Putting Sin to DeathJ. Ligon Duncan III

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Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. —Colossians 3:5–11 NIV
 

"Suppose a man to be a true believer, and yet finds in himself a powerful indwelling sin, leading him captive to the law of it, consuming his heart with trouble, perplexing his thoughts, weakening his soul as to duties of communion with God, disquieting him as to peace, and perhaps defiling his conscience and exposing him to hardening through the deceitfulness of sin—what shall he do? What shall he take and insist on for the mortification of this sin, lust, distemper, or corruption?"
Thus wrote the Puritan, John Owen, in the middle of the seventeenth century. His audience consisted of fifteen-year-old boys who were away from home at Oxford University (where Owen was vice-chancellor). The book in which these words were written (now volume 6 of his collected writings) has justly remained a classic treatment of sin. I vividly recall reading it for the first time over twenty-five years ago. I have not found anything else that quite faces down the evil of indwelling sin with as much vigor as Owen does. Too many books and sermons (of the latter I include my own, of course) only touch the surface of the problem, failing to become too specific for a host of reasons. But conquering sinful habits (and habits are what they become) is a mark of spiritual maturity. There can be no growth without it. Dillydally here and the result will be something so fragile, so insipid, that ruin is bound to be the eventual result.
It is important to desire spiritual maturity. If we have no desire to grow, we will not grow! If the heart is wrong, everything else that proceeds from it will be wrong, as Jesus told the Pharisees again and again. In addition, it is important to think properly and accurately about what it means to become a Christian and be a Christian. Consider what Paul tells the Colossians in chapter 3. There he insists that there are two things about ourselves that we need to know and reckon with, if we are Christians: We died with Christ, and we have been raised with Christ. As a consequence, we are to seek the things that are above, where Christ sits at God's right hand. We are to live with our heads above the clouds, beholding something of the glory and majesty of Jesus. We are to know who we are and what is true of us. This is the positive aspect of sanctification's path that Paul would have us utilize.
But there is also a negative side. There is a power to negative thinking, Norman Vincent Peale notwithstanding! Paul wants us to appreciate that unless we know what not to do, there is no use in telling us what we should do! There is as much power in negative thinking as there is in positive thinking. The key word here is mortification. It's an old word, long known and loved by readers of the King James Version of the Bible, and it needs to be reintroduced into our vocabulary. It means "putting sin to death." Every Christian must be engaged in the duty (yes, it is a duty) of putting sin to death. "Kill a sin or a part of a sin every day" was Owen's advice. "Kill sin, or it will kill you," he added, indicating something of the seriousness of the issue. What is it that Paul tells us here in Colossians 3 that we need to do?

The Reality of What We Are

First, he exposes the reality of what we are. There is a general point that needs to be made if we are going to be serious about dealing with indwelling sin. We must say, "I need to face up to the reality of ongoing sin." We have been delivered from sin's reign, but we have not as yet been freed from the presence of sin. A constant struggle ensues within us as the flesh lusts (wages war) with the soul. There is a spiritual war that is going on in the innermost part of our being. We need, therefore, to look sin (personal and particular sin) in the eye.
We rush on in reading these verses, don't we? We note the "up close and personal" way in which Paul lists two sets of five sins, and we find ourselves asking what they mean. But we need to stop and reflect for a moment on the appropriateness of all this talk about sin. J. C. Ryle's justly famous volume,Holiness, begins with a statement to this effect: "He who would make great strides in holiness must first consider the greatness of sin." Ryle, writing at the end of the nineteenth century, was merely reflecting what Anselm of Canterbury had written in the Middle Ages. In a dialogue between himself and a character named Boso, Anselm was attempting to answer the question, Why did God become man (Cur Deus homo)? At one point in this work, Anselm utters the famous line, "You have not yet considered the gravity of sin." Because he was reluctant to recognize our need for salvation, Boso was unable to see why the Lord Jesus Christ had to become incarnate in order to save his people. Our problem is sin. It has been so since the Garden of Eden, and it remains so to this day.
What Anselm, Owen, and Ryle are saying is that our hearts need to be exposed by God's Holy Spirit to reveal the extent of sin's ravages upon us. This is something like what happens when an MRI machine scans the inner organs and tissues of our body. It can show us not only what is healthy, but what is cancerous and unwanted. It can see what the eye alone cannot see.
If you get bitten by a snake, one of the best things you can do is to bring it with you to the doctor (you need to kill it first!), so that the poison can be recognized and the relevant antidote prescribed. It is the same with sin. Unless we can identify the sins, we will not know what the remedy should be. It is not enough to be vague and general about our sins. Sins have names, and we will do well to learn what they are. It will be a point of progress whenever we can identify what those sins are that prevail in our lives. And before we can do that, we will need to acknowledge that there is the need to do it. Sin has a hold on us in ways that we sometimes refuse to acknowledge. We may be in denial about it. We must begin by facing the fact of our sin—our specific sins.
Robert Murray McCheyne, the nineteenth-century Scottish Presbyterian minister whose life was extinguished before he reached thirty, wrote in his posthumously published Diary: "I have begun to realize that the seeds of every known sin still linger in my heart." This is a point of advance. When we know this, our eyes have been opened—just like when a doctor diagnoses our disease, and we come to understand what it is. Imagine a doctor saying to you, "Yes, there's something going on inside you, but we will not worry about that! Let's look on the bright side, shall we? Isn't it a beautiful day!" What would you think of that? Even if that satisfied your need for denial in the short term, I doubt that you would ever visit that doctor again. Most of us, when things get serious, want to know the truth, even if it hurts. And hurt it will, make no mistake about that.

