I don’t normally do this. Three posts in one day is a bit much, I know. And I love what Chaplain Mike just put up about The Giving Tree. (If you have not read that, please do. It is a great primer on the whole topic of grace.) But there is such an uproar going on because I said God’s grace is total and complete without our needing to help it with our additions—whether it be Paul’s words or my words or anyone’s words. Grace is very tough to swallow for a people who are addicted to controlling their own lives: and that would be all of us.
This is an essay from our founder, Michael Spencer, reacting to criticism he received whenever he wrote on or preached about grace. Please read it carefully and with an open heart. God really does love us completely and freely and fully. And that is the message of grace. Â JD
Preaching Grace is Risky Business
Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said that if we didn’t get complaints that we’d gone too far and said too much, then we probably haven’t really preached the Gospel of grace. That’s been my experience. Almost every time that I preach a strong sermon on justification by grace through faith, by Christ and apart from the works of the law, I get complaints. I just thought I would say a few things about that.
1) Young people have a difficult time understanding grace. I think that young people are so used to living in a world of rules and grades, so used to competition and being told to be good/do right, that the Gospel is hard for them to understand. I’ve been around youth evangelism my whole life, and I believe about 98% of the “decisions†I’ve witnessed were brought about by messages that were legalistic and moralistic, not Gospel centered. These are kids who think about the Christian life as “living for God,†not as “Christ died for me and I will never deserve that.†They are like the workers in the Vineyard who are really hacked off that the owner paid those last minute workers the same wage.
2) Another reason young people struggle with the Gospel of grace is that they’ve been the primary focus of all the cultural warfare Christians talk about. It’s in their lives that all the issues of morality and cultural decline really come to the forefront. When you hear that sort of “do good/be good/don’t be like the world†message, the Gospel of God justifying sinners really sounds dangerous.
3) I think it’s provable again and again that what we are comfortable saying to an unbeliever, we aren’t comfortable saying to a Christian. The Gospel is for Christians, too. We love the story of the Prodigal son. Now, what about the day after the party? What if the son messed up again in a week? What if he doesn’t live the life of a grateful son? Or to be more realistic, what if he sometimes does and sometimes doesn’t? Does that change the Father? Does the older brother get to come back into the story and say “Aha!! I was right!†Christ died for the sins of Christians, and we need to hear that over and over again.
4) We really don’t believe grace can conform our lives to Christ more effectively than law. I mean we don’t. We think we need the law to keep us in line. Especially, we think we need the terrors of the law to frighten us into being good Christians. It’s the “law/grace/law†model. This kind of legalism just overruns Christianity. It usually comes in a less than recognizable form, saying we need “exhortation,†etc. because we have a tendency to drift back into sin. I’m reminding of Paul’s words to the Galatians: 3:1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain if indeed it was in vain? 5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith. 6 just as Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness? I’m not sure we get it yet.
5) Here’s one always sure to get a rise out of evangelicals. “Once you are justified by faith, you can do what you want. And if you want to do all the things you did before you knew Jesus, then you just don’t get it.†The idea that we can do what we want just gets everyone nervous. But what is the alternative? Being somehow forced to do what we don’t want to do? I sin because parts of me still want to sin. I obey Jesus because parts of me really want to do that. It’s a bummer. (Read Romans 7) I believe there is some hope the situation will change, but not until I’m dead! The prodigal came home and did what he wanted. So did the woman in John 8 who Jesus said he didn’t condemn. So did Peter when he denied Jesus and then repented.
6) How does grace change us? The Holy Spirit gives us a new heart, the mind of Christ, new affections. We are changed and the promises of sanctification and perseverance are true. But the law can’t PRODUCE anything worthwhile in my life as a Christian. It’s either there because Jesus is my treasure and I choose him over the world and the flesh, or it’s not worth being there at all. The law can really do a great job on the externals, but grace gives me Jesus and only cares about fruit that comes from the Holy Spirit. Sorry to all the preachers and Christians trying to control people. I suggest you give up.
Well, I’ve got more, but that ought to be enough to get you thinking. Justified by grace through faith apart from the works of the law. If you want it detailed out by someone who really understood these things, try J.C. Ryle’s little piece on Justification and Sanctification Detailed.
The Internet Monk Archives 
This has led me back to Francis Schaeffer’s books. In particular, Chapter 1 of True Spirituality. He talks about a discussion among Christians of various “lists of taboos.” What became apparent to him during the discussion was that what these Christians “really wanted was merely to be able to do the things which the taboos were against. What they really wanted was a more lax Christian life.” Schaeffer develops this into what he calls “The Law of Love.” I might add that very early on in the chapter, he makes it very clear that it is the finished work of Christ upon the cross, plus nothing, (aka GRACE!) that is the sole basis for the removal of our guilt.
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And I don’t think Michael would take issue with what you are saying; his point seemed to be that preaching law will not get us there, but that preaching grace, even to Christians who are already saved, will.
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Keep in mind that Michael did not link to the Monergism site per se, but to the article by Ryle. The Monergism site is simply where that article can be found online.
If I send you to the library to look up a particular book, I am not thereby endorsing everything on offer in the library, either.
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I don’t think that Michael asserts that we are blobs of flesh unable to make anything resembling a real choice, but rather that if our choices are driven by the law instead of grace they are worthless.
That does not mean that the law cannot serve as a guideline as to what pleases God; but that our motivation for doing those things ought not to be the sanctions threatened by the law for non-compliance, but a desire to please God because of the grace he continues to show us.
Or to put it differently: I don’t think Michael denies that there are things Christians should do and things they should not do; but he asserts that the things Christians should do are worthless unless they are done out of a desire to please God because of the grace he has shown us, rather than out of a desire to find favor with Him, or to stay on His good side. The things Christians should do are never meritorious, they don’t earn us anything with God. Therefore preaching moralism is useless and contrary to the Gospel of Grace.
And the things Christians should not do, do not negate grace when we do them. Grace and the forgiveness extended because of it still cover these things, even after we have become Christians. That is the point in point 3 — we preach grace to unbelievers, and law to believers (although we also tend to preach law to society at large). He asserts that we should preach grace to unbelievers and believers alike, and that this will be more effective in producing sanctification than the preaching of law.
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Coming to this a bit late (sorry, blog reading was not a priority the past few weeks), but here is an attempt at an answer:
I think the answer to your question is in point 4 above:
And because we don’t believe that Grace can do the job, because we don’t believe that Grace will eventually make us want to do what is pleasing to God, we consider statements like the one in point 5 dangerous.
If it does not evoke that reaction in you, Marvin, then you are a more thoughtful Evangelical than most I have met, either on your side of the Atlantic or on mine.
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Really, I don’t normnormaly stutter…..
T
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What this all means —
“I DON’T HAVE TO BE ‘ALL CHURCH, ALL THE TIME’? I DON’T HAVE TO SPEND EVERY WAKING MINUTE IN EVER-MORE-INTENSE PRAYER AND DEVOTIONS AND WITNESSING AND WHATEVER FILL-IN-THE-BLANK? I CAN JUST LIVE A LIFE?”
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IMR,
That last paragraph is gold, and I ripped it off from Robert Capon. ;o)
I agree with what you said in response. However, I think you may have misunderstood what I wrote as indicated by your reply. Here’s the full sentence which you are questioning;
The second clause is a close summary of Romans 6. Sin is a repudiation of who/what we are in Christ. To choose to sin is like an inmate who has been in prision for years for crimes committed who is pardoned by the governor but then refuses to walk out into freedom. (Or, walks out then a some time later decides he likes the prison better than the outside.)
