Simply put, I intended to highlight the statement from the book of Hebrews: “…without holiness no one shall see the Lord.”
My intention with these blogs is two-fold: to expose current thinking which is not Biblical and to teach the truth of the Glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ. My purpose is not to criticize other teachers, but it is to enlighten so we all experience the power and presence of God prevalent in previous times.
The reaction to the blog provides a perfect illustration. I am not surprised this blog, and its theme hit a raw nerve in the body of Christ. I was not at all undermining the simple but powerful truth taught throughout Scripture that men and women are saved by “grace alone through faith alone.” I fully understand that there is a vast difference between justification and sanctification and that one precedes the other.
But if one is truly justified it must be evident in that person’s lifestyle, otherwise, the faith they claim to have is bogus. Perhaps Martin Luther said it best:
Instead, faith is God’s work in us, that changes us and gives new birth from God (John 1:13). It kills the Old Adam and makes us completely different people. It changes our hearts, our spirits, our thoughts and all our powers. It brings the Holy Spirit with it. Yes, it is a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith. Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. It doesn’t stop to ask if good works ought to be done, but before anyone asks, it already has done them and continues to do them without ceasing. Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever. He stumbles around and looks for faith and good works, even though he does not know what faith or good works are. Yet he gossips and chatters about faith and good works with many words.
Martin Luther’s Definition of Faith, Martin Luther
Faith is not merely mental assent to a set of propositions but a radical trust in Christ alone to save us from ourselves.
It must start with our minds but it works itself down to every facet of our lives. Luther went on to say, “truly, if faith is there, he [the one justified] cannot hold back; he proves himself, breaks out into good works, confesses and teaches this gospel before the people, and stakes his life on it.” My simple point and I believe the point of the writer of Hebrews (a book, by the way, which powerfully teaches that we are saved by the work of Christ alone) is that true faith always leads to a love for God, a desire to please him and to separate ourselves from all that defiles.
I wrote the blog because a number of recent surveys demonstrate there is little or no tangible difference between the values of professing Christians (men and women who claim to be born again) and ‘worldlings’ (those living for this world). We go to the same sources for our entertainment, and the divorce rate in the Church mirrors that of the world. It is not surprising that this is the case. Many of those claiming to be born again today have merely given mental assent to the Gospel; they have not experienced its radical, life-changing power.
I wholeheartedly agree with those who say salvation comes to those men and women trusting in Christ Jesus alone and accepting his finished work. But again, the fact that faith in his justifying grace always leads to transformed lives cannot be stressed enough.
I think my blog hit a nerve because instinctively, we know all is not well in God’s house.
Many believers’ live ‘quiet lives of desperation’, exhibiting little power over the world, the flesh, and the devil. Few give evidence of the kind of passionate, white-hot love for God, witnessed in Scripture and during previous revivals.
If I were a legalist, I would conclude the real need is for people to do more—read the Bible more, pray, share their faith, get involved more in their local churches. But since I am not, I know the problem lies much deeper. The Gospel must transform the heart, which will inevitably lead to a greater depth of personal commitment to disciplined, holy living.
That’s why I believe the real need for people is to once again become enlivened by the truth of the Gospel.
Is the Gospel received today actually Biblical? And if so, are we applying it to every area of our lives so to empower us to change? Or have we bought into the notion the Gospel merely gets us into the kingdom; once we are in we need other things to keep us.
I once heard it said, “If we want our Gospel to go out of us in power, it must first come into us in power.” History bears witness to this truth. In major moves of the Holy Spirit in the past such as the First Great Awakening, men like George Whitfield and John Wesley experienced firsthand the life transforming power of the Gospel which empowered them to preach it with great results. They demanded more of their converts than a mere profession; they required a changed life as evidence the Gospel worked within. They were much slower to receive people formerly into church life than we are today, believing a person must give clear evidence they were born again. And this was the result of preaching a Gospel, which was rooted in grace alone; it focused primarily on what Jesus had done for guilty sinners.
May that Gospel be preached in our churches once again in the power of the Holy Spirit, leaving in its wake a trail of those whose lives have been transformed by it.
I want to clarify my comments:
I agree with you, Neil. My concern with your use of the word “holy,” which creates problems for me. I would change “holy” to “fruitful.” I think that’s more clear.
I appreciate your ideas. I agree with you and I know you mean to be helpful, not confusing. That was my only issue.
Keep on talkin,
your friend,
Bob Becker
You have to have guts to tackle the subject. This is the dilemma of modern Christianity! Some will be convicted and some condemned.
Thanks for this blog Neil. I was curious if it would strike a nerve. This topic is very important in the Church today because of the harm that decisional evangelism or decisional regeneration is doing to people who are given a version of the gospel that is not biblically based.
As I read this I thought of a funeral I performed years ago for the husband of a woman that occasionally attended our church. I did not know the man personally as he never attended our church with her and during our discussion about the funeral I asked her about his relationship with the Lord. She had to think about it for a few minutes and then said she seemed to remember him saying something about walking down front at a church service when he was about 12 and ‘getting saved’. His life, however, showed no fruit of a true regenerated believer. As I spoke with this woman she told a story of a man full of pride, controlled by the lusts of the flesh and addictions. Yet, at the end she expressed how she was so glad he was ‘saved’. Now, I am most definitely nobody’s judge and it was my prayer that this man may have come to a saving relationship with Christ towards the end of his life however there was absolutely no evidence of it and his ‘decision’ had given him a false belief that he was saved. It is stories like this one and countless other similar stories that show the danger of decisional evangelism gone wrong.
I heard Voddie Baucham say one time, ‘If you can’t say AMEN you ought to say OUCH!’ We must not fall into the trap of simply having someone admit they are a sinner and recite a prayer and think they have eternal life. It is contrary to the biblical model and I appreciate you addressing it, regardless of the heat you received.
Scott