Confusing Law and Gospel

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, no one claims to have arrived at perfection, and yet, Calvin says many do claim “to have yielded completely to God, [claiming that] they have kept the law in part and are, in respect to this part, righteous.”Only the terror of the Law can shake us of this self-confidence. Thus, the Law condemns and drives us to Christ, so that the Gospel can comfort without any threats or exhortations that might lead to doubt. ~Michael Horton

There’s been a fair amount of discussion of late among evangelical writers I read regarding the vital distinction between what I’ll refer to as the Law/Gospel distinction. Now, let me begin this post with a disclaimer: I’m a far cry from a theological scholar (and neither do I claim to be as much, which will come as no surprise to those who’ve followed my blog/writing the last few years). So, instead of pretending, I’ll lean on a respected theologian to do the heavy lifting in this post.

Personally speaking, it’s been since the days of big hair and parachute pants that I began to understand the great divide between works and grace (see Romans 11:6 below). It was like walking into a surgeons well-lit operating room after having been locked up in a dingy-dark dungeon for what felt like eons (I mention “works and grace” because it wasn’t until last few years I’ve become more familiar with the Law/Gospel distinction, credit goes to being casual student of Luther’s).

Michael Horton, who I quote above, has written and lectured extensively on the topic, and in a manner I think any layman with half a desire to wrap their brain around this whole idea will benefit from. Horton explains in a way that can be not only understood, but should be appreciated. In his book “Christless Christianity”, he writes (pages 124-125):

We need the law and the gospel, but each does different things. When we confuse law and gospel, we avoid both the trauma of God’s holiness and the liberating power of his grace. We begin to speak about living the gospel, doing the gospel, even being the gospel, as if the Good News were a message about us and our works instead of about Christ and his works. The proper response is neither to dispense with the law nor to soften it from demand to helpful advice. Rather, it is to recognize the difference between law and gospel. We are not called to live the gospel but to believe the gospel and to follow the law in view of God’s mercies. Turning the gospel into law is a very easy thing for us to do; it comes naturally. That is why we can never take the Good News for granted.

Any form of doing the gospel is a confusion of categories. The law tells us what to do; the gospel tells us what God has done for us in Christ. When it comes the question about how we relate to God, doing is the wrong answer. Paul explains, “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Rom. 4:4-5). It is not just some deeds on our part that are excluded here, but our works of any kind. “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace” (Rom. 11:6).

…The law tells us what God expects of us; the gospel tells us what God has done for us.

So the law and the gospel are not inherently opposed, but when it comes to how we are saved, these two principles could not be more antithetical.  And since our faith at every moment is threatened by our natural tendency to be distracted from its object—Christ—we need the gospel placarded before us not just at the beginning, but throughout the Christian life.  The gospel is for Christians too.  We need to be evangelized every week.  It is not by following Christ’s example but by being inserted into Christ, clothed with Christ, united to Christ—as the Spirit creates faith through the gospel—we are not only justified but sanctified as well.

On the surface, the Law/Gospel distinction might not look important, but when you get down into the trenches of Christian living and faith, the ramifications couldn’t be any more gargantuan.

Thoughts?

For further reading see:

The Resurgence: “The Law & The Gospel” by Michael Horton

Tullian Tchividjian’s Blog: “Horton On The Law And The Gospel”

Tullian Tchividjian’s Blog: Interview With Mike Horton: Part One 

Tullian Tchividjian’s Blog: Interview With Mike Horton: Part Two

Tullian Tchividjian’s Blog: Luther On Law

Saving Others?

“I, yes I, am the Lord, and there is no other Savior.” ~Isaiah 43:11

I remember the year, it was 1988 and I was what would be best described as a self-confident nineteen year old whippersnapper off to learn how I was gonna change the world. Yeah, me. All you’d have needed to do to confirm was ask me. Press 1 for Ken, press 2 you’re mistaken.

In my mind, God had called me to go and learn how to save people, and here I was being the obedient servant, “Her I am Lord, send me.” Surely the world was on its way to hell in a hand basket and I was gonna be the remedy.

