The Whole Christ (part 4)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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welcome back to our series on the whole christ the whole christ in this book uh...

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and you mentioned it last time i believe when he taught we we we did get copies uh...

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here we're selling them out front on the table if you're interested in getting that and picking up your own copy it is excellence uh...

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i highly recommend it obviously that's why we're teaching it uh... but um...

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uh... you're getting the cliffnotes version here in our sunday school class so uh... since it's been two weeks i thought it would be behoove us to do a little review time i think beforehand uh...

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and maybe also wake you up in that i'm gonna ask you some pop quiz questions here let's see if you guys can answer any of them at all uh...

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or if i have to supply all the answers okay here we go uh... now if you remember we were talking about uh...

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the whole christ well here's the subtitle legalism antinomianism and gospel assurance why the marrow controversy still matters so let's start with that let's start with legalism can anybody tell me the definitions at least that andrew and i've been trying to work with here as to what is legalism yes that some rigid adherence to deeds or works usually there's a pet peeve list right uh...

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that rigid adherence to that improves your standing with god that you've brought some element of law or obedience into your justification all right and how about antinomianism bonus points if you can say it without stumbling over it mark what's that sorry living without any law right without any kind right uh...

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yes rejecting any role of the law in your life entirely and uh...

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pastor steve came up with the really great analogy for us of the bowling lanes right where we've got legalism and it's the right gutter and we've got antinomianism and it's the left gutter right and so in some sense when we think about them that one is a rigid adherence to the law and so we think of it on one extreme of a spectrum and then the other is rejection of the law and so it's the other end of that spectrum today however we're going to talk and this is a sneak preview today we're going to talk about how they're not really so different after all not really so different after all all right but let's uh...

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the marrow controversy so the marrow of modern divinity is the name of the book from the sixteen hundreds england written by edward fisher uh...

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he was a barber surgeon uh... and a lay theologian lay preacher and uh...

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so and the marrow of modern divinity in that book and then uh... it kind of was just an obscure book that not many people knew about until this controversy erupted later on in the seventeen hundreds with thomas boston and his followers and they call themselves the marrow men and this book marrow of modern divinity is written a little bit like pilgrim's progress in that it's written in that sort of uh...

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out allegorical style there's characters in it that are having a dialogue and the characters have very obvious names to make sure you understand which role they are playing in the in the book right like one guy's name is a vangel another guy's name is antinomia uh...

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so you get the idea uh... and it was very interestingly we learned this as we're studying uh...

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this book and uh... ferguson doesn't mention it in the book but we found it elsewhere in our research that the word legalism was first coined in that book in the marrow of modern divinity anytime you hear about people using at least in the english language the term legalism or legalist that came from the marrow of modern divinity and legalist back then just as it is now was a pejorative term you threw it around as an insult you would you'd use it to attack your enemy uh...

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that you did not like you'd call that puritan he's being a legalist my favorite way of thinking of it to be honest though is that uh...

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it's like the highway analogy that if you're driving on the middle lane of the highway anyone who's going uh...

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and you're going at say the speed limit anyone who's going a lot faster than you is a maniac and anyone who's going a lot slower than you is a knucklehead and in the same way we tend to do this we tend to pass these judgments ourselves in our christian life and we say i'm going down the middle lane and anyone who's being more strictly adhering to some rule or obligation or law is being a legalist and anyone who's not following the rules that i've set up for myself is being a liberal antinomian or a heretic we'll just go straight to there and so this controversy that erupted in the seventeen hundreds is that the scottish presbytery right which was the board uh...

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that if you're not particularly familiar with the presbyterian church essentially the hierarchy of the church in scotland uh...

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that while the churches don't directly report to them the that presbytery is in charge of ordaining ministers and disciplining ministers if they go off the reservation and so on uh...

