10/20/20

Wandering into Legalism

Sinclair Ferguson opened the fourth session of his teaching series on The Whole Christ, with a question: “When you’re so free in offering the gospel to people, aren’t you in danger of teaching them that the gospel is so free that they can go on and live any way they please?” In the New Testament, both Jesus and Paul were accused of this kind of thinking. The argument of some believers was in order to prevent this from happening, you should emphasize how people need to repent, and how important the law and obedience are in their lives. But a problem occurs when that obedience gets into a place where it doesn’t really belong, and begins to obscure Christ.

Advocates of the initial importance of repentance for salvation say, “There needs to be something that you need to do to qualify, to get yourself ready to trust in Christ. Unless you’ve done that, you’re not really fitted to hear the gospel.” Some ministers even say they could not preach the gospel to a particular crowd, because they weren’t sorry enough for their sins. One of the things the Marrow Men wanted to emphasize is how in Romans, the apostle Paul says that it is the kindness of God that leads you to repentance. When you see repentance as a necessary step to salvation, you turn the gospel on its head; you wander into legalism.

Ferguson thought the following definition and discussion of legalism by Geerhardus Vos was the best that he had found. Vos defined legalism as “a peculiar kind of submission to God’s law, something that no longer feels the personal divine touch in the rule it submits to.” Legalism creeps in when we separate the law of God from the person of God. “When we begin to interpret the law of God without taking account of the person whose law it is.” When that happens, Ferguson said we always fall into legalism.

Keep the Ten Commandments, but divorce the Ten Commandments from who God actually is, and you’ve done something to the Ten Commandments, haven’t you? You’ve destroyed them of the atmosphere, the character, the personalness of the One who gave them.

This can be traced back to the Garden of Eden, where the commandment of God was divorced from the character of God, from the love and generosity of God. We see where the serpent denied the authority of God’s Word. Yet there was more to it than simply denying the authority of God’s Word. His intent was to destroy the character of God’s person. It’s as though the serpent was saying,

Look, God doesn’t really love you unless you take the medicine that tastes pretty vile. Unless you be subservient to Him, He doesn’t really love you, but if you keep His commandments you can maybe work your way up into His good graces.

Eve responded, saying God said we weren’t to eat of the fruit of the tree, or touch it. By this statement, she added to God’s command, just as the Pharisees did. “Whereas God had given them a simple loving commandment, now it’s becoming complicated, and you’ve not only not to eat the fruit of the tree, you’ve not to touch the tree, and everything about it is very atmospheric.” This is significant point, for legalism is not just an intellectual matter, it’s an atmospheric matter in the lives of Christian people. The serpent is bringing Eve to think of God as a restricting God, who is only pleased and satisfied with you if you meet all the restrictions.

It’s almost as though the serpent is breathing out into the atmosphere this spirit: that God is a God who will only be pleased once you have met these enormous restrictions. Instead of being a God who has given you everything, but who wants you to grow in love for Him and obedience to Him, and show that you love Him as your God just by doing what He says because He says it.A spirit of legalism is injected into the relationship. “God’s law, His commandment, has been severed from God’s character, and it’s lost its sense of His goodness, His generosity, His grace.” It implies a God for whom we need to meet all kinds of restrictions before He loves us. “And that’s the root of legalism.” But the evil one is not finished.

Now Eve perceives her relationship with God to be restrictive and she reacts by becoming an antinomian. The serpent says to her, in effect, the only way you will be free and enjoy what you were created to be, is if you reach out and take the fruit of that tree, freeing yourself from the restrictions of God’s command not to eat it. God is restricting you. “He doesn’t want you to be like Him.” Ferguson said she’s now thinking through her eyes, she’s thinking about what she sees. The fruit of the tree is beautiful to look at, and it will be delicious when she eats it. “She’s lost touch with what God has said about it.”

And so she breaks out of her sense of the restrictiveness of God. “I’ll only be free if I can take the fruit of the tree,” and so she breaches God’s law. “My happiness, my joy, my fulfillment is going to be found only if I can break free.”

Ferguson then states this study of the first chapters of Genesis teaches something us something about legalism. “It teaches us that every antinomian is a legalist at heart. And legalism is not only a distortion of the law; it’s a distortion of the heavenly Father.” We can even say antinomianism is always the fruit of legalism. “Antinomianism is actually what they thought was the medicine for their legalism. He quoted Thomas Boston, who said:

The antinomian principle that it is needless for a man, perfectly justified by faith, to endeavor to keep the law and do good works, is a glaring evidence that legality is so ingrained in man’s corrupt nature, that until a man truly come to Christ by faith, the legal disposition will still be reining in him. Let him turn himself into what shape of be what principles he will in religion. Though he run into antinomianism, he will carry along with him his legal spirit which will always be a slavish and unholy spirit.

