Great Christian Biographies with John Piper: Andrew Fuller 3

More briefly, and finally. Send a manianism.

Before we draw out a few practical applications for us. Fuller's response to this deadening movement called sentimentalism of his day was part of the platform.

In other words, not only do you need a worthy gospel rightly understood and freely offered, but you need life.

You need spiritual life. You need vital faith. And high Calvinism was killing this and sentimentalism was killing this.

And that's where we turn. Now we go in to see what the problem was.

It all revolved around and so unbelievably relevant today. Can't believe it. It all revolved around the nature of justifying faith.

I went to the Heidel blog of our Scott Clark yesterday. Those of you who are aware know there's been a debate there between him and Doug Wilson.

Like the 18th century. Just plucked right out of the 18th century. The issues are the same issues.

The language is the same language. The federal vision and Westminster West. It's the same kind of issue.

Now, neither of these guys is a Sandeman as I understand them. But they're talking to each other about this issue.

And therefore. History is relevant.

Biography is relevant. I hope you don't have to meet the stresses of this day doctrinally without some roots.

I really hope you don't. And if you if you like fuller and you've had no formal education, don't fret.

Just get educated. Start reading. Go deep. Robert Sandeman, born 1718, spread the teaching that just justifying faith is the mind's passive persuasion that the gospel statements are true.

The minds, not the hearts. Passive, not active. Persuasion, not conviction.

Are true. The notion of the truth of gospel sentences is lodged.

Passive verb is lodged in the mind and you are justified.

It's on his gravestone. The distinguishing mark of the system,

Fuller said, was relating to the nature of justifying faith.

This Mr. Sandeman constantly represents as the bare belief of the bare truth.

By which definition he intends, as it would seem, to exclude from it everything pertaining to the will and the affections, except as fruits from it.

Everyone says he who obtains a just notion of the person and work of Christ.

Or whose notion corresponds to what is testified of him is justified.

And finds peace with God simply by that notion.

Close quote. Continuing Fuller's quote. This notion he considers as the effect of truth being impressed upon the mind.

And denies that the mind is active in it. Quote, this is now a quote from Mr.

Sandeman. He who maintains that we are justified only by faith.

And at the same time affirms that faith is a work exerted by the mind.

Undoubtedly maintains, if he has any meaning to his words, that we are justified by a work exerted by the human mind.

In other words, Sandeman is burdened to protect justification by faith alone.

And he believes that if faith is defined as a movement of the mind or the will or the heart, an act, a movement toward, it's a work.

It has to be completely passive. Involve no exercises of the will or the mind to protect the doctrine from being justification by works.

Implicit then is follow out his logic. Implicit then is that faith is not virtuous.

It does not partake of any goodness or newness of the soul.

Therefore, you see how the logic is working. Oh, learn a lesson about logic here. It isn't logic.

It's just the way humans think. Therefore, another. Therefore, in the chain of sentiment and logic, therefore.

Regeneration does not precede. Faith, the renewed heart does not proceed and give rise to faith.

Else faith would be virtuous and we would be justified by virtue. So faith now is defined as being perfectly consistent with total enmity against God.

That's where logic will take you. If you let it run wild without scripture governance.

Now, what was his key text? You know what his key text would be if you just think about it for a moment. His key text is

Romans four, five. And it looks like it works. The one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

So he argues that this term, the justification of the ungodly means there can be no godliness, no virtue, no renewal, no activity, no quality about faith.

That has any goodness in it. Otherwise, God is not justifying the ungodly.

He's justifying the godly. And so he has to define faith as passive persuasion of the truth in which the mind is not active.

So faith can coexist with ungodliness and be a part of ungodliness. Now, Andrew Fuller saw the effects of this.

He took trips to Scotland and and he and his friends, they look at each other and say that they would ask, do you have an appropriate place for the effect actions?

And the answer would come back. Their suspect, John Gill said, got a quote here.

