The Resurrection Creates Reconciliation

by Jared C. Wilson 

As we search the Scriptures for insight into Jesus, we must never forget the primary reason why the biblical testimonies exist.

Look at what John asserts as the thesis statement for his gospel: “[B]ut these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (20:31). He didn’t write his gospel just so you will understand, be convinced, or be informed; he writes so that you will believe with a life-giving effect, so that you will take in the power of the cross and be born again with a life with the quality of resurrection.

It is not enough to simply be convinced that Jesus died on the cross for your sins. You must be convicted of it. Your convincing has to lead to a conviction and a commitment. The influence of the work of the cross on your life must come full with the power of the resurrection, and that is not a power that will be content to settle in your mind. It is a power that gives new life. Just like the disciples mourning the death of Jesus believed his death had some meaning for forgiveness in their lives were set afire by the reality that Jesus lives, we must move beyond belief into a life—into a kingdom life—that buzzes and hums with the eternal quality of resurrection.

A resurrection gospel is a full gospel. What we are accustomed to is a simplistic, stripped down gospel, a gospel that suggests, “You have issues, but Jesus died for you; now be a good person.” The full gospel says, “The problem is a radical one no less serious than death and it requires a radical intervention no less powerful than resurrection.” The full gospel says the level and quality of your messed-up-ness is complete, exhaustive, irreconcilable, but the gift of God’s grace extends infinitely, eternally, covering it all. It reconciles us fully to God in a way that can only be described as bringing a dead person back to life.

As a matter of truly living out a resurrection life, we followers of Jesus have to re-focus our understanding of salvation from what we’re being saved from and place it on what we’re being saved to. That is the difference between the occupied cross and the empty tomb.

Look at the way Paul describes the fullness of salvation:

[E]ven as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ . . .  (Eph. 1:4-9)

There is a richness here, a full fledged act of rescue and reinstatement that goes so far beyond getting our golden ticket to heaven. This passage demonstrates the true fullness of salvation. Look at how mighty to save our Lord is:

He chose us before the world was created. He chose us to be adopted into his family. Consequently, we don’t just have forgiveness, we have the key to unlocking the mystery of God’s will. Because Christ’s resurrection is the firstfruits of our own, we can know that God is including us in his plans for the future, for his plans for the universe. We are not privy to all the details, and he certainly doesn’t need our help, but we have the assurance that our loving God has established for us a future and a hope. He is choosing us as partakers in the indescribable glory of God.

In our sin, this may not seem like such a big deal, but if we could grasp even a sliver of how much we don’t deserve such lavish treatment, we might behold the power of the resurrection in it. You’ve got to really get grace, that it really is all that Christ is in exchange for our complete and utter emptiness. The resurrection is not just about turning over a new leaf. It really is about being dead and then being brought back to life. It really is about being an enemy of God and being brought into the light.

In Colossians 1:21, Paul describes our state before salvation as being alienated from God. We were separated from him, far from him. We are images of God that are broken. We were in bondage to sin, we were dead and buried like Lazarus in the tomb, we were effectively disowned and dismissed, and like the prodigal son’s exile, it was self-willed. We were, for all intents and purposes, anti-God, even if consciously we were just ambivalent. But then the resurrection power of Jesus, he who is mighty to save, ushers us into new life—where?—“in him.”

Paul describes this wondrous reunion alternately here:

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.  (Rom. 5:9-11)

We are saved from many things: sin, Satan, punishment, death. But primarily we are saved from the wrath of God. And we aren’t just passed over for wrath; we are brought in, held close, covered up. We have received reconciliation. This is such a powerful way to talk about salvation, because it moves us beyond self-centered talk of being saved into a personal faith, as if Christianity is about self-improvement, and takes us right into being unified again with God, which posits salvation such as it is—Jesus the Savior taking dead strangers to God and transforming them into living friends.

We have been reconciled to God. We were alienated from him, effectively enemies, but in Christ’s death we were made right with God. In other words, the debt we owed has been paid and credited to us, and in Christ’s resurrection we have been made alive to God.

See, when Adam fell, taking the fruit he wasn’t supposed to and eating it, he marred creation by ushering death and division into it. By embracing sin, he invited death and he set up a dividing wall between him and God that could not be surmounted from his (Adam’s) side. So a new Adam has come, dying to fulfill the death owed by man, and rising to give new life to those who desperately need it. And therefore we are reconciled to God.

That is the meaning of life, by the way. It’s not being healthy and wealthy and happy and wise. It’s not being successful or achieving all your dreams. The meaning of life is moving from alienation from God to being adopted into his family.

