I want to share with you a passage from an early Christian writer that changed my life. I don't have space here to tell you how it changed my life, but I can give you the heart of the passage.
"As long, then, as the former time (i.e., the Old Covenant) endured, he
permitted us to be borne along by unruly impulses, being drawn away by the
desire of pleasure and various lusts. This was not that he at all delighted in
our sins, but that he simply endured them...He sought to form a mind conscious
of righteousness, so that being convinced in that time of our unworthiness of
attaining life through our own works, it should now, through the kindness of
God, be vouchsafed to us."
If the quote were left here, we American evangelicals would be confirmed in our belief that Jesus' death caused God to overlook sin and changed the way God would judge us. It doesn't end there, however.
"...and having made it manifest that in ourselves we were unable to enter
into the kingdom of God, we might through the power of God be made able"
(Anonymous, Letter to Diognetus 9, c. AD 100-130).
This one sentence resolved years of confusion over the issue of faith and works. It is not that this sentence carries authority in itself. It is that these few words handed me the key to unlock the seeming contradictions in the verses about faith and the verses about works in the Bible.
Many years ago, I used to keep a list of verses in the back of my Bible. It was a list of verses on works that I couldn't explain. It had passages like Rom. 2:5-8, where Paul says that God will not only judge us by our works, but that he would also give eternal life to those who pursued immortality by doing good. It had verses like James 2:24, which says that we are not justified by faith alone. It had statements like 2 Cor. 5:10, which says that we will be judged by our works, both good and bad.
Somewhere along the line, I realized that the answer to issues like these would be found in the writings of the early church, because they wrote the same way Paul did. On one page, they would say that works have nothing to do with our salvation, but on the very next they would tie salvation to obeying God's commandments. Paul does this throughout the end of Galatians, saying that we won't inherit the kingdom of heaven if we practice the works of the flesh (5:19-21) and that we'll get eternal life by sowing to the Spirit and not growing weary in doing good (6:8,9). Ephesians, however, has a very clear example of the contradiction. In chapter 2, he tells us--in the passage we all know--that we are saved by grace through faith apart from works, but in chapter 5, he tells us that if we are immoral, unclean, or covetous, then we'll have no inheritance in the kingdom of God, but instead we'll be judged like the disobedient! Ouch!
As a result of noticing these things, I was rather excited when I found the same seeming contradiction in Polycarp, a disciple of the apostle John as a young man, in his letter to the Philippian church. Polycarp was head elder of the church in Smyrna, and in the first chapter of his letter, he quotes Paul and says we are saved by grace, not by works. In the second chapter, however, he says that God will raise us up with Christ if we keep his commandments and do his will! (All these writings, by the way, are available on the web at http://www.ccel.org.)
Okay, now back to our passage from the Letter to Diognetus (one of the earliest, most readable, and most enjoyable of the early Christian writings). First, the anonymous author tells us that God was showing us throughout Old Testament times that we could never attain to heaven by our works. We all know and believe this. That doctrine of justification by faith apart from works has been hammered home to us since the Reformation, 500 years ago. In the meantime, we've all wondered why in the world James, the Lord's brother and leader of the church at Jerusalem, whom Paul called a pillar of the church, would say that justification is by works and not faith only. (That's a direct quote of Jam. 2:24, by the way.) Martin Luther had an answer. His answer was that the letter of James was a "right strawy epistle" that has "nothing of the nature of the Gospel about it." That's really not a very satisfying answer for me.
But the Letter to Diognetus doesn't leave us hanging. He gives an interesting answer to the dilemma we are in. We are incapable of attaining to life by our works. What's the answer? We Reformation-descended Christians would say that God killed Jesus in our place, and so now he can ignore our works and give us life no matter what we do. The problem is, that's not a very Biblical answer, since the Bible says that if we live according to the flesh, we will die, and that we will only live if we walk according to the Spirit (Rom. 8:13).
Our anonymous author's answer is that God would make us able to enter life by his power.
I don't know what that does for you, but for me it answered all my questions. Further, I was absolutely astonished how Biblical this was.
We are saved by grace through faith apart from works, says Ephesians 2. What does this produce? Going to heaven without works? No, not at all! It produces works! "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works" (Eph 2:10). Titus 2 speaks of "the grace of God that brings salvation" as well. What salvation does it bring? "[Jesus] gave himself for us, so that he might redeem us from all inquity and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works" (Tit 2:14).
Oh, what we couldn't do on our own, God did for us. We could not attain to life by our works, but we could not do on our own, God did! Paul writes, "For what the Law could not do, because it was weak because of our flesh, God did!" (Rom 8:3). It is still nothing we can do on our own, but "the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit" (Rom. 8:4).
Oh! No wonder Paul says that we must walk according to the Spirit to live (Rom. 8:13). No wonder that Paul says we must sow to the Spirit to reap eternal life (Gal. 6:8). No wonder Paul says the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9). No wonder John says that those who don't keep Christ's commandments don't know him (1 Jn. 2:3,4).
And..no wonder that Peter says the righteous will be saved only with difficulty (1 Pet. 4:18). The KJV puts it as the righteous "scarcely" being saved. In his next letter, he tells us that if we want to "make our calling and election sure," "never fall," and have an abundant entrance into Jesus' kingdom, then we had better "add to our faith virtue" and a lot of other qualities which must be increasing, or else we have "forgotten that we were purged from our sins" (2 Pet. 1:5-11).
I hate to tell you this, but Jesus didn't die to change the judgment. The judgment was always just. The slander about God that he ever intended to burn people in hell forever for one little white lie has never been true. It is true that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. However, that's in Romans chapter three, and that chapter says the problem is that we have poison of asps under our tongues and our lips are full of deceit. We haven't done one little sin. We are bad people. We need serious redemption. Paul has a much more decent view of God than we do. God will justify those who have lived according to their conscience (Rom 2:15). Ezekiel, long before Christ died, told us that God, who is merciful and kind, would give life even to sinners who turned from their evil ways and began to do righteousness (Ezek. 33:15).
God didn't need Jesus to die for him in order to make him merciful. God was already merciful. That passage in Ezekiel,--as well as others like Psalm 51, where David testifies that God doesn't need sacrifices to forgive David's adultery and murder--says that God was always "faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" if we would confess our sins.
It was us who needed Jesus to die for us. We were wicked and full of sin. In coming to Christ, we are made new creatures. Old things pass away, and all things become new. We can walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. We become his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works.
If this is not the salvation you have experienced, then you've experienced something short of Christ's salvation. Perhaps that's because you've heard the wrong Gospel. You can only become a disciple of Christ if you forsake everything, including your own life (Luke 14:26-33). This is what belief in Christ means. What good does it do to say you've believed in Christ if you don't believe him when he says you can't be his disciple without forsaking everything?
Just as likely, however, is that you've heard another form of corrupted Gospel. You've been told that "there's no salvation outside the church" is a doctrine of St. Augustine and other early church fathers caught up in the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. It is not. It is a doctrine of the apostles found in Hebrews, where the writer says, "Exhort one another every day, while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin" (3:13). It is a doctrine of Paul, who said, "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I do not need you.' (1 Cor. 12:21).
We were never meant to make it on our own. You have need of your brothers and sisters. You need them to encourage you every day. You need to confess your faults to them and have them pray for you so that you may be healed. You need the great grace that is poured out in the place where the family of God shares their lives together (Acts 4:32-33). It is grace that breaks sin's power over you (Rom. 6:14), and great grace is found where brothers dwell together in unity. Psalm 133 calls it the blessing of eternal life (v. 3).
This is awful long for a blog post. Awful important, too, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment