One of the
greatest gifts
available to the born again Christian is the
opportunity to be progressively spiritually transformed into the holy
likeness of the God of grace as we daily rest in the finished work of
Christ on the cross. (John 19:30).
Jesus
said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will
give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle
and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke
is easy and my burden is light” (Matt.11:28-30).
What
does resting in the finished work of Christ really mean?
To begin
with, let us first look at what resting in the finished work
of Christ is not. It does not mean that God has, with salvation,
finished his work within us. Nor does it mean that the experience of
salvation itself is all that is necessary for us to live a holy
Christian life. The power to live a holy life certainly became
available to us through salvation. But salvation itself is only the
beginning.
Resting in the finished work of Christ means that since Christ has
indeed finished His work on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins,
now we may participate fully in His resurrection life by taking
advantage of the opportunity to be transformed into His image by the
power of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 3: 17,18).
Why does it seem as though so few
Christians are actually experiencing this rest?
After their
salvation, many Christians have suffered
disappointment and disillusionment as they have struggled by their own
fleshly efforts to live a holy Christian life, having never truly
understood that it is the Holy Spirit’s function to produce the fruits
of righteousness in their lives (Gal. 5:16-24; Rom. 8:12-14).
Instead,
they have believed, having often been taught by leaders in
their own churches, that holy Christian living after salvation is
simply a matter of the choices and efforts they need to make. Many
Christians have suffered exasperation and confusion when they are told
that they need only combine biblically-based choices with some serious
effort on their part in order to experience victory over repetitive sin
patterns in their lives. They find that this combination does not work
effectively in their lives, no matter how determined their efforts.
This combining of various choices and efforts is represented to
struggling Christians as faith, but it is often, in reality,
self-reliance.
The
continued dependence upon the work of the Holy Spirit to develop
the character of Christ within us, in order for us to experience
victory over strongholds of sinful behavior, is conspicuously absent in
these teachings.
This significant
oversight, stemming from the performance or works
mentality so prevalent in our society and in much of Christianity
today, leads to a poverty of inspiration regarding the progressive
nature of sanctification.
What
is “the progressive nature of
sanctification”?
God has
made available to every Christian an ongoing process by which
he or she may become more Christ-like. This process is referred to as
progressive sanctification and it is meant to bring us into the
fullness of the experience of rest that is revealed to us throughout
the Bible (Lev. 23:26-32; Deut. 6:10-12; Psalm 95:8-11; Isa. 30:1-15;
Heb. 3:15-4:11).
In
examing sanctification, we see two prominent actions arising:
separation from evil and dedication unto God. Progressive
sanctification is what God has done, is doing, and will do in our lives
to bring us into the experiential reality of holy living. It must be
viewed at once as past, present, and future; or instantaneous,
progressive, and complete. God has always been, is, and will be. This
is a mystery. But, in a similar way, we have been sanctified, are being
sanctified, and will be entirely sanctified someday as we stand before
Him in heaven.
We must
choose to cooperate in the process of sanctification by
continually making decisions to keep ourselves from evil influence (2
Cor. 6:14-7:1). But these decisions in themselves do not sanctify us.
It is God who sanctifies us (Phil. 2:13; Ezek. 20:10-12;1 Peter 1:2).
Just
like salvation, the progressive work of sanctification is
available to all (that are saved), but it is not necessarily deeply and
experientially apprehended by all. Just like salvation, it cannot be
earned or purchased. And, just like salvation, sanctification is a gift
of grace and must be received by faith. Yet, our faith is not in our
salvation or our sanctification. Our faith is in the very person and
finished work of Christ, and His plan for the transformation of our
souls through the present work of the Holy Spirit (2 Thess. 2:13).
How
is this transformation begun?
It was
by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ that we
first began to experience our new life in Christ Jesus, and it is by
continuing in the ways of grace through faith that we will experience
more fully this new life.
We first
experienced spiritual rebirth and the resulting new life by
responding to the convicting work of the Holy Spirit within us. We were
sorry for our sins, confessed our need to be saved through faith in
Christ, and received God’s forgiveness. We were then spiritually reborn
by the power of God made available to us through the sacrifice of
Christ on the cross. Trusting in Jesus’ work (the crucifixion) and
God’s power (the resurrection), our spirits were raised from the dead
into new life. By God’s grace through faith, we literally became new
creatures in Christ Jesus.
In a similar way,
the transformation of the soul begins to take
place through our willingness to submit to God combined with a genuine
sorrow for our current sins (James 4:7-10). We must confess our need to
be sanctified in those areas of our lives in which we still believe
ungodly lies and partake of sinful behavior. We can then invite and
rely on, by faith, the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit to reveal
and tear down any ungodly belief systems which have, within us, become
rebellious strongholds of godless self-determination. Through this
process, we can begin to experience significant transformation of our
souls.
Certainly,
at salvation, our spirits were born again, but our souls
(that is: our mind, our emotions, and our will) still need to be
transformed through God’s grace into the image of Christ, so that we
might experience God’s promised rest.
What must I do first?
It is
only by our recognition that God, through His great power, must
do for us what we cannot do for ourselves that we are able to apprehend
the grace necessary to experience this transformation of our souls.
