Continuing to walk through James, a wonderful book which gloriously reveals the depth of the gospel as it works into our lives. Living for Christ is so much more than a moral checklist or cultural conformity. Our faith in Christ will produce much – but the incredible thing about gospel-based progressive sanctification is that we bear more fruit as we more fully understand our relationship with God – especially that it is based on Christ’s performance for us, not our performance for him.
So even beyond the wondrous truth that “faith works,” James reveals how it works. And even more critically, James reveals the contrast of this fruit-producing faith with the world’s view of religion. There’s a variety of ways that pastors say this… here are a few phrases that draw out the contrast of works grounded in unbelieving religion… or gospel faith:
Our works drive God’s love for us… or God’s love drives our works.
Our good works direct God’s favor… or our good works reflect God’s favor.
Our actions are the root of God’s favor… or our actions are the fruit of God’s favor.
Obey so God will be happy… or obey because God is happy with you.
Our obedience motivates God’s infinite happiness… or God’s infinite happiness motivates our obedience.
I am obligate so that God will love me… or I’m free to live this way because God loves me.
I obey therefore I’m accepted… or I’m accepted therefore I obey.
If I behave, then I belong… or I belong, that’s why I behave.
O the glories of what our Savior has done! May our hearts be more and more grounded in the gospel, that we might more and more see the reality of who we are in Him.
Several have asked me to post the week-long speech check referred to in last week’s sermon. Here it is, adapted loosely from World Harvest Mission, via Tullian Tchividjian.
The exercise is to spend an entire week (start with a day) without protecting yourself with your tongue. So:
Don’t gossip
Don’t complain about anything
Don’t blameshift
Don’t defend yourself
Don’t boast at all
Don’t criticize (yes, there is good criticism… but not for this exercise :>)
Do speak only good
Do encourage
Do speak only of your weaknesses (not strengths)
Do admit quickly when a hint of wrong
The point in this exercise is to see what James is proclaiming… that no human being can tame the tongue, and that the one who does is perfect (not you or me).
That’s so we can come back to the hope that we do have… of Jesus Christ, His work in the Gospel. May our eyes be fixed on Him, may our hope be ensconced in Him, may our speech more and more reflect our awareness of our identity in His family!
“You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.” (C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock)
Somebody called this obvious today. I wish it were.
Our response to the Gospel is ‘of course.’ And then we are off into things we are more interested in.
“I understand Jesus is my savior. Get on with it already,” where the “it” is usually behaviorism. Christian moralism. Pragmatism.
This idea has come out several times in my week. A parent who wishes the church would teach their child not to listen to country music. A spouse wanting a better listener at home. Talking to people who are making lists – actual lists – of behaviors they are working on to improve their relationships.
You can argue about the wisdom or acceptability of any of these desires. But the difficulty is that these are all second things. And well-intentioned people are not seeing the primacy of first things. They’re not saying — oh, how I wish my child would be passionate about Jesus Christ; oh, that my spouse would would be rejoicing in their union with Christ; oh, that my eyes might be filled with my Lord, that my desires might change.
What is incredibly important, crucial to every moment of every day that we are alive, is the first things. And that the first things are first.
Faith is the absolute trust in salvation by Christ alone, a gift of grace. Open eyes to this first thing impacts everything else. The second things flow out of them.
Practical concerns, pragmatic approaches, may be helpful. But not Christian, per se. And all second things, not first things.
What you listen to is tied to who you worship. Your relationship with your spouse is founded your understanding of your relationship to Jesus Christ. Behaviors are impacted by your gratitude at what he’s done… and gives you a heart to flee the world and follow your savior.
My heart is a bit heavy today, not because of a rebellious world choosing against God… but because of my own quickness, and the quickness of others in the church, to want second things without a depth of understanding that first things are first.
“And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption…” (1 Corinthians 1:30).
I love church. Not as much as I love Jesus, but I’m constantly thankful for how our Lord uses the body to sharpen me and grow me. This week, a brief discussion about guilt and its relationship to the Christian life has made me think and pray much.