The first clause speaks to the reality of freedom. Grace is God’s gift of freedom — immense freedom — not only freedom from sin-bondage and guilt, but also the freedom to make decisions out of a will that is freed from the domination of sin. If God’s love and grace is genuine, as I believe it is, then He also gives us the freedom to choose to NOT act congruent with our new nature. Therefore, we can choose to NOT work out of our salvation, but to act according to our old nature of sin and death.
Yes, we have been made free to NOT sin, though we can freely choose TO sin. I think that’s why Michael’s statement statement in point #4 is so meaningful in reference to the “law/grace/law” model; “I’m not sure we get it yet.”
Tom
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Let me add one more comment about item 5 in the essay. Here’s a quote from Mere Churchianity, page 43. “I wonder if it strikes anyone as strange that Christians often adopt a system where we know that Jesus wouldn’t do the thing we are considering, but we feel free to do it anyway.”
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A lot of words have been posted since I asked why the quotation in item 5 in Michael Spencer’s original essay would “get a rise out of evangelicals.” But none of these words answer the question I asked. Can someone please tell me in plain English why the quote would get a rise out of evangelicals?
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Not to put my comment against the good comments about the power of open-ended story. But we do have an example in Paul, who even after being acted upon dramatically by Jesus, and experiencing all he did, still lamented in his late epistle to the Romans (ch 7), “19. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23. but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25. Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
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@ PHIL –
No need to apologize. We have common ground. I too have come out of and been detoxed from Pentecostalism which is very law-heavy and rife with appeals ‘to do’. (In fact on other blogs I go under the alias of ‘Pentecostal Refugee’). The Pentecostal god (note lower case ‘g’) is not easily pleased as you know, he always wants more; more faith, more giving, more commitment, more volunteering, more witnessing during the week, more quiet times, more studying…
Reading my posts you may think I’m an advocate for ‘doing’, but it’s not the case at all. I am simply challenging the opposite extreme because I think it is equally dangerous and poisonous.
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Touché Kenny 🙂
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@ TOM
Ahh…finally a constructive interaction!
Your last paragraph is gold! However, I’m not clear on this bit:
Didn’t Paul say â€WORK OUT your own salvation with fear and tremblingâ€? (Phil 2:12)
I don’t mean to nit pick but words have meaning and they matter. Paul obviously doesn’t mean to work out your salvation IN ORDER TO earn it but BECAUSE we have been given it as a gift. His next sentence brings balance: for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. It’s obvious then that God instills the desire in us to do what pleases him as well as the ability to carry it out. This indicative however, needs to be balanced out with the previous imperative that alludes to human responsibility and an active submission of our will.
The best I can gather from the Romans teaching of ‘freed from the bondage of sin and slaves to righteousness’ is that we have been made free NOT TO sin.
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that’ll be a post I want to read. Think of this Jeff, if God were a God of balance he’d be flat out fair. If he was fair however, we’d all have a one-way ticket to you know where. The parables all speak to God not being balanced, if he was, the laborers who got busy late wouldn’t share in the same reward those who worked all day recieved.
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Jesus doesn’t resolve in his stories.
Neither did whoever first wrote down the Book of Jonah.
Best commentary I ever heard on the Book of Jonah was from one of the Whole Earth catalogs. Which said the reason it ended with a question was because every listener/reader had to answer that question — not only for Jonah, but for themselves.
If that was his intent, he would have shared facts, not stories.
And become just another Perfectly Parsed Correct Theologian. There were a LOT of those going around at the time. They were called Philosophers and Pharisees.
Stories get into us, play with us, mess with us.
Stories have power behind them. (Even the most recent incarnation of My Little Pony.) Power no Party-Line rewordgitation of Facts can have.
Jewish tradition was full of stories. So was the historic Catholic (and probably Orthodox) tradition — what are the stories of Saints but STORIES?
And the Protestant Reformation did away with Story, as they did with all the folk religion of their day (including the stories of the Saints and Miracles). In it’s place, The Party Line and Axioms of Truly Reformed Theology — “SCRIPTURE! SCRIPTURE! SCRIPTURE!” parsed down to the letter and spun into Theological Theory.
And people went where there were stories. To Tolkien, to Star Trek, to Carl Sagan, to Edward Cullen. To X-Men, to to Amish Bonnet Romances, to Harlequin Romance, to fanfics. Away from Theological Theory and back into Story. Heroes, villains, subcreations, eucatastrophes.
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Thank you, Steve Martin and David Cornwell. I agree with you, and I wonder why there is so much talk about what not to do rather than what to do. Reading the red letters in my bible changed me. I grew up evangelical and did all the “right” things….I was a good Christian girl…but I don’t think I knew the real Jesus of the bible until great personal suffering last year. I didn’t really know Jesus, and I don’t know many people personally who do what Jesus says to do. That’s sad. I was one of them, and I still am just a wretched sinner saved by grace. But now so rescued by His love, too, I am motivated by love to love others. Anyway, I think often about ‘standards of the great American secular of cultural consumerism, consumption’ that was once my true God and still a struggle, though lesser than it was.
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Here is another way to put it: We often ask, like the rich man, “What must I do to be saved?” But this question has been answered by Christ crucified. (And a good thing too: if we had to depend on ourselves, we wouldn’t like the answer any more than the rich man did.) The question we should be asking is “What should I do, knowing that I am saved?” Note that “must” is replaced by “should”. This is a key difference.
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I am glad to see that you have had the time (and patience) to bring a view about that actually shows the tension that exists in scripture rather than present God as a celestial Santa Claus (of course the opposite is God the ‘hanging judge’).
In the past few weeks I have read through most of the short letters and was struck by the same things you have mentioned, yes, we are forgiven. And as an outward sign of the inward grace we start to walk in the light. And we do have some part in that.
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Actually, this quote is from Willard’s earlier book, The Divine Conspiracy – although I believe he does repeat in The Great Omission as well. I actually just started re-reading The Divine Conspiracy yesterday, and it’s amazing how much of what he says applies to this conversation.
I think one thing that Protestants tend to do is look at salvation like a switch – you’re either saved or not saved. It’s like a binary thing. I think Scripture portrays salvation more as an act of following Christ. Everything that was needed to be done from God’s part has been done on the cross. Our decision to submit to Him is something we decide to do everyday. I still fail miserably though.
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I apologize if I came across as putting words in your mouth. That wasn’t my intention. I think I understand what you’re getting at. Have you ever read anything by Dallas Willard or Richard Foster. I think they speak to the heart of what you’re getting at.
I think, perhaps, I was reacting more in general to the times I have heard people use the exhortations you point out as scare tactics. Growing up in a Pentecostal church that leaned toward the Holiness tradition, I certainly felt that there were many times where I was trying to earn God’s love. So I’m probably like an ex-smoker in that regard – I tend to react too harshly sometimes. Again, I apologize.
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Hi all,
Mike Spencer is quite right that grace is a volatile subject. The Reformation was essentially over the topic of grace (even though initially it was a reaction to indulgences). Then the Reformers, after Luther, Zwingli & Calvin died, fought bitterly among themselves over what counted for grace and what did not. Even after years of war, there was no consensus about what grace meant, and still today it is a much loved and dreaded subject of discussion.
If Paul the apostle was to write to us today, he’d probably say, “Do you still NOT get it?”
