A Mutilated Faith

What does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ? What is faith? The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines faith as follows:

Q. 86. What is faith in Jesus Christ?
A. Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel.

So saving faith is faith that ‘receives and rests upon’ Christ alone for salvation. And true saving faith receives and rests upon Christ “as he is offered to us in the gospel.” It must be said that much of what often passes as preaching of the gospel of Christ does not fit that description. For how is Christ offered to us in the gospel? Is Christ offered as the Savior from the penalty of sin only, or as the Savior from sin – from its penalty, power, and (in the life to come), even its very presence?

The Scriptures plainly tell us that Jesus came to save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21), and that His gospel is sent forth to offer both forgiveness and sanctification (Acts 26:18). Clearly, then, Christ is offered to us in the gospel both for our justification as well as our sanctification, and He must be received as such.

Calvin (in commenting on Romans 8:13), puts it this way:

“It is, indeed, true, that we are justified in Christ by the mercy of God alone, but it is equally true and certain, that all who are justified are called by the Lord to live worthy of their vocation. Let believers, therefore, learn to embrace Him, not only for justification, but also for sanctification, as He has been given to us for both these purposes, that they may not rend him asunder by their own mutilated faith.” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, Vol. 10, p.167)

Those who would believe in Christ for justification alone (i.e. for forgiveness and acceptance before God as righteous as in His sight), but not also for sanctification, have a (to use Calvin’s phrase) “mutilated faith” that effectively seeks to ‘rend Christ asunder’ (or split Him in two). But a divided faith in a divided Christ saves no one. So let us learn, as Calvin says, to embrace Christ for sanctification as well as justification, for “he has been given to us for both these purposes.”

Shepherds Quake at the Sight (Have Yourself a Scary Little Christmas?)

Did you know that there is a scary part of the Christmas story? (I know, I’ve never seen that part included in the children’s Christmas play either.) For the shepherds spoken of in Luke’s Gospel, part of the story was actually downright terrifying. Luke 2:8-9 says,

“And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.” (ESV)

Remember, this was the night watch – the shepherds were “keeping watch over their flock by night” (v.8). It was dark outside, probably very cold, and all of a sudden there was before them “an angel of the Lord.” The Greek word in v.9 that is translated as “appeared” in the ESV has the idea of overtaking someone or coming upon them suddenly.  And v.9 also tells us that “the glory of the Lord shone around them” as well. (As if the angel were not enough already!) In Acts chapter 9 we are told that the glory of the Lord was so bright that it actually knocked Saul (later known as Paul) to the ground (v.3-4). Later in Acts 22:6 Paul says that this took place at “about noon” – the middle of the day! How bright would a light need to be at high noon to knock someone to the ground?!? 

So how did the shepherds react to all of this? They were terrified – afraid for their lives! Verse 9 literally says that they “feared a great fear.” Why were they afraid? Was it just because they were startled? The angel himself was certainly a big part of it. You have to understand that angels in Scripture are not little Hallmark card cherubs – the real McCoys would look very out of place on a Valentine. They are powerful spiritual beings. In v.13 when Luke describes the heavenly choir as “a multitude of the heavenly host” he is using military imagery. It was an army of angels. The heavenly host praising God for His glory and grace probably sounded a lot more like a company of Marines drilling on the parade field than a soprano boys choir.

And it was not like the shepherds realized that it was an angel of the Lord and then relaxed, saying, “Whew! It’s just an angel!” Far from it! It is no coincidence that this is already the 3rd time in the book of Luke where an angel appears to someone bearing a message of the gracious favor of God, only to have to tell them not to be afraid (Zechariah – the father of John the Baptist – Luke 1:13, Mary, the mother of Jesus – Luke 1:30). Angels are powerful servants of God who are fearsome to behold.

But the shepherds were also afraid because “the glory of the Lord shone around them” (v.9). They were ultimately afraid because they were sinners in the presence of a holy God. The glory of God is terrifying to sinners – and we are all sinners. Even the prophet Isaiah, when he got a glimpse of the glory of the LORD in a vision, cried out, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”(Isaiah 6:5). When we are faced with the glory and holiness of God we suddenly realize that we ourselves are anything but holy.  Outside of Christ we all have good reason to fear. If you are outside of Jesus Christ, you are unholy. And Hebrews 12:14 says, “without holiness no one will see the Lord” (NIV). In the King James Version 2 Corinthians 5:11 says, “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” That is why later in that same passage Paul described himself as an ‘ambassador for Christ,’ imploring with sinners on behalf of God to be reconciled to Him (v.20).

