Emily Maxson: Welcome to Halting Toward Zion,
the podcast where we limp like Jacob to the
Promised Land and talk about life, the universe,
and everything along the way. I’m Emily
Maxson, here with Greg Uttinger and Bryan
Broome, and today we’re talking about faith,
community and justification.
Last week we were talking about apotheosis,
the idea of man trying to become God. As the
serpent said in the garden, “Ye shall be
as gods, knowing good and evil.” The pagan
world has always been trying to ascend the
ladder of being and achieve god-hood for mere
mortals. One of the ways they did that in
the ancient city was that the ancient city
was a religious institution founded on ancestor
worship.
Greg: As we look at the families, whether
we’re in Canaan or whether we’re in the
Japhetic tribes that eventually would become
Greece and Rome, and Egypt too, for that matter,
throughout the ancient world we keep seeing
this deification of one’s dead ancestors.
Basic worship was worship of basically grandpa
who’s dead and buried in the back forty,
and because he is, we own this land because
we have to be near dead grandpa to feed his
spirit and keep him happy, because if we don’t
he will come back as a ghost and terrorize
us.
This is not exactly a kind loving relationship.
This is “the dead are scary,” something
that Thornton Wilder in Our Town could have
told us. “They don’t get along with us
living folks so well, but as long as we keep
them happy, everything’s okay.” What was
true on the family level also became true
on the level of the city-state or the polis.
Emily: Can I just throw something in here?
We were watching an anime the other night
that was set in modern times. This is not
exclusive to the ancient world. Before the
meal they took their little token samples
of food and put it in the family shrine. This
was for mom and grandma who had died, so it’s
not gone from the world, this idea.
Greg: We can think of also Coco, the Disney
film. Study the ancient Greeks and watch Coco
and it’s like déjà vu all over again.
This is the same kind of thing. The ancestors
need to be kept happy. On Coco, everything
was kindler and gentler. In the pagan world,
not so much. If you kept grandpa happy, sure,
he would try to do nice things for you – protect
the home, be a guardian spirit, and so on.
He was not an infinite deity. He could help
you here and there with this and that, as
long as you did this and that for him.
But when we come to the city, we have the
same kind of thing, where the families look
back to a common ancestor and lit a hearth
fire to him. Then in terms of that worship,
they drew the sacred boundaries that would
mark out walls, and those walls were religious
barriers. They kept out the aliens. They kept
in the true believers, the family, “us”
as opposed to “them.”
It was only as the Greek city-states found
ancestors even further back that they were
able to get along together to any degree,
because the Greek city-states spent a lot
of time fighting. In addition, these city-states
would also harness other deities into their
service. Everybody saw the sun and the thunder
clouds and they watched the fertility cycle
and they would borrow these deities as well.
In time, one city might look at another and
say, “Hey, you have your own sky god, and
we have a sky god. I wonder if it’s the
same sky god. We call him Zeus.”
“Well, so do we.”
And there the similarity completely ends and
we have to decide whether or not we have to
hate each other now because our religions
don’t match. It was true polytheism – a
god for everything, but the central god was
the god of the city, who was an ancestor.
So as the city, like the family, tried to
placate this god and keep this god happy,
there was not a lot of love lost here in general.
I’m sure we could find some myths in some
ancient place that speak of somebody actually
liking the gods, but by and large the gods
were scary.
There’s this scene in Gilgamesh where Gilgamesh
is talking to Ishtar, and Ishtar is flirting,
trying to seduce him, and he says basically,
“Umm, yeah, that never goes well for your
lovers, does it? How about this guy? What’d
you turn him into? And this guy, what struck
him? Yeah, I don’t think this is happening,”
and that made her very angry. She ran off
to her father god and said, “He told me
how slutty I am,” and then she continued
to do the same sorts of things.
It was dangerous. As late as the Greek myths
you read the stories of anybody who Zeus set
his lust upon, and it did not go well with
them.
Bryan: In modern fiction there’s a novel
called American Gods by Neil Gaiman, and it
is very similar, even so far to it’s dangerous
to be lusted after by this Babylonian goddess,
a scene which became infamous for obvious
inappropriate reasons. She was a goddess of
sexual deviancy. It was just a cutaway. It
serves no purpose to the plot except to show
that these new gods are just as bad as the
old gods, and will consume you in the most
literal sense.
Greg: And thus magic becomes the barrier,
the protection, the shield against the gods.