According to Ferguson, this was a key insight of the Marrow Men: every Christian is by nature a legalist; and every antinomian is actually a legalist, trying to escape from their legalism.

This article has been based on “Danger! Legalism,” the fourth 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.

08/25/20

Sheer Wonder of God’s Love for Us

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

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 18^th 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.

02/11/20

Founded On the Rock

Jesus reached the conclusion of his Sermon on the Mount. He had systematically dismantled the common religious understanding of God’s Word— “You have heard that it was said … but I say to you …” —throughout the Sermon. And in Matthew 7:21-23, he just told his hearers that not everyone who acknowledged his Lordship and performed deeds in his name will enter the kingdom of heaven! Surely Jesus did not mean that there were even some people who cast out demons, performed miracles and even prophesied in his name, but were ultimately opponents to the Law and the Prophets? Surely what he said in 7:21-23 was a rhetorical figure aimed to get our attention and not to be taken literally? All eyes were on Jesus as he told a final parable that communicated to his audience that he meant what he had just said.

I don’t imagine there were any side conversations either. They all wanted to hear what Jesus was going to say next. So, he told another little parable, that began with: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24). When the rain, flood and winds come, it will withstand the storm and not fall. “And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand” (Matthew 7:25). When the rain, flood and winds come, it will fall.

The contrasts are between wisdom and foolishness, the rock and sand, and ultimately between hearing and doing his words, versus hearing and not doing. In effect, Jesus is saying: “Yes, you heard me right. I am saying you have to live out what you hear me saying here today. And if you don’t, when trials come, whatever you have built up will collapse.” In his book, The Sermon on the Mount, Sinclair Ferguson said Jesus is telling us there are two ways we can respond. We can either put his sermon into practice through obedience, or we can ignore it. The wise man puts into practice what he hears. As a result, he’ll withstand the trials when they come. Leon Morris said:

The little parable … emphasizes the importance of acting in accordance with Jesus’ teaching^. It is one thing to hear what he said and even approve of it; it is quite another to obey. But it is only obedience that results in solid achievement.

Following the path Jesus described in the Sermon on the Mount is like building your house on a rock. You build on a firm foundation; you can trust his words to protect you in the worst storms. Ferguson said this meant more than simply hearing God’s word taught, becoming familiar with it or even agreeing with it. You have to put what you heard into practice. “The difference between the false and the true Christian is that the true Christian puts into practice what he has heard from the Master in this sermon.”

When he finished, the crowds were astonished at how authoritatively Jesus taught. This was not what they were used to from their scribes, who appealed to authority, but did not habitually teach with authority. “It was the scribal habit to appeal to authority, for it was an age in which originality was not highly prized. It was widely accepted that there had been a golden age early in the history of the race and since then history had been all downhill.” While it was customary for the scribes to cite an authority from the golden age, Jesus ignored this method of teaching. He simply said, “I say to you.” There was a context behind the imagery of the parables Jesus taught that gave them significance, as there is here. In his commentary on Matthew, Craig Blomberg said:

The wise person living in the Palestinian desert would erect a dwelling on a secure rock to protect the house from the flash floods that sudden storms created. The foolish person would build directly on the sand and would have no protection against the devastation of the elements. So too Judgment Day will come like a flood to disclose which spiritual structures will endure. Preliminary crises may also reveal authentic and inauthentic spirituality. In fact, often only in times of crisis can one’s faith be truly proven. This parable concludes Jesus’ “two ways” discussion and forms a fitting conclusion to the sermon as a whole by making plain that there is no valid reason for refusing Christ’s appeal. As R. T. France states succinctly, “The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not meant to be admired but to be obeyed.”

Within recovery, there is a similar appeal, and we could paraphrase this last quote as “The path to recovery in A.A. is not meant to be admired but followed.” Some individuals familiar with A.A. may want to nuance this paraphrase as suggestive rather than stating a “must.” Pointing to the Big Book itself, they can quote from the chapter “How It Works,” where it says: “Here are the Steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery.” And towards the end of the chapter “A Vision for You,” it says: “Our book is meant to be suggestive only.” But it would be a mistake to conclude it means you can take what you like from the Big Book, and leave the rest. A.A. does not present a Burger King mentality for it path to recovery, saying you can “have it your way.” There are also some “musts.”

