Pietistic Vs. Biblical Sanctification

How many of us try to clean ourselves up before approaching the Lord's Table, as if there were some degree or level of purity that we could reach that would make us acceptable to God? The command to love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself should be sufficient to make you recognize your utter inability to do so. In all likelihood, the thinking that we have to make ourselves right and acceptable before God before he will accept us probably derives its origin from the influential but flawed theology of Pietism. For what man could ever clean himself up enough to make himself acceptable to God? And if he could clean himself up to that degree, then what further need would he have of a Savior or the nourishment of the Lord's Supper? He would be self-sufficient. The whole point of both the gospel and the Lord's Supper for Christians is to continually recognize our own spiritual bankruptcy and dependency on the grace and promises of Christ.

In his letter to the Galatians Paul asks Christians who were in danger of thinking they could add to Christ's work or make themselves acceptable by some other way, "Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (Gal 3:3). No, this is folly, because what God still wants from us as Christians is a broken Spirit, one which still recognizes its own moral and spiritual inability and complete need of God's grace to move on. One that says, "have mercy on me, I am insufficient for the task.". Anyone who thinks, therefore, that they can approach the Lord's table with a pure undefiled heart are really missing the point of the gospel.

This erroneous concept of post-Christian self-sufficiency, I believe, comes from the mentality that we were saved at some point of time in the past, when we prayed or confessed our faith, but now since we are already a Christian it is our job to keep ourselves 100% pure. If not 100%, what will God accept? 99%? We don't even approach that. We start by grace but think the Christian life is maintained by self-effort and that Christ blesses us in accord with how well we are doing. We believe we got into the kingdom without works but now think that to maintain good standing before God we must personally maintain our justification before God. Now we must scale the mountain of the Christian life by making ourselves good enough for God.

We think this way because the covenant of works is etched on our conscience since creation. It is unnatural to think that someone else has accomplished our standing before God and it still offends our pride, even as Christians. But I believe the Scriptures affirm that the more we grow in grace, the more we despair of ourselves and recognize our need for Jesus Christ. At the time of salvation the Holy Spirit made us lose all self-confidence so we might trust in Christ alone. So I would argue that the first principle of our growth in grace is likewise, to dispair of all hope in self and, as Paul said, to have "no confidence in the flesh".

Our sanctification is a fruit of the Spirit as we lose ourselves in the wonder of Christ and His work for us. We can never separate the spiritual benefit of sanctification from Christ Himself, the Benefactor. So true Christianity is not a religion about focusing on our own spirituality but rather a focus on our union with Christ, apart from whom, the Scriptures declare, we can do nothing. The degree that we focus on our own spirituality and spiritual ability to please God is the degree that we exhaust ourselves by trying to draw from our own natural resources.

The obsession we have with inner piety is evident in many of our approaches to the Lord's Table. This, believe it or not, is actually counter-productive to the Christian life for it focuses on us rather than what Christ has accomplished for us. The Gospel as represented in the elements of the Lord's Table is about God remembering not to treat us as our sins deserve because of Christ. It is God's covenant promise toward us ... but we approach it as if it were Law rather than gospel, for we spend most of it reflecting on how good we have been, rather than the goodness and all-sufficiency of Christ toward us. But that is what the bread and wine point to. The Table should be a celebration and a time of awe and thankfulness for what Christ has done for us in reconciling us to God, not a glum time to navel gaze and obsess on our own perfectionism. This would be to misapprehend its very purpose.

This constant self-focus in our worship is probably one of the main reasons for a lack of interest in frequent communion. Thinking that our morality is what God is after, we resist the idea of coming to Him often in this way. The feast becomes something about us rather than God's promises to us in Christ. Pietism, therefore, actually militates against the gospel for Christians by making us, perhaps unconsciously, believe that as Christians our performance is what we bring before God, to make us acceptable at the Eucharist. But the preached gospel and the visible gospel (the Table) are both given, not because we are equal to the task but given to remind us that God's favor is on us because of Christ and that in nourishing ourselves on Christ and the word, we might have strength, trust and delight in Christ to do what He commands. Christ is risen for us. It is about what God has done, not what we do. How is it that we so quickly forget the gospel as Christians?

Grace is not something we can muster up ourselves. We approach the Lord's Table because we need grace. If we were not dependent and needy then we would not need the gospel or the elements of the Lord's Supper. Only Christ can give us such grace -- this is what Christ wants us to recognize and a recognition of our own spiritual bankruptcy and His all-sufficiency is how we actually grow in grace. The gospel is about the promises of God, and our pietism does nothing to change His promise one way or another. We exhibit true piety only out of the overflow of the new life that is in us, not out of some hope that God will find us pleasing in ourselves. No, God is already fully pleased with us in Christ. There is nothing we can add to what Christ has done. The gospel in the elements is a seal of God's promise to us and we should therefore rejoice and rest in it.

