Tag Archives: Holiness

October 5, 2014 · 4:04 pm

Week 8 of 8 in Bunyan: A Wonderfully Glorious Conclusion

This final assignment (paragraphs 300-339 & Conclusion) in Grace Abounding takes us within sight of the Celestial City, whereby we discover clearer views of ourselves and greater longings to enjoy unbroken communion with our dear Savior.

The last two paragraphs in the Conclusion afford us such inspiring vistas, in the form of seven abominations magnificently ordered by God’s wisdom for the saint’s good far beyond what anyone would ever imagine possible:

  1. I find to this day seven abominations in my heart: (1) Inclinings to unbelief. (2) Suddenly to forget the love and mercy that Christ manifesteth. (3) A leaning to the works of the law. (4) Wanderings and coldness in prayer. (5) To forget to watch for that I pray for. (6) Apt to murmur because I have no more, and yet ready to abuse what I have. (7) I can do none of those things which God commands me, but my corruptions will thrust in themselves, ‘When I would do good, evil is present with me.’  
  2. These things I continually see and feel, and am afflicted and oppressed with; yet the wisdom of God doth order them for my good. (1) They make me abhor myself. (2) They keep me from trusting my heart. (3) They convince me of the insufficiency of all inherent righteousness. (4) They show me the necessity of fleeing to Jesus. (5) They press me to pray unto God. (6) They show me the need I have to watch and be sober. (7) And provoke me to look to God, through Christ, to help me, and carry me through this world. Amen.

It seems that Bunyan is ending with a seven-fold exposition of the illustration he employed in the preface addressed to his children:

I have sent you here enclosed, a drop of that honey, that I have taken out of the carcase of a lion (Judg. 14:5-9). I have eaten thereof myself also, and am much refreshed thereby.  (Temptations, when we meet them at first, are as the lion that roared upon Samson; but if we overcome them, the next time we see them, we shall find a nest of honey within them.)  The Philistines understand me not.

I think it was Thomas Brooks in Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices who cited someone by the name of Hooper as saying:  “Lord, I am hell, but you are heaven.”  The believer who, by grace, comes to perceive the plague of his heart will heartily agree with Hooper’s assessment as well as Bunyan’s, and those lessons well-learned will send the soul regularly to Jesus, emptied of all self-righteousness and resolutions to do better; for apart from Him, we can do nothing.  So it isn’t surprising that the person who knows himself and his desperate, daily need of the Savior becomes keenly aware of the need for prayer.

I remember how John Piper (sorry for the citation of a current author on this dead theologians blog!) compared prayer to air support.  Ground troops on the battlefield call in air support via walkie-talkies.  The “shock and awe” that the air support brings is stunning.  So it is when the humble soul calls upon the Lord for aid against enemies too strong for him.  The strongest believer is no match for either the flesh, the world, or Satan, much less all three combined, wherein is the saint’s constant conflict.  And the “shock and awe” that ensues in response to prayers for aid all flow from Mount Zion, which Bunyan also referred to in paragraph 5 of the Conclusion:

  1. Of all tears, they are the best that are made by the blood of Christ; and of all joy, that is the sweetest that is mixed with mourning over Christ. Oh! it is a goodly thing to be on our knees, with Christ in our arms, before God. I hope I know something of these things.

I hope I know something of these things as well, although far more infrequently than I would like.  It is truly a taste of heaven to be simultaneously so convicted of sin and so assured of the forgiveness and acceptance of God that tears of joy flow profusely down the face and all you can say is GLORY as His presence seems to saturate the heart.  At times like that, one can enthusiastically join John Newton’s retort in the face of every accusing dart hurled by the evil one:

Bowed down beneath a load of sin,
By Satan sorely pressed,
By war without and fears within,
I come to Thee for rest.

Be Thou my Shield and hiding Place,
That, sheltered by Thy side,
I may my fierce accuser face,
And tell him Thou hast died!

Glory be to Him, through whom grace is ever abounding!

