god-justifies-the-wicked-november-december-1992

modernREFORMATION © is a production of CURE Publications Ltd. Editor-in-chief Michael S. Horton Executive Vice President Kim Riddlebarger Managing Editor Shane Rosenthal Assistant Managing Editors Paul Gelonnino Doug Hoisington Production Supervisor Alan Maben Staff Writers Michael S. Horton Alan Maben Kim Riddlebarger Rick Ritchie Dr. Rod Rosenbladt Artist Paul Swift Special Assistants Loretta Johnson Alicia Silva Heidi Spitler CURE Board of Directors Douglas Abendroth Jioward F. Ahmanson Cheryl Biehl Robert den Dulk Dr. W. Robert Godfrey Richard Hennes Michael S. Horton

modernREFORMATION-r

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

God Justifies the Wicked

ARTICLES

But Is It Relevant?

1

by Michael S. Horton

4

God Justifies the Wicked?

by Kim Riddlebarger

Self-Help Salvation: The History of a Lie

CURE is a non-profit educational foundation committed to communicating the insights of the 16th century Refonna­ tion to the 20th century Church. For more infonnation. call dming business homs at: (714) 956-CURE. or write us at: Christians United for Refonnation 2034 E. Lincoln Ave. #209 Anaheim, CA 92806

13

by Dr. Robert Godfrey

18

Good News for Law Breakers

by Michael S. Horton

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23

Christ Is My Worth

by Don Matzat

33

Justification by Grace Executive Leadership Team President, C.E.O. Michael S. Horton Executive Vice President Kim Riddlebarger Executive Administrator Loretta Johnson Vice President of Communications Alan Maben Vice President of Development Dan Bach Vice President of Media & Production Shane Rosenthal Treasurer Micki Riddlebarger

8

Reclaiming the Doctrine ofJustification

by Dr. Rod RosenbladJ

by Charles H. Spurgeon

DEPARTMENTS

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We Confess Interview:

Debate with Robert Schuller

15

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But Is It Relevant?

Ifjustification isn't the hit it used to be, it's because of us, not the doctrine itself.

By MICHAEL HORTON .

God justifies the wicked, Paul says.

Problem is, nobody thinks he or she is wicked anymore. Madonna thinks traditional folks are wicked; the Moral Majority thinks Madonna is wicked, but do we think of ourselves as wicked anymore?

According to George Barna, most Christians believe they obey the Ten Commandments (although most cannot name them). Furthermore, 840/0 of evangelicals thought "God helps those who help themselves" was either abiblical quotation or, at least, a biblical notion, a higher percentage than Roman Catholics . or even the unchurched.l Even churches of the Reformation have a hard time resisting the temptation to abandon the riches ofthe past in order the keep in step with an ever-changing culture. In this issue, you wUl find an example of this in the popular televangelist, Robert Schuller, an ordained Reformed Church inAmerica minister, in a very recent interview from our radio broadcast, "The White Horse Inn." In every period, the church is tested for its faithfulness to the apostolic witness to Christ and him crucified.

The great Liberal theologians of the last century viewed the doctrine of justification as one of those Jewish ideas out of which the church had not grown until the dawn of the Enlightenment.

Sacrifice and satisfaction: aGod ofwrath and love simultaneously requiring and satisfying justice in one act of blood atonement--it was just more than the ".. sophisticated "Greeks" ofmodern culture could bear. Mter all, God is love and

exists simply to make sure everyone is happy and being looked after. But the God ofthe Reformation was at the center of the universe, both in creation and redemption. Human beings were helpless, but "God, who is rich in mercy, while we were stUl dead made us alive together

We've lost the sense ill the popular

imagination that humanity's

greatest need is to be justified before a holy God . with Christ (by grace you have been saved)" (Eph. 2:5). The god of Enlightenment Deism, however, was a bit like an English butler who assisted and served, but never got in the way. The self-sufficient, enlightened, modern man or woman from now on would no longer suffer the indignity of regarding himself or herselfas.a"miserable sinner" who was at the mercy of a higher being. Why religion, then? Easy: To promote morality andthe religious sentiment that produces it. We are living on this, rather than the

Reformation, inheritance in modern evangeli-calism. The god of the Enlightenment existed to protect our "right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Alister McGrath, in his remarkable Iustitia Dei, observes: The application of such insights leads to an empirically derived concept of God modelled on the state as the philanthropic preserver of mankind, and the rejection of theological notions (such as that of eternal punishment) which cannot be justified on the basis of this criterion of preservation....God's commands are given purely in order to benefit mankind. 2

Thus, Tindal, a deistic theologian, couldwrite, "As God can require nothing ofus but what makes for our Happiness; so he...can forbid us those Things only which tend to our Hurt." Thus, the work ofChrist can serve, in this scheme, merely to show us how much God loves us and to thereby move us to imitate his self­ giving.

Every doctrine was ruthlessly combed for its value in terms of moral or experiential self-fulfillment. Justification was one ofthe chiefenemies ofthe moral sentiment, deists insisted, since it was based on the objective work ofChrist for sinners rather than on thesubjectivework of Christ or the Spirit within the enlightened. Moralism, rationalism and mysticism refused any credibility to the notion that salvation comes by the imputation of the God-Man's righteousness. For Enlightenment moralists like John Locke, Christianity served a moral and, therefore, political purpose. The importance of Christ's work was measured in terms of"the great encouragement he brought to a virtuous and pious life," saidLocke. Thedifference, according to Locke, between salvation by works and salvation by faith is that in the former, there is "no allowance for failing on any occasion...But by the law offaith, faith is allowed to supply the defectoffull obedience: and so the believers are NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

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admitted to life and immortality, as if they were righteous." In other words, where the Reformation recovered the biblical emphasis on justification on account of Christ, through faith, Locke had embraced the Arminian doctrine of justificationon account offaith, as though faith were the easier work man had to perform in order to earn eternal life. It was easy, painless, andyet the enlightened did not have to give up their claim to having saved themselves with God's help.

Then, with the able assistance of Friederich Schleiermacher, father of modern liberalism, the value of Christianity was measured, not in terms ofhow much sense it made or morality it produced, but primarily in terms ofhow much feeling it inspired. Merging the growing Romanticism, which emphasized feeling, with his own Pietistic upbringing, Schleiermacher sought to defend Christianity before its "cultured despisers." So he gutted religion ofevery notion that offendedhis sensitive audience of literati, leaving only those moving ideas which inspired religious feeling and Romantic sentiment. We saw this influence in the hymnody from the last century, where we walk and talk with .

Jesus in the garden "while the dew is still on the roses," or where "He Touched Me," or in the line from "He Lives," "You ask me how I know he lives? He lives within my heart." This sentiment seems to have only increased in our own time into what Dr. Robert Godfrey refers to as the "God is my girlfriend" genre of Christian music.

Finally, William James, father of the American philosophical school known as "pragmatism," told us that Christianity ought to be measured in terms of its "cash-value in experiential terms."

Whatever "worked" replaced whatever was "true." The son of a theologian, James was the first to try to blend Christianity and psychology and in the process he ended up defining the purpose of religion in terms of how much 2 •

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

happiness it brought to the one who embraced it.

So, for more than two centuries, Christianity has been literally inundated with the settling dust of the Enlightenment. In the fall-out, one loss has been the sense in the popular imagination that humanity's greatest need is to be justified before a holy God. Because of the d~vine sense stamped on every person's conscience, there is always, in every age, some faint realization that the holy Creator is offended and requires justice, accompanied by the fear that one's own life falls far short of that mark.

But, as Paul says, we suppress that knowledge (Ro.1-2). And what we have seen in the modern age is a consistent, full-scale, well-organized, orchestrated attempt to do just that: to obliterate the knowledge of sin and guilt, grace and redemption, heaven and hell from the human conscience and, hence, from the collective cultural imagination.

And, as Nietzsche so well observed, "the priests have pliantlylent their aid" in this"gelding of God." For more than two centuries, religious leaders, pastors, theologians, missionaries, youth workers, evangelists, have accommodated the gospel message to this cultural suppression. Because doctrines like justification do not appear to effect moral self-improvement, emotional self-fulfillment, practical self­ help, or psychological self-esteem, they are at least pushed to the periphery and often abandoned altogether. How can it make me happy? How can it make me a better person? How can it give me a closer walk with Jesus? These questions seem to have erased any consciousness of the older obsession, "How can I be right with God?" One ofthe callers during the interview with Robert Schuller asked, "If I'm happy with my life and feel pretty good about myself as a non-Christian, why should 1 become a Christian?", to which our guest simply replied, "I don't know. 1 can't identify with that."

We live at atime when "the pursuit of happiness" has finally led to a culture __ that is, as Neil Postman puts it, "amusing ­ itself to death." "Fun" isn't really all that fun any more and the hedonistic paradox seems now to be finally playing itselfout in front ofour eyes: The search for pleasure and happiness, as an end in itself, ends only in frustration and resentment. The illustrations from the pen of 19th century Anglican Bishop J. C. Ryle are just as current today: Go with me in imagination to some of our great London hospitals. Stand with me there by the bedside of some poor creature in the laststage ofan incurabledisease. He lies quiet perhaps, and makes no struggle. He does not complainofpain perhaps, and does notappear to fed it. He sleeps, and is still. His eyes are dosed. His head reclines on his pillow. He smiles faintly, and mutters something. He is dreaming of home, and his mother, and his youth. His thoughts are faraway.-But is this health? Oh, no: no! It is only the effect of _ drugs. Nothing can be done for him. He is dying daily. The only object is to lessen his pain. His quiet is an unnatural quiet. His sleep is an unhealthy sleep. You see in that man's case a vivid likeness of peace without justification. It is a hollow, deCeptive, unhealthy thing. Its end is death. .

Go with me in imagination to some lunatic asylum. Let us visit some case of incurable delusion. We shall probably find some one who fancies that he is rich and noble, or a king. See how he will take the straw from the ground, twist it round his head, and call it a crown. Mark how he will pick up stones and gravd, and call them diamonds and pearls.

Hear how he will laugh, and sing, and appear to be happy in his delusions.-But is this happiness? Oh, no! We know it is only the result of ignorant insanity. You see in that man's case another likeness ofpeace built on fancy, and not onjustification. It is asenseless, baseless thing. It has neither root nor life.

Settle it in your mind that there can be no peace with God unless we feel that we are justified. We must know what is become of

1}lode rIlREF()R~lATI()N

- our sins.3 ~_

One of the popular bumper stickers of the seventies read, "Jesus Is The Answer," to which many correctly replied, "What Is The Question?" If the question is, "How can I have the most dramatic experiences," drugs might be a better answer than Christianity. If it is, "How can I become the person I want to be?", it just might be that a new line ofwork or a diet plan will suffice. Mormonism has given a lot of people new meaning and fulfillment and there are plenty ofpeople who will give testimonies as to how this self-fulftllment cult or that self-help group has improved their lives morally and made them better people. Peace ofmind may be had in a good two-week vacation fishing the streams of Montana. And if the chiefquestion that Christianity must answer is, "How can I be happyt, I've seen no better response than that ofC.S. Lewis: "I didn't go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port '--' - would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainlydon'trecommend Christianity."

But the question the Christian message answers is, "How can 1, amiserablesinner, be accepted by a holy God?" The Liberal theologians said that question was no longer relevant. The people just were not asking it anymore.

But thatwas not because people stopped experiencing the feeling, when their head hit the pillow at night, that somehow there must be a God somewhere who takes account of them for their sins.

Rather, it was because the moyers and shapers of culture, aided by the theologians, evangelists, and moralists, mounted a crusade to suppress this knowledge by making religion answer other questions instead.

But there is an exciting movement afoot in contemporary debate. From the arts to science, philosophy, and even theology, there is awidescale re-evaluation of modernism and the presuppositions

of the Enlightenment. Coined "Postmodernism," it is a very secular movement, but it opens the door to evangelicals to restate the timeless gospel as the alternative to a materialistic, naturalistic view of reality. The real question is whether evangelicals are going to continue to be shaped and reshaped by modernity, or whether they are going to return to the question that whole societies used to ask when the matters ofthe soul and of eternity were as real as today's news. For those who wonder which course to take, I suggest they give careful attention to the conclusions ofsomeone who isn't even an evangelical Protestant, but a Roman Catholic liberation theologian. While ministers ordained in the Reformation tradition sell out for being "with it"-whetherSchleiermacher in the 18th century or Schuller in the 20th, here is what at least one thinker outside the tradition says about this timeleSs truth without boundaries: Many theologians writing about the Reformation assure us nowadays that Luther's famous fundamental question regarding a gracious God can scarcely be made intelligible to people today, let alone communicated as relevant to their lives. This question is said to belong to another, noncontemporaryworld. I do not share this position at all. The heart of the Reformation's question--How can we attain to grace?--is absolutely central to our most pressingconcerns. Justlookfora moment at the human person of today:...stretched between doubt and commitment, between apathy and a meager kind of love, between . ruthless self~assertion and a weak form of solidarity, confused and more uncertain of hirnsdf than he was even a few generations ago....And we are asked to believe that this person cannot understand the cry for grace, the pressing question as to whether and how grace can come to us? Ido not accept that for a moment .... This second Reformation concerns all Christians, is coming upon all of us, upon the two great churches of our Christianity. The needs of the gospel and the

wodd will not let us indulge ourselves much longer with our one-sided, half-lame versions of ChristianityA

Too often, we orthodox Protestants acted as though we invented this doctrine, but it is the treasure ofall Christians and, indeed, all people everywhere who will but "take up and read" the clear teaching of Scripture. Furthermore, sometimes the holy becomes common, while it takes those outside the tradition to reawaken the supposed treasurers to the spectacle.

Perhaps the future of the second Reformation lies with people like Metz, and with the Charismatic brothers and sisters who get burned out on hype; with Baptists who have a high view of the authority of Scripture, but are weary of the extrascriptural legalism and anti­ intellectualism; with those from all kinds of different backgrounds and traditions who are weary and burdened under, looking for rest for their souls. As Bunyan's Pilgrim learned, only here, in this doctrine of justification on account of Christ alone, through faith alone, is the deepest question of the human conscience answered in away that renders all other pursuits, all other goals, allother questions empty and shallow by comparison. And only here does the broken sinner discover something that is more relevant than today's latest fashions, more deeply satisfying than the world's richest treasures, and more liberating than all the shallow jingles that grown-ups fool themselves into believing.

Michael Horton is president of CURE and author of numerous books including Made In America, Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, P.ower Religion (editor), The Agony of Deceit (editor). He was educated at Biola University, WestminsterSeminary,and is engaged in postgraduate studies at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.

End Notes

W/,.,A-..au &/Uw(Vcntura: IUpl.I991). p.SO McGrath, I ..tuu Dn. Volume II (CambricJae: Cambridge

1. GeoIJC Barna,

2.

Aliat~

Univ. Pr_). p.l40

P'"

3. J. C. Rylc, arJ (Cambridse: J - Clarke, 1977). p.217 4. Johann Baptiat Mea, T/" ~t ~tnna. by Pdc:r Mann (New York: Ccoaroad. 1986). pp. 49-50

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

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God Justifies

the Wicked?

By KIM RIDDLEBARGER

The words "God justifies the wicked" just do not sound right to the human ear.

Such a declaration goes against every fiber ofthe human inclination to assume that a person's eternal status before God should be based upon a person's own intrinsic goodness and character, spiritual accomplishments, or good works. Such sentiments are quite common in popular American religion and are reflected in comments with which we are all familiar, ''I'm not such a bad person," "I believe in God, go to church and pray," "I send money to help the starving children in Mrica."

Mter all, wouldn't the fairest way for God to make the proper determination about someone's eternal destiny be to simply balance of the scales ofgood and badin each person's life? And so when we hear the words "God justifies the wicked," they do not fit with what we have come to expect from the sentimental and romantic notions of American religion.

In fact, such words can be down right troubling for many in our culture. For if these words are true, they may even mean that "bad" people somehow make it into heaven, as though they might somehow contaminate God's dwelling.

What is worse, ifwe take these words all

God's covenant line, the apostle argues that they are without excuse for their __ estrangement from God, because God has clearly revealed himself to them "---../ through that which has been created (Romans 1: 18-20). The Gentiles have learned enough about God through nature to render t~eir rejection ofhim as completely inexcusable. Instead ofusing heaven. Why do the wicked even deserve the knowledge ofGod that theydo receive consideration? Itsimplywouldn't be fair. to foster true worship and acceptable If you know your Bible, you already service of the true and living God, the know that the declaration, "God justifies Gentiles sinfullysuppress what theyknow the wicked" is indeed a very biblical to be true. This suppressed knowledge statement. These enigmatic words were inevitably resurfaces as idolatry and false penned by the apostle Paul in the mid­ religion. Yes, the innocent native goes to fifties of the first century in his epistle to heaven when he dies. The problem is the Roman church (Romans 4:5). It is that according to Paul there is no such important to remind ourselves that Paurs thing as an innocent native! There will declaration, "God justifies the wicked," . be no one on the last day of judgment comes on the heels of a great deal of who will stand before the bar of God's biblical exposition and argumentation justice and be able to claim innocence.

thew~to thcir~~~conclu~o~we ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

might even be forced to conclude that "good" peoplemaysomehow be excluded from the heavenly city.

