Moments of Eternal Glory (5): The Believer's Role
Read the first parts of this series:
Part 1: Santification and Glory
Part 2: Father's Role
Part 3: Son's Role
Part 4: Spirit's Role
Part 1: Santification and Glory
Part 2: Father's Role
Part 3: Son's Role
Part 4: Spirit's Role
So therefore, in view of God’s mercy… and what marvelous
mercy. This past week has been filled with doubts and ups-and-downs and peace
and more doubts. Decisions and I clash. In the process, God has been for me,
using this process for my sanctification. Each moment of my day, the decision
making process, is limned with eternal glory. There are no neutral moments—we
eat and drink for God’s glory or for the glory of something else. Each moment
is a little decision that shapes us into eternal beings.
It is a serious thing
to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the
dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature
which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a
horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.
All day long we are, in some degree, [being shaped into] one or other of these
destinations (1).
Good and evil both
increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make
every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the
capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to
go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust
or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which
the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible (2).
Yet, praise God I am not alone in those moments, that the
Father is for me, the Son has completed my definitive sanctification on which
my stumbling steps of holiness are founded on, and the Spirit has washed me and
enables me.
In view of God’s mercy…. I offer myself as a living
sacrifice. We can actively respond to God’s initiative, looking to him by faith
for divine enablement. Philippians 2:12-13 sets forth the paradox. God supplies
the call, the grounds, the means, the power, motivation, and desire. Yet, the
Bible includes warnings about the seriousness of our efforts. We must pray for,
extend energy and discipline toward sanctification, and put on the new nature
and put off the old desires.
Yet, in this beautiful yet difficult journey, it is possible
to be so zealous that the focus shifts from God to human effort. In light of
all he has done! And we want to highlight our martyrdom, our sacrifice, our
heroic efforts in this thing called sanctification or the Christian life. The
moments that are lined with glory become dark. God is robbed of his glory. Our
holiness, rather than God himself, becomes the goal. God is no longer the
Giver, we give our “gifts” to him. What dangers lie!
Instead, sanctification is also by grace and faith alone. We
are completely dependent on him in this as well; we are not saved by grace and
then try to live the Christian life on our own. I fell into that trap; tried
that and reaped a distorted view of a disappointed god and a despairing,
failure-self. I wish I had deeply known that the power for sanctification is
“accessible in our experience through faith, not through simple striving of the
will. Many aspects of the flesh are disarmed and eliminated by a deep
apprehension of our justification by faith” (4). In trust and faith, believers
yield to the Spirit’s filling and renewing and allow the Spirit full access to
the deep corners of their life (5).
It is also by faith that we behold Christ, the model and
goal of our transformation. He is our holiness (1 Cor. 1:30). Speaking of 2
Corinthians 4:6, John Piper comments, “We are transformed ‘into the…image’ of
the Lord by means of fixing our attention on his glory… [The Holy Spirit] does
not change us directly; he changes us by enabling us to see the glory of Christ”
(6). Furthermore, believers abide by faith, which the apostle John connects to
a life of obedience, victory, love, and fruit-bearing (7).
The biblical picture of our active pursuit of holiness in
response to God’s gracious initiative is presented in multiple images:
striving, cultivating fruit, reckoning dead to sin, fighting, presenting
oneself as a living sacrifice, putting off and putting on, putting to death,
walking by the Spirit, imitating Christ, and responding to the God-sent
suffering and trials, and submitting to God’s discipline (8). Yet, all picture
our effort in response to God, empowered and encouraged by him and his promises
(9). All of us who have recognized these daily moments of glory for God or for
someone/something else recognize that it is warfare; but God uses this spiritual
conflict also to build spiritual maturity. Finally, sanctification is a life of
repentance—a turning from the world, flesh, sinful desires, and a turning to
God. Ouch. Not easy. Yet, this too is limned with eternal glory. Knowing God is
a God of grace, repentance is a sweet sorrow—we run to him. It is a response, a
movement of grace, in this glory-limned world.
Finally, a further implication of the Triune God’s
involvement and our participation is the role of the church in sanctification.