Guilt is, per one online dictionary, “an awareness of having done wrong, usually accompanied by feelings of shame and regret.” For the Christian, at the point of salvation, it’s commonly agreed that our guilt – and the sin that caused it – is removed. God’s forgiveness in Christ (as well as aspects of salvation like justification) pretty clearly remove guilt (i.e., see Romans 4:5-8 or 1 John 1:9). D.A. Carson, in For the Fame of God, writes that “for the gospel to be effective it must clear us of our guilt.”
Yet we run into guilt all the time, in our Christian life, after conversion. I am constantly tempted to carry it around with me. Guilt over past offenses… guilt over what I have done (or haven’t)… guilt can guide behavior, prevent peace, and worm its way into many, many areas of our lives.
Don’t get me wrong. An active conscience is a good thing. By it the Holy Spirit helps me avoid sin, and to quickly confess sin. If guilt is because of ongoing sin… then maybe it shouldn’t be called guilt, but conviction. We need to confess the sin. That’s an easy theological answer.
The difficulty is that even after confession… the feeling remains. That shame over what has already been confessed. Is that ok? Should we soak in this feeling of “I’ve let God down… I’m unworthy and ashamed… I’ll never measure up”?
I’m coming more and more to think that our overwhelming need is an increasing awareness of our relationship with Christ. It is His forgiveness, His love, His work that clears my guilt forever. Even guilt after conversion. One of my greatest continuing problems is that I let guilt drive me from Christ. I think this probably means that I have too high a view of myself – instead of trusting totally in the work of the Savior, I trust in my own work. I don’t want to “impose” on Jesus again… as if there is any way that I could ever not need His righteousness instead of my own. So, in this sense, guilt becomes a marker for pride.
Elyse Fitzpatrick, in Counsel from the Cross, writes:
“We can’t overemphasize the importance of knowing that all our sins are forgiven, once for all time, when we strive to become more like him. Love is the only motive that can impel true heart transformation, and love will be present only when we see, demonstrated before our eyes, how we’ve been loved. Guilt over former sins never propels obedience; it only breeds doubt, fear, and bitterness.”
I like this because I do strive to be like my Savior, I have a motivation to follow and obey what he says. But this is because of love – his love for me, which births in my heart new desires and motivations. Continuing to carry guilt after my sin is forgiven seems to be a rejection of the love of Christ. If I am motivated primarily by guilt I am not actually understanding the work of Jesus Christ, nor am I understanding the grounds of my acceptance and righteousness.
It seems a bit paradoxical (as many biblical concepts) but true – that crucifying of ungodly behaviors requires a realization that we have absolutely died to it in Jesus. We don’t get ‘superpower’ to overcome sin (though we progressively become more like our Savior)… what we primarily get is a relationship which lets us lean upon the risen Savior, to see ourselves with entirely different lenses… by which our guilt… and with it sin’s power… has truly been broken.
William Romaine, an evangelical pastor in England in the 1700’s, puts it this way (in his Treaties Upon the Life, Walk, and Triumph of Faith):
“No sin can be crucified either in heart or life unless it first be pardoned in conscience, because there will be want of faith to receive the strength of Jesus, by whom alone it can be crucified. If it be not mortified in its guilt, it cannot be subdued in its power. If the believer does not see his perfect deadness to sin in Jesus, he will open a wide door to unbelief, and if he be no persuaded of his completeness in Christ, he gives room for the attacks of self-righteousness and legal tempers… The more clearly and steadfastly he believes this, as the apostle did – ‘I am crucified with Christ,’ in proportion will he cleave to Christ, and receive from him greater power to crucify sin. This believing view of his absolute mortification in Christ is the true gospel method of mortifying sin in our own persons.”
How incredible it is that we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are… yet without sin. “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16).
Hasta la vista, prideful guilt. Hello, wonderful Savior.
In light of my previous post, and especially as we go through a critical portion of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel of John, I’m struck by a complaint I occasionally hear from others, and occasionally find in myself. It’s basically that our main issue as Christians is laziness.
This view concedes that (perhaps) you’ve put your faith in Jesus, but your main problem is that you aren’t as committed as you should be… you aren’t doing enough… so you should doubt whether or not you are a believer. Exhortations in the faith become exhortations to work harder, do more, and simply work.
What are you examining?
