The devil is not content to encourage us to fall off one side of the horse. He takes great pleasure in seeing us fall off both sides. We live, for instance, in what is a most permissive culture. This is true of both the world and the church. All things, we seem to believe, are permissible. Law is something old fashioned and forgotten.
It is for this reason that I define legalism three different ways. The first, and most deadly is when we see our obedience to God as a means to the end of our justification. This was the Galatian error, and it is perhaps most commonly reprised in our own day among the Campbellites who teach that we have peace with God through the work of Christ and our baptism. The second error, which is far more benign, is when we simply add to God’s law. The Pharisees were experts at this, as are fundamentalists in our own day. No dancing, no cards is no God-given law. The most common usage for this word, however, is this- it is a word we use to accuse others who call us to obey the law of God. That is, in terms of raw usage, legalism means teaching others to obey whatsoever Christ has commanded.
While we live in light of this third definition, the question is grounded in the second definition. That is, while we have no scruples about disobeying God’s law, we often also have scruples about that which there is no law. We do this often in failing to understand spheres of authority and responsibility. To put it more bluntly, we end up with misplaced scruples when we think ourselves master of all that we survey.
Consider for a moment the Roman soldiers that were baptized by John the Baptist. Prior to their conversions they had served as henchmen for the most rapacious, aggressive and vile state the world had as yet known. The Roman empire put the whole world under its boot. It kept its citizens happy with the bloody gladiatorial games. And John tells them, “Keep serving, and serve honorably.” He does not hold them responsible for the actions of their superiors. He only holds them accountable for themselves.
Now suppose I am employed by Widgets Are Us. My job is to write ad copy for these widgets. My calling is to write honestly and fairly. My calling is to give an honest day’s work for an honest wage. My calling is to submit to those who are in authority over me. My calling is not to make sure that the powers that be at Widgets Are Us don’t use their profits to buy crack cocaine, support wicked political candidates or write checks to Planned Parenthood. I have traded my labor for my wages. I have not been assimilated by the Widgets Are Us Borg wherein we are all one being and I am responsible for what happens with the profits.
Remember this. The single biggest contributor to Planned Parenthood is the United States federal government, this after several years of Republican majorities in the Senate and House, a Republican president and a majority of Republican appointed justices. Even under President Trump federal outlays to Planned Parenthood increased. But the ethical principle is this. Neither you, nor your taxes support Planned Parenthood. Your taxes are paid to the federal government, and your responsibility before God is to pay them. The government’s obligation is to spend those tax moneys on legitimate government callings, the protection of life and property against aggressors foreign and domestic, or in Biblical language, the use of the sword. Their failure to obey is their fault, not yours.
Please note that Planned Parenthood is almost certainly the most wicked organization in the country. The point isn’t, “It’s okay because they are okay.” They are most assuredly not okay, and should be the object of our frequent and heartfelt imprecatory prayers. But your work does not support them; your bosses do.
I was evangelizing. Not, sadly, with the good news of Jesus, but trying to spread the message of limited government, free markets. I started out by explaining that even Marx himself recognized that a free economy created a great deal of stuff. Productivity wasn’t the problem, according to Marx, in the capitalist economy. Instead, the problem was the distribution of the wealth that was created. So far, because I was in agreement with Marx, I was in agreement with my friend. Then I used one of my favorite analogies, “So you see,” I said, “capitalism provides, I confess, different sized portions of the donut. Socialism, I’m sorry to say, provides equal portions of the hole.”
The trouble was, he didn’t see the trouble. Trying to help him see the point I asked this: “Would you rather live in a world where everyone makes $5000 a year, or would you rather live in a world where the poorest people earn $100,000 a year, but the wealthiest earn $10,000,000 a year? He didn’t hesitate for a moment. Better everyone at the same spot well under the poverty line, than for some to have more than others.
Egalitarianism runs deep in our culture. We have taken the wise notion of our fathers, that all men are created equal, and twisted it beyond recognition. They, in so claiming, were arguing that the law was to be blind to issues of background and wealth, that justice was indeed for all. The camel nudged its nose into the tent when we began to clamor instead for “equal opportunity.” Now society would be structured such that everyone would have to start the race at the same place. When this didn’t achieve the results desired we slipped to handicapping the race such that everyone will finish the same. Now we want an equal ending.
