The Kingdom of God is not in Words, by A.W. Tozer

The sound quality is awful but the message was great, I think. Tozer speaks on I Cor. 4:20 on the point that Paul puts forth: the Kingdom of God is not in word but in power. In the church “we must demand more than correct doctrine, though we must not have less than correct doctrine; more than right living, though we dare not have less than right living; more than a friendly atmosphere, though we dare not have less than a friendly atmosphere; we must demand that the Word of God be preached in power and that we hear it in power.” Specifically significant to me was the point Tozer makes about how it is no wonder that children who are drilled with catechisms from childhood often stray away from the faith. Mere words do not suffice, for it is not the words, but by the power of God and the meaning behind the words that we see and better understand our Father.

Mark Driscoll on Preaching Christ

I found this on Adrian Warnock’s blog. Driscoll was at the Dwell Conference recently in London and this is one of his sessions. I have yet to listen to it personally (although I do intend to soon), but thought I’d post it if any of you wanted to. If you want to just read the notes, Warnock provides a nice outline on his blog here (Aug. 17th entry). I’ve found that listening to pastor conferences on how to interpret scripture has helped me during my own quiet times, and may also be helpful for small group leaders as they “prep” their weekly passages.

Outdoing One Another

Recently, on Desiring God’s blog, I saw a blog post by Sam Crabtree about outdoing one another. I love the imagery that Paul gives us in Romans 12:10: ” Love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor.” Paul goes farther than just commanding us to love one another, he asks us to outdo one another in that. And if we are to think that this is a road leading to pride, Crabtree emphasizes that in showing honor we give honor, not obtain it. That is the essence of giving honor to others, that we are humbled.

Crabtree also offers a second observation:

If God enables you to outdo others in showing honor, the others will receive more honor than you (at least until heaven’s rewards are bestowed).

And if God enables you to succeed in outdoing others in love, the others will be, well, less loving than you, because you’re outdoing them. And that’s exactly how love behaves. It loves those who are less loving.

To read the whole post on Desiring God, click here.

Miscellaneous Item of Interest

For the curious, or for those who are actually interested in becoming a pastor one day, Joshua Harris is starting a series on his blog where he is uploading preachers’ sermon notes that are used during a Sunday morning service. Although I’m not planning to be a pastor, I thought it was just very interesting to see what their sermon notes actually look like. And Harris has some good preachers lined up:

The first was Mark Dever’s exposition of Isaiah 52:13-53:12. Click here to see Devers’ manuscript.

Does the Doctrine of Imputation Imply the Cross is Insufficient?

During my upbringing in the church, what was emphasized about the cross (when it was talked about) was its expiatory nature. What the cross accomplishes is expiation of sin. What was not talked about was propitiation-the fact that the atonement was also the satisfaction of the holy wrath of the Father who is just and thus punishes sin. Furthermore, when speaking of the cross and its work of justification, I would never hear of the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.

When I finished John Pipers’ “The Future of Justification,” I skimmed through the appendices to see if there were any specific topics that caught my interest. Appendix Five (p. 211-214) snagged my attention because it asked a question that has been on my mind whenever we discuss the doctrine of imputation: does the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness imply that the cross is insufficient for our right standing with God?

In other words, can we have right standing with God without the doctrine of imputation as long as the propitiatory and expiatory nature of the atonement is applied to us? Or do we need the cross plus Christ’s obedient life?

Piper takes us through several key logical deductions. First, he lists verse that give rise to this question of justification without imputation. We see that in the Bible justification is oftentimes linked with the cross, without any mention of Christ’s righteous obedience: Romans 3:24-25, 4:25, 5:9; Galatians 2:21. Furthermore, the cross is the central focus of where sin can be forgiven: Colossians 2:14; 1 Corinthians 15:3; Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24; Revelation 1:5; 1 John 1:7. Now all these verses point to the cross, Christ’s atoning death, as the means of justification.

