Category: Articles

Can We Walk With God?

by Rick Shrader

One has only to read the Scripture to know that a believer should walk with God.  “That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory” (1 Thes. 2:12).  “As ye have therefore received Jesus Christ the Lord, so walk ye in him” (Col. 2:6).  “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25).  Surely there is nothing more important for a child of God than to walk with Him and yet if there is anything that seems elusive in the Christian life it is this.  How is it that a sinful creature, albeit saved and positionally sanctified by the Spirit, can walk in fellowship with the holy God of all creation?  Yet He has written, “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite one” (Isa. 57:15).

Humble and contrite are key here because no one claims to have “arrived” in this most holy endeavor and truly we have not.  We are all on an upward plane growing more and more unto the perfect day when we will be like Him and see Him as He is.  And everyone who does have this hope is in the process of being purified (1 John 3:2-3).  Yet what true believer does not have a yearning inside him or her to walk closer with God tomorrow than today?  What believer does not mourn over sin and rejoice over the promise of eternal life?  Surely we all do and if we do not we are not only out of fellowship with Him but are in a dangerous and defeated place.

Age has its advantages and its regrets.  Experience has taught us by trial and pain to avoid many things and we may live with the scars of battles lost and won.  The immaturity of our youth lives with us longer than we desire and we pray daily that our children will know to avoid those failures themselves and be helped by a godly testimony now.  We have learned that the world is no friend of grace and the oasis of worldly pleasure is a mirage that is an idol of the soul and keeps us from God’s fellowship.  Heaven is closer now for all of us, and we press toward the finish with a certain joy that is set before us.  Death is both an exit and an entrance which leads to a perfect walk with God.

“Religion,” wrote the godly Doddridge, “in its most general view, is such a sense of God on the soul, and such a conviction of our obligations to him, and of our dependence upon him, as shall engage us to make it our great care to conduct ourselves in a manner which we have reason to believe will be pleasing to him.”¹  The apostle Paul also would agree who wrote, “that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more” (1 Thes. 4:1).

My encouragement for the new year would be to continue on the road of walking closer with God.  The day in which we live provides enough obstacles and battles that we are not left without opportunities for our growth.  A trial that frustrates the body cannot touch the soul that rests in Him.  A beating, jail, and chains could not keep Paul and Silas from singing praises. A storm on Galilee brought the words from the Lord, “peace, be still” and that is why Peter later admonished those who suffer to “commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator” (1 Pet. 4:19).

I have found with Solomon that of the making of books, even on the subject of walking with God and our sanctification, there is no end.  I’ve tried to benefit from each one that I have read in some way.  Yet when it comes right down to it, the believer has to do it, not just read about it.  The Book has to be opened, the knees have to be bent, the tongue has to be loosed, the flesh has to be lectured, and the spirit has to be fed.  The race has already begun and the battle engaged.  We can take our ease on the sidelines or be part of the fray.  I’m a foot soldier as many others, and glad to be and I see a number of things that factor into our walk with God.

The church is busy

The church in general is too busy building things than walking with God.  All of my life, from the second half of the twentieth century into this half of the twenty first, church life has largely been a race to be the biggest and the best.  I’m a committed fundamental Baptist and I grew up in a large church and found my way into the ministry, but the pitfalls for many of my brethren have been evident.  When the goal is to build the church larger and faster, there is always a grab bag of pragmatic tools in each generation that will accomplish the task.  The larger evangelical scene has exploded this kind of church growth movement exponentially.

There have been good and not so good results from “building” churches in this way.  I’m sure that many souls have been saved due to aggressive evangelism and soul winning.  Praise the Lord!  Baptists have sent more missionaries to the field than any other denomination and, no doubt, spent millions upon millions of dollars doing it.  That fruit is still reproducing itself though the number of personnel is now shrinking quickly as an older generation dies off.  Property and buildings are enjoyed by congregations today who may not have had to bear the burden of the mortgage.

But there are negative results from the church growth movement.  The success syndrome has taken its toll on the spiritual life of the church.  Godliness and Scriptural admonitions are easily set aside in favor of things that attract the unsaved and worldly.  Cultural acceptance is paramount as surveys dictate what the church should look like, how the church should perform, and even how the message should be preached.  As John warned, “They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them” (1 John 4:5).

The point is that it is not necessary to walk with God in order to “build” a church, at least not in the modern sense of the word.  There are plenty of methodologies available to the church that can be handled by the carnal and ungodly which will virtually guarantee a crowd.  In fact, the church acting godly would probably guarantee the lack of a crowd.  Godliness doesn’t make the unchurched comfortable nor should it.  Sadly, it doesn’t seem to make the churched comfortable either.