But the reconciling work doesn’t stop there.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  (2 Cor. 5:17-21)

What happened at the fall? Not only did Adam and Eve create separation between themselves and God, they created it between each other as well. The Bible says there was then also enmity between the man and the woman. So the fall distances us, separates us, it makes us say to ourselves, “I am my own person.” And to fully embrace the fullness of the gospel, we can’t just say, “Jesus has saved me from my sins,” we have to confess, “Jesus has reconciled me to God . . . and to others.”

Thus ensues the ministry of reconciliation Paul talks about. As followers of Jesus, “Christ’s ambassadors,” we act out our reconciliation with God in our relationships with others. This is the foundational command Jesus gives as the Mission Statement of the life of discipleship: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength . . . and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The two are inextricably linked, because the saving reconciliation is a holistic reconciliation, a full reconciliation. Because he lives, we can finally, really live. The resurrection restores the entirety of our brokenness and division.

Posted at: https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/the-resurrection-creates-reconciliation/

The God of All Grace

Jerry Bridges from the book “Transforming Grace” page 174

“When we come to God’s throne, we need to remember He is indeed the God of all grace. He is the landowner who graciously gave a full day’s pay to the workers who had worked only one hour in the vineyard. He is the God who said of the sinful nation of Israel even while they were in captivity, “I will rejoice in doing them good” (Jeremiah 32:41). He is the God who remained faithful to Peter through all his failures and sins and made him into a mighty apostle. He is the God who, over and over again, has promised to never leave us, nor forsake us (i.e. Deuteronomy 31:6,8; Psalm 94:14; Isaiah 42:16; Hebrews 13:5). He is the God who “longs to be gracious to you” (Isaiah 30:18), and He is the God who is for you, not against you (Romans 8:31). All this, and more, is summed up in that one statement, the God of all grace.”

What Do You Love About God?

Audio Transcript of John Piper

Happy Monday, everyone! Welcome back and thank you for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast. Pastor John joins us today remotely over Skype. Our question today comes from a listener named Sam, who lives in Los Angeles. He sent in a really short question, but an important one. “Dear Pastor John, what do you love most about God?” That’s it. Pastor John, what do you love most about God?

In a sense, to answer this question authentically, I probably ought not spend any great time theologizing, studying, doing exegesis, or assessing God’s attributes. I ought to simply blurt out — just blurt out — what I feel about God, what I really treasure about him and value and admire. Wouldn’t that be the most authentic answer to the question “What do I love about God?” rather than some long-studied, complicated, fill-up-an-APJ, theological answer? And I think the answer to that question is yes, that’s right. So, that’s where I’ll start.

Flavored with Grace

My first, most visceral, immediate, heartfelt answer to the question is this: I love the grace of God.

• I love the mercy of God.

• I love being loved by God.

• I love being treated graciously and kindly and patiently by God.

• I love being accepted and forgiven by God.

• I love God’s grace toward me.

Piper: “I hope to be spending the rest of eternity knowing and loving all of God’s excellencies better and better.”TweetShare on Facebook

I think all of those statements I just tumbled out there are ways of saying that the grace of God is very, very, very precious to me. I would be undone without a God of grace. Late at night, early in the morning, facing conflict, facing guilt feelings, facing judgment from him — ultimately, possibly — or from critical people, facing the world, I would be undone without the grace of God. It is on the front burner of my affections for God all of the time. Even when I’m thinking about all kinds of other attributes of God or ways of God, they’re all flavored with the grace of God.

So, that’s my most visceral, heartfelt, unreflective, immediate, desperate response to the question of what I love most about God.

Love the True God

But the reason I said that answering this way is in a sense the right way to answer this question is that there’s another sense in which the Bible encourages us not just to speak from our inmost or most immediate perception of things, but to ponder — in the light of God’s word and in the light of God’s action — what we mean by what we most immediately say, and whether there might be contained in this immediate response aspects of God’s grace and mercy and kindness that need to be made explicit for the sake of our own souls, as well as for the sake of others, lest we fail to honor God as we ought, and lest we subconsciously find ourselves loving not God supremely, but our own selves.

There are numerous instances in the Bible where people showed some measure of spontaneous devotion to God. And then when God said something or did something that they didn’t like, their devotion evaporated, which means that what they said was love for God wasn’t really love for the true God, but only a love for their imagined God, their picture of God. And then the real God does something out of step with their expectations, and their love is gone. Now, that love was not really love for God.

So, even though it’s right — and I’m going to say it again — for me to give a spontaneous, heartfelt, visceral, gut reaction to what I love most about God, every person who lives under the authority of the Bible, including me, will want to discern from the true, real God revealed in the Bible whether what I’m saying corresponds to reality. Is God really like what I say I love about him? And is my heart so much attuned to the true God that no matter what he reveals about himself, I will still be totally committed to him, and in love with him, and valuing him, and treasuring him, and cherishing him, and being satisfied in him? Then, with the Bible’s help, I’ll know that I love the true God, and not just a figment of my own religious imagination.

