a. Faith Imparted
[07/06/20]
As we have seen, God’s grace has been poured out in ways most marvelous, and His mercy shown towards us in infinite degree. He has loved us. He has taken us from a place of hopelessness and given us a hope most certain. But what does this hope entail? We must first be clear that a biblical hope does not consist in wishful thinking or baseless desire. It is not a pining after things that maybe, just maybe, if everything works out just right, might actually come to pass. No, biblical hope is a matter of full assurance, of knowing that these are matters God has already determined long since, and we but await the time of their fulfillment. It goes right back to that beautiful chain of salvation expressed by Paul in Romans 8:28-30. We know things are worked for our good, we who love God, because our calling was according to His purpose. We don’t hope things will work out alright. We know it. We may not be entirely clear on what alright looks like. We may not be too thrilled with events along the way. But we know where it’s leading. We know, to use the time-worn phrase, how the story ends.
But for my purposes here, I am going to include the matter of faith imparted under this head of man’s hope. Yes, I must concur with Paul that hope that is seen is not hope (Ro 8:24). Hope has that forward-looking sense to it, the anticipation of what is yet to come. Yet, he has also, in that same verse, said, “In hope we have been saved.” I think we need to recognize that the intent here is to establish the assurance of salvation. We have been saved in hope, but it is not that salvation is something we still hope for. We have obtained it. That’s the whole sum of that golden chain that comes after. All of this has been determined. All of this has effectively already unfolded, but much of it, as we know too well from our experience, lies in the not yet, even though it is our present possession.
Faith, it seems to me is both of the present and of the not yet. Faith has been imparted. That is assuredly present state, having become present state in the moment of that impartation. It is also present state in that we have experience of this faith. We have possession of it. The Holy Spirit does indwell, and the love of Christ is shed abroad in our hearts. This is no longer in doubt. At least, it oughtn’t to be in doubt. Yet we do experience our doubts at times. At minimum, we know times when we question the depth of our devotion. Perhaps we know moments of wondering if we are in fact to be accounted among the elect. How can we be sure we aren’t just fooling ourselves, just one more making claims of “Lord, Lord!” only to hear Him say, “Depart from Me! I never knew you”?
But, dear one, faith is the evidence of things unseen, the substance of things hoped for (Heb 11:1). That’s why I insist it must be here in the discussion of hope. Faith is the evidence upon which certain hope discovers its foundation and finds its legs. I am reminded of many sermons that made note of the fact that our expressions of concern as to whether our faith is real or not already gives answer to the concern. If our faith were not real, we should have no concern about it whatsoever, nor about the God in Whom our faith is anchored. Were it not for this faith imparted, we should as yet have no care as to God’s opinions, let alone His promises. But we do care, and because we care we can know with certainty that He has in fact imparted faith to us.
It is this occasional questioning, this recognition that things are as yet incomplete in us, that leads me to say that faith is also a matter of the not yet. There is something about our faith that leaves us recognizing the imperfectness of our faith. I want to differentiate just a bit, however. You see, it’s not really our faith that is imperfect, for our faith is a gift from God, and as every good and perfect gift comes from God, as James observes, we must recognize the obverse as well: Every gift from God is good and perfect. He didn’t give us a defective faith. Rather, because the work of transformation is ongoing in us, our faithfulness remains imperfect. We know it. If our faithfulness were a perfected thing, we should have to abandon all thought of confession and repentance before God. Indeed, and I cannot stress this often enough, if our faithfulness were a perfected thing, we should have lost the need for Jesus entirely, and the whole fabric of Christian faith becomes tragic farce. This God sent His Son to face a needless, pointless death, and we who have accounted this cause to love and worship Him must be of most perverse nature.
Well, in fairness, we are of most perverse nature, but He loved us anyway. He saved us anyway. He imparted this faith in us anyway. And He did so for the express reason that we could in no wise achieve perfect faithfulness in and of ourselves. Even with the indwelling Holy Spirit, even with the assurance and absolute, rock solid certainty of Christ’s blood applied to our case, still we find this beyond us, and indeed must do so.
We cannot achieve faithfulness in our strength, nor even comply as we know we ought to the demands of righteousness even now. We know this, though we prefer not to admit it. We need do no more than consider those two chief commandments by which Jesus encapsulated the whole of the Law. Let’s start with the second point. Love your neighbor as yourself (Mt 22:39). Dare you claim to have this one covered? Can you even claim to love your spouse as yourself? I doubt it. Is there any individual at all that you could honestly claim to love as you love yourself? If you can, then I must conclude that you rather despise yourself, which is not the goal here at all, but rather an offense against God who made you. No, this is a high standard, and intended to make clear to us that whatever it is we think we have done that has made us righteous, we are quite wrong. However much we have loved another, yet our chief love remains ourselves. However highly we may value another, and let us even say however much we may have sacrificed our own well-being for another, still our chief love remains ourselves. We will never care for them to the same degree as we care for ourselves. It is beyond us.
And that was the easier one. Now try this one for fit. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Mt 22:37). How’s that one going? Is there absolutely no competing love in your heart, nothing and nobody that claims a place in your heart? Well, I bet, if nothing else, you’ll find yourself occupying a spot there. There are probably others, indeed I think there really ought to be others, for whom the heart has a place. But that precludes loving God with all your heart, doesn’t it? For part of your heart is occupied with loving these others, with loving yourself. And don’t even get started on hobbies and pleasures. Food? Chances are it has a place in your heart as well as your stomach. For me, music must surely occupy significant space. No, we walk with heart divided, attention divided. Our minds are not fully occupied with the worship of God as we go about our days, and however hard we may try, we fall short of it. We have trouble even remaining cognizant of God’s enduring presence with us, let alone worshiping Him. Most of us probably know those moments when we’d just as soon God covered His eyes for a few moments while we get something out of our system. The fact that this is our common experience is not an excuse for that behavior. The fact that God calls us to love others as much as ourselves is no excuse for having hearts too preoccupied to be fully devoted to Him. Rather, these things force us to confront out continued need for Christ.
And here, the hope that is ours by faith is assurance most needful as well as most certain. You are saved, not in hope of maybe someday being saved, but in present tense possession of salvation. Yes, it is an unfolding work, and we are drawing nearer our full maturity day by day. How much I want to insert a ‘hopefully’ there, but it would have to be a most unbiblical hopefully. No! There is certainty in this. It as most assuredly unfolding. We are most assuredly maturing. The speed of our maturation may be inconsistent, and sometimes cause us concern, but the direction is set and the trend lines make that direction clear.
Faith imparted is indeed a matter of our hope, for it is, if not the bedrock itself upon which hope is founded, at least the clear evidence of that bedrock. Every one of us who has come to know this faith within us, discovered there much to our own surprise, has discovered a great change in perspective, a great change in self. Things that once mattered greatly now matter less, and things that concerned us not in the least are now foremost in our thoughts. It’s not necessarily a full and fundamental switching off of the one and on of the other. We remain possessed of our personalities, and those personalities, while much improved by the arrival of faith, are not erased and reprogrammed in us. Those who had a sense of humor before salvation retain that sense subsequent to salvation. Those given to seriousness and introspection continue so. But new notes are added, new concerns are before our eyes.
I dare say we discover ourselves knowing and caring about an awful lot of people, now accounted our brothers and sisters, with whom we would be unlikely to have struck up a friendship prior to coming to faith. I suppose the same may be said of many activities and shifts of life, although those friendships tend to form around common interests. Yes, if we dig deep, we are sure to find a common interest in our common faith, certainly in our shared devotion to this one God. Yet so much of who we are would still have kept us far separated in other circumstances. Consider that message that Paul stressed so much. “There is neither Jew nor Greek.” I don’t know that one could have found a deeper social divide in that time. A Jew, even sharing faith in the same God, would be disinclined to set foot in the house of a Gentile, and no doubt, the Gentiles had their doubts about the Jews as well. “There is neither male nor female.” Not that we’re into some unisex cult here, and certainly not a matter of what is pawned off as gender fluidity today, but rather, it is another barrier to association torn down. There is no place for castes, for classes, for racial divides in the fabric of Christian faith. There is a uniting of this body of Christ that defies categories, that defies belief, really.
