Walking in the Fear of the Lord (Part Two)
By Jay Wegter
Adapted from: Gerhard O. Forde, On being a Theologian of the Cross, Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518, Eerdmans, 1997, and adapted from: Gardiner Spring, The Attraction of the Cross, Banner of Truth, 1983.
I. By the cross of Christ we come to know the ruinous nature of sin.
A. The cross is a monument to the world that man deserves to die (Gardiner Spring). The
intensity of our moral depravity and the infinite demerit of our sin are taught by the cross. Nothing but the deepest disaster (human rebellion against God) could have justified the sacrifice of the eternal Son of God. The cross shows us man’s helplessness and depravity (G. Spring, p. 26) (Is 53:4-9; Gal 3:22).
Man’s state is hopeless without the cross. The eternal Son of God was smitten by the sword of divine justice in the ‘room and place’ of man. We can no longer doubt that man is vile and deserving of the wrath of God. This lesson the cross teaches us is repulsive to sinners—it offends because it convicts us of our sinfulness and of our ill desert (what we deserve). The cross is the proof of human guilt inscribed in blood (Spring, pp. 206-207). The cross is the great divider of men. Its flames of justice burned against God’s beloved Son. Now by that bloody propitiation God is satisfied; but inextinguishable fury will burn against that man who disowns the substitution of God’s Son, and nothing can protect that individual from coming wrath (Heb 2: 1-3; 10:26-31) (Ibid, p. 28).
B. The cross, by showing man’s ill desert, reveals the human condition. The cross kills our
optimism that man can be improved. The perennial ‘theology’ of our fallen race is one of human potential. The cross says the opposite: that we are condemned—that the Fall wrecked our humanity and left it floating like debris on the surface of the ocean. The cross ‘cure’ is drastic; for it slays the hope of survival of self. Our natural carnal religious optimism suggests that we have the ability to place our feet on the ‘river bottom’ of our depravity and walk upstream against the current. We instinctively assume that we must try to do our best and that God will make up for our shortcomings (Forde, p. 18). Scripture tells us that the law way is a dead end, “the law is not of faith” (Gal 3:12).
II. By the cross of Christ our religious ‘instincts’ are overturned.
A. The cross reveals our best works as deadly sins. Not just dead works; but ‘deadly works’
because they keep us from total trust in Christ. “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Heb 9:14)? Our good works (prior to salvation) are deadly sins because they cause us to defend against naked trust in the mercy of God. ‘Good works’ prior to salvation actually work against unconditional grace. Prior to salvation, any trust in works our works blocks full reliance upon the compassion of God in Christ (Forde, pp. 32-33; 37).
The cross of Christ is intended to kill our religious aspirations. “For not knowing about God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes” (Rom 10:3-4). Argues Luther, deadly sins are found in pious places. Our works entice us away from bare trust in God’s mercy. Thus, works are deadly sins where there is not the fear of God. The fear of God keeps us from trusting in our works and attempting to make them a support of the soul. The cross of Christ slays self assurance because genuine fear of God causes a man to be pleased with God; not self. “Therefore, the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith” (Gal 2:24) (Ibid, pp. 38-40).
B. Man’s religious sensibilities of ‘self-help’ are demolished by the cross of Christ. Our authors
agree that from birth we are attracted to a ‘Romish’ religious scheme. We could summarize the Romish religious mindset as, “Do your best and God will do the rest.” This slogan does not seem pernicious on the surface, but it is spiritually deadly to the soul. Perhaps the reason why we do not recognize that this slogan is hostile to the cross of Christ is he because the church today is so weak on the gospel. Our intent at this juncture is not to degrade our Roman Catholic friends; but to point out that the doctrines of Rome never rise above the impotence of natural religion.
In natural religion, we instinctively assume that we must try to do our best and that God will make up for our shortcomings (Forde, p. 24). Natural religion suggests that our works make us fit objects of divine mercy. The false professor of Christianity appears to trust in Christ alone; but his profession is in word only, and not in heart. Secretly he cleaves to his own righteousness. The cross shows the wickedness involved in self-trust, evincing that person’s hostility to God’s free salvation.
