Preaching to the Inner Man and Preaching for Conversion

Adapted from a Lecture by Hywel Jones, Banner of Truth Conf., 1997

There is a Great Need to Learn How to Preach to the Inner Man.

As preachers we are in need of a “fresh anointing.” We need to be reinvigorated and empowered anew (Ps 92:10-15). God’s anointing is needed because we are called to a ministry that is impossible apart from divine enablement – we are called to make a vital connection between the Word of God and our hearers.

Our preaching is intended by God to connect two worlds; the world of the Bible to the world of our listeners. In order to do so, it must impinge upon our hearers where they are.

So often we fall short of making this connection. There is a kind of preaching that is clear and perspicuous, faithful to the narrow and wider context of the canon, doctrinally accurate, BUT inadequate at reaching the inner man.

We must strive to preach to the inner man. Many expositors focus almost totally on the meaning of the text, but do not set their sights on targeting the inner man. We must not satisfy ourselves with the thought that our listeners “have learned something.” We must aim at reaching the inner man. We must preach so that our listeners’ reflection and conviction is, “This is what God is saying to me today.”

If reaching the inner man is not the goal of our exposition, our preaching will seldom rise above the didactic. This is a cause for serious self-examination. Our messages tend to be too “lecture-like.” They have a term paper feel to them, but they are not nearly prophetic enough in character. They are “atomistic” in the sense that they are consistently precept oriented, but lacking in the ability to stick in the conscience and the affections.

We must develop a deeper awareness of the prophetic character of preaching.

A prophetic thrust to preaching begins in the prayer closet and in the study. Our tendency is to tackle our text with this goal in mind, “I’ve got to deal with this passage.” If our preaching is to be prophetic, we will have to ask the question, “How is this passage dealing with me?” “What on earth has this to do with me?”

Our goal is not just to reach our hearers, but the inner man of our hearers. The inner man cannot be reached unless the mind and conscience is jabbed. Have we allowed the biblical passage to deal with us; has it jabbed our own mind and conscience? We must have the text deal with us first before we can reach the inner man in our hearers.

We must preach with the intent of bringing God into the view of our hearers.

The inner man is transformed by beholding God (2 Cor 3:16-18). We are able to preach with the confidence that we have a new covenant ministry; the wall (veil) between our believing hearers and our message is gone. That is the assurance given in 2 Cor 3:12-4:6. It is a cause for great boldness in our preaching (3:12).

This passage in 2 Corinthians gives us an analysis of our believing hearers: their hardness of heart has been removed (3:16); they are beholding the glory of the Lord (3:18); they have seen the glory of God in the face of Christ(4:6); they are ready to have their consciences addressed (4:2).

Now that the veil is gone (3:16), we can devote ourselves to preaching a life toward God; a life of towardness to God.

Preaching to the outer man is common in contemporary Evangelicalism. But true preaching is not merely focusing upon what we have found in the Word and have mined from Scripture. True preaching brings the inner man to his senses and to his knees. It does so because it touches the conscience in a profound manner (4:2). In true preaching, God comes into the view of the hearer in a life-transforming manner (3:18).

What kind of preacher can preach to the inner man? It is but one man in a thousand who can preach this way. A portrait of this kind of man can be found in John Bunyan. He was grave, serious, earnest in habit, not flippant. His constant mindset was to begat, bring forth, and nurse.

 Bunyan matched the description given of the teaching Levite priest in Malachi 2:5-7. “My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him as an object of reverence; so he revered Me and stood in awe of My Name. True instruction was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found on his lips; he walked with Me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many back from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge, and men should seek instruction from his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.”

The man who is able to preach to the inner man must be in the habit of hearing in his own inner man. He must see himself as a “beggar” speaking to other beggars. We must experience birth pangs and growing pangs in our own life if we are to reach the inner man in other individuals.

There is a Great Need to Preach for Growth in the Inner Man.

The image of God in man is hopelessly defaced by sin; men are beyond human repair. Yet people tend to live as if the power of repair is under their control. The knowledge of God’s truth is preached in order to transform and repair. The righteousness of God is preached that men might know the sinfulness of sin and the righteousness of Christ. Christ’s righteousness was evinced in His love for God, by His fulfilling of the Law in the place of the sinner.

God alone gives the increase in spiritual growth that we are preaching to induce.

Our preaching cannot produce regeneration or sanctification apart from the Spirit’s work. We must maintain dependence upon God in our preaching for growth. We tend to regard growth as conformity to truth and principles – this is certainly true in part, but there is a dimension we tend to ignore. Growth is the new man asserting itself more and more by the power of the Spirit.

Great care is needed when handling the subjects of the law and sin. If growth is to be equated with more life, freedom and righteousness, then we must not communicate that growth is merely mastering a code (God’s law).

Our emphasis should not be upon keeping the creed or the law, but upon living the life in the Son. It is so easy to burden and to deaden. Christ said that His yoke was easy and His burden was light. The child of God by definition is not under sin and law as a dominating, controlling, condemning force. He has passed from death to life – he is free from the law of sin and death.

In order to preach for growth in the inner man, we must deal with our listeners in their being alive! We must not make the Christian life a burden. Avoid generating a sense of condemnation. We must steer clear of forever talking about duty, focusing on failure, intensifying a sense of grievous disobedience, and deepening a sense of condemnation. This doesn’t promote growth.

If we hammer duty too much it can be a symptom of imbalance in our own ministry. Are we trying to make up for our lack of preaching to unbelievers? Are we seeking to assuage our sense of evangelistic failure by muscling in on believers and imparting our sense of failure to them?

Great transparency before the throne of God is needed in the life and ministry of the preacher. Are we piling up precepts on our people? We must guard against “be good” sermons that leave the listener with the impression, “You have so many commissions to fulfill, so many duties to accomplish.” To preach in this manner is to make them far from grace – it is to place them back under law. It builds a wall to separate them from the fullness of Christ.

Our entire eligibility for God’s favor is Christ; we have the Savior’s blessed availability -- all by gracious donation. We must avoid grieving the hearts of the righteous. Sanctification is relational; it is living the life of toward-ness to God in Christ as His beloved possession.

When promoting growth in the inner man, we are to press down the die of truth on the understanding and the affections. There are particular truths that promote growth. Make much of the love of Christ. The truth concerning His love is a constraining truth that promotes likeness to Him and conformity to His commands. Our obedience is achievable by virtue of His energy. When we deepen these “indentations” by means of the die of truth, growth will result.

How easy it is to lose sight of the Lord Jesus Christ. Other things become central and He is marginalized in the process. Beloved, the Church thrives only when Christ has preeminence in all things.

Christian people are right and correct when they hunger to hear how perfectly suited Christ is for their every need (Heb 7:26, 27). Our preaching must hold Him before Christian people. Set Him before them as their “Source Person” and it will cause them to be like Him.

Our motivation for obedience is the love of Christ. Our framework is His law (Christ holds the law in His hands as a placated Mediator of the new covenant who rules His people by love). Our strength and energy for obedience is His Person.

Christ is to be preeminent and central in all of ministry. He is to have preeminence in everything. Don’t talk more about God than Christ (1 Cor 2:1-3).

The motivation for growth is the Gospel, not the Law. Use the Gospel to keep your people aware of what they owe, who they are, what they were, and where they are headed. The precepts and laws of God must be filtered through Christ and Him crucified. Are we consciously seeking to bring our listeners to delight to receive Christ’s love and law in their hearts? Our tendency as ministers is to make biblical commands stand alone from Christ’s finished work and present power. But, it is the experimental knowledge of Christ’s love that gives us the disposition to love one another, and to bear one another’s burdens. His love gives us the disposition to please. His precepts give us the specifics of how to please God; He directs our love by His precepts. (We need to view our living the Christian life in this way instead of merely adherence to a code.)

We must understand that our being “in Christ” is our strength. Our union with Christ is vital, living, and organic; it is not merely federal representation. Themind of Christ is available, the might of Christ is available – we don’t have to fulfill a single command by ourselves, in our own strength. We operate in the realm of grace full and free. We cannot barter for God’s infinite goodness in Christ, we cannot exchange anything for it; it is still for nothing, it is still all of grace (Rom 5:1, 2).

How do we press down these truths upon the minds and hearts of our hearers?This ministry of pressing down the die of truth has three “tones” or “strands” that function together. The Apostle Paul used them in conjunction (1 Thess 2:11).“Just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children.”

Exhorting: is to appeal by argument. It is not the same as laying down the law. It is face to face, side by side ministry as when the Apostle Paul acted as a spiritual father and mother. Laying down the law is not as effective, though it might seem so. By contrast, the exhorting pastor asks the question, “What will make people rise up, want to be more like Christ, and want to obey?” “What will make them more like Christ in attitude, word, and deed?”

Encouraging: is to comfort humans in their frailty. Distressed minds and hearts need to be consoled. So many are distressed within and without. They are living with turmoil of soul, with stress, fear, anxiety, and condemnation. Even under the Old Covenant, the Levitical priest exemplified compassion and empathy (Heb 5:2, 3). How much more do we, under the new covenant, need to show compassion and empathy – we must not send the message that we have arrived spiritually. We can be too hard. Our own infirmities are always with us. Let us not be too censorious, too overbearing, or too demanding.

Imploring: is to warn the indifferent; it is to withstand the rebellious face to face. It is to confront in specific areas where obedience is lacking. We implore in the context of a “spiritual family.” We are to implore our people to go to perfection. Yet, some are not of us. If individuals persevere in disobedience, that sin might bring them to a point of irrevocable apostasy.

Disobedient believers must be taught to submit to the Heavenly Father’s discipline. In some cases of protracted disobedience in a believer, that correction from God may claim the health and life of the individual that their spirit may be saved in the day of Christ Jesus.

In all three of these tones (exhorting, encouraging and imploring), God is the One who is ultimately speaking. He is the One who calls us to call His people into His glorious kingdom. We are called to communion with Christ. We are called up into the light, even at death.

Christ is the gift of all gifts. We need to inculcate more longing and more yearning to know Christ and to be like Christ in Immanuel’s land. In order to preach to the life of God in the soul, we must preach and speak in all three tones: in speaking truth, we exhort, in communicating compassion, we comfort, in exercising firmness we warn.

The Apostle Paul spoke in all three of these tones (1 Thess 2:11).  

There is a Great Need of Preaching for Conversion.

Of course it is only the believer that has an inner man. We will be preaching to many unregenerate men in our congregations. The decay of the outward man is a sad spectacle because in the unsaved man, it is the decay of all that is there. (By contrast, the Apostle Paul did not lose heart amidst the decay of his outer man because his inner man was being renewed day by day – 2 Cor 4:16.)

Preaching evangelically is a serious weakness in Reformed preaching. Not only should we be preaching to produce growth, we should be preaching to produce a birth (James 1:18).  

In the Gospel idea of preaching, one takes a “die” into his hand in order to form impressions. The impression is the divine image of the knowledge of God and true holiness. God made the soul. Our task is not to criticize it, reform it, or alter it. We are simply to take the die and press it down.

The preacher’s business is simply to take what he finds in the Scriptures and press it down on the heart, conscience, and understanding of men. The die is perfect to produce the impression God desires. We must press down this die as those who have had the selfsame die pressed on us in the sight of God (see Dabney, Theological Discussions, pp. 596-601).

There is a morphology in preaching to bring for the new birth. The planting of life (regeneration) takes place beforehand. We do not preach in order to regenerate. The dead sinner’s heart is not reached by our appeals, pleas, and reasons. We preach to bring out the babe that God has conceived. Our task is more of a midwife than a mother or a father (1 Cor 4:15).

We are to harmonize with, as much as possible, the effectual calling of God, so that a healthy birth takes place. What lines of truth are necessary so as to produce the inner man? What truths does God utilize to bring forth life? (James 1:18). (The issue here is the Gospel truths, not just selective texts.)

We must major on the truth of Christ’s cross and the significance of His death. This is our canon within the canon. For in the cross and the Gospel is the message of the love of God providing an escape from the enslaving, corrupting power of sin and from the condemning power of God (in the Law).

Our mission is to press down these truths upon the mind, affections, and conscience. This means we will have to deal with personal sin. We need to bring to bear on our listeners that they have to come to terms with God’s Law. They are dealing with the Holy One of the universe. They must come to term with God’s love. They will have to come to terms with what God has done for sinners.

In order to press down these truths, we will have to preach so as to produce the following:

· a proper recognition of sin (CONVICTION).

· a proper repudiation of sin (REPENTANCE).

· a proper reception of the Savior (FAITH).

To receive Christ’s person is to receive His righteousness in His life and in His vicarious death; it is to receive His perfect satisfaction on behalf of believing sinners. To preach the recognition and repudiation of sin is to exhort the sinner to recognize his personal sin and create an antipathy toward it.

The preacher faces two obstacles in his task to produce conviction: the nature of the sin, and the condition of the sinner. The nature of sin can be described as blinding, enslaving, and deceiving. The condition of the sinner is as follows: his inability lies in his corrupt nature, his inability is traceable to his darkened understanding, his inability lies in the corruption of his affections, and his inability resides in the total perversity of his will (Arthur Pink, Obstacles to Coming to Christ).

Sin lives, rules, and reigns in the sinner. Sin is beyond all human knowing. It is so deceitful one cannot know it comprehensively. It is impossible to run an objective analysis upon it. It is not superficial. It has literally captured the heart and made the sinner a willing hostage. “Dead in sin” can be defined as that which disables and blinds (see Lloyd Jones, Ephesians Commentary, Eph 4:17-19).

To get the sinner to identify his sin, and reject his sin goes against his whole nature. He is willing to die for his sin, he loves it. If he could plunge a knife into the heart of God in order to keep sin, he would do so.

Sin makes one daring to commit high crimes against heaven. It destroys the fear of God; it is presumption. It is spiritual insanity. It is suicidal in its course. The false prophet Balaam pursued the object of his lust with abandon and “madness” (2 Pet 2:15, 16).

Sin is deceitful because its father is a liar (Jn 8:44). Sin promises, but never delivers what it promises. We must show its deceitful character by unmasking its true colors. We are preaching to sinners who are blinded to what sin is and what it does to the sinner and to God.

We are to depend upon the Word and the Spirit in order to explain what sin is. The law is a standard, a yardstick expressed in specific commandments, each of which is “exceedingly broad” (Ps 119:96).

Romans 7:9 declares, “when the commandment came sin became alive.” That is the Spirit taking up the commandment and bringing it home to the mind, affections, and conscience. The Spirit makes a man realize the inward influence of sin (subjectively). The sinner has to be brought to that level. The Spirit will take it infinitely deeper than we can take it so that the sinner will know sin and feel death.

Prior to the Spirit’s conviction, the sinner thinks that he can ingratiate himself to God. He imagines he can obligate God with a little moral exertion. People need to die to their pride, their confidence, their hope. They need to die to everything but an ever-increasing comprehension of the nature of sin. As preachers we must deal with sin and death. We must make people aware of what wretched men they are.

Jesus called sinners, not the righteous. He alone is fit to handle our ruin. He is perfectly suited (Heb 7:25-28). He kept the Law, and bore its curse.

When we preach, we are to call for the obedience of faith. In saving faith there is a giving of oneself away to God; it is casting one’s entire welfare upon the Lord.

God justifies the ungodly. We are to call upon people to turn, to flee, to look past themselves upon Christ who lived, and died, and rose again.

So great a salvation, full and free, was at the behest of the Father. Command them to come, command them to repent. Assure them that they won’t be cast out. If they will but call, He hears, He will answer. Like the father of the prodigal son, He will run and meet him, He will kiss him and clothe him, and reinstate him.

As preachers, we have to plead. We’re better at commanding than pleading, better at assuring than pleading. If we do not plead, we are not proper ambassadors (2 Cor 5:20). There must be pleading and beseeching in Christ’s stead. He is speaking through us. Our listeners must know that God wants them saved and Satan doesn’t.

The ambassador maintains dignity, but descends to entreaty – he communicates God’s condescending grace. God is Savior. He goes before us to regenerate. He takes the poor soul from darkness to light, from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of His dear Son.

Once the spiritual infant is produced by God, the inner work will become visible (Jn 3:7, 8). There may be a difference of degree of vigor in the life principle imparted. It may be a whimper, or a cry, but in regeneration, new life is present (see Archibald Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Experience, p. 23).

Your view on God’s regenerating work will affect your ecclesiology. Do you lean toward a position of decisional regeneration in which man’s decision initiates regeneration? Then you may focus more on faith made visible in a decision.

Pastors operating from that perspective may assume a higher number of their parishioners to be saved. They will tend to not expect too much of everybody.

There is another view of the regenerating work of God. Do you regard the regenerating power of God to be of the same magnitude of might God exercised in the resurrection of Christ? (see Eph 1:19, 20). If that is your position, then you will correctly expect some degree of vital faith, life, light and love to be evident in each and everyone of those spiritually newborn. You will preach to that new life accordingly – as a newly conceived inner man whose life needs to be asserted by the Spirit’s power.

Preaching to Unsaved Church Members -- Part One

More than 200 years ago Welsh pastor Howell Harris described the spiritual state of the churches in Wales. His penetrating observations were poignant at time but unbeknown to him; his comments have also proven to be descriptive of the condition of American Protestant churches today. In essence, Harris provides a definition of easy believism:

Churches are filled with folks who have a détente with sin; they are at ease under its dominion. They won’t study the fruits of faith or make their election and calling sure; but turn the grace of God into licentiousness (Edward Morgan, The Life and Times of Howell Harris, Need of the Times Publishers, 1998 rp, p. 71).

In his works on the unconverted religious, Howell Harris dissects the heart of the false professor with surgical precision. Harris peals back the layers of formal religion to reveal a soul that is yet a stranger to the blood of Christ.

As 21^st century pastors, we have much to gain by immersing ourselves in the practical theology of our predecessors. These were men who never saw a light bulb or an automobile, yet they knew the hearts of men intimately; perhaps better than we do.

Out of desire to be faithful preachers of the Word at times in our preaching we are going to target unsaved churchgoers who attend services regularly. We might choose a text that addresses the cost of discipleship; or the lordship of Christ; or the meaning of true repentance.

Certainly the Spirit of God is infinitely capable of using these biblical subjects (or any Scripture passage for that matter) to bring saving light into the soul of the unregenerate. But it is noteworthy that the preachers of the Great Awakening era camped frequently upon one great theme; the perfect suitability of the Savior for the sinner’s ruin.

It is only the destitute sinner who falls at the feet of Christ. Only those who been smitten with the death wound of damnation flee to the Savior, only those stripped of all self righteousness cry to Christ for mercy. Only those whose enmity has been cast out by the blood of Christ enjoy experimental union with Christ.

Men of God of two centuries past saw the ‘religious’ unsaved as those who hadconverted to Christianity but not to Christ. Though outwardly moral and verbally orthodox, the false professor is without personal knowledge of Christ. This subject of being a stranger to Christ was the touchstone that permeated the messages of our predecessors when they addressed nominal Christianity.

Therefore it behooves us to know the defenses and machinations of soul that keep the door barred from faith and repentance. How can we preach over, under, and around the door if we do not know the reasons the false professor has so securely bolted the door against the Lamb of God?

Confronting self-righteousness

To begin with, we must know that the unsaved ‘religious’ man has yet to receive a death blow from the law of God. The law has never been manifested to him in its spirituality. In other words, he has never been thoroughly slain by the law. If he had been he would be dead to the law as a source of life and would understand that he must find spiritual life in Another (Gal 2:19).

As a consequence of being yet alive to the law, the idol of self is set up in the heart against Christ in His offices. The false professor feels that he is a good Christian BEFORE he is thoroughly condemned by the law. Only when the law slays him will he be made to feel his utter need of faith in order to lay hold of Christ’s imputed righteousness (ibid., p. 74).

The work of Christ opposes the false professor at every turn; for guilt can only be removed by law at work in Christ’s propitiation. The sinner’s guilt, which issues forth in legal death and condemnation, must be removed by law. Christ accomplished this removal of guilt through His atoning sacrifice. Propitiation is in keeping with God’s law; for under the government of God Christ willingly became officially guilty of the sins of the elect (2 Cor 5:21).

It was by the giving of Christ’s life that condemnation is removed from the believing sinner. By contrast, the unbelieving ‘religious’ man is still in a state of spiritual death (enmity). His efforts to offset his condemnation fall short of resting in Christ alone (Thomas Wilcox and Horatius Bonar, Christ is All, Chapel Library, p. 3).

Believing upon Christ savingly is above the power of the natural man. The whole religious bent of man is to bring duties, humblings, and self-reformation to God in order to gain divine acceptance. But the Gospel proclaims that the sinner must receive all from God’s hand.

Everything in the sinner’s pride is allied against sovereign grace. It’s not an exaggeration to say that nature abominates the merits of Christ. The sinner would rather do anything than be saved by Christ alone; be obligated to Him and owe all to Him (ibid., p. 21-22).

God’s grace is free, but its bestowal has conditions which are set by the Holy Spirit; the Spirit prepares the sinner for grace by means of conviction (Jn 16:13). The burden of sin and wrath on the conscience is a function of divine grace BECAUSE Christ’s merit is only known to the poor soul in deep distress. Small conviction of sin will yield only slight views of Christ’s blood and merits.

Christ is not like us – He is so willing to forgive. Our methods of measuring mercy and grace are faulty; not a speck of self-improvement is acceptable to heaven. God does not grant His grace on the basis of legal repenting (legal repenting seeks to gain divine acceptance by means of personal reformation).  Saving grace is not mixed with works (ibid., pp. 23-24).

Nature can’t stand being stripped of all righteousness. Nature would rather despair; would rather choose Judas’ noose than go to Christ on His terms. “Be merciful to me the sinner” is the hardest prayer in the world. To confess Christ from the heart is above the power of flesh and blood. So much profession of salvation today is merely an accommodation, a lowering of the market to what the flesh is capable of; namely a form of religion in which men have never parted with self-righteousness. As a result carnal professors are strangers to the blood of Christ (ibid., pp. 24-25).

There is a form of religion which only feeds Pharisaical spirituality. Nothing can kill self-righteousness but a real acquaintance with the Savior’s poverty, humiliation, and death. False professors have settled into self-righteousness, self-sufficiency, and whole-hearted ‘confidence’ in their profession; but they will not come to the manger and adore their God and be saved by His humiliation alone (Morgan, pp. 204-205).

A radical change of heart is needed – regeneration. There is a great danger in resting upon any superficial idea or impression of religion. Salvation cannot be obtained until we become one spirit with Christ; experience His resurrection and enjoy the benefits of His death by union with Him.

False professors are more naked, wretched, and poor than they can possibly imagine. They have never seen their own moral bankruptcy and spiritual ruin. They are responsible for hating the light (Jn 3:19-21). They seem ignorant of the fact that God only pities, forgives, and receives those who are poor in spirit, self-condemned, broken-hearted, and sincere (no man apart from the Spirit’s work canprepare himself in this way; it is the Spirit’s convicting work to harrow the heart until it is ‘mortally wounded’). 

No one ever came to liberty without feeling himself in bondage. No man ever believed without discovering through an evil heart of unbelief that believing is the hardest thing in the world. No one ever took up the cross in self-denial without perceiving hell, darkness, and wrath pursuing him until fleeing to Christ as his only refuge (ibid., pp. 257-258).

God’s way is radically different from the “auto-soterism” inherent in modern evangelistic methods. God comes down and confounds the language of Babel; He scatters every stick and stone and pile of mortar. He does not leave one stone upon another. He is a jealous God, and will have no partner in the way of salvation (J. C. Philpot, What is it that saves a soul?, Chapel Library, p. 13).

Joshua’s filthy garments must be taken away from him before he is clothed in clean raiment (Zech 3:4). Thus killing goes before making alive; beggary and thedunghill before the inheritance of the throne of glory; the grave of buried hopes and the dust of self-abhorrence before the exaltation to a seat among princes (1 Sam 2:6-8) (ibid.).

When the quickening power of God’s Spirit has passed upon a man’s conscience, he is invariably brought to see himself to be morally and spiritually bankrupt. This inward sight of self cuts him off sooner or later from legal hopes. In many cases the work may begin in a way scarcely perceptible – but be sure of this, that the Lord will “bring down the hearts” of all His people “with labor;” will convince them of their lost state before Him and cast them as ruined wretches into the dust of death – without hope, strength, wisdom, help, or righteousness, except that which is given to them, as a free gift of distinguishing grace.

And this work of grace in the conscience, pulling down of all man’s false refuges, stripping him of every lying hope, and thrusting him down into self-abasement and self-abhorrence, is indispensable to a true reception of Christ. No matter how informed his judgment is he will never receive Christ spiritually into his heart and affections, until he has been broken down by the hand of God in his soul to be a ruined wretch (J. C. Philpot, The Heavenly Birth and its Earthly Counterfeit,Chapel Library, p. 4).

Exposing Presumption

So many today in churches rest in their convictions but do not give evidence of the Spirit of God working in the will and the affections. No man marvels in God’s distinguishing love unless he has received a deadly wound; by that wound the Spirit enables him to see that he must be damned unless covered by Christ’s righteousness and unless Christ’s nature is wrought in him.

There is inestimable danger in resting in convictions without life, love, fellowship with God and Christ and growth in the knowledge of Christ and self (Morgan, p. 76).

There is a natural love, faith, and humility in souls deceived into thinking that they are born again. Their natures are only outwardly changed and outwardly enlightened. Self love still reigns. They are not convinced of the evil of secret sin. They have never perceived the deceitfulness of their natures; natures capable of putting on the appearance of grace, and complying with the outward form of religion.

It is possible to know Christ outwardly according to the flesh wherein there is a kind of love to Him, a kind of confidence in Him that is from natural and historical views of the Gospel (such as Balaam had). These persons looked on something they had done or felt and drew the conclusion they were saved.

This is the religion of most professors. They formed a faith in themselves without going to Christ as a perishing sinner! They have never looked to Christ as to thebrazen serpent; they never ran fleeing to Christ from the Avenger. Therefore they settled into a false confidence. But notice what is foreign to them. They do not experience daily combat, victory of faith, feeding on the flesh and blood of the Savior, the mysteries of the God-man, His obedience of humiliation, His infinite riches, the wonders of His sufferings – these things are not delight for them but speculation; not the soul’s food, but subjects of religious controversy (ibid., pp. 179-180).

J. C. Philpot’s riveting comments highlight the fact that salvation in Christ is an internal reality; where there is no experience of that reality, there is no salvation: As far as inward religion is concerned, a man must have salvation as an internal reality, as a known, enjoyed, tasted, felt and handled possession, or he will never enter the kingdom of heaven. He may be a Churchman or a Dissenter, Calvinist or Arminian, Baptist or Independent, anything or everything, and yet all his profession is no more towards this salvation than the cut of his clothes, the height of his stature, or the color of his complexion.

What is the everlasting love of a Triune God, unless that eternal love is shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit? What is the final perseverance of the saints, unless there is blessed enjoyment of it in the conscience as a personal reality? To see these things revealed in the Bible is nothing. To hear them preached by one of God’s ministers is nothing. To receive the truth of these things into our judgment and to yield to them in unwavering assent is nothing. Thousands have done all this who are blaspheming God in hell. But to have eternal election, personal redemption, imputed righteousness, unfailing love, and all the other blessed links of the golden chain let down into the soul from the throne of God; to have the beauty, glory and blessedness of salvation in all of its branches – past, present, and to come – revealed to the heart and sealed upon the conscience, this is all in all (J. C. Philpot, What is it that saves a soul?, p. 18).

Many speak of Christ who never came to Him as a lost sinner; their natural enmity has not been cast out. They are still “outer court” worshippers engaged in old covenant spirituality. Therefore we’re going to be preaching to many who aretares; folks who have yet to have their hearts melted by the sight of Christ in a manger in our nature. They have never beheld Him crowned with thorns, opening not His mouth because He bore our sin and shame. The false professor has a secret enmity against the preaching of God’s humiliation in the death of the Son of God (the theology of the “crucified God” does not ravish their souls).

They are false professors content with false peace. They have overlooked their own sins; they have not been brought to the cross and the blood by a sense of their sin in order to see them done away with by Christ’s punishment and blood. They have but a superficial knowledge that cannot see our sins laid upon the Savior. Therefore they cannot feed upon Christ and His cross and receive comfort there.

But where the new man is formed, the individual is not satisfied to hear of Him ; he must have Him as the Pearl of Great Price; he must have the Redeemer upon whom he rests all of his hopes (Morgan, p. 181-182).

Though professing faith in Christ; the unregenerate lies in a deep spiritual slumber of apathy. But spiritual complacency is foreign to the child of God. The child of God’s grace is hungry for experimental righteousness and until his Lord returns he will watch against the uprising of lusts and thoughts which war against God and the soul (Gary Hendrix, Professing Christians Warned, Chapel Library).

The flesh can never rise above hypocrisy. Even when dressed in the highest Calvinistic orthodoxy it can never rise above itself. There is no brokenness of heart, no contrition of spirit, no spiritual hope, no godly sorrow, no genuine humility, no living faith, and no heavenly love, “shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit.” No abasing views of self, no tender feelings of reverence towards God, no filial fear of His great name, no melting of the heart, no softening of spirit, no deadness to the world, no sweet communion with the Lord of life and glory, ever dwelt in their breasts (J. C. Philpot, The Heavenly Birth . . ., p. 8).

It was Bishop Ryle who said, I look at the world and see the greater part of it lying in wickedness. I look at professing Christians and see the vast majority having nothing of Christianity but the name. I turn and I hear the Spirit saying ‘Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.’ Surely this text ought to make us consider our ways and search our hearts. Surely it should raise within us solemn thoughts, and send us to prayer.

Unmasking decisional regeneration

The teaching of “Decisional Regeneration” departs from Scripture because it attributes to man the ability to regenerate himself. The practice of “Decisional Regeneration” in the Church must be exposed in order to save men from the damning delusion that because they have “decided,” they are going to heaven and are no longer under the wrath of God (James Adams, Decisional Regeneration, Chapel Library, p. 3).

“You must be born again” (Jn 3:7) is the great doctrine of man’s need for regeneration in order to enter the kingdom of God (i.e., miraculous new birth). But the modern born again movement denies the very point that John 3 intends to teach. Simply stated, the error is this – that men are born again as a result of something they do.

Whatever requirement is put on the sinner the impression is given that sinful man himself is the one who brings about regeneration. We can and must tell men to turn from their sins and believe the Gospel, but in doing so we should realize that when a man does repent and believe, it is the result of God’s prior regenerative working within him. If this were not the case, if man were actually capable of initiating his own salvation, then it would be impossible to escape the conclusion that men do not need regeneration at all, but possess in themselves an innate goodness which causes them to seek after God – but Scripture puts this to the lie (Rom 3:10-12) (Richard Ochs, Born-againism, Chapel Library).

The purity of the Gospel is of extreme importance because it alone is the power of God unto salvation, and the true basis of Christian unity. Charles Hodge points out the danger of teaching decisional regeneration: No more soul-destroying doctrine could well be devised than the doctrine that sinners can regenerate themselves, and repent and believe just when they please. . . As it is a truth both of Scripture and of experience that the un-renewed man can do nothing of himself to secure his salvation, it is essential that he should be brought to a practical conviction of that truth. When thus convicted, and not before, he seeks help from the only source whence it can be obtained”(Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Grand Rapids 1970, Vol. 2, p. 277).

Evangelistic methods employed in Evangelical Christianity have given rise to a policy of equating salvation with a profession of faith in Christ. The result is church roles filled with carnal professors whose daily lives are a contradiction of true piety (Gary Hendrix, Professing Christians Warned).

Among the multitudes of “decisions” that are made there are some genuine conversions. But with the passing of every week thousands are being counseled into false hope. When folks are counseled to pray a certain prayer and then pronounced “saved,” it commonly results in the deluding impression that the individual has been “regenerated” through a decision. Regeneration is reduced to a procedure which man performs. How differently did Jesus Christ deal with sinners. He did not speak with people with a stereotyped presentation; He dealt with every individual on a personal basis (James Adams, pp. 4-5).

False professors place their confidence in a “birth” that is of “the will of man” (Jn 1:13). Observes Philpot, man then it appears has a will to become religious; and taken up by ourselves, so the birth after the “will of man” shadows forth a religion put upon us by others. And to what does that great mass of the religion of the present day amount to? If we gauge it by the scriptural standard, if we look at it with a spiritual eye, if we examine it in its bearings God-ward, what must we say of the vast bulk of religion current in this professing day? Must we not say that it is according to “the will of man?” (Philpot, The Heavenly Birth, p. 8).

Looking unto Jesus is the vivified soul’s response to a crucified and risen Savior. Let us not forget that repentance is a consequent of faith in God’s free love to sinners; we are not saved FOR believing; faith is not a work. Do not make a savior out of your faith. We might well ask, “Is your hope of glory laid by the hand of Christ or by your own hand? Who began religion in you? (Wilcox, Christ is All,pp. 13-17).

Christ is only put on when our own covering is totally unraveled. No one really believes until he is an undone sinner – the hardest thing in the world is to take Christ alone for righteousness. To believe, one must have a clear view of conviction of sin, of the merits of Christ’s blood, and Christ’s willingness to save one merely as a sinner. All this is more difficult than to make a world; nature cannot attain to it.

The temptations of Satan center upon self-righteousness which keeps guilt and hardness of heart in place. A defiled conscience is only allayed by the blood of Christ. No one is truly heroic about facing his own depravity’s vileness UNLESS he totally trusts the merits of Christ’s blood (ibid., pp. 19-20).

It is Christ’s work to make you believe. Saving faith is a gift. Yet you are to mourn your unbelief; for unbelief sets up guilt of conscience above Christ and His merits. Unbelief fixates upon complaints against the self – whereas faith looks away from self to Christ (ibid.).

The Gospel doesn’t calculate how guilty you are compared to other sinners. All are shut up under sin (Gal 3:22). The assured foundation laid up for the believer in the Gospel is commonly misunderstood by professors of faith. The Gospel is NOT a scheme to make up for deficiencies; the Gospel is addressed to those who are far from righteousness. It is addressed to the poor, blind and naked. Christ came to call sinners to repentance.