We might learn a lesson from the evangelical Francis Chan.  He started a church in his living room in Los Angeles that grew to over 5000.  Then all of a sudden he resigned and went back to a house-church model. His reasons were a lack of Christians using their gifts, a waste of millions of dollars, a lack of love for one another, and having the unpleasing role of a celebrity.²  Now I’m not advocating house-churches to the exclusion of buildings.  Buildings are better.  But here is a man who just got tired of “building” a church to the exclusion of a real walk with God.  Surely fundamentalists ought also to feel the pull toward the godliness of our forefathers.

Walking as a Biblical word

Any English Concordance will give you hundreds of uses of the word “walk” in reference to our spirituality.  The New Testament has two Greek primary words with various forms:  peripateō (to walk around), and poreuomai (to travel).  When you think about it, walking is a unique analogy to our spiritual life with God.  First, we “walk in the flesh” (2 Cor. 10:13), i.e., we have to exist in this fleshly body.  We are not ghosts that float around in spirit only.  We have to carry this carcass around with us and we are limited to its space.  The body in which we walk is dying yet yearns to stay around and take its ease.  We have to keep under it and bring it into subjection.

Second, walking means not too fast and not too slow.  Though our existence is also called a race, we are told that with God we must walk, communing and enjoying our travel.  We cannot go too slowly either lest we stop or fail to advance in the journey.  “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful” (Psa. 1:1).  Third, walking takes balance.  To walk circumspectly is to walk carefully as a man on a tight rope (akribōs is as an acrobat).  To veer off to one side or the other is to lose our equilibrium and fall.  Fourth, to walk means to be going in a certain direction.  Paul said of Titus, “Walked we not in the same spirit, walked we not in the same steps?” (2 Cor. 12:18).  Paul knew where he was going and Titus was going there too.  Fifth, we have to think as we walk.  “Let us walk honestly, as in the day” (Rom. 13:13).  A man who doesn’t contemplate his walk is losing his way.

Sixth, it takes light to walk.  “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth” [NKJ, ‘do not practice the truth,’] but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another” (1 John 1:6). God is light, John says, and there is no walking with God apart from this light.  Seventh, there are rules of the road that must be kept.  “And as many as walk according to this rule” (Gal. 6:16).  Eighth, and most importantly, we walk as our Lord taught us, by His example.  “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked” (1 John 2:6).  In addition, the Bible gives us several examples of how not to walk: as the world walks, in the lust of our flesh, disorderly, in darkness, as enemies of the cross.  Walking is something all able people do everyday.  Walking with God ought also to be second nature to the believer.

Is there a secret?

In a day of quick fixes we may find ourselves looking from church to church, seminar to seminar, book to book, forum to forum, for the sure-fire formula to spiritual life.  Since walking with God is mostly a matter of progressive sanctification, we can fall into one of the two pitfalls that have always presented themselves.  One is to find our rest in self-serving work that glorifies us rather than God.  I’m not disparaging good works.  The New Testament is filled with commandments and spiritual laws.  Legalism is not to be found in the mere existence of law.  But walking with God must be just that—a walk with God and not with ourselves.  We must walk only to please Him, not others, not heroes, not leaders, and certainly not ourselves.

The other is to think that we can “let go and let God” do it all for us.  This formula sounds good to the spiritualist.  He thinks that he has arrived at a plane above the dirty din of the world and is sailing along with no effort of his own.  Sanctification to him is all positional with no room for sanctification that takes real effort and work.  I think Charles Ryrie said it best years ago in his book, Balancing the Christian Life,

Is there a ‘secret’ for victory in this area?  Yes, there is, and it is no secret! . . . . Again the human and divine are joined in the matter of walking in the Spirit (Gal. 5:16).  The life that does not fulfill the lusts of the flesh is the life that walks by means of the Spirit, and yet it is I who am commanded to walk by means of the Spirit.  Even Galatians 2:20 reminds me that Christ lives in me and I live the life.  In other words, it is quite clear from the Scriptures that there are a correlation and a conjunction of both the human and divine agencies in sanctification.  To exclude or deemphasize one or the other is to miss an important aspect of the truth and to have an unbalanced, defective spirituality.³

So the walk with God is not legalism nor is it license.  God certainly has regenerated us and indwells us through His Spirit.  We have added His spiritual presence to our existence and we walk in the light as He is in the light.  Yet we fight a good fight that involves our flesh as well as our spirit and we have weapons and armor fit for the battle.