Thanks Mike for touching on a topic near and dear to me!
Blessings
Yuri
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On the Practicing Resurrection blog at http://practicingresurrection.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/vampire-christians/ you can read a quotation from Dallas Willard that says, “The gospel of sin management produces vampire Christians who want Jesus for his blood and little else… At the heart of right-wing theology is the individual forgiveness of sins. On the left it is the removal of social or structural evils. The current gospel then becomes a gospel of sin management. Transformation of heart and character is no part of the redemptive message. Moment to moment human reality is not the arena of faith and eternal living. What right and left have in common is neither has a coherent framework of knowledge and practical direction adequate to personal transformation toward the abundance and the obedience emphasized in the New Testament.”
It doesn’t way which book the quotation is from or if it was from a speech he gave. OK, I googled it and discover that it comes from Willard’s book, The Great Omission.
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Back @ IMR;
Yes, it is fair to assume that. An “imperative” means “this is what it looks like in the application–where the rubber-meets-the-road”.
“Knowledge”, as in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ may begin with head knowledge, but certainly proceeds into “knowing in action”. “Working out our salvation” naturally flows into and through our lives from/by God’s grace. However, that does not mean that we “work FOR our salvation”.
The flip side of this kind of “knowing” is not ignorance, but choosing to “not know”. Grace gives us the freedom to not work out of our salvation, which is a return to the bondage from which grace has freed us. Freedom may more difficult to deal with for some people than simply staying in the cell which has been “home” for so long.
When we are freed from the penitentary of Sin the important question is, “What will I do with my freedom?”
T
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“the verses you quoted are qualities of character. These are produced by the Holy Spirit”
Are we reading the same passage? “make every effort to add to your faith” sounds like you play no part in this?
How about “All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure†(1 John 3:3) OR “Since we have these promises beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.†(2 Cor 7:1-4)
Does all that sound like we play no part in this and our will has no active role in the process?
Also, (as I asked another Lutheran participant in this discussion the other day), doesn’t your own Book of Concord (which the LCMS accepts) have something to say about the didactic 3rd use of the law?
“For the explanation and final settlement of this dissent we unanimously believe, teach, and confess that although the truly believing and truly converted to God and justified Christians are liberated and made free from the curse of the Law, yet they should daily exercise themselves in the Law of the Lord, as it is written, Ps. 1:2;119:1: Blessed is the man whose delight is in the Law of the Lord, and in His Law doth he meditate day and night. For the Law is a mirror in which the will of God, and what pleases Him, are exactly portrayed, and which should [therefore] be constantly held up to the believers and be diligently urged upon them without ceasingâ€? (VI. Of The Third Use Of God’s Law – the Augsburg Confession)
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@Elj — Amen!
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@ Peggy
Thank you for your response. I think it is beautiful! It makes sense why God keeps giving me the verse from 2 chorinthians 12:9… My grace is sufficient for you. Sometimes I really like it when He says this to me and other times it kinda hurts. But I am learning to trust Him. I have never had so much fun in my life.
love the Hudson Taylor stuff. Amazing faith.
Thanks for all your responses. Great conversation.
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Yes, I am Lutheran. Is it that obvious? You ask if we obey or ignore. That is odd, because the verses you quoted are qualities of character. These are produced by the Holy Spirit. An atheist can outwardly cultivate good character – kindness, generosity, but is not saved thereby. Only those qualities that are the fruit of His Holy Spirit please Him. Of course it is “rubber meets the road” but it isn’t us spinning our wheels, which is the result we’ve always gotten when we try to “make progress”. We usually just dig ourselves in deeper. It is holding onto the rope that Christ has thrown us and letting Him take us where He wants us to go. “Add to your faith” How did we get faith in the first place? It was His gift and came by the Word. It is only by the Word and by trusting in Him that over time we see how He is faithful and keeps His promises and delivers us and our faith grows.It isn’t something we can gin up. Nor is it “knowledge” except as knowledge grows from experience. There is only one way I know of making one’s calling and election sure — abiding in Christ, because we are chosen IN Him. “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4,5) We are neither saved nor sanctified by a process of self-improvement. When I see Law I pray: Father, thank You that by Your unmerited Grace I am Yours. You know that I am incapable in myself to keep your Law. Your will is good and perfect and I pray that by Your Grace Your will will be done in and through me. Forgive my sins and may Your Holy Spirit rule and reign within me that I might serve you in all my members. Form the image of Your Son in me. Help me to daily die to myself and walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus, my Lord, to Whom I commit my body, mind, soul and spirit and all things. By Your grace keep me, increase my love for You and my neighbour, teach me Your ways and bring forth fruit in me to the honour and glory of Your name. Amen. And then I trust Him to do exactly that, as He has promised.
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Pastors who read this blog: please take Michael Spencer’s words to heart and start telling us Christians that we’re forgiven for failing to carry out all the commands in the New Testament. Please spend at least 50% of every sermon on grace, and let part of that 50% be at the end. Please remind us that when we fail we can tell Satan that Jesus carried out all of these commands perfectly in our place.
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Thank you. Hudson Taylor is a wonderful example.
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Peggy –
If I had a dollar for every time a Lutheran referred me to the law/gospel distinction.
That’s not my question or the issue here. I don’t confuse Peter’s passage as ‘gospel’, I know it falls under ‘law’ (under your definition at least).
My question (again), assuming you’re clear it’s law and not gospel, do you obey it or dismiss it because it’s ‘law’? Because another one of your fellow Lutherans (in this comment thread) believes that since the law kills and you can never keep all of it, you just ignore it.
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@PHIL
To me, this is the biggest lie that grace tackles – the lie that the amount of love God has for us changes based on our behavior.
Who said that God’s love fluctuates based on our performance? I certainly did not say anything remotely similar.
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“The law says ‘do it’ and it is never done”
Back to square one again. So because “it’s never done” it means you ignore the passage altogether?
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@ TOM
Thanks for taking the time to engage and say a bit more than the others. At least you made an honest effort to interact with the text and not just resort to clichés.
The “confrontational†bit I was referring to is verse 9 (2 Peter 1:9).
Can you honestly read the words “make every effort to add to your faith… be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure†and say it has nothing to do with expectations, only with knowledge? Look at the list again:
virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, love People don’t have a problem ‘knowing’ what self-control or affection is (it’s not science), but putting it into practice (ok except ‘knowledge’ that is mentioned). Look at Peter’s conclusive statement in verse 8: “For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christâ€
Is it fair to assume that effectiveness and fruitfulness have to do with rubber-meet-the-road practice and not intuitive or head knowledge?
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Peggy –
So you agree with me then that these passages can’t be brushed off!
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Sorry for the typo…last line should read;
“God has NO expectations of us, only full knowledge of who and what we are.”
t
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The indicative;
The imperative;
The indicative tells us who we are. The imperative tells us what who we are is meant to look like. I don’t view this as “confrontational” because Peter said (“indicated”) that God has (past tense?) given us ALL things, so, by way of understanding what that looks like in the working out of our salvation (once and for all accomplished by Him who promised) we pursue those cardinal virtues–that which has been set before us — in contrast to living in forgetfulness of what we have been delivered from.
Paul does the same in most of his letters–to which you alluded. For instance, the first halves of both Ephesians and Colossians constitute the indicative and the last halves of both epistles inform us what that looks like in our walk-around living of life…the imperative.
