Pentecost - Law meets Gospel

"Now, as this was given in commandment to the Jews in the old Law, so did our Saviour Christ as it were confirm the same in the time of the Gospel, ordaining after a sort a new Pentecost for his disciples; namely, [Acts 2:1–11.] when he sent down the Holy Ghost visibly in form of cloven tongues like fire, and gave them power to speak in such sort, that every one might hear them, and also understand them, in his own language. Which miracle, that it might be had in perpetual remembrance, the Church hath thought good to solemnize and keep holy this day, commonly called Whitsunday. And here is to be noted, that, as the Law was given to the Jews in the mount Sinai the fiftieth day after Easter, so was the preaching of the Gospel through the mighty power of the Holy Ghost given to the Apostles in the mount Sion the fiftieth day after Easter."

John Jewell:  AN HOMILY CONCERNING THE COMING DOWN OF THE HOLY GHOST AND THE MANIFOLD GIFTS OF THE SAME  For Whitsunday

Romans 7 and the Normal Christian Life

Romans 7 and the Normal Christian Life

Kim Riddlebarger

The poor, struggling sinner who is erroneously told that the struggle with sin he or she is currently experiencing is a sign of defeat and that the person is not yet a Christian, or else has chosen not to take advantage of the victory offered to all those in Christ, should instead see the struggle with sin as proof that sanctification is actually taking place.

In the evangelical world in which I was raised, it was the minister's job to ensure that everyone in his congregation was "living in victory." What this meant was that those who were truly committed to Jesus Christ and had made him Lord over every area of their lives would not be content to remain "carnal Christians." If you were truly committed to Jesus, you would strive with everything in you to move into the "victorious life" described by the Apostle Paul in Romans 8. In that passage, the Apostle Paul supposedly speaks of victorious Christians as people who had made the determination to walk according to the Spirit and to no longer walk after the flesh (Rom. 8:1, kjv). Those hearty souls who managed to completely dedicate themselves to Christ could attain that lofty goal spoken of by Paul as "more than a conqueror" (cf. Rom. 8:37). To demonstrate that we were striving to attain victory, there were the familiar behavioral taboos. And you certainly did not want to be "left behind," forced to endure the seven-year tribulation and risk coming face to face with the minions of the Antichrist.

While this version of the Christian life is widely accepted throughout much of American Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, it is apparently now on the decline. This understanding of the victorious Christian life can only be sustained by an unfortunate misreading of Paul's description of the Christian life as it unfolds in Romans chapters 6-8. This conception of the Christian life is framed by a combination of decisional regeneration, dispensational eschatology, and Keswick, Wesleyan, or mystical versions of the Christian life, all of which involve a "higher life" or "victorious" Christian life, centering in a conscious experience of victory over indwelling sin. In this scheme, Paul supposedly speaks of death to sin in Romans 6, and then describes his unregenerate (pre-conversion) condition in Romans 7, which is, in turn, followed by the critical passage in Romans 8:1, which, according to a textual variant that is not found in the better-supported Western and Alexandrian manuscripts, includes the exhortation to "walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

But is Paul defending this understanding of the Christian life in Romans 6-8? The critical hinge upon which this faulty understanding of the Christian life turns is Paul's discussion of an intense struggle with sin depicted in Romans 7:14-25. In this passage, Paul speaks of a personal struggle that is so deep and intense that the person in view there describes himself as someone who is "sold under sin" (v. 14). He does not understand his own actions (v. 15). He wants to do what is right but ends up sinning anyway (vv. 15-16, 18). He speaks of sin almost as a force, living within him controlling his actions (vv. 16-17). When he does the evil he does not want to do, he feels like his members (his body and its passions) are waging war on his mind, which knows what is right even though he lacks the power to do it (vv. 22-23). So intense is this struggle with sin that the author speaks of himself as a "wretched man" in desperate need of deliverance by Jesus Christ.

Surely, such a person cannot be a Christian-or at least that is what I was told. And yet, I knew that deep down inside, Romans 7:14-25 is describing me. Whoever Paul was describing in these verses-I was told that this was either Paul's own experience as a Jew before he was converted, or else this was a description of those Jews under the condemnation of law-he was just like me! While there is always a great danger in interpreting God's Word through the lens of personal experience, it seemed that the more I tried to live in victory mode and leave my carnal desires behind, the more I felt like that person Paul was describing in Romans 7.

I had accepted Jesus as my personal Savior from my earliest recollection, so I knew that I was a Christian. The solution that was held out to those struggling saints like me (although I never admitted to anyone that I was struggling like this because my fellow Christians might think that I was still a "carnal Christian") was to rededicate my life to Christ, or to ask God to give me more grace so that the desired victory might soon come. It never did. Then there was the counsel which held out that instead of trying with everything in me to be holy, I should stop trying and just "let go and let God."

