When this has happened I am not supposed to set up a rival center in the universe all over again. That would be contrary to the whole thing. When I have accepted Christ as my Savior, I am to be in my appointed position, in the proper place and in a personal relationship with God. This is that for which we were made in the first place. The only difference between our relationship with God now, and that which man's would have been if he had not sinned, is that now it is under the covenant of grace, and not under the covenant of works; therefore, it rests on the basis of Christ's finished mediatorial work. That is the only difference.
On man's side, it is redeemed man as a unity who now stands before the personal God. It is not just one part of man. The will, the mind, the emotions-all are involved: the complete man, as a unit, involved in this moment by moment, one moment at a time, believing God's promises about the significance of the work of Christ in our present lives. Eve doubted God, that was her sin. She called God a liar. Eve doubted God, and I as a child of God am now to do exactly the opposite: I am to believe him. Eve doubted, and mankind in revolt doubts God. To believe him, not just when I accept Christ as Savior, but every moment, one moment at a time: this is the Christian life, and this is true spirituality.
Section II
'Freedom Now from
the Results of the
Bonds of Sin
(Chapters 8-13)
Freedom
from Conscience 8
In the first seven chapters we considered freedom in the present life from the bonds of sin. Now we turn to consider the question of freedom in the present life from the results of the bonds of sin. Or we could call it "Wider considerations of the true Christian life." At this point we begin to come into very sharp conflict with the intellectual thinking of the second half of the twentieth century, and we will see what Christianity has to say to this.
With this chapter we begin our consideration with the question of "true spirituality" in relation to my separation from myself, which is a result of the fall and a result of sin. Now we must keep this in the right order. We must not get it reversed. The sin causes the bondage and the results. Sin causes the bondage, and not the other way round. So the comprehension of and acting upon the freedom from the bonds of sin must be seen as basic and before the consideration of the freedom from the results of those bonds of sin. We cannot have the biblical answer, the promises God makes, to the Christian concerning freedom from the results of the bonds of sin in this present life, until two things are true: first, that we are truly Christians; and second, that we are acting upon the biblical teaching concerning freedom from the bonds of sin. That is why the first seven chapters of this book must be the base of that which we begin to consider now.
Any meaning becomes only a psychological trick, a cruel illusion, unless certain things are true—objectively true—or are propositional truths, to use the twentieth-century terminology. What are these facts which must be objectively true?
The first of them is the objective reality of a supernatural view of the universe, and the reality of salvation in the biblical sense. Without these, modern man's effort to reach out and scoop some of the blessing off the top of Scripture, as it were, can be no more than a psychological trick. But behind this truth there stands a yet more basic truth, the existence of a personal-infinite God in whose image man is made. And as we have been created by him, in his image, there is a reality to the concept of human personality. This is in contrast to all deterministic concepts, which say that we are merely a set of psychological or chemical conditions.
The third thing that must be understood is the truth about the human dilemma. The biblical answer is that the dilemma of the human race, this dilemma that twentieth-century man is wrestling with so much, is moral. The basic problem of the human race is sin and guilt —a real moral guilt, not just guilt feelings, and a real moral sin, because we have sinned against a God who is there and a God who is holy. In opposition to neoorthodoxy and all the other modern theologies, we must understand that sin and guilt are really moral. They are not simply due to certain metaphysical or psychological limitations. Man is really guilty before a holy God who exists and against whom we have sinned. Except on these bases, the hope given by Scripture concerning freedom from the bonds of sin is only a cruel illusion.
At this point we should consider the question of freedom from my conscience. There are two attitudes which the Word of God and the study of Church history warn us against if we are to avoid mistakes. The first one is perfectionism, as it has been called theologically. This is the teaching that a Christian can be perfect in this life. This view falls into two areas. The first is the teaching, sincerely held by many, that at a certain point in a man's life there comes some second blessing, after which he never sins again. The early Wesley taught this—not the later Wesley, for he began to see that this could not be consistently held. But there is another form of perfectionism, which holds that we may know perfection for the moment. As we have seen, it is true that our lives are lived on a moment-by-moment basis; this view talks of a moment-by-moment total moral "victory."
Now the question arises, whether we could expect to have perfection, either totally or even for this one moment. And I would suggest that such an expression simply gets us caught ina swamp, in which we have endless discussions concerning some abstract idea of complete victory, even in this "one moment." The phrase that often is used is that we can have freedom from "all known sin." But I feel that as we consider first the Word of God and then human experience, we must understand that there is a problem in the word "known," and also a problem in the word "conscious," if we talk of "conscious" sin. The problem in using both or either of these words is the fact that since the fall man has habitually fooled himself. We fool ourselves deep inside our subconscious and unconscious nature.
