Repentance, penance, and absolution

Over the last year or so I've had several difficult conversations with friends and acquaintances who had found themselves overtaken in some fault or another. For whatever reason, they seemed to want to unburden themselves on me. Now, I don't object to being their sounding board: to the extend they think that's something they think they need, it's fine by me. But it seems to me there's a danger of which we should be aware: the danger of allowing repentance to become penance.

It seems to me there's a link between repentance and faith, and another between penance and unbelief. Repentance (at least, godly repentance) hinges on seeing ourselves as we are, and God as He is. Notice how Job 42:5–6 describes getting a right view of God, and how that drives Job to repentance.

Penance on the other hand, is an attempt to earn some sort of righteousness with God. Really, it boils down to unbelief: God has already told us we have no righteousness but Christ. God has already told us that Christ has borne our sins. God has already assured us that when we confess, He forgives. Looking for some sort of assurance outside of the word of God is not faith. Looking for some sort of merit in my own works – no matter how big or how small – is not faith. These things are the opposite of faith. They are unbelief.

So I suppose I would say the difference between repentance and penance is faith. Repentance comes from believing God, penance results from unbelief. Of course that doesn't help us very much in terms of identifying when someone has gone from the one to the other. But it might help me individually know when I've done so: "is this faith? or is it doubting God's word?" That's the real question.

I'm a little less dogmatic on the whole idea of absolution. There are certainly times when we need to seek forgiveness from someone other than God: we might have sinned against someone, for example, and need to seek their forgiveness too. And unlike with God, we might find ourselves needing to make some sort of amends to that person. But that's not really what absolution is.

Absolution is more about confessing my sins to someone else, and receiving from that person assurance of God's forgiveness. Is absolution something we need? No, we have the word of God to assure us that God has forgiven. But what do we do when someone comes to us, looking for assurance from us that God forgives? The more I think this over, the more I think there is value in a true believer assuring someone of God's forgiveness, as long as he or she is pointing them to the word of God. One friend of mine says we should be quick to say, "Jesus loves you, Jesus has forgiven you." I think that's good advice, but I'll add the caveat that we shouldn't ever say that as though we have authoritative knowledge in ourselves. It's not that I know that God has forgiven you because on my spiritual state or insight; no, it's that I know God has forgiven you based on His word, and we can look at it together.

So I think there's a place for absolution, as long as it's grounded in God's word, not in some presumed authority.

And let's be clear about something here: we can't talk about this sort of thing in the abstract. It's not very useful to talk about what a Christian should do in an ideal world. When a true believer comes to us with a guilty conscience, we're not dealing in the hypothetical. We who have sinned really big – so big that our standard evangelical faith collapsed under the weight of our own guilt – know there's a desperation that hypothetical Christianity doesn't really address. But when someone comes to us with that sort of guilt, we ought to lead him or her to the Cross, to God's grace, to Christ's having borne our sins. It's not the time to lecture, it's the time to lead with compassion to the One who is gracious to both of us.

It's important for us to realize that God forgives based on the death of Christ (Romans 3:21–26). Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:1–8), and it is this – and only this – that enables God to forgive us. It's easy to lose sight of this when we deal with the question of confession: we're tempted to think that confession is an act of merit, and God forgives us because we confess our sins. That's not true at all. It's true that when we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (1 John 1:9), but it's not our confession that makes God forgive. In fact, even as we are sinning, Christ is advocating for us with the Father. I don't know another way to understand 1 John 2:1–2. 

Christ doesn't wait for us to confess, repent, or even acknowledge our sins before He takes action on our behalf. We all need to meditate on this. We all need to let this one sink in.

So why do we confess our sins? The simplest reason is our own peace of heart: we need to know that God has forgiven us. That assurance is as simple as confessing our sins, and then believing God. 

It's important, too, to realize that when we have sinned – when we are at our lowest – we are seeing ourselves exactly like God has always seen us. In fact, no matter how low your opinion of yourself is, God's opinion of you is worse. We have a tendency to evaluate ourselves based on our performance, usually our current or very recent past. But God knows all things: on our best days, He knows what our worst days will be, and He sees what we will do. So on our best days, we should be humble. On our worst days, we should remember God's view of us is no different than it was on our best days. God knows what we are.

And this brings us back to repentance. Repentance is a gift from God (Acts 11:18). It is the correct response to understanding that we have sinned (Acts 17:30–31). But it goes much deeper than our understanding of what we have done: it goes to our understanding of what we are (see Isaiah 6:5, Luke 18:9ff). Job repented when he saw who God really is. It's noteworthy that scripture doesn't tell us Job sinned. The closest thing we get to sin on Job's part is Job 32:1–3.

Job 32:1–3 gives a brief summary of the book up to that point. Job's friends "found no answer, and yet condemned [him]" (Job 32:3), but Job was also wrong, because "he justified himself rather than God" (Job 32:2). It seems to me this is a danger to us, particularly when we are doing something right: that we would justify ourselves rather than God.

Philippians 3:8ff tells us that to be "in Christ" is to have "no righteousness of my own."  This means we give up (or have given up) any merit we have. Even the questionable merit we might associate with confessing our sins. Any merit that comes our way from confession or repentance is something we need to give up if we want to be "in Christ."

I know I've offended people in the past by saying that there is a danger of our being no longer "in Christ." I don't mean that God ever sees us as anything other than "in Christ." We are accepted by God always and only "in Christ." I don't mean we can cease to be "in Christ" in God's eyes. I mean that our spiritual health and growth and progress are based on our seeing things the way God sees them (cf. Romans 6:1–11). That's what Philippians 3:8ff is talking about: it's not saying "I hope I can attain being in Christ," it's saying, "I want to see myself in Christ, just as God sees me in Christ." And the key there is to understand that we have no righteousness of our own.

We cease to be "in Christ" in our own minds – not in God's eyes – when we start to think we have righteousness of our own. We need to be very careful here.

One last note: it would be wrong not to mention a wonderful article by J. N. Darby here, "Cleansing by Water: and what it is to walk in the light." I can't recommend it highly enough.

The least you could do

It's not uncommon to hear preachers say something like, "Christ died for you, the least you could do is to live for Him." It's worth noting that the epistles make no such claim. In fact, they seem to say the opposite. Consider 2 Corinthians 4:7–12 as an example, or Galatians 2:20.   "[I]t is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20, LSB). It's worth spending some time meditating on this.

Deuteronomy 29:4 makes the startling statement that God had not given Israel eyes, ears, and a heart to perceive what He was doing for them in the wilderness. What they needed was not more evidence of God's goodness to them (Deuteronomy 29:2–6), but Divine intervention and transformation so that they would understand what they had seen.

