A shift has taken place in the Evangelical church with regard to the way we think about the gospel–and it’s far from simply an ivory tower conversation. This shift effects us on the ground of everyday life.
Shifting Away from Salvation
In his book Paul: An Outline of His Theology, famed Dutch Theologian Herman Ridderbos (1909 – 2007) summarizes this shift, which took place following Calvin and Luther. It was a sizable but subtle shift that turned the focus of salvation from Christ’s external accomplishment to our internal appropriation:
While in Calvin and Luther all the emphasis fell on the redemptive event that took place with Christ’s death and resurrection, later under the influence of pietism, mysticism, and moralism, the emphasis shifted to the individual appropriation of the salvation given in Christ and to it’s mystical and moral effect in the life of the believer. Accordingly, in the history of the interpretation of the epistles of Paul the center of gravity shifted more and more from the forensic to the pneumatic and ethical aspects of his preaching, and there arose an entirely different conception of the structures that lay at the foundation of Paul’s preaching.
Donald Bloesch made a similar observation when he wrote, “Among the Evangelicals, it is not the justification of the ungodly (which formed the basic motif in the Reformation) but the sanctification of the righteous that is given the most attention.”
Focusing On the Individual
With this shift came a renewed focus on the internal life of the individual. The subjective question, “How am I doing?” became a more dominant feature than the objective question, “What did Jesus do?” As a result, generations of Christians were taught Christianity was primarily a lifestyle; that the essence of our faith centered on "how to live;" that real Christianity was demonstrated in the moral change that took place inside those who had a “personal relationship with Jesus.” Our ongoing performance for Jesus, therefore, not Jesus’ finished performance for us, became the focus of sermons, books, and conferences. What I need to do and who I need to become became the end game.
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Sanctification feeds on justification, not the other way around.
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Believe it or not, this shift in focus from “the forensic to the pneumatic,” from the external to the internal, has enslaving practical consequences.
When In Trouble Or In Doubt
When you’re on the brink of despair, looking into the abyss of darkness experiencing a dark-night of the soul, turning to the internal quality of your faith will bring you no hope, no rescue, no relief. Every internal answer will collapse underneath you. Turning to the external object of your faith, namely Christ and his finished work on your behalf, is the only place to find peace, re-orientation, and help. The gospel always directs you to something, someone, outside of you instead of to something inside of you for the assurance you crave and need in seasons of desperation and doubt. The surety you long for when everything seems to be falling apart won’t come from discovering the dedicated “hero within” but only from the realization that no matter how you feel or what you’re going through, you’ve already been discovered by the “Hero without.”
As Sinclair Ferguson writes in his book The Christian Life:
True faith takes its character and quality from its object and not from itself. Faith gets a man out of himself and into Christ. Its strength therefore depends on the character of Christ. Even those of us who have weak faith have the same strong Christ as others!
Trust in Jesus, Not Yourself
By his Spirit, Christ’s continuing subjective work in me consists of his constant, daily driving me back to his completed objective work for me. Sanctification feeds on justification, not the other way around. To be sure, both doctrine and devotion go hand in hand, but the gospel is the good news announcing Christ’s devotion to us, not our devotion to him. The gospel is not a command to hang onto Jesus. Rather, it’s a promise that no matter how weak your faith may be in seasons of spiritual depression, God is always holding on to you.
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The gospel always directs you to something, someone, outside of you instead of to something inside of you for the assurance you crave and need in seasons of desperation and doubt.
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Martin Luther had a term for the debilitating danger that comes from locating our hope in anything inside us: monstrum incertitudinis (the monster of uncertainty). It’s a danger that has always plagued Christians since the fall but especially Christians in our highly subjectivistic age. And it’s a monster that can only be destroyed by the external promises of God in Jesus.
Peace with God Rests on the Work of Christ
Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is a bonafide peace that’s built on a real change in status before God—from standing guilty before God the judge to standing righteous before God our Father. This is the objective custody of even the weakest believer. It’s a peace that rests squarely on the fact that we’ve already been “reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (v. 10), justified before God once and for all through faith in Christ’s finished work. It will surely produce real feelings and robust action, but this peace with God that Paul describes rests securely on the work of Christ for us, outside us. The more I look into my own heart for peace, the less I find. On the other hand, the more I look to Christ and his promises for peace, the more I find.