So why then was the angel able to rightly tell the shepherds not to be afraid? Was it because they were actually really good people? Was it because they were religious enough? Were they wrong to be afraid? None of the above. The only reason that the shepherds were rightly able to “fear not” (v.10) was because of the message that the angel brought. In v.10-12 we read,

“And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.””

Who was this baby Jesus and why was His birth such good news for sinners? First, He is the “Savior” (v.11). He came so that sinners like you and me could be made right with a holy God. And He did that by dying in our place on the cross and taking the wrath of God that we deserve upon Himself so that we might be forgiven and accepted as righteous in God’s sight! Second, Jesus is the “Christ” (v.11). That is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word, “Messiah,” which means “anointed one” or “chosen one.” Jesus is the One who was the foretold and promised Redeemer all through the pages of the Old Testament. He is the centerpiece of all of human history, and the only Mediator between God and man. Third, this Savior is also “the Lord” (v.11). This baby in the manger who would grow up to be a man, lead a perfectly sinless life, suffer under Pontius Pilate, be crucified, die, be buried, and rise from the dead on the third day is none other than the Son of God Himself! That is the good news of the gospel! God is for us in the Savior, Jesus Christ!

That is the good news that turned the “great fear” of the shepherds (v.9) into great rejoicing in the Lord (v.20). Only the gospel can do that! Only the message of Jesus Christ can take away the terror that sinners rightly feel in the presence of a holy God and replace it with great joy in His presence at being forgiven and accepted by Him through faith in Jesus. Only the message of true peace on earth (v.14) can bring such joy to the heart of a sinner.

The Difference Between Justification & Sanctification

What is the difference between justification & sanctification?  Good question. The Westminster Larger Catechism (not surprisingly) supplies us with a very helpful answer:

Q.77. Wherein do justification and sanctification differ? A. Although sanctification is inseparably joined with justification, yet they differ, in that God in justification imputes the righteousness of Christ; in sanctification His Spirit infuses grace, and enables the exercise thereof; in the former, sin is pardoned; in the other, it is subdued: the one does equally free all believers from the revenging wrath of God, and that perfectly in this life, that they never fall into condemnation; the other is neither equal in all, nor in this life perfect in any, but growing up to perfection.

So the first thing this tells us is that we must distinguish between the two, but never separate them. You cannot have one without the other (as they are “inseparably joined”), but they differ in significant ways. How, then, do they differ?

First, justification involves the imputation (or reckoning, accounting) of Christ’s righteousness, while sanctification involves the actual infusion of grace and the enabling to exercise it in daily life.  You may recall that the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification mistakenly teaches that justification involves the infusion (rather than the imputation) of Christ’s righteousness. But the biblical doctrine of justification is that in Christ all believers are declared righteous, rather than made righteous. This is what Paul is speaking of in Romans 4:3-5,

“For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness . . . .”

Abraham was not justified by works, but by believing God at His Word in the promise of the gospel. Justification is (to borrow the words of v.5) a matter of God ‘justifying the ungodly’ (or the “wicked” – NIV), not matter of God making the ungodly person godly. (That would be sanctification.)

The second difference noted above in the Larger Catechism is that in justification sin is forgiven, while in sanctification it is subdued. In the former, all believers in Christ are forever freed from the just penalty of their sins – the wrath of God. But in the latter, the  grace of God works in the lives of believers to subdue the power of sin over their lives. In other words, in justification we are viewed and accepted by God as sinless because we are in Christ; but in sanctification we begin to actually and objectively sin less than we did before coming to Christ by faith.

The third difference is a very important one, and that is that all believers are equally & perfectly justified, but sanctification can and does differ from one believer to the next in this life. There are no degrees of justification (i.e. you are either justified before God or you are not), but there most certainly are differing degrees of sanctification. Not only that, but while all believers are perfectly justified in this life, none of us are perfectly sanctified in this life. Not a one. In this life all believers are, by the grace of God, “growing up to perfection.”

So let us never separate justification and sanctification – they belong together. The one who has been once and for all time justified in Christ will also presently be in the process of being sanctified in this life. But let us also avoid the opposite mistake of confusing the two or mixing them up. To do that is to (at minimum) hinder our growth in grace, or even (at worst) to deny the gospel itself.

