Category: sanctification

Sanctification Jihad?

Published on by D. G. Hart16 Comments

In light of recent events, Tim Challies might want to choose a different set of metaphors:

“How?” people ask. “How do we make this happen in our churches? I’ve always believed that prayerful, word-driven ‘vine work’ was the essence of ministry, and you’ve reminded me of that. But how do we get our people fired up to be doing that—to be ‘disciple-making disciples’?”

In other words, if prayerful teaching of the Bible is the basic method of ministry, by which God transforms people, then how (one wonders) might we see our people and our church challenged and changed and transformed to live a different vision of the Christian life?

The answer seems pretty obvious when you ask it like that: by patiently and prayerfully slashing away at each other’s dull, sinful hearts with the sharp, two-edged sword of the word of God.

This is how God changes people. Why would we imagine that our church would change in any other way? [emphasis OL]

Talk about High Expectations

Published on by D. G. Hart32 Comments

Forget about WWJD. Be Jesus.

In other words, there is more, much more to being a disciple of Jesus Christ than simply trying to imitate him. How dull is that?

Instead we’re talking about becoming Jesus Christ alive in the world today. He wants to do more, much more than we can ask or imagine, and he does so through the sacramental economy.

Catholics have an understanding of the Christian life that is stranger and deeper and more mysterious than any other. This is because we have the gift of the seven sacraments.

A sacrament is not simply “an outward sign of an inward grace” that’s an Anglican definition. It is not simply a symbol or a reminder. That’s a Protestant definition. The Catholic understanding is that “a sacrament effects what it signifies.”

It DOES something, and what it does is it configures us to Christ. That is to say, through the mystery of the sacrament we are bonded with Christ and Christ is bonded with us, and this is a reality, not just a theory. It is there in the gospel where Jesus says, “Abide in me and I will abide in you. I am the vine you are the branches.”

I wonder what Mark Jones would say about such encouragement to be “the greatest believer who ever lived.”

I Wonder if This Applies to All Sins

Published on by D. G. Hart19 Comments

Including racism:

Although we are in a daily fight against sin, the war has already been won. Christ is victorious. He has freed us from the penalty of sin (justification) and the power of sin (sanctification), and one day He will free us from the presence of sin (glorification). But while we remain on this side of heaven, we will have to struggle. And yet we struggle not in our own power, but in the power of Christ through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Christ’s victory over sin, Satan, and death is already ours. We both strive and rest. We struggle against the flesh while abiding in Christ’s definitive triumph over it.

Do not be dismayed when you seem to be losing the battle against sin. It happens to every Christian, even great biblical models like the Apostle Paul Romans 7:18–19. Understand that through each small victory and simply by persevering as a Christian, Christ the Lord is turning your heart away from idols and toward Himself. The Holy Spirit Himself is destroying the sin complex in us.

Although the progress may be imperceptible at times, in faith we believe that we are becoming more like our Savior each day. As John says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” 1 John 3:2. That is our blessing. That is our promise. We will be like Jesus—perfect, holy, joyful, peaceful, and restful.

Resoluteness is Next to Godliness

Published on by D. G. Hart27 Comments

Tim Challies never uses the word sanctification in connection with New Year’s resolutions, but why you would encourage Christians to pray about resolving to improve oneself (like walking more and talking less) is uncertain:

HOW TO MAKE A RESOLUTION THAT STICKS
Do you want to make a resolution that sticks? Then here’s what you can do:

Make 1 resolution and make it a specific and realistic one—big enough to be meaningful, but small and defined enough to be attainable.

Decide what habits you will need to break and what habits you will need to form in order to succeed.

Create a plan that will train you in that new habit while replacing any negative habits.

Tell a friend about your plan and ask him to check in with you on a regular basis.

Plan in advance how you will meet with temptation and how you will deal with failure.

Pray consistently and persistently.

Some critics of white evangelicalism complain that the movement is too middle-class, that it baptizes habits that attend success in the business and economic world as fruit of the Spirit.

Again, Challies does not mention the s-word. But he has prepared sanctification spread sheets before. I’m beginning to wonder if the New Calvinists can tell the difference between Jonathan Edwards’ post-conversion resolutions and Ben Franklin’s advice for self-improvement. (In point of fact, I’m not sure I can.)

