reformed blogging.

The love of God in itself is the eternal purpose and act of his will. This is no more changeable than God himself: if it were, no flesh could be saved; but it changeth not, and we are not consumed. What then? loves he his people in their sinning? Yes; his people,–not their sinning. Alters he not his love towards them? Not the purpose of his will, but the dispensations of his grace. He rebukes them, he chastens them, he hides his face from them, he smites them, he fills them with a sense of [his] indignation; but woe, woe would it be to us, should he change in his love, or take away his kindness from us!
…But now our love to God is ebbing and flowing, waning and increasing. We lose our first love, and we grow again in love;–scarce a day at a stand. What poor creatures are we! How unlike the Lord and his love! “Unstable as water, we cannot excel.” Now it is, “Though all men forsake thee, I will not;” anon, “I know not the man.” One day, “I shall never be moved, my hill is so strong;” the next, “All men are liars, I shall perish.” When ever was the time, where ever was the place, that our love was one day equal towards God?
- John Owen, Works, Vol. 2: Communion With God, 31.

Speaking very generally, I think most Christians can fall into either of two extremes. One side overemphasizes the love of God to the neglect of God’s holiness, while the other emphasizes holiness to the neglect of love. I’ll be honest and just say from the start that, more often than not, I fall into the latter category. In this day and age when the name of God is so often profaned, and holiness abandoned because of its lack of appeal to the masses, it seems natural that those who recoil would jump to the other side and do away with any sort of love or anything even slightly “emotional.” There certainly is fault in this and it is a misrepresentation of God only to portray His holiness without portraying His love.

I do not believe, however, that both sides err equally. Those who emphasize the love of God while neglecting His holiness are in greater error and completely misrepresent God. The God of the Bible is in no way a compromising God, He does not allow sin to go unpunished. Proverbs 17:15 says, “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, Both of them alike are an abomination to the LORD.” I daresay that anyone who downplays the holiness of God creates an idol and does not worship God at all. Without condemnation of sin there is no need of salvation, and if there is no need of salvation then there is no need for the gospel. God never ceases to be holy and even in His greatest act of love we see His greatest act of holiness.

Having said that much, I do believe that those who downplay the love of God seriously err. There is, however, an order in our approaching God. We cannot understand the love of God without first understanding His holiness. Where the holiness-type people often fail is that they stop at holiness while leaving out love for fear of becoming like the love-type people. This results in many despairing Christians who squirm before a holy and just God rather than approach the throne of grace with confidence. I’ve been there, fearful of God’s holy wrath, the same that came down upon Nadab and Abihu for burning strange fire before God rather than having that love that casts out fear. This is very serious because it deals with assurance of salvation. A high view of God’s holiness is always good, but without a proper view of His love things tend towards despair and despondency. It is here that one wonders whether God can really forgive every single sin, or if enough has been done to show repentance. Just from that you can see how dangerous it is to lack or have an improper view of the love of God. This is all necessary in order for the gospel to do its work. Everyone must come to a point of hopelessness in his own righteousness before the righteousness of Christ is all that we hope in and cling to. Yet, having been justified by faith alone, we are not to remain in this state of hopelessness.

The solution seems to be in rightly “balancing” God’s love and holiness. The love-type people seem to ignore God’s holiness and are falsely assured that all is well with God when it is not, and the holiness-type people give heed to it rightly, but see nothing of the love of God so that there is no hope.

I suggest that it is not a matter of balance, but a matter of perspective. For God’s holiness is not in competition with His love, both are essential attributes of God, and God does not contradict Himself. How do we fix our perspective? Well, in Pierced for Our Transgressions the authors confront this very issue. It is vital that we confront our sin head on without ignoring God’s absolute hatred towards it, but there is only one way to do this without succumbing to despair. Our solution lies in the atonement of Christ, or what is called penal substitution:

that God gave himself in the person of his Son to suffer instead of us the death, punishment and curse due to fallen humanity as the penalty for sin. - Pierced for Our Transgressions, 21.

Thus, the cross of Christ does two things, first it “stands as a memorial to the inexpressible horror of sin; it will not allow us to escape into self-deceiving optimism” but “…at the same time, the cross banishes our despair by declaring God’s comprehensive solution to our plight” (159). At the cross the love and holiness of God meet. There is no greater act of love than Christ, the righteous, dying for His enemies, the ungodly and wicked, who in no wise deserve such mercy and grace. Herein does the Christian stand: on an uncompromising, holy love of God. In this we see His faithfulness to do all that He says, He will maintain His righteousness and punish every sin becoming just and justifier, and we also see very clearly His love for us, that He would send His Son to bear our sin, and become sin for us.