Who could expect to find the wealthy man and the pauper sharing not merely an occasional connection in pursuit of some hobby, but a real and deep relationship one with another? Who could expect the well-heeled and the common man to be sharing fellowship? Who could expect generations coming together to share this life together, with mutual love and care? Let me extend it to this. Given the numerous matters of faith and doctrine upon which we yet find room to disagree, and given the heartfelt vehemence with which these doctrines are held and rejected by various individuals, who could expect that we might join together as one to worship this great God? Who could expect that we, in spite of our firmly held and distinctly different convictions would yet look upon one another as brothers, and rejoice in our common faith? This is a marvel. This is beyond man, quite honestly. Oh, I’m sure one could find bold atheists who would insist they share a similar variety in their number, but I rather doubt the validity of the claim. I’m sure they doubt my claim as well.
[07/07/20]
Yet I hold it a marvelous thing, an evidence of God’s hand at work upon man, that so diverse a people is discovered united together in bonds of close fellowship and shared faith. And thus it has been since the church was established. A look at the makeup of that earliest church in Jerusalem shows that this is the case. The Apostles themselves were rather a surprising group, having in their number fishermen, tax collectors, zealots and the like. It was hardly the sort of community one might expect to be sharing company, yet here they were. Here was John, familiar with the household of the high priest, as it appears from the events around Jesus’ trial, in company with Matthew, a tax collector who would have been accounted by the high priest and his fellows as perhaps slightly worse than the Romans, certainly estranged from God. But these were together in worship of God, together in walking with God, together in devoted service to God. What had happened? The hopeless had discovered a hope most certain in the faith imparted to them by God.
So it continues to this day. There are those to whom the Father wills to send His Spirit, and the Spirit wills to make known the Son, and the Son wills to make sons of God. By the supreme, unopposable decree of God, faith comes to such as He has chosen, eyes and ears are opened to hear what Jesus has said and done. Hearts are softened to accept the news, to accept the gift of which He speaks. Love is discovered. No, I am not suggesting by any means that the emotion of love is unknown to those apart from faith in God. But love for God surely is. And love of the sort that God imparts, a thing deeper by far than emotional warmth, surely is alien territory for those alienated to God. But where faith is imparted, hope is planted, established, made firm and unshakable.
Hope rests its feet upon this faith which is clearly not of our own fabricating, but rather, a matter of God’s doing. This is perhaps the greatest misunderstanding, or worse, the greatest determined lie of the faithless, that our faith is a matter of no more than an imaginative tale. It is, to the unbelieving, no different than any other religion, nothing more than remnants of primitive man seeking to explain that which he could not understand and therefore feared. It’s like the various gods of the ancients, personifications of natural phenomena, or an excuse for personal failures. But this is not the case at all. Indeed, I suspect many of us know the experience of having come to faith rather grudgingly or unwillingly.
I can certainly look to my own case and see it. I was not interested in God. I was not thinking about what a horrid sinner I was and seeking escape from things that had me bound. I was rather happy as I was, pursuing my pleasures and seeking new ones, amusing myself according to my wants, and pretty much unconcerned with anything beyond my desires. But God had a different outcome in mind. I can look back across certain significant events of my youth and young adulthood and discover that the hand of God was indeed upon me even though I remained wholly ignorant of that fact, and utterly ungrateful. I could think, for example, of the companions of my youth who sought to help me join them in shooting up, and I, in my foolish desire to try something new was perfectly willing to give it a try, but somehow, a vein could not be hit, and so I escaped that future, not by any act or scruple of my own, but by the protective hand of God. I have to say, that having gone through lung surgery a few times in later years, and having had blood drawn any number of times for one reason or another, my veins do not appear all that difficult to tap into. It was not some physical quality in me that prevented a different outcome, but rather a Good Shepherd watching closely over a particularly stupid sheep.
I can turn to later years, commuting some sixty miles through whatever weather New England chose to throw at me. I can think of that drive home when I discovered, much to my dismay, that the highway down which I was merrily speeding was in fact a solid, three lane sheet of black ice. And oh, by the way, that light on the cliffs up ahead that caught my attention? That was from the pickup truck that had spun out just ahead of me, and was now drifting back across my lane and, as I sought to ever so gently shift lanes, across the next lane as well. So, that’s why all these eighteen wheelers have been parked on the verge. Who knew? Yet somehow, in spite of my speed, and this suddenly discovered need to jump two lanes over while trying vainly to decelerate downhill on a skating rink of a highway, one little bit of a fishtail and I was off as if nothing much had happened. My, what driving skills, I thought to myself at the time. Dang but I was proud of me and my little car.
For all that, I could consider the events that led to meeting my wife – hardly a life-threatening tale like these others, but just as unlikely a thing. Here was a woman from the Cape, a place I never went, and at that juncture a good hour and a half away. And here was I, off in Uxbridge, hanging out with a few friends, rarely dating at all. She was an aficionado of country folk dances, and I was no fan of dancing whatsoever, really. But acquaintances of ours decided we should meet. Well, whatever our reasons for going along with it, meet we did at a folk-dance festival somewhat midway between our abodes. And darned if we didn’t enjoy each other’s company. Look, we had no business even knowing each other, let alone finding one another a potential love interest. Yet, we were married not so many months later, and for years, if asked what it was that drew us to one another, our only answer was, “I don’t know!” It just clicked. In spite of the absurdity of dating across an 80 mile divide, in spite of her children from prior marriage, and the need to schedule around her ex’s visiting rights, it just clicked. Even when she returned to her faith and I remained as yet an unbeliever according to my lights, this changed nothing.
Yes, the Bible counsels rather sharply against pursuing such a course, doesn’t it? Don’t be unequally yoked. But here we were, and for my part, I figured I could put up with an hour or two of church a week if that was the price I had to pay for her hand. What’s the big deal? I mean, it’s not much different than attending a movie you didn’t particularly enjoy, right? But God was doing things, whether I chose to recognize it or not. And God saw to it that whatever my reasons for coming to His house, He would see me made His own. It took a little while, but He got through to me, and I have been with Him ever since. It took even longer to begin to give serious thought to what the Truth of this Bible actually was, and many of the things I believed at the outset have had to shift after more serious consideration. But then, so had my assessment of past events. That encounter with the needle had not been an insignificant and somewhat disappointing night among many a night. It was a true shift in the fabric of my life. Those highway accidents that didn’t occur were not evidence of my great skill as a driver, but of a higher power watching over me even in my stupid arrogance. The event of this woman coming into my life and me into hers was not just the result of our friends’ matchmaking skills. God had a purpose. In my case, that purpose most clearly included breaking through my self-confidence and imparting this unwarranted, unwanted gift of faith. And that, as they say, has made all the difference.
It wasn’t, as Mr. Frost supposed, that I had chosen the road less travelled by. It was rather that the strong hand of God had carefully guided my course and me all unknowing. He still does, and no doubt, there still remains a great deal that I do not recognize as it’s happening. But faith has been imparted, and hope made certain, and while I certainly know my share of frustrations and disappointments, and while I no doubt manage to cause Him no end of grief and frustration myself, I know how this story ends. I know where I am going, and I know with unshakable clarity that it was none of my own doing that this is now the case. Glory to God! Glory to God in the highest!
b Spirit Renewed
[07/08/20]
I have to note that these subsections were laid out some time back, before I paused to study and teach Colossians. I’m not sure they entirely map to the idea of man’s hope, except in that man’s hope is so intimately connected to the order of events in our salvation and eventual perfection. So, let me pursue that line of thinking a bit. As I noted in the prior section, our hope is established upon the faith which has been implanted in us by God, and because faith has been implanted, what follows is a spirit renewed. Indeed, though it follows it is of an instant, effectively a simultaneous development to that implanting of faith.
I pause to note, as I am sure I have noted before, that there are points where we perceive a twofold division of man into flesh and spirit, or into flesh and soul, and other points where it appears to be a threefold division with spirit and soul as separate things. There are, in fact, various lines of thought which have developed which would suggest that the soul is some lesser, more earthbound thing. I am not at all clear where this idea arises. There is, where that threefold distinction appears, some sense that the soul is a facet of being shared with the animal kingdom, a more bios aspect of life concerning mere vitality and that the spirit is that which is unique to mankind, the higher, zoe life of the mind and the heart, where reason and will have their place. For the most part, though, I think we find that Scripture treats the two as more or less synonymous. Thus, we have Paul seeking on behalf of the church, “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God” (Eph 3:16-19). Indeed, I could take that as being something of the map for this whole section on man’s hope.
