Saturday, June 21, 2014

The Obedience of Faith

Paul's introduction of himself to the church at Rome includes these words:

...Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations...
Romans 1:4-5

In the past four years since I began to distinguish law and gospel, words like obedience have not been a big part of my vocabulary. You see, to me obedience smacked of law, and law was the enemy of grace. And yet here I have Paul, my favorite biblical writer, writing in my favorite book of the bible that he was given his apostleship, and God's grace, to bring about not just justification of all nations, but the obedience of faith. It suddenly seems to me that grace by faith is a means to keeping the law in the end; that the gospel seeks obedience to the law as it's primary aim. Forgiveness of sin is a necessary component of salvation,  but the primary end of salvation is obedience by faith.

We can be certain that we cannot keep the law of our own doing and out of the flesh. The apostle says in Romans 8:7:

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.

But just because we cannot keep the law, it does not mean that we do not keep the law. We need not throw up our hands in defeat and think, "It's a good thing the Lord forgives me for Christ's sake, because I am only a sinner and will always be only a sinner." Yes, as long as you are in the flesh you will deal with sin, but the point is that we've been given a new nature and that nature is perfectly willing and capable of desiring and performing the law as it's ultimate objective. The new creature, born of the Spirit and not the flesh, seeks to fulfill the law:

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Romans 8:3-4

There is not even a hint that works in some way earn us God's favor in any of this. Lawkeeping is not the cause of salvation, but the result. Or perhaps it could he said that salvation is the cause of lawkeeping and never the other way round. The trap I fell into was thinking that forgiveness was the ultimate goal of salvation and that any obedience that came about from that was a happy accident fueled by gratitude. It's not surprising that any of us can think that when we hear the voices of many in the new reformation. The message I have heard (and the message I have taught) boils down to, "if you understand that you are forgiven for the sake of Christ alone, that is enough."

But forgiveness is just the beginning. A glorious, liberating, exhilarating beginning. The beginning of a new way of life and thinking that is empowered by a new nature that, with Paul, will "press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:14)

Don't quit at the forgiveness. Don't just use the glorious freedom God has given you as a cover-up for sin in your life. Embrace that Spirit-empowered freedom and cooperate with it the put that sin to death and be transformed into the image of Christ.

That is the goal. Obedience by faith is the gospel truth as well as forgiveness by faith.

God bless.

Missing the Boat

Let me start by saying that I have not been completely wrong. I'm starting to see that I have been wrong nonetheless.

God's grace is free. Completely free. There isn't a thing we can do to earn it. God's love for us is completely conditioned upon the finished work of Calvary. There never has been any amount of lawkeeping that will merit God's favor and never will be. But here's the deal; God's grace is no excuse for sin.

The sermon of a friend helped me to realize that I have been coddling sin in my own life and the lives of others in the name of grace. After all, if my relationship to God is not conditioned on my actions, what's a little indescretion here and there? God will forgive me for Christ's sake, right?

First of all, sin is not a little indescretion. Sin, as James says, is lawlessness. Sin is the enemy of grace. Grace is not meant to make it easier for me to accept my sin. Grace is meant to kill my sin. Dead. Gone. To use God's grace as an excuse to continue in my sin as every bit as foolish as trying to use the law to attain righteousness. To do so is itself sin. If being saved to me is nothing more than accepting God's gift of forgiveness and continuing as a saved mess then I am gutting the gospel.

Hearing this would have raised my hackles two weeks ago. In fact it did. But it left me confused as well, because I came under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Yes, the Holy Spirit whom I've tried to ignore in both my teaching and my personal life. The helper who gives us the power over sin. The Spirit of Christ who dwells within us. The teeth of the gospel.

God expects us to obey. God expects us to be putting to death the sin within our lives. God's grace is the agent of the death of sin, and He has not left us alone to figure out what is and isn't sin and he's not left us without help in using His grace to combat sin and the enemy. He has given us the Spirit as a pusher. He drives us to hate our sin, to want to expose it to the light - to want to douse it with the good news of Christ's victory.

I owe an apology to my students. I fear I have lead many of you to believe that you are what you are and that's all you'll ever be. I have lead some of you to accept defeat to sin as a way of life. It's not, and that's not what God intends for us. He wants us to become pure, righteous and holy like Christ.  Not in a frustrating law-keeping way, but by His Spirit and His grace. Paul put it best in Philippians 2:12-13:

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

We have work to do. Work that involves fear and trembling, but work that is empowered by our God.

Forgive me for being a close-minded smarty-pants. A new day is dawning and we must be holy if we are to see God.

More to come... God Bless