The Unintended Outcomes of Obedience

Published on by D. G. Hart15 Comments

H. L. Mencken was surrounded by Obedience Boys and Girls while he was growing up. His name for them was Puritan. Their example to him was not one of emulation but a self-righteousness that bred revulsion:

The service that [Anthony Comstock] performed, in his grandiose way, was no more than a magnification of humble Y.M.C.A. secretaries, evangelical clergymen, and other such lowly fauna. It is their function in the world to ruin their ideas by believing in them and living them. Striving sincerely to be patterns to the young, they suffer the ironical fate of becoming horrible examples. I remember very well, how, as a boy of ten, I was articled to the Y.M.C.A.: the aim was to improve my taste for respectability and so curb my apparently natural flair for the art and mystery of the highwayman. But a few months of contact with the official representatives of that great organization filled me with a vast loathing, not only for the men themselves, but also for all the ideas they stood for. Thus, at the age of eleven, I abandoned Christian Endeavor forevermore, and have been an antinomian ever since, contumacious to holy men and resigned to Hell. Old Anthony, I believe, accomplished much the same thing that the Y.M.C.A. achieved with me, but on an immeasurably larger scale. He did more than any other man to ruin Puritanism in the United States. When he began his long and brilliant career of unwitting sabotage, the essential principles of comstockery were believed in by practically every reputable American. Half a century later, when he went upon the shelf, comstockery enjoyed a degree of public esteem, at least in the big cities, half way between that enjoyed by phrenology and that enjoyed by homosexuality. It was, at best, laughable. It was, at worst, revolting. (“Souvenirs of a Book Reviewer,” Prejudices: Sixth Series)

Of course, the take away is not to throw in the towel and join Mencken’s antinomian team. It is rather to consider what happens when you tout sanctity in such a public and implicitly self-sanctimonious way. Perhaps the path of sanctification lies less in calling attention to yourself as an advocate of it and than in living a quiet and peaceful life.

How about Every Single Second of Every Single Day?

Published on by D. G. Hart8 Comments

Tim Challies would have us believe — channeling John Owen — that temptations to sin come in seasons, the way the leaves turn colors:

We live in a world that is full of temptation. There is no rest from sin and no rest from temptation to sin. There is not a single moment when we can relax our vigilance. As John Owen says, we can leave sin alone when sin leaves us alone, and that will not be until we are on the far side of the grave.

Temptations can be like the waves of the sea as they break along the beach—they rise and fall, they ebb and flow. Yet temptations are not entirely unpredictable, and there are certain times in life in which they are more likely to press hard than in others. Here are 4 times or seasons in which you need to be especially vigilant against temptation.

TMI about (all about) me, but I wish temptations came so seasonally. But if every time I leave the house I’m annoyed if someone gets in my way (on the road, sidewalk, stairs, hallway, or cafeteria line), how gradual is that?

And I thought these guys were the great explorers of the soul’s depths.

Lutheran Obedience Boy

Published on by D. G. Hart53 Comments

I will hand it to Rick Phillips. At least when he talks about good works he doesn’t try to yuck it up as certain Canadian pastors try to have a laugh while being earnestly Owenian. Even so, I’m not sure that Phillips captures the biblical motivation for good works because of an apparent need to reject gratitude as the only basis for sanctification. For instance, when he write this I get confused:

But does not Paul plainly warn that Christians will be judged for both “good or evil”? The answer is yes, but that we must set it alongside Romans 8:1, which declares, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Christians need not fear any condemnation when Jesus returns. Nor should we anticipate shaming for our failures, in which case we could hardly look forward to the Second Coming as, Paul says, “our blessed hope” (Tit. 2:13). Christ bore all the guilt and shame of our sin and failure on the cross! So where does the judgment of our “evil” come in as believers? I think the best biblical answer is found in 1 Corinthians 3:13-15: “Each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it… If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” Here we have a saved person whose life work yielded little return for eternity, and the example is given as a warning to us. The penalty for demerits here is not condemnation or shame, but rather a lamentable loss of heavenly reward.