What Needs to Be Dealt With

Second, Paul identifies for us in detail what needs to be dealt with. There is a translation issue in our text that needs to be looked at briefly. The New American Standard Version renders verse 5 this way: "Consider the members of your earthly body as dead to …" That sounds like something Paul says in Romans 6. There is a time to "reckon ourselves to be dead to sin." In Christ, the great change has already taken place. But it is doubtful if that is Paul's message here. Hence the New International Version renders it this way: "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature." This is better, but it, too, disguises rather than clarifies what Paul intends here. Let me go back to the King James Version for a minute: "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth." Probably the NIV translates it the way it does lest we think that Paul is suggesting some sort of self-mutilation. The Colossians were about to make that very mistake. But we do need to appreciate that the way sin operates in our lives is via the members of our body!
Your members! Christians need a physical holiness. New Testament holiness transforms what we do with our bodies. It has eyes and hands and feet.
The first list of five sins moves from external acts to internal motivations. It is staggering to think that the first thing Paul mentions is sexual immorality. The word he uses covers all forms of prostitution, every illegitimate sexual deviance—heterosexual, homosexual, or even bestial. He links with it the attitude of the heart: impurity. Paul wants us to consider that what the mind lingers on in secret, the body will do externally. Then comes lust, that is, passions that come and master us, uncontrolled and uncontrollable. Desire is the next word, by which he means something that is out of control. And he ends the list by suggesting that all sexual deviance is a form of greed, which is a form of idolatry. These sins are selfish at their heart. They show, as Calvin wrote in the 1559 edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion: "Man's mind is a perpetual factory of idols." You have lost your mind when you think that life is about satisfying your own personal desires, and yours alone! You have made yourself like God when you think that way. You are bowing down to the god of self.
Paul's day was remarkably like our own. It was a day when sexual immorality abounded. Homosexuality was as prevalent then as it is now. Paul's words here seem particularly pertinent for us today. Holiness, true holiness, demands total sexual purity. Sin has distorted what God intended to be a beautiful thing.
Perhaps this touches us very personally. Nobody else knows about it. Maybe, that's just as well. Affairs, business trips, magazines, Internet pornography—the list of possible areas that affect us is endless.
Put these sins to death! If you don't, they will destroy you. "Because of these, the wrath of God is coming," Paul warns. Frightening, isn't it? Do you notice that Paul has several motives for ethical living, and not just positive ones! In verses 1–4, the motive is positive. It is because of who we are, of what we have become in Christ. We have died and have been raised with Christ. Our lives are hidden with Christ in God. But here, the motive is altogether negative. The wrath of God is coming on those who do not repent. Turn or burn, is what Paul is suggesting, blunt and harsh as that may sound.
Sin also has a potential to destroy others. In verse 8, in another list of five sins, Paul moves from internal emotions to external actions, doing the opposite (or mirror image) of what he did in verses 5–7. The five sins mentioned are: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. He begins with anger: that spirit of being opposed in a hostile way to things that God desires for our lives. There is a righteous anger that is perfectly proper and in accord with the highest reaches of holiness. But that is not what Paul has in mind here.
To help us understand what he means, he adds rage. We hear of road rage, or the rage that can arise in a family—a seething cauldron of rage. One commentator suggests that the word can be translated as "exasperation." We sometimes regard exasperation as a virtue! We say, "I don't suffer fools gladly."
Then comes malice, a refusal to forgive, and allied to cynicism. Then comes slander: defaming someone's character, or character assassination. It would be wonderful to say that the church is free from this kind of thing, but it is not. Paul is calling on Christians to be different from the world—not to wag their tongues. If you cannot think of something good to say about others, then say nothing at all!
Jonathan Edwards had a daughter with an ungovernable temper. A young man asked Edwards if he could marry her. "No!" he replied. Upon asking for the reason, Edwards went on: "Because she is not worthy of you!" He explained, "The grace of God can live with some people with whom no one else can live!"
Sex and speech are the features of life that are most out of control. You will never grow until you bring the surgeon's knife of God's Word to these points in your life. Maybe you are where Augustine was, praying: "Give me chastity, but not yet!" But God is saying to you: "I want it now!"
There is one more thing that Paul seems eager to say. Sin cannot always be dealt with privately. In verse 9, he urges the Colossians not to lie. He is not simply calling for truthfulness, but rather for honesty and accountability. "Don't pretend," he seems to be saying. If I am going to be able to function in this fellowship, then I had better stop pretending that I am better than I am. We need to be able to say to each other: "I need your help, counsel, wisdom. I am struggling to Zion, rather than marching to it."
The way of pretense is a way that leads to failure in fellowship and Christian living.

How Are We to Do This?

Third, Paul gives practical indications as to how we go about this. There are two verbs that he employs in the passage that need to be engraved on our hearts: "put to death" (vs. 5) and "rid yourselves" (vs. 8). They bring to mind the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount that urge us to pluck out our right eyes and sever our right hands.
"Let not that Christian think that he makes any progress in true holiness who is not prepared to walk over the bellies of his lusts," wrote Owen in his uncompromising way.
It may sound to you like legalism. That is a convenient word which some Christians employ to shirk the task of painful self-examination and change. They use this when some application sounds as though it will hurt. But it is not legalism to want to be as holy as Jesus. It is the only sensible thing to desire. Anything less is compromise and unworthy.
Without getting too technical, the tense of the verb (aorist imperative) has in mind the whole action. Paul is concerned not simply with the resolve to mortify sin, but with the desire to be rid of it altogether. It is as if he were saying, "Lay your hands on this sin's throat, and don't release the pressure until it stops breathing."
What will that mean? It will begin with an honest owning up to the gravity of our condition. It will mean facing sin down and pursuing its destruction at whatever cost to ourselves. It will mean going before the Lord and saying, "Lord, I have this besetting sin. And I am so sorry. I fly off the handle, or I trash people, or I gossip all the time. I rejoice when others fall because it makes me feel better about myself." It will mean changing habits and lifestyle, determined that our members be used for that which is holy and not for self-gratification at the expense of God's Word and God's ways.
Will you pursue this task? Without it, you will always be less than what God wants you to be.