But let me stay at the start of it for a moment. We have need of being strengthened in the inner man, the spirit or soul, which is being renewed even though our outer man is decaying (2Co 4:16). Now there is cause for hope, isn’t it? We see, unless we have managed to delude ourselves somehow, the outworking in our body of sin unto death. We know that our time in this body must be finite because we sense rather quickly just how finite this body is. In the heady days of youth this may elude us, as we feel ourselves growing stronger, wiser, more fully aware. But it doesn’t take long before we recognize that the trendlines have shifted, and we are growing weaker, slower, perhaps a bit more absent minded. Hopefully, the trendline for wisdom remains, but then, wisdom is more of the inner man, the spirit. But as far as this body goes, we sense that its time is shorter than perhaps we might like. So, to discover this truth that Paul observes, this renewal of the inner man of the spirit, speaks to us of something more lasting. It informs us of an eternal core to our being, something that persists.
Now I know that I have leaned rather heavily on the combined testimony of Genesis and Romans in the pursuit of this exercise, but only because they so continually speak to the shape of belief. Go back, therefore, to that scene in Eden. Two trees are given special notice. The first is the tree of life. We aren’t really told a great deal about that tree apart from the fact of its existence. It is only after Adam and Eve are disbarred from Eden that we get a hint of its significance, for God in announcing the need for their expulsion gives reason for the need. “Lest he stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” (Ge 3:22b). And so, He drove them out and set the cherubim to guard the way back to that tree.
Observe that no commandment had been given Adam to avoid eating of that tree, and yet, it seems he never did so. I do find a few points in Proverbs which describe certain characteristics of the godly man as being a tree of life: Wisdom, righteousness, desire fulfilled, a soothing tongue. But really we don’t hear about this tree again until we arrive at the close of the book. There we find Jesus informing His Church, “To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God” (Rev 2:7). Later, as John describes the new creation, we find that tree of life lining the river, with plenteous fruit and leaves suited ‘for the healing of the nations’ (Rev 22:2). Those who wash their robes have right to eat of this tree, and may enter into the city of God (Rev 22:14). And perhaps the worst warning of the whole book comes in regard to this same tree. “If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in the book” (Rev 22:19). I admit a certain doubt as to whether John, or more importantly the Holy Spirit, is indicating solely the text of the Revelation here, or the whole of Scripture. I incline to view it in the latter scope, but I don’t know that John would have intended it so in writing as he did. But who can say? Perhaps he, like we see with Paul, had a sense that his writings were of greater significance than merely the words of a man. I mean, it seems obvious that in being commanded to write these things down, he must have had a rather clear sense of the significance of what he wrote, but did he understand it as concluding the message of all Scripture? Perhaps so.
My point, however, is that this tree stands at both ends of the Bible, first as being a thing man must be guarded from tasting, and then, at the end, when all has been restored to its proper order, given to man at last. This was an act of extreme mercy on God’s part, for there was that other tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of which Adam and Eve did partake, and in doing so, gave entrance to sin both in their own lives and on into the lives of all the generations of mankind to follow. Here was the one tree of which they were instructed, “Don’t eat.” So, of course, they did. Now I observed previously that they had, rather necessarily, an understanding of good and evil, of right and wrong, prior to eating, else they would have had little enough basis upon which to heed any command whatsoever. What they didn’t have was experience of evil, and certainly not of personally directed, willful evil. But in taking that fruit and eating it, they most assuredly did.
Considering that point, here is one of the scarier, almost incomprehensible things we find God saying in Scripture. “Behold, man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil” (Ge 3:22a). If this knowing is a matter of experiencing, of causing, how can it be that we see it attributed to God Himself? Can God in fact be the author of evil? At one level, there has to be a visceral, “No!” given in response to such a question. God is Good. Goodness is of His essence, and therefore evil is an inherent impossibility to Him. So, I have to observe that the term given us here, da’ath, may concern insight and discernment, or that knowledge gained by experience, so both eido and ginosko, to bring it into the New Testament. The WSDOT observes that this matter of experiential knowledge, at once also a moral knowledge, is what was in view in the fruit of this tree; a knowledge forbidden the human race. Again, though, if that is the sense in application to man, how is it not the sense in application to God? And we might also think to ask just who is this “Us” of which He speaks?
All in all, this is a highly problematic verse, I think. It suggests a plurality of gods, but that much I think we can resolve well enough with the doctrine of the Trinity. That is to say, the ‘us’ is Father, Son, and Spirit, all of whom are present in the creation account, although under the single sobriquet of God. However, that still leaves us with this fearsome implication that God has moral, experiential knowledge of evil as well as good. This, loathe as I am to suggest it, must be the case, else the statement He makes has no sense to it. Either we have become like Him in having gained this knowledge or we have not. Well, certainly, the God who can say to His own people, “Behold I am about to bring a calamity upon this place, at which the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle” (Jer 19:3) can bring about events that men will account evil. To make desolate is hardly going to be experienced as some great good.
Yet we must hold that while God may in fact determine that certain evils must befall mankind, and this must include the Fall itself, He is never the actual cause of said evil, nor is the purpose of said evil an evil intent. Where He permits, or even decrees, that evil shall unfold, it is for the promotion of ultimate good. This, I should have to stress, is not an art within man’s power. We cannot turn evil action to good intent because our evil acts do not come of good intent. God is distinctly different in this regard. But it’s a struggle, isn’t it?
Let me try to circle back to my original point now. We saw, I think, that this knowledge of good and evil wasn’t entirely absent from awareness prior to eating, but became experiential reality of knowledge in the moment of eating. I think we need to have a similar view of the tree of life. The reprobate, or the pre-salvation self, has already this eternal core of soul, of spirit. The spirit is not some new thing implanted along with faith, but a renewal, a reforming, or better still, a transforming. If I wanted to follow the thinking of Greek philosophy, I might suggest a metamorphosis, and honestly, that concept rather neatly captures the depth of change that has transpired. But my point here is that this eternal core is already there. The reprobate, much to his eternal dismay, shall discover this to be the case when he discovers the true depths of agony and sorrow that persist in hell, “where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched” (Mk 9:48). The penalty for sin is eternal, and visited upon the eternal soul. It is not oblivion, but keen awareness of just how entirely wrong and evil one has been, and I cannot imagine a worse future to behold.
This brings us back to hope. This tree of life is not the arrival of eternal life, but a change in its condition in some sense. At least, it seems so to my thinking. If it requires to eat of the tree of life to partake of eternal life at all, then our conceptions of hell, and much that has been said of it, would seem to be invalidated. Either all are made to eat of that tree, whether to their benefit or to their eternal torment, in which case the end of the Revelation doesn’t make a great deal of sense, or it is a matter of qualitative change in the nature of life. I think the latter more reasonable. The caution is there in God’s concern for fallen man. His greatest desire, a desire expressed through the entire course of Scripture’s revelation of God’s work with mankind, is that man might walk together with Him in Paradise, in Eden. But now Eden must first be restored, and mankind as well. As God, being good, cannot abide the presence of sin, a purification must first transpire, both of man and of the creation polluted by his actions. And this has been accomplished in Christ! There is hope!
One rather new concept that came to attention in the course of preparing that Colossians class was the idea that in the moment of Jesus’ ascension, Satan was truly cast down, no longer given leave to enter the courts of heaven. I am not entirely convinced of the accuracy of this conclusion, but it is an interesting thought. He had been free, as we see from Job, to come before God, he having been accounted amongst the angels. Even with his rebellion and his attempts to usurp God’s place on the throne, it seems he was still granted to come and make his accusations against God’s people, to insinuate and malign, and to insist on justice meted out without mercy. But, at least according to some of our past theologians, this opportunity came to an end forcefully with the return of the victorious Christ. Again, I am not fully convinced, for it seems to me we find him still leveling his accusations against the elect, but now, with Christ our Advocate to counter his efforts. But it is something deserving of further consideration.
What is clear is this: There has been a transforming of the soul. It came of an instant, in that moment of faith implanted. We are no longer who or what we were, but it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, to borrow John’s language. The transformation of spirit is a completed act, and yet we recognize full well that it is also an ongoing act. We know too much of our former self in this present experience. But we know that our good end is assured. I don’t say we hope that this might be the case. I say that our hope, being securely anchored in Christ in heaven, is full certain that this will be the case, for He Who is our Hope has proclaimed it. “It is finished!”
c. Recognition
[07/09/20]
Alongside this change in our spirit comes recognition; recognition of our own condition and need, recognition of God’s magnificence and His abounding mercy towards us. I shall reserve comment on that mercy, I think for the next item. The first thing that we recognize, quite possibly for the first time, is our desperate situation. What Jonathan Edwards wrote of in “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is now recognized as describing our situation quite succinctly. We have indeed set ourselves in such a place as leaves us like flies dangling from one gossamer thread of spider silk over the flaming abyss. There is no defense we could offer to Him against Whom we have acted, nor can there be in that moment, I should think, any least consideration of trying to raise a defense. The pointlessness of any such effort would be all to obvious. We know what we have done, and it is quite clear that He knows as well, perhaps even better than we ourselves know.