It was a great relief to learn that many Christians actually understood Paul to be describing his present experience as a Christian in Romans 7, even the experience of being an apostle! I recall this being raised during a Bible study, only to have it shot down as a complete impossibility, since, if true, it would mean that someone could become a Christian and yet live as a "carnal Christian." If Paul was describing a Christian's experience, there would be no incentive to seek the kind of victory it was believed that Paul was describing in Romans 8. This, it was stated, would justify someone remaining in defeat, if that was Paul's condition. And while you could not lose your salvation, if you did not follow Paul's example and move from the defeat depicted in Romans 7 into the victory of Romans 8, then you would lose out on your rewards in heaven and miss out on the victory promised to you by the apostle. It was left up to me to decide which I wanted: defeat or victory. I wanted to be more than a conqueror. But I felt like Paul's wretched man!

Relief came when I learned that the view that Paul was speaking of his present experience as a Christian was held not only by a number of Christians (including all the reformers), but this was the view expressed in the Reformed confessions, which I was only then beginning to embrace. In Romans 7:14-25, Paul is speaking of a Christian's struggle with sin; this is not a picture of defeat but a description of the struggle with sin that every Christian must go through and is a necessary part of sanctification. In other words, Paul wasn't talking about the goal (to end the struggle), but Paul is speaking about the process by which God does bring us to victory over sin (our sanctification).

Despite all of the renewed debate in Reformed and evangelical circles over this passage since the publication of Kmmels's famous essay on Romans 7 (Rmer 7 und die Bekehrung des Paulus, 1929) and despite the publication of several recent evangelical commentaries (for example, the outstanding commentary by Doug Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT, 1996), which argue that in Romans 7:14-25 Paul is not speaking autobiographically but of a hypothetical Jew before conversion, I remain convinced that Paul is describing his present experience of the struggle with sin. Furthermore, I do not believe that this section of Romans is depicting a deficient condition experienced by those Christians who choose not to be victorious (the so-called carnal Christian). No, I believe that this is a description of the normal Christian life. The reasons for this interpretation of Romans 7:14-25 are spelled out in great detail elsewhere (e.g., Cranfield, "Romans," ICC; J. I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit), and we can but summarize them here.

First, in Romans 7:14-25, Paul speaks in the present tense, which stands in sharp contrast to the use of the past tense in the previous section (Rom. 7:7-13). This makes the natural sense of the passage a description of Paul's current experience at the time of the writing of this epistle.

Second, in Galatians 5:17, Paul speaks of a similar struggle in which he is clearly describing the experience of all Christians, including his own: "For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do." Thus, Romans 7:14-25 and Galatians 5:17 are parallel passages. If Galatians 5:17 is a description of a war within every Christian, why can that not be true of Romans 7:14-25?

Third, an unconverted person could not delight in the law of God, such as Paul depicts here, nor desire to do what is right. This is a description of those affections for and delight in the things of God that only a Christian actually experiences. Furthermore, no non-Christian ever experiences the kind of godly sorrow described here. They may feel guilty, but they do not experience the despair of sinning against the revealed will of God, which they love inwardly.

Fourth, the argument that a Christian, such as Paul, would never speak of himself as a slave to sin, since he has already testified to the fact that Christ has set him free, is mitigated by the fact that Paul is aware of this freedom ("with mind my I serve the law of God"), and yet, because of indwelling sin, still feels as though sin has a death grip upon him. In other words, the final outcome of the war is a foregone conclusion-Christ wins and so will all those in union with him. But there are a number of battles with indwelling sin still to be fought, and this is what Paul is describing (the struggle, not the final outcome).

Fifth, that Paul is not speaking of his struggle before his conversion becomes clear when we consider how Paul felt about himself before he encountered the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. Consider Paul's testimony in Philippians 3:3-10:
For we are the real circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh-though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness, under the law blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.How could Paul see himself as blameless before his conversion (Phil. 3), if, in Romans 7:14-25, he's describing his intense struggle with sin before his conversion?

Therefore, in Romans 7:14-25, the Apostle Paul is describing the normal Christian life. This is a struggle that every Christian will experience. The poor, struggling sinner who is erroneously told that the struggle with sin he or she is currently experiencing is a sign of defeat and that the person is not yet a Christian, or else has chosen not to take advantage of the victory offered to all those in Christ, should instead see the struggle with sin as proof that sanctification is actually taking place. The New Testament knows of only one victorious life-the life of Jesus Christ. All of those who are truly in Christ's will go through the refiner's fire so that when Jesus returns, he will receive a spotless and radiant bride. Far, then, from a description of Paul's journey from a defeated Jew to a victorious Christian, in this passage, Paul is describing what every Christian will experience-a desire to do what is right and a continual struggle with indwelling sin. While final victory is assured, it will finally come when we are glorified: freed not only from sin's guilt and tyranny, but its very presence.