So is the death of Christ sufficient for the cleansing of all our sins? Piper answers, “Yes, but only as the climax of a sinless life.” He directs us to Hebrews 4:15, 7:27-28, 2:10, 5:9, all of which deal explicitly with the perfect obedience of Christ in relationship to the atonement. The New Testament writers did not view the perfect life of Christ and his death as separate, but as one long line of consistent obedience. When Paul speaks of Christ’s obedience being the cause of our justification, he does not mean only Christ’s obedience unto death, but also his entire obedient life leading up to that death (Rom. 5:19, Phil. 2:7-8).

The cross is the culmination of a life of obedience and hence cannot be separated from the doctrine of imputation for it is part and parcel. Justification requires the cross and the cross is only possible as the climax of Christ’s life of perfect obedience. I will end by quoting Piper directly:

So back to our initial question: “Does the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness imply that the cross is insufficient for our right standing with God?” The answer is no. Just as the perfectly obedient life of Christ is essential to the death of Christ as a covering for our sin, so the perfectly obedient life of Christ is essential to the death of Christ as the supreme act of obedience by which we are appointed righteous in him. The death of Christ is sufficient for the covering our sins as the climax of a sinless life. And the death of Christ is sufficient for our justification as the climax of a sinless life (p. 214).

Don’t Waste Your Humor, by C.J. Mahaney

I am posting early again because tomorrow I’ll be on the plane all day on my way to Chicago. Hopefully I will arrive in one piece, Lord willing,

I commended this sermon (to listen, play mp3 above) to you all in the previous post on Chapter 8 of John Owen’s “Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers,” and have actually found time to listen to it myself. Mahaney gives three points during his sermon, which is aimed at painting a Biblical perspective on humor.

1. Humor generates joy.
The importance of joy in the Christian life is key. Mahaney points us to Nehemiah 8:10, the famous verse of the joy of the Lord being our strength. He is quick to note that the joy of the Lord can and will be experienced without humor, but humor can and is a means of experiencing this joy as well.

2. Humor cultivates humility.
Only the humble are truly happy and only the humble are able to laugh at themselves. Humor can cultivate humility through practicing self-deprecating humor as well as being the object of humor pointing out true deficiencies as an expression of affection. If we can laugh at others when they are the object of affectionate humor and not when we are objects of it, there may be a problem. Thus we are agents of God’s sanctifying work by using our humor to cultivate humility in others and also being the object of such humor. I think one great example of this is our mutual love for Sammy, our mutual joking about his height, and Sammy’s own self-deprecating humor about his vertical challenges (all this said with much love).

3. Humor serves others.
All humor needs to be theologically informed and edification of others to the glory of God (Ephesians 4:29). This means we do not laugh at things that God does not find humorous and instead finds offensive, and we should examine all motives and content of our humor. Our primary purpose should be to care for people whereas humor is a means of that. We do not try to learn to be funny as a way of drawing attention to ourselves, but try to serve others as the ultimate goal. We should have gospel-centered laughter/humor (Psalm 126:1-3).

What is the ‘Righteousness of God’?

Desiring God, John Piper’s ministry, offers a majority of his books online for free, whereby you can read them in PDF form and even download them on your computer for future reading. This has been a great blessing, especially for those of us who want to save some money. Currently, I’m reading through “The Future of Justification,” written by John Piper as a response to N. T. Wright and the New Perspective on Paul.

If you would like to read “The Future of Justification,” click here. What I talk about below can be found on pages 64-67. So what Piper is discussing in this chapter is the law-court dynamics of justification and God’s righteousness. I’m going to be taking this out of context of Piper’s dialectic with N. T. Wright and simply focus on his definition of “the righteousness of God.”

There is the common definition that God is righteous because He does what is good and right. But eventually, as we get older, we begin to see flaw in that logic because God does not subscribe to a higher order of laws dictating what is good and right. God does what is good and right because He dictates what is good and right. How then should we define God’s righteousness? Piper writes:

“…the essence of the righteousness of God is his unwavering faithfulness to uphold the glory of his name. And human righteousness is the same: the unwavering faithfulness to uphold the glory of God (p. 64).”

