Chapter 4
The Gospel We Must Preach to Ourselves
A survey at a large Christian convention revealed that of thousands attending, only one person could adequately explain the gospel. Similarly, two church leaders told me their congregations "don't know what the gospel is"-despite being mainstream evangelicals. This represents a serious failure in discipleship.
The gospel isn't just for conversion-it's the essential foundation for daily Christian living. Yet we tend to give unbelievers just enough gospel to pray a salvation prayer, then immediately shelve it to focus on discipleship duties. Christians aren't properly instructed in the gospel's riches and can't apply it to their daily lives.
Romans 3:19-26 stands as the clearest and most complete explanation of the gospel in Scripture. To preach the gospel to ourselves daily and learn to live by it, we must understand this passage thoroughly.
Righteousness means perfect conformity to God's law-not just the Mosaic law but the entire transcript of God's nature and requirements throughout Scripture. This standard demands absolute perfection, as James 2:10 states that stumbling at just one point makes one guilty of breaking all of it.
Most people believe God will accept them because they're generally decent. As Christians, we know we can't achieve salvation through our own obedience, yet we often act as if our daily relationship with God depends on our performance. To live by grace, we must abandon such thinking.
Since we cannot achieve sufficient righteousness ourselves, God provides it through Christ's perfect righteousness. This isn't a legal fiction but a historical reality-the perfect obedience of Jesus over thirty-three years of human life. Christ fulfilled God's law in both its requirements and penalties. He accomplished what Adam failed to do-rendering perfect obedience to God's law-and then paid the penalty for our broken law through His death.
When God justifies us, He declares us righteous based on Christ's accomplished righteousness, which is credited to us through faith. This standing in Christ's righteousness never changes based on our performance. Yet unless we learn to live daily by faith in His righteousness, our perception of our standing before God will fluctuate with our good or bad performance.
Faith is the hand by which Christ's righteousness is received. It has no merit itself but is self-emptying, involving complete renunciation of confidence in our own righteousness and relying entirely on Christ's perfect righteousness and death. We're saved by God's grace through faith, not by faith alone as if faith itself had merit. We must live by this faith daily, continually renouncing confidence in our goodness while placing it solely in Christ.
God's salvation plan treats everyone equally because all are sinners. Though God recognizes differences in sin's severity, any sin violates His holy law and brings death's penalty. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. Living by the gospel daily means abandoning all comparisons with others who seem less holy or more sinful.
Justification means being absolved from guilt and declared absolutely righteous. It's like a coin with two sides: on one, we're declared "not guilty"; on the other, we're positively declared righteous through Christ, counted as having perfectly obeyed God's law. Our justification rests solely on Christ's work and our union with Him.
Redemption means "deliverance effected by payment of a ransom." We're redeemed from God's wrath by Christ's blood. Though justification is free to us, Christ purchased it with His blood, paying the ransom that redeemed us from God's just wrath. Unlike a mere pardon that excuses an offense without penalty, God's justification doesn't violate justice. The penalty has been fully paid by Jesus Christ.
The "sacrifice of atonement" refers to Christ as the one who turns aside God's wrath by taking away sin. Through Christ's sacrifice, God's just wrath was turned aside from us. Two crucial points: First, God the Father initiated salvation and provided His Son's sacrifice to satisfy His justice. Second, this propitiation is appropriated through faith in Christ's blood.
The gospel we must preach to ourselves daily means appropriating by faith promises like Isaiah 53:6 that the Lord has laid on Christ the iniquity of us all. It means dwelling on the promise that God has removed our transgressions as far as east is from west, blotted out our sins, and remembers them no more.
When you seriously pursue holiness, you'll realize what an awful sinner you are. If not firmly rooted in the gospel and preaching it to yourself daily, you'll become discouraged and slack off in your pursuit of holiness. No factor is more important than learning to preach the gospel to yourself every day.
Chapter 5
Our Death to Sin's Dominion
Paul addresses the objection that emphasizing God's grace might lead to sinful behavior by explaining that believers have died to sin through their union with Christ. This death to sin is a past event that has already occurred for every true believer, whether they're aware of it or not. Our death to sin happened through our union with Christ-we were baptized into His death, buried with Him, united with Him in death, and our old self was crucified with Him.
The believer's union with Christ is one of Scripture's most important truths, lying at the heart of Christian life. This doctrine forms the basis for both our justification and sanctification, and is Paul's foundation for refuting the charge that grace leads to sinful behavior.