This is hardly what we would expect ifhuman inclination about divine justice is really true. If God were fair, he would indeed accept only those who have earned a sufficient righteousness, or those who were actually worthy of entrance into 4. •

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

that has preceded the apostle's rather surprising assertion here. In, Romans 1: 18-3:20, Paul has gone to great lengths to graphically portray the human condition after the fall of Adam, which plunged not only himself but all of his countless progeny into sin and ruin. First, turning his critical glance upo~ the Gentiles, those historically outside of

Paul says, "They knew God... but they exchanged the truth for a lie" (Romans 1:21-22). , The Jews, on the other hand, as the chosen people of God and guardians of the Holy Scriptures (Romans 2:1 ~3:9), were every bit as guilty before God as were the Gentiles, since the Jews apparently understood the giving ofthe

1JlodenlREFORMATlON

law and the covenant sign and seal of circumcision, not as gracious gifts ofGod, but as vehicles for performing good works about which they could boast. God's gracious gifts were instead used as means of earning merit or favor with God. Whatever righteousness God required, the Jews thought that it could be earned through keeping the law and possessing the sign of circumcision. Thus the Jews saw righteousness in this sense as astrictly human quality, something to be earned or acquired through human action. Paul, however, reminded the Jews of the hypocrisy apparent in the kinds or arguments that they were using against the Gentiles. "You who pass judgment on someone else, are you without excuse? Do you accuse others ofwrongdoing and yet do the same things yourself?') Is the righteousness that God requires strictly based upon outward performance and appearance. The answer is, ofcourse, "No, you are without excuse, and you are every bit as guilty as the Gentiles are! Your hearts are every bit as evil."

Paul is reminding the Jews that God is not going to grade the final exam for eternal life on a curve, and then simply lower his standards to allow those with 70 or 80 % righteousness into heaven. On the contrary, God expects and demands 100 % faithfulness both internally in the secret attitudes of the heart, which are truly known to God, and externally through perfect obedience to his law. It was our Lord himself who demanded of the self-righteous, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).

Certainly, this ,flies in the face of American notions "about God accepting mere sincerity on our part, or our best effort in lieu ofsuch perfection. While we worryabout our pettydefinitions ofGod's fairness, God is instead worried about maintaining his perfect and holystandards from such human insistence that he meet us on our terms rather than vice versa.

Now as ifanyone in Paul's audience could

possibly have missed the point that he God's holy standards as revealed in the was trying to make, he now turns his law. Therefore, if you hear the words intensified spotlight this time on both "God justifies the wicked" through the 'Jew and Gentile: "There ,is no one grid of human worth, as do many righteous, no not even one; there is no Americans, tragically even manywho have one who understands, no one who seeks supposedly learned the Christian faith God. All have turned away, they have from household name Bible teachers, then together become worthless" (Romans ofcourse, these words will sound troubling 3: 10-12). Paul, in staccato-like fashion, to you. Indeed, if you follow human proceeds to cite a whole series of Old inclination, and hear Paul's words already Testament passages listing a virtual believing that people are basically"good," then of course, the words set before us will have a strange ring to them. But if Paul is right, and it is true that all men and women are sinners by nature and by choice and are not righteous because of anything that they are in themselves, or through anything that they do to earn righteousness, then the words "God justifies the wicked" must take on a new .and profound significance.

The resolution to this dilemma is to ~ndto put these words in abiblical rather than a cultural context. Ifyou view Paul's words through the biblical category of human sinfulness and the inability to satisfy any of God's demands for perfection, the words "God justifies the wicked" will no longer sound so strange to the ear. Quite the contrary, they can only come as the best news possible. It is no accident that catalogue ofbody parts (throats, tongues, the gospel is called "Good News" for that lips, mouths, feet, eyes) as he describes is exactlywhat it is. The Gospel is defined the horrible and debilitating effects ofsin elsewhere by Paul as Jesus Christ's life, upon humanity. He is very careful to death and resurrection according to the make sure and point out that each of Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:1-6). The Good theseparts ofthe human bodyare actually News is God's promise that he will justify, accomplices, and even willing participants o~ accept, those same people who have inthe human rebellion against God~No just been described as unrighteous, part ofhumanityhas been left unaffected unworthy, self-seekers who are completely by the Fall. Every aspect of the human tainted "and corrupted by sin.

And how will God do this? Will he make-up has been tainted and damaged by sin. When at last he is finished, Paul simply forsake his own holy standards, concludes, "Therefore no one will be and instead decide to overlook all ofour declared righteous in his sight by many infractions without punishing obserVing the law; rather, through the them? Will he cease to fulfill his role as the law we become conscious ofsin" (Rom. holy avenger ofevery infraction ofhis law in order to save sinners who have broken 3:20). There is no one left standing.

We may be acceptable ifwe compare all ofhis commandments (Jas. 2: 1O)? The ourselves to others, but no one can meet answer is "No," even though manyhistoric

If God saves us . in Christ, then

by him, and through we are saved

Q

him, him,no matter how wicl{ed we maybe

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

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Roman Catholic and Arminian theologians, as well as numerous contemporary Bible teachers, have tried to explain the gospel in such"civil" and bloodless terms.

For Paul, the cross does indeed demonstrate that God is notonly loving (Rom. 5:8), but also just as well (Rom. 3:25-26). Thus, the very heart of the gospel revolves around the greatdoctrine of justification by grace through faith on account ofChrist-a doctrine that is perhaps as dearly expressed by Paul's words "God justifies the wicked" than by any others he could have used. Since the gospel is defined by Paul in terms of what Jesus has done, in his sinless life, atoning death and triumphant resurrection, then there can be no doubt that Paul sees the key issue here as not residing in any human attempt to earn righteousness, since we indeed cannot earn enough, or through any human effort such as sincerity or trying our best, since all of our efforts are ruined because ofour sin. No, the focus here is not on what we can do to make ourselves acceptable, but whatJesus Christ did for us to make us acceptable.

What if God accepts the sacrifice of Christ as a complete payment for the sins of his people who have violated God's holylaw? IfJesus dies for all ofour sins, are we not truly forgiven since his sacrifice as the sinless and spotless lamb ofGod indeed removes all of our guilt?

Add to this the wonderful truth that Jesus Christ kept God's law perfectly without sin, and that the perfect obedience ofJesus Christ becomes ours through faith (Romans 4:24; 5:19), then we see how important that simple little word "justifies" really is.

In the NewTestament, the language used by Paul for justification comes to us straight out ofthe,courtroom and the accounting office. The imagery in view is legal and declarative. Yes, we are really guilty, and we actually deserve to hear a guilty verdict .from the judge of the 6 •

NOVEMBERJDECEMBER 1992

-we Confess For the Lutherans...

It is also taught among us that we cannot obtain forgiveness of sin and righteousness before God by our own merits, works, or satisfactions, but that we receive forgiveness of sin and become righteous before God by grace, for Christ's sake, through faith, when we believe that Christ suffered for us and that for his sake our sin is forgiven and righteousness and eternal life are given to us.

The Augsburg Confession, Art. IV

For the Refortned...

What is Justification? We are justified on account of Christ by imputed righteousness ... so that now we are not only cleansed and purged from sins or are holy, but also granted the righteousness of Christ, and so absolved from sin, death and condemnation, and are at last righteous and heirs of eternallife....Justification is not attributed partly to Christ or to faith, partly to us. Therefore, we do not share in the benefit of justification partly because of the grace of God or Christ, and partly because of ourselves, our love, works or merit, but we attribute it wholly to the grace of God in Christ through faith. For our love and our works could not please God if performed by unrighteous men.

The Second Helvetic Confession, Chap.XV Those whom God effectually calleth he also freely justifieth; not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and ¡by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous: not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God. The Westminster Confession, Chap.XI

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universe! But instead, God graciously accepts the death of Christ as a substitutionary payment, once for all, paid in full, for all ofour sins. God is just in that Christ pays the full price for sin.

Goddoes not lower or reduce his standards so that we can be forgiven. And yet, God is loving in that he graciouslyand lovingly provides a sacrifice for us that is capable ofsatisfying his own justice.

The cross, ifviewed by itself, certainly leaves us forgiven but does not reckon to us righteous. It removes, guilt but does not provide a positive righteousness.

Therefore, God himself provides the perfect righteousness that we need, the kind that passes his absolute standards.

We are told that Jesus Christ's perfect righteousness is credited, or reckoned, or imputed to us, through faith (Rom. 4:3).

The language used comes right from the law courts. This is what Paul is getting at when he declares that God justifies the wicked. It is God as judge who satisfies his own righteous demands and renders to the guilty sinner the wonderful "not­ guiltyverdict" solely because Jesus Christ (in a sense as the defense attorney and advocate) has paid the entire penalty for us! Not only that, we are regarded not only as forgiven, but also as though we had never sinned and had kept God's law perfectly, because the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ has been credited, or imputed, or placed in our ledger just as a deposit made at the bank credits our account with the proper , amount. Thus God "justifies the wicked" by actually dealing with sin, and our lack of righteousness, in the person Jesus Christ.

But one nagging problem remains.

God justifies, .that much is clear. But whom does God justify? The wicked?

Can it really be? Doesn't God first make someone better before he justifies them?

Doesn't God expect me to improve or do something to make myself acceptable before I am justified? It is at this point that the gospel destroysAmerican religious

civility because the answer is aresounding "No!" There is no doubt that Paul means what he says, for the New International Version as quoted here really does capture the force of the original language. The people said to be justified are described as "wicked" in and of themselves at the precise moment when they are said to be justified.

Paul's use of human examples in Romans 4, which are drawn from the Old Testament, clearly bear this point out. Abraham had a rather interesting

habit of trying to pass off his wife to important secular rulers as his "sister," inviting them to share her with him, as it were. Ofcourse, King David's hormonal problems are legendary. These two Old Testament "giants" are Paul's examples ofwicked men who know the blessing of not having these grievous acts counted against them (Rom. 4:1-8): Goddidnot initiateamoral clean-up campaign before he accepted them in Christ. Paul cites both as examples of sinners who have a right relationship with God throughJesus Christ.

That being said, however, it must be pointed out that the clean-up campaign begins in earnest once ' the sinner is justified! But even here oursanctification is still really God's work in us as well (Phil. 1:6). It is God's job to clean up the sinner's life once the person has been united to Christ through faith. And ifthe

sinner is not willing to cooperate fully, God will even ensure that he or she is sanctifiedanyway! He will make theperson willing. But I wonder how many have been driven away from the kingdom by preachers ofworks righteousness who have placed the obstacle ofpersonal holiness or moral improvement in the way of the wondrous cross and the sinless life ofour Lord.

Far from being akind ofbiblical quirk then, the phrase "Godjustifies the wicked" is indeed at the hean of the gospel. IfGod saves in Christ, then we are saved by him and through him and to him, no matter how wicked we may be. And ifGod saves in Christ, then his death and life must be seen as absolutely sufficient in themselves to save us. It is Christ's life and death plus nothing and minus nothing. This glorious biblical truth was rather shockingly illustrated at a recent CURE conference, when one of the speakers unequivocally stated that if he was to die in the arms of a prostitute, Christ's life and death would still save him. The tension immediately rose. The audience gasped in horror, only to then slowly realize that the speaker was indeed correct. God does justify the wicked! And ifthis is true, is there any sin that can separate us from such love (Rom. 8:37-39)? It really does boil down to this; either Christ's life and death saves sinners, or it doesn't. And if Jesus saves sinners, then with Paul, we too must joyfully affirm the wonderful biblical promise, "God justifies the wicked." No, it doesn't sound right to the ear, but that is why we must take every opportunity to remind ourselves that it is indeed what the Scriptures teach. It is the Good News of the forgiveness ofsin and the imputation of righteousness. It is the Gospel!

The Rev. Kim Riddlebarger is vice president of CURE and dean of The Academy, in Anah,eim, Ca.. Kim was educated at California State University of Fullenon, and WestminsterSeminary, and is currendyengaged in postgraduate studies at Fuller Theological Seminary.

He has contributed to book projects such as Power &ligion and Christ Tht Lord.

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Reformers were agreed that the Scrip­ tures clearly taught (contrary to many forms ofdispensationalism) that the law (whether Old or NewTestament com­ mands) was not abolished for the be­ liever. Nevertheless, they insisted that nothing in this category of "law" could be a means ofjustification or acceptance before a holy God. The law comes, not to reform the sinner, nor to show him or her the "narrow way" to life, but to crush the sinner's hopes of escaping God's wrath through self-effort or even cooperation.

All ofour righteousness rilUst comefrom someone else-someone who fulftlled the law's demands. Once we have been stripped of our "filthy rags" of righ­ teousness (Is. 64:6), our "fig leaves" through which we try in vain to hide our guilt and shame, only then can we be clothedwith Christ's righteousness.First comes the law to proclaim judgment and death, then the Gospel to proclaim justification and life. One ofthe clearest presentations of this motif is found in Paul's epistle to the Galatians. ~ For many in the German "Higher Life" movement, and those in the stream ofWesley generally, the motifis Law­ Gospel-Law. B.B. Warfield, the great dean of "Old Princeton" Reformed theologians, was one ofthe clearest early critics of this trend, which has now culminated in the vast literature of"vic­ torious living" versions ofthe Christian life. Warfield argued that, at the bottom of it all, the Higher Life movement was nothing more than a revival of promi­ nent Wesleyan-Arm inian features.

Warfield also stated that he was fairly convinced that the Arminians had an­ other God. That's a deep shot. Is it justified? To answer that, let us go back for a moment to the Reformation de­ bate.

In the sixteenth century the issue of law and grace was mote dearly dealt with than at almost any other time since the apostles. The lines were cut cleanly,

Reclaiming the·Doctrine

of JUSTIFICATION

By Dr. ROD ROSENBLADT

Any evangelical-indeed, any Chris­ tian-would probably say that the key issue of human life is that of a saving relationship with ·God through Jesus Christ. Those who are familiar with the scriptures and know what is described with regard to the nature ofthe fall ofthe human race in Genesis three and have come to grips with the texts that plumb the true depths of that fall and the rami­ fications for every human being born after Adam and Eve, would probably not hesitate to say that man became at· that point totally depraved.

Total depravity, of course, does not mean that man has become as bad as he can possibly be, but that every part of us is infected with adeep infection and that we cannot heal our own disease. This realism moves the evangelical to affirm, therefore, that the eternal Logos assumed to himselfaparticular human nature and had as his work to be our prophet, priest, and king and to solve our basic problem in our stead or in our place. The word that most evangelicals would use for that is a biblical word-salvation.

And so, in one way, our subject here is avery simple one: How am I to be saved?

And in away, the answer to the question is as simple: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved! Or, to use a couple oftexts Luther and Calvin cited in their debates with great frequency, "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the Law... " (Rom. 3:28), and, "But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is rec~oned as righteousness" (Rom. 4:5).

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NOVEMBERJDECEMBER 1992

Two matters of history are critical ·to our discussion: (1) The Reformers really believed that the popular (and, by the mid-sixteenth century, official) Roman Catholic positionwas asdf-salvation. By "Roman Catholic" I don't mean what is going on necessarily at your local Catho­ lic church today. Rather, it is to the medieval position that I refer, the Roman Catholic theology that was represented

The Reformation

answer to the

question, "Don't

I contribute

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in the Council of Trent.

(2) When God gives orders and tells us what will happen ifwe fail to obey those orders perfectly, it is in the category of what the Reformers, following the bibli­ cal text, called "law." When God prom­ ises freely, providing for us because of . Christ's righteousness the status he de­ mands of us, this is in the category of "gospel." It is good news from start to finish. The Bible includes both, and the

IJlode rnREFORMATION

" . '

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and as the great Yale historian, Roland Bainton, has written, "This was the only - issue of the century." Anybody who is studying the sixteenth century primarily through the issue of economics is going to miss the whole point ofthe century. It is impossible to understand the sixteenth century ifyou start with the categories of Marxism and revolution, ,or anything else.

The Gospel in the Middle Ages Throughoutwhat has come to be called "the Middle Ages," the western Church had been discussing and debating the nature of justification. What then was the medieval doctrine of justification?

Thomas Aquinas had a doctrine of justification, but it was one doctrine among many. Somewhere tucked be­ hind, around, and under such subjects as regeneration, predestination, sanctifica­ tion, etc., there was a doctrine of justifi­ cation. It also was a doctrine of justifi­ cation that involved Godloving the sinner in so far as he or she was not a sinner. He did not love the sinner as sinner; how could a holy and just God love a sinner?

But he loved sinners in so far as they had the potential to not be sinners.

