Tag Archives: sanctification

Spiritual Formation as Spiritual Deception: Beware the Peddlers of Grace (Part 2)

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sanctification

Evangelical Sanctification Historically Expressed

Both D. A. Carson[1] and Steven L. Porter[2] recently wrote articles that appeared in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society questioning the approach and methodology of spiritual formation teaching.  Although separated by eight years, Carson’s article explaining the dangers of spirituality apart from a robust bibliology appears to have laid a solid groundwork for Porter’s article espousing the need for a biblical methodology that presents a clear and thoughtful evangelical theology of sanctification.  In the process of their individual critiques they offer some pertinent historical context related to sanctification.

Porter begins his critique of spiritual formation teaching by asserting that its practices must fall within prescribed biblical territory and as such the effort to define acceptable spiritual formation activities belongs to Christian theologians.  That Christian theologians have not been involved in establishing parameters is evidenced by the “plethora of false spiritualities plaguing church and society”[3] in our present day.  This is to be expected when the purpose or goal of sanctification is not rooted in biblical revelation and directive.

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Christmas – What Are We Celebrating?

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My preparation for this year’s Christmas Eve service took me to the normal places – Luke 1, Luke 2, and Matthew 1. But then I went to some unusual places in relation to our celebration of Christmas – Matthew 20 and 26, and Revelation 19.

We are all familiar with the Gospel accounts written by Matthew and Luke; the birth announcement, the responses of Mary and Joseph, the angelic worship and pronouncement of joy and peace to a needy world.  The Christmas story of the Christ child is a much-needed reminder of God’s love for His creation day by day.

But this is only part of the Gospel story. Yes God sent His Son to bring joy and peace to mankind. But how was that accomplished in the birth of Christ?  The birth of Christ was the announcement of the coming of the King.  But it also announced the commencement of God’s Genesis 3 plan – Jesus was born to be the Redeemer of a fallen mankind. This is where the Church must remember to place the emphasis.

This reminder however, creates a bit of uneasiness in much of the Church today. That uneasiness is the sad fruit of the Church having forgotten its mission.  The Church should not be focused on making sure people can feel the emotional warmth of a good nativity story and nothing more.  As Erwin Lutzer said recently, “Are we really at a place where we think we have won something because Target employees say ‘Merry Christmas’”?

The Gospel story includes Jesus’ testimony that “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28).  That is the point Jesus made clear in the Upper Room on the night of His betrayal at the hands of Judas.  Read these words again only now through the lens of the Christmas story.  “Drink from it all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it with you in My Father’s Kingdom” (Matt. 26:27-29).

When we consider Jesus’ view on the purpose of His life we see clearly it always pointed to Calvary and beyond. The beyond He describes as God’s eternal Kingdom. Please note in the Mathew 26 passage above that Christ’s followers will celebrate with Him at another supper.  This brings us to Revelation 19.

What we find in Revelation 19:1-9 is a picture of a celebration in heaven. This is the same celebration Jesus spoke of during the Last Supper.  Note what exactly is being celebrated: (1) Verse 1 – God Himself – “Hallelujah” means praise be to Jehovah. (2) Verse 1 – Salvation – the fact that God has provided and those in attendance have received. (3) Verses 1-3 – God’s glory in His works. Then, (4) Verse 6 – God Himself again as well as God’s reign/rule over His creation. (5) Verse 7 – God’s faithfulness to fulfill His promises. This is the Marriage Supper of the Lamb where all those who place their faith in Christ will be in attendance. Finally, (6) Verses 8-9 – God’s grace and mercy in offering forgiveness of sins through faith in the finished work of Christ.

This passage chronicles the futures of both those who place their faith in Christ and those who do not. In light of this, what should be our response as believers in Christ?  Should we be satisfied with a culture that allows us to place nativity scenes in public places or that permits our children to sing Christmas Carols during school plays? What exactly have we won in those things?

I want to suggest that we focus our attention on other things.  I believe God’s people must get the message right for ourselves first and then we must speak and live this message to our culture.  This will require honesty followed by repentance and confession for having fallen short. Our lives will be fundamentally changed.  For example, since God is worthy of being worshipped and will be for all eternity as Revelation shows us, are you doing that day by day?  Are you striving for godliness in all that you do?  In every relationship, at your place of employment, in your every word and deed are you making God glorious?

Secondly, the saints in Revelation 19 were worshipping God because of His reign and rule in power and might. Is God reigning and ruling in your life with power today?  Is God your sovereign Lord?  Here’s one very simple way to know – do you have peace and are you at peace?  Do you live day by day under the authority of God’s peace and are you actively pursuing peace with His people? Remember the angelic announcement in Luke 2? Note specifically verse 14 – “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”  Friends, if you are resting in the sovereignty of God you will be at peace even in the most trying struggles.