The Practical Implications of Calvinism - Albert N. Martin

Albert N. Martin

The Experience of God

B. B. Warfield describes Calvinism as ‘that sight of the majesty of God that pervades all of life and all of experience’. In particular as it relates to the doctrine of salvation its glad confession is summarized in those three pregnant words, God saves sinners. Now whenever we are confronted with great doctrinal statements in Holy Scripture, God does not leave us merely with the statement of doctrine. The end of God’s truth set before the minds of God’s people is that, understanding it, they might know its effect in their own personal experience. So the grand doctrinal themes of Ephesians, chapters 1, 2 and 3 are followed by the application of those doctrines to practical life and experience in Ephesians, chapters 4, 5 and 6. The end for which God gave his truth was not so much the instruction of our minds as the transformation of our lives. But a person cannot come directly to the life and experience, he must come mediately through the mind. And so God’s truth is addressed to the understanding and the Spirit of God operates in the understanding as the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge. He does not illuminate the mind simply that the file drawers of the mental study may be crammed full of information. The end for which God instructs the mind is that he might transform the life.

What, then, are the personal implications of Calvinistic thought and truth both in the life of the individual and in the ministry exercised by the individual? By personal implications I mean the implications of your own relationship to God without any conscious reference to the ministry.

Now, these things cannot be separated in an absolute sense, for as has been well said, ‘The life of a minister is the life of his ministry’. You cannot separate what you are from what you do; you cannot separate the effect of truth upon your own relationship to God personally from the effect of truth through you ministerially. For the sake of bringing the principles into sharp focus I am separating them, but in no way do I want to give the impression that these two are in rigid categories.

I ask then, What are the implications of Calvinistic thought, this vision of the majesty of God and of the saving truth of Scripture as it relates to us as individuals? In answer let us go back to that general principle which B. B. Warfield calls the ‘formative principle of Calvinism’. I quote Warfield’s words:

It lies then, let me repeat, in a profound apprehension of God in His majesty, with the poignant realisation which inevitably accompanies this apprehension, of the relation sustained to God by the creature as such, and particularly by the sinful creature. The Calvinist is the man who has seen God, and who, having seen God in His glory, is filled on the one hand with a sense of his own unworthiness to stand in God’s sight as a creature, and much more as a sinner, and on the other hand, with adoring wonder that nevertheless this God is a God who receives sinners. He who believes in God without reserve and is determined that God shall be God to him in all his thinking, feeling and willing — in the entire compass of his life activities, intellectual, moral and spiritual — throughout all his individual social and religious relations, is, by force of that strictest of all logic which presides over the outworking of principles into thought and life, by the very necessity of the case, a Calvinist.¹

Notice that when B. B. Warfield defines Calvinism and the Calvinist he used words of a strongly experimental nature. The words ‘apprehension’ and ‘realisation’ deal primarily with the understanding, though they go beyond that, but when we come to words such as ‘seen God’, ‘filled on the one hand with a sense of his own unworthiness’, ‘adoring wonder’, ‘thinking, feeling and willing’, these are words of experience. Warfield is really saying that no person is a Calvinist, no person is truly Biblical in his thinking of God, no man is truly religious, no man is truly evangelical until these concepts have been burned into the nerve fibres of his experience. In other words, Warfield would say that an academic Calvinist is a misnomer, as much as to speak of ‘a living corpse’ is a misnomer. When the soul and the body are separate death has taken place, and Warfield would teach us that when the soul of Calvinistic thought is dead or absent, all that remains is a carcase, a stench in the nostrils of God, and so often a stench in the church when found in a minister.

I

With this sort of background as to the personal implications, I want us next to consider a passage of Scripture, in which we have a historical account of how God makes a Calvinist. Turn to Isaiah, Chapter 6. ‘In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne’. Isaiah, who knew king Uzziah well, and had seen him upon his throne, says that in the year that that king died he saw the true King. He mentions that again at the end of verse 5: ‘for mine eyes have seen theKing, the Lord of hosts’. And he saw him essentially as an enthroned king: ‘I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth’ — the sensitive tissues of the lips; a coal so hot that the seraph could not take it barehanded but had to take it with tongs. sears the lips of the prophet. Then follow the words of comfort, ‘Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate.’

Here is the record of how God makes a Calvinist, how God brought a man to a vision of the majesty of God that so affected him that his life was never the same again. The first thing that struck him in this vision was this sight of God as the high and the lofty One, seated upon a throne, so that whatever else is introduced into the vision — the holiness of God, the grace of God, the forgiveness of God —it is the shining forth of God from a position of enthronement: ‘I saw the Lordsitting upon a throne, high and lifted up’. So we may say rightly that it was sovereign holiness as well as a holy sovereignty that was exercised. It was sovereign grace as well as a gracious sovereignty. And this display of the Lord as the King brought with it several distinct results in the life of the prophet.