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and so they had made a decree based on a on a controversy that happened that when presenting the gospel you should tell hearers that you need to forsake sin in order to be saved and the merrow men said that you should not tell people that that instead you should simply offer christ to all with the promise of justification to the ungodly who believes this was the bad syllogism the saving grace of god in christ is given to the elect alone true or false the elect are known by the forsaking of sin true or false the elect are known by the forsaking of sin true or false true three here's the false one three therefore forsaking sin is a prerequisite of saving grace i even gave you the answer brian false forsaking sin is a prerequisite for saving grace is that prerequisite part right and what was happening in this in the scottish church in these puritan churches back then is that they had so gotten themselves wrapped up in the idea of that the elect should be known by saving grace uh...

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i'm sorry by forsaking sin that if they didn't see someone forsaking sin they thought they shouldn't preach the gospel to them right that they were like if i don't see evidence that god's already working in their heart then there's no point in me preaching to them and we'd see that as sort of this really hyper calvinist you know nowadays that's what we would call it right that's really hyper calvinist point of view there's no point in preaching the gospel because god will save who is going to save and he's going to take care of it right and that's that was where they were starting to head the gospel is not as andrew said last week bigger last time the gospel is not repent and believe jesus christ is the gospel that's the gospel and you might remember also from his lesson that uh...

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while we in our our day and age referred to ourselves as christians and that's the term that we use in the new testament while there is one example of them being called christians that also was sort of used in the kind of an insulting way by the world that in fact in the new testament how they always refer to themselves is simply in christ that it is the union with christ that is the gospel and so when we separate the work of christ from the person of christ it leads to this fundamentally broken theology and that's what was going on uh...

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in this mero controversy time that instead of thinking to ourselves how do i preach christ it turns into how do i offer the benefits of christ or uh...

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and since christ himself becomes less central and instead he becomes sort of a means to an end the get out of jail free card and where we can really fall down and get in trouble is when we start if you go down this path far enough and this was the end of andrew's lesson last time you get into this business of transactional grace and transactional love that we very wrongly start thinking god loves you because christ died for you what's wrong with that anybody remember god the father loves you because christ died for you and they quote a verse that refutes that john three sixteen yes thank you very much oh good somebody remembers yeah mark right with the great love which he loved us right it was god's love the father that was the cause right we've been seeing that song we have that song what wondrous love right the cause was love the father loved us and therefore he sent his son to die for us it is not because the sun died for us that then the father loves us if it was that way we'd start to think of the father is kind of a scary person right where it's like well it's a good thing christ died for us because otherwise the father would be really angry with us and then you could get into that then you'd start to get that kind of wrong thinking where you'd be worried about losing your salvation or doing anything that might make him love you less because if he was already mad at you and if it was only thanks to christ that christ dying for you that he doesn't he's not mad at you anymore then maybe you could make him mad at you again right that's that that's where the wrong thinking comes in yes charlie right the love preceded the regeneration right with the rich young ruler where he went away unsaved at least at that moment uh...

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in the new testament uh... narrative uh... but it still said that christ loved him you know you can see how this kind of transactional love thing would basically put this dysfunction make you think of a dysfunction in the fellowship of the trinity right like well the father thinks this but the son thinks that it's not how it is at all the son does not need to do anything to persuade the father to love us praise god he already loves us he loved us from the first of time and therefore sent his son who came willingly because he also loves us to die for us all right so that's the review let's turn to genesis chapter three we're gonna start the pretty close to the very beginning this morning go genesis to revelation no not quite it's the jet tour no genesis chapter three so today we're gonna zoom in a little bit more on legalism specifically the dangers of it the subtlety of it how it pervades almost everything when it comes to our sin natures genesis chapter three i'm sure many of you have seen and studied and thought about the fall and read this passage very often can somebody read to me verses one through six please read for all of us i should say verses one through six what was satan's tactic here what was his angle how did he what was his opening to get into eve's burnt mind what did he go for questioning god what's the very first thing he says to her did god actually say questioning his word questioning his truth exchanging the truth about god for a lie right that's ultimately what he's doing here in this in this in this uh...