In one way we walk as a unified creature.  We cannot separate body and spirit until death and progressive sanctification involves the whole person.  “Be joyful in the Lord, my heart! Both soul and body bear your part: To God all praise and glory.”⁴  We are not Gnostics who think our souls travel to higher realms above the sinful body.  We are not Epicureans who think we might as well eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow we die.  Yet in another way we realize that body and soul are different.  Paul explained that the body is just a tent that will be folded up and put away some day (2 Cor. 5:1) and to be separated from the body and go on to heaven is a far better thing (Phil. 1:23).  The body can suffer and even die but neither can affect the life of the spirit.  The joy of the martyr at the time of death will always amaze us.  “Fear none of those things,” John said to the persecuted church at Smyrna.

We are all susceptible to failure

The immediate problem with dealing with a subject such as walking with God is that we all fail in many ways.  We have our devotions and fully intend to have a consistent walk and then we don’t.  Our time, interests, distractions, tempers, lusts, appetites, the cares of this world, all seem to pile upon us and we find ourselves confessing them again and starting anew.  We read that we are to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect but we never come close.  We read how Jesus walked and we try to follow His example but we fail.  We feel the leading of the Holy Spirit and then we contradict Him and say no, not now, maybe next time.  That is, we are all human.

We will be like Jesus one day but not now.  Death will be our graduation from this school called life, and we will “be like him for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:3).  Until then we are going in that direction.  Paul said, “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:12).  God sees me as “accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6) and wearing the righteousness of Christ for my pardon positionally, but I have not attained practically to that standard, not in this life.

The message in John’s first epistle is that as believers we do walk (present tense, continually) in the light as He is in the light and we do have fellowship with Him (present tense, continually) and therefore the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us (present tense, continually) from all sin (1 John 1:7-8).  However, since we still sin we must confess our sins (aorist tense, occasionally) and He does forgive us those sins (aorist tense, occasionally) as often as we confess (1: 9-10).  In fact, when we sin (aorist tense, occasionally) we have an Advocate Who is the propitiation for those sins (2:1-2).  So He has made provision for our failures and for all our sin.

When do we rest?

The Scriptures continually remind us that our rest is in heaven and in the future kingdom of God.  Until then it is walking, work, and war.  He has called us to glory (Rom. 8:30), to redemption (1 Cor. 1:31), for corruption to inherit incorruption and for mortality to inherit immortality (1 Cor. 15:54), to our conversation in heaven so that our vile body may be like His heavenly body (Phil. 3:21), to be presented faultless before His presence (Jude 24).  And much more.

In the old book by Richard Baxter (1615-1691) titled, The Saints’ Everlasting Rest⁵, Baxter has a whole chapter titled, “It Is Not On Earth.”  Here he has six ways that our present afflictions actually cause us to look forward to rest.  For example, trials make us desire rest. Then he gives seven reasons why our present rest hinders us on our way and can become an idol to us.  One is that we contradict the type of rest which God will one day give us. Then he gives nine causes of “our unreasonable unwillingness to die” because hanging on to this life shows a dissatisfaction with our coming rest. His point is that we have an eternity of rest coming which encourages us in all our journey to be diligent in our walk and endure everything in our time here.  A walk always comes to an end, and so will ours.

And So . . .

There is nothing more important in the Christian life than to walk with God and we should let nothing hinder us from it.  After all, we are going to walk with Him throughout eternity and how offensive it would be to Him to desire the things of this world that keep us from His fellowship.  We might be better off to be taken home early so that we would change our mind quickly than to be carnal for so long.

Walking with God is both difficult and easy.  Jesus invited us to wear His yoke but said that His yoke is easy and His burden light.  As exercise is painful but eventually brings good health, as a diet is unpleasing but later brings satisfaction, so learning to walk with God is contrary to our old nature but afterward yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness.  Let us not be weary in this well-doing because we’ll reap if we faint not.

Notes:

1. Philip Doddridge, The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul (U. of Michigan reprint from an 1873 edition) 13.
2. https://youtu.be/KQ9Yeq-tavk
3. Charles Ryrie, Balancing the Christian Life (Chicago: Moody Press, 1973) 38, 65.
4. “Sing Praise to God,” verse 4.
5. Richard Baxter, The Saints Everlasting Rest (Boston: The American Tract Society, nd) 225-254.