Third, note that the saints are offering God praise and are worshipping Him as a means of glorifying Him. “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him.” Are you living day by day for the glory of God?  I did not ask if you are doing stuff for God. God is not interested in your stuff nor your activities offered to Him as a cheap substitute for yourself.  King David realized this misguided attempt to please God by confessing, “For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and contrite heart, O God you will not despise” (Psalm 51:16-17). God has called each of His children to set aside their own kingdom building activities and join in His Kingdom building.  Every choice we make every day is focused either on our own little “k” kingdom or God’s big “K” Kingdom.

Revelation 19:7 gives us a fourth point to consider this Christmas season. As God’s people our rejoicing and gladness is a result of the relationship by faith we have with Christ our Lord.  This relationship requires that we make ourselves ready for this great celebration to come.  Is that our focus? This relationship with Christ should fundamentally change how we view life.  Are we focused on making ourselves and others ready for the day described here? Shouldn’t all our relationships be cultivated with the love of Christ in mind?

Finally, this passage offers us a beautiful picture of God’s grace and mercy. Note verse 8 – “It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean.”  The “her” friends is the Church, you and I, the saints of Christ. God extends His grace to us and having received His forgiveness we are transformed from the inside out by receiving a new heart capable of loving God and people.  This transformation occurs in several contexts.  Positionally we are transformed from enemies of God to children of God and joint heirs with Christ.  In life through our experiences we grow in holiness.  This is the process often called experiential sanctification. This means day by day we are being made ready or being prepared for the events we read about in Revelation 19.

This is a picture of the meaning and purpose of Christmas. Christ born to be the Redeemer of fallen mankind.  His work of redemption in this world is not limited to a manger in Bethlehem but instead comes through Calvary’s cross and an empty tomb.

The Christmas season is a critical time to understand afresh your calling as God’s children as well as the mission He has called you to.  Will you shoulder the mantle of Christlikeness to a world desperately needing to see Him?  Will you humbly submit yourself to the One who redeemed you with His very life? Will you lay hold of the things that have eternal importance today?

We sang this third stanza of Robert Robinson’s classic hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing yesterday.  I offer it here as a fitting benediction and for your meditation as a reminder of the things we celebrate every day not just during the Christmas season.  God bless you today as you seek Him.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

 

Confession and Repentance? Yes!

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“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” 1 Corinthians 15:3

There is a spurious teaching today that appears to be gaining adherents.  It is the teaching that Christians don’t need to confess and repent of their sins because all a believer’s sins – past, present, future – are forgiven at the moment of salvation.  To confess sins after that point is an affront to God.  Is this what the Bible teaches?

Unfortunately for those who hold this view the answer is a resounding no. Salvation does not mean you receive a “get out of jail free” card when it comes to post-conversion sin. While it is true that God in Christ has forgiven us our sins in a judicial sense, it is not true that we no longer need to confess and repent of our sins.  Let’s unpack this issue.

It appears that supporters of the no confession, no repentance necessary post-conversion position confuse standing with relationship.  In other words they are guilty of misconstruing our justification and adoption as sons and daughters with our sanctification and fellowship in Christ.  “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1) stands along side of admonitions to not “grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Ephesians 4:30).  There is a visible tension in the Scriptures which holds that we are no longer slaves to sin or under sin’s power (Romans 6) while simultaneously acknowledging that Christians will sin and this causes God’s discipline (Hebrews 12).

Perhaps the most cited passage in this context is 1 John.  In this epistle John tells believers that they must confess and repent of their sins.  Note again that John wrote to believers telling them that they must not succumb to the belief that they were “children of the light” when their lives demonstrated sinful behavior.  “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.” John’s first epistle is a clear statement against the no confession/no repentance necessary teaching.

Finally let us consider Jesus’ words that He offered as instruction to His disciples of every age: “Pray then (daily) in this way . . . give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors . . .” (Matthew 6:9, 11-12).

Brothers and sisters do not think that your daily thoughts, words, and actions do not matter to the Father.  Remember to take captive every thought, word, and deed to the obedience of Christ.