The good news is that no sooner are we aware of our criminality before the courts of God than we are made aware of our Advocate. Observe that this follows upon the renewal of spirit. It required that renewal of spirit to truly fathom the depths of our depravity. Oh, we may have had some doubts as to just how wonderful a character we really were prior to that point, but they were swiftly pushed from thought. We were, one suspects, quite inclined to think ourselves rather fine fellows, no matter how foul our fineness. But now there has been realization. The much and mire upon us is no longer misapprehended as finery. We are, sadly, what we are, and now we see it. Worse still, we see God more clearly. It’s not just his wrathful power that have our attention, although that certainly ought to cause us some concern. But there is also the matter of His innate holiness. How utterly unlike our sinful selves is He! How impervious He is to the manipulations and trickery that are our usual course to safety. There is no wiggle room here. Before such as God is, we cannot hide, we cannot put a good face on things, we cannot do any other but confess our sinful condition, and throw ourselves upon the mercy of His court. In that moment, I don’t think we would even contemplate asking for a second chance, for we should know it equally clear to self and God alike that second chances would go no better than first. The whole business is entirely hopeless apart from something greater than ourselves acting on our behalf.
Here, then, is the core recognition: We are in dire, personal need of a savior. Our situation is perilous but there is hope in sight. Our God has charitably brought this recognition to us after implanting faith. It may not feel that way in the experience of coming to faith. We may feel that our sense of our own wretchedness has preceded the arrival of faith, but it has not. The seed of faith was first implanted and the spirit transformed already, else we would never have seen ourselves for what we are. The change is already begun, indeed, in ways most critical, already complete. But part of that change is this progress of self-assessment, this recognition of our own need.
It is possible, I suppose, that one might spend a great deal of time having received this seed of faith implanted without really having recognized the need in ourselves. But a faith that has not come to this point is, I dare say, incomplete. The spirit remains somehow untransformed. I say this as a matter of our experience of events. That is to say, there is no doubt that the transformation shall in fact transpire, and in a very real sense already has. But there remains the old man in us, resistant to the change that must be his demise. There remains a stubbornly positive sense of self that yet fights against the idea of neediness. This may be a particularly Western thing, or perhaps a masculine thing, but there is something in us that finds the idea of neediness abhorrent. Surely, we can take care of things ourselves. That’s how we’re supposed to be! If we can’t, it’s like admitting that we are less than men. But God must work us through this foolish thinking, bring us to realize our serious lack of ability when it comes to righteousness. He must, as is often said, bring us to the end of ourselves.
Again, I need to stress that while there is a sense of progression in events as we experience them, the whole of these first several aspects of hope are largely of a piece, of an instant. Faith comes, the spirit is transformed, and recognition dawns upon us, and with recognition, realization of our salvation. This is both a one-shot moment that starts our new life and, I think, an experience we go through repeatedly as we grow. I don’t say that we repeatedly have faith implanted or repeatedly discover our spirits transformed. But this realization of need and recognition of salvation hit us over and over again. God is graciously revealing our true situation bit by bit because to be confronted with the whole of it all at once must surely overwhelm us.
d. Salvation
So, we are arrived at salvation, or at least the realization of our status as being in fact saved. God has not in fact brought us to awareness of our sinfulness just so the court case could proceed against us. He has brought is simultaneously to awareness of that Savior whose need we have now discovered in our own condition. He has been provided. He has seen fit to take upon Himself the penalty our sins have incurred. He has taken them on and put paid to our debt to the court of heaven, and while we may yet have need of experiencing the full grief of our sins recounted and enumerated in full by a holy God, yet we will have that hope remaining in our Advocate standing by us, displaying the marks of His payment on our behalf. We shall know our guilt in full, yes, but we shall also know God’s forgiveness in full. We shall know our Savior in full. In the meantime, we already know our salvation. We experience it in part in that we are not left unarmed to face our temptations, but know the choice before us. We may still choose poorly on occasion, but we are at least progressed to the point of being able to resist now and again. There is hope, and that hope is all the greater in that we know it’s not up to us to now manage perfection because we’ve been given some second chance, but rather, that in spite of our shortcomings and failures, we have a Savior in heaven who is seeing to it that however much we may fail, yet the price of our failure is met and our future made secure.
What, then, is this salvation in which we set our hope? It is, as I have said, the certain knowledge that Jesus Christ, by His perfect life, by His obedience unto death, by His willing humiliation in taking upon Himself the full weight of our sins, has put paid to sin, and to sin’s penalty in death. Hope remains. More properly, hope dawns, and it dawns anew with each new moment of need. He has paid our debt. He has procured our pardon, and left us with no cause for fear as we enter the courtroom. He is there with us. Indeed, He is Judge as well as Advocate.
But I have to say that salvation is more than just our pardon awaiting in heaven. It is more than a court case. It is also an end to our enmity with God. I love that Scripture makes plain that this is the direction of that enmity. God has always loved us. It’s right there in that golden chain of Romans 8. All of this was set on its course from the first moments of existence – not your existence, but the whole of existence. It is not that God was at war with us, but that we were at war with Him. We had set ourselves against Him and by and large, didn’t even know it. Coming to recognize that reality, what fear must enter our hearts! We have been fighting against God. We never had a chance, and now what chance can there be of restoration, of anything but eternal punishment? But there is not just a chance. There is an absolute certainty. You have been forgiven. Hostilities have been brought to an end as you have been brought to peace with Him. You have laid down your arms and come into subjection to His lordship. And in so doing, you have discovered His lordship a truly wonderful, truly beneficent thing indeed.
e. Baptism
[07/10/20]
Having come to realization of both our sinfulness and God’s forgiveness given us in Christ, and having ascertained the faith which He has caused to spring up in our hearts, there must come upon us an urge to become obedient to this most gracious Lord. We likely, hopefully, recognize that we are still quite incapable of perfect obedience, but we would express such obedience as we can manage, and God has made clear one of the first ways in which we can come into obedience to Him; the act of being baptized.
This is actually a rather large topic, and one with many grounds for disagreement amongst faithful, believing Christians. There is the question of whether baptism constitutes a sacrament or an ordinance. That is to say, does baptism have salvific implications or doesn’t it? Is it an absolute necessity if we are to be saved, or is it simply an act undertaken in obedience to God’s law? The idea that baptism is a fundamental necessity for salvation would seem to derive primarily from Mark 16:16, which reads, “He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.” Here, there is at least the perceived connection of baptism and salvation; the idea that baptism is a necessary component, apart from which salvation is somehow incomplete. But I observe that in the negatively stated portion of that message, baptism has no role. There is no ‘or has neglected baptism’ which would also be a matter for condemnation. I think, in light of the larger testimony of Scripture, it would be more reasonable to recognize that baptism, an act of obedience to this Jesus one has claimed to believe, is necessary in that it would be most unlikely that one who has come to belief would do otherwise than to be baptized.
We see in the examples of the early church from the book of Acts that this was part of the common message of the Church. Believe and be baptized. It was the normal flow of operations. “When they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike” (Ac 8:12). “Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household, and many of the Corinthians when they heard were believing and being baptized” (Ac 18:8). It was, it seems a fairly instant response of obedience to the Lord, and as such, clearly a part of the message that was being preached, as well it should be. After all, we know the great commission given the Church to fulfill. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Mt 28:19-20).
We have perhaps shifted somewhat our approach to the message, in part at least because our mission has become less about evangelizing and more about preserving and strengthening. I don’t say this is right and proper, nor that it is not so. I simply observe that it is the case. But here in the earliest days of the Church, it seems the message of gospel and baptism were still tightly joined. You have believed? Then obey. It sounds almost severe to our sensibilities, but it is simply common sense, isn’t it?
