Is the Christian Life about Running or Resting?

In 2009, Time magazine named “the new Calvinism” as one of the 10 ideas currently changing the world. The burgeoning movement brought several streams of conservative evangelicals together, ranging from Baptists to Presbyterians to Reformed Charismatics, best represented through organizations and conferences like Together for the Gospel and The Gospel Coalition. But in recent months an intramural debate within the movement made headlines when author, pastor, (and grandson of Billy Graham) Tullian Tchividjian, was asked to leave The Gospel Coalition.

The issues surrounding this rather public “break up” are complex, but at least part of the brouhaha concerns differing perspectives on sanctification. Some have accused Tchividjian of antinomianism [1] and denying the “third use of the law” [2] (charges he has repeatedly denied, most recently in an interview with Janet Mefford.)

Kevin DeYoung, one of Tullian’s main interlocutors, has compiled a list of agreements and possible disagreements between the two sides. These questions certainly deserve careful thought, as do the varied responses to the debate from voices as diverse as Rick Phillips, Mark Galli, and R. Scott Clark.

Without responding directly to Tullian, his accusers, or defenders, I think one possible way forward in this debate is to pay closer attention not just to the distinctions between law and gospel (as important as these are) but to the metaphors and word pictures the Scriptures use when describing the lives of believers. For ordinary believers, who can easily get lost in the complexities of theological jargon, the vivid imagery of the Bible itself is both refreshing and a wonderful means of keeping us balanced.

For example, Scripture describes our lives in terms of a journey and an athletic competition. We are commanded both to walk and to run. These are strongly active metaphors that emphasize the need for continuous movement and strenuous effort. But Scripture also uses agricultural metaphors like remaining in a vine and bearing fruit (John 15). In Galatians 5:19-23, Paul seems to deliberately contrast the fruit of the Spirit with the works of the flesh, reminding us that developing the Christian virtues of love, joy, peace, etc. isn’t merely a matter of self-effort and will power, but of supernatural empowerment.

But there’s more. In addition to the athletic and agricultural images, biblical writers employ metaphors from the realms of architecture (foundation, stones, buildings, edification), medicine (sin as a sickness, Christ as physician, his word as both a surgical knife and healing remedy), the military(soldiers, battles, discipline, armor), and more. We are encouraged to both labor (1 Thessalonians 1:3) and rest (Matthew 11:28-30), trust (Romans 15:13) and obey (Philippians 2:12-13), look out for others (Hebrews 10:24-25) and examine ourselves (2 Corinthians 13:5), keep ourselves (Jude 21) and depend on the power of God to keep us (Jude 24).

These pictures are rich and diverse and we need all of them. If we take any one image by itself, we run the risk of becoming lopsided in our focus. For example, if we only emphasize the architectural and “body” metaphors in 1 Corinthians, people might be inclined to think the corporate dimensions of Christian living are more important than individual and personal responsibilities. An exclusive focus on resting in Jesus could lead others to infer that any call to effort or discipline is legalistic. On the other hand, the military and athletic imagery in Scripture, calling us to fight the good fight of faith (1 Timothy 6:12) and run with endurance the race set before us (Hebrews 12:1-2), needs the balancing word-picture of abiding in Jesus, the true vine, apart from whom we can do nothing (John 15:5).

The Christian life, you see, is not dependence to the exclusion of discipline, or vice-versa. It’s both. It’s not just a me-thing or a we-thing. It’s both. It’s running and resting. Believing and obeying. Together and as individuals.

I believe that folks on all sides of the current sanctification debate desire to honor God and his word, rest in the good news of Christ’s finished work, and grow in grace. We all need to pay close attention to the text of Scripture and be careful to avoid rhetoric that is either theologically misleading or disparaging to others. Disagreements will likely continue. But whatever side of the debate we find ourselves on, let’s not forget that the Christian life involves both resting in Christ and his finished workand running with everything we’ve got for the prize set before us.

This post was originally written for Christianity.com. For more on this issue, see my latest book, Active Spirituality: Grace and Effort in the Christian Life. 

Notes

1. “Antinomianism so stresses Christian freedom from the condemnation of the law that it underemphasizes the need of the believer to confess sins daily and to pursue sanctification earnestly.” S. B. Ferguson, J. I. Packer, ed., New Dictionary of Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), p. 379.

2. In Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin distinguished three uses of the law: (1) to condemn sin (Inst. 2.7.6-9), (2) to restrain sin in society (Inst. 2.7.10-11), and (3) to instruct, in Calvin’s words, “the third and principle use” (Inst. 2.7.12-13).

3 Reasons the Resurrection Matters

The resurrection of Jesus (alongside his crucifixion) is the central historical event in the Christian faith. Without the resurrection there would be no Christianity. “If Christ has not been raised,” wrote St. Paul, “then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14).