This article originally appeared in the July/August 2006 edition of Modern Reformation and is reprinted with permission. For more information about Modern Reformation, visit www.modernreformation.org or call (800) 890-7556. All rights reserved.

God loves sinners in Christ alone...

From Calvin's 4th sermon on Ephesians. Ch. 1:7-10.

I have shown already that we cannot be loved by God, but by means of his only Son. For if the angels of heaven are not worthy to be taken for God’s children except through a head and mediator, what all become of us who do not cease daily to provoke God’s wrath by our iniquities [Isa. 59:2]. In fact, we fight against him! God, then, must of necessity look upon us in the person of his only Son, or else he is bound to hate and abhor us. In short, our sins set such a distance between God and us, that we cannot approach him without immediately feeling his majesty against us, armed, as it were, to destroy us all...

He confirms the thing in better fashion still by saying that the same was done in Jesus Christ. If we had been elected in ourselves it might be said that God had found in us some secret virtue unknown to men. But seeing that he has elected us outside of ourselves, that is to say, loved us outside of ourselves, what shall we reply to that? If I do a man good, it is because I love him. And if the cause of my love is sought, it will be because we are alike in character, or else for some other good reason. But we must not imagine anything similar to this in God. And also it is expressly told us here, for St. Paul says that we have been elected in Jesus Christ. Did God, then, have an eye to us when he vouchsafed to love us? No! No! for then he would have utterly abhorred us. It is true that in regarding our miseries he had pity and compassion on us to relieve us, but that was because he had already loved us in our Lord Jesus Christ. God, then, must have had before him his pattern and mirror in which to see us, that is to say, he must have first looked on our Lord Jesus Christ before he could choose us and call us...

Therefore we have to observe, first of all, that we can obtain no grace at God’s hand, nor be received by him, till our sins are wiped out and the remembrance of them completely erased. The reason for this is (as I said before) that God must hate sin where-ever he sees it. So then, as long as he considers us as sinners, he must needs abhor us, for there is nothing in us or in our own nature but all manner of evil and confusion. We are, then, enemies to him, and he is contrary to us, till we come to this remedy that St. Paul shows us here, which is, to have our sins forgiven. We see by this that no man can be loved by God because of any worthiness that is in himself. For wherein lies the love that God bears us I have told you already that he must be willing to cast his eye upon our Lord Jesus Christ and not look at us at all.

Me: Calvin states that apart from viewing and accepting us in the person of his Son, God is bound to hate and abhor us due to our innate sinfulness and rebellious nature. Apart from Christ we are rightfully abhorred by God because we, in and of ourselves, are opposed to his righteousness and rule. It is the lack of grasping even an inkling of both the majestic holiness of God and the enormity of our moral corruption that so confounds us in this matter. Even now as his children, adopted of the Father and sealed by his Spirit, there is no inherent quality originating within us that commends us to him. He accepts and loves us solely because in mercy he identifies us in his Beloved Son. God, who chose us in him before the foundation of the world, established irrevocably that he would know and love us only in and through the person and finished work of Jesus Christ. For it is Jesus alone who bore the penalty of our sins thus wiping our slate clean. And it is Jesus who alone is well-pleasing to the Father. To be identified in him is to be loved of God.

Self-abhorrence and the Christian

Do you confess that because of your sinfulness you abhor and humble yourself before God, that you repent of your sin, and that you trust for salvation not in yourself but in Jesus Christ alone? (#3 of 5 from the public profession of faith - OPC)

Agreeing, the prospective member voices his assent.

Charles Hodge weighs in on the teaching supporting this sometime controversial question and answer:

"In the New Testament the sacred writers evince the same deep sense of their own sinfulness, and strong conviction of the sinfulness of the race to which they belong. Paul speaks of himself as the chief of sinners. He complains that he was carnal, sold under sin. He groans under the burden of an evil nature, saying, O, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? From the days of the Apostles to the present time, there has been no diversity as to this point in the experience of Christians. There is no disposition ever evinced by them to palliate or excuse their sinfulness before God. They uniformly and everywhere, and just in proportion to their holiness, humble themselves under a sense of their guilt and pollution, and abhor themselves repenting in dust and ashes. This is not an irrational, nor is it an exaggerated experience. It is the natural effect of the apprehension of the truth; of even a partial discernment of the holiness of God, of the spirituality of the law, and of the want of conformity to that divine standard. There is always connected with this experience of sin, the conviction that our sense of its evil and its power over us, and consequently of our guilt and pollution, is altogether inadequate. It is always a part of the believer's burden, that he feels less than his reason and conscience enlightened by the Scriptures, teach him he ought to feel of his moral corruption and degradation."

Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology: Vol. II - Chapter VIII - Sin, Section 13. Original Sin, Second Argument from the Entire Sinfulness of Men, 5. Argument From the Experience of God's People.

