God Bless the Child (Who Gives Us Peace)

This, believe it or not, is a post about Christ, and though it may not appear as such for a while, I must importune your patience and indulgence.  Sometimes the sobering realities of humanity's deserved lot are the best way to illuminate Christ's glory; amen?

Imagine for a moment that you have died in your sins, and that the time of your judgment has come upon you. (You will remind me, of course, that these are events very likely to be separated in time for most of us, which is true, but we will skip to the judgment here.) You find yourself, eyes to the ground, before the Lord Jesus Christ, unmistakable in power and incontrovertible in holiness.  This is no dying Savior upon the cross, not anymore.  This is the risen, exalted King.  Perhaps those words once caused no more than a shrug or a smirk with you, but now you see what they mean, in their fullest, most wondrous, most terrifying sense:  Christ, the risen, exalted King.

You feel the hope and the confidence bleeding out from your heart - a flow not to be stanched, a death wound.  Your legs are stone, and you make no doubt that this God - the only God there is, you now see - will know all about you, more than you know yourself, and far, far more than you would care to remember, if you could help it.  Your life is laid bare, though, and the sum total of what you are overwhelms the simple objections you used to make in defense of your supposed goodness of character.

You are a sinner.  God is holy.  He justly delivers your sentence of condemnation.

Perhaps you meet this sobering moment with quiet.  Perhaps, though, you are familiar with Jesus, and so feel as though your long hypocrisy gives you cause to speak, to say something before all is lost.  So words erupt from your lips and hang as a conspicuous intrusion into the reverence demanded by divine holiness.  You have just spoken the only words you will ever speak in the presence of God, and they are blasphemous:  "‘Lord, Lord, did I not do many things in your name?" (cf. Matt. 7:22) You have questioned the recollection of the Omniscient, and the judgment of the Omnisapient (the All-Wise); He is not moved; this latest sin augments your considerable tally, and you go down to the lake of fire.

As you find yourself in the suffocating maw of that blackness, the punishment will begin.  Whether you have a brief instant to anticipate and to dread the arrival of God's wrath or not, I cannot say.  However, when the fullness of divine, just, holy fury explodes upon you in that lonely place, it will exceed the meager limitations of any of your experiences or imaginings.  You will feel, in that first instant, that there is no possibility of your surviving even this preliminary fragment, this barest sliver, of God's fury.  How indeed could it not destroy you, and all of the universe with you, in a truncated flash of agony?  It is as though every conceivable pain which mankind has ever endured, or ever could endure, through every millennium of our world, has been compressed and concentrated into one divine blow - except a thousand times stronger.

The intensity of this fury is not the amazing part - the truly astonishing thing is that you find yourself quite whole and intact; indeed, the next wave of torment is already upon you.  You find even that your mental faculties are similarly preserved, although such complete agony should drive one mad.  It is then that it drives home in your perfectly clear intellect - the same God who visits such omnipotent fury upon you is the God who has omnipotently fitted you for that fury.  It will never consume you completely.

This is a pain beyond reckoning, a sharp, hot, complete misery that would annihilate a normal human body in a heartbeat.  Ten thousand white-hot bands of iron wrapped about your frame and searing into your flesh would be a welcome, even laughable alternative to what you now endure.  How I wish it could be described!  It crowds out and banishes hope.  You may clench your fists; you may double over until your knees touch your cheeks, but no such measures will bring relief.  Your tricks from your previous life can do nothing here.  Neither is there a friend whose hands you may grip, whose shoulder you could embrace.  You are utterly alone; your only companions are your own cries.  There is also nothing to distract your mind from your torment; the once-pleasant recollections of your former life now simply herald your sinfulness.

In fact, in the basest sense, this is probably the complete and ultimate focus of all your thoughts:  God and my sin.  God and my sin.  God and my sin.  Every wave of agony brings a fresh remembrance of your absolute deservedness of hell.  You cannot argue against the justness, but as you never learned to love God when you labored under His grace, you certainly cannot do so now.  You find yourself cursing Him with the appallingly blasphemous self-destruction of unrestrained sinfulness.  And for this, your miseries are now doubled, but still you live. 

