How Christians Press Forward in the Faith

A couple months back now I published a post titled: "The Application of Redemption." That title comes from the fifth chapter in Thomas Watson's magnificent and best-known book: A Body of Divinity. 

In that fifth chapter, expounding the Westminster shorter catechism, Watson works through key catechetical elements in our redemption, instructing the flock on matters faith, effectual calling, justification, adoption, sanctification, assurance, peace, joy, growth in grace, and perseverance. 

For this post I want to focus faith on what God's word says about perseverance in grace. (And I do indeed believe this is what God's word teaches, as I believe both Watson and Westminster offer us a faithful exposition of the doctrine.) To do so I'll quote a sizable section of the chapter from the Banner of Truth edition (A Body of Divinity, 280-281):

By what means do Christians come to persevere? 

[1] By the help of ordinances, as of prayer, the word, and the sacraments. Christians do not arrive at perseverance when they sit still and do nothing. It is not with us as with passengers in a ship, who are carried to the end of their voyage while they sit still in the ship . . . but we arrive at salvation in the use of means; as a man comes to the end of a race by running, to a victory by fighting. "Watch and pray" (Matt. 26:41). As Paul said, "Except ye abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved" (Acts 27:31). Believers shall come to shore at last, arrive at heaven; but "except they abide in the ship," namely, in the use of ordinances, "they cannot be saved." The ordinances cherish grace; as they beget grace, so they are the breast milk by which it is nourished and preserved to eternity.

[2] By the sacred influence and concurrence of the Spirit. The Spirit of God is continually at work in the heart of a believer, to carry on grace to perfection. It drops in fresh oil, to keep the lamp of grace burning. The Spirit excites, strengthens, increases grace, and makes a Christian go from one step of faith to another, till he comes to the end of his faith, which is salvation (1 Pet. 1:9). It is a fine expression of the apostle, "The Holy Spirit which dwells in us" (2 Tim. 1:14). He who dwells in a house, keeps the house in repair; so the Spirit dwelling in a believer, keeps grace in repair. Grace is compared to a river of the water of life (John 7:38). This river can never be dried up, because God's Spirit is the spring that continually feeds it.  

[3] Grace is carried on to perfection by Christ's daily intercession. As the Spirit is at work in the heart, so is Christ at work in heaven. Christ is ever praying that the saint's grace may hold out. "Father, keep those whom thou has given me." Keep them as the stars in their orbs: keep them as jewels, that they may not be lost. "Father keep them" (John 17:11). That prayer which Christ made for Peter, was the copy of the prayer he now makes for believers. "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not," (Luke 22:32) that it be not totally eclipsed. How can the children of such prayers perish?

Seeking God's Face, Finding His Ear

"A Christian perhaps may think, because he does not see God's smiling face, God will not hear him. This is a mistake. 'I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications' (Psa. 31:22). If we pour out sighs to heaven, God will hear every groan; and though he does not show us his face, he will lend us his ear" (Watson, Body of Divinity, 257).

What Justifying Faith Is

In the last post from Thomas Watson's justly famous A Body of Divinity I sought to introduce a portion of the book and its broader context. That portion is the fifth chapter entitled "The Application of Redemption." Here, working through key catechetical elements in our redemption, Pastor Watson instructs the flock of God on matters of faith, effectual calling, justification, adoption, sanctification, assurance, peace, joy, growth in grace, and perseverance, each in turn. And each full of matter for meditation and provocation for practice. We look now, first off, at what justifying faith is.

Watson wisely notes first what it is not. This is important, not least when counterfeits go about unchecked and unchallenged. Everyone believes today in the evangelical church. Or they wouldn't be there, right? Wrong. Without going into all the reasons why man (who is incurably religious) might attend an "evangelical" church, it is sufficient to focus on what Watson avers: "There may be assent to divine truth, and yet no work of grace on the heart" (215). That's no doubt right. One may agree that the gospel is true and still not know God or be justified by his grace. This sort of "faith" is the faith of devils. They know the gospel is true, but don't love it or trust it. So, Watson continues: "Many assent in their judgments, that sin is an evil thing, but they go on in sin, whose corruptions are stronger than their convictions. . ." (215). May it never be with us.