In the first place, it brought a deep experimental acquaintance with his own sinfulness.
‘Woe is me! I am undone. I’ve been shocked. I’ve gone to pieces. I’ve fallen apart’. Now who was he? Was he some hippie yanked off the streets who had been holding up little four-lettered words to those who did not like his interests? Was he some kind of student who had been running around under the guise of the so-called insights of new morality giving bent to his animal passions? No, this was Isaiah, from all indication in the record of Scripture a holy man, a man of God, what would be termed a dedicated Christian. But he had yet to have a sight and vision of the Lord that shattered him and shook him and exposed the inherent corruption of his own heart and life. And I submit that God never makes Calvinists by displaying to them his glory and his majesty without bringing with it this commensurate exposure of sin in the light of his sovereignty and his holiness. It brought with it also a deep insight into the state of his own generation, for note that in his own confession he not only says, ‘I am a man of unclean lips’ but ‘I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips’. In the record of the state of the people as found for example in Isaiah 58, we find that they were extremely religious; they came daily to the temple and offered sacrifices. Read Isaiah 1, and you will find the prophet’s contemporaries bringing their sacrifices and keeping their feast days. Yet God said, ‘I am sick and tired of the whole thing. Bring no more vain oblations . . . When you make many prayers I will not hear’. And if you and I had been standing there as onlookers we would have said that religion in Israel was in a pretty good state. But when this man had a sight and sense of the majesty of God, it brought with it not only an insight into his own sinfulness, but also into the state of his own generation.

Next it brought an experimental acquaintance with grace and forgiveness. As Isaiah feels his uncleanness, his undoneness in the presence of the Lord, the seraph takes a live coal from off the altar of sacrifice, a coal which becomes the symbol of the basis upon which God forgives sinners. It touches the lips of the prophet, and though there is inner pain, there is also that wonderful word of grace, ‘Thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged’. Here is a man who has been brought to the sight of his own sin in such a way that he wonders how it can be that such a person as he is can dwell in the presence of such a One as the Lord is. It is that person to whom the word of forgiveness is a humbling, overpowering, captivating word. The reason why grace is so little appreciated in our days is that the transcendent majesty and sovereignty and holiness of God are so little appreciated, and we do not see much more than a half step between God and our sinful selves. But Isaiah saw as it were an infinite chasm, and when the Lord sovereignly extended mercy across that chasm and touched him, he became a man who then evidenced the fruit of grace.

Thirdly, it tells us of a man who was brought to utter resignation before God. Having been purged, Isaiah next tells us, ‘I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ Note the prophet’s reaction. Having seen the Lord in his sovereignty and holiness, and himself in his uncleanness, and having heard the word of grace and forgiveness, what can a man do when this Lord speaks and he hears His voice, but say, ‘Here am I’. There is nothing here of the missionary telling tear-jerking stories about human sin and human need, in the attempt to wrench young people from their seat of complacency and rebellion to the revealed will of God and to get them to crank out an ‘Here am I’. This was just the reflex action of a man who had seen the Lord and heard his voice, and he says, ‘Here am I, Lord, send me’. And then, as it were, the Lord tests the depths of that confession and we find an utter resignation to the will and ways of the Lord, no matter how strange they seem, for it is immediately made clear to the prophet that he is to have a ministry primarily of judgment:

‘Go, and tell this people, hear . . . and understand not; see . . . perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat’. ‘Isaiah, I am commissioning you to a ministry of hardening and of judgment’. Now what does the prophet do? Does the prophet recoil and say, ‘O Lord, that isn’t fair. Do not call me to such a work as that’. No, no! He simply says, ‘Lord, how long?’ In other words, ‘Lord, it is your perfect right to send me on a ministry which will be primarily a ministry of hardening and judgment. You are God. You are on the throne. I am the creature before the throne. You are holy. I am sinful. What can I do but be held captive by the expression of your will, no matter what the implications may be?’

This is how God makes a man a Calvinist. In one way or another he gives him such a sight of his own majesty and sovereignty and holiness as the high and the lofty One, that it brings with it a deep, experimental acquaintance with human sinfulness personally and in terms of our own generation. It brings experimental acquaintance with the grace of God, an intimate acquaintance with the voice of God, an utter resignation to the will and the ways of God.

II

I say by way of application, do not talk about being a Calvinist simply because your itch for logical consistency has been relieved by Calvinism’s theological system. Have you seen God? Have you been brought near to Him? That is the issue. I remind you of the words of B. B. Warfield: ‘A Calvinist is a man who has seen God’. The expression, a proud Calvinist, is a misnomer. If a Calvinist is a man who has seen God as He is high and lifted up, enthroned, then he is a man who has been brought to brokenness before that throne as was Isaiah. A carnal Calvinist? Another misnomer! The enthroned One is the holy One, and He dwells in conscious communion with those who are rightly related to Him as the enthroned One and as the holy One. These two things are brought together beautifully in Isaiah 57:15 where the prophet says: ‘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 a humble spirit’. What is contrition? It is the reaction of a sinner in the presence of a holy God; and, what is humility? It is the reaction of a subject in the presence of a sovereign. Isaiah never forgot this vision, and he says, ‘This great God dwells in that high and holy place, with him also that is of a humble and a contrite spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.’

If your understanding of Calvinistic thinking has led you to the place where you can, as it were, boast in your liberty and use it as an occasion for licence, then you have never become a biblical Calvinist. God makes Calvinists today the same way he made them in Isaiah’s day.

