And now for something completely different

A friend of mine insisted I read The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Farrar Capon, so I found a used copy on Amazon and read it last Winter. This is probably the best book I have ever read.

The Supper of the Lamb is ostensibly a cook book. It centers on a single recipe: "Lamb for eight persons four times." It's a preparation of a leg of lamb that makes four meals to feed eight people each. At least, that's the excuse for writing the book.  The first thing to understand about this recipe is that it's a recipe for a feast, not for a single dish. So there are recipes for appetizers, soups, entrees, and desserts. 

I haven't tried any of the recipes. My copy of the book is the 1996 printing, and the recipes show their age. There's a curry recipe in there that's clearly aimed at an audience with only the slightest acquaintance with Indian spices, for example. It would be a challenge to find the ingredients in these recipes as written, and it's likely there much better ingredients that are now available. That being said, I should probably try at least some of them.

But the recipes are the least interesting thing about this book. What makes this book extraordinary is that it's a recipe book for a feast, written by an Anglican priest who presents cooking and eating as acts of worship. This isn't a book about how to cook lamb so much as it's a book about how to cook to the glory of God. And it's extraordinary.

"Separate the secular from the sacred, and the world becomes an idol shrouded in interpretations" (p. 88). Notice how closely he echoes Francis Schaeffer here: if we separate "grace" from "nature," then "nature" always consumes "grace." That lesson took me decades to learn, even after I had read through Schaeffer in university. That is the spirit of this book: treat everything we do as something done under Christ's Lordship, and do it well.

The second chapter ("The first Session") is all about how to cut an onion. It is a sort of a kitchen technique chapter, but it's so much more. It's a chapter about how an onion is part of the creation of our loving God. It's about how the dryness of onion skin shows His perfect skill as Creator (p. 13). It's about how God doesn't create filler: everything He made was made with purpose, and it ought to draw our hearts to Him. It is a meditation on the heart of God, driven by holding an onion and cutting it.

 

Chapter five ("Wave Breast and Heave Shoulder") talks about how we kill to eat, and how our loving God set it up that way: "a world in which no sparrow falls unknown, but where... it is the Father's will that sparrows fall" (p. 48). He writes about how we long for a world in which God will make the lion lie down with the lamb, while not making the lion any less a lion or the lamb any less a lamb (p. 49). It is impossible for us to imagine what that might look like: we tend to want to make the lions more like lambs, or the lambs more like lions. But that is not how God  made them: and only He can envision how He will make them lie down together in His holy mountain (Isaiah 11:6–9).

We are carnivores and killers, and we ought to seek to glorify God in that, instead of seeking to glorify God by making ourselves less. I haven't read anything on the millennium as poignant or insightful as that.

And ultimately, our life flows from the Lord Jesus, who gave Himself so that we can have life. Our physical need of food illustrates our spiritual need of His body and blood given for us, to be our food (John 6:47ff). "Our home ground remains what it always has been: bloody ground and holy ground at once" (p. 45).

 

Chapter eight ("Water in Excelsis") is largely a discussion of wine. Sugar, yeast, and fermentation are good things, made by our loving God:

God makes wine. For all its difficulties, there is no way around the doctrine of creation. But notice the tense: He makes, not made. He did not create once upon a time, only to find himself saddled now with the unavoidable and embarrassing result of that first rash decision... It was St. Thomas, I think, who pointed out long ago that if God wanted to get rid of the universe, He would not have to do anything; He would have to stop doing something. (pp. 84–85) 

Now personally, I'm not a huge fan of wine. I don't object to anyone drinking it; I just don't have a palate for it. Still, I try not to bring bad wine as a hostess gift. But the greater point stands: we are to do all things – even mundane things like eating and drinking – in the name of our Lord Jesus, giving thanks to the Father through Him (Colossians 3:17). And an austere, begrudging attitude around them is not honoring God in them. God is not honored in what is offered grudgingly (2 Corinthians 9:7).