‘Examine yourself,’ the statement goes, ‘are you doing all you can?’ The implied answer is that if you aren’t, you might not be saved. And really, if you’re honest, the fear is that the answer is always no – that you’re never doing all you could, and should always be doing more. Welcome to the Christian treadmill…
Examine yourself. Not good enough. Try harder. Repeat.
I think this line of reasoning has some twists in it that aren’t healthy. I’d like to explain why in two ways.
The first unhealthy twist is that this particular exhortation usually gets the context wrong.
Mostly people who exhort constant self-examination are thinking of 2 Corinthians 13:5. It says “Examine yourselves… test yourselves.”
But note the ellipsis. What did I leave out? Let’s look again at the whole verse.
“Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?”
Interesting, isn’t it? That the purpose of the test isn’t how much you’ve done, but whether you are in the faith. Whether Jesus Christ is in you. So the examining I’m told to do is actually primarily an examination of my heart’s faith in Jesus Christ. Not a scorecard (i.e., 7 out of 10, let’s try for 8 out of 10!) but a thumbs up or down.
The verb (to examine) is used in 1 Corinthians 3:13 about testing what kind of work we’re doing; in 1 Corinthians 11:28, 2 Corinthians 8:22, and Galatians 6:4 of testing motives, and even in 1 Thessalonians 2:4 of God examining hearts. In fact, 1 Thessalonians 5:21 tells us to examine “everything” to see if it is good or bad.
So my self-examination really should not based on quantity. It is not based on “am I doing all I can.” It isn’t primarily a question of laziness. It is a question of kind.
And thus the second way in which this can be an unhealthy twist (related to the first). The exhortation, as stated, is being used to examine production rather than connection.
The Bible’s strong statement is that connection leads invariably to production. Not that production can force connection. The Bible is all about true connection to Christ alone. This is what we’ve seen in John 15. Are you a branch that is alive, or dead? Is there any fruit on that tree, or not? The single determining factor of whether there is or is not fruit is whether you have or have not been united to Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. Whether you abide in him.
If I have faith in Christ, I’m connected to the vine. If so, I will bear fruit. And that fruit is great assurance… because without him, I can do nothing. Fruit is a sign of connection. And that vital life that produces fruit in me is not my own… it is Christ’s (John 15:1-5).
But it isn’t the amount of fruit. Fruit is only a sign of something that is actually present. To think of this through the context of Jesus’ statements in John… Jesus is my life… even after I sin, letting my own personal frustration offend my spouse. He’s the source of living water, even if I oversleep my own prayer time. He’s really the only reason to be at church, singing. And even as I bear fruit (because of the vital connection I have with Jesus), the one who makes me bear more isn’t me (what ability do I have?), but rather the Father (John 15:2, Ephesians 2:10).
So it is important to self-examine… but in the right context. Our examination is – is it true that I believe’? Do I really trust in Jesus’ righteousness? Do I really humble myself before him? If the answer to this self-examination is a ‘yes!’, then that should lead to joy… and not a treadmill. The ‘yes!’ means fruit will follow, not ‘ok… that’s great that you trust in Jesus… but prove it’.
We are our own fruit-inspectors… and if we see any… any… then we are thrilled that a true connection is there. Life from the source. That’s Jesus. Often true faith is to continue to believe that I am in union with Jesus Christ in spite of my failings and my sin which I see more and more as I grow.
Perhaps another way to get to the same place is to see what Jesus said in a familiar passage in Matthew 7:
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of min and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it” (vv.24-26).
Do you see? Both the wise and foolish man built. There isn’t really a statement of how hard they worked; they both may have sweated much. They may both have had a Protestant work ethic. It didn’t matter. What mattered was what they built on.
The one who builds on Jesus’ message – the Gospel, the good news of faith alone by grace alone in Christ alone, an alien righteousness imputed to us, a Holy Spirit living in us – is the one who stands… not the one who builds (even zealously/thankfully/wonderfully) in their own righteousness.
What matters is what we build on. And we’re all building.
So if you are examining, today… go ahead, examine why you’re motivated to play guitar… to watch a movie… to come to church… to enjoy a walk. In things called work. In things called leisure. And in things in between. Your whole life is being used by Christ, pruned by the Father, to bear fruit. As you see selfishness and pride, repent. But may you more and more see the fruit of joy, of peace, of patience, of kindness… as you live each and every day in trust of Jesus Christ, thereby building on the rock that is the only chance we will ever have of eternal life with the incredible God who calls us friends.