So, when pressed in on every side, look up. In God’s economy, the only way out is up, not in.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Monday, August 8, 2011
The Sequoias
The following is an excerpt from The Root of Riches by Chuck Bentley one of our members sent me this past week. Bentley captures the heart of the relationships we have with each other as members of the body of Christ with his analogy.
I picked up a Giant Sequoia cone once on a trip to the Sequoia National Forest in California. I stood in awe as I looked up the trunk of the massive tree pondering the magnificent structure that was once a tiny seed like those contained in the cone I held. Sequoias can grow to over 300 feet tall, the height of a 30-story building. They are the largest living things on earth, but they originate from a tiny seed the size of an oat flake. The Giant Sequoia can grow to over 33 feet in diameter. Twenty average people linking hands would barely circle the base of a mature tree. Their branches can reach seven feet in diameter and their bark has been measured up to 31 inches thick. The oldest recorded Giant Sequoia is estimated to be 3,200 years old. Scientists aren’t sure why the Giant Sequoia lives so long, but I have my own theory. Besides their great size and age, these trees have unusual root systems. Although quite shallow, given the immense size of the trees, their roots seem to interlock with those of other trees around them. I think these majestic, towering examples of strength and beauty stand firm because beneath the surface their roots are joined together, which gives them the stability they need to endure wind, ice, snow, and even earthquakes! They do not stand alone. Is that not a beautiful picture of the Body of Christ? (The) trees do not stand alone. With common roots that feed on God’s enduring love, they allow their love to flow out and nourish others. (The) trees grow to become towering examples of Christ’s love and produce the same glorious, priceless fruit wherever they are planted. When we become He Trees, we join a family. We’re the same species of tree as every boy and girl, man and woman, adult or child who has ever entered the kingdom of God. God designed us with interlocking roots that hold us together as a worldwide community. This unique support system eliminates loneliness as we depend upon each other to weather the storms of life. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.
Bentley, Chuck (2011-07-20). The Root of Riches (Kindle Locations 2143-2144). FORIAM Publishers in association with Crown Financial Ministries, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
I picked up a Giant Sequoia cone once on a trip to the Sequoia National Forest in California. I stood in awe as I looked up the trunk of the massive tree pondering the magnificent structure that was once a tiny seed like those contained in the cone I held. Sequoias can grow to over 300 feet tall, the height of a 30-story building. They are the largest living things on earth, but they originate from a tiny seed the size of an oat flake. The Giant Sequoia can grow to over 33 feet in diameter. Twenty average people linking hands would barely circle the base of a mature tree. Their branches can reach seven feet in diameter and their bark has been measured up to 31 inches thick. The oldest recorded Giant Sequoia is estimated to be 3,200 years old. Scientists aren’t sure why the Giant Sequoia lives so long, but I have my own theory. Besides their great size and age, these trees have unusual root systems. Although quite shallow, given the immense size of the trees, their roots seem to interlock with those of other trees around them. I think these majestic, towering examples of strength and beauty stand firm because beneath the surface their roots are joined together, which gives them the stability they need to endure wind, ice, snow, and even earthquakes! They do not stand alone. Is that not a beautiful picture of the Body of Christ? (The) trees do not stand alone. With common roots that feed on God’s enduring love, they allow their love to flow out and nourish others. (The) trees grow to become towering examples of Christ’s love and produce the same glorious, priceless fruit wherever they are planted. When we become He Trees, we join a family. We’re the same species of tree as every boy and girl, man and woman, adult or child who has ever entered the kingdom of God. God designed us with interlocking roots that hold us together as a worldwide community. This unique support system eliminates loneliness as we depend upon each other to weather the storms of life. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.
