Johnny D

Every once in a while I get an email from someone who's stumbled across my blog. Some of these emails have turned into virtual friendships, which I greatly value. Some of them merely turn into conversations, and a couple have become somewhat combative. You can't win them all.

A lot of people seem to find my blog because of authors I quote, which I didn't necessarily expect. I get quite a few hits from people who heard about Darby, Stoney, et al. in Miles Stanford's writing; but I get a lot of email from people in and around "brethren" too. One way or another, John Nelson Darby comes up quite a bit in email conversations that are spawned from this blog.

I've been accused of being a Darbyist (which is somewhat true): I'd like to be a little ego-centric today and give some of the back-story.

I grew up in what I'd call an "open brethren" home; my Dad was a staunch Gospel Chapel man: seven-age Dispensationalist, hard-core pre-Trib, thoroughly anti-clerical, dyed-in-the-wool fundamentalist. I think very highly of my Dad, I did then and I do now. We lived in a town that wasn't the most ecclesiastically diverse: with no "brethren" meeting in town, we went to the Baptist church every Sunday and then were debriefed at home about what we'd heard. I myself became a member of the Baptist church when I was baptized; I find that concept appalling now, but it's where I was at the time.

A number of events that don't really matter for this discussion culminated in my parents' decision to start meeting with the Gospel Chapel in the next town over. That was when I was 16, and I think of that as my first introduction to "brethrenism" as more than a peculiarity of our family.

I've mentioned before that I listen to a lot of the MP3 sermons on Voices for Christ. There's a lot of dreck on that site, but there's a lot of valuable ministry too... At any rate, what first drew me there was that I met some of those people in my parents' house. I had some memories of them sitting at the dinner table or addressing a living-room full of Christians. I was really curious to hear what they had to say, from a more grown-up (dare I say more mature?) perspective.

When I finished high school, I went off to Victoria, BC for University. I had no real plans about church: that's just a thing you figure out when you get there, right? So I went at least a month just church-hopping. I eventually met a guy named Matt at an IVCF meeting who was at Victoria Gospel Chapel. I went to meeting with him the first time and then quickly claimed that as "home" in Victoria. I really miss VGC: from what I can tell, they finally completely folded, sold the building, and dissolved. If anyone knows differently, I'd love to hear from you. I learned a lot at VGC: they were kind, gracious, and patient with the young, arrogant, and foolish guy I was.

It was then that I first encountered "open brethren" as more than the isolated phenomena I had grown up with: it wasn't just a weird persuasion of my parents, nor just this weird and isolated "church" in a small town in BC. I was part of a gathering that had relationships with other gatherings: I was in a place that had conferences and weeks-of-meetings. I was listening to ministry by various godly men and giants who would travel in those circles. It was exciting.

But that's also where I first encountered the dark underbelly of the beast: that's where I first encountered "brethrenism," and all the sectarianism that goes with it. I don't mean VGC was leavened or anything like that; but we were part of the circuits for the traveling preachers, we were a significant gathering, we were on the map. That's where I first heard brethrenisms like, "The Man who died was God, but God didn't die." That's where I first met someone concerned with a home Bible study being announced after the Lord's Supper, because unless it's under the authority of the elders in the assembly, it shouldn't be announced there.

It was at Victoria Gospel Chapel that I first heard of "exclusive brethren" and John Nelson Darby.

The "open brethren" have some funny ideas about JND: they seem to think he was some sort of wild cult leader who set out as a young man to shipwreck as many people's faith as possible with an obscure and deathly strict brand of legalism he dreamed up one night. But at the same time, they grudgingly respect him. The typical mention of JND in "open" circles starts out something like this: "For all his faults, Darby..." For a young man who was trying his hardest, steeped in law and legalism and doing his best to be made perfect in flesh, there was an obvious attraction to this Darby fellow.