A number of years ago Stewart C. wrote a concordance, A Reference Guide to the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is currently out of print, but there are still some copies available through Amazon. In his exhaustive coverage of the first 162 pages of the Big Book, he cited 82 examples of the word “must.” The following are quotes from first, “The Doctor’s Opinion,” and second “We Agnostics.”

The message which can interest and hold these alcoholic people must have depth and weight. In nearly all cases, their ideals must be grounded in a power greater than themselves, if they are to re-create their lives. . . . But after a while we had to face the fact that we must find a spiritual basis of life—or else.

So, the path of the Big Book and its Steps are suggestive, but if you choose to follow it, you must find a higher power, and you must walk the path thoroughly. In the “How It Works” chapter of the Big Book, it says: “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.” The text acknowledged there will be some who balk at remaining completely on the path described, but begged its readers “to be fearless and thorough” from the beginning. “Half measures availed us nothing.” This was said to be a turning point. The suggestion was to surrender to God—ask for “His protection and care with complete abandon.”

Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

So the rock upon which the individual builds their new life without alcohol must include a surrender to God. Their ideals must be grounded in a power greater than themselves. They must find a spiritual basis to life and thoroughly follow that path. When the storms of life come, they will be able to withstand the gales, because their foundation was on this rock.

The association of the Sermon on the Mount and Twelve Step-based recovery was there from the beginning. It was an important meditative guide to Dr. Bob S., one of the cofounders of A.A. He said before there was a Big Book, the Bible was their Big Book; and the Sermon on the Mount was one of their key passages. In Writing the Big Book, William Schaberg said Dr. Bob claimed in 1945 that he tried to spend an hour each day reading on some religious subject. But he always returned “to the simple teachings in The Sermon on the Mount, the Book of James, and the 13^th Chapter of Corinthians.” In Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers Dr. Bob said he thought the Sermon on the Mount contained “the underlying spiritual philosophy of A.A.”

I hope these reflections on the association of the Sermon on the Mount and the program of recovery in the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous will help you in your own journey along that path. If so, please pass it on to others.

This is part of a series of reflections dedicated to the memory of Audrey Conn, whose questions reminded me of my intention to look at the various ways the Sermon on the Mount applies to Alcoholics Anonymous and recovery. If you’re interested in more, look under the category link “Sermon on the Mount.”

05/8/15

The Deep Desire of True Ambition

Recently I watched the 1947 movie, Gentleman’s Agreement for the first time. Starring Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire, it told the story of a reporter, Phil Green (Gregory Peck), who poses as a Jew to uncover anti-Semitism in post World War II America. In a climatic scene, Phil’s fiancée, Kathy (Dorothy McGuire), realizes it’s not enough to privately abhor prejudice; you have to do something about it. In the context of Matthew 5:13-16, you have to be salt and light.

Further developing what he’d been teaching his disciples, Jesus said: “You are the salt of the earth. . . . You are the light of the world.” In verses 5:3-10, he described the blessings available to those who were his disciples. He warned them in 5:11-12 of the persecution they would face simply because they wanted to live righteous lives on his account. Here he said you can’t fly under the radar and avoid persecution. Theirs was not to be a life of quietism and retreat from the world. Rather, as Craig Blomberg said, they “must permeate society as agents of redemption.”

The first metaphor was a statement of fact—you are salt of the earth. In our time we think of salt as something that adds flavor—as a supplement—to what we eat. But up until the invention of refrigeration, salt was an essential preservative. That is the meaning of the salt metaphor here. Jesus is saying his disciples are to be a preserving influence on earth. According to Sinclair Ferguson in The Sermon on the Mount, “Christians whose lives exhibit the qualities of the ‘blessed’ will have a preserving impact” upon society.

Salt losing its taste is another saying that makes no sense to moderns, who get pure granulated salt from a Morton’s salt container at the grocery. But the salt used in first-century Palestine was most likely taken from the Dead Sea, where it would have been mixed with other minerals. If the sodium chloride somehow dissolved out of the mixture, it would leave “salt” that had lost its “saltiness” (sodium chloride). Good for nothing, it was tossed into the street, which was the garbage can of ancient cities.

Once again in Matthew 5:14 Jesus directly addresses the disciples, now saying they are (factually) the light of the world. It’s the same message as in the previous verse, but with a different image. In each case the target is broadly described—the earth and the world. It’s like saying, if you didn’t get it the first time, I’ll tell you again another way: “you are the light of the world.” You can’t hide; and you shouldn’t hide.

