No Area of Passivity 2 of 4

Review of the Major Principles and Errors in Christian Living

0:04 This adult Sunday school class was held on July 4th, 1982, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. As always, it's a delight to have visitors amongst us, and particularly for the sake of our visitors, we will take a few minutes to review where we have been and where we are going in our adult class lessons over these past seven Lord's Day mornings.

0:40 But I'm not going to do this on my own, but seek to secure from you some assistance in reviewing where we have been and where we are going. And will someone please tell us the general field of our study and concern as of seven Lord's Days ago? This is the eighth lesson in this subject, which is, all right, someone is awake? Good, yes.

1:07 All right, major principles of living the Christian life. So our concern is not to answer the question. How do we enter into life? But having entered by the grace of God, how do we live the Christian life?

1:25 And in setting out this subject before you, I am motivated by three self-conscious goals. Maybe more goals will be realized, but the three that we've underscored again and again are, all right, Jeff?

1:41 Not that's the principles, but we've got three goals. You're jumping ahead of me. We'll come back to you. All right?

1:49 Our goals are, Chuck? All right?

1:58 All right?

2:00 You fail on the third. Well, you get 66 and two-thirds percent. If you had a gracious teacher, you might pass. All right?

2:07 We'll help him with a retake on the third part. Louise?

2:12 All right. To purge away any of these influences that may be present. Now, it's been encouraging to me to have not a few of you come to me when I've been laying out some of these things and say, Pastor, I never heard such teaching before. Well, be thankful.

2:26 Be thankful. Because sooner or later, if you move in Christian circles, either in your contacts with other evangelical Christians or in your literature, what you read, sooner or later, you will encounter these things. For we've been dealing not with some little stirring of error off in a corner somewhere back in the fifth century, but we have been dealing with erroneous concepts of living the Christian life that are very current and in many circles have a very widespread following. And so our purpose is positively to sketch in a working, practical, biblical theology of living the Christian life,

3:06 immunize you against errors, and then where any of these errors have taken root, by the grace of God, to see them purged. All right? Now, Jeff, in attaining that threefold, seeking to attain that threefold goal, we've been setting out some broad principles of living the Christian life. And the first principle is?

3:28 All right. There is no one master key. So the moment you hear anyone come forth with any kind of teaching on the Christian life in which they say, this is the key, all of your red lights ought to start flashing and blinking and sirens ought to go off and you ought to, as it were, pull down the shade over your heart and say, no. Whatever elements of truth may be in it, if they're viewing it as the master key, something is terribly deficient, and I hope you'll always remember the illustration, that God has given a large key ring on which are hung all of the words of the Old and the New Testament.

4:06 Man shall live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. All right? Second major principle that we've considered is? Gene?

4:17 All right. There is no relief from tension and conflict in living the Christian life. And what are the four factors that make that principle absolutely inflexible and certain? All right?

4:30 They are, Jeff? All right. So we've tried to summarize them under four key words. Indwelling sin, the world, the devil, and the fact that we are saved in hope.

4:59 We have just an earnest or a down payment of what we shall be creating within us, a longing for what we will be in the consummation. And those realities make it utterly impossible that there should be deliverance from tension and conflict until the consummation. And now we're examining a third. Major principle we began last week.

5:21 Can someone give us the mouthful? That is our third major principle of living the Christian life.

5:29 You may sneak a look at your notes if you have to. All right? Because I doubt I could give it without looking at my notes. All right?

5:36 What is the third principle? All right?

5:40 Yes.

5:42 Okay. That's the summary. No area of passivity. I told you it's a mouthful.

5:59 So don't feel embarrassed. It is a mouthful. All right? But you gave us a good start.

6:04 There is no negation or suspension of the, the word conscious, all right, conscious engagement of any faculty of our redeemed humanity in living the Christian life. No negation, that is canceling, or suspension, that is lifting above the realm of its operation, of the conscious engagement of any of our faculties, that is our minds, our affections, our wills, our physical members. No negation or suspension of the conscious engagement of any faculty of our redeemed humanity in living the Christian life. And in setting out that principle,

6:49 I stated that there are basically three fundamental errors which surround teaching, which has as its common denominator either the negation or suspension of the conscious engagement of one or more of our faculties, and how did I describe that teaching? It's a teaching in which there is what? Imbalance with regard to what? All right.