Well, what then, you ask, is a justifying faith, or a faith that justifies? What is the sort of faith that saves sinners from the coming wrath? What faith unites to the risen Jesus and puts one right with a holy God, a God who cannot truck with sin? According to our trustworthy physician of the soul for this post, it consists in three things: 1) self-renunciation; 2) reliance; and 3) appropriation.

First, self-renunciation. "Faith is a going out of one's self, being taken off from our own merits, and seeing we have no righteousness of our own. 'Not having mine own righteousness' (Phil. 3:9). Self-righteousness is a broken reed, which the soul dares not lean on. Repentance and faith are both humbling graces; by repentance a man abhors himself; by faith he goes out of himself" (216). For our purposes today, almost certainly the main thing to observe here is that justifying faith does not make much of the self. It's not impressed with the self. The self-serving swollen-self is a thing to be repented of rather than touted and tickled. Faith looks away from this swollen self upward "to him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." And it looks to his goodness, his greatness, his glory, and says: "not having a righteousness of my own." It says: “not impressed with the self.” It says: “no good thing dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.”

Next, Watson speaks of how faith, if it is to be a faith that justifies, includes the element of reliance. Faith relies not on the self, but on another. "Faith rests on Christ's person. Faith believes the promise; but that which faith rests upon in the promise is the person of Christ. . . . Faith is described to be 'believing on the name of the Son of God' (1 John 3:23), namely, upon his person. . . . Faith rests on Christ's person 'as crucified' [and, I'll add, risen and reigning and coming again in great power and glory]. It glories in the cross of Christ (Gal. 6:14)." This is the proper person (not the swollen self) for faith to rely on. And this person—Christ crucified, risen, reigning!—knows nothing of the modern self, which is conceited and self-absorbed. No, the person of the risen Jesus is swallowed up in his Father's glory and will. The person of Christ is swallowed up in diving love, not self-love. And he came to nail the modern self to the cross along with all our other God-belittling sins of self-exaltation. 

Lastly, then, comes appropriation. A justifying faith applies Christ to itself. To illustrate, Watson paints this picture: "A medicine, though it be ever so sovereign, if not applied, will do no good. . . . This applying of Christ is called receiving him (John 1:12). The hand receiving gold, enriches; so the hand of faith, receiving Christ's golden merits with salvation, enriches us" (216). And this receiving or appropriation language is fitting for faith that focuses on another away from the swollen self. The modern self can do nothing for its self, or by its self, or with its self. No, rather, looking up and away from its self, authentic faith receives with the hand of a beggar the free gift of God.

What is worthy here to focus faith's attention on as I end this post is how a justifying faith is not one that merely knows the benefits of redemption or thinks of those benefits as the proper object for faith. Rather, as Watson eloquently puts it, faith fastens itself on Christ himself. It is the person of Jesus faith embraces—as coming in the likeness of sinful flesh, working miracles in our midst, teaching about the kingdom of God, and as crucified and risen and reigning as King of the nations, pouring out his Spirit, coming again in power and glory. Yes, no doubt as working wonders on our behalf and bringing forgiveness and freedom. Yes, no doubt as reconciling the rebel to the Sovereign whose majesty was infinitely offended by the self-satisfied-swollen self. But the benefits of redemption ought never to be held forth for faith except as they come in the person, work, and words of the Christ sent from above. He alone in all his glory is the proper place for faith to fasten its gaze. And when it does so through self-renunciation, reliance, and appropriation, the swollen-self is crucified, and the sinner justified. Forgiven! Freed! Righteous! Loved! Not guilty! No condemnation! Reconciled to a holy heavenly Father. All in the beloved, in whom alone is there redemption. 

"Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing" (Rev. 5:12).

The Application of Redemption

The title above comes from the fifth chapter in Thomas Watson's magnificent and best-known book: A Body of Divinity. I have been reading this book through for a second time now (the first time feels like ages ago) a few mornings a week when faith is flagging in order to fan the flame. And this second time through for me is far more invigorating than the first (which is not to say that the first was without benefit and appreciation, but more years have a way of clarifying a lot of things). My esteem for Thomas Watson and for this work in particular continues to grow.