The gods want everything done by the book.
You have to perform their rituals exactly,
word perfect, syllable perfect, intonation
perfect, even if the words don’t make any
sense anymore. There’s evidence of this
in the Egyptian papyri. “You say it like
this.”
“What does it mean?”
“We don’t know. Say it like this, because
if you don’t, bad things are going to happen.”
Irrationality bringing a rational predictability
to a chaotic universe, an incredible thing.
Back to the point I think I’m going to is
no one wanted to befriend these gods. I’m
sure there were exceptions, but by and large
these were not gods that you loved. These
were not gods you asked to love you. In fact,
by and large, the more they ignored you, the
safer you were.
Many times I’ve used the analogy of a playground
bully. You can be the kid who coughs up his
lunch money. You can be the henchman who works
for the bully. That doesn’t mean he respects
you. It just means you’re a useful tool
right now, but he’ll sell you out in a second.
These would be the priests of the pagan world
who got really close to the gods, and often
ended up castrated or sacrificed or whatever.
We’re talking about all this in order to
set it over against what we find in the life
of Abraham, or Abram as he first was, because
scripture calls him the friend of God. As
Jesus says to Saint Theresa, “That’s how
I treat my friends.”
“Yes, Lord. That’s why you don’t have
very many.”
But God’s friendship is not the chummy friendship
of he’s there to make us happy. It’s not
therapeutic deism, but it is a real burning
deep powerful love that took Jesus to the
cross, and that’s the kind of friendship
we want to talk about tonight, particularly
from the book of Galatians. I’m in Chapter
3.
Galatians is in many ways a commentary on
the book of Genesis and particularly on the
life of Abram. We see Paul using the life
of Abram to answer the Galatian heresy. In
Galatia, which was Gentile territory, Paul
had gone and preached the gospel with great
success and people were very happy about this
gospel of freedom, of being God’s friend
by faith alone through Christ alone by grace
alone.
But after Paul left, some people came along
– Judaizers, we call them – who said something
along the lines of, “How’d you come to
Jesus? Oh, Paul, oh yeah. Hmm. Yeah, Paul’s
a really great guy. We’ve met him. He’s
really good on justification. I bet he told
you about coming to Jesus by faith. He did?
Yeah, that’s great. Did he talk about circumcision
at all, and about the blessing of the Holy
Spirit and how to advance in the Christian
life and become more mature?
“No circumcision? Oh, you know, that’s
just like Paul. You know, he wasn’t one
of the twelve. He didn’t really walk with
Jesus, but we’ve hung out with the real
apostles. Let us tell you how to become a
really super Christian. You believe in Jesus
and then…” and the “and then” for
them was circumcision.
God uses extreme examples oftentimes in scripture
to make his point, and what better example
than something he actually at one point had
ordained. Abraham was to be circumcised, but
he was circumcised after he believed the promise,
after God covenanted with him, after he received
the Spirit.
With that in mind, let me read from Galatians
Chapter 3 –
O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you,
that ye should not obey the truth, before
whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently
set forth, crucified among you?
2 This only would I learn of you, Received
ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or
by the hearing of faith?
3 Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit,
are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
4 Have ye suffered so many things in vain?
if it be yet in vain.
5 He therefore that ministereth to you the
Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth
he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing
of faith?
6 Even as Abraham believed God, and it was
accounted to him for righteousness.
That was from Genesis 15:6.
7 Know ye therefore that they which are of
faith, the same are the children of Abraham.
8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would
justify the heathen through faith, preached
before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In
thee shall all nations be blessed.
9 So then they which be of faith are blessed
with faithful Abraham.
10 For as many as are of the works of the
law are under the curse: for it is written,
Cursed is every one that continueth not in
all things which are written in the book of
the law to do them.
11 But that no man is justified by the law
in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The
just shall live by faith.
12 And the law is not of faith: but, The man
that doeth them shall live in them.
13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse
of the law, being made a curse for us: for
it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth
on a tree:
14 That the blessing of Abraham might come
on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that
we might receive the promise of the Spirit
through faith.
The word I would like to focus on here for
starters is the word blessed. If you are of
faith, then you’re blessed with faithful
Abraham. “In thee shall all the families
of the earth be blessed. In thee shall all
the nations of the earth be blessed.”
Let’s talk about the word blessing, what
it means and what it doesn’t mean, and any
perversions you’ve heard of like, “I was
so blessed today. I got my socks blessed off.”
