Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of the Word of God from James 1:12-25
“Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial because, when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when by his own evil desire he is dragged away and enticed.
Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this—not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.”
This is the Word of the Lord.
In this PCRT weekend, we have been looking at various functions and attributes of the Word of God, and the topic assigned me this morning is The Saving Word. There is verse 21, which brings word and salvation together. “Get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.” An explicit connection between these two themes.
In fact, there are many such connections in Scripture, some narrowly textual and some broadly thematic. The narrowly textual ones are more common than we sometimes realize because of the limitations of our translations. Sometimes, for example, when our English translations use the verb to heal, the original has some form of salvation. If Jesus heals someone, the original may well say he saves them. He saves them from their disease, which theologically in the Scripture is tied, finally, to the curse upon us, so it is really a kind of salvation from sin and its effects as well.
This sort of pairing of themes runs right through both Testaments. In Psalm 107 we read, “God sent forth his word and healed them.” In Matthew 8 and 9, Jesus performs various miracles, he casts out demons by a word, and he heals people. Indeed, the centurion says, “You don’t need to come to my house. You don’t have to lay your hand on my servant. You don’t need to touch. Just speak the word and my servant will be healed.”
So also in 1 Corinthians 1. There we are told, “The foolishness of preaching is the means God uses to save those who believe.” In fact, the text really should be rendered, “Through the foolishness of the thing preached …” It’s not through the foolishness of preaching merely as an instrument but, “Through the foolishness of the thing preached [the word preached] men and women are saved.” The same sort of link is found in 1 Peter 1 and elsewhere.
Then on a grand thematic scale, one need go no further than the first book of the New Testament. In Matthew, chapter 1, Joseph is told, “You shall give him the name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Jesus is simply the Greek form of Joshua, which means Yahweh saves. “You shall give him the name [Yahweh saves], for he will save his people from their sins.”
This is placarded in the first chapter so we are on notice, as it were, that in Matthew’s gospel Jesus is presented as the one who comes to save his people from their sins. When Jesus begins his public ministry in Matthew, chapter 4, immediately he is found preaching and teaching and casting out demons and healing people with a word. Why? Because he came to save his people from their sins.
In Matthew 5:6–7, the great Sermon on the Mount, he announces the dawning of the kingdom, what it looks like in fulfillment of Old Testament anticipation. Why does he do this? Because he came to save his people from their sins. In Matthew 8 and 9, when he heals people with a word, what is he doing? He is there to save his people from their sins. In chapter 10, when he has a kind of trainee mission in preparation for the Great Commission at the very end of the book, why is he doing this? It is because he came to save his people from their sins.
You can track out the theme throughout the entire book until you come to the words of institution at the Lord’s Supper and the passion itself. Why did Jesus go to the cross? Because he came to save his people from their sins. Why did he rise from the dead? He came to save his people from their sins. This is the gospel of the kingdom, the word of truth that has been preached under the aegis of the Great Commission because Jesus came to save his people from their sins.
It doesn’t take a lot of work to see how often this pairing of salvation and the word of truth come together in Holy Scripture right through the Canon, but I thought it might be most useful to focus this morning on James 1, where perhaps the best known connection between word and saving exists in this text I have just read.
“Get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you which can save you.” This text, I think, is best understood when it is rightly placed in the flow of James’ argument, and to do that, I want to back off a little bit and begin with an anecdote and then follow the flow of the text until we come to this one.
I know an Englishman who, several decades ago, felt called of God to gospel ministry, received some theological training in England, and in due course was appointed to a church. He served there for some years, and there was some real fruit, genuine conversions, and genuine growth. Tragically, however, after a few years, he was caught out in adultery and dismissed. He dropped under everybody’s radar screen.
In fact, he immigrated to Canada, which is where I met him. He came to the seminary at which I was then studying in Toronto. I knew nothing of his background nor did anyone else. After a few years, we graduated, and I became pastor of a church on the West Coast of Canada, and he disappeared into the wilds of Ontario.
More years passed and I went to Europe for doctoral studies, and I heard through the perennial ecclesiastical grapevine that his church was flourishing and people were being converted and so forth. Then I heard after another year or two he had gotten caught out in adultery. He disappeared under everybody’s radar.