The true Gospel offends the pride of the hearer by putting all on the level of society’s outcasts. The Gospel is not a bargain or transaction which God proposes on certain conditions of acceptance. The gift of eternal life is not proffered to those who are able to meet certain conditions. No, the Gospel is a message of reconciliation offered indiscriminately to mankind (James Haldane, The Revelation of God’s Righteousness, Chapel Library, pp. 23-24).

Because of satanic blindness to the Gospel of grace (2 Cor 4:3, 4), unregenerate man cannot comprehend the true basis of salvation, and is therefore ever prone to do the best he knows how. This is to attempt to work out his own standing before God by his own efforts. It is the natural tendency to do something of merit; whether standing in an evangelistic meeting, or raising a hand, or walking an aisle. He may be persuaded to do all of the above when he has no conception of standing by faith on the Rock of Jesus Christ. He may come forward in a church and abandon his natural timidity when he knows nothing of abandoning his satanic tendency to self-help, and resting by faith on that which Christ has done for him (Iain Murray, The Invitation System, Banner of Truth, pp. 22-23).

Only the Spirit’s convicting power can slay self-help. The leprous doctrine of free will is destroyed in the heart of one who has had any spiritual dealing with Christ; for Christ is the One who in the exercise of His sovereignty applies His merits to the sinner (He reveals the Father, Matt 11:27 -- He is ‘the Mediatior of a better covenant’ – Heb 8:6).

Christ is so infinitely holy that man’s fallen nature dare not look upon Him in absolute reliance and believing surrender. The divine nature must be put into the soul in order to look upon Christ so as to lay hold of Him. No man apprehends Christ savingly but the one whom the Father draws (Jn 6:44) (Wilcox, p. 26).

Christ shows us in John 6 that the doctrine of human inability and sovereign election are not void of practicality. The truth of God’s sovereign electing love is to be set before the born again so that God may have all the honor in our salvation. And God’s electing love must be set before the Pharisee so that he might be humbled; for the un-humbled sinner erroneously believes that he can move the Great God to save him because he does so and so (Morgan, p. 86).

Conclusion

Evangelical pastors freely acknowledge that to be saved is to be delivered from the terrible consequence of the Fall. But that a man must deeply know and feel it; that he must have his soul weighed down and burdened by it; that the conviction of guilt, wrath, and alarm must be wrought by a supernatural power into his experience; and that he must be ground down by the upper millstone of the law, and the lower millstone of a guilty conscience – these great and solemn truths are shunned, shirked and muffled by nearly all who profess to show the sinner the way to Zion.

But, “Exercise your Christian duties, attend to your family, follow obedience, trust the atonement, honor God in your giving, cultivate holiness” – these and similar exhortations are lavished in boundless profusion upon seeking sinners from thousands of modern pulpits. But the nature, the depths, the power, the feelings, the cutting convictions, the groaning cries, the tearful anguish, the gloomy prospects, the sinking despondency, the utter helplessness, the thick darkness, the wretched unbelief; in a word, all those inward transactions which are carried on in a seeking sinner are passed over by the letter-ministers of the day. These things are taken for granted, and are either totally omitted or slightly alluded to (Philpot, What is it that saves a soul?, p. 14).

Scotsman John Kennedy was a great evangelist. Spurgeon mourned his passing when he died in 1884 saying that his loss to the Highlands was greater than the loss of one hundred other men. Kennedy, by his shrewd insight, saw that the whole tendency of the new ‘invitation system’ of evangelism would alter the work of the evangelist. He writes regarding the new evangelism:

Faith is represented as something to be done, in order to salvation; and pains are taken to show that it is an easy thing. Better far than this would it be to see it, that those with whom they deal are truly convinced of sin, and labor to set forth Christ before them, in His glorious completeness as Savior. To explain faith to them, that they may do it, is to set them still to work. . . I know well the tendency there is, at an anxious inquiry, to ask, “What is faith, that I may do it?” It is a legalist’s work to satisfy that craving; but this is what is done in the inquiry room. . . Explanations of what faith is are but trifling with souls. How different is the Scripture way! The great aim there is to set forth the object, not to explain the act, faith. Let there be conviction, illumination, and renewal, and faith becomes the instinctive response of the quickened soul to the presentation by God of His Christ (Iain Murray, The Invitation System, pp. 29-30).

Preaching to Unsaved Church Members – Part Two

 Faith in the historical Jesus, or in “Christ the Son of the living God?”

In Matthew 16:17 the Lord told Peter that his response, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” did not find its source in flesh and blood but was the result of the Father’s revelation.

Peter had not arrived at his belief by mere reason: flesh and blood had not worked out the problem; there had been a revelation to him from the Father who is in heaven.  To know the Lord in mere doctrinal statement, no such divine teaching is required; but Peter’s full assurance of his Lord’s nature and mission was no theory in the head: the truth had been written on his heart by the heavenly Spirit. This is the only knowledge worth having as to the Person of our Lord (Charles H. Spurgeon, The Gospel of Matthew, Revell, p. 224).

The Apostle Paul’s own testimony of personal salvation also includes the revelation of Christ.  “But when it pleased Him, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, in order that I might preach His Gospel among the Gentiles. . .” (Gal 1:15-16a).

The outward and the physical would have never sufficed to convert Paul.  The Apostle’s testimony was in “His good pleasure He revealed His Son in me.”  It changed a man who was breathing murderous threats against Christ’s church into one who breathed doxologies whenever he reflected on God’s marvelous redeeming love to one so undeserving as himself. 

The immediate purpose if this separation and calling is here said to have been “to reveal His Son in me.”  To reveal is to remove the scales from the eyes of the heart.  Paul had been persecuting God’s only begotten Son.  God wanted Paul to see that the Jesus, whom in His disciples Paul had been persecuting, was indeed partaker of God’s very essence, Himself God (William Hendrickson, NTC, pp. 52-53).

Many today believe in the historical Jesus who are ignorant of the character of God.  The power of the Gospel is to give the knowledge of the glory of God (His true character) in the face of Christ (2 Cor 4:6).  Many trust in Christ precisely as the Jews did in Moses.  This is another gospel; an historic Jesus, not the glory of God in the face of Christ.  Those who hold to this gospel are strangers to the truth and are still in love with the world (James Haldane, Revelation of God’s Righteousness, Chapel Library, p. 27).

As a consequence of this reductionist gospel, many have devalued knowledge; as if we might become acquainted with God without having the heart affected by the truth.  No, the knowledge of God produces the radical change; the entire change of the sinner’s heart. 

The knowledge of God is maintained in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.  If God is our soul’s portion then our continued enjoyment of such is due to our minds being enlightened in the knowledge of Christ.  That knowledge is maintained by the Holy Spirit.  Oh how great is our dependence upon God; the Holy Spirit bringing home the truth of God to our minds.  Without His continued influence we would totally relapse to ignorance and alienation. 

We are not to conclude from our dependence upon the Spirit that we should be passive quietists – no, we are to strive and make use of the means of grace; but all the while we are to know that the Holy Spirit keeps us from the loss of our knowledge of God in Christ.  By means of the Spirit’s enablement we keep fixing our hopes for time and eternity on the incarnation, sufferings, death and resurrection of the Son of God who is our life.  The same gracious Holy Spirit who first revealed Christ in us will do so until the day of eternity – Phil 1:6 (ibid., pp. 28-29).

Nature may have a superficial knowledge and illumination of the Savior.  The natural man may be active and do something for Him.  But to love the cross, to suffer with Him, to follow Him through the streets of Jerusalem to Golgotha as He stoops dumb before His shearers so that your spirit feeds on His flesh and blood and humiliation is a work of God’s Spirit in you.  The natural man may have His emotions stirred by Christ’s passion, but only the true saint is acquainted with Christ in his spirit so as to feed upon his Substitute (Morgan, The Life and Times of Howell Harris, p. 239).

The most important question that could ever be asked is: Do you know in reality the living Christ?  Do you know Christ by personal revelation?  The question is not: Do you read the Bible?  Are you religious?  The question is: Have you ever seen yourself a lost, vile sinner before a holy God?  Have you ever been stripped of your self-righteousness and laid low in the dust of humility?  Have you ever viewed by faith the glorious Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, all because of a direct and personal revelation to you of God the Holy Spirit?  (W. F. Bell, Do you know Christ by personal revelation? -- Chapel Library).

If you only know Jesus by no more than the world knows, than the learned among men know, you have not the real blessing.  If you only know the Lord of Glory by what you have found out yourself, in reading or in talking to others, unaided by the Father’s drawing power, you are not blessed with true salvation. The true children of God have been made humble.  They confess their total dependence upon the grace and mercy of Christ, and place their entire confidence and faith in His meritorious righteousness and shed blood (ibid.).

Is Christ your Surety, your Substitute, your Sacrifice, and your Savior?  Do you believe in Jesus by an inward discernment of Him? Do you clearly see Him as the Son of man and the Son of God?  Do you see Him as your propitiation before God?  If you know Him in this way, it has not been learned from the instruction of men; you have had a direct revelation made to you by the Father concerning who Jesus Christ really is (Gal 1:16) (ibid.).

The saved have had their eyes enlightened to understand the full and complete satisfaction made by the Son of God; that He has satisfied divine justice for all who believe.  They are enabled to apply this to their own hearts.  They have the testimony of the blood and the washing of the Holy Spirit (Morgan, p. 78).

The true saint never ceases to marvel that God has made an infinite difference between us and our fellow creatures by causing us to behold (by revelation) Christ’s death, humiliation, passion (ibid.).

The Church's Greatest Need from the Book of Revelation

The last nine epistles of the Scripture have a different tenor than the rest of the N.T. In these final epistles are found the majority of warnings in the N.T. The warnings are not the same as those in the Law of Moses. The law threatened stoning, excommunication, the curse, being cut off from God. N.T. warnings in this dispensation of grace are actually MORE SERIOUS. You may ask what could be worse than stoning to death as an outcast from God’s covenant people, to be left as a curse, a proverb, a byword?

The answer is found in the gospel warnings of Hebrews. Gospel warnings are divine cautions that are intended to show the seriousness of neglecting the remedy that is in Christ Jesus. When the remedy is neglected, there remains no more sacrifice for sin. This is a most fearful thing because the Scriptures indicate that those who broke the Mosaic Law with impunity died without mercy and, “How much more severe?” is the punishment of those who trample the blood of Christ underfoot (Heb 10:26-31).

Death by stoning evokes a hideous image of a mangled visage. What must await those who reject the truth of Christ after receiving it? No defense in the universe, not a drop of mercy, not a whisper of compassion in the conscience. Instead the conscience will take its revenge by God’s approval. The hiding place rejected, the remedy refused.

The book of Revelation is about the day of the Lord and the great distinction between the lost and the saved. It is about heaven and hell.

The last nine epistles also deal with the theme of the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord is the “eviction” and destruction of the cumberers of the earth. The earth has been made to wobble because of the heaviness of their iniquity upon it (Is. 24). When the day of the Lord arrives, God will remove all stumbling blocks. The last nine epistles anticipate the coming apostasy.

When the day of the Lord arrives, it will sweep away the refuge of lies (Is 28:16-19) – every false hiding place will be exposed and flushed out. The day of the Lord is an eviction process. “No place was found for them” (Rev 20:11ff).

What terrible words, the creation itself disowns its ungodly inhabitants. The day of the Lord exposes the myth of ownership. It reveals that the human race is owned by God and that every person is but a tenant and a sojourner. The body you thought was yours will be “turned in.” The possessions you thought were yours will burn. The body’s tenancy will be revealed on the last day. Tenancy on the planet, tenancy in your dwellings, tenancy in your bodies – God will reclaim what is His by creation and rule (1 Chron 29:14-16; Ps 90).

Then when the disembodied dust and ashes stand on nothing before the uncreated, self-existent One there will be terror – “how dread are thine eternal years.” The nations will mourn when they see they sign of the Son of Man in the heavens, every tribe. They will seek annihilation rather than face the wrath of the Lamb (Rev 1:7, 8; 6:16, 17).

There is no greater contrast than in the destinies of the righteous and the wicked. There can be no greater discrimination than the state of those in heaven and those in hell. The righteous will shine like the stars, they will go from dust to glory (Dan 12:3). But the cowardly and the unbelieving will go from dust to dung in terms of dishonor. Dust does not offend, but refuse calls for burial, concealment. The moral stench of the wicked is their filth, corruption and eternal shame (Mal 2:3; Ez 32:24-32; Rev 21:8; 22:15). Oh but by the grace of God go we! It is Christ’s mercy alone that takes us from dust to glory (that replaces the Adamic mark of original corruption with the holy mark of God’s perfect image in Christ – Rom 8:29).

The birth pangs that precede the day of the Lord will increase in frequency and violence (Mt 24). The kingdom of God will come with unimaginable terror and tribulation (Zech 14). Christ’s kingdom will grind to powder every human institution and authority (Dan 2:42-45). Unspeakable trauma is coming (Heb 112:25-29). For the nations of the world manifest the attitude of Psalm 2, they will not lay down their weapons peaceably. They will not own the King of Kings as their glorious sovereign.

On the last day, the enemies of man’s soul will take their spoils: the world, the flesh, the devil, sin, death, hell, the condemnation of God’s law. These shall be as wedges of steel that shall cleave what remains of the soul’s unity. The faculties put in the soul by God will increasingly fragment to the eternal agony of the individual. Intellect, will, emotions, conscience and affections will all be at odds – beating the person to bits by the just permission of God. Man shall discover that the flagellants that lash him forever reside within his own soul (Mark 9:42-48).

Now contrast this to our completeness in Christ. Contrast this tiny chard of perdition to the peace and joy in the Holy Spirit that shall bubble over forever. Contrast it to the ravishment of soul that shall take place when you behold God looking out at you with eyes of flesh and with the marks of your atonement upon His body. Contrast it to the reality of being a partaker of His holiness so that you will be able to gaze without downcast eyes like the mighty cherubim. Contrast it to the sublimity of soul that you will experience when Christ’s love shall possess every fiber of your being so that your soul is ordered and organized around the alpha and the omega – the Son of God who is in you, and you in Him (Col 1:27; Eph 3:19).

And why are these infinite, eternal blessings yours? Because Christ entered the cog-works of God’s justice to be crushed for your sakes. The ineffable turning wheels of God’s justice and wrath, like mountains of iron and granite, fell upon Him so that His life-blood was pressed from His pores and His wounds. You and I had sowed a life of thorns. We deserved to reap a harvest of thorns – we merited an eternal (burning) bed of thorns and fire. Had not the Son of Man reaped our harvest, we would not have been able to escape God’s justice against us for our iniquity.

But Christ reaped our harvest that we might reap His. He sowed righteousness, love and peace – we reap His harvest of glory. Oh unfathomable exchange, that the Lord of glory should trade places with us! (2 Cor 5:21).

Now consider Christian, that Christ is the Physician of the soul. He is infinitely capable of attending the self-inflicted wounds you bear due to your sin. Christ is the Physician of hearts perforated, hearts divided, hearts that are double-minded and unstable. He is able to strengthen hearts weakened by neglect, hearts diseased by idolatry. He is the Great Physician of the sin disease.

His cures and treatments are effectual, but when we refuse them, the medicine He chooses may be very bitter. For when we do not esteem His new covenant love, and we stray from His side as a casual disciple, He brings out His rod of discipline. He restrains us and subdues us – through His mighty providence, He puts upon His beloved the bit and bridle of Psalm 32 in order to keep us in check that we might learn obedience from the heart.

It does not cross our minds enough that His faithful correction is working for our eternal happiness and bliss. For holiness is happiness – God’s way of making His people infinitely happy forever is to make them like Himself in holiness. So it is that Christ by His correction of us steadies our palsied hands that we might not spill the precious wine of the new covenant. In our many furtive glances at the world, we forget the preciousness of what is in our cup by grace. We become reckless with the wine. We forget the olive press of Gethsemene, where Christ was wracked with torment over the conflicting forces that assaulted Him. He knew that His passion demanded He be weak enough to be a victim in the face of His evil tormentors, but also that He be strong enough to bear the wrath and curse. He must bear it long enough to exhaust the justice of God against our sin. His weak human nature needed to be strengthened that He might be slain as a Substitute – but the success of His vicarious work depended upon Him NOT giving up His Spirit before He had drained the cup His Father had given Him to drink. His Gethsemene was about His passion, about laying His life down and bearing up under the torment – not releasing His Spirit until the curse against Him was spent.

Now what is our Gethsemene by comparison. We sweat drops of pride over our love of self and the world. We wrestle with our own wayward hearts that are too willing to entertain other lovers. But God is in all our trials – momentary light affliction is working for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.

Our afflictions take us off of our double-mindedness, they make us declare our loyalties. They contribute to our training as overcomers. They consolidate our hope – hope that we spread over legitimate and illegitimate supports (Heb 12:10, 11).

Those who are overcomers are animated by eschatological hope. Corporate eschatological hope is inseparable from corporate love to Christ. “First works love” is an expression of eschatological hope, because hope is a key revealer of the affections.

(2 Cor. 5:9 – ambition to please the Lord is a function of longing to be with Him. 1 Pet. 1:13 – fix your hope completely on grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ, this is living by eschatological hope, Gal. 5:5.)

There is a tension between eschatological hope and present tyranny of the urgent.The tension is expressed by Paul as a “scale” or a computation sheet – he daily weighs eschatological hope against present gain and concerns (Phil. 3:17-21). (To not “love one’s life unto death” is to not love one’s life in this world. Revelation martyrs overcame by the blood of the Lamb – by a hope that was willing to hang onto nothing temporal – Rev 12:11.)

Eschatological hope orients us toward our true treasure. PRINCIPLE – the heart follows its true treasure with the enthusiasm of a puppy dog (eschatological hope is imbued with “eagerness,” Romans 8:23,25; Jude 20,21).

Eschatological hope is joined to our labor (2 Thess. 2:16,17; 1 Cor. 3). Hope is joined to our labor and work ethic. Orthodoxy without a fervent hope is not adequate insurance against compartmentalization (outward order and religious labor with internal truant affections).

Fiery trials have the effect of an “investment broker” who reinvests and consolidates your holdings in a superior account. Trials make us choose the eternal value system over and over again. Under the Lord’s providential guidance, the trial places our holdings into the account of heaven where its value is protected from wavering and failure (see 1 Pet. 1:4). Thus, trials wean us from temporal hope by fastening our affection more firmly on eternal hope.

The redeemed have a consuming sentiment for God’s glory. They desire that the outshining of His majesty and the knowledge of Him fill the universe (Rev. 7:12).They magnify God with endless thanksgiving because they themselves are not detached spectators of His majesty, but partakers of His majesty in the sense that the exercise of that majesty is the ground of their glorified existence. They are the OBJECTS of God’s wisdom, power, love, holiness -- these attributes have acted upon them in their salvation (2 Pet. 1:1-4). These attributes have determined their destiny. Christ has conducted the infinite riches of the Godhead into time-space history that the elect may be conformed to the image of God’s Son (and “gain the glory of Christ,” 2 Thess. 2:14).

Only when Christ is our “first love” are we safely building upon Him as our foundation (1 Cor. 3). What is it about us that makes us rather work than worship, preach than pray, achieve than adore, conquer than commune. Our natures would rather see how far we can carry the ark than take two steps, sacrifice and worship. We all carry a propensity for merit mongering that secretly (or openly) wants a part in our eligibility for divine favor.

The LAST thing we would admit in our zeal for the truth is that we have elements in that zeal that compete with the sufficiency of Christ and His honor. (Our esteem for the Lord is inversely proportional to our esteem for our own doings.)

This is not an appeal to quietism, but a desire to take the rebuke of our Lord in Rev. 2:4,5 with utter seriousness. We need to be ruthlessly honest about the fact that our passion for precision in orthodoxy is not immune from corporate pride. Zeal for doctrinal accuracy and confessional unity, for all its heat and light, may not succeed in loving Christ supremely.

Such is the “law of worship” that if Christ is not loved supremely, orthodox ministry can become an unchallenged forum (or form of) for self-adulation.

Perfectionism in all its forms, including the orthodox formalism of Ephesus, involves a looking away from Christ and looking unto religious endeavor. The church of Ephesus had temporarily lost its ability to focus upon Christ. It had begun to arrogate to itself a degree of credit for its works. (There is nothing more natural to the flesh than to burn incense to our accomplishments and erect a monument to our works.)

Our lower nature is at war with grace. It has a lust for law that craves making a contribution to our favor and acceptance before God. It ever seeks to make a scorecard of its achievements. In that sense, it works against the knowledge of Christ’s sufficiency. There is the frequent danger of building so as to have the stones we lay stray off of the foundation of Christ (1 Cor 3:10, 11).

When we do not love Christ supremely, and then attempt to serve Him, we have the internal posture of heart that Peter did when he uttered, “Never shall you wash my feet!” Peter had boasted that he would serve the Lord more loyalty, more courage, less care for his own safety than any of the other disciples – certainly a noble goal. But within Peter, like us, is an inclination for establishing and proving our value and lovability to the Lord. Not that our desire to serve does not flow from gratitude, it does. But there is an inner resistance to the notion that Christ came to serve and not to be served (Jn 13:8).

We say wholeheartedly, “Yes Lord we love you because you served us by laying down your life for us. By that service unto death you have made us yours forever, now we want to say ‘thank you’ by serving you.” Christ’s death made us His servants.

It is possible to approach our serving without a spirit of utter dependence. (The disciples argument over who was the greatest as well as Peter’s boast of fearless loyalty stemmed from a dependence upon self in serving.) The saints must be brought to see that they are as dependent upon the Lord now as they were the day of their new birth.

Repenting of leaving Christ as first love (Rev. 2:5) involves doing the first deeds. Those deeds were characterized by the overflowing gratitude that accompanied their new betrothal to Christ.

Our flesh has secretive machinations that seek to manage its own dereliction through religion. Like Peter, the pendulum swings back and forth from pride to despair (Matt 26:75). At one moment, he vaunts his superiority over the other disciples (Matt 26:33-35). He seems to have forgotten the view he had of himself when the Lord called him, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8). (When his eyes were upon his Savior, he was mighty for the Lord. When he looked away, he sank beneath the waves of Galilee or he stumbled over Galatian legalism (Gal 2:11-14).

Perfectionism in all its forms strays from utter dependency upon Christ. Perfectionism maintains an uninformed optimism that the flesh is perfectible through religious exertion. These are subtle workings, for the flesh can have as its perfecting object such noble things as doctrinal precision, confessional purity or a creedal legacy, etc.

What perfectionism does is unconsciously look away from Christ (as in the imperceptible drift of Hebrews 2). Perfectionism always entertains an optimism that some virtues will be found in us that will commend us to God. Peter hoped that his claim to fearless loyalty would commend him above his brethren. Orthodox formalists hope that their zeal for doctrine will commend them above their less precise (and perhaps less productive) brothers.

Perfectionism takes spiritual pride in personal adequacy. It refuses to accept that Adam’s wound in Eden was mortal (today toy stores are filled with super-human action figures – little “plastic Nimrods” that can subdue the earth and their enemies with a “pumped up” arm of flesh). Do our achievements in doctrine make us adequate? OR do we daily say along with the Apostle Paul that we do not have personal adequacy and regard no good thing as coming from ourselves.

Is it too humbling to see ourselves as charity cases, in need of Jesus washing our feet each day – our completeness is in Him (Col 2:6-10).

Perfectionism seeks to outgrow utter dependency upon Christ (and Him serving us). Jesus is still washing our feet so to speak by His union with us in His Person and work. Our utter dependence makes us uncomfortable – we wish to work our way out of the arrangement that we are so beholden to Him (as a charity case) everyday.

A fall from grace is the unconscious goal of perfectionism – the use of religious instruments to perfect the flesh is a slur upon the sufficiency of Christ (Gal. 3:1-4; 5:4). If we began by the Spirit, we must continue by the Spirit (the Spirit always lifts up Christ and points to the blood).

The preponderance of perfectionism in the church reveals a radical inadequacy in our anthropology. We’ve not adequately considered how pervasive an effect our depravity has upon our search for security and identity (ontological issues of personhood, lovability, significance etc.).

We’ve failed to take the Galatian error as a warning about our own lower natures. The Galatian error reveals just how driven human nature is to take charge of managing its own dereliction (depravity, brokenness and ruin).

The church’s failure here reveals a naïve spirit that winks at how the Christian religion can be used to manage dereliction. The truth is that the flesh is always searching for fig leaf score cards.

Evangelicalism is the most covert in concealing the manner in which the flesh manages its own dereliction. The scorecard is nearly “invisible” in evangelicalism because the areas of “credit” are so noble (note the list of the Ephesian Church’s accomplishments). Christ, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, sees fig leaf score cards and the perfectionistic approach to the Christian life.

Christ is scraping down His servants, so to speak, to ontological “bedrock.” He’s protecting them from biblical eloquence without Christ as first love. That is a mercy, because service without supreme love always degrades into perfectionism. He’s “dynamiting” them off of their fleshly foundations and resetting them upon Christ alone, not on the works of their hands or upon their talents and gifts. Ephesus rested upon a pseudo-foundation of orthodox accuracy and works of ministry. There is a battle front in this lesson of ontology, the issue is that Christ’s man must be solely grounded upon Christ’s covenant and His dimensionless love – not personal performance. Inner resistance to this dependency is the same resistance our flesh has to being utter beholden to Christ for breath as well as standing. Our communing with Him must have the interface of our comprehensive sinnership.

Are there any places where we are not broken by sin? NO – therefore our dependency upon Christ ought to be coextensive with our sinnership. The bulk of our angst and anxiety in ministry is based upon the misinformed notion that God is waiting to mix His power with ours. Such is not the case. We are slow to learn this. Christ’s sensitive servants are frequently pulled into the same whirlpool of self doubt – “am I holy enough, this enough, that enough?” “Have fulfilled all of the exponents necessary for spiritual use and power?” Our problem is that we pour over ministry absolutes instead of making knowing Him our primary objective. In Acts it says of the rulers and elders of the people, that they began to recognize the disciples as having been with Jesus. Should there be a different standard of usefulness, power and confidence for us? Unless knowing Him is my priority, other “dung-refuse” goals will fill my frontal vision – Phil 3. The battle is actually flesh versus Spirit. To press on to know Him is to be radically identified with Him and the power of His resurrection. It is to be willing to suffer the loss of all things that used to be gain -- that is the price of knowing Him. Idolatry of self keeps us from esteeming the prize Paul spoke of in Philippians 3. Only by a proper esteem of the prize can I answer the upward call.

The Ephesian error is ubiquitous in the church today. Evangelicalism’s corporate pride is evidenced in its preference for ministry over abiding in Christ. There’s a greater devotion to ministry, than to the Lord.

By contrast, Paul’s ontological stress was, “To know Him, to suffer the loss of all things, to answer the upward call, to exalt Christ in his members.”

When we assume that Christ’s love and presence are not available, and that the church is not His present habitation, then religious activity will replace living, vital communing with Him. There will be an accompanying waning of desire to know Him in the new covenant (2 Cor 3:16-18) – less of a desire to delight in God, more of a tendency to take satisfaction in the fact that we have “done church and done it well.”

To be truth-oriented as a church is not a guarantee that we will not be wed in our affections to things below. Orthodox formalism reveals how devastating it is to have moved away from Christ as first love. Eschatological hope was a missing factor -- hope fixes the heart on the object that fills it with eager expectation. Truth without hope can catapult into formalism. (Note the example of Princeton Seminary’s historic slide into apostasy, see also examples of decline from the Boice-Ryken book, The Doctrines of Grace.)

Revelation joins OVERCOMING to eschatological hope (which is also joined to sanctification, see also 1 John 3:2). The Bride who has no consuming thoughts about the honeymoon (marriage supper) has left her first love in her affections.

Can the true church have only apathy instead of eager anticipation for the nuptial chamber? If that anticipation is absent, what does it say about her? If she busy serving and working for her Husband without a compelling heart longing for Him? That situation better describes an executive secretary than a bride to be.

The church’s retrograde slide into formalism means that its affections are secretly somewhere else (with the world and the flesh). Oh this is covert, for there is no apparent interruption in the church’s fidelity to the truth, BUT, there has been a radical interruption in constantly fixing the mind upon things above. The ravishment of heart at the thought of resting on Christ’s bosom has all but evaporated.

Christ is the revelation of God – the more we know about our triune God, the more we will hold fast to Christ. For Christ exegetes God! (Jn 1:18). God is known by a deeper knowledge of Christ our Mediatorial King, our City of Refuge, our Paradise, our Life.

Outside of clinging and fleeing to Him, the world’s lusts deceive, its idols woo our admiring glances. Do we forget, God’s wrath burns because of the world’s idolatry. Sinners will justly reap the consequences of their sins.

The church is to return to her first love – contenting herself in His love, consenting to be loved by Him – only then will the wine of heaven flow through us to others.

God’s will is communion with the Son – all of our working must be subordinate to that goal.

In the book of Revelation, the Apostle John is functioning as a prophet of God – he is calling the church back to pure, simple devotion to the Lord. This is marital fidelity to God (2 Cor 11:3). The prophets of God are the watchmen on the wall who identify the ways that the world has crept in unnoticed. The prophet has a super-human task, for he must expose the ways that the world has legitimized its adulterous existence to the people of God. The world offers itself for status, security, significance, source, power and satisfaction. The world always seeks to supplant Christ as Source. The evil one is always attempting through his solicitations to cause the church to commit spiritual adultery. Though God has deeded to us all we need through the new covenant in Christ’s blood, the world competes for our time, talent and affection.

This is precisely why the doctrines of grace must be kept before the people of God. Believers must continually apprehend by faith the heart of God toward them. They must be able to recline upon Him as their refuge and Source. They must be able to learn how habitually to rest upon the Father’s perfect satisfaction and delight in our Suffering Substitute. This is the only basis for our working, worshipping, seeking, piety and delighting. Our faith must be able to see past our depravity to His kind intentions toward us the covenant. We must behold the Son as our sole source of unlimited access to God (Eph 3:11, 12).

In Christ, God has joined His glory to our highest good, therefore, the kindest thing you can do for your soul is love God. Keep Him supreme in your affections – love, honor and obey Him as in the marriage vow.

Rejoicing is our duty, it keeps us navigating toward the celestial city. Rejoicing keeps our affections united, rejoicing keeps our hope strong and it fixes our minds upon the disposition and posture of God’s heart towards us. It prepares us for spontaneous worship, it glorifies God (Who is most honored when He is most enjoyed. The joy of the Lord is your strength. Joy strengthens the heart to trust more and more – it prevents double-mindedness and discontent. Have you accepted the assignment, “Enjoy God every day.” That enjoyment of God is only possible while under affliction IF the heart is feeding upon the doctrines of the grace of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Are you stuck in affliction and trial and darkness? Pray, praise, preach worship and rejoice your way out. What Jesus says to Laodicea, He says to His church universal, sup with Me, commune with Me, meet with Me for intimate fellowship – understand that you were created anew for fellowship with Me.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

1.) Hope is a Person (Titus 2:13).

2.) God’s dream – that He be our eternal dwelling place and that we be His eternal dwelling place. God’s dream is reciprocal dwelling (see Rev. 21:1-7; Eph. 2:18-22).

3.) The rewards are relational – see the heavenly promises to overcomers in Rev. 2-3.

4.) Your greeting when you see the Lord “is your reward” (see 1 John 2:28; 2 Thess 1:10; Heb. 10:35-39; 2 Pet 1:11).

5.) The more God is seen as your portion, the greater will be your hope in Him (see Phil. 3:8-11 and Lam. 3:24).

SUMMARY – Rev. 2:1-4 - Precision in orthodoxy is not a guarantee that the heart is not attached to things below. When the church descends into formalism, it is a most subtle declension because there is no apparent interruption in fidelity to the truth. But the declension reveals that truth has become separated from the Person of Christ. What is absent is the constant fixing of our minds upon things above so as to have our affections anchored to them. Otherwise, we will be subject to compartmentalization, intellectual pride and cooled affections.

Rev. 2:5-7ff. – Eschatological hope is inseparable from love to Christ. Hope is a barometer of the affections – the heart inevitably follows its affections (Matt 6:21). Revelation joins overcoming to eschatological hope. The bride with no consuming thoughts of the joys of the honeymoon has left her first love. Christ gives content to our eschatological hope – He inflames and enlivens it – He gives the descriptions of heaven here. Overcomers are animated by this hope. If we are not beholding Christ, it is a matter of course that our affections like water will flow to the lowest paths of physical sense – they will settle onto things below.

Declension in true religion is when the discipline of grace is neglected. It is when the soul becomes contented in the world and apathetic about gathering the heavenly manna each morning. When the discipline of grace is neglected, religion becomes cold and formal. Simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ, (a devotion like an betrothed bride), becomes replaced and substituted with the duties of religion performed with outward efficiency (2 Cor 11:3). However noble these duties manifested by the Ephesus church (doctrinal purity, zeal for accuracy, ability to resist heretics), without Christ as first love, formalism allows the heart to stray further from the living God (Is 29:13).

The Cross, The Conscience, and Family Dynamics

“Sin makes cowards of us all” (Paul Zahl, Who Will Deliver Us?).

The human condition is such that the law of God continually judges us and finds us wanting. Not one of us can say that we have loved God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength for even an hour.

According to the book of Romans, the judgment of the law is internalized in the conscience (Rom 2). The law operates in the conscience as a principle of self-condemnation. The law judges us wanting if we are not found capable of perfect obedience.

According to Scripture, our response to this condemnation of conscience is fear of punishment – “fear has to do with punishment” (1 Jn 4:18). We will do almost anything to ward off threats of condemnation – we will go to great lengths to defend against judgment.

Because our consciences carry a deep sense of moral failure against God’s law, much energy is exerted in seeking to avoid any additional condemnation.

In his book on the present power of the cross, Paul Zahl explains to what degree our lives are involved in attempts to steer clear of judgment. (He asks his readers to recall some humiliating event from their childhood. The emotional pain from it has etched it into the memory -- we want to avoid further exposure to humiliation at all cost.)