Anything come to mind?
Emily: I remember my grandfather teaching
on Psalm 1, where it says, “Blessed is the
man that walketh not in the counsel of the
ungodly,” and so on. His interpretation
was, “Blessed here means happy. Happy is
the man that does this and does not do that.”
I’m not a Hebrew scholar so I don’t know
if that has any correlation, but that’s
the first thing that I think of.
Greg: Jesus said, “Blessed are you when
men shall persecute you and say all manner
of evil against you falsely. Rejoice and be
exceeding glad, for great is your reward in
heaven.” There may be those rare spiritual
souls who can sing hallelujah while the red-hot
pokers are being shoved into their eyes. I
don’t think I would be one of them.
It seems to me that there are some things
that the Bible describes as a blessed state
that isn’t what we as 21st-century North
Americans would think of as particularly happy,
so I think we need to tweak one side or the
other.
We can say that there’s more to happiness
than feeling good at the moment. That’s
fair enough. You could go that direction.
Or we could say that blessing is more than,
and other than in some ways, feeling happy,
elated, pleased with life at the moment.
What Jesus is saying in the Sermon on the
Mount, and what the psalmist is saying, is
that you have God’s favor. God means you
infinitely well. It will be well with you.
All will be well and all will be well and
all manner of things will be well in God’s
providence by God’s predestination through
Jesus, and that even though it may hurt a
lot and be very sorrowful now, God means it
for your good.
We can think here of Romans 8, these things
that work for us an exceeding and eternal
weight of glory. To suffer for Jesus is a
most blessed thing, and if in that you can
find happiness, then happiness is a good equivalent.
But if at the time all you can think of is,
“Lord, this hurts a lot. Can it go away?”
most Americans at least in our generation
would not think that that’s happy. I think
they would want a different word there.
Emily: Just a slight correction. The weight
of glory is 2 Corinthians 4:17. Romans 8 is
all things working together for good.
Greg: Oh, you’re right. Then Romans 8:18
– “For I reckon that the sufferings of
this present time are not worthy to be compared
with the glory which shall be revealed in
us.” So a similar passage, but you’re
right with 2 Corinthians for the weight of
glory.
Here we can point to Lewis’s book, The Weight
of Glory, as something that would be a good
corrective or instruction with regard to the
nature of happiness and blessedness.
As we look at Galatians, Paul speaks of two
things that are intimately related. First
of all, he does use the original promise to
Abraham – “Go from your family and from
your land to a place that I will show you.
I will make of you a great nation. In you
and in your seed shall all the families of
the earth be blessed, and all the nations
of the earth be blessed.”
Paul in Galatians 3:8 says, “And the scripture,
foreseeing that God would justify the heathen
through faith, preached before the gospel
unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations
be blessed.” That promise to Abraham was
not, “Come along on the ride and I’m going
to take you to a really special land and you’re
going to be really special and you’re going
to be really happy, and all the nations are
going to be happy.”
Again, if you want to define that very carefully
that will work, but Paul says this is the
gospel. He preached the gospel to Abraham.
Blessing is what the gospel brings. This is
where we need to stop and say, “What does
the gospel bring us?”
“They which be of faith are blessed with
faithful Abraham.” The alternative blessing,
“For as many as are under the works of the
law or under the curse,” “But that no
man is justified by the law in the sight of
God, it is evident, for the just shall live
by faith.” Then “Christ has redeemed us
from the curse of the law…that the blessing
of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through
Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise
of the Spirit through faith.”
He started way back in verse 6 with “Abraham
believed God and it was accounted to him for
righteousness,” and he ends up with, “And
those who believe will also then be justified
by faith, and receive the promise of the Holy
Spirit.”
Here are two things we can talk about then.
We can assume that in our audience there will
be people who have heard this a million times,
and that there will be people who have never
really heard it at all, so let’s do what
we can with it for both – this blessing
of being made right with God by faith, and
the twin blessing that’s tied and wrapped
up in it, the promise, the gift of the Holy
Spirit, both received by faith. So we can
talk about justification, we can talk about
the gift of the Spirit, and in both cases
we can talk, as Paul had to, about this faith
alone thing.
Why is that so important? Why can’t it be
faith plus something else? Why can’t we
tell people if they really want to be holy,
if they really want to be spiritual, if they
want to take their Christianity to the next
level, “Well yeah, you start with Jesus
and you start with believing him/accepting
him/receiving him, whatever, but then you
have to fill in the blank.”