John Gill was, along with John Brine, one of the two high

Calvinists. You know, that's animating is and is just a sub group of high

Calvinists. John Gill said. Christian joy is to be experienced, not expressed.

This is another practical outcropping of these things that there's so life becomes so intellectualized that the churches die.

Mission shrivels up. Evangelism shrivels up and the churches start falling away. All in the name of supposed doctrinal, logical faithful.

So what is Fuller's response? This man loves missions. He is a post millennial lover of the triumph of Jesus.

I'm not. I'm just a lover of the triumph of Jesus. Very optimistic premillennialist who wants to be a part of what

God's doing today around the world to reach the unreached peoples of the world.

So he was a lover and he wanted to see Christ's message go. And he saw Sandemanism killing the faith and the light.

And he saw hyper Calvinism killing the gospel and its offer. And family man, though he was pastor, though he was, he took up arms and destroyed these two.

He did. They do not exist significantly after Andrew Fuller.

He wiped them clean, except little outcroppings here and there, because he applied his exegetical rigor so faithfully.

So what was his response? He compiles 100 pages of small print argument in 12 letters called strictures on Sandemanism.

And he points out, for example, that faith is a kind of work. John 6, 28,

Jesus said, they said to him, what must we do to be doing the works of God? And Jesus answered, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent.

He observes that it is the uniform witness of Scripture that, quote, without repentance, there is no forgiveness, no repentance, no forgiveness.

If forgiveness and justification are all bound up and repentance must precede, then you've got to have a change before that happens.

He also shows that the meaning of faith over and over again in the

Bible is paralleled with things that involve the movement of the soul, the activity of the soul, virtuous things like receiving

Christ and coming to Christ and so on. Hundreds of pages, 100 pages of remarkably dense argumentation from the

Bible. He denies that faith is a mere passive persuasion of the mind, but asserts that it is the holy fruit of regeneration.

So if you wonder why holy faith is in the title of this talk, now you're there.

Faith is holy. It's not ungodly. It's holy. It's a beautiful thing.

It's a glorious thing. It's a right thing. It grows out of the new heart of regeneration and participates in the newness of regeneration.

So how does he reconcile? What does he do with Romans four, five?

And here's his answer. This term on godly in Romans four, five,

I apprehend is not designed in the passage under consideration to express to express the actual state of mind.

Which the party at the time possesses, but the character under which

God considers him in bestowing the blessing of justification upon him.

Whatever be the present state of the sinner's mind, whether he be a haughty

Pharisee or a humble publican. If he possesses nothing which can in any degree balance the curse which stands against him or at all operate as a ground of acceptance with God.

He must be justified, if at all, as unworthy, ungodly and wholly out of regard to the righteousness of the mediator.

In other words, he refuses. He uses an analogy of a magnet.

This is so helpful to me. This distinction is next two minutes or at the center have been the most helpful thing on this issue that I read.

How faith does and can have qualities about it, which are good.

But our justification not rest in that goodness. Here's what he said, whatever holiness there is in faith.

It is not this, but the obedience of Christ that constitutes our justifying righteousness, whatever other properties a magnet may possess.

They may be gray, maybe heavy, whatever other properties a magnet may possess.

It is as pointing invariably to the north that it guides the mariner, whatever other properties faith may possess.

It is as receiving Christ and bringing us into union with him that it justifies.

That may be the most important thing I say today. He points out that faith is unique.

This is so helpful. I hadn't seen this as clearly either. Faith is unique among all the graces in the renewed heart.

You can list through the Holy Spirit, love, joy, others. It's unique. It is a peculiarly receiving grace.

Here's what he says. Thus, it is that justification is ascribed to faith because it is by faith that we receive

Christ. And thus it is by faith only, not by any other grace.

Faith is peculiarly a receiving grace, which none other is.

Were we said to be justified by repentance or by love or by any other grace, it would convey to us the idea of something good in us being the consideration on which the blessing was bestowed.

But justification by faith convey conveys no such idea.

On the contrary, it leads the mind directly to Christ in the same manner as saying of a person that he lives by begging leads to the idea of his being living on what he freely received.