The Greatest Gift of Grace

So, what John Piper needs to do, having given his immediate, heartfelt answer — “I love the grace of God toward me in Jesus” — is ask, “Piper, what do you mean by ‘the grace of God’? If you love that most, you should have some sense of what you’re talking about. Or are those just empty words?”

And my answer (now I’m doing the reflective thing: testing my guts and my spontaneity) would be this: God’s grace is his disposition and action to give the greatest possible blessing to the least deserving creatures at the greatest cost. That’s my definition of God’s grace.

1. The cost is the suffering and death of his one and only Son, Jesus Christ. Romans 8:32: “He . . . did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all.”

2. The least deserving creatures are human beings — me — who have desecrated God’s glory by committing treason in preferring other things above God. Romans 5:6–8 says, “Christ died for the ungodly. . . . God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

3. The greatest possible blessing purchased at the greatest cost for the least deserving is . . . Think to yourself, Now, what’s that? And at this point we are at the most critical juncture. How shall we state the greatest possible blessing that grace gives to the least deserving recipients like me? And it won’t work to say, “Well, the greatest possible gift of God’s grace is grace.” That’s just talking in circles; that’s not going to answer the question.

So, you can see why it’s an inadequate answer when John Piper says that the greatest thing I love about God is his grace until I’ve answered the question, What’s the greatest blessing that God’s grace has given to me in treating me so much better than I deserve at the cost of his Son’s life? To love the grace of God in a way that honors God is to love grace because of the specific content of the blessing given by the grace of God — namely, God. The greatest gift grace gives is God for our eternal friendship and enjoyment.

• 1 Peter 3:18: “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.”

• Romans 5:10: “While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.”

The grace John Piper says he loves about God is not the grace of God unless the capstone of that grace is the gift of God himself. And the love that I say I have for that grace is not a love for God unless what I love most about the grace is that it brings me to God.

Eternal Excellencies

And I think this is why, in Ephesians 1, Paul says that the eternal election of God and his predestination and his planned adoption of redeemed people through Christ, all according to the good pleasure of his will, has as its ultimate goal “the praise of his glorious grace” (Ephesians 1:6). And that glory, the glory of grace, is the beauty of how all the attributes of the eternal God — his goodness, his righteousness, his unimpeachable justice, his unfathomable wisdom, his omnipotent power, all that he is in his God-ness and his holiness — how all of that unites, fits together beautifully, to plan and perform creation and redemption in a way that magnifies the capstone of his deity — namely, the glory of his grace.

“The greatest gift grace gives is God for our eternal friendship and enjoyment.”TweetShare on Facebook

In other words, the eternal excellencies of God give rise to the wise ways of God, for the praise of the glory of the grace of God, so that when we say we love the grace of God, we ought to mean that we have some sense of those eternal excellencies and those wise ways of God.

All of which brings me back to where I began: I love the grace of God, which now means

• I love that he’s the kind of God who didn’t spare his own Son.

• I love that he’s the kind of God who justifies the ungodly.

• I love that he’s the kind of God that gives to the least deserving the greatest blessing — namely, himself.

And I hope to be spending the rest of eternity knowing and loving all of his excellencies better and better.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/what-do-you-love-most-about-god?utm_campaign=Daily+Email&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=94483232&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-81oi0MLEWVYN7eR-hkpbWUC7vplXtLOP0gEYJhQ47Alj_MM7bprs0ZPX5d01UmCcpxZddLRYFNxMfQfS2RPE_Up2EVug&utm_content=94483232&utm_source=hs_email

The Different Tenses of Grace

Devotional by John Piper

We always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thessalonians 1:11–12)

Grace is not only God’s disposition to do good for us when we don’t deserve it — we call this “undeserved favor”; God’s grace is also a power from God that acts in our lives and makes good things happen in us and for us — which we also don’t deserve.

Paul said that we fulfill our resolves for good “by his power” (verse 11). And then he adds at the end of verse 12, “according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” The power that actually works in our lives to make Christ-exalting obedience possible is an exertion of the grace of God.

You can see this also in 1 Corinthians 15:10:

By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

So, grace is an active, present, transformative, obedience-enabling power.

Therefore, this grace, which moves in power from God to you at a point in time, is both past and future. It has already done something for you or in you and therefore is past. And it is about to do something in you and for you, and so it is future — both five seconds from now and five million years from now.