I’m going to turn it back to you. What comes
to mind out of your own experience and your
own reading along any of these lines?
Bryan: Definitely in recent years there’s
been a resurgence in a type of theology whose
basis is in collapsing or denying the distinction
between a covenant of works and a covenant
of grace. Essentially what happens when you
do that is you don’t have grace anymore.
You have glawspel – a mixture of gospel
and law. I don’t remember who I heard that
from, but it’s a perfect term.
No more is justification or even sanctification
something monergistically done. It’s something
that you have to supply your own part to.
“If you really want to be spiritual you
should also do this,” and the this can be
anything. In the ones that I’m going to
vaguely reference…
Emily: We can name it, that’s fine.
Bryan: In the Federal Vision it can be anything
from you need to advocate for theonomy in
order to be fully saved, more or less.
Greg: To experience the fullness of the blessing,
whatever form it may take.
Bryan: Exactly, whatever form it is. Or you
need to be married. If you want to understand
the fullness of the gospel transforming the
world and culture and any other number of
things that they want to transform, you should
get married and have children. That’s the
way that you really build the kingdom in a
substantive way. As a single guy, that hurts
a little bit, too – or when I was single,
I should say.
Emily: And it flies in the face of Paul’s
message to you, a single guy, that if you’re
single, praise the Lord that you’re single.
Greg: And it’s not that any of these things
in and of themselves is unbiblical advice
– be fruitful and multiply and fill the
earth – but what happens is “And if you
don’t do this, you will be a second-rate
Christian. There are things you will not understand,
blessings you will not have. There’s something
that Jesus didn’t buy for you, because you
haven’t done this.” And what “this”
is doesn’t matter.
Bryan: You don’t even need to go into the
FV to see people saying that about marriage.
That is in the air of Evangelicalism even,
although there’s a counter problem where
they’re basically saying, “You don’t
have to get married at all. No one needs to
get married,” and you end up in the opposite
ditch.
Greg: We usually do have opposite ditches
because Satan lays traps on both sides of
the road. “Let’s go over here. Oh wait,
look at this horrible trap.” We’ll run
as far as we can in the other direction to
escape it, and not notice that we just stumbled
into the opposite trap, and we’ll be pointing
fingers back and forth across the road at
the people in the other trap, condemning them
for their legalism and missing our own.
Bryan: There’s clearly discretion to be
had, obviously, because there are things that
you naturally should move to the complete
opposite of. For example, if the previous
error you held was “Jesus isn’t God,”
the solution is not to find the middle ground
between “Jesus as God” and “Jesus isn’t
God.”
“Oh, Jesus is kind of God.” That’s Semi-Arianism
and we don’t want that.
Greg: The other one is “Jesus is only God.
He’s not man.” That’s the opposite extreme.
Bryan: That’s true, I guess.
Greg: But I know what you mean. There are
some things that are absolute and we don’t
want to leave them behind, but in the process
of fleeing one heresy we don’t want to see
what ultimately is a complementary heresy
as our salvation. We need to stop and listen
to what the Bible actually says, rather than
having this knee-jerk reaction to things.
Speaking again as those in the Reformed Presbyterian
tradition, there’s some things in our past
that we’ve run away from because “that’s
what Rome does.” Well, it may or may not
be a good idea, but because Rome did it is
not a sufficient reason in and of itself not
to do it. There may be times and places where
not being like Rome might be a good idea,
and certainly at one point might have been
a good idea, but that’s not Scripture.
Bryan: You can think of things like divine
simplicity. There are people in Reformed Presbyterian
who functionally deny it. Even though they
might claim the terms, they’re arguing against
it, and more or less the argument boils down
to, “Well, we don’t want that because
that’s what Rome does, and we want to use
scripture’s terminology.”
That’s another thing. I’m sorry, apparently
I’m banging the FV drum, but that’s one
of the problems in that camp. They’re very
strong on wanting to use the language of Scripture,
so they’ll try to say they’re using Scripture’s
language, but the problem is that they’re
denying parts of Scripture because Scripture
uses the same term in different senses in
different areas. So they try to find some
synthesis of the terminology that ends up
denying what theologians have defined those
things as, from a holistic cohesive view of
Scripture as it speaks to those concepts.
Emily: I think I’ve mentioned this before,
but that’s the very strategy that the Unitarians
used when they were combating orthodox trinitarianism.