As this indescribable maelstrom of inescapable agony continues, you realize that you are not growing accustomed to it at all.  It is in no way like those pains back on earth that afflict people until they simply learn to deal with them on a continual basis.  Every stab, every bite, every hot needle is exquisite in its novelty and relentless upon your person.  If there are two things which you begin to learn after the first thousand years of unbroken torment (that first drop in that infinite, incomprehensible bucket), they are simply that you will never grow even the slightest bit acclimated to your situation (if anything, the contrary), and that you will never, ever get out of hell.  Could you see that great ocean that is God's holy wrath against you, your heart would break to see that it has not lowered even a thousandth of an inch.  Your shrieks of pain, of frustration, of hopelessness, and of black, impotent rage, will never cease to pour from your parched and writhing lips. 

This is what it is to have enmity with God - a battle which we can never win, and which will rob us of every glory, every prize, every grace, and every hope.  Of course, we have no choice but to be the enemies of the Lord, having been born into the family of sin.  Romans 3 teaches us that we never could and never would love God, so it seems a hopeless matter from a human standpoint.  We are doomed, in and of ourselves, to run straight into the teeth of hell.

I speak specifically to you here, Christian.  Walk your mind as profoundly as you can through the horrific marches of hell, which, for all these words, I have not even begun to describe here - this is how the enemies of God meet eternity.  It is sure, unavoidable, and deserved. 

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;
And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9:6

These are familiar words, but does your heart not bound for gladness at them?  Read the last phrase once more:  Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace.  This is a far, far greater thing than the dubious fraternity that the world pretends around Christmas - this is peace with God Himself!  This is a complete reversal from the devastating certainty of eternal despair at the hand of a just God to the heartening certainty of eternal delight at the hand of that same God!  "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Rom. 5:1)

Let us never commit the sin of naming Christ the Prince of Peace without reverent remembrance of what that means - the incredible magnitude of the hell which He suffered on the cross, and the immeasurable gift of peace with God.  Our esteem for Christ the peace-giver should be seeping more and more, if not outright flooding, into every element of our lives - certainly into our interaction with others and into our faithfulness to kingdom work, but let it start where it should, with a heart of humble and grateful worship toward the Prince of Peace.

Adoption and the Spirit of the Son

We have occasionally noticed the Christian's spiritual adoption on this blog - its strength and its gracious nature.  As the subject of spiritual adoption is a glad one for any follower of Christ, I will beg your indulgence in turning now to one of its chief effects, which is seen in its relation to the Holy Spirit. 

Galatians 4:4-7 is the focus of our attention here.  It says, "But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.   Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'  Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God."

It was the Father's good pleasure for His divine Son to be established in an earthly family, that we in turn might be transplanted into His heavenly family.  We see the chain clearly:  the mission of the Son brought redemption, and then adoption into God's own family.  May our knees bend and touch this hallowed ground!  This work of grace will prostrate us if we let it.  And yet, for all this lustrous wonder, God has fashioned yet another link for this glittering chain - our adoption prompts Him to send us the Spirit of His Son.  Did you notice that in the text?  Look once more:  we have the Holy Spirit because we have been adopted into God's family.

This is marvelously unthinkable to our stunted human sensibilities, but it joins so simply with the rest of Scripture.  God adopts us and sends the Spirit of His perfect Son into our imperfect hearts, that we might learn to act and think more like His Son.  Indeed, we see something like this in earthly adoption, in which a child must learn how to operate in his or her new family.  What behavior is expected?  How does the household operate?  The more this new child can integrate into this new situation, the easier things become.

God's family is holy.  It is righteous behavior that becomes His household, and the perfect paradigm, the exemplary member of this family is our oldest brother, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Our loving Father wants us to look like Him, because Jesus' flawless and divine example is the pattern by which the Father is honored, and by which we are satisfied.  Thus He disciplines His children (Heb. 12:6), of course, but His gifts do not stop here.  Mere discipline would simply assure constant discipline, thanks to our sin-filled hearts.  We would never learn or change. 