We are the passive recepients of God’s grace and mercy which is freely given and not predicated on our performance. The kewl thing about that kind of grace is that in freeing us from the dominion of sin and death, guilt and condemnation, we are then freed to perform to the utmost of our desire to express in a demonstrable way something of the love which we have experienced from God–totally freed from obligation and expectations. God has not expectations of us, only full knowledge of who and what we are.
Charis,
Tom
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I see passages like that as God giving His children warnings or advice, much like an earthly parent would give their children warnings or advice. If a child goes and does his own thing, forgetting who he is, as it were, that doesn’t mean his parents quit loving him (at least hopefully – of course earthly parents have flaws, but God does not). To me, this is the biggest lie that grace tackles – the lie that the amount of love God has for us changes based on our behavior. It simply doesn’t. God love me regardless of how bad I mess up, or even when I turn my back on Him.
Now, I admit, there’s still a part of me that simply has a hard time believing that. It doesn’t seem “right” in some sense. When I’m “good”, I want God to love me more, after all. I think for some of us that grew up in churches where we were constantly told we would be rewarded for our good behavior and punished for our bad, it’s a hard mindset to get out of.
Now, I don’t believe anyone is saying that sinful actions don’t have consequences. If I do go out and do what I want to do, that doesn’t mean there won’t be some natural consequences for it. If I decide to go have an affair, for example, there would be plenty of negative consequences. I don’t see those as God lashing out on me but more simply an expression of how the universe works.
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“The law says ‘do it’ and it is never done. The gospel says ‘believe it; and it is done already.”
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You also deal with such passages by learning to distinguish between Law and Gospel. Law always says “do this,” and condemns you if you don’t. Gospel always says, “you are forgiven. All is fulfilled in Christ.” The OT has Gospel passages, and the NT has Law passages. Law is meant to bring us to repentance and show us our need for God. Gospel is meant to give God’s grace.”
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How? By abiding in Him. How? By hearing His Word and letting it do its work in us- which it will do since God says it never fails to accomplish His purpose. When His Holy Spirit reveals to us our sin, by confessing it and receiving His forgiveness. By receiving His body and blood in Holy Communion that we may be kept abiding in Him and in eternal life. By prayer and asking Him. We do not get virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection and love by our own efforts. To say so would be to say that we do not need Christ. These come from His Word working in us through His Spirit. As He says, “Remain in my Word.” For His Word is the power that works these things as we approach it believing. “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord.” Zech. 4:6. When I first returned to Christ I was concerned because I had very little love for Him. A pastor friend of mine said: “Do not worry. Trust Him. He will give it to you.” As the months have passed, I have seen that it was true. If we are lukewarm and neglect His Word, prayer, the sacraments and fellowship with the body of Christ, then we will not manifest these things because we have ceased to listen to our Shepherd’s voice and are no longer walking in the Spirit but in the flesh.
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Having had several exchanges on the other one of Jeff’s “grace†post, I am still none the wiser as to how you guys deal with those passages that put responsibility on the Christian to watch how he lives.
I am not trying to antagonize anybody, I am just trying to understand you, but it’s hard to pin anyone down to explain how they deal with this stuff. Every response resorts to platitudes and soundbite theology (Jesus did it all, the law kills etc) and emotional appeals to ‘stop striving’, ‘take away the law from our children’, ‘grace is better than works’ and so on. All of these responses however seem evasive to me and they don’t explain how you deal with more than half of the NT (especially epistles) that are full of imperatives.
Let’s put aside allergy-inducing terms like ‘law’, ‘rules’, ‘works’ and ‘moral imperatives’. Call it ‘fruit’ call it ‘Bible’, call it ‘exhortations for behavioral and attitudinal standards’, call it whatever you like.
The mystery to me is how do you deal with a confrontational passage like 2 Peter 1:3-11?
Peter affirms that we become partakers of the divine nature though “his precious and very great promisesâ€. He is already affirming what God HAS DONE by saying “His divine power HAS granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through…†So he is addressing believers who have ALREADY received grace.
Yet, he is not saying “now that Christ did it all, just rest and cruise alongâ€. He is actually saying the opposite: “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement (add to) your faith with virtue…knowledge…with self-control… steadfastness… godliness… brotherly affection.. love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Is he contradicting Jesus’s “it is finished� Is he sneaking the law and rules back in? Is scripture contradicting itself?
And here comes the clincher that is hard to get away from. This is one of those “make no mistake†kinda “in your face†passages: For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.â€
How can you read this and HONESTLY conclude that it doesn’t apply to you because Jesus said “it is finished� Wouldn’t this be a sloppy and irresponsible way to deal with the text?
So my question again to all: How do you deal with such passages???
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Heather, I, too, find difficulty in learning how to walk in the freedom Christ has won for us and too easily want to find the easy way of a finite set of rules to follow or to put trust in practices, rather than in Him. When it comes to focusing on our own works it is always a question of “have I done enough? have I done the right things?” The answer is no. We never could do enough. We cannot even keep the first commandment: Love God with all your heart, all your mind and all your soul, and scripture tells us that one who fails to keep one commandment is guilty of them all. But fortunately, He has done it for us, and He is more than sufficient. He has perfectly pleased our Heavenly Father. What I think He wants is for us, rather, is to follow Him moment by moment by His Spirit, for He is the Living Word. HE is THE WAY. His grace IS inexhaustible. His Truth is paradoxical, extreme. His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor His ways our ways. When Jesus was asked what one should do to do the works of God, (John 6:28) He replied: “This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent.”
Scripture says that in Christ there is no longer any condemnation. He comes to bring us rest from all our works, and asks only that we receive: receive His Word, receive His forgiveness, receive His body and blood, receive His grace, receive His love. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to my Father.”(John 14:12) How are these works done? Not by our flesh, but by His Spirit dwelling within us. He does not want us to leave our first love — trust in Him alone — to begin trusting in anything we can do. As St. Paul said: “Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:3), but rather God: “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” Eph. 3:20) Our love for Him and for others, and our actions are not in order to be approved of Him but because He has already accepted us in Christ.
What we do, we do freely, not from constraint, and from love alone for the benefit of others that they may too, know His love, and as children of our Father, who is in Heaven. I do not, for example, tell a lie, not because it is forbidden,but because Satan is the father of lies, and my Father is the God of Truth, and I have been adopted as His child in Christ Jesus.
In Psalm 32:9, God says; “Do not be like a horse or mule, which have no understanding, but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.” (this is obedience by the law), rather He yearns for us to follow after Him by love: (Jer. 3:19) ” And I was thinking: How I wanted to rank you with my sons, and give you a country of delights, the fairest heritage of all the nations! I had thought you would call me: My Father, and would never cease to follow me.” (that verse always breaks my heart). He says to us, His redeemed children: “I will instruct you, and teach you the way to go. I will watch over you and be your adviser.” (Psalm: 32:8)
We failed to keep the Law. The Law condemned us. Jesus kept it perfectly but took our condemnation and so baptized into His death and resurrection, the new creation in Christ is no longer subject to the Law, but we are subject to Him. Now instead of the Law, we have a Shepherd. And to Him we cry: “You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.” (Psalm 89:26) “Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
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Jeff, an essay on extremes would be interesting and I look forward to it.
This is the first time I’ve been moved to post a comment, although I really appreciate this website, largely because people are honest about their faith and their doubts but usually manage to disagree agreeably; American culture seems to be slightly different from British, but I can make allowances for that.