They removed all references to the Trinity
in their liturgy and replaced it with whatever
Bible verses they want, to say, “Hey, we’ve
got more straight-up Bible in our liturgy
than you do in yours, because you’ve added
all this other stuff.”
Greg: When I was a teenager, I met a Jehovah’s
Witness lady at the door. You could tell.
It was easy in those days. She wanted to talk
and I said, “Wait, wait, wait. Before we
go anywhere, the thing we’re going to divide
on is who Jesus is. Tell me, who is Jesus
Christ?” and she said something along the
lines of, “Well, he’s the Son of God.
He’s the Word of God. He’s the express
image of the Father, the brightness of the
Father’s glory. He’s wonderful. He’s
counselor,” and she kept piling Scripture
on Scripture until I blew the whistle and
said, “Wait, stop. Is he Jehovah?”
“Oh, no!”
“Okay, thank you. Now we’re being honest.”
She appealed to Scripture torn out of context,
undefined, unexplained, unexposited, and thought
that that was a sufficient answer. It was
in fact simply a blind, from the days of Arius
forward. That’s exactly the way of the heretics,
is to pick up the language of Scripture but
pour their own meaning into it. Those who
write creeds are accused, as you say, “Well,
you’re using man’s words. We just want
to use the Bible.”
“Wait, you just spoke to us using man’s
words. By your own definition then we should
ignore anything you just said…blah blah
blah…I can’t hear you.”
Bryan: There’s a relevant quote here, because
as Reformed people we have our own Reformed
tradition and we would say obviously Calvin
pulled heavily from the Church fathers whenever
he wrote anything. It’s a catholic, in the
proper sense, doctrine. It’s a universal
doctrine.
I was reading and I actually took a picture
of it because I didn’t want to forget it
by the time the morning came around. It’s
from The Creedal Imperative, which I recommended
last time. He says, “Paul’s gospel is
truly traditional. It has a stable content
and it just passed on from generation to generation.
Indeed, for Paul, the fact that something
was not taught in the past and not passed
on as a tradition would presumably have dramatically
increased the chances that it was false.”
Emily: To clarify, you may be thinking, dear
listener, “Have they just put Federal Vision
on the same level as Jehovah’s Witnesses?”
and the answer to that, in a very specific
sense, is yes, we have, because in both cases
there’s something beyond Jesus’ atoning
work, his righteousness imputed to us, that
we have to rest on.
Greg: Anyone who claims the title Federal
Vision is saying with horror, “No, we don’t
believe that!” All right, then that’s
good. Please tell all of those around you
that you don’t believe that.
Emily: And send us an email and tell us.
Greg: I do not doubt for a moment that there
are people who claim the title Federal Vision,
or at least played footsies in that camp for
a while, who do believe that salvation is
through Christ and Christ alone. Okay, but
you need to say that, and you need to say
it out loud, and you need to say it in a way
that everyone around you understands, because
there are very clearly people who bear that
name who don’t believe that. Or there are
people who don’t understand that the way
they’re talking says they don’t believe
that. Their language betrays them, and if
they were to be tried purely on the basis
of what they have said or written, they would
be convicted in court.
You can say, “But they didn’t mean that.
We didn’t mean that.” Yeah, so think before
you say things, especially before you put
them in cyberspace. Cyberspace is for eternity.
People can hunt them down and find those words
and bring them back and say, “Look, this
is what you said.”
There were some people involved with the Federal
Vision who very early on I read with some
appreciation, and then after the whole thing
kind of got rolling and I saw where it was
going I went back and read the things that
I appreciated, and some of them were still
pretty good and some of them weren’t because
now I saw with new eyes. I saw what they were
really saying. Instead of reading it out of
my perspective, I was seeing more clearly
what their perspective was, and reading it
in terms of that, and suddenly it wasn’t
so good anymore.
We’re raising the creedal confessional challenge.
Can you affirm justification by faith as it’s
presented in any of the Reformed standards,
without quibbling, without redefining, and
with great joy? If you can, then you’re
not like a Jehovah’s Witness. But if you’re
cringing or wiggling right now, then maybe
you need to talk to God about this one. We
do not treat these things lightly, nor is
it our business to excommunicate anybody.
Bryan: We’re four people on a podcast. We’re
not a church council or elders.
Emily: There’s three of us from the listener’s
perspective, because David doesn’t talk.