Possessing Christ by faith...

Martin Luther wrote:

"In this Christian brotherhood no man possesses more than another. St. Peter and St. Paul have no more than Mary Magdalene or you or I. To sum up: Taking them all together, they are brothers, and there is no difference between the persons. Mary, the Mother of the Lord, and John the Baptist, and the thief on the cross, they all possess the selfsame good which you and I possess, and all who are baptised and do the Father’s Will. And what have all the saints? They have comfort and help promised them through Christ in every kind of need, against sin, death, and the devil. And I have the same, and you, and all believers have.

"But this also is true, that you and I do not believe it so firmly as John the Baptist and St. Paul; and yet it is the one and only treasure. It is the same as when two men hold a glass of wine, one with a trembling, the other with a steady hand. Or when two men hold a bag of money, one in a weak, the other in a strong hand. Whether the hand be strong, or weak, as God wills, it neither adds to the contents of the bag, nor takes away. In the same way there is no other difference here between the Apostles and me, than that they hold the treasure firmer. Nevertheless, I should and must know that I possess the same treasure as all holy Prophets, Apostles, and all saints have possessed."

Law and Gospel - Theodore Beza

The Word of God
by Dr. Theodore Beza

That which we call The Word of God: Its two parts — the Law and the Gospel: On this subject we call the “Word of God” (for we know well that the Eternal Son of God is also so named) the canonical books of the Old and New Testament; for they proceed from the mouth of God Himself.

We divide this Word into two principal parts or kinds: the one is called the “Law”, the other the “Gospel”. For, all the rest can be gathered under the one or the other of these two headings.

What we call Law (when it is distinguished from Gospel and is taken for one of the two parts of the Word) is a doctrine whose seed is written by nature in our hearts. However, so that we may have a more exact knowledge, it was written by God on two Tables and is briefly comprehended in ten commandments. In these He sets out for us the obedience and perfect righteousness which we owe to His majesty and our neighbors. This on contrasting terms: either perpetual life, if we perfectly keep the Law without omitting a single point, or eternal death, if we do not completely fulfill the contents of each commandment (Deut. 30:15-20; James 2:10).

What we call the Gospel (“Good News”) is a doctrine which is not at all in us by nature, but which is revealed from Heaven (Matt 16:17; John 1:13), and totally surpasses natural knowledge. By it God testifies to us that it is His purpose to save us freely by His only Son (Rom. 3:20-22), provided that, by faith, we embrace Him as our only wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption (1 Cor 1:30). By it, I say, the Lord testifies to us all these things, and even does it in such a manner that at the same time he renews our persons in a powerful way so that we may embrace the benefits which are offered to us (1 Cor 2:4).

The similarities and the differences between the Law and the Gospel:  We must pay great attention to these things. For, with good reason, we can say that ignorance of this distinction between Law and Gospel is one of the principle sources of the abuses which corrupted and still corrupt Christianity.

The majority of men, blinded by the just judgment of God, have indeed never seriously considered what curse the Law subjects us to, nor why it has been ordained by God. And, as for the Gospel, they have nearly always thought that it was nothing other than a second Law, more perfect than the first. From this has come the erroneous distinction between precept and advice; there has followed, little by little, the total ruin of the benefit of Jesus Christ.

Now, we must besides consider these things. The Law and the Gospel have in common that they are both from the one true God, always consistent with Himself (Heb. 1:1-2). We must not therefore think that the Gospel abolishes the essence of the Law. On the contrary, the Law establishes the essence of the Gospel (Rom 10:2-4); this is what we shall explain a little further on. For both set before us the same God and the essence of the same righteousness (Rom 3:31), which resides in perfect love to God and our neighbor. But there is a great difference in these points which we shall touch on, and especially concerning the means of obtaining this righteousness.

You can read the rest of Beza's essay Here.

The Papal paper trail...

The following are various extracts from the Church of Rome Canon Law that Thomas Cranmer (Archbishop, the Church of England 1533-1553) collected possibly as early as 1530.  How does the modern Papacy reconcile itself to these rather colorful decrees and doctrines of Rome from an earlier age?

As far as I know, these have never been repudiated by the Vatican.  It's obvious by the time Trent rolled around that the road to the denial of the gospel of salvation by grace through faith alone in Christ alone had already been well traveled by Rome.  Question:  if these "infallible proclamations" are no longer operative, i.e. they are fallible, then how don't these edicts undermine Rome's apostolic succession in that they undermine the doctrine of papal infallibility?  And since the true ground of the church (in Rome's view) is the succession of the infallible seat of Peter, how doesn't this undermine the claim that Rome is the one true church?

A Collection of Extracts from the Canon Law, 

showing the extravagant pretensions of the Church of Rome[a].  

The Remains of Thomas Cranmer, collected and arranged by H. Jenkyns.