My first encounter with Darby was my first little Darby Translation I bought in 1992. There's a story there, but no time to tell it. At any rate, I started reading my little DBY out of curiosity, but curiosity quickly turned to love. To someone who was ultra-analytical (I was a Physics major, after all), this is the ultimate translation. It's obtuse and wooden, but it is painstakingly exact. If you were to take a NASB and if in every place the NASB has a margin note that says "Literally..." you were to put in the literal text, you'd end up with something pretty close to the Darby. But ultimately what got my attention with my little Darby was the number of places the translator notes say something to the effect that "I don't think this is the best translation of this word, but I can't find a better one." I figure anyone who's honest enough to say he's not satisfied with a word, or to say he can't make out quite what a passage says is someone to listen to when he's certain about something.

Then I got a copy of Max Weremchuck's biography, John Nelson Darby. I'm no big fan of biographies, but that particular book is excellent. It does a great job of presenting an amazing man, warts and all, without hero worship on the one hand or a metaphoric pummeling on the other.

When I moved to the States, I found to my dismay that the "open brethren" assemblies where I fellowshipped were not at all like I had come to expect. I remember at one meeting, one fellow saying something like "I'm not too impressed with Darby, but he wrote some nice hymns". I think it was right then and there I decided I would read everything Darby wrote.

Since then, I've not read everything he wrote, but I've managed to read through the first 26 volumes of Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, as well as some other sundries. My reading schedule is not very constant or very linear: I tend to read voraciously for a few weeks, then utterly neglect reading for quite some time. It comes in waves. And I've read a lot more than Darby over the last 14 or 15 years since I picked up Volume 1.

I knew when I set out to read all Darby's books, that I'd end up becoming quite a Darbyist. I understood that I was essentially signing up for a brainwashing. I figured I'd spend a few years more or less imbibing this one guy's views, then I could spend a few more where that might wear off a bit. Of course I didn't expect it to take me this long to read them all. I guess I'm averaging about two volumes a year so far. But what really gets me about Darby, why I keep going back to his books, is that he writes like he knows God. When he writes about the Lord, he writes like he's talking about a friend, not a subject from a book.

More than anyone else I've ever encountered, Darby has a clear grasp of God's grace. I've read Darby, Bellett, Kelly, Stoney, Dennett, Raven, Mackintosh, Coates, Turpin, and a whole host of others; none of them seem to really grasp the grace of God like Darby does. This is perhaps the best outcome of my reading of the man: not that I'm some kind of expert on Scripture (or even an expert on Darby), but that I've gotten a glimpse of God's heart. Darby writes about the God who loves sinners, and it comes out in everything he says.

I've also been deeply impressed with his hermeneutic. I've tried to use my time with his books as a sort of lesson on how to read my Bible. For every single question Darby addressed, he always looked for answers in Scripture. Collected Writings, Volume 10 is almost entirely dedicated to the question of the Law, and it's striking how he approaches the issue. It's all about Scripture. There is no issue where he doesn't quote chapter and verse, and explain how it fits into the whole counsel of God.

The "whole counsel of God" is really a good summation too. He manages to avoid tunnel vision in a way I've never seen before. There's no question of limiting his views to a few topics, or avoiding what might make him squirm. He seems as comfortable in the minor prophets as in the epistles or the psalms. And every verse leads him back to Christ.

Finally, Darby was able to study the whole counsel of God without ever developing a theology of it. I find this frustrating with so many authors, even when I think they're right. It seems everyone wants to first build a theology, then argue from it, rather than from Scripture. Darby is an exception: it's all about Scripture to him. I want to be like that.

So that's why I read Darby, and why I keep picking up his books, rather than someone else's. Sure, his English is tortuous and difficult. As Epimenos said, Darby and James Joyce basically wrote the same way. And as someone else once told me, it takes about a whole volume to figure out his dialect. But in the end, there are very few times I've picked up a book and thought it better than Darby's writings on the same subject.

One Body

There are some really, really difficult passages in the Scripture. Some are hard to understand, some are hard to live, some are hard to remember. Some are all of those things. I find 1 Corinthians 12:13 one of the hardest on all points:

For also in the power of one Spirit *we* have all been baptised into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bondmen or free, and have all been given to drink of one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:13, JND)

As far as I've been able to tell from Scripture, this is the only statement we have about how one becomes part of the One Body. That puts a lot of pressure on this verse, so to speak. Contrary to what I hear so frequently, the Church is not made up of all true believers between Acts 2 and 1 Thessalonians 4. That statement is flatly contradicted by this verse: the Church is made up of everyone who's been baptized into it in the power of one Spirit. Now I admit that the two groups may well be identical, but the Scripture very carefully distinguishes between them: we believe and are justified, we are baptized in the power of one Spirit and are thus put into one Body. We must be careful to distinguish what Scripture distinguishes.