This theme is developed more fully in the prophets (Jeremiah17:9; Ezekiel 36:25–27), in the gospels (John 3:3ff; John 15:4ff), and in the epistles (Romans 7:4–6; Romans 8:1–8; Galatians 6:15). The testimony of the whole of Scripture, from the Pentatuech through the epistles, is that man cannot please God without a fundamental transformation that he is unable to achieve himself. It is only God's intervention that can make man capable of pleasing God.

Romans 5:12ff centers on this simple truth: man is not simply guilty, he is lost. Our problem is not merely that we are guilty before God (the focus of Romans 1–3), but that we are by nature opposed to Him. The problem is not only that we have sinned, but that we are sinners. And it might surprise us to realize we were sinners before we ever sinned (Romans 5:19). We are like the scorpion that stung the frog, "because that's what scorpions do." We sin because we are sinners, not the other way around.

At the root of the exhortation, "Christ died for you, the least you can do is live for Him," is the hidden assumption that we are not lost, merely guilty. Our guilt means we need forgiveness and atonement, but once that has been accomplished, we are capable of trying again – and getting it right this time! We have a clean slate. It rests on a denial that fallen man is truly lost.

The clean slate approach has already been tried and been found wanting. Exodus 31 – 34 detail the initial giving of the Law at Sinai, the failure of Israel to keep it, God's grace in sparing the bulk of the nation, and then His giving the Law again. 2 Corinthians 3:7–16 alludes to Exodus 34, especially Exodus 34:29ff. The verdict is that the Law, delivered for the second time, is the "ministry of death" and the "ministry of condemnation."

For many years, I took "the ministry of death" in 2 Corinthians 3:7–10 to refer to the giving of the Law in Exodus 32:19ff. But we know for certain that's not correct: the veiling of Moses wasn't a feature of Exodus 32, but of Exodus 34. So what 2 Corinthians 3 calls "the ministry of death" (2 Corinthians 3:7) and "the ministry of condemnation" (2 Corinthians 3:9) is explicitly not the first giving of the Law, but the second: it's law after forgiveness.

I've quoted this passage by JND before, but it's worth quoting again:

[T]he people, though spared by grace, were put back under law; and this was the ministration of death and condemnation of which the apostle speaks. For, in fact, if atonement be not made, grace only makes transgression worse, at any rate in the revelation of God; even in partial glory, with law it must be condemnation to a sinner. Law after grace, in a word, is what the apostle teaches us is condemnation; law after atonement is worse than absurd. It is putting away the sin, and then putting under it, or making the law of no authority and no effect. But vague grace - sparing, and then law, is the state of multitudes of souls; and that is what the apostle tells us is death and condemnation in its nature, and indeed the veil is soon over the reflection of grace to the soul (that is, the perception that exists of grace is soon lost).

– J. N. Darby, "Show me now thy way", Collected Writings, Volume 19, p. 181

Notice how the exhortation, "Christ has died for you, the least you can do is live for Him" parallels the giving of the Law in Exodus 34. Putting responsibility for obedience on those who have been forgiven – because they have been forgiven – is not the Gospel. It's the "ministry of death."  This is what Luther might call "mixing Law and Gospel."

We might note, too, that obedience predicated on completed redemption isn't Gospel at all: it's pure Law. Consider Exodus 20:1–2. The Mosaic Law was predicated on a completed redemption from slavery in Egypt. God wasn't promising them He would deliver them from Egypt if only they would obey: He reminded them that He had already delivered them from slavery in Egypt, and thus He had a right to demand obedience. This is identical in principle to what is so commonly taught as "gospel" today.

The principle of grace – grace as opposed to law – is that God gives freely, demanding nothing in return. This is not the principle of Exodus 34, which put forgiven men and women back under law. This is something entirely different.

And so we ask the same question Paul asks in Romans 6:1, "so shall we just continue in sin then?" And like every question in Romans, this one tests whether we've been paying attention. If the Gospel taught in Romans 1–5 demands obedience, then that question would never be there. The question is there, because if we truly hear the Gospel taught in Romans 1–5, we'll be wondering whether we should just continue in sin. If more sin means more grace (cf. Romans 5:20–21), then doesn't that mean we can increase grace by continuing in sin?  If we don't see the question in Romans 6:1 as the logical one to ask, then we've been adding something to the Gospel of Romans 1–5. 

W. H. Griffith Thomas points out:

Before considering the Apostle's treatment of this question it is essential to observe that the very fact of such a question being possible shows with unmistakable clearness the true meaning of the Apostle's Doctrine of Justification (St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, p. 165)

 

And don't let's misquote Romans 6:1. It doesn't say, "can we continue in sin?" the answer to that is a resounding "Yes!" Praise God, if we continue in sin, then grace will abound. That's not the question.

The question is, "shall we continue in sin?"  That's a different question, and it has a different answer.

No one who says, "Christ has died for you, the least you can do is live for Him" will ever be asked, "shall we continue in sin?" That person is on entirely different ground than Paul was. That question is the logical follow-up to Paul's Gospel. If no one's asking us that question, then we're preaching a different Gospel than Paul was. (Alan Gamble pointed this out brilliantly in a sermon I can no longer find online.)

And what's Paul's response to that question? Does he say, "may it never be! Christ has died for you, the least you can do is live for Him!" No, he does not. He responds, "may it never be! How shall we, who are dead to sin, live any longer in it?" (Romans 6:2). It's not that we should cease sinning out of gratitude. It's that we should cease sinning because we have died to sin.

God's remedy for guilt is that Christ died for us. Dying in our place, He paid the penalty we owed.

God's remedy for our lost-ness – for our entire inability to please God – is that we have died with Christ.

Notice how Romans 6:1–6 makes a mockery of the notion that "the least you could do is live for Him." God doesn't want our life! We were so lost that His remedy is to put us to death. Our life – the life that we inherited from Adam – was a life incapable of pleasing God (Romans 8:1–8, especially vv. 7–8). In and of ourselves, we cannot please God. 

 

I cannot stress enough that obedience based on gratitude for accomplished redemption isn't Gospel, but Law. It is exactly the opening statement of Exodus 20. We are no more capable of keeping the Law after forgiveness than before it. Our problem isn't that we lack gratitude (although we do), but that we lack power. This is what Romans 6–8 addresses.

The scriptural remedy for our lost-ness involves three things. First, we are freely justified from all guilt through faith in Christ (Acts 13:39, Romans 4:1–8). God wants nothing from us to make amends for our guilt: we are utterly helpless in the face of the crushing debt we owe, and any attempts to make payment for it mock God's righteousness. God forgives us because – and only because – Christ has died for us. There is no other remedy for our guilt before God. "[T]he one who does not work, but believes upon Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness" (Romans 4:5, LSB). There is no other remedy that God acknowledges.

