The Cross and the “Spiritual”

Consider D. A. Carson’s concluding reflection from his exposition of 1 Cor. 2:6-16 in The Cross and Christian Ministry (pp. 62-63):

What it means to be “spiritual” is profoundly tied to the cross, and to nothing else… This lesson is especially important when so many Christians today identify themselves with some “single issue” (a concept drawn from politics) other than the cross, other than the gospel. It is not that they deny the gospel. If pressed, they will emphatically endorse it. But their point of self-identification, the focus of their minds and hearts, what occupies their interest and energy, is something else: a style of worship, the abortion issue, home schooling, the gift of prophecy, pop sociology, a certain brand of counseling, or whatever. Of course, all of these issues have their own importance. Doubtless we need some Christians working on them full time. But even those who are so engaged must do so as an extension of the gospel, as an extension of the message of the cross. They must take special pains to avoid giving any impression that being really spiritual or really insightful or really wise turns on an appropriate response to their issue.

I agree with Carson that we must make the cross, the message of the crucified Messiah, the center of our self-identification. How often have I used a litmus test issue to judge another Christian and identify myself with a certain group? Some of the loudest amens are heard in churches when a pet issue is reinforced. These are the verbal “slaps on each other’s backs” by the more spiritual. But where are the amens when the gospel is proclaimed?

There are varying degrees of maturity among believers, but not varying degrees of spirituality. Every believer is spiritual because he/she has the Spirit. One believer is not more spiritual than the other. And the spiritual understand “what God has freely given us” (1 Cor 2:12). We understand the message of the cross! Praise God for that kind of “spirituality.” As Carson concludes:

We must recognize that what it means to be wise, what it means to be spiritual, is to embrace, by the help of God’s Spirit, the message of the crucified Messiah.

How God Communicates His Glory to Us

In his book The End for Which God Created the World (printed in God’s Passion for His Glory by John Piper) Jonathan Edwards describes what God’s glory is in Himself and what it is when manifested to us. This is how Edwards describes God’s glory within Himself:

The whole of God’s internal good or glory, is in these three things, his infinite knowledge, his infinite virtue [love] or holiness, and his infinite joy and happiness (p. 244).

God communicates (emanates) His internal glory to us by communicating His knowledge of Himself, His love of Himself, and His happiness in Himself. Therefore, we glorify God by knowing, loving, and rejoicing in God’s glory as God knows, loves, and rejoices in Himself.

And in these things, knowing God’s excellency, loving God for it, and rejoicing in it, and in the exercise and expression of these, consists God’s honor and praise; so that these are clearly implied in that glory of God, which consists in the emanation of his internal glory (p. 245).

Thus God’s glory is reflected in us. As God’s internal glory is in His mind (knowledge) and will (love, joy), so He manifests His external glory to our minds and wills.

God communicates himself to the understanding of the creature, in giving him the knowledge of his glory; and to the will of the creature, in giving him holiness, consisting primarily in the love of God: and in giving the creature happiness, chiefly consisting in joy in God. These are the sum of that emanation of divine fullness called in Scripture, the glory of God. The first part of this glory is called truth, the latter, grace, John 1:14. “We beheld his glory, the glory of the only-begotted of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (pp. 246-246)

These three things - knowing, loving, and rejoicing - are found in 1 Peter 1:8 in reference to believers toward Christ:

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory (ESV).

Is this none other than a believer “seeing” the glory of Christ in the gospel and coming to know, love and rejoice in Him?

One final observation: Edwards indicates that God’s love for Himself manifests itself in holiness and happiness. And so our response to God’s glory should be a love for God that expresses itself in holiness and happiness. Thus holiness is driven by love for God and happiness in God is love overflowing in joy.

Wilberforce and Joy

William Wilberforce led the movement to end slavery in England in the early 1800’s.  The movie Amazing Grace depicts Wilberforce’s story and opens this Friday. In his short book Amazing Grace in the Life of William Wilberforce, John Piper provides a fascinating and inspiring look at Wilberforce’s driving Christian principles and his indomitable joy in the midst of great obstacles. The following quote (p. 62) is Wilberforce’s response to his cousin’s mistrust of joy. Wilberforce said:

My grand objection to the religious system still held by many who declare themselves orthodox Churchmen… is, that it tends to render Christianity so much a system of prohibitions rather than of privilege and hopes, and thus the injunction to rejoice, so strongly enforced in the New Testament, is practically neglected, and Religion is made to wear a forbidding and gloomy air and not one of peace and hope and joy.