The following are some verses Piper cites for us to meditate on:
Isaiah 48:9-11, 43:25; Psalm 79:9, 143:11; Ezekiel 36:20-23; 1 Samuel 12:22

All these verses present God as keeping His covenant because of His righteousness, namely his allegiance to His own glory. But does Pauline theology match up with this?

Piper says yes and refers to:
Romans 1:18-21, 1:23, 2:23-24, 3:23

In reference to Romans 3:23, “fall[ing] short of” means “lack of” and we lack the glory of God because we have exchanged it for idols. This means we have replaced the desire for God and for His glory with a desire for other things and our own glory.

A QUESTION TO PONDER: So if God is concerned ultimately with His own glory, does God violate 1 Corinthians 13:5 which says love “is not self-seeking (NIV)”, “does not insist on its own way (ESV)” and “does not seek its own (NASB)”?

Counted Righteous in Christ by John Piper (Blog Index)

This scholarly work is a refutation of the view that the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness is unbiblical and unnecessary to the doctrine of justification. Because of the new change in the methodology used in this blog (namely the discontinuation of summaries), the blogposts made relating to this book were mainly brief summaries of specific points and also brief commentary.

Only a total of four posts were made concerning John Piper’s “Counted Righteous in Christ,” wherein only one directly addresses the main issue of the book. A summary of the argument can be found in the post “The Controversy of Faith as Our Righteousness,” whereas the other three posts referred to other aspects of the doctrine of imputation which were generally referred to in the footnotes or sub-points.

Page 27: Applying the Doctrine of Imputation Horizontally
Page 42: Justification at Stake in Three ‘Storms’
Summary: The Controversy of Faith as Our Righteousness
Page 121: Practical Applications of the Doctrine of Imputation

As a brief explanation of the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, I’ve embedded a video below, provided by Desiring God, of Sinclair Ferguson giving a summary of this doctrine.

To read online, click here.

Practical Applications of the Doctrine of Imputation

This will be the last installment of posts on “Counted Righteous in Christ,” although I may still post one or two more on the doctrine of imputation. To see where we’re heading after that, I believe I will try to complete “Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers” series before I head back to the U.S. at the end of this week.

The doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness is all nice and good, but are there real practical applications if we adhere to it? In the conclusion (p. 121-125) of “Counted Righteous in Christ,” John Piper speaks about the reasons for which we should defend this doctrine. I’ve taken the liberty of putting them under my own labels to help organize his thoughts.

In Sanctification
We are counted perfectly righteous because of Christ’s righteousness, but we are still called to obey God. Without this obedience as fruit of faith, we have no reason to believe that we are saved (Matt. 6:15; Jn. 5:28-29; Rom. 8:13; Gal. 6:8-9; 2 Thess. 2:13; Jm. 2:17; 1 Jn. 2:17; 3:14). Piper then states, “the only hope for making progress in this radical demand for holiness and love is the hope that our righteousness before God is on another solid footing besides our own imperfect obedience as Christians (p. 123).”

Pastoral Antidote for Despair
Piper cites John Bunyan’s example of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness being a unique salve for the despair of sinful disobedience. Disobedience can cause uncertainty of right standing with God, and the reassurance can come in the form of this doctrine whereby our disobedience is not condemning for our righteousness is not from our obedience, but Christ’s.

God is More Glorious
God is not only given glory as the one who forgives us, as the one who gives faith and hence maintains obedience, but also as the one who gives perfect righteousness so that we may be fully accepted by God. Thus God is more glorious because of this doctrine and that should be the aim of our lives-to give Him glory.

The Controversy of Faith as Our Righteousness

In the same flavor as the previous post of being knowledgeable of current controversies, I thought that I would very briefly summarize the argument against the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. I will note that the knowledge I have of this view is strictly from John Piper’s “Counted Righteous in Christ” and thus I apologize if I misrepresent this position as portrayed by Piper. Hopefully we can grow in discernment as we think through these things with the aid of the Holy Spirit.

