In Defense of "Trying Harder"
Christians agree that those who come to Christ in faith and repentance are supposed to behave differently thereafter. We also agree that God’s plan for every believer is to remake him or her in the likeness of Christ. Most also understand that this is a process that continues throughout this earthly life and culminates when “we shall be like Him,” seeing Him “as He is” (NKJV, ). It is God’s great gospel purpose to graciously change sinners into saints.
But what responsibilities do believers have in that plan? What attitudes should dominate our thinking? How does grace relate to effort and struggle?
Some insist that “effort” has no role at all. Beyond preaching the gospel to ourselves, struggle and striving are incompatible with grace and draw our attention away from the gospel and from Christ. Others concede (with evident reluctance) that effort is required, but quickly emphasize tension in the opposite direction. To them, believers are in constant danger of lapsing into “performance based” thinking or, worse yet, “trying harder.”
Both of these views tend to favor language and emphases that are out of sync with the simplicity of the New Testament teaching regarding sanctification. What we find in the NT is that properly understood, “trying harder” (i.e., discipline, hard work, and old fashioned effort) is a vital part of God’s design for the remaking of His saints.
1. The NT puts a strong emphasis on trying harder.
Though it’s true that Jesus presented His lordship as an easy yoke and a light burden (), He also encouraged people to view following Him as a costly and demanding way of life. He warns listeners that those who follow Him must accept the prospect of homelessness () and alienation from family members (). He insists that the life of the Christ-follower involves renouncing all one has (). He demands that disciples hand over their very lives (, ).
How such a life constitutes an easy yoke and a light burden is a question for another study, but this much is clear: Jesus did not intend for His disciples to cherish any delusions that they would be spared from having to do hard things. He said the “way” is “difficult” (ESV, ).
The apostles make the same point, but with a slightly different nuance. Without downplaying the personal cost of following Christ, they place greater emphasis on the personal effort involved. The following is a sample.
- “strive together with me in your prayers” ()
- “that…you may abound in every good work” ()
- “strive to excel in building up the church” ()
- “your labor is not in vain” ()
- “Let your manner of life be worthy…striving side by side for the faith” ()
- “do so more and more” ()
- “To this end we toil and strive because we have our hope set on the living God” ()
- “Remind them…to be obedient, to be ready for every good work” ()
- “Strive for…the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” ()
What this small sample shows is that the NT calls us over and over to exert ourselves. It’s a constant refrain with occasional full orchestra bursts, such as these:
- “I discipline my body and keep it under control” ()
- “I press on toward the goal” ()
- “let us cleanse ourselves…perfecting holiness” ()
- “self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined” ()
- “train yourself for godliness” ()
- “add to your faith virtue…knowledge…self-control…perseverance” ()
- “In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” ()
Whatever pitfalls may be involved in teaching believers that they should “try harder”—and there are some—the fact remains that the NT reveals no concern at all that believers might put too much effort into their pursuit of godliness.
2. “Reckoning” and “yielding” are forms of trying harder.
Let-go-let-God advocates (whether of Keswick or Reformed roots) tend to introduce unhelpful complexity into Romans 6, often using language that suggests passivity. But the argument of the passage is not difficult, and Paul is clearly calling on his audience, and on us, to do something. “Consider” (AV, “reckon”) in is an imperative, as is “yield” in 6:13 and 19b. The “know” references in the text are indicative, but our response is consistently imperative. We are commanded to act.
Every little boy who has ever sat still when he wanted to wiggle knows that yielding often requires “trying really hard.” It’s putting down what we want and instead choosing what another wants. Yielding is not fundamentally different from the putting off and putting on imperatives of .
3. Properly teaching “try harder” emphasizes the gospel and humbles us.
One argument goes that calling on believers to exert themselves increasingly in the pursuit of godliness de-emphasizes the gospel, fuels pride, breeds legalism, and robs the Christian life of the joy we’re intended to have in Christ.