The more the Holy Spirit puts his finger on my life and goes down deep into my life, the more I understand that there are deep wells to my nature. Modern psychology has dealt with these under the terms unconscious and subconscious, and though the philosophy behind modern psychology is often fundamentally wrong, surely it is right in pointing out that we are more than merely that which is on the surface. We are like the iceberg: one-tenth above and nine-tenths below. It is a very, very simple thing to fool ourselves, and that is why we must question this word "known." If I say I can have freedom from all "known" sin, surely I must acknowledge the meaningfulness of the question: What do I know? Until I can describe what I know, I cannot go on meaningfully to ask whether I can have freedom from "known" sin. As the Holy Spirit has wrestled with me down through the years, more and more I am aware of the depths of my own nature, and the depths of the results of that awful fall in the Garden of Eden. Man is separated from himself.
Now we must understand too, in the framework of the Scripture, that since the fall everything is under the covenant of grace. The covenant of works is destroyed by the deliberate, free, unconditioned choice of Adam and Eve. In its place, by the grace of God, with the promises begun in Genesis 3:15, man was immediately given the promise of the work of the Messiah, coming in the future. Thus from the time of the fall onwards, everything rests upon the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, not upon ourselves, not in ourselves.
Hence if there is any real victory in my life, it must not be thought of as my victory or my perfection. Such a notion does not fit the scriptural picture of man, nor God's dealing with us since man has sinned. It is not my victory, it is always Christ's victory; it is never my work or holiness, it is always Christ's work and Christ's holiness. When I begin to think and to grow in the idea of my victory, there is really no true victory. To the extent that I am thinking about my sanctification, there is no real sanctification. I must see it always as Jesus Christ's.
Indeed, it is only as we consciously bring each victory to his feet, and keep it there as we think of it—and especially as we speak of it—that we can avoid the pride of that victory, which can be
worse than the sin over which we claim to have had the victory. The greater the victory, the greater the need of placing it consciously (and as we speak of it, vocally) at his feet.
We have said that there are two false attitudes against which we must stand, and not just one. The second is just as mistaken as the first.
In the Westminster Catechism there is the emphasis that we sin daily in thought, word, and deed. This is not wrong, but it can be distorted by our sinful hearts into something which is exceedingly wrong. As we teach our children that we sin daily in thought, word, and deed, we must be very careful to warn them of the danger of thinking that they can look lightly or abstractly at sin in their lives. If I count on Christ's victory for my entrance to heaven, will I deny him the glory he would gain in victories won, in me and through me, in my present life? If I look to Jesus Christ and his victory on the cross for my en-trance into a future heaven, dare I deny to him what that victory should produce in the battles of the present life—the battles before men and angels and the supernatural world? What an awful thought!
The Bible makes a clear distinction between temptation and sin. Christ was tempted in every point like as we are, yet, the Bible says with great emphasis, he never sinned (Hebrews 4:15). Consequently, there is a difference between temptation and sin, and the Bible says that just because we are tempted-does not mean that we must follow through in that temptation and fall into sin.
"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it" (1 Corinthians 10:13).
"For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, our faith" (1 John 5:3, 4).
It is not we who overcome the world in our own strength. We do not have a power plant inside ourselves that can over-come the world. The overcoming is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, as we have already seen. There can be a victory, a practical victory, if we raise the empty hands of faith moment by moment and accept the gift. "This is the victory that overcometh the world." God has promised, and the Bible has said, that there is a way to escape temptation. By God's grace we should want that escape.
Having spoken of these two dangers, let us go on.
Let us say now that I have been living in the light of what God has been giving us for the present life. As a born-again child of God, I have been practicing the reality of true spirituality, as Christ has purchased it for us. And then sin reenters. For some reason my moment-by-moment belief in God falters; a fondness for some specific sin has caused me at that point not to draw in faith upon the fact of a restored relationship with the Trinity. The reality of the practice of true spirituality suddenly slips from me. I look up some morning, some afternoon, some night and something is gone, something I have known: my quietness and my peace are gone. It is not that I am lost again, because justification is once for all. But as far as man can see, or even I myself, at this point there is no exhibition of the victory of Christ upon the cross. Looking at me at this point, men would see no demonstration that God's creation of moral rational creatures is not a complete failure, or even that God exists. Because God still holds me fast I do not have the separation of lostness, but I do have the separation from my Father in the parent-child relationship. And I remember what I had.