Let me put a little parenthesis here. Spurgeon counsels against continually teaching your children first to love

Jesus. Instead of trusting him, it's really common when you're talking to little children, love

Jesus, love Jesus, love Jesus, love Jesus. He says it's going to go bad if you don't put trust

Jesus in their vocabulary fundamentally and essentially trusting him is looking away from yourself to him.

Loving constantly feels like I get to do more here, whereas trust is all in the other direction.

It's not it's not an accident that the Bible chooses the term faith to make it that act of the soul by which we are justified that whatever we possess, he says.

We make nothing of it as the ground of acceptance, counting all things but loss and done that we may win and be found in him.

So faith is a duty. Faith is an act of the soul. It is good to good effect of regeneration.

And yet, he says, quote, it is not as such. It's not as its goodness.

It's not as such, but as uniting to Christ and deriving righteousness from him that it justifies.

So he concludes his book, The Gospel of Worthy of All Acceptation, with a reference back to the

New Testament preachers like this. The ground on which they took their stand was cursed is everyone who continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.

There's a good place to stand, brothers. Stand there. Cursed is everyone who does not obey the law perfectly.

Cursed is that one. Now you've got to have a solution and it will not be in law keeping.

Hence, he goes on. Hence, they inferred the impossibility of the sinner being justified in any other way than for the sake of him who was made a curse for them.

And hence, it clearly follows that whatever holiness.

Any sinner may possess before, in or after believing it is of no account whatever as a ground of acceptance with God.

Which means that God justifies us under the consideration of our unworthiness, our ungodliness because of Christ, not under the consideration of our holiness, whatever it is and whenever it is.

In this way, Fuller is able to retain the crucial biblical meaning of faith as a holy acting of the soul, an outflowing of regeneration.

And yet, say with Paul, to the one who does not work, not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

So the sum of the matter is that. Fuller had one enemy.

Namely, global unbelief in Jesus Christ, India, unbelief was the issue, unbelief in China, unbelief in the

New Hebrides, unbelief in Pakistan. This was the great enemy.

And he saw that the victory was in the gospel and in people so wrought upon with vital faith that they were willing to lay down their lives to take it everywhere.

Everywhere and therefore. There were obstacles. To the victorious gospel,

Sandeman ism stripping the soul of its life and vitality and joy and high

Calvinism stripping the gospel of its universal applicability and its obligation to be spoken to all people.

The spirit in the bride say, come, the bride says, come and let the one who hears say, come and let the one who is thirsty come.

But the one who desires to take the water of life without price come. So what should we learn in conclusion, just a few closing applications, what should we learn from this man and his ministry?

We should learn the vital link between the doctrinal faithfulness of the church and the cause of world missions.

The main impulse today is all in the other direction. Everywhere you turn today is pressure not to dispute about doctrinal matters because you're going to wreck missions if you do.

How many times has it been said, would you stop? Raising those questions and be about mission.

Now, that statement. At best, is historically naive and at worst, is a cloak for uninhibited error spreading.

So I long for you and me in our day to stop wasting our lives and to give ourselves to global missions.

In whatever way in your church you see it hindered. It won't be the same.

You're not going to go on a crusade against Sandemanianism. What will you do, though?

What will you do to get out of the way the hindrances of your people to be engaged in missions?

I don't care how far out in the boondocks in America you live and how far away from an ocean or a people.

Amazingly, they have come home to us on the Internet. In almost every other way.

One crucial lesson we should learn from Andrew Fuller's life is that exegetical and doctrinal defense.

Of justifying faith and gospel preaching did not hinder but advanced great missionary enterprises and the experience of the soul and the right thinking about the gospel unleashed a great world missionary movement.

Here's another thing. Beware of the deadly mistake of drawing wrong inferences from texts based on superficial claims of logic.

If God justifies the ungodly. Then faith must be ungodly.

If the natural man cannot receive. The message of the cross.