Duns Scotus spoke ofthe necessity of an absolutely selfless act of contrition (sorrow) and love for God by natural means ifa person was to be saved. Think about that for a moment. At least once during your life, you have to perform an utterly selfless act that has no vested interest for you whatsoever, or you will not be saved! Luther believed that this way ofjustification prevented God from befriending publicans and sinners, and that if it were true, God was not truly free.

Of course, there were many other views. Strict Augustinians insisted on the priority of grace, which because of pre­ destination, rendered it absolutely cer­ tain that one would be justified-one day in ~ the future. Even for the Augustinians-and there were not a

few-justification was primarily moral transformation, not a legal declaration distinct from any prior moral condi­ tions.

Weare not only forgiven; we are also credited ,vithChrist's conlplete righteousness as . though,vehad perfectly··keptthe·..La,v through tIle course of our lives

arguedthat justification involved agradual change from unjust to just, thus justified.

Grace amounted to an infused power to enable one to cooperate with the Spirit, to gradually move oneselffrom the category of "ungodly" to "righteous." And this would be noticeable in fewer ·and fewer sins.

As if Aquinas were anticipating the Enlightenment, he seems to have much more in common with Kant than with the New Testament, when he offers a state­ ment likely to be heard in any number of evangelical circles in our day: "God never asks of anyone something for which he does not first give him the power to per­ form it." Reformation people, of course, had (and still ought to have) tremendous problems with this theory, which under­ estimates both the seriousness of sin and the greatness of grace.

The Gospel According to the Reformers The medieval consensus that won out has come to be known by the technical name "Semipelagianism"-from the fourth-century debate between Augus­ tine, defender of grace, and Pelagius, a monk who denied original sin and, therefore, the need forsupematural grace.

While the Council of Orange (529 AD) condemned both Pelagianism and Semipelagianism, the heresy of works­ righteousness~erected on the founda­ tion of free will-grew increasingly popular among the "masses and even among the theologians.

What the Reformers said of the posi­ tion was that it was by necessity a theol­ ogy of doubt, of fear, and finally of despair, of being saved. ·One had to be sanctified enough first in order to merit justifying grace, and the essence ofjusti­ fication was a real change within the ~ human heart. (We must mark this well, because we shall discover parallels to this in evangelicalism when we discuss this below.)Justification, for Roman Catholic theology, is primarily a real empirical change in the human heart. Aquinas

What then is the doctrine of justifica­ tion as taught by the reformers? It is, they said, primarily aforensic declaration; that is, it comes from the world of law courts.

In this transaction, we the guilty party stand before the judge who is righteous and are declared as if we were not only innocent, but as though we were perfectly righteous. (Notice how the popular defi­ nition, "just-as-if-I'd-never sinned" only tells half the story: We are not only for­ given; we are also credited with Christ's complete righteousness as though we had perfectly kept the law through the course of our lives.)

The Reformers did not believe that this justification was an empirical change in the human heart; rather, it was external.

One of my favorite stories that illustrates this particular matter deals with a time when Luther was under the ban of the Empire, was translating the Bible into German at the Wartburg castle, and could only have contact with his star student Melanchthon by courier. Melanchthon had a different sort of temperament than Luther. Some would call Melanchthon NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

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9

nlode rnREFORMATION timid; others of a somewhat less gener­ ous' bent might call him ."spineless." At one point, .while Luther was off in the Wartburg castle translating, Melanchthon had another one of his attacks of timidity. He wrote to Luther, "I woke this morning wondering if I trusted Christ enough." Luther received such letters from Melanchthon regu­ larly. He had atendency, apropensity, to navel-gaze, and to wonder about the state ofhis inner faith, and whether itwas enough to save. Finally,>in an effort to pull out all the stops and pull Melanchthon out of himself, Luther wrote back and said, "Melanchthon! Go sin bravely! Then go to the cross and bravely confess it! The whole gospel is outside of us."

This story has been told time and time again by less sympathetic observers in an effort to caricature Luther and the Refor­ mation generally as an invitation to li­ centious abandon. Ifwe are not justified by our own moral conformity to the law, but by Christ's, surely there is nothing keeping us from self-indulgence. Of course, this was the criticism ofthe gospel that Paul anticipated in Romans six: "Shall we therefore sin so that grace may increase? Heaven forbid!" Nevertheless, Luther's pastoral advice was calculated to jar Melanchthon out of morbid in­ trospection. Great sinners know libera­ tion when they have it, but Melanchthon had been a scrupulous, pious Catholic.

This, however, did not bring him assur- ' ance, but only doubts. For his assurance depended, notso much on God's promise to the ungodly as ungodly (Ro. 4:5), but on his ability to see growth and im­ provement. in his own Christian walk.

Luther's frustrated counsel was not an invitation to serve sin, bU.t an attempt to shock Melanchthon into realizing that his righteousness was external to him: The whole gospel is outside of us.

In order to precisely define justifica­ tion we ought to use the full formula, taking the words of William ,Hordetn: 10.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

. The doctrine is properly called justification by grace alone through faith alone. Through the years a kind ofshorthand has risen whereby we have spoken of justification by faith alone. In and of itself this is innocent enough and it avoids having to keep repeating the ~ull for­ mula. But the trouble with this abbreviation is that it can give a quite mistaken view of what the doctrine is really saying. When by grace alone is dropped from the phrase, the impres­ sion is that faith is the primary ,element in justification. But then faith begins to appear as . something that we must perform. And so, ironically, the term jUstification by faith leads to a new doctrine ofworks. Faith comes to be seen as a work that we must accomplish in order save ourselves.

Ironically, even in the Lutheran church this concept is rife. We took a national survey in North America and found out that 750/0 of Lutherans across synodical

We'were saved two thousand years ago, about a twenty minutes' walk from downtown Jerusalem lines werefunctioning Roman Catholics.

Seventy-five percent of them answered "yes" to questions like, "I think I will be saved because I am trying harder to obey the Ten Commandments.this week than last week." Afew years ago Will Herberg and other commentators noted that a predominant aspect of North American

religion was that we have faith in faith.

One American evangelist, in fact, wrote abooklet, "How To Have Faith In Your Faith." To believe fervently is good, regardless of what it is we believe. No doubt this attitude is partly the result of the abbreviation justification by faith alone.

I mentioned that the Roman Catholic position was that we were saved bygrace, and that grace is an infused power to lead aGod-pleasing life. Luther did not agree that the word "grace" in the Bible meant an infused power to live a God pleasing­ life, as though it were a substance. He said rather that grace is the opposite of merit: unmerited favor. We are saved by God's graciousness to us. God has de­ cided to be gracious to sinners; we are saved by his graciousness.

Grace is not even a principle: It is an attribute, a disposition, of the living God. He is gracious. To be saved by God's graciousness is to give up on merit, or to use Luther's phrase, to "let God be God." Luther believed that to "let God be God" was to recognize that it is he who does the saving, and part of what was requisite in that was for us to quit · trying to do the saving. The Roman Catholic position was that God and the believerworking together can save, while the Reformation position insisted that God can save sinners only if they stop trying to save themselves. The cause of God's graciousness to sinners is not our faith, the Reformers insisted; .the cause of God's graciousness to sinners is his own graciousness. In otherwords, we do not leverage the love of God out of heaven. We do not have any Archimedean point for a lever to pry it down toward us. Our openness, our yearning for him, our longing to be part of his gracious plan: none of this justi­ fies; none ofthese dispositions or desires on our part can pry open the gate of heaven. .If the Reformers were correct in in­ terpreting .what Paul was getting at in

nlode rIlRI;:FORMATION ilie~~cleooilie~maru,100%~our~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

salvation ~ because of graciousness, and nothing whatsoever is due to anything in us. The Reformation aruwer to ilie ques­ tion, "Don't I contribute anything 00 imy salvation?" is, "Yes... Your sin!" The value then of saving faith ~ only a value in virtue ofthe object grasped. Faith has no virtue; it connects us to the one who is virtuous.

Along these lines, abook iliat has been alow point in ilie hisoory ofpublishing in the West appeared in the 1950's titled, TheMagic ofBelieving. Again, it's Charlie Brown's line: it doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you believe in some­ thin~Beli~insomcthin~~~~er~is, ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

helps to keep your blood pressure down, and you'll be less likely to have ulcers.

This was not the Reformation position: Faith had no virtue on its own. It was, they said, an empty hand that grasps the free treasure of Christ. The old sermon illustration is worth remembering:. If a person happens to be drowning and someone throws out a life-ring and pulls the person, it is bizarre for the rescued party to say, "Did you see how I grasped that ring? Why just look at these hands!"

Luther said that faith in Christ to save allowed God to be who he was. And so, the Reformation's affirmation is that we are saved on account of Christ through faith, and it is not that we are saved on account offaith through Christ. It is the graciousness of God that saves us by his act in Christ, not our faith itself. Ifwe say iliat our faith is something that we offer to God-like some sort oftraruaction in which God offers salvation in exchange for our act of faith or decision, we are functioning Roman Catholics. I used to say to some of my evangelical students that they ought to find a priest and join the Roman Catholic Church, because it was the same theology and the priest could say it more clearly. What has be­ come blurred and confused in evangelical circles is quite clearly and articulately spelled out in the dogmatic conclusioru

of the Roman Catholic magisterium.

Man, said Luther and Calvin, has no faith and he cannot produce any faith.

We are all helpless, impotent, and bank­ rupt by virtue of our participation in Adam and Eve's act, and we cannot pull ourselves up byour own bootstraps. The place we find iliis most dearly expounded

by Luther is in The Bondage o/The Will.

I hear the reader asking, "Well then, is saving faith just a matter of knowing facts?" Hardly, and the R~ormers knew that. They distinguished between his­ torical faith and saving faith. Historical faith had as its goal or end, human speculatioru. It was an intellectual ac­ ceptance of facts concerning Jesus' life, work, and death; nevertheless, it came only from the human mind, acknowl­ edging the facts, but remained basically uninvolved with the one that caused the facts to happen. And the key phrase that Luther used was that the person who just had historical faith believed that none of this was pro me, or "for me.» Once a person comes to accept that this whole action summed up in the Nicene Creed was for me, then we're talking about the kindoffaith that saves. Therewe have an active embracing ofthe Son of God and his self-sacrifice. And you say, "Ah hal There is something self-produced in faith.» Answer from the Reformers, "Not

at all. God gets all the credit when some­ one starts to think in terrm of trusting Christ.» Only the power of the Holy Spirit through the gospel can give that inclination to us against our own rebel­ lion.

The motifin the New Testament, and in the Reformation, ~ that Christ's death was outside of me and for me. It is not primarilysomething that changes us. After one has been declared righteous by grace through faith, this grace will begin to change us (sanctification); n~ertheless its changing us is certainly not what justifies us. In Roman Catholicism, and in John Wesley's work, what makes us truly acceptable 00 God is his internal work ofrenovation within our hearts and lives.

Thus, through the influence of Arminianism and Wesleyanism, thesitu­ ation in many evangelical churches bears almost indistinguishable resemblance on these points to medieval Rome. Some of the preaching in evangelicalism-cer­ tainly some of the Sunday school mate­ rial, some of the primary addresses by retreat speakers and Christian leaders­ all taken oogether as the basic spiritual diet, tend to reinforce that old intuition that good people are the ones who are saved and that those who are norso good are the ones who are lost.

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rnodernREFORMATION

The bellwether test as to where a person stands on this is what he or she does with Romans chapter seven, par­ ticularly passages such as, "The good that I would, I do not. And that which ­ I abhor is that which Ido ... Oh wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?" In many cases, those who are not grounded in the Ref­ ormation persuasion have to say this was Paul's experience before he met the Lord, while those of us from the Reformation perspective would probably say there is no better description of the Christian life in all of the Bible than Romans seven. The Reformers really believed that the Christian life was a life simul iustus etpeccator-simultaneously justi­ fied and yet sinful, and that we would remain in this tension until death. They were eager to proclaim Christ as Savior and Lord and would never have known the dichotomy expressed by Zane Hodges and other antinomian Bible teachers, but they were absolutely op­ posed to a self-salvation by self surren­ der.

Any righteousness that we have, even in the Christian life, is gifted to us. They wouldnot have been especiallyimpressed with the kind of things that have come from the Keswick movement in En": gland, from the German "Higher Life" movement, from Ian Thomas, from the American Finneyites, Andrew Murray, or some of the writings of Lewis Sperry Chafer. Here is a quote from B. B. Warfield on Louis Sperry Chafer's teaching concerning the alleged "carnal Christian": Mr. Chafer makes use of all the jargon of the "Higher Life" teaching. In him we too hear of two kinds of Christians whom he designates respectively carnal men, and spiritual men on the basis of a misreading of I Corinthians 2:9 and following. And we are told that the passage from the one to the other is at our option, whether we care to claim the higher degree by faith. With him too, thus, 12.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

the enjoyment of every blessing is suspended on our claiming it. We hear of letting God, and indeed we almost hear of engaging the Spirit as we engage say a carpenter to do work for us. And we do explicitly hear of "making it possible for God to do things," a quite terrible expression. Ofcourse we hear repeat­ edly of the duty and efficacy of yielding, and the act of yielding ourselves is quite in the customary manner discriminated from conse­ crating ourselves....

Many ofthe elements present in me­ dieval theology are replicated in North American fundamentalism and evan­ gelicalism. The family resemblances, if you want to talk across the spectrum of Christian theology, are LutherlCalvin­ Wesley/Rome.

What About Sanctification?

Did the Reformers then have any doctrine ofsanctification? Ofcourse they did. We are all familiar with the biblical announcements as to what is involved in sanctification: theWord, the sacraments, prayer, fellowship, sharing the gospel, serving God and neighbor, and the Ref­ ormation tradition also acknowledges that there are biblical texts that speak of sanctification as complete already. This is not a perfection that is empirical 'or observable, but a definitive declaration that because we are "in Christ," we are set apart and holy by his sacrifice (1 Cor. 1:30; Heb. 10, etc.). Anybody who is in Christ is'sanctified because his holiness is imputed to the Christian believer, just as Jesus says in John chapter seventeen, "For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified." God sees the believer as holy. That means that Wesley should not have terrified Chris­ tian brethrenwith texts such as, "Without holiness, no one will see the Lord." The Christian is holy-it's all imputed. And then there are texts that say, "Be holy as I am holy." What would the Reformers do with that? They would say we are called to be holy. But why should we be

holy ifwe are already perfect in Christ?

Because we are saved unto good works, not unto licentiousness, according to Romans chapter six; the question has been asked before. The works are done out of thankfulness of heart by the be­ liever who has been saved, not by one who is trying to be saved. The Reformers believed that the law in the Bible had three uses. First, it was a civil 0 rdinance to keep us from stealing each other's wives and speedboats. The civil use of the law applied to the whole culture.

Second, the law had a theological use, which was to reveal our sin and drive us to despair and terror so that we would seek a savior. Luther believed that was the primary use of the law in all of Scripture. But the Reformers also be­ lieved in a third use of the law, and that was as adidactic use, to teach the Chris­ tian God's will for holy living.

Ifthe Christian is reading the law and says, "This is not yet true ofme: ldon't love God with all my heart, and I cer­ tainly don't love my neighbor as I love myself. In fact,just today I failed to help a poor chap on the side ofthe road who was having car trouble. I must not yet be a Christian," here the Reformers would counsel, "Run-<ion't walk-back to the second use of the law, and flee to Christ where sanctification is truly, completely, and perfectly located." Af­ ter this experience, the believer will feel a greater sense of freedom to obey, and it is the only way that one will ever feel free to obey. The difference between all "Higher Life" movements and the Ref­ ormation perspective finally turns on the question of what Baptists call the assurance of salvation, and what the Reformers called fides reflexa (reflexive faith). The answer of the Higher Life movement to the struggling Christian is, "Surrendermore,"or, "What are you holding back from the Lord?" The Ref­ ormation answer is different. ' Turn to Reclaiming on page 30

IJlode rnREFORMATION

Self-Help Salvation:

That is why we cannot believe even an­ gels and apostles if they bring false news because they are not really apostles, and they are not really angels, but agents of the Evil One. Paul continues, "So, it is not strange if the devil's servants also disguise themselves as servants of righ­ teousness" (verse 15). Satan never comes

By Dr. ROBERT GODFREY and says, "I'm Satan, the Father of Lies.

