Sinful Enough to be Forgiven?

Is it necessary for us to feel how sinful we are in order to be forgiven our sins? No one who thinks himself perfect would seek after a savior, but must we feel the full weight of our sins? Some seem to think so, and until they are certain that a sinner is repentant enough, knowing just how sinful he/she is, no assurance of forgiveness is granted. In doing so even guilt becomes a work that we must do, that we must feel enough of, in order to be granted “free” justification. 

Fortunately, for those of us who are too sinful to even know just how sinful we are (or fully comprehend just how holy God is) there is grace. Luther’s quotation below is helpful because he shows that even the knowledge we have of our own guilt is by faith. This means that we don’t have to keep striving under the law in order to “really feel” how guilty we are, but by faith we know that we are, in fact, under condemnation. Rather than look to ourselves for assurance we are, yet again, pointed out of ourselves. The fact that we are not able to fathom the sinfulness of our sins, nor the height of God’s holiness will not keep us from reconciliation. God requires only that we receive and rest in the finished work of Christ. In Christ we have righteousness to stand before a holy God.

Even if we do not recognize any sin in ourselves, we must nevertheless believe that we are sinners. Hence the apostle says: “I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby justified” (1 Cor. 4:4). For just as the righteousness of God is alive in me by faith, so by the same faith sin is alive in me; i.e., by faith alone we must believe that we are sinners, because it is not obvious to us. If truth be told, most of the time we do not seem to be conscious of ourselves [as sinners]. Therefore we must stand by God’s judgment and believe the words by which he tells us that we are unjust, because he cannot tell a falsehood.
- Luther’s Works, 25:215 (WA 56:231; Ficker, I, 69) taken from Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4, Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 191-92. 

 

Accountability: What is it Good For? (Absolutely Nothing?)

I recently stumbled upon a check-list with the title: “Taking Accountability to the Next Level.” On this list are about forty different things that men can check off to be held accountable for. The items vary from very concrete things such as one’s physical health all the way to abstract things such as selfishness and lust. Apparently this check-list is a tool for men to recognize their sins and be held accountable and to be prayed for specifically. The way this works out practically is that men fill out the card and hand them to other men so that they would be kept accountable. It even comes with a weekly schedule of when prayer is requested. On the same webpage as this chart, about a paragraph down, is a quote telling men that as long as their life is about them, they will fall into sin. Thus, sin must be put to death (a paraphrase). 

This seems fine and good, but several questions arise in my mind.

First, one wonders whether it is wise to implement a man-made list for other men to be held accountable to. I mean, isn’t the law found in Scripture enough? There are a number of things on the list: nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, prescription drugs that are not condemned in scripture (some are not even mentioned), and would only serve to bind consciences of believers not to God’s law, but to man’s idea of what God’s law ought to be. Isn’t God’s law hard enough? Are we holier than God?

Second, the whole idea that sin is going to be overcome by the believer through some kind of search and destroy mission tends to overlook the fact that our greatest sins are those which we often fail to see. I’m thinking mainly of our natural lust for autonomy–the same desire that causes fallen man to seek his own way to God rather than receive salvation by faith in Christ. If we’re to target sins in our lives, wouldn’t we do better to go a different route than every other religion? Rather than make an attempt to destroy those very evident sins (whether to ourselves or to others), shouldn’t we be doing what distinguishes Christianity from every other works-based religion?

We are so quick to pass over the gospel as something that is done and finished for us, and to start our own program of sanctification. Yet, in viewing the gospel merely as mere initiation of salvation, rather than the entirety of it, we fail to understand what the biggest problem is. The issue is not that we commit various acts, or have, at times, a more negative attitude than we would like. The problem is that our very inward parts, our heart and will, are bent towards autonomy. Not merely in our acts, but at our core we are in need of repair (perhaps better described as resuscitation). Evidence of this autonomous corruption is clearly depicted in church history. Over time, even something as free and fundamental to the gospel as grace became something that had to be earned (or ultimately repaid). The common complaint against any doctrine of salvation that left nothing for man was always the same; namely, man would not try hard enough if his work didn’t contribute, at least somewhat, to his salvation (including sanctification). But it was precisely because man was helpless that Christ came. Not for those who thought they needed to make some repairs here and there, but for those who understood that they could do nothing apart from Christ. Christ came for those who needed more than a coach or a spiritual, albeit gracious, motivator. He came for those who needed a Savior.  

