← Doctrine Matters with Kevin DeYoung
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Hello, I'm Kevin DeYoung, pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, and you are listening to Doctrine Matters. Each week on Doctrine Matters, we explore the rich doctrine of the Christian faith. We'll pull from the church's long history, complex debates, and over the course of the year, the hope is that we'll begin to frame out what is a clear, accessible, systematic theology, be looking at different Christian doctrines and their relationship to each other. And the hope, Lord willing, is we will grasp more and more the riches and the beauty of God's word. Thanks for listening. Let's turn to this week's Doctrine Matters. Welcome back to Doctrine Matters. We continue with our walk through soteriology, the doctrine of salvation. And we've been talking about sanctification. And when we talk about God's work in in us, which we work out with fear and trembling, we need to think about good works. We know that good works do not justify us. We know that no one is justified by works of the law. And yet sometimes then Christians can talk as if good works are somewhat incidental or they're not necessary. So how should we think about good works and the believer? Well, first let's talk about the nature of these good works, because there's a lot of misunderstanding here, too. The good works of the believer are never perfect in this life, but they can still be truly good. So Turretin, he's always helpful for good distinctions. He actually says that some kinds of perfection are. Are possible. So fulfilling the law, he says, is not about the perfection of sincerity. Can we serve God with a whole heart nor the perfection of parts? Can we be sanctified body and soul? Neither are we talking about comparative perfection. That is, some believers will be more advanced than others. Nor are we thinking of evangelical perfection, whereby God, God as a good heavenly Father, perfects our works with his grace. Turreton actually says, quote, all these species of perfection are taught in the Bible. Now again, we use perfect and we hear absolutely flawless without any blemish. But what Turreton is saying here, you might think complete or whole or upright. But when we say perfection, what we usually mean, and here Turreton makes this distinction as well, is legal perfection. So can our good works. Can a Christian born again, empowered by the Spirit, can we serve God with a whole heart? He says, yes. Can we serve God comparatively better than others? Yes. Can we serve God even with an evangelical perfection, that is, God in the Gospel perfects our works? He says yes. But if we're asking the question, can we do good works with a legal perfection? The Answer is no. The renewed believer can never so scrupulously obey the divine law, such that God would have nothing to accuse and condemn in him or in us. So if we're talking about legal perfection, that's usually what people mean. Well, I'm not perfect. None of my works are perfect. Meaning, can God always find something in our best activity here on earth to say, nevertheless, that was not completely to my liking? Well, that's true. We are unable to fulfill the law absolutely. We know the remains of sin belong in the believer. Well, they don't belong, but they cling to us first. John 1 There is a struggle between the flesh and the Spirit. Romans 7 There is the yoke of the law. We are commanded daily to pray for the remission of sins in the Lord's Prayer, which suggests that we daily are committing sins. So there is not a, on this side of heaven, the possibility of a legal perfection. But that doesn't mean that we cannot do good works. See, here's where Christians well meaning often go astray. They just hear legal perfection. They think, nope, we can't do anything good. But that's not how the Bible talks. Reformed Christians in particular sometimes make the mistake of thinking that if we are going to be really, truly, absolutely reformed, then we must denigrate everything we do as Christians. And again, we've just been. I've been making the point. We cannot fulfill the law absolutely. But to go back to Turretin's distinction, good works can be truly good without being, in a legal sense, perfectly good. Well, let's. Let's talk about some Bible verses. Acting like holiness is out of reach for the ordinary Christian does not do justice to the way the Bible speaks. Zechariah and Elizabeth were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. Luke 1:6 or the Lord commended Job. Quote, a blameless and upright man who fears God turns away from evil. The apostle Paul often commends the churches for their obedience for their godly example. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount said that the wise person hears his words and does them. James says the same thing. So if we go around saying, nope, there's no one who walks blameless, no one who is upright, no one who pleases God, no one who hears God's word and does them, then we're just not speaking in the way Scripture speaks. There's no hint that doing God's word was only a hypothetical category. Quite the contrary. We are told to disciple the nations that they might obey everything Jesus commanded. We know that from the Great Commission. And there's no, no asterisk there that says ha ha. Technically, of course, you can't actually obey anything that Jesus commanded. Again, not legal perfection. But Jesus assumes that we can live a life of obedience. We can be rich in good works first Timothy 6:18. We can walk in a way worthy of our calling. Ephesians 4:1 and this is really important from Westminster confession 16:6 looking upon our good works in the Son S O n in the Lord Jesus God quote is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections. That's why they used the language earlier turrets instead of an evangelical profession. That is a gospel, a gracious perfection. So the Westminster Confession is very wise. It says, look, yes, they're always going to have sin clinging to us and by themselves would not be totally blameless. And yet by looking at not only our lives in justification through the Son, but our lives in sanctification through the Son, we have God's pleasure. We have a the opportunity to live a life that God smiles upon. So I've used this illustration many times. We think about a parent. I'm a parent and if I tell my kids to go up and clean their room and with quick cheerful obedience they run upstairs, say yes dad, and they start cleaning their room. This is obviously a fanciful example because that doesn't happen. But if they did, and I went up a half hour