Letters of Grace: 7–16
Walt Henrichsen March 12, 2015
As noted in the September issue, this is the second of three sub-issues dealing with how presumption influences grace in the life of the believer. Presumption is an abuse of the freedom found in grace.
LEGALITY AND MORALITY
Legality and morality are similar to liberty and self-denial in that it is necessary to understand both in order to avoid presuming on God’s grace. A failure to understand and apply legality and morality in the Christian life results in the misuse of liberty, which in turn leads to presuming on the grace of God.
Our forefathers, from the conception of this great nation, knew that the experiment of democracy would work only if there was corporate commitment to a fundamental, transcendent set of absolutes, which form the basis of morality. If legality and morality are confused, this Republic cannot long endure.
Morality, which forms the basis of all society, is commonly agreed upon because of man’s conscience. All men, everywhere, have, as it were, a moral gyroscope that guides and directs them. That this standard, shaped by the conscience, is in harmony with the Scriptures, is the thesis of the Apostle Paul in Romans 2:14-15:
For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, they are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another.
The Standards of God, which form the gist of morality, are few in number. They have to be in order for people to absorb and act on them. As we shall see with legality, if they are too numerous, they collapse under their own weight. Nevertheless, this Standard forms the foundation for all behavior.
Government is charged with the task of building upon this commonly agreed upon morality with a set of laws that govern the particulars of society. For example, in the United States we have a set of traffic laws that govern behavior on the road. Such laws would have been unnecessary five hundred years ago. Let us note a couple of things regarding these laws:
First, although they may include morality, they are not the same as morality. For example, if I drive 30 mph in a 25-mph zone, I am breaking the law, but I am not immoral. The law says that I cannot murder my fellow citizen. If I do so, I am not only breaking the law, but I ant also immoral. The law may not prohibit pre-marital sex, but God’s Standards do, and such action is immoral. In this we see that although morality and legality overlap, they are not the same.
I remember watching a movie on television entitled “Criminal Law.” A wise, old attorney, during the last days of life, counseled a younger lawyer regarding the difference between justice and the law. He likened justice to a large statue casting a shadow, which was analogous to the law. The shadow is not the statue. They are entirely different. And yet they are connected. So also justice and law. So also morality and legality.
Second, the laws of government, like the Standards of morality, ought to be few in number. Laws that are too inclusive become counter-productive. For example, the rules and regulations of OSHA require so much red tape and consume so much time and energy that the good they seek to achieve is frequently offset by the hurt which is inflicted through such things as arbitrary enforcement and the added cost of production. Too many laws, like too high taxes, discourage people and breed rebellion.
In light of this, note an exceedingly important but little understood truth expounded by Jesus in His rebuke of the Pharisees:
Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, “Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands?” He answered and said unto them, “Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart it far front me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.” And He said unto them, “Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.” (Mark 7:5-9)
The Pharisees were bothered by the fact that Jesus and His disciples failed to keep “the tradition of the elders.” These “traditions,” which were extra-Biblical rules and regulations, are similar to, but not the same as, legality. Let’s explore this further.
ISRAEL AND LEGALITY
At Mount Sinai God established the theocratic kingdom, outlining through the hand of Moses the salient ingredients of Israel’s society. For all practical purposes, the distinction between legality and morality was blurred. It was God who gave the Law, and the commandments of God, by definition, are moral in nature.
Theologians, not God, made the distinction between the moral, civil, ceremonial and dietary aspects of the law. Although this fourfold delineation of the law is helpful, to say that it is three parts legal and one part moral and that to break the legal commandments isn’t as serious as breaking the moral commandments can prove disastrous, as seen in the Old Testament. We all remember that God had a man stoned for gathering wood on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:35), and Uzzah died at the Hand of God when he touched the Ark of the Covenant (II Samuel 6:6).
All of this is to say that in Old Testament Israel God expected the people to keep all the law. It was moral in nature in that it came from Him and influenced their relationship with Him. Legal was moral in the sense that Jews in the theocratic kingdom were free to do whatever the law did not proscribe. Thus, even today, when a person adds to the commands of God we say that he is “pharisaical.”
ISRAEL AND THE PHARISEES
Before we are too hard on the Pharisees, we should note that they faced a daunting task. After the captivity Israel was obligated to obey secular law, which in many respects conflicted with God’s law, much like we have in the United States today. That is, they were permitted to break many of God’s laws while being required to obey rules and regulations not required by God. For them, the distinction between legal and moral was born.
The Pharisees sought to assist in this transition, first by defining more objectively some of the positive commandments, and then by adding other helpful rules and regulations. For example, Israel’s failure to keep the Sabbath was one of the precipitating issues that brought about their ruin. In captivity the Pharisees asked, “How can we keep the fourth commandment?” This led to a set of rules on what people could and could not do on the Sabbath. These, as Jesus pointed out in Mark 7, were the “traditions of men,” i.e. they were neither legal nor moral laws in that they did not have their origin in the state or in God. They may have been helpful, but they were not obligatory.
THE TRADITIONS OF MEN
The “traditions of men” came about, then, in an endeavor to help people meet the expectations of God–a noble goal indeed! (Or, as seen from the above analogy, the shadow tried to be an accurate replica of the statue.) But as already noted, it resulted in the wrath of God. Why?
Morality, as revealed in Scripture and affirmed by conscience, establishes a litmus by which all conduct is evaluated. When I tamper with it, I do the following:
1) I call into question God’s ability to anticipate all action that He considers wrong and so become co-equal with God in determining what is right and wrong. This is presumption pure and simple. For example, the Bible does not prohibit slavery. Irrespective of my own convictions, I dare not say that it is morally wrong to either be a slave or have slaves. As Jesus says in Mark 7, in so doing I am adding to the commandments of God.
2) I confuse morality, blurring the distinction between it and legality. If I can say that slavery is morally reprehensible, you can also say so of polygamy. Joe can then add gambling and Steve drinking to the list of moral issues. From there it is a short step to pollution, animal rights, nuclear power, etc. The state can rule that any of this is illegal, which is its God-given right. But to say that it is a moral issue is another thing entirely. These issues are no more immoral than going 30 mph in a 25-mph zone.
3) When I confuse morality and legality, I open the door to “laying aside the commandments of God” (Mark 7:8). I feel that it is expedient for me, as a Christian, to divorce my wife and marry one more compatible. The state does not prohibit it, so I feel at liberty to do it. Not only so, but I allow legality to define morality in my business ethics. For example, never mind the fact that I promised a man that I would pay my debt. It was not legally binding under the laws of bankruptcy, and I am therefore not obligated to keep my word. You can see how such an environment produces a proliferation of lawyers.
4) When legality defines morality, I force the state to multiply its rules and regulations (much like OSHA) in order to make up for my lack of morality. The “Keating Five” and the “S & L Scandal” are illustrations. Exactly what laws were broken? Prosecutors are having difficulty determining the answer to this. But there remains the notion, based on our inner sense of right and wrong, that wrong was done. This results in Congress writing more rules to insure that it doesn’t happen again.
5) This in turn, as already noted, adds to the destruction of democracy, simply because the addition of so many rules, and the added personnel needed to enforce them, makes the system unworkable. This is what prompted Lord Acton’s statement that ‘Men will either be governed by God or ruled by tyrants.” Having collapsed under its own weight, the democracy is taken over by a dictator. In a free society it is impossible for government to write sufficient rules to fill the void made by the absence of morality. The refusal to define morality by legality is one of the safeguards of democracy.
Society’s rebuttal is that an issue is moral only when it infringes on the rights of others. Discrimination is wrong because such behavior is felt to be harmful to the object of the discrimination. (We are assuming here that God’s Standards have not been broken.) The truth is, almost everything we do infringes on the rights of others.
For example, in the “SAN DIEGO UNION” there was a feature article in the December 30 issue dealing with the problem of Medi-Cal abusers. In part the article said:
Single and 25 years old, she was working as a waitress in a fashionable bar and grill in downtown San Diego when tragedy struck. After an affair, she became pregnant. The pregnancy did not go well, though, and early this year the child was born prematurely with life threatening complications. She had no health insurance, like tens of thousands of working San Diego. So as medical bills skyrocketed while the child fought for life at UCSD Medical Center in Hillcrest, she turned to the taxpayer-supported Medi-Cal program to pay the tab. The bill to Medi-Cal now tops $250000, sources say. Medi-Cal reportedly has paid more than $75000, the hospital will write off the difference. But standing somewhere on the sidelines while the taxpayers foot the bill is a father…
This young couple did not ask the taxpayers if they could infringe on their rights when they were promiscuous. They simply did it, and society pays for it. God has created us in such a way that all that we do touches others, for good for bad. Paul says in Romans 8:18-23:
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
When Adam fell, the whole of the created order was affected. It is the thesis of the Scriptures that immorality of every kind has cosmic consequences!
TAMPERING WITH MORALITY
“Tampering with morality” is what we have done in the U.S. I have seen a convoluting of the moral order in less than a lifetime. When I was a child, the movies that I watched usually had a theme or message, but it was always an endeavor to uphold morality. Today the movies usually carry a theme, but almost always in the direction of re-defining morality.
For example, in the delightful movie, “Driving Miss Daisy,” the theme is anti-discrimination. The movie evolves from the beginning when there are clear racial lines drawn between Miss Daisy and her black driver to the end when she says to him, “You are my best friend.” Discrimination, in and of itself, it not wrong. Everyone is discriminate. There are people you and I like more than others, and that for a variety of reasons. It ONLY becomes a matter of morality when the Standards of God are violated.
In many films unrighteousness is exalted. As Malcolm Muggeridge noted, “Sex is materialism’s shabby substitute for religious experience.” It is the fulfillment of Paul’s indictment that “they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature” (Romans 1:25). This is the product of failing to maintain a sharp distinction between legality and morality. We can see its devastating effects on society, but in a more subtle manner, it is often at work in its cancerous way in the family unit.