Romans 5:12-21 explains the representative union of Christ and His people. Just as Adam was our federal representative in sin, Jesus Christ was our federal representative in His sinless life and atoning death. Through this representative union, all our responsibilities before God rest on Christ, and all His merit accrues to us.
To understand what Paul meant by "we died to sin," we must recognize that sin reigned over us in a kingdom of death because of our guilt in Adam. This reign had two inseparable aspects: sin's legal or penal reign and its corrupting dominion over our lives.
Through our union with Christ in His death, we died to both sin's legal reign and its dominion. Christ Himself died to sin's legal reign when He was made sin for us, though He was never under its dominion. When we died with Him, we were freed from both aspects.
This doesn't mean we no longer commit sins, but that sin no longer reigns in our lives. We must distinguish between the activity of sin (present in all believers) and the dominion of sin (true of all unbelievers). While sin's presence cannot be abolished in this life, its dominion must be destroyed for someone to be a Christian.
Not only are we dead to sin, we are "alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:11). We've been rescued from darkness and brought into Christ's kingdom. This involves our vital or spiritual union with Christ-an organic, living connection like branches to a vine (John 15:1-5).
Through this union, we "participate in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4), sharing in Christ's very life. This is more than a close relationship; it's our very existence as people "in Christ." And Christ is also in us through His Spirit, renewing and transforming us into His likeness.
Both our salvation from sin's penalty and our sanctification from sin's dominion come entirely by God's grace. We couldn't take one step toward holiness if God hadn't first delivered us from sin's dominion and united us with Christ. Salvation is by grace and sanctification is by grace.
When we died to sin, we died to a status of bondage under sin's reign. Our union with Christ in His death and resurrection forever changed our status, providing everything needed to obey the command "do not let sin reign in your mortal body." We must count on this truth by faith, or we'll attempt to pursue holiness through willpower rather than grace.
Chapter 6
Grace That Trains Us in Godliness
What appears contradictory-discipline by grace-reflects a profound spiritual truth. The same grace that brings salvation also disciplines believers, as Titus 2:11-12 teaches. This discipline involves more than mere instruction; it includes admonition, reproof, and correction administered in love for our spiritual growth and godly character development.
God never saves people only to leave them in immaturity and sin-those He saves, He disciplines. This truth is both encouraging and sobering. Encouraging because our spiritual growth isn't dependent on our initiative or wisdom but on God who "began a good work in you [and] will carry it on to completion." Though we must respond to His training, God takes ultimate responsibility.
The sobering aspect is that many who claim to have trusted Christ show no evidence of grace's discipline in their lives. As Hebrews 12:8 warns, "If you are not disciplined... then you are illegitimate children and not true sons." Jesus himself said only those who do the Father's will-not merely those making professions-will enter heaven.
Grace's discipline has both negative and positive aspects, like responsible parenting that addresses misbehavior while promoting good character. Grace first teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions. While ungodliness is often equated with immoral behavior, in its broadest sense it means disregarding God, not taking Him into account, and lacking reverence for Him.
The Christian life isn't just about prohibitions but also positive expressions of character. Like a pair of scissors needing both blades to function, we must simultaneously put off sinful practices and put on godly traits. Grace teaches us "to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives"-three directions of Christian duty.
It's grace-not law-that disciplines us. Many Christians mistakenly view the Bible as merely a rulebook demanding obedience without providing power to obey. This leads to guilt and helplessness. But God's parental training operates on principles of grace: forgiveness through Christ's work and deliverance from sin's dominion through the Spirit's power.
Where law condemns, grace forgives; where law commands without power, grace commands and empowers through the Spirit. As the verse says: "Run, John, run. The law commands but gives neither feet nor hands. Better news the gospel brings; it bids me fly and gives me wings." We must respond to God's discipline on the basis of grace, not law, which is why we must "preach the gospel to ourselves every day."
Chapter 7
Transformed Into Christ's Likeness
Just as a caterpillar undergoes mysterious metamorphosis to become a butterfly, Christians undergo spiritual transformation through sanctification. This process begins at conversion with regeneration-when God plants new spiritual life within us-and continues throughout our lives as the Holy Spirit progressively frees us from sin and develops Christ's character in us.
Sanctification begins at conversion through regeneration-when God plants spiritual life within us. Scripture describes this radical change: God writes His law on our hearts, transforms stony hearts to flesh, and makes us new creations. This instantaneous act of the Spirit gives us a new disposition that delights in God's law rather than resisting it.