I submit that a man has no right to speak of being a Calvinist because he can repeat like a parrot phrases brought to him in the great heritage of Reformed literature. He must ask himself, Has the Holy Spirit brought me to this profound sense of God that has worked in me at least in some measure the grace of humility. Has God endowed me with gifts and abilities? if so, what have I that I did not receive? Who makes me to differ? if God has endowed me with gifts and abilities whether intellectual or otherwise, I acknowledge that I have those because a Sovereign upon a throne was pleased to dispense them to me, and the only difference between me and that poor retarded child that moves the pity of my heart, is that He was pleased to make me different. ‘Who maketh thee to differ?’ The man who stands in the presence of a God upon the throne, and who has had this sight and sense of the majesty of God, recognizes that all that he has, has been given. Humility is not diffidence. Humility is that disposition of honest recognition: He is God, I am but a creature. All that I have comes from him and must be rendered to him in praise, and in honour. It will bring with it the submission that we see in Isaiah. He sits upon a throne; I have no rights to assert, but I have the unspeakable privilege of knowing and doing his will. Was not that the reflex action of Isaiah? The Lord is upon the throne; I am the creature. What else can I do but say, ‘Here am I?’

Oh, the unspeakable delight of knowing and doing the will of God! It brings not only humility and submission, but true contrition, for I see then that all sin has been basically a violent anarchist spirit exerted against the throne-rights of God. Have I failed to love Him with the whole heart? Then this has been anarchy. He demands and is worthy of my undivided affection. Have I failed to love my neighbour as myself and given expression to this sin in a disrespect for parents, a disrespect for the rights and life of others, the purity and sanctity of others, the reputation of others? Go through the Ten Commandments, and learn that any breach of them is at its core violent anarchy against the throne-rights of God. All pride — what is it but an attempt to share the glory that belongs to the throne, and to the God upon that throne, and to say in reality, ‘O God, please let me sneak into the picture and get glory too?’ Is not that pride? — a wicked attempt to share the praise of the enthroned God!

And so this sight of God cannot help but produce humility, submission, contrition, and on the brighter side, it cannot help but produce gratitude, that in the exercise of His sovereign rights I should be blessed of God with sanity, with soundness of body, clearness of mind, and, above all, that I should be blessed with grace, confidence that God is on His throne, that nothing past, present or future has ever made that throne twitter one-thousandth of an inch. Jehovah reigneth! let the earth tremble. Confidence, unshakable confidence, joy, regardless of what transpires in the sphere that I can see! All is well where He sits.

Has God made you a Calvinist? I am not asking whether you have read a book by Boettner, or Kuyper or Warfield and become a Calvinist. I am asking, Has God given you a vision of Himself? Did He shatter you? and bring you to that place by his grace of humility, submission, contrition, gratitude, confidence and joy? That is what makes a Calvinist. If we know this we will want to say,

My God, how wonderful Thou art,
Thy majesty how bright!
How beautiful Thy mercy-seat,
In depths of burning light!

O how I fear Thee, living God,
With deepest, tenderest fears,
And worship Thee with trembling hope
And penitential tears!

How beautiful, how beautiful
The sight of Thee must be,
Thine endless wisdom, boundless power,
And awful purity!
______________________________

The Power of Saving Religion

We now turn our attention to the specific soteriological aspects of Calvinism — the ‘doctrines of grace’. I have already said that the saving aspects of biblical truth, commonly called Calvinism, would be the focus of our attention — the confession that God saves sinners. What effect should that have upon the life of an individual? Is Calvinism, essentially in the realm of soteriology, a declaration of the saving mercy of God exercised sovereignly and powerfully upon elect sinners? If so, then at the very core of Calvinistic, biblical thinking regarding salvation is this belief that God has taken the initiative, that God has done something, that God is [present tense] doing something. Warfield has this to say: ‘There is nothing, therefore, against which Calvinism sets its face with more firmness than every form and degree of auto-soterism, every form of self-salvation. Above everything else it is determined to recognize God in his Son Jesus Christ acting through the Holy Spirit whom he has sent as our veritable Saviour.’

In the eyes of the Calvinist, sinful man stands in need, not of inducements or of assistance to save himself, but precisely of saving. He holds that Jesus Christ has come, not to advise, urge or woo, or to help a man to save himself but to save him, to save him through the prevalent working in him of the Holy Spirit. This is the root of the Calvinistic soteriology.

Now if that is so, that at the root of Calvinistic soteriology is the confession that God saves sinners, accompanied as it is by a refusal to bleed any of the full meaning out of any one of those words, it should lead in a very practical way to two things in the life of the individual.

I

First, it should lead to honest scriptural self-examination. I did not say unscriptural or neurotic introspection. And I believe that our fear of neurotic introspection has kept many of us in Reformed circles from honest, scriptural self-examination. By scriptural self-examination I mean a simple obedience to passages like 2 Corinthians 13:5, ‘Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?’ I mean obedience to the exhortation of 2 Peter 1:10, ‘Give diligence to make your calling and election sure’. Similar words are found throughout the New Testament — ‘Let no man deceive himself; let no man deceive you; be not deceived’. I am speaking of that scriptural duty.

It is obvious how this fits in as an implication of the Calvinistic concept of salvation. Since Scripture declares that all who are truly saved are the workmanship of God [Eph 2:10], then the question I must ask is, ‘Have I been the subject of that workmanship?’ The question is not the sincerity of my decision, or my resolve, or my whatever-I-want-to-call-it. The question is not, ‘What have I done with reference to Christ and his salvation?’ The essential question is this: ‘Has God done something in me?’ Not, ‘Have I accepted Christ?’ but, ‘Has Christ accepted me?’ The issue is not, ‘Have I found the Lord?’ but, ‘Has he found me?’