Due to our depravity, human nature cannot adequately meet judgment. According to the Bible, it is impossible work our way out of condemnation. The harder we try to live up to the law, the worse we feel about our failure (Paul Zahl, Who Will Deliver Us?, p. 38).

Our greatest need is personal atonement for guilt. Zahl notes that much of our working and striving involves an attempt to offset or “atone” for our failure. Like an accounting spread sheet, we try to pencil into our consciences more credits than debits!

The law makes its overtures to us as we attempt to minister to our fear of judgment. The law beckons us to return to the legal principle of justification by works – “I am what I do.” We become stuck in patterns of performance. Self-righteousness begins contaminating our works.

Our carnal efforts to carry our own worth and relieve our own consciences always fail. The verdict of conscience can only be brought into line with the verdict of heaven (justification) by fresh acts of faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace, p. 53).

The flesh has strategies to avoid judgment.

The biblical prototype of all subsequent attempts to escape judgment is Adam’s flight from God in Eden: “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; so I hid myself” (Gen 3:10). The effort to ward off judgment is expressed in the form of strategies that fall under three heads:

The first strategy involves the effort to escape condemnation by ESCAPE (or splitting off from reality). Absenting our inner self does not completely quiet the voice of condemnation. Our attempts to “turn off” the conscience by a denial of judgment ultimately fail. (We can recall the attempts of a number of biblical characters who used this strategy: Pilate in Mt 27:24; Nabal in 1 Sam 25:36-38; or Felix in Acts 24:25.)

A second strategy that is used to ward off the threat of judgment is OPEN RESISTANCE. This involves an attempt to take on the judgment “head on” with a defense or even with defiance. (Biblical figures who employed open resistance or were defiant in the face of judgment were: Pharoah in Ex 5:2; Job in Jb 23:1-7; Zedekiah in Jer 36:23-25; the Jewish refugees under Jeremiah in Jer 44:15-18.)

A third strategy used to ward off judgment is APPEASEMENT. Of the three, this strategy is dealt with in the greatest detail in Scripture. Saul of Tarsus sought to win God’s favor by law-keeping. Saul sought to appease God and win His friendship by successfully adhering to the law (Phil 3:4-6; Gal 1:14).

The APPEASEMENT strategy recognizes the superior force of the judgment that is faced. It is aware of personal vulnerability. “This strategy attempts to negotiate for peace with the hostile powers of condemnation, hoping for the best” (Zahl,Who Will Deliver Us? p. 22).

Appeasement tragically fails to eliminate the threat of judgment.

The tragic flaw of the appeasement strategy is the resentment that accompanies it. One may use words to negotiate for peace, but the inner man resents the arrangement. In this case, the one using appeasement feels he has too much to lose by standing up to the opposing force and defending himself (Zahl, p. 22).

Each time the appeaser compromises, he becomes more furious on the inside (thus resentment is bred).

Appeasement is an attempt to take upon oneself the burden of another’s judgment and thereby disarm it. “It means accepting the judgment as correct and bowing to it in the hope of withstanding it. It is undertaken as a means of making friends with it. Unfortunately, this never happens. As soon as we bow to a human being or institution in judgment over us, we are in their power. We will never be good enough to satisfy them” (Zahl, p. 22).

Zahl observes that appeasement is degrading because we know that it is only a temporary measure – it forestalls, but does not eliminate the reckoning we fear. “Appeasement will always feel compulsory; it is always accompanied by anger. We can open negotiations, but it is never enough, the judge will not be satisfied by anything we do” (Zahl, p. 24).

Control of others by guilt, (or by their fear of judgment), involves an attempt to bind the conscience. The opponents of the Apostle Paul sought to bring the Galatians into bondage by means of the conscience. The Judaizers wanted to bind the consciences of the believers in Galatia. The Jewish false teachers were seeking control over others. They made a solicitation to the Galatians that involved accepting a certain criterion for “conscience management.” But Paul admonishes his readers to stay free! “Do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal 5:1).

Stephen Olford notes that legalists are not interested in alleviating bondage. They want to keep guilt in place because it is the means by which they control others (Stephen Olford, Anointed Expository Preaching, p. 35).

Paul makes it clear in Galatians that the person who seeks to bind the consciences of others dishonors the work of the atonement. By contrast, the Holy Spirit “points to the blood of Christ.” The Spirit keeps bringing spiritual freedom and liberty because He ministers the blood of Christ to the conscience (Heb 9:14; 10:22).

Olford indicates that the Holy Spirit personalizes the redemptive work of Christ as we yield moment by moment (Olford, p. 37).

A person who uses guilt as a major means of manipulation is demonstrating that that his or her conscience is not at peace. A lifestyle of blame/shame never vindicates us. We cannot raise ourselves up above condemnation by transferring our fear of judgment to the conscience of another.

Holding others “hostage” by attempting to keep their guilt in place cannot protect us from judgment. Instead it is a very telling symptom that one’s conscience is not managed by the blood of Christ. A prominent family counselor makes the following observation. When we lash the conscience of another person, it is a strategy learned in childhood; it is practiced in order to feel powerful. To abandon the behavior is to feel a loss of power.

God’s only method for bringing peace to the conscience of the believer is by renewed “views” of our suffering Substitute. The justice our conscience cries out for against ourselves and those who have offended us is found only in the atonement of Calvary. Our conscience only comes to a full rest when it sees (by faith) justice against sin carried out in the bloody death of the Son of God.

The powers of darkness have much to gain by keeping guilt in place in the conscience. As Puritan John Owen states, even one sin circulating within the conscience is enough to discourage us from drawing near to the throne of grace with confidence.

Concerning guilt in the conscience, Robert Haldane warns that “No sin can be crucified either in heart or life, unless it be first pardoned in conscience. . .” (Robert Haldane, An Exposition of the Book of Romans, pp. 253-254).

The atonement of Christ is God’s plan to free His people from fear.

Because we live our lives under judgment, our greatest need is personal atonement for guilt. In the counsels of eternity, God planned that our judgment and condemnation would be assumed by Another. Central to the Good News is that the Son of God did a voluntary guilt transfer.

The atonement is a “cosmic moral transfer” of infinite worth. The atonement disarms and frees us from the law. Because of my sin, the condemnation of the law was my chief adversary. But now, the empty tomb carries the atonement into the eternal present (Zahl, p. 41).

Now humanity’s designated meeting place with God is the same for every person – it is true fellowship with the Trinity based on true freedom from judgment.

Our problem as believers is that indwelling sin keeps disturbing the conscience with fear of judgment. We find it difficult to reckon that the full force of our judgment fell upon the Son of God.

We are still searching for atonement to answer our fear. We often act out of guilt; seeking to discharge a debt, win approval, appease. The old strategies of escape, open resistance, and appeasement still hold attraction for us. The heart is drawn to self-righteous merit systems – we want to have a part in carrying and proving our worth to ourselves and others.

The Gospel is the only antidote to our hiding, rage, defensiveness, and self pity. In order to daily experience its healing grace, we must consent to be represented and protected by the Son of God.

The Gospel’s message of justification teaches us that the righteousness of Christ is put on our account – it is imputed to us. Our worth as believers is upheld by Christ and His work. This is life- transforming, for infinite worth and credit have been assigned to us!

The atonement is freedom from judgment because God’s verdict about us in Christ has the power to evaporate all other verdicts (Rom 8:31-34). (Verdicts of condemnation come from people, demons, and God’s law – only the blood of Christ can silence these.)

Herein is the success of the atonement to heal our fear. By God’s plan we may become as we are regarded. Though we carry feelings of condemnation and worthlessness, God regards us as righteous in Christ and free from condemnation.

The Gospel is able to penetrate the most guarded prisons of the heart. All the carnal fortresses we have raised to protect ourselves against judgment harm our relationship with others. What is needed is courage and healing; the Gospel provides both.

The Gospel makes us heroes in our dealings with sin and conscience.

So much of our energy goes into the effort to resist the verdicts of others, we forget to run to the atonement. But, Christ’s work is where we find heroism and courage to face our own sinful imperfections.

The great reformer Martin Luther had a problem as a priest. He couldn’t understand how a perfectly holy God could accept him when he was so filled with sin and imperfection. At one point Luther protested, “Love God? I feel I hate Him!” (When Luther uttered these words, he felt it impossible to be good enough to gain divine acceptance.)

In His grace, God showed Luther the biblical doctrine of justification by faith. The world has not been the same since. Luther wrote volumes on the practical value of justification. Here is his formula for heroism and courage in dealing with sin and conscience: according to the Gospel, the believer is justified, yet a sinner. Therefore, he may be absolutely honest about his sin without jeopardizing his perfect status in Christ.

The Reformer’s point is vital. The imputation of Christ’s righteousness draws the blood of Christ into real situations. This is the basis for radical heroism; I can be a very imperfect person who is honest about his transgressions and offenses without losing my perfect standing in Christ. I don’t have to prove my worth (by using carnal strategies) because the Gospel proclaims the affirmation of my worth in a most dramatic way. The Gospel literally gives me permission, even urges me, to give up fleshly strategies for personal worth (Zahl, p. 73).

The sin of self-justification needlessly makes others into adversaries.

Paul Zahl practically X-rays the human heart when he makes the following observations: When I become depressed, it is usually through the gateway of someone else’s perception of me as I perceive it. I feel my own weakness so heavily, it seems to express the whole truth about my life.

Depression provides a clue to our need for value to be assigned to us. The absence of positive value can incarcerate us in a prison of depression. The only real and lasting cure must fulfill our need of value.

Union with Christ decisively answers this need, nothing else can.

Because we are sinners, we carry a sense of condemnation and fear of judgment. Just below the surface, we feel our impotence, fear, weakness and fragility. Because of this, the slightest thing can make us feel diminished.

Due to our desperate need of worth, we tend to suspect the worst about ourselves. This colors our interactions with others. Anger is the response to perceived hostile invasions of self. The angry person is likely to interpret exchanges with others as attacks on self. Behind the rage is a most painful insecurity. Because we feel small, weak and vulnerable, we believe we must protect ourselves with all our might, even if relationships are damaged in the process (Zahl, pp. 13, 14).

If the lion’s share of our emotional energy is devoted to fighting a sense of judgment, we won’t be able to handle negativity nor will we be able to risk intimacy. God’s answer is the healing power of the Gospel.

The atonement of Christ has healing power.

When we allow others to carry our value instead of depending upon the work of Christ, we are still wed to fleshly strategies for warding off judgment. These flesh strategies further damage our humanity and our relationships. When we use our pain to hurt others, we are living in sin (Zahl, p. 45).

God loves us too much to allow this situation to continue indefinitely in His child. Because of God’s fatherly care, He allows our defenses to fail. He does this because He wants our souls and our relationships healed (Eli Ashdown, The Saving Health of the Gospel, p. 101-108).

Our fear of judgment is so strong, we will not repent of our fleshly strategies until we believe that the atonement has the power to heal our fear and replace our need of self-protection. That daily consent to suffer Another to work for us is the key. Jerry Bridges refers to this as preaching the Gospel to oneself every day. Says Bridges, since we sin every day, we need to preach the Gospel to ourselves every day (Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace, pp. 123, 124).

The Gospel’s healing power comes about through ongoing repentance.

Since fleshly strategies of managing condemnation further damage our humanity and our relationships, repentance is called for.

We are to repent of the destructive fortifications that we have habitually employed.

When we hear that our worth is established by God, we are enabled to move from carnal control to liberty, heroism, and realism. There is great power in God regarding us righteous in Christ. We can face negativity without being radically diminished. We can face the worst news about ourselves without our value being threatened.

By contrast, when we are always fighting against negativity and fear, our lives are characterized by a cowardly escape from judgment. The cross leads us out of escape, denial, and blame. The atonement enables us to “assimilate” negativity, processing it with courage and realism. (The Psalms provide an ideal model of this processing of negativity. John Calvin referred to the Psalms as a complete anatomy of the human heart.)

“God is glorified when we believe with all our hearts that those who trust in Christ can never be condemned. [When we] live in the good of total forgiveness, we are able to turn from old, sinful ways of living and walk in grace-motivated obedience” (C. J. Mahaney, The Cross Centered Life, pp. 39, 40).

The imputed righteousness granted in justification gives believers the legal right and responsibility to come out of hiding and deal with sin courageously in ongoing repentance. This always involves forsaking false refuges and strategies designed to defer judgment.

Jesus’ righteous regard of the Christian enables him to see himself in truth and to accept the truth about himself. He can admit his bondage, his failure, his suffering, and his compulsive sin. Justification gives us the courage to admit the suffering our sin has caused in our lives and the lives of others.

A mighty redemption has broken sin’s bondage, yet believers still carry the tendency to defend and fight against judgment. We are all too aware of our failures, inadequacy, and guilt. The temptation is to return to the old refuges and strategies for protection from judgment. What is needed is renewed appropriation of the Gospel, for that alone is the source of heroism. Justification in the Son of God establishes a secure status that produces courage.

The atonement gives us the courage to forgive others.

Nowhere is more courage needed than in the area of relational hurt. Hiding, pretending, attacking, and defending keep short-circuiting any hope of restoration.

The courage born of justification enables the believer to deal with the alienation and ache of offenses committed both by him and against him. The truth of justification gives the power to forgive freely and to be freely forgiven (Eph 4:32).

Nothing short of heroism is necessary in order for the Body of Christ to build itself up in love. When believers are self-protective and defensive, they are unable to give and receive admonishment (Rom 15:14). It is the justified man who is wise enough to receive a genuine admonishment born of love. Because he knows he is justified, yet a sinner, he can admit when he is wrong without being diminished.

Conclusion:

So much of our self-protection, pretending, and hiding our hearts from God and each other is because we do not understand the present value of the cross. The finished work of Christ is perfectly suited for dealing with every sin and the fruit of every sin. The present value of the cross allows the believer to process the most horrendous things about himself. This is because no fact or negative truth can harm the saint’s perfect standing in Christ before God.

The cross works across the grain of the flesh. It opposes the self-preservation strategies that turn upon self-sufficiency. God calls His people to childlike vulnerability before Him. We must be willing to be searched (Ps 139). The Scriptures join lowliness of mind with contrition (Is 57:15; 66:2).

Guarded dungeons of pain keep us from receiving God’s love in new areas of our being. Christ calls His people to make appointments with Him in these dungeons. He wants us to dismiss our guards and give Him the opportunity to apply His grace to these heart prisons. He is perfectly qualified for this. He is the Sympathetic High Priest who empathizes and identifies with all of our weakness and pain.

In His suffering for us, He identified Himself with the sorrows and exigencies of the human condition. His priesthood addresses both the guilt of sin and the effects of sin. He wants us to desist from our schemes of carnal management and call upon Him for new supplies of grace and mercy (Heb 4:15, 16).

His priestly mercy is available to us in areas that we are used to controlling. These areas include sin, weakness, failure, rejection, disillusionment, inadequacy, helplessness, pain, and suffering.

Realism before God is a hard won asset. Strategies to defend our pain and woundedness tend to be habitual and instinctive. The Psalmist is willing to meet God in some very painful places. There are prayers with themes of despair, despondency, depression, betrayal, disillusionment, resentment, guilt, and injustice. Agonizing memories and ache of soul are a common theme.

When a believer refuses to accept appointments with God in these areas of negativity, these same areas become “sealed off” from the full benefit of God’s grace. When appointments with Christ in our regions of pain are consistently refused, the heart builds prisons to house these unacceptable negatives.

The result of sealing off the pain is often a host of defenses that manifest themselves in our relationships. Our hearts are no longer tender before God because we have refused to “pour out our hearts to God” (Ps 62:5-8).

Sealing off pain is a symptom of flight from judgment. It causes us to split off from the very regions of our hearts that are needed for godly passion and Christian compassion. Unless our heart prisons of pain are allowed to come in contact with God, it is very unlikely that we will be able to weep with those who weep (Rom 12:15).

The Apostle Paul makes it clear, those who draw abundantly from God’s comfort amidst their suffering are best equipped to comfort others (2 Cor 1:3-6).

It is a mercy that God lets our defenses fail. Affliction is sent by God to break up the lime scale of our carnal strategies. A constant use of carnal defenses builds up layers of protection that inhibit our ability to enjoy intimate contact with God. Only the cross can put these self-life strategies out of business.

When we endure God’s chastening, it is unto a grace awakening. During affliction, God empties out our secret coffers of merit. He takes us back to the Publican who has nothing but sin. He causes our defenses to fail (this can be catastrophic to us, it may feel like God is against us). He orchestrates all of this that He might restore us to a place of child-like reliance and vulnerability before Him.

Only by fresh views of our depravity, including our defenses, will we be able to marvel again at the unfathomable riches of Christ our righteousness (Jer 23:6).

The Cross-Centered Life

Believers are engaged in an ongoing battle to stay cross-centered. The problem is most are unaware of the importance of the struggle. Due to our depraved natures, every saint faces the very real conviction that he or she does not measure up.

A pervading sense of condemnation turns like a little dynamo inside of us. It may slow, but it never stops. Law continues to expose our sin after we are saved.

The great paradox is that the better we are at any given aspect of ministry, the more tempted we will be to make that area of ministry production a defining contributor to our relationship with God.

That’s the rub – the law makes its overtures to our strengths. “Do in order to be” is the law’s rationale. It makes its solicitations to our gifts and talents. It promises to invest our gifts and talents into the account of our favor and acceptance with God.

How subtle this is – for the use of our gifts and talents have been a legitimate blessing to the Body of Christ. The saints have been built up through our ministry diligence and exertion. We rightly long for the Lord’s approval. Our usefulness is not the question.

The issue of cross-centeredness focuses upon whether or not we regard our productiveness to be a contributing factor to our favor with God. “Is my work and service central to my interface and acceptance with God?” If so, the law principle may be operational in my life -- EVEN if I am a strong proponent of grace truths!

Certain temperaments are prone to specific departures from cross-centeredness. The “catalytic extrovert” has a personality that makes things happen. He shies away from introspection. He seldom retreats into the “grey castle of self.” He prefers to manage his dereliction (depravity) by performance, production, and by the generation of massive amounts of work.

The extrovert’s problem is harder to see than the person’s who is neutralized by condemnation. Yet the extrovert’s deviation from cross-centeredness is just as real – he may be operating by law, not grace.

By contrast, the person laboring under a yoke of condemnation feels that heaven is staring at him in one large cosmic frown. Thus he retreats into the grey castle of self and attempts to comfort his soul with sensual things justified by self pity.

Having lost sight of the cross, he does not entertain high prospects of the Lord’s desire to meet him and commune with him. Comfort from the Lord seems light years away.

For the person stuck in the castle of self, the sense of divine favor can only be restored by a fresh view of the cross by faith. For the cross alone is God’s answer to our paralyzing depravity and dereliction.

The cross alone can bring the condemned saint out of hiding and back into the joy of communing with his Lord. The cross lifts the believer out of the exasperation of not measuring up. It places the saint back upon the grace plane of abiding and being that constitute the life of sonship.

So also, the cross is necessary for the extrovert (or workaholic – “human doing”) to be restored to a place of communion that rests solely upon the Savior’s work.

Only the cross of Christ can rightly align the workaholic’s motives with God’s purposes of grace.

When the workaholic is in full production mode, he is often blind to his utter dependence upon the cross for all fellowship and usefulness. Busyness is his drug – while in the whirlwind of urgent ministry tasks, he doesn’t have to stop long enough to look in the mirror and feel any guilt for not measuring up. He is so far “ahead of others” in his ability to generate Christian works, he takes solace in his productivity.

But a “small” detail is missing. Paul mentions it in 1 Cor 15:10. In that passage, the Apostle attributes his productivity to God’s grace alone: “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain: but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”

Paul was careful to stress that his ability to excel in work for the Lord was solely a function of grace. Therefore, he did not see his labors as contributing to his acceptance with God. He regarded his work as an evidence that he was a trophy of God’s grace.

Productive people in ministry who lack Paul’s mindset, tend to use their output of labor as a means of offsetting any feelings of not measuring up.

Those on the receiving end of the workaholic’s ministry may heap praise and gratitude upon him, but his soul is a dry salt waste of a wilderness. If he stopped long enough, he would discover that his heart was no longer a garden.

It is the Spirit’s constant work of grace that teaches us that Christ alone is the ground of all our acceptance, favor, and communion with God. Our greatest works and service do not add a single atom of weight to any of these three. Yet untold numbers of believers live as if their doing is an essential contributor to the three.

No one lives a cross-centered life without an intentional “curriculum” of self-talk. These little “sermons” we preach to ourselves are gospel sermons that reaffirm our utter dependence upon the cross for all favor, acceptance and communion with God.

This self-talk is the necessary way that we “do business” with our souls. All of our thinking and feeling must be rectified by gospel self talk. The cost of not doing so is high indeed.

Without cross-centered living, the law will necessarily dictate the method by which we manage our souls. If the cross is not clearing the way daily for us to receive God’s love and grace in our souls, we will by default automatically gravitate to methods of soul management that are born of law.

These law methods come natural to us – they constitute the “religion” we were born with – a religion of measuring up, of doing in order to be. How many gifted ministers gradually began to support their soul’s life on the husks of their own productivity? The number must be staggering.

One of the symptoms of departing from the cross-centered life is a “law method” of dealing with others. When we abandon the grace-based perspective that flows from cross-centered living, we cannot help but deal with others by the same manner we deal with our own souls. It will “leak out.”

So also, when a person is living a cross-centered life, he cannot help but appeal to the grace of God in the cross for all advancement in work, worship, and sanctification.

The cross alone can lead us out of self (whether a performing self, or a condemning self). The Lord calls us, just as He did the Laodicians, to commune with Him and to receive His love in our spirits. He wants us to come as the beggars we are. He desires that we rest the whole acceptance of our souls upon the grace wrought by His cross and His Person.

The Doctrine of Justification by Faith: Understanding So Great a Salvation

INTRODUCTION – Justification defines our relationship with God. The purity of the gospel depends upon an accurate understanding of justification by grace through faith.

The doctrine of justification by faith has not been given the central place it deserves. In his book, The dynamics of Spiritual Life, Richard Lovelace describes the problem. “Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. Many have so light an apprehension of God’s holiness and of the extent and guilt of their sin that consciously they see little need for justification, although below the surface of their lives they are deeply guilt-ridden and insecure.”

Jerry Bridges also exposes the same problem indicating that the doctrine of justification by faith has been relegated to the sphere of the unbeliever only. When that happens, says Bridges, Christians turn from grace to personal performance as the basis for Christian living (The Discipline of Grace).

In Evangelicalism today, the doctrine of justification has been exegeted in statements of faith, but the dynamic relationships that flow from the doctrine have not been adequately explained.

Application - Tozer understood the value of justification for daily living. He extolled the liberty God supplies in justification. He reminds us that when justification is appropriated, the believer is liberated from sterile legalism, from unavailing self-effort and from the paralyzing fear of condemnation. Tozer adds that the doctrine of justification in Christ is not simply a legal declaration, it is an ongoing revealer of the infinite riches of the Godhead.

THE NEED OF JUSTIFICATION

When our first parents sinned, the whole human race was plunged into total depravity (sin ruled every human faculty, man became dead to God, Ephesians 2:1-3). By Adam’s one act of disobedience, all of his progeny were constituted sinners. Adam’s descendants are sinful by nature, by practice, by preference, by birth and by decree.

God has given a legal PRONOUNCEMENT about the sinful state of mankind (Rom. 3:9, 10ff; 3:23; 5:12). This pronouncement is a legal declaration, a verdict about every member of the human race. It is a judicial pronouncement about our legal standing before God.

Every unbeliever has a legal standing before God of CONDEMNATION (John 3:36; Rom. 5:16,18; Mark 16:16). In heaven’s sight, all unsaved people are in a state of condemnation, liable to eternal punishment (Gal. 3:22).

No man or woman has the power to change that standing before God. The unbeliever cannot lessen his guilt, nor offset it with works, nor work his way out of condemnation.

THE NATURE OF JUSTIFICATION

Into this human condition of ruin, crisis and condemnation comes the glorious brilliance of the gospel. The extraordinary message of the good news is that through Christ there is a second legal pronouncement from the God of the universe. The second pronouncement has superceded the first legal declaration of universal guilt and condemnation. Justification is that second legal declaration. It overturns the first pronouncement for those who believe.

Romans 1:16,17 answers the question, “How can sinful man be just and righteous in God’s sight?” (See Williams Translation, “For in the good news God’s way of man’s right standing with Him is uncovered.”)

Justification is a VERDICT about us (Rom. 3:22-28). It is declaration takes place in the courtroom of God, before the throne of God, at the justice bar of God, whereby the believer is declared judicially righteous.

Justification is a legal DECLARATION by God in HEAVEN concerning a man, that he stands RIGHTEOUS in God’s sight (Rom. 5:18,19; 3:26; 4:5; 8:33ff).

The righteousness God looks upon when He justifies the believer is resident inCHRIST JESUS (Phil. 3:9; Rom. 4:23-25).

Application – The good news of the gospel is only received as tidings of joy by the person who has felt to some degree the crushing weight of his own sin. The gospel is only good news to a person who is impressed with his own ill desert and guilt before God. God prepares a man for salvation by convincing him of his slavery to sin and the hopelessness of dependence upon self. The awakened sinner respects God’s justice and has begun to quake at the condemnation of God’s law. (For further study – Consider what errors stem from the idea that justification is a process instead of an instantaneous legal pronouncement.)

THE AGENT OF JUSTIFICATION

Salvation is always a sovereignly given gift of God’s grace to those who believe (Eph. 2:8,9). Only those who relinquish all claims to goodness and acknowledge they are ungodly are candidates for justification (Rom. 4:5; Luke 5:32).

In justification, God takes His own righteousness and credits it to the believer. Faith cannot be a meritorious work, it is simply the channel which receives God’s righteousness (Rom. 4:3).

God justifies us by FAITH alone (Gal. 2:15-21). God justifies the person who looks away from himself and trusts in CHRIST ALONE for righteousness (Titus 3:5-7; Rom. 4:4,5).

Application – Saving faith never looks upon itself as having performed a meritorious work. Beware when the seeker asks, “What is faith, that I may do it?”

When a person exercises saving faith, it is because Holy Spirit has brought him to end of self and led him to the risen Christ. The “prepared” sinner despairs of being able to provide any part of his salvation.

Saving faith is by nature self-renouncing. It judges self and condemns self. It finds the resources of self to be bankrupt. It looks away from self and in utter dependence looks upon Another.

THE BASIS OF JUSTIFICATION

Right standing or justification is only by reason of our union with Christ. By union with Christ, the believer is given right standing as a gift of grace. The Holy Spirit applies the benefits of Christ’s death and life to the one who trusts Christ.

God’s legal basis for justifying the ungodly is CHRIST’S FINISHED WORK of substitution and redemption (2 Cor. 5:19-21; Is. 53:5,6; Gal. 3:13). The ground of (our) justification is not the believer’s faith, but the REDEMPTION that is in Christ Jesus (Rom. 3:24).

Application – What errors may develop if a person considers his faith to be the foundation that supports his justification?

THE JUSTICE OF GOD IN OUR JUSTIFICATION

Scripture joins the justice of God in the cross to the justice of God in our justification. The argument of the Apostle in Romans 3:25-31 is that the justice of God is upheld and vindicated when sinners receive forgiveness.

Along with Paul, every Christian must emphasize that the justice of God is magnified in the doctrine of justification. When the sinner is pardoned and declared righteous (justified), it is NOT because God has exercised leniency or clemency! God is, “Just and the Justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). God upholds His own immutable law when He justifies he ungodly.

The justice of God is made manifest in three great imputations. To impute is to ascribe or attribute wickedness or merit to another person. When something isimputed to a person, it is a matter of counting or reckoning to their account. (Imputation is the heart of justification. God declares the repentant sinner righteous and does not count his sins against him because He covers him with the righteousness of Christ the moment he places faith in Christ.)

The Three Great Imputations:

O R I G I N A L S I N (The First Pronouncement)

1.) The IMPUTATION of Adam’s sin to his descendants (Rom. 5:12).

J U S T I F I C A T I O N B Y F A I T H (The Second Pronouncement)

2.) The IMPUTATION of the sin of the elect to Christ (1 Pet. 3:18; 2 Cor. 5:21).

3.) The IMPUTATION of Christ’s righteousness to the elect (2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 3:21-26).

The doctrine of justification by faith directly involves the second and third of these great imputations. In justification, there is both the forgiveness of sin and the imputation of righteousness. In order to be regarded just in the sight of God’s law, there must be both a positive righteousness and an absence of transgressions. Justification accomplishes both for the believing sinner.

Romans 5:12-21 - The same divinely ordained principle that allowed Adam to represent his race also provides that Christ be the representative of all those who would believe upon Him. This is the reason why Christ is referred to as “the last Adam,” (1 Cor. 15:45).

Paul lifts up God’s love and grace in Romans 5 as he sets forth Christ’s victorious work of representing His people. In that chapter, the Apostle makes it clear that every man stands either in Christ or in Adam as representative. Those in Adam remain under a reign of death. Those in Christ are under the reign of grace and life.

Application - In our horizontal relationships we may demonstrate virtues that over time deepen our commitment with others. We gain the trust of others, we win their affection, we earn their respect and we prove our faithfulness and usefulness. BUT, in our vertical relationship with the Lord, right-relatedness is completely a gift of God’s grace.

Status, favor, sustenance and right standing are freely poured out upon the believer as gifts in consequence of our union with Christ. All of God’s subsequent dealings with us are grounded upon this fact of free grace. We are to stand in the grace of God and exult in it (1 Pet. 5:12; Rom. 5:2).

In personal relationships it is difficult to express love and trust if we do not know where we stand with an individual. Many Christians face a similar dilemma with the Lord of Hosts. They seem unable to clearly think through the most central issue: “What has God done with my sin and guilt?” It is vital that the saint learn how to take hold of the sufficiency of Christ as his sin-bearing Substitute.

God forgives by “non-imputation,” and He accepts into favor by the imputation of His own righteousness (Rom. 4:5-8). The maturing believer practices this “gospel reasoning” as he does the accounting of his conscience and soul. The more biblically he thinks, the more inclined he is to receive God’s love and comfort and to seek His fellowship. (Remember, the whole idea of a righteousness that is a gift from God is contrary to all our inherited nature.)

THE FOUR DIMENSIONS OF JUSTIFICATION

Although the nature of justification is that of a forensic declaration, there are four biblical dimensions of justification that safeguard it from distortion.

Heresies related to salvation inevitably exclude or replace at least one of the four dimensions.

1.) We are justified JUDICIALLY by God (Rom. 3:26,30; 8:30,33). It is a declaration that is instantaneous and forensic, taking place in the throne room of God.

2.) We are justified MERITORIOUSLY by Christ (Rom. 3:24; 4:23,25; 5:8,9; 10:4). Our right standing is grounded upon the redemptive work of Christ alone.

3.) We are justified MEDIATELY by faith (Rom. 1:17; 3:26,30; Gal. 2:16, 3:24). Sinful man cannot contribute to his justification. It can only be received as a gift of God’s grace. Faith is the channel through which it is received.

4.) We are justified EVIDENTIALLY by works (James 2:21-25; 1 Jn. 2:4,15,19, 3:6-10,24; 4:8,20). (Works justify us from the accusations of men who say that our claims of salvation are false. The fruit of faith is good works. In contrast to a hypocritical faith, true faith purifies the heart and is made manifest in a life of integrity.)

GOD IS GLORIFYING HIS GRACE

God’s grace in Christ is the great revealer of the divine attributes (Eph. 1:6,12,14). The satanic lie of Eden planted the notion in the heart of man that God’s glory and our highest good are antithetical to one another.

Through the Person and work of Christ, the Agent of God’s justifying love, light pierces into the darkened understanding of man, reversing the lie (2 Cor. 4:4-6). By way of the gospel, men have the Edenic lie expunged. Through the grace of God in the gospel, the believer comes to understand that God has joined His glory to our highest good. Those who understand that gracious fact can say that it isrational to abandon oneself to God in Christ (Rom. 12:1).

The Dynamics of Grace, Part 1

INTRODUCTION – Justification defines our relationship with God. The purity of the gospel depends upon an accurate understanding of justification by grace through faith.

The doctrine of justification by faith has not been given the central place it deserves. In his book, The dynamics of Spiritual Life, Richard Lovelace describes the problem. “Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. Many have so light an apprehension of God’s holiness and of the extent and guilt of their sin that consciously they see little need for justification, although below the surface of their lives they are deeply guilt-ridden and insecure.”

Jerry Bridges also exposes the same problem indicating that the doctrine of justification by faith has been relegated to the sphere of the unbeliever only. When that happens, says Bridges, Christians turn from grace to personal performance as the basis for Christian living (The Discipline of Grace).

In Evangelicalism today, the doctrine of justification has been exegeted in statements of faith, but the dynamic relationships that flow from the doctrine have not been adequately explained.

Application - Tozer understood the value of justification for daily living. He extolled the liberty God supplies in justification. He reminds us that when justification is appropriated, the believer is liberated from sterile legalism, from unavailing self-effort and from the paralyzing fear of condemnation. Tozer adds that the doctrine of justification in Christ is not simply a legal declaration, it is an ongoing revealer of the infinite riches of the Godhead.

THE NEED OF JUSTIFICATION

When our first parents sinned, the whole human race was plunged into total depravity (sin ruled every human faculty, man became dead to God, Ephesians 2:1-3). By Adam’s one act of disobedience, all of his progeny were constituted sinners. Adam’s descendants are sinful by nature, by practice, by preference, by birth and by decree.

God has given a legal PRONOUNCEMENT about the sinful state of mankind (Rom. 3:9, 10ff; 3:23; 5:12). This pronouncement is a legal declaration, a verdict about every member of the human race. It is a judicial pronouncement about our legal standing before God.

Every unbeliever has a legal standing before God of CONDEMNATION (John 3:36; Rom. 5:16,18; Mark 16:16). In heaven’s sight, all unsaved people are in a state of condemnation, liable to eternal punishment (Gal. 3:22).