Second, we are delivered from the power of sin over us by our death with Christ. This is Romans 6:1–14, it's God's answer to the question, "so should we just continue in sin?" The answer is that God has already intervened for us, in the death of Christ, so that we are invited to see ourselves as God sees us. As far as God is concerned, when Christ died, I died. When Christ was buried, I was buried. When Christ rose again, I rose again. When Christ ascended, I ascended. I am a man "in Christ," and my life is tied up with His. Darby points out that Romans only addresses the first two: in Romans we have died with Christ and been buried with Him, but we haven't yet been raised with Him (cf. Romans 6:5). In Colossians, we have died with Him, been buried with Him, and been raised with Him (Colossians 3:1–4). But in Colossians, we still haven't ascended with Him. In Ephesians, though, we have gone all the way with Him, and are seated in the heavenlies with Him (Ephesians 2:4–6).

There is human responsibility in Romans 6. The first command in the book of Romans is in Romans 6:11, "consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus" (LSB). So there is something we need to do: we need to consider ourselves to be dead to sin. This isn't some sort of psychological technique, it's not wish fulfillment or "manifesting" or whatever other pop psychology pseudo-spiritual nonsense you might hear about. This is accepting by faith that God sees us as having died with Christ, and accepting His invitation to see ourselves the same way. This is our acquiescence to God's statement that we died with Christ. This is us saying, "whatever my opinion may be, God's opinion is the one that counts."

Third, we are empowered by the Spirit of God to "walk in the Spirit" (Galatians 5:16ff, Romans 8:1–17). Notice the parallels between Paul's ministry in Galatians and Romans, and John's in John 15:1–11. The language is different, the descriptions are the same. What John calls "abiding in Christ" is what Paul calls "walking in the Spirit." 

Now, it's important to note that conflict isn't over yet. In fact, conflict hasn't really started. When the children of Israel left Egypt, they were delivered from Pharaoh's army at the Red Sea without any fight at all: it was entirely God's fight, and they were simply told to "stand still" and watch (Exodus 14:13–14). In fact, Scripture only says they were "saved" when they had seen the dead bodies of the Egyptians on the shore (Exodus 14:30–31). In a similar way, we are invited to look at ourselves dead with Christ (Romans 6:5–11). But once they had gotten through the Red Sea, they had to engage in conflict with the Amalekites (Exodus 17:8ff).

As an aside, one of the worst things so many preachers do today is invite us to conflict with the Egyptians. We aren't called to put sin to death, but to consider ourselves to have died to it (Romans 6:5–11). The Israelites weren't told to fight with Pharaoh, but to watch his destruction. They were called to fight with Amalek. In exactly the same way, there is conflict for us too, but we don't get to that conflict until we have learned to "stand still and see the salvation of the Lord."

 

Scripture doesn't teach, "live this way out of gratitude," but "live what you are in Christ." We are called into a new creation: we are new creatures in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17), that is our motivation. Just like we used to sin because we were sinners, now we should live righteously because we are in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 4:1ff, Romans 12:1ff).

But notice this isn't something that God calls lost men and women to do! This is something we are called to do only after we have seen ourselves as dead and buried with Christ. We can't skip Romans 6 on the way to Romans 12. We can't skip Ephesians 2 on the way to Ephesians 4. It just doesn't work that way. It's worse than foolishness.

So with all that said (and it was a lot), here are just some of the problems with "Christ has died for you, the least you can do is live for Him."

First, it assumes that God wants my life. He does not, what He wants is the "life of Jesus" in our mortal bodies (2 Corinthians 4:7–12). What good is the life of a fallen man or woman to God? What value is a lost sinner to Him? Forgiven or not, the life of a lost sinner is of no spiritual value at all. It's the life of one who has died with Christ, has been buried with Him, has been raised with Him, and is looking for Christ to come back for him – that's the life that pleases God. It's not until we can say, "Christ, who is our life" (Colossians 3:4) that we have a life God can use.

Second, it supposes an independent life. The Lord Jesus said, "apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). The entire discussion in John 15:1–11 centers on the self-evident fact that a branch on its own is useless. We don't produce fruit for God on our own: we produce fruit for God as the True Vine bears fruit through us. Forgiven, but lost, men and women are no more capable of pleasing God than unforgiven men and women. As new creations in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17), we are capable of pleasing God, but...

The single hardest thing for us to learn is that the rules are different in the New Creation. In New Creation, life is from God Himself, we don't have it on our own (cf. John 6:26ff). Adam had some measure of life independent from God. The life of the New Creation in Christ isn't like that (1 John 5:11–14). No, the life of the New Creation is life that is hidden in Christ. We don't look to live autonomously. This isn't a life where we can go off and work hard to produce something and bring it back to God, as Cain did. It's a life where every breath, every step, every action has to be taken as an outflow of the life of God Himself in Christ Jesus.

 

Third, it assumes we can achieve righteousness. This is probably the most lingering aspect of carnal religion. Just like cockroaches seem to survive no matter what we try to do to rid ourselves of them, we cling to the carnal concept of producing righteousness for God until the bitter end. We need to stamp that out: we need to beat it mercilessly until it lies lifeless at our feet, and then we need to beat it some more.

The righteousness men and women can produce are of no value to God (Job 22:3, Isaiah 64:6).

A man in Christ Jesus has no righteousness of his own. This the plain statement of Philippians 3:8–11. Righteousness of our own is necessarily on the principle of law (Philippians 3:9), and that's a principle that can only condemn us (Romans 4:15). Law cannot produce righteousness, but that's all we have when we try to have righteousness of our own.

In God's view, we are men and women in Christ Jesus. But to come into the practical good of that, we need to embrace Philippians 3:8–11. If we are in Christ Jesus, we have no righteousness of our own. We are no more capable of producing righteousness now than we were then. We must give this up!

It's hard to imagine a more stark contrast than the one between "Christ died for me, the least I can do is to live for Him" and "that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own which is from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God upon faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."

I'm sure there are many other issues that could be mentioned. I'm sure the comments will fill with other excellent points. But to me, these three are the reasons I reject the notion that, "Christ died for you, the least you can do is live for Him."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sacrifice for sins

1 Corinthians 15:1–8 tells us "Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures". 

We understand that Christ fulfilled each of the sacrifices in the Mosaic Law when He died for us. He was at the same time a burnt offering for our acceptance (Leviticus 1:2–3), a trespass offering for our guilt (Leviticus 5:1–6), and a sin offering for our sin (Leviticus 4:2–3). And those are just three of the offerings! He was the one single sacrifice to which each of the Old Testament sacrifices looked forward.

It's not the Christ died several times, but that in His one single offering, God saw every one of those prescribed in the Old Testament.