The reason He instituted the gospel and the Lord's Supper for us is precisely because grace depends on Him. Our failure to recognize this is one of the greatest reasons, I believe, for a weak church. Pietism is actually counter-productive toward sanctification when it tells us that we must be perfect to approach the Table. Rather, it is the Spirit who works through the gospel and the sacraments that cries out to God through us ...only He brings us into communion with Christ, not our piety. The Gospel and the sacraments are God's seal to his unswerving promise toward us. The covenant is ratified as we listen and partake. While we must approach the table ourselves, the stress of its purpose is ALWAYS on the faithfulness of God toward us.

As Christians, God indeed gives us demands to obey His law, but He works through us via the gospel to sanctify us that we might love His Law. If one reads the Sermon on the Mount we recognize that the law's demands on all of us are more difficult than imagined, not less than the Old Testament. But as a result, many think that we begin in the Spirit and are perfected by the flesh, as if the Law could give us the power to sanctify ourselves. Our sanctification, rather, is no more grounded on our ability than justification. The law commands us to live a certain way, but does not give us the power to do it. The fault is not with the law but with us. But thanks be to God, this obedience that is required of us by the Law has already been rendered by Christ. Because of what Christ has accomplished, the Spirit now works in us the life that the Law was unable to accomplish.

The ideas of the world about piety have seeped into the church and it teaches us that that the purpose of Christianity is simply to make us better people. But I would argue that Chrisitianity is not about us but about Christ and what He has accomplished. This breaks our pride for it breaks our autonomy and discounts the very possibility of human contribution. Christ has accomplished what the law in us never gave us the power to do. Apart from this Christocentric understanding, the law can only lead us to either hopelessness or self-righteous pride. Let us then remember the gospel way of Christ and feed on Him alone for our sustenance. The error of Pietism is that it is not Christocentric enough.

May the Holy Spirit be pleased to unite us continually to Christ that we may abide in Him and bear much fruit to His glory.

I'm a little disappoint in this article by J.W. Hendryx. Usually I enjoy his writings. However, this sounds very Catholic to me (even to the point of calling the Lord's Table the Eucharist). Grace is NOT imparted through the Lord's Table. We are told the purpose of the Lord's Supper in 1 Cor 11 is to remember that Christ's body was broken for us and Christ's blood was spilled for us. And as we do this, we remember our Savior and proclaim his return until He comes again. There isn't anything mystical. It is a proclamation.

I would contrast this with grace which is given to us so we can believe. And we continue to believe by His grace. We can't add to God's grace, we can't increase it, we can't even partake of it. It is given to us as a gift.

BTW, here is an interesting tidbit. Paul opens and closes every one of his letters in scripture with a salutation or ending of grace. For instance, consider Romans:

Rom 1:7 To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Rom 16:24 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

Or Galatians...

Gal 1:3 Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ,

Gal 6:18 Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. To the Galatians written from Rome.

In all Paul's writings he starts out grace "to you", and ends with grace "be with" you. Some believe that Paul is reminding us that we receive God grace through His word as he prepares to impart God's word to us, and that that grace should go with us by his word as we absorb what we have heard.

Here, I’ll help you out a wee bit:

Romans 4:22 Therefore IT WAS also CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS. 23 Now not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him, 24 but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25 He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned - 13 for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. 16 The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. 17 For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. 18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. 19 For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.

LOL.

You’re the Sola Scriptura guy. You’re the one who takes Scripture at face value

when it suits you.

I was just pointing that out.

Me? I gladly interpret Scripture with Scripture and follow the divinely guided Apostolic magisterium.

But you have to read your imputation doctrine into this particular verse.

Spare me your prooftexting mountain of texts. You take a bunch of texts and get imputation. I take a bunch of texts and read intrinsic righteousness. I can throw thirty times the number of texts at you that prove sola gratia intrinsic righteousness.

But that’s beside the point. It all comes down to how one interprets any particular bunch of texts.

I was rubbing your nose in your own claim that imputed righteousness is the only possible way to read “Be ye holy.”

It certainly is not the common sense reading of that text. To get your imputed reading, you have to interpret it.

Well, two can play the interpreting game. You say imputed, I say intrinsic.

And where do we go from there?

So spare me your mountain of prooftexts.

Men either have been given eyes to see and ears to hear the truth found in Scripture, or they have not been given such gifts.

Anyone who doesn't understand that we are saved not by our own righteousness but by Christ's righteousness mercifully and freely imputed to us needs to pray for the Holy Spirit's guidance.

"In the imputation of Adam’s sin to us, of our sins to Christ, and of Christ’s righteousness to believers, the nature of imputation is the same, so that one case illustrates the other" (Hodge: Systematic Theology, 2:194).