The Law of Liberty

by Rick Shrader

The “Law of Liberty” has always struck me as a perfect oxymoron.  How can you be under the law if you are at liberty?  Or how can you be at liberty if you are under the law?  Isn’t this kind of like jumbo shrimp?  How can you have it both ways?  Yet the New Testament has many such seemingly contradictory statements.  “While we look at the things which are not seen” (2 Cor. 4:18).  “And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge” (Eph. 3:19).  Obviously, we are being asked to accept the impossibility as a figure of speech, and yet to accept the intended meaning literally.

James uses this term twice in his book.  First, in 1:25, “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”  Here James is comparing two men who look into God’s Word.  One sees and understands but goes away without changing anything, like a man looking in a mirror and then forgetting what he saw that needed to be fixed.  The other man looks, sees, and then changes his appearance.  The second usage is in 2:12, “So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the perfect law of liberty.”  Here James is warning his readers that we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ (vs. 13) and be held accountable for what the Word of God revealed to us and whether we heeded it or not.  The ‘law of liberty” refers to all that God has said.  James doesn’t limit it just to the Mosaic law but to all of God’s revelation.  Even though James may actually be the first New Testament book written, anything spoken by Christ or written under inspiration is still the “law” of God to a believer (see 1 Tim. 5:18, 2 Pet. 3:16).

Many seem to struggle putting the two concepts together.  Some push it to legalism and teach that there are certain things we must to do be saved or remain saved.  If we keep the “law,” maybe baptism or church membership or various sacraments, we will be given the liberty from sin.  Others, and I think more common today, push this into license and teach that salvation sets the believer at “liberty” from any law which must be obeyed.  As to the latter, we often hear accusations that believers who abstain from questionable things or religiously practice good things are judgmental and have not found the true joy in Christ.  To them, it seems, liberty and joy can only be found where there is no law pressing upon the believer.

William MacDonald, however, explains the “law of liberty” in 1:25 this way,

In contrast [to the forgetful hearer] is the man who looks into the word of God and who habitually reduces it to practice.  His contemplative, meditative gazing has practical results in his life.  To him the Bible is the perfect law of liberty.  Its precepts are not burdensome.  They tell him to do exactly what his new nature loves to do.  As he obeys, he finds true freedom from human traditions and carnal reasonings.  The truth makes him free.¹

Douglas Moo also explains James’ “law of liberty” in 2:10 in a similar fashion,

God’s gracious acceptance of us does not end our obligation to obey him; it sets it on a new footing.  No longer is God’s law a threatening, confining burden.  For the will of God now confronts us as a law of liberty—an obligation that is discharged in the joyful knowledge that God has both ‘liberated’ us from the penalty of sin and given us, in his Spirit, the power to obey his will.²

The gospel does not make demands on us as a condition for salvation but the life of grace does, as we walk in the Christian life.

Restrictions are necessary

Every country has laws which are binding on every citizen.  We refrain from killing, stealing, cheating, and other crimes for the sake of peace and liberty.  Even the presence of a policeman on the street is a deterrent to law breakers and thus creates liberty for other people.  When there is no respect for the law there is no liberty for citizens to go about their daily lives.  This week in Chicago we saw a policeman shot to death while trying to help someone in a car accident.  The murderer not only robbed the policeman of his right to do good work for the community, he robbed the accident victim of his right to receive help.

Someone likened law and liberty to a great train.  A locomotive is one of the most powerful land machines that we see and use.  Most of us have traveled at sometime on one of these huge vessels.  A train is made to travel on a track and if you take the train off of the track and set it in a field or on a parking lot, that powerful creation becomes useless.  Without the restriction of the track the train loses its purpose.  In a similar way our automobiles must be governed by rules of the road or they lose their purpose too.  If we all stopped obeying the traffic laws and went our own ways by our own rules there would be chaos.  In effect we would all lose our liberty by eliminating the things that restrict us.

God gave man liberty by restriction

God put the first man and woman in His garden with wonderful liberty to enjoy the garden and to eat of an endless variety of fruit and food.  Yet we all know that God also placed a single restriction on the man and the woman, a single tree of which they were not to eat.  Charles Ryrie wrote, “The test to which Adam and Eve were put was both extremely significant and relatively minor.  It was minor from the viewpoint that a single prohibition in the midst of all the bountiful provision of the Garden of Eden was a relatively  minor matter.  Not to allow them to know evil experimentally was a blessing from God, not a lack in their lives.”³   What Adam and Eve did not realize, nor did they need to, was that their liberty in the garden was being safeguarded by the restriction to the one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  God was keeping them from knowing evil experimentally which would limit, even destroy, their wonderful liberty in the garden.  Satan fooled Eve into thinking that God’s restriction was a negative thing not a good thing.  When she and Adam broke God’s simple restriction they consequently lost their liberty.