For example, Dad knows that illicit sex is morally wrong. He also knows that watching most modern films exalts sex and can easily lead one into being promiscuous. Moreover, in his heart he knows that he is easily tempted in this area. So he develops a conviction that he will not watch these types of movies. The Bible encourages him to do this.
He is protective of his teenage children, desiring that they remain pure in their relationship with Christ. So, in an endeavor to keep his children from illicit sex, he forbids their watching these kinds of moves. In the ‘government of the home” he is free to do this. But great care must be exercised in avoiding the snare into which both the Pharisees and our society has fallen. Watching an “R” rated movie may be ill-advised, but it is neither a moral nor a legal issue.
When God created us in His image, He firmly placed in each of us a conscience that guides behavior. Sin obscures the conscience; the Bible sharpens it. Under the direction of the Scriptures the conscience is a reliable guide. Personal convictions are developed, in part, to keep sin from doing its work of confusion. But when these personal convictions are turned into moral axioms and imposed on others, great harm results.
Legality plays an important role in society. It can never be confused with or take the place of morality. When it does, great harm results. If I can learn this simple but profound truth, I will be a better servant of Jesus Christ and a better citizen.
CONCLUSION
For each person, there are three appellate courts in determining right and wrong: the standards of God, the laws of the state and personal convictions in areas not covered by the first two, e.g. deciding not to watch “R” rated movies. Ranked by authority, they are God, the state and personal convictions. God determines morality; the state legality; I the standards of my conduct, and if I choose, those under my authority.
It is easy for the believer to feel secure in his relationship with God and presume on His grace by reversing the order of authority, thereby defining morality by legality and establishing personal convictions as the Supreme Court. The life of grace must distinguish between legal, moral and personal convictions, just as it must wrestle with what self-denial ought to look like. Failure to do so, as pointed out by Jesus in Mark 7, leads to pharisaism and immorality.
Part Eight
In the last “Dear Co-Laborer” issue we evaluated the distinction between legality and morality. If you will patiently bear with me, I will take this a step further. In this issue let’s look at the foundation or basis of both legality and morality.
Simplisticly stated, legality is the rules of man and morality is the rules of God. As noted in an earlier issue of this paper, neither legality nor morality have force apart from accountability. Without accountability people will consider law to be negotiable.
For example, if the state highway patrol went on strike, how fast would people drive? You would rightly answer, “As fast as they want to drive.” The speed laws are still the law of the state, but there is no enforcement.
If there is no accountability, truth is relative rather than absolute. Just as the state, which defines the content of legality, must have accountability in order for law to have impelling force, so also God, Who defines the content of morality, must have accountability in order for His Law to have force.
HOW PEOPLE GO TO HEAVEN
It is precisely here that GRACE in the New Testament and Law in the Old Testament become confused. Both the Old and the New Testaments teach that grace is the sole path to heaven.
“Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10). “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). From these verses it is easy to see that no one gets to go to heaven on his own merit.
By grace, God reached down and pulled some into heaven to be with Him forever. To satisfy His justice in saving the sinner when He had already said, “the soul that sinneth, it shall die,” He sent His Son Jesus to die for us. In this we see that the difference between heaven and hell is not the difference between the performance of one person vis-a-vis another. Those in heaven are not less sinful than those in hell. People are in heaven rather than hell for only one reason, the grace of God manifested in the propitious death of Christ for the sinner.
ACCOUNTABILITY IN ETERNITY
If the line between heaven and hell is crossed by grace alone, then where is accountability in eternity for the sinner, both saved and lost? God, holding the sinner accountable for his sin and thus barring him from heaven, transfers this accountability to His Son who died on the cross, thus enabling the believer to enter heaven. This being so, is there any further accountability in eternity?
In other words, are there levels of heaven and hell, or are heaven and hell the same for everyone? Does grace eliminate accountability? If it does, then from a practical or pragmatic perspective, truth is relative. Without accountability men will filter the validity of truth through their perspective of what is in their best interest. Every man will do “that which is right in his own eyes. From this we learn the following:
1) If there are no levels of hell and a person said to you, “Since I know the Bible and God’s offer of salvation and I reject it totally, completely, once and for all, how in light of this should I live?” How do you answer him? You can say, “Since hell is your certain destination, you are wise to get whatever you want out of life. If you are in partnership with a man you dislike, take him fishing and come back alone.” If there are no levels of hell, there is no incentive for the lost to be moral. For him, truth is relative.
2) If there are no levels of heaven and differences between people in heaven is blurred by the promise of Revelation 2 1:4,
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away”
then truth is relative for the Christian as well. Remember that we get to heaven, not because of our performance, but because God held Jesus accountable for our failure to meet His standards. If there are no levels of heaven, there are no eternal consequences for the believer’s sin. This means that as long as the believer is the object of God’s grace, he can sin with impunity; for him truth is relative.
3) Romans 2:1-16 teaches the “Principles of Justice in the Economy of God.” In this section, Paul is not teaching the method of justification, but the basis by which all men in all time will be judged. One of the great principles is simply and straightforwardly stated in verse 6, “Who will render to every man according to his deeds.” So also a multiplicity of other passages in the Bible dealing with judgment are not expunged by the substitutionary death of Christ (cf. I Corinthians 3:11-15; II Corinthians 5:10; Revelation 22:12).
Man will give account for his deeds, good and bad, and those deeds will make both an apparent and appreciable difference in the quality of a person’s eternity, whether it be heaven or hell. From this we see that, for both the believer and non-believer, truth is absolute.
4) Grace means that the believer will be loved and accepted by God independent and irrespective of his performance. But this does not obliterate the consequences of sin. As Paul said in
Galatians 6:7: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
By way of illustration, you warn your five-year-old son not to play in the street. When he does contrary to your warning, you spank and warn him again – and again – and again. One day he is hit by an auto and is a quadriplegic for the rest of his life. Does his disobedience and its consequences influence your love and acceptance of him? I think not. Rather, your heart goes out to him in a special way, but this does not reverse the consequences of his act.
The same is true in our relationship with God. We somehow confuse grace with the notion that through Christ God will reverse the negative effects of sin. Such is not the case. By grace we gain total acceptance and love, but grace does not eliminate the eternal handicap of the believer’s disobedience.
5) Because this is true, God liberally sprinkles throughout the New Testament statements dealing with the importance of obedience and being motivated by reward. You are storing “treasure in eternity” (Matthew 6: 19-20) and that treasure will be “gold, silver and precious stones” or “wood, hay, and straw” (I Corinthians 3:11-15).
To encourage and assist you in this important task, God has designed life in such a way that you cannot add to your temporal net worth, no matter how hard you work (cf. Matthew 6:24-34, esp. vs. 27). So also God has designed life in such a way that you can add to your eternal net worth.
Death is not a time of transformation, but confirmation. You take with you into eternity the essence of what you are becoming in the years that God gives you on earth. The implications of this are so staggering that it is immediately apparent that life is too short to be spent in mediocrity.
6) Romans 13:1-6 deals with the importance of complying with the laws of the state. In reading this paragraph you note that a failure to comply brings “wrath.” In other words, the force of the law of the land is found in the sword of the state.
God did not give this authority to the state just to maintain social order. More importantly, for the Christian and non-Christian alike, how a person responds to the authority of the state will carry with it an eternal consequence. As we saw in the last issue of this paper, legality is ostensibly the “shadow” of morality. This is the thrust of Paul’s argument in Romans 13 when he says in verse 4,
“For he (the state) is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.”
Just as legality is supposed to be the “shadow” of morality, so also the judgment of the state is supposed to be the “shadow” of the judgment of God.
POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS
Let me anticipate certain objections to all of this. I “anticipate” them because they are questions that naturally came to my mind when I sought to grasp the teaching of Scripture on this subject.
Psalm 103:12 says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” Again, Hebrews 10:17 says, “And their sins and iniquities I remember no more.” Another great promise is Isaiah 43:25,
“I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” Do not these and other related verses seem to suggest that in Christ there will be no accountability? How else are we to read “and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more”?
Note the warning of Jesus in Matthew 12:36-37,
“But I say unto you. That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the Day of Judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”
Even if we interpret this to mean “those outside of Christ,” there are still passages such as II Corinthians 5:10 that deal with the judgment of believers:
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he bath done, whether it be good or bad.”
How can God judge the believer for his works if He can’t remember his sins?
A number of years ago a good friend of mine told of a visit he had with the prelate of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines, Cardinal Sin: There was a nun who professed to have visions in which she saw and talked with Christ. The cardinal, in order to verify the authenticity of this, asked her to ask Jesus, “What was the besetting sin of the cardinal in his youth?” Later when asked for the reply she said, “Jesus said to tell the cardinal that He does not remember.”
If this is true, the believer has nothing to worry about regarding God’s holding him accountable for sin and thus he can regard the truth of God as though it were relative and of no essential significance. The whole tenor of the Scriptures suggests that this is not the case.
The reconciliation of these two seemingly conflicting ideas is found in the fact that the believer’s sins will not influence his standing and acceptance before a gracious God. But from the passages on judgment, we can deduce that we may, if we persist in disobedience, find that in heaven we are like the little boy who insisted on playing in the street.
2) Does not this idea of levels of heaven and hell reverse what was gained in the grace of Christ?
Are we not now back under the bondage of the law from which we thought we were delivered?
Such thinking takes the fun out of the Christian life. It produces discouragement.
Freedom from the law does not mean license. This is the clear teaching of the entire New Testament. As we saw in the September issue, freedom from law is not freedom from self-denial.
When we became children of God, we merely changed masters – from sin to Christ.
The joy and rejoicing of grace is that sin and failure in no way jeopardize our relationship with the Lord. His love and commitment, because of Christ, is total and absolute.
Grace, however, does not address our rewards in heaven. Salvation is by grace; rewards by works. It may be that our licentious culture causes this truth to become blurred in our eyes. This, however, is not the fault of the Scriptures. They are abundantly clear in teaching that grace does not negate accountability. It is the believer’s propensity to be presumptuous that leads him to conclude that through grace he can “beat the system.”