7:16 An imbalanced doctrine of the indwelling Christ. And you gave us some seven or eight verses in which the Bible clearly teaches a doctrine of the indwelling of Christ. But now any doctrine of his indwelling, which says that his indwelling results in the negation or suspension of the conscious involvement of Christ, results in the negation or suspension of the conscious involvement of Christ. And the negation or suspension of the conscious involvement of any of our faculties is at best an imbalanced doctrine of the indwelling Christ.

7:43 All right. The second thing that is a strand of this kind of teaching, it makes what? Unwarranted. Okay.

7:56 Unwarranted deductions from various analogies of the Christian life. The Bible sets forth the Christian life under certain figures, and some people take those figures and then they spin out of their imagination, and then they spin out of their imagination, and then they spin out of their imagination, and then they spin out of their imagination, a theology of living the Christian life which contradicts the overarching teaching of the Word of God, such as the abiding concept of John 15, the potter and the clay, etc. All right. And then thirdly, this teaching is marked by what?

8:32 An inaccurate doctrine of sanctification by what? Faith alone. And you will find again and again in the kind of teaching I'm attempting to expose, and from which I hope you will be immunized, that there is this constant paralleling of the manner in which we are justified by faith alone, and the manner in which we are sanctified, not definitive initial sanctification, which in the sense is by faith alone, in the sense that when we come into union with Christ we are sanctified once for all, but they apply this to the progress of sanctification, and say in essence that the only struggle of the Christian life is by faith alone,

Methodology for Examining Scriptural Commands for Active Engagement

9:12 is to cease from struggling and to rest in Christ and in Christ alone for every dimension of progress in the Christian life. All right, so much for that review. Now I ask you to do a little homework in which you were requested to seek out passages of Scripture which clearly address themselves to all of our faculties as redeemed men and women, calling us to engage all of those faculties consciously, intelligently, and deliberately in living the Christian life, and then to come prepared to set forth from the Scriptures some of the major analogies, the major figures of living the Christian life.

9:57 Now what we're going to do, so that we give you a chance to participate, is we're going to throw into the pool the general teaching of the Word of God. So we'll take the passages that we prostrate. You come prepared to submit. And then what we'll attempt to do is to reduce these to certain major categories.

10:17 All right? So we'll take the mass of the general overarching teaching of the Bible without any attempt to categorize and collate the material. Then we'll seek to reduce it to several major categories. And then from there, we will look at a number of what I'm going to call epitomizing texts, some categories.

10:40 Texts which then state in a succinct form the great principles that we see in these categories, which in turn are a reflection of the overall teaching of the Bible. So these texts then will be in capsule form the overarching general teaching of the Word of God. So that's the method, and I want to guide you as a class as we go from here over to here. And I think it'll probably take us at least a couple of Lord's Day mornings.

Scriptural Calls to Engage the Mind and Body

11:09 All right? All right? If you did your homework, now not if you're just sitting here now doing it, but if you did your homework, tell me now what verses you found which clearly indicate that in living the Christian life there is no negation or suspension of the conscious involvement of all of our faculties as redeemed men and women. All right, Jerry?

11:32 And what's the point that you're making from that text?

12:00 Okay, who's to do that?

12:03 All right, does he say, let Christ, let Christ become your mind? Or does he say, you set your mind on the things that are above? All right, so if I throw off on Christ what God calls me to do, that's dirty poo. All right?

12:19 All right, so we have the mind. Let's put an end there for the mind. Okay? Another passage, yes.

12:24 Chuck?

12:33 Okay, Philippians 4 and verse 8. Some of you who were here for our verse-by-verse expositions of Philippians a few months ago, this verse should be very useful. Very much in your minds. Whatsoever things are, and then the apostle lists the moral qualities of these things, we are commanded to think, to dwell upon these things.

12:55 Now that's a responsibility that we are called upon to discharge. Okay? Parallel passage then to Colossians 3. All right, someone from this side of the congregation.

13:05 All right, Jen?

13:08 All right? So here we have a clear precept with respect, with respect to the members of our bodies. Our hands, our ears, our mouths, our tongues, our sexual organs, everything that constitutes the members of our bodies. We are self-consciously to present ourselves and our members unto God.

13:46 We are not to be passive. We are to be active in this presentation of the members to God. So we have the mind. Now we have the members.