The Glorious Certainty of the Gospel

What is the relationship between the grace of God in the gospel and assurance? Why is the doctrine of justification by faith alone so important? J. Gresham Machen writes,

Such is the glorious certainty of the gospel. The salvation of the Christian is certain because it depends altogether upon God; if it depended in slightest measure upon us, the certainty of it would be gone. Hence appears the vital importance of the great Reformation doctrine of justification by faith alone;  that doctrine is at the very centre of Christianity. It means that acceptance with God is not something that we earn; it is not something that is subject to the wretched uncertainties of human endeavor; but it is a free gift of God. (What Is Faith?, p.200-201)

That is just one more reason why the doctrine of justification by faith alone is so important. It is not just a matter for ivory tower theologians or fodder for theological debate – far from it!  It makes all the difference in the world to each and every believer in Christ. Why? Because it is the only real way to true certainty and assurance in the Christian life.

Justification by faith alone presents us with a choice between the “glorious certainty of the gospel” (i.e. knowing without a shadow of a doubt that you have been fully forgiven and accepted by a holy God) or “the wretched uncertainties of human endeavor.”

If our salvation depends upon our works in even the slightest degree, all certainty and assurance are cast aside. But if salvation is a free gift of God (which is ultimately what justification by faith alone entails), then & only then can the believer truly have the peace and assurance that comes with believing the gospel of Christ.

The Urgency of the Gospel

Many of us are tempted to procrastinate when it comes to dealing with certain problems in our daily lives.  We often procrastinate knowing full well that ignoring problems and hoping that they will go away often just serves to make them even worse. Who among us can honestly say that we haven’t been there and done that a time or two?

But when it comes to eternity, procrastination can be devastating. The time that we each have in this life to settle where, how, and with whom we will spend eternity is really quite limited. Time flies, as the saying goes.  It is with good reason that the Psalmist writes,

So teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12, ESV)

In asking the Lord to “teach us to number our days” (emphasis mine) the Psalmist shows us that numbering our days does not come naturally to us. We always seem to assume that tomorrow is somehow guaranteed to us. It is not, at least not in this life.

In his commentary in the book of Acts, Derek Thomas writes,

“Souls are lost by reason of procrastination. Awakened consciences that fail to make good their resolve to find peace with God discover that before they realize it, they have fallen even deeper into the mire of sin. Thinking that they can turn to God “at any time,” they discover that they are unable to do so.” (p.673)

He is speaking there of the example of the Roman Governor Felix in Acts chapter 24. Felix was very familiar with Christianity. In v.22 Luke writes that Felix had “a rather accurate knowledge of the Way.” Not only had he heard the gospel explained to him on numerous occasions (v.26), but he had heard it from no less  a preacher than the Apostle Paul himself!  Paul spoke to him about “righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment” (v.25). Paul did not beat around the bush.

What did Felix do with that knowledge? What was his response to the gospel of Christ? He procrastinated; he simply put it off.  As far as we know, he never repented & turned to Christ by faith.  While he was “alarmed” (v.25) by Paul’s mention of the judgment to come, he wasn’t “alarmed” enough to actually turn from his sin and turn to Christ by faith. Rather, he turned from hearing the gospel at all, telling Paul, “Go away for the present. When I get an opportunity I will summon you” (v.26).

In other words, not now – maybe later.  He just assumed that he could put it off until later. He assumed that he would always have an “opportunity” (v.26) to hear the gospel and believe later, whenever he got around to it. How many today are of a very similar mindset?

Maybe that even describes you?

It is not without reason that the Scripture says, “Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2, ESV).  As  the writer of Hebrews (quoting Psalm 95) warns us, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 3:7-8, ESV). Did you catch that? To “hear his voice” in the gospel of Christ and to reject it or put it off is to harden your heart. In other words, procrastination is not a neutral posture. Indecision about Jesus Christ is itself a decision, and it has consequences.

As the example of Felix serves to demonstrate, hearing the gospel is not enough. Hearing it numerous times is not enough. Being familiar with the faith is not enough. Even being alarmed at the thought of the judgment to come is not enough if it does not lead to repentance and faith in Christ Jesus.