My father, who died years ago, used to say that truth does not lie in one extreme. Nor does it lie in the other extreme. Nor does it lie in the middle: Truth lies in both extremes. As an example, he would refer to the apparently conflicting scientific theories about the nature of light, which could be described either as waves or particles depending on context, but not as both at the same time. I’ve always found that insight very helpful and not got too stressed if I can’t make perfect sense of things.
Another example he used was how difficult it is for us to accept “Whosever will may come” with “Chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world” (not that I want to spark off that particular debate, but it helps to illustrate the point that if God exists, our understanding of Him and of His ways will be roughly on a par with a flea’s knowledge of broadcasting, as I once heard it put).
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great thoughts jeff!
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Helpful to me personally (others will have their own favorites in their journeys) have been the books The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis and On the Devout Life by Francis de Sales–both readily available on amazon, say. I think they directly address your questions—-I try to read and meditate on a chapter out of one or the other most every day.
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Thanks, although I prefer Oolong tea… 🙂
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I just finished Hudson Taylor’s biography. He gave up on self effort. He even trusted God enough to write this to his children.
” I wish you, my precious children, knew what it is to give your hearts to Jesus to keep every day. I used to try to keep my own heart right, but it would always be going wrong. So at last I had to give up trying myself and to accept the Lord’s offer to keep it for me. Don’t you think that is the best way? Perhaps sometimes you think, “I will try not to be selfish or unkind or disobedient.” And Yet, though you really try, you do not succeed. But Jesus says: “You should trust that to Me. I would keep that little heart, if you would trust Me with it.” And He would , too. Once I used to try to think very much and very often about Jesus, but I often forgot Him. Now I trust Jesus to keep my heart remembering Him, and He does so. This is the best way. ”
Do we trust God enough to take away the law from our children. Yet I think this is the best way.
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Hello again everyone!
I first would like to start out offering an apology if I offended anyone with my comments about people being self righteous or prideful. I should have stated that this was MY state of mind in looking back at the situation. I was so wrapped up in looking at myself that I could not really see Christ and all that He had done for me. Please forgive….
With that being said I was simply trying to share my testimony about what God has done in my life and the fact that He has bought and paid for me with His blood and has truly set me free. I had lived under such bondage to guilt, shame, pride, condemnation, and heavy burdens that I want to shout from the rooftops about God and His wonderful and amazing grace.
I will admit I have not been living this way for long and so I dont really know all the theology and debates and arguments of the past. I am trying to learn though. I would like to ask one question.
If we are supposed to be living a certain way, doing specific things, how does one determine what those things are and if we are doing them enough?
I have been praying about this and I kinda feel like God is saying to me that His Grace is inexhaustible. Like, do I really think that I could ever use too much grace?
Thanks,
I have learned a lot just reading here for the last 6 months and I think I might be heading into the wilderness. I have to say that I dont understand some of the lingo you use here though. ie: seeker churches? and a few others.
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From one Jeff to another, yes, I can appreciate how the pendulum can swing too far. Yet…someday I will write an essay on how God is not a God of balance, but of extremes. Oh boy, will the fur fly then!
Seems to me Jesus and Paul both avoided nice, easy topics for those things that caused people to want to pick up stones. Was it N.T. Wright who said, “Wherever Paul went, a riot broke out. Wherever I go, tea is served’? Maybe I should try offering some Earl Gray for a change.
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I appreciate personal notes like this—-your background in a very legalistic environment helps one to appreciate where you’re coming from. I know from my own experience that legalistic church environments can be very oppressive, and I’m glad that you found your way out of it. Can you appreciate though that sometimes when someone comes from such an imbalanced environment, it can be easy for the pendulum to swing too far in the opposite direction, especially in maybe not being able to hear someone whose pendulum is actually swinging the other way to correct the opposite imbalance? It seems to me we’re all constantly correcting and adjusting but we’re trying to get to the same place and we all have something we can say to each other. Knowing where you’re coming from helps readers like me cast your perspectives in the best possible light and respond with perhaps extra sensitivity. Thanks.
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i disagree, Andy. For myself, I am being as honest as I can. For many years I clung to rules and regulations. I grew up in a very legalistic church, and that was so hard to shake. Then, in a big way through Michael Spencer, I have tasted of 200 proof grace, undiluted, straight from the bottle. It has changed my very core. I don’t understand it, and don’t think I ever will. It is the mystery of God’s grace, after all. But it is all I am drinking now.
I can’t change others. I can only present what I, and Michael, and Chaplain Mike, and others see as the most amazing Good News: the free gift of God’s mercy and goodness and forgiveness.
And that is me as honest as I can be.
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Oh Peggy, you have supplied my daily bread with your words… When I send this I.M. piece to my hurting friends who are struggling with heavy burdens, I hope it is ok that I tell them to pay close attention to your comment… O, I think I hear, really hear: My burden is easy and my yoke is light.
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Michael says:
>These last posts, and the comments sections, have been refighting the Reformation. <
Not really. The Reformation was a serious movement in which honest and serious people contemplated theological questions and then changed society for the better. There is nothing resembling real theology going on here, not many people are being honest, and no one is changing for the better.
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One just needs look at the parable of the unmerciful servant to understand that the great scorekeeper in the sky is dead. The debt we can never pay has been paid in full by Jesus’ shed blood.
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LOL!
But I bet I can quote scripture better than you can! 😉
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Good point, Phil. Walking “closer to perfection” was, perhaps, a poor choice of words for what I was trying to describe. Your “wholehearted” and “not-double-minded” words come closer to what I was trying to say, that we should, if we are truly of Christ, live more wholeheartedly and less double-minded lives. And that’s not to imply I think we WILL do that ALL the time, but just that – if Christ is truly in us – we will be doing it more than had we not accepted Him. Our walk may not be on the “perfect righteous path,” but it will be closer to it than had we not chosen to follow Him.
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“Jesus doesn’t resolve in his stories.”
True. And on the FLIP SIDE of this thinking…consider the rich young ruler who walked away grieving because he wasn’t willing to sell everything to follow Jesus (Matthew 19, Mark 10). We don’t know the rest of this man’s story, do we? Yet for some reason I wonder if this man, after Jesus had been crucified about a month later, didn’t have an “AHA” moment and suddenly understand exactly what Jesus meant. Or maybe the man’s AHA moment came a year later, or even ten years later. This post makes me wonder what the rest of HIS story was. He was so close to “getting it,”knowing he was lacking something – very similar to where I was, five years before I accepted Christ – that I have this wonderful notion that Jesus reached him later in life! What a great and glorious story that might be, one I will hopefully discover when in heaven.
I guess, when you think about it, everyone who encountered Jesus (whether their stories made it into the Bible or not) had a “rest of their life” story to play out, and we don’t know how any of those turned out. Probably not much different than our own experiences, though. Ups and downs, periods of nearness to God and periods of separation, etc.
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Peggy, this is perfect. I would not change a single word in this. Thank you for a great description of God’s mysterious grace.
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That’s the difference between Orthodox and Lutheran (or Luther influenced protestantism). For us grace freaks, it is a one time act. But we don’t just get this from Luther, we see it throughout scripture. Particularly the book of Galatians though not wholly contained there.