Restrictions free us

Sometimes we tend to think that the restrictions God has placed on us even now, in our fallen condition, are robbing us of our own liberty.  When I pastored in Ft. Collins, CO, a young college student from Colorado State University visited me in my office.  He was a Christian young man away from home and living in the dormitory with all of its worldliness and temptations.  He was questioning why God would not want him to commit fornication like most of the rest of his fellow students did.  He figured if God made him with this desire that it couldn’t be a bad thing; in fact, remaining “pure” seemed to rob him of his “liberty” and was making his life more difficult, not better.

I asked the young man if he was a born again believer and he gave me a clear testimony.  I asked him why he trusted Christ simply by faith.  After realizing what I was asking he said, because God said he was to accept Christ that way.  Then I pointed him to Scriptures such as 1 Thes. 4:3, “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication.”  I asked him why he should obey that verse.  He smiled and said, “because God said to do it.”  A believer is a person who believes God in all that He has said, whether for salvation or Christian living.

Of course, what the young man was about to learn, whether by obedience or disobedience, was that God’s law was actually liberty from a life of destruction and ruin.

Obedience is of the will, not emotion

Our human personality is made up of intellect, emotion, and will.  We can know things, feel things, and do things.  All knowledge comes from God, “In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3).  Emotions about things come and go.  We can like something at one moment and despise it the next.  We can love and we can hate.  Paul said of lost men without the Spirit of God, “Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness” (Eph. 4:19).  If we try to navigate this world by our emotion we will end in an emotional mess.

God deals with us primarily through the will.  He reveals knowledge to us and tells us to do the right thing based on that knowledge.  In our fallen condition doing the right thing is not always easy, in fact it can be very difficult because our fleshly emotion wants it another way.  Our very salvation starts out by an act of the will as God says, “whosoever will may come.”  Our Christian life continues as God says, “whosoever will, let him take up his cross and follow me.”  God never asks us to feel right and then do right.  Trusting God is a matter of obeying first and finding the right feeling because we obeyed.  This is why love can be commanded,  “Husbands, love your wives.”  Believe what God says, set your will in that direction, and the joy of the Lord will certainly follow.

The cross kills and gives life

The Roman cross of crucifixion was not a pretty thing.  It was ugly and cruel, merciless and deadly.  It killed effectively and completely.  Jesus died for our sin on such a cross.  He paid the penalty for our sin.  His was a foreign guilt, our guilt, which He bore for the whole human race.  When we accept that death for us, we receive a foreign righteousness, His righteousness, which is placed upon us.  As the song writer wrote, “Tis done, the great transaction’s done.”

The repentance process is to realize that we should have died there on that Roman cross.  We would deserve what we got.  Faith is to realize that Jesus did not die for any sin of His own but for our sin and therefore He died as our Substitute.  The proof that He died for our sin and not His own is His resurrection bodily from the grave because death had no claim on Him. When we come to Jesus by faith we acquiesce to His death, or in fact, we die with Him.  Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

As a believer in Christ, I am directed by my will to take up my cross and follow Him.  I am walking to the death of myself.  It is not always kind nor pleasant but it is the direction my Savior went.  Yet as I go I find that this cross, this yoke, is easier than I thought and the burden is lighter than I thought.  I find a liberty in my soul, yes even in my emotion, that comes from such a cross.  “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body” (2 Cor. 4:8-10).

Law is not legalism but liberty

A.W. Tozer compared the old cross of the Bible with the new cross of culture.  He wrote, “The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him.  It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect.”⁴  There are always those who think of restrictions as something “legalistic,” something God would be less than God if He insisted upon.  So the cross is redirected into a lotion for the emotion, so to speak.  James had severe words for such an attitude, those whose very prayers were to consume things upon their lusts.  “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?  Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4).

To cover up for that friendship one only has to accuse others of legalism.  This is the vernacular for saying that pleasing God involves outward showiness and is almost always hypocritical.  It is implied that a person who maintains any outward separation from the world is working for salvation, to coax reward from God by works rather than by faith.  Some years ago a well-known writer and speaker made this same accusation of legalism about conservative Christians.  Dr. Ernest Pickering answered that man in a booklet titled, Are Fundamentalists Legalists?  He wrote, “The writer also declares that Christian leaders formulate rules of conduct so that persons obeying them can ‘earn God’s acceptance.’  After many years of ministry among thousands of churches both in this country and others I believe I can say with confidence that I have never met a pastor or Christian leader who believed this.”⁵  And neither have I.  One may disagree with another believer’s life style, but one should not accuse such a person of working for his/her salvation.  To be saved is to be accepted by God.