I went back to Vancouver, and some years later, then, I moved down to Chicago to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where I am now. When I first arrived, I didn’t know the churches in the area, and I was asking a few questions about where I should go with my wife and start checking out what confessionally strong churches there are in the region, and the administration smiled at me and said, “You know, actually there’s something we’d like you to do.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, there’s a church in the area that had been flourishing, but sadly its minister was caught out in adultery, and it would be really wonderful if you would step in there and help restore things.” You guessed it. Your friend and mine. The same chap. Now why have I told you this? Apart from warnings about how some churches don’t do enough background checks, even trans-nationally and trans-continentally, the reason I tell you this is because what he now says, if you speak with him …
The last time I had any connection with him he was selling computer parts in Ohio, and if you asked him there, “What happened? Three times? Didn’t you learn anything? The string of damaged people you’ve left behind? What was going on?” He replies, “The Bible says, ‘God will not tempt you above what you are able to bear but will, with the temptation, make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it.’ I wasn’t able to bear it, so God is a liar.” That’s all he says.
How shall we face trial and temptation? Most of us are not so crass to say exactly what he said, but if we’re under enough stress, are there not times when niggling at the back of our minds are some rebellious thoughts jolly close to that, wondering what on earth God is doing? How shall we cope with these things?
I want to focus on four simple yet profound truths James articulates in these verses, for if we absorb these points into our thinking we shall be better able to withstand trials and temptations and, in particular, we shall be better able to understand what we mean when we speak of the saving Word.
1. When you are struggling under trial, remember the Christian’s goals.
Verse 12: “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial because, when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.” In fact, this verse is actually alluding back to three verses still earlier in the chapter.
Verse 2: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” Just as a long-distance runner perseveres in order to grow in perseverance, so we persevere, fighting trial and temptation, knowing full well that will toughen us up for further contesting of all of the sins that beset us under trial and temptation.
This past October, my wife’s brother turned 60, and he celebrated by flying over from England and running the Chicago Marathon. He came in about 13,000th out of about 40,000. That’s not bad for someone who is 60. I can think of other ways of celebrating a 60th birthday; nevertheless, that’s what he did, and he has, in fact, been running much of his life. It’s not as if he just decided, “Oh! I think I’ll run a marathon!”
Even for the marathon itself, he began to train months in advance. There are entire schedules of what you are supposed to do: how many miles you run per week and what pauses you take and how you load up on pasta at the end. This is what he did, and he came in 13,000th out of about 40,000. He persevered. He trained his ability to run. Thus, he could run even more ably.
So we are to face our trials and see that our trials enable us to face more trials, and this, the text says, to make us mature. Did you hear? “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Show me a Christian who faces very few trials and I’ll show you a Christian who’s immature. Not only so, but this perseverance is not only for increased perseverance in this life. Verse 12: “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial because, when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”
In other words, we face these trials and they make us stronger. They enable us to persevere. They make us mature in our faith and, ultimately, we receive the crown of life. This means the crowning life. The crown is the life. It’s exactly what is meant in Revelation 2:10. “Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.” The ultimate reward is crowning resurrection life with the living God face to face in a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. “So be faithful, persevere, and I will give you the crown of life.”
There are some people who are somewhat embarrassed by this sort of language because, put in a certain grid, it can sound like merit theology. “Try hard enough and eventually you will receive everlasting life on the last day.” Of course, that seems to grate with our understanding of the gospel of grace.
The Bible does speak of rewards. How shall we understand them? I have used this illustration before. It’s not my own. It’s from C.S. Lewis, but I find it helpful, so I pass it on to you. Lewis says, “Picture two men. One goes to the red-light district of town. He wants a woman. He finds one, pays his money, and has his reward. The other courts a young woman, woos her, wins her confidence and trust, treats her with dignity and respect, wins the confidence of her entire family, and in due course, there is a wonderful wedding, and he has his reward.” What’s the difference?
Lewis says, “The difference is in the first instance the payment and the reward are so incommensurate that the transaction is obscene. In the second, the reward is nothing other than the culmination of a relationship.” So it is with Christian rewards. We have been entered into a great relationship with our heavenly Father by his own grace through the sacrifice of his Son and the power of the Spirit. We enter into this relationship with him, and ultimately, it is consummated on the last day.
Indeed, this text goes so far as to say it’s almost hard to believe. Verse 2: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of various kinds …” It doesn’t even say sort of consessively, “All right. Put up with them. You know it will do you good.” It actually says, “Consider it pure joy, when you face them, because you know these trials will stretch your faith. Your faith will increase. You will become more mature, and on the last day, you enjoy the crown of life.”
