Week 2 of school, and I already have way more in my head to process than I can think about even trying to process! So much good information, so much conviction in my heart, so much incredible teaching-- where to start digesting it all? Especially when I have to continue drinking from the fire house with little time to chew on anything?
Well, here's a bite-sized chunk of something I read tonight in the book, Christ Formed in You by Brian Hedges. Now, I can't exactly recommend this book yet because I've only read the Introduction, but I'm pretty excited about it.
In the intro, he quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer, which means he immediately has my attention ;) Here is what Bonhoeffer warned against:
"Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."
As convicting as Bonhoeffer's words are, and as much of a warning as they are to us still today, I think Hedges has it right when he says that we are in more danger when we swing to the other side of this pendulum.
"...even more contrary to the gospel and more detrimental to spiritual health than 'cheap grace,' are approaches to holiness that stress moral effort while neglecting the rich resources of God's grace in the gospel. This legalistic approach to holiness rips the heart out of Christianity, leaving people with nothing but the dead form of performance-based religion" (19).
This legalistic approach is what I grew up believing Christianity looked like. But when I moved to Asia and lived life among a group of people who believe they do have to work for any merit or favor with God, in hopes that they'll be forgiven, I realized that the Christianity I grew up with wasn't all that different from what they believed in Islam. And that scared me. But it dove me into Scripture with a new hunger to know what this message of the gospel that I had gone to share really said and meant. Surely the good news of the gospel had to bring good news that was different from all the other world religions, right? Otherwise, why would it be any good?
What I realized in this search for the difference that the gospel had to offer was that the gospel is not just the introduction to Christianity, the message about Jesus that you first believe when you become a Christian. No! The gospel is the foundation and the thing that permeates our lives. We aren't saved by the gospel and then continue to sanctify ourselves by doing good works. We don't believe the gospel day 1 of our Christian life and then forget about it except when we're reminded of what Jesus did on Easter and on Sundays when we take Communion. No! It's far more saturating than that!
Tim Keller explains this well: "we never get 'beyond the gospel' in our Christian life to something more 'advanced.' The gospel is not the first 'step' in a 'stairway' of truths, rather, it is more like the 'hub' in a 'wheel' of truth. The gospel is not just the A-B-C's but the A to Z of Christianity. The gospel is not just the minimum required doctrine necessary to enter the kingdom, but the way we make all progress in the kingdom. We are not justified by the gospel and then sanctified by obedience, but the gospel is the way we grow (Gal. 3:1-3) and are renewed (Col. 1:6). It is the solution to each problem, the key to each closed door, the power through every barrier (Rom. 1:16-17)."
I've realized this more in the last year than ever before. The gospel really is the solution to everything-- every problem, every struggle, every emotion, every situation, every relationship, every sin.
I'll end by quoting John Owen, as Hedges does at the end of his intro: "Holiness is nothing but the implanting, writing, and realizing of the gospel in our souls."
Thank you, Jesus, for making the gospel a reality, a permeating reality in our souls! Continue to form us into your bride, your pure and spotless bride, by your grace and for the glory of your name and protect us from thinking we can or must do any of that ourselves in and of our own strength.
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