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conversation with her he's taking the truth something that god said was true remember we don't know if god repeated it directly to eve or not god gave this command to adam before he created eve so it's possible that adam just passed it along to her or it's also possible that god spoke directly to eve as well but regardless so there is a word of god that was the truth satan says most of it true and just twists a little bit of it right and he exchanges the truth of god for a lie the truth back in chapter two verse sixteen is that the lord had given adam and eve an entire cosmos of good gifts right and in turn he provided them with a single positive and a single negative law and look in verse uh...

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chapter two verse sixteen the lord god commanded the man saying you may surely eat of every tree of the garden stop right there for a second that's the positive law that's a command eat everything enjoy it be joyful that's the positive command and then there's a negative but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die ferguson in this book he takes some literary license and he uh...

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he poetically says what god was saying expands on what god was saying here in chapter two verse sixteen it's as if god was saying to eve and adam i want you to grow in trusting and loving me just for myself because i am who i am you can only really do that if you are willing to obey me not because you're wired to but because you want to show me that you trust and love me if you do that you will find that you grow stronger and that your love for me deepens trust me i know that's the purpose of having both the positive and the negative command if we think back now to the fall into satan's temptation of eve satan exchanged the truth of god for a lie he's he's trying to he's trying to make her question what god said in verse uh...