But this cannot be the case. Though believers’ personal discipline can indeed go horribly wrong (e.g., , and most of Galatians) the problem cannot lie simply in calls to “try harder.” Two lines of evidence support this analysis.
First, appeals to work harder cannot be inherently anti-gospel and pro-pride because, as the passages above demonstrate, these calls to exert ourselves are the norm in the NT. Second, appeals to try harder cannot be anti-gospel because the gospel itself is repeatedly cited as the very reason for trying harder.
- Because we “know” we must “yield” ().
- Because God works in us, we must “work out our salvation” ().
- Because God has provided, in Christ, all we need, we are to “make every effort to supplement [our] faith” ().
- Because we have been saved “by grace…through faith,” we “should walk” in the “good works” God prepared for us ().
- Following Paul’s example, we should be “struggling” because of “[Christ’s] energy” that “powerfully works within” us ().
When we live the Christian dynamic, we pursue the imperatives in light of the indicatives, but we do not minimize the imperatives. In other words, we work hard and then harder, because we understand that we have been bought with a price for the very purpose of becoming holy and have been richly blessed with Spirit-fueled ability to do that very thing.
Properly understood and pursued, “trying harder” humbles us because we know every success is really a gift. Put in its proper context, “try harder” exalts the gospel because we are honoring it—and the Savior who is at its center—by making use of what He bought for us and has already done in us.
My parents once gave me a cordless drill for Christmas. In the days that followed I had some options. I could sit and admire the gift and feel genuine appreciation for the givers and their thoughtfulness and love. I could get to work using the gift and forget all about the heart behind it. Or I could admire the gift, appreciate the givers and also get to work. Which of these options honors both gift and givers most?
It is possible to “try harder” on a small number of superficial spiritual metrics and not really grow much. It’s also possible to “try harder” more comprehensively but do so with little reflection or awareness of why we’re trying, and Who rightly owns the credit for every successful step we take. But the solution to these errors is not to swing to the other extreme and proclaim a confusing, passivity-tinged version of the pursuit of holiness. The solution is to fully grasp the beauty of the gospel and the Savior and therefore try harder.
Aaron Blumer Bio
Aaron Blumer, SharperIron’s second publisher, is a Michigan native and graduate of Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC) and Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He and his family live in a small town in western Wisconsin, not far from where he pastored Grace Baptist Church for thirteen years. He is employed in customer service for UnitedHealth Group and teaches high school rhetoric (and sometimes logic and government) at Baldwin Christian School.
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I appreciate Aaron’s article and have skimmed the comments. A large issue, I believe, is for second and third-generation believers. They have made “professions” and prayed prayers, but really have not trusted Christ. As a consequence, they are being taught progressive sanctification without truly knowing God.
I’m a first-generation believer, but was raised in a religious background. The assumption was that because of infant baptism, I was a believer. So that particular church was teaching me to live the Christian life, but without Christ. When I did come to know Christ, the Christian life made sense. The commands of Scripture were not burdensome, but it was based on knowing the God who can relieve our burdens.
It is important for future generations to rub elbows with those who have been involved in sin if they make professions early in life. It is also important not to assume a young child who makes a profession knows what they are doing. They grow up, and may do so with or without Christ.
before getting into all this. really you do. they are not downplaying obedience, etc. It’s terrible to accuse them of that and assume it just because you are too lazy or cheap to actually do your research. they know, once you understand all this, obedience will be like never before. do your research. Im saying that to everyone. I’ve spent my pittance trying to research out some of you guys’ claims about stuff; you could at least do the same. shucks, youtube is free. don’t just pull a sentence or book tittle out of context. and i have kids crawling all over me, and endless stuff to do, too.
be the intelligent fundamentalists we all claim we want to be.
Steve, I agree with you one the one hand, but Vitaliy my husband, is a first generation believer and came from a horribly sinful lifestyle and he has had the same experience here as most of us, including me, who comes from a long line of christian heritage.
marsilius: not all fear is equal.