One of the old masters in Israel used to ask those who aspired to be admitted to the table of the Lord, or to church membership, two questions. Firstly, What has Christ done for you?’ He wanted to see if they understood the objective basis upon which God received sinners. He wanted to see if they understood that men are accepted before God on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ plus nothing. And if it was clear to him that they did not think in any way that they were accepted by virtue of their repentance, their tears, their works, but solely upon the merits of Christ, then he would ask them the second question: ‘What has Christ wrought in you?’ You know what he has done for you, now my question is, What has he wrought in you? He asked that question because he understood the terrible possibility that a person might have an intellectual grasp of what Christ has done for sinners, and yet be an utter stranger to his mighty work in sinners.

And so I want to press some questions home to everyone’s conscience. First: ‘Have you been brought to see your own corruption in sin in such a measure that the first two beatitudes are true of you?’ The only people in the world who are truly blessed are those who have been so wrought upon by the Spirit that they are not strangers to these two things: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted’. How does God make men truly blessed, truly happy? First of all, he makes them sad at the sight and sense of their own impoverishment in a state of sin. What is poverty of spirit? Is it some kind of pseudo-pietistic attempt to convince myself that I am a miserable worm and a wretch? Not at all! Poverty of spirit results from just getting a sight of what you really are, and seeing that you are nothing and have nothing and can do nothing that can commend yourself to the grace and saving favour of God; it results from the conviction that he could make you an eternal monument of his righteous wrath, and let you perish in the eternal burning. Have you been brought to some experimental acquaintance with that? If not, I doubt whether you can claim that Christ is your Saviour, for he said that he came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. The poor in spirit have been made consciously aware of their depravity and sin.

It is possible to hold the doctrine of total depravity as a theological concept, and be as evil, proud and self-righteous as the devil. Have you known an inner stripping that has brought you to poverty of spirit? to holy mourning? to the recognition that your sin has been against the Sovereign God? Have you been brought to the place where you hate your sin enough to forsake it and cleave only to Christ? One old writer has beautifully said, ‘When the Holy Ghost begins the chord of grace in the life of a man, he always orients that chord to the bass note’. He begins with the bass note of conviction, a revelation of our need of the Saviour. Have I been brought to see that unless He initiates the work it will never be done?

The next question I would ask is this: ‘Do I evidence the fruit of his working?’ And what is positive, undeniable evidence that God has been and is working in me? I would say without any fear of contradiction in the light of Holy Scripture that the evidence is biblical holiness. The so-called Five Points of Calvinism are cast in a negative form and can in some ways be misleading. Nonetheless we cannot change the course of history, and so the Five Points have come down to us and we must learn to live with them. Take the last four points — unconditional election, particular redemption [Christ died to save specific people], the efficacious call of God and the preserving work of God in all whom he has called and joined to his Son: What is the focal point in all of these? The ultimate focal point, of course, is the display of the glory of God’s grace, as we read in Ephesians 1; but as the immediate focal point, how is that glory displayed? by what means? By the taking of totally depraved creatures and making them wholly men and women in whom the very likeness of God’s Son can be seen. What is the goal of election? Ephesians 1:4 tells us: ‘According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that’ . . . we should glory in our election? No! But ‘that we should be holy and without blemish before him’. Election untoholiness! What is the goal of the atoning work of Christ? Listen to the testimony of Titus 2:14: ‘Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a people as his distinct possession, zealous of good works’. He died to have a holy people ‘zealous of good works’.

Then there is the efficacious call of God, ‘God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord’ [1 Cor 1:9]. ‘Called into a life of sharing vital realized communion with Christ!’ ‘For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness’ [1 Thess 4:7].

Again, there is the preservation and perseverance of the saints. It is a perseverance in the ways of holiness and obedience, for Scripture says, ‘Follow after holiness without which no man shall see the Lord’ [Heb 12:14]. ‘If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free’ [John 8:31, 32]. And so wherever we touch any part of the structure of Calvinistic soteriology we touch a living fibre of God’s purpose to have a holy people.

Predestinated to what end? ‘Whom he foreknew he did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son’ [Rom 8.29]. if so, then I must ask a question of myself: Is God’s electing purpose being realized in me? He chose me in Christ that, being purchased in time and called in time, I might begin to be holy in time, and have that work perfected in eternity. The only assurance I have that I was purchased to be holy, and will be perfected in holiness, is that I am pursuing holiness here and now. Essentially holiness is conformity to the revealed will of God in thought, word and deed, through the power of the Holy Spirit and through union with Jesus Christ. Holiness, godliness, this is the evidence that his electing purpose has come to life and fruition and it finds its expression in obedience. That is why John can say in 1 John 2:5, ‘Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected’. It finds its designed end in the one who keeps the Word of God. Is there clear evidence that I am experiencing communion with Jesus Christ through his Word? For he has called me into fellowship with himself, and if I have been effectually called then I am no stranger to experimental acquaintance with the Lord.

Do I confess that I am being preserved by God’s keeping power? Then his preserving must be coming to light in my persevering. The only proof I have that he preserves me is that by his grace, I am enabled to persevere.

