Jared C. Wilson's Blog, page 72

Unconditional Election

“The text says, ‘From the beginning God chose you to be saved;’ but our opponents say, that God chooses people because they are good; that He chooses them on account of the many works which they have done. Now, we ask, in reply to this, what works are those that the ‘chosen’ did that caused God to elect His people? Are they what we commonly call ‘works of law’–works of obedience which the creature can do? If so, we reply to you, if men cannot be justified by the works of the law, it seems to us pretty clear that they cannot be elected by the works of the law; if they cannot be justified by their good works, they cannot be saved by them. Then the teaching of election could not have been formed on good works.

“‘But,’ others say, ‘God elected them on the foresight of their faith.’ Now, God gives faith therefore He could not have elected them on account of faith, which He foresaw. If there were twenty beggars in the street, and I determine to give one of them a dollar, will anyone say that I determined to give that one a dollar, that I elected him to have the dollar, because I foresaw that he would have it? That would be talking nonsense. Likewise, to say that God elected men because He foresaw they would have faith, would be too absurd for us to listen to for a moment. Faith is the gift of God. Every virtue comes from Him. Therefore it cannot have caused Him to elect men, because it is His gift. Election, we are sure, is unconditional, and altogether apart from the virtues which the saints acquire after salvation. What, though a saint should be as holy and devout as Paul, what though he should be as bold as Peter, or as loving as John, yet he would claim nothing from his Maker.

“I never knew a saint from any denomination who thought that God saved him because he foresaw that he would have these virtues and merits. Now, my brethren, the best jewels that the saint ever wears, if they be jewels of his own fashioning, are not pure. There is something of earth mixed with them. The highest grace we ever possess has something of earthliness about it. We feel this when we are most refined, when we are most holy; and our language must always be like Paul’s:

I am the chief of sinners; Jesus died for me.

“Our only hope, our only plea, still hangs on grace, as exhibited in the person of Jesus Christ. And I am sure we must utterly reject and disregard all thought that our graces which are gifts of our Lord, which are planted by His right-hand, could have ever caused His love. And we must forever sing:

What was there in us that could merit esteem, Or give the Creator delight? Nothing was found Father, so we must forever sing, Because it seemed good in your sight.”

– Charles Spurgeon, Election

“I Never Lived a Wild Lifestyle, but I Was Hopelessly Dead in My Sins”

Total Depravity

“Man, in his depraved state, is under an utter inability to do any thing truly good, as was proved before at large: how then can he obey the Gospel? His nature is the very reverse of the Gospel: how can he, of himself, fall in with that plan of salvation, and accept the offered remedy? The corruption of man’s nature infallibly includes his utter inability to recover himself in any way, and whoso is convinced of the one, must needs admit the other; for they stand and fall together. Were all the purchase of Christ offered to the unregenerate man for one good thought, he cannot command it (2 Cor. 3:5), ‘Not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to think any thing as of ourselves! Were it offered on condition of a good word, yet ‘how can ye, being evil, speak good things?’ (Matthew 12:35). Nay, were it left to yourselves to choose what is easiest, Christ Himself tells you (John 15:5), ‘Without me, ye can do nothing’!”

– Thomas Boston, “Man’s Utter Inability to Rescue Himself”

The Prodigal Church

For my own part I hate and distrust reactions not only in religion but in everything. Luther surely spoke very good sense when he compared humanity to a drunkard who, after falling off his horse on the right, falls off it next time on the left.

– C.S. Lewis, “The World’s Last Night”

Once there was a church that loved God and loved people but had a difficult time showing it because the image they gave of God was rather one-dimensional and so then also was the way they attempted to love people. The church believed in a holy God, a just God, a vengeful God, and so they preached wrath very well, pushing the hearts of all who darkened the church doors with the imminent foreboding of their eternal damnation. They did their best to scare the hell out of people, and when that didn’t work, they cried and pleaded and begged. Wretchedly urgent, the church regularly reminded its people of the dire importance of obedience to God, of being holy as God is holy. And the church grew vividly aware year in and year out of the “thou shalt not”s of the Bible. And they came back for more. But fewer and fewer did. When some began to suspect this god was not quite love and that this god could never quite be pleased, they stopped trying. Some kept trying, fearful and diminished.

One day someone suggested the old way wasn’t working. People could not be won by a god who seemed angry all the time, and in fact it made no sense to expect people to have interest in a god who didn’t care about their happiness. The god of the old way seemed so preoccupied with holy things that he did not care much for people’s every day lives. Couldn’t we make the way of the church more practical, more appealing? The way we may see growth again, he reasoned, is to deconstruct the old way, remove the old barriers, and reassert that God is love. Where once the church emphasized God’s holiness, now they emphasized his love. Where once the church emphasized obedience, now they emphasized success. Where once the church emphasized sin, they now emphasized happiness. Where once the church focused on God’s demands, they now emphasized man’s specialness and abilities. If we help people tap into their inner potential, remind them of how wonderful they are, and how God loves them no matter what, people will be interested in church again. They changed the songs, the architecture, the style of dress. They took the crosses down. And lo and behold, people began to come again.

But as the years went by they noticed something. Little by little, they discovered that while some new people were discovering church for the first time, most who came were in recovery from the old way of doing church. And all together, they learned that many could not grow very deeply in their faith. They changed Sunday School to small groups, special music to video montages, began applying Bible verses to songs on the radio and movies at the theater. They deconstructed more things, made more things over. The church had — in their own estimation, cleverly — traded out the “don’t”s for “do”‘s, but even the regular dispensing of practical helps for victorious living wasn’t having the desired effect. People enjoyed the worship services now. But day to day they seemed no closer to God than in the old way of doing church. In fact, they seemed day to day less interested in God than before . . .

And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”

– Mark 8:15

How Do We Cherish Virginity Without Moralistic Fearmongering?

One area of cultural concern I’ve been anxious about gospel-driven sanctification taking root is the teen abstinence movement. One year I attended the local crisis pregnancy center’s annual fundraising banquet and listened to a speaker decry teen pregnancy and the abortions the pregnancies often lead to, and while of course I shared the concern—I

wouldn’t have been there if I didn’t—I was chagrined to hear only the minor notes of the gospel, and even those were covered by the din of fearmongering, enemy-identifying, and law-building. Must we teach our teens to be responsible, to cherish their purity, and to save the gift of sexual intimacy for marriage? Yes, without question. But so many of our

efforts amount to condemning present affections without that expulsive power of a new one. We give them the “no” to sex with a “yes” to virginity or freedom from disease and pregnancy, but no “yes” is as propulsive for saying “no” to sin as the “yes” that is in Jesus.

In 2010, Christianity Today ran an opinion column in which different spokespersons gave their perspectives on the solution to the teen pregnancy and abortion crisis. I was very happy to see the truth of gospel-driven sanctification promoted by Richard Ross, cofounder of the popular True Love Waits organization. In his piece, Ross writes about gospel wakefulness as a spur to successful premarital purity:

The promise is kept most tenaciously by teenagers who have moved beyond moralistic therapeutic deism and who adore the King of Kings with awe and intimacy. They know their Lord and Savior said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Their walk in purity is a way to express deep love for him and to respond to his supremacy.

For teenagers who know Christ, that is a far stronger motivator than a desire to avoid disease and pregnancy. Risk avoidance is a weak motivator during adolescence, since the development of the brain’s prefrontal cortex (which governs self-control) lags well behind the development of the amygdala (which drives emotions and impulses). Teenagers need to

know about the risks of promiscuity, as well as about the benefits that total life purity brings. But the most powerful way to impact prom-night decisions is for parents, leaders, and peers to more fully awaken teenagers to God’s Son.

Ross is using the wakefulness language in a way not often thought about: as the way to strengthen the sexual purity of the unmarried. “Risk avoidance is a weak motivator,” he says. He reminds us that awe of Christ is “far stronger.”

– from Gospel Wakefulness (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2011), 137-138.