Jay, I’m including the section from dallas willard’s book The divine Conspiracy here—it’s all about the sermon on the mount. you might find it similar to what macarthur is saying—bolding is mine.
Indeed, the attempt to solve the problem of right sexual behavior by a law or laws that govern specific behaviors is what Jesus is addressing in Matt. 5: 29– 30: “If your right eye makes you sin, gouge it out and fling it from you. Better that one of your bodily parts rot than that your whole body rot in gehenna” (v. 29). And likewise for your right hand (v. 30).
Jesus is saying that if you think that laws can eliminate being wrong you would, to be consistent, cut off your hand or gouge out your eye so that you could not possibly do the acts the law forbids.
Now, truly, if you blind yourself, you cannot look at a woman to lust after her, because you cannot look on her at all. And if you sufficiently dismember yourself, you will not be able to do any wrong action. This is the logic by which Jesus reduces the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees to the absurd.
In their view, the law could be satisfied, and thus goodness attained, if you avoided sinning. You are right if you have done nothing wrong. You could avoid sinning if you simply eliminated the bodily parts that make sinful actions possible. Then you would roll into heaven a mutilated stump.
Of course being acceptable to God is so important that, if cutting bodily parts off could achieve it, one would be wise to cut them off. Jesus seems to have made this very point on some occasions (Matt. 18: 8– 9; Mark 9: 43). But so far from suggesting that any advantage before God could actually be gained in this way, Jesus’ teaching in this passage is exactly the opposite. The mutilated stump could still have a wicked heart. The deeper question always concerns who you are, not what you did do or can do. What would you do if you could? Eliminating bodily parts will not change that.
If you dismember your body to the point where you could never murder or even look hatefully at another, never commit adultery or even look to lust, your heart could still be full of anger, contempt, and obsessive desire for what is wrong, no matter how thoroughly stifled or suppressed it may be. “From within, out of the heart of men, the thoughts of evil proceed: fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, acts of greed and iniquity, as well as deceit, lewdness, the envious glare, blasphemy, arrogance and foolishness— all of these evils come from inside and pollute the person” (Mark 7: 21– 23).
The goodness of the kingdom heart, by contrast, is the positive love of God and of those around us that fills it and crowds out the many forms of evil. From that goodness come deeds of respect and purity that characterize a sexuality as it was meant by God to be.
Willard, Dallas (2009-02-06). The Divine Conspiracy (p. 167-168). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
It’s a bit of a rabbit trail, the fear question. Personally I wouldn’t characterize the modern taxonomy of phobias quite as Marillius did. There’s a fundamental difference between being afraid of something powerful and dangerous vs. being afraid of elevators or water or crowded places. All of the latter can be scary at times in perfectly normal ways, but a phobia has to do with elevated irrational fear of extremely unlikely scenarios… and, usually, unhealthy avoidance behaviors, too.
But we’ve lost something in the modern era. I think it was pretty common in the middle ages to both love and fear your king or your lord. Even more common to fear and not love, I suspect.
In any case, my beef w/much of the currently popular sanctification rhetoric is that its emphasis is quite different from that of the NT, which reveals no concern that believers will try too hard. It does reveal concern that they will try without proper attitudes/understanding. That’s where the real problem is, not in discipline, striving or setting firm boundaries for conduct. (Just be sure to never call these “rules”… which we are supposed to believe now are antithetical to growth)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[Marsilius]Or 5, I sure wish I had my hang glider with me so I could jump off!By the way, my reaction is not really different — if I’m strapped into my glider, I see the cliff a lot differently than I do when hiking along the edge of one without it, so I would guess that as you put it, it becomes a reasoned fear. So in that sense I could agree with your take on this. Fear should not control us, and I agree with those who say that love is a higher and much better motivation for obeying God, but fear is still useful and can help us when we are not doing the right thing for a better reason.I heard someone speak once (don’t know if he was a Christian), who said we do right things for basically 3 reasons: fear, duty, and love. Love is the best motivation, and duty will suffice, but even fear as a motivation is better than not doing what is right, and thus still has a useful place, even if we should be doing right for better reasons.Funny how we have trouble talking about fear nowadays, unless we get into politics - then it is legit. Suppose I unexpectedly come to the edge of a cliff, that plummets a few hundred feet below me. Would my immediate response be
1) love?