Which may explain why it is that American Christians seem to have such a difficult time with the doctrine of election, especially as it is expressed in the doctrine of limited atonement. Our sense of justice is not built around a concept of equity or fairness, but is built around a concept of equality, which is often rather unfair. We Americans tend to treat the grace of God the way our school teachers used to treat our treats — we were only allowed to eat them if we had enough for everyone. If God should show kindness toward one human, we reason, He is duty bound to do the same for everyone. Praise God our king transcends these cultural quirks. Praise God He is not subject to the folly of His subjects.
John Owen, in what is perhaps his greatest work, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, goes to great pains to help us see remember God’s divine prerogative, that He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. Because we are all sinners, God owes us all only His just condemnation. But God, who is rich in mercy, has condescended to shower His mercy upon those whom He has chosen, for His good pleasure. To some He shows this mercy; to others He manifests justice.
It is not, however, simply the American spirit of egalitarianism that gets in our way. We are a strange bunch, who want at the same time to live in that place where we all receive blue ribbons, but we also want to earn what we have. We are at the same time a bootstrap people. You don’t conquer a continent, after all, by sitting around waiting for your fair share of the donut hole. This pushes us to sundry forms of Pelagian theology wherein we claw our own way to heaven. These paradoxes are reconciled then when we see that we want God to treat us all the same not because that is our only chance, but so that when we do win the race, we can brag that we did it on our own. It is not ultimately a desire to make God look good in the eyes of socialists that makes us push Him to treat us all the same. Instead it is a desire to make ourselves look good. We want the credit.
While The Death of Death in the Death of Christ dealt a death blow the notion that God treats us all exactly the same, it is the death of Christ that puts to death any notion that we can do it on our own. The death of Christ does not make it possible for all of us to be saved, but certain for none of us. His death doesn’t move us closer to the finish line, and those who are good will finish. No, He died because we are dead in ourselves. Put a dead man just one inch from the finish line, and he will never finish. Instead, by His death we were made alive. As one wise wag put it, man doesn’t bring the final push to salvation. He doesn’t bring self-generated faith to the party. He doesn’t add his paltry works to the equation. No, what man contributes to his salvation is the need for salvation. We bring the sin that needs to be covered. Let, therefore, no man boast.
The devil, if we are paying attention, presents us with something of a paradox. On the one hand, when he is introduced to us we are told, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made” (Gen. 3:1). On the other hand, he is likewise the biggest fool to ever walk the planet. If insanity is rightly defined as the propensity to try the same thing over and over again, all the while expecting different results, then our nemesis is certifiable. He has been on a losing streak since day one, and it will go on forever. That he fights is foolish. How he fights is crafty.
Satan, despite the interesting parallels in how we spell their names, is not some sort of bad Santa, carrying around a sack full of illicit goodies by which he seeks to tempt us away from our calling. It is decidedly less than crafty, then, to take such a straightforward approach. We would, of course, be on our guard were he so crass. Instead, the devil delights to work in the background, and to work on the background. That is, he likes to lay low while laying the foundations for our thinking.
Consider for a moment (but only for a moment, for I know how busy you must be) the biblical virtue of patience, that fruit of the Holy Spirit that seems always to be just outside our reach. What would you do if you, like the devil, wanted to squash this fruit of the Spirit, to turn it into a bruised mess fit only for the dumpster? Surely you would see that it would do you precious little good to try to create a crusade in favor of impatience. You would have to look long and hard to find a political action committee or a secular advocacy group that seeks to promote the virtue of impatience. You’d be more likely to find a brigade of zealots in favor of tooth decay. The devil is smarter than that. He does not preach the virtues of impatience. He just puts us in a world where it doesn’t make sense.
Sociologists often speak of what they like to call “plausibility structures.” These are not particular ideas that are self-consciously being promoted by advocates. Instead they are systems, so to speak, that encourage a particular way of looking at the world. The pro-abortion lobby has glommed onto this idea in how it sells its morbid view of the world. We are pro-life, but they do not present themselves as pro-death. Rather, they describe themselves as “pro-choice.” During the first decade of the pro-life movement we spent our time trying to make the case that unborn children were just that, unborn children. Surely once they see what they are doing, this would all stop. Except we won that debate, and blood still runs in our streets. It does so because “choice” resonates with Americans. And it resonates with Americans not because of careful, thoughtful reasoning among Americans, but because of toothpaste. “Choice” makes sense to us because we live in a world of choice, where we choose not only among forty different brands of toothpaste, but among ten different sizes and five different flavors. This creates a “plausibility” structure, a world in which choice just makes sense to us.