Thankfully, God's "divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness," according to 2 Peter 1:3b.  These powerful blessings are channeled into our souls by means of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.  We would have nothing worth having as Christians, were it not for the continual work of the Holy Spirit in us.  The Spirit of He who sympathizes with us, who immersed Himself in those difficulties that we ourselves must endure (Heb. 4:15), knows how to care for us and to give us exactly what is needed out of this immeasurable treasury of "life and godliness."  And we begin to look like Him, because His Spirit, having breathed life into us, now resides in us and changes us - because the Father desires us to look like His unique and divine Son.

I want to show you some familiar words; read them afresh in the light of this discussion:  "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.  For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son." (Rom. 8:28-29a; emphasis added)  The Spirit of Jesus within us, then, is certainly not going to spend His time and energies frivolously within us.  He will work with purpose, the Father's good purpose - He will keep us in the faith, and He will begin to conform us to Christ's image.

Adoption gives us the Spirit of Christ, and it delivers certainty about our purpose.  Rest, dear worker of the Kingdom; take heart, dear solder in Christ, in the glad knowledge that the Spirit whose very presence gilds your soul is an abundantly sufficient guide and helper in your every step toward righteousness, because of what He has come into your soul to accomplish!

The Imputation: Yes, But What Does It Actually Mean?

In the last blog post, we addressed some glorious considerations surrounding the Father's imputation of Christ's righteousness to us, and of our sin to Christ.  We can all, I think, agree that the imputing work of the Father is indeed glorious, but it seems important to take an "at the end of the day" sort of look at what it truly means to have Christ's righteousness imputed to our spiritual accounts:  what are the practical ramifications of this mighty undertaking? 

Some will say that justification results in God's children receiving the righteousness of Christ.  In several senses, this is entirely correct:

• Christ's righteousness is credited to our spiritual account (2 Cor. 5:21).
• Upon justification, the Spirit of Christ takes up His permanent residence in our enlived souls, and works in and through us (Phil. 2:12-13, Gal. 2:20).  This moves us firmly and wondrously into the place of posse non pecarre (the ability not to sin).
• Justifications sets us on a path of growth in personal holiness that will continue through our lives (James 3:2, Romans 7:14-25) and culminate in sinless glory in the presence of the Lord.

Far be it from us indeed to dispute such clearly-articulated, peace-giving, and God-glorifying principles; they are heartening companions in life's foxholes.  However, this is one path along which we cannot push even one step too far - the consequences are too dangerous.  Those who force this issue further arrive at the tragic conclusion that imputation means that Christ's righteousness becomes our own in the fullest extent - it is not merely credited to our account, but wield it in life with nearly sinless efficacy.

Even if we manage to overlook clear lexical evidence to the contrary (look up dikaioo, or "justify" sometime), we can still reap a sizable harvest of concern and disappointment at these thoughts.  To those who believe that Christ's righteousness is their complete and pervasive possession, the path to obedience is not about seeking obedience to the Word of God.  Rather, it is tied closely to knowing that the righteousness of Christ is active within them, and if they can simply keep from getting in the way of the natural righteousness which Christ has placed within them, then natural obedience is the natural result. 

This may strike you as odd or silly, but this sort of mindset is pervasive.  You may have heard it said that in order to obey, believers need simply to stop getting in God's way with their own efforts to obey Him.  If so, then you have struck pay dirt.  "Don't try; just trust"?  "Let go and let God?"  There is theological fool's gold in them there hills.  It may seem an innocuous frame of mind, but let us consider three pertinent points:

1.  This point of view blasphemes Christ.  2 Corinthians 5:21 proclaims, "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."  We see here that we become God's righteousness because Christ became sin.  If we hold that our becoming God's righteousness signifies that we were made righteous, then we are left with the unenviable task of maintaining that Christ similarly was made a sinner when He became sin.  The clear parallelism of this verse cannot be argued; we cannot suppose from these words that Christ's "becoming sin" is a different sort of "becoming" than our "becoming God's righteousness" simply because we wish to. 

Of course, to label the Lord Jesus Christ, the divine Lamb of God, as a sinner of any sort is rank blasphemy.  He became sin only in so far as He stood condemned in our place for those sins, so that we might stand justified in His place for His righteousness. 