Though we may have an ardent desire to be surrendered to God’s will,
our desire does not sanctify us. Though we may zealously do many great
works of service, which bless many people, we are not sanctified by our
efforts.
Holy
Christian living is not just how much we desire to please God, it
is also how much we allow the Holy Spirit to sanctify us, so that our
desires may originate from a truly godly motivation. It
is not only what we must do - though we must certainly make
every effort to separate ourselves from evil influences that may lead
to temptation and sin. But, even more importantly, we must continue to
believe and receive by faith in what Christ has already done for us,
the power for godly Christian living!
This seems too simple. I’ve heard so many
sermons and taken so many notes on what it takes to live a victorious
Christian life, and now you seem to be saying, “Just believe and
receive!”
Many of
those sermons could be likened to the advice of a father, if he
were to give his young son a new puppy and then launch into an
elaborately detailed explanation regarding the procedures of puppy
care, without ever explaining to the boy the simple fact that the puppy
must be given certain food to eat in order to grow into a healthy dog.
Many elaborately detailed sermons are being preached on how to do
Christianity, but very few are truly focused on accessing the necessary
source of power to experience fully our new life in Christ. What is
being preached is not, in itself, necessarily incorrect. It is just, as
the saying goes, “putting the cart before the horse.”
Let’s
stop esteeming the eloquent of speech and begin looking at the
fruit in the life of the individual Christian. Is the Holy Spirit
transforming your soul? Are the sinful patterns in your life really
being overcome or are you just accumulating lots of information about
God? The apostle Paul says, “My message and my preaching were not with
wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s
power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s
power” (1 Cor. 2:4-5). Our faith – resting on God’s power!
In his
book, The Wonderful Spirit-Filled Life, Charles Stanley
describes the impact this simple, but profound, truth had in his own
life. “It dawned on me that I had been like a branch straining to
produce fruit on its own. No wonder their was so little fruit in my
life. Branches were not designed to produce fruit – they were designed
to have fruit produced through them! I had been going about the whole
thing backward. In Galatians, Paul contrasts the deeds of the flesh
with the fruit of the Spirit. My approach had been to try to do deeds
of the Spirit. How foolish!
When I
finished the section on Hudson Taylor, I dropped to my knees
there on that cold concrete floor and began to cry. I was so happy. I
kept thinking, That’s it. It’s the vine that does the work. The fruit
is a product of the sap that runs from the vine into the branch. I
couldn’t get over the fact that the Holy Spirit was willing and able to
produce through me the very fruit I had been trying so hard to produce
on my own.
I was on
my knees for almost three hours just crying and thanking God
for opening my eyes to this wonderful truth. When I got up, I was a new
man. My whole perspective on the Christian life was different.” 1
God’s
power – simple – but profound.
Hmmm, I can see that it is difficult for us to
believe that complex problems don’t always require complex answers.
Yes, and
this difficulty causes a spiritual blindness to the simplicity
of God’s solution. Galatians 3:3 reveals mankind’s propensity for
complicating God’s plan of Spirit-based holy living: “Did you receive
the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are
you so foolish? After beginning with the Holy Spirit are you now trying
to attain your goal by human effort?” Yet, sadly, this is the
behavior of much of Christianity today!
Charles
Stanley said that he “had been going about the whole thing
backward!”
That’s
right! But First Peter 1:1-2 reveals the proper order and
perspective:
“Peter,
an apostle of Jesus Christ, – To God’s elect, strangers in the
world...who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to
Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in
abundance.” (Italics added).
First,
we are sanctified; then, we are able to be truly obedient! Only
as we continue to be sanctified will we continue to increase in our
sincere obedience to the Lord.
Further
enlightenment on both the source and process of sanctification
is found in First Thessalonians 5:23-24: “May God himself, the God of
peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul
and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The
one who calls you is faithful and he will do it” (Italics added).
Philippians
1:6 guarantees us that, “being confident of this, that he
who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the
day of Christ Jesus.” (Italics added)
What is the experience of God’s rest like? Is
it something I can feel?
Yes, in
a very real sense God’s rest is something we can feel. When we
stop trying to earn what God has freely given us, God’s rest can be
realized each day. We can, then, experience the peace and joy that
accompanies the freedom from the burden of striving to overcome sin and
trying to earn God’s recognition, acceptance, and love.
I experience
unpleasant feelings of anxiety,
conviction, and desperation because of the sins I keep committing. Will
those feelings go away?
Sin
draws us away from God’s rest. When we sin, we will sooner or later
feel bad about it. All of us, in this life, will continue to sin, but
as we sin less, the unpleasant feelings associated with past sinful
activity in our lives will be greatly diminished.
Also,
though the Holy Spirit will continue to convict us of our sins,
we will become better able to identify the difference between righteous
conviction of the Holy Spirit and our own shame-based
self-condemnation. This distinction grows more evident as we become
more Christ-like and gain confidence in God’s attitude of love and
mercy toward us.
What will I have to give up?