Yours for a life of obedience.
Part Nine
A modern phenomenon is the role counseling plays in the lives of people. Some have held regular sessions with counselors for years. One person told me that he didn’t know what he would do if he didn’t have his weekly session with his counselor.
In this issue I will explore the need for counseling in light of the Scriptures, especially as it relates to grace. The grace of God relates to His Sovereignty and should impact the believer in the area of his need for counseling.
A group of secular intellectuals gathered at the Aspen Institute in Aspen, Colorado, last summer to discuss the role specialists play in fostering the need for counseling. The technical term, “iatrogenic,” means “a doctor-induced illness, the solution that causes additional problems.” Richard Farson, a psychologist in attendance, was quoted as saying, “Where do we get the idea that our marriages should have perfect communication, hot, kinky sex and fulfill our every need all the time. Psychology. Psychology is probably the single greatest reason for divorce!”
I suggest that although psychology feeds the problem, the problem itself finds its origin in man’s quest for autonomy. This desire to run one’s own life first finds its expression in Adam and Eve eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. As noted in the September, 1990, issue of the Dear Co-Laborer’ letter, the Temptation of Genesis 3 had nothing to do with knowing right from wrong, but with deciding what is good (i.e. what is in my best interest) and what is evil (i.e. what is not in my best interest).
God said that man can have anything he wants, but that He wants to define man’s best interest. Man’s rebellion is a quest for autonomy.
NECESSARY INGREDIENTS FOR AUTONOMY
At least three things are necessary for man to succeed in being autonomous:
1) Egalitarianism. The philosopher Rousseau, in his autobiography Confessions, argued that in order for man to achieve his potential he either had to live in isolation or, if in community, practice egalitarianism by sharing the common good with the common man. Without believing in either the God of the Scriptures or the depravity of man, he understood that man is capable of hurting his fellow man. The fur trapper living in the mountains of Colorado a hundred years ago didn’t “sin” against his fellow man; he never saw people. Egalitarianism was the only solution to man’s quest for autonomy while at the same time living in society. This makes socialism an attractive philosophy to the intelligentsia.
2) A lack of accountability. True freedom is possible only if man is not held accountable for the consequences of his actions. We will take a closer look at this later in the article. However, by way of example, promiscuous people are insistent that AIDS is a disease that is not tied to aberrant behavior, believing rather that it claims its victims indiscriminately.
3) Control. Events over which a person has no control threaten autonomy. This is why a great deal of time is devoted to self-protection and why we have become a litigious society. When others hurt us in any way, such as a doctor, auto accident, or break of contract, we sue.
You can see that “a lack of accountability” and “control” are contradictory. I want others to be held accountable for the consequences of their acts while not wanting to be accountable myself.
Autonomy is a fundamental drive. Its presence in Adam and Eve before the Fall makes it obvious that God created us with this desire. At the heart of all interpersonal relationships is volition, i.e. what makes the relationship meaningful is the fact of choice. God wants man to voluntarily surrender to Him.
But God has also designed life in such a way that the failure to submit is the path to self-destruction. Society has always known the importance of authority. Institutions of every kind have at their core the need to submit. People who make a god of their freedom tend to self-destruct. We all know people who defy every form of authority, refusing to learn from their pain the need to yield to leadership.
Autonomy produces broken relationships and “dysfunctionalism,” which in turn produces a further lack of trust in authority. Thus the problem feeds on itself. The personal hurt that autonomy produces substantiates the need for autonomy.
The intelligentsia are smart enough to understand their need to submit to authority, but are
committed to creating a system in which they are in charge. Like a friend of mine once said, “I am against bishops unless I can be one.”
COUNSELING
A friend who has his Ph.D. in psychology said that the counselor has replaced the pastor as the confidant of the people. He is the high priest of the secular society. Many seek him for instruction on how to have autonomy without accountability. Calling a character defect a disease accomplishes this.
An article by Erica E. Goode, in the February 10, 1992, issue of U.S. News and World Report, entitled “Sick, or Just Quirky?” points out that in 1917 the American Psychiatric Association included 59 forms of mental complaint. In their latest version of the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” the list has grown to 292.
The author continues, “Cynics question how heavily such decisions are influenced by factors that have nothing to do with science – for example, social mores, psychiatrists’ wish to be seen as “hard” scientists, economic motives or the idiosyncratic views of prominent experts. As one psychologist says, ‘It’s a very political process.”’
Goode uses the illustration of the removal of homosexuality from the psychiatric manual in 1973 and inclusion of “nicotine dependence.” “ The splendor of human diversity thus runs the risk of becoming simply a collection of syndromes and disorders.”
One of the author’s most telling comments is, “Not only does it suggest that any departure from happiness is abnormal, it also shifts responsibility away from the individual, encouraging people in the questionable belief that life’s difficulties are readily fixed by experts. And, of course, creating a new diagnosis gives doctors one more condition to treat.” (Emphasis mine.)
Counseling seeks to answer the “why” of the “what.” For example, if I am a co-dependent, the counselor can help me by showing that my symptoms are the product of an abusive father. Having understood how I came to develop my problem, I can confront the cause by talking about it with my father. Understanding why I am the way that I am, steps to correct my problem can now be taken.
BIBLICAL HEALING
I remember reading an article in which the author suggested that only about four percent of the population is mentally healthy. Ninety-six percent are dysfunctional to one degree or another. Although you may be a bit dubious, as am I, we know that in one sense a malady infects 100 percent of the people. If this were not true, the death of Christ would be unnecessary.
Anyone with eyes to see knows that we live in a world of hurting people. You cannot be in the people business without encountering evidence of the carnage of sin. A lot of people’s time and energy is spent trying to deal with the product of bad decisions, both in their own lives and the lives of those that impact them.
Counseling can provide a tourniquet for these people, but it cannot provide a cure. Only Jesus can cure. If the pain is the product of personal sin, then repentance and restoration are necessary for a cure. Since it is against God that we have sinned, only He can forgive and heal. (We will explore this further in the next issue.)
If the pain is the product of the sin of others, then we need to understand that God authored the pain. God does not delegate our destinies to others. He is to “blame” for the hurt that comes into our lives, even though other people seem to bring it upon us. As God said to Satan in Job 2:3:
And the LORD said unto Satan. “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? And still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.’
We return to the two foundational pillars in the believer’s relationship with God: In His sovereignty He is in control, and in His goodness He has our best interest at heart. Only by believing this can a cure of our malaise be obtained.
For the purpose of the argument, let’s imagine that I have an alcoholic father, my mother was a whore and my uncle sexually molested me as a youth. Spiritual and emotional healing can only take place when I acknowledge that God in His providence gave me my parents and uncle. God gave them to me because He is a good God and understands that living in that crucible is for my benefit, best preparing me for an eternity with Him. In short, my family is an expression of God’s grace!
In II Corinthians 12:9 Paul says:
“And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
In the midst of suffering, is the grace of God sufficient?
A friend of mine went through a hurtful divorce. Although there are always two sides to a conflict, I think it is safe to say that the sin was primarily that of the partner. My friend said that never again would he trust another person. The intensity of the pain made him feel the need to insulate himself from the possibility of it happening again.
Maybe God wants him single the rest of his life. A cursory reading of I Corinthians 7 affirms this possibility. But to isolate one’s self in order to escape pain is an unbiblical motive. God wants us in the people business. However, when becoming intimately involved in the lives of others there is no way to escape hurt. Only by believing that God orchestrates such pain can I experience the sufficiency of His grace.
Another friend experienced financial disaster. He said that the pain was so severe that he was going to work his way out of debt and never allow himself to be exposed to it again. Maybe God wants him debt free, but never as an excuse to avoid pain. Nor does God want him to retreat to the mountains in quest of the simple life style. The quest for the simple life is to hide his talent, as did the unfaithful steward in Matthew 25:24-30.
God doesn’t want us to retreat from pain. He wants us to grow in our suffering. This can only happen by understanding that God brought this pain into our lives as an expression of His grace. Satan and the actions of evil people may function as agents of God, but Biblically they are never the first cause. God is!
Nor does God want you to vent your spleen on the people who have brought pain into your life.
Nothing good is served by your reliving the past and reviewing your pain. Paul says in Philippians 3:13-14:
“This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Grateful for His leadership.
Part Ten
In the last Dear Co-Laborer” Issue, I noted that counseling can provide tourniquet for the pain of life, but it cannot provide a cure. Only Jesus does this. Pain is one product of sin that can only be healed by acknowledged that we sin against God and God alone. In this Issue I will develop this thought more completely.
CLEANSING THE CONSCIENCE
Five times, in Hebrews 9:9, 14; 10:2, 22; and 13:18, the author discusses the conscience. In
Hebrews 9:9 he says that the Old Testament Levitical system could not “perfect, as pertaining to the conscience” It. Hebrews 9:14
Let us draw near with a true heart in full measure of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
The dictionary defines imputation as ‘to ascribe to or charge (a person) with an act or quality because of the conduct of another over whom one has control or for whose acts or conduct one is responsible. To attribute (righteousness, guilt, etc.) to a person or persons vicariously.”
When we say that Christ died for our sins, it means that God imputed to Christ the sin of the believer and imputed to the believer the righteousness of Christ The Apostle Paul state, this beautifully in II Corinthians 5:21:
For he hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin that we. May be made the righteousness of God in Him.
The fact that God imputes the believer’s sin to Christ means that He was legally guilty, but morally innocent. The fact that God imputes Christ’s righteousness to the believer means that the believer is legally innocent, but morally guilty. In other words, a double imputation touches both Christ and the believer.
The legal imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us not only satisfied the justice of God but also our sense of justice as well. If God had not demanded justice, then we would be insecure in our relationship with Him. God said, “The soul that sinneth, it shal1 die.” If God did not demand death as the payment for sin, we could not trust His Word.