Trembling sinner, look to Jesus, and thou art saved. Dost thou say, ‘My sins are many’? His atonement is wondrous. Dost thou cry, ‘My heart is hard’? Jesus can soften it. Dost thou exclaim, ‘Alas, I am so unworthy’? Jesus loves the unworthy. Dost thou feel, ‘I am so vile’? It is the vile Jesus came to save. Down with thee, sinner; down, down with thyself, and up with Christ, who hath suffered for thy sins upon Calvary’s cross. Turn thine eye thither; see Jesus only. He suffers. He bleeds. He dies. He is buried. He rises again. he ascends on high. Trust Him, and thou art safe. Give up all other trusts , and rely on Jesus alone, alone on Jesus, and thou halt pass from death unto life. This is the sure sign, the certain evidence of the Spirit’s indwelling, of the Father’s election, of the Son’s redemption, when the soul is brought simply and wholly to rest and trust in Jesus Christ, who ‘hath once suffered for sins, the Just of the unjust, that He might bring us to God.’” - C.H. Spurgeon, Our Suffering Substitute: A Sermon on 1 Peter 3:18.

The cross keeps us from ignoring the holiness of God thus downplaying sin, or from ignoring God’s love and becoming despondent or Pharisaical. Our boast is nothing but the cross.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.

Here’s some more Edwards for you:

“Hypocrites may, and oftentimes do, make a great show of religion in profession, and in words that cost nothing, and in actions that involve no great difficulty or suffering. But they have not a suffering spirit, or a spirit that inclines them willingly to suffer for Christ’s sake. When they undertook religion, it was not with any view to suffering, or with any design or expectation of being injured by it in their temporal interests.” - Jonathan Edwards, Charity and its Fruit, p. 253

“Indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” - 2 Timothy 3:12

The Reformers held to the doctrine of Sola Fide or justification by faith alone which means that God saves us, not on the basis of any deeds we have done, but on the basis of faith alone in Christ alone. We are properly saved through Christ’s mediating work on our behalf, that He died as our ransom and sacrifice. He was put in our stead and by faith our sins are placed on Him and His righteousness becomes our own. Yet they also believed in the absolute necessity of works. Not as grounds of justification but as a result of it. True faith will produce fruit. Or as Jonathan Edwards would put it, “God would have it deeply impressed on all, that good works are the only satisfying evidence that we are truly possessed of grace in the soul.”

The issue then arises, how do we rightly judge ourselves? For Scripture indicates that no one is sinless, and if anyone claims that he is, he is a liar. Yet, we are also told that “no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” How do we reconcile these passages?

Some have gone to one extreme of ruling out the necessity of works, saying that verbal profession is enough, while others have gone to the other end of works-based righteousness. Neither extreme is scripturally warranted, nor glorifying to God. How, then, do we walk the fine line between antinomianism (lawlessness) and legalism? How do we gain assurance without ruling out good works and without depending on our works? We work, knowing that we have been saved by Christ’s righteousness. A.W. Pink rightly says that “the quickest road to full assurance is full obedience.” Yet, we do often fail in obedience and the Christian who understands that the Law is more than external but a matter of the heart will always find sin in himself.

To remedy this, Jonathan Edwards provides seven guidelines so that true Christians do not despair in self-examination:

1. Has your supposed grace such influence as to render those things in which you have failed of holy practice, loathsome, grievous, and humbling to you?

2. Do you carry about with you, habitually a dread of sin?

3. Are you sensible of the beauty and pleasantness of the ways of holy practice?

4. Do you find that you do particularly esteem and delight in those practices that may, by way of eminence, be called Christian practices, in distinction from mere worldly morality?

5. Do you hunger and thirst after a holy practice?

6. Do you make a business of endeavoring to live holily, and as God would have you, in all respects?

7. Do you greatly desire that you may know all that is your duty?

If you can honestly meet these tests, then you have the evidence that your grace is of the kind that tends to holy practice, and growth in it. And though you may fall, through God’s mercy you shall rise again. He that hath begun a good work in you will carry it on until the day of Jesus Christ. Though you may be at times faint, yet, if pursuing, you shall be borne on from strength to strength, and kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. - Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits, pp. 246-50

We ought strive for the full assurance of faith, without contenting ourselves with anything unbiblical. Crucify any notion in yourself that God will be had by anyone immoral or ungodly , as well as the notion that you, by your own works can meet the standards set by an infinitely holy God. Seek only to come to God by the mediation of Christ Jesus, knowing that a true faith in Him will produce a righteous and holy fruit.

1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
- 1 Corinthians 13

The above passage, 1 Corinthians 13, is perhaps one of the better-known passages in Scripture, and this is not without reason. Paul describes love as the chief virtue and as greater than even faith and hope. There is very little obscurity then, as to what sort of value Paul places on love. Yet, I believe that, as with most oft-quoted passages, it is many times misused, or even abused to convey a message contrary to the gospel. Thus, I will briefly seek to show what the passage first, does not mean, and secondly what is does mean.

First, it is important not simply to look at particular words, or even sentences (though it is not always a bad thing). One must always be aware of the surrounding context of the passage. And context is a relative term, it could be the sentence, paragraph, chapter, book or the whole Bible. And so we must be aware of all the degrees of context. Knowing that, according to 1 Timothy 3:16, all Scripture is God-breathed, and so if we come out with an interpretation contrary to other parts of Scripture, either our interpretation of the passage in view is incorrect, or the interpretation of the other verses are incorrect. There may be apparent contradictions, which may be settled (Romans 4 & James 2) but there are no real contradictions in Scripture.