Sanctification carries regeneration to its intended completion-from spiritual infancy to maturity. Justification and sanctification are inseparable; God never gives one without the other. While justification is God's complete, perfect act of crediting Christ's righteousness to us, sanctification is God's ongoing work of imparting grace that requires our cooperation.
The goal of sanctification is Christlikeness. Paul says we "are being transformed into his likeness" and "predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son." Jesus is our pattern-He loved righteousness and hated wickedness as sin itself, not merely its consequences. He lived solely to do the Father's will, even delighting in it when sacrificial.
Conformity to Christ is a lifelong process never fully attained in this life. Paul describes it as progressing "from glory to glory"-advancing through stages of increasing resemblance to Christ. This transformation creates an inevitable conflict between our sinful nature and the Holy Spirit, as Paul describes in Galatians 5:17 and Romans 7.
The Holy Spirit is the primary agent of our transformation. Paul uses passive language in 2 Corinthians 3:18 to indicate something is being done to us, not by us. Though we have responsibilities in sanctification, ultimately it is the Spirit who transforms us from within.
Though the Spirit's work is mysterious, He uses understandable means to sanctify us. Some means like adversity are outside our control, while others like Scripture study require our initiative. In 2 Corinthians 3:18, Paul specifically mentions "beholding the glory of the Lord" as transformative.
This glory is revealed especially in the gospel, where God's seemingly contradictory attributes harmonize perfectly: righteousness with grace, justice with mercy, power with love. The gospel reveals Christ as Savior and Lord, freeing us from both sin's penalty and dominion.
Understanding this gospel truth is essential for sanctification, as guilt impedes holiness. As one writer observed, "No sin can be crucified either in heart or life, unless it be first pardoned in conscience" because we need Christ's strength to subdue sin's power. The cleansing of our consciences through Christ's blood must precede our efforts to deal with sin in daily life.
Chapter 8
Loving God With Our Whole Being
Jesus identified loving God with all our heart, soul, and mind as the greatest commandment. Studying Deuteronomy 6:1-8 reveals that loving God is inseparable from obeying His commands. The passage emphasizes observing, keeping, and carefully obeying God's decrees and laws. These commands should be "upon our hearts," impressed on our children, and constantly discussed.
Throughout Deuteronomy, love and obedience are consistently linked. Jesus reinforced this connection in John 14:21: "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me." The apostle John echoed this truth: "This is love for God: to obey his commands." Loving God manifests itself through obedience to Him.
Many believers practice "cruise-control" obedience-setting their level of obedience to match the Christians around them, neither lagging behind nor forging ahead. Like a car's cruise control that maintains speed without constant foot pressure, we establish a comfortable level of spiritual performance that neither embarrasses us nor makes us stand out.
Unlike cruise-control Christians, race-car drivers are totally focused, pushing their vehicles to mechanical limits with foot constantly on the accelerator. They're not interested in blending in but winning the race. This is what loving God with all our heart, soul, and mind means-making every effort to be holy.
Though obedience expresses love to God, they aren't identical. Love is essentially a motive that prompts and guides actions. Without love, apparent obedience may be self-serving-avoiding punishment, seeking blessings, fitting in with Christian culture, or simply following a compliant temperament.
Our love for God can only be a response to His love for us. "We love because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). The greatest obstacle to believing God loves us is guilt and condemnation. Charles Hodge observed that many Christians struggle to believe God loves them because they know they don't deserve it.
A tender conscience that alerts us to subtle sins like pride or resentment is valuable for holiness but can burden us with guilt. The solution is taking our sins to the Cross and pleading the cleansing blood of Jesus. When our consciences are cleansed, we're freed to love God wholeheartedly.
Faith and love are inseparably linked. Without either, it's impossible to please God. This love arises only as we grasp the gospel through faith. Paul wrote, "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love" (Galatians 5:6). John Owen, the Puritan theologian, made a surprising statement: "The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father is not to believe that he loves you."
Chapter 9
The Balance of Discipline and Dependence
Just as an airplane needs both wings to fly, Christians need both discipline and dependence to pursue holiness. Neither can function without the other. Discipline involves training ourselves in godliness, as Paul urged Timothy (1 Timothy 4:7), borrowing terminology from athletic training. Yet this self-discipline must be exercised in complete dependence on the Holy Spirit's enabling power.