So also, if God did not demand justice against sin, the believer would feel dirty and guilty, knowing that God had not properly dealt with his sin. In order for the believer to commune with God, he needs both justification and sanctification. The propitious death of Christ effects the first; the regenerating word of the Holy Spirit the second.
We saw In Hebrews 9:14 that the death of Christ cleansed the conscience from dead works. These are the works that we perform to atone for our sins. They are dead in that they cannot reconcile us to God. But they do serve to show that we oil feel the need to do works in atonement for our sins.
The reason they can never cleanse the conscience is, we are never sure how many such works are necessary to make the wrong right, even if we assume that such works in fact can atone. Our consciences would still be haunted by the fact that, once committed, we can never make the wrong right.
For example, let’s say that you are on a hunting trip and accidentally kill your best friend. His death leaves a widow and four children. How do you forgive yourself for the accident? You can provide for the financial needs of the family for the rest of their lives, but bow do you replace their husband and father; the rest of your life your conscience will be haunted – unless, that is, you understand what the Bible teaches on this subject.
Hebrews teaches that Jesus, the Supreme Judge and Arbitrator of all (MISSING) declares His Blood sufficient to right the wrong. Because He is the Supreme Court, the issue is settled. From here you merely have to ask whether you believe Him.
KING DAVID, THE MURDERER
All are familiar with the narrative in II Samuel 11, where David kills Uriah after committing adultery with his wife Bathsheba. In Psalm 51:4 declares:
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight: that Thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou, judgest.
Notice that David did not say that he had sinned against Uriah, Bathsheba, or the nation of Israel, or anyone other than God. The sin was solely between David and God. This is critically important to understand if God is to MISSING our consciences.
Let’s assume that Uriah had brothers and sisters who knew what David did. Let’s assume further that they were bold enough to remind the king of what he did. Everywhere David went, they called attention to the fact that he was a murderer. Even though he knew that God had forgiven him, David may still have a guilty conscience.
Unless, that is, David knew that Uriah went to be with Jesus right on schedule. David was a negative instrument in accomplishing the will of God, but he did not shape Uriah’s destiny, in His sovereignty God delegates that to no one!
Once forgiven by God, David could proceed with his life, head upright for his conscience was clean because he understood that although he was responsible for killing Uriah, ultimately God decreed that Uriah’s time had come to go from this life to the next, and David, the sinner, did not alter Uriah’s destiny. David sinned against God alone.
CONCLUSION
By way of summary, in order to have a cleansed conscience, you must understand the legal basis through which the works of Jesus Christ alone satisfies Justice and believe that it is not through your own works. The conscience must be ‘purged front dead works’. Christ imputes to you His righteousness and In His death satisfies time justice of God for your sin. You sin against Him and only Him. This is the reason you can have a clean conscience.
Secondly, you must understand that you cannot shape another’s destiny, This means that you cannot legitimately have a problem with another person. Although you are responsible for your actions, and God will judge you on the basis of them, you cannot hurt another person, and others cannot hurt you.
If you feel that what you do cleanses your conscience, you will never know how much is enough in rectifying the wrong committed. This doesn’t mean that restitution is unnecessary. The will of God, however, determines restitution, not the conscience of the sinner or the offended party. You never alleviate guilt by restitution. The guilt is removed solely because Jesus paid the demands of Justice and has forgiven the sin.
We see the grace of God, then, not only in Justification, but also in Sanctification, in Justification Christ paid the penalty for my sin. In Sanctification Christ cleanses my conscience from all sin.
Rejoicing in grace,
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”
(1 John 1:9)
Part Eleven
During our Sabbatical we studied eschatology in the patristics. Because all people have hope, and their ultimate hope is by definition their own eschatology, and because hope is the driving force that determines how people invest their lives, I thought it important to study the subject. The eschatological convictions of the church are divided between those who see it in temporal and those who see it in eternal terms.
I wanted to study those who immediately followed the New Testament writers, otherwise known as the patristics, to determine when and for what reasons the church divided on this great question. A buddy of mine loaned me his lap-top computer, and I spent hours every day reading and typing out obse,vations, quotes, summaries, etc. When I returned home and printed it, I discovered that I have between 250 and 300 pages of single-spaced material.
While studying at St. Dieniol’s in Wales, I asked myself what I should do with the material and concluded that I should not try to write a book. My ministry is to the laity, and therefore I want to share it with the laity, hopefully in an intelligible and useful way. When I finish this series on grace, I intend to devote several issues to eschatology.
GRACE
In the next few issues I will explore one of the major rifts in the body of Christ. It centers around the interpretation of Romans 5-8 and how the believer is to understand God’s grace. In one sense it may appear a little technical and possibly even a bit irrelevant, although I will seek to relate it to the practical ramifications of how we should live. In another sense my treatment of the subject will be elementary and not at all thorough. It certainly would leave the theologian unsatisfied.
This controversy over how to understand Romans 5-8 has generated a number of denominations, and the implications on how to understand the Christian life are far-reaching. All of us are influenced by the undercurrents of how Romans 5-8 is to be understood, even though we may not be aware of it.
As we saw in Grace, Part 10, the dictionary defines imputation as “to ascribe to or charge (a person) with an act or quality because of the conduct of another over whom one has control or for whose acts or conduct one is responsible. To attribute (righteousness, guilt, etc.) to a person or persons vicariously.” This is at the heart of the believer’s relationship with God.
Paul says in II Corinthians 5:21: “For he bath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” God imputed the sin of the believer to Christ and the righteousness of Christ to the believer.
ROMANS 5
Romans 5 has two major paragraphs:
1) The Consequences of Justification – verses 1-11;
2) The Consequences of Imputation – verses 12-21.
Verses 1-11 deal with tribulation in the life of the believer. Justification assures the believer that tribulation is not the product of God’s anger or wrath. If I am a friend of God because of my righteousness, then when I sin, I can assume that God will send tribulation in order to either punish or chastise me. Since God imputes righteousness to me solely on the merit of Christ, I can know that tribulation is not the product of His displeasure.
Verses 12-2 1 deal with imputation in the life of the believer. Through imputation the believer is both condemned and justified; the former because of the sin of Adam, the latter because of the righteousness of Christ.
Just as God imputed sin to mankind because of the transgression of Adam, so also He imputed righteousness to the believer because of the propitious death of Christ. Thus verses 12-21 explain verses 1-11. In this second paragraph Paul explains how death and life originated in man’s relationship with God.
THE DEATH OF ADAM
We see the argument for imputation in the death of Adam as set forth in verses 12-14:
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death .by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: 13For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
This passage is key in understanding Romans 5-8. In what sense did the sin of Adam result in all sinning? In answering this we must remember that Adam was the cause of
sin in a sense analogous to that in which Christ is the cause of righteousness. We clearly see this in II Corinthians 5:21 as noted above.
Sin caused death. If people did not sin, they would not die, including babies. Thus babies must sin in some sense other than an overt act, for the passage teaches that death is the penalty for sin, not the consequence of the way God created man. Paul is teaching us that there is a connection between Adam’s sin and the death of all people.
Death supposes transgression. God regards and treats all men from the moment of their existence as having forfeited His favor, because all fell in Adam. In Genesis 2:17 Adam had a LAW. When he broke it, he was placed on trial, not just for himself but for the whole race, even though all people did not break that same LAW.
We see this in a comparison between Adam and Christ. One brought death, the other life. Adam’s sin was the ground or reason for our condemnation, just as, Christ’s death was the ground or reason for our justification.
The corruption we derived from Adam is not the basis of our condemnation any more than the holiness we derive from Christ’s presence in our lives is the basis of our justification. In both cases God imputed these to us. The sin of Adam was legally and effectively our sin, and the righteousness of Christ was legally and effectively our righteousness, irrespective of our moral condition.
The statement “For all sinned” means that in Adam all men are considered, and thus declared to be, sinners. We all sinned in the sense that God imputed Adam’s sin to us.
To argue that Paul teaches that we are condemned for our sins, to the exclusion of Adam’s sin (because it would be unfair to impute another man’s sins to us), necessitates his teaching that we are justified for our goodness – which destroys all hope of heaven if we sin. It also means that it is equally unfair to impute another Man’s righteousness to us, thus negating the efficacious work of Christ on our behalf.
To impute sin means to regard and treat as a sinner; and to impute righteousness means to regard and treat as righteous The Bible-never represents imputation a~ affecting moral character but merely the relationship of man to God and His Law.
This results in a difference between moral character and legal relations. Therefore, a person may be just and unjust, righteous and unrighteous at the same time.
We did not become infused with anything immoral or sinful as the result of imputed or original sin. Rather, it means that we have a tendency or disposition to evil that results from the loss of the presence of God. When Adam sinned, God withdrew His presence from mankind. Although this left man, as it were, in the middle of the ocean without a lifeboat, God nevertheless did not drown him.
As Paul elaborates in verse 14, the Law entered with Moses. Paul is not arguing that there was no sin from Adam to Moses, but rather that God did not impute moral sin
without Law. (Man is still morally guilty on the basis of his own law as outlined in Romans 2:1-16.)
The failure of God to impute moral sin without Law is an illustration of the fact that He imputed the sin of Adam to the human race, even though God did not charge the human race with the sin of breaking His Law until after Moses (again taking into account the judgment of God on the basis of man’s own standards).
APPLICATION OF GRACE
The propitious death of Christ on the cross is the reason or ground for God justifying the sinner. God uses imputation as the means for justifying the sinner. Because God imputes righteousness to the morally corrupt believer on the basis of Christ’s death, He thus declares the believer holy and righteous.
This is a declarative act rather than actual righteousness, just as when God imputed our sin to Christ, it was declarative rather than actual. When “God made Christ to be sin for us, “the moral character of Christ was not affected, only His legal standing. So also when God imputes the righteousness of Christ to the believer, the transaction is legal rather than moral.
We see grace in this double imputation of sin to Christ and holiness to the believer. We attain grace through imputation. The transaction of justification takes place through the medium of imputation.
