She came to me cautiously.  Clearly she was a woman distressed by her husband’s deep unkindness.  Her story touched on pain, on fear, on confusion, on hatred.   My heart ached with sympathy as her heart cried for help.

I responded to her cautiously.  Clearly she needed the true counsel of God’s Word to salve her pain, her fear, her confusion, her anger.  I feared offering her crumbs of worldly wisdom that would lead her away from the Saviour, from the truth that would set her free.  In the end I told her what I knew although I discerned hopelessness in her eyes as my words failed to touch her need.  My counsel could have been summed up in one word: submit.

One-Eyed Counsel

This one-eyed advice is the most oft given counsel for women in fundamental churches.  Wives, submit.  It’s the bottom line, the end of the story.  The problem with one-eyed advice is this: it’s half blind.  It fails to grasp the big picture, to capture a well-rounded perspective.

Under the reign of this Cyclops of submission teaching, wives have been trapped in miserably dysfunctional marriages.  Cruel abuse terrorises wife and children who are required to submit without question to the whim of the man of the house.  He uses the word “submit” like a scourge to dominate and control all that his wife and children do.  And wives endure all this believing that God has one ultimate command for them: submit.

This is not to say that wifely submission is a concept to be avoided. Nor is it my purpose to undermine the importance of submission in the marriage relationship.  On the contrary, I hope to sharpen our understanding of submission as it fits into the tapestry of God-given revelation.  Biblical submission is gloriously beautiful when it plays its part in the whole counsel of God.  But when submission trumps all other injunctions, it threatens to betray us to its distorted focus.  We who teach the Bible do wives an injustice when we imply that submission is the only word for Christian women.  Here are some cautions to consider when teaching about wifely submission:

1.  Does our teaching mostly focus on what we have to do, or does it focus more on Who it is we worship?  Do we magnify “good examples” or do we lift up the person of God when we teach?  Are we constantly striving to give our listeners a clearer, more complete picture of the God whom we serve?  Or do we imply that Christians can never measure up even though Jesus paid it all for us? And beyond what is taught in the pulpit and classroom, do we as teachers provide our students with an honest picture of living faith in the God we teach?  Do our actions and reactions demonstrate that God is full of grace and truth?  Do we reflect both his justice and mercy in the way we handle relationships?  Can we run to Him because we are sure of His love while fearing Him because we are sure of His holiness?  If we teach that the Christian life is more about what we do and less about Who we worship, then we are setting up our listeners for failure.  A warped understanding of God will surely lead to a warped understanding of biblical submission.  Trying to submit without certainty in the loving and perfect purposes of our infinite God will lead to despair.

2.  Do we understand who we are in God’s sight—not only His unique creation but also His particular redeemed ones?  Is our identity well-grounded in the fact that we are “called, loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ”? (Jude 1)  Is every day filled with awareness of what it cost God to give us freedom from sin?  When we truly begin to grasp the gospel in the larger sense of who we are in relation to God, we also begin to grasp the deep seriousness of our sin.  With this backdrop of truth, sin in our own lives and in the lives of our loved ones can be tackled more meaningfully.  We will refuse to brush it off or put up with it because sin cost God the life of His much loved only Son.

3.  The concept of submission must be taught in the context of all the other relational texts in the New Testament: love one another fervently, encourage one another, exhort one another, etc.  Remove the context of the wider teaching of Scripture only at great peril to Christian families!

“Doing Good” Does Not Equal “Being Nice”

Luke 6:27 tells us to “do good to those who hate [us]”.   Proverbs 31 describes the virtuous woman as one who does her husband good and not harm.  What does “doing good” to another entail?  The word itself implies blameless, noble and beautiful actions toward another.  We often think of ‘doing good” only as “being nice”, but “good” doesn’t always equal “nice”.  Sometimes being nice is simply a way to avoid conflict; niceness can mask fearful self-preservation.  The motivation of self-preservation may interfere with doing what is best for a person when doing good to that person requires taking action that that person won’t like.  Especially when that action may lead us into unpleasant or even painful conflict.  But our hope as we walk into the conflict is that true good may come out of pain.

