Heart Melting Grace

Dane Ortlund quoted in Tullian Tchividjian's Jesus Plus Nothing Equals Everything ...

In response to a writer who voices concern about the lack of emphasis on personal holiness and radical obedience, Dane shows how there are two ways to address it...

"One way is to balance gospel grace with exhortations to holiness, as if both need equal air time lest we fall into legalism on one side (neglecting grace) or antinomianism on the other (neglecting holiness). The other way, which I believe is the right and biblical way, is to so startle this restraint-free culture with the gospel of free justification that the functional justifications of human approval, moral performance, sexual indulgence, or big bank accounts begin to lose their vice-like grip on human hearts, and their emptiness is exposed in all its fraudulence. It sounds backward, but the path to holiness is through (not beyond) the grace of the gospel, because only undeserved grace can truly melt and transform the heart. The solution to restraint-free immorality is not morality. The solution to immorality is the free grace of God--grace so free that it will be (mis)heard by some as a license to sin with impunity. The route by which the New Testament exhorts radical obedience is not by tempering grace but by driving it home all the more deeply. Let's pursue holiness. And let's pursue it centrally through enjoying the gospel, the same gospel that got us in and the same gospel that liberates us afresh each day (1 Cor. 15:1-2; Gal. 2:14; Col. 1:23; 2:6). As G.C. Berkouwer wisely remarked, "the heart of sanctification is the life which feeds on justification."

24 Minute Gospel IV

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Growth

"The hard work of Christian growth, therefore, is to think less of ourselves and our performance and more of  Jesus and his performance for us. Ironically, when we focus mostly on our need to get better, we actually get worse. We become neurotic and self absorbed. Preoccupation with our effort instead of with God's effort for us makes us increasingly self-centered and morbidly introspective

Again, think of it this way: sanctification is the daily hard work of going back to the reality of our justification. it's going back to the certainty of our objectivity secured pardon in Christ and hitting the refresh button a thousand times a day. Or, as Martin Luther so aptly put it in his Lectures on Romans, "To progress is always to begin again." Real spiritual progress, in other words, requires a daily going backwards."

-Jesus + Nothing = Everything p. 95

Praise Jesus for Romans 8

He Has Mercy on Those Who are Wretched

"Therefore, God accepts only the forsaken, cures only the sick, gives sight only to the blind, restores life to only the dead, sanctifies only the sinners, gives wisdom only to the unwise fools. In short, He has mercy only on those who are wretched, and gives grace only to those who are not in grace. Therefore no proud saint, no wise or just person, can become God's material, and God's purpose cannot be fulfilled in him. He remains in his own work and makes a fictitious, pretended, false, and painted saint of himself, that is, a hypocrite."

-Martin Luther, "The Seven Penitential Psalms."

Well, This is Awesome.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Theology: The Gateway Gospel vs. the Pathway Gospel: When Jesus told his disciples that he himself was 'the way' (John 14:6), he meant not just 'direction' in some general sense (though not les...

Paul's Confidence

Throughout my life with Jesus so far, a particular passage in scripture has really captured my attention. I always find myself coming back to it, never really diving deeply into it--not attempting to exegetically or hermeneutically disassemble it and make sense of it--I have more so just observed it from afar, as I would a potentially dangerous animal I'm unfamiliar with.

It wasn't until a week ago that I made any progress with this particular passage--nothing groundbreaking, you'll learn exponentially more from Doug Moo's commentary, but regardless, it struck me.

Romans 3:10-18: None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.


I've always taken this passage and held it up as my mirror to look into, frightened by my reflection. That's the thorough description of Erik Most's depravity. It wasn't until I took my eyes off myself, looked through a broader scope, and realized that this is also the depravity of humanity as a whole...including the one writing the epistle, Paul.

 It seems as if Paul wants to make his point here very clear. He's not saying "you guys are pretty bad, but I'm alright." In the first 2 verses, 11 and 12, Paul uses words to reference the complete failure of all people 8 times. Surely he knows he's lumping himself into this group.

Why would Paul say such a thing about himself?! How could he! Especially in a culture that held the law in the highest regard! How could Paul say that in the midst of a culture that endlessly perpetuated the notion that righteousness is humanly resourced?

Well, If we keep reading through Romans 3, it is evidently clear that Paul has full confidence in an external righteousness. An alien righteousness. Paul can own his depravity with full confidence! "Yep! That's me! I'm the chief of sinners!" He can do this because he's insanely secure in the righteousness of Christ. To the degree that he expounds on his depravity, is to the degree that he is fully relying on the redemption that is in Christ, despite his depravity.