And for those who’ve failed? Gospel still.

Preaching as Expository Exultation

Expository means that preaching aims to exposit, or explain and apply, the meaning of the Bible. Every sermon explains and applies the Bible. The reason for this is that the Bible is God’s word, inspired, infallible, profitable—all sixty-six books of it. The preacher’s job is to minimize his own opinions and deliver the truth of God. Therefore, it is mainly Bible exposition—explanation and application.

And the preacher’s job is to do that in a way that enables us to see that the points he is making actually come from the Bible. If they come from the Bible and you can’t see that they come from the Bible, your faith will rest on man and not God.

The aim of this exposition is to help you eat and digest some biblical truth that will make your spiritual bones more like steel, and double the capacity of your spiritual lungs, and make the eyes of your heart dazzled with God’s greatness, and awaken the capability of your soul for kinds of spiritual enjoyment you didn’t even know existed.

Preaching is also exultation—expository exultation. This means that the preacher does not just explain what’s in the Bible, and the people do not simply understand what he explains, but the preacher and the people exult over what is in the Bible as it is being explained and applied.

– John Piper, “God So Loved the World, Part 2″

Liberal Theology

“What is the liberal theology like? It can only be paralleled with what God says in Proverbs 30:20 about the adulterous woman: ‘Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.’ What a picture! Not everyone whose theology has been somewhat infiltrated by liberal theology should be likened to this, but the real liberal theologian (whether the old liberal-type theologian or the newer existential theologian) stands in this place. They say they have done no evil by their spiritual adultery, while not only the church but the whole post-Christian culture shows the results of their unfaithfulness.

“There is no adulterous woman who has ever been so soiled as the liberal theology, which has had all the gifts of God and has turned away to a worship of something that is more destructive than Molech was to the babies whose parents were led astray from the living God to worship this idol. This is not a thing to take lightly. We must show love to the man with whom we discuss. Yes, and we fight for this at L’Abri. We must fight for the fact that he is not to be treated as less than a man. Nothing is more ugly than the orthodox man treating another man as less than a man and failing to show that he takes seriously Christ’s teaching that all men are our neighbors. We do not discuss with the liberal only to win, but to help others, and to try to help him as well. But to treat lightly what liberal theology has done — not for a moment.”

– Francis A. Schaeffer, The Church at the End of the 20th Century (Downer’s Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity, 1970), 126-127.

Die Before You Die – The Way to Joy

I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Dane Ortlund’s book Defiant Grace, but you ought to get your hands on a copy. Briefly but deeply exploring the good news of Christ’s kingdom in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Ortlund’s book is four shots of straight gospel whisky. Here’s one of my favorite passages, from his chapter on Mark’s Gospel:

To take up the cross is to take up joy — painful joy, but real joy. For to take up the cross is to walk with the one who in great love bore the ultimate cross in our place. Aim at joy, and you will miss it. Aim at Christ, and his cross-bearing call, and you will find it.

Contrary as it is to all presuppositions, the way to save our life is to lose it. Death was the way to life for Jesus. Death is the way to life for Jesus’ disciples. “Die before you die. There is no chance after,” remarks a character in C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces.

If we tunnel in to the very heart of Christian discipleship as articulated by Mark, we find, echoing the mission of Jesus himself, this startling principle: loss is gain. Death is life. Yielding all guarantees receiving all. Self-denial for the sake of the gospel is the secret to saving our life. This was the way the upside-down mission of Jesus worked out, and it is the path of discipleship for his people. Glad abandon is our only sanity.

Contrary to what all our instincts of self-preservation whisper to us every day, abandonment to Jesus is the safest investment we can make. Our only security is renunciation of all that this world holds secure.

– Dane Ortlund, Defiant Grace: The Surprising Message and Mission of Jesus (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: EP Books, 2011), 61.