 

I set out to mark passages in this book in order to give a better review. But instead I found myself reading it again.  So I'm going to give up and just enjoy giving it another read. I'll enjoy his recipes for Spätzle and Danish and strudel. I'll take his advice about weight loss too (he recommended intermittent fasting, decades before it was cool). I'll enjoy his commentaries on cocktail parties and dinner parties and place settings, and seat assignments. This book is just too good.

 

This book is ultimately a book about how to mundane things to the glory of God, in the name of Christ (Colossians 3:17). It's a book about something we all have to do: we all have to eat. But eating grudgingly, so to speak, isn't doing all things in the name of Christ. Eating in the name of Christ includes making our eating about fellowship and worship. It includes thanking the Father. It includes looking past what we are eating to the loving heart of God that created it.

I consider this the best book I have read partly because of its content, but also because Capon understood that "the medium is the message." It is vaguely scriptural in the sense that it contains prose, stories, parables, and even poetry. There's too much there for us to take it all in as a dissertation. And a dissertation wouldn't communicate his vision to us nearly as effectively as this diverse collection does. Some things are to be understood intellectualy, others are best understood in verse.

There is no doubt in my mind that Robert Farrar Capon would disagree with me on many, many things. But I want to learn from him how to break down that wall of division in my own heart between "sacred" and "mundane" things. I want to learn to do the "all things" in the name of Christ, thanking the Father for them and in them. I want to understand and know that even when I'm doing something as mundane as cutting an onion, it is an opportunity to honor Him, see His heart in that onion, and receive it gratefully for what is is: a gift He has given.

 

 

Searching for nuance

I am an insomniac. It runs in the family, and I don't have it nearly so bad as some of my family members. So I'm not trying to complain, but I have spent many a night staring at the ceiling.

One thing I have found that helps me fall asleep is listening to an audio book or to a recording of a sermon. There's a delicate balance here: if an audio book is too interesting, then it keeps me awake, instead of putting me to sleep. The solution to that seems to be listening to something many, many times. In other words, I have a small collection of recordings that work for me, partly because I've listened to them so many times already.

Among my go-to recordings is a message on "The Dangers of Calvinism and Arminianism." I have listened to it dozens of times, perhaps even hundreds of times. I refer to it as "the unhinged rant on Calvinism," because it's an excellent example of unhinged ranting. Of course there are some good points in that talk, but they're not very thick on the ground.

So it's fair to say I listen to someone talking about the dangers of Calvinism at least weekly, if not several times every week.

I'm not quite sure what happened, but over the last few decades there has been a real trend for "anti-Calvinism" among "brethren." While I don't want to advocate for (or against) Calvinism, I've been interested to see this trend solidify into what sometimes seems like an obsession. I'm concerned that it has come to approach unhealthy levels.

I bring that up only to say that the anti-Calvinist teaching exemplifies what we might call an asymmetry that seems common when we take up any controversial topic. That is a tendency to look at Scripture texts that seem to agree with us and say, "it's right there in the text!" while at the same time calling for nuance in the passages that seem (at face value) to support the opposite view. So we call for nuance when it's convenient and "face value" when it's convenient.

As an example, in those messages on "The Dangers of Calvinism," a great deal of weight is placed on the number of times the Scripture uses the term "whosoever." But when the speaker mentions 2 Thessalonians 2:13, he launches into a very nuanced discussion of what "salvation" really means. In this context, he says, it can't possibly mean "personal, individual salvation."

I've pondered this a lot over the last few years. It seems there's a danger for all of us to "proof text" on the verses that seem to say what we want them to say, while looking for infinite nuance in any verse we don't like. None of us are exempt: we all do it.

The point is this: if all of us has a tendency to take our proof texts at face value – while looking for an escape from the "other guy's" proof texts in a nuanced reading– then it seems to me we would all do well to apply that same level of nuance to every text. That seems like a reasonable approach to me, especially since we already know can't trust ourselves. 

So I have been trying to make a point of reading every verse in its context, reading every verse as nuanced as though it attacked one of my pet doctrines on its face.  That might mean I am going to lose some proof texts to nuance. 

There is a Sunday School song that summarizes Jeremiah 23:29, 

God's word is like a hammer that breaketh the rock in twain

The song has been playing in my head a lot today. It's worth remembering that of all the rocks the Word of God might break, my own heart is the one that would do me the most good.