But why would a religious sinner oppose free salvation in Christ? The answer is that the self-righteous man is reluctant to be under obligation to Christ alone (owing all to Him). The preference of the natural man, contends Gardiner Spring, is to rely on his own wretched performances over the great work of Jesus the Lord (Spring, p. 54).
By way of example of self-trust, the Roman Catholic mass is a pernicious system which magnifies outward ordinances above heart religion. The elements of bread and wine are supposedly transformed into the literal blood and body of Christ, and then offered to God in a way that is considered effectual in procuring pardon. This is openly hostile to the finished work of Christ at Calvary’s cross (Spring, p. 58).
C. All false religion, even that which mistakenly goes by the name “Christian,” is a divergence
from the truth of the cross that salvation from beginning to end is the work of God. Roman Catholicism is a radical error which incorporates a doctrine of human works of supererogation.
This is an anti-cross system which proposes that all Jesus has done for men is to enable them to merit the favor of God for themselves. In that scheme Christ’s “deserving” makes them “deserving”—His merit consists in giving merit to the obedience of faithful Catholics. It is as if Christ has opened a ‘fund’ of surplus merit (over and above what God requires) in order to make up for forfeited merit. We must understand why this is hostile to the cross and deadly to the eternal souls of men (Spring, pp. 84-85).
The Romish scheme above suggests that by means of religion and morality a man may liquidate some of his debt to God. This makes a man an enemy of the cross and of God because it constitutes an open denial that salvation is all of God. Men are Romanists by nature—they hope to make a sort of claim on divine mercy by means of moral conduct and religion. Even their hardships experienced in the course of life are placed in the mix of personal merit (Spring, p. 208). We wouldn’t be telling the truth if we did not stress that this Romish concept (that mercy can be merited, and Christ will make up the deficit) will send a man to hell as much as any other damnable heresy will (Spring, p. 208).
Catholicism teaches that Christ’s righteousness is infused into us (imparted to us or transferred to us so that we become acceptable to God). This is NOT the justification purchased by Christ’s finished work on the cross. The biblical gospel teaches that the true believer is treated as righteous NOT due to infused righteousness; but because of Christ, his covenant Head is righteous. This makes all the difference in the world. For Christ’s righteousness is an alien righteousness which is imputed to believers (set to their account). God justifies through faith alone. The cross of Christ furnished this completed justification. This is why God accepts believing sinners—there is no other way for your cause to be good. Faith in the cross is faith in God’s testimony concerning His Son. God cannot lie (Heb 6:17-20). He is the Author of the cross and its accomplishments (Jn 3:16-21) (Spring, pp. 92-96, 99).
D. It is easy, even for religious men, to reject the testimony God has given concerning His Son.
Our fallen race is naturally inclined to reject it. For, the cross contains principles which are at war with the idolatry of self. As long as the sinner’s selfishness, pride, and love of sinning are undisturbed, he will resist God’s testimony concerning the cross. Selfishness, pride, and love of sinning must receive a deadly wound from the cross. Only then will the person confide in God. Saving faith is self-renouncing. It has God, not self, as its ultimate object of trust (Ibid, p. 104). The impenitent, stubborn heart battles against the conviction of the Spirit. There is no more fierce or severe struggle. Pride and self-righteousness are tenacious. The Spirit’s quickening power brings the elect sinner low and makes him willing to exercise dutiful, penitent, humble, submissive faith in the cross—he goes from an enemy to a friend of God. Every saved person has this testimony from the book of Isaiah in common, “Then you will say on that day, I will give thanks to Thee, O Lord; for although Thou wast angry with me, Thine anger is turned away, and Thou dost comfort me. Behold, ‘God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; for the Lord God has become my salvation.’ Therefore you will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation” (Is 12:1-3) (Ibid, pp. 10, 113).