Bentley, Chuck (2011-07-20). The Root of Riches (Kindle Locations 2143-2144). FORIAM Publishers in association with Crown Financial Ministries, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Monday, August 1, 2011
If You Preach the Gospel
From the Ligonier Ministries Blog
Posted: 25 Jul 2011 06:45 AM PDT
There is something deeply mysterious about Christian preaching, both in terms of its communication and in terms of its content. After all, what we preach is not what the world expects to hear. It is not a message they will hear anywhere else. No human wisdom, no school of philosophy, no secular salesman, no TV commercial speaker selling his CDs is ever going to come up with this on his own. Take a look at what is selling in the bookstores and who is hosting the big conferences. You'll realize that if you can tell people how to buy property and profit from its renovation, you can sell your messages. If you can tell people how to lose weight, you can sell just about anything. If you can tell people how to become handsome and wise, raise children who are well-behaved, and have their pets like them, you will find yourself to be a very popular speaker. You could put your DVDs and CDs together and write books that would be sold in bookstores and hawked on television.
But if you preach the gospel, you just might discover that it is not quite so popular. But it is powerful and it is mysterious. Why? Because it was a mystery that God hid from previous generations in order that it might be displayed publicly at the time of the Lord Jesus Christ
Excerpted from Feed My Sheep: A Passionate Plea for Preaching.
Posted: 25 Jul 2011 06:45 AM PDT
There is something deeply mysterious about Christian preaching, both in terms of its communication and in terms of its content. After all, what we preach is not what the world expects to hear. It is not a message they will hear anywhere else. No human wisdom, no school of philosophy, no secular salesman, no TV commercial speaker selling his CDs is ever going to come up with this on his own. Take a look at what is selling in the bookstores and who is hosting the big conferences. You'll realize that if you can tell people how to buy property and profit from its renovation, you can sell your messages. If you can tell people how to lose weight, you can sell just about anything. If you can tell people how to become handsome and wise, raise children who are well-behaved, and have their pets like them, you will find yourself to be a very popular speaker. You could put your DVDs and CDs together and write books that would be sold in bookstores and hawked on television.
But if you preach the gospel, you just might discover that it is not quite so popular. But it is powerful and it is mysterious. Why? Because it was a mystery that God hid from previous generations in order that it might be displayed publicly at the time of the Lord Jesus Christ
Excerpted from Feed My Sheep: A Passionate Plea for Preaching.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
The Shepherd and His Sheep
Glenn Wagner has written a book entitled Escape from Church, INC.: The Return of the Pastor-Shepherd. He wrote the book at a time in which there was a growing movement which viewed churches from a corporate model and pastors as CEO’s. Wagner tells the story of a pastor who was approached by a member following a sermon in which he repeatedly referred to elders as shepherds. The individual’s concern was that no one in our day understands shepherds and sheep and the pastor needed to replace his ancient culture language with a more modern analogy. The pastor took up his friend’s challenge but came to the conclusion that there was no modern metaphor that was suitable. This is what he told this member: “I can’t find any figure equivalent to the shepherd idea in our modern, urban world. Besides, if I drop the shepherd and flock idea, I would have to tear about five hundred pages out of my Bible, plus leave the modern church with a distorted – if not neutered – view of spiritual leadership” (Glenn Wagner, Escape from Church, INC.: The Return of the Pastor-Shepherd, pages 112-113).
Do you recall the words of Jesus to Peter in John 21? Jesus asked Peter three times, do you love me? After each affirmative answer by Peter, Jesus told him to feed and tend Christ’s sheep. Whether you like the analogy or not, Scripture is filled with this analogy in which the people of God are pictured as sheep. The most famous and perhaps beloved chapter in the entire Bible, Psalm 23, paints this picture: The Lord is my Shepherd. What does a shepherd do for his sheep? He cares for, loves, watches over, guards, feeds, and leads his sheep. The concepts of feeding and guarding are prevalent thoughts in the Pastoral Epistles. The focus in I Timothy is guarding the truth against those who would lead the sheep astray by feeding the people of God with his truth. The elder must be able to teach. So much is said in these three books about the teaching and preaching of the Scriptures which feeds the people of God.
Elders must have a deep love and spiritual concern for the people of God so that they minister according to the needs of the people. After all, the sheep belong to Christ, the Great Shepherd, who laid down his life for us.
