Being under the weather for the last few days, I’ve had the opportunity to lie around and listen to MP3s. One I listened to was an episode from Michael Horton’s (Wikipedia) White Horse Inn entitled “Sin and Grace in the Christian Life” (Summary | MP3), dated 8/19/07. I think this was the first time I’d listened to Horton, and my previous exposure to him came primarily through reading his contributions to Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation—a good book, but not without some issues.

The topic of discussion in the radio program was grace and the problem of ongoing sin in the Christian life. Michael Horton led the discussion with Kim Riddlebarger, Rod Rosenbladt, and Ken Jones. I love gospel-centered theology and preaching, and I agreed with much of what they said. However, I found some of the discussion a bit disturbing and imbalanced—perhaps more what they didn’t say than what they did say.

The launching point for the discussion was a recording taken at a Christian conference of answers to the question, “What do you think happens if you die with unconfessed sin?”

Most of the answers fell into five categories:

1. You go to hell.
2. You can’t know.
3. God is lenient.
4. God looks at your heart.
5. God’s grace and Jesus’ blood cover all of your sins.

You go to hell.

I think you’re in trouble.

I think they’re going to hell.

You can’t know.

I don’t know. I’d rather not die with unconfessed sin.

Only the Lord knows, . . . and I would never want to stand in judgment of anyone else.

I really believe that God only knows the answer to that.

God is lenient.

He knows we’re going to mess up, but if we’ve trying to do right and we’re trying to live right for the right reasons, then I believe that we’re going to go to heaven.

Luckily, I’m not the one sitting on the throne, making that decision. . . . God is a little more understanding than we put Him out to be.

If I’ve done everything that I know to do, intellectually and spiritually, then God will take care of the rest. That’s what He promised.

God looks at your heart.

I think God looks at your heart. He looks at your heart and your actions together.

The Lord . . . knows our hearts, and I would never want to stand in judgment of anyone else.

God’s grace and Jesus’ blood cover all of your sins.

We’re not under condemnation.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to depend on the grace and mercy of God, which is poured out into me unbelievably in my life and I’m dependent on that.

There’s lots of sins that I’ve committed that I haven’t confessed. God sees all of those and they are washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. . . . If you die without confessing every little sin, surely you will be covered by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Horton and the others lamented the answers as being devoid of the gospel, the blood of Jesus, and the righteousness of Christ—even though at least three of the answers seemed biblically on target. Then they turned to one specific answer and discussed it in more detail.

One lady responded,

I believe if they are not making a habit of that, if they are not walking in that sin, that they are covered. If a person is living in sin, for example, fornication, and they die in that sin or any other that they are making a habit of then I would shutter to think . . . . Those who live by these things will never see the kingdom of God. . . . If we are doing these things continually, I think it shows that we don’t have faith in him, that we don’t love him, because He says, “If you love me, you will obey me.”

In addressing the issue of habitual sins, they referred briefly to passages like these:

9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. —1 Cor 6:9–10

19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. —Gal 5:19–21

One of the men then commented, “Those passages start with the fact that Christ never committed adultery, Christ never gossiped, Christ never lied. Christ fulfilled every one of those perfectly. Christ’s death fulfills every time I haven’t fulfilled those perfectly.” Another added, “What does the Scripture mean when it says that no adulterer will enter the kingdom of heaven? This is what you are without the righteousness of Christ.” A third continued, “This is a new evangelical category that really troubles me: the idea that as long as it doesn’t become a habit. Where is that in Scripture?”

I was uncomfortable with the way these passages were handled and with the overall tenor of the discussion. I don’t want to minimize Christ’s substitutionary life for His people—it’s a glorious truth—but I think Paul has more than justification in view in these passages. As 1 Cor 6:11 goes on to say, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” Paul is dealing not just with a change of standing with God, but with a transformation of lifestyle.

I was also troubled by the way the notion of habitual sin as not characteristic of the believer was written off as unbiblical. First John seems clear on the matter. Believers live differently than unbelievers. To be sure, believers will struggle and commit the same sins multiple times, but not apart from continual confession and repentance—and progress. Horton and the rest admitted that the believer (1) will be miserable in his sin and (2) want to do what’s right, but I didn’t get the impression that anything else really sets the believer apart from the unbeliever. Based on their discussion, a believer could theoretically live the same as an unbeliever so long as he feels remorse and wants to do right. That, in my opinion, falls short of a biblical view of sanctification, which is, by the way, also part of the gospel.

I recently enjoyed reflecting on this encouraging hymn text with solid theology penned by Augustus Toplady (ERF | ODCC):

From whence this fear and unbelief?
Hath not the Father put to grief
His spotless Son for me?
And will the righteous Judge of men
Condemn me for that debt of sin
Which, Lord, was charged on thee?

Complete atonement thou hast made,
And to the utmost farthing paid
Whate’er thy people owed;
How then can wrath on me take place
If sheltered in thy righteousness,
And sprinkled with thy blood?

If thou hast my discharge procured,
And freely in my room endured
The whole of wrath divine,
Payment God cannot twice demand—
First at my bleeding Surety’s hand,
And then again at mine.