2) grace?
3) faith?
4) FEAR? (check here please)
Dave Barnhart
Anne,
Thanks for sharing that. I’ve heard a little bit about The Divine Conspiracy, so maybe now I have an impetus to go read it. :)
I think one of the bigger (biggest?) problems that someone touched on is that so often we present Christianity as an escape from Hell or God’s wrath (wrong start) and then there’s all this stuff we do as a result (wrong outworkings). Then we read things like “Come unto me, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”, and we think “What?” In short, we presented a works based salvation (predicated on a selfish desire to avoid hell) even though we claim we agree with Ephesians 2:8-9. What we should maybe present is that God loves us, but we ruined that relationship with Him and consequently are separated from Him as a result. I’m still chewing on this, but it’s taking me down all kinds of paths that I’d never thought about before. It’s some heavy lifting and thinking.
The message that I mentioned before is “Who Is An Adulterer?, Part One”, from 1979.
…Then He went a step further. He said the standards for My kingdom must exceed the standards that you are now living by, verse 20, “1 say unto you that except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes: and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven.” Now there was the basic standard that Jesus gave. That He required for His kingdom a righteousness beyond that of the scribes and Pharisees, and by the way they were the most righteous people in the Jewish society. And so He’s saying, what I ask is more than they asked, but not more than Moses asked, and not different than Moses. I have not come to alter the law or to change the law but to fulfill the law, and the law in itself demands more than you are now giving. It is a higher standard.
As far as the people knew the scribes and the Pharisees were the most righteous so this was a very hard saying for them to understand. They did not understand how He could require a higher righteousness than that of the scribes and Pharisees. And still accept Mosaic law because they thought the scribes and the Pharisees lived the law of Moses to the hilt. And so their question is, if You believe in Moses, the question in their minds, and You believe in the law of Moses how can You require a greater standard than the scribes and Pharisees who teach us the law of Moses? And as we’ve been learning in past weeks the fact is, though the scribes and the Pharisees sat in the seat of Moses, and though they claimed to be the proponents of the law of Moses, the truth was they themselves had lowered the law of Moses to their own design and were not even keeping that which God originally intended. And so Jesus comes to lift the standard back where it was in the beginning.
Now this is hard for the people to understand and so point by point the Lord goes through verses 21 to 48 giving them illustrations of how the scribes and the Pharisees and the people as well fell short on every aspect of God’s absolute standard. He wants them to see that the people were not living up to God’s standard they had lowered the standard and He wants to raise it back to where it really should be.
Now the Pharisees had their own viewpoint, verse 27, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” And because they didn’t do that they thought they were righteous, they thought they’d go right into the kingdom and have the chief seats. Maybe you’re like that, maybe you say to yourself, I’m not so bad, I’ve never actually gone out on my wife, I’ve never committed adultery, I, I’ve never done that kind of thing. But Jesus says if you ever look on a woman to lust after her you’ve done it in your heart, and that’s enough to damn you to hell forever. That’s the implication of verses 29 and 30. So your self-confidence is shattered here, you see. The external system of law isn’t going to cut it because God is after the attitude. And you see what Jesus wants to do is show them they can’t, they can’t help themselves. You see they could deal with the outside, sure. They could not commit adultery but they couldn’t do anything with the inside. And so Jesus hits them where they’re helpless, hopeless, powerless, which should drive them in desperation to God, who alone can change the heart. They desperately wanted to believe they were okay, Jesus shows them they weren’t.
