Category Archives: The Whole Christ

08/25/20

Sheer Wonder of God’s Love for Us

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A series of seeming coincidences was used by God to help a young minister named Thomas Boston to discover and read an out-of-print book called The Marrow of Modern Divinity. Boston was visiting a member of his congregation when he saw the book sitting on a window ledge and borrowed it. He found it extremely helpful to his ministry and his preaching. Some seventeen years later in 1717, he recommended The Marrow to another minister, which led to it being reprinted in 1718. In May of 1720, the Committee for Purity of Doctrine of the Church of Scotland strongly condemned the book and instructed ministers of the denomination to warn their people not to read it, which meant a previously obscure book was brought to the attention of many who then bought and read it carefully. The Marrow Controversy was born.

Boston and others found that The Marrow of Modern Divinity helped them to discover the whole Christ and preach it, often with great fruitfulness. It wrestles with a doctrinal issue the is still within the church today—preparationism. The Westminster Confession of Faith underlines that we cannot do anything to prepare ourselves, or qualify for salvation in Jesus Christ. “It really is a free gift, and Christ is presented to us as a free gift.”  The Marrow challenged a medieval way of thinking about salvation, namely that grace begins to work in you to prepare you to believe in Christ. Reading the Bible, attending worship, listening to sermons, praying to receive the Holy Spirit, disposes you to receive God’s grace.

Ferguson said this preparationism is still dormant in the thinking and preaching of many Christians today. “It is so difficult for us to believe that salvation is by grace.” Surely there is something we need to do or contribute, “something I need to do to qualify for salvation.” This turns the gospel into a moral lecture. “We don’t point people first to the secret work of the Holy Spirit, but to Jesus Christ.” Christ must be up front and center in the proclamation of the gospel.

One of the issues raised by this for our spiritual and doctrinal thinking has to do with the order of salvation, the ordo salutus.  This has to do with the way in which different aspects of the application of redemption are related to one another. Here Ferguson turned to a work of William Perkins, a central figure in English Puritan and Reformed theology. When Perkins graduated from Christ’s College in Cambridge in 1584, most people could not read and write. Therefore in 1591, he composed what he called an ocular, visual catechism. He illustrated how various aspects of the application of redemption work in salvation: regeneration by the Holy Spirit; faith; repentance; adoption; and sanctification. He contrasted what happens to someone who becomes a Christian, the elect, and someone who doesn’t become a Christian, the reprobate.

In the middle of Perkins’ so-named “Golden Chain,” is Jesus Christ and what Christ has done. “Everything is related to Jesus Christ.” But Christ is divorced from salvation when people suppose regeneration precedes faith. It happens when an Arminian preaches the gospel and says: “You come to Christ and Jesus will then give you the gift of new birth;” and again if a Calvinist preaches the gospel and says, “You can’t see or enter the kingdom apart from the new birth.” In both cases, regeneration is prior to faith, which leads to salvation.

The reasoning used here goes like this: Regeneration causes faith; faith then causes repentance and sanctification. The language used here speaks of a chain of salvation and begins to drift into a description of the experience of salvation that has lost sight of the centrality of Christ. People refer to Romans 8:28-30 when they speak of the chain of salvation or redemption. But where is the chain in the text? Where does Paul speak of a chain? When you step back and ask this question, you begin to see that you have linked a chain into your reading of Romans 8:30: “Whom he predestined he also called, and those who he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

When you do this, logically chaining one experience after another, you fail to immediately relate the experience of predestination, calling, justification and so on, to the person of Jesus Christ. Our experience of salvation in space-time may be a chain of causality, but in reality, it occurred outside of time all at once (if we can use a space-time reference), when we encountered Christ.

When you think like this, there is an obvious tendency to ask, where am I in the chain? How am I progressing? This has a built-in tendency to divert attention from the Lord Christ in whom I am elect, called, justified, sanctified, adopted, and glorified. “In a biblical perspective, I’m never to separate any of the blessings of the gospel from Jesus Christ, the benefactor.” The danger is, when focusing your attention on how this is working out in your life, on where you are in the chain, on what is the next link, you are turning back on yourself. As Martin Luther warned, you are becoming ‘incurvatus in se,’ meaning life turning in on oneself.

We need the gospel to come and lift up our head, and we need the voice of the Word of God to say, “You’re beginning to lose sight of Christ.” You are fussing about how much repentance you’ve experienced, and you’re not thinking about the Lord Jesus any longer. You are thinking about how much has been accomplished in you without realizing that nothing is accomplished in you that hasn’t been first accomplished exclusively for you in Christ.