Just a brief bit of background and then I'll jump right in to a series of posts pertaining to the aforementioned chapter on the application of redemption. Watson was an English Presbyterian Puritan minister who lived circa 1620–1686. His Body of Divinity, published posthumously in 1692, comes from a series of sermons he preached to his people on the Westminster Shorter Catechism. This series of sermons numbered 176. Many of these fed into the Body of Divinity, but not all. The rest fed into Watson's books The Lord's Prayer and The Ten Commandments. These three books together make up a trilogy on the Westminster Shorter Catechism. (See Meet the Puritans by Beeke and Pederson for the chapter on Thomas Watson, from which I refreshed my memory of this background information.)

The first section in the chapter "The Application of Redemption" from Watson's Body of Divinity is on faith. He begins by citing Gal. 2:20 (in the king's English, of course): "The life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." And he asserts that it is the Spirit who "applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us" (Watson, Body of Divinity, 215). And then, before getting into the kinds of faith that people may possess, Watson speaks a short pithy word that packs the punch of the profound pastoral theology for which Watson has became known and loved. Here is trademark Watson: "Christ is the glory, and faith in Christ the comfort, of the gospel" (215). Christ is indeed the glory of the Gospel. And faith in his name is indeed its comfort. Amen, pastor Watson. 

I'll end this brief introductory post here on this simply yet profoundly stated note. In the next post I shall cover something of what Watson teaches about what justifying faith is. I hope this present post has whet your appetite for more. Lord willing, in the posts to follow, as here, I shall be citing and summarizing from the Banner of Truth's revised edition of Watson's book. Which reminds me: Banner of Truth books ought to be part of any disciple's diet these days, and perhaps my mentioning one of them here in glowing terms will set you going to get a meal from that market. 

An Altogether Different World

"To take hold of the Son and to believe in Him with the heart as the gift of God causes God to reckon that faith, however imperfect it may be, as perfect righteousness. Here we are in an altogether different world—a world that is outside reason. Here the issue is not what we ought to do or by what sort of works we may merit grace and the forgiveness of sins. No, here we are in a divine theology, where we hear the Gospel that Christ died for us and that when we believe this we are reckoned as righteous, even though sins, and great ones at that, still remain in us" (Luther's Works, vol. 26, Lectures on Galatians 1535, p. 234). 

Unholy Bound—Unless You Ravish Me

Batter my heart, three-personed God . . .

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

—John Donne, "Batter My Heart," lines 1, 12–14

The Power of a Passive Righteousness

Speaking of the righteousness of faith that God imputes to us through Christ apart from works, Luther says this of its surpassing worth:

Christians themselves do not adequately understand it or grasp it in the midst of their temptations. Therefore it must always be taught and continually exercised. And anyone who does not grasp or take hold of it in afflictions and terrors of conscience cannot stand. For there is no comfort of conscience so solid and certain as this passive righteousness. . . .

Therefore the afflicted conscience has no remedy against despair and eternal death except to take hold of the promise of grace offered in Christ, that is, this righteousness of faith, this passive or Christian righteousness, which says with confidence: "I do not seek active righteousness. I ought to have and perform it; but I declare that even if I did have it and perform it, I cannot trust in it or stand up before the judgment of God on the basis of it. Thus I put myself beyond all active righteousness, all righteousness of my own or of the divine Law, and I embrace only that passive righteousness which is the righteousness of grace, mercy, and the forgiveness of sins." In other words, this is the righteousness of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, which we do not perform but receive, which we do not have but accept, when God the Father grants it to us through Jesus Christ.

—Martin Luther, "Lectures on Galatians 1535" (vol. 26 in Luther's Works; ed. Jaroslav Pelikan; St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1963), 5–6.

The Free Gift of God

The famous Rom. 6:23 reads: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (translation mine). This is a well-worn and oft-quoted verse. But have we understood it aright? What is this "free gift of God"?