In considering the many biblical passages that speak of a future evaluation of believers’ lives, the overwhelming emphasis lies on the side of rewards. This is not surprising, since Jesus paid the penalty for our sins in his atoning death. Since there will be no tears, mourning, or crying in heaven (Rev. 21:4), Christians may look forward to Christ’s return with an overwhelming expectation of divine approval and reward. And this anticipation is treated in the Bible as a very significant source of motivation for sanctification and Christian service. The true danger of unholy or unfaithful living among professing believers is not that they will wear tarnished crowns in heaven but that they will not be admitted to heaven at all, their ungodliness having been the death knell of a false profession and unregenerate life.

So Christians don’t have to be fear being embarrassed in glory for having fewer crowns than the really really sanctified. No one will be lamenting anything. That’s good news. But then there’s the threat that my lapses into ungodliness may actually mean that this “professing” believer will “not be admitted to heaven at all” since my sin is the evidence of a “false profession and unregenerate life.” So much for “no condemnation.”

Maybe the Lutherans can rescue the Reformed Obedience boys. Nathan Rinne not only informs us that Lutherans really do believe in the third use of the law, contrary to the Lutheran detractors among the holiness wing of Reformed Protestants. He also explains why resting in the forgiveness of Christ (which could be pretty close to gratitude) is the best motivation for genuine holiness. Here are the three levels of obedience to the law:

At the level of outward conformity:

Christians obey due to authorities who need to use coercion (parents, teachers, pastors, neighbors, etc) because they are letting their old man get a hold of their new man (hence we read later: “But *the believer* without any coercion and with a willing spirit, *in so far as he is reborn*, does what no threat of the law could ever have wrung from him”). What this means is that the believer, in so far as he is not reborn, does good only when it is wrung out of him – maybe even by using explicitly stated rewards and punishments. Again though, these coerced works are not “works of the law” per se, because they are still done by believers, and the blood of Christ covers these forced works, making them pleasing in the eyes of God.

So we need forgiveness for good works done for the wrong reasons. A better motivation is:

Christians obey willingly without coercion, due to their putting their old man in its place – by their new man (not Christ, but the new nature that wills – “not my will…” – to cooperate with Christ’s Spirit) who is eager to do so, and spontaneously does so more or less consciously (in other words, they cheerfully and joyfully make the decision, in cooperation with Christ’s Spirit, to do something in the midst of a necessary fight vs. their old man, utilizing even “teaching, admonition, force, threatening of the Law,….the club of punishments[,] and troubles” themselves against their old man – their old nature).

Even better is being in a state of unconsciously following God’s law, perhaps out of a sense of knowing that we no longer face condemnation and are grateful to have the burden of the law removed so that it becomes simply the w-w of the Christian:

Christians obey willingly without coercion either more or less unconsciously (in other words, they simply do something without needing to fight much vs. their old man). Ideally, we do these good works more and more spontaneously, as Old Adam’s strength dissipates – while never fully disappearing in this life. Here, again, we think about Luther’s famous words introducing the book of Romans…. “When [Christ, the fulfiller of the law] is present, the law loses its power. It cannot administer wrath because Christ has freed us from it. Then he brings the Holy Spirit to those who believe in him that they might delight in the law of the Lord, according to the first psalm (Ps. 1:2). In this way their souls are recreated with [the Law] in view and this Spirit gives them the will that they might do it. In the future life, however, they will have the will to do the law not only in Spirit, but also in flesh, which, as long as it lives here, strives against this delight. To render the law delightful, undefiled is therefore the office of Christ, the fulfiller of the law, whose glory and handiwork announce the heavens and the firmament, the apostles and their successors (Ps. 19:1, cf. Rom. 10:18).”

I don’t presume to know whether Mr. Rinne is right about the Lutheran confessions or Luther himself, but his posts are instructive for remembering that Lutherans really do believe in sanctification. He may also indicate that the Lutheran Obedience Boys have a much more satisfying account of the place of the law in the believers’ life. Rather than engaging in some sort of calculus about penalties, demerits, and rewards (or — uh oh — worse), the Lutherans seem to have found a way to make the law a delight.

Who knew?

From DGH on Weak on Holiness Submitted on 2014/11/21 at 1:55 pm (PST)

Published on by D. G. Hart47 Comments

Mark,

Too funny.

Owen was a hoot.

Piece o' Cake?

Published on by D. G. Hart79 Comments

Not only can Christians put sin to death, they can also take charge of email (and more and more and more). Tim Challies explains how.