“The gospel is saying that, what man cannot do in order to be accepted with God, this God himself has done for us in the person of Jesus Christ. To be acceptable to God we must present to God a life of perfect and unceasing obedience to his will. The gospel declares that Jesus has done this for us. For God to be righteous he must deal with our sin. This also he has done for us in Jesus. The holy law of God was lived out perfectly for us by Christ, and its penalty was paid perfectly for us by Christ. The living and dying of Christ for us, and this alone is the basis of our acceptance with God.” - Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel and Kingdom, p. 86

"Justification is an instantaneous legal act of God in which he (1) thinks of our sins as forgiven and Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us, and (2) declares us to be righteous in his sight." - Wayne Grudem Systematic Theology (pg. 723)

Scripture, when it treats of justification by faith, leads us in a very different direction. Turning away our view from our own works, it bids us look only to the mercy of God and the perfection of Christ. The order of justification which it sets before us is this: first, God of his mere gratuitous goodness is pleased to embrace the sinner, in whom he sees nothing that can move him to mercy but wretchedness, because he sees him altogether naked and destitute of good works. He, therefore, seeks the cause of kindness in himself, that thus he may affect the sinner by a sense of his goodness, and induce him, in distrust of his own works, to cast himself entirely upon his mercy for salvation. This is the meaning of faith by which the sinner comes into the possession of salvation, when, according to the doctrine of the Gospel, he perceives that he is reconciled by God; when, by the intercession of Christ, he obtains the pardon of his sins, and is justified; and, though renewed by the Spirit of God, considers that, instead of leaning on his own works, he must look solely to the righteousness which is treasured up for him in Christ." - John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion (3.11.16)

"The phrase “in him” I have preferred to retain, rather than render it “by him” because it has in my opinion more expressiveness and force. For we are enriched in Christ, inasmuch as we are members of his body, and are engrafted into him: nay more, being made one with him, he makes us share with him in everything that he has received from the Father." - John Calvin Commentary on 1 Corinthians 1:5

SOLA FIDE: THE REFORMED DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION
by Dr. J. I. Packer

The above by Packer is a great explanation of how, once again, Rome completely mangles the definition of justification and in doing so, gives to men the glory that belongs to God alone.

...So, where Rome had taught a piecemeal salvation, to be gained by stages through working a sacramental treadmill, the Reformers now proclaimed a unitary salvation, to be received in its entirety here and now by self-abandoning faith in God's promise, and in the God and the Christ of that promise, as set forth in the pages of the Bible. Thus the rediscovery of the gospel brought a rediscovery of evangelism, the task of summoning non-believers to faith. Rome had said, God's grace is great, for through Christ's cross and his Church salvation is possible for all who will work and suffer for it; so come to church, and toil! But the Reformers said, God's grace is greater, for through Christ's cross and his Spirit salvation, full and free, with its unlimited guarantee of eternal joy, is given once and forever to all who believe; so come to Christ, and trust and take!
It was this conflict with the medieval message that occasioned the fivefold "only" in the slogans quoted above. Salvation, said the Reformers, is by faith (man's total trust) only, without our being obliged to work for it; it is by grace (God's free favor) only, without our having to earn or deserve it first; it is by Christ the God-man only, without there being need or room for any other mediatoral agent, whether priest, saint, or virgin; it is by Scripture only, without regard to such unbiblical and unfounded extras as the doctrines of purgatory and of pilgrimages, the relic-cult and papal indulgences as devices for shortening one's stay there; and praise for salvation is due to God only, without any credit for his acceptance of us being taken to ourselves. The Reformers made these points against unreformed Rome, but they were well aware that in making them they were fighting over again Paul's battle in Romans and Galatians against works, and in Colossians against unauthentic traditions, and the battle fought in Hebrews against trust in any priesthood or mediation other than that of Christ. And (note again!) they were equally well aware that the gospel of the five "onlies" would always be contrary to natural human thinking, upsetting to natural human pride, and an object of hostility to Satan, so that destructive interpretations of justification by faith in terms of justification by works (as by the Judaizers of Paul's day, and the Pelagians of Augustine's, and the Church of Rome both before and after the Reformation, and the Arminians within the Reformed fold, and Bishop Bull among later Anglicans) were only to be expected. So Luther anticipated that after his death the truth of justification would come under fresh attack and theology would develop in a way tending to submerge it once more in error and incomprehension; and throughout the century following Luther's death Reformed theologians, with Socinian and other rationalists in their eye, were constantly stressing how radically opposed to each other are the "gospel mystery" of justification and the religion of the natural man. For justification by works is, in truth, the natural religion of mankind, and has been since the Fall, so that, as Robert Traill, the Scottish Puritan, wrote in 1692, "all the ignorant people that know nothing of either law or gospel," "all proud secure sinners," "all formalists," and "all the zealous devout people secure sinners, in a natural religion," line up together as "utter enemies to the gospel." That trio of theological relatives—Pelagianism, Arminianism, and Romanism—appear to Traill as bastard offspring of natural religion fertilized by the gospel. So he continued: "The principles of Arminianism are the natural dictates of a carnal mind, which is enmity both to the law of God, and to the gospel of Christ; and, next to the dead sea of Popery (into which also this stream runs), have, since Pelagius to this day, been the greatest plague of the Church of Christ, and it is like will be till his second coming.2—a point of view entirely in line with that of Luther and his reforming contemporaries a century and a half before. And all study of nonChristian faiths since the time of Luther and Traill has confirmed their biblically based conviction that salvation by self-effort is a principle that the fallen human mind takes for granted...

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