This kind of doing good cannot mean letting an abusive person continue in his abusive patterns.  A woman who allows her husband to continue in destructive abusive behavior is far from doing him good.  He is self-destructing while also destroying his family and any relationship that he has with God.  A wife who enables that behavior by silently “submitting” to it sins against her husband and against her children (if children are involved). By refusing to properly deal with the issue of abuse, she fails to “do good” to him by not confronting him about his sin.  However, a wife who takes the risk of lovingly confronting her husband about his sin not only truly seeks his good but also demonstrates courageous faith.  This kind of courage is one of the chief characteristics of women who are called “Sarah’s daughters” in 1 Peter 3:6: “And you are [Sarah’s] children if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.”

How the Church Can Help

When an abused person confronts her abuser, she places herself in a dangerous position.  She cannot be expected to tackle such a situation alone.  A support group such as her church family can help her fulfil her role to “do good” to her abusive husband by coming alongside her with encouragement and even being actively engaged in the process of confrontation and restoration.  Galatians 6:1 addresses this issue: “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.”  An abused wife who is seeking help should be assured that

1.  Her story will be believed and she will be accepted as she is.

2.  There is a safe place where she can escape to when things get out of control at home.

3.  People are praying for her and her husband.

4.  Godly men in the church will be willing to gently confront the husband about his sin, repeatedly and over a long period of time if necessary.

5.  Counselling is available for both husband and wife to help the husband be “restored” to genuine fruitfulness and for the family to be restored to healthy relationships.  This includes helping the wife face her own spiritual needs.

Only the Gospel Heals Broken Lives

Following these steps towards confronting an abusive husband is not failure to submit.  It is seriously taking the whole counsel of God and applying it to family relationships.  Unlike the teaching of some, the ultimate goal is not for the family to maintain the appearance of unity.  The ultimate goal is for the gospel to be applied to broken people and broken relationships so that in our weakness God can be glorified.  And if the marriage doesn’t make it in spite of all the support, the wife should not become a pariah because she didn’t just keep her head down and put up with the abuse.  She has done the right thing by seeking help for herself, for her children and for her husband.  To have done otherwise would have been to fail to love her family and to do them good.

If we are to do justice to the whole message of the Scriptures, then we cannot allow the topic of submission within marriage to be taught without these caveats.  Submission is not the only word we have to offer Christian wives.  We have the entire revelation of the inspired Scriptures and the Saviour by Whose stripes we are healed.

In an ever shrinking window, society takes a break from work to contemplate ‘peace on earth’ and ‘goodwill towards men’. As skewed as Christmas reflections have become, it is a season when we can engage our neighbours in conversational topics of a richer nature. While in the past, this may have occured at church, in our post modern, most of our neighbours will not go to church, let alone know a pastor or a serious thinker of spiritual things. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to take up our responsibility as pastors to our street.

In most culdesacs or street clusters, there are an average of 5-7 households within a stone’s throw of your front door. But how much do we know about the people in those homes, let along their names? Whether it be Christmas, hedonistic New Years, or Australia Day, let’s set ourselves a goal of getting to know our neighbours better. We may be the only pastor they will ever meet. Just like God, we want the entire world to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus. However, that can only happen if we get out there. The most natural people we can meet and be responsible for are the people who live right next door.

So this end of year season, enjoy connecting with your neighbours. Be genuinely interested in them as people. And pray that as you connect, God will naturally lead you into conversations that are rich and eternally rewarding.

Blessings

- JC

In response to Kristie’s proclamation, it seemed somewhat pompous to declare that “she” has it wrong and “I” had it right.   If truth does not matter, or if it is determined in my our own minds, how could I say that my opinion is any more righteous than her opinion – or vice versa?   Even though I had previously tried, it was impossible to have a relevant discussion about Jesus, until we establish that there is a universal truth established by a universal God.