One of the themes in Romans 5 is “much more.” It is a great study on the grace of God. For example, Paul says in verse 17, “For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.”
Not only does Jesus deliver us from death, He also gives to us life eternal. If Adam and Eve had eaten of the TREE OF LIFE before the TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL, our doom would have been sealed. When Jesus delivered us from the penalty of eating the fruit, He also bestowed the life from which we had been previously barred.
In Adam we died, but in Christ we live in spite of our sin. How terrible it would be if Adam had not sinned and we all remained under the conditional covenant that Adam lived under before he sinned. It would mean that if we sinned, we would die. It would be as though each individual were on perpetual probation. One sin, and death would result.
Now when we sin, we still live, due to the work of Christ. Thus, what was gained in Christ is MUCH MORE than what was lost in Adam. This is grace!
Part Twelve
In the last issue we sought to understand what is one of the most complicated and yet important portions of the New Testament, Romans 5. Theologians call the sin of Adam and its imputation to the human race Original Sin. Adam originated sin for the human race.
Another theological term used is Total Depravity. This means that God withdrew His favor from man in a way analogous to the fallen angels. Man is totally depraved not in the sense that he is as bad as he can be, but rather that his mind is so influenced by sin that he cannot reason his way back to a place of sensing his lostness and alienation from God.
Because of God’s withdrawing of Himself from the human race, man, in his quest for independence, has a natural aversion to authority, especially the authority of God. This does not mean that the substance or essence of the soul is corrupted. Neither is it an essential element infused into the soul as poison is mixed with wine. The effect of Adam’s sin on his posterity is: 1) We share his guilt; 2) God considers us unrighteous; 3) Our whole nature is corrupt.
We see that before the Fall Adam craved the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Without that desire the Fall would not have happened. God’s presence provided the antidote for this craving for independence. When Adam sinned and God removed His presence, this appetite for autonomy went unchecked. Man decided what was in his best interest, i.e. what was good. This rebellion against authority in general and God’s law in particular is the definition of the corruption of man’s nature.
Satan hoped that the Fall would result in his becoming god with man being dependent upon him. He didn’t count on man seeking autonomy. Thus in the Fall, instead of man transferring allegiance to Satan, man set up a third competing center of authority and power. If this had not happened, in all probability man would have been hopelessly lost, and Satan in essence would have accomplished his objective.
God imputes sin to the human race because of the sin of Adam. This is the teaching of Romans 5:12-21. To impute means to attribute something to a person upon adequate grounds, not because of criminality or moral evil, but due to the judicial obligation to satisfy justice.
Thus God can impute Adam’s sin to us, our sin to Christ, or Christ’s righteousness to us. He did not impute the sin of angels to man, since there is no connection. In the imputed sin of Adam to the human race we see in Adam our natural head. Just as our sins bear on our children (for example, our children must bear the weight of the national debt in the U.S.A. even though they didn’t spend the money), so Adam’s on us. We call this the Federal Headship of Adam. In his sin he represented the whole human race.
I have introduced three theological terms: Original Sin; Total Depravity; and the Federal Headship of Adam. All three have a direct bearing on our understanding of grace.
ALL DIED IN ADAM; ALL ARE MADE ALIVE IN CHRIST
This is a summary of Paul’s statement in Romans 5:18-19: ‘Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” The same idea is stated in I Corinthians 15:22: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive”.
The ALL means “all who are represented by.” “As all who are represented by Adam die, so all who are represented by Christ are made alive.” If Paul did not intend this, then Universalism results, and if there is one thing that the Bible does NOT teach, it is Universalism.
The same way sin came upon “all,” righteousness came upon “all.” The “all” of sin is not universal in that Adam’s sin was not imputed to Christ. This is the purpose of the Virgin Birth. So also, the “all” of righteousness is not universal; only those who are represented by Christ are made alive in Christ.
PELAGIUS AND AUGUSTINE
In the fifth century Augustine and Pelagius debated the meaning of Romans 5-8, beginning with what happened in the fall of Adam. How grace influences your understanding of the nature of the Christian life is clearly presented in this debate. The position I hold is essentially Augustinian and is the basis for my understanding of grace.
Pelagius and his followers believed that the statement, ‘As in Adam all die, so in Christ all are made alive,” means that Christ undid what Adam did, i.e. abolish original sin. Sin or guilt, therefore, is limited to a person’s own voluntary act or thought.
They viewed grace as God removing Adam’s sin from the human race. People do not go to hell for Adam’s sin, but for their own. Election exists only in the general sense of God electing Israel or, with individuals, in electing on the basis of His foreknowledge. He sees in advance who will respond to the Gospel and then elects to save them. Grate in this sense doesn’t need election, for grace is universal rather than particular, or it is based on what God knew we would do and is therefore dependent on our actions (cf. Grace, Part 2 for the relationship between grace and election).
Pelagius believed God created man as a rational free agent, without moral character. He was neither righteous nor unrighteous, having the capacity to become either by virtue of his being created with reason and a free will.
Just as man was not created righteous, but neutral, so also after the Fall he is not unrighteous by birth. Pelagius denied original sin as well as the possibility of indwelling sin in the life of the believer.
This thinking is predicated on an assumption that underlies all of Pelagian thinking: Man is responsible only for what he has full power to do or to avoid. Man cannot be charged with a crime that he did not commit nor for a wrong that he could not avoid committing. That which is not within the power of the will cannot have any moral force.
Augustine argued that man has characteristics that are neither acts nor states of mind under the control of the will that we readily admit to be sin. “Selfishness, maliciousness, ingratitude, unbelief, lack of love towards God and man are not willful attitudes, but a state of being which constitutes the character of man and is the ground of his condemnation.”
This fundamental flaw in the nature of man is not the product of education and environment. No one in any age has been able to create the kind of environment that eliminated these characteristics. It didn’t happen in Israel under Moses and Joshua; It doesn’t exist on the university campuses of today; and Lenin couldn’t create it in the classless society.
Jesus had this in mind when in Matthew 12:34-35 He said,
O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man Out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.
We learn more about ourselves when we react than when we act. In reaction we overrule the will and the real person is revealed.
All of this has a direct bearing on Sanctification. If sin is only an act and not our nature or character, then as we will see in Romans 6, when we died in Christ, we were free from
actual sin. Thoughtless, involuntary acts are not sin since they are not the product of the will. This results in a doctrine of sinless perfection.
Pelagius said, “If I ought, I can.” Ability limits obligation. Free will means that a person has power at all times and at every moment over choosing between good and evil, being holy or unholy. Whatever man does not have power over, and is thus unable to choose, is not moral. Sin is only the deliberate choice of evil. It presupposes knowledge of what is evil as well as the full power of choosing or rejecting it.
For Pelagius this means that all men are born into the world in the same state as Adam before the Fall. Adam’s sin only injured himself in that the imputed sin of Adam was erased by the imputed sin of Christ. Sin is not transmitted or inherited, argued Pelagius. Why? If God created me and I am naturally sinful, then it follows that God is the Author of sin. So also it follows that physical death was not the product of sin, for Adam would have died had he not sinned, just as the animals and all people.
Furthermore, Pelagius argued that theoretically we can be saved apart from the Gospel. Paul says in Romans 2:7-11 that good men receive eternal life. Since we do not need to sin, we can go to heaven without needing to trust Christ.
Much of this obviously contradicts Scripture, and Pelagius would not have naturally embraced it had not the logic of his presuppositions forced him into it. Thus as his antagonists began reasoning with him, in order to defend himself, he began embracing unbiblical positions.
APPLICATION OF GRACE
Pelagius reacted to what we identified in earlier issues as the intrinsic unfairness of grace. Because grace is God’s commitment to the sinner without reference to reciprocity or anything attractive in the object of grace, it is linked to election. You cannot have grace without election.
Here Pelagius stumbled. Election was abhorrent to him, and he therefore concluded that
Romans 9 teaches the election of nations, not individuals. This resulted in the above.
Grace is denigrated, and man goes to heaven because of what he did.
Pelagius certainly affirmed that Christ was necessary for salvation. But for him salvation is void of election. Grace is universal, given to all people everywhere. One man goes to heaven because of what he does, i.e. embraces God’s grace; the other goes to hell for failing to embrace His grace.
This is merely the tip of the iceberg. We will see more of the implications of Pelagianism as we move into Romans 6.
Grateful for grace.
Part Thirteen
In the last two issues we have explored how imputation influences the doctrine of sanctification as taught by Paul in Romans 5-8. Pelagius (c. 383-410) and Augustine (354-430) debated its meaning in the Fifth Century, and Augustine “won” in that his position became normative for the church.
With modifications, the view of Pelagius re-surfaced again through the Dutch theologian
Arminius (1560-1609) and Wesley (1703-1791). Today it is present in Methodism, in most
of the holiness and Pentecostal denominations and in much of the charismatic movement.
The Keswick movement, the “deeper life,” the “exchanged life,” and speakers like Ian Thomas and Norman Grubb, all have their genesis in Pelagian theology. _
I do not suggest that the above have not modified the views of Pelagius. Just the opposite. Whenever a person proposes a view or system of theology, as many variations evolve as there are people who embrace it. Nevertheless, they all drink out of the same well.
PAUL’S ARGUMENT IN ROMANS 6
The theme of Romans 6 is: Grace is the essential ingredient to holiness rather than an excuse to indulge in sin. Paul does not argue for the elimination of sin hut against the rulership of sin in the life of the believer.
The issue in the chapter is CHOICE, not POWER. Romans 6 assumes power, and it is discussed in Romans 8. The Holy Spirit ministers to each believer, bringing the believer’s EXPERIENCE into alignment with his POSITION.
Grace is the arch stone of justification and sanctification. When pardoned by Christ’s death, we are freed from the destructive influence of sin. It is a gift of God. But just as the believer is active in justification through faith/believe (Romans 4), so in sanctification through a life of obedience.