In the same way, lets not kid ourselves. We are not the people who our idolatrous, sinful hearts project us to be. We don't have it together. We're not sweet theologians. We're not awesome super Christians.  In thinking we are and we do these things, we unknowingly shackle ourselves to our own agenda and forfeit the reckless freedom we have in Christ.

So lets own Romans 3:11-18, because in doing so, we then cast ourselves on the resplendent majesty of Christ's righteousness. We are freed, like Paul, to stop trying to earn, deserve, and project. Were freed  to living with reckless abandonment knowing we are secure in the righteousness of another, Jesus.

Never, Never, Never, never never never Outgrow Your Need For the Gospel

Not Past The Gospel, but Deeper Into The Gospel

The Sunlight of God's Grace

HT: Of First Importance

"In the bond between faith and sanctification we perceive, no less than in the bond between faith and justification, the pulse-beat of the Gospel. If faith will lift its blossoms to catch the sunlight of God’s grace, the fruit will be a life imbued with holiness."
- G.C. Berkouwer

Gateway Gospel vs. Pathway Gospel

The gospel is not something that merely "gets us into Christianity" and then is to be forgotten as we graduate on to self resourced "sanctification." That's just not it. The gospel is both the ignition to and the fuel for the Christian life. In a recent sermon Dane Ortlund made this very clear by focusing on the "gateway gospel" versus the "pathway gospel." Here are some gospel soaked excerpts...

"The gateway gospel forgives your past sins and sets you on a new road of doing more and more for Jesus. The pathway gospel forgives your past, present, and future sins and sets you on a new road enjoying more and more what Jesus has done for you."

"The gateway gospel draws you to the idea of forgiveness. The pathway gospel draws you to the person of Jesus."

"The gateway gospel is a march. The pathway gospel is a dance."

"The gateway gospel was at work in us believers. The pathway gospel is at work in us believers."

 

 

Be Strong, For I Will...

In Haggai's command to Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the people of God to rebuild the temple, we see holy orders fastened, guided, and supported by a holy God

Haggai 2:1-9

 In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, "Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say, 'Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake the nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.'"

So, we see the Lord saying by the hand of Haggai to

1. "Be strong"
2. "Work"
3. "Fear not"

Yet these are not just strict orders to be followed blindly. We are to work hard, but with sweet, sweet assurances.

1. "I am with you"
2. "According to the covenant" 
3. "I will give"

Life seems like the impossible task of rebuilding a broken, shattered templed with limited resources. Constantly attempting to repair a life with sinful minds and hearts which all too easily flee to the seemingly sweet pleasures of idolatry is a recipe that stirs the idolatrous cauldron of spiritual depression, anxiety, restless hearts, restless minds, restless bodies, and misguided affections.

Yet, where our sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. We are to work, for He is with us. According to the covenant fulfilled by Jesus Christ, with the freely given gift of salvation.

Re-read just the bold parts of the passage.

And he will, and he will, and he will give peace.

Do vs Done

"Most people think that Christianity is spelled DO: they look at the Bible or the life of Christ, and they simply try hard to live like Jesus. Christianity is really spelled DONE: it is what Christ has done that enables us to live a life of obedience.
     Our problem is that we confuse the order of the indicative (what is true) and the imperative (what to do).  As Bryan Chapell often says 'We put our do's before our who's'. The indicative is what is true about us in Christ. We are loved and accepted because of what Christ has done on our behalf. The imperative is what we do in obedience out of love for Christ. The key to the Christian life is to live out of the reality of who we are so that we can do what God has revealed in Scripture."

--Darrin Patrick quoted in Church Planter

Amen and Amen

Bavinck on Justification/Sanctification

"We must proceed from the idea that Christ is our holiness in the same sense in which he is our righteousness. He is a complete and all-sufficient savior. He does not rest until, after pronouncing his acquittal in our conscience, he has also imparted his full holiness and glory to us."

The Practical Relevance of Justification

Miroslav Volf, as quoted in Tim Keller's Generous Justice...


"Imagine that you have no job, no money, you live cut off from the rest of society in a world ruled by poverty and violence, your skin is the "wrong" color--and you have no hope that any of this will change. Around you is a society governed by the iron law of achievement. Its gilded goods are flaunted before your eyes on TV screens, and in a thousand ways society tells you every day that you are worthless because you have no achievement. you are a failure, and you know that you will continue to be a failure because there is no way to achieve tomorrow what you have not managed to achieve today. Your dignity is shattered and your soul is enveloped in the darkness of despair.