Third, (to get back on topic) wasn’t this exactly the problem Luther had while he was a monk? Give me a check-list for selfishness, fear, anxiety, anger, pride, lust, arrogance, and so on, and I guarantee you that as long as my eyes are on myself (and as long as I am honest), there will be no improvement (even though I might like to think there will be). Luther’s problem was that he could never do enough. Who prays enough? Who loves enough? Who is sincere enough? As long as we look inside ourselves we find neither hope nor Christ. The Reformation was a complete 180 degree turn from self to the Savior who is outside of us. Why would we ever want to go back to navel-gazing? Bavinck’s quotation on nomistic Pietism from the previous post is pertinent here. As long as the idea is that sin is defeated through introspection and self-examination, the result will only be despair. Isn’t this what the gospel saves us from?

I’m still left with the question of what accountability is for (or whether it is any good). If it were up to me I’d completely dispose of the modern idea of accountability because it reeks of psychological self-help programs and “what I feel.” It may not be your father’s pharisaic legalism, but it is still legalism (some call this “soft legalism”). If there is to be any accountability, it shouldn’t primarily be about whether we’ve been doing enough. For any who hold to the doctrine of total depravity it should be a given that no one is doing enough. Rather, if we’re going to keep one another in check, it should be to exhort and remind each other to look outside ourselves and to look upon Christ, who fulfilled all that is required by God’s law, and who will never turn away those who come to him in faith and repentance. (Repentance here is not to be understood as a “180 degree turn from a particular sin,” but a 180 degree turn from self–i.e. a righteousness of my own). Even to those who have sinned the same sin (to their own dismay) for the billionth time, Christ is both able and willing to forgive (Wasn’t this Peter’s question? If my brother sins against me seven times, how many times should I forgive him?).

A constant looking to the righteousness of Christ, extra nos, rather than one’s self will produce true (though imperfect) obedience. Such an obedience will spring from a heart that has been forgiven much and so loves much rather than a heart that only gives to God the minimum due for fear that he is a hard task-master.

Nomistic Pietism and Assurance of Salvation

While the Antimonians erred by making assurance and faith identical (so that mere intellectual assent to the sentence: “Your sins have been forgiven you” meant salvation), the nomistic Pietists erred by making assurance dependent not on one’s faith in Christ, but on the quality of one’s faith. This latter type of assurance pointed the subject, not outside, but continually inside himself to see if his faith was doing all that it should. This sort of self-centered piety is nothing more than a return to law. In this case, however, the law is not God’s law (which quickly exposes our helplessness–and would more plainly be seen to be legalism), but one’s own own autonomous standard (often described as “loving God and neighbor” qualified by a self-imposed definition of what this love consists of) which either keeps the subject always looking into himself, or deludes one to believe that he/she is leading a “victorious” life (one that finds assurance not in Christ but in one’s own successful efforts) without sin. By making the well-being of faith the ground of assurance, the pietists ensured that no good works would ever be born. The works that did spring forth would not be out of a spontaneous gratitude for the gospel of Christ, but always a forced, guilt-driven, and sometimes delusional introspection.

In contrast to this nomistic Pietism, Bavinck points to a theologia crucis, which directs us out of ourselves and our own pharisaic attempts to see God in the nude, to the glorious person and work of Christ:

Nomistic Pietism, on the other hand, erred when it shifted the assurance of salvation from the “being” (wezen) to the “well-being” (welwezen) of faith and considered it attainable–aside from extraordinary revelations–only in the way of continual introspection and prolonged and anxious self-examination. Instead of leading one’s spiritual life by this method to the mountaintop, it gradually deprived that life of all certainty and robbed it of all spontaneity. “Nothing more certainly inhibits a feeling than continual meticulous examination of the questions [of] whether one has it. Rarely does this preoccupation produce anything other than a lament over one’s own ‘deadness.’ And even more than spontaneous feeling, it is spontaneous action that is inhibited by this continual introspection. The good seed cannot flourish when it is repeatedly dug up for purpose of examining its growth. This preoccupation with religious experiences paralyzes the will. People become too occupied with themselves to attain to vigorous action.”
In keeping with Reformation principles and against both forms of one-sidedness, therefore, we must maintain that faith and the life of faith is much too rich to be reduced to “naked assent” (nudus assensus) to the article concerning the forgiveness of sins; it also essentially includes certainty. This certainty, which relates both to the objective grace of God in Christ and to the believer’s subjective participation in it, is not an external additive to faith but is in principle integral to it from the start. It is not obtained by looking at ourselves but by looking away from ourselves to Christ. It is grounded in the promises of God, not in changing experiences or imperfect good works. Doubts and fears do certainly arise from time to time in the believer’s heart (Matt. 8:25; 14:30; Mark 9:24), and must certainly fight against them through their lives. However, they can only wage that struggle and only prevail in that struggle by the power of the faith that holds on to God’s promise, rest in the completed work of Christ, and is thus by nature certain. Therefore, the various acts of faith, such as knowing, assenting, trusting, and so forth, acts that in turn must be distinguished from the fruits of faith or good works, are not the steps or stages of faith that succeed each other in time but activities that themselves, and in connection with each other, can be either weak or strong. There are children and youths, men and fathers in Christ. But those who embrace the gospel with a true faith are, in proportion to the vigor with which they do this, also certain of their own salvation, and vice versa. The one thing is most closely connected with the other and rises and falls with it. So then faith is and remains by its very nature an unlimited and unconditional trust of the heart in the riches of God’s grace in Christ. Today it is essentially still the same as what it was in the days of the Old and New Testaments, a believing against hope (Rom. 4:18), the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things unseen (Heb. 11:1), a deep-seated confidence that with God all things are possible (Mark 10:27; 11:23-24), that he who raised Christ from the dead (Rom. 4:24; 10:9) still raises the dead, still saves sinners, and forever calls into existence the things that do not exist (4:17).
- Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4, Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 131-32. 

 

John Murray on Christian Liberty

The progress of knowledge, of faith, of edification, and of fellowship within the body of Christ is not to be secured by legislation that prohibits the strong from the exercise of their God-given privileges and liberties, whether this legislation be civil or ecclesiastical. Legislation can never be based upon the conscience of the weak or motivated by consideration for the conscience of the weak. If we once allow such considerations to dictate law enactment or enforcement, then we have removed the ground of law from the sphere of right and wrong to the sphere of erring human judgment. God has given us a norm of right and wrong, and by that norm laws are to be made and enforced. When we in the interests of apparent expediency erect laws or barriers which God has not erected, then we presume to act the role of law-givers. There is one lawgiver. When we observe the hard and fast lines of distinction which God has established for us and refuse to legislate on those matters that in themselves are not wrong, then we promote the interests of Christian ethics. When we violate these lines of distinction we confuse and perplex the whole question of ethics and jeopardize the cause of truth and righteousness. We dare not attempt to be holier than God’s law, and we dare not impose upon the Christian’s conscience what does not have the authority of divine institution.
- “The Weak and the Strong” By Professor John Murray, The Westminster Theological Journal, Vol. 12, 1950.

Read the rest here.

