Seeking mortification of sin just to quiet the soul and find relief from the torment of the conscience, all the while neglecting to deal with the root cause of sin, is a result of self-love. Men are diverted from coming to God this way. This is one of the most common deceptions in which men ruin their souls. They seek to apply themselves victory over the troubling sin, but do not allow their conviction to lead them to the gospel.
When men are troubled with the guilt of a sin that has prevailed over them, they promise themselves and God that they will sin thus no more, but they seek to accomplish their own victory. They watch over themselves and pray for a short season until the pain of conviction waxes cold and the sense of sin wears off. Mortification then also goes out the door, and sin returns to its former domination. These ways are not sufficient. There is no self-endeavor that can accomplish mortification. Almighty energy is necessary for its accomplishment.
The authorities who crucified Jesus were in fact, quite unwittingly, carrying out God’s purposes. As the praying Christians put it in Acts 4, “indeed Herod and Pontious Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and ill had decided beforehand should happen” (Acts 4:27-28). They thought they were so wise, so politically astute; in fat, by their folly they brought to pass, in God’s perfect providence, his own wise plan–the very plan that they dismissed as foolishness. Amazing Grace: in God’s wise purposes, they killed the Lord of life.
God’s wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled opposition to the cancer of sin which is eating out the insides of the human race he loves with his whole being.
For we are said to be justified by faith, not because we receive within ourselves any righteousness whatever, but because the righteousness of Christ is credited to us, as if it were really ours; while our own wickedness is not imputed to us. The outcome is that it is possible, in a word, to truly call this righteousness the remission of sins. This is what the apostle co clearly declares in often comparing the righteousness of works to that of faith, and in declaring that the one is destroyed by the other (Romans 10:3-8; Philippians 3:9).
This past thursday, we had an interesting discussion in my Faith and Reason class concerning theology, doctrine, etc. and it’s actual place in religion. The text we were looking at essentially said that theology and doctrine isn’t needed and necessary, but that we need to live the moral lives as outlined in our religious texts. He argued that this was the heart of religion and that theology goes beyond our realm of true knowledge, so what’s the point? This is a problem…
In his book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Eyes of American Teenagers (silly WTSBooks doesn’t carry this book, but they should), sociologist Christian Smith examines the religious beliefs and practices of American Teenagers. Amongst his major findings is the fact that a majority of American teens are horrifically inarticulate concerning their faith. They have little to no working knowledge of theology and doctrine and lack legitimate passion. Smith writes, “To the extent that the teens we interviewed did manage to articulate what they understood and believed religiously, it became clear that most religious teenagers either do not really comprehend what their own religious traditions say they are supposed to believe, or they do understand it and simply do not care to believe it. Either way, it is apparent that most religiously affiliated U.S. teens are not particularly interested in espousing and upholding the beliefs of their faith traditions, or that their communities of faith are failing in attempts to educate their youth, or both.” Not only is this a major problem now, but this has major implications on what these teens will do with their beliefs once they come of age. Either they completely fall away, continue on in their mediocrity, or have a change of heart. It appears as though the generation following the baby boomers (Gen X, even though that term sucks) has already gone through this stage of lackluster belief and I believe the Christianity of the 80s-00s has reflected a majority of this.
This is where Moralistic Therapeutic Deism comes into the picture. After conducting his research Smith found that the religious beliefs of the typical American teen were: 1. “A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.” 2. “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.” 3. “The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.” 4. “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.” 5. “Good people go to heaven when they die.” Not only does this seem to be true for our teens, but this has become the standard in American Christianity. It has been reduced from the Gospel to what Smith calls Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. By Smith’s standards MTD “is about inculcating a moralistic approach to life. It teaches that central to living a good and happy life is being a good, moral person. That means being nice, kind, pleasant, respectful, responsible, at work on self-improvement, taking care of one’s health, and doing one’s best to be successful… This is not a religion of repentance from sin, of keeping the Sabbath, of living as a servant of sovereign divinity, of steadfastly saying one’s prayers, of faithfully observing high holy days, of building character through suffering, of basking in God’s love and grace, of spending oneself in gratitude and love for the cause of social justice, et cetera. Rather, what appears to be the actual dominant religion among U.S. teenagers is centrally about feeling good, happy, secure, at peace. It is about attaining subjective well-being, being able to resolve problems, and getting along amiably with other people.” Doesn’t this sound like much of the preaching we hear and Christian books we see on the shelves at Barnes and Noble?
So what we have subscribed to as a society is nothing more than a Christless, Godless, Gospelless myth that makes us feels good because we can’t get over ourselves. We have transformed an almighty and all-powerful God into a nothing more than a disengaged deity that looks more like Santa Clause than the Omniscient, Sovereign, Savior of the world. You see what we did here? We have created a man centered theology (which isn’t even logically coherent) and traded the truth about God for myth in order to worship and serve the creature rather than the creator (Romans 1:25). The church as a whole has assumed that people understand God and the Gospel, so they work towards a morality that ends up being void of anything that looks like real Christianity. We live for ourselves in our own power and fail to be truly made in the image and likeness of Christ.
Matt Chandler has some really good things to say on this topic…
and here is some good Driscoll on the topic as well…