In other words, when you are struggling under trial, remember the Christian’s goals. This makes no sense at all, this consider it pure joy. It makes no sense at all if the Christian’s goals are not valid. It makes immaculate sense if you do not think life is only to be lived with maximal personal instantaneous pleasure and the aim is to get through life with as few difficulties as possible.
If you remember the Christian’s goals, then it makes sense to say, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of various kinds.” This is not a form of Christian masochism. “Go ahead. Hit me again. I love it.” Rather, because you remember the Christian’s goals, you see what it is producing in you, you love Christian maturity, and you hunger for the crowning life.
When I was an undergraduate studying chemistry and mathematics at McGill University, quite a long time ago now, we had a Bible teacher come into our McGill Christian Fellowship group and expound this text. Some of us who heard him resolved that we should put it into practice. In those days, of course, in the English part of my world (I was brought up in English and French) we used the King James Version.
There it is, “Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into divers temptations,” so we duly memorized it and made a pact together, whenever we heard anybody in our group complaining, we would quote this verse at them. Well, you can guess what happened. The next day somebody sauntered onto the campus complaining about the calculus exam at 10:00, and somebody would say, “Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into divers temptations.”
Some other member of MCF showed up and complained about problems with a girlfriend or a boyfriend or finances or whatever it was. Any whining, any hint anywhere … “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.” It didn’t help. It was a kind of spiritual one-upmanship. “I can say it to you more times than you can say it to me.” It was like pouring salt into a raw wound.
But in the Lord’s mercy, in due course we began to hear it as it really is, the word of God. We are actually to count it joy when we face trials of various kinds, knowing that perseverance engenders perseverance, which engenders maturity, and those are Christian goals, and we anticipate the consummation at the very end. Do you hear this? “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial because, when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”
A friend of mine not long ago took the funeral of a woman in her mid-80s. At the graveside, her husband said with tears in his eyes to my friend, “I suppose God has more things for me to do. Else, why has he left me here?” My pastor friend put an arm around his shoulders and said, “My dear brother, God has nothing more for you to do except to love him still.” He didn’t mean literally there was nothing more to do, but your self-identity is not bound up in what you do.
Do you hear this text? “He will receive the crown of life God has promised to those who love him.” When you are struggling under trial, remember the Christian’s goals. I have sometimes said to my students at the seminary, “I doubt Christian morality, Christian doctrine, Christian spirituality, Christian resolve, or Christian evangelism can flourish unless you are hungry for heaven.”
2. When you confess God’s sovereignty, do not misunderstand God’s motives.
Verse 13: “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.” There is a small obscurity here in translations, because in Greek, the same word stands behind temptation as stands behind trial. To test and to tempt are the same word, and it is only the context that actually distinguishes between the two.
James plunges from one to the other because he is writing as we experience these things. The very same events that are opportunities to go forward are also temptations to go backward. Trials become temptations because they find an answering chord within us to doubt or to whine, to complain, even to blaspheme.
If I had to paraphrase 13a, it would be something like, “If you are tempted by such trials, do not say, ‘God is tempting me.’ ” After all, God does test us (the Bible says so) in the sense that he purposely brings us into situations where our willingness to obey him is tested. Thus, for example, Genesis 22:1, the famous passage regarding the almost sacrifice of Isaac. The text reads explicitly, “God tested Abraham.” Again, King Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles 32. “God tested Hezekiah.” Again, in Judges 2, “God tested Israel.”
So today, God may very well test us, but although God may do this to prove his servant’s faith or to lull their pride or to foster endurance, he never does so in order to induce sin or to destroy their faith. He’s not some malicious monarch pulling levers in the skies in order to have a good belly laugh about our distress. He is not trying to induce us to sin. It’s inconceivable! Do you see why?
The text tells us. “For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.” In other words, God himself finds no inducement to sin. Temptation is an impulse to sin, and since God is not susceptible to any such impulse, to any such desire to do evil, it is inconceivable he would have any interest whatsoever in inducing us to sin.
Therefore, although he may well test us, we must never even for a moment think he is doing this in order to entice us to sin. Therefore, to look at temptation and trial and start blaming God is to misunderstand God’s character so fundamentally that already a wheel has come off. How are we to think, then, of temptation?
Verses 14 and 15 tell us. “Each one is tempted when by his own evil desire he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” In other words, the fault is in us. Our own wicked hearts, our own old nature, still responds to the attractiveness of sin, and blaming God is blinding us, in fact, to our own failure.