BUT the gospel tells you that you are not defined by outside forces. It tells you that you count; even more, that you are loved unconditionally and infinitely, irrespective of anything you have achieved or failed to achieve. Imagine now this gospel not simply proclaimed but embodied in a community. Justified by sheer grace, it seeks to 'justify' by grace those declared 'unjust' by a society's implacable law of achievement. Imagine furthermore, this community determined to infuse the wider culture, along with its political and economic institutions, with the message that it seeks to embody and proclaim. This is justification by grace, proclaimed and practiced. A dead doctrine? Hardly!"

Tullian Tchividjian on Sanctification

"The secret of gospel-based sanctification is that we actuallyperform better as we grow in our understanding that our relationship with God is based on Christ’s performance for us, not our performance for him. In fact, those who end up getting better are those who increasingly realize that their relationship to God does not depend on them getting better. This means, as I said in a post a couple weeks ago, that Christian growth does not happen first by behaving better, but believing better–believing in bigger, deeper, brighter ways what Christ has already secured for sinners."


....increasingly realize their relationship to God does not depend on them getting better... a beautiful gospel!!

Keller, Generous Justice

"For indeed, grace is the key to it all. It is not our lavish good deeds that procure salvation, but God's lavish love and mercy...It is the generosity of God, the freeness of his salvation, that lays the foundation for the society of justice for all."

Generous Justice p. 40

Justification <------- Sanctification

The relationship between justification and sanctification has so often been a step-like or process mentality. Yes, I'm justified now, I get it, its time to move on and work out my salvation. A graduating mentality. I've thought this before, and see it daily in others as well. 

Yet, through grace, a recent realization of this relationship is this- at no point do we graduate beyond our justification. The only way we will ever be truly sanctified is through an ever-deepening, constant dwelling and reorientation towards our justification. 

Some support...

Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology:

Justification - an instantaneous legal act of God in which he (1) thinks of our sins as forgiven and Christ's righteousness as belonging to us, and (2) declares us to be righteous in his sight. 

Legal standing, Once for all time, Entirely God's work, Perfect in this life, The same in all Christians

Sanctification - a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives.

Internal Condition, Continuous throughout life, We cooperate, Not perfect in this life, Greater in some than in others

William Hulme:

"The more one is able to love, the more he develops the qualities of integration and adjustment to reality that mark the mature person. . . . If our sanctification is allowed to become confused with our justification, then our motive for pleasing God is no longer one of love and gratitude, but one of earning and deserving. Hence we have the entrance of a self-interest motive into our living which is a deterrent rather than an incentive to growth." 

Justification must come first and be completed experience, since the sanctification process is dependent upon the mindset which results from it. Each time the sinner is drawn to the cross in new repentance, he gains a deeper appreciation of the gift of forgiveness. This ever-increasing gratitude for the righteousness which is imputed unto him becomes the motive in his own righteousness. Because he knows that he is accepted of God by grace, his tension is released and he is free to love. . . . [T]he justification experience must precede that of sanctification to make either of them possible."

Tullian Tchividjian:

"We are justified by grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone, and God sanctifies us by constantly bringing us back to the reality of our justification."

quotes brought to my attention by Dane Ortlund : 

"The man who is relaxed because of what God has done for him will through that relaxation lose his preoccupation with self and forget himself, and be prompted into fruitfulness. . . . It is precisely the relaxation that inspires to effort. . . . Only he who no longer needs to serve himself with his works is able, since he is now free from himself, to do really 'good works,' works that mean something for the Other and the others."

--- Hendrikus Berkhof

"To understand the benefit of sanctification correctly, we must proceed from the idea that Christ is our holiness in the same sense in which he is our righteousness. He is a complete and all-sufficient Savior. He does not accomplish his work halfway but saves us really and completely. He does not rest until, after pronouncing his acquittal in our conscience, he has also imparted full holiness and glory to us. By his righteousness, accordingly, he does not just restore us to the state of the just who will go scot-free in the judgment of God, in order then to leave us to ourselves to reform ourselves after God’s image and to merit eternal life. But Christ has accomplished everything. He bore for us the guilt and punishment of sin, placed himself under the law to secure eternal life for us, and then arose from the grave to communicate himself to us in all his fullness for both our righteousness and sanctification (1 Cor. 1:30). The holiness that must completely become ours therefore fully awaits us in Christ." ----- Herman Bavinck