We don't need proof the other guy is wrong nearly so much as we need our own hearts broken before God. It's probably better for us to be suspicious when a verse says what we want it to say than for us to be suspicious when it doesn't.

One recurring theme for me has been learning to give the Word of God space to speak. There are plenty of texts that don't say what I want or expect them to say. Those texts seem to pay the most for the time investment I put into them. To be fair, there are "problem verses" for almost any doctrine you choose. Take either side of any debated issue, and you'll find verses that are hard for you to explain. but those verses are the ones that seem to carry the biggest rewards.

If you're a Dispensationalist, for example, it might be worth meditating on Deuteronomy 29:1ff. Yes, there are two Mosaic Covenants in Scripture: what is the impact of that on your understanding of dispensations? If you lean to Calvinism, you might want to spend some time looking at the first six chapters of Genesis. Pay special attention to words like "repent" and "relent." They might surprise you. If you lean to Arminianism, spend some time in John 6 or Romans 9. Really read them, consider carefully why Paul assumes his teaching of election will offend you (Romans 9:19). Does Romans 9? Will you let it?

And whatever you do, don't reach for that pat answer you've adopted to shield your heart and conscience from the Word of God. Let it hurt a bit. Take it in. You might find those become the verses that reward you the most.

And then, when we find ourselves in those passages that seem to say what we want them to, let's try and find some nuance. Are we understanding them in context? Is it possible we are right, but this particular verse really isn't one that supports our view? That happens a lot.

Not every verse supports every truth. I've mentioned Romans 6:23 a lot on this blog: it's an important verse, but it's not a gospel verse. It's not talking about God's just judgment on sins we have committed; it's talking about the wages we as justified believers can expect to be paid when we obey indwelling sin as our master. So let's not rip it from its context, even if our intentions are pure.

So that's my goal: to read every verse with nuance, not just the ones that don't seem to agree with me. I'm not sure I do it very well, but I think it's a worthy goal.

 

 

 

In retrospect

One of my favorite features of Scripture is the internal commentary. I love the parts that comment on other (usually earlier) passages. Sometimes those commentaries add a bit of color to the earlier passages. Sometimes they seem to change the whole story.

Deuteronomy is a good example. Moses' commentary on the events from Exodus through Numbers adds nuance on some places, clarifies what the take-home message is in others, and sometimes seems to change the entire story.

For example, Numbers 13:1–16 tells us about the spies that Moses sends into the land from Kadesh-barnea. In the Numbers account, the Lord commands Moses to send the spies into the land. But Deuteronomy 1:22–25 tells us that sending the spies was the people's idea, and Moses agreed to it. In light of the commentary in Deuteronomy, it seems like the Lord's command in Numbers 13 was not to choose spies, but to send them into the land.

Another example might be Deuteronomy 10:1–5. Here Moses tells us about receiving the second set of tablets at Sinai, which is also told in Exodus 34:1–9. In both accounts, Moses is to bring stone tablets up the mountain; but in the account in Deuteronomy, he was told to build an ark for them first. I suppose that could be the Ark of the Covenant, but the description in Deuteronomy suggests it was something else. As far as I know, only Deuteronomy 10 mentions this ark.

We might also mention the relationships between 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles. There are several accounts in 1 and 2 Kings that read very differently in light of the accounts in Chronicles. As an example, the story of Manasseh in 2 Kings 21:1–18 reads very differently than the same story in 2 Chronicles 33:1–20. It seems from both books that Manasseh is the worst king Judah had (2 Kings 24:3, 2 Chronicles 33:9, Jeremiah 15:1–4). But the account in 2 Chronicles tells us that Manasseh repented, the account in 2 Kings doesn't mention that.

As an aside, Manasseh's reign was the longest of any king of either Israel or Judah: 55 years (1 Kings 21:1). I think it's significant that the Lord allows the worst king to reign the longest, eventually bringing him to repentance. There are hints of Romans 2:4 in that.