13:54 Another M, the members of our body. Okay, another passage. We'll come back to this side. All right, Rich?

14:03 All right, so here is a general call laying upon us the responsibility. I'll say no more for now because that's one of our epitomizing texts, so I don't want to take it from this category. So it's a good one, but we want to stick it in here, okay? That's where Philippians 2.12 belongs

14:33 because it's not addressed to any specific member, but it's a general statement of the engagement of the entirety of our body. Of our redeemed humanity. So it's broader than the individual parts. So with your permission, we'll suspend it and put it in that category for now.

14:48 All right? Good. Back to this side. All right, Paul?

14:53 Okay.

14:56 All right, Romans 12.1 and 2. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed, transformed by the renewing of your mind.

15:16 Activities to which we are called as those who are united to Christ, we are called upon to present our bodies. We are called upon to experience the transformation of our minds. So here's a text which brings together both the mind and the body. All right?

Scriptural Calls to Resist Evil and Love God with All Faculties

15:35 Now back to this side. Yes, Jean? All right?

15:45 Okay, a text that we looked at in conjunction with the activity of the devil. Who's to resist? Who's to resist the devil? Are we to yield ourselves to the indwelling Christ that he may resist the devil through us?

15:56 Is that what the passage says? No, we're to resist him. Now, are we to resist him in our own strength? In whose strength are we to resist him?

16:06 In the strength of Christ. But you see, the strength of Christ does not negate our conscious resistance. We are to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. But we are to be strong.

16:19 It doesn't say let Christ be strong through you. Let Christ be strong on your behalf. You say, that's playing with words. No, it isn't.

16:26 Because in one, the duty terminates upon Christ. In the other, it terminates upon me as one who is in union with Christ and who is to look to Christ for grace to fulfill his own God-given duty. All right? Back to this side.

16:41 Another one. All right? All right? Second Peter.

16:47 All right? But don't control by the ability to endure.

17:31 Your endurance, too, must always be accompanied by devotion to God. All right. So here's a very clear call that in the light of all that God has done, we are to bring in alongside all of our own diligence. Now, that's another epitomizing text.

17:49 So if I may put it over here. You see, you'll probably give them all to me before we even get there. But let's stick it right in there because, again, it's a general text that clearly indicates the place that our own self-conscious efforts, whatever it has. All right?

18:08 Back here. Henry, summary of man's moral duty as expressed in that text and then, remember, quoted by our Lord in Matthew chapter 22 when he was asked, what is the first and great commandment? What did he say? This is the first and great commandment.

18:37 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy mind, all thy soul, and with all of thy strength. It doesn't say, let Christ love his Father through you. Now, you see, if you take this theology seriously and begin to try to fit the Bible into it, you see it just breaks down passage after passage after passage. There is no way.

19:00 And I wonder how a man, and it's interesting, I wonder how a man could engage in consecutive expository preaching while believing this. And if you'll notice, most of those who propounded this were not resident pastors. They were specialists who claimed some fresh insight and then began to hold conferences to bless the Lord. And they blessed the church with their perverted so-called insights.

19:24 And almost without exception, Hannah Smith, Boardman, some of the other leading exponents of this, they were not resident pastors. They became the specialists, you see, who went around to share with the church their so-called tremendous insights. Because I find it difficult to see how anyone could be honest with the text of Scripture, week in and week out, preaching through large sections of the Bible, and not find this notion challenged at point after point. So the whole summary of our moral duty, and we perhaps could put that in this category, that's where I was going to place it, in one of the large categories, or even in what we might call an epitomizing text.

20:08 But here we are called upon to love God with all the heart, mind, soul, and strength. All right? Some other passages which clearly indicate that our redeemed faculties, our faculties are neither negated nor suspended in living the Christian life. That one came from this side back to this side.

Scriptural Calls to Mental Discipline and Spiritual Warfare

20:29 You've exhausted all the texts. All right, Ray? All right, 1 Peter 1.13, a very graphic illustration, girding up the loins of your mind.

20:48 It's the picture of a man who was dressed with a long-flowing toga, and he wants to get somewhere in a hurry. And he knows if he starts really legging it, he's liable to trip over his own garments. So he takes the loose, these folds of that garment, pulls them up around his waist and ties them there. And now he's prepared to run.

21:10 So Peter says, girding up the loins of your mind, something you and I must do. And then we must set our hope perfectly upon the grace that is to be brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. All right? A couple of more texts.