No man or woman has the power to change that standing before God. The unbeliever cannot lessen his guilt, nor offset it with works, nor work his way out of condemnation.

THE NATURE OF JUSTIFICATION

Into this human condition of ruin, crisis and condemnation comes the glorious brilliance of the gospel. The extraordinary message of the good news is that through Christ there is a second legal pronouncement from the God of the universe. The second pronouncement has superceded the first legal declaration of universal guilt and condemnation. Justification is that second legal declaration. It overturns the first pronouncement for those who believe.

Romans 1:16,17 answers the question, “How can sinful man be just and righteous in God’s sight?” (See Williams Translation, “For in the good news God’s way of man’s right standing with Him is uncovered.”)

Justification is a VERDICT about us (Rom. 3:22-28). It is declaration takes place in the courtroom of God, before the throne of God, at the justice bar of God, whereby the believer is declared judicially righteous.

Justification is a legal DECLARATION by God in HEAVEN concerning a man, that he stands RIGHTEOUS in God’s sight (Rom. 5:18,19; 3:26; 4:5; 8:33ff).

The righteousness God looks upon when He justifies the believer is resident inCHRIST JESUS (Phil. 3:9; Rom. 4:23-25).

Application – The good news of the gospel is only received as tidings of joy by the person who has felt to some degree the crushing weight of his own sin. The gospel is only good news to a person who is impressed with his own ill desert and guilt before God. God prepares a man for salvation by convincing him of his slavery to sin and the hopelessness of dependence upon self. The awakened sinner respects God’s justice and has begun to quake at the condemnation of God’s law. (For further study – Consider what errors stem from the idea that justification is a process instead of an instantaneous legal pronouncement.)

THE AGENT OF JUSTIFICATION

Salvation is always a sovereignly given gift of God’s grace to those who believe (Eph. 2:8,9). Only those who relinquish all claims to goodness and acknowledge they are ungodly are candidates for justification (Rom. 4:5; Luke 5:32).

In justification, God takes His own righteousness and credits it to the believer. Faith cannot be a meritorious work, it is simply the channel which receives God’s righteousness (Rom. 4:3).

God justifies us by FAITH alone (Gal. 2:15-21). God justifies the person who looks away from himself and trusts in CHRIST ALONE for righteousness (Titus 3:5-7; Rom. 4:4,5).

Application – Saving faith never looks upon itself as having performed a meritorious work. Beware when the seeker asks, “What is faith, that I may do it?”

When a person exercises saving faith, it is because Holy Spirit has brought him to end of self and led him to the risen Christ. The “prepared” sinner despairs of being able to provide any part of his salvation.

Saving faith is by nature self-renouncing. It judges self and condemns self. It finds the resources of self to be bankrupt. It looks away from self and in utter dependence looks upon Another.

THE BASIS OF JUSTIFICATION

Right standing or justification is only by reason of our union with Christ. By union with Christ, the believer is given right standing as a gift of grace. The Holy Spirit applies the benefits of Christ’s death and life to the one who trusts Christ.

God’s legal basis for justifying the ungodly is CHRIST’S FINISHED WORK of substitution and redemption (2 Cor. 5:19-21; Is. 53:5,6; Gal. 3:13). The ground of (our) justification is not the believer’s faith, but the REDEMPTION that is in Christ Jesus (Rom. 3:24).

Application – What errors may develop if a person considers his faith to be the foundation that supports his justification?

THE JUSTICE OF GOD IN OUR JUSTIFICATION

Scripture joins the justice of God in the cross to the justice of God in our justification. The argument of the Apostle in Romans 3:25-31 is that the justice of God is upheld and vindicated when sinners receive forgiveness.

Along with Paul, every Christian must emphasize that the justice of God is magnified in the doctrine of justification. When the sinner is pardoned and declared righteous (justified), it is NOT because God has exercised leniency or clemency! God is, “Just and the Justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). God upholds His own immutable law when He justifies he ungodly.

The justice of God is made manifest in three great imputations. To impute is to ascribe or attribute wickedness or merit to another person. When something isimputed to a person, it is a matter of counting or reckoning to their account. (Imputation is the heart of justification. God declares the repentant sinner righteous and does not count his sins against him because He covers him with the righteousness of Christ the moment he places faith in Christ.)

The Three Great Imputations:

O R I G I N A L S I N (The First Pronouncement)

1.) The IMPUTATION of Adam’s sin to his descendants (Rom. 5:12).

J U S T I F I C A T I O N B Y F A I T H (The Second Pronouncement)

2.) The IMPUTATION of the sin of the elect to Christ (1 Pet. 3:18; 2 Cor. 5:21).

3.) The IMPUTATION of Christ’s righteousness to the elect (2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 3:21-26).

The doctrine of justification by faith directly involves the second and third of these great imputations. In justification, there is both the forgiveness of sin and the imputation of righteousness. In order to be regarded just in the sight of God’s law, there must be both a positive righteousness and an absence of transgressions. Justification accomplishes both for the believing sinner.

Romans 5:12-21 - The same divinely ordained principle that allowed Adam to represent his race also provides that Christ be the representative of all those who would believe upon Him. This is the reason why Christ is referred to as “the last Adam,” (1 Cor. 15:45).

Paul lifts up God’s love and grace in Romans 5 as he sets forth Christ’s victorious work of representing His people. In that chapter, the Apostle makes it clear that every man stands either in Christ or in Adam as representative. Those in Adam remain under a reign of death. Those in Christ are under the reign of grace and life.

Application - In our horizontal relationships we may demonstrate virtues that over time deepen our commitment with others. We gain the trust of others, we win their affection, we earn their respect and we prove our faithfulness and usefulness. BUT, in our vertical relationship with the Lord, right-relatedness is completely a gift of God’s grace.

Status, favor, sustenance and right standing are freely poured out upon the believer as gifts in consequence of our union with Christ. All of God’s subsequent dealings with us are grounded upon this fact of free grace. We are to stand in the grace of God and exult in it (1 Pet. 5:12; Rom. 5:2).

In personal relationships it is difficult to express love and trust if we do not know where we stand with an individual. Many Christians face a similar dilemma with the Lord of Hosts. They seem unable to clearly think through the most central issue: “What has God done with my sin and guilt?” It is vital that the saint learn how to take hold of the sufficiency of Christ as his sin-bearing Substitute.

God forgives by “non-imputation,” and He accepts into favor by the imputation of His own righteousness (Rom. 4:5-8). The maturing believer practices this “gospel reasoning” as he does the accounting of his conscience and soul. The more biblically he thinks, the more inclined he is to receive God’s love and comfort and to seek His fellowship. (Remember, the whole idea of a righteousness that is a gift from God is contrary to all our inherited nature.)

THE FOUR DIMENSIONS OF JUSTIFICATION

Although the nature of justification is that of a forensic declaration, there are four biblical dimensions of justification that safeguard it from distortion.

Heresies related to salvation inevitably exclude or replace at least one of the four dimensions.

1.) We are justified JUDICIALLY by God (Rom. 3:26,30; 8:30,33). It is a declaration that is instantaneous and forensic, taking place in the throne room of God.

2.) We are justified MERITORIOUSLY by Christ (Rom. 3:24; 4:23,25; 5:8,9; 10:4). Our right standing is grounded upon the redemptive work of Christ alone.

3.) We are justified MEDIATELY by faith (Rom. 1:17; 3:26,30; Gal. 2:16, 3:24). Sinful man cannot contribute to his justification. It can only be received as a gift of God’s grace. Faith is the channel through which it is received.

4.) We are justified EVIDENTIALLY by works (James 2:21-25; 1 Jn. 2:4,15,19, 3:6-10,24; 4:8,20). (Works justify us from the accusations of men who say that our claims of salvation are false. The fruit of faith is good works. In contrast to a hypocritical faith, true faith purifies the heart and is made manifest in a life of integrity.)

GOD IS GLORIFYING HIS GRACE

God’s grace in Christ is the great revealer of the divine attributes (Eph. 1:6,12,14). The satanic lie of Eden planted the notion in the heart of man that God’s glory and our highest good are antithetical to one another.

Through the Person and work of Christ, the Agent of God’s justifying love, light pierces into the darkened understanding of man, reversing the lie (2 Cor. 4:4-6). By way of the gospel, men have the Edenic lie expunged. Through the grace of God in the gospel, the believer comes to understand that God has joined His glory to our highest good.

Those who understand that gracious fact can say that it is rational to abandon oneself to God in Christ (Rom. 12:1).

The Dynamics of Grace, Part 2

INTRODUCTION – Scripture makes it clear that all men are in bondage and slavery to the fear of death (Heb. 2:14,15). The source of the fear has to do with what lies on the other side of death (Job 18:14). The fear involved is a dread fear ofpunishment (1 John 4:18; Heb. 9:27; 1 Cor. 15:56).

The fear beneath all fears is one of ultimate judgment. In that form of judgment, the person and his right to exist are condemned. There is a radical diminishing of the self so that all wellbeing is lost. (In our earthly experience, think of how difficult it is to forget times of intense shame and humiliation that we have experienced.)

Living with this fear of judgment colors our whole experience of life. The fear is rooted in the fear of ultimate condemnation. That fear finds its day to day expression in anxiety, rage, tension, stress and depression. People will do almost anything to prevent returning to that unbearable place of exposure and condemnation.

When sin entered the human race, the fear of condemnation was its instantaneous companion. Immediately after sinning, Adam and Eve utilized strategies to ward off the threat of judgment. Adam attempted to cover his shame. He was afraid. He tried to hide from his Creator and Judge. He engaged in blame in order to defer judgment away from himself (Gen. 3:7-13). According to Scripture, the guilt man feels as a sinner is not simply the irritations of conscience, it is actual legal guilt before God (Rom. 3:23; 2:5).

Adam’s fear of punishment (his response to loss of innocence), is the universal response of his sinful descendants. The human condition is characterized by guilt, blame, shame, hiding, anxiety, flight and defiance.

By nature, we are like Adam, we do not deal courageously with our sin. The fear of punishment makes cowards of us all (Note the baseball and the broken window story). The roots of cowardice penetrate deep in our lives because not only are we condemned in our acts of sin, but also in our whole nature and being.

Only a perfect atonement can end our fear of judgment! The design of Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice was to deliver us from the bondage of fear. Only when that fear is cast out can we be perfected in love (1 John 4:18). (The word propitiationrefers to the power of Christ’s substitutionary death to fully satisfy the claims of God’s law against the sinner. Apart from His propitiation, the full eternal weight of God’s wrath falls upon the unbeliever.)

THE POWER OF SIN IS THE LAW (1 COR. 15:56).

By means of the Law, sin is charged to our account (Rom. 5:13). When we transgress the Law of God, iniquity is imputed to us. The Law declares death’s legal power over us as the just penalty for sin (Ez. 18:4; 1 Cor. 15:56).

Sinners are capital offenders in custody, awaiting judgment (Gal. 3:22). The degree to which God’s verdict is resisted by the human race almost defies reason. So great is man’s antipathy to the verdict, it could be compared to the following scenario. A man was led to an immense stack of bricks and lumber. He asks the purpose for the building materials. He is told that he is to construct a courthouse in which he will be tried and found guilty, to build a cell in which he will be incarcerated and to erect a gallows on which he will be hung.

Men imagine that they are acting in their own interest when they refuse to believe God’s verdict regarding their sin and what it deserves. But such is not the case, for only those who agree with God’s verdict avail themselves of God’s merciful remedy.

The legal condemnation of God’s Law hangs over a person like a huge sword ready to drop, pierce and cleave us by God’s wrath. (In our glorious gospel, the Son of God placed Himself between us and God’s “sword” of wrath. In the substitutionary death of Christ, the “sword” of God’s wrath falls upon the Son of God in His death by crucifixion.)

THE LAW WAS THE MINISTRY OF CONDEMNATION AND DEATH (2 COR. 3:7-9).

Sinful human nature staggered under the Law’s crushing demands. Instead of being able to control a person morally, the Law strangles and suffocates the sinner. (The Law’s demands are absolute, but it grants no power or inclination to the sinner that enables obedience.)

The Law came with a curse (Gal. 3:10-13). The Law was meant to be the great revealer of man’s sinful condition (Rom. 3:20). The inability of the Hebrew nation to keep God’s Law is an authoritative commentary about the entire human race (Note that one only has to test one bucket of water in order to find out if a whole bay is polluted. The nation of Israel was a small portion of humanity.)

THE LAW IS NOT OF FAITH (GAL. 3:12).

In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ’s words struck the religious establishment of Jerusalem like a thunderbolt. The Jewish religious leaders had systematized the Mosaic Law into a predominately external moral code that was achievable by human exertion.

In Christ’s discourse, the spirit of the Law which was clearly taught in the Torah, was driven home in His sermon – love for God and neighbor is not just externals,it extends to what a man thinks, loves, speaks and looks at!

Martin Luther’s comments on the Sermon on the Mount can be summarized in the following way. The Sermon is meant to exasperate the sinner in order to prepare him for the gospel. (In other words, who can possibly keep such a high divine standard?)

Not only, does the Law exasperate, it may also exacerbate the sinner’s problem (Rom. 5:20). (Def. of exacerbate – increase severity of or bitterness of. This is reminiscent of the public’s response to the freeway signs that said, “Drive 55 and stay alive.” ) (Remember the example of the Law acting as a stir stick that stirs up the sediment in the glass of water.)

The sinner must learn that the Law way is closed as a way of obtaining right standing with God (Rom. 3:20; 10:1-4; 4:4-16). The present evangelical function of the Law is that of a tutor to lead a person to Christ as the only Way of right standing (Gal. 3:24,25).

Though the Law’s commandments are holy, righteous and good (Rom. 7:12), the Law only brings death, wrath and condemnation because of the weakness of human flesh (Rom. 8:3-8). (Man’s weak and sinful flesh cannot be raised up to God by means of the Law anymore than overcooked meat can be lifted up in one piece by a two-pronged fork.)

THE UNBELIEVER’S RESPONSE TO GOD WHO DEMANDS JUSTICE AND RIGHTEOUS IS ENMITY (ROM. 5:10; EPH. 2:15,16).

Unrepentant man has no sentiment for God’s purpose to glorify Himself through the knowledge of Himself. The natural man does not appropriate God’s purpose that mankind must be a moral reflection of God’s righteousness. The natural man is an enemy of God’s glory (Rom. 5:10; Phil. 3:18,19).

The N.T. Greek word for enemy (echthros), is closely related to the Greek word for enmity, (echthra). The word for enmity describes the disposition of the enemy, that of hostility. Paul asserts that the mind set on the flesh is “hostile” (echthra) toward God (Rom. 8:7 – see the Williams Translation). Man’s refusal to obey God’s Law involves defiant opposition. The soul enslaved to sin, alienated from God and under condemnation cannot love God (Titus 3:3 ff). The sinner ruled by his iron lusts cannot love the Holy One.

Man’s enmity is a function of his resentment that God should hold him liable to judgment. The good news of the gospel is that the solution to man’s problem is entirely from the outside of man. Man is not even part of the solution! God has unilaterally acted to solve man’s dilemma.

In Israel of old, the murmuring Hebrews were plagued by the bites of “fiery” serpents in the wilderness. God told Moses to cast a brazen serpent and place it upon a pole. When a Hebrew was bitten, all he had to do was look at the brazen serpent in faith, and his symptoms would be removed. So also, one believing “look” at Christ can strike the enmity from a man’s heart (John 3:14-18). The cross not only makes us acceptable to God, it also makes God’s holiness desirable to us. Justification by grace through faith annihilates our enmity toward God.

MAN’S NATURAL CONDITION IS AKIN TO BEING STUCK IN A VICE

By reason of sin, man’s image bearing integration in God was lost. Man became darkened, fragmented and broken (Note example of broken window pane with cracks radiating to all sides of the frame). The aspects of man’s soul were no longer in harmony. Instead, they were at odds, pulling against each other. The conscience and the affections became hopelessly separated -- people attempt to meet their needs by sinning, then the conscience justly accuses them for doing so.

Sin and self replaced God at the center of the life. As a result, dread, fear of punishment, blame and guilt displaced peace.

The obligation to obey God remained in full force, but the inclination to obey God was decimated by the fall. This condition put man is a crushing vice so to speak. A man’s desires, needs and wants are dictating to him one direction (his mind is set on the flesh), and at the same time, the Law of God demands that he be righteous or face death.

What the Law says he should be and what his desires dictate form the two arms of the vice clamped upon him. As he seeks to solve his needs and problems by sin, the arms of the vice squeeze harder, producing more fear of punishment.

SIN MAKES COWARDS OF US ALL (HEB. 2:14,15; 1 JOHN 4:18).

The fear of condemnation makes us cowardly concerning our sin. We do not deal with our sin courageously. The principle of guilt before God’s Law seeks to dominate our lives through fear of punishment. We tend to be cowed, defiant and self-protective. In our flesh, we will run anywhere but to the atonement God has provided in His Son. We desperately need Christ’s work in order to be free of guilt’s captivity.

The reason the roots of cowardice run so deep in our lives is because God’s Law condemns not only our individual acts of sin, but also our whole being (what we are by nature). All our fleshly strategies employed to avoid judgment utterly fail. Whether it is denial, appeasement, rationalizing or defiance, the efforts we make to escape the painful truth about ourselves falls short of the heroism God calls us to practice.

STRATEGIES OF THE FLESH THATARE USED TO WARD OFF JUDGMENT

Guilt and fear of condemnation move a man to seek an “atonement” or a strategy to defend against the threat of punishment.

Fleshly strategies include:

1. Flight – In this strategy the person seeks to escape the accusations of Law and conscience by devoting themselves to some diversion, escape or amusement. Denial of guilt factors heavily into this strategy. Biblical examples include Nabal’s feast (1 Sam. 25:36-38), Pilate’s denial of guilt by hand-washing (Matt. 27:24), Jonah’s voyage in the opposite direction of Ninevah (Jonah 1:3), Judah’s escapist mentality of “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die,” (Is. 22:13,14).

2. Open Resistance – This strategy involves contempt for God’s judgment. It is an attempt to take on the judgment with a defense or with defiance. Biblical examples include the Chief Priests’ plot to kill Jesus (Matt. 21:45), Job’s desire to bring God into court (Job 23:1-7), Zedekiah’s burning of the Word of God (Jer. 36), the apostates of Jerusalem defying the Word of God (Jer. 44:16,17).

3. Appeasement – This strategy is an attempt to win God’s favor by law-keeping. It is an effort to appease God by successful obedience. Law keeping that is legal in nature is always selective, scrupulous and legalistic (Matt. 23:23). Biblical examples include the rich young ruler (Matt. 19:16), Saul of Tarsus prior to his conversion (Phil. 3:4-6; Gal. 1:14).

THE CONSCIENCE OF MAN WILL ONLY BE AT REST WHEN TRUE JUSTICE HAS BEEN DONE (2 COR. 5:21).

Every strategy employed by man to elude judgment will ultimately fail. Every false hiding place will someday be revealed as a “refuge of lies,” (Is. 28:17). Men take no account now of the fact that they daily “bribe” their consciences with alibis for their transgression of God’s commandments.

The startling truth is that man is made in the moral image of God. Man’s conscience is not a product of social conditioning, it is God’s moral mark upon us. For that reason, the conscience can never be eradicated. All efforts to do so will only result in greater eternal anguish.

The conscience is a constant reminder of the great assize to come, it is a harbinger of judgment day. Though men experience temporary “success” in quieting their consciences in this life, a day is coming when the conscience will take its full revenge.

On that day, the conscience will accept no bribes, it will demand strict justice. It will agree with God’s verdict that man’s sin deserves eternal wrath.

Against this dark fact, the atonement of Jesus Christ is grace beyond description.

In the atonement, the believing sinner beholds Christ, the suffering God-man, bleeding and dying in his place. This is NOT to arouse pity or sympathy – this is the satisfaction of JUSTICE. The law of God and the conscience of man will accept nothing less than perfect justice.

When the believing sinner casts a believing “look” at Christ, for the first time in his life, his conscience is at peace and rest. He sees that justice has been served concerning his sin. With his sin forgiven, his formerly troubled conscience becomes like the placid surface of a lake – now he begins to reflect the character of his Creator.

The Dynamics of Grace, Part 3

INTRODUCTION – The Church (or body of true believers in Christ), can be likened to a temple of praise, a family, a war room (both Pentagon and boot camp), a survival training institute, a school, an organism and a hospital.

The Church as a “hospital” takes into consideration the application of God’s cure for the sin disease. The solution to human sin is found in the heart of God. His grace, mercy and infinite lovingkindness are sounded forth in the gospel. He has given His only begotten Son to offer an effectual sacrifice that is both substitutionary and penal. Christ’s finished work on Calvary satisfies all the claims of God against us. The Lord has accomplished a complete redemption that gives believers an immutable righteous standing by His shed blood.

THE MANAGEMENT OF GUILT IS THE DRIVING FORCE BEHIND MANMADE RELIGION.

The natural man seeks to work his way out of condemnation by religious effort, moral exertion and self-reformation. The sense of justice planted in man’s conscience demands some form of atonement to “offset” the punishment man deserves.

Man’s nature longs for a “score card,” or means by which he measure the merit he has “earned.” (Natural religion provides that score card. Think of examples from Hinduism, Buddhism and Catholicism.)

Scripture regards all efforts at winning God’s favor through the accumulation of merit to be dead works (Heb. 9:14). Dead works not only fail to commend man to God, they also perpetuate the imprisoning principle of fear of punishment. Deeds generated to manage a sense of condemnation cannot lift a person above personal guilt. The person will always be left with the haunting doubt, “Have I done enough to atone for my sins?”

ONLY A PERFECT ATONEMENT WOULD END OUR FEAR OF JUDGMENT.

Natural men devise their own means of atonement. Unregenerate men assume that a zeal for righteousness accompanied by sincerity cannot help but find favor with God. BUT, the problem with atonement is that everything depends upon the value of the sacrifice as measured by the Judge!

If the sacrifice is insufficient and not 100% successful in the eyes of the Judge, then man’s guilt, fear and condemnation remain in place (Rom. 10:1-4). Everything depends upon God’s determination of its value.

Atonement is called for when the first party in the transaction is in a position of actual guilt in regard to the JUDGE. Guilt has estranged the two parties. The power of atonement is its ability to remove guilt from the situation.

God has publicly displayed His own Son as the perfect atonement (Rom. 3:25,26). God has endorsed the infinite value of His Son’s death. “He was raised for our justification,” (Rom. 4:25).

The judgment due us because of our sins has been assumed by Another. Not only are believers freed from judgment, they are reconciled to the Judge! (Rom. 5:10). In the gospel, the Judge gives His authoritative endorsement of the atonement He has provided (Titus 3:4-7; Heb. 6:17-20).

THE ATONEMENT DISARMS THE CONDEMNING FORCE OF THE LAW AND FREES FROM THE FEAR OF PUNISHMENT.

The gospel brings incredible news – that what we know to be true about ourselves (our actual legal guilt and fear of punishment), has been responded to decisively, eternally from outside ourselves.

The human condition has been brought to light by God’s law. God has intervened sending His Son in human flesh in order that the full force of judgment that makes our lives so miserable might fall on Him (2 Cor. 5:21).

The whole oppression of judgment in every sense has descended upon the Son. This spells the end of the law as a power to deal out death to humanity. Jesus Christ is God’s infinite grace gift in Whom all men “killed by the law” are invited to rest (Gal. 2:19-21).

In judging Jesus Christ to death in our place, the law has done its worst. It has prosecuted its standard of obedience to the furthest possible limit – death to the lawbreaker in ultimate condemnation (Gal. 3:10-13; Rom. 10:4).

By disarming the law, the atonement frees from the fear of judgment.

Gospel atonement bursts in upon the fear of judgment. Remember, the law has not only judged what I do, but also what I am! (Our conscience witnesses against us. There is evidence of deliberate sins, conscious moral failures, compulsive patterns of lust and passion. At times, the believer loathes living in his body of flesh, Rom. 7:24,25.)

Because of Christ’s perfect atonement, the law is now powerless to condemn me (Col. 2:13,14; Eph. 2:14-16). The law cannot see me apart from Christ. Because of justification, I am morally and legally one with Him in the eyes of the law (Col. 3:3,4; Phil. 3:9).

GRACE MAKES HEROES OF BELIEVERS.

It was the fear of punishment and condemnation that made cowards of us all. We could not deal with sin courageously. Fear of punishment and exposure held us in a vice grip of guilt. The fear of punishment dominated our lives. We sought to “manage” that fear by hiding, denial, flight, defiance, appeasement and other carnal forms of self-protection.

Only Christ’s atonement could free us from guilt’s captivity. The design of Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice was to deliver us from the bondage of fear, casting it out, that we might be perfected in love (1 Jn. 4:18). (Fellowship with God and one another is the priority of grace – 1 John 1:3-7.)

Through justification, we move from cowardice to heroism.

The roots of cowardice penetrate so deep in our lives because the law condemns our whole being – what we are by nature (2 Cor. 3:9; 1 Cor. 15:56).

BUT, such is the power and wisdom of God in justification that believers are lifted out of cowardice to heroism. The very cause of our cowardice has been dug up by the roots.

It is no longer necessary to turn to flesh mechanisms in order to deflect judgment. The crushing fear of punishment has been mightily dealt with in the atonement. Our bondage to fear is broken by the atonement (Heb. 2:14,15).

JUSTIFICATION GIVES US THE LEGAL RIGHT TO COME OUT OF HIDING AND DEAL WITH SIN COURAGEOUSLY.

The atonement of Jesus Christ exists to make us heroes instead of cowards in the area where the greatest heroism is called for – in the area of human sin. Through justification in Christ, we come out of hiding and deal with sin courageously in true repentance and confession.

A mighty atonement is working in our favor. It is the believer’s responsibility to daily reckon Christ’s work on his behalf, BECAUSE the believer sins everyday. All our natural inclinations are to return to the fleshly strategies of managing guilt, fear and failure. (These are employed in an attempt to ward off threats of condemnation.)

Heroism is manifested when we believe the message of Christ’s work for us. Clothed in Christ’s righteousness, we may admit our sin without fear. The courage and confidence flows from the fact that honesty about indwelling sin cannot jeopardize my position in Christ (Rom. 8:1).

Application – All of the pains taken to avoid the painful truth about ourselves utterly fail. Whether it is denial, rationalizing, blame or defiance, carnal methods of self-defense fall short of the heroism God calls for us to practice (1 Jn. 1:6-10). Gospel “reasoning” is the key to the victory (Gal. 2:20).

WHEN BELIEVERS RETURN TO CARNAL STRATEGIES FOR MANAGING THE FEAR OF PUNISHMENT, RELATIONSHIPS ARE DAMAGED.

The fruits of our cowardly choices hurt those closest to us. The carnal methods of managing a sense of condemnation affect our relationships with others. When we are only concerned about deflecting judgment and winning approval, we cease to love the other person at that point. Not only does the fear of man bring a snare, it also is antithetical to living for God’s glory (See Proverbs 29:25; John 5:44; 12:43).

Every carnal attempt to escape judgment is a flight from realism and heroism. Cowardice moves us to retreat into blame, self-justification, hiding and pretending. The pretender’s attempt to cover guilt ends up hurting those around him.

Cowardice short-circuits conflict resolution.

It is the wise man who is able to receive a rebuke, a correction or an admonishment (Ps. 141:5). By contrast, the individual who is managing his dereliction (fear of judgment), by carnal methods will inevitably be defensive. He will feel too diminished to admit he is wrong (Prov. 9:8; 13:1; 17:10).

Those who are justified by Christ can admit when they are wrong. There is no other way to uphold a spirit of unity and maintain the bond of peace. This must be the case in a fellowship of forgiveness (Eph. 4:1-3,32; Col. 3:12,13 ff.). The justified sinner can admit when he fails others. He does not need to retreat into denial, escape or defensiveness.

UNRESOLVED SIN HURTS THE BELIEVER’S FELLOWHIP WITH GOD.

By “unresolved sin” is meant sin in a believer’s life that has not been confessed and repented of. In those instances, the Christian will not enjoy a sense of God’s favor and forgiveness.

We desperately need heroism at this point. Self-shielding is an effort of hide our deformities from God and ourselves, lest they should invite judgment. Unresolved sin sits there like a malignancy spinning off blame, shame, alienation, guilt and depression.

The Holy Spirit desires to bring us back to gospel reasoning. He wants to convince us of the wisdom of keeping “short accounts” with God (Acts 24:15,16). Gospel reasoning appropriates the unlimited provision for forgiveness found in the New Covenant (Heb. 8:12).

Application – If we as believers continue with unresolved sin, our energies that could be going toward the Lord and others will be squandered. We will be too occupied rationalizing and concealing our sin in an effort to deflect condemnation.

This is often seen in pastoral counseling situations. Delayed repentance only produced a series of further compromises resulting in additional regret. The experience of love and fellowship with God and intimates suffered in the process. (Note the frequent need of “family forgiveness,” John 13:10).

AN ATTITUDE OF CONTRITION IS CENTRAL IN OUR FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD (IS. 66:1,2; 57:15).

Efforts to shield ourselves from judgment alienates us from God’s gracious provision for forgiveness. Moral trust in God involves the daily application of gospel reasoning.

Courage to deal with personal sin entails dropping our defenses, false refuges and systems of self-righteousness. God desires that by the word of justification applied, you might demonstrate a depth of personal responsibility for sin known as contrition. Joy follows on the heels of contrition. It is the contrite who enjoy God the most. There is a joyful “integration” that accompanies the realism associated with contrition. Peace floods the heart when we come out of hiding into the presence of God.

THE CALL TO CHRISTIAN HEROISM IS A CALL TO LIVE A SIN-JUDGED LIFE.

Acknowledging our sin to God is the key to confessing our sin to others. Carnal approaches to conflict destroys unity (some hurl abuse, some hide, some are openly defiant, some appease – Scripture tells us to speak the truth in love, Eph. 4:15)

All of our “prickly” defense mechanisms look as if we carry our own worth and perfection. They appear as if our value would be decimated if we had to admit we were wrong (See 2 Tim. 3:3; Prov. 27:6; Lev. 19:16-18).

By contrast, the justified person is equipped for radical realism. He can admit his offense in the interest of God’s glory, in the interest of the relationship, in the interest of Christian unity and the bond of peace. He doesn’t have to play the “I’m right game.”

The man who trusts in his own righteousness may shun admissions of failure, sin and guilt. But the justified man trusts in an alien righteousness outside of himself,in Christ. He has the resources for radical realism.

Application – The sin-judged life is one of ongoing Biblical self-confrontation. The Christian must guard against attempts to raise himself morally by focusing upon the faults of others (Neh. 4:15; 6:15,16; Luke 18:11).

The Christian’s position is “in Christ.” The source of the believer’s strength and victory is grace (Heb. 13:9; Jude 20; Gal. 2:20).

The Dynamics of Grace, Part 4

INTRODUCTION – Justification defines our relationship with God. Justification involves the application of the benefits of Christ’s life, death and resurrection to the believer (Rom. 5:8-11). By Christ’s work, we are brought into relationship with God. Justification becomes the basis for our adoption, acceptance, favor and sonship.

Justification is forensic in nature and relational in its result. Justification removes every barrier to eternal fellowship with God. As our Substitute, Christ took upon Himself all of the dis-relatedness, the enmity and the alienation caused by our sin. He became our curse and our guilt. He willingly assumed the temporal and eternal consequences of our iniquity.

Here is the great scandal of the cross. It frustrates natural human reason to think that by God’s own hand the Son of God should be bruised, crushed, tormented and excommunicated. The most righteous man that ever lived was by God’s own plan, crucified by evil rebels and hateful cowards. Christ was brought to abject weakness, agony and shame. He was forsaken to die in ignominy and abandonment.

The cross, the greatest breach in human justice in history, became the greatest satisfaction of divine justice in time and eternity.

Christ became our dereliction of fear. He became our separation, our dereliction and our dis-relatedness. The dis-relatedness of non-being (the exp. of being cut off from God) fell full strength upon His Person. On Calvary He experienced the loss of all well being -- He became the embodiment of man in hell.

As our suffering Substitute, He removed the barriers to fellowship with God. And as our Substitute, He established the foundations of perfect fellowship with God.

Christ not only became a curse for us, He also is the believer’s right-relatedness to the Godhead. His perfect obedience to God, His perfect love to God, His perfect relatedness to the trinity is OURS BY IMPUTATION!

Christ is not only the revelation of God, He is our RIGHT-STANDING with God. He is meeting place, altar, covenant, eligibility, access and living way (Heb. 13:15; Is. 42:6; 49:8; Phil. 3:9; Eph. 3:12; Heb. 10;20).

He is our eligibility for an unbroken flow of divine love and blessing. In removing the barriers of dis-relatedness, He spanned the infinite moral gulf between God and man. Justification is an infinitely gracious exchange. He gives us His own right relatedness to the Father. He takes upon Himself our wretched dis-relatedness.

The right standing we now have in Him is only by union with Him. He is the sole source of our favor, acceptance and sonship. By God’s grace, we have His moral perfection by imputation and by union with Him.

In justification, there is a radical dealing with everything that produces dis-relatedness. Justification is relational grace. It is the ground of our reconciliation. It is the basis for perfect fellowship, for belonging, for oneness, for immutable love. It is by abiding in this divine love that we are transformed (1 Jn. 4:16-18).

As we “preach the gospel to ourselves every,” we are enabled to surrender to God in obedience and adoration. “Gospel reasoning” enables us to take delight in God and to abandon ourselves to Him (Rom. 12:1,2). Justification is of great practical value!

JUSTIFICATION CHANGES OUR WHOLE RELATIONSHIP TO GOD’S HOLINESS.

Through Christ, the justified man has become “rightly adjusted” to God’s person, character and attributes. The justified man is “rightly adjusted” to the claims of God, the government of God and the law of God. The justified man has beenlegally severed from the reign of the Adamic nature (Rom. 6:5,6; Col. 2:11-13). The justified man has a new Master – Christ and righteousness (Rom. 6:16,18,22).