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six so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food was his light to the eyes and the tree was to be desired to make one wise what's going on in eve's mind here yes brian she's beginning to feel like she's lacking something missing something what is she missing what does she think she's missing the knowledge yeah the knowledge of god or at least some knowledge right to make one wise yeah he's with her right her husband who was with her just standing by not doing anything about it yes bob said that there's an implicit accusation that god is holding out on her he's got something that he won't give her he said he'd give us everything but he's not he's holding out on me and so she's she's forgetting about the positive and she's focusing entirely on the negative one yes charlie right right yes where satan says that i wanted i'd desire to be like the most high right i will be the most high and here's eve doing the same thing saying i want to be more wise than what god's given me so i want this fruit so in one sense it's very antinomian yeah antinomian right she's rejecting the command she's rejecting the law that god's given her it's an opposition to it's a breach of the law right but what if i told you that what the serpent accomplished in eve's mind and affections and will was this separation of god's word his positive and negative command from his gracious and generous character right she was folk she had actually focused entirely on only that one negative command at this point and not really thinking about who god is or what he is like and what he has given her and adam right in some total what does that look like while standing in paradise that's right i mean talk about count your blessings name them one by one right actually standing in eden now what it looks like is that eve is no longer seeing that sort of personal divine touch in the rule that she's supposed to be submitting to she only sees the obey but not the love and the affection and the generosity that's all behind that command god looks like a mean ogre to her right who just wants to keep her away from something so here's the crazy thing and this is ferguson's thesis that in fact antinomianism is just another kind of legalism it's just another kind of legalism in this sense legalism is the idea of works for salvation yes but even deeper than that it's the lie that there is something anything that we can do to change god's disposition towards us and god becomes he whose favor must be earned because he's just an ogre who demands obedience and so you have two reactions to that thought one reaction is i'm gonna try to follow all those commands because i'm scared or fearful or some other thing and that's the legalist sort of reaction or there's the antinomian reaction that just rebels against that and says i won't do any of that at all i'll do whatever i please and so it's just a dangerous a separation right when we talked about last week or last time about separating the work of christ from the per person of christ being a very dangerous separation we can also we could redefine legalism as we've been trying to talk about it as a separating of the law of god from the person of god right that now when you're thinking legalism when you're thinking legalistically you're only thinking about the rules and not about the rule giver right you're focused entirely on the rules what can i can and i cannot do what should and i should not do we the lie that we now believe is that instead of earth i'm sorry that you know what's the chief end of man to glorify god and to enjoy him forever right that's the chief end of man but rather we believe that the the the way to glorify god is to lose all joy forget joy i gotta follow these rules that's how i glorify god that's the lie because we're not thinking about god rightly and we're not relating to god in an affectionate way right it's the gospel that even allows that she's ended to be united it's the gospel that allows us to both glorify god and enjoy him forever without it where we are where we're immediately stuck in the in the in the legalist mindset and so forget that ferguson's thesis is that we are in fact all legalists at heart that that's what adam and eve gave us from their posterity is to make us all legalists so let's think now for the second part of the lesson today let's think about how does that end up manifesting itself in our lives okay how does it threaten us what goes wrong in your life when you're thinking only about the rules and not about the rule giver anybody got any ideas would you like me to give the first and then prime the pump oh west got one okay yeah it takes away your joy yep what are you doing at that point like what are you doing it for right because you have to it's like slavery again right yes christine you glorifying the works itself themselves and worse yet who did those works in your mind you right so in fact you end up glorifying yourself okay what else if god's favor is earned and we believe we're in god's favor let's go with the pharisaical approach to legalism mark we are completely self -righteous we are good to go we are better than that guy thank you lord that i am not like that tax collector right takes away fellowship yeah yep depending on how well they're doing right yeah as we mature those rules sort of they become less important right there they're no longer needed to guide you to keep you go back into our bowling analogy they're like the bumpers that keep you out of the gutters right that's what the rule is what parents are parents are the bumpers to keep you out of the gutters yes erickson no i agree with you i completely agree with you yes and that that is why when um you know i think everyone's hitting on the same idea here right that yes there are rules that we we all try to follow and as charlie said when we're young in christ maybe that list is longer because we're we're being more careful and we're not sure what we can and cannot do yet and we're we're still trying to understand gain wisdom and knowledge and discernment and because we have little discernment we sort of set these boundaries for ourself and as we age in christ those boundaries like we're a we have more wisdom and discernment and we're so we're able to less rigidly follow maybe a certain set of self -discipline rules but the danger the part where you go off the rails is when it's only about the rules and as bev said where you have a bad day and then in the morning and then you realize oh you know why i'm having a bad day it's because i forgot to read my bible this morning that's why i'm having a bad day right if only i had prayed more or if only i had i don't know name it right given more offering uh said more you know i don't know helped out that brother more maybe i could have done more for them or whatever it's always something more more more right you get into this performance treadmill if only i could do a little bit more then things would be better for me and why are things better for me because anybody because i've done enough and so thus god likes me better right and if he likes me better than things go better so you're all doing good you're all you're you're right now all exploring the entire panoply that is the marrow controversy this is exactly what was going on between these two sides right in both sides of the controversy there were elements of correct thinking right the the the scottish presbytery the people who oppose the marrow men they oppose them because they were worried that what they were talking about sand that sounded a little too antinomian like i don't have to worry about the rules at all and that's they would stay replied with no that's not what we're really saying we're just saying don't make a god out of the rules right and then and then and then the the other side of the other don't have a name so i got to keep get this the presbytery it's not just the presbytery but the people who are opposed to the marrow men you know they're like well we weren't trying to say that you had to follow the rules in order to be saved okay right but this is the whole working it out and staying between the two gutters on that on that bowling alley lane right so we'll talk more when we get to the antinomian chapter let me go back to the legalist chapter about some of the stuff that you guys are bringing up but let me go back to the legalist chapter about staying away from the legalist gutter okay for a little bit so back to the self reliance in the self righteousness right this is i think the most subtle one and this is the one that i think all of us at one time or another are guilty of maybe more and thomas boston in particular who was the original marrow man he said this was the thing that he was most convicted about about his own preaching and about his own life as he read this book and this controversy erupted which is this that when convicted of our sin our reaction is i will now try much harder i will do better that's what we think repentance is right i think you all heard exactly what was the most wrong in that two sentences right there was a little too much eye in that turn to luke chapter 15 please and too much trying yeah a little too much eye and a little too much trying luke chapter 15 could someone read verses 11 through 17 please of luke chapter 15 yes will jesus is speaking this parable to who does anybody remember the context of this parable who's the audience that's listening to this more than anyone the pharisees that's right the pharisees up till this point in the story the pharisees are all nodding and smiling they're a hundred percent behind this right this prodigal son he shamed his father and dishonored him by demanding his inheritance early basically saying i wish you were dead dad so that i could just get my money now and then he took the money and instead of even still like well all right i'll take the money but i'll still stay home and take care of you and be a good son no he ran off with it right to a far country and so he immediately squanders it and so serves him right right well that the severe famine comes along this is god punishing him for what he's done wrong so the pharisees like yep yep definitely yep okay go ahead keep going well here the pharisees go oh good he's come to his senses right verse 17 when he came to himself it's like ah like he finally had the realization the light bulb went on right and even the pharisees like i said they're good they're happy about this they're like good he came to his senses finally he's going to repent he's going to go back to his father he's going to do the right thing yes brian i haven't gotten to the to the punch line yet go ahead yeah let me say the punch line yeah okay right so then verse 18 comes it's like hooray and even we could say hooray he's going to repent he's going to be saved right hang on wait though i will arise and go to my father and i will say to him father i have sinned against heaven and before you so far so good i am no longer worthy to be called your son oh treat me as one of your hired servants treat me as one of your hired servants what is the prodigal thinking right now what does he think is the way back into his father's good graces penance treat me as one of your hired servants at this moment the prodigal thinks the way to get back into the father's favor is to work his way back treat me as one of your hired servants and the pharisees again are still agreeing with this parable in middle eastern honor based culture this is exactly what a prodigal son should do he should crawl back to his father and beg the prescription is that he should look only at his father's feet and not dare to look up at him anything higher on his father than his father's feet the father this stuff is almost all prescribed in many middle eastern cultures the father is supposed to at first completely refuse to see him or acknowledge his presence and instead make him sit outside like sit at the gate of the city or outside his front door for days so that he can be publicly humiliated the whole town can see him sitting there and waiting for his father to finally even acknowledge his presence and all the townspeople are supposed to be able to come by and heap scorn and ridicule and mock the guy penance and then after that some suitable time period has happened then the father can acknowledge him at least in so much as exactly what the prodigal is saying here he can treat him as one of his hired servants certainly not treat him like he's his son and then if maybe if he does a really great job and he keeps his head down and he works hard maybe eventually he might get back to the point where he could be invited to a few family events that's the prescription of the pharisees that's legalism remember that when the son left the cultural norm is that they held a funeral for the son that's why at the end of this story we're not going to look at this today but at the end of the parable when the father is talking to the other son he says my son who was dead is now alive because to the family he was dead they had a funeral gone the prodigal's first problem was antinomianism he said

