as being separate and related, rather than being facets of the same act. But, as I have said, this separation is academic and therefore artificial.
The biblical teaching is that our justification and our sanctification are part of the same reality. They have the same genesis, the one comes with the other, and neither is antecedent, neither is primary, neither is exalted over the other.
It is correct to note that repentance (sanctification) does not and cannot precede justification, but we enter into non sequitur when we suggest that because sanctification does not precede justification, it must necessarily follow it. The truth is they come together, neither one precedes the other, nor follows the other.
But, since we think of justification as happening in a moment, and sanctification as a progression over time, we may forget that they happen simultaneously, and conclude that sanctification "follows" the moment of justification, rather than express it in a more biblically accurate language, such as, "In the moment that sanctification begins, we are justified."
I don't believe, therefore, that grace initiates justification, and that justification produces sancification - for this makes justification antecedent to sanctification, rather than placing them in similitude. Grace initiates (simultaneously) faith, justification, and sanctification. To suggest that the effects of grace are themselves initiators of subsequent effects is, according to my understanding, not accurate.
It doesn't overly affect one's theology to blur these distinctions, unless (until) one uses them to isolate one aspect of our salvation from another. The one who imagines that the gospel is about being saved from hell (try and find that in the bible!) will naturally truncate the act of salvation (and therefore the gospel) into just the justification part; thus the gospel under this scheme is about saving you from hell, and has nothing to do with saving you from sin (sanctification).
Anyone who, for whatever reason, truncates the gospel into "justification only" is likely going to draw a hard line between justification and sanctification: seeing the one as preceding and initiating the other. The only danger in this is that we can start to preach the gospel as being saved from hell (not in the bible) instead of being saved from sin (Matthew 1:21).
If we are being saved from sin, as every genuine believer is, we will see evidence of that in our lives. Typically the person who has spliced salvation into the justification/sanctification dichotomy describes this truth by saying that every genuine believer begins to repent after they are "saved", and that those who do (thereafter) repent, are not genuine believers - and for these the distinction I am making is academic. They will think me wrong (at best), and imagine I am suggesting that sanctification "comes first" in that I say that in order to believe one must be repenting. That is, they don't recognize why I am making the distinction, so they conclude, as best as they can, what I must be on about, and since it sounds different than what they believe, it follows that I must be saying something opposite to what they believe - and so they imagine I have fallen off the other side of the horse.
But I make the distinction because this level of precision is necessary in identifying where exactly those go astray who have reduced the gospel into what we call, "easy believism."
You see, some believe that in order to be saved you must be presented with, and assent to certain facts about, and promises made concerning, Jesus. They regard faith as purely intellectual, and salvation as a contract that obliges God to save every person who can muster up even a single, fleeting moment of intellectual assent to the gospel, even if this one time act of believing is instantly replaced by a lifelong refutation of the same - so long as there was an instance of intellectual assent, God is obliged to save them from hell on that last day. They regard sanctification, therefore, not only as something that may or may not happen, but critically, as something you are personally responsible to make happen. They teach that if you want lots of goodies from God after you die, you should pursue repentance, but if you could care less about eternal goodies, then you just won't have as much as others when you get in.
By reducing salvation to such a state, they necessarily reduce the gospel to that which will produce this, and regard everything else as "add ons" which they believe will clutter up and confuse the presentation of their gospel, thereby making it more difficult for would-be believers to assent to the truth.
I am quite opposed to that scheme, as are any who know and exalt the gospel.
Understood in this context I believe the distinctions I am making are necessary ones in our day and age. I am not saying, as might be read into my words, that I believe we must repent in order to believe, or that repentance must precede faith - I am trying to articulate the fact that we enter into faith and repentance simultaneously. I was able to believe because I was able to repent. I was able to repent because I was able to believe. It is the language that fails me because I seem only able to articulate the moment of salvation in terms of a symbiotic causality. The truth is that grace produces faith and repentance simultaneously - neither faith nor repentance causes the other - both are caused by grace, and come working together from the very start. Academic distinctions between the two work well when we are discussing post salvation roles; but these same distinctions necessarily cloud our understanding of the moment we are saved, if we cannot unite them in that moment properly.
For many believers, the distinction may well be pointless, since after we are saved, what does it matter? But if we are concerned with the glory of the gospel, and again, with identifying false gospels, the level of precision I labor to articulate is needed.Labels: gospel, repentance |
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posted by Daniel @
2:00 PM
3 comment(s)
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