Therefore, sanctification involves taking one’s justification seriously. Sanctification is the process of receiving the word of justification repeatedly and of receiving it in new areas of our being. To the degree that grace truths permeate the believer’s thoughts, values and conclusions, he is transformed by them. That is growth in grace, living in the light of these truths and seeing oneself and one’s relationships in light of these truths (Gal. 2:20).

Application – Study the imagery in Revelation 3:15-21 (“blind, poor, naked, wretched, miserable, needing nothing…”). Contrast the negative description of the Laodicean church with the promised blessings of Christ. In what ways does this contrast provide a picture of self as an ineffective “source” versus Christ as Source Person? (See 2 Pet. 3:18; Eph. 4:15,16; Col. 2:19.)

SANCTIFICATION INVOLVES BECOMING AS WE ARE REGARDED (2 COR. 6:14-7:1).

“Sonship is the motive and meaning of gospel holiness” (Lewis Sperry Chafer). Justification established our status as sons and daughters of God. The bestowal of sonship is completely gracious but our sonship is joined to moral imperatives (Matt. 5:44,45; Rom. 8:12-17; Eph. 5:1,2ff.; 1Jn. 3:9,10).

ROMANS 6 IS THE TRANSITION CHAPTER OR “BRIDGE” THAT JOINS OUR JUSTIFICATION TO OUR SANCTIFICATION.

“The gospel does not command us to do anything to obtain life, but bids us live by that which another has done” (H. Bonar). The soul’s rest in the life-giving truth of the gospel is the root of all true labor.

“In receiving Christ we do not work in order to rest, but we rest in order to work” (Jerry Bridges). Believers work from a position of pardon. Realized forgiveness is the joyful motive for obedience. Justification is the ongoing foundation for all progress in sanctification. “The sinner’s legal position must be set to rights before his moral position can be touched” (H. Bonar).

Romans 6 opens with the federal fact (Christ’s federal rep. of us) -- that Christ’s death was a representative union. (All the legal liabilities and responsibilities of His people rest upon Him.)

Christ’s death was not only “on behalf of” (huper) our sin, but “unto” (eis) sin. Here Paul brings the federal fact to light. Not only was Christ’s death intended to redeem His people from their sins, (Rom. 3-5) it was also intended to change His people’s relationship toward sin (Rom. 6-8). Our federal solidarity with Christ brings not only forgiveness of sin but also freedom from sin’s dominion! Thus, we may affirm “Christ died for us and we died in Him.”

In Romans 6, Paul joins the previous theme – salvation from sin’s penalty, with deliverance from sin’s dominion. Remember, Romans 5 established that the penal consequence of Adam’s sin was that mankind was delivered over unto the legal reign of sin. The great revelation of Romans 6:10 is that Christ died unto sin on our behalf. By reason of our federal union with Him in His death, we died as well to the legal reign of sin (Rom. 6:6-11).

“We could not take one step in the pursuit of holiness if God in His grace had not first delivered us from the dominion of sin and brought us into union with His risen Son” (Jerry Bridges).

THE FACT THAT WE DIED TO SIN IS NOT IMMEDIATELY EXPERIENTIAL.

“Our old self was crucified,” is a revealed truth that is addressed to faith (Rom. 6:6). The positional truth of co-crucifixion and union with Christ is not perceived primarily by experience, it is apprehended by faith.

If we “consult” our unmortified desires, we may conclude that we have not died to sin. Our indwelling sin seems to testify to the contrary that we are dead to sin. Our natural desires, passions and reasonings are not a reliable standard for our behavior (“[We] do not live by the standard set by the lower nature, but by the standard set by the Spirit” Romans 8:4b – Wms. Transl.).

THE FACT THAT WE DIED TO SIN IS A TRUTH EXPERIENCED BY FAITH. Paul affirms that the death of the old self in Christ’s death was necessary in order to “do away with our body of sin.” The Greek word for “do away” in this context means to annul or put out of business (kartegeo). By our co-crucifixion with Christ, all the legal rights of sin are gone. Christ’s work applied to the believer has the net effect of annulling the power of indwelling sin.

The ramifications of co-crucifixion with Christ are carried into practical living by means of faith. The believer is called upon to reckon a fact that appears contrary to experience, namely that he is dead to sin (6:11). To “consider” or “reckon” is an imperative or command in the Greek (Rom. 6:11-13).

Application – The benefit of Christ’s death to sin is the rightful property of His people. Here lies the incumbent challenge of preaching the gospel to ourselves daily. Our experiences of indwelling sin seem to contradict the federal fact of our death to sin. The difficulty resides in believing the astounding revelations of Romans 6. The old self causes trouble and we are immediately tempted to leave off the way of faith (expressed in reckoning) and turn back to carnal reasoning (fleshly strategies for coping with judgment).

The fact that we shared in Christ’s death to sin and that we are alive unto God in Him must be believed. There is no other path that establishes our souls and causes us to rest in Christ (Heb. 4:11).

Our “fruit unto sanctification” turns upon the daily presentation of ourselves to God (an activity born of reckoning) (Rom. 6:22).

SCRIPTURE JOINS THE RECKONING OF OURSELVES IN CHRIST “POSITIONALLY” WITH OUR BEING MADE HOLY “PRACTICALLY.”

In justification, God preempts all of the individual’s efforts to commend himself to his Creator. Status, favor, and acceptance are granted by a gracious divine donation. As a result, the pursuit of sanctification is liberated from every legal effort to enhance standing and acceptance before God. Only in this way can sanctification be all of grace (Rom. 4:3-8,16; 1 Cor. 1:30).

Efforts in sanctification that are completely divorced from the cross belie a carnal confidence that the flesh is perfectible (Note the Galatian error addressed by Paul). Scripture keeps justification and sanctification joined in the Person of Christ. The believer’s federal union with Christ is central in both doctrines. All advances spiritually are grounded upon faith in God’s Word. When the believer reckons the benefits that flow from his solidarity with Christ, God is glorified because Christ is the source Person, not self (Gal. 2:20).

Application – For passages that affirm that progressive sanctification is by faith, see Rom. 6:19,22; 2 Cor. 3:18; Gal. 2:20; 5:16-26; Col. 2:6,7; 3:1-11; 2 Thess. 2:12,13; 1 Tim. 6:12; Heb. 3-4; 6:11,12.

SCRIPTURE KEEPS JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION DISTINCT BUT INSEPARABLE.

The three “tenses” of salvation (I was saved, I am being saved, I will be ultimately saved) are also true of sanctification. (Justification and sanctification are bound together, one never occurs without the other.)

The three tenses of sanctification:

1.) I was set apart for God at the moment of salvation (1 Cor. 1:2; Heb. 10:10).

2.) I am living a life that is continually separated unto God that progresses in practical holiness (Rom. 6:22; 2 Cor. 7:1).

3.) When I am glorified, I will be absolutely set apart from sin, experiencing complete sanctification (Phil. 3;20,21; Rom. 8:30; Eph. 5:26,27; 1 Thess. 5:23).

Errors that result from separating or confusing justification and sanctification:

1.) PERFECTIONISM (Gal. 3:1-3) – This error stresses that the flesh is perfectible. Supposed “progress” in sanctification is given as evidence that man can be perfected by the flesh (supra-biblical standards are often used to measure progress). The “higher life” version of this error is commonly seen in “holiness” denominations. They stress a second work of grace. Sanctification becomes divorced from faith in the Person and finished work of Christ. Justification is devalued as sanctification becomes a new sought after “plane” of existence grounded upon human performance. (See also Quietism.)

2.) ANTINOMIANISM (Jude 4; 2 Pet. 2) – This deadly error denies the need for personal holiness. It turns the grace of God into an excuse for sinful expression. It produces both a false security and a false sense of “freedom.”

3.) SUBJECTIVISM (experience oriented Christianity – Col. 2:18,19) – In this error, religious experience becomes a badge of spiritual superiority. Private revelations, ecstatic experiences and sign gifts are paraded about and turned into a sacrament. Experience becomes the mark of the “spiritual.” In the process, justification is devalued. Union with Christ is de-emphasized.

4.) LEGALISM (Col. 3:16,17; 1 Tim. 1:7) – Legalism is closely associated with perfectionism. False religion is nearly uniformly legalistic, for it seeks to establish merit before God in a man-centered fashion. Perfectionism is more subtle than legalism. Perfectionism is the most common symptom among true believers who separate justification and sanctification.

Application – Discuss how the “narrow way” is a fitting metaphor to describe the biblical salvation path that steers clear of both legalistic perfectionism and carnal antinomianism. (Example - Like the relationship between the two natures of Christ in the doctrine of the hypostatic union, justification and sanctification are distinct yet inseparable. Where there is true salvation, justification and sanctification will be distinct yet inseparable.)

Gal. 2:20 -- We are justified because of union with Christ, not because of our conduct. BUT justification should affect our conduct. For Paul, justification is not merely a past event, but a present reality which he experiences everyday of his life. Peace with God, forgiveness, and acceptance belong to believers because of the righteousness of Christ – thus Paul lived by faith in the righteousness Christ. Though justification is a point in time past event, Paul brings justification into the present in Galatians 2:20. We work, serve and obey from the perspective that Another has performed for us, we live by faith in Him.

The Dynamics of Grace, Part 5

INTRODUCTION – By justification in Christ, we have bold access to the throne of grace (Eph. 3:12). Justification frees us from our cowardice and hiding and enables us to draw near to God in honesty and realism.

All of our fleshly attempts to manage pain, suffering and failure cause us to turn away from the ruthless honesty that Scripture enjoins. (The temptation is always to return to the fleshly strategies of flight, denial, open resistance and/or appeasementinstead of the atonement.)

Only the justified person has the resources for realism (realism born of heroism). He sees himself in Christ but also as a sinner who is utterly dependent. He knows that his completeness is a function of his union with Christ (Col. 2:10; 3:3). Our completeness and right standing are carried by God’s Son (Rom. 5:9). No specific fact concerning the believer’s depravity can harm his immutable standing in Christ.

JESUS CHRIST IS OUR SYMPATHETIC AND MERCIFUL HIGH PRIEST (HEB. 4:14-16; 2:17,18; 5;1,2,7,8; IS. 53:3; 2 COR. 13:4).

In Christ’s High Priesthood there is a sympathizing with our weaknesses and merciful aid for our temptations. Christ’s obedience as a suffering Servant exposed Him to the consequences of sin. As an obedient Son, He fully identified Himself with the sorrows and exigencies of the human condition.

The efficaciousness of His priesthood is coextensive with both the guilt and the effects of sin. Christ manifests His High Priestly mercy to us in areas where we experience indwelling sin, weakness, failure, inadequacy, helplessness, pain, persecution and suffering.

The Credentials of our Great High Priest – Scripture ties the depth of Christ’s mercy toward us to His sufferings. He was tempted in all things and made like His brethren in all things (Heb. 2:17,18). (God can be no more merciful than He is, but in Christ, there is a human heart that resonates with us. Without sinning, Christ identified with the plight of the sheep. He is able to sympathize.)

If God would have desired it, He could have ordained the sacrifice of His Son to be carried out in a manner that would have insulated Jesus from the abuse of wicked sinners. BUT God predestined the sacrifice should be carried out by enraged sinners. His Son was exposed to torture, spitting, flies, nakedness, shame, mockery and betrayal.

All the aspects of Christ’s passion are not to arouse our deepest pity, but that we might understand that Christ’s identification with sinners is so complete as to include all the ugly scandals of human existence – injustice, humiliation, victimization – every heart-wrenching experience. God spared not His own Son from this in order that He might identify with our plight and deliver us by His death.

Christ took on our nature that He might be our sin-bearer. But also as our substitute, He identified Himself with the consequences of sin – death, separation and agony of soul.

The pressure He experienced in Gethsemane’s garden was not primarily the recoil of human nature from death by crucifixion. The avalanche of mental and emotional anguish consisted of the crushing weight of expiring as sin’s curse, under the wrath of God, while separated from God. The greatest agonies of soul are tied to shame, condemnation, isolation, abandonment and divine wrath.

Application - Discuss the reasons why the stress Jesus experienced when He sweat drops of blood must have exceeded that ever experienced by any man. What was Jesus requesting of His Father in Hebrews 5:7? (Think about the fact that Jesus had been the master of every situation. As He faced Calvary, He was to be a passive victim in the face of evil and injustice. He was to be cut off, left alone and condemned as an accursed object worthy of destruction.)

The Grace and Mercy of our High Priest – Christ’s kenotic descent into radical humiliation enabled Him to assume our condition and penalty (Phil. 2:5-8). The Almighty Ruler, Creator and Lawgiver voluntarily became a curse, a victim and a corpse that He might gain the victory over death and sin for His people. (See Acts 2:24; 1 Cor. 15:55-57; Heb. 2:14,15.)

The torments of soul and body happened to our High Priest by God’s will that He might be uniquely qualified to minister to every human ache and agony. He sympathizes with our weaknesses. He has experienced the frailties of our human nature. Though sinless, He has great compassion for sheep that become hopelessly entangled in sin. He is friend of sinners. He is the wonderful counselor to believing sinners.

Our Great High Priest has purchased at Calvary all of our sonship privileges. Those privileges include an endless supply of grace. Our Heavenly Father is teaching us to roll our burdens onto Christ and to cry to Him for our daily needs of grace.

Application – Nearly all of our natural instincts for managing the pain and hurt of life are fleshly “solutions” that are ultimately destructive. Blame, denial, escape, bitterness, defiance and appeasement hurt our fellowship with the Lord and our relationships with people. (Israel’s failure in the wilderness is meant to be a negative example to the N.T. Church, see 1 Cor. 10:1-14; Heb. 3-4.)

The fleshly strategies cause us to come short of obeying Hebrews 4:16 – they stop us from drawing near to the throne of grace. In order for God to use you as a channel of grace to others, one must develop the habit of drawing near to the throne of grace in your own need, pain and inadequacy.

Before we come to the throne of grace, we first identify ourselves as “needy” (4:16b). We face the daily decision of “crying for mercy and grace” or of defending our pain by fleshly strategies.

The burden of the text falls upon the believer to make use of the infinite resources found in his High Priest.

THE PSALMS SET FORTH A PATTERN OF HONESTY BEFORE GOD IN PRAYER.

The godly man makes God his refuge in every area of life (Ps. 34:8). Such radical trust is unnatural. The tendency is to attempt to conceal pain of soul from oneself and God.

The Scripture commends a reverent but ruthless honesty before God. “Trust in Him as all times, O people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us" ”Ps. 62:8).

The promise of tender mercy, refuge and help are strong inducements to come out of hiding and exercise heroism. (While under the influence of fleshly strategies, we are shut up in the “gray castle of self.” We are not free to engage in spontaneous praise, adoration and surrender.)

According to Calvin, the Psalms provide a complete anatomy of the soul. They demonstrate a model of heart transparency before God. We see the Psalmist meeting with God in some very painful places. Though praise is abundant, there are numerous prayers that express despair, despondency, depression, betrayal, persecution, disillusionment, resentment, guilt and injustice. Agonizing memories and ache of soul for offenses committed and received are not an uncommon theme. In many instances, the psalmist utters imprecatory prayers -- calling for God to execute vengeance and judgments (Ps. 35:1-8).

Application – The command to rejoice in the Lord always (Phil. 4:4) and to give thanks in all things (1 Thess. 5:18) honors God amidst our circumstances. Our Savior entered into the emotional experiences of life, but was never sinfully controlled by emotions (Jn. 11:33).

The believer is not to manage his emotions by stoic denial of them or by sinful expression of them. The pattern found in the Psalms leads to realism before God and intimacy with God. The Psalms exalt God’s covenant faithfulness amidst every circumstance (Ps. 111:5,9).

POURING OUR HEARTS OUT TO GOD INVOLVES THE “PROCESSING” OF NEGATIVITY.

The Psalmist considered the negativity in his life (rejection, disillusionment, persecution, failure etc.) to be appointments with God. He regarded these negatives to be an opportunity to cry for fresh measures of grace, mercy and equipping.

When a believer refuses to accept “appointments” with God in these areas of negativity, these same areas become sealed off from the full benefit of Christ’s grace. When “appointments” with Christ in our regions of negativity are consistently refused, the heart builds prisons to house these unacceptable negatives.

The exhortation stands, “Pour out your heart to God” (Ps. 62:5-8). When the believer chooses to “manage” negativity in a carnal manner, he makes a choice for lukewarmness. Sealing off the pain of suffering and the ache of sin’s consequences can cause us to split off from the very regions of the heart that are needed for godly passion and Christian compassion.

In many respects, our personal ministry to others is the outgrowth of how we deal with our own souls.

Without contact with the God of all grace in the areas of our own negativity, it is unlikely that we will be able to weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:15). Paul makes it clear that believers who draw abundantly from God’s comfort in their own sufferings are best equipped to comfort others (2 Cor. 1:3-6).

CHRIST OUR HIGH PRIEST EQUIPS US FOR INTIMATE COMMUNION WITH THE FATHER.

Christ redeems us from cowardice in the area of transparency with God. Through Him, we dare to draw near. He has given us His grace that we might be courageous in dealing with our sin and suffering.

The very emotional resources needed for compassion, pity, empathy, passion, tenderheartedness are most available to God’s use when the heart is transparent before God.

Giving up false refuges is necessary in order to take pure delight and comfort in God. One cannot fulfill the assignment to delight in God when the flesh has prisons with prison guards in the soul.

By way of example, the oyster responds to irritation by forming layers of smooth iridescent nacre around a particle of jagged sand. So also, our tendencies are to defend and split off from our pain and hurt with layers of defensiveness, denial and stoicism.

At times, God brings suffering into our lives to break up all the lime scale of our defenses. He sends those trials that our hearts may have a renewed ability for intimate contact with Him. (The thicker our protection layers, the less intimate our contact with God.)

The furnaces of affliction are a mercy. For in them, our defense mechanisms utterly fail (Ps. 73:26). This is compassionate discipline from God, for we need to desist from control in order to assume a posture of childlike reliance. A united heart, a whole heart, a truthful heart that is unrestrained in affection comes only form a childlike disposition in the presence of the Father.

Application – God’s chastening love permits burdens too big for us that we might develop the habit of unburdening ourselves before Him in prayer. He gives us these “errands” so that we will pour out our heart until the care and pain is spent and “rolled upon” our High Priest. It is by these “appointments” that He restores joy from the deadness of carnal self-sufficiency. Our right standing is the foundation for intimate fellowship with God.

THE CROSS REDEEMS THE NEGATIVITY IN OUR LIVES.

So much of our self-protection, pretending and hiding our hearts from God is due to the fact that we do not understand the present value of the cross. The finished work of Christ is perfectly suited for dealing with every sin and every fruit of sin. The present value of the cross allows the believer to process the most horrendous things about himself.

All of the methods of escape, denial, defense and self-protection make a man’s latter end infinitely more painful. This is a great paradox. Those who attempt to live the most “pain free” now will have the greatest discomfort later. The secrets of men’s hearts will become public knowledge on judgment day (Rom. 2:16; 1 Cor. 4:5). Short accounts with God was Paul’s watchword (Acts 24:16).

The cross works across the grain of the flesh and opposes the self-preservation strategies that turn upon self-sufficiency. Carnal strength resorts to innumerable strategies employed in pain management. Allowing our pain to come in contact with God is the standard for His saints. “Thou hast taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Thy bottle; Are they not in Thy book?” (Ps. 56:8). Why are our tears so precious to God? The Lord values intimacy of soul in it interface with Him. The humble are vulnerable before God, they are willing to be searched by Him (Ps. 139:23,24). Guarded dungeons of pain keep us from receiving God’s love in new areas of our being. The Priesthood of Christ deals with the fruit of sinas well as the sin itself.

The cross is a paradigm for redeeming the negatives of life. The growing believer increasingly regards it to be so. Paul frequently spoke of the negativity in his life through the lens of the cross. (See 2 Cor. 4:7-18; 6:3-10; 7:6; 11:18-33; 12;9,10).

Application – Realism is a hard won asset. Strategies to defend pain and woundedness tend to be habitual and instinctive. The ultimate goal of our transparent prayer life is that we may draw near to God in adoration and love. By unburdening our souls before God, we make supplication for new installments of grace. By this renewed strength, we are enabled to do His will and bring Him glory. We pray that we might follow in the footsteps of our Savior as overcomers.

The Dynamics of Grace, Part 6

INTRODUCTION: The Colossian letter was written that Christians might know that their acceptance before God is through Christ only (they are “complete” in Christ, Col. 2:10).

The Colossian error embraced a philosophical system that depicted angels as a form of intermediary between God and men. False teachers influenced the Colossians to become ascetics (those who practice severe treatment of the body as religious devotion). Some of the deceived also revered angels to the point of worshipping them.

The error of the false teachers promoted a Jewish-pagan piety. Colossian believers were tempted to seek “something more” than the gospel of Jesus provided. (The “something more” included: a legalistic veneration of holy days, legalistic rules about food and drink, visions, religious ecstasy and secret knowledge.)

The Apostle’s answer to this dangerous error involved an exhortation to the Colossians to contemplate afresh God’s revelation of Christ. Redemption is the heart of the gospel – the Colossians must understand that their whole existence is rooted and grounded in Christ (Col. 1:23; 2:19).

The epistle was written to show that the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ is NOT an abstract religious concept – it is the theme of the gospel objectively andsubjectively.

Christ is supreme and preeminent – All authority has been given to Him. He is Lord of the universe. God’s plan is that Christ have first place in everything (He is Logos, Lion, Lamb – Creator, Redeemer, King, Prophet, Lawgiver, Judge).

Christ is all-sufficient toward His people – Our Christian life turns upon the experimental knowledge of Who He is toward us now and who we are in Him now. We live by faith in what He has done for us and what He will do for us. (His “relational grace” entails who He is toward us in His supremacy and sufficiency. In Him, we are new creatures, circumcised in heart, justified, forgiven all our transgressions. He is actively renewing us, transforming us into His image).

COLOSSIANS 1 & 2 SETS FORTH THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL REALITIES THAT FORM THE BASIS FOR ALL CHRISTIAN DUTY.

One’s relationship with Christ is foundational for all the duties commanded in Colossians 3 & 4. (Our relationship with the Lord is characterized by heart knowledge of Him, devotion to Him, praise, worship, thanksgiving, vital faith and piety.)

Without that vital union/fellowship, the duties and practice of Colossians 3 & 4 will only be burdensome laws, frustration and bondage. The evangelical pattern always joins the fruits of righteousness to one’s relationship with Jesus Christ.

IN COLOSSIANS 3 & 4, PAUL ADDRESSES HOW CHRIST’S SUPREMACY AND SUFFICIECY EFFECTS OUR PERSONAL HOLINESS, OUR SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS, OUR FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS, OUR WORKPLACE RELATIONSHIPS AND OUR MINISTRY.

Paul immediately moves Christian experience out of the private arena and into the corporate body – the implications are in all spheres of relationships. The constant affirmation is that those who have received mercy (have been justified by faith), ought to be careful to maintain good works (Titus 3:8, also Eph. 4:1ff.).

Colossians 3:1-4 – This section addresses what the cross of Christ accomplishedfor you, to you and in you. Paul makes it incumbent upon the believer that the change of 2:9-14 must be realized in the Christian’s life. “I died once for all to the world, I’m living another life now. My true citizenship is in heaven.”

The believer is to occupy his mind with his true treasure (“things above”) – not have his mind consumed with earthly things. These first four verses of chapter 3 concern the believer’s new identity in Christ. God placed you in Him in love, now “be who you really are!”

Paul’s logic is as follows: our true identity is an unseen reality now (hidden, not esteemed by natural reason) – our radical identity with Christ is comprehended by faith in God’s revelation. When we “set our minds” upon these glorious realities, they exert a transforming power in our walk and relationships.

Christ is our life – our “Source Person.” All that God communicates to us by way of life and infinite riches comes to us because we are in union with Christ.

Our new “heavenly” life revolves around Christ. The glories of the gospel have an eschatological dimension – The “hope of glory” permeates our life with resolve to pursue sanctification. (See 1 Jn. 3:2; Phil. 3:20,21; 2 Cor. 5:9 and the “overcomer” passages of Revelation).

Application – When we meditate upon the Word and its revelation of Christ, the eyes of our hearts are able to focus upon unseen spiritual realities. As a result, we will increasingly reckon the fact that we have been translated from earth to heaven in the spheres of position, purpose, relationships and destiny. Repeatedly fixing our minds upon these truths “pulls back the veil.” Our preoccupation with the material, transitory and the mundane will give way to the heavenly, the moral and the ethical. There is no progress to maturity without this practice.

Colossians 3:5-11 – Because of the gospel realities of union, identification and glorification – therefore we must be done with the old. (i.e., the skunk-sprayed clothes illustration)

“Consider,” (put to death, treat as dead, reckon as dead, realize you’re dead to the world).

Sins born of lust deceive the soul (Eph. 4:22). They wage war upon the soul (1 Pet. 2:11). They train the heart in greed (2 Pet. 2:14). They constitute idolatry (Col. 3:5).

Our old man must be piteously slain – this is our present obligation (Rom. 8:12,13).

WHEN WE PUT ON THE GARMENTS OF GRACE, WE MUST PUT OFF THE OLD CORRUPT GARMENTS AS WELL.

The mortification of sin is not merely abstinence, it is replacement. It is not merely the avoidance of the negative, it is a striving for the virtuous, positive graces.

These grace garments are to be our dress. They are the glory of the church now. The grace garments manifest an ever-deepening image of Christ stamped upon us. God’s grace is exalted, not just in keeping us out of hell, but in making men new!

THE NEW MAN IS CONSTRUCTED COMPLETELY AROUND CHRIST.

Christ is the “Architect” of the new man – Col. 3:10

Christ is the “Blueprint” for the new man – Col. 3:10, Rom. 8:28,29

Christ is the “Contractor” of the new man – Col. 3:11; 2:19; Eph. 4:15,16

Christ is the “Resident” in the new man – Col. 1:27; Rom. 8:10

Christ as the Creator of the new man is also fashioning each new creation He shapes into a master edifice which will serve as God’s eternal temple (Eph. 2:19-22).

Application – True community thrives where Christ’s preeminence, supremacy, sufficiency are lived out. Where He shines and where His people seek to glorify Him, the grace garments of Colossians 3 will be worn.

Where Christ’s master plan for the new man is kept before the minds and hearts of God’s people, there will be vision for transformation. God’s goals for the new man will become our goals. The elect embrace God’s purpose for the new man.

The moral image of Christ was first graciously imputed to us in forensic justification. Then the actual internal reality of possessing Christ’s moral perfection will be ours at glorification. The day by day renewal of the new man concerns our present existence between the events of justification and glorification. Thus, our present duty is sanctification by means of the development of the new man (Col. 3:10; 2;19; Eph. 4:22-24).

Colossians 3:12-14 – The objects of God’s love are summoned to the privileges and duties of the gospel.

Chosen of God – Since God has chosen us as members of His new creation, we must fulfill the command to conduct ourselves according to the ethics of the new man.

Put on therefore a heart – The wardrobe of grace garments begins with a heart of pity and compassion – tender-hearted kindness and compassion. It’s a disposition that seeks to meet the needs of others through deeds of kindness.

Humility – Lowliness of mind is to recognize one’s own weakness, but also to recognize the power of God. A humble opinion of self is accompanied by a deep sense of one’s moral littleness. Humility avoids a demanding spirit where personal rights are concerned.

Meekness – This virtue is only possible when a person is exercising obedient submissiveness to God and His will. It is known for gentleness with others. Unwavering faith and enduring patience will display itself in gentleness and kindness towards others – especially in the face of opposition. Where meekness is exercised, the powers of personality are brought into subjection and submission to God’s will by the power of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:23). (The opposite of meekness is “quick-draw” retorts of rudeness, harshness, resentment, revenge and wrath.)

Longsuffering – It is a long holding out of the mind before it gives room to action or passion. It indicates the patient longsuffering that bears with injustices or unpleasant circumstances without revenge or retaliation. It maintains the hope that such self-control will result in a positive outcome.

Forbearing – The word is in the present tense, indicating continual action. It means to endure, to bear, to put up with someone. It is to restrain oneself so as not to burst forth (which would produce dire consequences). When we show forbearance, we suspend rightful demands out of consideration for the weakness of the brethren. (Each of us has our own set of weaknesses.)

Forgiving – The literal word is to be gracious – that is to be gracious so as to forgive “as members of one another.” If Christ has forgiven us, should we not be generous in extending forgiveness to others? It is “gracious” to bestow favor unconditionally.

“If any man has a quarrel” (by quarrel is meant complaint, or cause for blame. It is to find fault so as to be dissatisfied with someone. It refers most commonly to errors of omission. Therefore, to refuse to forgive would be to regard the offense as a debt to be remitted.

We forgive because He forgives us and because He commands it.

Love – “Above all these things – in addition to – on top of all” put on love which is the outer garment which holds the other grace garments in place. (Remember, our ethical treatment of others to a great measure issues from our inner disposition towards them.)

The bond of love is the perfect expression of Christ’s personality – that is His divine life in the Christian community. (Love by the Spirit’s enablement is a choice to give no place to bitter words, angry feelings, dishonesty and unseemly speech.)

The “top coat” of love should characterize a congregation. This is not the sentimental love the world talks about, but the kind of self-sacrificial love the Bible speaks about. Love is bond that protects unity and leads to maturity.

All these grace garments are facets of Christ’s character – to “put on Christ” (Rom. 13:14) is to put on Christ’s character.

Application – The power to obey these commands (put on the garments of grace) flows out of faith in God. It involves reckoning the unseen realities of union with Christ.