How Grace is Like Grace (and How Grace Isn’t)

One of the most vivid illustrations and daily reminders of God’s grace in my life is my daughter Grace. Actually, both my daughters, and my lovely wife before them, are daily reminders of God’s grace to me. But I’ve been making mental connections between nine year-old Grace and from-from-the-foundation-of-the-world grace since the former’s personality started taking dominion in her presence.

In fact, Grace is a lot like grace. Like grace, Grace is a friend to people of all kinds. I hope she never changes, because Grace is very at ease with kids and adults who look and act different. More than that, Grace thinks everybody’s handsome or beautiful. I’m not kidding. She seems naturally wired to see the best in everybody. Grace’s impartiality reminds me of the unpretentiousness of grace, how grace makes space for Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free, how grace reignites the imago dei in everybody it lays hold of.

Our Grace has the tenderest of hearts. She wouldn’t put it this way, not yet anyway, but she feels real Jesus-like compassion for people. When Grace sees a homeless man in town, she is broken for him. When Grace knows someone is sad, she feels sad for them. When Grace overhears mom and dad discussing a difficult issue, Grace later enters to offer to help in some adorable way. If Grace happens to overhear mom and dad mention a financial constraint, however minor, she offers up her piggy bank. Grace preemptively offers to be helpful. “Dad, can I have a bean bag chair for my room? I’ll pay you back for it.” Grace is always putting others first.

Like grace, Grace is unpredictable. Our little Grace is constantly moving, constantly singing, constantly bursting into song or silly voice or infectious groove. Like grace, Grace is surprising. She will pipe up, pitch in, and play her part at the most sudden of moments. Grace, like grace, keeps us on the edge of our seat and the tips of our toes.

Like grace, Grace has impeccable rhythm and timing, as well as the regularly spontaneous inclination to put them to blessed use. Grace dances like grace, skipping along on bouncy feet, flighty with fairy wings. What I mean is that Grace, like grace, is joyous. “I’m pretty much always happy,” she said the other day, apropos of nothing (nothing, that is, but grace). And Grace is the funniest person I know. She’s always making us laugh. Grace brings cheer wherever she goes, which is a lot like grace.

There are a few other ways that Grace is like grace, but there’s an important way Grace is not like grace. (We are constantly reminded that Grace needs grace for this.) Although our Grace moves at 100 miles per hour, although she’s nearly always running, nearly always in a hurry, when it’s time to go somewhere, she becomes the pokiest child on God’s green earth. If it’s time to leave for school or church, or if it’s time to leave the cousins’ house or the babysitter’s house, she takes her own sweet time. We are always waiting on Grace. Thank God, though, that we are not always waiting on grace. No, grace, unlike Grace, is always on time, always there when you need it, totally predictable in that sense. Because God is not slow in keeping his promises — as some count slowness, anyway — grace is always available at your time of need. Because God’s grace is timeless, it is always timely. So while Grace brings us much joy, we rejoice in her awesomeness best when we rejoice about Grace in grace.

Free From the Law, O Happy Condition

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

– Romans 8:1

“The apostle having established the doctrine of justification, and answered the objections commonly urged against it, now asserts his triumphant conclusion, ‘There is therefore, etc.;’ that is to say, it follows from all that has been said concerning the believer’s justification by the righteousness of Christ, and his complete deliverance from the Law as a covenant, that to him there can be no condemnation. The design of Paul is not so much to assert the different functions of the Law and the gospel, as simply to state the fact in regard to the condition of a certain class, namely, those who are in Christ. To them there is no condemnation whatever; not only no final condemnation, but no condemnation now, from the moment of their union to Christ, and deliverance from the curse of the Law. The reason is this: that Christ hath endured the penalty, and obeyed the precept of the Law in their stead.

“‘Here,’ says Mr. Haldane on the passage, ‘it is often remarked that the apostle does not say, that there is in them (believers) neither matter of accusation, nor cause of condemnation; and yet this is all included in what he does say. And afterward, in express terms, he denies that they can be either accused or condemned, which they might be, were there any ground for either. All that was condemnable in them, which was sin, has been condemned in their Surety’ . . .).”

(from Albert Barnes’s Notes on the Bible, 1834)