21:23 Someone who hasn't contributed one. Yes. All right? Here again, the emphasis is very clear that it is our responsibility to put, to put on the whole armor of God.

22:07 We are responsible to do this. We are not simply to yield to Christ as though He were our armor. And by yielding, we are automatically clothed with Him. You see, that's the kind of teaching that comes through in the error that we're exposing in our present study.

22:24 No, we are self-consciously to put on the whole armor of God. We are to be able to discern the difference between the helmet, the breastplate, having the loins gird, the preparation of our feet. We are to know the difference between these things. We are to know specifically what this breastplate of righteousness is, what the helmet is, what the foot-shotting is.

22:49 And we are self-consciously, not in our own strength, divorced from the realities of our union with Christ, the grace of God in Christ. No, no. All these things are to be done as redeemed men and women, indwelt by the Spirit, in vital union with Christ, in the context of faith, in the context of hope and expectation. But nonetheless, we are to do them.

Romans 12:9-21: A Paradigm of Active Christian Living

23:15 We are to put on the whole armor of God. All right? Yes, Pastor Nichols, and then Pastor Clark. Romans chapter 12, a passage which contains imperative after imperative after imperative.

23:36 And if you read the whole thing,

23:41 hope comes to the conclusion that there is no hope. There is no way that you could even begin to comply with these directions unless your entire humanity, heart, mind, soul, strength, body, all of your emotions were consciously engaged and fervently engaged to do so. Okay. You see the point Pastor Nichols is making?

24:04 You take just one paragraph in what we call the hortatory section of the epistle. The word hortatory simply means exhortation, in which we're given directive for duty. Now here's just one section in one epistle. Let's look at it together because it gives a good introduction to what we might call the whole motif of the hortatory passages in the word of God and in particular those found in the epistles of the New Testament.

24:32 Romans 12, 9. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil. Cleave to that which is good.

24:42 Now abhorrence takes in the judgment of the mind, the disposition of the affections. We are to experience abhorrence to what is evil. Now it doesn't say let Christ abhor evil through you or let the Christ in you abhor evil. It says you must abhor that which is evil.

25:02 You must cleave to that which is good. In love of the brethren, be tenderly affectioned one to another. I am to experience tender affections to my brethren. In honor, preferring one another.

25:16 In diligence, not slothful. When I find myself in any given path of duty with a tendency to just let go of the oars, to lean back and enjoy the warm July sun in, as it were, on the lake of my present Christian experience, I am to remember I am not to be slothful in fulfilling my God-given responsibilities. Fervent in spirit that touches my inner life, serving the Lord. Rejoicing in hope.

25:45 What we might call again the emotional life. Patient in tribulation. Continuing steadfastly in prayer. Communicating to the necessities of the saints.

25:55 God's touching my purse, my pocketbook, my bankbook, my savings account. Given to hospitality. God's telling me to do something with my home, my living room, my table. Bless them that persecute you.

26:08 My tongue, bless and curse not. Rejoice with them that rejoice. Back to the inner emotional life. Weep with them that weep, my tear ducts.

26:18 Be of the same mind one to another. Set not your mind on high things. Condescend to men that are lowly or to things that are lowly. Be not wise in your own conceits.

26:31 Render to no man evil for evil. Right down through the end of the passage. Now that's just one paragraph of a string of exhortations addressed to the Lord. To the people of God.

26:45 Now remember where this comes in the Roman letter. He has already opened up the grand doctrine of our justification by faith. Our union with Jesus Christ. That wonderful teaching of Romans chapter 6.

27:00 The reality of the indwelling of the Spirit. Romans chapter 8. And whatever those great redemptive privileges mean. And whatever they secure.

27:11 They do not mean the negation of the Holy Spirit. They do not mean the negation of the Holy Spirit. They do not mean the negation of the Holy Spirit. They do not mean the negation of the Holy Spirit.