It's a hard verse to understand, because it's frankly pretty mystical. I keep talking about justification, and that's a lot easier to get our arms around: we believe God and He declares "not guilty!". That's justification. But baptism into one Body is harder to describe. We believe it, but we might not understand it.

Perhaps the place to begin as far as understanding it is concerned, is with the very important acknowledgment that the Church of God on earth is explicitly described as being made of those who "have been given to drink of one Spirit." At the very least this gives me a very different perspective of the Church than I might otherwise have. The Church is defined by the presence of the Holy Spirit on earth. That was the promise the Lord Jesus gave the disciples in John 14, it was actually fulfilled in Acts 2. This is a wholly new thing, as John 7 insists (v. 39). God's presence on earth in the Holy Spirit is a big deal: it's such a big deal it logically has to have an effect; one of the results is this thing called "the Church," which Paul describes in Ephesians 2 as "an habitation of God in the Spirit" (Ephesians 2:22).

Practically, the recognition that the Church is defined by the presence of the Holy Spirit, both in the Church as such and in the individual believers (who've been "given to drink") should affect me. It should minimally make me walk respectfully of the believers, and of the Church on earth. These aren't just really annoying people who happen to believe [more or less] the same things I do, they're not just people who identify as Christians, they're not even merely God's children; they're people who carry around the Holy Spirit.

Wow. Just writing that out is pretty convicting.

1 Corinthians 12:13 isn't only hard to understand, it's really very hard to live. Note carefully the exact words of the verse: "we all". Let's consider for a moment what those words mean: everyone who's been made to drink of the one Spirit has also been baptized into the one Body. That's everyone who's got the one Spirit. So I, who remember the Lord with a pretty rag-tag bunch of Christians in a tiny building in Tacoma, am part of the same "one Body" as the staunch Presbyterian across town, or the devout Anglican down the street. Of course not everyone in the Presbyterian church is truly born again, nor is everyone in the Anglican church, nor is everyone who meets in a rag-tag assembly like I do. My point is not to say that everyone who cries "Lord, Lord" actually knows Him, but that there are people scattered all through various ecclesiastical gatherings who are baptized into the same "one Body" that I am.

And pointing that out pretty much makes my point for me. We're not baptized into "many Bodies", we're baptized into "one Body". I am part of the same Body as everyone else who's been "given to drink of one Spirit". It doesn't matter where they sit on Sunday morning, or what name is over the door they darken. Honestly, it doesn't even matter if they're involved in some things I can't be involved in with a clear conscience: the fact is that I don't get to decide who's in and who's out. The Holy Spirit has already made that decision and I need to respect it.

In practical terms, there is the constant problem of sectarianism. And to be honest, sectarianism often starts with genuine conviction. I look at some of what I've seen in various ecclesiastical groups and I think "I can't have fellowship with that," and there is a Scriptural basis for that. We can't walk in fellowship with known sin, right? But when we look at the Epistles and we limit their applications to our little group, we've crossed a line. Let me give an example: if a brother (or sister) is excommunicated at the Baptist church up the road and he (or she) comes knocking at the door where I am, how do I respond? Do I say, "Well, what happens over there is their business, here you get a fresh start." Isn't that really denying the unity of the Body? Shouldn't I respect the one Body enough to at least respect that (whatever my concerns with the Baptist church, and whatever excellent reasons I may have for not fellowshipping there) this brother (or sister) has been disfellowshipped from the Church of God on earth? It's entirely possible we might look into a matter and realize these Baptists were wrong, but we need to at least begin with the acknowledgement that they acted as the assembly of God on earth.

