First things first, to my incredible weekly readership of two to four people I’m sorry it’s been a little while since I last updated the blog. I was in Florida for Spring Break absorbing some sun and good theology simultaneously as I read over 1,000 pages of good books. I hope to do a blog post or a series of blog posts in the near future reviewing the books. For the curious person the books were Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, Amazing Grace by Jonathan Aitken, Why We Love the Church by Kevin Deyoung and Ted Kluck, Johnny Can’t Preach by T. David Gordon, and the beginning of Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus by D.A. Carson. Now that I’m back from break I hope to be able to get back to updating the blog fairly regularly.
Over break I was reading though the book of Hebrews, some of that reading will be the subject of this post. I don’t know about all of you, but Hebrews was a mysterious book to me for most of my last 20 years. I distinctly remember never reading it in High School because it looked to be way too full of Old Testament references to be interesting or useful. Plus it had a whole chapter about some dude named Melchizedek, a name I could hardly pronounce, much less have a desire to learn about.
Since January of freshman year when God brought me out of Spiritual hypocrisy and gave me eyes to see Him as the treasure that He is I’ve come to cherish the book of Hebrews as the constantly Christ exalting book it is. Hebrews has gone from being a book that was foreign and seemingly terrible to me to being perhaps my favorite book of the Bible. Hebrews has made that jump because it spends 13 wonderful chapters showing how marvelous Christ is. I will be spending the rest of this post reflecting a bit on Hebrews 9:24-26b.
Hebrews 9:24-26b
“For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands…but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer Himself repeatedly…but as it is, He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”
What struck me so much about these few verses from Hebrews was how emphatically the work of Christ is presented as a finished work. This theme, that of Christ’s finished atoning work on our behalf, is one that is one of the main themes of Hebrews and it runs throughout the letter. The main way that Hebrews establishes this theme is by contrasting Christ’s ministry with the ministry of earthly priest’s. This contrast is drawn out and explicated the most in Hebrews 7-10. Hebrews 7 introduces the theme by drawing on the example of the Priest King Melchizedek from the Old Testament.
Hebrews 7:11 gives us the initial ground for the comparison between Christ’s ministry and the ministry of earthly priests by noting that “If perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood…what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek?” The writer to the Hebrews is basically posing a question that the readers of the Epistle should already be able to answer at this point in the letter. The writer is prompting the readers to answer, “If perfection had been attainable through the old Priesthood there would be no need for another priest to arise.” The writer is prompting the readers towards that answer because it is his intent to show over the next 3 chapters just how perfect Christ’s priesthood is.
The writer to the Hebrews provides more comparisons between the imperfect ministry of earthly priests with the perfect heavenly ministry of Christ as he observes later in the chapter that, “The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but He [Christ] holds His priesthood permanently, because He continues forever. Consequently, He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for others.” Christ’s atoning work on our behalf is perfect where the earthly priest’s of yesteryears work was imperfect. Christ’s atoning work on our behalf is perfect because it is a completed one. Take a moment to reflect on this marvelous truth.
Salvation: Continuing Work or Completed Work?
Far too often we misinterpret Biblical language about the necessity of repentance or the ongoing daily struggle of sanctification to mean that our salvation is an ongoing process. Far too often we make the Gospel into worthless religion. We do this by thinking about our relationship to God as something that is constantly changing based on performance. But this performance based acceptance isn’t the good news of the Gospel; it’s the damnable news of religion. The Gospel offers us so much more hope, and that hope is so beautifully expressed in Hebrews. Instead of having to worry about making daily offerings to God of good works we can trust in Christ. Who “Has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for His own sins and then for those of the people, since He did this once for all when He offered up Himself.” Our salvation is not something that we are still working on. No, our salvation is something that was purchased for us, once for all, by the perfect atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf when He was brutally crucified on a Roman cross 2,000 years ago.