Don't urge him to receive it. It would be pointless and cruel. Real logic.

Is not the enemy of exegesis. But more errors than we know flow from the claim of logic to contradict the

Bible. Here are a few. If God is love. There cannot be predestination.

If Stephen says Israel has resisted God, then God cannot overcome rebellious rebellion irresistibly.

If men are accountable for their choices, they must be ultimately self -determining.

If God is good, innocent people wouldn't suffer so much. If God rules all things, including sin, he must be a sinner.

If God rules all things, there's no point in praying. If God threatens a person with not entering the kingdom, he can't have eternal security.

If Christ died for all. He cannot have purchased anything particular for the elect and on and on and on.

False logic draws inferences that the Bible doesn't draw. I get so tired.

Actually, I don't hear it as much anymore, so I'm not as tired as I used to be. I used to get so tired of people saying that Calvinism is logic driven rather than exegetical.

My whole life proves the opposite. I just can't believe when

Armenians say that. I was excuse me. Now, why is it that you believe you must have free will in order to be accountable?

Why is that? Never do they quote you a verse. Zero. Never. If you believe there's a verse that teaches that, you come tell me.

I'll never say this again. If there's one there. I mean, you may tell me and there's no one there. Never, ever, ever does an

Armenian say, well, the reason I believe that in order to be responsible, you have to have free will is because it says so here.

The reason is logic. Arminianism is born of carnal logic.

It isn't true. And if we were more biblical, if we were saturated by the

Bible. I read these things, you know, where I'm taken to task by people who are writing.

Why not a Calvinist and all that stuff? Give me a verse. I want a verse. Give me a verse. And it says, well, he's love.

And so that can't be true. Well, how do you know? How do you know what love in God does?

The Bible has to tell you the way God's love works.

There is. I'm done. I've got two paragraphs to go. There is a kind of inner logic to Fuller's life.

And battles and global fruitfulness. And here it is.

Inner logic to his life and in effect, his engagement with Sandeman ism highlights the importance of vital, authentic, spiritual experience over against sterile, intellectualistic faith.

That's one piece. His engagement with hyper Calvinism highlights the importance of objective gospel truth.

That's another piece. So authentic biblical experience, vitality and getting the gospel and its display right.

That's objective subjective, objective. Authentic, subjective experience of God plus authentic, objective truth of God leads to authentic, practical mission for God.

That's my burden. I don't really care too much at one level about the persuasion concerning these arguments.

I care tremendously whether that happens for the sake of global missions. Holy faith plus worthy gospel yields world vision.

So my concluding exhortation, brothers, is this devote yourselves to experiencing

Christ. In the gospel, biblically and authentically.

Don't settle for inferences. Know him.

Don't let him go. Take hold of his robe in the text and don't let him go.

Know him. Know him. Experience Christ. He's alive.

His spirit has been sent. Know him. Secondly, devote yourself to understanding

Christ, understanding Christ in the gospel, biblically and authentically.

And then, oh Christ, may you ignite this experience and this understanding, both biblical, both exegetically grounded.

May you grant that they come together in such a way that we not waste our lives.

But like Andrew Fuller, engage in the cause of world evangelization for the glory of Jesus.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, I plead with you that you would take these words concerning your servant,

Andrew Fuller, and shape us to be the kind of shepherds. He was so imperfect, imperfect dad, imperfect pastor, imperfect missions leader, imperfect writer.

And you used him. And that's where we are. We feel inadequate as fathers and we feel adequate as husbands and we feel inadequate as pastors and we don't know much.

But, oh God, if you would take the five loaves and two fish that we now put in your hand, what might you be pleased to do?

Would you cause this conference, through William McKenzie's message and R .C.

Sproul's message and Thabiti's message, to come together with a kind of conflagration in our souls, in our churches, so that mission to the unreached peoples of the world would come to pass.

We want to see your kingdom come. We want to see your name be hallowed. We want to see your will be done on earth the way it's done in heaven.

So, move us forward toward that end, I pray in Jesus' name.