Lifetime Guarantee (26 page)

Once upon a time, I traveled this road and encountered the very first fork in the way. I’ll label this fork “Salvation” (see Figure 10.2).

As the Holy Spirit was dealing with me, a group of people approached me with a tract containing “fifteen verses” in the Bible to “prove” I’d best turn right toward law if I hoped to make it to God. But then there was a second group who approached me with a tract containing “fifteen verses” that Jesus had already paid it all and that I must simply accept His forgiveness by faith; that His death on the cross had made my access to God a matter of pure grace, God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.

I chose the left-turn option and much to my delight, I have discovered through the Word and my experience that I now have the Holy Spirit of Christ Himself indwelling me. I am saved.

Before long, I found myself at a second fork in this road, the fork of baptism (see Figure 10.3).

Another group of well-meaning folks approached me with a tract they’d developed containing “fifteen verses” to “prove” that unless I got baptized (and the message was urgently pressed upon me lest I die and miss my opportunity), I could not be saved. These folks were sincerely convinced that they were “rightly dividing the Word of Truth.” But there came a second group of folks having a tract with “fifteen verses” showing me that baptism was but a pantomime depicting my death, burial, and resurrection with Christ, my public testimony to what had happened to me at salvation. They explained that baptism was a picture of God’s grace.

I chose to turn left at this fork also, believing it to be the rightly divided grace position rather than the law position. I have received reinforcement from the Word, as well as from the indwelling Holy Spirit, that this was the correct way. For example, Paul said to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 1:14,17, “I thank God that I baptized none of you….For Christ
did not send me to baptize,
but to preach the
gospel”
(emphasis added). Therefore, the pro-baptism group would have to declare Paul misguided in this verse, as he didn’t include baptism in the gospel.

I don’t know how many of these forks there are, but I’m convinced that one of the functions of the Holy Spirit is to lead people up this road, fork by fork. One particularly controversial fork is the one of “security” (Figure 10.4).

Well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ will approach with a tract that quotes “fifteen verses” “proving” that I have to keep holding onto Jesus lest I slip and fall away into hell. Their position is that it is my job to keep myself saved through performance, and I’ve got to keep holding on (sometimes with oil-slick hands, it seems). In other words, I must perform to retain what I couldn’t perform to acquire in the first place.

Then another group armed with a tract quoting “fifteen verses” takes the position that my security lies in the fact that Jesus holds
me,
not vice versa. They show me verses such as, “No one shall snatch [you] out of My hand” (John 10:28) and “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). By exercising spiritual discernment, I saw this position as adhering closer to the truth of God’s grace and I turned left. As I have walked in this position over the years, the Holy Spirit has again and again reinforced the truth of it to my inner man.

There is one additional major fork in the road I wish to discuss, the fork about which the Lord has raised up this book. It’s the fork of “sanctification” (see Figure 10.5).

Are Christians a truly holy people, or are we trying to
become
a holy people? This fork represents our opportunity to accept or reject the death of the “old man.” Groups of well-meaning Bible teachers approach with a tract of “fifteen verses” “proving” that to attain holiness, I must
stop
smoking,
stop
lying,
stop
cheating on my tax return,
begin
praying more,
begin
Bible memorization,
begin
witnessing, and so on. Through this process, we’re told, I will become holier. It’s
performance-based holiness.
It’s law. God has some pretty strong things to say to us about avoiding that approach to holiness. “Hey, El Stupido! Having begun this process by the Spirit, are
you
now going to take over and complete it on flesh power?” (Galatians 3:3, loose paraphrase).

Then there are others who have discerned that the “mystery” of the gospel that liberates one to live a
consistent,
obedient life is found by turning left at this fork. I must believe at face value all the verses that document my new identity in Christ, that say I am literally a new person
now.
It is from
this
posture that I can begin to lay aside my old ways (smoking, lying, cheating) and put on the new (prayer, Bible memorization, witnessing, etc.).

It’s not that I cease to have one identity and begin to have another as a gradual process. My old identity
terminated
at the Cross in Christ (see Galatians 2:20), and my new one
was created
(past tense) in godliness in Him at His resurrection (see 2 Corinthians 5:21). I can become a mature example of who I already am. As an oak sapling grows, it doesn’t get “oakier.” Oak is oak. It simply
matures into
what it is, a full-grown oak tree.