We secure sanctification in the same manner as justification. God imputes it to the believer on the basis of Christ’s death and resurrection. Just as we experience justification, so also sanctification. Sanctification results in a cleansed conscience, indwelled by the Holy Spirit. Paul mentions the Holy Spirit in Romans 1:4; 5:5 and discusses His work in detail in Romans 8. The Holy Spirit gives the believer the ability to lead a holy life. Again, Romans 6-7 assumes the Holy Spirit’s presence in the life of the believer, and it is discussed in Romans 8.
In Romans 6:1-11 Paul argues that union with Christ in His death and resurrection makes the believer’s willing participation in sin a contradiction of terms. In this passage Paul presents a case for not abusing the grace of God.
As I noted in an earlier issue, idolatry is man’s endeavor to create a god who will give him what he wants without negative consequences. Many Christians perceive grace as an opportunity to create such a god. All of us have a tendency to abuse God’s grace.
Paul discusses the absurdity of “Let us do evil that good may come” in Romans 3:8. He continues this theme in Romans 5:21-6:11 by arguing that grace rather than sin “reigns” in the life of the believer. Grace results in union with Christ, which in turn precludes the possibility of sin ruling the life of a believer, for union means the ruling of Christ, and Christ is the antithesis of sin.
PELAGIUS AND AUGUSTINE SEE IT DIFFERENTLY
A couple of verses illustrate the difference between the theology of these two men and its impact on the Christian life. In Romans 6:2 Paul says, “God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” What does “dead to sin” mean? When did we die?
Augustine argued that our death is a completed fact. We died at salvation. We are dead to sin in the sense that Christ imputed righteousness to us as taught in Romans 5. Just as in Romans 5:12 Paul says, “all sinned,” i.e. God imputed the sin of Adam to us, so also in Romans 6:2 when he says, ‘dead to sin,” it means that God imputed the death of Christ to us.
We died at salvation and are dead in the sense that we are IMPUTED to be dead in Christ. We cannot understand Romans 6 apart from Romans 5:12-21. The question is, should we read verse 2 to mean, “How shall we that are dead on account of sin . . . “ or to mean, “How shall we that have renounced sin live any longer therein?”
If the first, then the sinner vicariously participates in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ through imputation (cf. Galatians 2:20). If the second, then, as Pelagius argued, what the believer does produces a life free of sin. We cannot read verse 2 as saying, “How shall we who have renounced sin, live any longer therein?” This would mean that the believer rather than Christ produces sanctification in the believer’s life.
The second verse that illustrates the debate over the meaning of sanctification is Romans 6:6-7: “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might he destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.”
Augustine argued that the “body of sin” is the old man of Ephesians 4:22:24: ‘That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, and Colossians 3:8-9:
“But now ye also put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds.”
“Serve” in Romans 6:6 is “dulos”, i.e. “slave.” We are no longer slaves to sin. The “body” is not the source of sin, but its vehicle. This verse personifies “sin.” Sin has life and is obeyed. Thus the “body of sin” is not the physical body of the believer which will one day he resurrected, hut it is synonymous with ‘flesh.” This is a legal transaction that takes place when I receive life in Christ.
Paul does not speak of the process of sanctification, but the fact of imputation – an act of God based on Christ’s death for us. ‘Knowing” is experiencing, i.e. we experience the imputed death of Christ.
Pelagius taught that there are no such things as: (1) obligation to God, (2) war between the good and evil/old man and new man, or (3) carnality. Sin is an identity issue; i.e. we are in Christ rather than in Adam. I appropriate Christ rather than feel obligated to do good. When I sin, it is not so much I doing it but a misconception of who I am in Christ. The solution to sin is understanding my identity in Christ.
Pelagius further taught that God imputed moral righteousness to us. I am not a sinner saved by grace, but a child of God. If I think I am a sinner saved by grace, then I will expect to sin. God has already accomplished the work of sanctification. It is an event. Those who agree with Pelagius don’t like the word “position.” They argue that Paul teaches not our “position,” not our “performance.”
Augustine taught that ‘freed from sin” means that justification delivers the believer from sin in two senses: (1) from its penalty via the vicarious death of Christ; (2) from its power as we participate in the death of Jesus experientially. This is sanctification; hut the believer is not freed from the presence of sin. This is the subject of Romans 7.
PAUL’S USE OF “I” IN ROMANS 7
In Romans 7:14-25, Paul uses the first person pronoun, “I.” Was Paul speaking of the regenerate or unregenerate when he used ‘7”? As you read Romans 7:14-25, you see that the “I” wants to please God but cannot meet its own expectations in its endeavor. Can an unregenerate person, unaided by the Holy Spirit, understand his lostness and seek God?
Augustine answered in the negative. Romans 3:11 says, “There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.” Again, I Corinthians 2:14 says, “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” People are totally depraved in that sin has so tainted their reason that they cannot understand their lostness. Nor can they, by their reason unaided by the Holy Spirit, conclude that they are alienated from God.
On the basis of his interpretation of Romans 6 and the fact that God imputed a moral righteousness to the sinner, which returned him to the place of Adam before the Fall, Pelagius argued that the “I” of Romans 7 was the natural, unregenerate man. It could not be the regenerate because he is in fact “dead to sin!”
APPLICATION OF GRACE
What did God impute to the human race in the fall of Adam and the cross of Christ? Pelagius argued that as God considered all people dead in Adam, so also He considered all alive in Christ. The whole of the human race benefited from the death of Christ in that we see God’s grace in bringing them to the place where Adam was before the Fall.
In Romans 6, argued Pelagius, Paul teaches that God imputes a moral as well as legal righteousness to the whole of humanity. When the believer, by an act of his will, appropriates the grace of God to his own life, that believer is morally dead to sin and free from its influence. For this reason Pelagius argued that the “I” of Romans 7 cannot be the believer.
Struggles in the Christian life, for Pelagius and his followers, are unnatural. The believer need not be tormented by the presence of sin. Not only so, but just as it was what you did that made you a Christian (i.e. receive Christ), so also you can, by an act of your will, once again be lost. Lost – saved – lost – saved . . . is the likely experience for most who embrace this interpretation. Grace is universal, not individual.
Augustine countered that man’s salvation is a product of the grace of God. Because of his moral depravity, man experiences salvation only when God takes the initiative and touches him. Election and grace are married. Paul argues in Romans 6 that life in Christ means that although sin no longer reigns in the life of the believer, sin is present until the day the believer dies.
Bonded by His grace.
Part Fourteen
Romans 1-4 divides the Christian from the non-Christian, for these chapters deal with the subject of justification. All Christians essentially agree with Paul’s teaching in these chapters.
Romans 5-8 divides Christians, for these chapters deal with the subject of sanctification. Differences regarding these chapters have produced many denominations. They define the role of grace in the life of the believer
Although believers differ in a multiplicity of ways in their interpretation of Romans 5-8, they divide themselves in two fundamentally different ways of viewing this material, as seen in Augustine and Pelagius. The positions of these two men have been studied and argued through the centuries.
As I seek to represent the essence of their positions, I am sure that those more theologically precise than I will take exception with my presentation. Hopefully, you will be able to catch the difference in perception between Augustine and Pelagius and understand the profound difference it makes in how we live the Christian life.
SAINTS AND SINNERS
As we look at Romans 5-8, let’s explore whether a person can be a saint and a sinner at the same time. In Romans 6:20 Paul says, “For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.” Then in Romans 7:14 Paul says, “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.”
Pelagius argued that these two verses proved his thesis that the “I” of Romans 7 represents the non-Christian. We are not “the servants of sin,” and we are not “free from righteousness.” Therefore, I am not “carnal, sold under sin.” You cannot be a saint and a sinner at the same time!
Augustine reasoned the opposite. He said that God imputes righteousness to us as taught in Romans 6:20, rather than our having a righteousness of our own (legal rather than moral), and, as Romans 7:14 teaches, we wrestle with sin in our lives.
The non-Christian does not long to be freed from his sin, he enjoys it. We see this, for example, in the militancy of homosexuals. The Holy Spirit works in the life of an individual, convicting him of sin. He does not work in the hearts of all people.
The phrase, “it is not I but sin that dwells in me” (Romans 7:17) teaches a dual nature in man. This passage deals with either the unregenerate or the regenerate. If the former, then what produced it? What causes the conflict alluded to in Romans 7? Pelagius said that the death of Christ places all people in the position of Adam before the Fall, but without experiencing conversion to Christ, thus resulting in a dual nature. Augustine said that both Christ and the “old man” living in the believer results in a dual nature.
The interpretation of this passage rests on one’s presuppositions regarding the nature of man. If Paul in Romans 7:14-25 describes the natural man desiring to obey the Law, then he means that the unregenerate man wants to do good and cannot; “It is not I but sin that dwells in me” (vss. 17 and 20). This, you remember, was the position of Pelagius. If, on the other hand, the Bible teaches that sin influences a man’s whole being so that the unregenerate mind is corrupted by sin, then this passage refers to a regenerate person who is struggling with his sin nature. This was the position of Augustine.
BODY AND FLESH
In Romans 6-8 Paul uses the words “body” and ‘flesh” differently. The flesh is the sin principle housed in the body. For example, Paul says:
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me: but how to perform that which is good I find not. (Romans 7:18)
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God: but with the flesh the law of sin. (Romans 7:25)
That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh: but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally (fleshly) minded is death: but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
(Romans 8:4-9)
And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, be that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. (Romans 8:10-11)
And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. (Romans 8:23)
In this portion of the Scripture ‘flesh” is the old nature that wars against the new man in the life of the believer, the sin principle, with which the believer must deal as long as he is in the body. The “body” is good, the ‘flesh” is bad. Romans 7:5 says, ‘When we were in the flesh.” We are not in the flesh in the sense that we are free from the dominion of sin. Jesus broke the POWER of sin, and it no longer reigns in our lives. I am “captive to the law of sin” in the sense that as long as I am in this body it will find a vehicle of expression. Thus death is the final deliverance from the terrible, captivating influence of sin.