God’s grace is ever cascading over the waterfall of the present from the inexhaustible river of grace coming to us from the future into the ever-increasing reservoir of grace in the past. In the next five minutes, you will receive sustaining grace flowing to you from the future — in this you trust; and you will accumulate another five minutes’ worth of grace in the reservoir of the past — for this you give thanks.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-different-tenses-of-grace

The Imperative-Indicative Balance

by Bryan Chapell 

Right application of Scripture necessitates Herman Ridderbos’s famous insight into Paul’s theology. Every imperative of Scripture (what we are to do for God) rests on the indicative (who we are in our relationship with God), and the order is not reversible (Acts 16:14–16; Col. 3:1–5; 1 John 5:1–5).[i] The human instinct with every non-Christian religion reverses the order, teaching that who we are before God is based on what we do for God. Thus, any preaching that is distinctively Christian must keep listeners from confusing, or inverting, our “who” and our “do.”

What Christians do is based on who we are in Christ. We obey because God has loved us and united us to himself by his Son; we are not united to God, nor do we make him love us, because we have obeyed him. Our obedience is a response to his love, not a purchase of it. We keep this indicative-imperative relationship clear, not by when we happen to mention each element in a sermon, but by making sure that the message is not done until listeners are motivated to obey God based upon God’s gracious provision for them.

Sometimes, we’ll lay a foundation of God’s provision as a motivational basis for the imperatives that follow; other times, we’ll detail the clear duties of the text before explaining the relationship with God that enables our obedience. There is a conceptual priority on the indicative that motivates and enables obedience, even if the imperatives follow in the actual presentation of the sermon.

If we try to establish a standard order or proportion for the mention of the imperatives and indicatives in our sermons, we will inevitably end up twisting texts in ways not intended by the original authors. We certainly should mention the imperatives and indicatives in various orders or proportions in different sermons according to the content and context of each biblical text. Still, the key to making any message gospel-consistent is making sure listeners do not walk away with the sense that their behavior is the basis of their redemption.

A sermon is not a sermon, if it includes no imperatives; a sermon without application is mere abstraction. But a sermon isn’t a Christian sermon if its ethical imperatives eclipse its gospel indicatives. A message that only heaps duty upon duty is mere legalism, even if the duties are in the text.

Proportions of imperative and indicative will vary, but listeners need to be able to discern the importance of each. We damage Scripture’s purposes, and the clarity of the gospel, if we do not pastorally consider what is needed for each element to be heard and lived.

A message that hammers on imperatives for 35 minutes, and then ends with a tossed in, “But remember Jesus loves you,” does not understand how the human heart functions. A message that mews about Jesus’ love for 35 minutes, and ends with an intangible, “So make your life count for him,” does not understand the human propensity to use grace to avoid obedience.

As pastors, we should aim for messages that enable people to honor our Savior with gospel-enabled obedience. To do this well, we must evaluate both the demands of a text and the disposition of our congregation. This will help us determine the proper balance between imperative and indicative.

If people don’t know what to do, then they cannot obey God. So imperatives of some sort are necessary. If people obey out of wrong motivations, then their so-called obedience doesn’t honor God. So indicatives that rightly motivate and enable must ground every imperative. The proportion varies, but both must be present with enough significance to inform behavior and stir affections for Christ’s honor.

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared at the 9Marks blog and as part of the 9Marks magazine.

Bryan Chapell

Bryan Chapell is senior pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Peoria, Illinois, and the former chancellor of Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, the denominational seminary of the Presbyterian Church in America.

Posted at: https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/the-imperative-indicative-balance/

GRACE - Past, Present, Future

By Joe Miller

Beloved (loved) of God, in light of our present momentary afflictions [i.e. all of the seen and unseen implications of the Coronavirus Pandemic] (2 Cor 4:17-18), John Newton’s timeless hymn, Amazing Grace, reminds us of the magnificent and boundless sufficiency of the past, present, and future grace of God in our lives.

Past Grace (Salvation):

Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch; like me!

I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved;

How precious did that grace appear The hour I first believed!

Present Grace (Sanctification):

The Lord hath promised good to me, His word my hope secures;

He will my shield and portion be As long as life endures.

Future Grace (Glorification) :

When we’ve been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun,

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise Then when we first begun.

While it seems like we live in a world dominated by fear, worry, and anxiety (Prov 24:10), God’s all-empowering grace remains our sufficient source of help and hope! John Newton experienced this same help and hope of God’s grace:

My faith upholds me under all trials, by assuring me that every event is under the direction of my Lord; that disciplines and suffering are a token of God’s love; that the season, measure, and continuation of light momentary afflictions (2 Cor 4:16-17) in my life, are appointed by an infinite and all-wise God, and designed to work for my everlasting good; and that God’s grace and strength will be provided for me, according to the challenges of the day. (Memoirs, 1:169)

Newton’s unshakable confidence in the all-governing sovereign grace of God animated his heart to not fear but sing... Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and GRACE will lead me home.