Greg: But he makes interesting facial grimaces
now and then, and smiles happily upon his
wife.
We appeal to the councils, the confessions
of the church catholic, which we think are
in most cases pretty clear. We would just
wish that anybody else who wishes to speak
publicly in the name of Christ would also
be clear and think before they speak.
But leaving the Federal Vision behind, and
other things, Bryan, I was thinking that maybe
out of a certain other tradition that you
come from and are familiar with, you might
also have run into…
Emily: I know where you’re going with this.
Greg: I can see it in his face right now.
If you don’t want to, that’s fine. I have
my own experiences.
Bryan: For the listeners’ benefit, I was
raised as a Word of Faith Pentecostal, which
always causes people some confusion. If they
don’t know me and they hear that they’re
like, “But you’re Presbyterian. How did
that happen?”
Emily: As Presbyterian as it is possible to
be.
Bryan: I don’t know, I think there’s a
couple steps more of extreme-ness, but yeah,
it’s worlds apart. What you find in that
camp – and I have to be very careful here,
and I would say this just like Greg gave his
clarification regarding folks who claim the
title of Federal Visionists – is if you
actually claim and acknowledge that Christ’s
merit is the only basis for your salvation,
that’s a good thing. The problem is that
in practice, that doesn’t really get taught
as the basis.
Hearing some sermons from Word of Faith types,
there’s a lot of law. “You need to do
this, and you should do that,” and there’s
not a whole lot of Christ preached, except
at the very, very end when they follow Finney’s
footsteps and give an altar call.
Now, luckily enough, the church that I was
raised in did not teach the following, but
you will find in some Pentecostal circles
that you are not actually saved if you do
not speak in tongues. There are some who claim
that this is the evidence of the infilling
of the Holy Spirit in a salvific sense, and
that if you do not demonstrate it you do not
have the infilling of the Spirit in a salvific
sense.
That is absolute poppycock. That is against
everything that we’re taught in scripture.
The only basis for salvation is the meritorious
work of Christ, both in his life and his ministry,
and also of his sanctifying and atoning death
on the cross. That is the only basis for our
salvation, but that is what you find in these
camps.
Emily: And really what we want to be combatting
is the teaching. It’s not necessarily the
people, it’s the teaching.
Bryan: Well, there are some people I want
to combat.
Greg: This is tempting. There are a great
many dear believers who believe what they
believe because they’ve always believed
it because they’ve always been taught it
by people they respected, from their pastors
to their parents, and for such we simply want
to help and say, “Have you thought about
this? Have you seen this passage of scripture?
Have you compared what you’re believing
and what you’re saying with the Bible says
here and there?”
No, we don’t want to be combative and we
don’t want to accuse them of horrible sins.
We all have our weak spots, our blind spots,
things that we believe because we’ve been
taught and we don’t know better. But those
pastors and teachers who do know better, who
have every reason to know better, who have
been confronted by sound theologians and have
been told, “This is heresy,” and they
go on misleading their flock – that’s
a very dangerous place to be.
Paul in writing to the Galatians is very kind.
He’s straight-up and it’s tough love,
but he continues to speak of them as saints,
as people he loves and who have loved him
in the past, of being persuaded that they
have not fallen yet. But when he comes to
talk of these false teachers he says, “I
would they were even cut off,” and in the
context it means castrated. He’s not mild
in his shepherd’s defense of the flock.
We are concerned with the false doctrines,
and in some cases with the people who seem
to deliberately spout them.
There was a video that starts by introducing
what the gospel justification by faith really
is, and then it takes us to Word of Faith
Ministries and gives us clips.
Bryan: I actually showed this to David years
ago. It’s from Justin Peters’ ministry.
I can’t remember the name of it, but he’s
put out several like that. Oh wait, no, I’m
sorry, this was more recent.
Greg: It would really be worth recommending
this. This is excellent because the first
half is basically, “Here’s the gospel
and here’s how you preach it. Here’s how
you do not turn scripture into moralism,”
but then the second half is straight-up clips
from existing ministries, showing exactly
what they say, and it’s horrible. Here are
people who are leading their flocks to hell,
and not just the kind of stuff we’re talking
about. It goes way beyond that, so it would
be good if we could recommend it.
Bryan: It’s called “American Gospel: Christ
Alone.”
Emily: Oh, the whole full-length documentary?
Greg: Yes.