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This kerfuffle isn’t one side “getting grace” and the other being legalistic. These last posts, and the comments sections, have been refighting the Reformation. Not that this particular showdown has been simply Protestants vs Catholics. But, the perspectives on freedom of the will, and man’s role in his walk with God (which isn’t the same as man’s efforts in earning salvation)–pretty much all of it has been drawn along the same battle lines as the Reformation. Some of the disagreement is semantics, but a lot of it is genuine. For the last 500 years, Christ’s greatest minds and most devout followers haven’t been able to reach unity on this. And we sure as hell aren’t.
So bearing in mind that this is a lot bigger and older than us, and that this disagreement isn’t going away anytime, let’s please extend what we’ve been arguing about to each other. Internet Monk has been one of my favorite sites because it says things that need to be said, but manages to do so without becoming just another niche blog where Christians throw poop at each other. Let’s keep it that way.
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Oh, and if you want your soul to soar into the boundless compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ you might, no you must get your hands on this book:
Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion –
Gregory Boyle – 2010 – Biography & Autobiography – 217 pages
Father Gregory Boyle’s sparkling parables about kinship and the sacredness of life are drawn from twenty years working with gangs in LA.
Jesus Christ has been busy with the homies/gang members in L.A. Which I’m sure is going to upset all the older brothers back in the suburbs.
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For all my grace hero’s here at IM! Keep it coming Jeff!
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Probably the biggest problem we/I have with grace is that we are essentially score keepers–just like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. When we shift out of score keeping mode and into reconcilliation mode (The Jesus Way) then grace will
become our default perspective.
Tom
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I feel the same way. we are losing dialog in here. it is just name calling. I always liked the way the Imonk threw away his “formulas” & moved to “Jesus-Shaped Spirituality”. I’m seeing less of that here. peace.
w/ love not meaness.
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Why do you HATE Grace? 😉
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Grace is such a beautiful thing and it’s painful to see how lacking in grace the recent discussions on the topic have been (said at the risk of sounding ungracious myself). I think if the topic had been introduced as “Let’s just reflect on the marvel of God’s free gift to us, His accepting of us regardless of our worthiness, His continual forgiveness even after we received His gifts—-let’s not worry about theological nuances or our response or anything else but just marvelling at grace”—-if that’s what had been said, I think there would have been a much more positive response and discussion. It’s natural to ask what our response to grace should be and by just saying, “Let’s not worry about that right now and just concentrate on the wonderfulness of grace,” I think the boundaries would have been set and there wouldn’t have been any confusion.
As it is, it seems that anyone who asked the question legitimately was suddenly labelled a legalist, someone who was trying to earn their salvation by works, someone who doesn’t “get it.” I don’t think anyone who asked the question said or conveyed anything remotely like those sentiments, but rather than just hearing them, they were just labelled and dismissed (in my perception—again, I may be bordering on ungraciousness, but it’s simply my honest perception). I think the emphasis against legalistic Christian groups is a good one, because the stories people shared about how they got burned in such groups are real and quite awful. But no-one here who says that it DOES matter how we live is promoting that same legalistic spirit. Just as many people get burned by groups who profess Christianity and then go do whatever they want.
I’m sorry to say anything negative at all—I’m just sharing my perception about how badly these discussions made me feel about something so beautiful as grace. Nothing good I’ve ever done originates ultimately in me, but is God’s grace working itself out. But because I want to practice self-control and other disciplines to consciously respond to that grace and let it work more freely doesn’t make me a legalist.
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I’m glad someone said that.
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two things I really like about your post:
1)seeking HIM (or choosing to love HIM) is doing something; I can’t see any getting around this
2)there still remains a tension, for believers, between the old man and the new; we don’t always want what GOD wants, we aren’t always seeking HIM; I guess that is what repentance is for
without these two realities, the posts about extreme grace do not make a lot of sense to me. We are made out to be blobs of flesh, acted upon by GOD and circumstance, but unable to make anything resembling a real choice.
GregR
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The uproar Jeff Dunn alludes to in his introduction of this post has almost nothing to do with grace, and nothing at all to do with Michael Spencer’s legacy.
The uproar is fueled by dishonesty and meanness.
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No Marvin, there is no biblical evidence. That is the beauty of Jesus’ stories. The woman in John 8 is still on the road back to whomever. The prodigal son is still at his party. The fatted calf (Jesus) is still slain so there can be a party. The elder son is still outside talking with the father. After 2,000 years, they are all still there.
Jesus doesn’t resolve in his stories. If that was his intent, he would have shared facts, not stories. Stories get into us, play with us, mess with us. And that is our comfort, strangely enough…
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“Young people have a difficult time understanding grace” Michael Spencer
Just a little thought… Could it be that young people might find it more difficult to understand grace because, generally, they haven’t had that much time to experience hardness and failures in their lives? Especially in such “protected” environments as, I reckon, evangelical communities might sometimes be.
However, it certainly isn’t a question of age but of living… I wouldn’t consider myself as old or as having had as tough a life as other people, even at a much younger age than me, but I’ve noticed that as I’ve grown older I have changed some of my points of views, and under the light of God’s grace I’ve learned to appreciate, in a way, the failures and mistakes that in part have made me the way I am at the moment. I don’t even expect to remain the same if, God willing, I keep on walking on this world.
Because it’s His grace what keeps me hooked despite all the problems, bickering and confusion I sometimes find and I’m not sure how to properly handle. As Jacob, I find myself very often struggling and fighting with God and my life being preserved in the end. And I need to remember that He’s taking me out of my slavery, led me through the dessert and finally brought me to the land He’s promised, the rest of His son.
I know that I am a failure and I’m broken… Not according to the common standards that define what it means to be a failure and broken in this world, but I know I’m all that despite whatever I might look in the outside. I know I can’t do it on my own. I might often try it, but the reminder returns to show me the reality.
44 Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.†– Luke 7:44-47
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“We really don’t believe grace can conform our lives to Christ more effectively than law. I mean we don’t. We think we need the law to keep us in line. Especially, we think we need the terrors of the law to frighten us into being good Christians. It’s the “law/grace/law†model. This kind of legalism just overruns Christianity. It usually comes in a less than recognizable form, saying we need “exhortation,†etc. because we have a tendency to drift back into sin.â€
Brilliant. This is exactly the point.
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Off the top of my head, I guess the only Biblical evidence to support that claim might be Jesus’ own words to the rich young ruler: “No one is good – except God alone.” If only God is good, then no one – saved or unsaved – can claim they are “good”. Saved or unsaved, our flesh will always be tempted while we are on this earth. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to assume that the people of the Bible who encountered Jesus would continue to have a the tension between flesh and spirit. They were real people, after all, were they not? Which brings me to…
My non-Biblical evidence to support that claim is that I don’t know a single saved person who doesn’t still sin. I am weak and powerless at times to stop from: getting angry; eating too much; having lustful thoughts; showing compassion when I’ve had a bad day; and…the list goes on. I’m guessing even Mother Theresa and Thomas Merton had their off days.
I’ll paraphrase my closing statement that I DO THINK their lives were (and ours should be) closer to Jesus’ perfect example following their/our encounters, but Jeff’s post does make me think that they were not without sin for the rest of their lives.
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It is never our actions or our faith that justify us or sanctify us. It is Jesus Christ and what He did. Our recognition of who He is and our recognition of what we are, our trust in Him is all an unmerited gift of God. Likewise whatever fruit our lives bring forth is from Him Who says that such fruit has been prepared for us and is brought forth from the life of the vine in which we have been grafted. It is truly “non nobis domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam.”