27:13 They do not mean the negation or suspension of the conscious engagement of any of our redeemed faculties. They do not secure a path of Christian life in which our union with Christ is of such a nature as to cancel out any conscious, deliberate, constant engagement of all our faculties. So when you come into the whole climate as it were, particularly of the Epistles, you will find this again and again are wonderful privileges opened up, for instance, in the first three chapters of Ephesians. And yet when you come to the last three chapters, chapters 4 to 6, you have exhortations addressed

27:57 to the people of God which demand the conscious engagement of all of their faculties. You have a similar emphasis in Colossians in the four chapters. The first two are predominantly an exposition of our privileges in Christ. And the last two, predominantly an exhortation to what we are to be and do in the light of those privileges. And in none of these

28:21 Epistles do you find that the base of a Christian's life and experience in terms of redemptive privilege, redemptive relationships is ever used as the springboard to a call to passivity. Just the opposite is true. In the light of all that we are and have, then all the more reason for the total engagement of every faculty of our redeemed humanity in living out the implications of those great redemptive realities. Now, Pastor Clark, you had a passage or a point you wanted to make.

Epitomizing Texts and the Danger of Projecting Personal Experience

28:57 Fifteen years ago, I was really struggling with this in this whole area. And I think one verse more than any other set me free.

29:08 1 Corinthians 16, verse 13. Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. That means things fall into place. Yes. Yes, because that's

29:24 what I had for one of my epitomizing texts. 1 Corinthians 16, verse 13. Watch ye, you are to stand fast, you are to be strong. It doesn't say let Christ watch through you, let Christ be strong in you.

29:41 You are to watch, you are to quit yourself like a man, you are to be strong. Now, Pastor Clark is not saying that's the key, but he's saying in his life, it became an epitomizing text which God used, as it were, to crystallize the overarching teaching of the Word of God. And as we'll see when we come to principle number four, that there is no crisis experience commanded or promised as necessary in living the Christian life when we come to interpret this whole matter of people's crisis experiences. This is often what happens.

30:22 God does bring them to a significant breakthrough in understanding and experience, often in terms of a particular biblical truth. And then, they build a doctrine around their experience in interacting with that truth and come up with error. But that's anticipating ourselves. But I want to make sure that no one would go out with the impression that Pastor Clark was in any way suggesting that this now is the key. Suppose he started going around holding

30:48 conferences saying, the key to the Christian life, expounding this text over and over again. Just this past week, in a newspaper that goes out to thousands of pastors in the United States, evangelical pastors, I saw a classic example of this. A certain pastor was obviously imbalanced in his ministry. He was just pounding his people on the head, Sunday by Sunday. You ought to win more souls,

31:12 you ought to be more prayerful. Pound, pound, pound, beat them, beat them, beat them. Then he read the text that where Paul said he would be helpers of their joy. And that thing got hold of him. He said, I'm not helping the joy

31:24 of my people. So a new emphasis came into his ministry. And as a result, people began to get saved. And then the people of God were liberated from this terrible bondage of being bounced on the head every Lord's Day. Now

31:36 what does he do? He goes around the pastors conferences telling discouraged pastors there is one truth you need to get hold of. And now he's projected his own experience into a general principle. And wherever he goes in pastors conferences, this is the liberating secret. Whatever

31:52 your problem may be, whatever your discouragement, whatever lack of fruitfulness, if only you get hold of this concept, as with me, so will it be with you. It will be the open door to all kinds of new blessing in your life and ministry. Well, you see, that's the tragedy when we don't keep these things in their proper balance and in their proper perspective. Alright, is there any other passage that you think is unusually critical that needs to be mentioned before we try to start putting them into some major categories, Dan?

Scriptural Calls to Self-Building, Self-Guarding, and Self-Discipline

32:24 Alright. Okay, a very, very good passage. Notice where the responsibility falls. Verse 20 of Jude. But you, beloved,

32:46 building up yourselves on your most holy faith. Doesn't say yield to Christ that he may build up himself. He needs no building up. In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. We are to build

33:02 up ourselves. We are to keep ourselves in the love of God. Now notice, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. There is to be a posture of hope, of expectation, and of faith. But

33:18 the focus of that hope and expectation and faith is not that Christ will come and take over and build up himself in me or through me. That Christ will so take over that I do not self consciously keep myself. In the love of God. No, I am to look to Christ to do what he's promised to do. But he never promised

33:40 to come in and so to take over that I can suspend or negate any of the conscious or the conscious actings of any faculty of my redeemed humanity. To trust Christ for that is to trust him with a presumptuous fanatical faith. It's to trust him for something he's never promised to do. Now it's not great faith that trusts Christ for things he's never promised to do. That's fanatical

34:07 faith. That's presumptuous faith. Faith trusts Christ for what he has promised to do in his word. To trust him for less than that is unbelief or weak faith or little faith. To trust him for

34:22 more is fanatical and presumptuous faith. Okay, any other key passage? Yes. Louise? Alright, so here the emphasis

34:50 falls upon the fact that when we sin in particular in this context, if a believer were to join himself, he is responsible for his action. Alright? Yes, Spence?