Scripture repeatedly pairs dependence and responsibility. Psalm 127:1 says the Lord must build the house and watch the city, yet builders must labor and watchmen stand guard. Nehemiah demonstrated this balance when facing threats while rebuilding Jerusalem's walls: "We prayed to our God and posted a guard."
Paul exemplified dependent discipline in Philippians 4:11-13, saying he "learned to be content" through Christ's strength. This wasn't passive reception but active learning empowered by his union with Christ. Similarly, in Colossians 1:28-29, Paul described his ministry: "To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me."
The common phrase "Let the Lord live His life through me" suggests a problematic passivity. When struggling to love a difficult brother, I once thought God should love through me, but realized God was enabling me to love. We aren't passive vessels but active participants empowered by God.
While I oppose the passive approach to holiness, I'm equally concerned about the self-discipline approach. Though I practice and advocate spiritual disciplines, they aren't our source of strength-Christ is. Like farmers who can plow, plant, fertilize, irrigate, cultivate, and harvest but cannot make crops grow or control weather, we must perform our spiritual duties while recognizing that without the Spirit's life-giving power, our disciplines are useless.
Prayer expresses our dependence on Christ. A meager prayer life reveals self-reliance on our discipline and perceived goodness. Psalm 119 demonstrates balanced dependent discipline-the writer prays for God to teach, direct, and turn his heart while also disciplining himself to hide God's word in his heart, recount it, rejoice in it, and meditate on it.
A chief characteristic of our sinful nature is an attitude of independence toward God. Even when we intellectually acknowledge our dependence, we habitually act independently. God often allows us to fall before temptation precisely to teach us experientially that we truly depend on Him for growth in holiness.
Chapter 10
The Power of Whole-Hearted Commitment
Commitment, once highly esteemed, has fallen out of favor in today's society. Yet Olympic athletes demonstrate the necessity of commitment to achieve excellence. Similarly, pursuing holiness requires absolute commitment. When Paul shifted from doctrine to practice in Romans, he began by calling for commitment: "offer your bodies as living sacrifices." This commitment must be to God Himself, not merely to moral values or a Christian lifestyle.
Paul urges us to commit ourselves to God, not just to a holy lifestyle. Many people from previous generations lived moral lives but weren't necessarily committed to God Himself. As believers, we must avoid making the same mistake. Our pursuit of holiness should be to please God, not to feel good about ourselves or avoid feelings of defeat.
Commitment to holiness means commitment to obedience without exceptions-no secret sins, no sinful habits we refuse to surrender. Though sinless perfection isn't attainable in this life, our firm intention must be not to sin willfully. The psalmist took an oath to follow God's laws, making his commitment as strong as possible.
William Law observed that common swearing persists because "men have not so much as the intention to please God in all their actions." Our lack of holiness stems not from ignorance or inability but from never thoroughly intending it. The intention to please God in all our actions is key to commitment.
Without commitment to obedience without exception, we'll constantly make exceptions with a "just one more time" mentality. Every surrender to temptation makes the next surrender easier, as sin exerts "ever-increasing wickedness" when not consistently resisted. Whether the temptation seems small or large, yielding weakens our commitment to resist sin.
Beyond making an overall commitment to holiness, we need specific commitments in areas where we're particularly vulnerable to sin. Job, though described by God as "blameless and upright," made a specific covenant with his eyes not to look lustfully at women. Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the king's food that violated Jewish dietary laws, despite potential deadly consequences.
Does this emphasis on commitment without exception seem too rigorous or legalistic? God truly is this strict because He cannot compromise His holiness. Though we won't keep these commitments perfectly, perfection should be our aim-just as soldiers aim not to be hit in battle. But this commitment is grounded in God's mercy and grace, not legalism.
Paul based his call for commitment on "God's mercy"-the entire gospel message of justification, peace with God, freedom from condemnation, and the promise of future glory. As John Calvin noted, we'll never worship God with sufficient zeal until we understand how indebted we are to His mercy. Grace provides both the motive for commitment and the power to fulfill it.
Chapter 11
Living By Biblical Convictions
In a society where moral consensus has vanished and everyone creates their own moral code, even many evangelicals have drifted from absolute truth. We must develop Bible-based convictions-determinative beliefs that affect how we live-rather than simply absorbing the values of Christian culture around us. A belief is what you hold, but a conviction is what holds you.
Paul establishes in Romans 12:2 that we face only two alternatives: conforming to the pattern of this world or being transformed by the renewal of our minds. Like Psalm 1 describes, we're either influenced by sinful society or by God's Word-there's no neutral ground. All believers exist somewhere on this continuum, moving either toward worldly influence or Scripture's influence.