It is right to try to please God

Pleasing God should not be seen as a fleshly effort of legalism or Pharisaism.  In fact, pleasing God is specifically a New Testament life-style, a “law” of the New Testament for the believer.  Consider the following admonitions.  “But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts” (1 Thes. 2:4); “Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more” (1 Thes. 4:1); “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10); “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight” (1 John 3:22).

The “laws” of the New Testament have always been understood, not as works “for” salvation, but as works “because of” salvation.  This is the only way to understand Paul’s warnings against good works and James’ admonitions to good works.  The author of Hebrews simply said, “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb. 10:14).  Being born again and eternally secure, the believer should desire to please God with the time he has left on this earth.  There is no better way to be relevant to the present generation than to please God.

And so . . .

In light of these things, the law of liberty makes sense.  It is an oxymoron but only as a figure of speech.  The laws of God as seen in the Word of God protect the believer’s liberty.  They stand as a warning just as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil stood as a warning to Adam and Eve.  Our life is freer and better when we heed those warnings and abstain from (or adhere to, as the case may be) those things that would hurt us and thus impede the liberty to which Christ has made us free.  Freedom is not free, for Christ paid the awful price for our sin and disobedience.  Our freedom, our liberty, comes freely to us in salvation but admonishes us to walk as He walked, in obedience to His laws.

Notes:

1. William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995) 2224.
2. Douglas Moo, Tyndale New Testament Series, James (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) 98.
3. Charles Ryrie, A Survey of Bible Doctrine (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1972) 108.
4. A.W. Tozer, Man, the Dwelling Place of God. Kindle version, chapter 10.
5. Ernest D. Pickering, Are Fundamentalists Legalists? (Decatur: Baptist World Mission, nd.) 15.

Is It Enough To Say I’m Sorry? or, Does Grace Cover It All?

by Rick Shrader

We’ve all heard it and we’ve all done it.  We even forced our little ones to say “I’m sorry” to another child who has been hurt in some way.  We’ve also forgiven those little ones for things that are serious sins in an adult.  A two-year-old may steal another child’s toy three or four times in an hour (“mine!”) and be “forgiven” by the nursery worker.  Yet stealing by an adult must be dealt with in a more adult way.  Recently, FALN terrorist Oscar Lopez-Rivera said he was sorry for killing and bombing and now is honored in a parade.  Why is it more serious as adults than as children when we merely repeat the words, “I’m sorry?”

A few years ago a woman wrote an article for Christianity Today titled, “How Should the Church Handle Adultery?”¹  She took as her example John 8:1-12, the woman caught in adultery, as the church’s example of how to handle a case of adultery.  She likened the Pharisees of the story to “church people” and “members of the body of Christ” who “find more pleasure in execution than in restoration.”  As to Jesus saying, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone” [sic], she writes, What about you, what have you done?”  Then to Jesus’ final words, “Neither do I [condemn you]. Go and sin no more” [sic], she writes, “Jesus’ final word to this adulterous woman gives a death blow to the self-righteous heart in the body of Christ.  The self-righteous heart in the church is evident when we as believers seek to bring justice to every sin without taking the time to see the sinner.  How can we let adultery go unpunished?  Is it easy? Of course not, but the church must follow the example of our Savior. . . But I am afraid that this cannot happen until we have a real encounter with the grace and mercy of God.”

I don’t find these words uncommon today.  Many churches do not deal with overt sin pleading the grace and mercy of God.  Was this not the thinking of the Corinthian church when, in their prideful way, they failed to deal with adultery and Paul said to them, “Your glorying is not good.  Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?” (1 Cor. 5:6).  Then at the end of the chapter he writes, “Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.”  Now, to be fair, we must also remember that by the time Paul wrote the second letter the adulterous man had evidently truly repented and Paul then instructed the church, “Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many.  So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow” (2 Cor. 2:6-7).  Yet the point to be made is that the church did in fact “inflict” a “punishment” for the sin of adultery until true repentance was made.  In addition, Paul describes what true repentance looks like after the church repented of this and other sins, “For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge!  In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter” (2 Cor. 7:11).