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I'm tired of being the good son and working hard I want my money, let's party but now he's swung too far back the other way and this is a very common problem in the human heart we go from one extreme and we swing that pendulum as far back the other way as we can to the other side and now he's saying

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I will earn my back my father's favor and of course though thankfully in the true character of God in the gospel there's none of that nonsense that happens because what happens now in the parable there'll be no earning back the father's favor because the father already loves us verse 20 and he arose and came to his father but while he was still a long way off his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced and kissed him just as we said earlier the father already loves us now notice when the prodigal goes to recite his little prepared speech in verse 21

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Will you want to read it for us? what's missing?

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what do you leave out of that little speech? treat me as one of your hired servants because he's overwhelmed by God's grace overwhelmed by his mercy, his love the prodigal in all of us realizes

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I don't have to do anything the father already loves me

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Jesus Christ already loves me Jesus Christ has already done it all that's the prescription against legalism and yet like the

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Galatians we fall from grace we fail to believe that the righteousness of Christ alone is sufficient to entitle us to some justification of life and so we find ourselves with an evangelical head but a legalistic heart and we wrongly see our we've said it earlier we wrongly see our growth and holiness as strengthening our justification our growing in holiness confirms our justification that's absolutely true but it does not strengthen it and that's where we're thinking wrongly

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God's love is perfect and here's the great thing about perfection perfection is a knife edge point it's the peak optimum right?

