One reason why obedience matters for the Christian

Over in American Christian Reformed blog-land there’s been an ongoing debate recently about the differences between, and connections between, justification and sanctification (that is sanctification in the progressive sense rather than the positional sense – that’s a whole other debate!)

Up until now the main protagonists in this conversation have been Tullian Tchividjian and Kevin DeYoung, but in the last couple of days David Murray has also joined the fray. I won’t rehearse all the points of difference that have emerged on both sides, suffice to say that my sympathies tend to lie with DeYoung and Murray rather than Tchividjian, even though Tchividjian has many good things to say!

Murray’s most recent article has been particularly helpful. He greatly appreciates Tchividjian’s definition of justification - that it's the completed obedience of Christ and not our obedience that secures our legal standing before God. But he also highlights that sanctification, though connected to justification, is different in crucial ways. Sanctification does involve effort on our part, a striving to obey God.


A failure to recognise and emphasise this can actually lead away from a deeper experience of God's love in our hearts and lives.

Christ’s obedience is all that matters for our legal standing before God (our justification), and without doubt dwelling on what God has done for us in Christ by justifying us will remind us of how much he loves us, but our obedience also comes in to play as regards our felt relationship with God – in other words the more we obey God the more we will experience of God’s love in our hearts and lives. Murray quotes John 14:21 and 23 to back this up. 


So we should work hard at our sanctification (in reliance upon God’s help by his Spirit) not in order for God to accept us (we have acceptance through faith in Christ), but because firstly God is glorified by our increasing obedience, and secondly the reward for us is an ever greater depth of the felt experience of God’s love.

Murray’s concern is that Tchividjian ends up shortcutting the need for diligent obedience to God’s word in order to experience God’s love, by arguing that our justification in Christ alone guarantees that we will experience such love.

Have a read of the article at http://headhearthand.org/blog/2011/12/14/does-jesus-respond-to-our-obedience-with-love/ – David Murray draws it all together far more eloquently than I can!

Passion Hymn

I'm not entirely sure why, but today I found myself penning the words to a song, a hymn even. As Easter approaches, my thoughts, Bible readings and prayers, particularly as a pastor, are inevitably turning more and more to the cross. And this morning I felt compelled to put those thoughts, readings and prayers in to verse. I'm hardly an accomplished poet, as you'll see below, but my prayer is that the following lines would turn your thoughts and prayers to what Jesus did on the cross for all who will trust in him.

The tune to which I have set these lines can be found here.

1. I’ll sing of love divine,

My Saviour’s love to me,

As at the appointed time

He looked to Calvary.

And set himself to take that path

That led to suffering God’s wrath.

2. Sweat drops of blood he bleeds.

What pain did he foresee?

With his Father he pleads;

“Let this cup pass from me.”

Yet the Father’s judgement he will face

For sinners in such need of grace.

3. Alone, deserted by

All those he called his friends.

When accusations fly

No answer back he sends.

So “Crucify” goes up the cry,

The King of life condemned to die.

4. Struck, spat on, led away.

Mocked even as he hangs.

“Forgive them” he will say

E’en through his own death pangs.

He is the Christ, on the cross he’ll stay

‘Til he’s paid the price that I should pay.

5. “It’s Finished” now he cries,

The maker bows his head.

And as his body dies,

So dies my fear and dread.

For he has suffered on that tree

Sin’s penalty and curse for me.

6. So I will lift my voice

And praise my Saviour King.

For he has brought such joys

As make me long to sing

Of all his wondrous love and grace

Shown by his dying in my place.

Where do you go to see God's glory?

In church on Sunday mornings I’m preaching through the book of Ephesians, and so far I’ve found it absolutely fantastic. Not my sermons necessarily, but the things I’ve discovered about the glorious plan of God in this universe.

My original plan when I took up the pastorate in Ingleton was to preach through the Gospel of Luke. However, just a couple of weeks before starting I changed my mind. I decided I’d hold off on starting on Luke until Christmas and find another book to preach through in the meantime. I had no idea which book to go for, but plumped for Ephesians. My only reason for doing this was that I already had a sermon that I knew I could use on the first Sunday (Ephesians 1:1-14), and that I should be able to get through the rest of the book by mid December. What I hadn’t realised was just how incredibly appropriate Ephesians would be for a new chapter in the life of the church here.

From the middle of Ephesians 2 to the middle of Ephesians 4 the church, the bringing into existence of the church, the nature of the church, the definition of the church, the role of the church, the importance of the church, the centrality of the church in God’s plans and purposes, the body of Christ, shines out in Paul’s letter. I confess that I had never understood just how much the church matters until God began speaking to me through these chapters.

Think about this statement:

The church, God’s people made one in Christ, is the place in which God primarily chooses to display his wisdom and glory (Ephesians 3:10, 21).

I’m inclined to look at the stars, or the mountains and lakes and use that as a springboard for meditating on God’s glory displayed. I’m convinced that there’s nothing wrong with doing that, Psalm 8 springs to mind. But the fact is that if we really want to enlarge our vision of the glory of God through considering his works that he has done, then we need to think more deeply on what he has done in redeeming and uniting a people of all temperaments, abilities, and nationalities in Jesus Christ his son.

The church is God’s primary means of displaying his glory. Think carefully about that, because it means that the church really matters.

Busy Days

You'd be forgiven for thinking that "thoughtfromtheday" had died a quiet death recently, or at least gone into an interminable hibernation. Well, it has been hibernating, but it hasn't died!

The last few months just happen to have been incredibly busy for myself as I wrote a dissertation in July, moved house in August, started work as a Pastor in September, and then to top it all off got married in October. Blogging has been somewhat relegated down the list of priorities!