The value of the offerings to the Old Testament saints was a forward look to Christ. The value of those offerings to the New Testament saints is a clearer picture of what God saw in that once-for-all sacrifice.

I've heard many people say that the Levitical offerings are laid out from God's point of view, but we tend to see them in reverse. We tend to see the trespass offering first, because we are troubled by our sins. Then we move onto the sin offering, as we come to understand not merely that we have sinned, but that we are sinners. We might eventually come to appreciate the peace offering as making a place for us to sit in fellowship with God. Then we begin to understand the meal offering and see that value of the One who gave Himself for us. Finally we grasp that we are accepted by God, because of Christ, our burnt offering. That's probably a little simplistic, but there's more than a grain of truth in it. I'm not sure any lesson is ever learned only once, and it seems to me like we go through these progressions over and over, perhaps moving a little deeper each time.

I was struck a few years ago by the realization that the New Testament uses remarkably consistent language to describe Christ's offering His body and His blood for us. 1 Peter 2:24 tells us that Christ bore our sins in His body. Colossians 1:20 tells us He made peace through the blood of His cross. While those are certainly summed up in a single sacrifice, they're not at all the same thing. And they're illustrated in some detail in the Leviticus 16.

Leviticus 16:7–10 gives us a summary of two goats on the Day of Atonement. One goat is offered as a sin offering, the other is sent away into the wilderness. Both goats make atonement, but they do so in  different ways.

The goat offered for a sin offering is slaughtered, and his blood is taken "inside the veil" and sprinkled on the mercy seat (Leviticus 16:15–19). That goat's blood, we are told, makes atonement for the sanctuary (Leviticus 16:16), and for the tabernacle and the altar (Leviticus 16:20).

The goat who is sent away alive is taken, and all the sins of Israel are confessed over his head, then he is led into the wilderness (Leviticus 16:20–22). That goat, too, makes atonement (Leviticus 16:10).

Both goats make atonement, but they do it differently. The one goat makes atonement with his blood, propitiating God. The other goat, by bearing away the sins of the people.

One of my favorite papers by J. N. Darby draws the distinction between those two aspects of atonement. It's one of his shortest papers, and well worth the read:  "Propitation and Substitution" (Collected Writings, Vol. 29, pp. 286–288).

We need both of these sides of atonement. If God is propitiated, but we still bear our sins, then we're still guilty before Him. If, on the other hand, our sins are borne away, but God is not propitiated, then we find ourselves not guilty, but still estranged. We need to have our sins borne away, and God on our side.

In the New Testament, we find the language of propitiation is connected with the blood of Christ, while the language of substitution is connected with His body. He made peace with the blood of His cross (Colossians 1:20). He bore our sins in His own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24). So it's not a stretch to say the goat for a sin offering prefigures the blood of Christ, while the scapegoat prefigures His body.

This touches on the burial of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1–6). Having borne our sins in His body, He was buried. We've discussed before how "buried" in Scripture is all about hiding from view. The last time God saw our sins, they were buried out of His sight. He doesn't see them now.

Propitiation is a little harder to wrap our minds around. Substitution is particular, both in the Old Testament and the New. Aaron was to confess the sins of Israel over the head of the scapegoat (Leviticus 16:21). The Lord bore our sins (notice the plural) in His own body. Those are referring to specific sins. But there is no confession when the goat for a sin offering is slaughtered, nor when his blood is taken and sprinkled behind the veil. It's universal, as opposed to particular.

The idea is really that Christ's sacrifice has made God able to righteously act in love toward fallen men and women. Romans 3:25–26 tells us that the death of Christ allowed God to justly justify sinners. Notice it is the blood of Christ that Romans specifically references. It's worth meditating on Romans 3:25–26. Those verses give us a glimpse at God in a way we normally don't think of Him.

We see some connection with what theologians call "common grace." Common grace is the idea that God acts in grace in this life, quite apart from eternal salvation. God might well bless those who do not believe, even if those blessings are only temporal, limited to this life. Matthew 5:45 tells us that God causes the rain to fall on the unjust as well as the just. That blessing is surely limited to this life, but it's still a blessing that comes from God, and is a tangible form of His grace.  Paul's words to the men of Lystra are overflowing with this idea. He declares to them

God, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all things in them; who in the past generations suffered all the nations to go in their own ways, though indeed he did not leave himself without witness, doing good, and giving to you from heaven rain and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14:14–18).

The blood of Christ, offered to God, forms the basis of God's righteously acting in grace to fallen men and women.

One last thought: J. N. Darby applies the distinction between propitiation and substitution to the Calvinist/Arminian controversy. His diagnosis is that their disagreement on the Atonement is because they each see only one part of it:

If we look at the difference of Arminian and Calvinistic preaching, we shall see the bearing of this at once. The Arminians take up Christ's dying for all, and generally they connect the bearing of sins with it; and all is confusion as to the efficacy and effectualness of Christ's bearing our sins, for they deny any special work for His people. They say, If God loved all, He cannot love some particularly; and an uncertain salvation is the result, and man often exalted. Thus the scapegoat is practically set aside.

The Calvinist holds Christ's bearing the sins of His people, so that they are effectually saved; but he sees nothing else. He will say, If Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it, there can be no real love for anything else. Thus he denies Christ's dying for all, and the distinctive character of propitiation, and the blood on the mercy-seat. He sees nothing but substitution.

"Propitiation and Substitution," Collected Writings, Vol. 29,  pp. 287–288

 

No Plan B

Scripture teaches that worshipers, once purged, have no more conscience of sins (Hebrews 10:2). Of course, that's not something we see a lot in our experience.

One problem (perhaps even the main problem), is that we treat Christ as a sort of a safety net. As long as we're doing well – as long as we're walking more or less uprightly – we think that we're accepted in God's sight by virtue of our own uprightness. We only really think of ourselves as accepted in Christ when we realize we've failed to walk uprightly.

Of course we'd never say that, but our actions and our prayers reveal what's really going on in our hearts.

But God doesn't ever have a "Plan B." God has given Christ to us to be our righteousness, our holiness, and our redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30–31). It has never been a part of God's plan for us to be acceptable before Him other than in Christ. We are accepted in Christ (Ephesians 1:6) and only in Christ.

It's hard to remember that I am no more accepted before God when I'm walking well than when I'm walking badly: regardless of how I am actually doing, I am accepted in Christ. That's a comfort when I see myself fail, but it's humbling when I think I'm doing all right.

that I may be found in him, not having my righteousness, which [would be] on the principle of law, but that which is by faith of Christ, the righteousness which [is] of God through faith (Philippians 3:8–10)

Surety

Robert made the statement that there are two men in the Scripture who stand surety:

1. Judah stands surety for Benjamin in Genesis 44:30–34
2. Christ stands surety "for the New Covenant" in Hebrews 7:22

We often think of Christ standing surety for us, and we remember how the Old Testament warns against that. "It goes ill with him that is surety for another" (Proverbs 11:15). So far as I can tell, Scripture only tells us about one Man who stood as Surety for a stranger (Proverbs 6:1–2), and certainly He suffered for it.

