Gospel-Centered Sanctification
We just finished up another episode of Puritan Voices last week and our focus was on the importance of the gospel in the believer’s life. Much of our emphasis really came down to sanctification and how the believer should “preach the gospel to themselves” on a constant basis and through this we can achieve true sanctification. Over the last year or so, I’ve followed authors who promote this idea of “gospel-centered sanctification” but the more I really look deeply into this teaching it seems to improperly promote a resting faith in both justification and sanctification without the call to the believer to pursue sanctification through an active faith as a result of regeneration. Are we straying from the Biblical truths that our holiness and sanctification stems from our union with Christ (John 15) through a real change in our heart and dispositions? There are clear imperatives in Scripture to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Gospel-centered sanctification teachings seem to fall short in handling those imperatives. Have we forgotten that Christ is the vine and we are the branches and apart from Him we can do absolutely nothing? I believe so and therefore we must be very careful in how we proclaim what is commonly called gospel-centered sanctification. It has some validity to be sure. We as Christians should preach the glorious gospel to ourselves but neglecting the reality of regeneration is not being faithful to what Scripture teaches as a whole with regard to progressive sanctification, in my humble opinion.
I’ve been an advocate of this teaching for quite some time, but after really looking deeper into what Scripture says I believe it to have shortcomings with regards to the right understanding of faith’s role in progressive sanctification and a neglect to recognize Christ Himself and our union with Him as the core of our sanctification and not resting faith. (Faith is essential in sanctification. I’m not denying that. But’s it’s important to realize the type of faith being discussed.) For example, it’s important to recognize that justifying faith is resting faith [in Christ], and sanctifying faith is active faith. The Christian life is one of constant rest, and constant labor. (James 2; 1 John 3:3-9)
Don’t get me wrong. I commend those who rightly proclaim the joy and necessity for believers to preach the gospel to themselves. I need to preach the gospel to myself constantly! There is great truth in this gospel-centered focus and it is where the Church needs to be. But, we must not neglect the full counsel of Scripture and the duality of a faith that rests and a faith that acts. Both must be proclaimed in a healthy balance. Like the old hymn writer put it, “trust [passive faith] and obey [active faith] for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.”
I commend a most excellent article by Calvin Beisner on his critique of this particular element of Sonship Theology where he does an outstanding job of explaining the errors in this teaching as well as pointing us in the right direction. May God’s Word prevail and may we be kept by His power rightly diving the Word of truth!
Eager to get your thoughts on this topic.
Here’s the link to Calvin Beisner’s article in pdf format.
Here is an article by Joel Taylor that also focuses on this issue.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Related posts:
- Gospel-Driven Sanctification
- The Error of the Modern Gospel Call
- Ministers of the Gospel
- Returning the Gospel Focus
- Preaching the Gospel to Yourself Daily
Tags: Calvin Beisner, Jerry Bridges, Justification, Reformed Theology, Romand Catholic, Sanctification, Sonship Theology
Jay –
I share your concerns and understand them. So much of what seems like good teaching on the surface is too easily and readily accepted without careful examination.
We should be more careful about ‘new’ ideas and be sure they are sound to the core; remembering our enemy is a master of deception and can (and will!) twist even the very words of God to his own wicked purposes.
I wonder if we have forgotten what Scripture tells us about our enemy; that he is like a lion seeking who he can devour?
It seems to me since the Bible tells us we are born dead in our sins and trespasses that our enemy would not worry about us until we are reborn. I wonder if seriously consider that it is when we are reborn that he takes serious notice and begins to search us out to devour us?
And how would he do this? The first thing we are ever told about him is something I try hard not to forget – “Now the serpent was ***more crafty*** than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.”
He knows how to trick, how to trap, how to trip up.
And it seems to me that his favorite tactic is the same one that he seduced our first parents with – “you will be like God”.
This is the first test I always now place against any teaching I hear that seems good to me – “What is this teaching really saying? What is the purpose and what is the appeal?”
If the teaching is sound when compared to Scripture this is good.
If the teaching glorifies the Most High God this is good.
If the teaching declares that Jesus is the son of the Living God, this is good.
But when the teaching has at its core the seductive promise, in any way, shape or form; even the mere suggestion; that I might in some way usurp the role of God for myself, then I reject it.
That may seem to be too radical. I do not believe it is.
I believe the church is awash in prideful, man-glorifying, false teaching today. It is making the body weak and sick and ineffective. Pelagian heresy has this same deception at its core – that man has it within himself to do the saving work of God (you will be as God).
Isaiah 14:13 clarifies for me the reason for the angelic fall –
“You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north…”
– Satan wanted to be God. The very cause of his own fall is what he used to bring about the fall of humanity; a prideful deception that the creature can supplant the Creator. I believe this is still his favorite tactic – to appeal to our pride.