Beloved, our strength in God’s grace is what animates and empowers our hearts today to live out the Great Commandment (Matt 22:36-40), as we lean into Christ while coming alongside one- another and our community whose lives have been turned upside down.

GRACE... a sweet-sounding word!

But what is grace?

Grace tends to be a word that many of us do not fully understand, resulting in life’s momentary afflictions overwhelming us ! Many define grace as “God's unmerited favor.” Now while this is, in part true, the theologian Louis Berkhof provides us with a more comprehensive and truly satisfying definition that refines our understanding of God’s amazing grace - Grace is the unmerited operation of God in the heart of man, effected through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Clearly, God’s grace is a priceless and unfathomable, active gift to sinners who deserve God’s judgment and wrath (Eph 1:5-6), but who are now saved from the penalty of our sin and empowered, moment-by-moment, by God to make much of Him in our daily lives!

So grace is not just a past act of salvation for sinners, but grace is also a present active gift that empowers God’s people to live the Great Commandment life that is beyond our natural means (Titus 2:11-12)! In the midst of the Pandemic, as Christ’s ambassadors in this crooked and perverse world, we stand in present grace (Rom 5:2), which enables us to "deny ungodliness and worldly desires" (Titus 2:12), in order to live a life that makes much of Him - "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Eph 2:10). So when Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:10, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me”... he is saying that God’s empowering grace effects every word, deed, emotion, and thought of his life in Christ.

This week, may we be motivated by God’s past grace of salvation and be empowered by his present grace to accomplish great things in us, for us, and through us, as a reflection of our love for Him and desire to make much of Christ!

So beloved, when we consider the work and ministry God has purposed for us at CHCC; when we come alongside others who are battling another day of sickness, or working through a difficult marriage, or a troubled child, financial hardship, or even a day of great blessing, may we encourage one-another to cling to the reality that God's grace is the most powerful, provision, mercy, and wisdom for everything He desires for us to do in the next ten minutes, ten weeks, ten months, and ten years (2 Cor 9:8). And it will be the future grace of God that will one day set us forever free from the influences of sin (1 John 2:16), and unleash us to make much of God, even when we’ve been there ten thousand years!

This Week - Practically Apply God’s Past, Present, and Future Grace:

Past Grace: Reflect and rejoice in the wondrous truths of what the Gospel saved your from and what it saved you for (Recommendation: Gospel Primer by Milton Vincent)

Present Grace: While it matters what we think about the coronavirus, it matters most is God thinks and says to us from His Word:

o “The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever” (1 Pet 1:24–25).

o His words in Scripture “cannot be broken” (John 10:35).
o Hearing and doing God’s Word is like building your house on a rock, not sand

(Matt 7:24).
o His Word is true and perfectly wise for every situation. “He is wonderful in

counsel and excellent in wisdom” (Isa 28:29).
o God’s words in these times are not only true and wise; they are also precious and

sweet. “More to be desired are they than gold . . . sweeter also than honey and

drippings of the honeycomb” (Ps 19:10).
o The sweetness is not lost in this moment of bitter providence — not if we have

learned the secret of “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor 6:10). The secret is this: Knowing that the same sovereignty that could stop the coronavirus and doesn’t, is the very sovereignty that sustains the soul in it. Indeed, more than sustains — sweetens with hope that, for those who trust him, his purposes are kind, even in death.

o “Behold the kindness and severity of God” (Rom 11:22). His providence is both sweet and bitter because he “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph 1:11). Nothing just happens. Everything flows from the eternal counsels of God.

Future Grace: Look forward to and fixate your hope in the future inheritance of the new heavens and the new earth – Read and Meditate on Revelation chapters 21-22

Avoid Two Distortions of Grace

By: Paul Tautges

The heart motivation behind Jesus’ teaching ministry was His love for God and others. This explains why, when He saw how the external, law-keeping approach to spirituality placed unbearable burdens upon others, He spoke against them (Luke 11:37-46). But He also warned against a loose view of the commandments of God by exalting the listening that leads to obedience (Matt. 7:24-29). The apostle Paul did the same.

In his letter to the churches of Galatia, the apostle warns congregations to avoid two distortions of biblical grace that hinder sanctification.

Two Dangerous Ditches

Properly understood, the Christian life is a balanced walk, which means we need to learn to stay on God’s good road by keeping out of the ditches. Two ditches that Galatians warns against are legalism and antinomianism.