Our favorite passage is Romans 4:1–8. Notice how that seems to turn the Old Testament on its head: Abraham is God's friend (James 2:23),  but it's not because he was a particularly good person. Abraham was God's friend because he believed what God said. 

Or we might notice how Romans 3:20 sums up the entire Old Testament in one sentence: "by law comes the knowledge of sin." We'll follow J. N. Darby here to point out that it's "sin," not "sins." Romans isn't claiming that the Mosaic Law told us that specific acts are sins, as though we hadn't already known.  Rather, it reveals to us our own indwelling sin. It demonstrates that fallen men and women are incapable of submitting to God. And we might notice that Moses' commentary of the exodus says the same thing (Deuteronomy 29:4).

Romans 9:6ff is another commentary on Scripture that turns the Old Testament accounts on their heads. We might read about Isaac and Ishmael (Romans 9:7ff), Jacob and Esau (Romans 9:11ff), or the children of Israel at Sinai (Romans 9:15-16) from the Pentatuech and not see what the Spirit of God brings out in Romans. But if we take Romans 9 to heart and look back at those stories, they read very differently.

I've probably read too much Darby, but I really think Romans 9:15–16 (quoting Exodus 33:19) is the crux of Christianity. God can either condemn us, or He can "hide in His sovereignty" and show us grace. There's not a third option. God would be entirely righteous simply to condemn us all. In fact, His righteous nature would drive Him to do exactly that. He can only act in grace towards us – any of us – by claiming His right to sovereignty as our Creator.

Now, I really don't like using words like "sovereignty" because Scripture does not. Or at least, it doesn't use it much, I guess we might claim 1 Timothy 6:15 (NASB) as justification. But in the end, the idea is there, even if the word isn't. "I will have mercy upon whom I have mercy" shows exactly on what ground God can show mercy to us. 

And that ties into our earlier thoughts about Manasseh and his 55-year reign. God chose to have mercy on Manasseh and He did. He gave the worst king the longest time to repent.

That's worth mulling over.

 

Idolatry

Ezekiel 20 is a favorite chapter of mine. It's pretty depressing, to be honest, but it's one of those places where God Himself makes a commentary on the scriptures. I try to make note of those passages; it seems to me that God's commentary on scripture is probably the most helpful thing there is.

Ezekiel 20:1–8 opens with the claim that the children of Israel were worshiping idols in Egypt (Ezekiel 20:7–8). In fact, God says there that He commanded them to throw away their Egyptian idols, and they refused. He goes on to say (Ezekiel 20:15–16) that they were worshiping "their idols" in the wilderness. In context, that would seem to indicate the same idols they had been worshiping in Egypt.

Then in Ezekiel 20:27ff makes the claim that idolatry characterized their time in Canaan.

When I read the history of Joshua through 2 Chronicles, I tend to see it as a pattern of idolatry, judgment, repentance, restoration, then the cycle repeats. That's probably most evident in Judges, but it seems to hold for the entire history from Joshua to the Babylonian Captivity.  But Ezekiel 20 gives a different view of that history: it's one long story of uninterrupted idolatry. From the fathers worshiping idols in Egypt (Ezekiel 20:7) to the elders of Israel worshiping idols in Babylon (Ezekiel 20:1–3), there is an unbroken history of idolatry.

As an aside: when Joshua gathers the people to Shechem (Joshua 24:1ff), he calls on the people to "put away the gods" their fathers served "beyond the River" and in Egypt (Joshua 24:14). We like to quote Joshua 24:15 ("choose ye this day whom you will serve") as a gospel verse, but in context, Joshua is telling them they should choose whether they want to serve the Canaanite gods or the Chaldean gods, since they weren't apparently interested in serving the Lord. 

And of course this is what happens at Shechem. Jacob confiscated his family's idols and buried them under the oak near Shechem (Genesis 35:1–4) . They buried Joseph's bones in Shechem too (Joshua 24:32), which is suggestive. I suspect this is where Christ met the woman at the well (John 4:1–5).