We lose some of the power of the metaphor today as we live with electricity in huge cities, where darkness is typically an annoyance or inconvenience, not something that stops human work and activity until the sun comes up the next day. Rural living or wilderness vacations get moderns closer to an understanding of the image. Until the widespread use of electricity, nightfall was DARK. A city on a hill, with its cooking fires and torches would have been an incredible contrast to the surrounding darkness. You could not hide it.

Conversely, it makes no sense to light an oil lamp and then put a basket over it. You put it on a lamp stand where it can illuminate the entire room. Now the light from an oil lamp doesn’t compete well with that from even a forty-watt light bulb. But recall how grateful you were to get that one candle lit when your electricity went out and the batteries in your flashlight were dead.

Notice also the contrast between the light of a city on a hill that can’t be hidden and that of an oil lamp that could be hidden. The disparity of the two images suggests that, whether your “light” is big or small, you shouldn’t try to hide it. It makes no sense and ultimately can’t be done. Rather, let it shine so others can see it.

The “light” is the light of righteousness in verse 5:10 that is ultimately from Jesus Christ. He is the great light who has dawned upon those dwelling in darkness (Matthew 4:16). He is the light of the world (John 8:12). His disciples, those who have been brought out of the kingdom of darkness into his kingdom of light (Colossians 1:12-13), are to now live as children of the light (Ephesians 5:8). Again turning to Sinclair Ferguson:

Jesus is underlining the challenge, which is stated so clearly in his Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20): the whole world is to be our sphere of influence. To reduce it to anything less would be tantamount to restricting the power, authority, and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is not a Christianized “jihad,” calling for forced conversion or subjection. The light of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount is seen in his disciples as they are poor in spirit, mourning for sin, meek, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, and peacemakers in their daily lives with other “earth” people living in this world. “In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mathew 5:16).

Parallel to the followers of Jesus living out the beatitudes as they are salt and light to the world, members of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) put their program into action as well. Bill W. said repeatedly that “A.A. is more than a set of principles; it is a Society of alcoholics in action. We must carry the message, else we ourselves can wither and those who haven’t been given the truth will die.” You can find this statement in The Language of the Heart (p. 160), Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age (p. 139), and the pamphlet, A.A.’s Legacy of Service.

In A.A. Comes of Age, Bill added that action was the magic word. “Action to carry A.A.’s message is therefore the heart of our Third Legacy of Service.” He defined A.A. service as “anything whatever that helps us to reach a fellow sufferer—ranging from the Twelfth Step itself to a ten-cent phone call and a cup of coffee. . . . The sum total of all these services is our Third Legacy of Service.” The Twelfth Step reads: “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and practice these principles in all our affairs.” The linked pamphlet, A.A.’s Legacy of Service, goes on to tell some of the early history of A.A. More detail of that history, focusing on the Three Legacies, can be found in The Language of the Heart and Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age.

The life of service and recovery within A.A. is not identical to that described by Jesus within the Sermon on the Mount to his disciples. But I suspect they would all agree with this statement from Bill W.’s “Step Twelve” essay in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions: “True ambition in not what we thought it was. True ambition is the deep desire to live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of God.”

03/13/15

Light in the Spiritual Darkness

In his commentary on Matthew, Craig Blomberg thought that no other religious discourse in history has attracted the attention devoted to the Sermon on the Mount. Both Christians and non-Christians alike have admired the teaching contained here. Leo Tolstoy believed the Sermon on the Mount was the true gospel of Christ and centered his book, The Kingdom of God is Within You on what it taught. Both Gandhi and Martin Luther King were influenced by Tolstoy’s teachings on nonviolence in that work. Gandhi reportedly said that when he read the Sermon on the Mount, it “went straight to my heart.” Dr. Bob, one of the cofounders of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), said that the Sermon on the Mount was one of the “absolutely essential” passages of Scripture in the early days of A.A., before the Big Book was written. It is this last association that I want to explore here.

According to Sinclair Ferguson, the Sermon on the Mount is not about an ideal life in an ideal world. Rather, it is about “kingdom life in a fallen world.” In a similar way, the 12 Step recovery program is about sober life in a drinking world. Whether you are trying to live out a kingdom life or a sober life, they both call for radical lifestyle changes within their respective worlds.

At times, there has been some cross-pollination between those two worlds. When Bill W. introduced Sam Shoemaker at the 20th anniversary convention for A.A., he said that “It is through Sam Shoemaker that most of A.A.’s spiritual principles have come.” In his talk, Shoemaker said he thought the great need of our time was for a vast, world-wide spiritual awakening. He believed that A.A. was one of the great signs of that spiritual awakening. He thought that A.A. had indirectly derived its “inspiration and impetus” from the insights and beliefs of the church. And he hoped the reverse would be true. “Perhaps the time has come for the church to be reawakened and revitalized by the insights and practices found in A.A.”