Hopefully though thoughts will once again begin flowing from God's Word, into my mind, down to my heart, out through my fingers, and onto the web.

Incarnational Living - What's that about then?

I need your help. I have to write a dissertation. By the end of July. Do you know something, even going through my first year Greek textbook has proved more appealing during the last week than seriously knuckling down to writing 10,000 words in order to finish my theology degree. But write a dissertation I must!

So then you ask, what will this dissertation be upon? Well, I'm glad you asked. It's on incarnational mission, incarnational living. What is this incarnational living, and more precisely, what sort of theological foundation, if any, has it got? These thoughts will occupy my mind for the next eight or nine weeks. They will also occupy any blogs that I may happen to write.

Here's a question to get the ball rolling though: What was the purpose of the incarnation? Why did it happen? Why did the eternal Son of God take human flesh? Why did he become a man?

I don't know how many people visit this blog, but I'd like to hear your answers, whoever you are, so please leave them in the comments box and we'll see if we can come to some sort of consensus. Hopefully a biblical one!

Why did God become a human being?

Grace is not a "thing"

Spotted this Q&A on the Gospel Coalition website today. It highlights a right and a wrong way of thinking about grace - you can't separate it from Jesus Christ. Very helpful stuff.

"Christ Clothed in the Gospel"

The current issue of TableTalk magazine has a brief interview with Sinclair Ferguson inspired by the forthcoming release of his new book, By Grace Alone. The third Q&A just may revolutionize the way you understand grace:

In the preface to the book, you write that grace is not a “thing.” What do you mean by this statement?

It is legitimate to speak of “receiving grace,” and sometimes (although I am somewhat cautious about the possibility of misusing language) we speak of the preaching of the Word, prayer, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper as “means of grace.” That is fine, so long as we remember that there isn’t a thing, a substance, or a “quasi-substance” called “grace.” All there is is the person of the Lord Jesus — “Christ clothed in the gospel,” as Calvin loved to put it. Grace is the grace of Jesus. If I can highlight the thought here: there is no “thing” that Jesus takes from Himself and then, as it were, hands over to me. There is only Jesus Himself.

Grasping that thought can make a significant difference to a Christian’s life. So while some people might think this is just splitting hairs about different ways of saying the same thing, it can make a vital difference. It is not a thing that was crucified to give us a thing called grace. It was the person of the Lord Jesus that was crucified in order that He might give Himself to us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Belonging

Does a sense of belonging matter to you? I suspect it does. Even though we live in a very mobile culture in the UK most of us have somewhere that we identify as home – you only have to look at my “A Bit About Me” profile on this page to know that I do! So then, where do you belong? Where’s home?

I’m reading through Luke’s gospel at the moment and the other day I reached chapter 9 verses 57-62. My ESV entitles these verses “The Cost of Following Jesus”. I think my ESV may have missed something though. I’m not sure these verses are only, or even primarily, about cost, they’re about home. They’re about belonging.

The verses begin with someone saying to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus then starts talking about foxes and birds. Not an obvious response to the man’s declaration, so why this reference to the local wildlife? He’s contrasting them with himself – they have a home in this world, their holes and nests, Jesus does not. They belong here, he doesn’t.

Jesus then asks someone else to follow him. Jesus, no doubt knowingly, has made this request of a man whose father has just died. Given the circumstances therefore the man’s response seems perfectly reasonable, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Jesus replies, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Why on earth would Jesus say that to this man? Does Jesus really expect us not to bury our dead parents and instead follow him? One answer to this question is no, Jesus doesn’t really expect us to neglect a parent’s burial, what he’s doing is using hyperbole (exaggeration) to make a point. Following Jesus is more important than anything else.

There is another way of explaining this reply of Jesus though. This second encounter has to be read in the light of the first one. This is a passage about where you belong. In the first encounter this world is described as a place where Jesus has no home, in the second we discover that it’s a world characterised by death. Jesus actually says to this man “Leave the dead to bury their own dead.” How can a dead person bury another dead person? The point Jesus is making is not so much to do with the cost of leaving this world behind, but rather that this world is a place of death, even those who are physically living are in a real sense dead – do you want to belong to a world characterised by death? Is that what you want to call home? Jesus then tells the man that he should “proclaim the kingdom of God.” The inference is that though this world of death is not Jesus’ home, there is a different place Jesus calls home, and it is characterised by life – it’s the kingdom of God. Be a part of that kingdom.

Finally we come to the third encounter and, as in the first encounter, we have a man approaching Jesus and saying that he will follow him. Notice though the condition he places on following Jesus, “let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Again Jesus’ reply is often explained in terms of counting the cost of following him. Fair enough, there is cost involved, but is that what Jesus is primarily talking about when he says, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” The problem for this third man is that he thinks he can follow Jesus while calling this world (a world of death remember) home. If this world is home, you’re dead, and if you’re dead you’re not fit for the kingdom of God.

I think that an unhelpful way to apply this last verse in particular would be to say that if you fail or struggle in any way in carrying out the work of God’s Kingdom, if you don’t plow in a perfectly straight line, then you’re not fit for the kingdom and God won’t accept you into it. No, what Jesus is saying in these verses is that where you consider your home to be matters. It matters a lot. If it’s this world then you’re dead, and if you’re dead you’re not fit for God’s Kingdom. But if you’ve been given life, a gift of God’s grace, then God’s Kingdom is your home, and you should consider it to be such.

If you’re a Christian look forward to where you belong, don’t look back longingly at a world of death as if it were your home.