However, if absolute truth exists outside of our minds, then there cannot be seven billion different interpretations on this earth.    If truth has an origin outside of my opinion, then and only then, can I say a certain belief or action is right or wrong.   In that scenario, I am not assuming my opinion is better, but I am being a messenger for a pre-set and self-existing standard of truth.  In that scenario, the paradigm has shifted from being a journey of ‘self-discovery’ to one of ‘God-discovery’.  In order to make such a declaration, I must have a few things in place.

1. External evidence of truth which transcends a Mexican standoff of opinion equality.    (Scripture itself and Creation in general)

AND

2. An attitude which does not exalt my opinion above her opinion.    (Genuine love and compassion)

One of the taglines of In Focus has been “Truth in Large Doses”.   It is essential that we seek truth, not as defined by ourselves, but as defined by the Creator of truth (Genesis 1-3).    Furthermore, it is possible to mentally understand truth, while failing to live and communicate truth.    How many times have the most bold proclamations of gospel truth been lacking love and compassion and consistency?   In other words, how many times have we proclaimed the right message in the wrong way?   I see a few possible dangers at this point.

1. We can berate the lost with Scripture as our weapon under the guise that Scripture will not return void.
2. We can try to become so ‘loving’ and so ‘compassionate’ that we fail to adequately declare truth at all.

Both of these responses are wrong when we are trying to be right.   We must confidently give an answer of our Hope, without elevating ourselves with pride.   Becoming ‘unashamed of the gospel’ is an Art not a Science.   It is an Art that the Holy Spirit teaches, not one that is ‘canned’ in a 4 step gospel tract.

My spiritual conversations with Kristie have been ongoing for several years.    The nature of our relationship is one where these conversations will continue.   I have no idea whether the Holy Spirit will lift the veil on her eyes so she can see truth.   However, I do pray for this.    I also pray for God’s wisdom for not only the right message, but also the right medium.   I ask that you would join me in praying to this end.

Blessings

- JC

Spiritual zombies

In order to understand why regeneration is necessary, you have to understand that man is born dead. This is what Jesus was talking about when he said to Nicodemus “you must be born again.”² Why the need to be born a second time? Because the first time, we were born physically alive, but spiritually dead. This spiritual death is imputed to us because of our sin in Adam. “Many died through one man’s trespass”³ because “in Adam all die.”⁴

This means that every person is born dead. We are dead men walking. Spiritually, we are zombies. There is a living body, but spiritually, there is nothing there. We do not seek for God.⁵ We do not love God.⁶ We do not want the truth.⁷ This is the pathetic state in which fallen man finds himself.

But God…

Man’s hopeless state is poignantly described in Ephesians 2.

¹And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ²in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— ³among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Children of wrath… That’s a damning assessment. Think about that for a moment and then look at the very next words: But God… God… made us alive together with Christ! In Adam we are all dead. In Christ, God has made us alive! We are brought to life! Regenerated!

Why did God do this? Because he is rich in mercy. Because of the great love with which he loved us. Even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive.

I once was blind

When I was spiritually dead, I could not see the spiritual realities of the gospel. I was blind. But now I can see!⁸ When I was spiritually dead, I was condemned to a life of self-righteous effort and defeat. Now, I have the life of Christ empowering me to obey! When I was spiritually dead, I had no hope and wanted no rescuer. Now, my eyes have been opened to see my desperate need of a rescuer, and I have found one!

No work of mine

Note that this was not my work. I was dead. I was blind to the truth. “But God…” It was not something I did that intervened to regenerate me. There was nothing I could do. This is how it is with dead men. “But God…” When hope was gone, God stepped in. He brought me to life. And that changed everything.

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening⁹ ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee!¹⁰

Grace to you.

¹ This is sometimes called “reincarnation” instead (a term that has no theological parallels to regeneration).
² John 3:7.
³ Romans 5:15.
⁴ 1 Corinthians 15:22.
⁵ Romans 3:11.
⁶ John 3:19.
⁷ John 3:20.
⁸ See 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 for a reference to the blindness of the unregenerate mind.
⁹ “Quicken” is an Early Modern English term for “bring to life.” When the King James Version uses the word “quicken,” it is generally referring to regeneration.
¹⁰ Taken from the text “And Can It Be That I Should Gain” by Charles Wesley, 1738.