later and they had cheerfully, joyfully been cleaning their room and I went and I saw that there will there, there were still some legos on the floor and the corners of their bed were not quite as taut as they could be. Some, a couple socks were mismatched, some hangers were a little askew on the rack. Would I go up and say this is all filthy rags to me. This is imperfect and this stirs in me anger. You have failed to meet my demands. Well, it's true, it's not a legal perfection. It's not as good as I could have done, or at least their mother could have done and certainly their mother in law could have done, or my mother in law, but it is nevertheless a good work. What parent would not be pleased to have their children run upstairs in quick glad hearted obedience? Even if you say this is not as good as I could have done it, it is yet an obedience that is sincere and with a paternal affection and grace. We say, you did this. Thank you, I love you. I fear that so many Christians live life without ever knowing that smile of their heavenly Father. They know that they're justified. They can understand that I am going to go to heaven, and that's gracious and because of the work of Christ on the cross, but day to day living their lives. One, we don't often heed the warnings that ought to stir us to action and make us fearful. If we're not walking according to God's ways, then second, because we just live with a medium to low level sense of guilt, we never feel the pleasure of following God. So let's end by just thinking of the doctrine of perseverance and what it means then to walk with God all the way to the end. And we know that sometimes people say once saved, always saved. And that's true. We don't want to understand that in a mechanical way that you just say a prayer. It's just a formula. It's just a vending machine of grace. Boom, you said it there. Doesn't matter what you do the rest of your life. That's not the doctrine of perseverance. The doctrine of perseverance, or we might call preservation, is that he who began a good work in us will see it to completion. That Jesus is both the author and the perfecter of our faith. There is no possibility of that golden chain of salvation being broken that those that he foreknew and predestined and those that he predestined he justified. And those that he justified, he will sanctify and finally glorify. What about the warning passages? Because there are lots of those. Jesus told his disciples, don't build your house on the sand and be washed away. Paul told the Corinthians, the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. Hebrews in particular is full of warning passages. Do not neglect so great a salvation. Do not harden your hearts as they did in the rebellion. Do not be like those who have tasted the heavenly gift and fallen away. Do not be like Esau who squandered his birthright. So what does this mean when we have the doctrine of perseverance and Jesus will say that you have eternal life, you're in present possession of it. What, what do we say then? Well, one of the things we can say with First John 2:19 is that those who did not remain with us prove that they were never really one of us. That's part of it. There are false conversions. There are false sons and daughters in the church. But that still doesn't tell us how genuine believers should appropriate the the Bible's threats and exhortations. If the elect will infallibly persevere to the end. Do we simply ignore the warning passages about falling away? What do we do with them? Canons of Dort gives the best succinct answer to that question. Here's what it says. Just as it has pleased God to begin this work of grace in us by the proclamation of the Gospel, so he preserves, continues and completes his work by the hearing and reading of the Gospel, by meditation on it, by its exhortations, threats and promises, and also by the use of the sacraments. That's from head of doctrine 5, article 14. Canons of dort notice two things there. First, God causes us to persevere by several means. He makes promises. But this is interesting. Canons of Dort say he also makes threats. He has not bound himself to just one method. This is where sometimes Christians go astray. They think there is only one medicine for our motivation, or the only motivation we can have is just to hear how much God loves you and you're okay and don't feel bad. Well, God does make lots of promises. But here we see he also makes threats exhortations. And they do not undermine the doctrine of perseverance. What they do is they help to complete it. God keeps us from stumbling, Jude 24, and he does so in part by telling us to keep ourselves in the love of God. Jude 21. So first, in dort notice, God uses many ways. Second, notice the broad way in which Dort understands the gospel. Now, in a strict sense, when we say gospel, we mean the good news of how to be saved. But in a wider sense, the gospel encompasses the whole story of salvation, which includes not only gospel promises, but also threats, exhortations inherent in the message of the cross. It was very striking that that Dort which does so much to extol the sovereign grace of God. It's not going soft or wishy washy on the gospel, but it understands in a very broad sense. You can speak of the gospel also giving us exhortations. The God who keeps us means to keep us by means. And this includes the sacraments, discipline, and, as Dort says earlier, holy admonitions of the Gospel. In short, God uses these threats, these warning passages as the means by which we persevere. So the right way for the Christian is to not. Not to ignore them. Not to say, I guess justification can be undone, but to say, oh Lord, may I not be one of those who fall away. And in the elect, those exhortations so stir us and compel us that they move us toward the completion that truly, once justified, we will in the end by the use of promises and even of threats and exhortations. Finally be glorified. Thanks again for joining us on Doctrine Matters. I'm your host, Kevin DeYoung. Our hope and prayer is that this has been helpful to you as you look at Scripture and try to understand the best of our theological tradition as Christians. Please consider subscribing to Doctrine Matters. And if this has been encouraging, consider passing it on to other others. If you'd like to learn more about this week's doctrine, you can ask your pastor for good resources or check out my year long mini systematic theology book called Daily Doctrine. It's available in print or audio from Crossway.org the Doctrine Matters podcast is produced by Crossway. To learn more, visit Crossway.org.