What has this to do with patience? Be patient — we’re getting there. “Choice” is not the only unspoken assumption that so often directs our conclusions. We live in a world not only where you can choose among so many toothpastes, but a world in which you can get that toothpaste whenever you want. You can get instant cash, and use it to buy instant coffee, all within the confines of your car. And lest that car should trouble you, you can get your oil changed, and be on your way in ten minutes or less. If that doesn’t help, you can get instant approval on a loan for a new car.
Instant service in many ways is a great blessing. But it can encourage us to be impatient, even about the good things. If I can be an instant winner with the lottery, why can’t I be an instant winner in my race toward sanctification? Why is God taking so long in teaching me patience? Perhaps because He delights to do so. Perhaps because you not only can’t hurry love, but you can’t hurry joy, peace, and patience, or any of the fruits of the Spirit. Virtues are things we are called to cultivate, not order online. They don’t come with the option of overnight shipping for a mere twenty dollars more.
If we would cultivate these virtues, however, we must eradicate the weeds that choke it out. It isn’t enough to try to bootstrap our way to more patience. We have to dig deep into these plausibility structures, and see where they are leading us. In short, we need to live in light of the culture to which we have been called, not in the dark of the one from which we have come. We must not have our minds conformed to this world. Instead, they must be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
Such wisdom doesn’t come from an instant cash machine. You won’t heat it up in a microwave. There is but one source, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him” (James 1:5). If we ask Him for wisdom, He will give it to us. If we receive wisdom, He will give us patience. But it may take a while. Such is the wisdom of God, and such is His patience with us.
Dunamis Fellowship and Sovereign Grace Fellowship continue tonight our weekly Bible study at 7 eastern. Tonight is part three of our look at the Lord’s Prayer, Lord, Teach Us to Pray. All are welcome to attend at our home. You can even come early (6:15) and we’ll feed you a meal. You can also watch on Facebook Live, RC-Lisa Sproul. We hope you join us as we consider together the Lord’s Prayer.
No, of course not. Does Jesus reign over all things? Is He king of kings? Are all things being brought under His subjection? Does He command us to disciple the nations? Indeed, yes, absolutely and yup. I find it hard to believe that this is even a question.
A hundred years ago the Protestant church found itself split in two. On one side were those who believed the Bible and wanted to see people brought into the kingdom. On the other side were those who were embarrassed by the Bible but wanted to use it to bolster their social agenda. This, the fundamentalist-modernist controversy shows that black hats are deeply dark and white hats are badly stained. That is, both sides, one much more than the other, had their problems. The problem with the modernists was rank unbelief. The problem with the fundamentalists was unbelief with respect to Christ’s reign in the here and now. The modernists were all in on already, the fundamentalists all in on not yet.
This is the root of the divide in our own day. Now the modernists call their social agenda “putting feet to the gospel” and call the fundamentalists’ social agenda Christian nationalism, Trumpism, racism. The fundamentalists have gotten better insofar as they are in fact more engaged. The trouble is, sometimes the loudest in our camp have confused the Republican party with all that is pure and noble. We’ve been taken for a ride for almost fifty years on Roe, redefining “pro-life” as “slightly less bloodthirsty than the Democrat.”
I’ll grant, nodding in the direction of my two-kingdom friends that Christians should not act as though every policy decision is a matter of eternal life and death. We should not excommunicate our brothers and sisters in Christ simply because they think a capital gains tax rate of 30% is better than 25%. Jesus did not say, “Disciple the nations, and when the price of gas gets above $3.50 a gallon scream until Washington releases some of its strategic reserves.” I’ll grant as well that we ought not to be shrill, unkind or partisan to party. Poking those inside or outside the camp in the eye with political snark probably does no one any good. I know, physician heal thyself. Amen.
That said, just as the gospel does not leave us orphans, so the law does not leave us in our blindness when it comes to the issues of morality attached to the government’s use of force. The truth is, the Bible does speak to how we treat those who are different from us. It most certainly speaks to the protection of the unborn. It speaks to the rapacious spending habits of politicians, and the bloodlust that leads to war. And where the Bible speaks, we are responsible to speak.
Let the world, and the modernists rail all they like. Let them accuse us of stepping outside our boundaries. Then remind them they have stepped into our territory in telling us to be quiet. Remind them that Peter once stood before the governing authorities and told them when they insisted he be silent, “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll obey God rather than you, since you insist on contradicting Him.” Do not confuse America, in our early history, much less today, with the City of God. Do, however, let us work together to see that justice rolls down like thunder.