There is common ground between Robert Gundry (who believes the doctrine of imputation to be unbiblical) and Piper (who believes the opposite) in that both believe that for God to treat us as righteous there has to be “positive ground for it besides the forgiveness of our sins.” What is at stake is what the source is. Piper holds the traditional Protestant view that the righteousness of God (manifest in the righteousness of Christ) is what is imputed to us through faith. Gundry holds that this is not what Paul teaches, but instead that faith is what is reckoned as righteousness. So it is not Christ’s righteousness imputed to us that causes us to be viewed by God as righteous, but instead that God has imputed righteousness to faith. Not that faith is intrinsically righteous, but that God reckons this faith as righteousness.

Piper is quick to note that Gundry is not saying grace-wrought faith is the ground of justification. Gundry still holds to the cross and its propitiatory and expiatory work as the ground of justification, but simply as a reinterpretation of how we are counted righteous on top of propitiation.

Piper sums up Gundry’s position as “this ‘righteousness’-this faith-is not imputed to us, but really is our righteousness in that we respond to God in faith (by grace) and God counts our faith to be what it is-righteousness. This is different from the traditional Protestant view that sees faith as the instrument that unites us to Christ in whom an alien righteousness, not our own, is imputed to us.”

I cite the following verses for us to explore when we consider this position: Romans 4:5, 9, 22, 24; Galatians 3:6; James 2:23.

Justification at Stake in Three ‘Storms’

I’m posting a bit early this time because I’m going to be heading down South for the weekend to the mountains. I’ll be back on Sunday, so I’ll be missing my blogpost on Saturday.

Continuing a look at Piper’s book “Counted in Righteous in Christ,” he notes that the doctrine of justification is being fought over in more than one conflict, of which he is dealing specifically with the conflict over the necessity and truth of the doctrine of imputation.

Piper lists three other conflicts currently going on in Christianity concerning the doctrine of justification on page 42, footnote 3:

1. Ecumenical dialogues on Evangelical and Catholic doctrine
Is the Reformation over? Piper says “no” in the conclusion of this book. The conflict between Catholic and Evangelical interpretation of justification are multiple, of which one is if the Bible teaches imputation or impartation of Christ’s righteousness. Do we believe that the Reformation that Luther started was because of real foundational failings in Catholic doctrine?

2. New Perspective on Paul
I do not feel immersed enough in this topic to speak on it in-depth, but from what I have read, the main points of the “New Perspective” are that when Paul speaks of justification by faith without works of the law, he is speaking of “works of the law” in the sense of Jewish dietary law, circumcision and Sabbath-day keeping. This interpretation comes from examining Second-Temple Judaism and the belief that the Jews at that time, mainly that the sin Paul denounces is not legalism (the Jews in fact believed in grace), but ethnocentrism to the exclusion of the Gentiles. Instead, the new badge of being part of the covenant was no longer these Jewish ‘customs’ but faith in Christ. And following from this, when God declares someone justified, it is not at that point that one becomes part of the covenant, but justification is simply acknowledging someone is already part of the covenant. Furthermore, this declaring justified is not in fact effective, but a foreshadowing of the future effective justification on the Day of Judgment, whereby all men will be judged according to their whole lives (including those of the covenant, whose good works will be judged, but those good works are grace-wrought). I hope I did the position justice, and if not, feel free to correct me.

3. Relationship of faith and obedience, “specifically conflation of faith and works of faith as the instrument of justification.”
I am not sure what Piper means by this exactly, but I am assuming it means a confusion whereby the grace-wrought works of faith are what justifies believers, not faith alone through grace. To me, this sounds Catholic as well as the underlying principle of New Perspective soteriology.

These new paradigms are not extra-Biblical concepts but are rooted in specific hermeneutics. Are we knowledgeable about these controversies? Are we prepared to answer those who would bring these new interpretations against Scriptural orthodoxy?