E. To trust in the cross alone for salvation is to repudiate all other proposed places of refuge.
Gardiner Spring observes that whenever a man has been awakened to the danger of sin by the Spirit of God, no matter that person’s background (cultural or religious), that man will embrace the unqualified conviction that the cross is his only hiding place. And, with that conviction comes the utmost horror of all former refuges of lies (Is 28:14-22). Saving faith reaches up to he cross in an exercise of both intellect and affection—the will consents and that person suddenly regards all former refuges as lies; false hopes and worthless as spider webs. “I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day” (2 Tim 1:12) (Ibid, pp. 38, 100).
III. Where there is no fear of God, men retain their controversy with God.
A. The cross brings a redemption which presupposes that the sinner deserves eternal death.
Men will admit that they are sinners; but they have no inward sense of measure of their ill desert (what they deserve from God’s justice). They don’t (and cannot) feel it would be right for God to inflict upon them this terrible eternal doom of perdition. Thus, every man who lacks the fear of God has a quarrel or controversy with God concerning what sin deserves. Only when by the illumination of the Spirit men reflect on who God is and what they are in themselves with they have fewer difficulties with eternal punishment (Ibid, pp 129, 133).
B. The reality of our ill desert due to sin is a withering and alarming subject. It elicits shame,
blame, embarrassment; it crushes and brings a person low. The mind naturally revolts, considering it to be a ‘conflict of interest’ to dwell upon the turpitude of their crimes against heaven. The controversy with God is a pitched battle over the issue of what personal sin deserves. Men remain God’s enemies because they hate His inflexible justice. They cannot bear the truth that God is right and man is terribly wrong. Man’s bias keeps him disguising, discounting, and covering his sin and running from the enormity of his guilt (Prov 28:13).
When he hears about the holiness and justice of God, a conflagration erupts in his conscience. If his iniquity were displayed comprehensively but for a moment, he would cry out for the rocks to fall upon him rather than face God: “And the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come; and who is able to stand” (Rev 6:15-17)? The sinner (while the controversy remains) prefers no God to the doctrine of a God who threatens man with hell (Ibid, pp. 134-137, 147-148).
IV. The fear of God causes the sinner to place his hope in the cross.
A. The fear of God utterly slays self-assurance. The awakened sinner comes to understand that if
God should mark iniquities—who could stand (Ps 130:3)? If God’s wrath is kindled, you are gone (Ps 2:12; Jer 15:14). As long as a person comforts himself that his works are only dead and not deadly, he continues to offend God and draw glory from Him. The fear of God is inseparable from ongoing naked trust in His mercy through Christ. This trust involves continual rejection of all creaturely support and consolation in one’s works. Holiness and divine law seal off all pious-religious escape routes. Faith in the cross means that all our security is from God alone and his forgiveness. “But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou may be feared” (Ps 130:4) (Forde, pp. 42-47).
B. It takes the cross to shock us into seeing the hopelessness of self-reliance—only then will we
take responsibility for sin. While a person is doing what he is in himself, he sins and seeks himself in everything. Man, by his own will, CANNOT prepare himself for grace. Attempts to do so are a denial of God’s power to save. Doing one’s best (and relying on it) means that the will is yet bound to self (Luke 18:9-14). The Law of God ‘cross-examines’ us so that we might despair of a solution in ourselves and be ‘cross-justified’ (Gal 3:22-27). Only the gospel of the cross can take us off of self—transferring our trust from self to Christ (Ibid, pp. 50, 54, 58-59).
C. God can only be known by means of the cross. Only those ‘bankrupted’ of self-righteousness
receive grace. We must be brought to a place where we utterly despair of our own ability. Any speck of trust in doing our best and we have not despaired. God refuses to be known except by the cross. God ‘hides Himself’ in the cross and refuses to be known any other way (Ibid, pp. 65-66, 80).