Well, isn't it obvious? Isn't it "eternal life"? Yes, it is. But it also isn't. It must be so in the same way that "the wages of sin is death" in the first part of the verse, for these are parallel expressions. And in the first part of the verse it is clear that the wages of sin results in death. In other words, it is not that the wages of sin is defined as death or equals death.

And so likewise it seems best to understand the second half of the verse as saying that the free gift of God results in eternal life. And if this is correct, what then is "the free gift of God"? I believe that the parallel in Rom. 5:17 provides a clue.

Austin Owen, Child of God's Covenant Love

Our baby boy is going to be baptized next weekend at College Church in Wheaton. We're looking forward to his being baptized into Christ our King and Redeemer.

“Austin” is named after St. Augustin(e), whom the Puritans called Austin. Augustin(e) is known as the "doctor of grace” in the Church. He eloquently defended and articulated the doctrine of the sovereign grace of God in Christ, as well as anyone in the faith, having himself experienced it so potently as a thirty-two-year-old lecherous man. And it is our prayer that Austin will know God’s sovereign grace deeply, as did Augustin(e), to the “praise of the glory of God’s grace.”

His middle name “Owen” has nothing to do with the origin of the word or its present day meaning. Emily and I have given it to him after that greatest of English Puritans John Owen (one of his daddy’s most influential teachers). The center of John Owen’s theology is arguably steadfastly beholding "the glory of God in the face of Christ" (e.g., Owen cites 2 Cor. 4:6 more than any other verse in his works). Our prayer is that our little Owen would embrace the centrality of the glory of Christ in his life and steadfastly behold that glory all his dying days, being transformed into that same glory, to the glory of God.

Death and Resurrection

Ferguson on the structure of John Owen's thought about the ministry of the Spirit of Christ to the believer:

The Spirit brings us into union with the crucified and resurrected Savior and therefore into communion with Him in His death and resurrection. Since this is, as it were, the ground on which the Spirit operates, it also becomes the pattern of the Christian life: death and resurrection, mortification and vivification, putting off the old and putting on the new. Gospel negatives and gospel positives thus become the leitmotif, the melody line, for all of our fellowship with the Son. This was the Apostolic pattern.

—Sinclair Ferguson, The Trinitarian Devotion of John Owen (Sanford, FL: Reformation Trust, 2014), 120–121.

The Israel of God

There has always been an Israel within Israel. That is to say, a true Israel within an Israel in name only. So argues the apostle Paul, for example, in Rom. 9:6, and elsewhere (e.g., Gal. 6:16; Phil. 3:3; see esp. the Greek of these texts, and note the various versions, esp. Gal. 6:16, NIV).

But this is clear from the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. Paul himself points this out in Rom. 9:6ff. Another text that makes this clear, it seems to me, is Ps. 73:1, though I don't believe this is often pointed out.

There we read:

          "Truly God is good to Israel,
          to those who are pure in heart."

I put the text like this so you can see the parallelism of the two lines in this verse. "Israel" is parallel to "those who are pure in heart." And so "those who are pure in heart" defines who Israel is, who the true Israelites are. Those Israelites with impure hearts are not Israel. At least in one vital sense.

So unless you're going to try to argue that all of ethnic Israel was pure in heart at the time the psalmist composed this poem (which seems to strain credulity, given Israel's checkered history), we have a plain statement in Psalm 73 that "they are not all Israel who are from Israel" (Rom. 9:6, NASB).

The Sum of All Good

"The sum of all those good things in this life, and the life to come, which are purchased for the church is the Holy Spirit."

—Jonathan Edwards, Ethical Writings (vol. 8 in the Works of Jonathan Edwards; ed. Paul Ramsey; New Haven: Yale University, 1989), 353–354.

Grace in the Soul

"Grace in the soul is the Holy Ghost acting in the soul, and there communicating his own holy nature."

—Jonathan Edwards, Ethical Writings (vol. 8 in the Works of Jonathan Edwards; ed. Paul Ramsey; New Haven: Yale University, 1989), 332.