Follow me!" He always comes and says, The devil began with a lie in the teaching about salvation. There is only "I'm a servant of righteousness. I'm a Garden: A lie about our relationship to one "good news" and there is only one servant oflight. I'm a bearer ofthe truth, God, a lie about how w.e'll be related to way to heaven and peace with God. Paul follow me." In the history of the church God. And so the History of the Lie must explains himself more fully on this point people don't stand up and say, "I'm a surely begin in the Garden. We need to in II Corinthians 11, where he warns heretic!" Always, they stand up to say, "I see right at the outset, how very serious about false apostles and deceitful, lying have the real truth." And so, how do we that is, that the Father of Lies was a soul workmendisguisingthemselvesasapostles knowwhat the real truth is? Paul and the murderer from the beginning because he of Christ. This is why we cannot even whole ofscripture give us an antidote, a lied about how we are to be related to trust apostles, ifthey come claiming to be test, expressed so eloquently in Proverbs God. And that problem continues. Paul apostles while bearing aperverted gospel. chapter 30: 5-6, were we read, "Every talks about liars who will come with a And no wonder, Paul says, for even Satan word of God proves true. Do not add to different gospel. And yet, he says, it's not disguises himself as an angel of light. his words lest he rebuke you and you be found aliar." It is God's word that really a different gospel. To say it's adifferent gospel is to say that is true; it is God's word that is the there are really two "good gospel. It is God's word on which we must rely and rest our souls. newses"-that there are two ways of talking about good news; that The prophets made this point: Isaiah declared, "Because you have there are two paths to God. Paul said we have made lies our refuge, insists that they really are not different gospels, because there and in falsehood we have taken shelter, therefore thus says the can only be one gospel; there is Lord, behold! I am laying in Zion only one good news, only one for a foundation a stone, a tested way to God. And so, you either stone, a precious corner stone of a have the gospel or you have a perversion ofthe gospel, but you sure foundation" (Isaiah 28). cannot really have a different What's the answer to lies? Above gospel, Paul says in Galatians all else is Jesus Christ, that tested, chapter one. There are those who sure, precious stone that God has come to pervert the gospel; there laid for the foundation ofourfaith. are those who come to lie. "But And it is Jesus who came and said, even ifweoran angel from heaven "I am the way, the truth and the would preach to you a gospel life." "I am the only way to God, contraryto whatwe have preached the only reliable truth, the only to you, let him be accursed" (Gal. life that you can have or know or 1:8). What, you can't trust hope for." What a remarkable apostles? You can't trust angels - claim that is! And yet, that is the from heaven? No, Paul says, not gospel. That is the truth, that is if they bring another gospel, not the word of God. if they bring a different gospel, And so, I want to organize our not if they bring a perverted thoughts around the words ofour

The H istory of a Lie

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Lord as we think about the history of a lie. I want to try to get us to think biblically, and to think theologically, and to think historically. I'd like us to think biblically by focusing our attention on John chapter six, and I'd like us to think theologically by focusing our attention on three ofthe great theological affirma­ tions of the Reformation: Solas christus, Christ alone; Solagratia, grace alone; sola fide, by faith alone. And then I'd like to remarkin relation to each of those three topics a little bit historically about some who have deviated from that truth. But I'd like to look at those three topics, Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone, in relation to John chapter six, because sometimes Reformation folk are accused of being excessively "Pauline," as if one could createsome kind oftension between Paul on the one hand, and James orJohn or Luke on the other hand. And I think it's useful for us to look into John's Gospel and see the words of our Lord Jesus himself to see that precisely the same kind of theology is to be found there as is found in the writings of Paul.

First then, "Christ alone," in John Chapter six. You remember the scene there: Jesus is being followed by a great multitude. And they are following him, we read earlier in the chapter, because of his signs, particularly his signs ofhealing.

Many have seen Jesus the Healer and are following him. And then, at the begin­ ning of that chapter John describes how Jesus performs another sign, or miracle: he feeds the five thousand, and this is most remarkable. The crowd is tremen­ dously impressed, and they say in verse 14, this is indeed the Prophet! You re­ member how Moses had prophesied in Dueteronomy 18 that in the later day 'a greater prophet than he would arise among the people. And they were begin­ ning to say, "Maybe this is the 'Greater than Moses,' this is indeed the prophet, this is amazing what this fellow is doing!"

And then in verse 15, John records, they wanted to take him by force and make 14.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

him their king. Now, this seems to be a rath~r enthusiastic group ofgenuine dis­ ciples. And what does Jesus do? He with­ draws, he tries to get away, he tries to go up on the mountain top, he tries to cross the sea-he's dearly never been to a church growth seminar! He is concerned that he is being misunderstood and that these people are following him for the

It is a lie that says all ,ve need is some inspiration, all ,ve need is SOBle encouragement, all vve need is SOBle direction, and \vhen we have that then ,ve can find our ,yay back to God wrong reasons. Therefore, when this crowd perseveres in following him and catches up with him, he begins to teach and to set them straight about his gospel and his message and who he is. They're prepared to say he is prophet, and would like him to be king, butJesus wants them to r~flect further on what they are saying and his true identity. Jesus says to them, "You are following me onlyfor the bread" (verse 26). It's a rather sharp and critical rebuke. He's saying to them,_"Aren't you really following me just for what you can get out of it? Aren't you really following me 'so that you can get your bellies filled and your diseases healed? Are you really interested in me, at all? Do you want me to be king because ofwho lam, or do you want me to be king because of what you think you'll get out of it? Why are you following me? What do you seek in me?

What do you expect me to do?" And then

he begins to shake them up with the truth. He begins by saying, "I am the bread of life" (verse 35). They have been talking about bread-he has fed five thousand, the Passover is near, and they are thinking about Israel's deliv­ erance from Egypt. They are thinking about how Moses had fed the people in the wilderness with the manna. And Jesus says now, "I am the bread oflife."

He is saying, "I'm really the fulfillment of that 'type' expressed in the wilder­ ness, of God feeding the people with literal bread from heaven, that manna.

Now I'm the real manna-I'm the bread that has come down from heaven." And these people muttered to themselves, "We know all about this guy. We know where he was born and where he was raised. He's just an ordinary fellow.

He's just like you and me. He has a mother and father, and sisters and brothers, and we know where he came from. How can he tell us he came down from heaven? What is he saying about himself? What is he claiming for him­ self?"

You see, I think Jesus is saying, "Yes I am a prophet. And yes, I am a king.

But I'm more than that. I'm not here just to be your human leader. I'm not here just to supply your physical needs.

Are you willing to hear that word from me, that I am the bread oflife that came down from heaven? That I am the di­ vine Son ofGod? That before Abraham was, I Am? Are you .willing to hear that?" And then he continues his teach­ ing: "The bread which I shall give for the-life of the world is my flesh" (verse 51). "Yes I am the bread oflife. How am I the bread oflife? First ofall, because I am giving ofmysel£ I'm giving myself for the life ofthe world." Jesus is telling them, "The life ofthe world is not to be grounded in thefactthatl'ma prophet, or the fact that I'm a king, as important as those are, but the life ofthe world will be derived from the fact that I am a divine priest offering my life, asacrifice

nlodernREFORMATIO

ROBERT SCHULLER

An

Interview with

The/ollowing are seg~ntsfrom an interview on CURE's radio broadcast, The White Horse Inn.

MR: Dr. Schuller, ~id you write "The unsaved person cannot perceive himself as

worthy of divine grace and hence rejects it."?

Schuller: I ma~ have said that because I am inclined to believe very definitely that

the person who IS lost and unsaved is afraid ofthe light. The person who is only used

to darkness is afraid of the light, and 1 think unsaved people do not consider

themselves worthy enough, I think that's absolutely true, "While we were yet sinners

Christ died for us."

MR: But not while we were worthy Christ died for us?

Schuller: Listen, if Christ had died for somebody who wasn't worth anything that

would have been a lousy deal. God is a good steward and he teaches us to be good

stewards. God knows the worst sinner is worth saving so that he would die on across

for us.

MR: But how can we deserve undeserved favor?

Schuller: You tell me! I don't have to answer that question. You're asking me how

we can be s.aved by grace. It's because ofthe love ofGod, and we are saved by grace.

MR: But If we are worth it, then it is not grace, it's merit.

Schuller: No, no. It means that we are still creatures ofGod, we are still sons ofGod.

We have value. We still have value.

MR: I agree with you to the extent that we are created in the image of God...

Schuller: And even the value of a human being who is not a Christian is worth dying

for on the cross. That's what God said. Don't ask me why, that's his evaluation of

who we are.

MR: But isn't it really the goodness of God that moved him to put Christ on the

cross, seeing our mise:r' rather than God seeing something in us worth redeeming?

Schuller: Well. .. 1 thmk.... yes and yes. Yes and yes to that one.

MR: Would you be willing to address your congregation as a group as sinners?

Sc~uller: ~o I don't think I need to do that. Firstofall, my congregation is avery

mIxed audIence.

MR: But our Lord's audiences were mixed with disciples and unbelievers both.

Schuller: Oh yes, but I'll tell you, the audience is quite different that I talk to than

what the Lord spoke to. I speak every week to millions, not a million but millions

of people in Russia on channel one. And I speaking to a couple of million people

every Sunday.

MR: Are you saying that it is the size of the audience that matters?

Turn to Schuller on page 28

on the cross for sinners. 1give my life for the life of the world. I sac­ rifice and offer myself, and there­ fore, from myselfcomes life. What is the bread of life? My flesh."

That's a hard saying. It was a hard saying for the people who heard it; that in the flesh of Jesus Christ is to be found salva­ tion. Well, maybe he overstated himself a little bit. Maybe he was exaggerating. That is a pretty bold claim, that in the flesh of Jesus Christ is to be found salvation.

Well, he doesn't want anybody to miss it. Look at verses 54-56: "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life; For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him." What is Jesus really saying there? He's saying "I am salvation: My work on the cross is salvation. You must absolutely de­ pend on me and my work on the cross. There is no life anywhere else. There is no salvation any­ where else, except in my body stretched out on the cross and my blood spilled out there as asacrmce for sin. If you will not find life in my body and blood, you will not find life." And that was a hard saying.

And John tells us in verses 52 and 60 that the multitude disputed among themselves, and the disciples said, "This is a hard saying." It has been a hard saying right down through the history of the church. Is it really true that life is to be found only in Jesus; that Christ's work alone is saving? Of course, those outside the Church have regularly denied that. But the problem has arisen even in the Church through its history.

In the fifth century, Pe­ lagius, in his confrontation with NOVEMBER/DECEMBER ·1992

• 15

nzodernREFORMATION

Augustine was saying very much what the crowds in John six were saying.

Pelagius was saying Jesus is a prophet, and Jesus is our king, and it is as a prophet that he is our savior. Prophets can be saviors-they can lead people from one place to another. Kings can be saviors-they can defeat enemies. And Pelagius was saying that Jesus is our savior because he teaches us what we need to do. He shows us by his sacrifice how great is the love ofGod for us. That theme was picked up particularly by Abelard in the 12th century in the Me­ dieval church when he said that the nature of the Atonement is that Christ's death on the cross shows us the greatness ofGod's love for us. He doesn't actually pay the penalty of our sin; he isn't actu­ ally the substitute for sinners, nor a sacrifice that atones before God and turns away the wrath of God from the sinner. He's a sign, a teaching example that God so is concerned about sinners that he wants to save them.

I've always thought that that's a re­ markably strange point of view. It has always seemed to be a little like my mother and father taking my younger sister out in the back yard, killing her, and saying, "Now, doesn't that show you how much I love you?" It is a very curious notion to say God shows how much he loves us as his wayward chil­ dren by taking his only begotten Son and killing him on a cross. The cross is asign ofGod's love only ifGod is doing something else there as well. It is a sign ofGod's love only ifon the cross we see God in the person of his Son fulfilling his own righteous demands, and having his own wrath against sin satisfied. Then, it is the very epitome of love. Then it is the very high point oflove, and then we are drawn back to Christ alone as the center of salvation. It is interesting that this notion of Christ only as prophet comes up again in 17th century Unitari­ anism and Socinianism, where not only then is Christ reduced from being the 16.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

,

priest of his people to being only a prophet, but he is reduced from being the divine son of God to being simply a human being. The person and work of Christ are intimately tied together. Ifwe undervalue his work, we are very likely to undervalue his person, and vice versa.

And this same error crops up again, it seems to me, in 19th century Protestant liberalism. Once again, we see Christ perceived primarily as teacher, as ex­ ample, as inspiration. And you see, wher­ ever Christ is seen only as prophet, it is a self-help way to salvation. It is a lie that says all we need is some inspiration, all we need is some encouragement, all we need is some direction, and when we have that then we can find our way back to God. But I think John chapter six hammers away, batters away at that lie, when Christ says, "It is only in my flesh and in my

Jesus said, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent Ine draws him." There's a declaratioll of our total inability.

There is no self­ help there. blood that you'll have life. It's only in my self-giving that you can have life."

That brings us to our second point, about sola gratia, by "grace alone." Not only is it Christ alone who accomplishes our redemption on the cross, but our receiving that redemption takes place by his grace alone. It seems to me inJohnsix over and over again, he wants to stress

.

that the benefits ofhis life come to us by his action alone-by grace alone. He says that in a number ofdifferent ways from a number of different perspec­ tives. Look at verse 37: "All that the Father gives me will come to me.)) We see in that simple formulation a state­ ment of the electing purpose of the Father. The Father has apurpose and he is going to accomplish that purpose for all whom he intends to accomplish it.

And there is certainty in that purpose: "All that the Father gives me will come to me." We see election and evangelism tied together there: "All that the Father gives to me will come to me, and him who comes to me I will not cast out."

Think about that. When we preach and declare the doctrines of grace, we are being thoroughlybiblical whenwe come to the end of that preaching of the doctrine ofgrace, when we have declared that salvation is entirely of the Lord, and then we say, "Come! Come to the Lord, knowing that everyone who comes to him will be received." To be sure, all who come, do so because the Father has given them to the Son, and because the Spirit has caused them to come. And yet, unashamedly and openly we say to everyone, "Come! And everyone who comes will be received and saved by the Son." And so, there is not a hint of quietism or passivism or fatalism in the preaching of the gospel, but rather the exaltation of the grace ofGod leads us to call to everyone and say, "Come."

In verse 39, Jesus says, "This is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that .is given me."

What a glorious promise! What a glori­ ouscomfort, that not one ofthosewhom the Lord has come to save will be lost.

From a slightly different perspective, this same point is made in verse 44: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." There's a declaration of our total inability. There is no self-help there. There is no oppor­ tunityfor me to supplement the grace of

,

God by my contribution. "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." It is the Father who draws us from beginning to end. "No one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father" (verse 65). Jesus hammers home this truth of our inability, of our dependence, our total dependence upon him for our salvation. That brings me to verse 63, a hotly debated verse in the Reformation: "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh is of no avail. The words thad have spoken unto ypu are spirit and life."

Luther and Zwingli did a little debat­ ing over this verse, and ifI may be so bold to say so, I think they bothmisunder­ stood it, and so did Calvin. I hardly ever disagree with John Calvin, but I think they (all three) were so wrapped up in questions about the Lord's Supper that they missed what was really going on here. The question that they debated about the Lord's supper is, if Jesus says you must eat my flesh and drink my blood, then why does he say the flesh is of no avail? Is Jesus contradicting himself?

How can his flesh be the absolute center of our salvation, and then have him say the flesh is ofno avail? Jesus is not talking about his flesh, but about our flesh. It is our flesh, that is of no avail. And that is a theme that has been present in John at several points before, for instance, in John 1:12,13: "To all who received him, who believed in his name he gave power to become the children ofGod; who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will ofman, but of God." Or again, John 3:6: "That which is born ofthe flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit." It is not Christ's flesh that is ofno avail, but ours. It is only his Spirit that can draw us to life. That is what Jesus is saying here. And in John 6:66 we read some of the saddest words inJohn's Gospel. After his declaration in verse 65, "I tell you no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Fa­ ther," we are told, "Many ofhis disciples

lnodernREFORMATION

drew back and no longer went about with him." They would not hear the word of total dependence upon Christ for salva­ tion. They would follow him if they thought he could help them save them­ selves, but they would not follow if the word came that they must trust him entirely for salvation.

And so it has been through the history of the church. There are those who have denied that we are saved by grace alone.

There are those who have taught in its rankest form that grace is helpful, but not necessary. Pelagius taught that in the fifth century. And in the present environ­ ment, where the examples of unbridled sin are so abounding, we hear that we need grace to help us, perhaps, but it's not absolutely necessary. We can, by the ex­ ercise of our free will, follow God, and hence, save ourselves. Charles Finney, a leading evangelists of the 19th century, said almost the same thing. We need to bear in mind that sometimes we get very hard on our Roman Catholic friends and think that our Protestant tradition is pure of error or difficulty. When you read Charles Finney, he comes very close to saying the human is entirely free to re­

spond to the gospel of Christ. We must exercise our free will. We are on our own in this matter. God has done all he can do-it's up to you! There are some mod­ ern followers of that point of view-who say things like, "God has voted for you, and the devil has voted against you, and you have to cast the deciding vote." Ap­ palling! Now, there are others in the history ofthe church who are better than that. They say that grace is necessary.

Nobodycan be saved without grace. Grace is necessary, but grace is not the exclu­ sively efficient agent in salvation. This is what we usually call· semipelagianism: Yes, you need grace, you can't save your­ self without grace. But something is also needed in addition to grace-some level ofhuman cooperation must suppongrace.