I am a Christian because I believe in the resurrection. I am convinced that after dying a violent death on a Roman cross on a Friday afternoon in 30 A.D., Jesus of Nazareth came back to life and emerged from the tomb on Sunday morning.

This is not easy to believe. But if it is true, it is the most pivotal event in human history. Much has been written in defense of Jesus’ resurrection, the most thorough and convincing book being N. T. Wright’s massive 800-page volume, The Resurrection of the Son of God.[1] If you haven’t done so, I hope you’ll weigh the evidence for yourself.

What is unquestionable is that the first generation of Jesus’ followers did believe he had risen, and were convinced that everything had changed as a result.

Consider just three of the ways the New Testament highlights the significance of the resurrection. 

1. Jesus’ resurrection means that his sacrificial death on the cross was sufficient, and therefore our sins can be forgiven.

Paul emphasizes this in 1 Corinthians 15, reminding us that “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (vv. 3-4). Then, in verse 17, he argues that “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”

In other words, Paul saw a direct connection between the resurrection of Jesus and the sufficiency of his death to atone for our sins. When Jesus rose again on the third day, it was the public announcement that God was fully satisfied with the sacrificial death of his Son.  In his resurrection, Jesus was vindicated (1 Timothy 3:16).  But in his vindication, we are vindicated too. That’s why Paul says in Romans 4 that Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25).[2]

2. Jesus’ resurrection means that death is defeated once and for all.

As Peter proclaimed on the Day of Pentecost, “God raised [Jesus] from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him” (Acts 2:24). Death lost its grip on Jesus!

But the resurrection means that Jesus not only defeated death for himself, but that he defeated it for us. He died and rose as a new representative for humanity, as the Second Adam. “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead,” writes Paul, “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:20-22). His resurrection guarantees ours.

Perhaps no one has said this more eloquently than C. S. Lewis. In his 1947 book Miracles, Lewis wrote:

“The New Testament writers speak as if Christ’s achievement in rising from the dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the universe. He is the ‘first fruits,’ the ‘pioneer of life.’ He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so. This is the beginning of the New Creation: a new chapter in cosmic history has been opened.”[3]

The empty tomb assures us that sickness and suffering, death and disease will not have the final word.

This is both personal and powerfully hope giving to me. I have terrible eyesight, because of a degenerative eye disorder called karetoconus. I have a child with Type 1 diabetes, who takes at least four insulin shots a day. And my mom, at only 64 years old has advanced Alzheimer’s and hasn’t recognized me for several years. But the resurrection of Jesus means that someday I will have 20/20 vision, and my son will never need another shot again, and that Mom will know me once more.

3. Jesus’ resurrection means that the material world matters.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, when the apostles said that Jesus rose again, they meant that his physical body came back to life. The risen Jesus wasn’t a phantom or ghost, but a breakfast-eating, flesh-and-bone, human being (see Luke 24:36-43 and John 21:10-14).

As the Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist John Updike once said,

Make no mistake: if He rose at all

it was as His body;

if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules

reknit, the amino acids rekindle,

the Church will fall.[4]

When Jesus’ came out of the tomb in a physical body, it was God’s definitive stamp of approval on the creation project with all of its materiality. The resurrection shows us that matter matters. And this is why the early Christians looked to the future with confidence that the created order itself would be redeemed (see Romans 8:18-25).

Though we wait for the full consummation of new creation, the Scriptures also teach that the power that raised Jesus from the dead is already working within us (Ephesians 1:19-20). The resurrection, you see, not only assures of God’s forgiveness and comforts us in suffering as we anticipate the final reversal of death, disease, and decay; it also motivates and empowers us to push back the tide of suffering and evil in the present world, through word and deed, in mercy and in justice, all in Jesus’ name.

This article was written for Christianity.com.  

End Notes

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[1] N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volume 3) (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2003).

[2] The Greek word for “justification” (dikaiosin) in Romans 4:25  is closely related to the word “vindicated” (edikaiothe) in 1 Timothy 3:16.

[3] C. S. Lewis, Miracles (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1947) 236–237.

[4] John Updike, “Seven Stanzas of Easter,” in Telephone Poles and Other Poems (Random House, 2013).

Why is Christianity Such a "Bloody Religion?"

Christianity has been called a “bloody religion.” Christians have built their faith, after all, on the bloody death of the crucified Jesus. We sing with gusto, “What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus!” And with the apostle Peter we confess that we have been ransomed “not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

But it is possible for us to misunderstand the significance of Jesus’ blood and even speak of it in ways that subvert the teaching of Scripture. Roman Catholic doctrine undermines the sufficiency of Christ’s finished work by teaching that his blood is offered repeatedly in a Eucharistic sacrifice. And some Protestants make a similar mistake with the supposition that Jesus continually offers his blood in heaven.