• Antinomianism is a compound word made up of anti (against) and nomos (law), meaning against law, or against the righteous standards of the law. This error stems from a misunderstanding of the sanctifying power of grace. Though the person guilty of this error rightly understands that when we come to God for salvation, He accepts us the way we are, they also wrongly think that God is content to leave us that way. In his outstanding book, The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance, Sinclair Ferguson says it this way: Antinomianism “fails to appreciate that the law that condemns us for our sins was given to teach us how not to sin.”[1] The antinomian Christian is one who gets so enamored by the free grace of God in Jesus Christ that he abandons the hot pursuit of practical holiness. Instead, he remains in spiritual immaturity by continuing to live in the flesh, with one foot in the world and the other foot in the church.

• Legalism, like antinomianism, stems from a misunderstanding and misapplication of law and grace. It fails to understand that the purpose of God’s law is to drive us to Christ, where we find saving grace as a gift from the One who fulfilled the law on our behalf (Rom. 5:18-19). It, too, fails to apprehend the fullness of God’s grace in Jesus Christ and results in a person’s confidence remaining in their own law-keeping ability. Again, Sinclair Ferguson gives helpful insight: “Legalism is simply separating the law of God from the person of God” (p. 83). “The essence of legalism is a heart distortion of the graciousness of God and of the God of grace” (p. 88). He then goes on to say, “Legalism is almost as old as Eden itself. In essence it’s any teaching that diminishes or distorts the generous love of God and the full freeness of his grace. It then distorts God’s graciousness revealed in his law and fails to see law set within its proper context in redemptive history as an expression of a gracious Father. This is the nature of legalism” (p. 95).

The answer to both errors is a more accurate, fuller understanding of the gospel and its implications for Christian living. Ferguson writes, “Antinomianism and legalism are not so much antithetical to each other as they are both antithetical to grace. This is why Scripture never prescribes one as the antidote for the other. Rather grace, God’s grace in Christ in our union with Christ, is the antidote to both” (p. 156).

A Life-Transforming Bible Study

In Galatians, the apostle deals with both errors by directing our attention to God’s sanctifying grace, the sufficiency of the work of Christ on our behalf, and the supernatural outworking of the Spirit’s indwelling presence. Read Galatians 5:1-26. Specifically, think about how staying close to this Scripture will help to keep you out of these two ditches:

• The Ditch of Legalism- Meditate on Galatians 5:1-15. Notice how legalism undermines Spirit-produced sanctification in three ways:

  1. Legalism erodes the hope of righteousness by minimizing the gift of grace (vv. 2-6).

  2. Legalism hinders the true obedience of faith by minimizing the sufficiency of the cross (vv. 7-12).

  3. Legalism feeds the self-centeredness of the flesh by minimizing the priority of love (vv. 13-15).

• The Ditch of Antinomianism- Meditate on Galatians 5:13-21. Think again on verses 13-15 and how love keeps us on track. Notice three ways that antinomianism undermines sanctification:

  1. Antinomianism diminishes the law of love, which guards against the abuse of liberties that may harm others (vv. 13-15).

  2. Antinomianism works against the sanctifying purpose of the Holy Spirit (vv. 16-18).

  3. Antinomianism hinders the development of biblical assurance of salvation, which the Spirit develops internally through an increasing growth in holiness and Christlikeness (vv. 19-26).

God wants us to walk in love, which requires avoiding law-based sanctification as well as grace-abusing approaches to the Christian life—not only for our spiritual health but also for the sake of those whom we disciple.

Questions for Reflection

1. In what ways are you tempted to base your relationship with God upon your ability to keep rules and regulations?

2. In what ways are you tempted to take advantage of God’s grace?

3. In your counseling ministry, are there ways you are subtly slipping into the ditches of antinomianism or legalism? If so, what do you need to change in your manner of communication and your design of homework?

[1] Sinclair Ferguson, The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2016), 141.

Posted at: https://www.biblicalcounselingcoalition.org/2020/03/02/avoid-two-distortions-of-grace/

Grace: The Dominant Note of Christmas

John Piper: From the Devotional The Dawning of Indestructible Joy

GOD BECOME MAN

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. (John 6:51)

There is no traditional Christmas story about the birth of Jesus in the Gospel of John. You remember how it begins: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Instead of putting the Christmas story up front with its explanation, John weaves the story of Christmas and the purpose of Christmas through the Gospel. Instead of putting the Christmas story up front with its explanation, John weaves the story of Christmas and the purpose of Christmas through the Gospel.

For example, after saying that the Word “was God,” John says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. . . . And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” (John 1:14–16).

So the eternal Word of God took on human flesh, and in that way the divine Son of God—who never had an origin, and never came into being, and was God, but was also with God— became man. And in doing this, he made the glory of God visible in a wholly new way. And this divine glory, uniquely manifest in the Son of God, was full of grace and truth. And from that fullness we receive grace upon grace.

THE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS

That is the meaning of Christmas in John’s Gospel. God the Son, who is God, and who is with God, came to reveal God in a way he had never been revealed before. And in that revelation, the dominant note struck is grace: from the fullness of that revelation of divine glory, we receive grace upon grace.