Spiritual Formation as Spiritual Deception: Beware the Peddlers of Grace (Part 1)

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sanctification

This article will investigate the biblical teaching of the sanctification of the believer in light of current spiritual formation teaching.  Research will be presented showing that the historic Christian theistic understanding and teaching concerning sanctification has been obfuscated today by the so-called spirituality of spiritual formation teaching.  Part one will offer an analysis of the importance of the biblical teaching on sanctification.  Part two will present the ways that sanctification has been understood in the church historically.  Part three will detail the recent re-interpretations of sanctification from within the spiritual formation perspective.  Part four will suggest a corrective to the current path of teaching on spirituality and suggest a return to biblical sanctification.  Part five will present a summation of what is at stake for the church if it does not heed this call.

This effort will rely primarily on an article written by Steven L. Porter that appeared in the September 2002 issue of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society.  In his article Porter suggests that what is needed today is a more robust systematic theology related to the doctrine of sanctification.  It is the position of this writer that what is needed today is much more than a systematic treatment of spiritual formation.  Instead of seeking a bigger tent to encompass all the expressions of evangelical spiritual formation and disciplines today, an evaluation of the practices themselves will reveal a need to return to the biblical teaching on sanctification.

The Importance of Teaching Biblical Sanctification

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians to exhort readers to continue their Christian life and thereby their sanctification by faith.  His question to the Galatians then and to readers of this article today is equally appropriate: “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the Law, or by hearing with faith.”[1]  In other words did you gain life in Christ by your efforts or by the Holy Spirit?  Clearly, we are saved by grace[2] and the Scriptures teach that we are sanctified in the same manner.

Addressing an age-old issue is at the heart of this question by the apostle to the Galatians.  Mankind has a demonstrated tendency to stray from the path of divine instruction and end up on a path of its own making and choosing.  Paul’s letter to the Colossians provides a ready example of this truth.  The apostle asked the Colossians a question similar to the one he asked of the Galatians: “If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, ‘do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!’”  The point the apostle makes here is that the types of activities the Colossians were submitting themselves to could not secure the grace of sanctification being touted by the false teachers of the day and was in fact without warrant based on the teachings of Jesus Christ.

It is important to understand the biblical teaching on sanctification precisely because there has developed a plethora of methods suggesting that sanctification is predominantly the responsibility of the individual believer to achieve by whatever means the individual deems experientially satisfying.[3]  While it is true that sanctification has an experiential aspect, i.e., we are called to “work out our salvation,” it cannot be maintained that individuals are free to subscribe to any method of their choosing.  That does not stop many professing Christians from attempting self-sanctification through extra-biblical means though.  Witness for instance the variety of Purpose Driven emphases, the myriad spiritual, marriage, and youth retreats, self-help study groups, recovery groups, care groups, healing and dealing with specific issues of life groups, and the thousands of books on the so-called spiritual formation techniques of contemplative prayer, mystical silence and solitude of the soul, labyrinth walking, chanting, and visualization.  The sincerity of the creators and authors of these techniques and the eagerness of practitioners to indulge themselves in these techniques is not being questioned in this paper.  The validity of what they are practicing and urging others to engage in under the guise of spiritual growth, formation, and discipline is being questioned however.  This concern underscores the urgent need to speak directly to the evangelical Church of its need to understand and teach as a core doctrine the subject of the biblical method for the sanctification of the believer.

We are instructed in Scripture to discipline ourselves as a means to godliness.[4]  Therefore being holy is a goal of every Christian.  Does it follow that whatever technique or process deemed useful by a Christian is acceptable to God?  Following that practice has surely led Christians outside the boundaries of how God has determined He will be approached and how His people will grow in sanctification.  Mystical experiences and pragmatic techniques are nowhere called for in the Scriptures as a means to godliness.  One of the reasons the Reformers advocated Sola Scriptura was to evaluate and eliminate those teachings outside the warrant of Scripture.  It appears the modern Protestant evangelical Church has forgotten this principle.

 IN THE NEXT POST I WILL EXAMINE SANCTIFICATION FROM AN HISTORICAL AND EVANGELICAL PERSPECTIVE

Read part Two here.

[1]Galatians 3:2. Unless otherwise stated all Scripture references are from The New American Standard Bible, Updated 1995, The Lockman Foundation (Chicago: Moody Press, 1995).

[2]Ephesians 2:8.

[3]Dallas Willard for example states that spirituality/sanctification is achieved by emulating the lifestyle of Jesus.  He refers to this as the “easy yoke” of Christ and asserts that in “this truth lies the secret of the easy yoke: the secret involves living as He lived in the entirety of His life – adopting His overall lifestyle  . . . We have to discover how to enter into his disciplines from where we stand today – and no doubt, how to extend and amplify them to suit our needy cases.”  The Spirit of the Disciplines, (HarperCollins: New York, NY: 1991), 5, 9.

[4]1 Timothy 4:7.

Photo credit Young Nak Celebration Church