In practical terms, we need to try and see the Body as God sees it. Members of the Body of Christ are scattered all over the place: this is not what was supposed to be, it is the result of man's meddling in holy things. But whatever the ruinous state of the Church on earth, we must endeavor to acknowledge this truth: those who are baptized by the one Spirit are fellow-members of the one Body with me.

I think the hardest part of this verse is in the remembering it. It's difficult or impossible to understand, and it's so very difficult to live out, but remembering it might be the most difficult part of all. I hear myself (and others) deny this verse all the time in our speech: we're not remembering it. We say things like "local body". What is that but a flat contradiction that we have been baptized into "one Body"? We're not in multiple bodies: there is only one. I quote some verse about the Church, thinking only of the small gathering where I remember the Lord, or maybe of the slightly larger "circle of fellowship," but certainly not of the various members of Christ's Body that are spread around this area. Or maybe I make a snide comment about the Baptists or the Anglicans or Presbyterians in this town, completely forgetting that they too are part of "one Body" with us.

Now, I know there are very good and important reasons not to be part of some gatherings. I walked away from a "brethren" group in 2007 for all sorts of reasons I've outlined on this blog, then I spend some time with a continuing Anglican group, some time with various "churches", some time with some Presbyterians, and finally a year with some "open brethren" before settling into the small gathering where I am now. I'm not at all saying there's not better and worse places to be. But what I am also saying it this: everywhere--- everywhere--- we went to remember the Lord, there were true believers. In every one of those places, from the most lax to the most strict, there were those who have been made to drink of one Spirit. I met Presbyterians whose theology appalled me, but they truly loved the Lord. I met Anglicans who were more than a little confused about some really important doctrines, but they're the Lord's. I know people from every group shy of bona fide cults who know, love, and walk with the Lord Jesus. Every last one of them is a fellow-member of the Body of Christ with me.

Is everyone who calls himself "Christian" truly born again? Of course not! But everyone who is, no matter how much I might shudder at his or her ecclesiastical position, is part of the one Body.

I need to remember that.

Grace

I was listening to another MP3 sermon recently, this one an introduction to Dispensationalism. I need to listen to it a few more times before I reach any conclusions, but my prognosis is that it's really a confused mess. There are a lot of problems in it, but the one that stands out in my mind is an apparent misunderstanding of grace.

Dispensationalists and Reformers both have a tendency to miss the mark on grace: dispensationalists seem to think it's a period of time between Acts 2 and 1 Thessalonians 4; Reformers seem to think it a mystical and/or spiritual tool in God's tool chest. (I'm painting with a broad brush here: I know there are plenty of exceptions on both sides.) I think they're both missing the point: grace isn't so much a thing or an administration; it's God's character.

Grace is God acting the way He wants to act, without regard to what I actually deserve.

So when our Reformed friends use the term "sovereign grace", they're hitting the nail dead on the head. Grace is sovereign in its essence: it's God deciding sovereignly and unilaterally to act a certain way. Grace is God saying, "I don't care what you deserve, this is what I'm going to do for you."

I've heard a lot about grace here and there over the years; one of the biggest problems I've encountered is people confusing grace with laxity. Scripture teaches God is gracious, it doesn't teach God has a "don't worry about it" approach to sin. Romans 3:25 & 26 gives us an intimate view of God's grace:

[Jesus Christ,] whom God has set forth a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood, for [the] shewing forth of his righteousness, in respect of the passing by the sins that had taken place before, through the forbearance of God; for [the] shewing forth of his righteousness in the present time, so that he should be just, and justify him that is of [the] faith of Jesus.

We see a glimpse of tension in God's heart: God wanted to justify, but He needed to remain just. God can't just sweep sins under the carpet, so to speak; but He wasn't interested in allowing sinners to just perish. God acted in presenting Christ as the mercy-seat, or "propitiation". What is propitiation? It really means offering something to God so that He is for us, not against us. So Romans 3 tells us that God was able to "pass by" sins before Christ, because He was doing it on credit: He was looking forward to Christ's death and thus He was able to forgive sins in the past.

What's the difference here between what Scripture teaches and what people think? The difference is that our justification had a real cost, which God paid for Himself. The egregious (but common) error equates "getting away with it" with grace. But grace isn't letting someone get away with something: it's taking care of the cost yourself. God's grace is not expressed in His ignoring sin: it's expressed in His providing the payment for it Himself.