2.  This point of view sunders our reliance upon Jesus.  If the imputation of Christ's righteousness, such that we stand justified before God, means that we are natural obeyers, how little do we need Christ in our moment-by-moment as our authority!  Natural obedience negates our need for the Word which the Spirit of Christ wrote, preserves, and illuminates.  The conviction of His Spirit is scarcely necessary if our obedience is automatically engaged merely by a passive acknowledgement of the work that Christ has already completed in us.  Ironically, I become my own authority as the righteousness of Christ is channeled into my sanctified bosom.

Rather, passages like Philippians 2:12-13 or 2 Peter 1:3-11 teach us with diamond clarity that the presence of Christ in us, working in our souls, should prompt us to strive for obedience, rather than assume its existence. 

3.  This point of view belittles the glory that Christ wishes to reveal in our lives.  The Lord has determined that His people would see His glory through the travails of life.  "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Rom. 7:24-25a) "Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.  And He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.'  Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me." (2 Cor. 12:8-9)

We see who our Lord is when we are obliged in our weakness to turn to Him.  His compassion, patience, and wisdom are clear and comforting, and we have the blessing of seeing faithful biblical truth come to brilliant life in our own hearts!  Our weaknesses are intended to humble us before Him in all of His gracious wonder, and He allows us to soldier through weakness for this reason.  It is no use to pretend those weaknesses have departed when they are still very real, my friend.


The imputation of Christ's righteousness to our spiritual accounts has given us salvation and paved the way for our growth in holiness.  It is devastating folly to conclude otherwise.  What else is there, but to humbly and gladly serve the Lord of glory?

The Old Exchange

"He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Cor. 5:21) As a child, I memorized this verse, and its salvific import was not lost on me, at least not entirely:  the Father punished the Son for our sins when He had committed no wrong.  Of course, there is much more than simply this residing in those few words, but what seems to leap from the page at first blush is the imputation of Christ's righteousness to undeserving sinners like you and like me.  However, the opposite side of this glorious truth is just as hard-hitting, is it not?

Indeed, I remember not so many years ago hearing Dr. MacArthur comment on this verse with these words - so simple, but deceptively momentous:  "...God treated [Christ] as if He sinned all the sins of all who would ever believe. Is that incredible? Sin, not His at all, was credited to Him as if He had committed it and paid the price. And He didn't...but it was credited to Him as if He did...Sin was imputed to Him, it wasn't His, He never sinned." (emphasis added)

Sin was imputed to Him.  As I ground through the daily commute after a long day at work, I actually had to back the sermon up a few seconds, just to listen to that statement one more time.  What a humbling and devastating and glorious truth this is!  Certainly, I had long known that the Christ had to pay the price for our sins if we were to be saved, and had loved this truth and relied upon its reality for my very salvation.  Two points, however, came through very clearly that caused me to cherish and to cling to Christ's work on the cross anew in that humbling moment (and in many such moments thereafter, even to this day).

1.  The imputation at the cross was twofold.  The undeserved favor which the just Father bestowed upon us necessitated the bestowal of an undeserved curse upon the divine Son.  In order for God to look upon us with the eyes of sovereign justice and see only Christ's righteousness covering our sins completely, He had to also look upon His only eternal son with those same just eyes, and see our sins covering His righteousness completely.  Never, never did a more unimaginably vicious condemnation befall a more totally and wholly undeserving person - indeed, the most grievous imbalance possible (until the grace of salvation brings that balance; consider that for a moment).  The Man of perfect holiness, of impeccable righteousness, was regarded as vilest of sinners, and punished in dreadful and infinite extent.

Is there a greater irony than this?  Christ, in whom there resides a divine hatred which is eternal, abiding, perfect, infinite, and pure, and to whom was handed all judgment by the Father (John 5:24), receives the completest measure of the very wrath which He, in His divine holiness, possesses against sinners.  Wonder of wonders - the Father did not stint in His wrath, did not hold back the slightest force in His punishment, did not afford His own Son the slightest special consideration, but rolled relentlessly upon the Christ breaker after breaker of perfect and unmitigated divine fury.  It pleased the Father to do so (Is. 53:10), and indeed it pleased the Son to do so as well (John 4:34).  Does it not take your breath away just to think of it?