Our position is determined by our attitude toward God's Word and time spent meditating on it. The person living toward the Scripture end of the continuum delights in God's law and meditates on it "day and night"-thinking about biblical truth with a view to its application. Without actively seeking Scripture's influence, we'll inevitably fall under the influence of our materialistic, self-centered culture.
The transformation Paul describes in Romans 12:2 involves a deep internal change in our character that produces outward behavioral change. Like a mother telling her dirty child to "go take a shower," we're directed to place ourselves under the transforming action of God's Word and Spirit. We cannot transform ourselves, but we must position ourselves to be transformed through continually submitting our minds to Scripture.
To develop Bible-based convictions, we must first be convinced that Scripture is God's authoritative Word-that what Scripture says, God says. We must approach the Bible with humility, recognizing our understanding is incomplete, and asking the Holy Spirit to teach us. Despite decades of Bible study, we should approach Scripture daily as little children, not merely to confirm our existing opinions but to be taught anew.
We must "store up" God's truth in our hearts, treasuring it as something of immense value. The most effective way to treasure God's Word is through Scripture memorization. Though this discipline has fallen out of practice in our convenience-oriented culture, we cannot effectively pursue holiness without God's Word stored in our minds where the Holy Spirit can use it to transform us.
Bringing ourselves under Scripture's transforming influence means more than acquiring biblical knowledge. Mere accumulation of Bible facts without application leads to spiritual pride-"knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." In contrast, "knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness" is Scripture applied to life, resulting in godly behavior.
While developing Bible-based convictions requires disciplined Bible study, memorization, meditation and application, God's grace remains central. God's love for us never diminishes when we struggle with these disciplines-His love is based solely on our union with Christ. The gospel assures us that Christ's righteousness has become ours, our sins were laid on Him, and His blood cleanses us from all sin.
Chapter 12
Choosing Holiness One Decision at a Time
The Bible isn't just for increasing knowledge but for guiding conduct. Life consists of constant choices with moral consequences, from our thoughts while driving to how we interact with others.
The practice of putting off sinful attitudes and putting on Christlike character involves a constant series of choices. As Paul instructed in Ephesians 4:25-32, we choose whether to tell truth or lie, deal with anger or let it smolder, be honest or steal, share with others or spend on ourselves, speak helpful words or criticism, and be kind or harbor bitterness.
Through these repeated choices, we develop spiritual habit patterns. Romans 6:19 shows how believers once offered themselves to "ever-increasing wickedness" but should now offer themselves to "righteousness leading to holiness." Sin reinforces sinful habits, while righteous actions develop holy character.
The pursuit of holiness is like a quilt-individual "squares" of discipline, dependence, commitment, convictions, and beholding Christ's glory are beautiful on their own, but they must be sewn together through obedience, one choice at a time. Just as athletes train physically, we must train ourselves spiritually toward godliness through our daily choices.
This is where the challenge intensifies. We may agree with Scripture about a particular sin and commit to eliminate it, but when temptation returns, we struggle to say no. Every day we're training ourselves toward either lying or truthfulness, selfishness or unselfishness, anger or forgiveness, impurity or purity.
Making right choices involves mortification-putting sin to death. Paul teaches in Romans 8:13 that we must "put to death the misdeeds of the body" by the Spirit to live. This is our responsibility, not something we merely turn over to God, yet it can only be accomplished through the Spirit's enabling power.
Mortification means seeing sin for what it truly is-rebellion against God, breaking His law, despising His authority, and grieving His heart. This perspective is essential for effective mortification. We must recognize that persistent sin represents our exalting personal desires above God's will.
Since sin appeals through our desires (what older writers called "affections"), mortification involves subduing these desires that cry out for fulfillment. This struggle between conviction and desire requires intense effort, as our sinful desires are never satisfied and run deep.
Because this battle is so difficult, we need spiritual friends for mutual encouragement, challenge, and prayer support-the principle of "synergism" where two working together accomplish more than two working separately. While mortifying sin, we must simultaneously practice "vivification"-bringing to life Christlike character traits through the Spirit's power.
When we fail in mortification, we must avoid using grace as an excuse while embracing it as the remedy through genuine repentance. Only the gospel's grace gives us courage to continue after repeated failures, as forgiveness received freely becomes the motivation for obedience.