Onto the passage then:

Brief Context: Paul is writing to the Corinthian church, a church undergoing much strife and division within the body (1:10), there is a great party spirit (1:12-15), a desire to be viewed as wise in the world’s eyes (1:26), spiritual immaturity (3:1), ignorance of who they are in God (3:16), wise in their own eyes (3:18), judging the Lord’s servants (4:3), boasting (4:7), selfishness (4:8), arrogance (5:2), lack of church discipline (5:9-13), lawsuits within the church (6:1), stumbling one another (6:12), sexual immorality (6:18), abuse of Christian liberty (8:1), abuse of spiritual gifts (12:1), undue pride with regard to spiritual gifts (12:12).

Now, it is in the context of this last part, namely spiritual gifts that Paul seeks to show forth the greatest of these gifts. Having mentioned the various roles that God has appointed to the church: apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, gifts of healing, helps, administrations, and tongues, Paul admonishes the believers that gifts are appointed by God and will be varied within the church, that God has appointed specific times and people to receive these various gifts. But past all these gifts Paul exhorts that the Corinthians seek something more excellent, what is called “the greater gifts.” And this is love.

Having set the stage then for chapter 13 of Corinthians I will endeavor to first show, negatively, what it does not mean. Or to put it another way, the abuses of the passage.
Its Abuses - Some use it to undermine faith itself, or the object of our faith as unnecessary. Such a love as described in 1 Corinthians 13 presupposes a spiritual rebirth and a faith in the proclaimed gospel. It is impossible the Scripture will undermine the rest of Scripture. It does not mean that faith does not matter, love is the fruition of true faith, but it does not itself replace faith. Faith is still absolutely necessary for salvation, and it is faith alone that saves.
1. Paul is not undermining all these things that he is naming. Tongues, prophecy, knowledge, faith, giving, martyrdom, these are not being undermined at all. What Paul is doing here is showing that these things are nothing if they are lacking in the necessary quality, that is, love. The things mentioned are to be sought after and desired (in agreement with the rest of the book) but they are all meaningless if they are devoid of love. Thus, rather than undermine these things, Paul is saying that their value is derived from the love by which it is motivated. For in the latter part of the passage it is said that all these things will be done away with when “the perfect comes”. Yet this does not mean that these things are unimportant. All these things are necessary, but only when done from a heart of love.
2. A common abuse of this passage is to show that doctrine or theology goes against the spirit of Scripture. No doubt, there are some unessential doctrines that are often blown out of proportion and serve to cause schisms within the body, which is to be regretted and corrected. Yet, there are certain doctrines that are central to the gospel: those doctrines for which Paul stood up and “opposed Peter to his face” (Galatians 2:11), and those that are not to be compromised even if an angel brings a different message (1:8-9). Paul says that anyone, himself included, bringing a different gospel is to be accursed! Thus, to use this passage of Scripture against those essential doctrines is to abuse the passage. To do so would be to redefine love in a manner that does not accord with Scripture. Love, as defined by Christ, is obedience to His commandments (John 14:15).
3. Thus, the passage is clearly not intending to say that faith is unnecessary. The meaning of words ought to be defined by context, and faith here (v.2) clearly does not speak of justifying faith, but a seeming faith. Just as there are two sorts of sorrows (one leading to repentance the other leading to death, 2 Cor. 7:10) so there are two sorts of faith. One is a mere professing faith (James 2, 1 Cor. 13:2, which is by word only, and another that is a true justifying faith (Romans 4, Eph. 2:8,9). The apparent contradiction in the two passages (Rom. 4, justified by faith not works and 1 Cor. 13, faith is nothing without love) is solved by noting this difference between apparent faith and true justifying faith: an apparent faith will not culminate into the sort of love described by this passage, whereas a true justifying faith will.

How ought we to view 1 Corinthians 13? Or, what are its proper uses?
Its Uses - To show what true faith consists of, that faith without works is dead. True love to God is not an abstract thing but ultimately obedience to His word (John 14:15).
1. It shows us the true nature of justifying faith. That it does not consist in external deeds. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 7:21) The implications of this is startling and ought to cause us to examine ourselves. This means that we can prophecy, speak in tongues, have an apparent faith, give all things to the poor, and yes, even be martyred and still not know Christ.
2. It shows us the use of faith, that for the time being we see dimly, but if we persevere in faith, then it will one day become sight. Thus, our faith is not in vain, but if we do see in ourselves this chief virtue of love, we can be more assured of our faith, that it is justifying, and that we are not deceived. For true faith is the ground of true love, which is shown in verses 4-6.
3. This love that never fails is not an abstract sense of love, but true obedience, in the sense that delight for God and His Law are not absent. There is no use for spiritual gifts, for external deeds, for miraculous healings, or professed faith where true love to Christ and God are lacking. True love to God is demonstrated by obedience to His word. The Pharisees were able to keep the external part of the Law, but failed to look at the heart. Here Paul shows that love is more than a matter of external deeds and that God desires true heart obedience not external sacrifice.