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What do you do when you and a fellow believer have a disagreement about what is the right thing to do? What do you do when the Scriptures do not address the exact problem you’re experiencing?
One truth to remember is that while the Scriptures may not tell you everything you want to know, they tell you everything you need to know. For example, if you want to know who you should marry, you can reasonably know that your spouse should be a fellow believer, men marry women, and the marital bond is for life. Other categories, while still important, are left up to grace and providence. And where better could they be? But we must also remember that freedom is never to be abused. The Christian does not have a libertarian freedom, defined as freedom to do anything and everything. We know that physically makes no sense. Are you free to fly or breathe under water? Planes and snorkels are artificial. Neither are you free to live in total freedom from God's law. You can try, but it is an artificial existence. The Christian is free, but our freedom is gospel freedom. The Confession begins, The liberty which Christ has purchased for believers under the gospel, consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the severity and curse of the law, and in their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan, and dominion of sin, from the evil of afflictions, the fear and sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation: as also in their free access to God, and their yielding obedience unto Him, not out of slavish fear, but a child-like love and willing mind. All which were common also to believers under the law for the substance of them; but under the New Testament the liberty of Christians is further enlarged, in their freedom from the yoke of a ceremonial law, to which the Jewish church was subjected, and in greater boldness of access to the throne of grace, and in fuller communications of the free Spirit of God, than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of. Too much talk of Christian freedom sounds too much like what we can get away with. Are you free to drink alcohol? Of course; there is no law forbidding it. But your freedom is not freedom to make another stumble. Surroundings matter more than ever under the gospel. Love matters more than ever. Key to this discussion is the glorious truth that we are free because Christ became a curse for us. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). He died to set us free, therefore, our freedom came at a cost. Part of the gospel is that while it cost Christ his life, it is given freely, without price. When you are determining, in your Christian freedom, what to do, begin every problem-solving session by being reminding who purchased your freedom for you. He is the one to please with your freedom. Your freedom should not be used to walk back into the darkness from which Christ saved you. If we are free from bondage to sin and death, we are fools to think we can continue to play with it. Sin is not just a bad habit or a series of mistakes. Sin is bondage, chains, and ultimately, death in a prison cell. To continue in sin is to have the prison doors blown wide open only to walk into the one across the street. And for the Christian, our freedom is even greater than those under the old covenant. The hundreds of Mosaic laws, which were expansions on the ten commandments, which were expansions on the two most important commandments to love God and to love neighbor, bound the Israelites with a great burden. We should not think that our freedom is a burden like that of Israel. John tells us, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:38-39). Because we have the indwelling presence of the Spirit of God, we are free in ways that the saints of old were not. They were bound to rules and regulations. God’s promised Spirit now dwells among us, freeing us from the laws that looked forward to this time. The Confession continues, God alone is Lord of the conscience, and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to his word, or not contained in it. So that to believe such doctrines, or obey such commands out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience; and the requiring of an implicit faith, an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience and reason also. Christ continually rode the back of the Pharisees for adding to the law of God. They taught their own commandments as if they were as divinely given as the ones given to Moses (cf. Matthew 15:9). “There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy” (James 4:12). In fact, following any law in an attempt to earn merit from God is sin. It is a very different thing to follow his law to please him. After all, the law itself only increased sin; the law did nothing to atone for sin. No law can do this. As Paul writes, “These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Colossians 2:23). To demand anyone else, including yourself, follow any law and think it redeems is to misunderstand the purpose of Christian liberty. There is one more part of Christian liberty which deserves greater attention. What do we do with the argument that because we are free in Christ, nothing is really sin? To that we will turn next time.
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The Christian faith is not focused on the self. Sure, there are points of application and obedience to what God has revealed, but ultimately, the gospel is not just for our good. It is for the glory of God and God alone.
When we turn the gospel man-centered, we cannot help but begin to think that the gospel is something we could have come up with ourselves. Of course we know better than to ever say that. But how many churches do we see that have speeches that inspire sinners rather than sermons that glorify God? If we think of the gospel as something primarily about us, we will lose focus on God. The Confession continues, The revelation of the gospel to sinners, made in divers times and by sundry parts, with the addition of promises and precepts for the obedience required therein, as to the nations and persons to whom it is granted, is merely of the sovereign will and good pleasure of God; not being annexed by virtue of any promise to the due improvement of men's natural abilities, by virtue of common light received without it, which none ever made, or can do so; and therefore in all ages, the preaching of the gospel has been granted unto persons and nations, as to the extent or straitening of it, in great variety, according to the counsel of the will of God. The point here is that the gospel is all of grace and is rooted in the sovereignty of God. Salvation “is merely of the sovereign will and good pleasure of God.” Our mindset must be aligned with this fact. Nothing in us earned God’s good pleasure. In fact, eternal separation in the lake of fire is what our deeds have earned. We want God to be fair, right? We cannot improve ourselves enough to warrant salvation. The sins have been committed. And what God requires is sinless perfection. “From this point on” is not the same as perfect. We need to be made a new creation. Murderers can promise from the bottom of their heart never ever to murder again, but they are still guilty of murders previously committed. They can never be perfect on their own. And the gospel has always been the same “in all ages.” Even before Israel knew the name of Jesus Christ, they knew of the promise that God would send the seed of the woman to crush the head of the serpent, the seed of Abraham, the son of David. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment, the completion, of those promises. That is the gospel believed in all ages. We know that God especially revealed himself to Israel with the law and the prophets, both of which cast a shadow of the gospel. “He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his rules. Praise the Lord!” (Psalm 147:20). God always permitted foreigners and travelers to join in the company of the Israelites if they participated in the festivals in the same way as the Israelites. But at other times, God did not permit Gentiles to hear the gospel. In his sovereign purposes, he sometimes withholds for a time. Famously, Paul, Silas, and Timothy wanted to preach in Asia but were prevented by God himself. “And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them” (Acts 16:6-7). Great is the mind of God! Finally the Confession writes, Although the gospel be the only outward means of revealing Christ and saving grace, and is, as such, abundantly sufficient thereunto; yet that men who are dead in trespasses may be born again, quickened or regenerated, there is moreover necessary an effectual insuperable work of the Holy Spirit upon the whole soul, for the producing in them a new spiritual life; without which no other means will effect their conversion unto God. When the gospel does reach the heart of men, it is not only the heart of men at work. As Paul writes, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). Dead hearts do not accept or believe the gospel on their own. If you believe the gospel, be sure that you do not believe it because of your own ability, intelligence, or power. We were all dead in our sins, and it was God Almighty who stooped to our low condition to bring us to life. Jesus says as much in the gospel of John. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (6:44). Jesus is more than capable to save, but we are not capable of coming to him. We must be drawn by the Father to the redeeming blood the Son. Our only hope is that God loves his enemies and draws us to his Son so we will look upon him and so be saved. Until the time that Christ saves us, “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). We are blind. We are dead. We are lost. But when the Father calls, we will see Christ for who he is, in all his radiance, glory, and majesty. We will call on him, throw ourselves at his feet, and worship him forevermore. The gospel and the extent of the grace thereof is beyond our comprehension. Glory to God alone! Next time, we will look at the freedom that every believer has under the gospel of grace. |
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