I once
saw a sign in front of a church, which read, “Jesus built a
bridge between heaven and earth using three nails and two pieces of
wood.” That bridge between heaven and earth is, of course, the cross of
Christ. We might also look at the expanse between heaven and earth as
representative of the distance between a personal experience of holy
living and the present state of our souls. While in this life, we must
cross over the divide between heaven and earth on the cross of Christ.
This journey is a process by which our souls are renewed through the
surrendering of our old ways of thinking. It is sometimes referred to
as “dying to self” (Eph. 4:22-24; Gal. 6:14-16; 2:20, 21; Rom. 8:13,14).
Though
we have been given new life in our spirit through faith in the
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our souls must continually die
to self in order to be raised up into new life. This is how we grow up
to be healthy Christians. It is how we cross over to the daily
experience of God’s rest.
Okay. In order to experience this rest, I need
to die to self. But how do I do that?
We begin
to experience this dying to self as we, before God,
consciously identify and reject
the lies we believe regarding our prideful predisposition toward
self-reliance. We have come to believe many lies derived from worldly
ideas and based on the prideful concept of godless self-determination -
not a reliance upon God, but, instead, on our own strengths and
capabilities. 1 Corinthians 4:7 says, “For who makes you different from
anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did
receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?”
Self-reliance
is considered a personal strength and an admirable
quality by most of society, but it is poison to the soul that would
depend on God. The soul that is self-reliant is neither led by God, nor
truly submitted to God. The one who trusts in self certainly does not
want to die to self! He will not allow God to do this necessary
sanctifying work within him. Thus, for the self-reliant, there is no
rest (Heb. 3:16-4:11).
But,
when we are willing to identify and reject the lies we believe
that encourage our self-reliance, the Holy Spirit can begin the inner
work which brings rest to the soul. The essence of this work is the
progressive, spiritual deconstruction and simultaneous reconstruction
of our soul, as it is re-formed into the image of Christ Jesus. It has
been said that “Satan builds a man up so that he can tear him down,
while the Lord tears a man down so He can build him up!”
The Holy
Spirit will respond to our desire for truth and repentance by
increasing our awareness of the many strongholds of self-based unbelief
in our soul. Then, our soul can find rest in the immediate experiential
realization of the very life of Christ through the voluntary surrender
of our whole self to God. We experience the blessing of God’s rest as
we continue to die to self by following these steps:
1.
Embracing the truth regarding our utter dependency upon God (1 Peter
1:18-21).
2.
Identifying the many self-reliant lies we have believed and ungodly
behavior that has accompanied them in our lives (James 4:13-17).
3.
Confessing and repenting of our fear-based, shame-based and
pride-based striving to be in control of our lives.
4.
Forgiving everyone who has offended us, recognizing that not
forgiving them is a means by which we try to stay in control of the
circumstances of our lives (Matt. 6:14-15; 18:21-35).
5.
Inviting the Holy Spirit to circumcise our heart, separating us from
the self-centered ways of our old nature (Rom. 2:28,29).
(These
steps are presented as a working model in the article Overcoming
Foundational Root Judgments)
I see that to enter God’s rest, we need to have
an attitude of dependence upon God and not be dependent on ourselves.
But what about the good works we are to do? Doesn’t James say,
“faith without deeds is dead”?
That’s right. We cannot
under-emphasize the necessity for godly choices
to be made on a daily basis in our lives and the accompanying efforts
required to put our faith into action. As James 2:18 declares, “Show me
your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.”
Faith does require action. If we deny this imperative and still claim
to be living a holy, obedient Christian life, we are deceived.
There is
much we are called to do while God is doing His work within us. In
fact, holiness cannot be perfected within us unless we are earnestly
trying to do the things we know are righteous and pleasing to the Lord.
Yes, faith without deeds
is dead. But, on the other hand, a deed
without faith is not pleasing to God! Romans 14:23 tells us that
“everything that does not come from faith is sin.” Since
faith in God is neutralized by self-reliance, our faith is only
truly active when we are dependent upon God’s plan for our lives. As we
become more like Christ through the sanctifying power of the Holy
Spirit, we become more dependent upon and obedient to God’s
determinations for our individual lives. From this dependence and
obedience, we are able to glorify God with ever-greater works!
If we
would enter His rest, we cannot deny the essential, life-giving
requirement of receiving grace by faith in the finished work of Christ.
What this means is that we must, first, trust in the finished work of
Christ by choosing to actively believe in the availability of God’s
power to change us instead of primarily depending on our own efforts to
live a holy life. Secondly, we must actively choose to invite the Holy
Spirit to set us free from the roots of our self-reliant
unbelief. Then, as we die to self
and become more like Christ, we will experience the blessing of His
rest. From this rest we may do all that God has called us to from the
proper motivation – selfless love.
Trust
in
the finished work – die to self – become more like Jesus. This
is how we enter His rest. Will you respond to His invitation? “Come to
me, all you who are weary and burdened... and you will find rest for
your souls” (Matt.11:
28-29).
1. Charles Stanley,
The Wonderful Spirit Filled Life, (Thomas Nelson
Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee) 1999, pp. 57-67
Copyright
©
2000 by R. Thomas Brass
All
rights reserved
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