But the point of Ezekiel 20 is that – at least from God's point of view – idolatry isn't a sin into which Israel fell repeatedly in the Old Testament. Rather, it's the sin that never really stopped the entire time. This is how God sees the history from Joshua through Ezekiel.

We should be thankful that God loves idolaters. It's striking to me that Scripture mentions Asenath by name three times (Genesis 41:45, 50; Genesis 46:20) and in every case, it tells us that she is the daughter of the priest of On. There's a message in that: when God chooses a wife for His man, He chooses her from idolaters.  Ezekiel 20:17 makes the same point right in the middle of the litany of their sins: God took pity on those idolaters He redeemed from Egypt.

I suppose that ties back into John 4 as well: the Lord Jesus went through Samaria to meet a wicked woman and tell her about His gift to her. And not only that woman, but "many people" in her city believed in Him (John 4:39–45). In fact, they asked Him to stay with them and He did (John 4:40). I can't find many places in the Gospels where people ask the Lord to stay with them, and I can't find a single one where He doesn't accept the invitation.

Of course you and I have a lot in common with those idolaters He redeemed from Egypt. We, like them, tend to hang pretty tightly to our idols. And He still has compassion on us, just like He did on them. We're a lot more like Asenath than we are like Joseph: but praise God! He loves to take pity on idolaters.

Lost and Saved

J. N. Darby wrote:

People don't believe [they are lost]. They believe that they have sinned, and that Christ has died for their sins; but that does not touch this question of being lost.

But if I get the consciousness of being lost now already, and that Christ dealt with that on the cross also; I then get saved, and that now, and that is just what people have not got thoroughly. They know neither what it is to be lost, nor what it is to be saved.

"Salvation and Separation" Notes and Jottings, p. 46

When I read Darby, I notice how he insists again and again on this idea that the believer in Christ has been brought into an entirely new place. It might remind us of Colossians 1:12–13, we have been "translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love." Darby's writing on Romans 7 and 8 centers on this idea: that there is a qualitative difference between someone "in Romans 7" and someone "in Romans 8." It's the change summarized in Romans 7:5–6.

We think a lot about Romans 4:1–8 around here, and remind ourselves that God justifies the one who does not work, but believes (cf Acts 13:38–39). God justifies the one who believes without works. God justifies the ungodly. These are things we can't remember too often, because they are the foundation of peace with God (Romans 5:1).

But Romans 4:1–8 insists these are Old Testament truths. God didn't start justifying the ungodly after the Cross. That's how Abraham (before the Law) and David (under the Law) were justified in God's sight. This is how God justified sinners from Abel on. God has only ever justified sinners on the principle of faith. This isn't something new, although the Cross revealed how God could do it while still remaining righteous (Romans 3:23–26). God can justify justly because Christ has died. God isn't becoming an accomplice to our sins after the fact by helping us cover them up. He has dealt with our sins in the violent and bloody death of Christ.

And notice how completely the Old Testament doctrine of justification is taught (Romans 4:6–8): the one who believes is one "to whom the Lord shall not at all reckon sin" (Romans 4:8). It's not merely that God justifies us from all sins up to the point that we believed: it's that God now considers the believer as one whose sins are not to be counted. 

This Old Testament truth goes far beyond the faith of many who claim to be New Testament saints.

So Romans 1–4 addresses what we sometimes call the "forensic" side of the Gospel. Man is guilty, men and women need to be justified, or they will be condemned. Romans 5 begins to address what we might call the "ontological" side of the Gospel: Man is lost, man is a sinner. 

John 3 addresses Man's "lostness" too. The Lord tells Nicodemus that we must be "born again" if we want to see the Kingdom of God (John 3:1–7). Interestingly, the Lord tells Nicodemus (John 3:10) that he ought to have known this as a "teacher of Israel." So just like Romans 4 builds the doctrine of justification by faith entirely on the Old Testament, John classifies the need for new birth as an "Old Testament truth." We might find it in Deuteronomy 29:4, or maybe in Ezekiel 36:25–27, or maybe in Jeremiah 17:5–9. Either way, it's certain the Lord considered that to be something "a teacher of Israel" ought to have known from the Old Testament.