God's not a politician: He doesn't take credit for spending someone else's money.

Let's take an example: suppose you're driving down the road in a long line of traffic and you see someone waiting to make a right turn and join the line on a side street. It's not really grace for you to let the person in ahead of you. That seems like a kind thing to do, but really what you've done is make things worse for the people behind you. Grace would be if you signaled a turn and pulled into the side street so that the person could take your spot in the line. See, grace isn't grace if it doesn't cost you anything. If God merely said, "Look here, let's just forget this whole sin thing," that wouldn't be grace. That would be complicity, as in God would be making Himself an accomplice to your sin after the fact. Grace is when God sends His own Son to die in your place. Grace costs something.

God's grace is most dramatically shown in contrast to our own wickedness. The more we understand just how bad we are, the more we are astonished that God would want to save any of us. The more clearly we see ourselves, the more significant we see God's grace to be. In a sense, this is the whole purpose of the Mosaic Law: to demonstrate just how bad man is. If I may say so, this is the whole point of Romans 7: it's one thing to be justified by faith, but to really see ourselves for the wretches we are takes bitter experience. And it's only when we see just how bad we are that we begin to comprehend just how good God is.

There is a surprising result to this, which is that "liberalism" is effectively a denial of grace. Unless we are willing to acknowledge that men (and women and children) really aren't any good, we really don't have a gracious God. It wouldn't be remarkable for God to treat people kindly when they deserve it; the surprising thing about grace is that God treats us well when we don't.

But liberalism's not the only problem: another problem is when we think God gives us what we deserve. Let's be honest, we all tend to this at some point. But grace by definition contradicts the idea that we get what we deserve. Grace is God acting the way He wants, with no regard for what I deserve. I deserve to burn in Hell; God's grace says that He saves me with no regard whatsoever to what I deserve.

The fundamental flaw in what we call "legalism" is to think that God isn't gracious. And this is really an egregious error: the legalist completely fails to understand who God is. So the legalist thinks, "God will bless me if I'm good; therefore I need to be good." Listen, grace means your being good doesn't impress God. God's not impressed with human effort, He's impressed with His Son. God's not going to heap blessings on you because you're good, He heaps blessings on you because He is gracious.

So the end of Romans 3 and start of Romans 4 is almost entirely centered on this one point: justification is by grace. So Abraham was reckoned as righteous before God as a gift (Romans 4:3 & 4). Notice that justification has always been by grace, by faith. Scripture doesn't allow that there is ever someone justified in God's sight who wasn't justified by faith. Even the Old Testament saints, under the Law, were justified by faith, but I digress. But scripture puts grace and law as opposites: we can't be justified by works of Law, but we can be justified by grace. What you can't earn, God is willing to give to you freely.

But the role of grace isn't limited to justification, the command to the Colossians was, "as ye have received the Christ, Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him" (Colossian 2:6). We're not justified on one principle and called to live on another. We're justified by faith, we live by faith. We're justified by grace, we are to live by grace. That's the word to the Galatians as well, right? "Are ye so senseless? having begun in Spirit, are ye going to be made perfect in flesh?" (Galatians 3:3). We live like we start: we live by God's grace. In his excellent commentary on Romans, William R. Newell says, "To believe, and to consent to be loved while unworthy, is the great secret" (Romans Verse-by-Verse, chapter 7.).

And that, I suppose, brings us back to the beginning. Grace is not merely some abstract principle, it's a description of who God is. And ultimately this is what underlies and empowers the Christian life: the Christian life is a reflection of who God is. It's a demonstration of God's character in our lives.

Audacity

I've been considering faith of late. We use the word "faith" a lot these days, and it seems to mean a whole lot of nothing. The Bible uses the word in two ways: it uses "the faith" to mean the truth we have received, but more commonly "faith" is a synonym for "belief".

Faith is a funny thing: we all believe all sorts of things we can neither prove nor really understand. I was talking to an adolescent boy recently who was telling me that the speed of light is 186,282 miles per second. I told him that he accepts this as fact solely on faith; he didn't agree with me at first, so I asked him how he would go about measuring the speed of light. He very quickly saw my point.