To my present purpose, however, let me simply say that baptism is not salvific in nature. That is to say, it does not impart saving faith. It is an ordinance, ordinance suggesting that it is a law given us by Jesus. I should also insist that it is in fact a means of grace. It is not an empty gesture, but neither can we say that obedience to this one command would necessitate that salvation follows. We are sadly capable of adherence to any number of rules and regulations solely because we do not wish to deal with the aggravation noncompliance might entail. We act solely to avoid negative consequences, and the heart is in no wise in it. As we have wandered the town here on vacation, one sees it rather clearly in regards to the sundry regulations that have arisen in response to this ostensible health crisis. Masks must be worn in public, not that anybody’s going to bother you too much if you don’t. But certainly they must be worn in the stores, except it’s pretty clear that not so many store owners care all that much whether you do or you don’t. They just want to be open for business, and so, they must gently remind you if you forget. And so on, and so on. There is compliance where the cost of non-compliance is too high, but it is as often as not grudging. There is much I could say about the larger impact of this business, but that is for another time and place, perhaps.
My point here is simply that it is entirely possible that some individuals have even undergone baptism and yet not actually believed in Christ. Perhaps it was an act undertaken to maintain a degree of marital harmony, or simply to stop the spouse from nagging on that particular topic. Perhaps it just seemed like a fun thing to do. Or it may have been an emotional response to a moment of particularly strong encouragement, but really amounting to nothing more than that: An emotional response that faded as swiftly as the emotions change. The act itself is no assurance of salvation.
But as a means of grace, it is indeed powerful where the act concurs with true faith. This is, I have to say, the general sense of ordinance: They are not guarantees of outcome, but neither are they empty ritual, at least they ought not to be. Where faith and obedience come together, the symbolism of the ordinance meets a distinct reality in the soul, and a true grace is imparted from God to the participant. Baptism can indeed serve to significantly strengthen faith, to firm up our proper sense of connectedness to God in Christ. There is that identifying with Him, of acknowledging and participating in His death and resurrection alike. There is, as one enters the waters, the sense of dying to sin; the realization of sin’s penalty paid in death. There is, as one rises up, a significant experience of just what it means for us that Christ rose from the grave, victorious over death, and His sacrifice accepted by God on our behalf. There is something in this that strengthens the resolve to walk worthy of this One Who gave Himself for us.
A second point of contention arises as to the fitness of applying the ordinance of baptism to infant children of believers, children who could not as yet have any real understanding of faith even if it be supposed that they were somehow possessed of it. But for those who consider infant baptism proper, I don’t think that is the supposition at all. Rather it is seen as a mark of covenant membership almost entirely parallel to the act of circumcision in the Old Testament. Circumcision was applied to the male child as a mark of covenant membership, it is argued, and as such, surely the same ought to apply with the mark or sign of the New Covenant. Again, one can observe the practices of the early Church, as presented in Acts, and find seeming support for the idea. We have the examples of so and so and their household being baptized. There is question, however, of who was present from said household, and also the question of whether this is noted as establishing the norm of church practice, or simply as observing the facts on the ground. It could as readily be that this was simply the normal response of pagan gentile practice: What the patriarch decided to believe committed the household to worship in kind.
[07/11/20]
The argument for paedobaptism, as I have noted hinges on its being the effective New Testament equivalent of circumcision. The supporters of this view will observe that yes, for fresh-minted believers, believers’ baptism would be the expectation. After all, in such an instance infant baptism would no longer be possible. But let us suppose there had in fact been some sort of baptism in infancy, albeit into a false system of religion. Would the paedobaptist require believers’ baptism in that case? And if so, does this still fit the parallel to circumcision? I hope I am not merely raising a strawman argument here. I honestly don’t know what their position would be on such a situation. I suppose I should simply leave it aside.
Now, I know there is at least one passage which is pointed to as upholding this equating of circumcision and baptism, and of course, I cannot find it this morning, nor do I have the appropriate references available to hunt it down. I do see a clear connecting of baptism to the Flood in 1Pe 3:21, and of course I see plentiful points of rejection for the necessity of circumcision. I see as well, particularly in the course of Paul’s argument on this topic toward the end of Romans 2, the definition of circumcision as it applies to the New Covenant church. “He is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God” (Ro 2:29). The thread of argument that has led to this point concerns the fact that circumcision – the symbol, and obedience – the evidence of true covenant relationship, are in fact wholly separate items. Circumcision has value, he says, but only if the law has been obeyed (Ro 2:25). Indeed, given one or the other, it is the obedience that actually matters, for where there is obedience to the Law, uncircumcision would become circumcision (Ro 2:26).
Certainly, a similar point could be made in regard to baptism, that the act of baptism is utterly valueless if it is not accompanied by obedient faith, and that where there is obedient faith, absence of baptism would not alter the case. But then, baptism is given as a symbolic act for all believers, whereas circumcision is necessarily confined to the male believer. Baptism is not a mark born on the flesh whereas circumcision is. Do these distinctions spoil the case for paedobaptism? Is this in fact the covenant seal on the faith of the New Testament? It’s a difficult thing to answer. I can see value in the answer of the paedobaptist, and yet I do not in fact think they have the answer correct.
I would suggest, as I did yesterday, that the evidence from Acts does not really lend a great deal of support for paedobaptism as the normative practice. I can’t say it lends any support for the opposite view, either. It merely relays news of what was going on at the time, in regard to this practice. But baptism comes as a symbolic acknowledgement of a covenant already sealed. It is an identification with that which Christ has done. Whether, then, it is seen as a believer’s baptism or as applicable in infant baptism, the symbolism is little changed. The infant baptizer expresses hope (not biblical hope, but human, parental hope) that this child will in fact grow up to be a child of God. But unlike the Jewish polity, mere birth into one of the tribes to parents from amongst the tribes does not auto-enroll one in the tribe. To be sure, being raised in a Christian household confers great benefit to the child thus raised, but it is no guarantee of outcome. Neither was circumcision, for all that. Paul makes that observation as well in Romans 2. Ezekiel has similar observations to make in regard to generational passing on of either faith or sinfulness. Generational sin is no infallible indicator of outcome, much though it may handicap the younger generation. Neither is generational faith guaranteed to result in godly offspring, however much it may aid in increasing the likelihood. Face it. In each family tree somebody arises as the first to hold with the faith. And if we follow the line from that point, there’s a pretty solid likelihood we will find those who did not together with those who did.
The most surprising thing to me as regards infant baptism is the vehemence with which its supporters would oppose believers’ baptism as a practice for those baptized as infants. If, as is generally accepted, baptism is a public confession of faith possessed, why would the one baptized in infancy avail himself of the opportunity to make such glad proclamation? And why, if this is the desire, would any deny him opportunity to do so?
I am not, in general, a fan of rebaptism, and in large part because I think those that seek to undergo such a rebaptism are not doing so to seal a faith that had perhaps lapsed for a time, nor do they do so with any real sense of the deeper significance of the act. Rather it tends to be a case of seeking some emotional satisfaction or participating in a grander setting. I think of friends from earlier years who felt that as they were going to Israel, they simply had to experience baptism there. But why? The Jordan is nothing special in that regard. The location is not the point. Think of that gentleman Andrew baptized in what was little more than a roadside puddle. Was he any less baptized for the choice of that puddle? Clearly not. Is it somehow more or less symbolic and effective to be baptized in a baptismal than in a pond? No. Baptism isn’t about setting or particulars of the experience. Baptism is about the reality of the faith it symbolizes. It’s about identification with Christ both in His humiliation and in His exaltation. It’s about the glorious realization that faith has come, sin has been dealt with, and our future inheritance has been secured for us in heaven. It is something of a first sound confession that Jesus has laid hold of us, that we are no longer who we were, but have become a new creature with new habits and fully possessed of new life, and glory to God for it.
Does it rightly serve as a door unto membership in the visible church? That is, I think, a much harder question, particularly for those of us of a Baptist persuasion. If the act is purely symbolic, and has no salvific value, on what basis do we make it a prerequisite for membership? Would we hold that one who has not, for some reason, been baptized at all is on that basis not a believer? I would hope not! That places far too much weight on baptism, and in effect rejects the sufficiency of Christ. This is likely a point of departure for me from the standards of Baptist faith. I just cannot see how the understanding of baptism as a symbolic action can reasonably coexist with an insistence that apart from baptism we cannot trust your claim of faith. Yes, I get that it’s a step of obedience to Christ, but what other step of obedience would we demand had been taken before we would accept that one is a true Christian? Do we insist on perfect turning from sin? Clearly not. Do we require that communion has been taken? Perhaps, but I don’t think so. It would be strange, admittedly, to have a believer who refused to partake of communion, but I’m not sure we should account it cause to refuse fellowship. Maybe we should. I need to think about that one more.