So is our salvation a finished work, or a work in progress? John Piper presents a good insight to this question as he explores the relationship between the one time sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our salvation, and the continuing daily sacrifices of the obedient Christian life that are required of us in Scripture. Writing in his book The Future of Justification Piper observes,
“Our only hope for living the radical demands of the Christian life is that God is totally for us now and forever. Therefore, God has not ordained that living the Christian life should be the basis of our hope that God is for us. That basis is the death and righteousness of Christ, counted as ours through faith alone. On the cross Christ endured for all the punishment required of us because of our sin.”
Stop and read it again to make sure you got it in all its wonderful beauty and clarity. The only reason I can put away my sins daily is because I know and trust that He has put away my sin eternally!
So many of us spend our days trying to earn a mysterious deity’s favor. During the time the letter to the Hebrews was written the people it was addressing would have been trying to earn that mysterious deity’s favor through animal sacrifices. Today we have largely abandoned that practice, although we still try to “be a good person,” “raise a good family,” and “live a good life,” in order that God may be pleased with us. But the Bible shows us just how futile and petty these acts are before a truly good and holy God. Before His righteousness our “righteousness” is but a filthy rag. But there is hope for us. That hope is this Jesus. This Jesus, this Jesus who has offered Himself once for all, in our place, for our sins, to His Father that we may be saved from the wrath to come, this is our savior. He lived the life we should have lived and He died the death we should have died.
His work on our behalf is a finished work. This is the wonderful truth that the book of Hebrews makes so clear. His atoning sacrifice on our behalf gives us a “better hope” (Hebrews 7:19) for our lives than any other worldview can offer. His intercession on our behalf “continues forever” (Hebrews 7:24) because He continues forever! His death was a “once for all” (Hebrews 7:27) sacrifice by which He has forever “put away sin,” (Hebrews 9:26) for those who are His. He has secured for His people an “eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12) and is able to “make perfect” (Hebrews 10:1) those who will draw near to Him.
So I pray that all who have read with me this far will draw near to Him. I pray that we all may increase in our desire for this glorious Christ daily. I pray that we will not lose sight of the fact that our salvation has already been purchased for us through the finished atoning work of Christ as we continue to work at it with fear and trembling.
Love this post Grant! Keep blogging
ReplyDeleteHey Grant, I completely agree that Christ died once and for all that his work is finished. His one work is completely sufficient.
ReplyDeleteBut you take it a step further, you wrote:
"Far too often we misinterpret Biblical language about the necessity of repentance or the ongoing daily struggle of sanctification to mean that our salvation is an ongoing process. Far too often we make the Gospel into worthless religion. We do this by thinking about our relationship to God as something that is constantly changing based on performance. But this performance based acceptance isn’t the good news of the Gospel; it’s the damnable news of religion."
You separate salvation from sanctification and say that salvation is complete because Jesus died once for all. But isn't my sanctification also entirely dependent on Jesus' sacrifice on the cross? If so, could I not argue that since his death on the cross is once for all and is complete and is enough, therefore I am also sanctified? Clearly I am not. It's a process, as we all know. Christ's work on the cross is being applied to me, by God's grace, more and more everyday.
You assume that because Jesus' work is complete that it's application is complete. Those are not the same things.
Christ came to save all of me. Christ came to save us from our sins and from sin. He came to restore order to all of creation. He came to make us new. His work is finished, but since we are not yet in the eschaton, it has not yet all reached complete application.
So, I would agree that Christ's work was once and for all and is finished and is enough and is totally complete. He's won. And so in that sense our salvation is complete. But regarding its application, it is continuous over a period of time.
I also think my relationship with God can indeed change based on what I do. If I choose to cheat on my wife, this has dire consequences for my relationship with God. Repentance of sin is necessary for salvation. That's what repentance is always always preached when the gospel is preached.
Brantly-
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading and commenting, I owe your blog a visit still.