Now, with that in mind I wanna digress for a minute and, and just cover some things and next week we’ll get back to the specifies of the passage. But notice the beginning of verses 27 and 28, the beginnings again kicked me off into this and I think you’ll find it helpful. Jesus starts “Ye have heard.” Then verse 28, “But I say.” Now this contrast is tremendously important, and I’m gonna give ya a lesson in, in kind of an overall Biblical theology tonight so I want you to get this because this will answer a lot of your questions. You have heard, but I say. This is the same formula, verse 21, “You have heard,” verse 22, “But I say.” Verse 31, “It has been said,” verse 32, “But I say.” Verse 33, “You have heard,” verse 34, “But I say.” It’s all the way through here. It points to their misunderstanding of God’s law, you have heard from the rabbis, from the traditionalists, from the scribes and Pharisees, from those who interpreted the law, but I’m telling you the truth of the law, what you have is not right, it’s not sufficient. They have reduced the law of God to a simple external, and they haven’t given ya the whole story, they’ve told you that you don’t have to commit adultery and that’s it you’re okay, but I’m telling ya there’s more to this than just that.
Now you see again I say what I said at the beginning, you can always, you can always invent a system that you can live up to and then convince yourself you’re righteous. They could avoid committing adultery, but they couldn’t do anything about their secret life. And so they missed the whole point of the Old Testament. When God said, “Thou shalt not kill,” when God said, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” when God gave any other precept in the Old Testament, He was talking about far more than the deed itself and that’s what Jesus wants them to understand.
Now let me show you what I mean. Just stay with me in this. The basic revelation of God’s message to man came through Moses, alright? In fact the Pentateuch, the five Books of Moses, are basically the, the heart, the center, the core of the Old Testament. The Prophets and the writings that follow the Mosaic writings are simply explanations, commentaries, elaborations of what is contained in the Law of Moses. Many, many times as you read through the Prophets you find the prophets indicting the people because they didn’t keep the Law of Moses. You find the prophets going back and saying, “Moses said unto you.” “Or have you forgotten what Moses said?” “Have you forgotten what God did during the time of Moses?” In other words the Pentateuch sets the pace, there you find the Gospel of Moses, the Gospel of God given through Moses. The rest of the Old Testament elaborates on the Pentateuch, it elaborates on that law of God; that set of standards which God laid down through Moses. Now, the whole thing it goes this way then, God gives the basic definitions of what He requires through Moses, He elaborates on it in the law and the prophets, He consummates it in Jesus Christ. So that Christ comes not to change anything but to clear up the issue that the law, the Gospel of Moses hasn’t changed.
Now, the, the essence or the heart of the Gospel of Moses is found in the Book of Deuteronomy. Now let’s look at it together. Deuteronomy is the 5th and last of the five Books of Moses, and in this Book we have a summarate…summary of the law of God. I believe, I don’t know if you agree with me on this but stay with me and maybe you will, I believe that Deuteronomy is the most important Book in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy is coming from two Greek words, deutero meaning second and nomos meaning law. It is the second law, it is the reiteration of the law given by God, it is the summation. As the Book of Deuteronomy opens the people are ready to enter the promised land, they are about to go into Canaan, they have been delivered from bondage in Egypt, they are God’s people, they have been identified as God’s people and now they’re going to take their land, they’re going to take the possession of the land God gave them…
Now by the way, I believe the summary of the entire Old Testament, in fact I believe the summary of the entire Bible is in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 5, “And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might.” That is the pinnacle of the whole Bible. Elsewhere in Deuteronomy it says, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Now there you have the consummation of all of God’s truth. In fact Jesus said, “Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength. (ah-hh) And thy neighbor as thyself. On this hang all the law and the prophets.” The law is what’s in front of Deuteronomy the prophets what comes after and the whole thing hinges right here.
Now then listen, I want you to listen to this, really critical, as we go to the Old Testament we find the key is in the Pentateuch, as we look at the Pentateuch the key is in Deuteronomy, as we look at Deuteronomy the key is in chapter 6 verse 5, “Thou shalt love the LORD.” Now listen to me, the Old Testament is not building a relationship on law, it is building a relationship on what? Love. And people do not understand this. They think the Old Testament economy was an economy of law. It is not, it is an economy of love. It is a relationship that God is after. Love is the key to a relation to God, and all throughout Deuteronomy God continues to say, I want you to love Me, I want you to love Me, I want you to love Me, I want a heart commitment, I want a heart devotion, I want a wholehearted kind of genuine affection for Me.
Now listen, Moses throughout Deuteronomy, and if we had time we’d go right through the book, and you can do it yourself, over and over and over he says to the people as they enter the land, you must love the Lord, you must love the Lord, you must love the Lord, why? Because it is a relationship of love that God has always sought with man, always.
Now let me tell you something that’ll help you. Before God ever gave the law as we know it, the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue and all the other statutes and commandments, listen to this, before God ever did that He established a relationship with Israel. He first loved Israel. Chapter…well we’ll see it later in chapter 10 but, He first loved Israel. And because He loved Israel He called Israel out of Egypt, He saved Israel, He redeemed Israel and it was only after the loving relationship and redemption that He gave them the law, do you understand? The law was not the cause of the relationship it was the result of it. It is the relationship God was after. You have to understand this and I’m gonna build on it so I hope you getting it. God’s love had been exhibited to generations earlier when they were freed from Egypt, and when they were freed from Egypt God had redeemed them, God had saved them as it were, God had made them His people, and because they had a relationship He then said, this is how you live.
And so the New Testament says the same thing, the Gospel of Moses, the Gospel of Jesus, the Gospel of Paul, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of James, and the Gospel of John are all identical. We love Him because He first what? Loved us. God loved Israel, that’s how it all began. God loved us; that’s how it all began. First we had a relationship of love and then we had a response of obedience to His law.
Look with me now at the 10th chapter of Deuteronomy and I’ll show you this. I read it this morning in the service, I’m gonna go over it again. And what Moses is saying is, alright people you’re going into the land, you’re gonna go in the land and I want ya to remember this one thing, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” Now what I’m saying to you people is that it is the attitude that God has always been after. Listen to me, it is not that God wanted them to keep a bunch of external laws; it is that God wanted them to love Him on the inside. And that’s why Jesus says it isn’t an issue that you don’t murder and it isn’t an issue that you don’t commit adultery, what is the issue is what’s in your heart, you see.
It’s always been that way, this isn’t anything just New Testament. Look at chapter 10 verse 12, “And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee,” what does God want out of you? And you might say, well, boy we better get those Ten Commandments straight. Well that isn’t what he starts with, “fear the LORD thy God, walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul.” And then, “To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?” That’s no different than the Gospels, that’s no different than Paul, that’s exactly what the New Testament says, love God and do what He says. Why, First John even tells us that if you say you love God and you don’t keep His commandments, you’re a liar, right? But the love comes first and then the obedience. It’s a relationship, and that’s what He talks about all the way through this passage.
Verse 19 He adds the second dimension. Not only love God but, “Love, therefore the stranger; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” And so this is the whole sum of everything. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. “Fear the Lord, (verse 20) serve him, cleave to him.” I love that. Verses…verse 1 of chapter 11 listen to it, “Therefore, thou shalt love the LORD thy God, keep his charge, his statutes, his ordinances, his commandments, always.” You see? It’s, it’s love, it’s the love that He’s after. The key is verse 16, “Circumcise, therefore, the foreskin of your what? Your heart.” Your heart. That’s what He’s after. He was always after a heart relationship, always after a heart attitude. Never, never was He satisfied with something external, it was love from the heart. So the sum of it all in the first 11, the first 11 or first 10 and 11 chapters of Deuteronomy, you could see the whole sum of this first 11 chapters is this, love God and love your neighbor, that’s what God requires of you. And that is exactly what Jesus said in the New Testament, that is exactly what the Epistles say, love the Lord, love Him so that you’re obedient, love one another, love one another, it’s the same message, nothin’ different.