As a pastor I have, after having to deal with sin in the church, addressed the offender and the whole church by saying, “We believe that sin is real but we also believe that forgiveness is real.”  We can’t take sin lightly as if it were just a mistake about a recipe or a ball game score.  We must seek true repentance.  And neither can we not forgive when true repentance has been shown.  In all we must not avoid the Biblical process.

Some doctrinal perspective

Too often we speak of things such as grace, mercy, forgiveness, love, sin, and self-righteousness, with definitions that fit our current culture but not necessarily with the Bible.  In major theology works sin is dealt with in the section called Hamartiology, the study of sin.  Within that section one will find a section on Sanctification, the ongoing process of putting away sin in the Christian life.  The views on sanctification can run from legalism on one extreme to antinomianism (license) on the other.  Historically these differences have made denominations because they formulate views on eternal security.  When there is too much justification in sanctification one becomes legalistic.  When there is too much sanctification in justification, one becomes antinomian.

Charles Ryrie begins his section on the Christian and sin by writing, “Becoming a Christian does not exempt one from sinning nor from obedience to the law of Christ.  To say it does is to fall into one or both of the common errors concerning the Christian and sin.  The one is a false perfectionism and the other antinomianism.”²  Wayne Grudem makes the traditional division of sanctification: positional, progressive, and final, and begins by writing, “Now we come to a part of the application of redemption that is a progressive work that continues throughout our earthly lives.  It is also a work in which God and man cooperate, each playing distinct roles.  This part of the application of redemption is called sanctification:  Sanctification is a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives.”³  In this section Grudem speaks about “corporate sanctification,”⁴ by which he means the necessity of the whole body of Christ helping the sinning brother.

The point here is that today we seem to be leaning much more toward antinomianism than to legalism.  Many are reacting to what they believe was harsh treatment of sin by the church in the past.  Yet in an antinomian era all direct dealing with sin in the church would seem harsh.  We do not doubt that sin has been dealt with in an unloving way at times.  But the believer cannot continue in sin as if he cannot have victory over it because our Lord said that he can (Rom. 6:6-18).  Neither should he continue in sin as if God doesn’t care because the Bible says He does (Rom. 6:1, 15).

Is “sorry” enough?

The answer is yes and no.  If we use that word as a two-year-old uses it, no, it is not enough.  A two-year-old cannot understand the unfailing love of a parent nor the process of the Holy Spirit in the heart.  He can only understand obedience and he is doing what his parent has asked.  But even a new believer can understand that such an answer is not a real admission of sin.  There has to be more to “sorry” than mere words.  “Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death” (2 Cor. 7:10).  David cried to God concerning his adultery, “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.  For I acknowledge my transgression: and my sin is ever before me.  Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight” (Psa. 51:2-4).

“Sorry” is part of the word “sorrow” and Paul said that godly sorrow does bring about true repentance.  If the word “sorry” were the conclusion of the sorrow and repentance process and a true confession of the heart, then such an expression would be accepted.  “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).  “Confess” (homologeō) means “to say the same thing.”  Confession is true as long as we are saying the same thing about our sin as God says!

Here are a few things to remember when we confess our sins.  First, as believers, we are forgiven all our sins, past, present, and future, or, as John puts it, “and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).  We are not asking God to save us again each time we confess our sin.  Sin, however, destroys our fellowship with God even as His own child.  “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth” (1 John 1:6).  True confession is vital for fellowship with God.

Second, true repentance is never late but late repentance is seldom true.  That’s why Paul admonished, “let not the sun go down upon your wrath” (Eph. 4:26).  When we have sinned we ought to be under great conviction by the Holy Spirit.  We cannot stand to go on another day without confession to God.  How many of us have awakened in the middle of the night as the Spirit brought our faults to mind and have gotten out of bed and gone to our knees in repentance?  Then, returning to our bed we could say, “For so he giveth his beloved sleep” (Psa. 127:2).

Third, God always hears, forgives, and restores because of true confession, but the scars from sin may last a life-time.  Moses still could not enter the promised land because of His sin of smiting the rock in the desert.  David “did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD . . . Save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite” (2 Kings 15:5).  Even John Mark had to wait years for Paul to be able to trust him again with missionary work, and only then did he become “profitable to me for the ministry” (2 Tim. 4:11).  There is a difference between forgiveness and fitness.  Unfortunately sin comes in quickly and breaks things, and the scars from the break take time to heal and that time depends on the nature of the break.  A harsh word may take only a conversation to heal, but unfaithfulness in marriage will take more than that.  Some sins have deeper roots than others and take time to heal.