Psychotic and unpredictable, the Joker’s one goal is to throw the city into anarchy with his cruel tactic of psychological games coupled with complete disregard for human life.  The Joker’s thugs capture Harvey Dent along with Harvey’s one true love, Rachel.  In a sadistic move, the Joker forces Harvey’s friends to choose between saving Harvey’s life or that of the girl he loves.  In the ensuing terror, Rachel dies and Harvey’s face is deeply burned.  Heartbreak torments Harvey’s soul.  He refuses treatment for his scars. And then the Joker visits. He convinces Harvey, already half-mad with despair, that his revenge should be against the very city that he has fought to save.  His mutilated face an outward image of the horror within, Harvey proceeds to kill a string of people whom he believes responsible for Rachel’s death before putting his own life to an end.  His true friends, Batman and Police Commissioner Gordon, both witness Harvey’s killing spree and suicide.  Together they decide that the people of Gotham cannot afford to know that their “White Knight” finished up as a bad guy.  Batman offers to take the blame for the murders, and Commissioner Gordon makes a public tribute to Harvey’s unblemished image as the one man who courageously fought for truth and right in Gotham City.  The people get to keep their symbol of hope albeit at the expense of truth.  Kind of ironic that the hero of justice is preserved in a lie.

I’ve seen the Harvey Dent solution at work in Christian organisations too.  A well-loved missionary or pastor, a “white knight” of God’s work, is caught in a sin—perhaps financial mismanagement or immorality. In handling this awful situation, the church should face up to the frailty of its hero, deal with the sin appropriately, urge him to confess and repent, and seek to restore the fallen brother to a growing relationship with God though not to his former leadership role.  Instead, some churches practice “damage control” by protecting the image of the fallen leader as if his followers cannot bear to see their “white knight” fail.  It may involve laying the blame at the feet of someone or something else or moving the hero to another ministry or another creative cop-out.  All this is justified under the guise of saving the testimony of the church or organisation ostensibly for the sake of Christ.  But how can Jesus Christ, the Truth, be glorified by the manipulations of the spin doctor?

Although saving face at the time may seem to minimise damage, in the long term cover-ups come back like a hidden cancer cell.  Instead of going away quietly, churches and organisations have had to deal with accusations from people hurt by cover-up even decades down the track.  Instead of applying the gospel of grace to our failures, we magnify men and their work more than the work of Jesus Christ who died to free us from such sinful catastrophes.  Offenses will happen.  How we respond to those offenses reveals our understanding of gospel truth and mercy.  Even the Biblical record truthfully recounts sinful failures of our heroes of the faith: Abraham’s lie, David’s adultery and murder, and Moses’s anger, to name a few.  The gospel is not just for saving; it is for keeping too.  When we whitewash failure, we deny that gospel truth.

Why do we lift up leaders in our churches as if they have a corner on Christianity that the rest of us can only wish for?  What can we do to create a Christian culture where it is safe to fail?  How can we nurture transparency in relationships all the way from kids in Sunday school to the pastor in the pulpit?  How can our responses to sin flesh-out the truth that God’s grace not only touches our weakness and failures but is purposefully tailored to our humanness?

The Harvey Dent solution merely puts a bandaid and makeup on a tumour that resides deep within–a tumour for which there is an authentic cure.  The gospel of grace is the cure, made available through our real hero, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We the unjust

The reason justification is necessary is that we are not just and we cannot be just. We have rebelled against God and we do rebel against him. The godliest saint has a deep-seated bent toward rebellion.¹

God hates sin. His wrath rests on those who rebel against him.² God’s perfect justice demands that sinners be condemned for their crimes against him.

God the just

The great concern in justification is how God can declare us just and still be just himself. After all, we are not just. We are sinners. Rebels.

God’s perfect mercy desires to rescue us but his perfect justice cannot ignore our crimes. This is the theological dilemma that Paul is dealing with when he says that it was necessary “to show God’s righteousness” (Romans 3:25). In other words, if justice has not been done, how can God justly—righteously—pardon me? I am a criminal. And justice has not been done.