God could certainly benefit from having a guy like, well… Me. No need for the Trinity. There was me, me and me. “I’m your go to guy, G.O.D.” The Father, Son and Holy Spirit could long at last take a breather, I had it handled. He’d pulled me out of a pile of garbage, and now I was gonna return the favor. What good could come from Detroit?… I was going to show the church world, the hour had come.

It was Dallas Texas, a place I had never been, and here I was at Bible College. Dealey Plaza , the legendary Cowboys and their plastic make pretend cheerleaders, Stars and Mavericks, and the Rangers in Arlington. On top of that, we’re talking Texas, a place annually competing for a top spot in the race to be God’s Country—Bible belt buckle material if there ever was such a place, and now they had me on their team.

My watch was ticking and my opportunity was ripe. I was gonna win the world, so I figured I’d better learn the lingo of a gospel preacher. The ins and outs and all that jazz. I’d shown up, I’d arrived and I was going places. My own Utopia. Shoot, I went to the most famous preacher on this planets church and sat in the front row, smack dab in the middle. Hands down, I was destined for this. It was the place to be if you were serious, and I was serious.

My pastor, most likely the country’s most well-known at the time, called me out of a crowd of maybe 3000 at a Sunday night gathering (and the joint sat more than that), “Young man, God’s on your life.” Turns out more than two decades later, he was spot on, but looking back (and hindsight does help), I didn’t take it the right way. Instead of seeing God was with me, I mistakenly thought God was hitching his train on me. Surely, in my mind, I’d be saving people soon. Hundreds. Thousands. Millions. I figured that God needed me. Me, God’s little big man, or big little man. But little did I remotely realize at the time, he was the big God.

All I needed was some fine tuning. No craftsman can master his trade without some tools. High profile speakers would arrive each week to share with us, some big shots, and others humble men and women of God (the ones who decided against fleecing the people of God). Some had some pretty outlandish and crazy other-worldly stories about exploits they’d done for God and warned, “Follow Jesus, expect trouble and be a soul-winner.” The message rarely was, “All people need is Jesus, not you, so just give them Jesus.”

People who’d traveled the globe winning souls, taking Malaria pills and saving the lost. And I figured I could save the lost too. Wrong turn.

Upon graduation I was eager and itching to hop on a plane and travel to the utmost ends of the earth myself and share all of the wisdom I had gleaned, spew all of the bible verses that had sunk into my thick skull and seeped into my haughty heart by osmosis, and of course those I’d diligently committed to memory.

Instead, I landed back at my home church in Michigan as a youth pastor at the ripe age of 21, and I was gonna make my mark. I’d preach and teach when I wasn’t taking a kid who’d lost his father to McDonalds, or packing up the church van to take a bunch of wild-eyed hormone raging rowdy teenagers up north for a winter retreat to eat some of the worst food this side of jail. But we had a blast, we made it fun.

As time passed I began to realize that my hubris and grandiose plans of saving the world might have been a bit misguided, and that as much as I wanted to jump in and save a rebel 16 year old from running off the cliff to destruction, I couldn’t.

Yes, Paul writes to his young protégé Timothy, “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.” And Solomon wrote in his famed Proverbs, “…he that winneth souls is wise.”

But neither of these verses mean that you, I, or SuperPastor can save a single soul. We merely point people to the Rescuer. There is only one Savior. If you, or I, get the honor to share his love with anyone, great, but to assume we can save a single soul is heresy. I like David Stanley’s bio on Twitter, “I’m just a nobody, trying to tell everybody, about Somebody who can save anybody!”

So, if you ever see a sign like this out in front of a church, you might think twice about attending. Remember the next time you’re tempted to think you’re God’s answer to a perishing world, you can’t save a flea with a bad case of the flu, let alone yourself or anyone else.

Point people to Jesus, ain’t a soul that will be belting out the grateful tunes of heaven thinking, “Because of Ken I am here.” No, that won’t happen.

It’s only and solely because of Jesus anyone will be walking the streets of gold.