As to my own beliefs, I suppose they are clear enough from what I have written. I would hold to believers’ baptism as the normative, symbolic practice of the church – expected, but not necessarily demanded of all who would claim belief in Christ. I would not, I think, reject such claim on the basis of baptism being found lacking or improperly applied. For I hold that the act is one of obedience, and fully symbolic in nature, having no salvific value, and therefore no direct bearing on one’s status as saved by grace alone.
f. Sanctification
[07/12/20]
How apt that Spurgeon’s morning thought for this day centers on the matter of sanctification, observing the united work of the Triune Godhead in this process. What is sanctification? It is the process of purification, of establishing true holiness in those whom God has saved. In one sense this is spoken of as being particularly the work of the Spirit, spanning the time between salvation and translation. But in truth, it is the work of Father, Son, and Spirit alike. Spurgeon notes three phrasings in regard to sanctification, Jude 1, 1Corinthians 1:2, and 1Peter 1:2, which between them attribute sanctification to all three Persons: By (en) the Father, in (en) Christ Jesus, and of the Spirit (pneumatos). I note that in the case of Jude, there is question whether he speaks of sanctification or being beloved by the Father. Observing the three clauses, I don’t think we need put much significance in the seeming variety of preposition, for in at least the first two cases they are in fact identical, even though they appear distinct in translation.
It is probably more of use to consider the word sanctification itself, hagiazo, with the sense of making holy, purifying, consecrating. Indeed, I think the last aspect of consecration explains the remainder of the definition. To be consecrated is to be set aside for God’s exclusive use, to be wholly and entirely His. Here is a quite thorough relegating of one’s volition to that which the Lord would have done. But if we are to be wholly and utterly His, then it is necessary that we become wholly and utterly holy, entirely pure, no last vestige of sin remaining. God is holy. Holiness is of His essence, and being holy, He cannot (read as will not) endure sin in His presence.
Here, I admit I am in a state of constant quandary, for I know that God indwells my person, and yet I know I am yet far too sinful for Him to be tolerant of my presence. How can this be? It is a wonder, isn’t it? I should be utterly destroyed by such a reality and yet I am clearly not. I remain standing here this morning to contemplate the shocking wonder of that fact. I can only appeal to the reality that God sees the end from the beginning. No, that’s not a strong enough statement of the point. “Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure’” (Isa 46:9-10). This is who we’re dealing with, and this is how He is dealing with us. “Listen to Me, you stubborn minded, who are far from righteousness. I bring near My righteousness, it is not far off; and My salvation will not delay. I will grant salvation in Zion, and My glory for Israel” (Isa 46:12-13). I may as well allow verse 11 as well. “Calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of My purpose from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it” (Isa 46:11). The power of that proclamation is marvelous, and what does it proclaim? It proclaims a certainty of salvation on this basis: “I will bring it to pass.” What is the assurance of this? “I have spoken.”
This is the God who has chosen to indwell the believer. He has spoken, and having spoken will assuredly bring it to pass. We are discussing hope, yes? Well, here is firm foundation for hope indeed! God has said it. God will do it. That doesn’t excuse us of taking active part in the process, but it is comfort indeed as we encounter the myriad points of stumbling along the way. The end result is not dependent on our successfully learning to do on our own. We remain, sadly, far from righteousness. But we are drawn closer day by day, because it is not, in the end, our effort but His own that ensures success. It is because of the certainty of success, and because He already observes the finished outcome even as He works upon us day by day, that God can abide in us. I think, perhaps, we are brought back to the reality that God dwells beyond time. Beginning and end are one with Him, and thus, this process in the middle is also one. Somehow, in a fashion not fully comprehensible to us in our temporal finitude, beginning, middle, and end are experienced as one event. God dwells in our finished product even as He works upon the mess that is our restoration.
Here, I find cause to consider our own situation in light of a series of shows my wife and I have been watching of late, which follow the efforts of folks who have undertaken to restore various historical buildings around Great Britain. These buildings just barely qualify as buildings anymore. The bones of the structure are rotten, the roof often near to missing. Many a time the effort to restore comes near to simply rebuilding. Beams must be replaced, foundations reestablished. We see cases where the house is, for a time, little more than a vacant frame, and even that frame is being heavily redone because everything is rotten. Is this not an apt depiction of our state here in this life?
God comes to us and finds us rotten within and without. Everything is in ruins. Whatever majesty and splendor may have been at one time has long since given way to the depredations of time and sin. There is mold on our walls, dry rot in our bones, mud in our cellars and gaping holes in our roofs. We are a mess, and anybody with any sense would look upon us as a lost cause. But God has declared the end from the beginning, and has declared, “the latter glory of this house will be greater than the former” (Hag 2:9a). This is captured in the spirit of these folks who undertake to preserve a bit of English history rather than simply tear it down and build something new. In each case, we observe folks undertaking a project that ought rightly to be far beyond their capacity. The expense will almost surely be far and away beyond estimates. The time required will be at least double expectations. It will come near to breaking them, if it does not in fact do so in some way or other. It is not a task for the faint of heart or the doubtful of cause. But take that mindset and come back to this business of sanctification, and you have a sense of what God is up to in us.
The cost of our sanctification is exorbitant. It has cost Him the life of His own Son. Blood has been shed that we might be cleansed, and not the blood of bulls and lambs, but the blood of Christ, the very Son of God. For our sake, He came and dwelt a man among men, born into a family of no consequence in the backwoods of Israel, amongst a people despised by their own countrymen, and seen as corrupted by the Gentiles amongst whom they dwelt. He was construed as an illegitimate child, and mocked as such, yet no child was ever more legitimate. He was, per Isaiah’s prophecy, despised and rejected by men, by the very ones He had come to save. “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him” (Jn 1:11). But rejoice! “But to as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn 1:12-13). Feel the force of that! Man didn’t do it. You didn’t will it. God achieved it. It’s true of salvation. It’s true of sanctification. He came down, humbled Himself, became a man of no means that He might, by means of His own perfect obedience, provide for us the righteousness we could in no wise obtain.
In this sense we see that sanctification is in fact already completed. “It is finished!” Yet, as I say, this view requires a being outside of time to properly perceive it. And we are not, as yet, beings outside of time. We observe and participate in the ongoing work of our own sanctification as beings firmly within the flow of time. We experience it as a progression of events. Paul’s observation resonates with us. “We do not lose heart, for though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day” (2Co 4:16). Recognize the reality of this, if you don’t already. This body is not going to make it to eternity. But this body, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t matter. It is not a thing to be despised, but neither is it a fit thing to be cherished. We care for it as a gift from God, but we don’t make it the center of our existence, for it is not fit for such duty. It is a tent, as Paul proceeds to describe it, and “If the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2Co 5:1). This house can’t cope with heaven. It needs a new body, and that new body, per the biblical timeline, shall not be had until that moment when Christ returns, the trump resounds, and the dead in Christ shall rise.
What, then, shall we make of these sects which promote the idea of perfect health and permanence in the here and now? I should have to say we make of them an utter heresy, and recognize in their perverse focus on this temporal plane a thoroughgoing misdirection. What does Scripture urge upon us? “If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Col 3:1-2). This body, marvelously constructed though it is, ain’t the point. Health and wealth in the here and now ain’t the point. Demands for perfect justice and equity in the here and now ain’t the point. That doesn’t require that we despise the body and seek a life of pure spirituality. That’s beyond us in the first place, and not of any great benefit in the second. That doesn’t require that we renounce all possessions and walk the earth as spiritual hobos. Neither does it require us, nor even permit us to ignore iniquity and give no thought to justice. But it does require that we recognize that so long as life persists in this temporal plane, it will be rife with corruptions. This body will fail. Health and wealth will, in due course, betray us. Inequities will arise. “The poor you will always have with you” (Mt 26:11a). That’s not an excuse to ignore their plight, but it ought to caution us, I should think, against thinking we’re going to solve the unsolvable issue.
We are contemplating sanctification, the ongoing work of God upon the lives of the redeemed. We have been saved but not perfected, and that, dear ones, shall be our case so long as life and breath remain in us. If God should be pleased to make this the generation that lives to walk the earth on the day of His return, still it will remain the case for us. In that moment of His arrival, whether the trumpet calls us from the grave or from our beds or wherever we may be, the fact remains that this mortal body will die. The immortal soul will be united with a new, resurrection body. Will that body be recognizable to those who knew the old? There is a sense that this may be the case. We see those occasions when Jesus was recognized as being Jesus. The holes in His hands and side remained. But then, we also see occasions where He was not recognized at all. Is this simply because the vision of those with Him was somehow clouded, or overlaid with illusion? Or is this because this resurrection body of which He is possessed is not so restricted in form as the current model? Face it, a body that can choose to ignore walls and locked doors and yet can partake of food is not something we can really grasp mentally. It’s not within our scope of experience.