Fourth, as we get older, though our sins may not be as overt as when we were young, because of our years of walking with God and enjoying fellowship with Him, even the smallest sins pierce us more deeply.  Grudem said this well,

As Christians grow in maturity, the kinds of sin that remain in their lives are often not so much sins of words or deeds that are outwardly noticeable to others, but inward sins of attitudes and motives of the heart—desires such as pride and selfishness, lack of courage or faith, lack of zeal in loving God with our whole hearts and our neighbors as ourselves, and failure to fully trust God for all that he promises in every situation.  These are real sins!  They show how far short we fall of the moral perfection of Christ.⁵

This is the goal that we all should be striving to attain.

Is “grace” enough?

Again the answer is yes and no.  We should know and never doubt that God has forgiven us all our sins.  “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us [present tense, continually] from all sin” (1 John 1:7).  “Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost [lit. entirely] that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25).  On the other hand, no, or not yet.  Though we are positionally sanctified in Christ and secure, we are not done with sin in this life.  Our progressive sanctification continues until we receive a resurrected, glorified body.  As it is often said, we were saved from the penalty of sin at salvation; we are being saved from the power of sin during our Christian life here on earth; and we will be saved from the presence of sin in heaven (see Heb. 9:24-28).

We can remember these things about our eternal security and our progressive sanctification.  First, God loves us and so He chastens us as dear children.  “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.  If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?” (Heb. 12:6-7).  His grace does not leave us alone with our sin as believers but deals with our sin, “that we might be partakers of his holiness” (Heb. 12:10).  It is not the grace of God that knowingly ignores the sin of fellow believers.

Second, there is a difference between parental love with procrastination and parental love with instruction.  A parent never stops loving his/her child regardless of the transgression.  Human love (storgē) illustrates God’s love and grace toward His children.  But what parent doesn’t instruct and train the child and apply stricter training as the child gets older?  We may have greater patience with the new Christian who really doesn’t know yet how to walk the Christian life.  But that is no excuse for the mature Christian who knows better.  Though he is no less a beloved brother, his knowing sin becomes more serious.

Third, it is not showing grace to a person to ignore, overlook, or not deal with known sin.  God does not do this with us.  Why should we think that we should do this with other believers?  Some may think that when we sing “Just As I Am” or when we say “God accepts you just as you are,” that we are saying that we don’t need to deal with sin.  But they are mistaken.  Only in the new birth experience do I come “Just As I Am.”  It is true, “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling” when it comes to how we come to Christ for salvation.  But this is not true in sanctification.  God does not accept us just as we are when it comes to Christian growth, maturity, and personal holiness.  It would be parental neglect if He did!  Rather, God will not let us alone.  He will prune us, chastise us, correct us, and teach us to be more like Christ.  “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18).  “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world” (Tit. 2:11-12).

Fourth, when we bear one another’s burden we are fulfilling the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2).  If we are spiritual we will seek to restore a sinning brother who is overtaken in a fault, considering ourselves lest we be overtaken in the same kind of thing (Gal. 6:1).  Paul goes on to say that though we all have our own burdens (phortion, “freight”), we must work at bearing one another’s burden (baros, “weight”).  To say that we love someone so much that we would never make a judgment about their moral failure, is not to love at all.  It may be to escape the responsibility and make it easier on ourselves.  We would never agree that a parent loved her child so much that she could never discipline him really showed love.

And so . . .

Ryrie ended his chapter on sanctification with this great quote from J.C. Ryle,

We may take comfort about our souls if we know anything of an inward fight and conflict.  It is the invariable companion of genuine Christian holiness . . . Do we find in our heart of hearts a spiritual struggle?  Do we feel anything of the flesh lusting against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, so that we cannot do the things that we would?  Are we conscious of two principles within us, contending for the master?  Do we feel anything of war in our inward man?  Well, let us thank God for it!  It is a good sign.  It is strongly probable evidence of the great work of sanctification . . . Anything is better than apathy, stagnation, deadness, and indifference.⁶

So let us do the hard thing.  Let us truly bear one another’s burden and so fulfill the law of Christ.  And let us also grow in grace putting away our own sins and becoming more like Christ in our own lives.

Notes:

1. Domeniek L. Harris, “How Should the Church Handle Adultery?” Christianity Today, November, 2013.
2. Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1987) 230.
3. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994) 746.
4. Ibid., 756.
5. Ibid., 753.
6. Ryrie, 234.