Scripture talks about faith a great deal. One of my favourite verses is Romans 4:5,

but to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness (JND)

This verse certainly equates faith with believing. But more than that, it tells us the value of faith lies in who is being believed. Notice the focus of the verse: we're not told what the person believes, but whom the person believes. I think my good friend Epimenos said something along those lines once.

Really Romans 4:5 is an audacious verse. It says something that I would never dare to say, except that God said it first: there's nothing you can do to please God except take Him at His word. Ultimately that's the Gospel, God doesn't want you to be good or act better... He just wants you to believe Him. This is what we mean when we say "justification by faith alone in Christ alone". There's nothing to do (as Epimenos says), only someone to believe.

But really Scripture is full of audacious statements. How about Acts 13:38 & 39

Be it known unto you, therefore, brethren, that through this man remission of sins is preached to you, and from all things from which ye could not be justified in the law of Moses, in him every one that believes is justified. (JND)

Now there's an audacious statement: take anything that the Law of Moses condemns then select from those the things for which a person's sentence is certain death: you end up with quite a list. There are some that don't seem like a big deal (collecting firewood on Saturday), but you get some pretty terrible ones too: murder, rape, incest, abduction, blasphemy--- the list goes on. But Scripture says that remission of sins--- the same sins for which there is no remedy in Moses' Law--- and everyone who believes is justified from them. This is a recurring theme, isn't it? God justifies freely the one who believes. Want to be forgiven of all your sins? Just believe God.

And notice there's no limit in this one: no hint that there's something you can do to really put yourself beyond what God will forgive. God will freely justify you from all things, if you believe Him.

Here's an audacious verse, 1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (JND)

Have you sinned? Of course you have! What sort of penance does God want? Why, He wants nothing at all except for you to agree with Him about it! He simply wants you to confess it, and you're forgiven. It's that simple: no tears, no promises to do better... you don't even have to beg for forgiveness. No, Scripture makes the audacious statement that when we confess, God forgives.

The next chapter goes even further:

My children, these things I write to you in order that ye may not sin; and if any one sin, we have a patron with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (1 John 2:1, JND)

When does Christ represent our interests to God? When we sin. Does Christ begin to advocate for us when we repent? or when we confess? or when we clean up our act? Nope, He advocates for us when we sin. What if we sin and sin and sin and continue in it for years? Well, it seems to me like this verse would indicate that He advocates for us for years.

Hebrews is full of that sort of thing:

[Christ] being the effulgence of his glory and the expression of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, having made by himself the purification of sins, set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high

Here's some more: Christ made purification for sins by Himself. How much help did He have? None. What's my part in all this? Nothing. There's some audacity.


I suppose it's the sheer audacity of Scripture that makes it so hard to believe sometimes. It's easy to believe I'm no good, it's pretty hard to believe God's willing to justify me without any effort on my part when I believe Him. It's easy to recognize the wickedness of things that I do and say and think, but awfully hard to believe the remedy is simply to agree with God about them.

And I suppose that's why so many people fall into the "try harder" trap. It's awfully hard to accept that trying harder is actually the problem... it's a lot easier to think we need to put in some work.


On the other hand, if faith is audacious then unbelief is arrogant. If the Bible really is the word of God--- if this book really is the actual words that God told men to write down--- then not believing them is much worse than audacity: it's outright arrogance. If the Bible declares that men (and women) are justified from all their sins solely by believing God, then it's staggering arrogance to try and add something more than that. To add the slightest human effort to that is not humility: it's actually saying that you know better than God.

And if we choose to ignore what the Bible says about sins: that God only wants us to agree with Him about them; then it's inconceivably arrogant to suggest that what God really wants is some penance or good works to help convince Him. As Paul said, let God be true and every man a liar.

And I suppose this would equally apply to those who on the one hand claim to believe God and on the other doubt what He said. There are some tough passages in Scripture; but to make light of God's words isn't humility, it's arrogance. It seems a lot of people are trying to excuse their disbelief as humility these days, but to question God's veracity isn't humility. Casting aspersion on God is purely arrogance.