Nowsome insist on agreat deal ofhuman cooperation, and some try to shrink hu~ man cooperation down to a very small act. But they are all agreed that in addi­ tion to grace there must be some human .cooperation. That it seems to me, is the position of Roman Catholicism as de­ fined at the Cou-ncil of Trent. There is a Turn to Self-Help on page 31 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

• 17

I1l0de rnREFORMATION

GOOD NEWS

for Law B rea k e r s

By MICHAEL HORTON

,

"I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes, to, the Jew first and also to the Greek" (Ro. 1: 16). With this declaration of his own personal confidence in the Christian message, the apostle Paul begins his trek, leading us to the Alpine summits of biblical revelation through what is arguably the most important book of the entire Bible. It was this letterto the Romans that brought reformation and revival throughout church history, unsettling the powers and authorities that were opposed to the clear preaching of the cross. It has been this book that brought comfort to the

consciences of the broken-hearted and consternation to those who would tyrannize the consciences ofthe Christian 18.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

faithful with threats of wrath even after the furious thunderings of the Law had been silenced by that dark Friday afternoon outsi_de of center-city Jerusalem, when God substituted his own innocent Son for all believers.

This is precisely why Paul is not ashamed of the gospel, because in it "a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: 'The righteous will live by faith'" (1: 17). In the Law, the righteousness of God is revealed, a righteousness which condemns all of our pretenses ofrighteousness as "fllthy rags."

But in the Gospel, a righteousness from God, that is, a gift of righteousness, is revealed. Not only does God show us how righteous we must be in order to be saved (in the Law), but he actually grants us that very status of perfect righteousness and holiness and this is known only in the Gospel.

First, The Bad News ...

According to Deuteronomy 27:26, everyone who does not obey everything we have been discussing in this study of the Ten Commandments is under a curse. So, Paul begins his epistle to the Romans by explaining how the Jews are condemned by the Law written on tablets of stone, and the Gentiles by the Law written on the conscience through creation. Everyone knows that there is a Supreme Judge who takes account of

people for their sins. That is why the notion of offering sacrifices to appease angrydeities loomsso large in the history ofthe human conscience. While cultures may vary widely, on this matter they are generally agreed: There is a God.; he is holy, we are not. Therefore, a sacrifice for sin is required. All of this can be known through the visible, natural world, natural reason, and the sensus divinitatus (sense of the divine) implanted within every creature bearing God's image. The problem is that although all ofthis is known about God, people "neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened" (1:21). "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness" (v. 18). In other words, we suppress or push down any knowledge ofGod we receive, either from nature or from scripture, so that we can continue to deny the truth about God and the truth about ourselves.

The Gentiles suppress the truth about themselves and God's wrath by trying to wipe away all of God's fingerprints from the divine image stamped upon them.

They worship the creature rather than the Creator, exchange the truth for alie, and turn God's created order upside down (homosexuality is specifically cited) in an attempt to remake the world after their own wickedness, so they can regard their own wickedness as "normal."

In this way, they talk themselves into actually believing that there is nothing to worry about; that whatever god that might exist approves of them and does not hold them guilty.

Nevertheless, Paul turns the guns of the Law next from the Gentiles to the Jews: "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the

1node nzREFORMATION same things" (2:1). In other words, by passing judgment on others for their violations of God's revealed commandments, theJews were admitting that they knew the Law in an even clearer way and, therefore, were even more inexusable. What judging the pagans accomplished was not establishing the righteousness ofGod's people in contrast to the lawlessness of the Gentiles, but merely made the Jews all the more accountable, since they practiced the same sins even though they claimed to be holy.

Paul assures them that they will no more escape God's judgment than the heathen (v. 3). So all the world stands condemned, since "Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin....There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one" (3:9-11). God, therefore, issues the threats of the'Law, "so that every mouth may be silenced and thewholeworld held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin" (vv. 19-20). In other words, the purpose ofthe law is to remind us how wicked we are.

It is so easy for us, like the Jews ofold, to assume that because we have the Bible, the church, "Judeo-Christian" values, and the like, we are righteous, holy, and good. Thewicked are those who promote secular values. But here the apostle Paul levels us justas hedidhis own countrymen.

After all, we practice the same sins. The only difference is that our often self­ righteous claims to adhering to "traditional values" accuses rather than excusing us. Instead ofshowing that God is on ourside, it merelyshows us that God has even more reason for condemning us, because we claim to know better and pretend that we do better, while in fact we engage in the same sins as our unbelieving neighbor.

So, the Law comes to tell all ofus that "there is no one who does good, not even one," before the pure eyes of him who can see filthiness in things we consider pure and holy. Before Isaiah saw avision of God's holiness, he could well have compared himself to others and concluded that he was a godly man. But in the presence of God's holiness, his only response was, "Woe to meL.! am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips,

Instead of . excusIng lIS, Ollr

claim to

"traditional Judeo­

Christian values "

renders us all tIle

more guilty

and I live among apeople ofunclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty" (Is. 6:5). And just as the prophet lays prostrate, despairing of his own righteousness, stripped naked before God, the angel brings a burning coal from the altar, placing it on Isaiah's lips, saying, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin is atoried for" (v. 7). Those who never know their sin and misery can never know God's forgiveness. Those who think they are holy can never be forgiven for their unholiness.

The one who trusts in his own righteousness knows who the wicked are: the homosexuals, the feminists, the pornographers, the secular humanists, the abortionists, and so ·on. But if our Lord was right in his Sermon on the Mount, we are all adulterers, fornicators,

murderers, false witnesses, thieves, covetous, false worshipers, blasphemers, and self-seekers. In this tradition, Paul assures us that the law locks us all up in the same jail cell together with"common criminals," regardless of how much we may protest in defense of our own godliness. As the Barna surveys reveal, even most evangelical Christians believe they are conforming to the Ten Commandments. It is no small wonder, then, most cannot name more than five ofthem. Ifever our generation is going to know the power ofthe gospel, it will first have to know its own powerlessness against the threats of God's demand for perfect, inward holiness ofheart and life.

God does not demand our best, but his best, which is to say, simply, the original righteousness in which we were created.

Justification: Being Declared Righteous Once we come to the place where we realize thatwe cannot recreate that original righteousness--even with God's help, we are ready for the good news, the live coal from the altar ofCalvary, and the Savior's words ofabsolution: "Your guilt is taken away and your sins are forgiven." This is precisely where Paul picks up: But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who bel ieve. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short ofthe glory ofGod, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus (3:21­ 24).

Only in this way could God be both "just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus" (v. 26). Therefore, there is no place for boasting, "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law"(v. 28).

Abraham is called to the witness stand to testify to justification by grace alone through faith alone. We receive the gift NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

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J1lode rnREFORMATlON

of righteousness, not as- a reward, as though we could do anything that would obligate to respond in kind, but bygiving up on our own performance. "However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness" (4:1-5). And that is the important phrase: "God who justifies the wicked." How can God declare righteous those who are unrighteous and, in fact, wicked? How can he say something about us that is untrue? Here is where the Pharisees of Jesus' day failed to grasp the gospel (Lk. 18: 13), as did the Judaizers (Gal. 3: 10), the medieval church, and all today, Catholic and Protestant, who see their relationship with God primarily in terms of moral transformation. Such people have always insisted that God cannot declare us righteous until we actually become righteous. As Wesley pleaded, "0 warn them [the Calvinists] that if they remain unrighteous, the righteousness of Christ will profit them nothing!" 1 Luther's phrase captures the Pauline thought: simul iustus et peccator, "simultaneously justified and sinful." In other words, the Christian is to believe, on the authority of God's promise in the Word, that he orshe is righteous because of someone else's obedience to the law and satisfaction of our violations ofit. If we are in Christ, God regards us as though we had never sinned and, in fact, as though we had obeyed thelawperfectly already. This is a fact; a once-and-for-all declaration that is not in any way dependent on our own performance.

But moralists of all ages have found this impossible to believe. One contemporary evangelical scholar writes, "But can it really be true--saint and sinner simultaneously? Iwish itwereso.... Simul iustus et peccato'? I hope it's true! I simply fear it's not."2 Somehow, our righteousness has to fit in there somewhere. God cannot provide all of the righteousness, for that would be 20.

NOVEMBERJDECEMBER 1992

unjust. This is how we reason, but the Gospel, unlike the Law, is not something we can learn from reason or from nature.

It comes only from divine revelation, in no other place than God's written Word.

In fact, while the Law makes sense, the

Who ever heard

of someone being declared "not

guilty" even when he continued

. .

commIttIng crimes?

Gospel is "foolishness to those who are perishing" (1 Cor. 1:18). Who ever heard of someone being declared "not Kuilty" even when he continued committing crimes? How can the law­ keeping ofsomeone else be credited to a law-breaker? To the degree that we try to make God's method of saving sinners more acceptable to the sinful mind, to that degree it will be something other than the gospel ofJesus Christ.

Thus, from Genesis 15:6, where "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," to Jesus, where the sinner who cried out, "-'Lord, be merciful to me, asinner!'...went home justified rather than" the Pharisee who thanked God that he was not like the others (Lk. 18:13), to Paul and the other apostles, the main idea is that God justifies sinners, not by making them -holy, but by declaring them holy even though they will never live up to that declaration this side of heaven. The Christian, therefore, lives by promise, not by sight. He or she knows that what

God says is true, even if it does not match his or her own experience. One daywe will be glorified as we see God for the first time"as he is," face to face.

So, Paul argues, now in Romans five, Adam was the federal head or representative spokesperson for the whole human race and just as Thomas Jefferson spoke for all future Americans in his Declaration of Independence, so Adam spoke for all of his descendents.

We are born sinners, with both the imputation of Adam's guilt (since we were in some sense with him, united with him in his sin) and the corruption ofAdam's nature. But in Christ, we are taken from the covenant of works, by which we are judged law-breakers and sentenced to judgment-evenfrom birth, to the covenant of grace. Adam, our covenant head, ruined us by his disobedience, but Christ, the Second Adam, rescued us by his obedience. As Adam's guilt is imputed to us even apart from our own personal actions, so Christ's righteousness is imputed to us even apart from our own personal actions. This is justification. But also, as Adam's corruption was passed on to us, so too in Christ we are given new life, resulting in actual righteousness, personal acts of obedience flowing out ofa renewed heart. This is sanctification.

Justification & the Christian Life By the end of Paul,s major section on justification, the apostle anticipates the most likely reaction: "What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning that grace may increase?" (6:1). After all, he had just said, "Where sin increased, grace increased all the more,...." (5:20). Surely this is a recipe for license. If people do not sense that they can still be condemned for their sins--especially great ones, what will keep them from saying, "I have my fire insurance, and now I'll live any kind of life I wish"?

Martyn Lloyd-Jones observed that if, upon hearing our presentation of the

nlodernREFORMATION

gospelofGod's free grace, we do not hear the same criticism raised, we have not really preached the gospel.

One of Luther's students asked the professor, "Ifwhat you're saying is true, . then we may live as we wantl", to which Luther replied, "Yes. Now what do you wantt As Jesus argued that it was the tree that made the fruit, so ·Paul here will argue that it is God's unconditional acceptance that produces real change, not the other way around. So Paul turns from the discussion ofwhat God does in Christ for us and outside of us (justification) to what he does in Christ within us. God has yetto justifysomeone he leaves unconverted. The same God who grants someone who is "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1) the life to believe and trust in Christ for his or her justification also grants that person the faith to grow in Christ and trust in him for his or her sanctification and perseverance in faith (Phil. 1:6).

God not only justifies; he sanctifies.

These must be clearly distinguished, so we do not end up slipping back into confusing God's declaring us righteous by legal decree with the process ofmaking us righteous. Nevertheless, we must not separate these divine actions, either. One is ·a pronouncement, based on Christ's finished work; the other is a process, based on Christ's fihished work, but both bdong to every believer by grace alone, through the same simple faith God gives us to trust in Christ. Through this faith, we are assured .that ·we _are righteous in Christ, even though we do not perceive it in ourselves, and through this same faith we are assured that Christ's life flows through us, sanctifying us just as surely as the life of the vine forms the shape, color, health, and vitality of the branches.

This is why Paul answers, "Shall we then continue to sin so that grace may increase?" in such strong terms: By no means! We died to sin; how can we

live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Ifwe have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ofsin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin--because anyone who has died has been freed from sin (6:i-7).

What the apostle is saying is this: Two things are true of you, through faith in Christ. First, you are justified.

That is, God has declared you righteous apart from your works. Second, you are being sanctified because you have not only been freed from the guilt of your sin, but from its all-consuming power and tyranny as well. It can no longer masteryou, because Christ has seen to its

dethronement.

Many of us are familiar with the booklets which depict the two options for the believer. In the first circle, selfis on the throne; in the secona, Christ. "In which circle are you?", the booklet asks the believer. Many have argued in a similar vein what has come to be called the "carnal Christian" teaching; that is,

the idea that the Christian may be saved from the guilt of sin and, therefore, be assured ofsalvation even though the same person is not free from the rule of sin.

One can know Christ as Savior, but not accept him as Lord. Thus, the goal ofthe preacher in this kind ofsystem is to get the person to make a second decision, this time "allowing"Jesus to gain victory over sin's dominion. But according to Paul's declaration in Romans chapter six, every believer is in the same circle, with Christ on the throne! Notice that he does not urge the Romans to enter into a higher life, to gain victory over sin, or to live "the victorious Christian life." He says that all ofthis has already been accomplished for the believer in Christ and is given all at once to the believer through faith. The moment God grants the sinner faith, the guilt and the control of sin are both conquered immediately and completely.

Never again does the believer have to worry either about being judged for his sins or about being controlled by his sins.

We do not achieve the victory; Christ already has! So, Paul says, we have died to sin; our sinful nature was crucified with him; we have been raised with Christ.

"Anyone who has died has been freed from sin" (v. 7). He does not call us to die to sin and live to Christ, but rather to "count [regard, recognize, acknowledge] yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus" (v. 10).

Here we must make an essential distinction between the indicative and the imperative. According to the indicative, we are already holy in Christ; sin has already been dethroned; we are alreadtdead to sin, buried, and raised in new life, seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Because this is already true about us, according to God's promise, and not dependent on our own decisions or efforts, we are to obey the imperatives laid ·out for us in scripture. For instance, in Colossians 3: 12, Paul says, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clotheyourselves with compassion, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

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nlode rllR EFORMATJON kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." He does not say, "Therefore, as you attempt to become God's people and seek to enter into the holiness and love ofGod,"do thus and so. We do not become by doing or entering, surrendering or gaining victory. Because of Christ's victory, we are already victorious; we are called not to enter into victory, but to live in the light of it.

Think of all the ways in which Paul could have answered the criticism that this doctrine would lead to license. He could have answered, "By no means!

Don't you know that those who do not put J esus on the throne oftheir lives will never experience the real joy and fulfillment that comes from doing the will of God?" Or, in another appeal to man's happiness rather than to what God has done for his own glory in Christ, "By no means! Don't you know that if you do not subdue sin in your life and let Jesus take control, you will fall under God'sjudgment again?" Or, in the same vein, "By no means! How shall those who have not yet died to sin enjoyrewards in the next life?"

But against all of these, Paul declares that we have died to sin and already enjoy all of the spiritual blessings in Christ as we long for the day when we shall fully experience the freedom not only from sin's tyranny, but from its very presence in our lives.

And still, this victory is not the only thing that is true about us. Just as the reader might wrongly conclude, after Paul's discussion of justification, that one may live in sin without fear, so too the reader might wrongly conclude, after Paul's declaration, "Anyone who has died has been freed fromsin" (v. 7). that the believer is perfected in sanctification the moment he or she believes. In other words, one may infer, "If I am really united with Christ, I will be no longer continue to sin." But once more, Paul is ready with a response to such a conclusion, and as a caring pastor, he 22.

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uses his own failures as an illustration:

experience ofsomeone who does have the Spirit ofGod and it is the very fact that he So then, the law is holy and the does possess the Spirit that Paul is 'so commandment is holy, righteous and good. frustrated with his condition. The Did that which is good, then, become death to unbeliever is not disturbed about his law­ me? By no means!....We know that the law is breaking, but Paul here is outraged at his spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to own failures precisely .because he does sin. I do not understand what I do. For what love the law and does delight in it.