And then in Deuteronomy chapter 12 through 26, that next big section, you don’t need to follow, just listen. In Deuteronomy 12 through 26 Moses interprets and applies these two basic principles. He then takes the principle of loving God and the principle of loving your neighbor and applies them to every daily situation, to every kind of living matter, to everything that goes on in life. He does that all the way through chapter 26.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
[Jay]I think one of the bigger (biggest?) problems that someone touched on is that so often we present Christianity as an escape from Hell or God’s wrath (wrong start)
Not to quibble, but Jesus said that He came to give life (abundant life). and Paul uses this exact motivation in Romans 2: “He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.”
Life, eternal life - escape from hell - is always the goal of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. (See Deuteronomy 30:15-20: choose life by obedience or choose death by turning away from God’s commands.)
To be clear - we cannot earn justification or salvation - just as we do not earn the favor of our spouse in marriage. However, in both salvation and in marriage, faithfulness to what we have promised is required if those covenants are to continue.
formerly known as Coach C
[Jay]I think one of the bigger (biggest?) problems that someone touched on is that so often we present Christianity as an escape from Hell or God’s wrath (wrong start) and then there’s all this stuff we do as a result (wrong outworkings). Then we read things like “Come unto me, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”, and we think “What?” In short, we presented a works based salvation (predicated on a selfish desire to avoid hell) even though we claim we agree with Ephesians 2:8-9. What we should maybe present is that God loves us, but we ruined that relationship with Him and consequently are separated from Him as a result. I’m still chewing on this, but it’s taking me down all kinds of paths that I’d never thought about before. It’s some heavy lifting and thinking.
I haven’t much time b/c we are leaving for a wkend of rafting, but i wanted to say, I have come to a different conclusion, though i’m not sure how much of it is what I’ve come to understand as I mature, and how much i’d really use/say in an actual evangelism context.
but we don’t really, of ourselves, understand how much/easily we break the law, and how much we are utterly incapable of meeting God’s standards. I think we are so used to meeting a social standard.
ideally, perhaps, the unsaved/saved person has to come more and more to see that God’s standard is so high, His righteousness is only attainable by Christ. our good deeds/obediences are not righteous, in God’s standards. they cannot be.
and then, in Christ, it is attained. Christ is all.
we get so used to living according to society’s standards, our own expectations, our church’s standards. and we don’t realize God’s true standards, and how they are met in Christ and we follow in His steps.
one example i often think of is the “read your bible every day” or “read your bible through in a yr” standards of righteousness we have created. but if we stop and consider, even that is so very far from God’s standard for us in relating to His word. we could even be doing those things, and missing entirely God’s will for us towards His Word. we are to love it, delight in it, treasure it, live it, obey it, etc, etc etc. Do we acknowledge how far we fall from God’s standard, even if we read our Bible every day and through in a year, and how we can see, in Christ, perfect fulfillment of God’s desire for us to relate to His Word, and then follow that example as the Spirit leads us.
Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically, as something done for the Lord and not for men, knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong he has done, and there is no favoritism. Colossians 2:23 (Holman)
It could easily be added to the OP.
formerly known as Coach C
Tangential again, but a couple posts up, Jay seems to equate receiving salvation out of selfish desire to avoid Hell with salvation by works. But these are different issues.
1. A desire to avoid Hell may reflect self interest but it isn’t selfish in any sinful sense. We’re supposed to want to live rather than die and supposed to want blessing rather than wrath.