Judah tells Joseph what it means to stand surety for another:

And now, let thy servant stay, I pray thee, instead of the lad a bondman to my lord, and let the lad go up with his brethren; for how should I go up to my father if the lad were not with me?—lest I see the evil that would come on my father (Genesis 44:33–44).

He effectively says, "I am surety for Benjamin, and how can I face my father without him?".

It's not a stretch to consider Judah as a pattern for Christ. Judah's words to Joseph echo Christ's heart for us: He was not willing to return to His Father without taking us along.

This is the point He was making in John 6:37–40. The Father has given some to the Son (John 6:37), with the explicit desire that the Son shouldn't lose any of them (John 6:39). Christ effectively says to the people, "I am unwilling to face my Father without those He gave me, and even if they die, I will raise them from the dead (John 6:40) rather than facing my Father without them."

Now, I'm not saying that Christ doesn't love us, but in John 6:37–40 He doesn't appeal to His love for us. Rather, He appeals to His duty to His Father. Just like Judah doesn't once mention any affection for Benjamin, but his duty to his father Jacob.

It's worth remembering at the start of a new year that Christ isn't willing to face His Father without us. It's not an issue of what we've done, nor even of His love for us. Christ losing even one of us would be His failing to keep up His end of the deal with His Father.

Acceptance

Among my struggles has been catching glimpses of what Scripture says about the Christian life and seeing the contrast with what so many of us (including me) seem to think the Christian life is. As I've mulled this over, one recurring them has been the whole issue of Acceptance.

I mentioned to Alan in an email that I'm pretty sure I don't believe in the "Final Perseverance" in the Calvinistic sense, and I'm slowly realizing I don't even believe in "Eternal Security" in the more evangelical sense. Of course I don't mean to say that a child of God can perish, but I think both of those concepts falls far short of what Scripture actually teaches.

Romans 4:6–8 quotes Psalm 32:1–2 to establish the doctrine of justification by faith alone (what my buddy Steve calls Solifidianism). What is "the blessedness" of the man whom God justifies? It's that God will not at all count his sins against him (Romans 4:7). For the man whom God has justified (the ungodly man, v. 5), there is no sin that God will remember (see Acts 13:39). No matter what terrible sin I commit, God won't count it against me.

Think about that! It's not that God will one day forgive his sins, nor even that he's the kind of person whom God repeatedly forgives. It's that he is the kind of person whose sins God doesn't count.

Leviticus 1–7 outline the laws of the offerings. There are five offerings mentioned: the burnt offering (chap. 1), the grain offering (chap. 2), the peace offering (chap. 3), the sin offering (chap. 4), and the trespass offering (chap. 5). The next two chapters (Leviticus 6–7) then run through those offerings again, detailing the laws associated with them.

We tend to think first about the trespass offering, which was offered for deliberate offenses (Leviticus 6:1–5). This is the offering you were to make if you defrauded your neighbor. If we think about it a little more, we might think about the sin offering, which was offered for sins of inadvertence (Leviticus 4:1–3). In those two offerings we might see a picture of our sins and our sin. But God doesn't start with either of those two offerings: He starts with the burnt offering. What is the burnt offering, it's the offering of acceptance (Leviticus 1:3).

God accepts us before He deals with our sin (what we are), or our sins (what we have done).

The order is preserved in Ephesians. In Ephesians 1 the order is:

1. God chose us in Christ (v. 4)
2. God has accepted us "in the Beloved" (v. 6)
3. we have redemption and forgiveness (v. 7)

So first we were chosen, then we were accepted, then we were forgiven.

That's not to say that God doesn't forgive our sins. It's not even to say that there is a time gap between acceptance and forgiveness. But from God's perspective, our being accepted is foundational truth. It's not that we have some sort eternal security safety net: rather, we have been accepted right at the start. Before we take the first step in that new creation, we have been accepted by God.

Ephesians 1:6 brings in a truth we don't see in Leviticus: we are accepted in Christ. We aren't called to an autonomous life, we're called to a dependent life. We're not called to be good, but to bask in His goodness.

And now we're back once more to the fundamental truth of the Christian life. Regardless of how we actually live, the entire Christian experience flows from our being in Christ. If our experience differs from the high calling of the epistles, it's because we have not been content to "abide" in Him (John 15:4). If we find our lives lacking in fruit, the solution is to abide (John 15:5).

Abiding

In God's ways, we often learn a truth objectively (i.e. "this is a fact") before we learn it subjectively (i.e. in our experience). It might take us a very long time to go from the one to the other, but it is God's way that we believe what He has said before we experience it. The key is to accept what God has said is true, whether we experience it or not. As we accept God's assessment, we experience it.

This is true of our standing in Christ. We are accepted "in Christ" and only in Christ. This is objectively true. As we walk through this wicked world, we learn what that means.

Ephesians 1 and John 15 illustrate this. Ephesians 1:6 tells us we are "accepted in the Beloved" (KJV). That's an objective statement: it's a statement about how God sees us. God doesn't accept me as such, He accepts me as a man in Christ.

The idea of being "in Christ" pervades the New Testament, especially Paul's epistles. It reminds us that God has really only been pleased with one Man, but He is content to bundle us up together in the one Man, so that what God thinks about that one Man He thinks about me. Ephesians 2 takes it further: we are quickened "with Him", raised together "with Him", and seated "with Him" (Ephesians 2:1–7). This is God's view of things, and I could never see them outside of revelation.

John 15 approaches this from the standpoint of human experience. There it isn't what God sees, but what we experience. So where Ephesians 1:6 talks about us "in Christ", John 15:4 tells us the necessity of "abiding in" Him. Christ Himself says it's impossible for us to "bear fruit" unless we abide in Him (John 14:4–5).

Ephesians 1 tells us that my being "in Christ" is God's work, and God's work alone. I cannot somehow get myself into that position. And Ephesians 1:3–6 makes it clear that God marked me out for this blessing before the world began (v. 4), and there's no hint that I can do anything to end it. So Ephesians 1 approaches this from the perspective of God's sovereignty.

John 15 approaches this from the standpoint of human responsibility: here it's not an issue of God's eternal purpose, it's an issue of my practical walk through the wicked world. I am living down here, Christ is living up there: if I am to produce fruit for God down here, I must abide in Christ. Now, I cannot do anything to stop being "in Christ" in the Ephesians 1 sense – that was determined before the world began. But I can definitely fail to "abide in Christ" in the John 15 sense.

So how do I do this?