He that knowledgeth not himself to be under the bishop of Rome, and that the bishop of Rome is ordained by God to have primacy over all the world, is an heretic, and cannot be saved, nor is not of the flock of Christ.

 All the decrees of the bishop of Rome ought to be kept perpetually of every man, without any repugnance, as God's word spoken by the mouth of Peter; and whosoever doth not receive them, neither availeth them the catholic faith, nor the four evangelists, but they blaspheme the Holy Ghost, and shall have no forgiveness.

All kings, bishops, and noblemen, that believe or suffer the bishop of Rome's decrees in any thing to be violate, be accursed, and for ever culpable before God, as transgressors of the catholic faith.

The bishop of Rome hath authority to judge all men, and specially to discern the articles of the faith, and that without any council, and may assoil them that the council hath damned; but no man hath authority to judge him, nor to meddle with any thing that he hath judged, neither emperor, king, people, nor the clergy: and it is not lawful for any man to dispute of his power.

The bishop of Rome may excommunicate emperors and princes, depose them from their states, and assoil their subjects from their oath and obedience to them, and so constrain them to rebellion.

The bishop of Rome may be judged of none but of God only; for although he neither regard his own salvation, nor no man's else, but draw down with himself innumerable people by heaps unto hell; yet may no mortal man in this world presume to reprehend him : forsomuch as he is called God, he may be judged of no man; for God may be judged of no man.

The bishop of Rome may open and shut heaven unto men.

He that maketh a lye to the bishop of Rome committeth sacrilege. 

The bishop of Rome is judge in temporal things, and hath two swords, spiritual and temporal.

The bishop of Rome may give authority to arrest men, and imprison them in manacles and fetters.

All manner of causes, whatsoever they be, spiritual or temporal, ought to be determined and judged by the clergy. 

And the bishop of Rome may compel by an oath, all rulers and other people, to observe, and cause to be observed, whatsoever the see of Rome shall ordain concerning heresy, and the fautors thereof; and who will not obey, he may deprive them of their dignities.

We obtain remission of sin, by observing of certain feasts, and certain pilgrimages in the jubilee and other prescribed times, by virtue of the bishop of Rome's pardons. 

He is no man-slayer that slayeth a man which is excommunicate.

A penitent person can have no remission of his sin, but by supplication of the priests

Another point of view from an English reformer, John Jewell's Reply Unto M. Harding:

"To be Peter's lawful successor, it is not sufficient to leap into Peter's stall. Lawful succession standeth not only in possession of place, but also, and much rather, in doctrine and diligence. Yet the bishops of Rome, as if there were nothing else required, evermore put us in mind and tell us many gay tales of their succession." [pg. 201]

"... This is [Rome's] holy succession - Though faith fall, yet succession must hold; for unto succession God hath bound the Holy Ghost." [pg. 347]

"... if the pope and his Roman clergy, by his own friends confession, be fallen from God's grace, and departed from Christ to antichrist, what a miserable claim is it for them to hold only to bare succession! It is not sufficient to claim succession of place: it behooveth us rather to have regard to the succession of doctrine. St. Benard saith: What availeth it, if they be chosen in order, and live out of order." [pg. 349]

"... The faith of Christ... goeth not always by succession. The bishops of Rome have been Arians, Nestorians..." [pg.610]

"And for that cause they say, We are Peter's successors: even as the Pharisees sometime said, We be the children of Abraham. But John said unto them, Put not your affiance in such succession. For God is able even of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." [pg. 439]

Two interesting footnotes from different portions of Jenkyns' text:
a [Burnet inserts these extracts under the year 1544, connecting them with an act then passed for the examination of canon laws. They are placed here on the authority of the following passage from Strype : "One of the first things wherein the archbishop shewed his good service to the church, was done in the parliament in the latter end of this year, 1533. When the supremacy came under debate, mid the usurped power of the bishop of Rome was propounded, then "the old collections of the new archbishop did him good service; for the chief, and in a manner the whole burden of this weighty cause was laid upon his shoulders." Strype, Cranmer, p. 32. These "old collections" are probably those which are still preserved at Lambeth under the title of Archbishop Cranmer's Collection of Laws. They were formed, perhaps, while he resided at Cambridge, and consist of a large number of passages, extracted at length from the canon law, and followed by that short summary of some of its most remarkable doctrines which is here printed. They were doubtless of great use in the discussions alluded to by Strype; but that was not the only nor the first occasion, in which they supplied the archbishop with arguments. He must have already availed himself of them, when in stating to the king his unwillingness to accept the see of Canterbury, he "disclosed therewithal the intolerable usurpation of the pope of Rome." See his Examination before Brokes. And he frequently recurs to them in his subsequent writings, particularly in the Ansner to the Devonshire Rebels, l.,49, and in his long Letter to queen Mary, in September, 1555.]