My sanctification is the only thing synergistic in my life as a believer. Paul tells us in Romans that now that we are raised up as a new creation in Christ Jesus we are changed and must not let sin reign in our mortal bodies. This requires effort on my part, yes. But in this, I think we must make effort of our own will to place it in subjugation to the Holy Spirit’s efforts to sanctify us. We work with Him in cooperation, but He must always be in the lead.
It is only by His grace that the taint of original sin was removed from us in the first place. The “non posse non pecarre” was removed from me by the monergistic working of God. The “posse non pecarre” the ability to choose to not sin was put in its place by God. The only reason I have the ability to desire the things of God and to choose to not commit a sin is because of what He has done. So even in my synergistic efforts to cooperate with the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying of me, I am reminded even my own effort as I ‘work out my salvation in fear and trembling’ is the mighty and magnificent work of God, and of God alone.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Eph. 2:8-9.
This humbles me. It doesn’t lead me to believe (or even want to believe) that I am doing anything significant. I am mere clay in the potter’s nail-scarred hands.
What I am now, what I will become is for Him to shape. My efforts must remain an effort to submit to His will and through his merciful work, I can make the choice to not sin; to not place my fleshly desire ahead of His desire and will, and in the process be sanctified.
If this is what is meant by preaching the gospel to ourselves then I say Amen!
If on the other hand what is being suggested, or if I were to start to believe in my heart, that preaching the gospel to myself is some sort of incantation that empowers me in myself to work sanctification, then I say “get thee behind me Satan!”
May we never lose sight of who is LORD and who is slave. May we always in humility consider our sanctification as the work God is doing and we only assist; and we assist only because He first gave us the gift of doing so. “In Him we live and move and have our being”!
(Sorry didn’t mean to preach!)
I think what I struggle with most is desiring to hear that balance between the need to preach the gospel to ourselves and also the need to heed the clear directives of Scripture to fight the flesh, mortify sin, lay aside the sin that so easily entangles us. Yes, preaching the gospel to ourselves and realizing that our strength comes only in Christ is all over the Bible, but so is the reality that because of Christ we have new hearts, new dispositions and are new creatures that seek to obey God (albeit imperfectly) and thus, there is the charge in the Scriptures for believers to make war with sin.
Jesus teaches us to pluck out the eye, cut off the hand and foot if it causes us to stumble in sin. At the basic level, Jesus is teaching us that if we don’t make war with sin we will go to hell. (You don’t hear that behind many pulpits!) Jesus isn’t saying we work our way to heaven by battling sin. He is telling us that the mark of a believer is that they will hate sin and make war with it. They will have an active faith that desires to live a holy life. It won’t be a perfect battle. The good Lord knows I have failed many times and will fail many times but when I sin it grieves me to the core and my desire is to have true repentance from it. As Paul Washer so rightly states, what we must often ask if not just “what is your relationship with Christ” but also “what is your relationship with sin?” Do you hate it or do you relish it and secretly desire it? That honestly is the difference between believers and unbelievers. Both sin and believers can and do sin grievously in this life. But the way a believer responds to sin is fully different from the unbeliever. Their “relationship” with sin is at polar opposites.
I believe this is why some of the adherents to Sonship Theology are charged with nothing less than antinomianism… (can of worms just opened!)
Thanks for the link to Beisner’s article. Good stuff.
I haven’t read the article yet but will. I get confused with works salvation and true sanctification.
Okay, I read the article and it is a little too deep for me. I am resting in the finished work of Christ and as a result He is the first thing I think of in the morning, the last thing I think of before I close my eyes and whom I love during the day. All to Jesus I surrender because I love Him and because He first loved me.
Also, I got this question about the sin of death spoken about in 1 John which professing carnal Christians use to support their theory. I would love to have a good rebuke.
We always watch Wretched TV with Todd Friel. He is always saying to preach the gospel to yourself everyday. That is also why we bought the Gospel Primer with Milton Vincent.
One episode that bothered me and still does was when a preacher who is big on preaching the gospel to yourself everyday said on the show that beer drinking is fine and that watching R movies are okay because the Bible has swearing and blasphemy in it. I wrote him on two occasions where in the Bible that may be and he never did respond. I have nothing to do with that preacher anymore and has caused me some concern.
Hi Jay –
I understand what you’re saying. Like so many of the ideas being discussed in the blogosphere, it comes down to whether the individual is standing on the rock or on shifting sand.
However, since the gospel is the good news of salvation; and since I’ve placed my faith in Christ and consider that matter settled, when it comes to sanctification most often my prayers boil down to – ‘Create in me a clean heart oh God and renew a right spirit within me’.