One of the oddest things to hinder our prayers is fear. Many of us are reluctant to pray in front of others. We fear, I suppose, that those who are listening might be critiquing our prayers. That fear is both sensible and foolish. It is sensible in the sense that people actually do, as they listen to others pray, make mental critiques. I know people do this because I am a people and I have done it from time to time, to my shame. I have run the prayers of hundreds through my own systematic theology grid, looking to filter out the folly. It is foolish, however, because there is someone far more discerning than me who listens to our prayers, and He manages not to critique them. That is, we ought to fear saying foolish things to the object of our prayers rather than the bystanders. On the other hand, we probably really have nothing to fear.
When we pray, if we pray rightly, we pray in Jesus’ name. That little formula is important. It is good that we almost always remember to pray this way; it is bad that we hardly ever remember what we means. When we pray in Jesus’ name, we acknowledge that we are, in ourselves, not worthy to come into God’s presence. Our entrance into the royal throne room is made possible only by the imputed righteousness of Christ. We are saying to our Father, “I couldn’t even be here talking to You had You not sent Jesus to suffer in my place.” This means, of course, that our sins, including our sinfully foolish thoughts, do not make it past the ceiling.
Dr. John Gerstner once explained this phenomenon. He invited us to imagine a young boy gleefully entering his home, a mixture of flowers and weeds clutched in his muddy hand. He explained to his father that he wished to honor his mother with this bouquet. The father suggested, “Perhaps I could give them to her for you.” The son handed over the bouquet and the father surreptitiously removed the weeds, leaving only the flowers. In like manner, when we pray to our Father in heaven, when we come before His face, the Holy Spirit sanctifies our very prayers. Because He does this, we can pray with boldness, not as those who seek the approval of men. “Our Father, who are in heaven…” See how much our heavenly Father loves us, that He allows His children to pray. And so, trusting as children, may we pray with care, but also with a reckless fervor. We are safe.
There are two kinds of people in the world- those who know there are one kind of people in the world and those who are mistaken. People are people, which is enough to encourage us to treat others with dignity and enough to cause us all to blush in shame knowing we fail to do so. We all agree that social media has not been a boon to our civility. Often we reason that it is the distance that the computer provides, that it is because we don’t talk face to face that explains our willingness to bite and devour each other. I concur that such is a vital part of it. I’d like, however, to posit another element.
We feel free to verbally assault others, to slice with our tongues, not just because we are unknown but because the people we assault are known. We think that people more well known than we are aren’t actually people at all. Of late a certain well-known in that pond we know as Big Eva, now ex-vangelical was found shilling a program to help others deconstruct their faith, all for a low, low price. I never met the man, but I knew his mother, consider his father a friend and know several of his brothers. I watched my corner of the twittersphere respond like sharks responding to a stuck pig that somehow found itself near a lot of nasty sharks. Some might argue that I am among the guiltiest, having tweeted my hope that the pain and hardship of being cut off from the body might drive ex-vangelicals back into the embrace of His bride.
I get it. This young man was a beloved son in our tribe who has turned his back on it, and now seems to be ex-vangelizing. I can see seeing him as an enemy. Such, however, doesn’t justify the assaults. The One who defines us, yes, who emptied the temple and had some hard words for the Pharisees, told us to love our enemies. I could not help but feel, however, that the hatred aimed at this young man came not from anger that he left us, but anger that he had been a success among us.
As exhibit A in defense of this thesis I give you Ed Litton. Ed Litton did not abandon the faith. He isn’t offering directions out the door of the church. Yet he too, just weeks ago, became lunch for the same sharks when he was found to have delivered undocumented sermons. I haven’t done the research to know how bad, or even if it is bad and have no comment on that. I comment instead on the comments. Christians had a field day mocking this brother mercilessly. The meme machine overheated after running overtime.
It happens friends because we dehumanize those more well known than we are. We think that because they have the benefits that fame affords that they are invulnerable to our attacks. And that they deserve them. When I gently asked that maybe we might want to show some grace to Ed Litton I even got pushback from someone arguing that I only spoke in defense of Ed because I’ve been in a similar position. “Of course you’d say that RC. After all, you’re in that club, people known well enough in the evangelical world to have your failures become fodder.” Guilty as charged. Worse still, I have been guilty of being a shark as well. Hopefully, being on the other side, I’m learning.
None of which changes the point. Believer or not, world famous or merely a big fish in our pond, or even just the son of a big fish in our pound, people are people. All of us bear our Father’s image. Some of us are His adopted children. Shouldn’t we do better?
Because we need it. I mean that in two ways. First, we have a hard time grasping grace because we are sinners, and sin begins with pride. All of us, from the most pious saint to the most egregious sinner have within us a little Pelagius. We think ourselves, even when our lips confess otherwise, essentially good. Sure, we sin, who doesn’t? But by any reasonable standard, we think in the secret places of our hearts, we’d pass the test. Those other people, the ones who score below us on the test, they’re the ones in need of grace. And of course, those who score higher than us, they’re the self-righteous ones. If only everyone were like me, recognizing my own lack of perfection, but striving to do well, well then, the world would be a happy place.
While the world denies the reality of sin, or pawns it off on others, we believers say we believe in it, but fail to own it. We confuse putting a check mark beside the doctrine of total depravity with a heart persuaded of the deep truth contained in “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.” The former is confessing a doctrine, the latter confessing our wickedness.
Second, we have a hard time with grace because we NEED it. The little Pelagius in all of us hates both to be dependent upon others, and even more so to acknowledge that dependence. How often do even believers speak of their salvation as if what happened is they decided to join the winning team? “I came to Christ” or “I made Jesus Lord of my life” misses the hard truth that He came to us, and He imposed His Lordship upon us by the unbidden, regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. We are not saved because we recognized His goodness, but because He recognized our badness.
This is precisely why Luther unleashed his biblical wisdom and acute invective against Erasmus in his Bondage of the Will. We tend, if we are aware of the controversy at all, to see the dialogue between the two as a kind of intramural debate between Luther, the Protestant who grasped God’s sovereignty in our salvation and Erasmus, the Protestant who denied God’s sovereignty in our salvation. Luther didn’t see this conversation as a distraction from the battle he was waging with Rome. Rather he understood that this battle is the battle between Rome and Protestantism. Luther praised Erasmus, the Romish apologist, in the midst of his verbal assault, for at least dealing with the heart of the matter.
But even we who identify with Luther, who confess God’s sovereignty, are not in the clear. Too often when we confess our utter dependence on God’s grace the devil is there to congratulate us for our theological acumen. The moment we begin to think well of ourselves we’ve demonstrated why we need grace.
This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief (I Timothy 1:15). That’s what grace is all about- not that God grades on a curve such that we can pass, but rather that He sent His only begotten Son to pass the test, and receive our due for our failure. He sent His Spirit to give us life, while we were dead in our trespasses and sins. All I brought to the table was the need. And what I need is grace.
Men were made for work, for protection, and for rescue. When we look at the imago Dei, the glorious truth that we are made in the image of God, I fear we miss much when we describe it in terms of abilities. That is, while it is true that God wills and man wills, that God feels and man feels, that God thinks and man thinks, the connection runs deeper. It is grounded in telos, purpose, design. We reflect God’s glory also in our calling. The dominion mandate, the call to man to be fruitful and multiply, to rule over the creation, is a reflection of God in His act of creation.
Adam and Eve were placed in paradise and commanded to protect that garden, and to “gardenize” the “jungle” beyond. The garden was the model, the world outside it the calling. Our first parents were given every perfect gift- the garden itself, the “jungle” devoid of thistles and thorns, each other, and best of all the presence of God Himself, walking with them in the cool of the evening. They failed, plunging creation, themselves, and all who would come after into utter ruin.
The promise of the coming Seed of the Woman wasn’t plan B, but was instead the new plan to complete plan A. The Second Adam would not merely save us from the just penalty for our sins, but would complete what the first Adam failed to do. The redeemed, the bride, the Second Eve would be a helper suitable for Him. The dominion mandate would be fulfilled, but this time in the context of curse rather than blessing. Adam had every blessing, every advantage. Jesus, on the other hand, faced a humanly impossible task. But He won, and is recreating creation, us, and as many as are afar off.
All it took was taking flesh and dwelling with us. All it took was speaking truth, being despised. All it took was taking on an all out assault from the devil himself in the desert, and the full assault of the demonic realm at every turn. All it took was betrayal by His closest friends. All it took was the horror of death by crucifixion. None of which is worthy compared with this- all it took was for the wrath and fury of His own Father due to us for our rebellion to fall upon Him. All it took was descending into hell.
When I consider how unworthy I am, when I fear He would grow weary of carrying me, I return to this thought. He did not go through all this to abandon me. If ever a person should have confidence that His rescuer will never give up, it is I, who have been so painfully rescued. I am called to not neglect so great a salvation, which means in turn that I am called to believe that He will never neglect His great salvation of me. Jesus won me. He will not lose me. Because Jesus always wins. He is even now about the business of changing everything.
Thesis 88 We must correct gently.
The devil, I suspect, delights to play both sides against the middle. That is, when he encourages God’s people to careen into the ditch on one side of the road he is quick to encourage corrective measures that lead to others of God’s people careening into the ditch on the other side. We live in an age where the greater weakness in the church is a reluctance to make affirmations, on issues either of theology or morals. The mass of evangelicals have drunk deep of the world’s postmodern conceits, and so think it simple kindness to never mention the grievous sins or heretical ideas of their professing brothers and sisters.
Then there’s the rest of us. We know not only the difference between right and wrong, true and false, but the importance of differences. We consider ourselves heroic, pushing against the cultural tide in denouncing our spiritual siblings. The Bible, however, calls us to something different,
Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself (Galatians 6:1-3).
When we correct our brothers, and we of course are called to do so, encouraging one another toward righteousness, no one, I suspect, objects to the idea that we think we are right and our brother wrong. After all, if there’s a disagreement then our brother likewise thinks we are wrong. What upsets the applecart is when there is disagreement, and I not only think I am right, but think I am better. How quick we are to consider a wrong idea to be a grave moral failure. We do this, I’m pretty sure, because we’re foolish enough to think that our correct doctrine is the surest sign of our moral superiority.
A spirit of gentleness, as the text above suggests, is grounded in a deep grasp of this most foundational moral and theological principle, “There but for the grace of God go I.” It is a false humility that argues we are all on the same plane. It is a false pride that thinks the difference is grounded in us.
This follows from the text. Who are the spiritual ones? When a man is overtaken in a trespass, how do we know whom to send? Are the spiritual ones the ones with the most impressive theological library? The ones with the most honorable advanced degrees? No, the spiritual ones who should be called in are recognized precisely because they exhibit a spirit of gentleness, who recognize that they might also be tempted, that aren’t deceived into thinking they are all that and a bag of chips.
Reformation did, does and always will mean bringing correction. And it will always be destructive when driven by a spirit of pride. The One whose image we are being re-formed into never breaks the bruised reed, nor extinguishes the smoldering weak. Let us learn from Him.