Or as it says in John 3:16–17, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, [that’s Christmas and Good Friday all in one] that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world [Christmas is not for condemnation], but in order that the world might be saved through him [Christmas is for salvation].”

And at the end of his life, Jesus was standing before Pilate, and Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” And Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world [this is the purpose of Christmas]—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37).

What was the effect of the truth that Jesus witnessed to with his words and his whole person? He told us in John 8:31–32, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” So the meaning of Christmas is this: the Son of God came into the world to bear witness to the truth in a way that it had never been witnessed to before.

He is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). And the aim of giving himself as the truth to the world is freedom. You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. Free from the guilt and power of sin. Free from deadness and blindness and judgment.

FROM CHRISTMAS TO GOOD FRIDAY

How does that liberation happen? Recall from John 6 that in coming down from heaven, Jesus was planning to die. He came to die. He came to live a perfect, sinless life and then die for sinners. John 6:51: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, so that he could give his flesh for the life of the world. We sinners can receive grace upon grace from his fullness because he came to die for us. Christmas was from the beginning a preparation for Good Friday.

So throughout the Gospel of John the meaning of Christmas becomes clear. The Word became flesh. He revealed the glory of God as never before. He died according to his own plan. Because of his death in our place, he is bread for us. He is the source of forgiveness and righteousness and life. This is the great meaning of Christmas in the Gospel of John. Indeed in the world. Today.

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/grace-the-dominant-note-of-christmas/

A Beautiful Scandal

ARTICLE BY WILLIAM BOEKESTEIN

There is a lot to like about the story of John Newton. And Simonetta Carr and Amal tell and illustrate it beautifully (Reformation Heritage Books, 2018). Newton first told the story himself in an 18th century best-seller. A young man with a dead mother and hard-to-please father pursues riches and adventure at sea. After several brushes with death Newton--who married the love of his life--left the sea to pursue poetry and preaching. Along the way he adopted needy relatives, and hosted struggling writers; he even befriended a few domesticated hares. Just months before his death he received news that warmed his soul: the British slave trade, against which he had fought for decades, had been abolished.

But another fact about Newton nearly ruins the story. He himself had been a slave trader. As both captain of a slave ship and later as an investor in the same, Newton profited from the sale of human beings. He willingly participated in the inexcusable degradation of precious lives of people created in the image of God. He is responsible for the misery and death of unknown scores of beautiful people.

Newton, the slave-trader who died as a well-respected minister in the Church of England, is the perfect picture of the kind of person we naturally hate.

The obvious questions flood our minds. How could such a vile person regain the dignity he lost in a dirty trade with the devil? Is it possible that the God who grieved over the death of Newton's victims could ever smile upon that lost, blind, guilty wretch? Could anyone like Newton be spared the eternal consequence of damnation for his sins? How could such a man get a second chance at life? And why should any of us care about his sin-ravaged story?

John Newton had racked up more moral debt than he could ever repay. His only hope was for God's Son to own Newton's sins and give him a righteousness that satisfied divine justice. Newton heard this message of hope in the gospel, the Bible's plainest theme. And by a heaven-sent faith he believed it and received new life in God.

Newton summarized his paradoxical life in his famous hymn. "Amazing grace!--how sweet the sound--that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see."

Newton's story is a beautiful scandal. Like Paul, he increasingly woke to the nightmare of his sin personified by the beautiful black faces of his victims. But God's grace had introduced a new reality: undeserved pardon. The man who should have died a thousand deaths for his sin died at peace in the hope of new life because of the single death of the Savior Jesus.

That story isn't just good news for Newton. It is the only relief for the rest of us whose sins are not as unlike Newton's as we would have others believe.

Read Simonetta Carr's John Newton. Weep over his sins and yours. And with Newton sing with the hope that God's word secures:

And when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall cease, I shall possess within the veil a life of joy and peace.

William Boekestein Pastors Immanuel Fellowship Church in Kalamazoo, MI. His latest book is A Colorful Past: A Coloring Book of Church History.

Posted at: http://www.reformation21.org/featured/a-beautiful-scandal.php

Grace Works Backwards

Jonathan Dodson

I’d been caught in an off-limits room making out with my girlfriend. This wasn’t the first time. I’d been warned over and over about breaking curfew, sneaking out to the pub, and going places I wasn’t allowed.

When Charles Price, the principal of Capernwray Hall, called me to his office I sheepishly made my way, firing off prayers for mercy.

When I arrived, I received mercy, just not the kind I was hoping for. As he expelled me from the Bible School where my parents met decades ago, Charles said, “Jonathan, one day you will thank me for this.”