2.  Christ was punished not just for sins in general, but sins in specific.  Christ did not suffer for nondescript, generic, faceless sins.  He did not suffer for a given amount of sin, so as to possess a predetermined portion of forgiveness in the economy of salvation.  He endured the boundless enormity of the Father's wrath for our sins, brothers and sisters (Is. 53:6).  Every one of my sins was laid upon Jesus's frame on that day - the Father, with heartbreaking omniscience, did not forget a single one, but gathered them all upon the Christ, and then exacted punishment for each one. 

Oh, that the Savior should have to suffer for my frivolity or carelessness with sin!  Every sin committed and then forgotten in the same breath, every temptation looked upon with quiet indifference, every trespass suffered to wreak havoc with discouraging repetition - all of these and much, much more freighted innocent shoulders that day at Calvary.  Are there words? 


To you, my dear fellow soldier in the faith, I ask - as you consider once more the death and resurrection of our Savior on this blessed holiday, will you be unmoved by the cross?  Will your heart remain even as it has been?  Let it not be so, dear friend.

To you, the one who has not known this Christ, who has not sought the unique salvation which He brokered, I ask - will you not consider this God who gave so wholly of Himself to provide a means of escape from the eternal doom which rightly awaits every person? 

Simple Truth Entreated: The Response of Unbelievers (Part 4 of 5)

Simple Truth Entreated:  The Response of Unbelievers

           

If you are reading this and have not been saved from the just penalty of your sins by Jesus Christ, or if perhaps the force of biblical truth has removed you of all your certainty of your salvation, then do not barricade your heart against the saving truth of the Word  Repentance and surrender to Christ are your only rational recourse.  True, the gospel seeks to invade your sinful heart, to conquer it, and to change it as to make it utterly alien, but you must, you must throw open the gates and let it enter undisputed, or it will kill you someday, and for all eternity.  This gracious offer of the Lord, so real and substantial in this instant, will not endure even a hairsbreadth beyond your own life – what certainty have you beyond this brief moment? 

As Paul implored, “we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (2 Cor. 5:20b) We stand to gain nothing in this appeal, excepting joy, whereas you stand to gain “everything pertaining to life and godliness.” (2 Pet. 1:3b) Come; come now, before you draw another breath!  There is no matter of greater importance, nothing of truer urgency, than this matter of the sinful chasm between you and your Creator.  Do not wait for tomorrow when today may yet betray you!  “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Heb. 10:31) To die without Christ is to be judged by Christ, without the benefits of His protection or intercession.  He will weigh out your sins, and will justly repay each of them, including the sin of reading this appeal and ignoring it.  You will find yourself consigned to a blind torment beyond the reckoning of art or science, a lonely agony unsatiated by the endless passage of ages.  Surrender all to Christ; admit of your guilt before Him!  Plead His forgiveness, and lay your very life at His kingly feet.

If we urge you in light of His grace, we also charge you on the basis of His sovereignty.  “God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30b-31) God not only invites all to repent of their sins; He commands that repentance.  The day of judgment approaches, over which Christ will preside as proven, triumphant Lord, so the command has gone out:  repent now.  God has created this world such that He is Lord over all of it; He sovereignly issues His orders, and it falls to us to obey Him.  Fortunately, He is entirely wise, powerful, and righteous – we need not fear His leading. 

Many objections are commonly made by those who resist the gospel; let us briefly examine but a few:

- Some of you will say, “This is all well and good, but I simply do not believe in God.”  This is merely to say that you believe in yourself, for, as your finite mind cannot account for a God like the One revealed in the Bible, then He clearly must be a fabrication.  So you set yourself up as your own sure authority, and all your life is washed through the filter of your own good opinions.  Do you not see, though, how dangerous this becomes?  An earthworm could hardly conceive of a thinking, feeling, deciding, inventing human being, but this does not render human beings any less real.  Does an annelid’s inability to grasp music or technology make you or I any less real?  Surely not!  Rather, it serves to underscore the vast difference between a worm and a person.  