But then the Lord Jesus beings up something the Old Testament doesn't mention: "eternal life" (John 3:14ff). 

John's Gospel doesn't talk about the Lord dying for sins. John doesn't teach justification, he teaches eternal life. In John's Gospel, Christ dies to give life to sinners who have none. More than half the mentions of "eternal life" in Scripture are in John's Gospel and his first epistle. Paul mentions "eternal life" eleven times (including twice in Acts), so it's not a foreign thing to Paul's writings; but if we want to understand eternal life, we need to look at John.

So here in John's Gospel, we go beyond the Old Testament (if we can say it that way) to something new around John 3:14, when the Lord discusses eternal life. 

In Romans, we go beyond the Old Testament somewhere around Romans 5:10, when we see the discussion of Adam and Christ. One man brought death on us all, the other Man brought life (Romans 5:17).

And this – to get back to our point – is where we deal with salvation. Salvation is an Old Testament truth in the sense that it's both taught and modeled in Exodus 14:13ff. But how God brings us salvation in Romans 5:10ff and John 3:14ff is a new thing. God brings us salvation by union with Christ.

Romans 6:1–11 teaches salvation in terms of baptism. Having been baptized into Christ, I have been baptized into His death. This frees me from who I was "in Adam" and brings me into relationship with God. Being freed from sin, I can now live righteously (Romans 6:13). This isn't Old Testament truth: this is new.

John 15:1–8 teaches this same principle. We are united with Christ as branches are united to the vine they grow out of. The fruit isn't really produced by the branches, but by the vine that produces the branches as well. It's not surprising that John presents this with an organic metaphor: it's very in character for him. But when we examine John's Gospel, we find that all his organic metaphors are built on the Lord's own words in John 3:14 - the Son of Man must be lifted up. So here, too, we have the Crucifixion as the foundation underlying our union with Him.

I don't doubt that John 15:1–8 and Romans 8:1–17 are describing exactly the same thing.

So back to where we started with Darby... there is a difference between being guilty and being lost. Frankly, some of what I've heard from "Christians" sounds like they're not even so sure of the former. But generally speaking, Christians acknowledge their guilt, and their need for justification. But that's really just Old Testament truth. It's not Christianity at all. 

I mean, it's true. But it's only the opening chapters of Romans.

To go as far as Romans goes – as far as the first few verses of John 3 goes – is to understand that I am not only guilty, but also entirely ruined. There's nothing in me for God to work with (Romans 7:18). It's not that I'm basically a good person who did some bad things, I am a bad person who has acted according to his nature. 

And God has dealt with that too.

Salvation is something much bigger than justification. It's not merely that Christ has died for my sins, but that I have died with Christ. It's not merely that my sins are forgiven, but He is my life. It's not just that I have been justified freely from all things (Acts 13:38–39) – although this would be an improvement over most of the "gospel preaching" I have heard in the last 45 or so years – it's that I am accepted in Christ, and have life in the Son. It's not merely that what I have done has been dealt with, but what I am has been dealt with too.

Of course none of this means we should abandon the truth of justification by faith alone in Christ alone. There can be no Christian life when the question of eternal judgment has not been put to rest. But stopping at justification is stopping in Psalm 32. To live out the life that the Apostles lived – to be what the New Testament calls a "saint" – is to live in an entirely new order of things.

And this is why I wrote several years ago that baptism is the gateway to the Christian life. I wasn't meaning to suggest that we are regenerated in baptism, or justified in baptism, or born again in baptism. I was trying to say that the message of baptism ("I have died with Christ") is where Christianity goes on from Judaism. The Old Testament teaches forgiveness of sins. It even teaches the need for new birth. What it doesn't teach is union with Christ. And that union is what differentiates Christianity from what came before.

 

Not that lost

J. N. Darby had a real gift for coining a phrase. One that has been in the back of my mind recently is, "man's pretension not to be entirely lost" ("Letter on Free-will", Collected Writings, Vol. 10, p 185). In context, he was discussing "the doctrine of free-will." I'm going to take his phrase out of context and use it a bit more generally here.