Perfect love and perfect justice

This theological dilemma is resolved at the cross. Because Jesus paid the penalty of my sin, the Judge can justly declare me “not guilty.” Paul puts it like this: Jesus death made it possible for God to “be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (v. 26³). God is just because he has meted out the just penalty for the crime. He is the justifier because he bore the penalty of those crimes himself at the cross allowing me to be declared just (i.e. justified)!

This is what Paul means in 1 Corinthians 1:30 when he says “Christ… became to us… righteousness.” Isaiah described it eight hundred years before Christ when he said of the Messiah “By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous [justified], and he shall bear their iniquities.”⁴

So what?

Paul’s conclusion for those who are justified is that “There is therefore now no condemnation”!⁵ He asks a series of question: If God is for us, who can be against us? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? Who is to condemn? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?⁶

And what is Paul’s answer? It is God who justifies! Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us!⁷

In other words, do you have an issue with me? You have to take it up with Christ! Because he’s the one who died to deal with that! You have an accusation against me? You have to take it up with God! He’s the one who declared me righteous!

But most stunning is the answer to Paul’s question about God’s love for us. Because of justification, I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!⁸

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there,
Who made an end to all my sin.
Because the sinless Saviour died,
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God, the Just, is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.⁹

Grace to you.

¹ Romans 3.
² 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9.
³ Emphasis added.
⁴ Isaiah 53:11, emphasis added.
⁵ Romans 8:1.
⁶ Romans 8:31-35.
⁷ Romans 8:33-34.
⁸ Romans 8:38-39.
⁹ Taken from the text “Before the Throne of God Above” by Charitie Lees Bancroft.

I was a good kid in high school. I sought to have personal devotions since elementary school and had a genuine desire to do right and please God. I am thankful for two wonderful, godly parents. As I progressed through high school I was generally well respected and even looked up to among my peers. I received several positions of student leadership within my Christian school and was able to use those positions to influence those around me in a positive way.

 I am thankful for the training I received from my Christian education. I learned about hard work and discipline. I learned about teamwork and leadership. Most importantly I learned much about who God is. The person I am today is due in large part to the influence those years had on my life.

Latent Legalism

Despite my sound Christian background and solid upbringing, one area of weakness in my life that I see now only in retrospect was an attitude of legalism that pervaded my mindset. It was a mindset that told me that my acceptance before God was determined by my performance. I didn’t really need to be taught to have this mindset. Nobody really does. We are all in one way or another latent legalists at heart, thinking that we can somehow earn our way into God’s good graces by the things we do or don’t do. Most people would never actually say it that way, and I don’t think I would have myself. However, my attitude towards God and a continual feeling of guilt betrayed my words. One area in particularly where I struggled with legalism was in the area of confession of sin.

Legalism as applied to confession is a belief that my acceptance before God hinges upon my ability to confess or upon my feeling of remorse. I remember spending large portions of my devotion time “doing confession.” I felt like I couldn’t move on to Scripture reading or prayer unless I had confessed all my sin and done so with a proper attitude of repentance. I felt like I wasn’t right with God if I hadn’t confessed properly. I also felt like I was powerless to do ministry. If I was about to sing in church or give a testimony, I needed to make sure that I didn’t have any un-confessed sin in my life. I also couldn’t call out to God for help in witnessing unless my sin account was short, kept that way by my confession.

And I was right in this line of thinking, wasn’t I? After all the Bible says that if we “regard iniquity in our hearts the Lord will not hear us.” This must mean that I cannot come to God in prayer with sin in my heart. I must deal with it first. Also, everyone knows the classic passage on confession, I John 1:9: “If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Confession of sin is a prerequisite for forgiveness, isn’t it?

This way of thinking and relating to God left me with continual turmoil in my soul. I could never seem to confess every sin and even if I did I would commit another in no time at all.  To add to my guilt, I rarely felt remorse or a feeling of repentance as I thought I should.

