Month: February 2008

Lent with Leonard

The Church can ask herself today, is this what our Savior sacrificed His life for? Did He give us the Church so that we can be comfortable, occasionally running guerilla missions out into the world and then returning to the safety of the sanctuary? As I think about the spiritual state of much of today’s Church, I am reminded of Ravenhill’s words:

The true man of God is heartsick, Grieved at the worldliness of the Church,

Grieved at the blindness of the Church, Grieved at the corruption in the Church,

Grieved at the toleration of sin in the Church, Grieved at the prayerlessness in the Church.

He is disturbed that the corporate prayer of the Church no longer pulls down the strongholds of the devil.

He is embarrassed that the Church folks no longer cry in their despair before a devil-ridden, sin mad society, “Why could we not cast him out?” (Mt 17:19)

Before we pray for the change in others, let us each pray for the transformation of ourselves. Let the tears come searing hot down our cheeks at the mockery our own lives make of the holiness that grace offers to us. Let it begin with me.

Lent Begins

Traditionally, we surrender a creature comfort or habit as a way of associating our lives with the impending sacrifice and suffering of our Savior. We willingly give up a behavior, a food, or something similar in sacrifice, longing for Easter’s arrival not only to celebrate the resurrection but the freedom to return the sacrifice to our lives. I want to invite us to take a different approach to the coming 46 days this year and seek to grow in holiness, not through a temporary sacrifice, but through the rending of our hearts. Our reflections will move us from loss to promise, much as Isaiah’s prophecy brings his readers from exile to restoration. This passage sets the tone for our prayers to come:

Strengthen the feeble hands,

steady the knees that give way;

4 say to those with fearful hearts,

“Be strong, do not fear;

your God will come,

he will come with vengeance;

with divine retribution

he will come to save you.”

5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened

and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

6 Then will the lame leap like a deer,

and the mute tongue shout for joy.

Water will gush forth in the wilderness

and streams in the desert.

7 The burning sand will become a pool,

the thirsty ground bubbling springs.

In the haunts where jackals once lay,

grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

8 And a highway will be there;

it will be called the Way of Holiness.

The unclean will not journey on it;

it will be for those who walk in that Way;

wicked fools will not go about on it.

9 No lion will be there,

nor will any ferocious beast get up on it;

they will not be found there.

But only the redeemed will walk there,

10 and the ransomed of the Lord will return.

They will enter Zion with singing;

everlasting joy will crown their heads.

Gladness and joy will overtake them,

and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Isaiah 35:3-10

The Calvinist Perspective on Sanctification

Sanctification as viewed by historical Calvinists can be summarized quite simply: Putting off the Old and putting on the New Man. As voiced by the preeminent American Calvinist Charles Hodge:

Such being the foundation of the Scriptural representations concerning sanctification, its nature is thereby determined. As all men since the fall are in a state of sin, not only sinners because guilty of specific acts of transgression, but also as depraved, their nature perverted and corrupted, regeneration is the infusion of a new principle of life in this corrupt nature. It is leaven introduced to diffuse its influence gradually through the whole mass. Sanctification, therefore, consists in two things: first, the removing more and more the principles of evil still infecting our nature, and destroying their power; and secondly, the growth of the principle of spiritual life until it controls the thoughts, feelings, and acts, and brings the soul into conformity to the image of Christ. (Hodge, Systematic theology.)

This definition of sanctification emphasizes the progressive nature of the process inherent in the Calvinist doctrine. [ It should be noted that sanctification as discussed here is less a Calvinist only perspective and can be more correctly term Reformed, as many Arminian theologians would agree with the tenets presented.] Calvin himself agrees with the sequence of Christian event placing it after justification and prior to the perfection of glorification.

The reformed picture of the process is that of a progressive increase in the believer’s holiness replacing the inherited corruption that marks all of humanity. This progress continues from the moment of regeneration until the believer returns home to the Lord, rarely without struggles and temporary setbacks. An important distinctive between Calvinists and Arminians (though by no means should it be considered universal to their doctrines) is the idea of perfectionism. The idea that a believer can become perfect, that is completely without sin, in this life is not held within general Calvinist doctrine. Two points in scripture support this postion:

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. (1 Jn 1:8-10).

And Paul’s well known discussion of our struggles:

What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.

Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. (Rom 7:7-8:1)

Conclusion

The view of sanctification as a lifelong process through which the Christian will be gradually transformed in holiness, steadily moving in image towards the likeness of our Savior Jesus Christ. It is generally accepted that perfection in holiness will not be achieved until the moment of glorification in the Lord’s presence. This is representative of the majority view of the Protestant Church (Calvinist and Arminian together) and finds it way into the belief systems of most identifying as Christians.

Eleven Days, Twenty Hours….

until the boys of summer begin to arrive in Tucson for spring training. Thank goodness that somethingball season is now over (the lost time between the end of the World Series and the beginning of Spring Training) we can begin to ancticipate in full. Though it is snowing in Denver today, the sun is out and greening up the field at Hi Corbett field.

Being Set Apart: Sanctification

Our recent exploration of the variety of views that Christians hold regarding eternal security found that the topic of sanctification arose in many of those discussions. The Christian is led to wonder, when evaluating the different views, whether sanctification is a one time event, a lifelong process, or simultaneously both. I’m going to move on with this post into a series on the variety of Christian views on this topic. We’ll start today by defining the idea before branching out to see how it is viewed in different theological systems.

In its broadest meaning, sanctification is the process by which a person (or another object of the process) is brought into relationship with or attains the likeness of the holy. In the case of a Christian, our goal is to become more Christ-like while in the case of an object– an altar, a sacrifice –the process makes the object appropriate for the presence of God. Sanctification has three aspects that help us to divide our study and comparison.

  1. Sanctification is Positional: The first aspect of sanctification indicates that, as believers who have placed their full faith in Christ and His redeeming work, we are set apart by God and named as saints. It will be important to note theologically the differences between justification and sanctification.
    2. Justification Sanctification
    Legal standing Internal condition
    Once for all time Continuous through life
    Entirely God’s work We cooperate
    Perfect in this life Not perfect in this life
    The same in all Christians Greater in some than in others

    *Grudem, Systematic Theology

  2. Sanctification is Experiential: The second aspect begins with the first; being set apart as holy, our lives are increasingly transformed as we shed our old ways and take on the new of image of our savior. Sanctification viewed as a process finds the Christian gradually ( and not without possible setbacks ) becoming further and further set apart from others in the world who have not trusted Christ.
  3. Sanctification is the Ultimate Condition: This future aspect of sanctification points to the day in which the Christian will be the beneficiary of the final transformation into the full likeness of Christ.

One of the most important components of our exploration of the variety of ideas about sanctification is the extent of human cooperation with the work of God in the process. It is important to ask first if any cooperative action of human and divine threatens the ultimate security of the believer, that is, is failure to attain a specific level of holiness a possible condition by which salvation may be lost. To lean to one side is to add an impediment to the Christian’s assurance as we worry and fret over what infractions might cause the ultimate loss. On the other hand, to lean the other way and to place the entire process on God’s shoulders is to invite a passivity on the part of the Christian with regard to the steady improvement in their state of holiness.

We conclude our introduction with the words of St. Paul:

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.  (Romans 6:11-14)