The Essence of Christianity According to Bavinck

Believing always includes the acceptance of the witness God has given of his Son through the apostles as well as unlimited trust in the person of Christ. The two are inseparable. Those who truly accept the apostolic witness trust in Christ alone for their salvation; and those who put their trust in Christ as the Son of God also freely and readily accept the apostolic witness concerning that Christ. The two together, subjectively speaking, constitute the essence of Christianity. If Christ were only a historical person who by his doctrine and life had left us an example, historical belief in the witness handed down to us would be sufficient. However, in that case Christianity would never mature into true religion, that is, into true communion with God, and Deism would be right. Conversely, if Christ, in keeping with the pantheistic view, were not the historical but solely the ideal Christ, belief in an apostolic witness would be totally superfluous, and Christ would be nothing other than the life of God in us, but then there could not be true communion between God and us either, for such communion presupposes an essential distinction between the two.
…  For a person believes with the heart and so is justified, and confesses with the mouth, and so is saved (Rom. 10:10). Faith as Scripture speaks of it excludes both: a faith of the heart that does not confess and a confession that is not rooted in the faith of the heart. It is simultaneously mystical and noetic, an unlimited and unwavering trust in Christ as he who, as Scripture says, has accomplished everything for me and on that basis is now and forever my Lord and my God.
- Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4, Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 108. 

Regeneration According to Schleiermacher

Bavinck, in summarizing Schleiermacher’s view of regeneration, shows how an exclusively “Christ in us,” rather than a  ”Christ for us”-type of Christianity (if the former can even be called that) leaves no room for an objective justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. When our justification is made to depend on anything but the imputed righteousness of Christ, whether it be morality, or a “personal life in communion with God,” we cease to look outside of ourselves for help, and in so doing cease to look to Christ.

In theology the concept of regeneration was again restored by Schleiermacher. In his thought the concept even became the center of the redemptive order for religion. Specifically, Christianity was not a revealed doctrine, nor a moral code that enjoins activity upon us, but life, personal life in communion with God. In keeping with this, redemption consisted objectively in the impartation of the holiness and blessedness of Christ’s God-consciousness, to which regeneration then corresponds subjectively, with the assumption of humans into living fellowship with Christ. When Christ encounters us and vigorously exerts his influence in us, the previously feeble and oppressed God-consciousness is raised up, reinforced, and brought to dominion in us. Within us there then arises a new religious personality who breaks with the old state, starts a new life, and develops and completes it in sanctification. Regeneration, accordingly, is “the turning point at which the earlier life as it were breaks off and the new begins.” Schleiermacher’s virtue is that he again included regeneration in dogmatics, understood by it a religious-ethical process of change, and also related it to the person of Christ. But in the process he was not able to disentangle himself completely from the influence of pantheistic philosophy. This is apparent in the first place, in the fact that, in connection with his view of sin as sensuousness and of Christ’s appearance as the rebirth of the human race, he views the rebirth of the individual as a moment, be it a very significant moment, in the process in which the human spirit, in fellowship with God, elevates itself above and frees itself from the dominion of the sensuous nature. On the other hand, this again carries within itself the consequence that justification is made dependent on repentance. The assumption into fellowship of life with Christ, which is regeneration, has two dimensions. On the one hand, it brings about a change in one’s relationship to God, which is justification; on the other hand it consists in a change of life and is called conversion (further differentiated into repentance and faith). The moment a person is reborn, repenting and believing, one no longer as in the past faces God as the Holy and Righteous One but experiences his love and grace and loses the consciousness of guilt and doom by which one was burdened in the past. Regeneration includes a change of consciousness and in that respect is called justification. But in Schleiermacher’s doctrine, there is no room for an objective justification that precedes conversion, is based on the righteousness of Christ, and is accepted and enjoyed by faith alone.
- Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4, Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 60-61. 

Pilgrim Theology: Looking to a Heavenly Kingdom

Comparing Christianity to other religions, Darryl Hart points out how the pilgrim theology of Christianity disallows any illusions of an earthly kingdom. As pilgrims and aliens (much like the Patriarchs in the Old Testament) we do not combine cult and culture in hopes of creating some sort of theocracy, but are simultaneously citizens in two kingdoms: we abide by the rules of the city of man, recognizing its establishment as a common grace order, but we recognize that God does not build his Kingdom through it. It is Christ’s Church against which the gates of hell will not prevail, not the city of man.

So while the economies rise and fall, while nations are built up and destroyed, Christians do not despair, for our heavenly kingdom is not identified with any earthly kingdom. We do not declare jihad in order to Christianize the world, nor do we seek to bring Christ’s kingdom down through political means. The strong man is not bound by brute force, nor by “christianizing” a nation; it is only through the preaching of the gospel and the administering of the sacraments that the strong man is bound.  