When Law is Big and Grace is Small

By God’s grace, I began to see my error in this attitude towards confession. The first problem was that my view of sin was too small. I had subconsciously reduced sin to a list of dos and don’ts that could be remedied simply by confessing them to God. In reality my sin was much bigger than this. It permeated every part of me causing even my supposed righteous deeds to be worthless in the eyes of God. It went far beyond my actions to the very core of my being. Sin wasn’t something I simply did; it was who I was. Surely, confession had no power against sin when viewed in this light, and my guilt continually reminded me of this fact.

My second problem was that my view of Christ and his blood was also too small. The ever-present feeling of turmoil and condemnation revealed that I didn’t really believe that Christ had sufficiently dealt with my sin. I needed to add my own work, the work of confession, in order to cause Christ’s righteousness to apply to my account. In short, my problem was that I saw my own human effort as the solution to my sin rather than the blood of Christ.

The ultimate solution to these problems was a better understanding of the gospel. I needed to accept by faith that God has truly placed my sin away from him as far as the east is from the west. I needed to realize that on my worst days of sin and failure God accepts me because I am clothed in Christ’s righteousness. I needed the doctrine of justification, and I needed it in heavy doses.

Still Feeling Guilty?

However, what was I to do with the sin that still weighed on me every day? And how was I to deal with confessing that sin? For those of you who may feel the same way let me offer several brief thoughts:

1.  Remember Jesus’ teaching about the letter of the law.

At one point in Jesus’ ministry he allowed his disciples to pick grain to eat on the Sabbath day. When the Pharisees questioned him about what they viewed to be a breaking of God’s law, Jesus replied by saying, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Jesus’ point was that the Sabbath was meant to be a blessing to man not a curse. The Pharisees had taken what God had intended to be a day of peaceful rest and turned it into something people dreaded. I think we can also rightfully say that confession was made for man not man for confession. I believe God’s intention for confession was that it be a blessing to us by bringing us back to the only true place our sin can sufficiently be dealt with. Don’t allow the blessing of confession to become something you dread.

2.  Allow confession to be the servant of a broken and contrite heart.

By this I do not mean that we must wait to confess our sins until our hearts are properly contrite. I simply mean that God is far more concerned with our hearts than in our outward forms of confession. He knows that sometimes all we can do is weep because we do not weep over our sin and mourn because we are not broken like we desire to be.

 3.  Remember that confession is only as good as the extent to which it brings us into contact with the Savior.

While many of us know I John 1:9 by heart and can recite its instruction to confess our sin, perhaps comparatively few of us recognize how significant are the verses following. I John 2:1-2 says, “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” This is the entire foundation for 1:9. This is the reason why God can forgive us and “cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Without Christ bearing the wrath of God in our place, we would be under wrath. Without Christ’s continual intercession on our behalf we would stand condemned. Yet, Christ has borne God’s wrath for us and he does continually intercede for us! Confession is simply the means to bring us back to a proper recognition and appreciation of these truths.

Magnify God’s Grace

I cannot end without briefly making a plea to those who preach and teach and lead ministries. Please be careful how you deal with the topic of confession. In my experience (and perhaps this is due to my specific circles), teaching on confession is primarily man-centered rather than God-centered. I don’t believe this should be the case. Urge people to deal with their sin and keep short accounts with God, but never divorce it from the teaching of God’s grace that even makes this possible. Don’t allow a culture in which the only type of openness people know before God or others is just as oppressive as a Catholic confessional booth. In all your teaching and leadership focus on the glory and mercy of the gospel and allow the Spirit of God to apply those truths specifically to each life.

I am extremely thankful for the work of God in my life during my journey in the realm of confession. It’s a journey I’m still on. Along the way I have had to come face to face with fundamental errors not just in how I viewed confession but also in the way I viewed and believed the gospel. To quote one of my favorite songs, I had to ask myself the following questions: “Why are you striving these days? Why are you trying to earn grace?” Maybe you need to ask yourself the same questions.

In a sense, imputation is the mechanics of how the atonement works. For instance, how can Jesus cover my sin by his death on the cross? How can his death for my sin make me righteous? Aren’t these two separate things? To answer that question, we need to go back to the fall.