But I drift from my point. The process of sanctification finds its completion not in the course of this life, but in that moment when we see Him face to face as He truly is. “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is” (1Jn 3:2). And here is the reason we pursue our sanctification. “And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (1Jn 3:3). We practice righteousness because we know He is righteous, and we know that in due course we shall indeed stand before Him, seeing Him just as He is. This is our certain hope, a hope fixed on Him. We do not purify ourselves in the desperate desire of avoiding annihilation by His presence, but rather, for love of that future day. We seek to walk worthy of Him Who died for us, not because we fear rejection otherwise, but because our love for Him is so great that no desire compares with our desire to be such as are pleasing to Him. We seek to do Him honor by living in such a way as reflects that which He is doing in us. We fail at it often and miserably, but we seek to do it all the more for having failed. We do not give up hope because we have stumbled once again, but we arise and lay hold of Christ all the more, knowing that in Him and in Him alone do we have hope of final victory, final sanctification.
[07/13/20]
So, then, we have sanctification as that process in which God makes the saint truly holy, purifying him of all sin and bringing him into all obedience. This work, just as salvation, is wholly dependent upon God for its progress as well as its completion. Jesus’ words, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5b) still apply. But here there is something of a distinction to be made, and that distinction lies in our involvement in the process. Sanctification cannot happen without Him. It will not happen without us. We come to labor alongside our Lord, as the setting of that notice from our Lord might suggest. “He who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit” (Jn 15:5a). That fruitfulness is tied in with our sanctification. The process of sanctification, as I have observed, is one of making us holy, which is a part of being consecrated to God’s exclusive use. If we are in fact being used of God, then we are bearing fruit. If we are not bearing fruit, we are not useful to God. Note the end result. “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch, and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned” (Jn 15:6). Sometimes I marvel that John is thought of as the apostle of love, for he includes some of the sternest warnings in his gospel; warnings the others did not see fit to note.
But we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession (1Pe 2:9a). This is particularly wonderful for those of us of whom it was once said we were not a people at all (1Pe 2:10). But now, we are engrafted into the very vineyard of God, or the olive grove, which is at least as wonderful (Ro 11:17). We are here to bear fruit for our Lord, the owner of the vineyard, the vine of which we are now made a branch. This happens, as I say, by His work if it happens at all. But it also involves our own involvement, our own effort and pursuit of that course of holiness which He has set. Consider the many parables regarding vineyards and harvest and the like, and it should swiftly become clear that the life of the Christian, as wholly as it depends upon Christ, is never a passive acceding to fate. It is a partnership actively entered into; one in which, to be sure, we are the lesser partner by far, but a partnership nonetheless. God wills that we pursue our part in the process of our own sanctification.
“So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Php 2:12-13). The second verse there is one of my most oft-quoted passages from Scripture, and the first verse without the second would be a most daunting bit of instruction. Work out my salvation? I couldn’t even begin the thing and now you’re telling me to get on with completing it? My hopes are dashed to earth and shattered. I am on my own after all, and even given so grand a start as I have in Christ, I am found dashed up against the rocks at the end. But this is not where we are left, nor is our salvation left hanging on a doubtful thread of obedience. That is not the point. Salvation, even as it obtains mention in this verse, remains a done deal, sealed on our behalf on the Cross, decreed and accomplished by God. The working out here has an eye to what must surely flow from that accomplished work in us. It looks to the life of the branch that abides in the vine of Christ. It looks to the life of a fruitful, growing Christian, and stirs us to take up our part in the process.
The branch never loses its dependence on the Vine, but the branch does, if you watch your houseplants at all, make its way to the window, in order that it may have greater benefit of the Light. It will cast about, if it’s an ivy, for a new place to grab onto, in order to grow further. If you’ve never had opportunity to watch some of those slow-motion videos of houseplants during the course of the day, you should do so. They are not the passive things you take them to be. They are quite active, actually, and seeking the light, seeking nutrients, seeking growth. Learn from their example and become an active player in the work of sanctification, that which works out from your salvation.
What does this look like? Well, to be sure, it has a component of battling with sin. Look at the call given us over and over again. “Since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:1-2). Look at the encouragement being built upon in that passage! The author has just noted those who endured shocking trials, death and dismemberment, and most foul treatment, but held fast their salvation, held fast their integrity and remained on the course of sanctification. They have faced far worse than you or I are likely to face, and they persevered. They remained attached to the Vine, and those to whom the author directs our attention had not the benefit of a historical Jesus as we have. They could only look forward in hope of the unseen. We look forward from the confidence of victory already achieved in Christ. How to respond? Run the race to win! Lay aside anything in life which is become a dragging weight on your progress, anything which detracts from this process of sanctification which is the race.
Recognize the entangling nature of sin, both the temptations to occasional sin, and what we might deem a besetting sin, that thing that it seems we never quite eliminate. We all know such sins, I think, especially if we have come through some of the darker alleys of life. If you are one of those fortunate enough to have been raised in a godly household, and so early come to faith as to have no real recollection of a life apart from Christ, then God bless you, sir! But for the most of us, the experience is different. We have had a fair part of a lifetime to become entirely too proficient in sin, and to develop habits that do not so easily shatter away from us. We may know victory over them for a season only to discover they have risen up again while our thoughts were focused elsewhere. They are a hidden poison that infiltrates our veins until suddenly those sins burst forth again in full bloom and we may find cause to question our status as believers.
But this is not cause to doubt salvation, not in the least. Indeed, as my last pastor often observed, the fact that it concerns you is already evidence in your favor. If you had in fact proven reprobate, then your concession to sin would hardly be a matter of thought, let alone concern. But you do care. You do recognize the wrong of it and cry for failing yet again. You would gladly be shot of this entangling, besetting sin, but here it is again, and here you are again, and once more, if wisdom remains, you are crying out to God for help again. And that cry is not one of hopelessness, but one of assurance. “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him” (Ro 8:15-17). Do you hear the promise in that? We cry out to God our Father because we know He is our Father. He has adopted us, and He will assuredly come to our aid. Dad, I screwed up again. I can’t seem to shake it, but I would be like You. Would you help me, Father? Abba! Show me how to be rid of this, that I may indeed glorify You by my life reflecting You.
g. Perfection
[07/14/20]
This brings us to the matter of perfection. Perfection is of the very substance of hope in us, for it remains, so long as this present life persists, a thing unseen. The demand of the Law always was and always is perfect compliance. There is no place for even the least infraction if one would know heaven as one’s eternal home. God being pure and holy simply cannot and will not abide the presence of sin or sin’s outworkings in His abode. This understanding informed the Pharisees, among others, as they sought to comply by main strength. At their most earnest, they indeed had noble intentions, if somewhat misguided. They were sure that if they just set the boundaries a bit farther back than the absolute requirements established by God, they could avoid violating the true boundaries. They were wrong, but they were trying so hard to be right with God.
There came the Man, Christ Jesus, perfect in obedience, as had been no other before Him nor has there been another since. Nor, for that matter, shall there be any such. He had the inestimable advantage of being God. That did not cease in His incarnation. Yes, He was fully man, as He must be for His obedience to matter in the least as applies to our own case. But He was also, is also God – fully God. Paul informs us that He humbled Himself, emptied Himself. “Although He existed in the form of God, [He] did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Php 2:6-8).
Understand what is happening here. Paul is not suggesting, as various heretical movements through the ages have insisted, that Jesus only appeared to be a man; that He had the look, but was in fact something other. If that had been the case, His obedience could have no salvific value for man. Neither is Paul suggesting that He ceased being God for the duration of His Incarnation. For one, God simply cannot cease to be God, for God is unchanging. We established that back at the start of this whole exercise. When we address the nature of God, one of the first things we observe is that for God to be God, He must be unchangeably so. Those things that define His essential being are not subject to dismissal on even the most temporary basis. If they were, we should have a being most thoroughly capricious and utterly unreliable. We should never know what to expect of Him or what He might expect of us at the moment. Jesus did not, then, cease to be God in coming to dwell as a man among men. Here, too, it must be noted that were this not so, His obedience could have no application to our own situation. But Paul’s statement supports neither a man in appearance only, or a man because godhood has been left behind in heaven. He presents us with the God-Man, with Jesus fully man and fully God at one and the same time.