The language here is grotesque. It is meant to be grotesque. Do you see it? We are seduced by our own desire, dragged away. Desire, then, conceives. This desire gestates and in due course it gives birth. To what does it give birth? Death. This is one of many passages in the Bible that display the grotesqueness of a kind of decaying sin.
The very first verse of the Psalter is another one. “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.” The initial picture is of someone walking along picking up the advice, the frame of reference, the counsel, the outlook of wicked people, and if you do that long enough, then you start standing in their way.
That doesn’t mean the same thing in Hebrew as it does in English. To stand in someone’s way in English means to hinder them. You might think of Robin Hood and Little John on the bridge. Each stands in the other’s way, and one of them lands in the drink, but to stand in someone’s way in Hebrew means to stand where they stand, to stand in their way, to do what they do, to walk in their moccasins.
You are now not simply picking up the advice that is coming from them; you are actually indistinguishable in your conduct from them. You now are where they are. You are acting as they do. If you remain there long enough, then eventually you sit in the seat of mockers. You’re actually sitting in the seat of sneering condescension. You pull a lever, your feet come up in your La-Z-Boy chair, and you look down your long, self-righteous nose at all those stupid, ignorant, bigoted, right-wing, self-righteous Christians.
Spurgeon says, “At this point, a man has received his masters in worthlessness and his doctorate in damnation.” We’re meant to be shocked by it, and it all begins from the failures of our own hearts. Don’t blame God. We’re the ones who have wanted to listen to the advice of ungodly people, snookered again by the deceitfulness of the age. Hear the Word of God. When you confess God’s sovereignty, do not misunderstand God’s motives.
3. When you feel abandoned and crushed, do not forget God’s goodness.
Verse 16: “Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers.” In some ways, that’s a transitional verse, but it’s a transitional verse with some importance. Don’t kid yourself about these things. Don’t make lame-brained excuses. Don’t kick yourself into blaming God. You have to see the fault is within you. The fault is within me.
Verse 17 goes on to say God himself is immaculately good. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” From the point of view of a preacher, this is a great pulpit from which to preach. I am not referring to the great heritage of Tenth. I’m just talking now about physical things. I have sometimes spoken from pulpits where there are these terrific spotlights coming down so I’m not even sure there are people out there. I sort of take that on faith.
But here, the ambience is wonderful. Light all around. Yes, there are some spots behind this pillar you can’t see and some more spots up there, but they don’t blind me, and they enable me to see what I have written here. It’s really quite a wonderful pulpit from which to preach, but even with this wonderful ambience of light all around, there are, nevertheless, shadows. I hold this up, and I see my glasses chasing across the lectern. I hold out my hand, and there are shadows going this way from these spots and shadows going this way from those spots.
Because all of our lights are focused from one direction or another, therefore, they automatically cast some kind of shadow. In personality, likewise, that’s the way it works, is it not. In this fallen world we might have some strengths and gifts, but because we’re a fallen people in a fallen world those gifts and graces so often kick up corresponding weaknesses and even outright sins. Don’t they?
We come across someone who is an extrovert and has certain gifts for leadership and imagination and so forth, but that person may also be a bit of a bully and takes over every conversation and sort of intimidates the softer sorts and so forth. It almost seems as if every set of gifts and graces, every personality type (granted, it’s a fallen and broken world), has a dark side, but God has no dark side.
He even made the heavenly lights, and they all have dark sides, but not God. In him, we’re told, there is no shifting shadow. None. This is a powerful way of saying God is good. He is only good. One of the conceptually ugly things about the Star Wars films is that the Force has a good side and a bad side, a light side and a dark side, but God is only good. He is only good. He is good, good. He is good, good, good, good. There is no badness to him.
Not least is it important to confess this in a Reformed heritage like ours, because his goodness must not be pit against his sovereignty. God stands sovereignly over all that is, good and evil, but God does not stand behind good and evil in exactly the same way. If you say God stands behind good and evil in exactly the same way, then God is amoral.
Christian thinkers have learned to say something like, “God stands behind good and evil asymmetrically. He stands behind good in such a way that the good is creditable to him. He stands behind evil in such a way that the evil is, finally, creditable to secondary causalities.” Isn’t that what we learned from the text that was briefly expounded this morning? In the miserable matter of selling Joseph off into captivity, Joseph learns to say at the end of Genesis, “You intended it for evil, but God intended it for good.”