c [There is much ingenuity in the manner in which Innocent III. pressed this text into his service. According to him, as God made two great lights, the sun and the moon, so he made two great powers, the papal and the royal; " sed ilia quae pra-est diebus, id est, spiritualibus, " majorest; quaevero eamalibus, minori : ut quanta est inter so/em et/u- " nam, tanta mter pontifices et reges differentia cognoscatur." The precise difference, as calculated by the commentator, may be stated in the words of Jewel : "And how much the emperor is less, the gloss declareth by mathematical computation, saying, that the earth is seven times greater than the moon, and the sun eight times greater than the earth: so followeth it, that the pope's dignity is six and fifty times greater than the dignity of the emperor." Jewell, Sermon at Paul's Cross, and Reply to Harding's Answer, p. 29, and 215.]

Christ - our righteousness in both justification and sanctification...

... to be proclaimed perpetually in the church from both the pulpit and the Lord's table by ministers of the gospel.  For the righteousness that comes through faith in Christ is not just the commencement of the Christian life.  It's also the constant ground of our living (Hab. 2:4), the only acceptable righteousness before God.  The only righteousness to be had by even the most holy saint exercised in godly works is the righteousness of God in Christ which comes through faith (Rom 3:21-22).  From John Calvin's Institutes:

We must strongly insist on these two things: That no believer ever performed one work which, if tested by the strict judgment of God, could escape condemnation; and, moreover, that were this granted to be possible (though it is not), yet the act being vitiated and polluted by the sins of which it is certain that the author of it is guilty, it is deprived of its merit. This is the cardinal point of the present discussion. There is no controversy between us and the sounder Schoolmen as to the beginning of justification. They admit that the sinner, freely delivered from condemnation, obtains justification, and that by forgiveness of sins; but under the term justification they comprehend the renovation by which the Spirit forms us anew to the obedience of the Law; and in describing the righteousness of the regenerate man, maintain that being once reconciled to God by means of Christ, he is afterwards deemed righteous by his good works, and is accepted in consideration of them. The Lord, on the contrary, declares, that he imputed Abraham's faith for righteousness, (Romans 4:3) not at the time when he was still a worshipper of idols, but after he had been many years distinguished for holiness. Abraham had long served God with a pure heart, and performed that obedience of the Law which a mortal man is able to perform: yet his righteousness still consisted in faith.  Hence we infer, according to the reasoning of Paul, that it was not of works.  In like manners when the prophet says, "The just shall live by his faith," (Habakkuk 2:4) he is not speaking of the wicked and profane, whom the Lord justifies by converting them to the faith: his discourse is directed to believers, and life is promised to them by faith.   Paul also removes every doubt, when in confirmation of this sentiment he quotes the words of David, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered," (Psalm 32:1).  It is certain that David is not speaking of the ungodly but of believers such as he himself was, because he was giving utterance to the feelings of his own mind.   Therefore we must have this blessedness not once only, but must hold it fast during our whole lives.  Moreover, the message of free reconciliation with God is not promulgated for one or two days, but is declared to be perpetual in the Church, (2 Corinthians 5:18, 19).  Hence believers have not even to the end of life any other righteousness than that which is there described. Christ ever remains a Mediator to reconcile the Father to us, and there is a perpetual efficacy in his death, viz., ablution, satisfaction, expiation; in short, perfect obedience, by which all our iniquities are covered. In the Epistle to the Ephesians, Paul says not that the beginning of salvation is of grace, but "by grace are ye saved," "not of works, lest any man should boast," (Ephesians 2:8, 9). (Bk.3.14.11)

WLC-Question 72: What is justifying faith?
Answer: Justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and Word of God, whereby he, being convinced of his sin and misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition, not only assents to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but receives and rests upon Christ and his righteousness, therein held forth, for pardon of sin, and for the accepting and accounting of his person righteous in the sight of God for salvation.

HC-Question 61. Why sayest thou, that thou art righteous by faith only?
Answer: Not that I am acceptable to God, on account of the worthiness of my faith; but because only the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, is my righteousness before God; and that I cannot receive and apply the same to myself any other way than by faith only.

HC-Question 62. But why cannot our good works be the whole, or part of our righteousness before God?
Answer: Because, that the righteousness, which can be approved of before the tribunal of God, must be absolutely perfect, and in all respects conformable to the divine law; and also, that our best works in this life are all imperfect and defiled with sin.

Too much gospel, too little law?

The question then is, will too much gospel lead to increased sin?  And, what is the antidote to the  potential temptation to abuse God's abundant grace and continue in sin?  Or put another way, what is offered to the believer by God to overcome sinful desires, that sets one free from sin's rule and empowers one to live in a righteous direction?  In Romans, the apostle Paul makes the case that righteousness doesn't come through the works of the law but comes to the ungodly only by grace through faith in Christ apart from any works, i.e. any attempts at doing good.  He does this by diagnosing the problem thoroughly in Romans 1-3.   All are corrupt, have sinned and are guilty under the Law of God.  He makes the case that righteousness cannot be attained by sinners through the works of the Law... every mouth is shut.  Everyone is a sinner who sins and falls short of the glory of God!  