On the other hand, are those who propose that the saving efficacy of Jesus’ blood lies in some mystical or divine quality of the fluid itself, rather than his sacrificial death. This error confuses the human and divine natures of Christ and veers dangerously close to Monophysitism.[1]

Here are three propositions that summarize the teaching of Scripture about the significance of Jesus’ blood and safeguard us from error.

1. The saving efficacy of Jesus’ blood is found in his sacrificial death on the cross.  

When we read about the blood of Jesus in Scripture it signifies his violent death on the cross, along with the sacrificial nature of his death. We know his blood signifies death because biblical language described death in terms of shedding blood (cf. Genesis 9:6).

Paul makes the connection between Jesus’ blood and death explicit when he speaks of Christ making peace through “the blood of his cross” and reconciling us to God in “his body of flesh by his death” in Colossians 1:20-22.[2]

But Jesus’ blood is especially connected to the idea of sacrifice. In the midst of a sustained meditation on the relationship between Christ and the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, we read in Hebrews 9:22 that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” This highlights the necessity of sacrifice for forgiveness and shows that sacrifice by its very nature involves the shedding of blood. The passage then goes on to show that Christ “has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26).

This leads to a second proposition:

2. Jesus’ bloody sacrifice was made once for all in a single offering.

This is also especially clear in Hebrews. Consider this litany of verses:

 §  Hebrews 7:27: He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. 

§  Hebrews 9:11-12: But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.     

§  Hebrews 9:25-26: Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 

§  Hebrews 10:10: And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 

§  Hebrews 10:12-14: But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

These passages clarify beyond dispute that Christ’s sacrifice was completed once and for all in his self-0ffering on the cross. Though, as our high priest, he continues to intercede for us at God’s right hand (Hebrews 7:25; Romans 8:34), there is no need for continual or repeated sacrifice. His priestly work of sacrifice is complete. The offering has been made and does not need to be repeated. In Jesus’ own dying words, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

3. This single offering has secured for us a double grace.

Scripture, of course, attributes a whole host of blessings to the blood of Christ. These include forgiveness (Ephesians 1:7), propitiation of God’s wrath (Romans 3:25), justification (Romans 5:9), reconciliation with God (Ephesians 2:13-16) cleansing (1 John 1:7), sanctification (Hebrews 13:12), freedom from sin (Revelation 1:5), and the conquest of Satan (Revelation 12:10-11).

But one helpful way to summarize these blessings is with John Calvin’s language of “double grace.” In his Institutes, Calvin said:

Christ was given to us by God’s generosity, to be grasped and possessed by us in faith. By partaking of him, we principally receive a double grace: namely, that being reconciled to God through Christ’s blamelessness, we may have in heaven instead of a Judge a gracious Father; and secondly, that sanctified by Christ’s spirit we may cultivate blamelessness and purity of life.[3]

In other words, our union with Christ in his sacrificial death is both the basis of our acceptance with God and access into his presence, and the means of our cleansing from sin and moral transformation into the image of Christ.

This means we can confidently trust in Christ’s finished work for both the assured removal of the burden of guilt and the effective power to unshackle us from the chains of sin. The traditional theological categories for this are justification and sanctification.

The grace of justification is beautifully captured in Wesley’s translation of Zinzendorf’s classic hymn:

Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness

My beauty are, my glorious dress;

’Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,

With joy shall I lift up my head.

Bold shall I stand in Thy great day;

For who aught to my charge shall lay?

Fully absolved through these I am

From sin and fear, from guilt and shame.[4]

This alone is good news! But the blood of Christ not only justifies, it also sanctifies. That’s why John Owen, the great seventeenth century physical of souls, in his classic work on the mortification of sin, said, “Set faith at work on Christ for the killing of thy sin. His blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls.”[5]

Believers have rejoiced in this double grace down through the centuries. And that’s why we joyfully sing,

For my pardon, this I see,

Nothing but the blood of Jesus;

For my cleansing this my plea,

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Oh! precious is the flow

That makes me white as snow;

No other fount I know,

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.[6]

This article was written for Christianity.com. 

End Notes

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[1] Monophysitism (from two Greek words, mono (single) and physis (nature) teaches that Jesus had only one nature, rather than two natures (human and divine) united in a single person. The Council of Chalcedon condemned Monophysitism as a heresy in AD 451. For more information, see “Monophysitism,” in S. B. Ferguson & J. I. Packer, New Dictionary of Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press), p. 442. 

[2] Emphasis added in this and following Scripture quotations.

[3] John Calvin, John T. McNeil, ed., Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960) III.xi.1, p. 725.

[4] Nikolaus von Zinzendorf, “Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness,” 1739; translated from German to English by John Wesley, 1739.

[5] John Owen, W. H. Goold, ed., The Works of John Owen, Volume 6. (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, reprint) p. 79.

[6] Robert Lowry, “Nothing but the Blood,” 1876.