35:11 Yes, it is one of the epitomizing texts. We are to guard our hearts above all that we guard, for out of it are the issues of life. We're to guard. It doesn't say hand it over to Christ that he may guard it. We are to do the guarding.

35:25 Yes, Jeff? Alright, you are to discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Alright, any other key passages should be mentioned? Charlie?

35:52 Alright.

35:54 A very, very key text. We need to put it in this category here. I flipped it back and forth between the two. But I'm sure you've come up with many others because what are we dealing with? We're

36:16 dealing with the whole teaching of the Bible. That's why you've not sat here in silence and gone to your concordance and looked over some abstruse reference in the book of Zechariah. They're there. You can just think of the passages just spilling out because this is the overarching teaching of the Bible.

Major Categories of Christian Living: Evangelical Law-Keeping

36:35 Now, in order to try to bring all of this teaching into some broad categories, let me ask this question. If we were to define living the Christian life in terms of what it is in its essence,

36:51 we're not trying to oversimplify, but come up with the large categories that constitute living. The Christian life.

36:59 How would we describe the activity of living the Christian life? What are some of the broad categories into which a lot of these particulars fall? I'll give you a hint. Someone quoted the summary of our moral duty.

37:17 That defines the Christian life in terms of what?

37:22 Pardon? Loving. Now, we're moving in the right direction, but loving in terms of obedience to what? Which are an expression of and a summary of the character of God as it comes to bear upon my moral duty.

37:47 All right? So what do the old writers call that? You're coming up with it. Good. See

37:54 how smart you were. All right. All right. I love some of the terminology of the old writers.

38:01 Not because it's old and because I have an antiquarian bent, but because they were often so precise. We're with our you know, you know man, you know wow, it's like wow, you know man age. Terrific. Fantastic.

38:21 Wonderful. You know, it's just wonderful, you know, to read, you know, things that say you know a little bit better, you know what you're trying to say, you know. That's why we do well to read the old authors. For many other reasons, but this is one.

38:36 They were careful with their words. But many of them described the Christian life essentially as evangelical and they knew how to print and write better than me too. Evangelical law keeping. Now what did they mean by that terminology? Well they meant simply this.

38:59 They were expressing the truth of Romans chapter 8 and verse 4. What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemns sin in the flesh in order that the righteousness or the righteous ordinance or standard of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. So that the end for which Christ redeems us is that we might be evangelical law keepers. That is, not keeping the law with a view to earning life, but keeping the law because we've received the gift of life

39:42 and out of motives of love to Christ and in dependence upon the power of Christ we seek to fulfill the will of Christ as expressed in the law of Christ. So that some would go so far as to say that the beginning, middle and end of living the Christian life is living a life of evangelical law keeping in every situation seeking to live out of gospel motives in a manner pleasing to God as defined in the full spectrum of the revealed will of God, that is His law. Now, if that is a major category

40:24 by which living the Christian life may be defined and described when we turn to the word of God with respect to this, the answer to the question, how are we to keep God's law with evangelical motives, we come to a text such as the one that was quoted from Deuteronomy and is repeated by our Lord in Matthew 20, again in the Gospel of Luke in a little different form and also in Mark that we are commanded to love God with all the heart, with all the mind, with all the soul, with all the strength. Now, if that is our duty, then you see there can be no suspension or

41:08 negation of the conscious engagement of any faculty of our redeemed humanity in living the Christian life. And to say that there is is to define the Christian life in some other category other than evangelical law keeping. Do you feel the weight of that? Do you see? I can't quite read your eyeballs.

41:29 They're up here, but there's a little bit of a cloudy look. Am I not making the issue clear? Do you see that? Alright, what's another major category in which the Christian life can be defined or described? Not only

Major Categories: Mortification of Sin and Conformation to Christ

41:44 can it be described in terms of evangelical law keeping, let me give you a hint. This is the negative side and then there's a positive side. The Christian life is a life in which we are seeking continually to do what? With remaining sin and with the influence of the world and the devil. Alright, it's a life

42:03 of mortification of sin, the negative, and what's the flip side of that, the positive side?