In a Way that Hurts Abominably

C. S. Lewis:

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to re-build that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He's doing. He's getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and which doesn't seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself. 

—C. S. Lewis, Beyond Personality: The Christian Idea of God (London: Centenary, 1944), 48.

He Won for Us Forgiveness, Adoption, and Glory

Packer:

The notion which the phrase "penal substitution" expresses is that Jesus Christ our Lord, moved by a love that was determined to do everything necessary to save us, endured and exhausted the destructive divine judgement for which we were otherwise inescapably destined, and so won us forgiveness, adoption, and glory.

—James I. Packer, "What Did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution," in Celebrating the Saving Work of God: The Collected Shorter Writings of J. I. Packer Volume 1 (Carlisle, Cumbria: Paternoster), 105.

What Is a Christian?

"To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you."

—C. S. Lewis, "On Forgiveness," in The Weight of Glory (New York: HarperCollins, 1980), 182.

Real Forgiveness

Lewis:

Real forgiveness means looking steadily at the sin, the sin that is left over without any excuse, after all allowances have been made, and seeing it in all its horror, dirt, meanness, and malice, and nevertheless being wholly reconciled to the man who has done it.

—C. S. Lewis, "On Forgiveness," in The Weight of Glory (New York: HarperCollins, 1980), 181.

A Gospel Spirit

"A Christian spirit and a gospel spirit are the same. That is the spirit to which the Christian revelation tends."

—Jonathan Edwards, Ethical Writings (vol. 8 in the Works of Jonathan Edwards; ed. Paul Ramsey; New Haven: Yale University, 1989), 247.

A Christian Spirit Is a Humble Spirit

In the sixth sermon of his famous sermon series on 1 Corinthians 13—Charity and Its Fruits—Jonathan Edwards preached on verses 4–5 and humility. The doctrine of the sermon is this: "a Christian spirit is a humble spirit." And then Edwards defines what humility is.

He says, "Humility may be defined to be a sense of our own comparative meanness, with a disposition to a behavior answerable thereto."

And then he unpacks this by speaking to its primary relationship and to the phenomenon of false humility:

Humility does primarily consist in a sense of [one's] own meanness as compared with God or a sense of the infinite distance between God and us. . . . There is no true humility without this. However sensible persons may be of their meanness as compared with some of their fellow creatures, yet there is no true humility without a sense of their meanness before God. 

Some men seem to have a low opinion of themselves as compared with other men from melancholy, or from the meanness of their circumstances, or from their natural constitution, or from some other cause, who know nothing of that infinite distance which is between God and them; and therefore, though men may be ready to look upon them as humble-spirited men, yet they have no true humility; for that which above all other things concerns us to know of ourselves is what we are before God. . . . And if we are ignorant of our meanness as compared with him, the most essential thing and that which is original in true humility is wanting. 

—Jonathan Edwards, Ethical Writings (vol. 8 in the Works of Jonathan Edwards; ed. Paul Ramsey; New Haven: Yale University, 1989), 233–235.

Redemption: Deliverance at Cost

In The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, Leon Morris argues cogently concerning the redemption-language background for the usage in the New Testament. Of this book as a whole, D. A. Carson recently said in a classroom exposition of Rom. 3:21-26 that the book is a "must read." He added, "sell your shirt for it" if you must. And I can see why. 

Here's Morris's summary of that redemption-language background:

We see then, that in Greek writings generally, in the Old Testament, and in Rabbinic writers, the basic idea in redemption is the paying of a ransom price to secure a liberation. Circumstances may vary, for the word applies to the freeing of a prisoner of war, or of a man under sentence of death because his ox has gored a man, or of articles in paw, or of a slave seeking manumission. But always there is the idea of payment of a ransom to secure the desired effect. 

When God is the subject of the verb we noticed a difference, for it is inconceivable that He should pay a ransom to men, and in those passages there tends to be a greater stress on the idea of deliverance than on the means by which it is brought about. Yet even here we saw that the Old Testament writers were not unmindful of the meaning of the words they were applying to God's dealings with His people, for they think of Him as delivering at some cost. Clearly the metaphor was one with point. 

—Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 29.