I had a feeling when I wrote that set of sentences you critiqued that someone would probably pull it out and disagree with it. Let me try and work through your remarks
1. "You separate salvation from sanctification" Yes, I do. So does the Bible. This is not to say that I want to argue that sanctification is something that Christians can just "opt out" of and just say "Jesus saved me so it's all good." Instead I want to stand with Scripture and with the Reformers in proclaiming that justification and sanctification must not be rolled into being one and the same. This is the point I was trying to make, my language of "salvation," may not have been as clear. You could fairly summarize what I was trying to communicate as "Justification and sanctification should be separated as the one is the grounds of the other."
This is what I was getting at with that Piper quote. It's a mistake to roll justification and sanctification together because the only reason that we can be sanctified is because we have been justified! There is no grounds for my being made righteous if I have not had God's wrath removed from me.
All that said I would never want to downplay the importance of sanctification. I just want to put it in its Biblical place, as necessarily following justification as a tree necessarily bears fruit.
2. "You assume that since Jesus work is complete its application is complete." No, I don't. Perhaps I didn't make this clear enough but what I am arguing for is that Christ's atoning/salvific work is complete. Obviously there is much of that work that needs still to be applied to my life, I wouldn't disagree with that. Would you disagree with the clarified statement that Christ's atoning and salvific work is complete?
If we disagree with anything it will be on the extent and efficacy of the atonement I assume. I would fully agree with your statement that the application of our salvation is continuous overtime insofar as that means that we are not yet fully sanctified. I would disagree with it if you would take your statement to mean that because we are not yet fully sanctified we are not yet fully saved.
On your last point out of curiosity it seems that if I follow your logic out than every time I sin and forget to repent or commit an unintended sin that I don't even know to repent for I lose my salvation. I don't think that's what you would actually believe but that's what your language seems to point to. I would affirm that sin does affect our relationship with God, but if we are truly saved there is no sin that can remove us from God. Another way to put it would be that if one is truly saved there is no continuing unrepentant sin.
Grant,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"what I am arguing for is that Christ's atoning/salvific work is complete."
I completely agree with you here. A person who sees justification as a process doesn't disagree with you here either, and that's my point.
You wrote:
"I would disagree with it if you would take your statement to mean that because we are not yet fully sanctified we are not yet fully saved. "
I think we're somewhat talking past each other here. In my mind, there is a sense in which I am not "saved" until I reach heaven. I'm not "saved" until my salvation is fully realized, (in the same way Phonathon hasn't paid me until I get the check, not when I finish the work). I'm still in this world of sin. I still have sin in myself. All of that hasn't been removed yet. Christ's work, which is enough for its removal, is complete, but, as we've said, it hasn't been fully applied yet. Sanctification is part of salvation in the way I use that word because I need saving from the sin in me. But I will say that I agree with you that we are "already saved" in the sense that the work necessary for our salvation is complete in Jesus' death on the cross. I believe that we aren't only saved from God's wrath (though we certainly are saved from that). We are also saved from the effects of sin in us. God may look at me differently and not have need of punishing me, but I still need to be changed.
You wrote:
"On your last point out of curiosity it seems that if I follow your logic out than every time I sin and forget to repent or commit an unintended sin that I don't even know to repent for I lose my salvation. "
No, this is only true of mortal sins (hence the name "mortal"). For a person to commit a mortal sin they must full knowledge that what they are doing is wrong, they must intend to do it, and it must be a grave matter. So, for example, if I purposely cheat on my wife, that would be a mortal sin. If I'm unthinkingly slightly less patient than I should be in the line at the grocery store, that is not a mortal sin.
Basically, even if I've been a Christian my whole life, if I decide to become an serial axe murderer and am totally unrepentant of it, then I'm probably no longer saved. I must repent of that. Now, if I do, I am forgiven. I do not believe in once saved always saved. It is possible to reject God after having accepted him.
In short, I'll say this: When a Christian says that salvation is continuous, they are not denying that Christ's death on the cross is finished or is enough.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHey Grant,
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you try reading books written by women as well as books written by men?