2. The reason a person seeks salvation is one thing, the means he uses (or thinks he uses) in order to obtain salvation is another thing. The first is motivation, the second method.
So the result is that while Scripture says it’s impossible to be saved by works, it does not say you can’t be saved “out of a selfish desire to avoid Hell.”
But none of this has much to do with the dynamic in a person who is already justified, regenerated, a new creation, indwelled with the Spirit, etc.
It really shouldn’t be surprising to us that life works differently after we born again than it does before, or even as we are born again. (Col. 2:6 notwithstanding. “As you have received…so walk in Him” is not meant to say works has no role in walking because it had no role in receiving. Even the word “walk” argues against that idea. But so do numerous other passages. See OP)
As for Col. 2:23, two observations.
1) Paul is probably talking about asceticism. 2) He is certainly talking about placing faith in severe treatment of the body itself. This is different from placing faith in God to empower obedience that includes some severe treatment of the body sometimes. It’s like the difference between saying “I trust my running ability to get me to Hawaii” and saying “I trust a jet to get me to Hawaii but sometimes I have to run through an airport in the process.”
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[Joshua Caucutt] To be clear - we cannot earn justification or salvation - just as we do not earn the favor of our spouse in marriage. However, in both salvation and in marriage, faithfulness to what we have promised is required if those covenants are to continue.
We cannot earn it but we have to do things to keep it??
He that began the good work in you will be faithful to complete it. It is God that works in you, both to will and to do …
[DavidO]We cannot earn it but we have to do things to keep it??
He that began the good work in you will be faithful to complete it. It is God that works in you, both to will and to do …
Biblically speaking, yes. For instance, baptism does not save or earn salvation, but if you refuse it, will you be saved?
See John 15, Hebrews 10 … all kinds of references which speak of “keep yourselves in the love of God” “abide” “remain” etc. Parable of the soils, of the unforgiving slave, of the talents, so many more…
Remember also that context is critical here and your understanding of Philippians 1:6 cannot contradict what Paul says elsewhere: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” for example.
Remember that the marriage covenant is a picture of our covenant relationship with God. If you or I are unrepentantly unfaithful in marriage, that covenant will broken. That turn of events would make us no less married in the first place. It is possible to sin your way out of the covenant, but it all starts with the church - a biblical church. See Rev. 2, 3 for many allusions to this principle.
formerly known as Coach C
So these who are severed from Christ, are you saying they progress through the Romans 8 process of called, justified, but are cast away due to their unfaithfulness prior to glorification? Or are you saying they were never involved in that process at all?
Yes. They entered the state of justification - which God graciously granted to them on the basis of faith alone, but did not persevere - they reached a point where the cost of obeying Christ was outweighed by their desires for the world. “No man who puts his hand to the plow and turns back is fit for the kingdom of heaven.”
From a Calvinist point of view, we might say that they were granted repentance for a time, but not to the end. 2 Tim. 2:25 Again, think of all of the examples in Scripture, read 1 Cor. 10 and Hebrews 4 - nearly parallel texts which warn about this possibility.
These received the grace of God in vain.
formerly known as Coach C
Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
Doesn’t the natural reading of this indicate that the all members of the first “these” (actually a “whom”) are members of the final “these”? Without exception?
Seems simpler (and more consistent with the witness of scripture) to me to class those who fall away with those Christ never knew, those who departed from us because they were not [ever] of us, although from all outward appearance and testimony the seemed to be of us.
But some will enter justification who were never predestined for glorification. Look at Hebrews 3:12-19, note especially the use of the word “brother.”
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. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
Also, the warning given by Paul in 1 Cor. 10:1-5 and following:
For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
What is Paul saying here? The plain sense is that a person can be a brother, can be in Christ, but it is possible for that one to be severed (Gal. 5:4), to be unforgiven (Matt. 18), to be removed from the vine (John 15) and for one’s name to be at one point written in the book, but then blotted out (Revelation).
formerly known as Coach C
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