By God’s grace, I’ve been a Christian for a long time. That time is getting longer every day. So when I look at what God continues to teach me through His Word, I can only shake my head at my thick-headedness and my pride… and whatever else it is that keeps me from learning the centrality of the gospel.That’s what’s been hammered home over the past months as the Gospel of John has been a constant companion. The centrality of the gospel… which is to say, the centrality of Jesus Christ.
Bowing to myself? Or worshiping Jesus?
It isn’t only that he miraculously fed thousands, or healed incredibly recalcitrant diseases, or stopped storms. It isn’t even that he said he was the bread of life, or the resurrection and the life, or the source of living water.
It’s that he really is those things. On an ongoing basis.
Religion, as helpful as it can be, often gets in my way. What I mean by that is that religion can be twisted (by me) to be a sinful practice, not an edifying one. I can run self-metrics, rather than joyful worship: how much prayer have I been investing in; whether I’ve fasted recently; how many people have I “touched,” “checked in” with, or otherwise “ministered” to; whether I’ve avoided a particular sin I’d like to have ‘victory’ over. I start having pride, not in my repentant response to sin, but in my superficial, external cleanliness. In my diligence and efficiency. And so I functionally put my hope in my performance of “good” things… not realizing that they have no goodness in themselves. They have goodness (and are fruit) only if they are truly worship of a worthy object.
Eventually… when my eyes are opened… I look again at my own heart, eager for self-exaltation, and again have to come to the cross… repenting…asking forgiveness… and putting my trust, my only hope… in my Savior.
Jesus is my bread of life (John 6:35). He is what I take in, forever.
Jesus is my light (John 8:12). He’s the only way I see… ever.
Jesus is my shepherd (John 10:11). He leads and cares and finds me.
Jesus is my resurrection (John 11:25). He’s the only reason I’ll live forever.
Jesus is my life (John 11:25). He is, right now. I only act like my life is about me.
Or, to put the above into the negative statements they infer:
On my own I starve.
On my own I’m blind.
On my own I’m lost.
On my own I’ll die, or perhaps I’m dead already.
On my own I have no life now.
Why do I think I could ever do anything on my own?
This is why I was so struck by Mary this week, in John 12. Heartfelt worship… not posed, not calculated, not even fully understood… but entirely appropriate because of the object of the worship.
Jesus Christ.
May our hearts be filled with grateful joy at the life our Savior gives. May we find joy in prayer because it is with him… may we excitedly follow where he leads… May we find all we are in His finished work on our behalf… and our certain future in union with Him.
Ok… I’m posting today, because it has been a long time… but I’m also quite ill today… so if this seems like a ramble, or doesn’t make sense… blame me. And my illness.
As I live under the incredible reality that grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17), and as I grow in the grace and knowledge of my Savior (2 Peter 3:18), I continue to be overwhelmed with the centrality for my life of the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Not in a Sunday-School-the-answer-is-always-Jesus kind of way, but how I wish that my words were clearer, that my life was more reflective, of the reality of Christ. He isn’t a substantial part of my salvation – He is my salvation. He’s my righteousness, my redemption, my sanctification, my justification… and the big words don’t even begin to capture, really, the essence of the grace and truth that Jesus Christ brings.
So often it seems like “church” becomes a following of a subset of Christ’s teachings, plus a variety of other traditions and cultural norms that a community chooses for itself. While this may be comfortable, it is limiting and narrow and so often isn’t overwhelmed with the true heart of the church… Jesus.
John MacArthur, in a question-and-answer session at the 2007 Shepherd’s Conference, gives this helpful answer to a pastor wanting to confront this type of “legalism” – not in the sense of works salvation, but in the sense of the narrow behavioral norms and needless (i.e. not biblically mandated) restrictions that so many churches hold to:
“I would suggest that the first way to do that is to move people off the rules they live by on to the person of Jesus Christ, and just preach the glories of Christ. Get in a Gospel and stay there until those people have been liberated from rules to love for Christ, until they have been literally swept away in awe and wonder over their affections for Jesus Christ. Rather than try to instruct them on the biblical disciplines, which again is just another set of rules, let them be lost in wonder, love, and praise over the person of Christ, and you watch those things begin to disappear.”