In the practical sense, abiding in Christ really comes down to accepting what God has already said. Philippians 3:8–11 gives us an view of what it means to be "in Christ" in practice:

1. it means having no righteousness of my own (v. 9)
2. it means knowing Him (v. 10)
3. it means knowing the power of His resurrection (v. 10)
4. it means having fellowship in His sufferings (v. 10)
5. it means being conformed to His death (v. 10)

The first item on this list is the key: being "in Christ" means having no righteousness of my own. It means I give up on myself: I don't try to do better, I am content to have Christ as my righteousness.

The key to abiding in Christ is being content to abide in Christ.

Romans 8 and Colossians 3 give us other views of the same truth. Romans 8:1–4 gives us an amazing summation of God's work in salvation: He has placed me "in Christ" where there is no condemnation (v. 1), He has set me free from the law of sin and death by His Spirit (v. 2), He has condemned the sin in my flesh (v. 3). This might remind us of Ephesians 1, where the work is entirely God's.

But there is human responsibility: we are no longer debtors to the flesh to live after it (v. 12), and if we choose to live according to the flesh, the end result is death (v. 13). This isn't an issue of God punishing us, it's the natural consequence of choosing a life according to what God has already condemned (compare v. 3 with v. 10).

But I stress again that the key here is not that I live right (remember Philippians 3:9!), the key is that I be content to have Christ as my only righteousness. And this is the single hardest thing we ever try to do. It's incredibly hard for us to accept God sees my "goodness" no more than He sees my "badness", when I am in Christ.

We need to learn this lesson: first we accept what God says is true (I am accepted in the Beloved (Ephesians 1:6)), then we can learn it in our experience (I can only please God "in Christ" (Romans 8:3–8)).

Root cause

I was interested to read through 1 Corinthians 8–10 a few months ago in the Bible Readings and see that Scripture differentiates between idols and idolatry. Idols are "nothing" in this world (1 Corinthians 8:4), but idolatry is very real (1 Corinthians 10:6–10, 14).

It's sort of cliche to say it, but really almost anything can become an idol. A lot of Christians have idols. It's probably safe to say that all Christians have idols. But 1 Corinthians 8–10 makes the point that really, the issue isn't the idol, the issue is idolatry. Consider the connection with Colossians 3:1–7. In Colossians, believers have died with Christ, we have been buried with Him, and we have been raised with Him (Colossians 2:9–12). But when we get to Colossians 3, we find to our surprise that we have "members on the earth" (Colossians 3:5). And notice, the final of those members that Colossians lists, is "unbridled desire, which is idolatry".

Let's think about idols for a moment. One of the hot-button topics today is pornography. There seems to be a lot of concern among Christians about it, so let's talk about it for a few minutes. No doubt pornography is a real idol for a lot of believers. Their bondage to it is real and the pain is real . But there is an obvious fact that doesn't seem to occur to a lot of people: pornography has basically no power over people who don't look at it.

I know people are going to object that there are secondary effects on all of us, and I'm sure there are. But that's not really the point I'm trying to make. The point I'm making is that when a person is looking at pornography, the problem isn't the image on the page (or the computer screen); the problem is in the heart.

Many believers find themselves with some sort of besetting sin: some sin or vice or habit over which they have no apparent victory. And as much as they abhor that sin or vice or habit, they find themselves entangled in it again and again. What's the real problem here? It's not that they don't despise the sin, but they are missing the point. The key to victory over sin isn't to despise the sin, but to despise the self.

It has taken me many years (and a considerable amount of pain) to see this. It's not enough to despise some particular sin. It's not enough even to recognize the presence of sin in my own flesh (Romans 7:17–18, 23). It's not even enough to recognize my own powerlessness over sin, although that's absolutely necessary. There is a deeper truth even than that,the truth of Colossians 3: we all have members on the earth, and there is no remedy for them except death (Colossians 3:5). When I find myself tempted to sin, it's proof that there is some unmortified and unjudged flesh in me.

(I've mentioned before that I have come around to Darby's view that Romans 7 actually discusses a man who is born again, but not sealed with the Holy Spirit. But Romans 8:12–14 shows there is a practical sense where a believer who has been sealed with the Holy Spirit may find him or herself in a very similar experience.)

We have a tendency to think that temptation is not sin. It's all right to be tempted, as long as we don't give in to that temptation and actually sin. But that's not really what Scripture teaches (James 1:13–15). Johnny D. says,

Temptation is used in two senses in scripture. We are tempted when we are drawn away of our own lusts and enticed, and we are tempted from without by the enemy. The latter the Lord underwent, the former of course never. All this is confounded by Mr. S. He says temptation is not sin... Does it come from the life and Spirit of Christ in us? – 'Review of R. Pearsall Smith on "Holiness through Faith."', Collected Writings, Volume 23, p. 190

Temptation might not be the same as sinning, but it is proof that there is sin in me. And this is really the point, isn't it? I couldn't be tempted if I hadn't lusts.

Ultimately, fornication, lust, and uncleanness aren't produced by temptation. They were there all along. It's that we haven't obeyed Colossians 3:5 – we haven't mortified our members on the earth. The real problem is that we have not been willing to judge the flesh in God's presence. It's proof that we haven't judged ourselves.

Perhaps Job illustrates this best. At the start of the story of Job, we're told, "this man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God and abstained from evil" (Job 1:1). Would that the same could be said of me! But the end of the story, we have a somewhat different Job, "I abhor [myself], and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:6). At the start of the book, we have a man who doesn't sin. But at the end of the book, we have a repentant man. Why is he repentant? Because he started sinning? Not at all, because he learned that he was lost. It's one thing to recognize I am guilty, it's quite another to recognize I am lost.

So what should we do when we are tempted? Temptation is proof that there is a need for self-judgment. It's proof that one of those "members on the earth" has gone unjudged. It's proof that I have not accepted what God has said of me.

For years I have known Colossians 3. I memorized that chapter back when I [foolishly] thought that memorizing Scripture would somehow earn me favor with God. I memorized it again later, with much better motives, when I was part of a Bible study working through the epistle. But I have been freshly convicted by this passage in the last months. Probably at some point in my life, I thought Colossians 3:5 was a command to self-denial and spiritual discipline. Now I'm convinced it's teaching something quite different: it's self-judgment in God's presence. It's what Scripture calls "repentance".

Sealing with the Holy Spirit

John 14:1; Romans 4:5; Ephesians 1:12–13

I mentioned this is passing in a Bible reading, and I'm not sure people really understood what I was talking about. So I thought I'd clarify it here.

It is a well-known fact that J. N. Darby believed someone could be born again without being sealed by the Holy Spirit. Indeed, the falling-out between Darby and F. W. Grant was over this very issue: FWG taught that a believer is sealed with the Holy Spirit at the moment of new birth.