This vastness looms larger still between us and our God, and we cannot afford to dismiss this reality out of hand simply because it does not reduce to a comfortable human understanding.  In actuality, how disappointing would an entirely comprehensible deity be?  If God were such a one that could be understood completely, He would not be God at all, for this would fully assure us that He was a fabrication of the human mind.  Our inability to fully understand Him should not dissuade us of His reality.

- Some others will say, “Surely; I believe in God, but I cannot believe in your God.”  My friend, my God is the God revealed by the Bible; what better revelation of God and His character would you have?  Your own suppositions?  Another book, perhaps?  When science and archaeology have crushed countless so-called holy books to powder, the Bible stands conspicuously intact, a solitary monument in the midst of so much rubble.  Space does not permit a complete treatment of its enduring character, but I urge you, look into its history.  See how it has been preserved in the face of determined and repeated opposition.  Mark how its truths have not been altered, though it passes through centuries, through languages, and through cultures.  Note how it is the product of dozens of human minds from different eras and different nations, and yet it comes together as a cohesive whole.  You begin to understand that the Bible you hold in your hand is a startling book indeed – it is the revelation of the one true God to humanity, written perfectly by that very God through human agents, and preserved diligently by God against every feeble calamity and opposition that this world could muster.  To understand this book is to see our Creator as He has revealed Himself.

Simple Truth Revisited: The Response of Believers (Part 3 of 5)

Simple Truth Revisited:  The Response of Believers (continued)

3.  Assurance.  This is twofold.  First, our hearts are assured that we are in the faith, if indeed we behold the gospel in all its undimmed truth and do not shrink away or lash out.  If we seek to alter it, to blunt any of its sharp edges, whatever the reason, there is cause for concern.  Are humans not invariably sinners?  Did Christ not endure all of the Father’s punishment for sins?  Perhaps salvation is not pure grace?  Which portion of the Savior’s gospel truth, tell me, dare we adjust?

On the contrary, if we cherish the gospel in its fullness, if we believe that it is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16b), then our lives will evidence this dearly-held belief.   Our pursuit of righteousness, our attitude toward unbelievers, and our service of God’s kingdom and glory all stem from the hardy root of the gospel.  If a love for the gospel is evident in our lives, then assurance will be forthcoming.

Secondly, when we as believers examine the gospel, God’s Word grants us a greater understanding of its precious truths and their far-reaching implications.  Put simply, we are blessed with greater assurance that we believe truth and know truth.  We cannot afford to rely upon an attitude of “I heard this in Sunday school,” or “My favorite pastor says this.”  These words cannot hope to bear the weight of our beliefs amidst the tempests of life, because they hinge more upon human supposition than upon timeless truth.  Only the strength of God’s enduring Word can truly shape our understanding of the gospel and grant us clarity and assurance. 

4.  Purpose.  The gospel not only serves to direct people to God’s life, but it also serves to direct the lives of God’s people.  We have already seen how righteousness is a mandate of the true gospel.  To this, we now add the Great Commission:  “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…” (Matt. 28:20a) The gospel and discipleship go hand in hand.  It is gospel truth that frees people and makes them disciples, and it is the righteousness reflected in the gospel that becomes the pursuit of the disciple.  Thus the Great Commission is work that is not content merely to see the lost saved by the gospel; its fuller aim is to see those same people growing in righteousness as active, zealous disciples in whom the gospel continues to grow in their hearts and their priorities. 

Simple compassion for the lost also directs believers to the gospel.  If Christ is, as He Himself proclaimed, the only way of salvation, then we must bring people to Him.  We must display Him and His glory to the unbelieving world.  A common Christian adage is that Christianity is more than knowing facts concerning Jesus – it is about knowing the Savior Himself.  The truth here is healthy and undisputed, but let us take care, lest the axiom sway us too near to a different pole.  People must know the truth about Christ if they are to know Him, and they must know Him if they are to be saved by Him.  This is the substance of statements like Acts 4:12 or John 17:3, and it falls now to the church to disclose the person of Jesus Christ to the world, by imitation of His righteous character, and by proclamation of His saving work.  Is this not the gospel? 