The Sermon on the Mount seems to be one of those places where A.A. was cross-pollinated with some of the insights from Scripture. Here are a few examples. In the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, it says that resentment is a “number one” offender. “It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease.” Three separate sections of the Sermon on the Mount could be relevant. There is one on anger (5:21-26); one on retaliation (5:38-42); and one on loving your enemies (5:43-48). Oh, and one of the Beatitudes (5:7): “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

The A.A. website said there is nothing concrete to point to when or where the saying “one day at a time” became one of the slogans of A.A. It could have originated with the Oxford Group; or it could have been originated with Bill and Dr. Bob. In the A.A. book, Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers (p. 282), Dr. Bob is quoted as saying: “‘Easy Does It’ means you take it a day at a time.” A.A. historian Dick B. wrote that Anne Smith, Dr. Bob’s wife, mentioned “one day at a time” in her notebook. Both Anne, Dr. Bob and Bill W. were active with the Oxford Group in the 1930s. In his book, The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous, Dick B. reported that one of Dr. Bob’s early sponsees, Clarence S. said Dr. Bob told him the concept for one day at a time came from Matthew 6:34.

The principle of anonymity, which is so important to A.A. (it’s even part of the program’s name, Alcoholics Anonymous), can be found here as well. The forms of piety (giving alms, prayer and fasting) that Jesus addressed in Matthew six are all tied together with anonymity. In his book Turning Point, Dick B. made the same point and even cited where Bill W. wrote on the importance of anonymity as he sought to convince A.A. to adopt what would become the Twelve Traditions. First appearing in the Grapevine in November of 1948, and then gathered into the A.A. published book, The Language of the Heart, Bill W. began his essay on Tradition Twelve:

One may say that anonymity is the spiritual base, the sure key to all the rest of our Traditions. It has come to stand for prudence and, most importantly, for self-effacement. . . . In it we see the cornerstone of our security as a movement; at a deeper spiritual level it points us to still greater self-renunciation.”

Matthew began the Sermon on the Mount simply. When Jesus saw the crowds following him, he went up onto a hill (or mountain) and sat down, signally to his disciples that he was getting ready to teach them. So they gathered round him (Matthew 5:1-2). The Greek word translated here as disciple meant someone who was learning through instruction; someone who was an apprentice. We might even suggest it could refer to a sponsee in 12 Step recovery.

There seems to be a careful, intentional structure to the Sermon on the Mount. There is a beginning (5:1-2) and ending (7:28-29) to frame his teaching. The Beatitudes (5:3-12) and the “salt and light” passage (5:13-16) serve as an introduction. Matthew 5:17-20 declares the righteousness required by those who would follow Jesus—they have to be more righteous than the most religious sect of his time, the Pharisees.

Then within a series of six antithetical teachings on anger, lust, divorce, oaths, retaliation, and loving your enemies, Jesus contrasts his teaching with “what they have heard” in Matthew 5:21-48. Beginning in chapter six, Jesus contrasted true and hypocritical piety (6:1-18). Next he turns to address social and personal issues regarding money (6:19-24), how we will live (6:25-34), and how we should treat others (7:1-12).

Jesus then ended his Sermon by urging his listeners to enter into life (7:13-14). The gate leading to destruction is wide and its way easy. But the gate leading to life is narrow and the way is hard. He cautions them to watch out for wolves in sheep’s clothing. You’ll know them by their fruits. Those who enter the narrow gate are those who do the will of the Father—and not necessarily those who did many works in His name. If you hear his words and do them, you will have a solid foundation.

On November 10, 1948, General Omar Bradley gave an address in celebration of Armistice Day. His words fit here as well as speaking to the timeliness of spending time reflecting on the Sermon on the Mount.

With the monstrous weapons man already has, humanity is in danger of being trapped in this world by its moral adolescents. Our knowledge of science has clearly outstripped our capacity to control it. We have many men of science; too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Man is stumbling blindly through a spiritual darkness while toying with the precarious secrets of life and death. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.

You can find a series of further articles that look at passages from the Sermon on the Mount under the category link by that name. This series is dedicated to the memory of Audrey Conn, whose questions reminded me of my intention in seminary to look at the various ways the Sermon on the Mount applies to Alcoholics Anonymous and recovery.

Faith Seeking Understanding

Charles Sigler, D.Phil.

Tag Archives: Sinclair Ferguson