42:11 Conformation to the image of Christ. Alright? Now, do you see how many things come under that category? The mortification of remaining sin, putting to death in the language of Colossians 3-4, not being conformed to this world in the language of Romans 12. There is that negative side,

42:33 the putting off, the laying aside. Do you see all the verses that come under that category? Laying aside every weight, the sin that doth so easily beset us, put to death therefore, put off therefore. All of those directives come under the general category of the mortification, the sin, and then the flip side of that is the positive dimension of conformation to the image of Christ. Romans

42:58 8-29, whom he did foreknow, he did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son. He that saith he abideth in him on himself so to walk, even as he walked, he hath left us an example that we should follow his steps. 2 Corinthians 3-18, we all with open face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into that same image. From one stage of glory unto another, though the outward man decays, the inward man is renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians

43:29 4-17. So we have all of those passages which indicate that the Christian life is a light on the one hand of the mortification of sin, and on the other hand of conformation to the image of Christ. Now in all of those passages, many of which you brought forward under the general teaching of the Word of God, our we called upon to engage all of our faculties in the work of mortification and conformation. Do you see it?

43:59 All of our faculties are to be engaged. We are to put to death. What did Jesus say? If thy hand offend thee, turn it over to Christ, that he may cut it off and throw it away?

44:10 No. He said, if thy hand offend thee, you cut it off. You cast it from thee. This is a work in which we are to be engaged under that vigorous imagery of amputation, and then, not only amputation, because the Lord knows the subtlety of the human heart. Long

44:28 before there was microsurgery in the 20th century that can detach, can attach a detached limb, there was spiritual microsurgery in which people seemed to really cut off a hand, but they kept it close by enough on ice that in a convenient season they could attach it back on. Jesus said, cut it off and cast it from thee. Let it shrivel up and become odious to you as it dies its death under the bleaching, withering power of the sunlight of God's own countenance. Now, we are to do that. You are to put to death

45:05 Colossians 3, 4, your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, etc. And likewise, in this matter of confirmation to the image of Christ, we are commanded to follow his steps. We are commanded to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We are commanded in the scriptures to be active in this process of confirmation.

45:32 So, if this other teaching were right, then it cuts the heart out of all of these texts in which the Christian life described as mortification and confirmation is a life in which God calls upon us to engage all of our faculties in both dimensions. Alright? Any questions? On that point. Alright, what is

Major Categories: The Christian Life as a Walk, Race, and Warfare

45:53 another major category within which the Christian life is set before us in the New Testament? Not only a life of evangelical law-keeping, a life of mortification on the one hand and confirmation to Jesus Christ in the other. Can you think of another major category? Yes, Gene.

46:17 Alright, this would certainly be under evangelical law-keeping because the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. And so our whole duty breaks down into two categories. Our duties to God and our duties one to another. So that would come under this category.

46:35 Maybe I can change the question. Yes.

46:41 Alright, a life of faith. This would certainly come into the climate in which we carry out our evangelical law-keeping, in which we mortify and are conformed to the image of Christ. So in a sense, faith is one of the graces that binds all of these things together rather than a separate category.

47:03 Alright, no? I hadn't thought of that. I'd have to give some thought to that, Noel, to see whether that should be a broad category. Maybe I've arbitrarily reduced it to some of these. Yes.

47:39 Well, prayer would certainly be one of the duties by which all of these things are to be carried out. Praying with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit. Well, the thing I was fishing for is it seems to me that in the, particularly in the New Testament, we have a large category of directives which liken the Christian life to a walk, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. They liken it to a race run with patience, the race that is set before you, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of the faith.

48:14 They liken it to a warfare. This brings within its orbit the second part of your homework assignment, all of the dominant images of the Christian life, particularly in the New Testament. Those images are the image of a warfare. We are soldiers in the army of God, the image of walking, the image of running. Those are some of the major.