The Gospel for Life,the Centrality of the Gospel in the Life of the Church

The Gospel, worship, and renewal The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the very “food” of the Church. The Gospel, or as Paul describes it at times, the “word of grace,” or “word of truth” is the sphere in which the church operates. It is her life breath and atmosphere. For it is by the Gospel that the Church worships, progresses in her knowledge of God, maintains purity, pursues unity, and fulfills her mission to the world. The Gospel is “our canon within the canon.” Those who disbelieve the Gospel are at war with who God is. They show themselves hostile to God’s self-revelation. The only way to know God, and therefore to be saved is to become a friend of the cross. True believers literally love the way God has saved them. They love the truth and feed upon it; they “preach the Gospel to themselves.” They cherish Christ as revealed in the Gospel. They meditate upon the word of God’s grace, marveling at God’s wisdom in the cross. Therefore the Gospel is their constant meeting place with God; for it is the revealer of the heart of God toward us (1 Jn 4:9, 10). Our boldness to draw near to God in prayer and the confidence that we are heard is because the Father has graciously called us to meet Him at the altar of the slain Lamb of God. Oh how the Gospel towers over the human intellect. Consider that God has taken man’s salvation into His own hands -- for the love of God and the wisdom of God have carved out a hiding place for believing sinners by means of the justice of God in the cross – so that by the sovereign calling of God the sinner may take refuge in the mercy of God from the wrath of God. Those who are willing to continually drink deeply from the well of the “word of grace” are never bored with God. On the contrary, they are renewed by fresh views of God – views that produce awe, adoration, wonder, fear, and amazement. The Gospel is central to worship. For it is by the Gospel that God exalts, preserves, makes known, and glorifies His holy character in the face of Christ (2 Cor 4:6). By nature even saved men are prone to live by sight and sense. Like silt settling to the bottom of a lake, our thoughts find the lowest common denominator and eventually return to a temporal value system. Only the Gospel can lift us to another “dimension” by which we live “God-ward” lives. Only the Gospel can fuel our hope and make us resolute in our pilgrimage to the Celestial City. Just as gravity causes water to flow downward so that it eventually finds the bottomland, the swamp, and the stagnant slough, so also the old nature tugs at the saint, pulling him away from faith living. It takes energy and a plan to move pure water uphill to the water tower at the hilltop. So also, feeding on grace is a matter of intentionality. In order to rebound from spiritual declension, one must assess the spiritual malnutrition in his own soul. He must stir himself past the carnal apathy that has left him contented with spiritual dryness and a lukewarm disposition toward Christ. The believer must take seriously the fact that Christ sharpens His rod of discipline to chasten believers who exhibit more complacency than zeal. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; be zealous therefore, and repent (Rev 3:19). It is a wonder how Evangelical pastors in good conscience can function week after week without giving their listeners frequent views of the God of all grace. A pulpit ministry that does not connect precepts to divine grace tends to leave the listener with a moralistic view of the Christian life. Paul consistently anchored N.T. commands upon the foundation of grace and redemption. His arguments for obedience were soundly developed from the believer’s union with Christ. Without that connection, Christians are left with free-floating exhortations that have the hollow echo of “be-good, and try harder.” A ministry pattern of attempting to improve the Christian life by right attitudes and behavior modification falls woefully short of the grace-based pattern set by the Apostle. If the precepts we teach are disconnected from the word of grace, the struggling believer is frequently left with the impression that his Christian life is a non-stop effort to measure up. The exposition of biblical principles must be joined to a glorious exhibition of the majesty of the Savior who loves the redeemed to the uttermost. The Apostle Paul’s controlling burden for his converts was that they would be granted (by the Holy Spirit) a “spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ” (Eph 1:17ff.). This prayer request for his converts involved a Spirit-imparted understanding of the doctrines of grace in a way that would penetrate their hope and affections. The Christian life is a life of walking worthy of our calling (Eph 4:1). The first three chapters of Ephesians set forth the infinite riches and glory of our calling. The believer who understands, and highly esteems his calling by the Gospel of grace is in the best position to obey his Lord from right motives. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Pet 3:18a). When the saints are awakened to the all-pervasive spiritual reality that they owe their life, their future, their sonship, their status, and their favor with God in Christ solely to the unobligated sovereign mercy of God, it has a life-transforming and revolutionizing effect. But there is more. Once the saint begins to understand (by means of a spirit of wisdom and revelation, not just academically, but in his deepest affections) that God’s sovereign mercy is not just how God is taking poor sinners to heaven, but it is the very center of God’s plan to glorify Himself – then the saint begins to see things from a different perspective; a perspective which we could designate the Divine View Point (DVP). (A believer operating from DVP takes to heart the message of Ephesians one; God’s glory is exalted in the entire salvation of the sinner. God is lavishing grace on the sinner for His Name’s sake! Ez 36:22, 23.) When the believer is stuck in patterns of spiritual defeat, it is frequently because he had not lifted his eyes above his own struggles. Unbelief keeps us focused upon our own circumstances and performance. As long as the saint is stranded in a Human View Point (HVP) perspective, he has little incentive to exercise passion for the glory of God. By contrast, living by Divine View Point produces a kind of “grace awakening;” it elevates our thinking to live in compliance with Colossians 3:1-3. “If this be so; if you were raised with Christ, if you were translated into heaven, what follows? Why you must realize the change. All your aims must center in heaven where reigns the Christ who has thus exalted you, enthroned you on God’s right hand. All your thoughts must abide in heaven, not on the earth. For I say it once again, you have nothing to do with mundane things: you died, died once for all to the world: you are living another life” (Expanded paraphrase of Col 3:1-3 -- J. B. Lightfoot’s Commentary, p. 208). In the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the believing sinner discovers to his utter astonishment that God has planned from all eternity to join His matchless glory to the unending blessedness and welfare of the believing sinner. In response to such infinite grace Calvin says, now let us fall down before the majesty of our good God, with acknowledgement of our sins, praying Him to make us perceive them more and more.And may He enliven us with the doctrine of the Gospel that we may see our own sins and shamefulness and be ashamed of ourselves, and also behold the righteousness which has been shown us in our Lord Jesus Christ, and lean upon it with the endeavor to be fashioned thereafter, so that daily we may come nearer and nearer to it, until we cleave thoroughly to it (Calvin’s Sermons on Ephesians, pp. 445, 446). By God’s design, the glorious effect of grace – namely to be taken up and “intoxicated” with God (hungering and panting after Him and delighting in communion with Him) is the prerequisite for selfless ministry to others (including a zeal for evangelism – genuine ministry is the overflow of worship). The Gospel of grace alone can make us leave our comfort zones on behalf of the needs of others. Grace alone can move us past self-protection. Transforming grace is what is needed in order for us to be lifted out of self concern and to be taken up with God. Apart from Divine View Point, our tendency is to settle into a relational life characterized by personal interests, independence, guarded privacy, prickly defenses, and cherished masks. The saint “stranded” in the HVP perspective of things tends to operate from the carnal vantage point of self concern. His vantage point turns upon his self-ordered world of personal peace, protection, and prosperity. His truncated “keyhole” vision of things has no picture window to see what God is doing in the world. In spiritual practice he lives in a dingy hut, contenting himself with the “bread and water” of carnal security and comfort. Though seated in the heavenlies, he doesn’t stir himself to see past the tiny walls of his little stick hovel of HVP. Religion has become a spiritual compartment characterized more by deadening duty than delight. Instead of glorying in an all-pervasive relationship with Christ that dominates exceptionally in his life, his heart is smothered in layers of guilt, obligation, and fear. He is like a prisoner in his grey castle of self. The Gospel of grace is the cure. The kind of grace thinking enjoined by Paul is what is necessary to raise us from a state of spiritual lethargy to a pervasive consciousness of all that God is toward us in Christ. Only by a grace awakening can we be lifted out of carnal self concern to function from a DVP vantage point (Divine View Point) laid out by Paul in Ephesians 1-3. And what a vantage point it is! Meditate for a moment upon God’s plan revealed in the Gospel. Consider what it means to be taken from dust to glory: “What is [God’s] goal? What does He aim at? . . . His ultimate objective is to bring [redeemed mankind] to a state in which they please Him entirely and praise Him adequately, a state in which He is all in all to them, and He and they rejoice continually in the knowledge of each other’s love – men rejoicing in the saving love of God, set upon them from all eternity, and God rejoicing in the responsive love of men, drawn out of them by grace through the gospel” (J. I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 81).  This is God’s glory and man’s glory bound up together in a setting in which the whole created order has been transformed (Packer, pp. 81-82).  Oh how the Church needs to feed on the grace of the Gospel. A passion for God’s glory in our lives is the blessed byproduct of walking through the gates of Ephesians chapters one through three, and (by the Spirit’s enablement) understanding what God is doing in the world – He is glorifying His grace, and He desires that the saints align their entire lives with His plan. The maturing saint has numerous “grace awakenings” as his Christian life progresses over time. The spiritual cycles of these awakenings bear a strong resemblance to one another. Every time, it is the Gospel order – first there is a withering and stunning view of our weakness, sin, pride, inadequacy, smallness, pettiness, unbelief, unmortified lusts, and frigid love for God. We become utterly disillusioned with our Christian lives. Then, just when we are ready to write ourselves off as useless to God, as unfruitful and failures as Christians, then the Holy Spirit inspires us to exercise “mustard seed” faith in a passage of Scripture, or a promise from the Word. Even a single line of living Scripture believed anew with struggling faith can be a staging area from which God can give us fresh revelations of His faithfulness (and from which He can do new things in our lives). Amidst our self-loathing, the Holy Spirit “shows us the blood” yet again. We feed our faith again upon the grace of God in Christ. We fall at Lord’s feet and consent to be loved by Him for Christ’s sake alone. Suddenly duty becomes delight – we move all the way into renewed enjoyment of all that God is towards us in Christ. It is through the lens of the Gospel that we see that we are God’s possession. Our identity as sons of God is drawn directly from the word of grace. To the degree that the saint defines himself by the Gospel, literally drawing his identity from what God says about him, to that degree his life will demonstrate eternal values. By contrast, the saint adrift in the dwarfed faith of HVP tends to define himself primarily by temporal things. His job, his income, his possessions, his friends, his status, his hobbies, his appearance – all these define the HVP saint in his own mind, more than his holy, God-possessed status in Christ. Preaching grace truths to ourselves regularly is not an option. Without a steady spiritual diet of the word of grace, of Christ and Him crucified, the lower nature will assert itself. Performing, pretending, and a passionless spirit will dominate our lives if we are not feeding upon Christ as He is revealed in the Gospel. Here is the unbreakable truth, if your own identity in Christ, as defined by the Gospel, is your controlling identity, then you will see the Gospel as your life. The Gospel through Christ’s constraining love will animate you; it will determine how you see everything. It will mark out your value system. The Gospel and Sanctification Historically, the Church has always found it a battle to keep the doctrines of justification and sanctification joined (and operating in their logical relation – especially as set forth in the Pauline epistles). Pietism separates the two cardinal doctrines; as does quietism. Legalism and antinomianism mitigate against their unity as well. Of all the groups in church history, the Puritans seemed to have best understood the essential and practical relationship between justification and sanctification (many of the Reformers did as well, but they did not write on it as prolifically as the Puritans). As pastors, our anthropology ought to reflect an extremely keen insight into the hearts of our hearers. We’re preaching to people who carry in their bosoms the seeds of the Galatian error. We should never be shocked at how religious the flesh of man can be. Orthodoxy can be a forum for the flesh. We are preaching to folks like ourselves who carry in their souls an internal enemy of God’s grace, even though they are believers! Carnal sense has no trouble understanding moral obligation, ethical responsibility, duty, performance, production, and law, BUT, it requires the ongoing work of God’s Spirit to understand and live by the grace of the Gospel. The flesh of man prefers a formal, manageable approach to religion. True religion always tends to degrade in the direction of formalism and compartmentalization. (See essays: Orthodox Formalism and Thoughts on Church Renewal). Only fresh acts of faith take us off of ourselves and dislodge self from being at the center (even Christians would rather do some work of service than do the work of believing – note Heb 4. Christ was witness to this propensity in hearers; a tendency to rather work than believe – Jn 6:27-29). Due to this bent in all of us, the challenge is to keep before our people the union of justification and sanctification. And the fact that grace is not primarily a principle or a possession; grace is a relationship; it is relational. God has made us His possession that we might know and enjoy Him and in so doing glorify Him – all flows from Christ, our “Source Person.” We are saved to commune with the Trinity and in so doing ultimately realize (that is be transformed into) our true identity in Christ. Grace is a love relationship with our Heavenly Father through Christ our Lord in the power of the Spirit. Sanctification is the outworking of this love relationship. When the believer maintains his relationship with the Lord, he is living a “separated unto God,” or “sanctified” life. Thus sanctification involves caring for our relationship with God (David Peterson, Possessed by God). Our relationship with God is manifested in our relationships with others. Through the word of grace, and union with Christ we are made “fit” to wear the garments of grace. The “garments of grace” are described especially in Ephesians 4-5 and in Colossians 3-4. The language used by the Apostle in these chapters is “put on” (put on like a garment the character qualities of Christ). Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience (Col 3:12b). Our practical sanctification is lived out as we wear the garments of grace in our relationships with believers. In this way, others see that we have become partakers of Christ and of grace. The Gospel of grace provides the rationale for us to love sacrificially; to be spent on behalf of the brethren; to live for the edification of others. The word of grace gives us the reasons why we are to identify ourselves completely with Christ’s purposes. The believer is a member of Christ’s Body; as such each member is to contribute his part to the maturation of the Body of Christ as a whole (Eph 4:15, 16). Each member of Christ’s Body is to commit himself to the Great Commission which is not only directed at evangelism, but equally at discipleship. And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man that we present every man complete in Christ (Col 1:28). Such radical identification with Christ and His purposes requires that our affections be captive to the grace of God in the Gospel (to be captivated with the Gospel of God’s grace is synonymous with having a DVP perspective). Only then does the believer gladly make the purposes of Christ his life’s direction. Pastors in training face a whirlwind of seminary instruction that tends to leave them with a certain inference, namely that the Bible is a divinely inspired, inerrant “technical manual” from which they are to mine and exegete timeless principles. The sheer volume of academic material to be covered in the seminary curriculum pushes spiritual life issues into the background. As a consequence, the following essentials are frequently neglected: the believer’s union with Christ, the doctrine of abiding in Christ, the spiritual nature of ministry, the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ, and the relationship between spiritual position and condition (definitive and “progressive” sanctification). Without the Gospel of grace as our focus, there can be a tendency to preach principles and then recruit volunteers for ministry while the sense of obligation is weighing heavy. Our people can easily interpret our ministry activity and “orthodox output” as the very soul and heartbeat of the Christian life. Indeed, this happened at the church of Ephesus (Rev 2). Productivity “ate up” devotion to Christ as the highest value. If we are to be faithful to the logical relationship between justification (the Gospel) and sanctification, then we will want to follow the pattern set by the Apostle Paul. An understanding of “who we are in Christ” and our devotion to Him will have to precede “what we do for Christ.” The Gospel of God’s grace is our constant corrective; it keeps liberating us from the pressure to “measure up” in order to be loved and accepted by God. Preaching Christ in the Gospel of grace is the key to an “identity-based” ministry that puts who we are in Christ ahead of what we do for Christ. Pastors therefore should personally master an understanding of the relationship between justification and sanctification. It’s an area of study that eludes most laymen. Folks who have been church members for decades have difficulty explaining the relationship between these two doctrines of justification and sanctification; most cannot do it. Those who are able to give the barest explanation of the relationship between the doctrines often do so without any mention of the dimension of life in Christ and union with Him. It is the goal of this author to challenge pastors to be Gospel-centered. Consider keeping at least one book on your nightstand that deals with this topic of justification and sanctification and union with Christ. This author is increasingly convinced that Christian maturity is retarded because believers are not approaching sanctification and service as a function of faith in Christ and the Gospel (suggested bibliography at end of this paper). The Gospel and Evangelism The saint who lives in perpetual amazement concerning what Christ has done for him is a grace-based, grace-awakened believer who cannot lack Paul’s sentiment that he is a debtor to all men (Rom 1:14). The DVP saint maintains a “debtor” mentality toward all men – he always has on his radar screen a cognizance of the spiritual state of those around him, therefore he is keenly aware of every Gospel opportunity. He prays that he will be strengthened so as not to lose any evangelistic opening God provides. He runs through his mind potential dialogs with the lost – he considers how they may be reached for Christ. He believes that God has placed him strategically for the purpose of being a witness to those in his sphere. It is the word of grace that instills fervency and boldness in him for evangelism. A diet of grace truth has conditioned his mind to think this way because his spirit is fed and fortified on the truth of what God is doing in the world in view of eternity (Eph 1-3). For the reasons spelled out above, a heart for evangelism proves to be a telling virtue concerning the spiritual condition of the individual, and of the local church. The next point related to evangelism is more controversial. It comes from the biography of Martyn Lloyd-Jones. It rattles our traditional thinking regarding how a burden for evangelism is produced among church members. Lloyd-Jones states that evangelism training programs like Evangelism Explosion (James Kennedy) are too cut and dried. He notes that most training programs bypass the need for personal spiritual awakening and revival. Now comes the part that can be the toughest to accept: Lloyd-Jones states that if you preach the Gospel well enough to your church, the true Christians will know how to do it, and they will do it (Ian Murray, Lloyd-Jones Bio vol. 2, pp. 706, 707). Martyn’s point is that the churched are not used to hearing the Gospel passionately and convicting-ly preached from the pulpit. Lloyd-Jones preached two sermons each Sunday -- morning and evening. One of the two was always intended to be evangelistic, often both were! Yet, he was one of Britain’s finest expository preachers! Lloyd-Jones is passionate in his assessment of why the Church lacks commitment to the Great Commission. Lloyd-Jones states that the prevailing error today is that pastors imagine that the majority of the people in their churches are saved and only need instruction – Lloyd-Jones saysthey actually need a more consistent diet of the Gospel, repentance, and exhortation (Vol. 2, p. 619). Lloyd-Jones’ point is well-taken. In order for believers to confidently and consistently share the Gospel, they must be in the habit of living upon the Gospel. Christians need practice thinking through the Gospel, worshipping through the Gospel, and repenting through the Gospel. The word of grace; the Gospel, preached passionately, is desperately needed in order to deepen our faith in what God is doing in the world now. He is convicting, calling, quickening, and regenerating sinners by means of the Gospel. This is God’s primary means of glorifying Himself! Thus, the word of grace provides an essential grounding inDivine View Point. This perspective (DVP) becomes a key source of our confidence. Are we absolutely convinced that every man bears a relation to God defined by his relation to the Gospel? Are we convinced that he will carry that relationship with him eternally? This is a source of boldness for us. It feeds our desire to march under Christ’s banner; to be co-laborers with God’s field, the world. Evangelism is also a barometer of spiritual vigor because it involves a very pronounced dependence upon the power of God. This proves to be a divider of men for the following reasons. First, it is utterly realistic to affirm that our evangelistic efforts must be accompanied by spiritual power if they are to be effective (1 Cor 2:4). We must sense our dependency upon the Holy Spirit. Therefore consider that spiritual power is a daunting thing because it cannot be harnessed by ambitious men, nor can it be traced to the strengths of the creature. This can be disturbing to us because it exposes our utter dependence upon God and it is demands that we have high views of God. And that we live by a faith that is self-renouncing (self-renouncing because we look away from self and toward God as our chief resource). What I call the “toe in the Jordan principle” applies here. Just prior to Israel’s conquest of Canaan, God commanded Israel to enter Palestine by way of crossing the Jordan River at flood stage. Not until the feet of the high priest touched the water did the cresting Jordan River part in order for the armies to cross over. Now here is the application to evangelism. The believer in the pew takes inventory of his own inadequacy, he thinks about the stubborn pride of the unbeliever. He thinks about the rejection that is targeted at those who preach such a demanding and exclusive worldview as the Gospel. Then he concludes that his own spiritual impotence is no match for the hardened sinner. The result is that he is apathetic about evangelism. But the “toe in the Jordan principle” is extremely relevant here. Not until we make an attempt to share the Gospel will we sense any power from God in the situation at all. The key is to make the attempt; make the attempt anyway, against all instincts of self preservation against failure – step into the Jordan anyway! We agree with that giant of the Great Awakening George Whitfield who saw so many thousands saved under his preaching, “the Gospel is dead apart from the Holy Spirit.” It is no exaggeration to say that to embark upon evangelistic efforts with enthusiasm requires that we exercise faith in God’s spiritual power (by spiritual power is meant that God is pleased to bring His power to bear on His message, the Gospel). A regular “diet” of the Gospel instills in the believer the conviction that the Holy Spirit has already been striving with every sinner (Rom 1:18ff; Acts 7:51). And further, it imbues us with the confidence that God is quite ready to exercise spiritual power when we share the Gospel with the lost. In this context of spiritual power, one of the problems associated with a lack of evangelism becomes evident – without a steady diet of grace truths, potential workers will not be in the habit of attempting something that requires divine spiritual power (only by the perspective of Divine View Point can we “see” past our own inadequacy). The word of grace then (the doctrines of grace), are needed in order to instill faith in what God is doing in the world now. He is convicting, calling, quickening, and regenerating sinners by means of the Gospel. By means of His sovereign grace He is glorifying Himself! Thus, the word of grace provides an essential grounding in DVP. This becomes a key source of our confidence. Are we absolutely convinced that every man bears a relation to God defined by his relation to the Gospel? That he will carry that relationship with him eternally? This is a source of boldness for us. It feeds our desire to march under Christ’s banner, to be co-laborers with God in His field, the world. By way of review and summary, we feed on the truths of grace for our very spiritual life toward God. The “word of grace” builds us up in order for us to fulfill our high calling. The word of grace gives us God’s perspective of life (DVP). It instills in us kingdom values. We are constantly renewed by the word of grace. It plants in us God’s heart for the world. It emboldens us to radically identify with God’s purposes and to commit ourselves to outreach, believing on Him for the power necessary for the Gospel to actually break hearts of stone. The Gospel is our divine resource so that we live lives that are supernatural. Living upon the Gospel is the best preparation to preach the Gospel. Through the lens of the Gospel we view the glory of God in Christ, through the lens of the Gospel we view the brethren as fellow heirs, through the lens of the Gospel we view the unsaved world as is desperate need of the treasure we carry (2 Cor 4:7). ADDENDUM: The following is a suggested book list of titles that provide an excellent explanation of the relationship between justification and sanctification. Howard Marshall, Gospel Mystery of Sanctification (an awesome book that drives home the fact that our pursuit of holiness can only be advanced by fresh acts of faith in Christ. Related themes deal with the Law, with the necessity of assurance, and the central theme of the relationship between justification and sanctification.) C. J. Mahaney, The Cross-centered Life (a short devotional style book that shows the relevancy of the cross to all of the Christian life – how we need this theme.) Paul F. M. Zahl, A Short Systematic Theology (and short it is! 100 pages. The book shows how redemption penetrates to our conscience and motives and relationships, and how the flesh takes a myriad of exits, literally fighting the Spirit’s desire to show us the blood of Christ anew.) John Owen, Communion with God (abridged) (a heart rejoicing work that encourages the reader to take Christ for righteousness and happiness as a daily activity – and as a result experience communion with God. Excellent on the relevancy of the Gospel for daily Christian living.) Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace (perhaps the best book out in layman language that shows the connection between the gospel and sanctification.) David Peterson, Possessed by God (a treasure of a book, it combines condensed critical studies on a par with D. A. Carson, (editor), with devotional applications. This is one of the best books for pastors on the subject of sanctification. Peterson powerfully lays out the relationship between definitive sanctification and holiness of life. The book provides a survey of the N.T. doctrine of sanctification – it is incredibly comprehensive for its length.) Thomas Hooker, The Poor Doubting Christian Drawn to Christ (this book, like many Puritan works shows that these men were consummate physicians of the soul. The book would greatly enrich any pastor’s ability to counsel with “Christ crucified” as the answer to every problem.) John Piper, Future Grace (written in order to explain that justifying faith and sanctifying faith have the same object. Piper drives home the fact that faith in God’s “future” grace is a function of understanding the grace of Christ in the Gospel.) Horatius Bonar, God’s Way of Holiness (a short rewarding work that stresses the role of faith in sanctification – excellent.) Kenneth Prior, The Way of Holiness (MacArthur’s personal favorite for explaining the relationship between justification and sanctification.) Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal(Terrific insights on the practical value of justification as it touches the believer’s daily walk and pursuit of holy living.)

The Marks of True Salvation

I. From the Sermons of George Whitfield (Select Sermons of George Whitfield), Banner of Truth Trust, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 1958).

A. The Grace of God in the Gospel Versus Human Merit.

1. Do you expect to be saved at last because of what you have done in part or in whole and because of your faithfulness?

2. Do you expect to be saved at last only because of God’s eternal love and sovereign grace given to sinners in Christ? (Titus 3:5-7).

3. How long have you loved God? Was there ever a time when you hated God and had enmity in your heart toward Him? Can you recall when the sin of unbelief governed your heart?

4. Did the Spirit ever convince you of your inability to close with Christ? Did you ever cry to God for faith and for mercy in your helpless condition? (Rom. 5:6, Titus 3:1-3, Rom. 7:14).

B. Mortification of Sin.

1. Do you find it necessary to constantly watch, pray, resist and fight against your corruptions so that they do not rule over your life? (Rom. 7:22-25).

2. Is your indwelling sin the burden of your heart? Do you cry out, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Have you ever felt that God might justly curse and damn you for your indwelling corruption if you were not a believer? (Rom.7:24).

C. Proper Conviction of Sin.

1. Was there a time when God wrote bitter things against you, when the burden of your sins was intolerable to your thoughts? Was there a time when you were conscious of the fact that God’s eternal wrath might justly fall upon you on account of your actual transgressions against God? Did this conviction ever pass between your soul and God? (Rom. 2:1-11, John 3:36).

2. Have you ever justified God in your damnation? Have you ever owned the fact that by nature you are a child of wrath? (Eph. 2:1-3).

3. Have you ever been troubled not simply over outward sins, but over the sins of your heart, your nature and for the sins of your best duties and performances? Have you ever been brought to see that the best of your duties are as filthy rags in God’s sight? (Is. 64:6) (Rom. 8:5-7).

D. Spritual Life and Growth.

1. Do you rest upon your profession of faith or are you always building yourself up in the righteousness of Christ? (Jude 1:20, John 15:4).

2. Do you trust in your former conversion or are you always pressing forward, trusting in the righteousness of Christ which is outside of you? (Phil. 3:8-11).

3. Do you rest upon the experience of your first conversion, or do you frequently flee to Christ and his blood, loathing your own self-righteousness? (1 Cor. 3:11, Phil. 3:9, Rom. 7:18).

4. Has God spoken peace to your heart? Have you felt the power of God on your soul as you opened the Word of God? (Heb. 4:12, 13, Rom. 14:17).

II. Questions From the Writings of Richard Baxter (Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, The Banner of Truth Trust, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 1656,

r.p. 1979).

A. The Gospel of Jesus Christ.

1. Have you ever been made to feel the greatness of your sin and misery? Have you felt your sin as a heavy load upon your soul? Have you ever felt the everlasting misery due your sins and with that burden the knowledge that you are a lost person? (Acts 2:37, Luke 18:13).

2. Have you gladly received news of a Savior, casting your soul upon Christ alone for pardon by His blood? (1 Cor. 15:1).

3. Do you believe that nothing can prevent you from going to hell but the sacrifice of the Son of God? (Heb. 2:1-3).

4. What becomes of men when they die? Do you have any sin? Were you born with sin? What does every sin deserve? What remedy has God provided for the saving of sinful miserable souls?

5. Has anyone suffered in our place whose sacrifice God accepts? Who are those whom God will pardon? Who shall be saved by the blood of Christ? (Mark 1:15, Luke 13:5).

B. The Need for Regeneration.

1. What change must be made upon all who shall be saved? How is that change affected? Have you ever found this great change upon your own heart? (Titus 3:5-7).

2. Did you ever find the Spirit of God by the Word of God, come in your understanding with a new heavenly life which has made you a new creature? (2 Cor. 5:17).

3. Have you had that change upon your soul that causes you to despise the world and to set your hope and affection upon things above? Do you order your life so as to be happy in the life to come? Is this where you lay up your happiness and hopes? (Matt. 6:21, 1 John 3:1-3).

C. The Necessity of Repentance.

1. Can you truly say that the sins of your past life are a grief to your heart?

(Rom. 6:21).

2. Can you honestly say that your heart has turned from sin, now that you have the holy life you shunned before? (Rom. 6:22, Rom. 12:1-2).

3. Can you truly say that you do not live in willful practice of any known sin? Can you say that there is no sin you are not willing to heartily forsake, and no duty you are not willing to perform? (Col. 3:5-10ff).

4. Have you resolved to cast all sins from you that defile your heart and life? (Acts 26:18-20).

5. Can you honestly say that the glory of God is as dear to you as your own life? (1 Cor. 10:31, Col. 3:23, 2 Cor. 5:9).

D. Sanctification and Indwelling Sin.

1. Do you understand that it is not possible to go the way of heaven without knowing it for certain? Do you frequently call upon Christ as Deliverer to get you past the many obstacles and enemies which block your way to heaven? (Eph. 6:18, Heb. 2:18, 4:16).

2. Are you aware of a bitter conflict between the flesh and the Spirit: Do you live by the power of the Spirit and mortify the deeds of the flesh? (Rom. 8:12-14, Gal. 5:16-18).

E. Living Unto God and Loving God.

1. Do you see great happiness in the love and communication of God in the life to come which draws your heart from this present world? (Col. 3:1-4, 1 Pet. 1:13).

2. Have you taken the everlasting enjoyment of God for your happiness? Does God have most of your heart, love, desire and care? Are you resolved by divine grace to let go of all the world rather than jeopardize the joy of God? (1 John 2:15-17, James 4:1-5).

3. Can you truly say, even with your failings and sins, that your care and bent in life is to please God and enjoy Him forever? Do you regard your worldly business to be that of a traveler and your true home to be heaven? (Phil. 3:20-21, 1 Tim. 4:10).

4. Is your heart set on God, on the life to come? Is your chief business to prepare for everlasting happiness? Do you honestly regard your time in this world to be chiefly for the purpose of preparing for another. Do you live so as to learn more of the will of God? Do you believe heaven can be had without pains? Is heaven worth your labor? (Heb. 6:11, 12, Heb. 12:14, 1 Pet. 4:18, Matt. 7:13,14).

III. Questions from the Writings of Matthew Mead. (Matthew Mead, The Almost Christian Discovered, Sola Deo Gloria Publications, Ligonier, PA 1661, r.p. 1989).

A. Common Faith Versus Saving Faith.

1. Does your faith go no further than agreeing with the facts of the gospel? Is your faith primarily a mental assent to the truth of the gospel?

(James 2:19,20).

2. Does your faith rest upon and cast the soul wholly upon Christ for grace and glory, pardon, peace, sanctification and salvation? Is your faith a united act of the whole soul, understanding, will, and affections, all concurring to unite the soul to an all-sufficient Redeemer? Is it a faith that purifies the heart and gives strength and life to all other graces? (Gal. 6:14, 1 Thess. 1:9, Rom. 12:9-21).

3. Does your faith take hold of Christ so as to “close yourself up in the wounds of Christ,” and by His stripes gain healing to your own soul? (Is. 53:5,6).

4. Does brokenness of heart over sin accompany your faith? Does your faith produce confession of Christ as Lord wherein your will is engaged to choose His ways and own them? (Luke 9:23-26).

5. Does your faith produce a willingness to persevere and endure hardship for the interests of Christ? (Rom. 8:17-25).

B. Communion with God.

1. Can you honestly say that you delight in God?

2. Do you enjoy communion with God? Do you fear and revere God and yet love Him as well? (Is. 66:1-2, 1 Jn. 1:3).

C. God’s Commandments.

1. Do you welcome the examination of your heart by the Scriptures?

(Ps. 139:23, 24).

2. Do you delight after the Law of God in the inward man? (Heb. 8:10).

3. What is the source of peace to your conscience? (Heb. 9:14).

IV. Questions Drawn from the MacArthur Study Bible. (John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible, Word Publishing; 1997) p. 2191.

A. Evidences that Neither Prove nor Disprove One’s Faith:

1. Visible morality: Matt. 19:16-21; 23-27

2. Intellectual Knowledge: Rom. 1:21, 2:17ff

3. Religious Involvement: Matt. 25:1-10

4. Active Ministry: Matt. 7:21:24

5. Conviction of Sin: Acts 24:25

6. Assurance: Matt. 23

7. Time of Decision: Luke 8:13, 14

B. The Fruit/Proofs of Authentic/True Christianity

Does your life exhibit the following evidences of salvation?

1. Love for God: Ps. 42:1ff, 73:25, Luke 10:27

2. Repentance from Sin: Ps. 32:5, Prov. 28:13, 1 Jn. 1:8-10

3. Genuine Humility: Ps. 51:17, Matt. 5:1-12, James 4:6,9

4. Devotion to God’s Glory: Ps. 105:3, 115:1, Is. 43:7

5. Continual Prayer: Luke 18:1, Eph. 6:18, Phil. 4:6

6. Selfless Love: 1 Jn. 2:9, 3:14, 4:7

7. Separation from the World: 1 Cor. 2:12, James 4:4, 1 Jn. 2:15-17

8. Spiritual Growth: Luke 8:15, Jn. 15:1-6, Eph. 4:12-16

9. Obedient Living: Matt. 7:21, Jn. 15:14, 1 Jn. 2:3-5

C. If list “A” is true of your life yet list “B” is not, the validity of your profession may be in question. If list “B” is true in your life, then list “A” will be true of your life also.

V. Direction to Those Whose Lives do not Manifest the Evidences of True

Salvation. (Matthew Mead, The Almost Christian Discovered).

A. Seek to attain a thorough work of God in your heart. Do not rest until such a change is wrought upon you. All those whom God intends to pardon and save are regenerated by God’s Spirit. In the act of giving them His grace, God gives them a new heart (Jn. 3:5-7).

B. God’s grace in giving this change begins with conviction of sin. As Richard Baxter observes, God brings a conviction that will make a man feel his sin as the heaviest burden in the world. The man will be crushed in his heart over his sin. God’s Spirit will make him understand that he is liable to God’s wrath and curse. He will make him see that he is a lost man facing damnation unless pardoned by the blood of Christ. (The Reformed Pastor, p. 250).

C. There is no true conviction of sin until one breaks off all false peace of conscience (Heb. 10:22). A false peace of conscience keeps a man from seeking after Christ. God’s peace is a peace that keeps a man from sin (Phil. 4:7). The sinner’s peace is a peace with sin.

D. The sinner must be wounded for sin and troubled under it before Christ will forgive him and give him peace. God makes a man truly sensible of the bitterness and misery of his sin before he allows the man to experience mercy. The sinner must see the vileness and unprofitableness of his sin before he is able to profit by Christ’s righteousness.

E. One must be convinced of the misery and danger of one’s natural condition. Until a man sees the corruption of his heart and the wretchedness of his state by nature, he will never leave off self-righteousness to seek help in Another. One must be convinced of the utter insufficiency of anything below Christ Jesus to minister relief to the soul. Duties, performances, prayers, tears, self-righteousness, religious practice avail nothing in themselves. Only an infinite righteousness can satisfy for us. Our sin has offended an infinite God. Your case requires infinite mercy to pardon you, infinite merit to reconcile you to God; infinite power to renew your heart, and infinite grace to save you from hell.

F. You must know that a sinner can never come to Christ by his own power. For he is dead in sin, and in a state of enmity against Christ. He is an enemy of God and the grace of God. No man comes immediately out of deadness of soul into conversion and belief in Jesus Christ without divine preparation. Central in this preparation is sound conviction of sin. (Luke 5:32, Luke 19:10, Is. 61:1).

G. Get sound convictions over your sin. Without them you will never seek after Christ for sanctification and salvation.

H. Never rest in your convictions until they end in conversion. Some rest in their conviction of sin as if sorrow over sin is the same as forgiveness. Seeing one’s need of grace is not the same as a work of grace.

I. Let your conviction of sin work repentance. Do not slight your conviction of sin. Only by following the conviction of sin will a man turn to Christ who is ready to pardon and save. Therefore, seek to have your convictions improved and deepened (not slighted). Do not rest in your convictions until they rise up to a thorough close with the Lord Jesus Christ and end in a sound and perfect conversion.

The Pastor as Prophet

The Role of Spiritual Discernment in Preaching Repentance

The prerequisite to diagnosing the spiritual state of our hearers is for us to be accomplished at ruthless honesty in our own state of affairs. The Lord teaches His servant to diagnose his own heart and then preach to himself the appropriate message. The minister prepared by God has been through deep waters; All Thy breakers and Thy waves have rolled over me (Ps 42:7). By engulfing the shepherd in “breakers,” God gives His man much practice in the probing of his own ways.

The man who is to be God’s instrument is subjected to a personal regimen of identifying in himself what makes his heart sickly. As C. S. Lewis said, I have my own heart as a reference [for understanding depravity].

In this age of spiritual froth and foam, of more heat than light, we count ourselves rich to find more than a hand full of friends and brothers who wish to converse about the preciousness of Christ. There are times where we have to be more like Chafer who told a stranger who wished to join his conversation concerning the deep things of God, “No, you know nothing of the matter.”

In our relations and in our ministry it is wisdom to pursue consistency in our doctrine of God and man. Therefore it behooves us to know the spiritual condition of our hearers when we preach. Our expectations must be in keeping with what we know of the spiritual health of our listeners.

This does not mean for a moment that it is pragmatic to limit our thinking as to what God may wish to do. There may be a Zaccheus in your congregation who repents of his theft and covetousness in the same hour as your sermon. Yes, we are to preach always expecting God to do great things.

We cannot see the wind, but we see the trees bent over by its force. So also God’s Spirit may blow among our hearers and bend them contrary to their natures. But at the same time we ought to consider that our Savior in His earthly ministry continually spoke of the heart condition of His hearers; you cannot hear my word (Jn 8:43).

It was Pascal who said every man constantly chooses what he perceives to be in the interest of his own happiness; even the man who hangs himself. What a mighty work of God’s grace it requires for a man to be constrained by the love of Christ; to set aside faithless self interest and to take up his cross daily.