Paul then, in Romans 3-5, declares the only remedy available:  the righteousness that comes to sinners freely by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, in other words - the gospel:  the Righteousness that comes to sinners not through any works, but solely through trusting in what God has done in Christ for sinners.  Looking then at the two places in Romans 6 where Paul then asks that well known rhetorical question, how does he respond to the charge that too much of this abundant grace will lead to antinomianism or licentiousness?  What does Paul offer that will keep believers from falling back into sinful living now that they are freely forgiven?  After all, isn't this grace, more or less, a get-out-of-jail-free card?  Many would answer now that we have been justified by faith it's necessary that the law comes back in as that which shepherds and keeps believers from sinning - keeps them on the straight and narrow.  Grace in the dock: does abundant grace lead to increased sin?

Question: What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

Answer: God forbid. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?  Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism unto death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin; for he that hath died is justified from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him; knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death no more hath dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died unto sin once: but the life that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof: neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace.         (Rom. 6:1-14)

Question: What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

 Answer: God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye present yourselves as servants unto obedience, his servants ye are whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?  But thanks be to God, that, whereas ye were servants of sin, ye became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto ye were delivered; and being made free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification. For when ye were servants of sin, ye were free in regard of righteousness. What fruit then had ye at that time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life. (Rom. 6:15-22)

Paul counters not with law, but grace, i.e. more truth of what God has done in Christ to save sinners from the penalty and power of sin.  In other words Paul gives more gospel to the believer which is the power of God unto salvation (Rom 1:16).  The law, be it first or third use, has no power to draw one away from sin or overcome it.  Law can only tell us our duty and expose how we in fact do the things we ought not and don't do the things we ought.  When tempted to sin, the problem is not our lack of knowledge of the law (don't do that!... do this!).  Indeed, at those times the law offers no aid or power to resist sin's dominion because that is not the purpose given it by God.  Rather our problem is a lack of faith and trust in Christ's finished work on our behalf.  And more faith comes only by hearing more gospel (Rom. 10:17).  The transforming power of the Spirit is communicated to the believer not by the hearing and doing of the law but by hearing and believing(!) the good news of what God has done for us in Christ.  The works of God come by believing (John 6:28-29).

Our problem as sinners isn't a knowledge problem remedied by more law instruction and our subsequent doing, but a sin-problem which only the gospel solves as we trust in God's Already Done in Christ!  This is true for our justification as well as our sanctification.  As believers we are called to mortify sin within us, which by definition means resisting the desires that actually tempt us and then again to offer ourselves to loving God and loving our neighbor.  The finished work of Jesus declared in the gospel is the only weapon given believers that actually breaks that power of sin and frees us to walk in a righteous direction.

¹⁰ For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. ¹¹Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

It is the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ applied by the Holy Spirit through the gospel proclaimed in Word and Sacrament that cleanses believing sinners from sin and sets them apart unto holiness (all things are sanctified by blood - Hebrews 9:22).  The third use of the law?? With our eyes of faith upon Christ alone, the Holy Spirit uses the law now written on our hearts to direct and inform us in our sanctification.  Our reasonable offering to God is obedience to Him in the bright light and power of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us.  As forgiven sinners we indeed need to hear the law in order to better capture our attention as to what it really means to live a holy life, so as to not water-down sin nor lower the high perfection of God's righteousness to which we are called.  But the power of the Spirit unto holiness is apprehended only through faith in the finished work of Christ Jesus.

Now, it's certainly the case that there are perversions of God's grace and distortions of the gospel which can lead someone to become indifferent to his sin.  I imagine this is especially so where Law and Gospel are not proclaimed together.  But the solution to that problem is not a greater emphasis on the law in order to correct or balance out that distortion.  Rather, the solution is to clearly preach and teach the law's diagnosis and judgment of sinners and God's divinely appointed remedy offered in the gospel.  And that gospel declares that we who have been buried with Christ have died to sin.  Do we believe that?  Do we trust that Christ has accomplished that on our behalf?  If so, then how can we who have died to sin be indifferent to it?  If we continue to live a life under sin's rule, isn't it because we're not trusting in what God has done, i.e. not believing?  If I do believe that I have died to sin in Christ and am no longer under law but under grace, then it follows that I will offer myself to live in a manner consistent with that faith and repentance, however imperfect; seeking to live in accord with righteousness - not merely because the law tells me I should (which it certainly does), but because the grace of God (which I am now under) has released me from the dominion of sin and renewed me with a new heart and new will which desires to live in obedience to Him.