I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

Furthermore, Paul writes here in the And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree present tense, and has used other tenses that the law is good... .1 know that nothing regularly in the surrounding passages; good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. therefore, there would be no reason to use For I have the desire to do what is good, but I the present tense here if it were not cannot carty it out. For what I do is not the describing an ongoing experience. good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to Why is all ofthis important? Anyone do-this I keep on doing..... So I find this law at who struggles as a believer with ongoing work: when I want to do good, evil is right sinful habits, behaviors, and desires knows there with me. For in my inner being I delight why it is so important. Farfromadvancing in God's law; but I see another law at work in some sort ofperfectionism, Paul uses this the members of my body, waging war against testimony to his own failures as an example the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the realism we ought to have in the of the law ofsin at work within my members. Christian life. One cannot truly grow in What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue Christ unless one is prepared for failure. me from this body of death? Thanks be to When it comes, as it inevitably will, the God-through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, Christian must know why it comes and in my mind I am aslave to God's law, but in the not bedisillusionedwith the gospel simply sinful nature a slave to thelawofsin (7: 12-25). because of overly-optimistic schemes of victorious living. Instead, one mustsimply Many have argued that Paul must be acknowledge God's forgiveness and move speaking ofhis pre-conversion experience, on in the strength of the Holy Spirit.

So, while we are new people, baptized since it seems inappropriate for an apostle to refer to himselfas "unspiritual, sold as into anew identity, wild branches grafted aslave to sin," and finding himselffalling onto a new vine, we are still the same into the same sins again and again. But people we were before. We still bring however incongruous as this passage may with us the sinful affections we had before seem next to the optimism of Romans we were converted. The difference is that six, Paul does say that even when he does we have a new heart and can never love engage in sins, it is contrary to his deeper our sins as we love the law of God, and commitment to the law of God. He this is what creates the tension. Only states, in fact, that he loves God's law and believers struggle in their conscience over deligh ts in it. And yet, he states in just the obedience to God's law and giving in to next chapter that "the sinful mind is temptation, forthey have been made new hostile to God. It does not submit to and the law of God is no longer merely God's law, nor can it do so" (8:7). Further, written on tablets or on their conscience, in 1Corinthians 2: 14, "The man without but on the very heart; in otherwords, it is the Spirit does not accept the things of the new frame of their affections. This is the Spirit ofGod, for they are foolishness why the Heidelberg Catechism says that to him, and he cannot understand them, even though "the holiest of them because they are spiritually discerned."

So the experience of Paul is clearly the Turn to Good News on Page 32

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and the statement that 'the just shall live by his faith' (Ro. 1:17). Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a different meaning, and whereas before the 'justice of God' had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in great love. This passage ofPaul became to me agate to heaven. 1

Christ Is My Worth

Self-esteem, the feel good movement, and the doctrine ofjustification.

By DON MATZAT

Could Christianity survive without the gospel? In some quarters, including some fairly close to home, the answer seems to be in the affirmative. We still hear the laity using the lingo from the past, but the theological language of scripture is being increasingly replaced with psychological terminology. Of course, language is not as important as the concepts language conveys, but those concepts themselves are often little more than biblical glosses on psychological motifs.

In this article I want to persuade the reader to consider the gospel as the answer to what people are looking for when they say they need "self.;esteem," rather than seeing the gospel as a supplement to the secular illusions. Theology isn't practical­ -adeast, that's what people tell you, even Christian people. Nevertheless, I intend to demonstrate just how practical and essential is a recovery ofthe fundamental teaching -of justification by grace alone through faith alone to our deepest psychological, emotional, and spiritual needs.

The Breakthrough of a Tormented Conscience Like many today who live in anxiety, fear, guilt, and the shame which are common to our fallen condition, Martin Luther was a confused man whose conscience was tormented until he was able to understand Paul's explanation of the gospel in the Epistle to the Romans.

His superiors in the monastery counseled him to relax and easeup on his conscience,

but Luther was driven by an implacable logic: IfGod is just, holy, and righteous, and demanded exact conformity to his moral character, with failure being met with certain punishment, then "Who may ascend into the hill ofthe Lord? Or who may stand In His holy place?"The Psalmist's answer was clear: "He who has clean hands and apure heart" (Ps. 24). If that did not describe the hands and heart of a precise and obedient monk, "Who then can be saved?"

While the Inonks were busy trying to find the the good within, the reformers . . were pOIntIng believers to the Christ outside of them in history who lived, died, and rose again Like many today who are turned off to words like"righteousness" and "holiness" ~ because they just remind us of how unrighteous and unholy we really are, Luther was ready to give the whole thing up until the gospel finally made sense: Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the righteousness of God

Dubbed "the accusative case" by his classmates, John Calvin was another reformer who was revolutionized by this realization. "You see that our righteousness is not in us but in Christ, that we possess it only because we are partakers in Christ; indeed, in him we possess all its riches. "2 Thus, the Reformation gave renewed focus to the "alien righteousness" of Christ. While the monks were busy trying to find the good within, the reformers were pointing believers to the Christ outside ofthem in history who lived, died, and rose again to give freely what none of us has or can create on the inside.

Once more today, there are those who, on the one hand, call believers to obey, surrender, and yield their way to God's righteousness and acceptance, and on the other hand, those who urge us to stop torturing our conscience and simply ignore the realities ofour moral condition.

An example ofthe latter is Robert Schuller, television pastor ofthe Crystal Cathedral in Southern California, who writes, "Reformation theology failed to make clear that the core of sin is a lack ofself­ esteem. The most serious sin is the one that causes me to say, 'I am unworthy. I may have no claim to divine sonship if you examine me at my worst.' For once one believes he is an 'unworthy sinner' it is doubtful ifhe can really honestlyaccept the saving grace God offers in Jesus Christ. "3 Further, he says, "ldon't think anything has been done in the name of NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

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Christ and under the banner of Christianity that has proven more destructive to human personality, ·and hence counterproductive to the evangelistic enterprise, than the unchristian, uncouth strategy of attempting to make people aware oftheir lost and sinful condition. "4 The terror of the law without the gospel is bad news; the denial of total depravity and the sinner's desperate need of salvation from outside of himself or herselfis no news. But the ·answer of the Reformers, with our Lord and his apostles, was that sinners can have their consciences relieved, not by the false hopes of those who, like the prophets in Jeremiah's day, are constitutionally incapable of telling the truth when it hurts.

This forms the background, therefore, for our alternative to soul-killing legalism on the one hand, and false hopes on the other. I do not intend in this article to survey the complete landscape of Christian psychologyand its implications.

Rather, I wish to focus on one important issue in the integration ofpsychology and theology that in our estimation demands immediate attention.

praise our God and Father, and curse men who have been created in God's image" Gas. 3:9).

Thus, every person possesses dignity and value as an image-bearer of God. From this bedrock evaluation we derive the dignity ofwork, the family, and so on.

If one does not view himself or herself as created in God's image, it will create a defective personalityin these other arenas.

If I met my friends at the golf course and muttered to myself, "You're no good at this. You're a horrible golfer-what are

In the Inatter of redemption, God will tolerate no self-esteel11, 110 self-assertiol1, but . only self-despair as the believer turns to Christ for his or her righteousness

Is Self-Esteem an Unbiblical Concept?

First of all, any Christian criticism of this approach must clearly distinguish between what the Reformers called life coram Deo (before God) and coram homnibus (before humans).

This means, for instance, that we ought to affirm our child for getting a "B" on an exam, even when we really were hoping £ror an "A".; we ought not to attac 'h destructive labels to 0 ur children, as parents or teachers; we should encourage the unemployed and unskilled person to discover and cultivate his or her talents instead of contributing to a defeatist posture that withholds the dignity of being human. James, presumably including non-Christians in his view of those to whom we have a responsibility, complains that with the same tongue "we 24.

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you doing out here with ·people who really know what they're doing?", I wouldn't last the first nine holes! There is nothing unchristian or unscriptural about having a positive view of one's abilities, talents, personality traits, and so on, so long as we, as believers, acknowledge God as the giver ofall good things. Even a Christian salesperson would never (or should never) introduce himselfor herself by saying, "I know that you won't buy this car from me because I am a poor, miserable salesperson."

Before the doctrine of self-esteem became a buzzword and point of controversy among Christians, the necessityfor self-confidence and apositive self-image in the arena of normal, daily human activity was taken for granted.

Many Christian parents have read to their children the story of The Little Engine That Could. When our children took their first steps or attempted to ride their first bicycle did we not bolster their self-confidence? "C'mon, Johnny, you can do it!" parents shout at Little League baseball games. It has never been considered inappropriate for Christians, any more than for non-Christians, to encourage their children or boost their self-esteem in this way. The Bible nowhere expects Christians to tell their children, "Johnny, realize that you are a poor, miserable shortstop." And yet, we are all poor, miserable sinners.

That is what brings us we to this other matter--our value coram Deo or "before God." The Scriptures declare that "our righteousness is like ftithy rags" (Is. 64:6), that "there is no one righteous, no not one; there is none who understands; there is none who· seeks after God. They have all gone out ofthe way; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one" (Ro.3:10-12). Before God we are regarded as "dead in trespasses and sins,...by nature children of wrath" (Eph. 2: 1,5). This is not because God is less forgiving than our friends and family on earth, but because God is holy. Therefore, whatever the basis of our relationship with God is to be, it cannot be in the slightest measure dependent on anything that we have to offer in this relationship; all of our righteousness must be found insomeone else's moral perfection.

This, therefore, is where much of the current debate gets confused. On one side, there are those who argue that any inculcation of a positive self-image is idolatry, while others insist that this is the gospel. By creation, we are endowed with God's image and possess dignity, but the Fall marred that image and we ourselves invent new ways ofeffacing it.

Thus, in the matter ofredemption, God will tolerate no self-esteem, no self­

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assenion, but only self-despair as the believer turns to Christ for his or her righteousness and wonh before God. It is therefore a legitimate exercise for psychology to observe these obvious behavioral differences that exist among natural human beings, Christians and non-Christians alike, and seek to understand and promote'these vinues.

Rejecting the determinism of Freud and the conditioning of Behaviorism, humanistic psychology, as the result of extensive research, teaches that our self­ image 0 rthe manner in which we perceive ourselves to a great extent influences our success. Ifthis assessment is accurate and humanistic psychology is successful in fostering more responsible behavior within society, this would be pleasing to God inasmuch as it serves civil righteousness. God might commend the State ofCalifornia forwantingemployees to be more productive, urging teenagers to be less destructive, and wanting to see fewer crimes and welfare recipients move toward financial self-sufficiency. The apostle Paul, fo rinstance, instructed us to prayfor the success ofhuman government so that the church ofJesus Christ could live in peace and security (1 Tim. 2:2).

But is self-sufficiencyand self-confidence in the workplace the same as self­ confidence before God? Does the gospel promise greater self-confidence?

While the Scriptures commend civil righteousness, they also clearly affirm that the vinues produced by human nature can contribute nothing to our righteousness before God. Calvin points out that such human virtues are motivated by "ambition, or self-love, or some other sinister affection."s Luther states-that civil righteousness"contributes no more to a Christian's righteousness than -do eating, drinking, sleeping, etc."6 He compares civil righteousness to hay and straw required by cattle: Acow must have hay and straw. This is a law for her, a rule without which she cannot exist.

But through' this law she does not become a child, a daughter, or an heiress in the house; she remains a cow. 7

Even though a sense of self-wonh and apositive self-image might be helpful ifwe are to successfully interact in society, before God such success is nothing but hay and straw. Martin Luther commended human civil righteousness and applauded the virtue often found among the heathen, but when it came to one's standing before God, his words were rather different: Yo~hear your God speaking to you how all your life ariel deeds are nothing before God, but that you, togetherwith everything in you, must perish eternally; If you believe this aright-- that you are'guilty-you must despair ofyourself....But in order to come'out of and away from yourself, that is, out of your doom, he puts before you his dear Son, Jesus Christ, and has him speak to you his living, comforting Word: You should surrender yourself to him in firm faith and trust him boldly.s

The Real Problem The controversy in the church today over the issue ofself-esteem has not been created by secular psychologists, many of whom have no intention of having their theories underwritten by Christianity. The problem has been created out of the tension Christian psychologists discover between the secular theories of their profession and the biblical revelation. However, when psychology is the professional's first and primary interest, theology can often be used to justify rather than to critique one's professional conclusions. One should not doubt the honestyor integrity of Christians who wrestle with the integration between the two disciplines, but distinctions such as the one we have made in this chapter between "civil rjghteousness" (before man) and "divine righteousness" (before God) are absent from such discussions. Hence, 'it is

impossible to entirely affirm civil righteousness as sufficient, but we feel compelled to affirm the basic human value of individuals. So what often happens is a blending ofcivil and divine righteousness. We feel uneasy giving unequivocal support to the idea of self­ esteem (even before man), butwecannot believe that "worm theology" anylonger, so we steer a middle course. What I am suggesting is that we resist that temptation, affirming the full dignity, self-wonh, and grandeur of humans as created in the image ofGod, encouraging our children in their self-image, and at the same time pointing out the fact that before God we are wonhy only of condemnation apart from Christ'sworth.

Therefore, to take the position that we ought to not only remove destructive labels from children in the classroom, but that we ought to remove the biblical references such as "sinner," "wretch," ". mlSera bl" e, and "unwonhy"c.Itom our hymnody and from Christian discussion seriously misunderstand and, in fact, undermines .:th'e biblical gospel.

Thus, the doctrine of creation (all humans bearing the divine image) may be used as the basis for self-esteem before man (civil righteousness), but the gospel may not. The gospel comes to those who feel m,iserable about themselves, not to those who think of themselves as "basically good" (Mk. 2: 17).

Even within secular psychology there is opposition to the confusion of psychology and theology. Witness Dr. Karl Menninger's famous diatribe asking the church, "Whatever Became ofSin?" Then there is Jewish psychiatrist Dr. Vikto r Frankl's irisistence that "any fusion ofthe respective goals of religion and psychotherapy must result in con­ fusion." He correctly states thatwhile the effects ofpsychotherapy and religion might seem to overlap at points, the intentions are different.90ne must ask those who are engaged in Christian psychology where integration ends and NOVEMBER/DECEMBER -1992

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this confusion begins. And they cannot answer this without an abundant appeal to theology.

Following Augustine's famous dictum, "All truth is God's truth," we can expect to learn things from the social sciences that the Bible is not concerned to tell us.

A Controversial Intruder But what we see today in so much ofthe Here is where the church is afraid of literature and preaching ofChristian pop足 making waves. Services are often created psychology is not integration of biblical足 to minimize discomfort for the unbeliever theological and natural-scientific so that he or she begins to accept knowledge, but a replacement ofbiblical Christianity as an affirming influence. views of humans, God, and salvation People ought to leave church feeling with purely secular notions, baptized good about themselves, instead of being with non-contextual verses from the called to self-examina~ion, sincere Bible. repentance, and faith toward God. If"all truth is God's truth" and God While the church must affirm human has seen fit to lead humanistic dignity before man, it must equally report psychologists to discover something the biblical facts concerning human about God, man, and salvation depravity before God. When Robert that Christians have overlooked, under足 Schullerwrites that "the most serious sin emphasized, or ignored altogether, we is the one that causes me to say 'I am should expect such insights to fit nicely unworthy,"' he confuses self-worth before with biblical revelation. The Holy Spirit man and self-worth before God. Did would not provide us with conflicting Jesus not affirm the very opposite in his truths; therefore, where the Bible clearly illustration of the tax-collector and the addresses any issue or concept it is the Pharisee? "And the tax-collector, final authority, regardless of how standing far off, would not so much as impressive rival theories might appear. raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God be merciful to me a The Cross: Grace or Merit? sinner!" While the Phariseewas affirming The central focus of Christianity is himself and nurturing himself with the grace of God bestowed upon sinful positive, uplifting "self-talk," the tax足 human beings through the death and collector was committing Robert resurrection ofJesus Christ. This is the Schuller's cardinal sin: calling himself gospel and its proclamation justifies the "unworthy.""I te11 you the trut, h "J esus existence ofthe church as an institution. concluded, "this man went down to his In order to preach God's grace, one must house justified rather than the other; for also clearly explain the hopeless condition everyone who exalts himself will be ofsinful humanity. To believe in grace, abased, and he who humbles himselfwill one must be convinced that there is be exalted" (Lk. 18:14). nothing in himselfor herselfwhich merits The intrusion of the secular concept or deserves God's favor or makes the of self-esteem, therefore, faces us with person worthy of God's fatherly care. "If the temptation to create new gospels it is by grace, it is not ofworks; otherwise that offersolutions to whatever the world grace is no longer grace" (Ro. 11:6). has decided is humanity's fundamental However, the self-esteem craze has problem...this week, while the timeless popularized a theory within Christian revelation of human despair and hope circles that claims the very opposite. One waits to be reappropriated and reapplied popularspeaker, for instance, tells people, in each new generation.

"You are 'worth Jesus' to God because Christians are urged to draw fmm that is what he paid for you." 10 I have knowledge, whatever its source. heard more than one pastor declare in a 26.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

sermon that Christ's death proves our self-worth. The impression is given that ifwe had absolutely nothing to offer and no merit, God would not have wasted his time and energy on us. Christ died for us, we are told, because we were worth it. One writer argues, "It is as if Christ had said, 'You are ofsuch worth to me that I am going to die; even experience hell so that you might be adopted as my brothers and sisters." 11 But is this what we find in Scripture?