G. K. Chesterton made some insightful comments about this arrogance-as-humility:

We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own devices. Disbelievers and cynics of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced.

It's striking how well he describes a world he didn't live to see...


"The just shall live by faith": Paul quotes Habakkuk three times in the epistles: Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, and Hebrews 10:38. The old "brethren" preachers would say that each epistle emphasizes a different word in that verse: Romans is all about the "just", Galatians is about "living", and Hebrews is all about "faith". I think there's a lot to that.

Ultimately, what God wants from beginning to end is for women and men to believe Him. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. What did God say that Abraham believed? I'm pretty sure it was merely that he would have a son; it's not so much what we believe, but whom we believe. The Lord Jesus told the crowds at the Sea of Galilee, "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he has sent" (John 6:29, JND). What does God want us to do? He wants us to believe Him.

There's an audacity to faith. Hebrews 11 lists a whole bunch of people who believed, and then lists some of the consequences of their believing. They did some pretty audacious things. Some of the things they did were incredible, some seem surprisingly mundane. The value of what they did is not implicit in their actions: the value is that they stem from believing God.


I'm pretty sure if I walk out what Scripture actually teaches I'll be called a lot of things, and I'm sure arrogant is one of them. And I know that I've been far too timid when it comes to what God has said: I've let myself be cowed far too many times. So call me a hypocrite: but I can't help but think that audacity is infinitely better than arrogance.

New Book

I picked up a copy of The Greatness of the Kingdom by Alva McClain. It was recommended by a friend I met through this blog. I couldn't sleep last night, so I finished Part 1, which sounds better than "I read the first 36 pages".

It's really a very interesting book, all about the Kingdom of God. I won't recommend it yet, having only read about 36 pages; but I'm really very excited about this book.

Try Harder (Reprise)

I ranted a while ago about "try harder theology". Yeah, it was a rant. I'd like to say it was a reasoned discussion, but it was written in the wee hours of the morning and I just sort of opened the flood gates and let it pour out.

There is some value to revisiting the whole topic: there is a lot more to be said. So let's start with a recap:
Romans 1–8 contains two general sections. The first, from chapter 1:18 through about chapter 5:8 is the discussion of justification. Justification is God's declaring a sinner to be righteous. This is demonstrated in Romans 4:5. God justifies the ungodly. It is the sinner who believes who is justified, not the one who works. Justification doesn't imply that we become righteous, but that God declares us to be so.

But discussion takes a sharp turn somewhere about Romans 5:9, where Paul begins a new argument. The central word from Romans 1:18 to Romans 5:8 is "justified". But in Romans 5:9, there is a new word, "saved". The argument from Romans 1:18 to Romans 5:8 was justification; starting in Romans 5:9 the subject is salvation.

From Romans 1:18 to about Romans 5:8, the argument was what we term a "forensic" argument. Men are guilty of sins, actual acts of rebellion. But in Romans 5:12 we turn from sins to sin. And in the second part of Romans 5 we learn not only have all men sinned, but all men are sinners. This is actually a different lesson. Romans 1:18–3:19 tell us what men have done. Romans 5 tells us why they did it.

Romans 6 gives us the solution to the ontological problem, just like Romans 4 gave us the solution to the forensic problem. Those who have been baptized into Christ, the argument goes, have been baptized into His death. Having been crucified with Christ, we are now dead to sin. So we are justified from sins and we are dead to sin.

Romans 7 gives us some practical consequences to Romans 6. Having died to sin, are we then transported into instant perfection? No, we are not. Sin dwells in us, in our flesh (Romans 7:18). So now we are introduced to a new word: "flesh". And we learn that there is an active force of sin that pulls us down. This is not merely bad habits: this is an active indwelling sin that lives in our bodies and drags us into sin. So Paul talks about wanting to do what he can't do, and not wanting to do what he does. And he concludes that there is a principle in his members that is distinct from himself.

The last few verses give us a remarkable truth: that the sin that dwells in us is stronger than we are. We can't overcome it, we can't be better. There is no amelioration: we need a Deliverer. We need Someone outside of ourselves to deliver us from the flesh inside.