Look closely. It is equality with God that He set aside. It is a question of prerogative and relationship. Being fully God, Jesus is one unanswerable to any outside agency. Again, this is something we established from the outset. God, to be God, can have no dependency, no outside cause to which He must comply. This holds as to the distinct Persons of this one God, as well. They are, by essential nature, equal in every way. They are equally unbeholden to any but God Himself, and they are God Himself. As ever, rules of language become a problem when trying to address matters of the Triune Godhead, but hopefully not so great a problem as to obscure the point.
The message here, as it applies to the subject at hand, is that perfect compliance to the demands of God’s holy Law is something entirely beyond our capacity. It has been since the Fall, and I have to insist that, given the reality of the Fall, it was beyond our capacity from the dawn of creation. Adam was no more able than are we. Had he been able to comply, we can reasonably accept that he would have complied. The whole business of redemption would have been entirely unnecessary, the whole arc of history something entirely different. There would be no Savior come to rescue man from sin, for there would be no sin requiring such rescue. But that is quite evidently not the case, and Adam was not created with accidental imperfections any more than our imperfections come as an accident or an oversight on God’s part. Rather, while we remain morally culpable for our every failing, the whole process is entirely in keeping with God’s perfect plan in Creation.
Perfection, both its requirement and its achievement, is also part of this perfect plan. God is perfect, and even in the New Testament we observe the demands this makes of us, who are His children. Hear it from the lips of our Master. “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). Nothing has changed in this regard. The Mosaic Law required perfect obedience. Before there was a Mosaic Law, still there was a requirement for perfect obedience. Now, abiding under the Law of Love by God’s grace, the same requirement holds. The biggest problem we face, or at least one of the biggest, is this insistent thought that somehow we are yet able to obey perfectly. After all, we have the Holy Spirit indwelling; we have the abiding presence of Christ Himself. Surely, this ought to mean we can and should walk in perfection in the here and now. But just as surely, it doesn’t, else we should find plentiful examples of those who have gone forward perfectly before us. Good luck with that.
Honestly, if this were the reality of our faith, we should all of us be crushed by utmost despair. For all of us, having come to faith by the grace of God are, or at least should be, painfully aware of sins that have transpired in our lives in the years since. It’s not as if we’re alone in that anguish. Paul felt it, and spent a goodly portion of the book of Romans discussing that reality. He was a man at war with himself, which is the reality of every self-aware Christian. “For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate” (Ro 8:15). “I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. 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! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin” (Ro 8:21-25).
Our hope is not, cannot be, in our own perfect obedience. But our hope does know with certainty that we shall be made perfect. We know with certainty that the perfection of this Man, Jesus Christ our Lord has saved us from our sinful present. “And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation” (Heb 5:9). Oh dear. There remains that matter of obedience. There remains some sort of Law. But as this same author observes, “The Law made nothing perfect” (Heb 7:19). It needs something more. It needs the eternal High Priest, our Jesus, atoning for our sins and obtaining for us the pardon for sin. But even that would only suffice for this life if that were the sum of it. For we could not handle even that last moment of earthly life without once more managing to sin against a holy God and thus making ourselves unfit for God’s heaven. We know, if we have a bit of self-awareness, that as we are at present, we remain an unfinished work. But we know this, as well: “When the perfect comes, the partial will be done away” (1Co 13:10).
Now, that passage comes in discussion of the spiritual gifts that so intrigued the church in Corinth, and continue to intrigue to this day. It is interesting that last night I was reading a bit of a defense of the cessationist position by one who had come from a background similar to my own and is now prominent in the ministry of Ligonier Ministries. He points, as a proper Reformed minister surely will, to the opening message of Hebrews, with its note of finality as to the revelation of God provided in Jesus’ life and message, as clearly marking an end to revelation, and therefore an end to those revelatory gifts such as tongues and prophecy. And yet, here is this message in 1Corinthians that certainly suggests that the endpoint for these gifts depends on the coming of the perfect. What shall we make of that?
If it be taken that this perfect is the same perfection as the author of Hebrews indicates in speaking of the finality of revelation in Christ, then one has to wonder why Paul is even making the least allowance for these gifts. After all, even if we grant that the finality of revelation encompasses the work of the Apostles in explaining faith, that gives us no cause to expect such gifts to be operating in Corinth, nor does it give Paul any cause to be trying to establish a framework for their proper exercise. Yet, that is exactly what he does. He doesn’t simply tell the Corinthians to knock it off, which might have been more helpful if they were to cease so soon. He doesn’t suggest that these gifts are in fact evidence of corrupting influences on their faith, as so many other practices in that church were. He simply works to set things in right order, to correct the Corinthians’ perceptions and priorities, and to note along the way that these gifts are in fact temporary. The question is when do they cease, and that, he says, comes with the coming of the perfect.
The perfect what? If this is taken to be the perfect God-Man in His Incarnation, then we have a nonsense statement, because He has already come, already ministered, already obeyed perfectly, and already ascended back into heaven. If this is taken with the scope of Hebrews in mind, and includes the written record of the Apostles, letters such as the very one containing this message, then again, I have to wonder why he would expend even a paragraph to the topic and not simply shut it all down as an unnecessary distraction from the real business of faith. But if the perfect addresses a time of our own perfection, a point at which the need for tongues as a bridge between men of different languages or the need for some guidance as to future events due to our temporally limited perspective, such as we might expect from prophecy, then continuance of the gifts makes sense.
The author I noted as addressing this topic suggests that it is in fact impossible to have a coherent, cohesive view of faith that holds to Reformed theology and yet admits of the continuance of these gifts. I am unconvinced that this is so. It seems to me that the fundamental issue lies in understanding the true nature of those gifts and their continued application. If one wishes to argue that the possibility of new revelation is cut off by Scripture, I would fully concur, given a proper definition of revelation. If we are discussing matters of the knowledge of God, His nature, our nature, His requirements of us and His provision for our salvation, then we are in firm agreement. But tongues are not necessarily a revelatory gift, are they? Nor is prophecy always revelatory on that level. The message Agabus delivered to Paul was revelatory, but not on any salvific scale. It was merely a heads up on what lay ahead. It allowed Paul to be prepared for the trials ahead, forewarned not as a call to turn aside, but as a comfort, knowing that God was well aware of events and in fact orchestrating them for His good purpose.
On this level, I find absolutely no conflict in holding that the gifts remain active. The trouble, I think, lies more in our understanding of what those gifts are in real practice, and a general disinterest, sadly, on the part of those who hold with such gifts, to discern what is real and legitimate and what is distracting counterfeit. Yes, I know ministries that at least make an attempt at such discernment, but the trouble is that we, much like the Corinthians before us, tend to became too enamored of the wonderment to be bothered with discernment. We rather like the show, the pride of being thus used by God to deliver a message. It somehow eludes us that the quiet delivery of God’s message by means of His Word is just as powerful if not as showy. And therefore, we become dismissive of simple preaching in favor of atmospherics. That’s a problem, but the problem is not with the gifts in their continuance. The problem is with sin in its continuance in us.
Perfection has not been achieved, and neither the absence of gifts nor the presence of gifts alters that fact in the least. The Law did not make perfect (Heb 7:19), and neither did the gifts. The perfect has not come, not to us, certainly. We remain imperfect works and well we know it. But we also know that perfection will come. There will come a time when such gifts are no longer needed because we will know as we have been known – perfectly and in full. “We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is” (1Jn 3:2b). And we know that this has not yet appeared as the case. There, dear ones, is the coming of the perfect. There is the moment in view when gifts shall cease because they are utterly unnecessary. In the meantime, we practice righteousness, but we don’t despair when we discover that further practice is clearly needed.
Perfection will come. We know that. There is hope in fullest expression. We know it is not our present experience, but we also know that it is our firm and present promise, made certain in Christ Jesus, our Author and Perfecter. “Having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation” (Heb 5:9). “And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen” (1Pe 5:10-11). Do you see it? He will do it. There’s no other way it’s getting done. Even that obedience that is needful, He causes to transpire in us. He is at work in us, both to will and to work (Php 2:12). Yes, we are, as best we may, working alongside Him, but our hope is not in our compliance, else we are hopeless indeed. Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. He, the Author and Perfecter of our faith has begun the work in us, and He will assuredly complete it, for it is His work, His will, His decree.