What a reminder that our main emphasis should be joy and hope in Christ rather than a system of don’ts which produces a gloomy joylessness. Scriptural prohibitions exist and should be followed. But the overarching attitude of a Christian should be unstoppable joy in the Savior who achieved our perfect right standing with God and promises the hope of glory.

Killing Sin and Romans 8:13 (Part 2)

We continue on with Romans 8:13:

If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

John Owen has three more things for us to observe from this verse:

3. Our strength in the performance of this duty comes through the Spirit. The point here is that any other way of attempting to kill sin will not work. It is “by the Spirit” we kill sin - not self-help, not 10-step programs, not human effort. Owen’s comment here is striking:

Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, to the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world.

Read that quote again and again. Think about it. How many times have we thought, “I just have to try harder. I’ve got to find a new way to overcome this nagging sin.” You can’t do it and neither can I. But the Spirit can and will. To restate Owen in a positive way: Killing sin by the Spirit is the soul and substance of true religion. It’s done in God’s strength, in His way, and for the purpose of His exaltation.

4. The duty itself. “The body” refers to indwelling sin. The “deeds” of the body indicate the outward expression of our inward lusts. Yet, it is the inward sin/lust that is chiefly intended because it is the fountain of all sinful action. So it is our inward, indwelling sin that we must kill.

The verse says to “put to death” this sin. Owen notes that this indwelling sin can be compared to a person - the “old man.” He explains what it means to mortify this living thing:

To kill a man, or any other living thing, is to take away the principle of all of its strength, vigour, and power, so that it cannot act, or exert, or put forth any proper actings of its own.

The killing begins at regeneration for we are “crucified with Christ” (Rom. 6:6-8). We have the Holy Spirit planted within us to war against indwelling lust (Gal. 5:17). But this fight is not a one-time thing. It’s a lifelong battle. Owen says,

This whole work is done by degrees, and is to be carried on towards perfection all of our days. Thus it is the constant duty of believers to render a death blow to the deeds of the flesh, that they may not have life and strength to bring forth their destructive influence.

It’s like the war on terror. We’ve always got to be vigilant. We need to take the attack to the enemy. We need to kill the enemy when he is found. We need to cut off his supplies and support. We need to be committed for our lifetime. But if we let our guard down, if we choose to ignore the problem, if we think we have done enough, the enemy will strike.

Sin will not go away on its own nor will it hibernate. It’s an active agent always looking for the right time and right place to attack. Its power has been defeated at the cross. Christ has given us the Spirit so that we can aggressively deal death blows to remaining, indwelling sin.

5. The promise is life. You live after the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you are killing sin, “you will live.” This promise is eternal life from now to forever. Owen remarks:

The word [life] may not only mean eternal life in heaven, but also the spiritual life in Christ which we have here, the joy and comfort and vigour of our life yet in this world.

So our spiritual life now and our eternal life later hinges on our obedience to this verse. Killing sin is an evidence of our persevering in the faith. It is a work of God (”by the Spirit”), but it requires our participation. And the payoff is great: spiritual vitality now and eternal reward later.

Killing Sin and Romans 8:13 (Part 1)

In The Mortification of Sin, John Owen essentially exposes and applies Romans 8:13:

If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

There are five important things in this verse. Here are the first two:
1. The exhortation is directed toward believers. Only those who are made alive by the Spirit can fulfill this duty. As Owen notes:

The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, should also make it their business all of their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin.

By this I take Owen to mean that the condemmning power of sin was killed at the cross (”there is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus” - Rom 8:1) and has no dominion over us. The indwelling power of sin refers to the presence of sin remaining within us, no longer a tyrant, yet retaining some degree of power. Within a genuine believer there has been a “regime change” and the dethroned sin wages war to regain its total control. We are to be killing that remaining sin.