He will have mercy on Whom He will have mercy. There is no understanding it. We do not choose Him, He chooses us in His sovereign, inscrutable but perfect Will. All we can do about is be grateful (also a gift of the Holy Spirit).
He gives us a new nature that desires to do His Will and loves His commandments, at the same time we have our old nature that still wants to follow our own ways. So where there was before a whole-hearted charging after our own desires, now there is an internal struggle. When we fail to do what is pleasing to God, (which is daily), we seek His forgiveness, and He is ever pleading on our behalf before the throne of God and has promised that when we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive us our sins. It is in this daily repentance that we live and abide in Him. It is for this that He has provided the sacraments of Absolution and Holy Communion.
But our new nature is hidden in Christ. We cannot measure it on a scale. We do not climb a ladder of holiness. Our only holiness, our own righteousness, is His. Christians can fall, even grievously, but unless we refuse to hear Him calling us back — His Spirit melting our hearts with sorrow — He will seek us and find us and restore us to Himself. (Think David). And we thereafter cling all the more tightly to Him, knowing how weak we are without Him.
All the while, His Word is working in our hearts. Our old nature is daily dying, and His image is being formed within us — silently, invisible to us, but sometimes visible to those whose lives He touches through us. We aren’t aware of it, because it is not us. It is Him living in us. But He will do in us more than we can ask or imagine. And He will bring forth fruit (again most of which we will be unaware) for His glory. It is not about us. It is about Jesus Christ. We are creatures, though we tried to be gods. We belong to Him and He knows that we can do nothing without Him. That is our hope and our joy, because all the honour goes to Him.
We are reconciled. We are forgiven. And us…. we didn’t do anything to get His love — He loved and gave Himself for us while we were yet rebellious sinners — and we can’t do anything to lose it — even if we refuse it, He still loves us, though we separate ourselves from Him.
When we know our deep unworthiness(revealed by the law) and yet by grace have received incomprehensible mercy from Him, what we want to do is to love and obey Him, tell others what He has done for us and them, and share the love we have received. We are like toddlers, whom He is teaching to walk in His ways. We stumble, sometimes we fall. But He holds us by the hand, He picks us us, and He guides us. This is not by rules or self-improvement regime, but by our looking to Him and hearing His words and following the sound of His voice as He bids us to come. And so, step by step, He leads us in a way we did not know, nor chose for ourselves.
Justification, sanctification is in spite of us, not because of us. We are beggars who bring nothing. Our hands are empty, except He fill them.
And He does.
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Just to play devil’s advocate here, but isn’t “seeking” doing something? Isn’t “seeking” an act of the will?
I guess the point is that often, even as Christians, “what we please” is in not in line with “his will.” There’s often a war going on inside our wills between the Old Man and the New Man. That said, I certainly believe that part of God’s grace in our lives is that little extra push that enables us to both be pleased with doing his will and the do his will even when it’s not what we please. I don’t think that my will ultimately brings anything to the table in the equation, but I can’t deny that I’m a current sinner. I’m a sinner who has been and is being redeemed, but I’m still a sinner. I.e., I’m one who sins. Any goodness in me is His goodness. Any health is His health.
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as is the habit of imonk to actually catalyze thoughtful ruminations to challenge or strengthen or help bring clarity to fuzzy theological concepts, there is always the self-righteous defender of their version of faith to take issue with the process & feel it is their God appointed duty to bring correction or point out obvious flaws in the premise posted. and it is not incorrect to notice most of those self-appointed sheriffs of Protestant orthodoxy of the Calvinist/Reformist camp…
although i currently participate in an Evangelical faith community that associates itself with the EFCA, my church attendance resume quite extensive, my real desire & passion is reserved to the Person that is the Author & Perfecter of my faith no matter how it is critiqued by those with apologist-tinted glasses…
[sigh]
the self-righteous, gong-sounding cacophony raised by those that simply are out to set everyone else right has become so tiresome in my 10+ years of message forum participation i simply tune them out since the messenger has so contorted their message it is useless to the hearer patient enough to endure it…
i am thankful Jeff & Mike have more patience with clanging cymbal types that drop in to help correct misconceptions based upon their superior/infallible conclusions. as i read thru Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology tome for my class i can appreciate his perspectives even at places i may not agree or simply choose to reserve making a conclusion about. and even with Michael’s archived writings i can sense a kindred spirit although i don’t agree with everything he formulated. and those issues we may have had differing perspectives could certainly be discussed during a fine meal with ample wine & lively conversation. those nosy gong types? nope. not a chance for any edifying discourse with its preconceived agenda of setting any erroneous perspectives…
once the individual saint does recognize living in grace & being able to rest in its graciousness, only then will the recent discussions begin to make any sense. don’t know how many more laps ’round Mount Sinai those that champion their Tablet centered methodology must circuit before they realize it is only a rut they are producing. but then, those of us that have climbed out of the rut we ourselves needed to choose to exit could not understand either those up top on higher ground kept talking about…
Lord have mercy… 😦
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No problem…you nailed it!
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sorry for the typos, I need to go to bed I guess
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And not great stampede to live according to anything other than the standards of the great American secular of culture consumerism, consumption, and “I want it now.”
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Thank you, Heather. That means so much to me!
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I grew up in a church that never uttered the word grace. Everything was based on your behavior and how good you were living life. Most of my adult life I ran away from God and hid. I told people when I felt like being good and was done having fun in my life I would come back to church. I never felt like I could be good enough and did not even want to try. My teenage daughter started going to a youth group at a christian church and decided to start singing in the choir. Going to watch her sing is what got my butt back into a church where I actually heard the Good News being preached. I thought the message was too good to be true. I thought these people were nuts for believing that their relationship with God was not based on their behavior. I really thought you could make yourself acceptable to God.
Then one day I took a step of faith and I believed that I did not have to do anything to make myself acceptable to God. I even kinda was grumpy about it with God. Like fine, whatever you say, Im not even going to try and be good. Well… I tell you HE completely changed my life!! He so set me free!! I have never felt so alive!! I even thought about what bad things I might want to do now that I knew I could do anything I wanted and you know what? I did not want to do anything bad, I did not feel tempted to take that “license to sin”. As a matter of fact, I felt so loved and accepted by Him that I never want to be out of His will for my life.
I love that the I.M. keeps posting about Gods big marvelous grace!! It makes me smile.
Now I can see those that wont accept Gods grace as struggling with self righteousness and pride. I once was lost and now I am found! Was blind and now I see!
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Exactly, Bill.
There is hardly any difference in the theology of Roman Catholics and so much of the Evangelical world.
A lot of God and a little bit of me.
Only it usually ends up being the other way around.
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“We really don’t believe grace can conform our lives to Christ more effectively than law. I mean we don’t. We think we need the law to keep us in line. Especially, we think we need the terrors of the law to frighten us into being good Christians. It’s the “law/grace/law†model. This kind of legalism just overruns Christianity. It usually comes in a less than recognizable form, saying we need “exhortation,†etc. because we have a tendency to drift back into sin.”
Regarding “exhortation” – at the Christian high school I attended it was called “having standards”.
And looking back now I can see the wisdom of some of those standards as the culture has grown increasingly coarse. But too often the major attention was paid to these and not the Gospel. The Gospel was seen merely as something you believed in order to get “saved”. After that, you pretty much lived your spiritual life by the law. It was ironic that our school routinely denounced Catholics for their attempts to get into Heaven by means of works, yet so much of their spiritual life followed a similar path.