Because men (even outwardly religious men), do not truly fear God, they do not care when their personal word is allowed to miscarry. Personal integrity is at a very low ebb in this country; even among professing believers. The old slogan,thy word is thy bond has fallen before the new gods of expedience and pragmatism.

We observe double-mindedness frequently in our conversations. People promise recklessly, but do not follow through. This is not right. We are to reflect and imitate our Heavenly Father whose Word never fails. Promising is easy, keeping our promise is frequently inconvenient – but a true test of character. It is often in the small things that we manifest holiness and the fear of God (John Newton).

When dealing with a man whose pride of life manifests itself as the “power-broker” type, we may hear from him ostensible words of friendship. Yet on the inside, he may never let you outside of the cross-hairs of his unsanctified ambitions. Yes love believes all things, but love also needs to be as wise as a serpent because we are dealing with depraved men.

Apart from a miracle of God, do not expect a man who regularly bribes his own conscience to allow you to inform his conscience of God’s standard. Do not expect a man who has a low view of Scripture to suddenly raise his view of God’s Word to the level that you maintain as God’s servant.

Don’t speak to a profane man about the preciousness of the things of God. Your delight in the things of God will not stay with him any longer than the sound waves of your voice will remain in his physical ear. Don’t speak to a man enmeshed in lust, sin, and self-deception about the joys of obedience as if he could extricate himself in a moment and begin walking the ancient path. Don’t speak to a double-minded man as if he were a man of principle who thinks by means of the biblical grid.

Shall we speak to churchmen who are deep in the world as if they are following Christ and hating their lives in this world? Would you speak to an empire-builder, and not expect him to view you as a potential brick? Our genuine brethren are those who have forsaken this world for a city whose architect and builder is God (Heb 11:10).

When dealing with the self-righteous, remember that you cannot help a man who thinks he has no problem, nor can you help a man who thinks you are the problem, nor can you help a man who does not believe that you are sent by God to help him.

Through His Word the Lord builds, rules, preserves, and perfects His Church. Through His Word He calls back strays and crushes the hearts of the impenitent. Through His Word He ravishes our souls; He persuades us of His goodness and love; He conquers us and makes us willing and affectionate subjects.

Therefore our task as preachers and prophets is to know the condition of the flock that we might rightly divide the Word in this sense – choose the passage which is fitted to their state of affairs.

The book of Proverbs is intended to cure our naiveté about men simply needing information in order to be good. The cure comes by way of a detailed explication of the machinations of the human heart. The book of Proverbs presents a vivid contrast between two paths; wisdom and folly. Wisdom is work; it is a path that is contrary to our natures; men naturally prefer the folly path.

In order to truly preach as a prophet, we will have to be familiar with the modus operandi of the lower nature. The Apostle Paul heard about the pecking order that had arisen in Corinth. His converts had precipitated toward a realized eschatology – they wanted to live as kings in the present. They eschewed the reproach of Christ. The Apostle knew that only a steady diet of Christ and Him crucified could bring down the Dagon they had erected in honor of fleshly wisdom.

Consider Paul’s challenge – he was dealing with fellow believers, fellow heirs who, but for his apostleship, had equal footing before God. No wonder he was in fear and trembling in their midst – for he had to confront their carnal wisdom without appearing proud, without exasperating them, without harming their friendship, without harshness.

He would preach love, but at the same time address every abuse. He emphasized his spiritual fatherhood in their case – but what a testy congregation. They were proud, fussy, ungrateful, backbiters, sensual, and ready to betray Paul for the approval of the false apostles.

Paul was very careful in the matter of receiving financial donations. Not that he couldn’t use the money; he was frequently homeless (1 Cor 4:11). The reason he was so cautious in the matter of potential donors was because he, as a prophet, knew the heart of man.

He knew the subtle reasonings that take place when people give money to men, but never really give it to the Lord (thoughts of obligation, superiority, and control). As a consequence, Paul tended to restrict the reception of his financial support to the church at Philippi; the church of brotherly love; the church that loved Paul (Phil 4:15-18).

When Paul was dealing with people and local bodies who needed repentance, he made it a habit to not receive money from them. Repentance is hard enough work – it can be even more difficult if the preacher receives money from the impenitent parties.

The person who lacks repentance in his life is wedded to his lusts and consequent fears. Each day he procrastinates, the task of repentance grows ever more daunting and undesirable. What started as a “rock pile,” has become an Everest. The thought of “bulldozing” so much ensconced sin is withering to his spirit. He cannot conceive of altering his life patterns and bearing the consequences of his sin. He fears change more than God Almighty.

(Preaching repentance is not only the hammer of the Word breaking up rock; it is also the matchless hope and mercy of Christ. In Him there is a refuge so ample that His grace will support us when we abandon ourselves to Him. In true repentance there is the free fall factor; the penitent man casts his welfare upon the Lord; he desists from self-directed living. We always display Christ’s willingness to “catch” the repenter.)

The man of God, like a SEAL team member, is strategically inserted by his Lord into situations that call for repentance. Now the man of God is a prophet in this sense; he makes a penetrating application of God’s Word to the specific need of the sinner. As such, the man of God comes to symbolize to the impenitent man all of the rejected appointments with God that the sinner has habitually cancelled.

Winsome as he may be, the man of God remains a disturbing irritant to the impenitent man. The very appearance of the prophet is a walking reminder to the impenitent man of the standing idols he yet tolerates.

Our Savior, and the holy prophets of old, caused discomfort by their very presence. Jesus was hated by His unbelieving hearers because He testified to men that their deeds were evil (Jn 7:7). Jesus warned His followers that if they were faithful, they too would be hated by the world (Jn 15:18-16:3).

Spirit-empowered preaching produces an inevitable clash. When men are so clearly confronted with what God says about their sin, they either do the painful work of repentance, OR they discredit God’s messenger. It requires a supernatural work of God for men to smash their cherished idols without a backward glance toward Sodom.

Delayed repentance and compromise are always found together. God’s prophets are used to snatch away what the impenitent man regards as morally neutral ground. A prophet makes the issues black and white. He shines God’s light upon compromises that have become the status quo.

The O.T. is replete with examples of confrontation by God’s prophets who bring the sin of hesitating between two opinions to a crisis point of repentance. At certain points in Israel’s history, the dividing line between obedience and disobedience became a literal line in the sand (Ex 32:26, 27).

After the golden calf incident, Moses stood at the gate of the camp and cried out, “Whoever is for the Lord come to me!” Those who didn’t were immediately slain with the sword.

In the incident of Korah’s rebellion, Aaron took his stand between the dead and the living to make atonement (Num 16:48). Allegiance to God’s Word sometimes took the visible form of the penitent standing beside the prophet who had spoken God’s truth.

What God occasionally did visibly in ancient times – placing the prophet between the living and the dead, He still does spiritually today. The man of God is there speaking the truth. Eternal issues are at stake. The truth from his mouth is a watershed like the Continental Divide. Two paths, two lifestyles, and two destinies are at stake.

What an awesome responsibility it is to speak for God to men. God’s truth in the mouth of a prophet pulls back the calluses of the heart. Men are cut to the quick.When they repent, fruitfulness and blessing follow.

The impenitent man is an enigma. He opposes his own soul’s welfare. His sin has produced spiritual insanity. He studiously works to keep repentance at bay. As men of God, we must know how the heart of the impenitent man operates. We must understand that he secretly hopes to find evidence of hypocrisy in us so that our message can be discounted.

It is an insightful, but unnerving thought that the believers at Corinth, under the influence of the false apostles, were tempted to begin searching for hypocrisy in Paul (2 Cor 10:10).

We must know what lies at the root of this tendency to discredit God’s man. So bitter is the prospect of repentance to the impenitent man that he will do anything to avoid it. This fact must strongly condition our optimism; Satan holds men in a state of impenitence (2 Tim 2:25, 26). Therefore, facing what we are up against with utter realism is necessary. If we are willing to do so, it will have the conciliatory effect of driving us to hope in God’s power alone for change in our hearers.

We live in a culture of niceness and flattery; people wear a veneer – it’s a necessary part of “good manners” in our land. Our listeners may praise us with sweet words and moist eyes, but at the same time internally strengthen their reasons to remain impenitent.

One of the most shocking examples of a spiritual veneer is found in the book of Jeremiah. The prophet’s entourage of Jewish expatriates cast their request in the most spiritual language possible. Jeremiah, pray for us to find God’s will – we will do whatever the Lord says to do (Jer 42:2-6).

Ten days later the Lord answers Jeremiah. God reveals to the prophet their entrenched idolatry and their wicked plan to return to Egypt. When Jeremiah verbally uncovers their motives, the people turn upon him like vicious animals. They accuse him of lying to them.

The resultant exchange ends with the apostate people uttering a blasphemous attack upon God’s Word; we will carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths (Jer 44:17).

It’s amazing that the people made the decision to approach Jeremiah in the first place; asking him to pray for God’s will and pledging their commitment to obey the direction God would give through him. During the 10 days of waiting on the Lord, God revealed to Jeremiah the contents of the peoples’ hearts. The outwardly spiritual congregation wanted to assuage their guilty consciences by involving God’s man in their plans!

Nothing has changed in 2700 years. Those who are both religious and impenitent still want to entangle God’s prophet in their carnal endeavors in order to “Christianize” their worldly ambitions.

How devastating it has been for many ministers to come to the realization that people under his care have regarded him merely as a “spiritual mascot” – just along for the ride. When apostate Christianity is in league with the love of mammon and the values of economic Babylon, the pastor may have little more influence than a chaplain on a Carnival cruise ship. His presence may even assist men in bribing consciences, while the moral direction of the ship remains unchanged.

Nothing tests a man like the offer of honor, security, and financial resources.

How true it is – the fear of man keeps many men from warning the flock. Honor and money are at stake. Pastor John O. Anderson who has spoken in the parliaments of five western countries in defense of the unborn said the following: At times the only thing that separates a false prophet from a true prophet is that the false prophet refuses to warn.

When honor and money are lavished upon a man of God it can have a corrupting influence. Frequently those in a position to lavish the money and honor are in the habit of looking to that duo for their own sense of value and completeness. Is it any wonder that their bestowal can be a tacit invitation to enter a temporal value system?

“Love believes all things, but that does not include gullibility. It means rather, that the believer is not to be suspicious. If however sin is evident, the believer must judge it and support its discipline” (Wycliffe Bible Commentary, p. 1252).

Proverbs addresses the gullibility that is inherent in us. In a nearly comical use of hyperbole, the verse states that if we are given to appetite we should rather put a knife to our throat than eagerly eat the delicacies offered by a wealthy ruler (Prov 23:2). Why? -- Because the food and the compliments belie the fact that the man wants something from us. By his gifts, he intends to obligate his guest.

So also the man of God is tested by the promises of his hearers to make him comfortable in this life. Paul was hypersensitive in these matters. He was careful about receiving financial support from the Corinthians. He wished to avoid any spurious charges coming from the false apostles that he preached for mercenary reasons; therefore it was Paul’s aim to preach the Gospel without pay.

He says in 1 Corinthians 9:12, If others share the right over you [of financial support], do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this right, but we endure all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ. (Paul was able to do what most of us are simply unable to do because of the cost of living we face. He was able to be incredibly selective about his financial support.)

God’s prophet may be frequently tested in this very issue; the issue of resources offered to him by his listeners. Paul is clear in 1 Corinthians 9 that the minister has the right to live by his preaching of the Gospel. But in our study of the human heart, we need to know how our supporters are tempted to think.

Money is commonly given with strings attached. It requires an act of faith and love for the believer to give to God’s workers as unto the Lord with no strings attached.

How strong in Christ the man of God must be, for the praise and resources of men call out to him to enter an unspoken contract. And what are the terms of the unspoken contract? Very simply they are -- we will make you comfortable if you make us comfortable. Do not disturb our lifestyles. Do not upset us. We have hired you. You belong to us. You are our paid teacher, our employee. We will be charitable toward you if you pronounce us spiritually well.

There is no cynicism here. Every prophet of God of every age faced the same offer of the unspoken contract. Every prophet had to decide if the Word of God was to be bound or loosed in his ministry. Every prophet had to come to terms with a loss of popularity if he preached the whole counsel of God.

The man of God stands between two worlds. He stands between God and man. Both exert pressure upon him. If a man says that he doesn’t feel this pressure, he may have already sold his soul. Feeling the pressure is necessary if the man of God is to be able to say at the end of his ministry, I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God (Acts 20:27, 28).

Every prophet of God must walk so closely with his Lord that he does not fear being in the minority. Under the reign of King Ahab, Micaiah was beckoned to give his prophecy to a packed house. Ahab and Jehoshaphat were there; the un-anointed prophets were there as well. Micaiah was “primed” ahead of time by the king’s messenger, make certain that your prophecy is favorable just as the prophecy of the other prophets will be (1 Ki 22:13).

Micaiah was the lone voice of truth. He was threatened with incarceration for speaking the Word of God. He did not back down.

Speaking the truth can be provocative. It may stir up a hornets’ nest in an instant. In our faithfulness, shall we expect a life of honor when our Lord was so often reproached?

In Luke 4 the synagogue congregation was filled with wonder at the gracious words which were falling from the lips of Jesus (4:22). Our Lord chose not to ride that wave of popularity. Instead He spoke truth which He knew would be inflammatory.

As the promised Prophet, He was willing to be provocative. By stating that God had cared for a Gentile widow and a Gentile leper at the time of Israel’s apostasy, Jesus effectively turned 700 years of historical revisionism on its ear.

The response of the congregation to a right interpretation of Israel’s history was murderous rage. Jesus had dared to touch the sacred nerve of national Jewish privilege. Today’s prophet will be daring (at God’s command) as well to speak truth that he knows has the potential to provoke.

There are key chapters in Scripture which describe for us the startling contrast between a shepherd and a hireling (Jn 10 and Ez 34 especially). The hireling tailors his message to the tastes of his hearers. The more they pay him, the more he flatters them. Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead My people astray; when they have something to bite with their teeth, they cry “Peace,” but against him who puts nothing in their mouths, they declare holy war (Mi 3:5).

There are two O.T. individuals that stand out in bold relief as “prophets for hire” – the Levite of Judges 17-18, and Balaam. The Scripture holds them up as negative examples, as object lessons; one with some N.T. commentary (Balaam), and one with no N.T. commentary.

I site them in this document because there are insights to be gained by studying those who “employed” their services. The prophets themselves are so egregious in their behavior, and so clearly hirelings in character that the lessons from their failures are ineluctable.

The Levite who was hired to superintend the worship of a household idol received a substantial pay raise when he was he was stolen by a band of raiders who offered him the role of “chaplain” to their band of 600 (Judges 17-18). The Scripture says of the Levite (upon receiving his “promotion”), And the priest’s heart was glad, and he took the ephod and household idols and the graven image, and went among the people (Judges 18:20).

The tragedy of the Levite’s compromise is captured in the final verse of the chapter, So they set up for themselves Micah’s graven image which he had made, all the time that the house of God was at Shiloh (Judges 18:31). So fully did the Levite become the puppet of this murderous band that the priest’s actions proved to be the catalyst that established regional idolatry in the city of Dan.

Balaam is the most well-known prophet for hire in the Bible. 2 Peter, Jude, and Revelation all refer to him as teaching wickedness for pay. His negative example is so vivid and hideous that it’s unlikely that we see much relevance in his account to the kinds of temptations that assault us.

King Balak somehow knew in his heart that the prophet Balaam was corruptible.

His pleas to allow Balaam to be enriched by him finally prevailed. Yet, Balaam’s initial testimony to King Balak is at first impressive, Whatever the Lord speaks, that I must do (Num 23:26).

The king’s offer of wealth and honor lodged in Balaam’s heart like a serpent’s egg ready to hatch. Once it hatched, Balaam ran with the same madness that was at first restrained by the “obstinate” talking donkey.

The second time God did not restrain the prophet. The prophet, mad for his reward, ran to King Balak and sold him a wicked plan that would make Israel stumble. We marvel that the holy prophecies that passed through Balaam’s mind and lips were not believed by the very prophet who spoke them. Scripture says that Balaam loved the wages of unrighteousness (2 Pet 2:15).

Sometimes the cost of standing between the dead and the living is to take no reward. Our Lord is the highest example of this kind of sacrifice. Christ Jesus indirectly warns his disciples that fidelity to Him may put us in situations where foxes and birds may have better accommodations than we do (Luke 9:58).

Repentance is like defying gravity. Nature opposes every effort. True repentance is always a miracle – it is Holy Spirit induced and enabled -- through the agency of God’s Word in the mouth of the prophet. The mind of man raises a thousand arguments to delay repentance yet again. The prophet cannot afford to have anything in his manner of life one of those thousand reasons not to repent. For repentance is the business of readiness for heaven.

The Perseverance of the Saints, Part 2: Our Response to the Spirit’s Sanctifying Work, (2 Thess. 2:13-15)

INTRODUCTION – The world has a definition of freedom and happiness that is divorced from holiness in the Lord. Since the Fall of us all in our first parents, the human race has worshipped and served the creation instead of the Creator (Rom. 1:25). At salvation, we become new creatures with new desires. We were changed from worshippers of the creation, to worshippers of the Creator. As a result, salvation is sanctification. For sanctification means that the believer is set apart for God. The Christian is set apart for God, and set apart from the world to be a worshipper of God (1 Cor. 6:13-20).

Therefore salvation entails a new relationship with God and a new relationship toward the world. As the reality of our salvation relationships is lived out, we areprogressively sanctified by God’s Spirit. To the degree that the believer cooperates with God’s purposes in sanctification, he will experience joy, peace, assurance, growth in grace and perseverance.

A Christian’s devotion to God’s purpose in sanctification is referred to in Romans 12:1 as his “reasonable” or “rational” service of worship. It is “rational” to devote oneself to sanctification because we were saved for the purpose of enjoying God. And it is impossible to enjoy God without holiness!

At our justification, we received the perfect status of adoption before God. Every barrier that blocked the reception of God’s love was removed at justification. We ought to regard sanctification as taking our justification seriously, for sanctification prepares us to live with God forever.

Application – Discuss the reasons why holiness in the Lord is the only true happiness. Note the following connections between holiness and happiness.

1.) Humans were made for God. Salvation restores that created purpose. An idol or “false integration point” cannot bring joyful unity to the soul of man.

2.) It is unspeakable joy, pleasure and peace to possess a conscience that is clear enough to reflect the face of the Creator. It is only the clear conscience that possesses a boundless capacity for the reception of God’s love.

3.) Truth and beauty are joined. The highest beauty is God’s holiness. When the 

 creature is holy, he is able to look upon God’s holiness and be ravished by it.

4.) Holiness is to be lifted out of self-consciousness, self-concern and selfishness.

 To be perfected in holiness is to possess a limitless for passion for God’s glory.

5.) The Lord is the habitation of righteousness. Gospel holiness brought to full

fruition involves being an eternal partaker in the righteousness of God.

Holiness rejoices that God shares His own righteousness with His redeemed

creatures.

6.) It is the holy individual who becomes an unhindered channel of God’s love.

The “wine” of heaven is to endlessly experience God’s love passing through

one’s soul as it is expressed to others.

SALVATION IS A COMPREHENSIVE WORD IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.

But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:13, all Scripture citations from the New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, (La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation) 1996.

In modern Christianity, the term “salvation” is often used only to mean deliverance from eternal judgment. By contrast, Scripture emphasizes the completeness and comprehensiveness of salvation. God saves us from sin, misery, guilt, pollution, wrath, death and corruption. In the Bible, the person who is “being saved” manifests a liberty from the dominion of sin. Eternal life is the OUTCOME of a life of overcoming sin and serving righteousness through Christ (Rom. 6:22,23).

As with every true believer, the Thessalonians were CHOSEN by God for salvation. The decree of election connects the ends (salvation), with the means (sanctification). The saints are elected unto holiness. God has chosen us that we might be holy. Those who are truly the elect of God will not fail to achieve that end by God’s grace (Eph. 1:4).

Believers are “beloved by the Lord.” They owe their preservation to Christ’s effectual love in shepherding and preserving their souls. They owe their stability in persevering to the election of grace.

Application – God will not forsake the work of His hands! Where He has begun a work, He will perfect unto the day of salvation (Phil. 1:6). Those who are being sanctified by the Holy Spirit will persevere to the end.

GOD BRINGS ABOUT OUR SALVATION BY MEANS OF SANCTIFICATION BY THE SPIRIT AND FAITH IN THE TRUTH.

But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:13).

Those chosen for salvation as the end and goal are prepared for it by sanctification. Sanctification is the necessary means to obtain that end. This salvation which becomes our possession, is THROUGH sanctification by the work of the Holy Spirit. Sanctification is a process. It causes the believer to be increasingly detached from the world and increasingly devoted to Christ.

Application – Sanctification is never offered as an option. Sanctification is the will of God for all Christians (1 Thess. 4:3-8).

SANCTIFICATION IS A GIFT BY CHRIST AND HIS WORK ON OUR BEHALF.

BUT THIS GIFT PLACES A HEAVY OBLIGATION UPON US AS BELIEVERS.

But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:13).

Christians are under obligation to be active in the power of God (Rom. 8:12-17). They are to put to death the deeds of the flesh and reckon themselves alive to God and dead to the misdeeds of the flesh (Rom. 6:11-13). This obligation is in total agreement with our new nature. For God has quickened our reason, wills and affections that they may be put to work in sanctification.

The Holy Spirit sanctifies us. He communicates the benefits of Christ and His death to us. The power of the cross is active in both justification and sanctification. Faith accepts Christ’s work as the ground of both (See Romans 6, 1 Cor. 1:30, Heb. 2:11; 12:2).

Application – We are dependent upon Christ for our sanctification. We are to cry to Him as our merciful High Priest. He willingly gives us new measures of mercy and sanctifying grace (Heb. 4:15,16). Jesus told His disciples, “apart from Me you can do nothing (Jn. 15:5).

Sanctification is born out of union with Christ. Sanctification is so related to Christ that one cannot receive it but by communion with Him. (When we exercise faith in the truth of Christ we are communing with Him.)

THE HOLY SPIRIT WORKS UPON US SO THAT OUR WILLS, OUR MINDS AND OUR AFFECTIONS GIVE VITAL, ACTIVE CONSENT TO THE TRUTH REVEALED IN CHRIST.

But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:13).

Just as we received justification by faith in Christ, so also we receive sanctification’s progress by faith in Christ. It is ongoing faith in the truth of God’s Word that sanctifies us (Jn. 17:17). When the truth is believed and loved, it dominates exceptionally in all areas of one’s life.

The believer’s relationship to God’s truth goes far beyond assent and admiration. The true Christian loves the truth so as to be transformed by it. The truth becomes central in his thoughts, meditations, affections and decisions.

Application – The saints are commanded to work out their salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12,13). But this is not to suggest that our activity in sanctification is a legal or law work. Actually, our progress is purely evangelical. That is, it is gospel based. All of our advancement in holiness flows from the cross.

The “fear and trembling” has to do with the awesome proposition that the God of the universe is intimately at work in our thinking, desiring and willing. It is a fearful and wonderful thing to recognize that He is constantly willing to animate our obedience. It is also as cause for fear and self-watch to consider that our flesh may resist the operations of the Spirit. We are warned not to place ourselves in peril by neglecting the means of grace (Heb. 2:3; 10:22-25). Review the duties commanded of all believers (attention to the Word, prayer, the Lord’s Supper and fellowship).

THE EFFECTUAL CALL OF THE GOSPEL IS UNTO HONOR, HAPPINESS AND THE GLORY OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thessalonians 2:14).

It is the gracious will of our Savior that the glory He possesses and the glory He has purchased be communicated to those believe in Him and obey His gospel. Those who believe and repent shall be with Christ to behold His glory and they shall be glorified with Christ and partake of His glory. The everlasting life we possess now will have its fulfillment in the redemption of our bodies. God calls us to heaven. He expects us to run the race set before us with endurance.

Application – Consider the relationship between our progress in holiness and the level of our desire to be with the Lord (see 2 Cor. 4:16-5:10; Rom. 8:23-25; Phil. 3:20,21; 1 Pet. 1:3-9; 1 Jn. 2:28-3:3).

THE LORD EXHORTS US TO “STAND FAST” AND NOT TO WAVER. MANY OBSTACLES STAND IN THE WAY OF OUR SANCTIFICATION.

So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us (2 Thessalonians 2:15).

We must lean heavily upon the Lord in order to lay aside our doubts and fears and stand fast (Rom. 14:4; 1 Cor. 16:13). God’s election is NOT a ground for inaction on our part. God’s choice of us is the strongest incentive to action and perseverance. Scripture always joins privilege and duty. (You have an anointing, nowabide in Him, 1 John 2:27,28.) Since life and favor are assured to us in Christ, then we are to live for Him, depending upon His promised installments of future grace. (Review the privileges of 2 Thess. 2:13-15.)

Application – The Christian is justified that he might be sanctified. Now that he possesses righteousness in Christ and is assured of immutable love and favor, he can pursue sanctification with complete abandon. There is no cause for fear of failure.

Unlike the believer, the unregenerate man possesses no such position or status before God. He or she is yet in a state of moral paralysis. Their sins remind them of their liability to judgment before God. Their moral failures stir up their enmity toward God. Their guilt presses a sense of God’s disfavor upon their consciences. As a result, they have no incentive or power to pursue holiness. They need to see the beauty and preciousness of Christ, the Friend of sinners. Every unbeliever is a stranger to grace. Therefore the pursuit of God’s holiness sounds to him like trying to build a ladder to the moon.

A SUMMARY OF REASONS WHY THE SCRIPTURES CALL FOR PERSEVERANCE.

1.) Perseverance is necessary because the Christian life is a fight (James 1:12; Heb. 3:6; Acts 14:21,22). We are called to be overcomers. We are to live out Christ’s victory in our life and walk (1 Pet. 2:21).

2.) Perseverance is a necessity because it is a vital safeguard against presumption. Those who profess Christ are warned against the prospect of self-deception (Eph. 5:1-6).

3.) Perseverance is necessary because hypocrites walk for a time, become careless, then fall away (Matt. 13:18-23). God uses exhortations to perseverance to admonish and awaken diligence and holy fear in the saints. It is God’s way of instilling sober-mindedness.

4.) Perseverance is necessary because it such a revealer of your relationship with God’s truth (Col. 1:9-14).

5.) Perseverance is necessary because it is genuine faith in action. Perseverance is the opposite of a mystical, privitized religion that remains locked in the corner of one’s soul. When Christ returns, He will find His people pressing along the path of duty and using the means of grace (1 Pet. 4:7).

The Violence Needed to Enter the Kingdom of God

Adapted from Heaven Taken by Storm, by Thomas Watson

Watson’s book is intended to show the holy violence a Christian is to put forth in the pursuit after glory. “We must offer violence to heaven in regard to the difficulty of the work – taking a kingdom. Our own hearts oppose us. This is a strange paradox; Man naturally desires happiness, yet opposes it; he desires to be saved, yet hates that holy violence which would save him” (Thomas Watson).

Luke 16:16, “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since then the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.”(NASB).

Matthew 11:12, “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force” (NASB).

Matthew 11:12, “And from the days of John the Baptist until the present moment the kingdom of heaven has been continuously taken by storm, and those who take it by storm are seizing it as a precious prize” (Williams Translation).

Part and parcel of the holy violence necessary to enter the Kingdom of God is to take up our cross daily in true discipleship (Luke 9:23). Too much leniency emboldens sin. “Leniency shaves the head (of sin) that should be cut off.” The saved should be always ready to have their hearts searched as the Psalmist was – Ps 139 (Watson, p. 3).

The reason people are tricked into error is because they do not adequately love the truth (2 Thess 2:10). We can never say enough in the honor of the truth (Watson, p. 6).

“Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who esteem His Name” (Mal 3:16).

Holy violence entails: the resolution of the will; the vigor of the affections, thestrength of endeavor. The affections are “violent” things (Ps 42:2) (Note the relationship between the mind, the affections, and the will – the mind explains what is precious to the affections and the affections instruct the will to pursue that which it regards to be its treasure.)

The Christian offers violence to HIMSELF.

Pampering of the flesh is the quenching of God’s Spirit (the flesh lusteth against the Spirit – Gal 5:17). The flesh, Trojan horse within, does all the mischief – when the flesh has its way, we won’t believe or pray. We must offer violence to fleshly desires or we cannot be saved (Col 3:5; 1 Pet 2:11, Rom 8:12-14). The true believer keeps mortifying sin his entire Christian life.

Paul beat down his body by prayer, fasting, and watching (1 Cor 9:27). We offer violence by mortification; the opposite of gratification and indulgence (Watson, pp. 9-10).

All the exercises of worship are contrary to nature. We do violence by awakening ourselves that our exercises might be done with intensity of spirit and without distraction. It is holy labor (violence) to stir ourselves to be centered upon God and raised above self-interest (Watson, p. 11).

Violence by the reading of the Word.

The Word teaches us how to please God. It fills the heart with grace. They who are vessels of grace shall be vessels of glory. The Word gives us weapons against sin to cut asunder the lusts of our heart (Watson, p. 13).

On the Last Day, there are two books God will go by: the book of conscience and the book of Scripture. One shall be a witness and one shall be a judge. How we must provoke ourselves to read His Word with care and devotion. Those who dishonor the Word now by neglect shall bow to it as judge on that day (Jn 12:47-50) (Watson, p. 15).

In this life, it is a profound mercy to have our consciences washed by the Redeemer’s blood, educated by the Word of God, and sensitized by the Spirit’s ministry.

Violence by prayer. The names of prayer imply violence: wrestling, pouring out the heart, fervency (Gen 32:24: 1 Sam 1:15).

Stir the soul to take hold of God. A good way to quicken yourself in prayer is to review your wants. Do you want the light of God’s presence? Do you want a spiritual, humble frame of heart? Pray feelingly in order to pray fervently (Watson, pp. 19-22).

Violence by meditation. Meditation is opposed to flesh and blood – how hard it is to fix our minds and thought on God. Our flesh quarrels with this duty. Hearing begets knowledge, but meditation begets devotion. Only by meditation do wefeed our affections (Watson, p. 23). Do you get your spiritual insights by personal meditation upon the Word of God, or are all of your insights “second hand” from your pastors and teachers?

Meditation gives ballast to the heart and makes it serious. Meditation on eternal life makes us labor for a spiritual life. It has the effect of comforting and reinforcing in us the shortness of natural life. Death comes on us by degrees (see the metaphors for aging in Ecclesiastes 12).

Where do we find a meditating Christian? Most people live in a hurry, enveloped by distractions. This is UNLIKE the saints in former ages (p. 27). Consider the paramount truths that are ready subjects for meditation: meditate upon the corruption of your nature and what it means to pull down our pride. Meditate upon the death and passion of Christ and how He was bearing the Father’s wrath against our sins. Consider how dearly our sins cost Christ. See how this evokes love for Him in our hearts. Meditate upon your evidences for heaven: (Was your heart ever thoroughly convinced of sin? Did you ever see yourself lost without Christ? Has God ever made you willing to take Christ on His terms as your Priest and King? Are you willing to renounce the sins to which the bias of your heart does naturally incline? Are you willing to take Christ for better or worse; to take Him with His cross? Do you have the indwelling presence of the Spirit? What has the Spirit done in you? Has He made you meek, merciful, humble? Has He left the impress of holiness upon you?). Meditate upon the uncertainty of all earthly comforts (Ps 49:11). Meditate upon God’s severity against sin. Sin kindles hell and stirs up God’s wrath. Meditate upon eternal life (Watson, pp. 24-27).

Meditation – “The clean animal chews the cud – the regenerate person chews truth.” Meditation makes the Word preached to profit. Meditation quickens the affections (assimilation of spiritual nutrition into the innermost being). Meditation has transforming power (note the principle of transformation – we become like that which fills the heart). Meditation produces reformation.

The only way to consistently meditate is to get a love for spiritual things. We naturally meditate on the things we love. If we loved heavenly things, we would meditate on them more (pp. 28-29). Through meditation, our affections are conformed to God’s truth. If our affections are not continually conformed to the truth we will manifest some combination of the following sins against God’s truth: suppress the truth, neglect the truth, distort the truth, or deny the truth.

Violence of self-examination.

The good and wise Christian begins as if it were the Day of Judgment in his own soul. We must be aware of the impediments: self love works against objectivity.You would give yourself no rest if you bounced a check until the account was made right with the merchant, yet so opposed is our flesh to examination, that denial and self-deception reign; we’re too willing to live with outstanding accounts of conscience (pp. 30, 31).

How the flesh resists self-examination – though we know that a lust is having its way in our soul like a raiding burglar, we do not even stir ourselves to turn on a light, instead we allow sin as a thief to steal our spiritual comfort, our boldness, our peace, and our sense of God’s presence. (Regarding self-examination, see Paul Zahl’s helpful chapter on self-criticism in his work, A Short Systematic Theology, pp. 79-82 .)

Your salvation depends upon you taking pains in self-examination. The “harlot-professor” is seldom home, but always out spying on the faults of others. By contrast, the true believer does violence by self-examination (pp. 32, 33).

If we will not try ourselves and we belong to the Lord, God will try us by scourging! (Note the promise in 1 Corinthians 11:31 – “If we judged ourselves rightly, we should not be judged.”) “Lord show me my heart, lest I perish through mistake, or go to hell with hope of heaven” (Ps 139). The warning is “do not come short” (Heb 4:1).

Today we see believers visiting each other without giving their souls a visit. By way of example; a traveler talks about the home and country to which he is traveling, so also when we meet together, we should talk about our heavenly country (Heb 11:16). We ought to provoke ourselves to good discourse (this is only possible with some kind of violence – without it our conversations will remain light and airy, void of any eternal good).

Discourse reveals the contents of the heart. “While they communed together and reasoned, Jesus drew near” (Luke 24:15). Those with kingdom values cannot help but make those kingdom values the content of their discourse.

Violence in overcoming the world – Christ gave Himself to redeem us from this present evil world (Gal 1:4). If we are to be saved, we must swim against the world like a fish against the current (p. 44). This world is deceitful, defiling, perishing (biblical adjectives that modify world). The world is always attempting to seduce us, inviting us to lodge in its false refuges by promising comfort, security, fulfillment, and supply.