Can we get to a place of being liberated from restrictive rules? Not being against morality or obedience in any way – but centering that morality and obedience in a passion and love and awe and wonder and praise at our Savior?
I think that one main hindrance is pride. Pride pushes me towards never conceding that someone else might see truth better… that I have no self-righteousness to hold onto… that Christ really is my everything. Pride leads me to hedge the truth and steal from grace… and ultimately the wonder of our Savior is not served by my words.
I hope that you (whomever might read this) and I can get away from ourselves enough to actually dive into the real truth that Scripture brings – the gospel, the good news of our Savior.
“We are all proud. Because I’m proud I get hurt when people disagree with me strongly. Because I’m proud I feel the need to give thirteen qualifications before I make an argument, not usually because I’m a swell guy but because I love for people to love me and loathe for them to dislike or misunderstand me. Because I’m proud I hedge my criticisms so that I won’t have to publicly repent and recant when I go too far and get something wrong. Because we’re proud, protectors of self more than lovers of truth, we often don’t discuss things with candor or with verve.”
This convicts me. My hedging can be more a result of fear of man and pride than a result of concern for the truth. And I look back at my very first sentence above… and get convicted. Why do we shy away from truth?
“And from him [God] you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord'” (1 Corinthians 1:30-31).
May we clearly proclaim (and really believe) what is already true: that Jesus Christ, our glorious Savior, is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption… and may all our boasting be only in Him.
We’ve been spending time as a church in John’s gospel, and what it says continues to impact my life. I’ve been thinking about how Jesus affirms the religious folk of the day – “you search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life” (John 5:39).
That’s me, I think. I search, diligently search, the Scriptures. I think that in them is life. I read and consider and meditate. I want to obey.
But actually, Jesus slams these diligent searchers: “…yet you refuse to come to me, that you may have life.”
Ouch.
It is possible to be a Scripture-searcher and not get the content.
Now, before you jump right to the “normal” conclusion – that doctrine has to go the 15 inches from the head to the heart – please bear with me. That’s not really what Jesus is saying.
When we say that, we mean that people are “eggheads,” full of knowledge about Jesus but not “doing” the Christian life.
Jesus, though, is saying that the “doctrine” of these Bible-searchers is actually wrong because it is not grounded in Him.
He’s saying that all their “doing” of Scripture gets them nowhere… they’ve made a head-to-heart connection all right, but it is the wrong one. They are are busy practically “doing” Scripture… and they have no life.
Why? Because Scripture isn’t primarily a collection of rules, a list of behaviors, or even an instruction manual on life.
Scripture is about Jesus.
If we don’t understand the reality of Jesus, we won’t really understand the Bible. And we won’t get life. That’s because of what the Bible actually says. The Bible points us to salvation by faith alone, through grace alone, in Christ alone.
Many – most, perhaps – nod heads sagely at this brief recitation of the Solas. Yet too many of us (me included) often don’t actually function like this amazing message — the main content of the Bible — is true.
Yes, the Bible is about Jesus.
Yes, the Bible is about the gospel… pointing to the redeemer, the messiah, the savior of the world.
Yes, the Bible is about life in Him – by faith.
Yet we still show that we don’t really get the Bible by our faithlessness, by our trusting in other things (ourselves, our works, our goodness) than in Jesus Christ.
I like how Tim Chester puts it. See if this makes sense to you:
“Problems for Christians do not often arise because of disbelief in a confessional or theoretical sense (though this may be case). More often they arise from functional or practical disbelief. Asked if I believe in justification by faith, I may reply that I do (confessional faith), but still feel the need to prove myself (functional disbelief). I may affirm that God is sovereign (confessional faith), but still get anxious when I cannot control my life (functional disbelief). Indeed, sanctification can be viewed as the progressive narrowing of the gap between confessional faith and functional faith.”
If you say – yes, that’s me – then there’s hope for you, in turning back to God in faith. In actually believing in our justification by our Savior, in actually trusting in His sovereignty and His work in us. And in crying out to Him who bore our sins on the cross when we fail.