R. A. Huebner used a similar phrase several times in his book The Sovereignty and Glory of God in the Election and Salvation of Lost Men (which is worth a read): "I'm lost, but not that lost!" It's not as clear as Darby's little phrase, but it might be a little easier to throw into conversation.

2 Corinthians 4:6 compares God's work in our hearts to His commanding light to shine out of darkness. I have spent a lot of time contemplating that comparison: it captures so much truth in just a few words. The God who can work in our hearts is the God who calls something from nothing. Any other god isn't enough for lost sinners. A god who needs something to work with isn't going to find the raw materials he needs in lost sinners. But the God who creates something from nothing – that God can do something with us, because what we have to offer (nothing) is exactly the raw materials He needs.

Romans 4:16–17 tells us Abraham believed in the God "who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist" (LSB). That's the God that can save lost sinners: the God who calls into being what doesn't exist. The God who raises the dead (2 Corinthians 1:9) is the only God who can save truly lost sinners.

That's not to say that lost men and women are nothing. But it is to say that there's nothing in us for God to work with (cf Romans 7:18). And we are thankful for a God who doesn't need raw materials! We are thankful to have been captured by the God who can make something from nothing.

An unbeliever might betray himself by pretending that he's not all that bad. An unbeliever might try to assuage her conscience with the observation that there are others who are worse. But God justifies the one who does not work, and instead believes on Him who justifies the ungodly (Romans 4:5). It's the one who says, "Praise God! He justifies the ungodly, that means me!" who finds peace with God. The one who refuses to stop working, who refuses to admit his own ungodliness: that one finds there's no God who is able to justify him.

The need for men and women to pretend that we aren't entirely lost runs deep. It's not just something the sinners "out there" do, it's something we do. The sinners out there might find there's no God to justify them unless they admit they are ungodly; but we tend to forget that too, and it's as disastrous to our Christian lives as it is to their justification. We, too, like to pretend we're "not that lost." Sure, we were once unregenerate sinners, but we were saved, right? Now we are able to produce something for God.

A friend asked me a what made me realize the Christian life ("sanctification") was based on grace, not works. I replied, "when I sinned so big I knew there was no going back."  There came a point where I realized I had sinned so badly there was nothing I could do to fix it. That is how we learn God's grace.

But it goes deeper even than that: there came a point in my life when I realized the problem wasn't that I was basically a good person who had done some bad things, but that I did those bad things because I am a bad person. We tend to think we are sinners because we sin, but Romans 5:18ff tells us the opposite: we sin because we are sinners. We need to let that sink in: it's not that we are lost because we sin, but that we sin because we are lost.

And this is the problem addressed in Romans 7. It's not the same problem as Romans 6, although there are unifying principles between them. Romans 7:5–6 teaches that the effect of Law on a believer is not to produce righteousness, but to produce passions and lusts. That's an astonishing result, but it follows from what Romans 3:20 teaches us. "[T]hrough the Law comes the knowledge of sin" – not "sins," but "sin." Law teaches us not that this thing or that thing is a sin, but that sin dwells in us (Romans 7:20).

We expect that putting ourselves under Law would push us into righteousness, but we find that Law does exactly what God intended: it reveals to us that we are lost. And it does that by arousing our passions and lusts so that we do "lost" things.

So we might use Darby's little phrase to sum up more than just "the doctrine of free-will," we might use it to sum up all those efforts to use Law to curb our sinfulness: it's just man's pretension not to be entirely lost. If we knew how lost we are – if we believed God when He told us about ourselves – we'd know that applying Law to ourselves must end in condemnation.

If only we weren't lost, then we might be able to do something with Law. If only we weren't lost, we wouldn't need a Savior at all. Think about that.

So what Scripture really teaches is, we need a Savior as much after we believed as we did before. We don't come in to eternal life by God's grace and then walk in it by our efforts. No! We need to be saved just as much as believers as we did when we weren't.

And that's why Darby's little phrase has been in my head so much over the last little while: there are so many things we do that really amount to our pretending not to be entirely lost. And frankly, none of us has time for that kind of pretending. All those things that fail us even though we need so desperately for them to work: all those things are a waste of time to those who really are lost.

