I've heard it said that Jesus came to die, but only those who deny themselves, and identify with Him in cross-bearing, are the ones who receive his salvation.
The gospel: How unconditional should it be?
Audio: 2 min. 47 sec. (If audio does not show, click on the individual post title.)
Who is this God with whom we have to do? And what manner of God is He? Is He a God who comes to sinners lost and broken, and brings to them conditions by which they may be saved? Or is He a God who deals with men on the basis of free, unmerited, unearned grace?
You see the Pharisees preached that men could be saved if they met conditions. And Jesus preached that He would save those who could meet no conditions. Jesus' message was, "oh every one who thirsts come to the waters". And he who has no money, come buy and eat, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Unconditional grace from an unconditional God.
You see, what had happened amongst these men, in the early decades of the 18th century, was this ... They had mastered the pattern by which grace works. They knew their confession of faith forwards and backwards and upside-down. And yet while they were familiar with the pattern by which grace works, and had mastered it, they had never really been mastered by the grace of God in the gospel, in their hearts.
Why is that so significant for us in the pastoral ministry? ... For this reason ... Because men who have only a conditional offer of the gospel will have only a conditional gospel. The man who has only a conditional gospel knows only conditional grace. And the man who knows only conditional grace knows only a conditional God. And the man who has only a conditional God will have a conditional ministry to his fellow man. And at the end of the day he will only be able to give his heart, and his life, and his time, and his devotion to his people on condition.
And he will love and master the truths of the great doctrines of grace, but until grace in God himself masters him, the grace that has mastered him will never flow from him to his people.
It has always been a danger in reformed thinking and preaching that we express the gospel in such a way that men have to merit grace by a degree of conviction experience. At the end of the day that is to make the offer of Christ conditional. When Christ bids all men to come and believe in Him freely and fully.
In His gracious providence God mightily uses conviction of sin in various ways and to various degrees to bring men and women to His Son. But He never bids us to go to preach conviction of sin as the warrant of faith. He bids us go and freely offer Jesus Christ and all His sufficiency as the warranty of faith to any man to come and bow before Him as a suppliant penitent, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Conviction of sin is never a condition for the free offer of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
--Sinclair Ferguson
As [Paul] describes our dead condition before conversion, he realizes that dead people can’t meet conditions. If they are to live, there must be a totally unconditional and utterly free act of God to save them. This freedom is the very heart of grace.
What act could be more one-sidedly free and non-negotiated than one person raising another from the dead! This is the meaning of grace.
"But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first."
(Rev. 2:4)
What was it that fueled our first love?
If we lose the first love we will find ourselves in serious spiritual peril.
Sometimes we make the mistake of substituting other things for it. We become active in the service of God ecclesiastically; we become active evangelistically and in the process measure spiritual strength in terms of increasing influence. But no position, influence, or involvement can expel love for the world from our hearts. Indeed, they may be expressions of that very love.
Others of us make the mistake of substituting the rules of piety for loving affection for God. Such disciplines have an air of sanctity about them, but in fact they have no power to restrain the love of the world. The root of the matter is in my heart.
It is all too possible, in these different ways, to have the form of genuine godliness without its power. Only love for Christ, with all that it implies, can squeeze out the love of this world.
How can we recover a new affection for Christ and his kingdom? What was it that created that first love in any case? Do you remember? It was our discovery of Christ’s grace in the realization of our own sin.
Forgiven much, we loved much. We rejoiced in the hope of glory, in suffering, even in God himself. Christ, grace, Scripture, prayer, fellowship, service, living for the glory of God ... all filled our vision and seemed so large, so desirable that other things by comparison seemed to shrink in size and become bland to the taste.
The way in which we maintain “the expulsive power of a new affection” is the same as the way we first discovered it. Only when grace is still “amazing” to us does it retain its power in us. Only as we retain a sense of our own profound sinfulness can we retain a sense of the graciousness of grace.
And there is no right living that lasts without it.
The law comes with the power of coercion, it comes with the power of fear, and of punishment. And it says essentiall this:
Do these things and you will live. So in other words, if you will: Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you will live.
But never in a million years can mere external force, mere commandment, produce that. The gospel comes along different (gospel means good news), and it says not, do these things and live, but it comes along totally free, totally unilateral and says:
Done! ... Now you will be able to live.
[But] we are very uncomfortable with the freeness of that gospel of grace. But unless you get that freeness, you'll never be able to understand the power the gospel. You'll never be able to understand the power of love.
I'm just reading [Chalmer's] here: The freer the gospel, the more sanctifying is the gospel. And the more that it is received as a doctrine of grace, the more that it will be felt as a doctrine according to godliness. This is one of the secrets of the christian life.
What he means by secret is that this is absolutely, utterly counter-intuitive. You would think that the more the gospel came at you and said:
You better do these things. You better be a godly person. You better start obeying the law.