The gospel teaches us to look out to Him. To live in fellowship with Him. To live in union with Him. So that we are delivered from that constantly subjective call many Christians experience: is there enough in me for Him to be pleased with me? When the gospel is saying, “He’s not pleased with you because of anything that’s in you. He’s pleased with you only because you are in Jesus Christ.”

The gospel does not begin with Christ indwelling us; the gospel begins with us coming to faith in Jesus Christ and dwelling in Him.

This preparationism often continues to linger in Christians’ thinking and living in such a way that it distorts their view of God. One of the ways this is expressed is when preachers say the following when preaching the gospel: “God loves you because Christ died for you.” This is false teaching. The implication here is: “If the Father loves me only because Christ died for me, then in some sense the Father in Himself doesn’t really love me.” The Son has to, as it were, negotiate with the Father, saying: “If I die for them, will you love them?”

“Jesus died because the Father already loves you.” One of the most common pastoral situations Christian ministers encounter is Christians who believe the Father only loves them because Christ died for them. This is despite the teaching of John 3:16, “For God (the Father) so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” The Father loves you just as much as the Son. “The Father’s unconditional love for sinners is the root of Him sending his Son to die for us on the cross.”

And so, this Marrow Controversy that seemed to be about … pretty narrow and small areas, almost technical areas … was really getting underneath the human psyche and spiritual life, in order that Christians might be bathed in a sense of the sheer wonder of God’s love for us.

This article has been based on “Preparation, Distortion, Poison” the third video in Sinclair Ferguson’s teaching series, The Whole Christ, from Ligonier Connect. Here is a link to Ligonier Connect. The video series is itself based upon his book of the same name. You can review further summaries of the Marrow Controversy here and here. If the topic interests you, look for more of my ruminations under the link, The Whole Christ.

07/28/20

Offering the Gospel in Christ

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As a young pastor, Thomas Boston noticed the Marrow of Modern Divinity by Edward Fisher sitting on a shelf during a pastoral visit. He borrowed it, read it, “and discovered it spoke to his heart and mind, and to a wide variety of pastoral issues in his ministry.” Seventeen years later, at the assembly that overturned the Auchterarder Creed (“It is not sound and orthodox to teach that we forsake sin in order to our coming to Christ.)”, Boston recommended the Marrow to John Drummond, saying it had helped him work through many of the same issues debated by the assembly. This comment led to a reprinting of the book and the expansion of the debate over the Auchterarder Creed and the Marrow throughout the Church of Scotland. Boston and others who had been transformed by the book had been preaching its doctrines and commending it to others. Ultimately, the Church of Scotland banned the book. Boston and those who protested this action became known as the Marrow Men.

In the second installment of video series “The Whole Christ,” Sinclair Ferguson asked a series of questions that came out of the controversy over the Auchterarder Creed and the Marrow of Modern Divinity, including the following. How do you offer Christ if you believe that Christ died exclusively for the elect? What does it mean to offer Christ to sinners; and how can you be really sure that you are a Christian believer? How do you live the Christian life and be obedient to God without becoming a legalist or wrongly responding to the law of God and becoming an antinomian? But for Thomas Boston and the Marrow Men, the main question was, exactly what is the gospel and how then should you proclaim it?

Ferguson said when he asks Christians the question, “What is the gospel?”, they often answer in terms of the experiences they have had. They describe how they were converted. They give a personal testimony; they describe how they found peace with God—how they felt guilty and then felt that their sins were forgiven. While that’s the experience or consequence of the gospel, it is not the gospel. “The gospel at the end of the day is Jesus Christ Himself and all that Jesus Christ has done.”

When Paul spoke to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 5, he didn’t say to them, “Listen to my experience on the Damascus Road because that is the gospel.” Rather, he proclaimed that in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself. He didn’t count our sins against us, “but he counted them against Jesus Christ.” Jesus Christ was offered as a Savior; and it is on that basis that we come to Christ and put our trust in Him. “But how can you say this to everybody if you believe that Christ died just for the elect?”

The critics of Thomas Boston and the Marrow Men were saying, if you offered Christ to people freely without saying to them, “First of all you’ve got to repent,” then you’ve offered Jesus Christ to some people that you don’t know He really died for. And the Westminster Confession teaches, on the basis of Scripture, that Jesus died only for His sheep; only for the elect. So, if He didn’t die for every single human being, how can you offer the gospel to every single human being? These critics therefore believed you could offer the gospel only to those you had a sense were really and truly elect. They had a kind of circular logic that supported this belief: The way you could tell if someone was elect was when you saw signs of repentance in their lives, because repentance is the fruit of God’s election. So how could you preach Christ and offer Christ to all?