48:37 That's not an exhaustive list, but in each one of those dominant images, one of the things that is a common denominator to all of them is that a soldier engages all of his faculties self-consciously in his warfare. And so when we turn to the soldier image passages, we are called upon to be watchful. Now, a soldier on watch is not sitting there passively. All of his faculties are concentrated upon the dangers at hand. Likewise,

49:12 when we're called upon to fight the good fight of faith, a man who's fighting does not passively sit back, but he engages all of his faculties. We are to endure hardness as good soldiers. Likewise, with the imagery of walking, walking in the spirit, not walking after the flesh, and then likewise with the image of running. So that taking the dominant images of the Christian life, we see that they are images which involve the self conscious involvement or engagement of all of the faculties of our redeemed humanity.

49:48 Now, there may be some other major categories. In fact, let me check my own notes here. I've been carrying on these things, trying to hold it and direct it from memory.

50:02 Yes, I think we've covered the basic things. As I've reflected on this, and this again, I don't claim any inspiration for this. There may be one or two or three other major categories within which we could reduce the general teaching on living the Christian life, but certainly these are some of the major categories and all of them unite in underscoring our principle that there is no negation or suspension of the conscious engagement of any faculty of our redeemed humanity in living, the Christian life. And if I may just give a word of testimony as we draw the class to a close. This was one of the

Personal Testimony and Conclusion: The Danger of Passive Spirituality

50:43 things that kept me from buying the kind of teaching that we're exposing, though I was exposed to it and at times desperately tried to live by it. I had simply absorbed too much Bible as a young Christian. And when I would try to lay hold of this teaching and submit myself to it, text after text would flash before my mind. And then in my own devotional reading, I'd say, something is wrong.

51:09 I can't fit this into this category of teaching. Until one time in desperation, I sobbed like a baby and went to someone whom I revered as a man of God and as one wise in the Scriptures, and I put myself down at his feet as it were, and I said, Dr. So-and-so, if what is being taught here is the truth of the Bible, then please, you must teach me to live my Christian life, all over again. I must go to kindergarten and relearn from my alphabet upward.

51:43 And I said, on the other hand, if what's being taught here is not scriptural, then you better open up your mouth and tell all these pliable young people that it isn't. Because a lot of them are buying it, and their lives do not reflect genuine biblical godliness, but a surface kind of pseudo-spirituality in which there was not this engagement of all of the faculties in earnest pursuit of evangelical law-keeping, of specific mortification, of constant confirmation. All you need to do in one big leap was yield yourself up to the indwelling Christ, and shift into neutral, and he would live his saving life through you. In one big

52:26 plop, as it were, into a state of yieldedness, and all was done for you from there on in. And if you just maintained that posture, there was no agony, no struggle, no specificity in dealing with sin, because the indwelling Christ would deal with sin in you at his own rate, in his own time. Well, it's marvelous, if only it were true. But if that's true, then you see what we've got to do? We've got to take every one

52:53 of these major categories, scratch them out, and when we do that, we're scratching out the whole Bible. You see why I chose this method? Let you get the buckshot approach. Get all the shot together here, then begin to put it into specific, specific cases. Now then, what we'll do,

53:09 God willing, next week, we'll look now at some of the epitomizing texts, seven or eight of the key passages, which have in them a distillation of all of these major categories, and any others that ought to belong there, which in turn reflect the entire teaching of the Bible. And hopefully, you'll commit those texts to memory, so that as you're confronted with this kind of teaching, if your own heart, is seduced by it, the Lord will bring these texts to remembrance, and in turn, lock you back in to the whole teaching of the Word of God on this vital subject. Well, our time is gone. Let's pray together, and ask God to write His own

53:52 truth upon our hearts.

54:00 Our Father, what thanks can we render to You that You have given to us an infallible, changeless guide, a revelation of Your mind and will in the Scriptures? We thank You that Your Word is a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our pathway. We pray that in this whole matter of how we are to live the Christian life, that our thinking may be scriptural, and that it may be balanced. O Lord, we recognize that we are not simply playing ping-pong with ideas, but that Your glory is bound up

54:44 in Your people, that You have committed Yourself to reveal through the Church the manifold wisdom of Your own mind and heart. And we pray that we may think accurately to the end, that we may walk as we ought to walk. O Holy Father, deal with us by Your Holy Spirit, that all lethargy and dullness and all cowardice and all laziness may be driven from us, and that we may give ourselves in the entirety of our redeemed humanity to living out that which You have laid upon us, and for which You have given us grace in Your beloved Son.

55:29 Cleanse us from our many sins and failures. Hear us and seal Your Word to our hearts. We ask through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.