The only hope for a man or woman who really is entirely lost is grace. Our hope is that God will act in kindness towards us even though we don't deserve it. And the sooner we learn that applies not only to the sinners "out there," but to ourselves, the sooner we can make progress in our spiritual life.

 

 

 

 

Justifying ourselves, rather than God

 It is striking to read Elihu's reaction to Job and his friends (Job 32:2–3):

Then was kindled the anger of Elihu the son of Barachel, the Buzite, of the family of Ram: against Job was his anger kindled, because he justified himself rather than God; and against his three friends was his anger kindled, because they found no answer, and [yet] condemned Job.

Elihu's anger against Job's friends was because they "found no answer," but they continued to condemn Job. That's something that hasn't changed much since Job's time. There's no shortage of Christians willing to condemn a fellow believer, without the smallest regard to what Scripture says, or what the fellow believer says either. 

Elihu's appraisal of Job isn't that much better: Job justified himself, rather than God. This is a theme that carries through the entire Old and New Testament, and down to our day as well. It might remind us of the argument in Romans 9:18ff and Paul's (really the Holy Spirit's) response, "who are you to judge God?" It reminds us of Adam's excuses in the Garden (Genesis 3:12), it reminds us of the religious leaders in Christ's day, who were looking for glory from men, rather than from God (John 5:44).

We see this tendency in ourselves too. We, like Adam, look to justify ourselves at all costs: even if it means coming up with a reason that it's all really God's fault. We, like Paul's hypothetical objector, feel quite comfortable sitting in judgment of God. We, like the scribes and Pharisees in Christ's day, are a whole lot more concerned with what people think of us than we are with "the glory that comes from God alone."

I am convinced that all spiritual progress comes as we learn to see things as God sees them. God sees that we are guilty and need a savior, but it's only when we come 'round to His way of thinking that we can find salvation. God sees us as having died with Christ, but that doesn't help us all that much until we see it too. I'm sure that's what Paul was getting at in Philippians 3:8ff, "that I may be found in Him." Yes, God sees us always "in Christ," but there are real consequences to seeing ourselves in that same way.

Well, we learn in Philippians 3:9 that a man in Christ is a man with no righteousness of his own. "Not having my righteousness" is a fact that we need to accept. We need to be willing to say, "Christ my only righteousness." As far as I can tell, that's the only remedy for our need to justify ourselves, rather than God.

I can tell you from experience that it's really hard not to try to justify ourselves, even when we're in the wrong. We don't have to put any effort into it: the excuses fly into our minds and off our tongues with no effort at all. We can produce a hundred reasons why our sins are someone else's fault, and we can do it in an instant.

And honestly, we're no better when we really are in the right. This is where the danger really lies. 

As far as I can tell, Job really was blameless. His three friends spent several chapters trying to convince him he was in the wrong, but were unable to do so because he wasn't.  God didn't strike Job for any sin he had committed: he was "perfect and upright" (Job 1:1).

Job's problem wasn't that he was lying to his friends to justify himself: it was that he justified himself rather than God. Job ought to have been justifying God, but he didn't think of that, because he was so concerned with justifying himself.

If we consider Job 32:2–3 alongside Philippians 3:8–10, we see this contrast. On the one hand, we see an upright man justifying himself and forgetting to justify God. On the other, we see a man who says, "I don't want my own righteousness, only the righteousness God gives on the principle of faith." He's not going to justify himself, because he doesn't want credit for any good he has done. He doesn't want whatever goodness is in him, only the goodness that is in God.

I'm speaking practically here. It is true that all who are justified in God's sight are justified apart from their own works (Romans 3:21–24), on the basis of the death of Christ. But learning to accept that truth is a long and difficult process. We find ourselves justifying ourselves over and over again, instead of just accepting what God has already said.

It's possible for us to fear God and abstain from evil (Job 1:1). It's possible for us to do that and still be in the wrong. It's possible for us to be like the Pharisees: falling short of the kingdom of God while still being more righteous than those who do not. The righteousness of God through faith is for those who say, "Christ my only righteousness."