The more you would be motivated to do it. [For] Chalmers, [he's] right on. He's right in line with Paul. He says, "No". It's the exact opposite of that. The freer the gospel, the more sanctifying its force. The more gracious the gospel, the more a power for godliness it is in our life. In the gospel (he goes on), we so behold God, as we may love God. It is there, and there only, where God stands revealed as an object of confidence to sinners. And where our desire after Him is not chilled into apathy by the barrier of human guilt. For this purpose the freer it is the better it is.
That very peculiararity, which so many dread as the germ of antinomianism, that is, lawlessness ... You know, that idea where we can preach grace, we can preach the grace of the gospel, but you still need to tell people [that] they've got to be good people, or ... you won't be as good a christian as other christians if you're not (you know) living up to all these standards and keeping up with all these things.
... and Chalmer's says, "No, Absolutely not". We know of no other way by which to keep the love of the world out of our hearts than to keep in our hearts the love of God. And there's no other way by which to keep our hearts in the love of God than by building ourselves on the gospel of grace.
You can't even begin to really obey the law until you have no fear of punishment from the law. Listen to John, in 1st John 4: By this love is perfected in us, so that we may confidence in the day of judgement. Confidence in the day of judgement!? What could be more terrifying than standing before all mighty God as the judge of the universe who knows, not only the things that you've done externally, but your thoughts?
[John] says: There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears has not been perfected in love. (And then he says). We love BECAUSE He first loved us. You see? There's the power of love.
There are those who are astonished at grace and those who are not.
Both would agree that we have continuing struggles with sin.
Both would agree that Jesus has died for our sins.
But the non-astonished seem to think that the important end-game, the goal of being Christian, is to be more successful at keeping the law. If there is grace, it is to produce this success under the law. And the presence and gift of the Holy Spirit is a means to this end. In the end, it's a new way to win at the old game.
On the other hand, astonishment dawns on us when we realize that the blood of Jesus has won the old game completely. Instead of saying that the blood of Christ is the beginning of our entry into righteous living, we say that we have been declared completely and eternally righteous.
Audio: 1 min. 38 sec. (If audio does not show, click on the individual post title.)
...That other voice, which says, "you know faith just isn't enough." Trusting in Christ alone, it's just not enough. After all, how are you behaving?
And I'm so uncertain and insecure... that I have to do something to give myself some assurance that I'm at least trying to compensate for myself.
That's the trap, you see. And that's what these other preachers were saying to the Galations...
You've got to demonstrate faithfulness in specific deeds and actions. Faith alone is not enough. Confidence and trust in what God has said about me is replaced by how I feel about myself and how I measure my own performance.
Now this is epidemic, and it always has been, in the church...
Are you sure you're living a christian life the way you should? I mean your salvation's at stake here. Are you sure that you're living a godly life in every way you ought to be, in what you think and what you say and what you do? Are you sure?
Well I don't know, maybe I'm not. Let me start looking inside myself ... And there you go. You see, you've taken your eyes off of Christ, and now the focus is on me, and my performance ... And Paul got wind of this ... and ohh boy... Paul opens up the shot-gun, loads both barrels, and blasts away at them.
Audio: 3 min. (If audio does not show, click on the individual post title.)
Noah walked with God. Why did Noah walk with God?, because God had mercy on Noah.
What I want you to see is how profound this mercy is.
We tend to think of mercy, we tend to think of forgiveness, we tend to think of grace as God kind of winking at our sin, sweeping it under the rug. That's not at all the picture that you have here of God's grace.
But this mercy, and this grace, this salvation comes through judgment. Noah wasn't saved from the flood, he was saved through the flood. He wasn't saved from the judgment, he was saved through the judgment.
Our salvation always comes, not apart from judgment, but through judgment. And in the midst of judgment God protects us. How does He do it? He does it with an ark, doesn't he? He does it with an ark, and as the judgment comes, the ark rises above the water.
"Ark" is an old English term that actually means "box". It's not an original Hebrew word, it's an Egyptian word. And what does this Egyptian word mean? It means "coffin". God says to Noah, I want you to build me a box, and I want you to get in that box and I'm going to seal you in there, the very symbol of death. And when the judgment comes, that death will rise above the other death. When the judgment comes you will rise above the judgment.
My friends, do you see who's in view here? This is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. What does it mean to be a christian? I means to be in the death of Jesus Christ. And then as the judgment comes on Jesus Christ ... what happened to Him on the cross?, He was judged by God for your sin and my sin, and we were in Him, just as Noah is in the ark. And when the judgment came, and it came down hard, where He cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me." What happens? He rises from the dead.
What does it mean to be a christian? It means that you are in Him. My friend, if you are a christian, you are in the ark. And no matter what comes, it could be a judgment that takes down the entire world, you will rise above. Not because of yourself but because of the favor of God, the grace and mercy of God. Because of the ark, because of Jesus Christ, because of the cross, because of His resurrection.