The gospel, then, is not something that Christendom cannot afford to relegate solely to evangelists and new believers.  It is not the life vest that we grab when the plane is hurtling toward the ocean, only to discard once we are safe.  It is our spiritual life’s blood, and every bit as precious to our spiritual health as the blood that courses through our bodies is to our physical health.  Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a believer who could be said to possess too keen a focus upon the gospel, or too complete an obsession on living out its principles and implications.  The idea is impossible.  Sadly, though, it is far, far easier to picture a Christian in whom the gospel does not enjoy the preeminence that so richly becomes it.  An honest Christian sees in the mirror one who could stand to love the gospel yet more, who could wrap his or her life still tighter and more wholly around the gospel, for the glory of the One whom the gospel reveals.   For God’s glory, brothers and sisters, let us strive after this!

“Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel…”

                                          - Paul, from Philippians 1:26-27

Simple Truth Revisited: The Response of Believers (Part 2 of 5)

Simple Truth Revisited:  The Response of Believers

Clearly, gospel truth seeks a response from the unbeliever, but what of the believer?  There are those, who, after (evident) conversion, revisit the gospel but rarely; these may, I think, be sorted into two groups.  The first group, after making a profession of faith and repentance, make no move to grow or to obey.  If their cars leave the driveway on Sunday, it is to avert a culinary crisis, not a spiritual one.  And the next year, when the spring cleaning unearths their Bibles, they find a place for them on that shelf of books which they fully intend to read someday when life has considerably slowed (perhaps by Shakespeare, next to which the Bible seems to them no more important, and no easier to fathom).  To these, we say – read on, friend.  There are words in here for you. 

The second group is more careful to study and to enjoy fellowship, in accordance with scripture, but they consider that the gospel, having saved them, can impart but little further consequence into their spiritual life.   This is, in their thinking, the difference between the milk and the meat, as the author of Hebrews says, and they conclude it, then, a mark of immaturity to be shackled to the gospel.  Again, read on, friend. 

Four reasons come readily to mind as to why the believer benefits from returning to the true gospel time and again. 

1.  Adoration and Humility.  “Consider your calling, brethren,” Paul urges in 1 Cor. 1:26.  “…and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.  But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” (1 Cor. 1:28-31; emphasis added)  In other words, we are called to consider our own consummate weakness, and the complete life that God Himself has bestowed upon us, in direct opposition to that weakness.  Does this not stir our hearts to remember the indomitable force of God’s grace in our lives?  What place, then, has pride in our hearts? 

When we transfer to our God the esteem that we would otherwise squander on ourselves, we see God magnified, as He should be, and ourselves humbled, as we must be.   If we dare to suppose that this sort of attitude is fit only for infant believers just starting out, we simply guarantee that we will always be infant believers ourselves.  The Holy Spirit does not grow those who are insensible to the grace by which He always works.  Our humility before God communicates our acknowledgement of the insurmountable spiritual and moral failings which we possess, and our adoration of God recognizes the presence of His manifold spiritual and moral perfections.  The gospel rests at the very center of this understanding, and, as such, resides at the very center of life in Christ. 

2.  Righteousness.  The gospel, like salvation, extends beyond simple redemption.  Our Lord Jesus “gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.” (Titus 2:14b)  Redemption was not the end of Christ’s aims; He sought to create a people who would pursue righteousness and grow in it.  Remember Ephesians 2:8-10:  His grace has made us, making boasting impossible, and His grace has indeed made us for specific good works.  The will of God is our sanctification (1 Thess. 4:3a). 

God’s call to righteousness is therefore traced back to His desire for righteousness, which is expressed, and indeed made apparent, in the gospel.  When we return to the gospel, the clarion call to righteousness sounds with divine urgency.  Are the wages of sin not death?  Was it not unrighteousness that earned this fate for humanity?  Survey the vast cost of salvation, won by a perfect obedience before the Father, the last Adam sustaining the utter righteousness that the first Adam could not!

It is obvious, then, that the gospel is not morally ambiguous, and it makes no provision for those who seek to maintain moral ambiguity.  In other words, it is an offense to the gospel to seek salvation from damnable sin without any desire to be removed from the mire of that very sin.  Be assured that any appeals for salvation made in this spirit will be spurned by the Father.