So many people—and you know who you are—have held my hand, held up my faith,
walked with me. Thank you. God is a God of community in his own nature. We
together are being built up together into a holy temple, a holy nation, and a
priesthood to declare his praises. Together, we are called to spur each other
on, rebuke, and edify each other for growth in holiness. These are glory gifts
we give each other.
NOTES
(1) C. S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory,” in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (1949;
repr., New York
(2) C. S. Lewis, Mere
Christianity (1952; repr., New
York
(3) See Christopher James Bosson, “A Scriptural Appraisal of
the Necessary Connection between Progressive Sanctification and Compatibilist
Freedom,” PhD diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2010, 181, 188-191; David M. Ciocchi, “Understanding
our Ability to Endure Temptation: A Theological Watershed,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological
Society 35, no. 4 (December 1992): 463-479; John S. Feinberg, “God,
Freedom, and Evil in Calvinist Thinking,” in The Grace of God and the Bondage of the Will: Historical and Theological
Perspectives on Calvinism, ed. Thomas R. Schreiner and Bruce A. Ware (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1995), 2: 462-470. God does not merely constrain
believers, but works in them so that their desire is his desire, they will
their sanctification. Bosson writes of
the believer, “As he begins more and more to desire the things of God, as his
character is conformed to God’s character, he naturally does those things that
please God” (181). Thus, sanctification probably best fits with a compatibilist
view of freedom, retaining God’s sovereignty over each moment of
sanctification, yet leaving moral responsibility and effort on believers’
parts.
(4) Richard Lovelace, Dynamics
of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal (Downers Grove, IL:
IVP Academic, 1979), 115.
(5) Bruce Demarest, The
Cross and Salvation: The Doctrine of Salvation (Wheaton, IL: Crossway
Books, 1997), 426; C.S. Lewis, Mere
Christianity (1952; repr., New
York
(6) John Piper, God is
the Gospel: Mediations on God’s Love as the Gift of Himself (Wheaton , IL Grand Rapids ,
MI
(7) Jn. 15:1-17; Jn. 8:31; 1 Jn. 2:14; 1 Jn. 4:7-21.
(8) Lk.
13:24; Heb. 4:11; Heb. 12:14; 1 Cor. 9:25-27; 1 Tim. 6:12; Gal. 5:17-25; Rom.
6:11; Rom. 12:1; Col. 3:9-14; Col. 3:5; Eph. 5:18; Rom. 8:14; Gal. 5:16; 1 Jn.
2:6; 1 Cor. 11:1; Phil. 3:10; Heb. 10:32-34; Jam. 1:26-27; Rom. 5:1-5; 2 Cor.
4:17-18; Heb. 12:7-11; Ps. 119:17. As
noted above, one plague of the theology of sanctification is the separation of
theology from practice, as noted by John Coe, “Spiritual Theology: A
Theological-Experiential Methodology for Bridging the Sanctification Gap,” Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care
2, no. 1 (2009): 4-43. For pastoral help in mortification and vivification,
see Robert W. Kellemen, Spiritual
Friends: A Methodology of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction (Winona Lake,
IN: BMH Books, 2005), 266-276, 302-340; Kris Lundgaard, The Enemy Within: Straight Talk about the Power and Defeat of Sin (Philipsburg,
NJ: P & R Publishing, 1998); and Tim Keller, “Puritan Resources for
Biblical Counseling,” Christian Counseling Education Foundation, article posted June 1, 2010,
http://www.ccef.org/puritan-resources-biblical-counseling (accessed April 20,
2013).
(9) David Peterson, 74; Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998), 1003-1005.
How do these verses fit in with the strong view of God’s sovereignty over the
believer’s progressive sanctification and glorification? Erickson argues
effectively from John 10:27-30 and Hebrews 6:4-6 that the grace of God keeps
believers from falling away not by making it impossible for them to do so, but
by making it certain they will not. This preserves both freedom and God’s
sovereignty.
(10) Heb. 10:24-25; 1 Tim. 5:20; Rom. 15:14; Jude 22-23; 2
Cor. 5:11; Col. 1:28-29; Mat. 18:15-20; Eph. 4:11-16; 1 Cor. 12.
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