We’re in trouble

There are two results of man’s fall into sin. First, man does evil and thus brings on himself just judgement—condemnation.² Second, man does not do right—or righteousness—and so he falls short of God’s righteousness³ thus forfeiting fellowship with God.

In other words, not only does man do bad, but he also fails to do good. Both of these contribute to his condemnation and separation from fellowship with God.

Double imputation

In imputation, God assigns/credits our sin to Jesus Christ. But as we’ve pointed out, this is not enough. To have never sinned does not mean that “the righteous requirement of the law [are] fulfilled in us.”⁴ This requires a second imputation in which Jesus Christ’s righteousness is assigned/credited to us. Theologians refer to this as double imputation.

This is why the incarnation is so important. It was not enough for Jesus merely to die for us in order to cover our imputed sin. He also had to live for us in order to impute his righteousness to us.

What about my righteousness?

This imputation is based solely on faith.⁵ God does not cause us to actually not have sinned. Nor does he cause us to have lived righteously.

When the believer stands before God and is welcomed into his presence, it will not be based on the diminished frequency of his sinful acts or on the increased frequency of his righteous acts.⁶ Rather, it will be based on the imputation of his sin to Christ and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to him. Our righteousness is imputed righteousness, not inherent righteousness. “[God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”!⁷

Imputed righteousness!

We’ll see the result of this imputed righteousness when we address justification, but for now, it is sufficient to recognise that Christ’s righteousness has been imputed to us!

Isaiah 53:11 ties some of these themes together when it says “Out of the anguish of [Jesus'] soul [atonement] he shall see and be satisfied [propitiation]; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous [imputation].”

Let the water and the blood
From thy wounded side which flowed
Be for sin the double cure—
Save from wrath and make me pure!⁸

Grace to you.

¹ This statement is based on Romans 3:28 which sets the context for the discussion of imputation in Romans 4. Justification will be addressed in part five of this series.

² This covers both sins of commission and sins of omission.

³ Romans 3:23.

⁴ Romans 8:4.

⁵ This is the dominating theme of Romans 4. See also James 2:23.

⁶ Matthew 7:21-23.

⁷ 2 Corinthians 5:21, emphasis added.

⁸ From the text “Rock of Ages” by Augustus Toplady, 1776.

 Spiritual addiction.  It’s the idea that I can’t feel good about my relationship with God unless I ritually fulfil certain “religious” duties.  In this particular lady’s case, her addiction was public repentance—a classic “altar athlete.”  She was obsessed with experiencing a certain kind of emotion in order to make her feel right with God.   For other people their spiritual aberration can take the form of certain private obligations—a set amount of prayer time, the compulsive need to pray through every item on a prayer list, having to be at church every time the doors are open regardless of other responsibilities, robotically ticking off devotions on the daily list of to-do’s.  Another kind of spiritual addiction is the pressure to be always right, to win every religious argument and have all the “right” answers.  What makes these behaviours addictions is not the behaviours themselves. Some of them are excellent spiritual disciplines and necessary means of grace.  But when they are cast in an unhealthy frame of ritual obligation, they can be symptoms of a diseased soul.

 Ask yourself a few questions to discern whether a spiritual behaviour has become an addiction.

 1.  Does unwarranted guilt follow my failure to perform the spiritual task?  For example, if I must stay home with a sick child instead of going to church, do I feel compelled to apologise and explain to cover my “failure.”  Or if my prayer time doesn’t go as planned, do I blame negative outcomes on my shortcomings in prayer?  If a witnessing opportunity didn’t result in scoring watertight arguments, do I feel hopelessly defeated?

2.  Is the obsessiveness of my spiritual behaviours destructive to normal relationships?  If church must come first–no matter what—will a family crisis be improperly managed in order to meet my addictive compulsion to be at church regardless of other real needs.  In high school I had a friend whose mother literally fasted and prayed in her bed for weeks.  Imagine the impact on her family of her being missing-in-action in her motherly role all that time!  That spiritually addictive behaviour was a destructive force in her family.  A healthy relationship with God will bear the fruit of healthy relationships with others.

