Law and Gospel - Part 6

Previously, we discussed how during the sanctification process, God may discipline us to bring us closer to him. In these cases, the law is the standard for our behavior and the Lord works to make us become more righteous, to become more and more like Jesus in our lives. Jonty Rhodes writes:

If this [God's discipline] does happen, I'll need to remember I'm not back under the covenant of works again, and that Christ alone is my righteousness. I'll therefore respond first and foremost by repenting and believing the gospel promises again, rather than simply trying to sort myself out. Only after I've gone to God for forgiveness, can I, through his strength and encouraged by his love, begin to make progress in my holiness battles.

Being under the covenant of grace, not works, means that every single action God takes towards me, without exception, will ultimately be an act of love [Romans 8:28]. Yes, even discipline: God disciplines those whom he loves (Hebrews 12:6).

If I forget the legal, justification side of union with Christ, I'll find myself falling into a kind of sub-Christian karma - be good and God will bless you; be bad and he'll get you. If I forget the organic, sanctification side of union with Christ, I'll end up thinking how I live is completely irrelevant, and fail to listen to the many different passages in the Bible that tell me otherwise. Legal bond and organic bond, justification and sanctification: all inseparable fruits of union with Christ.

There is much more that could be discussed on this topic, but I hope these few posts were helpful to you in understanding how law and gospel interact with your life.

Law and Gospel - Part 5

Does God's opinion of us change as we live our lives? Does God only view us through the lens of our justification? How does sanctification fit into this discussion? Jonty Rhodes continues to offer his insights:

But when I remember that God also sees my sanctification, suddenly things make sense. God will assess how serious I have been about trying to be faithful to his covenant: repenting, believing, battling sin, walking in holiness. If I start to ignore him, then has every right to come and discipline. Equally, if I'm faithful, I can genuinely please him and he will reward me - most likely in eternity, but possibly in the short term as well. These rewards differ between believers, a sure sign that God will take account of how faithfully we have walked. Sure, every Christian ends up in heaven, but our experiences of heaven will differ. We'll all be happy and satisfied, yet some even more so than others. It's a bit like filling an eggcup, a wine glass, and a bucket with water. They're all full, but the bucket is also in a sense fuller than the others.

To put it another way, it is possible to be a covenant-keeper in the primary sense, a person of faith who it going to heaven, while at a secondary level be wandering off-course into paths of covenant disobedience. As we saw earlier with the Israelites and Solomon, God often intervenes in his people's lives to discipline them long before judgment day. If he sees us wandering from covenant faithfulness, he might give us a little taste of what complete disobedience would bring, in order to bring us back to our senses. Many of the seven churches in the book of Revelation experience just such warnings. If I or my church begin to suffer these kinds of warning signs, we need to wake up and return to God.

We'll conclude this series on law and gospel tomorrow.

Law and Gospel - Part 4

Continuing with Jonty Rhodes discussion of laws and gospel, he addresses how we should live in light of the doctrines of justification and sanctification:

So, does God care or not when I disobey the law? Have you ever heard the illustration where a preacher describes two days in the life of a typical Christian? On Monday, Jeff springs out of bed, brings his beautiful wife Caroline breakfast, has an hour of prayer, nips next door to feed Seamus the neighbor's cat, evangelizes his fellow passengers on the bus, works hard all day, gives some of his bonus earnings to a mission organization, and gets home just in time to lead an inspiring Bible study on Isaiah. The next day, he gets up late, ignores his Bible, swears at his neighbor, is rude to his boss, and skips the prayer meeting to stay in and watch a dodgy movie. "On which day is God more pleased with Jeff?" asks the preacher. "They're both the same!" he answers. "God's love is unconditional! He sees us in Christ! We are justified! Our works no longer matter!" Is he right?

Well, yes and no. This is where recovering a more covenantal way of thinking, with its emphasis on union with Christ, will help us stay balanced. On the one hand, when I remember that I now share Jesus' status, justified and fully pleasing in God's sight, I can rejoice that, no matter how bad I've been today, God still loves me as his child and will accept me into heaven. My justification is unchangeable, unspoilable - and, for that matter, unimprovable.