Here’s point 7 out of 9 on the sin front:

#7. BATTLE
Battle hard against the first awakenings of that sin. Never, ever allow yourself to play with sin. Never think you will sin this far, but no farther. Do not toy with sin. Do not think you can control your sin and allow only so much of it. If you do that, sin will win every time. The very second you feel that sin awakening within you, slam it down with all your force and all your strength. Cry out to God in that very moment. Call for help from other Christians in that very moment. Sin is like water held back by a dam; the moment there is even a small crack in that dam, the weight of the water pushing against it will blow a hole right through it, and the entire structure will collapse.

Email may not be as significant as sin but it prevents us from glorifying God (which is a form of sin, right?) and requires a similar set of instructions:

I have said that productivity is effectively stewarding your gifts, talents, time, energy, and enthusiasm for the good of others and the glory of God, and to this point I have suggested many different ways of doing that (You can see a series round-up at the bottom of this article). Our topic for this article is taming the email beast.

I think we all have a love-hate relationship with email. On the one hand email brings many good things—it delivers exciting news, encouragement from friends, and fun little notes from family members. It also has immense practical value—it delivers confirmation that the ticket order went through, or that the book we want is on sale. But, of course, there is a dark side as well—the endless spam, the email discussions that go on for far too long, the newsletters we didn’t sign up for, the chain letters promising bad luck if we don’t forward it to twenty more people. Email has become a mess of function and dysfunction. We need it, and yet we hate it.

Is this what Christian counseling sounds like?

Tim Challies’ advice may be helpful on fronts both trivial and sublime (though I usually expect more from Canadians). But I find it troubling to see a mechanical approach to both the gadgets of this earthly existence and mysterious depths of the sin-plagued soul. For the sake of New Calvinism and in the interest of taking such an expression of Calvinism seriously, I suggest that Challies try to sound less like Martha Stewart and more like Paul (“oh, wretched man that I am”).

Putting a Point on It

Published on by D. G. Hart33 Comments

John Calvin as early as 1536 put the problem with sin and the law this way:

For while the law, as has already been demonstrated, leaves not one man righteous, we are either excluded from all hope of justification, or we must be loosed from the law, and so loosed as that no account at all shall be taken of works. For he who imagines that in order to obtain justification he must bring any degree of works whatever, cannot fix any mode or limit, but makes himself debtor to the whole law. Therefore, laying aside all mention of the law, and all idea of works, we must in the matter of justification have recourse to the mercy of God only; turning away our regard from ourselves, we must look only to Christ. For the question is, not how we may be righteous, but how, though unworthy and unrighteous, we may be regarded as righteous. If consciences would obtain any assurance of this, they must give no place to the law. (Institutes 3.19.2)

The obedience boys may have us think that Calvin is merely talking about justification, as if justification, the material principle of the Reformation, deserves a merely. So does the law become any less demanding when we talk about sanctification which is partial and imperfect in this life? Somehow the law is ineffective when it comes to justification but it is a walk in the park when it comes to sanctification? Not if you’re going to keep your conscience free (or do justice to the Belgic Confession):

We believe that for us to acquire the true knowledge of this great mystery the Holy Spirit kindles in our hearts a true faith that embraces Jesus Christ, with all his merits, and makes him its own, and no longer looks for anything apart from him.

For it must necessarily follow that either all that is required for our salvation is not in Christ or, if all is in him, then he who has Christ by faith has his salvation entirely.

Therefore, to say that Christ is not enough but that something else is needed as well is a most enormous blasphemy against God– for it then would follow that Jesus Christ is only half a Savior. And therefore we justly say with Paul that we are justified “by faith alone” or by faith “apart from works. (Art 22)

Or this:

Moreover, although we do good works we do not base our salvation on them; for we cannot do any work that is not defiled by our flesh and also worthy of punishment. And even if we could point to one, memory of a single sin is enough for God to reject that work. (Art 24)

It seems to me that the sixteenth-century Protestants identified salvation with justification because that was the benefit in which believers received the perfect righteousness of Christ. Anything less than perfection, graciously induced or not, whether on the Roman Catholic scheme or the Norman Shepherd plan, was not going to save.

Again, I wonder why, why, oh why, Protestants would take exception to making justification a priority?