Do we still sin?  Of course.  And so it seems to me that the piety of the church should be known more by a faith in Christ and repentance of sin than an absence of sin.  The grace of God in Christ both fulfills the law perfectly for us in our justification and delivers us completely from sin's dominion which leads us to the doing of good works acceptable to God through faith.  The law points the way we should live and informs us when we don't.  The grace of God unites us to Christ, pardons our sin, delivers us from sin's dominion, justifies us before God with a righteousness not our own, gives us a new heart and will born of God, and renews us daily unto obedience through repentance and faith in Christ.

Two Cities, Two Kingdoms...

Few Reformed doctrines draw more heat today than that of the much misunderstood two kingdoms.  Most of the the time it seems, at least to me, that those criticizing this teaching are arguing against something that it is not.  I can only imagine what it must be like for one of its main proponents, David VanDrunen.  I've excerpted some of his book review of  Kingdoms Apart: Engaging the Two Kingdoms Perspective, edited by Ryan C. McIlhenny, as it provides clarification which often comes forth best in response to one's critics.  I tend to think that those who take issue with the two kingdoms theology do so for at least one main reason - it offers no support for those societal-transformational agendas pursued by many Christians.  The entire review can be read at The Ordained Servant.  Dr. VanDrunen writes:

My claim is that Augustine’s Two Cities and the Reformed Two Kingdoms ideas are compatible, not that they are identical. They are harmonious, but get at different aspects of the truth: Augustine’s Two Cities describe two eschatological peoples, one marked by love of the Creator above all and one marked by love of the creation above all; in this world the Two Cities mingle, but they can’t be identified with any particular earthly society or institution; there is stark antithesis between these Two Cities, and each person is a member of one city and one city only. The Reformed Two Kingdoms, on the other hand, pertain to the twofold way in which God rules this present world, primarily (for early Reformed theologians) through church and state. This means that Christians are actually citizens of both kingdoms. Christians, in other words, are citizens of two kingdoms, but of one city. As citizens of the city of God they stand in eschatological conflict with unbelievers; as participants in the common kingdom, they are called to co-exist in peace with unbelievers as far as possible...

My basic case in chapters 2–5 of LGTK is this: God gave the original cultural mandate to Adam as representative of the human race in an unfallen world, demanding perfect obedience and promising the attainment of an eschatological new creation as a reward for obedience. Adam failed and plunged the human race into a state of curse rather than eschatological blessing. But God sent his Son as the Last Adam, to fulfill God’s task for humanity perfectly and thereby to attain the new creation for himself and his people.  Popular recent neo-Calvinist works speak of redeemed Christians being called to take up again Adam’s original cultural task (not to go back to Eden, but to fulfill Adam’s responsibility to fill the earth, have dominion, etc.). In response, I have argued that this cannot be the correct biblical paradigm for the Christian’s present responsibilities in this world. If Christ is the Last Adam, then none of us are called to be new Adams. It is not as if Christians have no cultural mandate (as Kingdoms Apart suggests I claim), but that the cultural mandate comes to the human race only as refracted through the covenant with Noah after the flood. It comes thereby to the human race as a whole (not to Christians uniquely) and is geared for life in a fallen world and holds out no eschatological hope of reward. Thus in order to understand our calling to participate in the life of politics or commerce, for example, we should understand these responsibilities as rooted in the Noahic covenant and as work to pursue in collaboration with unbelievers, as far as possible (without forgetting the different attitude, motivation, goals, etc. with which Christians take up these tasks). I also suggested that all of us who share a commitment to the Reformed doctrine of justification should appreciate the attractiveness of my suggested paradigm, built as it is upon traditional understandings of the covenant of works, the Two Adams, and the sufficiency of the obedience of Christ. This is an invitation to soteriologically orthodox neo-Calvinists to embrace a view of Christianity-and-culture that is more consistent with doctrines at the core of the gospel they love.

And from the Conclusion of his review:

It might also be interesting for a valiant defender of neo-Calvinism to address the following observation: most ordinary Reformed believers already live what might be called a two kingdoms way of life. When they follow the regulative principle of worship, uphold the church’s jurisdiction over its own discipline, and respect the Christian liberty of fellow believers in matters of faith and worship that are “beside” God’s Word (see Westminster Confession of Faith 20.2), they embrace aspects of Reformed practice historically inseparable from the two kingdoms doctrine. And when they live peaceably with their unbelieving neighbors—working, buying, selling, driving, flying, playing, and voting alongside them—are they not giving implicit witness to the reality of God’s distinctive common grace government over the world through the covenant with Noah? And if this is the case, then I suggest that the two kingdoms idea serves a clarifying function: it helps Reformed Christians understand in a more theologically clear way the Christian faith and life they are in so many respects already practicing.  

Two books by David VanDrunen  on two kingdom theology:
Living In God's Two Kingdoms
Natural Law and The Two Kingdoms