Our tendency is to try to do something in order to save ourselves; but we must beat that tendency down, and look away from self to Christ. Labour to get away from your own labours; labour to be clean rid of all self-reliance; labour in your prayers never to depend upon your prayers; labour in your repentance never to rest upon your repentance; and labour in your faith not to trust your faith, but to trust alone to Jesus.
When you begin to rest upon your repentance, and forget the Saviour, away with your repentance; and when you begin to pray, and you depend upon your prayers, and forget the Lord Jesus, away with your prayers. When you think you are beginning to grow in grace, and you feel, “Now I am somebody,” away with such spurious growth as that, for you are only being puffed up with pride, and not really growing at all. Labour not to labour; labour to keep down your natural self-righteousness and self-reliance; labour to continue where the publican was, and cry, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”
--Charles Spurgeon,“The Believer’s Present Rest,” June 6, 1873, in Spurgeon’s Expository Encyclopedia, 13:176
Our faith is a person; the gospel that we have to preach is a person; and go wherever we may, we have something solid and tangible to preach, for our gospel is a person. If you had asked the twelve Apostles in their day, ‘What do you believe in?’ they would not have stopped to go round about with a long sermon, but they would have pointed to their Master and they would have said, ‘We believe him.’ ‘But what are your doctrines?’ ‘There they stand incarnate.’ ‘But what is your practice?’ ‘There stands our practice. He is our example.’ ‘What then do you believe?’ Hear the glorious answer of the Apostle Paul, ‘We preach Christ crucified.’ Our creed, our body of divinity, our whole theology is summed up in the person of Christ Jesus.
--C. H. Spurgeon, in Lectures Delivered before the Young Men’s Christian Association in Exeter Hall 1858-1859 (London, 1859), pages 159-160.
Audio: 3 minutes. (If audio does not show, click on the individual post title.)
What's wrong with the picture? It's a very dangerous picture. Because the picture puts the law at the center and makes Christ the servant of the law, instead of putting Christ at the center and making the law the servant of Christ. Such a delicate difference here. Try to get with me here.
Put it in other words: The picture makes the law the goal of our being in Christ instead of making our being in Christ the goal of the law. And the danger here is that we may want to get into this house, this house of law, this house of commandments. And once we get in be so thankful (thank you Jesus, thank you) and leave Him at the door, while we move from room to room using the keys He gave us. And we say, "We finally got the law. We got where we wanted to be. We figured out the real meaning of the law. And now I can do the law. (Thank you Jesus, by the way, thank you.)"
There's something wrong there. There's something deeply, deeply wrong there. Oh how easy for us to come so close to getting the Christian life right. Newness of the Spirit, not oldness of the letter. Christ, not law. And then fall right back into the old legal way, with Christ as the new list giver! Or the one who gave us the key to all the rooms in the house so that we can enjoy the law. Doing the law, finally I can do the law. And He's out there, He's out there at the door.
I don't think that's what verse 4 means, here in our text. Die to the law, it says, so that we can belong to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead. I don't think that verse means die to the law so that you can belong to the one who will cause you to now belong to the law. That verse does not mean die to the law so that you can belong to Him who can figure out the law, and give you the keys to the law, and now hand you over to good law keeping.
That's not what it says, and it's not what it means. It skews things terribly to make Christ a means to the law, instead of the law a means to a relationship with Christ.
Audio: 3 minutes. (If audio does not show, click on the individual post title.)
So... key question... What do christians do with God's holy, just and good law? Do we do anything with it?
We die to it as law keeping. We're dead to it, we don't exist to it, we belong wholly to Jesus. We devote all our time to knowing Him and loving Him and trusting Him and seeing Him and savoring Him and walking with Him and resting with Him and being shaped by Him and defined by Him and controlled by Him. He's our everything. Christ is all, and in all.
And thus we become loving people, and thus we, through the back door, fulfill the law. But do we do anything with the written law? Should you ever look at it? I have two answers.
One, we should look into the written law to see Christ. To know Him, and trust Him, and love Him more. Remember what Jesus said in John 5:39? "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they which speak of me!" Yeah, go there, to find "Me". Not a new list.
[The] First thing we do with the law, now, is we read it to know God in Christ... To know a person, and love him, more. ... Trust Him more. That's why you read the bible.
Second, you look into the law in order to test to see if you do know Him, trust Him, and love Him, as you ought. Because Jesus said, "If you love me, you'll keep my commandments."
Don't ever turn that around. So many people who don't get the personal relationship of christianity turn it around and say, "keeping commandments is loving Jesus" ... It's not! If you try to reduce love to Jesus to commandment keeping, you're right back at the front door fiddling with that lock.
What the text says is, "if you love me" ... If I carry you and you love being carried, if you see into my face and love what you see, if you trust me and know me and depend upon me and my cross and my resurrection to make you right with God and to fill you with everything you need filling with. ... You'll fulfill the law. You'll never be perfect in this life, but you'll begin to become a loving person, with me, if you love me.