2. There is a condition which expresses a certainty. The condition, “If you”, points to a most certain connection between killing sin and living. It is a relationship of the means and the end.

The intent of the text… is that there is a certain infallible connection and coherence between true mortification and eternal life: if you use this means, you shall obtain that end; if you do mortify, you shall live.

Scripture teaches that all true believers will persevere to the end. This text shows us that one of the means of our perseverance is killing sin. In other words, a genuine believer will have some evidence of sin-killing in his life. Our eternal life is at stake.

Cream Cheese and Guarding Each Other

C. J. Mahaney preached today at Bethlehem as one of the guest speakers during John Piper's sabbatical. One thing I appreciate about Mahaney's ministry is his strong emphasis on love, edification, and accountability within the church family that has come to characterize the Sovereign Grace churches. His message today was about guarding one another and he shared an illustration I recently heard him give at the T4G conference.

The illustration was about someone observing a man sitting in a cafe one morning. The man was eating a bagel and looking over business papers, obviously preparing for an important business meeting. He was finely groomed, wearing an Armani suit with a starched white dress shirt and a power tie. He glanced at his rolex as he got up to leave. It was then that the observer noticed a blob of cream cheese on the corner of the man's mustache. "What would happen when the man got to his meeting?" thought the observer. "Would anyone tell the man about the cream cheese on his face?"

Mahaney's point was that each of us has "cream cheese on the face." He's talking about sin that we are blind to and our need for other believers to point out that sin to us. His text was Hebrews 3:12-13:

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Although its power is broken, sin is still actively present within us. The problem is that sin deceives us and hardens us. The solution in the text above is the exhorting of each other every day. As Mahaney puts it, we should guard each other from sin. Our self-perception is like a carnival mirror. Others see our faults much more clearly than we do. We need to invite this guarding and to instigate this guarding.

Mahaney suggests small groups where this accountability can take place (he meets with his small group of men once a month). Of course, if one has a spouse, this guarding should be taking place daily within that relationship.

If we are serious about killing sin in our lives, this is one way to do so. We all have "cream cheese on the face." The question is, do you want someone to point it out?

Killing Sin

Could a dead guy from four centuries ago have written anything relevant for us today?

Here are the words from John Owen's preface to The Mortification of Sin concerning a reason he is writing about mortification:

My second main reason is the dangerous mistakes some have fallen into recently in dealing with this subject. Through lack of acquaintance with the mystery of the gospel and the efficacy of the death of Christ, they have imposed a system of self-wrought mortification on the necks of their disciples which neither they nor their fore-fathers were ever able to bear. The mortification they press is not suitable to the gospel in nature or effect, and regularly has the deplorable outcome of producing superstition, self-righteousness and anxiety of conscience in those who take their teaching up.

Owen wrote this in 1656, yet his words ring true today. How often have we tried to deal with sin primarily by our own self-effort? Many of us have been influenced by religious traditions in various forms that emphasize a sanctification heavy on works and light on faith. The fruit of that kind of system often yields elitism (self-righteousness) or defeatism (anxiety of conscience). Not discounting our participation in the process, John Owen calls us to the primary means of killing sin: God's Word and the Holy Spirit. It is a call to "gospel mortification." And it is a call we need to hear today.

The following posts will interact with Owen's classic work and the Scriptural underpinnings of his arguments. My hope is that we will be edified. Owen says it best:

Certainly, something of this kind is needed now to promote the work of gospel mortification in the hearts of believers and direct them into safe paths where they will find rest for their souls.

Our next post will be directed toward the foundation of mortification, Romans 8:13.

Body-Building

Welcome to EDIFY. In the spirit of Ephesians 4:12-16, this blog is dedicated to the building up of believers through speaking the truth in love. Posts will primarily generate from Scripture and from interaction with the teaching of great men of the Faith. The content of posts and comments will be measured according to Ephesians 4:29 (ESV):

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Please give correction when necessary. I claim no corner on the market of truth. God's Word is truth. I hope we can encourage each other in our daily walk of putting sin to death and growing in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.