I stepped out of the castle doors onto the crushed rock drive, turned back to wave goodbye to all my friends, and wiped the tears from my eyes. Shame, not gratitude, was on my heart.

SHAME ON ME

After returning to the States, I got involved in a college ministry where I was discipled for the first time. A staff member took me and my best friend under his wing. I was still a mess.

Although I was earnestly seeking Christ, studying the Bible, sharing my faith, and being discipled, I couldn’t keep my hands off women.

The dating relationship would start off alright: shared attraction to Christ, fellowship over eternal things, fun dates—but then things would get physical. I couldn’t say no. I slept with more Christian women than I want to admit.

“The tension between my flesh and the Spirit was so taut, it felt like just a nudge and my soul would rip in two.

Afterwards, I always felt guilty. The tension between my flesh and the Spirit was so taut, it felt like just a nudge and my soul would rip in two.

Guilt compounded into unbearable shame. One day, I sat in the driver’s seat of my little white car in the university parking lot. I was so weighed down by shame, I couldn’t go to class. Sobbing over the disrepute I’d heaped on the name of Jesus, I pulled out my pocket knife and pressed it to my flesh.

The wrist is where they always do it.

WARRING AGAINST THE FLESH

Then I was seized by a question: What would suicide do to my family and friends? If not for myself, then for them, I should go on living. But what was I to do with this weight around my neck, this war in my soul?

Eventually, I began living a sexually pure life. The tension between my flesh and the Spirit eased as the Spirit won out more consistently. I had a “gospel awakening”—I embraced the idea that Christ’s flawless obedience, not my moral performance, was the bedrock of my relationship with God.

“I embraced the idea that Christ’s flawless obedience, not my moral performance, was the bedrock of my relationship with God.

I began to live a moral life, not to measure up to God but because Christ measured up for me. Now I could obey, not to get love, but because I am already wildly loved in Christ. I matured in my faith, began discipling others, and took leadership positions in local churches.

Eventually, I got married to someone way out of my league, graduated from seminary, and became a pastor. But whenever we drove back home to visit my family, the old shame would creep up. Driving down the main street, I saw places where I’d slept with old girlfriends.

Everywhere I looked I saw failure.

GRACE CHANGES EVERYTHING—EVEN YOUR PAST

Then one day it hit me: I hadn’t allowed the gospel to work backwards. Sure, I was forgiven, but I hadn’t allowed God’s grace to seep back into my past. It was like I only saw myself as receiving grace from my gospel awakening forward. No wonder I saw failure everywhere I used to live.

“I begin to grasp that Jesus died not just for pre-Christian sins, but also post-conversion sins.

Then, in a stroke of mercy, I embraced God’s acceptance of the past version of myself. I begin to grasp that Jesus died not just for pre-Christian sins, but also post-conversion sins. I allowed the timeless, eternal gospel to touch down in other parts of my timeline. Redemption began to work in reverse.

The effect was liberating. The old shame lifted. Christ became sweeter. Sin became more bitter. Grace, all the lovelier.

Have you allowed Jesus to redeem your past? Are there places, stories, on your timeline where you need to let grace in?

ACCESSIBLE GRACE

Paul writes, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). The Greek verb for “have peace” is continuous, meaning we are put right with God through Jesus Christ, which gives us continual peace with God!

God doesn’t wag a finger of shame at us because of Jesus. We are not defined by our failures because of Jesus. We are wildly loved and unflinchingly accepted because of Jesus.

The next verse says, “Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand” (Rom. 5:2). The Greek verb for “stand” means “to stand with ongoing effects.” This means there’s grace we’re meant to stand in, to enjoy ongoing peace.

Jesus invites us to stand in his grace and allow it to continually recondition us; to reinterpret the way we see ourselves by seeing ourselves the way he sees us. In Christ, God sees us as beloved, forgiven, righteous, accepted—forever!

BACK AND FORTH IN GRACE

God accepts all of us (past, present, and future) based on all of Christ—crucified and risen—for us. Grace works backwards and forwards.

I thank God I got kicked out of Capernwray. I deserved it, and worse. But God is rich in mercy. That mercy is sometimes stiff, but it’s always good. And the mercy he secured at the cross works backwards, as does his redeeming grace. Now, my heart is filled with gratitude.

A version of this article was first published in the Capernwray newsletter.

Jonathan K. Dodson (M.Div., Th.M.) is the founding pastor of City Life Church in Austin, Texas, and the founder of Gospel-Centered Discipleship. He is the author of Here in Spirit; Gospel-Centered Discipleship, and The Unbelievable Gospel. He enjoys listening to M. Ward, smoking his pipe, watching sci-fi, and going for walks. You can find more at jonathandodson.org.

Posted at: https://gcdiscipleship.com/article-feed/2019/7/12/grace-works-backwards