HT (for image): Rae Whitlock @Facebook via “Stuff Fundies Like”

Grounds for Acceptance

Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives…. In their day-to-day existence they rely on their sanctification for justification…. Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand upon Luther’s platform: You are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude.

In order for a pure and lasting work of spiritual renewal to take place within the church, multitudes within it must be led to build their lives on this foundation.  This means that they must be conducted into the light of a full conscious awareness of God’s holiness, the depth of their sin and the sufficiency of the atoning work of Christ for their acceptance with God, not just at the outset of their Christian lives but in every succeeding day. ~Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life (Downers Grove, 1979), pages 101-102, italics his.

HT: Ray Ortlund

What the Resurrection is Not

Found the following about as good as it gets, and I do my fair share of getting around the evangelical blogosphere. With Easter behind us, it never means the cross and resurrection shouldn’t be daily before us.

“The resurrection is not a sentimental story about never giving up, or the possibility of good coming from evil. It is not first of all a story about how suffering can be sanctified, or a story of how Jesus suffered for all of humanity so we can suffer with the rest of humanity. The resurrection is the loud declaration that Jesus is enough–enough to atone for your sins, enough to reconcile you to God, enough to present you holy in God’s presence, enough to free you from the curse of the law, enough to promise you there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

 

“Something objectively happened on the cross, and that objective work was broadcast to the whole world by an empty tomb. The good news is not a generic message of love for everyone or hope for all. The gospel is the theological interpretation of historical fact. You might put the good news like this: Faith will be counted to us as righteousness when we believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification (Rom. 4:24-25).

 

HT: Kevin DeYoung

A Palm Sunday Reflection

Radio personality and author Steve Brown tells the following:

Someone sent me a story about the five-year-old boy who was sick on Palm Sunday and had to stay home with a neighbor. When the family returned home carrying palm branches, the boy asked about them. His mother tried to explain Palm Sunday to him, ‘People held them over Jesus’ head as he walked by.’

‘Wouldn’t you know it,’ the boy said, ‘the one Sunday I don’t go, Jesus shows up!’

Amidst the kids lining the aisles waving palm branches and parents scurrying up and down pews with cameras in hand—I guess you could ask yourself, did Jesus show up at my church today? For all of the hoopla, topped off with a 5 point seeker-friendly talk that more or less outlined the moral of the story, “We don’t want to be like the people who cried ‘Hosanna’ but days later shouted ‘Crucify him!'”—can we say that the grace and mercy found in Christ was extended and his righteousness extolled, or was it just another hour of guilt mixed the usual feel better platitudes?

Let’s face it, other than the donkey Jesus rode in on, the message and moment is often times about us.  

Kevin DeYoung points out that the moralizing message scores of preachers almost have a built-in tendency to resort to on Palm Sunday, isn’t even based on the facts. DeYoung writes, “This is a popular point preachers like to make, and I’ve probably made it myself: ‘Look at the fickle crowd. They sing songs to him on Sunday and five days later on Friday they want to kill him. How quickly we all turn away.’ But read all four gospel accounts carefully (and check some good commentaries). The excited throng on Palm Sunday was filled with Galilean pilgrims and the larger group of disciples, not the Jerusalem crowd in general (see Luke 19:37; Mark 15:40-41).”

We do real well at beating ourselves up so it’s no wonder the “Don’t be one of those guys” train of thought is so popular (let me say I don’t have problems with acknowledging we’re sinners, that’s a gospel must, but to harp on it is almost as bad). Either way, whether it was the same crowd looking to string up Jesus who were singing his praises not even a week earlier, or not—we shouldn’t turn on Jesus, and we surely shouldn’t be among those looking for his head. Amen. But this isn’t what Palm Sunday is about.

Turn on Jesus or not, he’s going to the cross on behalf of traitors, and that includes you and I.   

