DeYoung The Hole in Our Holiness

Filling the Gap between Gospel Passion and the Pursuit of Godliness
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4335-3337-2
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 160 Seiten

The hole in our holiness is that we don't care much about holiness. Or, at the very least, we don't understand it. And we all have our reasons too: Maybe the pursuit of holiness seems legalistic. Maybe it feels like one more thing to worry about in your already overwhelming life. Maybe the emphasis on effort in the Christian life appears unspiritual. Or maybe you've been trying really hard to be holy and it's just not working! Whatever the case, the problem is clear: too few Christians look like Christ and too many don't seem all that concerned about it. This is a book for those of us who are ready to take holiness seriously, ready to be more like Jesus, ready to live in light of the grace that produces godliness. This is a book about God's power to help us grow in personal holiness and to enjoy the process of transformation.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is the senior pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte. He has written books for children, adults, and academics, including Just Do Something; Impossible Christianity; and The Biggest Story Bible Storybook. Kevin's work can be found on clearlyreformed.org. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Deyoung, Kevin

Leseproben

Chapter Two

THE REASON FOR REDEMPTION

Why did God save you?

It’s not a bad question, if you think about it. After all, you were dead in your sins and trespasses (Eph. 2:1). As a descendent of the first man, Adam, you share in the guilt and corruption of his, the first sin (Rom. 5:12–21). You were an enemy of God (v. 10), a sinner brought forth in iniquity (Ps. 51:5), by nature deserving of wrath (Eph. 2:3). You were a sinner who sinned and deserved to die (Rom. 6:23). But here’s the good news for every Christian reading this book: the Bible says that, at just the right time, Jesus Christ died for you (5:8). The Good Shepherd laid down his life for his sheep (John 10:15). Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath for you (see Mark 10:45). His death on the cross means God is now for you instead of against you (Rom. 3:25; 8:31–39). By faith, through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, you are a reconciled, justified, adopted child of God. What good news!

But why?

Maybe you’ve thought about how God saves us, or what we must do to be saved, or when you were saved. But have you ever considered why he saved you?

There is more than one right answer to that question. The Bible says God saved us because he loves us (John 3:16). It also tells us that God saved us for the praise of his own name (Eph. 1:6, 12, 14). Those are two of the best answers to the why question.

But there is another answer—just as good, just as biblical, just as important. God saved you so that you might be holy. Pay attention to the purpose statement in this passage from Ephesians:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him . . . that we should be holy and blameless before him. (Eph. 1:3–4)

God chose us for salvation in eternity past and sent Christ to save us in history and gave us the gift of faith by the working of the Holy Spirit in our lifetimes so that we might be holy.

And notice Paul is not talking about the righteousness of Christ reckoned to our account when we believe in Jesus. I’ll have much more to say about this in the pages ahead, but I want you to see from the outset that Ephesians 1:4 (and there are lots of texts like this one) is talking about a personal holiness that must characterize the life of the believer on the last day and at the present time.1 Paul is setting up the summons to put off the old self and put on the new (4:22–24). He’s thinking of being cleansed by the washing of water with the word (5:26). When God saves us by the righteousness of Christ, he saves us so that we too should be marked by righteousness. As J. I. Packer put it, “In reality, holiness is the goal of our redemption. As Christ died in order that we may be justified, so we are justified in order that we may be sanctified and made holy.”2

Distinctive holiness has been God’s plan for his people in both Testaments:

You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. (Ex. 19:4–6a)

Do you see again the reason for divine deliverance? God saved the Israelites unto holiness. God set them free from slavery to the Egyptians so they might be free to walk in his ways. They were to be a nation of people so set apart, so sanctified, so holy that they might as well have been priests—every last one of them. Every Christian in every church ought to live out this same priestly identity (1 Pet. 2:9). It’s the reason God has rescued us:

• “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began” (2 Tim. 1:8–9).
• “For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness” (1 Thess. 4:7).
• “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).
• “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:25–27).

The Bible could not be any clearer. The reason for your entire salvation, the design behind your deliverance, the purpose for which God chose you in the first place is holiness.

A NECESSARY GOOD

Not only is holiness the goal of your redemption, it is necessary for your redemption. Now before you sound the legalist alarm, tie me up by my own moral bootstraps, and feed my carcass to the Galatians, we should see what Scripture has to say:

• According to Jesus, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21). It’s possible to profess the right things and still not be saved. Only those who do the will of the Father will enter the kingdom. And this means hearing Jesus’ words and doing them (v. 26).
• Many passages like 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 teach that “the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God.” We find this same emphasis in Galatians 5:19–21. It’s the consistent and frequent teaching of the Bible that those whose lives are marked by habitual ungodliness will not go to heaven. To find acquittal from God on the last day there must be evidence flowing out of us that grace has flowed into us.
• In particular, 1 John outlines several criteria for determining whether we truly belong to God.3 Not only will those born of God confess the Son (1 John 2:23; 4:15) and believe that Jesus is the Christ (5:1), they will also keep God’s commandments (2:3–4), walk as Christ walked (2:5–6), practice righteousness (2:29), and overcome the world (5:4). “We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him” (5:18).
• Likewise, the book of James makes clear that a faith without accompanying works is no saving faith (James 2:14). “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (v. 17). Many Christians have struggled to reconcile the emphasis on works in James with the emphasis on faith apart from works in Paul. But there is no real conflict. Paul wants us to see that faith is the instrumental means for being right with God. Nothing contributes to our salvation. The only ground is the righteousness of Christ. James, on the other hand, wants us to see that evidences of godliness must accompany true faith. We are justified by faith alone, but the faith that justified us is never alone. Paul is describing true and living faith; James is arguing against a false faith which consists in nothing but spiritually dead intellectual assent (vv. 17, 19, 20, 26).
• And then there’s Hebrews 12:14: “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” In other words, holiness is not an option. Some of you may be thinking, “Yes, that’s absolutely right. We must be holy, and we are counted holy because of Christ.” That’s true. And in fact, elsewhere in Hebrews we see that holiness—what some theologians call “definitive sanctification”—is a gift we receive through the gospel (10:10, 14). But Hebrews 12 is about the practical outworking of this positional holiness.4 The holiness of Hebrews 12:14 is not a holiness we receive but a holiness we “strive” for. This makes sense given the context of discipline in the first half of chapter 12. The Hebrews were professing Christians suffering for their Christianity and in danger of making shipwreck of their faith (10:39). So God the Father disciplined them, so that they might be trained by it unto righteousness (12:11). God was intent on making his children holy, because holiness must mark out all those who would have fellowship with a holy God.

There are literally hundreds of verses like these. In 1990 John Piper wrote a long letter everyone should read. It’s called “A Letter to a Friend Concerning the So-Called ‘Lordship Salvation.’”5 Back then there was a big debate about whether you could have Christ as Savior without having him as Lord. John MacArthur wrote The Gospel According to Jesus to help people see that the only way to truly follow Jesus is to follow him as Savior and Lord.6 After another minister questioned Piper’s support for the book, Piper wrote this “Letter to a Friend.” Following the letter itself is an appendix which lists “Texts That Point to the Necessity of Yielding to Christ as Lord in Order to Inherit Eternal Life.” It’s a...