Just as you can be both a saint and a sinner at the same time, so also “sold under sin” refers to both a believer and an unbeliever. Romans 6:20 refers to the unregenerate and Romans 7:23 to the believer.
Romans 7 doesn’t so much teach that we are slaves to sin as it teaches that the Law cannot sanctify us. In Christ we are free from sin. Sin “shall have no more dominion over us.” We will explore this more thoroughly in the next issue, but Paul is teaching that the Law cannot sanctify the believer.
The emphasis of the chapter isn’t that I am under the flesh or the sin principle and need deliverance by the Spirit. Although the chapter includes this truth, Paul teaches that I am so influenced by the presence of sin that the Law cannot help me find a solution to my problem. The contrast in Romans 7 isn’t between the FLESH and the SPIRIT, but rather between the FLESH and the LAW. The contrast between the flesh and the spirit is the subject of Romans 8:1-13.
Therefore, as I live out my Christian life, I am both a saint and a sinner. As I progressively become less a sinner and more a saint, the Law is powerless to help. If anything, it complicates the problem. Only Christ can solve the problem, and then only when I am in union with Him through the Holy Spirit. Still, although I experience progress, the presence of sin isn’t eradicated until I am dead. I will develop this more fully in the next issue.
APPLICATION OF GRACE
God justifies the believer for the purpose of leading him to sanctification. God never justifies us
in order to affirm us in our sin. God works in our lives to “will and do of His good pleasure” (Philippians2:13).
“We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (Ephesians 2:10).
Again, Paul says in Romans 6:12-13: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”
All Christians agree that this is so. This raises the question: Can you look to sanctification to determine justification? If a Christian is both a saint and a sinner, how do you look to sanctification to determine justification? The heart of the Lordship/Salvation debate revolves around this question. The argument between Augustine and Pelagius did not deal with this, rather those who hold the Augustinian view debate it among themselves.
God designed the doctrine of assurance of salvation for the obedient. Those who willfully and with an unrepentant heart break the commandments of God have no Biblical basis for assurance of their salvation. Paul says in I Corinthians 6:9-10:
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
When a professing, unrepentant Christian breaks one of God’s negative commandments, his church must discipline him in accordance with I Corinthians 5. Bible-believing people agree that we should follow this procedure. Grace does not grant the believer a license to sin.
We disagree, however, on what to do with people who do not meet our expectations regarding the positive commands, such as attendance at the gathering of God’s people or enthusiasm regarding the things of our Lord. Also, what do we do with people who break the positive commands, repent, break them again, etc.? Do we discipline them for failure to perform? When you look to sanctification to determine justification, you tend to conclude from such behavior that such people are not Christians.
In Jesus’ parable of the sower (Mark 4:1-20) He identifies four soils. You can fairly easily conclude that the first soil is a non-Christian and the last is a believer. But what about soils two and three? Can you consider a person whose life is marked by “the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things entering in” (Mark 4:19 – soil three) a Christian? Most who argue for Lordship/Salvation say no, a child of God does not behave this way.
When you reason this way, performance mitigates grace and acceptance depends upon the person meeting extra-Biblical standards. Although you agree that a Christian can be both a saint and sinner at the same time, the litmus test for sainthood becomes your expectations, rather than God’s, for even though the “commando of Mark 4:19 is clear, people differ on what “the cares of this world….“ look like.
God expects justification to lead to sanctification, but you must take care to ensure that when you look to sanctification to determine justification, you use only the negative commandments found in the New Testament. Failure in this regard results in abusing the grace of God.
Resting in His grace.
Part Fifteen
In Grace, Part 14, I shifted from discussing the differences between those who hold to the views of Pelagius vis-a-vis Augustine to those who differ regarding the nature of sanctification among those who claim to be Augustinian. In this issue I will continue along this same vein.
What role does the Old Testament Law play in sanctification? This is the topic of this issue.
First, let’s discuss the meaning of the word Law. God uses the Hebrew word Torah for those commandments given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Before this time the Bible mentions Torah only once, in Genesis 26:5, when the Lord appears to Abraham: Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.
When used in reference to the Mosaic Law Torah includes the dietary, civil, ceremonial and moral laws. In the New Testament the Greek word for law is nomos. (Ethos is sometimes used for law when in reference to customs or way of life). Nomos often refers to the Mosaic Law but is also used in other ways, as seen in Romans 7:21-25.
THE USE OF LAW IN ROMANS 7
In Romans 7:1-20 Paul consistently uses nomos in reference to the Mosaic Law. Let’s look at what he says in Romans 7:1-3: Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband Iiveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Paul uses the analogy of the woman’s relationship to her husband to show that the authority of the Mosaic Law is not perpetual. In this illustration the wife is the believer and the husband is the Law.
The illustration would have been more exact if Paul had said that the Law is dead rather than that we are dead to the Law. Then we, still alive, could marry another. We see the reason Paul worded it this way in verse 1: them that know the law, i.e. Paul didn’t explicitly say the Law is dead in deference to the Jews. Probably Paul did not want to offend the Jews and thus complicate the problem of communication.
Paul gives the application in Romans 7:4: Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
Being dead to the Law I am joined to Christ. I am in union with Christ in the same way I used to be in union with the Law. The passage implies that the Law cannot produce fruit pleasing to God.
Paul teaches that just as the woman is free from the law of marriage when her husband dies, so the believer is free from the Mosaic Law when Christ died. The Law was our first husband, and it died with Christ who fulfilled its demands. We married Christ when He rose from the dead and we were converted. This union is essential to holiness.
Freedom from the Law does not grant us leave to indulge ourselves but to bear fruit unto God. Christ provides freedom from Law by satisfying the Law’s demands. We clearly see that Paul talks about the Mosaic Law in verse 7 where he uses the Tenth Commandment not to covet as his illustration.
Paul does not argue salvation by Law in the Old Testament and through grace in the New Testament. The Law never saved anyone–only grace. Rather, the issue is living under Law. The Old Testament saints were in union with the Law; in the New Testament we are in union with Christ. Thus, in the New Testament God frees the believer from the Law in a way that He did not for the Old Testament saints. The issue of Romans 7 is sanctification, not justification.
CONTINUITY OF THE MOSAIC COVENANT
Some in the Augustinian camp argue that the New Testament Church carries the mantle of Old Testament Israel, and therefore appropriates to herself all the Old Testament covenants. In particular this includes the Mosaic Covenant.
Christians from every tradition agree that the New Testament enforces the Abrahamic Covenant. As Paul says in Galatians 3:29: And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Not all agree, however, regarding the Mosaic Covenant. Those who insist that the Mosaic Covenant is in force today say, The New Testament believer is obligated to keep all Old Testament laws unless they are repealed in the New Testament. Examples of Old Testament laws repealed in the New Testament are those that pertain to the sacrificial system, which the death of Christ annulled.
Titles given to those who hold an extreme form of this view include Theonomy, Cultural Mandate and Dominion Covenant. They believe that the Church has a mission to claim the institutions of society for Christ and do what Israel failed to do in the Old Testament, i.e. establish a theocratic kingdom on earth. The Puritan Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell, in the Seventeenth Century held this view, for example.
The majority of those who believe in the continuity of the Mosaic Covenant in the New Testament are not this radical. They do not have as their goal making the United States a theocratic nation. But when I talked to the president of a major seminary that embraces this view, he said that although they disagree with Theonomy, they are defenseless against it. Once you embrace the application of the Mosaic Covenant in the Church, you have difficulty refuting Theonomy.
Others, who hold to the Augustinian view of Romans 5-8, do not believe that the Mosaic Covenant applies to the New Testament Church, and say, The Old Testament laws are not obligatory for the New Testament believer unless God repeats them in the New Testament. Because of Romans 7:1-4 (plus a host of other passages, including Romans 6:14) I hold to this view.
Those who believe in the continuity of the Mosaic Covenant call those of us who do not antinomian”: anti = against; nomian (nomos) = law. Many use it polemically to connote a total disregard for the commandments of God.
SANCTIFICATION BY GRACE
Those who believe that the Mosaic Law applies to the Church conclude that we receive justification by grace and sanctification by Law. Whether we receive sanctification by grace or by Law makes a profound difference on how we view the Christian life.
If you use the Law as a guide to sanctification, your heart will feel condemned because of your inability to measure up to the Law’s demands. If you have a sensitive
For this reason many, who believe once saved, always saved doubt their salvation and even refuse to take communion. Having looked to the Law as a guide to sanctification, they feel guilty and question if they are among the elect.
How to handle sin in my life is the key issue in sanctification. Do I question my election and become preoccupied with trying to keep the Law, or do I recognize and accept my freedom in Christ because of His grace and move ahead in my growth in the Christian life? This is why the question of JUSTIFICATION BY GRACE; SANCTIFICATION BY LAW is so important.
If I look to the Law for sanctification rather than the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life, I will not be free from the Law, but enslaved by it. (Remember, the Old Testament saints
never looked to the Law for justification, but rather to the grace and mercy of God. Thus if the Old Testament saints were under the Law and we are not, it must mean that the Old Testament saints sought to keep it as the standard whereby they pleased God). In summary, the Old Testament saints endeavored to keep the law as a means of pleasing God rather than as the means of justification.
I am propositionally and emotionally secure in my relationship with God because of His grace. Grace means I am not on a performance standard, and this is why I can be honest with Him. Romans 7 deals with the reality of the conflict of sin in my life in light of my position as explained in Romans 6.
Those justified are sanctified, and only those sanctified can claim justification. Yet justification is an absolute term, while sanctification is relative. The former is an ACT, the latter a PROCESS. The latter has a measure of degree, but not the former.
If I view the Law as the standard by which I measure myself, I will either become legalistic and pharisaical or I will despair and lose my assurance of salvation. This produced the confusion of Mark 7 and the problem Jesus had with the religious community of His day. I naturally tend to look to the Law for justification when I look to the Law for sanctification.