For Christians, the pattern of Israel and theocracy were no longer valid after the coming of Christ. Christians need not try to replicate Israel’s legitimate attempt to integrate cult and culture but were permitted to live hyphenated-lives, as Greek-Christians, Jewish-Christians, Roman-Christians, and more. In other words, Christian teachings gave no instruction on the establishment of a distinctly Christian culture because Christianity was a religion without a specific land, city, or place. Its teachings transcended the cult-culture relationship as a faith for people from any ethnic background.
- Darryl G. Hart, A Secular Faith (Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee, 2006), 251. 

Imitatio Christi

Berkouwer dedicates a whole chapter to the idea of the Imitatio Christi. After several pages discussing the abuse and misuse of the idea, Berkouwer concludes that we must still maintain a category for it in our thinking. Contrary to the mystical spirituality of the middle ages (that is far from extinction in our own day), however, this imitation is not an introspective piety that focuses on self and God. Founded on the fact of Christ’s atonement and imputed righteousness by faith alone, we imitate Christ by having an outward facing religion. Imitation of Christ is no longer restricted to the few dedicated missionaries or monks, but to all who belong to Christ, having been redeemed and reconciled by his perfect obedience:

The imitation of Christ can therefore never consist in the seclusion of prayer and meditation; instead it takes us into the broad daylight of commonplace affairs. “I pray not that thou shouldest take them from the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15). Their only danger is that they will fall in the clutches of the Evil One, and from this danger Christ would have them preserved. In this preservation the imitation fulfills itself as a result of the grace of God who delivered us out of the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love (Col. 1:13-14) and causes us to live as sons of light ( I Thess. 5:5). This is the light that radiates from those who follow in the steps of the Master by whose stripes they are healed.
- G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Sanctification (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1952), 160. 
 

Sola Fide and Synergism: A Possibility?

Here’s Berkouwer commenting on Wesley’s Perfectionism and how despite his strong adherence to the doctrine of justification by faith alone Wesley still fell prey to synergism. He failed to understand the significance of justification in the believer’s sanctification. Once the Christian took off from the launching pad of justification (God’s work), he was expected to focus on his journey (sanctification- man’s work) without looking back. This distorted understanding of the two closely knit doctrines of justification and sanctification led to his legalistic nomism:

Attention has been drawn to the synergistic element in Wesley’s theology. This is the more striking because Wesley admitted full acceptance of the Sola-fide doctrine. Evidently one may accept the doctrine and then fail to do justice to it. For again and again there comes to the surface in his Perfectionism a strong nomistic tendency. Wesley did not fail to warn against a facile over-estimate of self, but an insidious nomism he did not entirely escape. As Lerch says, “Not only our reflection but also the subsequent course of the Holiness movement shows that there is here the threat either of legal rigorism or of overestimating the strength of one’s own footing.” 
Since Wesley  proceeded emphatically from the justification of the ungodly, his synergism is a serious warning. The Sola-fide doctrine is subject to frequent misunderstanding. One can assume it as one’s starting-point, as did Wesley, and subsequently view the process of sanctification in terms of a dynamic category — a power plus its effects — without taking account of the bearings which faith always sustains toward divine grace. Sola-fide becomes a point of departure and breaks its connection with sanctification. Here lies the cause of Wesley’s tendency towards synergism, in spite of his adherence to Sola-fide. This tendency is not a count against Sola-fide but a warning against misconceiving its all important significance.
- G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Sanctification (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1952), 52-3. 
 

Genuine Sanctification

Genuine sanctification — let it be repeated — stands or falls with this continued orientation toward justification and the remission of sins. The fact that antinomianism was beaten down again and again with an appeal to the reality of sanctification resulted from the listening attentively to the Word of God. But too often the bond between sanctification and Sola-fide was neglected and the impression was created that sanctification was the humanly operated successor to the divinely worked justification. The victim of this view can arrive only at a sanctification that is a causal process, and he is bound, in the end, to speak as Rome of an infused grace and of a qualitative sanctification.
- G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Sanctification (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1952), 78.