Emily: I thought you were talking about a
short little YouTube thing, but we can totally
recommend American Gospel, absolutely. I actually
have yet to watch it, but I’ve heard nothing
but good things.
Bryan: I haven’t watched it either. There
comes a point where you can’t watch it ever
again.
Emily: PTSD.
Greg: The first half is a description of the
gospel of justification by faith, and explanations
by sound Bible teachers from various denominations
on how you go about teaching from both the
Old and New Testament without lapsing into
moralism, and making Christ central.
The second part is largely clips from existing
ministries who don’t do that, who try to
throw people back on their own efforts and
their own merits and, in the process, grant
them as it were power over the Spirit himself,
power over God, magical powers.
It’s frightening because it’s real. These
are people whose names we would know, and
we have the words out of their own mouths
on tape. It’s something, if you’ve got
the stomach for it, you really, really should
see.
The first part is certainly a blessing. The
second part is kind of a shock. That’s American
Gospel, and Emily will give you more information
in the show notes.
Emily: We’ll put a link there. I think it’s
on Amazon Prime, if you have that.
James says, “Not many of you should become
teachers, because those who teach will be
judged more strictly.” I think that’s
a great warning to any of us with a platform,
but especially to those whose job is to preach
the gospel, whose job is to hold forth Christ.
That’s sobering but also encouraging, that
there’s nothing else that we need but Christ.
Greg: That’s what Paul is saying here in
Galatians. He points us to Christ as the source
of our justification, as our righteousness,
our legal standing before God.
If there are those who have never really heard
the gospel or don’t understand what we’re
talking about because they’ve never heard
the gospel in these terms, the doctrine of
justification by faith is very simply this.
Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, became
true man, the covenant representative. He
went to the cross. God imputed to him, legally
transferred to him, credited to him, all the
sins of his people, all those for whom he
died.
When we come to Christ in faith, he credits
to us Jesus’ perfect law-keeping, his obedience,
his righteousness, his full obedience to the
father, so that when God looks at us he sees
the righteousness; indeed, he sees the person
of his son because we are in Jesus.
We receive this by faith, and faith alone.
There’s nothing we can add to that – not
our tears, not our yearnings, not our hunches,
not our works, not our penance, not our obediences
piled on top of one another, not our money,
our offerings, our gifts, our spiritual gifts,
not the working of miracles. It’s nothing
but simply trusting Jesus alone.
This is the answer to man’s real guilt problem.
It’s in Jesus. It’s acknowledging that
we can do nothing except receive God’s free
gift offered in Jesus Christ. That’s justification
by faith. If you’ve never heard this before,
then God is calling to you to hear and believe
and receive Jesus as the full answer to all
of your salvation, to all that you need for
your salvation.
But the second thing is – and it is the
second thing – the promise of the Spirit.
God who justifies us freely communicates to
us his Holy Spirit through Christ to change
us, to write his law in our hearts, to give
us a new nature, to give us new birth, to
give us eternal life, to sanctify us so that
we’re not the same people anymore.
We’re united to Jesus, and his death, his
burial, and his resurrection, and that new
life begins flowing through us and in us and
makes us different people – not in order
to earn anything, not in order to make God
as judge any more happy than he already is,
any more reconciled than he already is, any
more propitiated than he already is – but
so that we can indeed be in the most intimate
practical sense the friend of God from our
side.
He’s already befriended us. He gave us his
son. Now we get to enjoy that friendship as
the Holy Spirit continues to work transformation
in our hearts. The standard of that transformation
is the law of God, the whole word of God as
it comes to us as truth and law, but it’s
not a checklist whereby we work to earn more
brownie points, more blessings, more favors.
It’s simply that we get to know God better.
We get to be the kind of people he wants us
to be, and we get to enjoy this friendship
with Jesus more than we would otherwise. If
you want to call that a blessing, so be it,
but it’s a blessing that God’s working
in us. He works in us both to will and to
do of his good pleasure. It’s not something
that rises autonomously out of our flesh,
which is the whole point of Galatians. The
flesh offers nothing. That which is born of
the flesh is flesh.
We need to be born again. We need the Spirit
of God, and the Spirit of God comes by faith
in Jesus. You want more of the Holy Spirit?
Then trust in Jesus. You need more of the
Spirit? Listen to the gospel. It points you
to Jesus. The gospel will bring forth the
fruit of the Spirit in your life. That’s
why as we get to the end of Galatians we come
to the fruit of the spirit. How do you get
that? By believing the gospel, by believing
in Jesus, trusting Jesus.