And notice the Scripture specifically tells us Law doesn't help. Law only exacerbates the problem. We see the Law and delight in its perfection, but when we try to keep it, we find ourselves even worse off than before. The Law is good, but I am not.


My rant last time focused on the futility of overcoming the flesh by trying harder. And I (correctly) noted a specific example of someone teaching people to do the very thing Scripture says won't work. But there is more.

Romans 7 presupposes that there is a new creation. A sinner feels no internal conflict with the flesh: there is nothing for the flesh to fight against. And this is the part of Romans 7 that gets confusing. It's not that the Law is bad. In fact, the man in Romans 7 proves his regeneration by delighting in the Law. But when he tries to keep it, he finds himself worse off. The man in Romans 7 is a new creature in the old creature's body: this is the essential problem. The negative consequence is that futility of that man trying to improve himself.

But there is a positive truth too. If the new creature is in the old creature's body, that certainly proves there is a new creature. This is the fatal flaw in the passive approach that many try to take. It is absolutely true that God never intended us to duke it out with sin. It is absolutely true that we are powerless over the flesh in us. But that is not the whole truth.

The equal and opposite truth is that we are new creations. Yes, we encounter obstacles we cannot overcome, and the plain teaching of Scripture is that we ought not to try. But the Scripture is equally plain that there is a life that is to be lived. And so the new man is taught to yield his members as instruments of righteousness. Note we aren't to bludgeon them into being instruments of righteousness, we're to yield them.

But the point is that we are to live out eternal life, and it's not passive.

A friend many years ago told me, "There's a ditch on both sides of the road". It's all too easy to step into the ditch on the right trying not to fall into the one on the left.

There are two dangers here. The first is to ignore the ontological changes in Romans 6 and the warnings of Romans 7 and teach sanctification by Law. This is the error of the Galatians: to think that we can be justified by faith but perfected by works. And so there are millions of true believers who keep trying harder, but they eventually conclude they're not trying hard enough. But the Scripture teaches there's no such thing as "hard enough". It just doesn't work that way.

But the opposite danger is just as real. This is the danger of becoming fixated on the flesh in us, realize we need a Deliverer, and slide into a complete passivism. I've known many who've fallen into this, and it leads to what another friend dubbed "Christian Buddhism", where the believer strives for a state of nothingness. This is the error of those who teach "dying to self" as the solution.

The first error ignores what the Scripture says about the flesh, the second ignores what it says about the new creation.

The fact is, the Scripture doesn't teach a life of nothingness, but it does teach the futility of human effort in sanctification. So Scripture doesn't teach a passive life, but it does teach an effortless one. We are called to eternal life, and we're to live it out down here, in a wicked world, in sinful bodies. But we live it not through will-power or human effort; we live it through faith in the Son of God (Galatians 2:20). Christ Jesus is our life, our sanctification, our holiness, our wisdom, and our righteousness (Colossians 3:4, 1 Corinthians 1:30). We've not been saved to be autonomously good, but we've not been saved to sit here either. We've been called to look into His eyes and take a step at a time.

16 But I say, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall no way fulfil flesh’s lust.
17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these things are opposed one to the other, that ye should not do those things which ye desire;
18 but if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under law.
(Galatians 5:16–18, JND)

I used to think "walking in the Spirit" a very deep and mysterious thing. I don't think that now. I think what the Scripture terms "walking in the Spirit" is simply the deliberate act of submission to Christ. It's not that we try harder, it's that we bow to Him and let Him lead us. When we come up against the flesh, we look to Him to deliver us. And we take each step relying on the Lord to be our provision.

I've been overwhelmed by the last verse of 2 Corinthians 3:

But *we* all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit.
(2 Corinthians 3:18, JND)

What is the secret to the Christian life? It's the transforming effect of looking on the glory of the Lord. Looking doesn't require a lot of effort, but it's a definite and distinct activity. And as we gaze on Him, we are told, we are transformed into the same glory.

He that boasts, let him boast in the Lord (1 Corinthians 1:31, JND)

The Sunday School lesson I never had