But if this is my only understanding of how God views me, then I'm likely to get in a muddle when I come across passages in the Bible that suggest God reacts to how I live. There are those passages that talk about God rewarding people who live holy lives, passages that speak of certain actions pleasing him. Conversely, who disobey, and even some where he causes believers to get ill and die because of their unholy lives (1 Cor. 11:17-34). None of these will make any sense if I only ever think of justification; after all, if God sees Jesus and not me, surely it's impossible for his opinion of me to change for better or for worse?

Is this true? We'll take a look at this in more depth in the next post.

Law and Gospel - Part 3

In this part of his thoughts on the law and gospel, Jonty Rhodes explores the relationship between obedience and salvation:

Equally, time after time, we are told to obey God and warned that, if we don't, we will not receive salvation. This is not because obeying the law is earning our salvation, but because it is the route those filled with the Spirit will walk on their way to heaven, just as Noah's route was to build an ark. Or, we might say that one of the signs of a true disciple is that they will love the law. David sang that the law was sweeter than honey, more precious than gold, and that keeping it would bring reward (Psalm 19). Jesus taught that "if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love" (John 15:10). Neither Jesus nor David are legalists; both know that obedience is the path to salvation. And this law is not a burden, but a gift. It's not so much that we have to obey, as that now, filled with the Spirit of Jesus, we get to obey. Holiness is not a curse, but a reward.

Holiness is not a curse, but a reward. And the law helps us realize that reward!

I was going to stop here on this topic, but I think I'm going to continue for a few more posts. The next section continues with a discussion of law and gospel, focusing on relating to God through covenant. I hope you find it worthwhile.

Law and Gospel - Part 2

Continuing our discussion on law and gospel from Jonty Rhodes, we'll see how this applies to sanctification and justification:

Now, grace and works are enemies. But sanctification and justification are not; both are blessings of union with Christ. Think back to Noah. What saved him? God's gracious "gospel," of course. But what path did that grace send Noah down in order to reach the end goal of salvation? He had to obey God's commands - very specifically, to build an ark. Would he have been saved if he had ignored the command and just sat back reveling in the fact that God loved him and had chosen him? No, he'd have drowned. In that sense, "law" and gospel worked together to save Noah - but as one who was in union with Christ, he was saved by grace alone, through faith alone. This grace moved Noah to believe, and then to obey.

Similarly, with us. We are commanded to repent and believe - itself a sort of "law," we might even say. Is that legalistic? No, it's no different from saying the covenant of grace (or the gospel) has conditions. The gospel contains "law" in this very narrow sense. And yet, it remains a gospel of salvation by grace alone. Why? Because, as we saw in the covenant of redemption, Christ alone supplies the power to repent and believe.

Even the "condition" of the gospel is met by Christ! Our capacity to repent and believe - conditions or rules of the covenant of grace - comes from Christ.

I hope this is helpful, so far. Tomorrow we'll wrap this up.

Law and Gospel - Part 1

I'm reading a book, Covenants Made Simple: Understanding God's Unfolding Promises to His People, by Jonty Rhodes. As a Reformed believer, I understand the importance of covenants, but some of nuances are still not clear to me. I bought this book to hopefully give me some more clarity. I've learned a lot about law and gospel over the years, but I like to return to it often to solidify my understanding. Rhodes provides a good summary, which I want to share with you. I'll chunk it into three or four posts.

Here is the first part; this comes from the last chapter of the book:

So, the law (as straight commands) cannot save us, but it does show us the kind of people God wants us to be. It convicts us of our own sin, and then, after we've applied the gospel, teaches us how to live. If you think about it, these two functions must go together. When I read: "Do not gossip" and am convicted, I should move to the gospel, repenting of my sin and rejoicing in God's forgiveness. But what to do when I get up from my knees to carry on with life? Well, God still doesn't want me to gossip, so I should take that command and obey it. Law and gospel are not enemies, but friends, when understood rightly. Law without gospel is powerless; gospel without law is pointless. Christ came to save us from sin, not for sin.

The bolded passage is key, I think. The law is our guidebook, our "user manual," for our lives. The law shows us what is right and wrong. As humans, we need that. It shows us what we need to do to lead lives that are pleasing to God. Without faith, we try to obey the law for our own benefit. Through faith, we obey out of gratitude and through the gospel we realize that our obedience comes only through Him who strengthens us. Why would we not want to please our God who gave us so much?

More tomorrow.