This is the practical implication of Calvinistic soteriology. It makes me ask questions like these which bring me into the whole context of honest scriptural self-examination. John Bunyan was right on target when he wrote that section in his immortalPilgrim’s Progress which describes how Christian and Faithful come into contact with a man named Talkative.² I urge you to read it carefully. It shows that Bunyan recognized that there is such a thing as having an intellectual conviction that only God can save sinners, and that salvation is a work in which God saves sinners, but the real issue is this, Has there been an experimental application of that truth with power to my own heart and to my own life?

About a year ago, a young man, a Seminary graduate, came to me, to talk about some matters that were disturbing him about my own ministry. He asked me this question, ‘Mr Martin, I want to ask you a simple question. Do you believe that you have a calling to go round the country getting people upset?’ I answered: ‘My calling is not to go round the country getting people upset, but I am called to declare the whole counsel of God, one aspect of which focuses upon this principle, that it is possible to hold the form of sound words and yet to be lost and undone and a stranger to grace; for the Scripture says, “The kingdom of God is not in word but in power”. Paul said, “Our gospel came not in word only but in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance”. As long as Matthew 7:21-23 stands in Holy Scripture, and as long as I have a voice, I shall cry out to ministers and potential ministers and professing Christians that many will say in that day, “Lord, Lord”, to whom Christ will say, “Depart from me. I never knew you”.’

I would never want to be an unwitting instrument of the devil to unsettle the faith of a true child of God who may be like Bunyan’s Mr Ready-to-halt or Mr Fearing, or Mr Feeble-Mind, men who are on their way to the Celestial City but who have problems about assurance and who are doubting and failing. I would never be an accuser of the brethren to destroy or hurt the faith of a true Christian. But neither would I be a dumb dog, silent on the issue, that it is not enough to have inherited a form of doctrine, whether it be Calvinistic or Arminian. The issue is this: If salvation is of the Lord, has he begun a work in me? So I submit that these doctrines applied to the heart will lead to honest scriptural self-examination.

II

In the second place, these doctrines will lead to the sane biblical pursuit of practical godliness.

What is involved in such a pursuit? To be brief, three things:

1. A holy watchfulness and distrust of oneself. Do I really believe that by nature I am so undone that God must initiate the work, and that the remains of corruption in me, even after I have been regenerated and joined to Jesus Christ, are such that if God took his hand off me for a moment, they would lead me back into every form of wickedness possible to a human being? Such a belief will produce a holy watchfulness and a wholesome distrust of myself. If I recognize that the corruption that remains within me is like a dry tinderbox and that every temptation is like a live coal, I shall not dare to flirt with sin. If I have come out of perhaps a narrow fundamentalistic background with its checklist morality, and I discover the glorious truth of liberty in Christ, I shall not use my liberty as an opportunity for licence. I will recognize that I am free in Jesus Christ, and yet that I am one who has this terrible potential to wickedness within me, and I shall watch as well as pray.

2. A consistent prayerfulness. Is salvation the Lord’s work from beginning to end? Then he must help, and his help is given to those who cry out to him. He must work in me to will and to do of his good pleasure, and I must ask him to do it. The Word shows the beautiful fusion of those two things: God’s covenant promise to do something sovereignly and powerfully, joined with his command to his people to ask him for the very thing he has pledged to do. In Ezekiel 36, that expanded statement of the blessings of the new covenant, God makes great assertions [see verses 25 to 36] and yet in verse 37 we read: ‘Thus saith the Lord God; I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them’; ‘I will do it’; ‘I will be inquired of’. In the economy of grace God awakens in the heart of those to whom he would dispense them the desire for the blessings which sovereignly and powerfully he engages to dispense. Matthew Henry, in his simple, homely, quaint way, says, ‘When God deigns to bless his people he sets them a-praying for the blessing which he desires to give them’. And so, if I believe the confession that God saves sinners, that he not only regenerates them, bringing them to repentance and faith, but that he keeps them and ultimately brings them into his presence — if that is his work then it will produce a consistent prayerfulness, not only a holy watchfulness and distrust of myself, but a constant application to him that he would perform in me that which he has promised. For what is prayer in the last analysis? It is a conscious spreading out of my helplessness before God. The true Calvinist is the man who confesses with his lips that grace must not only awaken him, regenerate him, but that grace must preserve him, and he Amens his confession by his prayer when on his knees he cries out, ‘Lead me not into temptation but deliver me from evil. I cannot even get my bread for today, Lord, unless you sustain my life and bless the labours of my hands: Give me this day my daily bread’. The doctrine of confession, God saves sinners, will produce in the heart of a true Christian the sane biblical pursuit of godliness, holy watchfulness, a consistent prayerfulness, and in the third place:

3. A trustful dependence on God to fulfil all that he has purposed. When I sin, am I cast away? No! The word of God is, ‘A just man falleth seven times and riseth up again’ [Prov 24:16]. And so I come acknowledging that my obedience is neither the basis for my justification nor the ground of my approach to God as a sinner who has been besmeared by sin, and I flee afresh to the Mediator of the New Covenant. Peter puts the matter of recourse to the Lord in the present tense, ‘To whom coming . . .’ not ‘to whom ye came’. So often in our day we hear it said that ‘somebody came to Christ’. A Christian is a man who is ever coming. We read in Hebrews 12, ‘Ye are not come. . .’ and then he describes some of the physical surroundings that we get in the Old Covenant, but he says, ‘Ye are come to . . .’ and he mentions all the blessings of the New Covenant, and one of them is this: ‘Ye are come . . . to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant’. ‘If any man sin we have [present tense] an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.’