I know the texts that say, “I create light, and I create dark; I create good, and I create evil.” That word often means adversity, and understood in its context, it means God is so sovereign that nothing extends beyond his sovereignty and he brings about all of these things in this fallen and broken world, to chasten his people, to bring about judgment, to bring about temporal punishments, and all kinds of things.
Nothing escapes his sovereignty, but he is still the God of whom it is said, “He is of purer eyes than to look on evil.” He is still the God who cries, “Turn! Turn! Why will you die? The Lord has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” If you suggest for a moment that God’s sovereignty means he stands behind good and evil symmetrically, then such appeals are just play-acting. They make no sense whatsoever.
We must never think of God’s attributes as a kind of collection from which God picks and chooses. “Today, I’ll exercise a bit of sovereignty. Now I’ll exercise a bit of goodness. Maybe I’ll exercise a bit of holiness today.” God always acts in such a way that his sovereignty is never contingent. He is always sovereign. He always acts in such a way that he is good. There is no darkness in him at all. He always acts in such a way that he is holy. He always acts in such a way that he is loving.
He is never other than God, and in this text, we are told, he is good. He is good. When you are struggling under trials, do not forget God’s goodness. When you feel abandoned and crushed, do not forget God’s goodness. The ultimate proof of this is found in verse 18. “He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.”
There are some who think this word of truth is the word God speaks in creation to bring about the initial creation. Not so. The expression, the word of truth, shows up only five times in the New Testament and always it refers to the gospel, nowhere more clearly than Ephesians 1:13, where we read, “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.”
So also here. Do you want the final proof that God is good? He chose to give us birth, new birth. He chose to regenerate us through the gospel, the word of truth, the word of the cross, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created, culminating in the final harvest at the end of the age.
The final demonstration that God is good is in the cross. He didn’t have to send his Son to the cross by some kind of external decree or because he owed us something. He chose to do so. God may do all kinds of mysterious things, but if you want to anchor your faith in God’s goodness, return to the cross.
Some years back, a friend of mine with his 15-year-old daughter (she was 14, going on 15) faced something rather severe. She lost her best friend to cancer. That’s always difficult, but at the age of 15 it’s particularly difficult. She handled it pretty well with her Christian family. They talked about these things openly and prayed about them together, and she grieved appropriately.
Several months later he was going by her door and heard her weeping inside. He tapped on the door, went inside, gave her a hug, and said, “Come on. Tell me about it.” She said, “Daddy, God could have saved my best friend, and he didn’t, and I hate him,” and burst into tears. He held her close and stroked her hair.
He said, “I’m so glad you’ve told me. You might as well. God knows what you’re thinking in any case. There’s no point pretending otherwise. But before you become convinced of the maliciousness of God, I want you to ask two questions. First, do you want a God like the genie in Aladdin’s lamp? Very powerful and can do anything you want and sort out any problem, but he’s always under the control of whoever rubs the lamp. In which case, who is god? Or will you turn to the God of the Bible who sometimes does things you may not immediately understand because he’s a lot bigger than you are?
Secondly, before you are convinced that God is a God of malice, ask yourself how you will measure God’s love. By whether or not everything goes in your life exactly as you like or by a little hill outside Jerusalem 2,000 years ago? You lost your best friend. God lost his Son. In fact, he didn’t lose him. He gave him. When you don’t understand too much and it doesn’t make much sense, you go back to the cross and you hang on to Christ crucified, for there is no more powerful testimony to the sheer unqualified goodness of God than Calvary.”
That’s what this text says. “He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.” In other words, when you are crushed and despairing, remember God’s goodness. Finally, we get to our text. In fact, the whole sequence of thought is so powerful that we can deal with this now very quickly.
4. When you hear gospel instruction, do not merely listen to it.
Verse 19: “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”
This word is in this context, the word of truth, which is the gospel, and this introduction of anger and bitterness is not James introducing some new subject. The flow of thought continues. The fact of the matter is we face trials and temptations and sometimes we learn to lash out in bitterness and resentment and hate and one-upmanship, all because we are finding ourselves under pressure, but in fact, that’s precisely when we must come to the word of truth once again.
Human anger does not then somehow save us. No, no, no. Humbly accept the word, the word of the gospel, the word of the cross planted in you which can save you. I know sometimes salvation is spoken of in terms of what we receive initially when we first close with Christ, but in this context that’s not what is going on. This is the word of the gospel which continues to come to us and saves us.