I don't know how many times I've read his "On Sealing with the Holy Ghost" (Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, Volume 31, pp. 254–280). The first time I read it, I was struck with this statement:

That a person may be born again, and not have received the Holy Ghost, is perfectly certain according to Scripture, for "whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God," and this the disciples did while Christ was on earth, but could not have the Holy Ghost, which did not come until the day of Pentecost; though they had life, and were clean through the word. (p. 262)

The logic here is pretty much irrefutable; but there is some question as to whether we can apply that to believers today: of course the disciples weren't sealed with the Holy Spirit before He descended! But now that the Holy Spirit has come, is it still possible to be born again without being sealed?

I think the answer to that lies in John 14:1, "ye believe on God, believe also on me".

There is no question that God justifies the one who believes Him (Romans 4:5). We've covered this ground many times before, so we needn't go into great detail now. But Romans is clear that all God is looking for is for sinners to believe Him. Abraham, scripture tells us, was counted righteous when he believed what God told him about his having a son (Genesis 15:3–6). God has set the lowest possible bar: believe Him, and He counts you righteous. In fact, Romans goes farther even than that, and assures us that when someone believes God, God counts that person as one to whom He will not account sin (Romans 4:6–9). So if we believe God, He counts us righteous; and when He counts us righteous, He also counts us as people whose sins He will not count. In other words, it's not possible for God to think of sin in connection with someone who believes Him.

I've said before that this is Old Testament truth, and it certainly is. Romans 4 makes that argument very clearly: the whole point of Romans 4 is to demonstrate that righteousness without works is the teaching of the Old Testament. God has never counted anyone righteous on any other basis than faith.

But the sealing with the Holy Spirit is explicitly not Old Testament truth. John 7:39 clearly names the coming of the Holy Spirit as a result of the exaltation of Christ. Peter takes up this theme in Acts 2, and says that the [very visible] signs of the Holy Spirit's presence in and among the disciples was proof that Christ has been glorified in heaven (Acts 2:32–33). In other words, he claims that the Holy Spirit's presence on earth was a direct result of Christ's sitting on God's right hand in Heaven.

So Romans says that a sinner is justified when he believes God (Romans 4:5). But John and Ephesians say that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit when we believe on Christ (John 7:39; Ephesians 1:12–14). Is there a difference between believing God and believing on Christ? Apparently there is, because the Lord Jesus said, "ye believe on God, believe also on me" (John 14:1).

Let's consider the story of Paul meeting John's disciples in Ephesus (Acts 19:1–7). There's no doubt they had believed God (v. 2); they were on their way to Heaven, their sins all forgiven. But they hadn't received the Holy Spirit (v. 2). So Paul told them they needed to believe on the Lord Jesus (v. 4), and he baptized them in the name of the Lord Jesus (v. 5). Then, after he laid his hands on them, they received the Holy Spirit (v. 6).

Were they justified before Paul met them? Of course they were! They had believed God (v. 2), and Romans assures us that God justifies the one who doesn't work but believes (Romans 4:5). So they certainly were justified. But they hadn't received the Holy Spirit, because they hadn't believed on Jesus Christ (Acts 19:4–5).

And this is exactly what Ephesians 1:13 affirms, isn't it? It is having believed on Christ that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit (note the "in whom" in v. 13 refers back to "the Christ" in v. 12).

Can the same thing happen today? Certainly! It is the revelation of Christ ascended to God's right hand that is followed by the sealing with the Holy Spirit. God has set that bar as low as possible for justification and new birth: all He wants is for someone to believe Him. But the bar for the sealing with the Holy Spirit is much higher: it's believing on a risen, ascended, and glorified Christ. Does that mean someone can't be born again and sealed with the Holy Spirit at the same time? Of course it doesn't! But it certainly means that in many (most?) cases, there is some finite period of time between those two events.

So what is the sealing with the Holy Spirit? Galatians 4 says it's the difference between being children and being sons (Galatians 4:1–7). Make no mistake: children of God clearly are part of the family, but they're still treated like little more than the domestic staff (v. 1). Sons, on the other hand, are heirs, on intimate terms with the Father, and fully involved in the family's business and interests (v. 7). And what is the effect of the Spirit's presence in our hearts? It is confidence in God as Father (v. 6). Romans 8:15–18 echoes this same idea, perhaps in more detail.

Johnny D. says it this way:

I add here what Scripture plainly states. If a soul can in truth before God say, Abba, Father, that soul is sealed. If a person really knows that he is in Christ, and Christ in him, he is sealed. If the love of God is shed abroad in the heart, the man is sealed. (Rom. 8; Gal. 4; Rom. 13; John 14; Rom. 10.) Other proofs may be given of if, for the whole life of a man is, save particular failures, the evidence of the Spirit of God dwelling in him; but I take the simplest and most immediate evidence in a man's soul purposely and such as are in terms stated in Scripture. Now what hinders the simple acceptance of this truth is, that the full doctrine of redemption is not believed. (p. 274)

The testimony of Scripture is that Christ has ascended to God's right hand, and I am accepted in Him there. God sees me as complete in Christ. Our place is to honour Him here, while we gaze on Him there (Colossians 3:1–4; 2 Corinthians 3:18). This is the central truth of Christianity: God isn't improving flesh, He accepts me only in Christ. It is as we accept and are content with that place that we begin to walk as Christians.

So yes, I am quite convinced that a man or woman can believe God (thus having eternal life) and not be content to rest in Christ (thus not having the seal of the Holy Spirit). I'm glad to have that off my chest, so to speak.

New creation

Isaiah 66:2; Galatians 6:15

Sometimes we'll find something in scripture that just leaps out and gets in our face. When it happens, it's hard not to think about it all the time; and we see it everywhere we look. One of those things had happened to me this year. Like happens so often to me (not only to me, I'm sure), it's a truth I've known for years, but it's taken on a new depth and I feel almost like I never new it before.

I've been struck by the thought that God is no longer dealing with man in the flesh. That's the "brethrenese" version. The English version is this: God started something with Adam. He created Adam to have a relationship with him, but Adam choose something else. From Adam to Christ, God has demonstrated that there is nothing for Him in Adam or in his descendants. So the crucifixion marks the point where God wrote off the human race. It wasn't just that one Man died there: as far as God is concerned, the whole human race is done. God is finished with us. The death of Christ was the summing-up and finishing of the entire human race, so far as God is concerned. That's why Scripture refers to Christ as the "last Adam" (1 Corinthians 15:45).

Of course God knew all along that Adam's race is hopelessly lost, but it wasn't until the cross that He gave the verdict (Romans 8:3). So when God justified Abraham (Genesis 15:3; Romans 4:1-5), He knew very well that Abraham had nothing to offer. But that didn't stop God from justifying him. That's one reason Romans calls God the One "who justifies the ungodly" (Romans 4:5).