3.  Do toxic levels of anxiety rise in my soul when I am unable to “get my fix”?  Do I worry about God’s acceptance of me and what other people are thinking about me if I don’t comply with my urges to perform certain spiritual acts or produce certain kinds of emotional responses such as weeping in prayer?  That kind of anxiety is what I observed in the nervous behaviour of the lady who didn’t get a chance to “go forward” at the end of our church service.

4.  Is the law of diminishing returns at work in the process?  In other words, when current levels of spiritual activity fail to produce the desired effect, do I feel the need to do more and try harder in order to feel good spiritually?

Do you see yourself in these addictive patterns?  Do you have a friend who struggles with spiritual obsessions like these?  Contrary  to the thinking of some, feeling guilty does not equal feeling good in a healthy Christian life.  False guilt will lead to false fruit rather than a Spirit-empowered, faith-filled obedience.

Next week, we’ll discuss the distorted theology that drives spiritual addictions and hope for healing of the soul.

**If you would like to read more about spiritual addiction, I recommend the book Soul Repair by VanVonderen, Ryan and Ryan.

An angry God

We may underestimate the importance of propitiation until we have a proper estimate of the wrath of God against sinners. The Scripture teaches that God “feels indignation every day.”¹ That “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness”² and that this wrath is not passive or distant, but actively “remains” on those who reject Jesus Christ.³

Explaining propitiation

I’ve summed up propitiation in the one word “satisfaction,” but I want to give a more detailed definition. To propitiate is to turn away wrath by means of a sacrifice. So when the Apostle John says that God “sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins,”⁴ what he is saying is that what Jesus came to do was to turn away the wrath of God by a sacrifice. What sacrifice? The sacrifice of himself on the cross. God has looked on the work of Jesus Christ at the cross and he is satisfied. But why?

Tying in substitutionary atonement

This is where the substitutionary nature of the atonement comes in. In propitiation, Jesus Christ satisfied the wrath and judgement of God by bearing it on himself as my substitute. God made Jesus “to be sin”⁵ even though he had no sin of himself. Then he was “smitten by God,”⁶ but not for his own sin. “He was wounded for our transgressions.”⁷

Isaiah says that “it was the will of the LORD to crush him.” But why did God want to crush his own son? Because it was necessary in order to propitiate his own just wrath. “Out of the anguish of [Jesus'] soul [God] shall see and be satisfied.”⁸ In other words, God poured out the full fury of his wrath and condemnation on Jesus Christ at the cross so that when he looks at the believer in Christ, there is no more wrath left. There is no more condemnation left.⁹ God has been satisfied in relation to the sin of that person.

The fire cannot go where the fire has already been

Propitiation has often been illustrated using a bushfire. It is counter-intuitive that fighting a bushfire often requires starting fires. Yet this is a common way to fight fires. If houses or lives are in danger, it is not uncommon to burn off large strips of land. And if one is caught in a bushfire, he would do well to huddle on such burnt land. Why? Because the fire cannot go where the fire has already been.

At the cross, the Son of God bore the full fury of the burning wrath of God. When sinners stand in danger, as they surely do, they must run to the cross and huddle there for safety. Why? Because the fire cannot go where the fire has already been.

Jesus Christ bore the wrath I deserve so that I don’t have to. “For God, the Just, is satisfied to look on him and pardon me.”¹⁰

When every unclean thought and every sinful deed
Was scourged upon His back and hammered through His feet
The innocent is cursed; The guilty are released;
The punishment of God on God has brought me peace!¹¹

Join me as I huddle at the cross.

Grace to you.

¹ Psalm 7:11.

² Romans 1:18.

³ John 3:36.

⁴ 1 John 4:10.

⁵ 2 Corinthians 5:21.

⁶ Isaiah 53:4.

⁷ Isaiah 53:5, emphasis added.

⁸ Isaiah 53:10, emphasis added.

⁹ Romans 3:25, Romans 8:1.

¹⁰ Taken from the text “Before the Throne of God Above” by Charitie Lees Bancroft.

¹¹ From the text “When Love Came Down” by Stuart Townend. Copyright © 2006 Thankyou Music, Inc.