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September 28, 2014 · 4:24 pm

Week 7 of 8 in Bunyan: Fears Within and Without

This week’s assignment (paragraphs 254-299) in Grace Abounding affords many jumping off points, so much so that I will have to restrain myself considerably.

Having had the privilege of preaching on several occasions in the past, I was greatly encouraged by paragraph 277 because this is another instance where I thought I was the only one ever to have experienced anything like what Bunyan described (bold emphasis added):

277. Indeed I have been as one sent to them from the dead; I went myself in chains to preach to them in chains; and carried that fire in my own conscience that I persuaded them to beware of. I can truly say, and that without dissembling, that when I have been to preach, I have gone full of guilt and terror even to the pulpit door, and there it hath been taken off, and I have been at liberty in my mind until I have done my work, and then immediately, even before I could get down the pulpit stairs, I have been as bad as I was before; yet God carried me on, but surely with a strong hand, for neither guilt nor hell could take me off my work.

I can relate to this experience particularly when I was in seminary and asked to fill the pulpit one Sunday morning at our home church.  I went into the pulpit that day feeling not as prepared as I wanted to be.  My wife and I had to make a six hour drive into town the Friday before, and this also hindered preparation time which had to be squeezed in between part time work and a full time class load. I felt completely unworthy to address the congregation that day, as inexperienced as I was in addition to the transition the church was going through after the departure its minister.  And yet, there came such a freedom and unction to speak the word boldly and yet with love and compassion for the congregation, such that many shared with me afterwards how they were blessed. On the return trip home as I reflected on the whole experience, I marveled at how the Lord used such a broken, unworthy vessel.  Perhaps it sounds a little trite, but being used that way is a very humbling thing because it becomes very clear that it is the Lord at work, and He alone can draw straight lines with crooked sticks.

Another paragraph I found very encouraging was 296 (bold emphasis added):

296. I have also, while found in this blessed work of Christ, been often tempted to pride and liftings up of heart; and though I dare not say I have not been infected with this, yet truly the Lord, of His precious mercy, hath so carried it towards me, that, for the most part, I have had but small joy to give way to such a thing; for it hath been my every day’s portion to be let into the evil of my own heart, and still made to see such a multitude of corruptions and infirmities therein, that it hath caused hanging down of the head under all my gifts and attainments; I have felt this thorn in the flesh, the very mercy of God to me (II Cor. 12:7-9).

We talk about besetting sins, the ones to which we are so inclined that they trip us up so easily.  Before I came to the task of the mortification of that sin in my particular case, I used to think that once I had victory in that area, everything would be fine.  Besetting sins like that, however, are like big rocks under which all kinds of little creepy crawly things are hiding.  Once you get that big rock broken up so that you can see under and all around it, you realize that there are, as Bunyan puts it, a “multitude of corruptions and infirmities therein.”

Here I think is a great wonder and a bit of irony in the way the gospel works itself out in the life of the believer.  The closer you get to the light, the more you see your spots.  The closer a person draws near to the Holy One, the more he sees his sins. And wonder of wonder, Christ becomes dearer as a twofold discovery is made: 1) the believer finds himself to be far more sinful that he ever imagined; and 2) he discovers Christ to be far more gracious than he ever dared to dream.  Now please don’t misinterpret me to be saying that sanctification is merely getting used to one’s justification, and that the saint is to wallow in his sinfulness because it manifests the grace of God.  On the contrary, greater is he that dwells in the saint than he that is in the world.  Consequently, there will be victory over sin, and a trajectory of increasing obedience and holiness over the life of a believer.  But it is always a work in process, and it is a process in which the saint is able to step back and perceive the beauty and wonder of what God is up to in his life, and that of others.  In The Nature and Causes of Apostasy, John Owen identified causes and occasions of the decay of holiness in believers, one of which was being mistaken in this regard about the beauty and glory of Christian religion:

But about the true notion and apprehension of that glory and honour which is proper unto religion and suited unto its nature, men have fallen into many woful mistakes; for whereas it principally consists in the glorious internal operations of the Holy Spirit, renewing our nature, transforming us into the image and likeness of God, with the fruits of his grace in righteousness and, true holiness, in a meek, humble, gracious conversation, and the performance of all duties according to the rule, few are able to discern beauty or glory or honour in these things. But yet where there is not an eye to discern them, the gospel must of necessity be despised and abandoned, and somewhat else substituted in the room thereof. (available online at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/owen/apostasy.i.xiv.html)

If we aren’t aware of the multitude of corruptions within, we are very likely to miss the “glorious internal operations of the Holy Spirit, renewing our nature”, making us more like Christ, and we will hinder his work, because we aren’t looking into the mirror of the word, beholding his face so to be changed thereby.  So I close again by saying: Take up and read!  Take up and read!

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July 27, 2014 · 9:26 pm

Week 23 in Fisher: Reasons for Holiness

If you found the body main text of Edward Fisher’s The Marrow of Modern Divinity to be a difficult read, brace yourself as you approach the appendix, which contains the twelve queries “agreed unto by the commission of the General Assembly, and put to those ministers who gave in a representation and petition against the 5th and 8th Acts of Assembly 1720, with the answers given by these ministers to the said queries.” The style is much more protracted and demands more concentration from the reader. At least it did of this reader.

I found all of the first seven queries interesting, but the seventh one captured most of my attention, because of the fourteen reasons provided therein, as the writers detailed the need for a holy life. I wonder how many people today could give three reasons for holiness in the lives of believers today, much less fourteen!

Here they are, courtesy of the “marrow controversy” (available online at: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/fisher_e/marrow.iii.xv.html):

To the query, we answer, that we cordially and sincerely own a holy life, or good works,

  1. necessary, as an acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty, and in obedience to his command: for this is the will of God, even our sanctification; and, by a special ordination, he has appointed believers to walk in them:
  2. necessary, for glorifying God before the world, and showing the virtues of him who hath called us out of darkness into his marvellous light:
  3. necessary, as being the end of our election, our redemption, effectual calling, and regeneration; for “the Father chose us in Christ, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy; the Son gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works”; and by the Holy Spirit are we created in Christ Jesus unto them:
  4. necessary, as expressions of our gratitude to our great Benefactor; for being bought with a price, we are no more our own, but henceforth, in a most peculiar manner bound, in our bodies and in our spirits, which are his, to glorify, and by all possible ways, to testify our thanksgiving to our Lord Redeemer and Ransomer; to him “who spared not his own Son, but gave him up to the death for us all”; to him “who humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, for us”:
  5. necessary, as being the design, not only of the world, but of all ordinances and providences; even that as he who has called us is holy, so we should be holy in all manner of conversation:
  6. necessary, again, for evidencing and confirming our faith, good works being the breath, the native offspring and issue of it:
  7. necessary, for making our calling and election sure; for they are, though no plea, yet a good evidence for heaven, or an argument confirming our assurance and hope of salvation:
  8. necessary, to the maintaining of inward peace and comfort, though not as the ground and foundation, yet as effects, fruits, and concomitants of faith:
  9. necessary, in order to our entertaining communion with God even in this life; for, “if we say we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth”:
  10. necessary, to the escaping of judgments, and to the enjoyment of many promised blessings; particularly there is a necessity of order and method, that one be holy before he can be admitted to see and enjoy God in heaven; that being a disposing mean, preparing for the salvation of it, and the king’s highway chalked out for the redeemed to walk into the city:
  11. necessary, to adorn the gospel and grace our holy calling and profession:
  12. necessary, further, for the edification, good, and comfort, of fellow-believers:
  13. necessary, to prevent offence, and to stop the mouths of the wicked; to win likewise the unbelieving, and to commend Christ and his ways to the consciences:
  14. necessary, finally, for the establishment, security, and glory of churches and nations.

Having belabored the necessity of holiness in this way, however, these ministers subsequently denied that holiness procured salvation, and thus denied salvation by works.  And it was this issue which kept popping up over and over again in the queries, as it has throughout the history of the church, because the flesh loves to smuggle in self-righteousness.

Take up and read!

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