Is not this why a true Christian does not cringe at the exposure of his sin? Every exposure of sin in the life of a true believer drives him afresh to his Saviour, and anything that drives him afresh to his Saviour makes his Saviour more precious. When is your life more fragrant than when the kiss of forgiveness is most fresh upon your cheek? Sin felt and mourned over drives a Christian afresh to the Mediator of the New Covenant who knew all about his failures when he called him, and in his grace and mercy as a suffering High Priest ever pleads the merits of his blood before the Father. And so there is a trusting dependence upon God to fulfil all his purposes. When I am weak I need to remember that he prays for me. He said to Peter, ‘Satan hath desired to have thee to sift thee as wheat. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. I did not pray that your courage fail not. Your courage will fail, Peter, but I have prayed that your faith fail not’. And even in Peter’s denial there was not a casting-off of his faith. For the work which God’s goodness began, the arm of his strength will complete. He will carry it on until the day of Jesus Christ.

For a person to claim to be a Calvinist, confessing the soteriological creed that God saves sinners, without this holy watchfulness, some measure of consistent prayerfulness, and a trusting dependence upon God in Christ to fulfil all that he, in grace, has promised, is a contradiction of terms. One of the great cries that is raised today, and some of it has justification, is that people, especially young men, who get hold of Calvinism, and seem to view it as an unanswerable, unassailable philosophical system, become proud, go back now to their secular schools and in ten minutes shoot holes in the views of their Professor of Philosophy. They become proud, cocky. That is a caricature, that is not real Calvinism.

What is the personal practical effect of the confession of Calvinism in the life of a man? If he sees God, it will break him, and if he understands that God saves sinners, it will make him a trustful, prayerful, watchful person pursuing practical godliness. Is that what these doctrines are doing for you right where you sit this morning? Some, perhaps, to whom these things are new have feared them and said, ‘Oh, that stuff will just lead to spiritual barrenness and dryness’. It is not so! For these are the truths of God’s Word; I am convinced they are. In their totality they are the truth which is according to godliness, the truth that sanctifies us in answer to the prayer of our great High Priest. May God grant that the truth will do that in you and in me!

The covenant of works is a largely forgotten doctrine today.

Brilliant, Dr. White Posted: 28 Nov 2009 08:26 PM PST Check out this article written by Dr. James White.Click here to read it.

The Covenant of Works The covenant of works is a largely forgotten doctrine today. This is unfortunate because the doctrine is resurfacing in other venues and hardly no one recognizes it. According to the Westminster Confession of Faith, "The covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam; and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience" (WCF 7.2). The London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689) says, "God gave to Adam a law of universal obedience written in his heart, and a particular precept of not eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; by which he bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience; promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of it, and endued him with power and ability to keep it" (LCF 19.1). Why is this important? One reason is as follows: millions of people believe they can make it to heaven by working their way there. Their statement often goes something like this: "If I do more good than bad, I should be accepted into heaven." Does that sound familiar? This is the covenant of works. God promised Adam that he would be eternally blessed if he obeyed His every command. Adam failed, and as a result, his sin was passed unto every living human thereafter. Along with Adam's sin, the covenant of works "mentality" was passed along to us as well. We are wired to believe we can work for everything we want. Parents raise us that way, schools teach us that, and our employment is based on the same principle. It all started in the Garden. "Work harder and you'll be rewarded," says your employer. "Get good grades and you can be whatever you want to be," says certain parents. "Do more good than you do bad, and you'll make it to heaven," says our sinful selves. If that isn't bad enough, the covenant of works has resurfaced in 'so-called' Christian books. Why is that? It's because the Law sells! All we want is to be told how we can work our way to get whatever we want. This is the covenant of works revisited. This is why someone such as Joel Osteen can make so much money. His books are nothing but Law. The Garden of Eden is revisited: "Do this and you shall live." This is what Osteen presents. To be a better person and gain favor in the sight of God and man, "Do this..." That's the obvious part. The part that is not so obvious is how the covenant of works resurfaces in our lives. Do you ever find yourself saying, "I need to pray today for 'X' amount of minutes." "I need to make sure I spend 45 minutes in the Word of God." "I should give out 5 tracts per day." And the list goes on. That is the covenant of works. It's just presented in a way that is less recognizable. The truth is no matter how much one prays or how many tracts are given out, or how long someone spends in the Word of God, they will never gain favor in the sight of God. The only reason we are accepted is because we are in the Beloved. That's what gets us accepted, and nothing more. So... Should we strive to get good grades? Yes! Should we strive to do better at work? Yes! Should we spend as much time praying, reading the Bible, and sharing the gospel as possible? Yes! But understand, this does not gain us favor in God's sight. We can truly call God 'Abba' because of the work of Jesus Christ. Thus, don't worry about 7 ways to a better you. Only worry about the work of the Son. He provides the grace needed to survive and not our own works. The covenant of works has been fulfilled! Thanks be to God! HT: Press On Until Glory

Celebrate Thanksgiving for The Power of God unto Salvation

The Power of God unto Salvation

Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield

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marked up by Lance George Marshall
Greek and Hebrew fonts used in this document can be downloaded at BibleWorks

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I	The Revelation of Man	Hebrews 2:6-9
II	The Saving Christ	1 Timothy 1:15
III	The Argument from Experience	Romans 5:1-2
IV	The Paradox of Omnipotence	Mark 10:27
V	The Love of the Holy Ghost	James 4:5
VI	The Leading of the Spirit	Romans 8:14
VII	Paul's Earliest Gospel	1 Thessalonians 1:2, 4; 5:9, 24
VIII	False Religion and the True	Acts 22:23

Presbyterian Board of Publication
and Sabbath-School Work
1903

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