The experience of Romans 7:14-25 is relative, e.g. in v. 23: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. It is clear that some are more captive to sin than others. Therefore, THEOLOGICALLY we can say that sanctification must follow justification (cf. Romans 6:1, 6), but EXPERIENTIALLY we cannot say that because one doesn’t show the fruit of sanctification he isn’t justified. We must, however, discipline those who break the negative commandments (cf. I Corinthians 5) and TREAT them as though they are not justified.
A cursory reading of the New Testament reveals the presence of commandments that are binding on the believer. Grace means that the rules do not define the relationship. If I break the rules, confrontation is essential, not because of the rule per se, but because of a concern for me, the rule breaker.
Jim Rayburn of Young Life illustrates this well. He told kids that Young Life wouldn’t major on rules but on the adventure of getting to know the Creator God of the universe. If you major on rules, you despair. If you major on knowing Christ, the rules take care of themselves.
Every parent understands this in raising children. If I accept my child because he keeps the rules, he will feel perpetually on probation and will view our relationship as legalistic and brittle. If I accept my child because he is my child and I major on developing a relationship with him, the rules tend to take care of themselves.
This holds true in all our relationships, with fellow believers, our children, and most importantly in our relationship with God. We relate to Him on the basis of grace, not law.
The grace of our Lord be with you.
Part Sixteen
These last issues have dealt with grace in the process of sanctification as taught by the Apostle Paul in Romans 6-8. By way of conclusion, lets explore exactly what the believer can expect in the process of sanctification. As we grow in our relationship with Christ, what kind of change in our lives can we anticipate?
Every believer has two problems as he relates to God. First, how can a just God bring a sinner into fellowship, with Himself without requiring the sinner to pay for his crimes? This problem is solved by justification: God imputed to Christ our sin and executed justice on Christ on the sinners behalf.
Second, how can a holy God take up residence in a filthy vessel? This problem is solved by sanctification: God imputed the righteousness of Christ to the believer. Thus we see that a person is sanctified in the same way he is justified: it is a legal transaction whereby the death of Christ as just payment for sin, and the holiness of Christ, are both imputed to the believer. It is an act of grace.
Sanctification, however, is more than the legal act of imputation. It is also a process whereby the believer, in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit, is conformed day by day to the image of Christ. We see this dual use of sanctification as both a declarative act of God and a process of change in the life of the believer throughout the whole of the New Testament.
The believer receives the grace of God: first in justification, a past event; second in sanctification, both a past and present event; and third in glorification, a future event.
HOW MOST VIEW SANCTIFICATION
As I have listened to people discuss the process of sanctification, they seem to view ft in two major ways: 1. Victory over personal hurt due to unfulfilled expectations (e.g. neglect of a child by the parent or a husband falling to pay adequate attention to his wife); and 2. Victory over sinful habits (e.g. alcohol abuse or impure thoughts). By victory I mean the ability to completely gain mastery over it, to put it behind me so as to never have it bother me again.
I have the impression that most Christians believe they can experience victory in the second sense, but not in the first. They can control, under the influence of Christ, the presence of one kind of memory (e.g. unpin thoughts aid sinful acts), but not the hurt and anger that comes from the memories of people who have hurt or
BIBLICAL CHANGE
I suggest that the Bible teaches the opposite. We cannot control the presence of any kind of memory from the past, but we can control our attitude toward those memories.
I can read a book or watch a movie that has a sex scene and can forget the plot but not the illicit scene. The thoughts return again arid again throughout the years. Sinful habits formulated early in life may be brought into check by the power of the Holy Spirit, but victory in the sense of never being bothered by them again is not possible this side of eternity.
Conversely, I can after my attitude both toward my own sins and sinful acts committed against me. Romans 12:2 says, ‘Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…’ I can view both 1 and 2 from God’s perspective, renouncing 2 (the sin present in my life), and giving God thanks for 1 (the hurtful experiences that flow through my life). This is the practice of I Thessalonians 5:18, ‘In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.’
Christ changes my worldview, but not my propensity to sin. My character is changed in the sense that I hate and renounce sin. In Romans 7:19 Paul verbalizes the experience of the committed follower of Christ: ‘For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.’ Obviously the non-Christian does not share this attitude. As noted in an earlier study on this issue, Paul expresses the heart of the believer, for the unbeliever does not renounce sin and seek God. ‘There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.’ (Romans 3:11)
CAPPING THE VOLCANO
The ‘old man’ does not improve in the process of sanctification. Let me use the analogy of a volcano. As I grow in Christ I am able to develop an elaborate system for capping the volcano, but the pressure of the volcano never abates. All of its latent power to explode and destroy lies just below the surface.
Christ does give me an awareness of the horror of the volcano and the implications of allowing ft to go unchecked. Our Savior also gives an ever-increasing desire to eradicate the volcano’s existence. Sanctification produces an increasing hatred of sin and a corresponding bye of righteousness.
This combination of awareness and desire motivates me to develop a relatively secure cap on the volcano. One way that I do this is by building restrictions on my liberties in those areas in which I am weak. For example, a friend of mine is an alcoholic. He calls himself an alcoholic even though he hasn’t had a drink in many years. He came to Christ through Alcoholics Anonymous and continues to attend their meetings. But he realizes that the propensity to relapse is ever before him.
A second way to develop a ‘secure cap’ is commitment. Another friend feels that he is addicted to TV. So he committed to his family that he was going to cease watching ft. With all of his family aware of the pledge, and knowing that they will hold him accountable, he built a cap on the volcano.
Changing metaphors, controlling the ‘old man’ is like a physical weakness. A basketball player has weak knee and wears a brace to compensate. I am aware of areas in my life where I am weak and prone to sin. In these areas I must compensate with ‘braces,’ defenses that I build around me as added protection. For example, there are certain kinds of movies that I refuse to watch, not because I am strong, but because I realize that I am weak.
CHANGE OF ATTITUDE
Just as my attitude towards sin changes because of the presence of Christ in my life, so also my attitude towards others. As noted in an earlier issue, there are no accidents or victims in the Bible. I can destroy my own life, but God does not delegate my destiny to others.
This is why you can obey the command to honor your father and mother, irrespective of the kind of parents they were: They were God perfect choice for you, even though they may have inflicted terrible hurt upon you. This does not mean that God will not hold them accountable, but it does mean that you are to thank God for them.
Paul says in II Corinthians 5:17: ‘Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away, all things are become new. We are new in Christ ii the sense that our minds are renewed; we are in-dwelt by the living God. We are not new in the sense that there is a once-for-all conquering of a particular sin in our lives. A friend once said, ‘No victory is final, and no failure is fatal.’
In one of Paul’s earliest epistles, I Corinthians 15:9, he says, 9 am the least of the apostles.’ Later in his ministry Paul says in Ephesians 3:8 that he is ‘the least of all saints.’ At the end of his life he writes to Timothy, ‘I am the chief’ of sinners (I Timothy 1:15). This is sanctification. The longer the saint lives, the closer he grows to Christ and the less he thinks of himself. Paul did not see any appreciable change in his character, quite the opposite. What he saw was the contrast between himself and Christ and the deplorable condition of his sinful nature.
CHANGE OF PERCEPTION
It is precisely this change hi your perception of reality, or your worldview, that forms the heart of the sanctification process. Maturation in your walk with God should result in an alteration of your value system, your understanding of your purpose, and your perception of why hurtful circumstances enter your life, which are all anchored in your view of God.
This in turn should after your hope and your attitude. As your hope gradually shifts from the temporal to the eternal, you learn that the tragedies of life are ordained by a loving God who is preparing you for an eternity with Him. For this reason you give thanks to God, even for the hurt inflicted upon you by the sin of others.
This is not to say that the believer can expect a good attitude towards crushing blows that come his way. Hurt may, and probably will, produce a negative reaction because of the “volcano” that rages unabated just below the surface. But when the believer takes inventory of what transpired and reflects on the program of God, he will give God thanks.
HOW TO CAP THE VOLCANO
Twice in his epistles, I Corinthians 14:20 and Romans 16:19, Paul says in essence, ‘Concerning the things of God I would that you be mature and understanding; but concerning evil I would that you be imbeciles.’ The believer does not need to be experienced hi the evil of the world.
In Ecclesiastics Solomon warns that although the path to intellectual growth is experimentation, this same path, when applied to the moral realm, produces destruction. Goerte once said that with the slightest change in his character there was not a crime he was incapable of committing. Every thinking Christian realizes that this is so.
There are, however, many sins in the Bible that are reprehensible to me, such as homosexuality and murder. I also know that ft is possible to awaken such appetites, thus adding to the pressure of the ‘volcano.” Three times in Song of Solomon the author says, ‘I adjure you 0 man that you awaken not bye until ft please.’ ‘There is a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing” (Ecclesiastes 3:5). When we awaken appetites be-fore the God-given time we have hell to pay. We are best served when ignorant or imbecilic regarding sin!
Conversely, there are things that I can do to ‘renew my mind.” These are in the form of Christian disciplines such as prayer, Bible study and Scripture memory. Also, the believing community can assist in keeping a cap on the ‘volcano” by provoking me to godliness.
I watched a couple, who I had known for years, grow old and die. In the last years of their lives they did and said things that shocked me. As I reflected on this, it occurred to me that a child speaks and acts completely uninhibited. When he feels like defecating, he does it whenever and wherever he pleases. His family teaches him that such behavior is unacceptable. Society joins in the task of conforming him to what is considered civility, proper decorum, etc. If he wants to get along and do well, he learns that he must meet the expectations of the environment in which he lives.
This elderly couple returned, as it were, to childhood. It wasn’t that they were suffering from dementia; they simply no longer cared what people thought.
As I reflected on this, I despaired for fear of becoming like them in the closing years of my life. Will there come a time when I no longer care what people think and allow the cap on my volcano to dissipate? If I trust in the improving of my nature, I am without hope. If sanctification has to do with the changing of my mind, then there is hope.
Yours for a life of obedience.
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