If you are not yet a believer in Jesus Christ, turn to Him by faith while there is yet time.  Today, if you hear His voice in the gospel, do not harden your heart by indecision and procrastination. Come to Him and have life that is abundant (John 10:10) and eternal (John 17:3). As the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:20-21,

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake He made Him who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Don’t just fear the coming judgment –be delivered from it by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ! Be reconciled to God in Him!

A 3-Word Summary of the Gospel

If you were to attempt to summarize the gospel in as few words as possible, how would you do it?  How would you boil it down to its most basic essence? How many words would you need?

J.I. Packer says that he can name that tune in just three (3) notes. In his book, Knowing God, Packer offers a three-word summary of the central message of the New Testament:

“[W]ere I asked to focus the New Testament message in three words, my proposal would be adoption through propitiation, and I do not expect ever to meet a richer or more pregnant summary of the gospel than that.” (p.214)

Adoption through propitiation. In Christ believers are not only justified and accounted righteous in the sight of God, but also adopted into the family of God (!). And how is that made possible? Through Christ’s work of propitiation, whereby He took the wrath of God that we deserve for our sins upon Himself on the Cross.

Sinners are made children of God because of the death of the Son of God on their behalf! What an amazing truth!  That is the amazing grace of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ!

The Heart of the Gospel

In his classic book, Knowing God, J.I. Packer includes a chapter entitled “The Heart of the Gospel.”  And what is that chapter all about? Propitiation.

Propitiation (according to Packer) is the heart of the gospel; it is central to the gospel. And yet that word is strangely absent from the vocabulary of far too many believers.  Worse yet, it is often absent in the preaching and teaching of the church.  No doubt the former is largely the result of the latter.

Concerning the vital doctrine of propitiation, Packer writes,

Has the word propitiation any place in your Christianity? In the faith of the New Testament it is central. The love of God, the taking of human form by the Son, the meaning of the cross, Christ’s heavenly intercession, the way of salvation – all are to explained in terms of it, . . .and any explanation from which the thought of propitiation is missing will be incomplete, and indeed actually misleading, by New Testament standards. (p.181)

He even goes so far as to say that “a gospel without propitiation at its heart is another gospel than that which Paul preached” (p.182).

What, then, is propitiation?  What does the word mean? The New Bible Dictionary (Third Edition, IVP, 1996) defines it as “the removal of wrath by the offering of a gift” (p.975). The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Baker Book House, 1984) offers a better definition of the biblical use of this word as “The turning away of wrath by an offering” (p.888).

The Biblical use of the word expresses the idea that on the Cross Jesus Christ took the wrath of God for the sins of His people upon Himself – that God’s wrath for our sin was poured out upon Him in our place. It is the same idea expressed (even if the word itself is absent) in Isaiah 53:5 where Isaiah says that “upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.” 

Perhaps the key use of the Word in the New Testament is found in Romans chapter 3, where Paul writes,

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. (Romans 3:23-25a, ESV, emphasis mine)

God put forth his own Son “as a propitiation by His blood.” The death of Jesus Christ turned away the wrath of God from His people.  We who were “by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3) are redeemed, forgiven, reconciled and even adopted as children of God in Jesus Christ because of His death in our place, taking the wrath of God for our sins upon Himself!

No wonder Packer holds this great truth to be central to the Christian faith! It really is at the heart of the gospel. The gospel just isn’t the gospel without the truth of propitiation.

The Most Important Sentences In All of Literature

In his commentary on the book of Romans, James Boice makes the following observation on Romans 1:16-17:

In the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of Romans 1, we come to sentences that are most important in the letter and perhaps in all literature. They are the theme of this epistle and the essence of Christianity. They are the heart of biblical religion. (Romans Vol.1, p.103)

What are these sentences that are the most important in the book of Romans (arguably the most important book of the Bible) and perhaps all of literature?

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:16-17 ESV)

Why are these simple sentences in the opening chapter of Romans so vitally important? Boice explains:

The reason this is so is that they tell how a man or woman may become right with God. (ibid)

Could there be anything more important (or relevant) than that? 

That is why the gospel is the theme of Romans.

That is why the gospel is the essence of Christianity.

That is why the gospel is the heart of biblical religion.

We are all in desperate need of righteousness – perfect righteousness – but on our own we are anything but righteous.  And it is only through faith in Christ Jesus as he is offered to us in the gospel that God imputes or accounts to us the perfect, spotless righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ by faith.