God justifies us on exactly the same basis that he justified Abraham, and exactly the same way. We are justified by faith without works (Romans 4:5, 5:1), just like Abraham. But there is a difference between how God dealt with Abraham and how God deals with us.

Men and women aren't only guilty sinners before God, they're lost, guilty sinners before God. Justification deals with the guilt, but it doesn't deal with the lost-ness. It's not enough for God to deal with a sinner's guilt: a sinner will sin again – that is, after all what sinners do. God deals not merely with the guilt of actual sins committed, but with the source of the sins: the sinner himself. This is what Romans 5:9–10 teach: having been justified, we shall be saved. And so there is the discussion in Romans 6 about our having died with Christ. When He was crucified, I was crucified. And I have every right – in fact, I have the duty – to "reckon" myself to have died with Him there (Romans 6:11).

Romans 7 takes the discussion a little further than Romans 6, and introduces a new concept in v. 5: "when we were in the flesh". This isn't the language of Romans 6: it's a new concept. It's what old "brethren" referred to as "standing" contrasted with "state". These two words aren't actually in Scripture, but they do capture a Scriptural concept: "standing" refers to my relationship with God, "state" refers to how I practically live my life. My standing is that I am accepted in Christ before God. My state is that I am down here, walking in a wicked world.

So Romans 7 introduces our standing when it says "when we were in the flesh" (Romans 7:5–6). Romans 8 discusses this in more detail when it says we are "not in the flesh, but in the Spirit" (Romans 8:9). So there is a contrast between Romans 7 and Romans 8. Romans 7 is the experience of a man whose standing is "in the flesh". Romans 8 is the experience of a man who is "in the Spirit".

Let's go back to the old "brethrenese" expression: "God is done with man in the flesh". Man is God's creature, and God has every right to demand certain things from man. But Scripture is explicit: God has found that man has produced nothing of value for Him (Isaiah 5:1–7; Luke 13:1–9; Romans 3:9–19). So Scripture concludes that man as a creature responsible to God is a failure.

But God has done something wonderful and terrible: He has provided His own Man, a Man who is not lost, a Man who actually has produced every fruit that God has looked for in man. The Son from eternity has become a Man, and He has done everything that God wanted from man. So Scripture calls Him the "last Adam" (1 Corinthians 15:45). He is, in a way, the accomplishment of what God wanted in man. And here's the important part: since God has found in His Man what he couldn't find in any other man from the Fall to the Crucifixion, He has stopped looking. This is the point that seems so hard for us to accept: God isn't looking for anything in me, because He has found everything He wants in Christ.

Does that mean that God isn't saving men and women anymore? Not at all! But it does mean that He is dealing with them in an entirely different way, and on an entirely different principle. Up until the Cross, man was on trial: "Not only was man lawless without law, and a transgressor under law, but when grace came in the Person of the blessed Son of God, they would none of it" ("Union in Incarnation, the root error of modern theology", Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, Volume 29, p.193). The trial has ended and the verdict is in. God is not looking for anything from me – He knew all along there was nothing there, and the whole history of the human race corroborates that. It was men and women who had the Law – who had the holy scriptures in their own native language – who turned the Son of God over to the Gentiles and demanded He be put to death. And it was the lawless Gentiles who actually nailed the Son of God to a cross and left Him to die. So God has already proven that no matter what He has done to work with man, man – Gentile and Jewish alike (Romans 3:9) – just proves his own worthlessness.

So Romans 7 looks back to the times before and says "when we were in the flesh" (Romans 7:5–6). It's taking about relationship. God used to deal with man as a responsible moral creature: that's what it means when it says "in the flesh". Now God deals with us "in the Spirit" (Romans 8:3), and He accepts us "in the Beloved [Christ]" (Ephesians 1:6). So God isn't treating me as a responsible moral creature: if He treated me like that, I would be totally lost (Psalm 143:2). When the relationship is Creator and creature, I am totally lost. So God has put me into a new relationship: I am now "in Christ". What does it mean to be "in Christ?" it means that I am accepted (Ephesians 1:6), it means that I am dead to sin (Romans 6:11), it means that I have no righteousness (Philippians 3:9). And this last point is probably the hardest to grasp: God is not interested in my goodness. Neither my sins nor my righteousnesses have the slightest effect on the relationship between God and me.

Now, this is all a question of standing, not of my practical state in this wicked world. So even though God doesn't seem my sins, I might actually sin. And make no mistake: He will chasten me as a son. He has not called us to live in sins just because He has forgiven us. He hasn't called us to claim a heavenly standing while enjoying sin and debauchery as our earthly state.

But the inescapable truth is that the Christian life flows from standing to state. God doesn't start with how we live and reason from that to how He deals with us: that is exactly what He did in the Old Testament, and He Himself has said that didn't work. What He's doing now is the exact opposite: He says, "I have given you a perfect standing before Me, now I want your earthly state to reflect it".

And here's where human responsibility comes in. We are called to accept our standing. What does it mean to be in Christ? It means, among other things, that we are content to have no righteousness of our own (Philippians 3:9). As long as I am clinging to the idea that I produce, can produce, or have produced righteousness, then I am in exactly the state of the man in Romans 7, "when we were in the flesh".

J. N. Darby, William Kelly, et al. were adamant that Romans 7 is actually the experience of a man who has been born of God, but hasn't yet been sealed with the Holy Spirit. I actually agree with them. But the fact is that there is an experimental truth in Romans 7: if you want to relate to God as a responsible creature, you'll end up experiencing all the defeat and heartache of the last half of Romans 7. If you want to experience Romans 8, then you need to give up on yourself. God has already given up on you, you need to join Him and be content to be in Christ, with no righteousness of your own.

Galatians 6:15 makes this point strikingly: "neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision; but new creation". We're not called to live as Jews (circumcised), nor as Gentiles (uncircumcised). Both law and lawlessness have been shown to be incapable of producing fruit in lost man. God doesn't want a Christian life of circumcision or of uncircumcision: God wants to see an entirely new creation. The Christian life isn't the life of a forgiven sinner: it's the life of men and women who no longer have lives of their own. It's the life of someone who has died with Christ, and now He is their life (Colossians 3:1–4). In practical terms, our responsibility is to accept what God has said. It's our responsibility to accept that God sees me "in Christ", where I have no righteousness of my own.

What does it mean that "God is done with man in the flesh?" It means that God has demonstrated that man as a responsible moral creature is incapable of pleasing God. And so He no longer deals with us as responsible moral creatures. God has found what He was looking for in Christ, and He's not looking anymore. What He wants is for me to join Him and look at "this Man" (Isaiah 66:2), at Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18).