On the other hand, if DeYoung is correct (and I agree with his point), we could go the polar opposite direction and pat the loyal in the crowd on the back, and it wouldn’t surprise me to hear a preacher do it. (How much of our idolizing ourselves and one another doesn’t come in subtle forms?) Still, Palm Sunday isn’t about making heroes out of sinners saved by grace. We don’t follow Jesus for the applause of others, brass tacks is Jesus alone deserves our applause (it’s always made my skin crawl when we hand out popsicles to each other for following Jesus).

The problem is that either way, the brand of preaching I’m referring to eventually and without fail boils down to moralizing (be it getting stuck on knocking ourselves down or lifting ourselves up)—tirelessly and endlessly harping on all the things we could do better and those things we ought to avoid. And tragically, so many pulpits today are about nothing more. 

The Good News concerning Jesus in both instances becomes the quintessential tag along, the hurried invitation to “make a decision for Jesus” at the end of the 5 point seeker-friendly talk—of course, after the weightier and more urgent matters have been tackled (i.e., will-power religion, the pastor’s new haircut, the coffee shop makeover in the lobby, unicorns, etc). If the gospel isn’t of utmost importance it’s inevitably shoved to the side (even such issues as justice and feeding the poor must find their place in the passenger’s seat).

Preachers who reduce Jesus to less than the hero of any story or focus of any message commit gospel treason. 

When we merely incriminate or mistakenly exonerate ourselves we’ve landed in a ditch, and a ditch is a ditch. We have missed the opportunity to preach the gospel, the point every story we tell should revolve around—that is if we’re gospel preachers and not entertainers. In both of the scenarios laid out above Palm Sunday becomes about us (and Easter, etc…). But it’s never about us, is it? It’s always about Jesus. Palm Sunday is the glorious and fateful procession of the rightful King, the King come to redeem lost sinners, the King so many missed 2000 years ago and still miss 2000 years later. How do we miss that?

The gospel reality is this, Palm Sunday, just like any other Sunday, is an occasion to lift up Christ Jesus—not another opportunity to pound over and over on the virtues you and I need to work harder to demonstrate, how we must double our efforts to kill the lusts of the flesh, settle it once and for all and re-dedicate our lives (for the 456th time, but for real this time) and so on and so forth. Haven’t we tired of singing our own praises yet (e.g., “I have decided to follow Jesus… no turning back, no turning back”)?

Did we decide? Jesus has quite another opinion (see John 15:16).

It’s another exercise in religious futility every time the church meets and Jesus is nowhere to be found. Admonishing believers to live as believers is one thing but at the expense of leaving Jesus out of the equation is an entirely different thing. How quickly we turn from what Jesus has done, is doing, or is going to do One Day—to what we must do (as if a faith that isn’t grounded in Jesus is of any value).

Although Jesus is certainly making reference to his crucifixion when he says, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”—I’ll go out on a limb and say that now that Jesus has left the preaching to us, it’s only when we lift him up that he shows up, at a church or the local soup kitchen for that matter. The proclamation of who Jesus is and what he has accomplished cannot be replaced, unless that is, you’d rather have a Hollywood production or a “Live for Jesus” pep rally complete with all the bells and whistles.

And you’d just assume not have Jesus himself show up.

Peacock Feathers and Grace

“Grace is favor shown to the undeserving and ill-deserving. When Divine grace bestows salvation upon the ill-deserving, it makes them conscious of the infinite favor that has been shown them. Fallen man is naturally proud, self-complacent, and self-righteous.

 

But wherever the miracle of regenerating grace is wrought—all this is reversed. Its subject is stripped of his peacock feathers, made poor in spirit, and humbled into the dust before God. He is made painfully aware of the loathsome plague of his heart, given a sight of his vileness in the light of God’s holiness, and brought to realize that he is a spiritual pauper, dependent upon Divine charity. He now readily acknowledges that he is a Hell-deserving sinner.

‘I am not worthy of the least of all Your mercies and unfailing love, which You have shown to me, Your servant’ (Genesis 32:10). This is the confession made by all who are the recipients of the saving grace of God. Whenever a miracle of saving grace is wrought in the heart—pride is subdued, self is effaced, and a sense of ill-desert takes possession of the heart.