It’s the same with us. We
are
the holy sons of God. We don’t get holier, more accepted, more justified, or more forgiven. We simply experientially “life out” who and what we already are. It’s not a “from–to” situation with us. We
are
a holy people. Now let’s get on with
acting
like who we are.

The tragedy is that most evangelicals have turned right at this fork and are beating their heads against a brick wall, striving to get holier through performance. One of the patriarchs of the faith who no doubt dedicated a major portion of each day to striving for holiness asked that the epitaph on his tombstone refer to him as a poor, wretched, worthless worm. And this was from one of the all-time champions of the faith. I just read today that one of the most intelligent, well-respected seminary professors in the land states that he completely identifies with that posture. What incentive to growth does that leave us plain folks in the pew? It’s enough to make a person give up even trying, and that’s exactly what I see in so many Christians. It is breaking God’s heart.

We might want to ask at this point, “Well, Lord, why did You put all these forks in Your Word? It seems it would have been good to eliminate the opportunity for people to err by misinterpreting Your Word. Why did You do this? Why not sixty-six books clearly spelling it out in black and white?” And this is what I believe He has shown me in response to my seeking.

The devil is a liar; God is truth. That’s a polarity. If I don’t believe God, I lump Him in with His archenemy and imply that He, too, is a liar.

I believe every word in the Bible is inspired and absolutely true. It breaks my heart to hear a Christian leader state that in his “wisdom” he has come to “understand” that Jonah wasn’t a literal man swallowed by a literal fish, or something like that. What a grief to the heart of God! (C. S. Lewis has an excellent treatment of the critical-historical view of biblical interpretation and its devastating results in Chapter 27 of
The Screwtape Letters
.) I am delighted to be counted with the simpleminded who just believe what God says.

In giving me the opportunity to either believe or disbelieve, however, God has made Himself so vulnerable as to structure His Holy Word so that the devil can use
even that
to deceive me. That’s the way he tempted Jesus in the wilderness. He quoted Scripture to “prove” his point. He quoted it perfectly, but he misconstrued God’s meaning. Jesus countered him by quoting opposite excerpts from God’s Word that correctly interpreted God’s will. Satan will try the same with you if he can. He seeks to malign God’s integrity in your thoughts and deceive you.

The focal issue of all eternity is Christ on the cross. Everything prior to that blessed event points to it; everything after it points back at it. It will always be so. Our God has scars in His hands that we will see daily throughout eternity.

Jesus Christ volunteered for the cross to demonstrate one attribute of God and one only. He did not hang there to demonstrate His omnipotence, omnipresence, etc. Christ on the cross demonstrated God’s limitless, loving, forgiving grace.

Therefore, where law appears to conflict with grace in biblical interpretation, fix your eyes on Jesus Christ on that cross to “rightly divide” the passage. Put on
Son
-glasses, and filter every interpretation of the Word through Him there. The Holy Spirit will always point me toward grace, always.

The law is intended exclusively for the unregenerate man, to motivate him to salvation (Romans 6:14; Galatians 3:19-26; 1 Timothy 1:9a). The new man in Christ is motivated to righteous living by the Holy Spirit within (Ezekiel 36:26,27); he has the laws of God written on his heart and mind (Hebrews 10:16).

The law is not for you if you’re a new creation; it was used by the Lord to convict you of your hopeless state and thus motivate you to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior. Now that the law has served its purpose
for you,
you are no longer under it. But if you choose to stay under it and approach the Christian walk with the law attitude of “I must, I ought, I have to” instead of “I am new, I delight to do God’s will, I love Him, His ways are good,” you are laboring under law; you have not “entered into God’s rest,” and it’s just a matter of time until you burn out.

“The
power
of sin is the law” (1 Corinthians 15:56, emphasis added).
Law is the “gasoline” that fuels sin’s engine.
That explains why we sometimes see a pastor who hammers away with law teaching run off with the church secretary. The power of sin in him “fed itself” on the man’s teaching and destroyed his ministry with it.
You give the power of sin a law to work with and it will eventually beat you, because God’s provision for the believer is grace, not law.

Notice how God polarizes law and grace in John 1:17: “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.” Jesus satisfied the law for all who will appropriate His grace. Appropriate His finished work for you and you pull the teeth from the power of sin. You drain sin’s gas tank! Tragically, many disciplers’ major tool for trying to motivate a believer to grow is law. But God’s plan is for us to learn who we now are and how to appropriate grace for victory in each day’s circumstances, so Christ gets the glory. “Thanks be to God, who gives [that’s grace] us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57).