"ForGodsoloved the world that he gave his only Son.... " (In. 3:16). It was something in God, not something in us, which moved him to compassion. We are worthy before God after Christ's sacrifice, but not apart from it. He died not because we are worthy, but in order to give us worth before him.

Another popular writer states, "Of course, the greatest demonstration of a person's worth to God was shown in givingushisSon."12 Again, this confuses the issue. The cross is a demonstration of God's love, mercy, compassion, justice, and goodness--not ours.

The Bible clearly defines the death of Christ as a vicarious act. He died in our place. He took the punishment which was rightfully ours. We were worthy, to be sure--worthy of eternal death, but he took our unworthiness upon himself and gave us his worth, his merit in our place. He did not give his life for us because we were worthy, but in order to render us worthy before the Father. The cross reveals the depth of our sin, not the height of our worth before God. The apostle Paul declared, "If one died for all, then were all dead" (2 Cor. 5: 14). In other words, the cross is a demonstration ofthe spiritual bankruptcy of humanity before God: "They have all gone out of the way; they have together become worthless" (Ro. 3: 12).

In addition, the death of Christ was a judicial act. It was a divine sentence leveled against sinful humanity and carried out against the Son of God.

nlodenzREFORMATlON

~

How, therefore, can one suggest that the severity of thejudicial sentence against us for our sins and assumed by another reminds ·US our self-worth? If it were possible for the death ofJesus Christ to have been even more cruel and horrible would we be thereby granted even greater self-worth?

A recent television ne\yscast reported the arraignment of a serial killer who has admitted responsibility for at least nine murders. The judge set his bail at $5 million! Would we use..the same sort of reasoning to conclude that this man should feel good about himselfand regard himself as a very valuable human being, since the judge set his bail so high? After all, he is worth five million dollars to society!

The $5 million bail obviously does not reflect the value ofthe murderer, but the severity of his crime. Similarly, the death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross is not a statement of our worth, but indicates the depth of our sin and guilt before God. Again, if Jesus died for us because he saw something in us worth dying fo r, then there was something in us which merited his death somehow. But we are saved because ofsomething good in God, not because of something good mus.

I have often heard it said, "If I had been the only person on the earth, Jesus would still have died for me." While our Lord may have given his life for just one person, it is most certainly not because this person is so valuable, but because God is so gracious. It is hardly, therefore, a source of pride or self-esteem. For me to argue that Jesus would have died for me if I were the only person on the earth simply indicates that my sins alone, without the rest ofyou contributingyour share, were sufficient to demand the severe punishment which Jesus Christ vicariously assumed in my place. When faced with that reality, we ought to weep for the selfless sacrifice ofour Lord instead offindirigin it one more opportunity for

feeling good about ourselves.

And yet, this very approach which I am suggesting, which has been characteristic of evangelical preaching and teaching for centuries and lies at the heart of the biblical revelation, is anathema in many evangelical circles today. Dr. Ray Anderson, who teaches a course on the integration of self-esteem and theology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Ca., complains

The death of Christ 011 tIle cross is not a statemellt of our wortll,but all illdicatiollof the depth ofollf sin and guilt before God about the psychological battering of the cross:

discourse as Christians when evangelical seminary professors can look at the cross of Christ and his suffering, his physical and spiritual battering; and then warn Christians about the danger of being psychologically battered by the event.

Consider rather Manin Luther's attitude toward the cross: The main benefit of Christ's passion is that man sees into his own true self and that he is terrified and crushed by this. Unless we seek that knowledge, we do not derive much benefit from Christ's passion....He who is so hard­ hearted and callous as not to be terrified by Christ's passion and led to a knowledge ofself has reason to fear. 14

Those who seek a righteousness (whether it goes by the name "self­ esteem," "merit, "self-confidence," "self­ worth") in themselves before God are refusing agift that makes the self-flattery they have embraced pale by comparison.

God has promised to clothe the believer with the perfect righteousness and worth of Christ himself. Who would want to settle for anything less?

U

Don Matzat is senior pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod) in St. Louis, MO. He is the

If our sin is viewed as causing the death of Jesus on the cross, then we ourselves become victims of~ 'psychological battering' produced by the cross. When I am led to feel that the pain and torment ofJesus' death on the cross is due to my sin, I inflict upon myselfspiritual and psychologic3l torment.13

author of Christ Estem, and a contributor to

Religion. His latest book is tided Truly

POWn'

Transform~d

and is published by Harvest House.

EndNotes 1. Roland Bainton. H," I S,.". (Nashville: Abingdon. 1978). p.65.

2. John Calvin. Tlwbuu-_ftlwClwislialUlipmC):1l:23) 3. RDbert Schuller. SJfEsIImI: TIw N_ R#for-- (Waco: Word.

1982). p.98.

4. Ibid.

There is no doubt that the cross of Jesus Christ does inflict up<;>n usa "psychological battering." Theologically, we have considered this as pan of the process leading to repentance. The Law reads like aseries ofalgebra problems we have failed and the failing grade is read aloud: "For all have sinned and come short ofthe glory ofGod" (Ro. 3:23). It is ,a measure of just how these secular concepts have revolutionized our daily

5. CJa,i:rt ~ buti_ (GlUld Rapids: £erdman•• 1983). '¥QU. p.75 6. Ewald P1aas. Wh.,!.wI- S." (St. LOui.: Concordia. 1959). vo1.3. p.1220.

7. PIaas. op. cit.

8. Ibid.

9. YiktorFanld, 1M Uaanua..uG.tJ(NY: Simon and 1975). p.75 10. ]oabMcDowdl,B.. iIJhy Y_SJfEs~on:TyndaIe.I986).

Sch_.

ppA2-3

11. William Kirwin. B.1iul c-apll f., Clwislia ~(Grand Rapids: Baker. 1984). p.l07 12. DonnaFOIter. B,.;u;,.l.ChiIJ~SJfEIt",,"(GImdale:IUgalBooka.

1977). p.6 13. RayS.An,knon; TlwG~JA-..'i:rttuJ""""(Co_Sprinp:Hdmer

and Howard. 1991). p.99 14. Timothy Lull.M.ti1t L..tIwr~IJMi&~WrillN,,(Minncapolia: Fonras.I989). p.l68

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

• 27

I1l0denzREFORMATlON

Continued from Schuller on page 15

Schuller: No it's not the size of the audience, it's where are they at at this time. My onlyconcern is: I don't Want to drive them farther away than they are!

And I listen to so many preachers on religious radio stations, maybe even a station like this, and by golly, ifI wasn't aChristian, they'd drive me farther away.

Iam so afraid that Iam going to drive them farther; Iwant to attract them, and so I use the strategy that Jesus used. Ipreach the wayJesus preached.

I don'~ preach, probably, the way Paul preached. ' , Schuller: I do let people know how greattheir sins and miseries are. How do I 'do that? I don't do that by standing in apulpit and telling them they're sinners. I don't do it that way. The way Ido it is ask questions.

Are you happy? " Do you have problems, what are they? So then I come acrosS as somebody who cares about them because every single human problem, if you look at it deeply enough, is rooted in the sinful condition. We agree on that. So the way I preach sin is by calling to attention what it does to them here and now, and their need for divine grace!

MR: But what about what it does for them in eternity?

Schuller: Listen, I believe in heaven. I believe in hell. But I don't know what happens there~ , I'don't take it literally that it's a fire that never stops burning...

MR: As Jesussaid it was? .

Schuller: Jesus was ,not literaL See, now this is where you' have differences of interpretation. I went toa different theological school than you did. ,And there are different denominations, like about four hundred irithe United States ofAmerica, and we don't belong to the sameden'omination.

In my denomination, Jesus stood outside Gahenna, the city dump, and 'said that's 28.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

outside the walls, that's hell. And in the dump there were always worms, and there were fires.

Schuller: We are justified by grace through faith MR: Justified from what? The wrath of God? Schuller: 0 h! I'll never use that language MR: But the Bible does.

"I am not unaware how IllllCh lllore plausible the view is which invitcs us rather to ponder OIl Ollr good qualities than to contemplatc what must ovcrwhehn us with shaIllc--our ~niserabledcstruction an(~ignoilliny.

There'is ilothing nlore acceptable to the human luind than Hattery. ...

Whoevcr, therefore,gin~s ' hccd to thosc tcachers who nlcrely em ploy us in contemplating our good qualities...\villbe plungcd into the ... " n10st peflUClOus Ignorance.

John-Calvin Schuller: Yes, the Bible ,does, but the Bible is God's book to believers primarily.

Listen, and then call me a heretic if you want to, but, I'm interested in attracting people, and not driving them farther away. There is language I can and will use and there are times, if we are wise, there is language we will not use.

Schuller: IfGod is aGod oflove, how do we handle,this concept ofwrath? At the outset, on the surface, 'it appears to be a contradiCtion; maybe it is. I tell you this, I have come to the conclusion that I 'haven't stepped into the center of truth until I've dared to step into contradiction.

The Bible is a contradiction: Old Testament - Law, New Testament ­ Grace. Jesus is a contradiction; totally human and totally God.

MR: Of course we would say that that the dual nature ofChrist is amystery but not a contradiction.

Schuller: It is a contradiction, but you knowwhat? Contradictions are ultimate points of creativity.

MR: Dr. Schuller, how could the cross as you write, "sanctify the ego trip," and make us proud, in the light of passages that say, "I hate pride and arrogance" (Prv. 8: 13), "Pride goes before destruction" (Prv. 16:18), "The Lord detests all the proud" (Prv. 16:5), "Do not be proud" (Rom. 12:16), "Love does not boast it is not proud" (1 Cor 13:4). In fact Paul warns Timothy that in the last days men "will be lovers ofthemselves" (2Tim 3:2). Why should we as Christian ministers, myself included, why should we do anything to encourage people to become "lovers of themselves" if Paul in fact warned others that that would be the state of godlessness in the last days?

Schuller: I hope you don't preach this, I hope you don't preach this.

MR: What, the texts?

Schuller: No, what you just spoke into the microphone right now. I hope you don't because you could do a lot of damage to alot of beautiful people. But maybe if you preach it, maybe you will demonstrate your knowledge ofhuman relationships and maybe you'll demonstrate asensitivity ofcaring about these pathetic, pathetic people that are so lost in pain and suffering because of their sinful condition, and I think you'd want to save them. I think you'd WaIlt to bring them to Jesus. And so if you preach that text, ohman, I sure hope you give it the kind of interpretation that I do or, I'll tell you, you'll drive them farther away and they'll be madder than hell at you and they'll turn the Bible off, and they'll switch you off, and they'll turn ()n the rock music and Madonna.

Just because it's in the Bible doesn't

Inode rnREFORMATION

mean you should preach it. And if you do, you have to say, "Who's listening to me? Will they understand? And will the love of)esus come through mywords and through my message; through my personality. Will it come through my spirit? Will I come across as a humble person or will I come across as a person who's kind of mean and know-it-all: I've got the answers and when people like Schuller come along, they're heretics! Be careful, it is so difficult to preach some of those texts and not come across as lacking humility.

he's is perfect though, that child is born with a sinful condition." He said, "Explain it to me." And at that point in my life, even though I had a very good theological education, I couldn't explain it to him. I did a lot of praying and studying, until I concluded of course, that it is first expressed in the ego with all its damnable sins. But the ego is the destructive force in human personality that rises when a pers~n is not deeply inwardly secure enough to be relaxed without egotistic activity, and that comes through salvation. And so the human condition is that the child is born non­ trusting.

Schuller: If we want to win people to Jesus, we have to understand where they are at MR: The Heidelberg Catechism states: MR: I would agree absolutely! And they "The fall has so poisoned our nature that are in sin, that's where they are at. we are born sinners corrupt from Schuller: They are in a state of condition conception on. Q. 8. But are we so called sin which means they don't trust, corrupt that we are totally unable to do they are lacking faith. any good and incline toward all evil? A. MR: I guess it would be our definition of Yes, unless we are born again by the spirit sin because what I see in Scripture is that we are dead in sin, and that we cannot respond to God, even if we "Playing fast and loose were trusting. The problem is much with · the Bible <needed .a more than not trusting.

Schuller: Oh no, you're wrong. And · . liBeral audience.iti ·thedclYs

it is very seldom that I use this of Norman Vincent Peale, language. People who know me say, "Schuller never comes across as ifhe but now, as the case ()f knows the answers and others don't."

Robert Schuller indicates, It's not my style. But I intuitively say professed co nservatives to you, You are wrong! The most ultimate, deepest, most sinful problem eat It up. " that you can imagine is lack of trust.

Hebrews 11:6 "Forwithoutfaith itis impossible to please God." George A. Lindbeck

.

Schuller: I had a Doctor tell me once, "The stuff these Christians teach is ridiculous! Some of these churches teach that every ·baby is a born sinner.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!

Look at a little baby. They don't lie, they don't kill, they don't commit adultery, their perfect.)) I said, "Just because the child hasn't done anythi~g doesn't mean

Yale University

ofGod.)) Iwould go right along with the catechism on this, that we are poisoned in our nature and we are corrupt from birth on...

Schuller: I have no problem with that except the part that states, "are we so

corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and incline toward all evil."

The answer in the catechism is yes, but Idon'tthinkI would accept that answer.

And I'll tell you why I wouldn't; I know people who are not Christians, who are not born-again, but they are very kind people. And in today's culture, if we take these words and use these words the way they are used i~ contemporary culture-I have to say [there are people] who do a lot of good. So I don't think I would accept question and answer 8, but the rest ofit I have no problem with.

MR: So you would want to argue then, against somebodylike me who says those answers come right out of the biblical text, that I was misinterpreting the texts upon which those answers to the catechism were based?

Schuller: Well, I'd have to go look at all those Bible references. Would you say that unless a person is born again he absolutely does not do any good at all in his whole life? That's what that question seems to say!

MR: Yes, I would agree with that, but I would say yes and no. A non­ Christian can do a lot of good things but if that good is done apart from faith, it is not meritorious, and does not count before God. It's the distinction the reformers made between civil and moral righteous ness.

Schuller: Okay, but the question and answer here, taken in context, doesn't make the fine distinction that you now read into it.

MR: Would you agree that unbelievers can do good that men can accept, but that they cannot do good that God can accept? Because the catechism is referring to the good that God can accept.

Schuller: You're elaborating with your interpretation, and I'm not going to argue the point...

MR: Well the Apostle Paul says, "There is no one who does good, no, not even NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

III 29

I1lode nzREFORrvlATION

one."

Schuller: Well, I'm not going to say that because I just think that leads ultimately to holier-than-thou-isms, self-righteousness, etc., and that comes out of the personality of the preacher and does an untold damage.

MR: Dr. Schuller, what do we tell someone who says, "I'm already happy and fulfilled, so why do I need the gospel?"

Schuller: I don't know.. .! can't relate to that.

MR: Ought we to pray, "Our father in heaven, honorable is our name" Schuller: (Silence) MR: That's a legitimate question?

Schuller: It may be alegitimate question but I think it's kind of a dumb question becauseIdon'tteach that. Asksomeone who teaches it.

MR: Well you wrote it on page 69 of SelfEsteem: The New Reformation.

Schuller: You know what, I'm tired now. You're laying so many heavy trips on me and I wasn't prepared for this.

Continued from Reclaiming on page 12

A friend of mine was walking down the streets of Minneapolis one day and was confronted by an evangelical brother who was very anxious to know whether he was saved and asked just that.

"Brother, are you saved?" Hal rolled his eyes back and said, "Yes." That didn't satisfy this brother, so he said, "Well, when were you saved?" Hal said, "About two thousand years ago, about a twenty minutes' walk from downtown Jerusa­ lem." When the objective focus on Christ's finished work and our justifica­ tionis there, one will have assurance because there is nothing God leaves for us to do in this business of saving. The most important thing is that the death of Christ was in fact a death, even for Christian failure. Christ's death even 30.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

saves Christians from major sins. There is always "room at the cross" for unbe­ lievers, it seems, but what we oughtto be telling people is that there is room there for Christians, too. This, then, is what is meant by the earlier comment that in many evangelical gatherings the motifis Law-Gospel-Law. The Law con­ demns, driving us ·to Christ in the Gos­ pel, from whom we receive both instan­ taneous justification and progressive sanctification for the rest of our lives, according to the Reformation perspec­ tive. But in contemporary evangelical­ ism, the Law can come back and under­ mine the confidence ofthe gospel. It can still make threats; it can still condemn.

There is wonderful grace for the sinner out there, and the evangelical is at his . best in evangelism. But the question as to whether there is enough grace for the sinful Christian is an open one in many gatherings, and I have had many stu­ dents tell me, "Mylast state is worse than the first-I think I've got to leave the faith because I feel worse now than I did before." In many cases, Ihave had broth­ ers and sisters come up to me after I had spoken and tell me, "This is about the last shot I've got. My own Christian training is killing me. I can understand how, before I was a Christian, Christ's death was for me, but I amnot at all sure that his death is for me now because I have surrendered so little to him and hold so much back. My trouble really began when Icommitted myselfto Christ as Lord and Savior." That can come from the pastoral teaching, the Sunday school curriculum, and a steady diet of Christian information, or misinforma­ tion.