The gospel exists because of unrighteousness.  It counts an unmerited, perfect righteousness to the credit of those who repent, in order to surmount this human unrighteousness, and it sets people upon a lifelong pursuit of righteousness.  Thankfully for sinful humanity, within this calling resides powerful hope:  the grace of God that accompanies us in our righteous endeavors (Titus 2:11-12) has already been proven in our very redemption.  If His grace was able to draw us powerfully out of hopeless darkness, then surely we may trust in its ability to guide us in light!

Simple Truth (Part 1 of 5)

Author’s Note:  We'll inaugurate this blog with a daily series on the gospel:  what it truly is, how it should affect believers, and how unbelievers should respond.  I urge you, whoever you are, to take a moment to read on.

God, the only true God and He who created all things (Is. 45:18, 44:24), being entirely holy (Rev. 15:4), sovereign (Ps. 103:19), and eternal (Is. 40:28), lives in three Persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (cf. Matt. 3:16-17, 28:19).

Although the world, as God created it, was “very good,” (Gen. 1:31), the human race has nevertheless become an unvarying group of sinners (Rom. 3:23, Eccl. 7:20), people who disregard God’s commands at every turn (Rom. 8:7-8).  This universal sinfulness has killed us spiritually (Eph. 2:1), making each of us worthy of eternal punishment (Rom. 6:23, Eph. 2:3, Matt. 25:41), and utterly  hindering us from pleasing God (Rom. 8:7-8).   God is entirely just, and must meet offenses against His own insuperable holiness with appropriate retribution (Ps. 7:12-13; 75:7-8):  an eternity of agony, separated from Him (Rev. 14:11, Matt. 25:46). 

It was not, however, God’s intention that the entire human race go down into eternal hell.  The masterful and incredibly loving stroke, devised before time began (Titus 1:2, Matt. 25:34), came in the form of Jesus Christ, God Himself, becoming fully human while still fully God (Phil. 2:6-7) and living a perfect, sinless life (1 Pet. 2:22, Heb. 7:26).  This life culminated in Christ willingly and sovereignly going to His own death (John 10:18) as His heavenly Father unstintingly laid the full weight of eternal punishment for the sins of many upon Him (2 Cor. 5:21, Is. 53:4-12).  We see that if Christ so suffered and died for our sins, then the just punishment for those sins has been depleted, and we need no longer go to Hell for them.  What gracious and superlative love!

After He had taken the Father’s just wrath upon Himself and died, He wondrously took up His life again three days later (Matt. 28:1-6, 1 Cor. 15:3-4), rising triumphantly from the dead and showing Himself to many (1 Cor. 15:5-8).  If He has raised Himself from the dead, then He has gloriously conquered sin and death – not only is He able to keep people from hell, then, but He can also give them eternal life (Rom. 6:3-10, 1 John  5:11)! 

The uniqueness of this act cannot be overlooked or understated.  When Jesus said that “no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6b), He demonstrated the solitary access He offered to the Father.  The apostle Peter later affirmed the same truth:  “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) If we would be saved from the just wrath of God for the sins in our hearts, we must seek that salvation by the means which He, the sovereign and only true God has established.

What is our response to this?  How can we have this life and avoid our eternal doom?  The command in the New Testament is that people “should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.” (Acts 26:20b; cf. Matt. 4:17).  In other words, we must remorsefully admit of our sinful character to God, and beg Him to forgive us on the basis of Christ’s sacrifice on behalf of sinners.  We must also understand that, according to Acts 26:20, we cannot claim to be repentant, but then continue to live and act just as we did before; we must count the cost (Luke 14:26-35).  Our salvation, if genuine, will bear the fruit of good works because we want to please God (1 John 5:3, Rom. 7:22)!

This is the story of us all, friends.  Have we ourselves availed ourselves of Christ’s precious blood and loving work of grace?  Have we humbled ourselves before a mighty and just God?  If so, do we now seize the opportunity to share this extraordinarily good news with others?  More on this later.