Do you recall the words of Jesus to Peter in John 21? Jesus asked Peter three times, do you love me? After each affirmative answer by Peter, Jesus told him to feed and tend Christ’s sheep. Whether you like the analogy or not, Scripture is filled with this analogy in which the people of God are pictured as sheep. The most famous and perhaps beloved chapter in the entire Bible, Psalm 23, paints this picture: The Lord is my Shepherd. What does a shepherd do for his sheep? He cares for, loves, watches over, guards, feeds, and leads his sheep. The concepts of feeding and guarding are prevalent thoughts in the Pastoral Epistles. The focus in I Timothy is guarding the truth against those who would lead the sheep astray by feeding the people of God with his truth. The elder must be able to teach. So much is said in these three books about the teaching and preaching of the Scriptures which feeds the people of God.
Elders must have a deep love and spiritual concern for the people of God so that they minister according to the needs of the people. After all, the sheep belong to Christ, the Great Shepherd, who laid down his life for us.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Tim Challies' Recommendation of our Book
Elder Governance: Insights into Making the Transition by Daniel Evans & Joseph Godwin. This book speaks about making the sometimes-difficult transition from a board-run church to a church governed by elders. Here is the publisher’s description: “When the leadership of Patterson Park Church looked for a book explaining the process of transitioning from a board-run church to an elder led form of church government, a structure they had come to believe was more in line with Scripture, they found none. God honored their efforts and two of their elders decided a book still needed to be written. Elder Governance: Insights into Making the Transition examines church government from a biblical and historical context and tells the story of Patterson Park’s transition. The authors are hopeful that God will use their experience to help others considering such a transition.” It comes endorsed by R. Kent Hughes, James Grier and Alexander Strauch.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Suffering Well
Last week I preached the funeral of a church member and friend in whcih I made the statement that Craig knew how to “suffer well.” For many this seems like a strange statement. For the believer, this is a view of life we understand. We have watched many dear friends at our church suffer well recently; individuals suffering with terminal illnesses; families who have lost loved ones to disease; individuals who in desperate times of need have trusted God and demonstrated incredible faith and perseverance. These all understand that the sovereign God reigns over all things and makes no mistakes.
I recently attended the memorial service of a long-time friend who died of cancer. His family members spoke of how well he lived and how well he endured the suffering God allowed in his life. He lived well and he died well.
Our small group is reading the book, Humility: True Greatness, by C.J. Mahaney. Chapter 11 in entitled, “Responding Humbly to Trials.” Mahaney speaks of the fact that trials and suffering are inevitable. We will all suffer. How will we handle this suffering? When pain grips our bodies; when relationships go sour; when needs are increasing rather than decreasing, how will we respond? What will others learn about our faith in those crucial moments of our lives?
Mahaney exhorts first us to practice God-centered prayer. We must be passionate about God himself and his glory, even in the midst of suffering. Secondly, we should focus on salvation rather than on suffering. By his mercy, God sent his Son into the world to die for our sins. We should make so much God’s redeeming grace. Thirdly, wait quietly for the Lord. What is he doing? What is he teaching me? How is he conforming me to the image of Christ through my experiences? Finally, humbly rejoice. James reminds us that we are to consider it all joy…when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness (James 1:2-3).
We do not take our trials and suffering lightly, nor that of others. We rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep (Romans 12:14). We do trust God will do his sanctifying work in all our lives through the trails we experience.
I recently attended the memorial service of a long-time friend who died of cancer. His family members spoke of how well he lived and how well he endured the suffering God allowed in his life. He lived well and he died well.
Our small group is reading the book, Humility: True Greatness, by C.J. Mahaney. Chapter 11 in entitled, “Responding Humbly to Trials.” Mahaney speaks of the fact that trials and suffering are inevitable. We will all suffer. How will we handle this suffering? When pain grips our bodies; when relationships go sour; when needs are increasing rather than decreasing, how will we respond? What will others learn about our faith in those crucial moments of our lives?
Mahaney exhorts first us to practice God-centered prayer. We must be passionate about God himself and his glory, even in the midst of suffering. Secondly, we should focus on salvation rather than on suffering. By his mercy, God sent his Son into the world to die for our sins. We should make so much God’s redeeming grace. Thirdly, wait quietly for the Lord. What is he doing? What is he teaching me? How is he conforming me to the image of Christ through my experiences? Finally, humbly rejoice. James reminds us that we are to consider it all joy…when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness (James 1:2-3).
We do not take our trials and suffering lightly, nor that of others. We rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep (Romans 12:14). We do trust God will do his sanctifying work in all our lives through the trails we experience.
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