Conclusion There must be aclear and unqualified pronouncement of the assurance ofsal­ vation on the basis of the fullness of the atonement of Christ. In other words, even aChristian can be saved. This other gospel, in its various forms ("Higher

Life, legalistic, the "carnal Christian" teaching, etc.) is tearing us to pieces. I must warn you that the answer to this devastating problem is not available on every street corner. It is only available in the Reformation tradition. This is not because that particular tradition has ac­ cess to information other traditions do not possess. Rather, it is because the same debate that climaxed in that six­ teenth-century movement has erupted again and again since. In fact, since Christ's debates with the Pharisees and Paul's arguments with the legalists, this has been the debate ofChristian history.

At no time since the apostolic era were these issues so thoroughly discussed and debated, to the point where the lines are clear and the distinctives well-defined, than in the Reformation. To ignore the biblical wisdom, scholarship, and bril­ liant insights ofsuch giants is simply to add to our ignorance the vice of pride and self-sufficiency, The Reformation position is the evangelical position.

The only way out is an exposition of the scriptures that has to do with Law and Gospel: An exposition of the scrip­ tures that places Christ at the center of the text for everybody, including the Christian. All ofthe Bible is about Christ.

All of the Bible is even about Christ for the Christian!

I used to tell my students at a Chris­ tian college that they had never heard preaching with the exception of a few sound evangelistic appeals. Theirweekly diet in the congregation was not a proc­ lamation ofGod's grace to them because of the finished and atoning death of Christ-grace to them as Christians.

That emphasis is desperately needed.

And the only way to find it is to go back to when it was done, and itwas done best in the sixteenth century. The real hope for the church in the west lies with the evangelicals. Barring an unusual act of God, the mainline churches are not go­ ing to get the church back on its feet.

Generally speaking, they simply do not

I1l0de n I R EF< ) R1\,1 ATl<) N

have a high enough view of the inspira­ tion ofscripture to listen to it anymore.

The evangelicals do. They believe that the scriptures are true, but tend to read them as a recipe book for Christian living, rather than for the purpose of finding Christ who died for them and who is the answer for their unchristian living. We must have that kind ofrenewal, and it can only come from the evangelicals. The evangelical movement in America must begin reading from the Reformers instead of pretending that they~ are committed only to the Bible, without any system of doctrine, when it is clear what books, tapes, and sermons have shaped theirfaith and practice. Another thing we are going to have to re-examine in connection with Christian growth is the question of the sacraments-notsacramentalism, but the very nature of the sacraments (baptism and the Lord's Supper), which receives far more attention in the scriptures than in contemporary evangelical discussion and piety. We are going to have to talk about them again. The major themes of the Reformers are precisely the ones that the evangelical must be encouraged to re­ cover in this time and place.

Dr. Rosenbladt is professor of theology at Christ College Irvine. Director of the CURE Center for Reformation Studies. and a Lutheran (Mo. Synod) clergyman.

Continued/rom Self-Help on page 17

lot oftalk about grace in the decrees ofthe Council of Trent. But at the final analy­ sis, that is all qualified when Trent says that grace must be «cooperated with."

We must add something of ourselves to that grace. And that is the position also of Arminianism: "Yes, grace is necessary. I can't save myselfall on my own, but there must be ameasure ofhuman cooperation added to that grace." Thankfully, there are also those in the history ofthe church who have gotten this matter right: That not only is grace necessary, but grace is

solely efficient in the matter ofsalvation.

And r mglad to declare that it is not just Calvinists who got it right. We might feel alittle nervous we were the only ones who had ever held to this notion. We don't want to be latter-day-saints and come up with ideas that no one had ever thought about before. But Augustine taught clearly that we are saved by agrace that is necessary and efficient in and of itself. And through the MiddleAges there was a tradition of that Augustinian teaching maintained pure and clear, that we are saved by grace alone. And Luther taught that as well, in the historic Luth­ eran tradition, that we are saved by grace alone.

And so, Jesus is our teacher. He is the way, and the truth for us; we are saved by Christ alone and by grace alone and then on our third point, through faith alone.

The Reformation insisted that having said we are saved by Christ alone and by grace alone, as crucial as they are, must be completed in a confession that we are saved through faith alone. We might look at a verse like Romans 6: 14 where Paul declares, "By faith, so that it might be by grace." There is a very intimate connection between the way we under­ stand grace and the way we understand faith. If we are to fully to give grace its due, then we must understand the way in which faith relates us to Christ and to his work. For faith recognizes that salvation is entirely by grace. And faith rests en­ tirely in Christ to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. Therefore faith is not in any sense saving as a virtue, as a human accomplishment, as our obedi­ ence or our love, but faith is response to Christ's word. Remember, Jesus said, "The words I've spoken to you are spirit and life' Oohn 6:63). "My words are spirit and life; my words contain power and life for you." Will you respond? Will you respond specifically in trusting those words; in relying on those words? Will you lean all that you have and are upon those words ofJesus Christ? That's what

faith is. Faith is not aself-glorification; it is not something that we rest in as an object ofvalue in and of itself, but faith is that reliance upon Christ. Faith is that turning to Christ and to his word and to his promise, and to rely on him.

Jesus makes that point, I think, quite clearly in our text. He has just told them, "You are following me because you are looking for bread," and then, "Do not work for the food which perishes, but work for the food which endures to eternal life which the Son of Man will give you" (verse 27). And then in verse 28, they ask, "What must we do to be doing the works ofGod?" In otherwords, "We'd be glad to work for the bread that endures to eternal life-tell us whatwork we have to do!" And there's an almost universal human cry-"Right! We're willing to do our part. We're willing to do our work. We're willing to earn part of our salvation. What's the work of God? What does God want us to do?"

And then 1esus says, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent" (verse 29). Salvation comes only by trusting in Jesus. John 6:40 makes the same point: "This is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life." And again, "Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes has eternal life" (verse 47). You see, beliefis all that is necessary for eternal life. Why? Be­ cause obedience, holiness, and love are not important? No! All of those things are important, but belief is all that's required for etemallife because belief is our resting in the work ofJesus Christ.

And that is all that's required for eternal life: Christ's work on our behal£ Now when we believe, out of that new rela­ tionship with Jesus Christ will flow obe­ dience, and love, and virtue. Those are important, and God rejoices in those things. God recreates us to do those things; but our eternal life is to be found in Jesus alone, in his work in which we rest by faith. And so when so many had NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

• 31

1}lode rnREFORMATION

gone away andJesus turned to the Twelve and said in John 6:67, "Do you also wish to go away?" Peter makes a beautiful confession, summarizing the very heart of the gospel when he says, "Lord, to whom shall we go?" There's no other work, There's no other person, there's no other ideology. "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of-eternal life.

And we have believed and come to know that you are the holy one of God." Our souls depend upon Jesus Christ and that confession ofPeter, the confession of the beli"eving hean, points us to the fact that it is Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone Now manyin the history ofthe Church have not accepted Peter's words. They've not accepted them in one of two direc­ tions,it seems to me. In the history ofthe Church the most common way of not following the words of Peter are the way ofsaying it's not by faith alone, but it's by faith plus works. Even if I see my works as a gift of grace (and there are some who have said that in the Augustinian tradi­ tion) then I'm still saying it is faith plus works that are going to gain for me eternal life. That is the position of Roman Ca­ tholicism, historically: It is by adding works, even ifthey are the gift ofgrace, to my faith, that I will inherit eternal life. It is the position that has appeared over and over again in various moralistic forms of Protestantism: I must add works to my faith. And this position, I think, flows out of a very understandable concern: How do you shake people up who have been raised in the church and who have heard all of this stuff about faith all through their lives and yet seem so uncommitted?

How do you shake them up so they will really live for Jesus? And the temptation has been to say, "You have to hammer them over the headwith holiness. Preach holiness.to them; preach works to .them; make them realize how deficient they are so they'll begin to work, and add their work to their faith that they might be saved." It is an understandable approach, but, I think, wrong! Yes, we have to 32.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER1992

preach and explain holiness, but it seems . to me that the way Jesus in John six is trying to break through the misunder­ standing and the lack of commitment and the formalism and the traditional­ ism, ofthe crowds that are following him is to preach himself and the call to faith in him. That is what must ultimately shatter those who are formalistic and traditionalistic and hypocritical: Thecall that they must trust Christ alone. And so it is never the preaching of faith alone that undermines holiness. In fact, I think it is the preaching of faith alone as that reliance in Christ that is the only sound foundation to holiness in the Christian life. So, some miss the true doctrine of faith alone by adding works to faith.

On the other extreme, there are those who say, "Yes, it is by faith alone," but they miss the real character of faith, shrinking it down into something life­ less, and say that we're saved by what the theologians used to call assent, a sort of nod of the head. There are some who seem to say, "All you have to do is sign on the dotted line. All you have to do is walk forward at a meeting." This is prevalent in many dispensational groups in our day. And yet, we would do well to follow, once more, the wisdom of the Reform­ ers: We are justified by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. The faith which alone is God's instrument for declaring us righteous apart from our works is the same faith that looks actively and enthusiastically for ways to express itself in love and obedience. What a wondrous thing this gospel is: Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone. There­ fore, let all schemes ofself-help be aban­ doned, and to God alone be glory!

Dr. Robert Godfrey is professorofchurch history at Westminster Theological Seminary in Escondido, Ca. and is ordained in the Christian Reformed Church. He has contributed to book projects such as The Agony ofDeceit, Christ The

Lord, and Theonomy: A Reformed Critique.

Continued from Good News on page 22

[Christians] make onlyasmall beginning in obedience in this life," they nevertheless "begin with serious purpose to conform not only to some, but to all of the commandments of God" (Q. 114). Here Romans six and seven come together: On the one hand, our whole soul, notjust part ofit, has been converted so that there is not a single part of our soul that is not turned back to God, and yet we know by our own experience that this newness that pervades our soul is at warwith the ejected tenant. That within us which used to reign wants its throne back and, although Christ's victory insures that this will never happen, the war will not end until we are brought into that place where we will be glorified and the presence of sin banished.

This is why Paul then returns, in chapter eight, to his former optimism.

He assures us that he was not optimistic because of anything he saw in his own Christian experience necessarily (for war is often discouraging), but because of the promise that Christ has achieved victory once and for all. "Therefore, there is now"--not in some future moment, when we "surrender all"- "no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit oflife set me free [past tense again] from the law ofsin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinfulnature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness ofsinful man to be a sin offering" (8:1-3). The law cannot change us; it cannot save us; it cannot even assist grace in saving us.

The law can onlycondemn--not because of a weakness in it, but because of our own sinfulness. Therefore, even in the Christian life, we are always brought back to the cross.

Only in this doctrine is there -a sufficient understanding of grace to produce the intended gratitude. Instead

nu)(/erJlREH)I{f\IATH)N

-c

of whining about the ingratitude of modern Christians and attempting to goad them into service through guilt and manipulation, we ought to be preaching this gospel ofGod's free grace in Christ as never before. In our conversion, we were not active, but acted upon. God gave us the new binh "whilewe were dead" (Eph. 1:5) and we were "born not ofthe will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God" On. 1:13). Nevenheless, in our sanctification, we are very active. Made alive in Christ, we now enter into enthusiastic service, making war with everything in our lives that we know is displeasing to our Heavenly Father.

Knowing that we already are accepted by him in his judgment, we nowseek to obey him and please him as faithful children and when the stormywinds oftemptation bring us to our knees, we close our eyes andwrap our souls around that treewhere our Savior hung as a curse for us, for that very sin we committed. Herein lies the fire ofrevival; the fountain oflivingwaters; the bread of life, and the joy of our salvation. It is this meal that satisfies the longing of our hearts and causes us to respond, as Isaiah did after his encounter with God's Law and Gospel, "Lord, here I am, send me!"

EndNotes 1. Oudcr. eeL. Wt..u,~

W",_ Vol II. P. 127

2. Russel Spider, in D. A1aandcr, eel. Clnisti4a Spi~ (IVP, p.84)

Justification By Grace Charles H. Spurgeon 'Now,whatisthemeaningofjustification? Divines will puzzleyou, ifyou ask them. Imust try the best I can to make justification plain and simple, even to the comprehension of a child. There is not such athing as justification to behad on earth for mortal men except in one way. Justification, you know, is a forensic term; it is employed always in a legal sense. Aprisoner is brought to the barofjustice to be tried. There is only one way whereby that prisoner can be justified; that is, he must be found

not guilty; and ifhe is found not guilty, then he is justified-that is, he is proved to be a just man. If you find that man guilty, you can not justify him.

The Queen may pardon him, but she can not justify him. The deed is not ajustifiableone, ifhe were guilty concerning it; and he can not be justified on account of it. He may be pardoned; but not royalty itself can ever wash that man's character. He is as much a real criminal when he is pardoned as before. There is no means among men ofjustifying a man ofan accusation which is laid against him, except by his being found not guilty. Now, the wonder ofwonders is that we are proved guilty, and yet we are justified: the verdict has been brought in against us, guilty; and yet, notwithstanding, we are justified. Can any earthly tribunal do that? No; it remained for the ransom ofChrist to effect that which is an impossibility to any tribunal upon earth. We are all guilty.

Now, allow me to explain the way whereby God justifies a sinner. I am about to suppose an impossible case. A prisoner has been tried and condemned to death. He is a guilty man; he can not be justified, because he is guilty. But now, suppose for a moment that such a thing as this could happen-that some second party could be introduced who could take all that man's guilt upon himself, who could change places with that man, and by some mysterious process, which, of course, is impossible with men, become that man; or take that man's character upon himself; he, the righteous man, putting the rebel in his place, and making the rebel a righteous man. We can not do thatinourcourts. If! wereto go beforeajudgeand he should agree that I should be committed for a year's imprisonment, instead ofsome wretch who was condemnedyesterdayto ayear'simprisonment, I could not take his guilt. I might take ,his punishment, but not his guilt.

Now, what flesh and blood can not do, that Jesus Christ by his redemption did. Here I stand, the sinner. I mention myselfas the representative of you all. I am condemned to die. God says, "I will condemn that man; I must, I will-I will punish him." Christ comes in, puts me aside, and stands himself in my stead. When the plea is demanded, Christ says, "Guilty;" takes my guilt to be his own guilt. When the punishment is to be executed, Christ comes forth. "Punish me," he says; "I have put my righteousness on that man, and I have taken that man's sins on me. Father, punish me, and consider that man to have been me. Let him reign in heaven; let me suffer misery.

Let me endure his curse, and let him receive my blessing."

Here stands a man all guilty. The moment he believes in Christ, his pardon at once he receives,

and his sins are no longer his; they are cast into the depths of the sea. They were laid upon the shoulders of Christ, and they are gone. The man stands aguildess man in thesight of God, accepted in the beloved. "What!" say you, "do you mean that literally?" Yes, I do, that is the doctrine of justification by faith. Man ceases to be regarded by divine justice as a guilty being; the moment he believes in Christ his guilt is all taken away. But I am going a step further. The moment the man believes in Christ, he ceases to be built of God's esteem; but what is more, he is declared righteous, he is declared meritorious; for in the moment when Christ takes his sins he takes Christ's righteousness; so that, when God looks upoo the sinner who but an hour ago was dead in sins, he looks upon him with as much loveand affection as ever he looked upon his Son...

Are there not some here who are saying, "O! if I could be justified! But sir, can [be justified? I have been adrunkard, Ihave been aswearer, Ihave been every thing that is vile. Can I be justified?

Will Christ take my black sins, and am I to take his white robe?" Yes, poor soul, if thou desirest it; if God hath made thee willing,.if thou dost confess theysins, Christ is willing to take thy rags and give thee his righteousness for ever...."What! am I to have it for nothing at all, without doing any thing?" Yes, sir, you are to have it for nothing, or else not at all; it is "freely." "But may I not go to Christ, lay somedaim to his mercy, and say, Lord, justify me because I am not so bad as others?" It will not do, sir, because, it is "by his grace." "But may Inot offer this plea, Imean to be better?" No, sir; it is "byhis grace.- You insult God by bringing your counterfeitcoin to pay for his treasures....The best liveryfora beggar is rags, and the bestliveryfor a sinner to go to Christ in, is for him to go just as he is, with nothing but sin about him. "But no," sayyou, "I must be a, litde better, and then I think Christ will save me." You can not get any better, try as long as you please. And besides-to use a paradox-ifyou were to get better, you would be all the worse; for the wore you are, the better to come to Christ. If you are all unholy, come to Christ; ifyou fed your sin, and renounce it, come to Christ; though you have been the mostdebased and abandoned soul, come to Christ; if you feel . yOUrSdfto have nothing about you to recommend you, come to Christ.

"Venture on him, venture wholly; Let no other trust intrude."