Hmm… maybe there’s something to that doctrinal drop into the heart after all… as long as what is actually dropping down is the wondrous truth of the gospel.
May we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18)!
“Remember the gospel again; hear his humble plea in the garden, see his blood-stained brow, hear the whip crack as it tears his back, smell the scent of blood that fills the air as he is hoisted up upon the tree, hear him cry in agony as the wrath you deserve is poured out upon him, and he is forsaken.
Then let his words sink deeply into your soul, “It is finished.” All that he had come to do, all that you needed him to do, he has done for you.
Feel the earth tremble, hear the curtain that separated you from the presence of God tear.
Think about that kind of love and welcome, let your heart weep before him, and kiss him in worship as you humble yourself, loving him much.
Now, let the love that’s overflowing in your heart eventuate in true obedience, put off your old, dead, loveless ways of living, and let the love that has been poured into your heart by the Holy Spirit create true holiness of life.”
(from Counsel from the Cross, by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Dennis Johnson)
I think sometimes that I’m too much of an optimist.
It’s true. I bounce. I love the beauty of the sky. I have experienced such blessings.
Beautiful creation... soiled, polluted
But I also tend to think that people are innately ok. Especially Christians, with the new creation, the new covenant.
And so I speed over the sea of sin that we swim in. Really. Sin is real. Sin is horrific. Husbands, wives, parents, kids, work relationships… fallen. We experience pain – not just physical pain, but the pain of disappointment, of spiritual hurt and loss.
The very best Christians I know, pastors, servants… flawed.
Perhaps a more realistic view of my world – less unreal optimism, more recognition of sin – actually leads to a more worshipful relationship with my God.
That’s because reality is that sin does hang on. The life-and-godliness-power that I’ve been given is a knowledge of Jesus Christ, which is to say, of the gospel (2 Peter 1:3).
And the knowledge of Christ is incredibly freeing because it stands is such stark contrast with my experiential knowledge of me and of other people.
Think on this, from Elyse Fitzpatrick and Dennis Johnson, in Counsel from the Cross:
“Either we train ourselves and others to put our trust in our ability and then hope for the best, or we train ourselves and others to self-despair and to live ‘on in naked confidence in the mercy of God.’ We will view God as either the “rewarder of all our ‘good’ works, the pot of gold at the end of our rainbow of merit,” or as our merciful Father who inexplicably identifies with us, loves and welcomes us, and rewards us with blessing despite our sin and failures…
The point is precisely that the power to do good comes only out of this wild claim that everything has already been done.” (pp. 180-1)
I need to stop, again, and not put my trust in my ability… but instead wholly trust Jesus Christ.
The gospel is that Jesus Christ, the firstborn of the dead, has “freed us from our sins by his blood” (Revelation 1:6) even when I don’t exhibit it, nor feel freed.
The gospel is that Jesus has ransomed people for God with his blood, at great cost. His blood is the grounds for my acceptance, not my moral fiber. And it continues to be the grounds… all through life.
The Bible actually says this in wonderful ways.
Let’s just take one, 1 Corinthians 6:11. Speaking of our sin, Paul writes:
And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
It isn’t that we became more moral, or had some extra individual goodness. It is that we were washed, and sanctified, and justified by Jesus.
Washing in 1 Corinthians 6:11 (as in other verses, like Titus 3:5) doesn’t refer to moral amendment or inward holiness but to deliverance from guilt, and the estrangement from God which sin has caused. These passages, as George Smeaton in his excellent book on the atonement notes, “are rightly explained only when we take them in their sacrificial reference.”
My sin has been atoned for, regarded as if it had never been. It is my Savior’s bloody death which makes me clean… not my post-salvation perfection or moral aptitude.
I can still experience sin and the effects of sin, and I still struggle with sin… but I know it is covered… and the grateful fruit of worship and service grows.
That fruit may mean that I struggle less… but even when I fall, I know that my standing is sure, because it is not based on my struggle, but on the blood of Jesus Christ. By faith I am saved, and even that a gift.
We have such great reason to be optimists… not because we will not experience pain, disappointment, and sin… but because we know our standing is sure, and our Savior has removed our guilt, and we have a glorious future in Him.
Truly he has saved us according to his own mercy… praise be to Jesus Christ forever!