One of the elements of great faith—is deep humility. ‘For I am the least of the Apostles, that am not worthy to be called an Apostle’ (1 Cor. 15:9). ‘I am less than the least of all saints’ (Eph. 3:8). What complete self-abasement! The most eminent Christians—are always the most lowly ones; those most honored in Christ’s service—are deeply conscious of their unprofitableness.” ~Arthur Pink 

HT: George Grant

 

Not Ashamed

Courtesy of Tullian Tchividjian:

“I am a part of the ‘Fellowship of the Unashamed.’ The die has been cast. The decision has been made. I have stepped over the line. I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away or be still.

My past is redeemed, my present makes sense and my future is secure. I’m finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, mundane talking, cheap giving and dwarfed goals.

I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits or popularity. I don’t have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean on His presence, love with patience, live by prayer and labor with power.

My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions are few, my Guide is reliable and my mission is clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, deluded or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity or meander in the maze of mediocrity. 

I won’t give up, shut up, let up or slow up until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up and spoken up for the cause of Christ. I am a disciple of Jesus. I must go till he comes, give till I drop, preach till all know and work till he stops me. And when he comes for his own, he will have no problem recognizing me. My banner is clear: I am a part of the ‘Fellowship of the Unashamed.'” ~Unknown

Friends, we’ve got to first be soaked in the gospel and its amazing grace if we’re going to clearly share it. And if our lives are to mirror the above we’re gonna need to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. If not, we’ll run out of gas and find ourselves broken down on the side of the road.

Jesus help us.

Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile.”

Jesus and Sinners

“Now I should like to know whether your soul, tired of its own righteousness, is learning to be revived by and to trust in the righteousness of Christ… My dear brother, learn Christ and him crucified.  Learn to pray to him and, despairing of yourself, say, ‘You, Lord Jesus, are my righteousness, but I am your sin.  You have taken upon yourself what is mine and have given to me what is yours.  You have taken upon yourself what you were not and have given to me what I was not.’  Beware of aspiring to such purity that you will not wish to be looked upon as a sinner, or to be one.  For Christ dwells only in sinners.  On this account he descended from heaven, where he dwelt among the righteous, to dwell among sinners.  Meditate on this love of his and you will see his sweet consolation.”

~Martin Luther, quoted in Theodore G. Tappert, editor, Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel (Philadelphia, 1955), page 110. Language updated.

HT: Ray Ortlund

Source of All Grace

“It is legitimate to speak of ‘receiving grace,’ and sometimes (although I am somewhat cautious about the possibility of misuing this langauge) we speak of the preaching of the Word, prayer, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper as ‘means of grace.’ That is fine, so long as we remember that there isn’t a thing, a substance, or a ‘quasi-substance’ called ‘grace.’ All there is is the person of the Lord Jesus — ‘Christ clothed in the gospel,’ as John Calvin loved to put it. Grace is the grace of Jesus.

If I can highlight the thought here: there is no ‘thing’ that Jesus takes from himself and then, as it were, hands over to me. There is only Jesus Himself. Grasping that thought can make a signficant difference to a Christian’s life. So while some poeple might think this is just splitting hairs about different ways of saying the same thing, it can make a vital difference. It is not a thing that was crucified to give us a thing called grace. It was the person of the Lord Jesus that was crucified in order that he might give himself to us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.” ~Sinclair B. Ferguson

Excerpted from an Interview with Sinclair

 HT: PJ Cockrell

Ultimate Happiness

“The Bible tells us that in this life and world there is no such thing as final security apart from the message of the gospel.

“So if we are relying for our final, ultimate happiness upon anybody or anything in this world alone, then we are certain to be disappointed. If our quietness of heart depends–oh, let me put it with almost brutal realism–if we are depending for happiness and joy and a quiet heart, in a final sense, upon any individual human being, upon our family, our home, our profession, our money, our health and strength, we are doomed to experience disappointment.

Every one of these things one day will be taken from us.”

~Martyn Lloyd-Jones,  Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled (Crossway, 2009), 68

HT: Dane Ortlund