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perfect so there can be no shadow of turning from one side of that peak to the other right?

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therefore you cannot do anything to make God love you less because then his love would not be perfect for you nor, and this is the important one for today can you do anything to make him love you more alright, so our time's up we even got it to the end of the chapter though next week there'll be some more about it's

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Andrew next week there'll be more about the ordo salutis in chapter 5 which I know you did a little bit of last time and we'll talk more about the importance of how to preach

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Christ when presenting the gospel what it really means alright?

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any other questions before we close? yes, Charlie but he was thinking wrongly about what the father what the father's reaction would be yeah

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I think, so there are yes, I think there's definitely there's a color in there of humility right?

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which is good but there's also the color of like we said, like you're saying with the eastern eye of the penance of the earning it back well yeah, as you say, well but see now the way you're even the way you're saying it, right?

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right, well, okay God is more gracious than Bev that's the summary everybody, okay um no no, so let me try to explain to restate this a little bit but yes, so yes, there needs to be humility and in fact, it's good

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I think that the order in the way the parable plays out that the order plays out the way it does that he starts out he starts out with he's humbled he's repent, you know he's got some kind of repentance growing here and he knows that he needs to go back to his father he has a wrong idea of what it's going to take to make his father love him again, but he wants to go back, he's humble, he's been humbled and he's like you're saying, he's acknowledging that he's lower than dirt, right, at least relative to his father what's that?

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and that is repentance yes, right right, that's the repentance right it's that what he didn't know he didn't know his father well enough if he had known his father well enough right, he would know that his father was going to be ready to welcome him back, kind of thing now it doesn't mean, again, like Charlie and Bev are saying, it doesn't mean that he can just waltz in there and say like, well,

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I know you're a forgiving dad so, hey, I'm back, how's it going everything's all good, right it's because that's not a repentance to just waltz in like that, yes yes,

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I completely agree, right and at this point we're talking about a guy who is unsaved and so we really should not expect much of him at this point in his theological thinking he wouldn't have gone off in the first place right, yes, exactly right, yes

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Pradeep the Jew which is exactly his reaction, right that when he's presented overwhelmed with his father's love right the prodigal and also, you know just to go back to Ferguson's point

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I think the point he's trying to make here is that, you know, we are all prodigals we all have we all have that hidden in our heart right, that legalistic bent like that's what we think is the way to back to God right, and so if we're not careful it's always there and it's always ready to sort of creep up on us and in our

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Christian life, even once we're saved and believe that we can say that phrase where we say to ourselves yes,

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I messed up so what I'm going to do about it is I'm going to turn back, I'm going to do the thing but I will try harder,

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I will do better right, that's the prodigal way of doing things no, no, but you're right he came back with shame, you're right you're right, and he still did, right

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I am not worthy to be called your son he did say that, that was still part of his speech right, even after the father said hugged him and kissed him and welcomed him right he still said

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I'm not worthy to be called your son okay you guys are definitely ready for the antinomian chapter we are so, thank you for going through with this alright, thanks, let's pray heavenly father thank you so much for allowing us this time to study your word and consider these important points, lord

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I pray that you would help us that this is such a difficult thing and that the subtleties of legalism and antinomianism that they have both in them the same root problem of us just not having a right picture and a right understanding of you, that we are frail and finite and we always fall short in our ability to grasp just how great your love is for us how great and holy you are how perfect you are how great is the distance between you and us and yet lord that you have united us to you in Christ through his sacrificial death and his resurrection and these are mysteries that lord

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I think we will spend eternity trying to comprehend and lord