The Under Represented Work of Christ John Korsgaard 24 May 2005
Some
30 years ago, I taught a Sunday school class on a particular doctrine. I started with a trick question. I told them
it was a trick question ahead of time:
True
or False: Entrance into heaven is based upon a life of perfect righteousness.
For
this little essay, I am sourcing John Bunyan in a small booklet he wrote: THE
DESIRE OF THE RIGHTEOUS GRANTED.
This
350 year old source is as thoroughly historical Baptist as you can get. I love to go back to writers who pre-date
our controversies.
Before
Bunyan gets into the Desires of the Righteous, he takes a few pages to make
some definitions. He is not doing this for the purpose of clarifying any modern
controversy.
THE
BIBLCIAL DEFINITON OF RIGHTEOUSNESS AND THE RIGHTEOUS
I
once did a study of every appearance of the word Saint. There are over 100. I wanted to concoct for
a radio series a cumbersome but comprehensive definition of “Saint” One in
which every verse that mentions the word “hagios” could be fit. The first line of that compound definition
reads thus:
A
saint is a divinely summoned sinner, positioned as holy as an enablement to be
actually and experimentally holy
Bunyan’s
first point concerns the imputation of righteousness.
We
are said to be made “the righteousness of God in Christ”
Says
Bunyan: “God reckons us righteous by imputing the righteousness of
another.”
Says Bunyan again: “God makes me righteous by bestowing of righteousness upon me, by counting the righteousness of His Son for mine: He gives me righteousness, a righteousness already performed and COMPLETED by the obedience of His son.”
Says
Paul: “Not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but
that which is thru faith in Christ (but we gotta finish the quote) THE
righteousness which comes FROM God on the basis of faith.”
Bunyan:
“Not that this righteousness is severed from Christ.”
Me:
“We sometimes say that Christ died instead of us. That’s not wrong but it can be a gloss over.”
In
union with Christ (to put a one-phrase title on the missing or underrepresented
doctrine) we were crucified with him [As Tom recently expounded}
Bunyan:
“IT (the righteousness) is bestowed upon us, not because we are, but to make us
righteous before the face of God.”
Scripture:
He hath made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us [finish the quote!] that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him
So,
item one in understanding righteousness is that God reckons it to me, imputes
it to me, accounts it to me wholly before [causal order] I produce, perform or
think anything.
I
use the phrase causal order because chronologicalizing it can lead to trouble.
Bunyan:
“{With the imputation} there is also a principle of righteousness, even the
Spirit of righteousness…the Spirit is an inseparable companion of imputed
righteousness and immediately follows it (causally) to dwell with whosoever it
is bestowed upon.”
Some
have called this infused righteousness.
I don’t like that term very well. Imparted sounds too much like
giving..then going on vacation.
I
have a computerized baseball game that I bought a year or so ago. It produces
realistic results of major league players so that I get to manage. I was playing a game on my birthday. One of the glitzy little features is they
have an animated scoreboard. You know that shows the word “POW” exploding,
appears to shoot off fireworks. Flashes the word “Charge”
During
the game I was playing up on the simulated message board came birthday
greetings to me. Apparently the game
makers somehow encrypt that and if I happen to play on my birthday, welll….
The
righteousness, inseparable from imputed righteousness and companion to it, is
more like an encrypting. But not of
some small detail. It is even more like
a new mother board…a new program that has a control+F key for faith that the
old one didn’t have.
My
faith is really mine. God doesn’t
believe in God for me. Christ does not
accept His sacrifice on my behalf. But
it is a faith that is NOT and never was OF me.
Faith
can not be a work--so it can not be something I DO. It is a gift.
No
matter how you cut it, if the original wellspring of my faith is me it becomes
either something I did meritoriously or something in me that causes me to
differ. Nope!
Bunyan:
“This (principle of righteousness) comes to us before we do any act spiritually
good…how can a man act righteously but from a principle of righteousness. God
makes a man righteous by possessing him with a principle of righteousness;
which is not of nature, but of grace; not of man but of God.“
Still
Bunyan: “{This is what cause us to} have our fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting
life. The apple makes not the tree good. It only declares it to be.”
In
my definition of “saint” I blended (perhaps I should have enumerated) the
imputation and the gift of the Spirit (owner/operator enabling my operation of
the principle)
“Christ
died for us” is an oversimplification.
He
lived and died on our behalf, in our stead as we lived and died with Him…IN Him
and all of that 2000 years ago to become for us an ongoing NEW LIFE now.
To
bring this to some current controversies.
The
measure of our “making of disciples” is not:
- Until each new convert can tell you how
many chapters are in each of the OT prophets
- Until Election is understood
- Until the convert’s favorite pastime is
visiting website discussions
Some
sideline critics of aggressive evangelism seem to think that they sat in on the
counsels of the Godhead to help Him rig the outcome. These folks need to understand that the key theological term for
the great commission [I once taught this at a theological comfort zone church]
is not supralapsarian. The key theological term is GO.
But
the measure of the validity of successful outreach is defective in our
day. Many are satisfied that 10
converts in the spring is validated by getting 10 more in the summer.
Not
true. I speak not of how articulate the person becomes in these matters, but a
crystal clear view of the fall of man, faith, righteousness and Christ’s
purpose does not stop at: “Whew, I’ve avoided hell and I’m going to church.”
The
challenge to the seeker sensitive movement is NOT about making converts vs.
making disciples.
It’s
about the danger of labeling as converted and ministering assurance to those
who may, in fact, only be having their first clue.
Go
back to the trick question. Do our
people understand?