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None of us love God as we ought to, and ALL of us pretty much live the way we want to, anyway.
There is no great stampede (by Christians or otherwise) to rush out and help the poor, visit the prisoners, the sick and elderly, etc, etc….except when it is convenient and doesn’t cut into my lifestyle too badly.
And I am saying this primarily to those who are always carping at others to do “such and such”.
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Yes, and my justification is better than yours. NOT
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I don’t know why Michael linked to Ryle in this, Doug. I haven’t read Ryle’s comments, so I don’t think I will be much good at interpreting them. Michael linked often to things he did not fully agree with.
Sorry, I know that isn’t much help…
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I agree in part and disagree in part. He’s a quote from an Orthodox priest (Fr. Alexander Mileant) that expresses the Orthodox view of grace and justification:
“Justification is a word used in the Scriptures to mean that in Christ we are forgiven and actually made righteous in our living. Justification is not a once-for-all, instantaneous pronouncement guaranteeing eternal salvation, regardless of how wickedly a person might live from that point on. Neither is it merely a legal declaration that an unrighteous person is righteous. Rather, justification is a living, dynamic, day-to-day reality for the one who follows Christ. The Christian actively pursues a righteous life in the grace and power of God granted to all who continue to believe in Him.”
I think this view best represents what we read in Scripture about grace vs. works.
the article I got the quote from is here: http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/catechism_ext.htm
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I meant this reply to be to Rick Ro’s comment above, just for clarification.
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Yeah, just like Peter… oh, wait…
I don’t really know if the term “closer to perfection” has any real meaning. I guess, yes, it’s nice to think that Christians should be exhibiting fruit in one way or another, but the issue is that fruit isn’t something that can be made to grow. A tree can’t by an act of will make itself bear more apples. I really think the whole notion that God is somehow demanding perfection of us is a notion that needs to be done away in the first place. Look at saints of the OT – they were far from perfect. I’m sure that someone will come back and say, but “what about the Sermon on the Mount”? The word translated “perfect” there would probably be better translated “wholehearted” or “not double-minded”. It’s not talking about some concept of moral perfection.
I just think so many Christian beat themselves up all the time because they still sin, and they don’t see themselves moving toward perfection, as you put it. Michael was right, we just don’t understand grace.
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Jeff, I forgot this article was written by Michael and not you. So I imagine the external reference was made by Michael not you.
But if you have any comments on the questions I brought up I’d still like to hear them…
Thanks
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I love #5 It certainly gets a rise out of people. The parable of the vineyard workers and the thief on the cross who believed in Jesus. He also receivede the same as if he believed all his life. Life isn’t fair, Praise the Lord or we would all be doomed. Michael Spencer, Michael Yaconelli, and Robert F. Capon have opened my eyes to true grace.
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Is there any Biblical evidence that the prodigal or the woman in John 8 “did what they wanted” after their encounter with Jesus? I don’t see any narrative on either’s lives post-Jesus. Isn’t this just a use of the “sanctified imagination” to make a particular point? (Although to me the point isn’t very clear!)
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Jeff, although I am following along with what you said in this entry, I found it strange that you made reference to the writing on the external site at http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/sanct_just_ryle.html because I take some of what is said there to seem to be in conflict with what I interpret to be the thrust of your message.
Here is some of what I found on that monergism site that seems to be at odds with what you are saying:
“(1) For one thing, let us all awake to a sense of the perilous state of many professing Christians.â€Without holiness no man shall see the Lordâ€; without sanctification there is no salvation. (Heb.xii. 14.) Then what an enormous amount of so-called religion there is which is perfectly useless! What an immense proportion of church-goers and chapel-goers are in the broad road that leadeth to destruction! The thought is awful, crushing, and overwhelming.Oh, that preachers and teachers would open their eyes and realize the condition of souls around them! Oh, that man could be persuaded toâ€flee from the wrath to comeâ€I If unsanctified souls can be saved and go to heaven, the Bible is not true. Yet the Bible is true and cannot lie! What must the end be!
(2) For another thing, let us make sure work of our own condition, and never rest till we feel and know that we are†sanctified†ourselves. What are our tastes, and choices, and likings, and in clinations? This is the great testing question. It matters little what we wish, and what we hope, and what we desire to be before we die. Where are we now? What are we doing? Are we sanctified or not? If not, the fault is all our own. ”
Maybe I am not fully understanding the above quoted portion even within the entirety of the referenced article, but it seems to put a great deal of the responsibility of our final state with God (our salvation) on our own efforts and actions.
If you care to and have the time, maybe you can comments on how to deal with this tension I am perceiving.
Thanks for your willingness to share from your heart as we continue to strive to know and follow the life God desires for us.
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I think most evangelicals would agree with “If we are seeking the Lord, loving him, then “what we please†is going to line up with his will.” So why would that get a rise out of evangelicals?
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Marvin, I did not write this, the late Michael Spencer did. And I will not presume to speak for him.
As for me, I will say that if Jesus was telling the woman in John 8 that he forgave her this time, but now it was up to her to stay sin free, it would have been better to let her be stoned then and there. Could it be that Jesus was saying to her, “I have raised you back to life thru grace. Now, go and no longer see yourself as a sinner, but as a new creation.”
St. Augustine said, “Love God, and do as you please.” We get all caught up in the “do as you please” part while forgetting the “Love God” admonition. If we are seeking the Lord, loving him, then “what we please” is going to line up with his will.
Those are my words, but I think they would reflect Michael’s thoughts.
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“The prodigal came home and did what he wanted. So did the woman in John 8 who Jesus said he didn’t condemn. So did Peter when he denied Jesus and then repented.”
Interesting angle, and one I hadn’t really considered before. It suggests, I think somewhat truthfully, that those who Jesus healed (spiritually and/or physically) never lived perfect lives after their encounter with Him. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone give a sermon regarding that thought. And I think there is some comfort in thinking that those in the Bible who He touched continued to lead lives in conflict between the desires of their sinful selves and what they felt God/Jesus wanted them to do.
I might counter the “total grace” angle, though, with the thought that although born-again-Spirit-filled-Christians will never lead perfect lives (i.e. we will always have conflict between sinful desires and Christ-focused servanthood), our lives should at least be “closer to perfection” after our encounter with Jesus than before our encounter with Jesus. I’m thinking although their lives were not perfect following their encounters and repentance, that the prodigal son, the woman at the well and Peter surely led lives that were more aligned with perfection than they were before. Right?
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I’m really trying to follow your reasoning in item 5 but it’s not clear to me what you’re trying to say. “Once you are justified by faith, you can do what you want. And if you want to do all the things you did before you knew Jesus, then you just don’t get it.†Just don’t get what? Salvation? If that’s what you’re trying to say, why would that “get a rise out of” evangelicals?
“The prodigal came home and did what he wanted. So did the woman in John 8 who Jesus said he didn’t condemn.” Jesus told this woman to “go and sin no more.” Is that what she now wanted to do, sin no more? Is that what you mean that she did what she wanted? ANd what did the prodigal do that was “what he wanted”? We aren’t told what he did.
My PhD is only in physics. Maybe my brain doesn’t work like yours. Could you explain in short declarative sentences and in a straightforward way what you’re trying to say?
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I love this post. Loved it when I first read. Love it still. My problem comes living this truth day to day. I want unending grace for me, and justice for all those around me, even those I love. And, in reality, I have a hard time receiving the grace I so desire. Keep preaching, Jeff, Mike, etc.
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