Turn then, my soul, unto thy rest!
The merits of thy great High Priest
Have bought thy liberty;
Trust in his efficacious blood,
Nor fear thy banishment from God,
Since Jesus died for thee.

Amen!

This is quoted in J. I. Packer, “The Doctrine of Justification in Development and Decline Among the Puritans,” in A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 1994), 156n15 and comes from Diary and Selection of Hymns of Augustus Toplady (Gospel Standard Baptist Trust: Harpenden, 1969), 193. It is also hymn 370 with the title “From Whence This Fear and Unbelief?” in Hymns of Grace and Glory (BJUP | MCBC) (edited by Joan J. Pinkston and Sharalynn E. Hicks), appearing with only one minor modification: instead of “utmost farthing paid” it reads “utmost Thou hast paid.”

Packer comments that this text

mirrors most strikingly in devotional response the particularistic efficacy, i.e., the genuinely substitutionary character of Christ’s atoning death. This hymn, as Toplady wrote it (verbal smoothings in modern printings sometimes smudge the theology), brilliantly focuses the Reformed recognition of what Jesus and the apostolic writers meant by saying that the death at Calvary was ‘for’ people (Greek, huper and anti).

Does anyone know if this hymn is available in audio anywhere?

Update: I contacted Bob Kauflin, the Director of Worship Development for Sovereign Grace Ministries, and asked him if he knew of any CD containing this text put to music. He said that he didn’t and wasn’t aware of this text. I also asked him if he would consider writing a new tune for it and including in a future Sovereign Grace CD, and he said that he would. He will probably adjust the lyrics a bit as well so they are more understandable to a modern-day audience. This is exciting news. Keep an eye out for this song in a future Sovereign Grace recording.

Something I was reading today triggered my memory of a sin from the past. Fresh feelings of guilt swept across me, even though it was something for which I asked the Lord’s forgiveness many years ago. Sadly, my default plan of attack for dealing with that unwarranted subjective guilt was to try to minimize my sin. “It wasn’t that big of a deal,” I found myself thinking. Other forms of rationalizing came to mind like, “I didn’t really fully understand at the time that it was sinful.” Then I noticed the feelings of guilt were starting to lessen. But by God’s grace I quickly caught myself: this was an utterly unbiblical way to handle my guilt because it amounted to a rejection of the sufficiency of the cross and a belittling of the the glory of God.

It was a rejection of the sufficiency of the cross because God has given me Christ and His work as the sole means of dealing with my guilt. It was a belittling of God’s glory because my view of sin and my view of the majesty of God are directly proportionate. I then acknowledged the full weight of my sin—as much as I am humanly able to comprehend—and thanked God that Christ completely bore the fullness of His wrath that I deserved for that sin, gaining for me a perfectly clean conscience (Heb 9:14; 10:22; 1 Jn 1:9). It was not until I dealt biblically with my feelings of guilt that they disappeared, the cross was exalted, and God’s glory was magnified.

My Related Post:

• Fighting for a Clean Conscience

I just posted an excerpt from John Ensor’s The Great Work of the Gospel: How We Experience God’s Grace. It’s an encouraging read that I needed. I commend it to you. Here is a portion of that excerpt:

INSTRUCTING OUR CONSCIENCE ABOUT THE CROSS

Not that this sense of liberty is always there and never flags. It surely does. One problem is that our conscience is not sufficiently informed about the gospel. It needs training in righteousness. In terms of human experience, we must often “reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart” (1 John 3:19-20). I take this to mean that we need to bring the work of God in Christ to bear on our stubborn conscience. We must grasp the truth of the cross and wrestle our conscience into alignment and conformity. We must instruct our conscience about the cross until our conviction of guilt gives way to joy and confidence. Hebrews 10:22 calls this having “our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil [burdened] conscience.”

When my conscience condemns and blocks the way to God, I must be ready to stand on the truth of the gospel and contend for my faith.

By faith, I look to the heavens and shout, “Oh happy day!”

Conscience shouts back, “I object.”

I reply, “On what basis?”

Conscience says, “You did such-and-such. How can you possibly think God does not see it?”

I admit, “I will not deny the facts, and God knows the tears that have been shed over it. But I ask, ‘Was it or was it not a sin for which Christ died?”‘

Conscience demurs, “Well, yes.”

My faith takes the offensive, “If yes, was it or was it not paid in full?”

Conscience pauses, “I withdraw the objection.”

Faith presses further, “And should you not also rejoice with me?”

Conscience is awestruck by the all-sufficiency of the cross. And faith says, then let us draw near to God and say, “Thank You, Father, for paying for that awful sin my conscience has just brought to mind. I rejoice all the more deeply in your loving-kindness.”

We can truly say, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Such is the cleansing power of the cross, when grasped by faith, on a stained conscience.

FIGHTING FOR A CLEAN CONSCIENCE

Some things, such as dandelions, never seem to go away for good. Shame and guilt can be like that. They constantly reassert themselves and keep us from experiencing the joy of a “good conscience toward God” (1 Peter 3:21, NIV). What makes persistent shame a serious problem is that it belies a persistent unbelief in the sufficiency of Christ to atone for our guilt. It calls the truth of the gospel into question. And that is a serious matter.

Read the whole excerpt.

My Related Post:

• Responding Rightly to Guilt