At this point a question must arise: is there a way back? Or is it like a fine Bavarian porcelain cup, dropped to a tile floor so that it is smashed beyond repair?
Thank God, the gospel includes this. The Bible is always realistic: it is not romantic, but deals with realism—with what I am. There is a way back, and the basis of the way back is nothing new to us. The basis is again the blood of Christ, the finished work of the Lamb of God: the once-for-all completed work of Christ upon the cross, in space, time, and history.
And the first step of the way back is not new either. No man is justified, no man becomes a Christian until he acknowledges he is a sinner. No man can accept Jesus as Savior until he acknowledges he is a sinner. And 1 John 1:4-9 makes it plain that the first step in the restoration of the Christian after he has sinned is to admit to God that what he has done is sin. He must not excuse it; he must not call it by another name; he must not blame it upon somebody else; he must not call it less than sin. He must be sorry for it.
"And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the light as he is in the light," (and that light is not just a general illumination, it is clearly his holiness) "we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" (a present cleansing). "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive our-selves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:4-9).
This is the gentle dealing of God with his children after we have fallen. This is the purpose of God's chastisement of the Christian; it is to cause us to acknowledge that the specific sin is sin.
"And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 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? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons."
If we have sin in our lives, and we go on, and God does not put his hand in loving chastisement upon us, then we are not children of God. God loves us too much for that. He loves us tremendously. He loves us as his adopted children.
"Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us as seemed good to them but he for our profit, that we might be par-takers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby" (Hebrews 12:5-11).
He does all this for a purpose. It is not only to bring righteousness into my life, it is that I might have that "peaceable fruit of righteousness"—that these things being dealt with, I may be at peace. That is God's loving care.
But there is a condition to it. Those who have this peace-able fruit of righteousness are those who are exercised by God's chastening: in other words, learning what he is teaching them in the midst of it. God the Father's chastening is to cause us to acknowledge that a specific sin is sin; his hand can grow increasingly heavy until we come to acknowledge that it is sin and stop trying to get out from under it through fancy terms, blaming it on other people or excusing it in some way. Do we want a restored relationship? We may have it, as children of God. We may have a restored relationship any moment, but we are not ready for it until we are willing to call specific sin sin.
And the emphasis is on specific sin. It will not do just to say, "I sinned." This is nothing. There must be a willingness to call my specific sin sin. I must take my place in the Garden of Gethsemane with Christ. There Christ is speaking as a true man, and he speaks the absolute reverse of Adam and Eve in the Garden of the Fall, when he says, "Not my will, but thine be done." I too must say, with meaningfulness, "Not my will, but thine be done," at the point of that specific sin: not just a general statement, "I want your will," but "I want your will in reference to this thing that I acknowledge to be sin."
"If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in da
rkness, we lie, and do not the truth" (1 John 1:6).
There is no such thing as to continue deliberately to walk in darkness and to have an open fellowship with him who is only light and holiness. This is simply not possible.
"For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world" (1 John 2:16).
Here is something that is the antithesis not only of God's external law, but of his character and what he is. How can we say we have fellowship with him, if we deliberately walk in that which is the antithesis of himself?
Thus we say, "Not my will, but thine be done." And as I say this in reference to this specific sin, I am once again the creature before God; I am in the place for which I was made. As a child of the fall, self is crucified again, for there can be no resurrection without the crucifixion. We have seen that the order of the Christian life is plain: there can be no restitution without repentance and confession directly to God. In the unity of the teaching of Scripture this is exactly what one would expect, if one begins with the central biblical teaching that God really exists. He is a personal-infinite God, and he has a character. He is holy. This is not some strange thing pulled in from a peripheral point; it stands at the very heart of the matter. If this is what God is, the God who exists, and if I have become his child, should one not expect that when I have sinned, when I have done that which is the antithesis of his character, I must go back to him as a Person, and say I am sorry? He is not just a doctrine, or an abstraction; he is a Person who is there. In practice we may not comprehend all-that is involved in the sin, and especially if a person is psycho-logically disturbed, he may not always be able to sort out what really is sin, and what is just confusion on his part. Here is the concept of the iceberg again, the nine-tenths below the surface, and only one-tenth above, so that we cannot always sort out all that we are in the midst of our sin. Much, of the sin may be below the surface, much may even be in the subconscious boiling up, just showing itself in spots. But whatever evil may be above the surface, the portion that we do comprehend is sin; and that portion must be taken with honesty before the God who knows our whole being, and we must say to him, Father, I have sinned. There must be real sorrow for the sin that I know, that is above the surface of myself.
True Spirituality Page 11