Not only are our sins fully and forever forgiven because of the death of Jesus Christ in our place, but His perfect righteousness is also accounted to us by faith!   We don’t just have a clean slate – we have a perfectly righteous slate – the slate of Jesus Christ himself! (No wonder they call it the good news!)

That is why God can accept sinful men and women like us as righteous in His sight, “only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone” (Westminster Shorter Catechism Q.33).  God Himself provides us with the very righteousness that He requires of us!

Are you trusting in Jesus Christ alone for salvation?  If so, you can know that even though you are a sinner who deserves the wrath of a holy God, you are fully and forever accepted by God on the merits of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, accounted to you by faith.  What could be more important than that!

J.D. Greear on Assurance

In his book, Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart, J.D. Greear writes,

The Enemy – one of whose names in Scripture is “the Deceiver” – loves to keep truly saved believers unsure of their salvation because he knows that if he does they’ll never experience the freedom, joy, and confidence that God wants them to have. But he also loves to keep those on their way to hell deluded into thinking they are on their way to heaven, their consciences immunized from Jesus’ pleas to repent. (p.6)

How ironic that so often it does seem to be the case that many sincere believers in Christ who have no biblically valid reason to doubt their salvation lack assurance, while others who actually have every reason to doubt the validity of their own profession of faith often continue on in a blissful state of ignorance & delusion about the true state of their souls.

For the former, it is a painfully discouraging situation; for the latter it is truly, sadly, and (if left unchanged) eternally disastrous.

What solution does Greear suggest?  That we stop asking Jesus into our hearts over and over again (which is something far too many a modern evangelical can identify with) and “start resting in the finished work of Christ” (p.11).

In other words, remind yourself often, not of some past (and sometimes often-repeated!) experience or decision (i.e. walking an aisle, praying the sinner’s prayer, etc.), but of the gospel itself – the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on your behalf!  At the end of the day, the way to assurance is not so much to look within (essentially to look to yourself!), but rather to look to Jesus Christ and His perfect righteousness and death on the Cross for sinners.

God the Judge

“From thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.” (The Apostles’ Creed)

The just judgment of God on sinful humanity is one of the essential doctrines of the Christian faith.  It is found again and again in Scripture, and is featured prominently in three of the four great ecumenical Christian creeds.

The Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, and Athanasian Creed all explicitly state that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself will come again “to judge the living and the dead.” (Chalcedon being the only exception, which was not a broad summation of the faith like the other three, but was primarily written to state and defend the orthodox understanding of the hypostatic union of the two natures of Christ.)

And yet the popular misconception has seemingly always persisted that God will not surely judge sinners.  Rob Bell (in his book, Love Wins) is certainly no innovator in that regard.  In fact, the idea that God will not judge sinners is practically the original lie of Satan himself.  In Genesis 3:1 the serpent questioned the Word of God (specifically the commandment against eating the forbidden fruit, which certainly also implied the punishment threatened for transgressing that commandment – death), and then in v.4 flatly denied the just judgment of God, saying, “You will not surely die.”

That lie has been repeated in one form or another again and again throughout history, with deadly results.

J.I. Packer writes,

“People who do not actually read the Bible confidently assure us that when we move from the Old Testament to the New, the theme of divine judgment fades into the background. But if we examine the New Testament, even in the most cursory way, we find at once that the Old Testament emphasis on God’s action as Judge, far from being reduced, is actually intensified.” (Knowing God, p.140)

God does not change (Numbers 23:19; Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8).  The idea that God is somehow different now than He was during the Old Testament is simply untrue.  The idea that the God of the Old Testament was the harsh God of wrath and judgment, while the God of the New Testament is the nice God of love is simply untrue.  God was gracious in the Old Testament, and God is still the righteous Judge of all the earth in the New Testament.

The gospel comes to us and says not “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4), but rather that Jesus has died in the place of sinners.  The good news is not that the judgment of God has somehow been done away with or abrogated, but that it has been propitiated – God’s wrath has been poured out upon Jesus Christ on the Cross!  A sinless substitute has been fully punished for our sins in our place!

We are not only saved from judgment, but saved through (or by) judgment – through the Son of God Himself (the Judge!) taking the punishment for our sins!  So if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you no longer need to fear the final judgment, for the Judge of the living and the dead is the One who died for your salvation!  As Paul writes in Romans 8:31-34,

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect when the Judge Himself is the One who died for our sins and was raised from the dead, and is also the One who ever lives to intercede for His people at the right hand of God the Father!