If we close with Christ and come to understand that we are accepted in God because of what Christ has done … We are accepted with God. God justifies us. He declares us to be just not because we are so good or we are so fine but because Christ has borne our sins in his own body on the tree. Because God sees us, as it were, through Christ, Christ’s righteousness is reckoned to us; our sin is reckoned to him. We have understood we have been accepted because of Christ. Isn’t that part of being a Christian?
Then, having come to this conclusion, we walk out of the church service and somebody looks at us askance or ignores us or hurts our feelings, and all the anger and the bitterness and the resentments come back one more time. It’s as if we have to prove ourselves to some other people, and we want to be justified now by our own excellence, by our own importance, by our own significance.
Having grasped the gospel, it sort of slips through our fingers one more time, but if you go back to the cross, then you see this cross does save you. We come to the trials of life … We lose a mate. We find ourselves in the throes of a messy divorce. Our children do something unthinkable. We face disappointment because someone else was promoted at work.
Instead of saying, “I’m justified before God. I am loved with an everlasting love. I don’t have to prove myself to anyone because God loves me in his Son Christ Jesus.” We have to justify ourselves all over again, that we’re right in the divorce, that we’re right in how we reared our families, that we should have gotten the job and not the other bloke. We justify ourselves again, and if we do not get what we receive, then all the resentments and the fire and the temper and the jealousies all start over again. Where is the solution?
Listen. When you hear gospel instruction, do not merely listen to it. The same gospel that saved us initially comes and transforms us. It saves us. It changes us again as we submit to it again, this word that is implanted within you. That is why it is called a little farther on, the perfect law of freedom, the perfect instruction of freedom.
Some of us have begun another organization called CCI, which is Christ on Campus Initiative. Over the next few years we aim to turn out quite a lot of pamphlets of 40 to 50 pages circulated on the web addressing all kinds of concerns on modern college campuses, or perhaps I should say on postmodern college campuses.
One of the steps we took was to bring to Trinity a few days ago a number of Christian campus staff workers, all of them with at least one or more theological degrees and years of experience behind them in working faithfully on college campuses around the country, brainstorming together about the most urgent needs, the most urgent perceptions of what they think needs to be addressed.
The woman worker who came from the Princeton Evangelical Fellowship who actually disciples 20 women a week for a whole year says, for the last few years as far as she can see, what drives young women at Princeton are three huge goals: “First, ‘Never get less than an A.’ Well, it’s Princeton. You know what sort of families most of them have come from. ‘Never get less than an A.’
Secondly, ‘Make sure you’re yourself, and have fun.’ How you put those first two together is already a challenge. Thirdly, this coming from their peers. No matter what caveats, and so on, are put in, nevertheless, ‘Be hot.’ ” If you have those three goals you have no margins. You can never fall behind. You can only fail. You’re never beautiful enough. You’re never smart enough. You’re never yourself enough. You can only fail, which is why today about 80 percent of young women in our colleges at some point in their four years undergo clinical depression.
You see, they’re trying to justify themselves. They’re trying to justify themselves to themselves, to others, to their friends, to their peers, and to their parents. They’re trying to justify themselves, whereas the Christian is justified before God, and this word implanted in you, if it is listened to, if it is worked out in your life, it means you don’t have to be enslaved by all of the things that come along and ruin you, tear you down, destroy you one more time, or enslave you one more time as you try to be something else or someone else all the time.
No. You’re accepted in the beloved because of the cross, because of the word of truth, and this word implanted in you can save you. It changes you. When you hear gospel instruction, do not merely listen to it. That is why Paul can say elsewhere, “Work our your salvation with fear and trembling knowing that it is God working in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Let us pray.
Merciful God, we thank you for the word of the cross, the word of truth, the word of the gospel which can save us. Lord God, if there are some here for whom this still seems so strange, so alien, so fall upon them by your Spirit that from their heart even now where they sit they lift their eyes heavenward and cry, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
For all of us, Lord God, we confess with shame how we have understood justification and then grab self-justification back again and again and again. We are sick of it. We are ashamed of it. We confess our sins before you and return to the cross, which is able to save us, which proves this wonderful law of freedom. So Lord God, open our eyes that we may see how sovereignly good you are and trust you through the merits of your dear Son, in whose name we pray, amen.