The answer to that question is because God has promised that anyone who comes to Jesus Christ will be saved. “Since it is Jesus Christ Himself who saves us, Jesus Christ is sufficient to save anyone who comes to Him in faith and trust.” The promise of God is, whoever believes will be saved (Acts 16:31; Romans 10:9). So, the business of the preacher is not to try and work out who in the congregation was elect and who wasn’t—an impossible task. “The business of the preacher was to offer Jesus Christ to everyone, and allow, as it were, the Holy Spirit to do His work through the preaching of the gospel to bring the Lord’s people to Himself . . .  The business of the preacher is to point to Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”

We must remember the gospel is not the same thing as the blessings that result from the gospel. It is Jesus Christ in Whom all the blessings of the gospel are found. There is nothing between you and Jesus Christ that bars you from Him unless you qualify. As Isaiah 55:1 says, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” As Jesus Christ Himself says, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37). The proclamation of the gospel is not just offering Christ to the elect. “The proclamation of the gospel offers a crucified Christ to the world.”

The problem with seeing repentance as a prerequisite for saving grace is this: How would you know when you had adequately repented? When would you know if you had done enough? This is a belief that in many ways is still present in the church today—God gives you grace in order to transform you; and then eventually as you are transformed, “once all the conditions have been met, God will justify you on the basis of what His grace has done in you, because that grace has made you justifiable.”

This way of thinking is endemic in the natural man, then and now. People still felt there had to be something they needed to do in order to be fully justified. The net result was many were left asking themselves, “Have I repented enough yet? Have I been sufficiently sorry for my sin to receive grace?” They were confusing the way in which the Spirit often works in our lives with the warrant of the preacher to offer the gospel.

The chief thing is now come to faith in Jesus Christ . . .  There’s nothing in between. There’s no qualification. There’s no mark that needs to be reached. Sinners all stand before Jesus Christ, hopeless and helpless, and we offer Jesus Christ to each of them and to every one of them, in order that they may come and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, because their salvation is not found in the extent to which they have felt sorry for their sin. My sorrow for my sin contributes nothing to my salvation. All of my salvation is to be found exclusively in Jesus Christ.

In “Grace in the Gospel,” the second installment of his video series on The Whole Christ, Sinclair Ferguson has given answers to the questions of what is the gospel and how we should proclaim it. He has wrestled with the conundrum of how you can offer Christ to all, if you believe that Christ died exclusively for the elect. He showed how seeing repentance as a prerequisite for saving grace leads ultimately to another question for these believers: how can I know that I have repented enough to be sure I am a Christian? He also left another question unanswered: “How can we live the Christian life and be obedient to God without becoming legalists or wrongly responding to the law of God and becoming antinomians”? But he will address these questions as this video series on The Whole Christ continues.

This article has been based on “Grace in the Gospel,” the second video in Sinclair Ferguson’s teaching series, The Whole Christ, from Ligonier Connect. Here is a link to Ligonier Connect. The video series is itself based upon his book of the same name. You can review summaries of the Marrow Controversy here and here. If the topic interests you, look for more of my ruminations under the link, The Whole Christ.

04/28/20

The Marrow of the Whole Christ

Old church tower at the village of Auchterader © wfmillar (cc-by-sa/2.0)

“Everything God has to give us He gives to us in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We must never look at the benefits Our Lord gives us, without seeing them in Christ’s hands, because we have them only in Him. “It takes a whole Bible, to teach a whole Christ, in order to make a whole Christian. . . . So often Christians are diverted from the Lord Jesus Christ.” These remarks were spoken by Sinclair Ferguson in his video series on The Whole Christ. They helped introduce his first talk on the Marrow Controversy, a little-known dispute within the Scottish church that took place in the early 18th century. But the dispute involved issues that exist in the church today.

In February of 1717, the Presbytery of Auchterarder intended to ordain William Craig, who was seeking to preach the gospel within the Presbytery of Auchterarder. There was a unique question asked of every candidate, a question that became known as the Auchterarder Creed. Craig had previously said he could give a satisfactory response to the question, but then he began to have second thoughts. He came back to the Presbytery and said he did not think he has been entirely honest and could not affirm the Auchterarder Creed. He was voted on again, and his license to preach was revoked.