Violence in our pursuit of heaven. Consider the categories or metaphors that clearly imply violence: striving (Lu 13:24); wrestling (Eph 6:12); running (1 Cor 9:24); pressing towards the mark (Phil 3:14); fighting, laboring, warring (1 Tim 6:12); praying fervently (James 5:16); make calling and election sure by diligence(2 Pet 1:10); go from faith to faith (Rom 1:17); overcome (Rev 2 & 3) (Watson, pp. 45, 46).

Without violent AFFECTIONS, we shall never be able to resist violent TEMPTATIONS. Consider what we shall gain – a kingdom! So many fancy an easy way to heaven – that it can be gained with an idle wish, a feather pillow of grace without means, a death-bed tear, BUT Scripture tells us that we must offer violence. Heart affections must be regularly “wound up” by prayer and meditation – this is essential if we are to be spurred on to holy violence (p. 47).

The gates of hell are like the doors of an immense iron gate that open at their own accord. The way to its entrance is all downhill; nothing in our nature resists it easy and broad path (p. 48). Nothing is easier than to slide into hell. There is no harder work than repentance, and there is no labor more daunting than attempting repentance when it has long been delayed.

Heaven involves sweat to get to the top of the hill. This cannot be done without violence. To get to heaven, we must force our way, besieging it with sighing and tears, holding fast to the scaling ladder of faith in order to storm it. We must work and fight; use the sword and trowel (Neh 4:17).

We must charge against the whole army of lusts – each one as strong as Goliath. A Christian can never take a vacation from the fight of faith. He is either watching or praying at all times. While not under trial, the believer watches; he is suspicious of the apparent calm, knowing that the enemy waits for negligence as an ideal time to spring his next ambush.

Countless souls sit in self-deception, imagining that they are on their way to heaven though they offer no holy violence. They content themselves that their soul’s estate is well -- they sit under preaching, though they never look at their hearts (p. 49).

(How many churches are filled with folks who imagine that the precision of their creed and the eloquence of their pastor shall in the end save them.)

Compartmentalization of religion is proof that so many professing believers are trapped in a soul-endangering pattern of moderation. Moderation in the world’s sense is to not be too zealous, too violent for heaven, too fierce to enter glory. Moderation is not to venture further in religion than may coexist with self-preservation (p. 50).

Moderation in the world’s sense is NEUTRALITY – a “happy medium” between strictness and profaneness (neither debauchery, nor purity). Here is the warning:moderation is lukewarm-ness. Be zealous and repent (Rev 3:19). A moderate pace will never win the prize – it has made many miss heaven just as the foolish virgins did.

No man is saved by chance, he must know how he came by it – by offering violence (note all the warnings in the book of Hebrews alone) (p. 51).

Take heed when the desire for heaven is not as strong as it once was. This is a shrewd sign of lukewarm-ness. RECOVERY from losing one’s first love begins with diagnosis: 1.) The more violence, the more peace you will have (2 Pet 1:10, 11). 2.) Walking in the fear of God issues forth in the comfort of the Spirit (Acts 9:31). 3.) Deadness in service and duties opens us up to serious, dangerous temptations. The more violent we are; the less violent Satan is. 4.) The more lazy a Christian is in his desires, the more lively his corruptions. Oh pray for quickening grace (Ps 143:11). 5.) A pet lust given haven in the heart can destroy our violence for religion. Only sowing the seed of repentance will keep us on track in offering violence (see pp. 56-59 Watson).

Examining whether we are offering violence.

Do you strive with your heart to get into a holy frame? Do you thirst for the living God? Do you desire the holiness that is heaven? Do you desire to be like Christ as much as to be with Christ? Are you skilled in self-denial? Can we cross our wills to fulfill God’s? Can we “behead” our beloved sin? Do we love God more than fear hell? Do we keep a spiritual watch? (pp. 63-64). Are these disciplines and spiritual postures of soul increasingly your practice? Plead for more grace to do violence at these junctures.

God makes the way hard that we might raise the price of heavenly things. If entrance into the kingdom of glory were easy, would we value its worth? (p. 66). The more we sacrifice for heaven, the higher premium we place upon glory; the better able we are to reckon where our true treasure resides.

The narrow way is hard by design; it makes us choose over and over again. In every step of progress toward heaven, we leave something behind down here. Every pinched place on our journey, every thorn, every tear shed helps the saint consolidate all of his hopes and affections upon glory. Difficulties in the Way steel and solidify our determination to have a united heart before the Lord.

If a man is so drunk with the cares of the world that he cannot find time for the needs of his soul, he is not offering violence in seeking to take heaven. If he does not repent, will not God say to him, “Why did you not take pains for heaven?” “Why did you eschew the cross?” (p. 70).

This violence for heaven is the grand business of our lives. Why else did we come into the world? It is the main errand of our living here – shall we go through life and avoid the errand? All of life is preparation to live with God. Our journey’s end is the knowledge of God that we might come into the presence of the Holy One whom we know and love. God does not intend to make His eternal abode with strangers who loved the Egypt of this world and who have not set across the wilderness to enter Zion (p. 72).

Holy violence has much delight mingled with it (Prov 3:17). The joys and comforts of the new covenant are experienced by us when we are violent, not when we are double-minded. Think about how violent Christ was about our salvation: Sleepness nights in prayer, fastings, weeping, violent death (pp. 73-75). Holy violence brings rest (Heb 4:9). Holy violence prevents much sin and blocks the devil’s designs. Holy violence is always energized by the Spirit’s working (Phil 2:12, 13) (pp. 73-75).

The damned in hell would gladly serve a thousand year apprenticeship in hell if they could by it be given another opportunity to do violence for heaven. Do violence now while God’s terms are easy! (p. 82).

A little violence would ease our fear of death and make the believer willing to die to be with his Lord. Those who profess Christ but fear death are bothered by a conscience that correctly tells them that they have taken none, or too few pains for heaven (pp. 85, 86). (The conscience will not generate peace and comfort if bogged down with the rust and baggage of this world. By contrast, the heavenly citizen is unwilling to endure the hardships of travel on the narrow way.)

The time is coming to every man wherein he will wish with all his might that he had been more violent for heaven. (Christ and free grace is the cause of us inheriting heaven. But we shall not obtain the kingdom of heaven without violence.)

God’s will is that we should pray and repent, making our calling and election sure (2 Pet 1:10). He has from the beginning chosen us for salvation through sanctification (2 Thess 2:13). According to Romans 6:22, eternal life is the outcome of a life set apart to God (pp. 89, 90).

Take heed who you bring into your intimate company. Those who are unacquainted with the spirituality and sweetness of religion judge all zeal to be frenzy, therefore they will lay hold upon us to hinder us in this sacred violence. When we are earnest suitors to piety, our carnal friends will raise some ill report of it and endeavor to break the match (p. 93).

Labor to grow in sanctity/holiness – for the more grace, the more strength, the more strength, the more violence. If you would be violent for heaven, convince yourself that offering violence is a laborious work. If you think that heaven may be had without much in the way of violence, you will be apt to slacken your pace. This work is not easy – “Strive as in agony.” It is a work above nature and against it – it is as great a wonder for a soul to be saved as it is to see a millstone lifted up into the upper atmosphere (p. 94). Kingdom values are utterly realistic – strive for realism (the reality of God’s Kingdom will someday fill the universe.)

A man will be violent for nothing but what he loves. Are you constrained by the love of Christ? (2 Cor 5:14). Are your most precious hours of the day those spent with God? If you would be violent for heaven, make sure that going to heaven is your business. To the degree that you are indifferent, you will not be violent. When it is your business, you will be industrious about it. One thing is needful; to get Christ and heaven (Lu 10:42). To lose the prospect of heaven is to slacken the pace – certainty is therefore your duty (2 Cor 5: 1-10). If you would be violent, be sure heaven is your consuming goal (Heb 12:1-3).

Find companions that fear God! (Ps 119:63) (pp. 96, 97). Godly companions will sharpen you. Their company will energize your conscience – holy dialogue will heighten your awareness of areas where you have been slack and repentance is needed.

Prepare your affections for God by contemplating the excellencies of God. Study your own wants – consider how much you need God – you cannot be happy without Him (pp. 111, 112). Draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith (Heb 10:22). If God be the treasure delighted in, our hearts will be drawn to Him. Make it your vocation to match your depravity with Christ’s sufficiency and righteousness. Endeavor to see how perfectly Christ’s Saviorhood fits your ruin and ill-desert. Meditate upon your completeness in Him. Think upon His suitability for your every need. Dwell upon all that God is toward you in Christ, and all that He will be to you throughout eternity.

Some folks in this world perish for not having the Scriptures, and other perish for not improving their possession of the Scriptures (Heb 4:1, 2). That God should pass by millions and yet set His electing love upon you move you to holy ecstasy and wonder. Like God manifesting Himself in the pillar of cloud and the blazing mountain, think that God should show His dark side to others, yet a light side to you. That to others the Word is a dead letter, but to you, it is the savor of life. Marvel that Christ is not only revealed to you, but in you (Gal 1:16). Are these infinite riches not a cause for offering violence?

When our holy affections are inflamed, we will find ample motivation to do violence. When our affections for the Lord burn bright; our taste for the “cistern water” of this world will be dulled. Our longing will be for the “Fountain of Living Water” (Jer 2:13).

Have you walked with the Lord for many years? Consider just how much those around you are in need of your ministry in their lives. Let this sink in next time you are reluctant to do holy violence – “Those around me need my holiness; for it is only by holiness that I shall be a clean vessel available to the Lord for their spiritual welfare” (2 Tim 2:21).

Conclusion on doing holy violence (taken from Prophetic Ministry, by T. Austin-Sparks).

The spirit of citizenship in the Kingdom is “by force” (Matt 11:12). The reason why encompasses the immeasurable loss that will be suffered by those who do not take the Kingdom seriously. The Lord Jesus preached the Kingdom of God amidst constant opposition. The whole organized religious system expressed tremendous prejudice; they blocked the way into the Kingdom for as many as they could (Matt 23:13).

Everything from devil and men works to obstruct one’s entrance into the Kingdom, therefore to enter requires violence. If you are willing to be hindered; you will fail to enter in. If you are easy-going, you will tend to give in to antagonistic forces. To enter requires violence.

To gain the Kingdom is not a once-for-all entering in; it is a continuous entering.You have to make it a desperate matter because everything will be there to stop you. Violence must characterize us – we must desperately mean business (T. Austin-Sparks, p. 93).

How easy it is for lives to become side-tracked, simply because they are not desperate enough. The only way to get past all obstacles that oppose our progress is to be men of violence, to be men who are desperate; to be men who say, “By God’s grace, nothing and no one, however good, is going to stand in my way; I am going on with God.”

If the above describes your heart’s posture, God will meet you on that ground. God will be toward you what you are toward Him. He will mean business if you mean business (p. 94).

In order to get in, the Kingdom calls for violence. Are you ready to do violence to everything that stands in the way of God’s full purpose as revealed in Christ? You will never know what God’s purpose is unless He finds that you are one after His kind – entering violently. Are you like that? If you are passive, everything will be lost. If you mean business, everything will be gained (p. 96).

Thoughts on Church Renewal

The Need for a Grace Awakening

So many churches need a “grace awakening.” They are stuck in maintenance mode—the congregation is coasting along on the pastor’s energy. Here is a typical way a church gets into this religious rut: A church calls a new pastor. Both the congregation and the pastor enter into the relationship with excitement and hope for the future. The new pastor experiences an initial “honeymoon” in which his faults are overlooked. The congregation enthusiastically pledges their loyalty to him. They then settle back and bask in his radiant heat as he burns himself up for them.

The new pastor may find it superficially rewarding to operate as a “source person” who brokers the glory of God to the people. If he is not careful, his ego receives a power boost by the way the church looks to him as the professional answer-man who doles out the revelation of God. If he is a man of vision, he enjoys the newfound influence he has to lead the church. But after the first year, his happy delusions melt away as he discovers the spiritual deadness of the people. Instead of unleashing the congregation, he finds that they are operating in a parasitic fashion of dependency upon Him. They are draining him dry. He’s an unwilling “pope” to them—a vicar of Christ, a figurehead in whom they take pride. He knows something is not right, but he can’t put his finger on it.

Without a grace awakening, they will be unable to give back to God, their pastor, or one another. They are operating upon reflected glory, similar to those who gazed at Moses’ glowing face after he descended the holy mountain with the law of God (Ex 34:29-35). But they themselves are not in the habit of regularly beholding the glory of Christ in the gospel. They are not daily drawing their spiritual life directly from Christ in personal communion with Him.

In a grace awakening the congregation will begin to fix their sight on Christ and what He has done for them in redeeming them by grace. As they grow in their personal knowledge of the Son of God by the Spirit of God through the Word of God, they will be eager to follow Christ in discipleship and ministry. They will become team players alongside the pastor rather than being mere spectators sitting on the sidelines watching the ministry of the pastor. They will no longer be content to accept the ministry of their pastor as a substitute for their own ministry within and through the body.

The Lost Spiritual Discipline of Meditation

The majority of church members today have not learned to go to their Savior directly by meditation, worship, and adoration. Lest we forget, meditation is a godly discipline that is resisted by our natural faculties. Our cognitive faculties are dialed into sensual stimuli. As our media-saturated culture becomes more and more visually stimulated by man-made fantasies, it becomes increasingly difficult to tune our hearts into the invisible truths of the gospel. It is work to have the eyes of the heart opened fully wide to behold by faith unseen spiritual certainties. But the labor of meditation is necessary if our souls are to be ravished by the sight of our wealth in the Son of God.

The eyes of our hearts must be enlightened in order for us to be constrained and animated by God’s love in Christ. In considering the concentration and labor necessary to meditate on the Word of God, an illustration may be helpful. By way of example, consider the fact that 37 tons of metal, crew, fuel, and payload in the shape of a Tomcat fighter jet can only remain airborne at mach 2.0 if multiple physical laws are strictly obeyed. Friction, gravity, and heat all seek to bring the craft back to earth in a jumble of disorder. So also, nature fights against our attempts to meditate upon invisible spiritual realities. The Word, the Spirit, and the mind must all come together in order to gaze continually with the eyes of faith upon invisible spiritual realities. We must individually and collectively as the people of God discipline ourselves to meditate upon the Word of God as a crucial step toward church renewal.

It takes meditation in order for spiritual truth to come alive so as to renew the mind and transform the life. But teaching biblical meditation will of necessity require detailed, step by step instruction and examples. This is because our media culture is characterized by a mind numbing busy-ness, but paradoxically, also by a mental laziness. Most people slow down by entering a “veg-out” mode of passively watching television. The enemy, however, has virtually complete control over television programming which has become a conduit for postmodern thought (i.e., no absolute truth, moral relativism, erroneous view of tolerance, moral and intellectual autonomy, etc.) Viewers who attempt to “relax, refresh, and recharge” by hours of television are unwittingly imbibing postmodern values in the process of devoting themselves to mindless amusement.

Believers need to be “unplugged” from the deadening effects of postmodern culture. If Christians refuse to stir themselves so as to dedicate their minds to love God’s truth, they will of necessity find themselves conformed to the world (Rom 12:1-2). They will be unable to mourn and grieve over the sins of this generation. Their zeal for soul-winning will fade into apathy toward the lost as their attention turns to maintaining their personal comfort and entertainment.

By contrast, biblical meditation requires mental discipline and concentration, and even self-confrontation. It’s impossible to be passive and meditate on Scripture at the same time. Sadly, even religious broadcasting has adapted itself to the passive, spectator mentality. (Note how programs on TBN hold the interest of their viewers by stirring up enthusiasm and anticipation over what is going to “happen” next. The promise of a victorious life, physical healing, and spiritual revival “just around the corner” misrepresents the way of the cross. Religious amusement takes the place of the daily disciplines of grace.)

Recognizing that Christ is our Life

Such is human nature that mankind lusts for a visible “king” while rejecting the invisible rule of God (1 Sam 8:7). Every pastor ought to be conversant with this human tendency that longs to elevate a man to the position of mediator and professional. If a pastor permits his congregation to cast him in a position of one who brokers the glory of God to the people, he will come short of leading his flock to Christ as sole source of life and sustenance. So much of today’s sectarian, partisan spirit within local churches (“I am of Paul, I am of Apollos”) is a symptom of longing for a visible “king.”

The pastor who has harnessed himself to a church that is stuck in maintenance mode must be willing to refuse to be a “source person” to his congregation. He must not allow his people to conduct personal spiritual audits based upon the successes of the pastor or the church as a whole. Personal spiritual accounting must be done by the individual believer in relation to the person of Christ. Each believer must be challenged to daily go to Christ with his sins and receive from Him forgiveness, cleansing, and imputed righteousness.

Often a new pastor majors in biblical principles. He faithfully teaches his people the precepts of the Bible, but he has not learned to display Christ so that his people have the regular revelation of their Savior. The pastor himself needs to return to Christ as first love. When that takes place, his ministry will experience renewal. As the man of God cultivates the habit of drawing near to Christ, he no longer speaks about Christ as if He were a topic; he begins ministering the Person of Christ. He is an anointed man who is displaying the beauty, sufficiency, and preeminence of Christ.

The more church members see the heart of God in the Gospel (in the Father’s plan to give us Christ), the more they will come to comprehend their right to Christ. We must preach the relational aspects of grace. The grace-awakened believer finds a new passion and hunger to draw near to the Lord and cultivate his personal love relationship with Him. What a blessed day it is when the people in the congregation begin to thirst for the Savior! When they begin to understand His approachability, His love, His fellowship. Then something wonderful happens—they realize that all of their resources are in Christ. The Lord comes to be regarded as their “Source Person.” No longer are they settling for the reflected glory in their pastor, they are drawing near to the Source—Christ Himself.

In a stagnant church, members prop up their broken, sinful personhood on carnal supports rather than Christ. Institutionalism feeds into this spiritual malaise by denying the organic nature of the church. The church is treated as a religious society, but not as the living body of Christ who owes its every spiritual breath to the life of her Savior. Maintenance mode is the result. People just “do church” but do not exalt Christ in their minds and hearts. Pastors ought to heed the counsel of George Mueller. His mindset was as follows. He made it his aim to get himself happy in Jesus every morning before he could ever attempt to be useful to others.

The Fruit of Personal Renewal

Suppose a church begins to see personal renewal taking place. How does personal spirituality translate into missions? How does the believer turn his inward renewal into outward service and evangelism? What is the connection between private intimacy with Christ and public ministry for Christ?

Jesus made it clear in John 15 when speaking of the vine and the branches that fruit bearing is a byproduct of abiding in Him. His words ought to disturb us in no small amount, for we see countless churches today in which programs have taken on a life of their own. The program “machinery” spins autonomously at high rpms with or without any abiding in Christ. The institution rules and governs itself with Christ standing just outside its Laodicean door. No wonder we need to anchor every program in the glory, preeminence, and sufficiency of Christ. Without His centrality as our constant theme, His people can quickly become blinded to their departure from Him.

Lest we get the impression that a renewed walk with Christ is its own end, we are to be reminded that our walk with Christ is expressed in worship, discipleship, service, and the Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20). A renewed walk with Christ produces a missionary mindset. “He who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk just as He walked” (1 John 2:6).[1][1] “Then Jesus said to them. ‘Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.’ ” (Mark 1:17).

Our task in church renewal is to give the Great Commission its rightful place in the priorities of the church. We do this in obedience to the command of the Lord of the church who has all authority in heaven and on earth: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Matt 28:19a). The Great Commission is necessarily tied to God’s purpose to display His glory in history. As John Piper has stated in his book Let the Nations be Glad, “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church, worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When people from all nations are before the throne, missions ends. Missions is a temporary necessity, but worship is eternal” (paraphrased). The glory of God is preeminent. The purpose of missions is tied to the glory of God in Christ.

Our job in church renewal is to call the church back to Christ. When her focus is upon Him, we will see her hungering for missions because she longs for countless others to join her in the worship of Christ. We do not need countless motivational sermons on outreach. When men and women are ravished with Christ, outreach is a natural result. It is not that complicated to build bridges to the lost if one is constrained by the love of Christ.

Our emphasis upon renewal is a perfect springboard to missions. Our call to return to Christ is intimately tied to God’s heart for the nations. Renewed believers will be able to translate God’s heart for the nations to “God’s heart for my neighbor.”

The Glory of God in the Face of Christ

The goal of redemptive history, yes, all history is the glory of God. If one starts with the doctrine of God’s decree (God’s plan for history before creation), it leads quickly to the biblical truth that God created the world to be a stage for His glory. The whole purpose and plan of God is founded upon this.

Many churches go wrong because they lose the big picture. They forget that God’s glory is the goal of redemptive history. In the process of that forgetting, their programs within the institution begin to exist for their own perpetuation. The individual becomes subservient to the program. The institutional grid with its inherent politics is impersonally draped over the church. The “orthodox formalism” of Ephesus takes over (Rev 2:1-4), purring like the motors in a large factory. The tragedy is that Christ is knocking outside the door, but unfortunately there is no church program for answering the door when He knocks!

The stalled church and an institutional church are both mired in status quo—maintenance mode reigns. The pastor may attempt a shotgun approach of more practical principles (“how to” sermons) with more impressive power point graphics, but often he is flirting with personal burnout.

The Need for Christ’s Spirit

God’s answer is to call the church back to her heavenly King. The call to renewal is a call to radical humility in Christ. It will cost us our pride. We will have to deal violently with our craving to accrue personal credit for our ministerial labors.

The world’s way is to lean upon an arm of flesh, trusting in our own administrative abilities, our programs, our eloquence, our personalities. To be brought low is to admit to the Lord that we have sought to operate independently of Him that we might burn incense to our own talent and diligence.

God’s way has always been to “tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). God’s servant in every age is utterly dependent upon the Spirit’s empowerment for effectiveness in ministry as God measures it. By contrast, modern ministers have taken a shortcut around the Spirit’s enablement. They have trusted in their own qualifications more than the equipping from on high.

A Divine Blueprint for Renewal

In renewal a man is brought to the place of the Apostle Paul who said, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God . . .” (2 Cor 3:5). Has God given you a vision for church renewal? Renewal takes place when God’s gifted man steps out in faith and meets the people who are hungry for the ministry to which they have been called. The Apostle Paul, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, lays out for us the model for church renewal in Ephesians 4:1-16. May the blueprint provided here guide our efforts in this most foundational and critical ministry before us—the renewal of the church of Christ.

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore He says: “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.” (Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.) And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love (Eph 4:1-16).

[1][1] All Scripture references are taken from the New King James Version.

Triangulating Church, School, and Home

Pursuing a Philosophy of Ministry which unites the three            At a recent conference on reaching ‘neo-pagans’ with the Gospel, I was chairing a break out session on apologetics when a Christian leader in the room said the following: “We [the Evangelical church at large] do not triangulate very well between church, school, and home.”             I haven’t been able to ‘shake’ his statement.  In fact, it has been stewing inside of me since the day I heard it—even functioning as a catalyst that keeps generating tough questions about the way we ‘do church’. This has forced me to ask the question, “Do the prevailing views of ecclesiology and philosophy of ministry held and practiced by Evangelical churches conform to Scripture?”             While discussing these topics over dinner with my friend Jesse; my dear brother in Christ made the following observation, “Without really questioning her methodology, the church has settled into a Western consumer model wherein she ‘packages’ her message for each age group—and in so doing inadvertently feeds into the disconnect between church and home.”             The simplicity of his statement rocked me.  He was right; the church has assumed the child-training role by default.  The sad state of affairs in the Christian home has been ‘normalized’—and the church has taken up the mantle that should belong to the parents.              I practically blanched white as I penned the following words—I see a remote comparison between America’s welfare system and the church—both attempt to function as a surrogate parent to the broken family without really re-building the family.             Paul David Tripp has written a book which does much to help us recover an understanding of just how strategic God intends the home to be.  In his book, “Age of Opportunity,” Tripp indicates that the Christian home ought to function as a seminary.              The Lord has not altered His plan—as the fathers’ hearts are moved in love for God so also the children’s hearts are moved, and then trained up in the Lord by their parents.  It’s tragic when parents are so quick to abdicate this precious privilege—passing it off to the church without a sense of loss.             If we are to ‘measure’ our effectiveness by Scripture, then we will have to align ourselves fully with what God’s Word says about the home.  What takes place at church must be designed to help equip parents to make the home a training center.  Anything less is to pull in another direction—and to sow to the current disconnect that exists between church and home.             All of our Christian education efforts—whether in Sunday school, or Christian school, or home school must dovetail back into God’s redemptive purpose for His people—to present every man complete in Christ (Col 1:28-29).             The local church should embrace a full congruency of purpose with the home so that the home is viewed as the training ground for young people.  Church, school, and home ought to operate in harmony and synchrony like cylinders firing in perfectly timed sequence.             Each part of this triad (church, home, and school) should support and strengthen the other two.  Each has a role that it can do better than the other two.  In Scripture we see a division of labor; but a unity of purpose between the three.               The church occupies a role which defines true community.  Believers are bound together in a covenant community of regenerate, baptized members.  She is the pillar and support of the truth (1 Tim 3:15b).  She is to instruct her members and build them up in the faith.  She brings believers together in corporate worship.  In her meetings, the Word of God is proclaimed that Christians might learn to know the Lord, love the Lord, and learn to do His will.              The church exists to know Christ, to worship Christ, and to make Him known.  She exists to be conformed to Christ and to fulfill The Great Commission.  The church fulfills her divine mandate ONLY if her individual members are moving toward maturity in Christ.              The role of the home and the role of Christian education are vital to the process of Christian maturity (of presenting every man complete in Christ).  Though one in purpose; each of the three parts of the triad occupy a unique niche.  For instance, grounding people in biblical worldview probably takes place best in the school and in the home rather than being accomplished by preaching in church.             Now regarding the mandate to bring its members to maturity; we cannot say in truth that a local church has ‘kingdom values’ unless she is utterly committed to the task of presenting every member complete in Christ.  Only if she is animated by this purpose of presenting every member complete in Christ is she fulfilling her N.T. function.              It is precisely at this point that so many Evangelical churches prove that they have imbibed neutralizing influences from our culture.  The loss of focus needed to bring individual Christians to maturity is tied to the loss of the church’s sense of purpose as set forth in Scripture.              The phenomenon of apathy concerning the maturity mandate of Colossians 1:28-29 is not an isolated malady.  It is symptomatic of blindness as to WHY the church exists in the first place.  At salvation the regenerated person is united to Christ—that union is to be realized and lived out in a vital vertical dimension and in a dynamic corporate dimension (Gal 2:20).  This is not an experience reserved for pastors and missionaries—this is the normal Christian life!  Our problem is that we have normalized nominal Christianity to such a degree that N.T. Christianity looks like fanaticism.                Local churches have, by N.T. standards, experienced a very unnatural process of numerical growth. Rather than growing by conversion; they have swelled their ranks by transfer membership.  By means of preaching engaging sermons and providing interesting programs, churches have attracted professing believers.              An honest profiling of this growth reveals that many Evangelical churches are full of uncommitted folks who like things that way—they wish to remain in attendance; but uncommitted.  We as church leaders have acquiesced to this status quo arrangement.  It is our silence and passivity that have normalizedspectatorship, non-commitment, and anonymity.  Doing church has been ‘dumbed down’ so to speak to mesh with the lowest common denominator desires of the uncommitted.             Now here is where things get serious.  The core values of the uncommitted, i.e. spectatorship and relative anonymity, are antithetical to true discipleship.  Please let this sink in—man’s sin nature which eschews self-denial and self-sacrifice is ethically opposed to the most fundamental elements of true discipleship—death to the self-life.             The question is will you let core values of the nominal Christian set the standard for the church? Having adapted ourselves to the member-transfer model of church growth; we have inadvertently established a détente with flocks of sick, emaciated, and stagnant professors of Christianity.              If members of a 1st Century N.T. congregation were to witness the way we do church they would no doubt be intrigued by the excellence we pursue in our rituals; but wonder where mutual edification took place.  If they stayed long enough; they would see our local churches today as strange hybrids; as deformed creatures that have mutated away from the church pattern set by the Apostles.              In N.T. churches, meetings revolved around mutual edification.  Members practiced mutual admonishment for the purpose of preparing their brothers and sisters for another week of spiritual warfare and ministry (Rom 15:14; Heb 10:23-25).  Compared to the mutual edification practiced by the N.T. church; our ‘fellowship’ is merely Christianized socializing and visiting with no real aim.              If things are to be turned around; we will have to discover afresh that discipleship is absolutely essential to maturity.  Through discipleship truth becomes life.  Through discipleship truth becomes exceedingly relevant; then self-confrontational; then incarnational.  Through discipleship spiritual multiplication takes place.  How can churches justify the absence of true discipleship?             In my own Evangelical circles an expository pulpit is one of the highest values that we embrace in church life.  In fact it is regarded so highly that at times it becomes an excuse for our failure at triangulatingbetween church, home, and school.              In essence, like Israel of old—we have said, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord” (Jer 7:4).  As if—because we have an expository pulpit—we may pronounce the whole church in a state of relative wellness.             Such is not the case.  There are undeniable symptoms of spiritual debilitation in our midst: a secular view of marriage and family; an absence of true community among believers; a failure to commit ourselves to The Great Commission—with an equal failure in both evangelism and discipleship (2% of Evangelicals practice personal evangelism, barna.org).              Sermons alone do not produce mature members.  Richard Baxter (The Reformed Pastor) imbues this point upon his readers—that there must be vital points of contact and confrontation between biblical truth and the members of the flock if genuine growth is to take place.  Pastor Baxter sought to complete a yearly circuit to each member’s home in order to build up flock and bring them to maturity.  He attributed his success in no small part to this willingness to individually disciple the members of the flock.             Church members will not move to maturity by listening to sermons alone.  Believers must learn to study for themselves; apply what they learn; meditate upon the truth; love the truth; and instruct others in the truth.              It is but a pipe dream to imagine that by some mysterious kind of spiritual osmosis these things can be learned by hearing great preaching.  To move from a hearer of the Word to an effectual doer of the Word involves great singleness of mind and intentionality (James 1:25).                If we are to recapture the vision of bringing each member to maturity; the vision to do so will have to be constantly articulated and modeled by the leaders of the church.  Every leader, whether home fellowship leader; elder; associate pastor; or senior pastor should be able to articulate the vision of bringing every member to spiritual maturity.  He should be able to do this with great specificity and personal application—explaining precisely how it is to be implemented; the specific opportunities available; as well as why it is our very purpose for meeting.             Church leaders must keep casting the vision for spiritual maturity until it is understood and embraced by church members.  Central to this articulation will be a clear explanation of the working relationship between church, home, and school.  The church must reiterate the function of her own role along with the the role of home and school in presenting every man complete in Christ.  Our philosophy of ministry must reflect nothing less than God’s plan for His church.              “But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the Head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love” (Eph 4:15-16).             God’s plan for the maturity of the Christian involves every believer fulfilling his individual part; there is no room for detached spectatorship.  Of course this flies in the face of the common practice of so many professing Christians who prefer to operate in an insular bubble; an ‘obese’ comfort zone that detests accountability, transparency, and accessibility to other believers.                Ephesians 4:25 states that we are ‘members of one another’.  This has huge ramifications for maturity.  Being members of one another has implications that are inseparable from the very purpose why church exists—for the union we have with Christ is the basis for our union with other believers—this is the very fabric of true community.  The church cannot reach its goal of maturing the individual without a sacrificial commitment to mutual edification.               Doesn’t it make you want to ask uncommitted church-attenders the following question, “Is it your purpose in attending this church to strive to reach maturity and to exert yourself in order to bring others to maturity—the very individuals who will be joined with you for all eternity?”             Pop culture has shaped how professing Christians relate to one another in church.  The vision to function as a supernatural community is completely missing in most Evangelical churches (Jn 17:21-23). It is all too common for professing believers to be completely ignorant of the truth that we are members one of another.              I fear that churches have been overly accommodating to the member-transfer model of growth.  Pews are filled with professing Christians in a state of arrested development.  The seriousness of the problem cannot be overstated.              All one has to do to slide into hell is to live a life of spiritual neglect (Heb 2:1-3).  The opposite destiny requires a much different course of action; in order to finish the Christian life well; it will take person’s entire resolve (2 Tim 1:8).             Certainly pastors who have coddled and pampered the rebellious will have to give an account of that action before the Lord.  Do we fear that some of the uncommitted would vacate their pews if we preached the full burden of the text—preaching in such a way as to drive home the application—leaving no room for escaping the consequences of disobedience?              After Jesus performed signs in Jerusalem; the number of His followers greatly increased.  Jesus never colluded with the numbers game.  The Scripture says, “But Jesus, on His part was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men” (Jn 2:24).  Have we forgotten the biblical doctrine of man?              Let us remember that uncommitted professors loathe accountability; they refuse to take up their cross and deny themselves. Those who refuse to follow Christ by denying themselves will ultimately refuse to willingly suffer for Christ (Rom 8:17).  Consider the price that pastors and churches are paying in order to keep their pews filled with uncommitted professors of Christianity.              Do we really understand what is at stake?  As Christianity is increasingly marginalized in our nation persecution in some form will be unavoidable.  With the passing of each year it will be more difficult to practice true Christianity in a nation that views the Faith with suspicion; or worse as mindless prejudice.   If Christ tarries; the church will suffer.  Are we preparing the Bride of Christ to suffer for the sake of her Head? (Col 1:24).  I think not.             It is shameful that we are not preparing the church of Christ for suffering.  Deepening one’s faith; devotion; love; and sacrifice in preparation for suffering is the very last thing on peoples’ minds.               By contrast, the N.T. Church functioned as a war room; a pentagon; a boot camp—a place of accelerated learning in which what was gained would be immediately put to use.  Believers exhorted one another in preparation for another week in the ‘trenches’ of spiritual warfare and ministry; and in many cases persecution.  They continually spoke to one another about their common hope in Christ and the coming Day of the Lord.  They came to church to encourage; to edify; to build up; and to admonish their brethren.