Emily: Amen.
Bryan: Amen to that. My pastor actually just
gave a sermon – I want to say this year,
but honestly everything has kind of squished
together in my mind, so it could have been
last year – on the armor of God and how
it’s often turned into a checklist of things
that you have to put on every morning or something
like that, when in reality – and again,
it’s been a few months since I listened
to this particular sermon and I could be mis-remembering
some of it – he drew out from this text
that this is just about believing the gospel.
You have peace with God and you’re gifted
faith and righteousness. These are all things
that are given to you. They’re not things
you have to put on. If you have to put on
your own helmet of salvation every morning,
that means you’ve misplaced it during the
night and that’s disconcerting.
Emily: Can you find that sermon and send us
the link to put in the show notes?
Bryan: Absolutely. In fact, I will look for
it right now.
Emily: Fabulous. With that, we must transition
to recos because we’re running out of time.
Greg, do you have something to recommend?
We’ll give you American Gospel for free
so you can have another one.
Greg: I think that’s my recommendation.
If everyone would go listen to that I would
be very, very happy. Besides, I always do
books, so yay me, I’m branching out.
Emily: There’s two parts of that. I forget
the subtitles, but there are two and they
have different subtitles and they are different
films, but both on the same theme. We will
link them both. Bryan, do you have a recommendation?
Bryan: I do. I’m going to recommend actually
five books or tomes.
Emily: Five books? I didn’t say you could
have five recos! Who do you think you are?
Bryan: It’s by technicality. That is the
name of it, although the “books” are much
shorter compared to novels or even novellas.
I’m going to recommend Cyril of Alexandria:
Five Tomes Against Nestorius, which is a fantastic
book. It’s available for free online at
Tertullian.org.
Emily: We’ll also link it in the show notes.
Bryan: There’s a marvelous section I wanted
to read, because the Church fathers just knew
not to hold back when they were arguing with
heretics and it was so great. He quotes something
out of Nestorius’ writings first, wherein
Nestorius is attacking the title Theotokos
or “God bearer” for the Virgin Mary.
He basically says, “I understand. I agree
that Christ passed through Mary and that’s
perfectly fine. That’s what the scriptures
say, but ‘I have not said passed through
in the sense of born, for not so quickly do
I forget my own words.’”
In his response, Cyril of Alexandria says,
“Herein therefore he stiles heretic him
who holds the right and admirable faith about
Christ, and who since He is truly God calls
her mother of God who bare Him. But there
will be no doubt to any of those who think
aright, that it is himself who, fastening
the blame of heresies on them who choose to
deem aright is establishing the unbeauty of
his own words, and has all but confessed openly
that he is being borne outside of the straight
way, and is making crooked paths.”
In other words, “You’re crazy.”
Greg: But he says it with so many words.
Emily: I’m not going to lie. I thought that
was a little bit hard to follow. I usually
read with a pencil because I have to go back
and re-see it. I’m not an audiobook person.
Bryan: That’s fair. Anyway, that is my recommendation
- Cyril of Alexandria: Five Tomes Against
Nestorius.
Emily: Solid, thank you. I am going to recommend
the book Finish by Jon Acuff. He wrote a book
called Stuff Christians Like, which was funny.
I read excerpts of it. He’s a very humorous
writer, but this book Finish is about perfectionism
and why it’s dumb and why you shouldn’t
listen to it and how to get over it. That’s
something I struggle with, so I enjoyed reading
this book and it was very inspiring.
Greg: And also fits into this category because
perfectionism is “Trust Jesus and keep this
long list.” I believe this was one of your
lines. “Well, that’s all right for them
to be like that, but I hold myself to a higher
standard.”
Emily: So on that happy note…
Bryan: I can end it on a happier note.
Emily: Okay, let’s be happier.
Bryan: This is a subordinate recommendation.
If you have Spotify you should go find – or
we can link to it – there’s a playlist
with German versions of English songs, including
my personal favorite of them, a German version
sung by Abba of Waterloo. I’m a German language
geek so this is a thing that someone sent
to me and said, “You should know about this,”
and they were right. I should have known about
this.
Emily: Well, that exists. We’ll link to
it.
You can send us an email at haltingtowardzion@gmail.com
with your recommendations. What have you been
reading? What should we read?
Thank you guys so much for being here and
contributing to this conversation and making
this happen. I really appreciate it.
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