The decision of the Presbytery was appealed to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and the General Assembly overturned the decision of the Presbytery. William Craig was then allowed to be licensed as a minister of the gospel. The question asked of him was: Do you agree that, “It is not sound and orthodox to teach that we need to forsake sin in order to come to Christ?” After the General Assembly had overturned the decision of the Presbytery of Auchterarder, Thomas Boston said to a minister sitting next to him that he had read a helpful book some twenty years before on the issue at hand: The Marrow of Modern Divinity, by Edward Fisher.

The Marrow addressed how we should offer the gospel of Jesus Christ to people, and what was the relationship between repentance and coming to faith in Jesus Christ—do we need to repent first, in order to a come to faith in Jesus Christ? It asked, what is legalism and what is antinomianism? Was it possible for a Christian to have assurance of salvation? The out-of-print book was then reprinted in 1718 by James Hog. Ferguson said it added “fuel to the fire” of the controversy begun by the Auchterarder Creed. The General Assembly began to discuss not only the Auchterarder Creed, but also The Marrow of Modern Divinity; and eventually banned the book.

A group of twelve men, including Thomas Boston and the Erskine brothers, Ralph and Ebeneezer, objected to the condemnation of the book by the General Assembly. Historically, they have become known as the Marrow Men. Although it was far from a perfect book, they felt the book enabled them to offer Jesus Christ freely to the lost. They also felt it helped them minister to Christians struggling with legalism or antinomianism, as well as bring doubting Christians to a full assurance of faith.

The Marrow of Modern Divinity was written in the form of a Socratic dialogue, a literary genre that uses a question-and-answer methodology, where two or more characters participate in a dialogue. The characters in the Marrow represented different points of view: Neophitus, the new Christian; Nomista, the legalist; Antinomista, the antinomian; and Evangelista, the wise pastor. The accusations that arose against the book and the Marrow Men, were that they taught, contrary to the Westminster Confession of Faith, a universal offer of the gospel based on universal redemption. Also, they were accused of teaching antinomianism—that in Christ, Christians were free from the law. And finally, that assurance was the essence of salvation; and if you were a Christian, then you would have assurance.

The charges were false. These were not the views of the Marrow Men; nor were they the views of The Marrow of Modern Divinity. But as Ferguson pointed out, these issues keep coming up in the church. If we believe Christ died to secure the salvation of the elect, how do we present Christ to people? Does it mean we should only offer Christ to the elect, and how do we know who are the elect? We would know by their repentance from sin; and when we see their repentance, we could offer Christ and his salvation to them. But then there is the question of the law: if the gospel is true, what is the purpose of the law now that we have become Christians?

And what about assurance? If I am a Christian, shouldn’t I enjoy the full assurance of salvation? One of the things The Marrow of Modern Divinity did for the Marrow Men was to set them free from some of the misunderstandings of the gospel which they had inherited from the kinds of teaching and preaching they had heard. Namely, that you could only offer the gospel to some people, because he only died for some people. Secondly, there was the problem of legalism, often characteristic of Christians who think that by their obedience, they can add to their justification.

Isn’t it true that it is actually quite difficult for many Christians to believe that they can never add to their justification? That they will never be more justified than they are the moment they come to faith in Jesus Christ. “Surely my sanctification will add to my justification.” Not if it is the justification of the gospel.

The “2016 State of American Theology Study” found that 53% of Americans believed salvation always begins with God changing a person so they can turn to Him in faith. 76% of Americans believed an individual must contribute his or her own effort for personal salvation. But how or when do you know if you’ve done enough? Many people, including the followers of the prosperity gospel, look at the blessings of faith in Christ. Martin Luther noted how Christians often become incurvatus in se, turned in upon ourselves. We begin to look at the benefits we have received rather than our benefactor, the Lord Jesus Christ.

You might think sanctification adds to your justification, if your justification was derived from yourself. But it can’t add to your justification if your justification was derived from Jesus Christ. We are in Christ; and in Christ every spiritual blessing is immediately ours. Ferguson said Thomas Boston thought the Auchterarder Creed was badly worded, but he knew there was nothing you do to qualify yourself to come to Jesus Christ. “You simply come to Him, because He’s invited you.”

This article has been based on “How a ‘Marrow’ Grew,” the first video in Sinclair Ferguson’s teaching series, The Whole Christ, from Ligonier Connect. There is a link above to Ligonier Connect. The video series is itself based upon his book of the same name. You can review summaries of the Marrow Controversy here and here. If the topic interests you, look for more of my ruminations under the link, The Whole Christ.