D. God makes Himself known through the cross by first of all crucifying our self-righteousness.
The natural man feels he must do his best—as if his efforts can play a part in mollifying God; placating God; and in some ways obligating God. Carnal supports of the soul aim at winning God’s favor and repairing the self. These efforts are all doomed to fail. All cross-less, grace-less religion amounts to nothing more than sinful man imagining he can do something to protect himself, and find safety from the terror of divine majesty. Any confidence in carnal supports of the soul gives evidence that a person does not know God (Ibid, pp. 79-82).
IV. What the cross does to us.
A. Before we can see God in the cross we must see ourselves in the cross—this means that the
cross functions first as a ‘mirror’. God conceals His divine majesty in the cross. He works sub contrario in the cross—that is He works through abject weakness which is contrary to His reasoned attributes of strength. The net effect is to arrest us—to kill our religious aspirations; for the cross reveals our best works as deadly sins. We are startled by the cross to find that sin has been multiplied through our supposed morality; for the law makes sinners worse and it makes them proud and presumptuous. The law does not improve sinners. The law way of finding God is a dead end street. The cross is designed to make us despair of our natural moral and religious powers (Rom 8:2-4; 5:20-21; 7:13ff.) (Ibid, pp. 25-26, 31-32).
To be face to face with the message of the cross is unnerving. Your conscience can no longer defend you. You look in the ‘mirror’ of the cross and you behold the fact that your sins have done this. We will only see God in the cross when we first see self in the ‘mirror’ of the cross. Luther explains this as follows:
You are the one who is torturing Christ thus, for your sins have surely wrought this . . . Therefore when you see the nails piercing Christ’s hands, you can be certain that it is your work. When you behold the crown of thorns, you may rest assured these are your evil thoughts, etc. (Ibid, pp. 7-8, 77).
The Reformer’s point is this, that the cross closes in on us so we understand we are crucified with Christ. His story becomes our story. The cross cure is drastic—it has to kill you before it can make you alive (Ibid, pp. 13-15).
B. The cross doesn’t just inform; it attacks and afflicts us. The knowledge of God comes when
“God does Himself to us” (Ibid, p. 90). In other words, because we are sinners, God can only be known through suffering. The false god of natural religion is constructed around our projects. We invent a god who is amenable to our designs and goals and then we solicit his compliance. The God of Scripture is the polar opposite of the human improvement scheme— for He strikes at our usual religious aspirations which we attempt under the wisdom of the law. By means of the cross, He demolishes our religious sensibilities. We feel naked, exposed, flushed out of hiding. Our instinctive response is to want to return to the ‘safety’ of doing something (Ibid, pp. 88-90, 93).
The natural man regards his moral and spiritual state much as an athlete does his game, “I just have to work on a couple of principles here; I can do this.” The cross comes to extinguish the religious desires of the old Adam and Eve—to show us the utter ineptitude of our will in pleasing and knowing God by law. Resentment and a turbulent conscience arise when our religious sensibilities are attacked. This is why the cross offends—men love the opposite of the cross. They want natural wisdom, man’s glory, human power, and human deeds. The cross exposes all of these false integration points as idolatrous (Ibid, pp. 93, 99). The cross proclaims that God is the Governor of the world and that He is right and we are wrong. Every true Christian on every continent acquiesces to the rectitude of the penalty— God is right and we are terribly wrong, “I deserve eternal death!” By means of the cross, the proud heart of the sinner is humbled, he accepts the punishment of his iniquity revealed in the gospel; he submits to God. Then, and only then, his controversy with God terminates; for the believer truly approves God’s sentence. There can be no acceptance of the gospel while the sinner quarrels with God’s justice and God’s law. To oppose God’s precepts and penalties is to be a stranger to divine mercy (Forde, pp. 148-150).
V. The cross and good works
A. Good works begin only when by the cross the old Adam is put to death and the new man
appears (2 Cor 5:17; Col 3:10). The cross must slay the old man’s fleshly orientation that by good works one is going to become righteous. The cross reverses everything—giving us new values; for Christ is the Creator of the new man (our works cannot make a new man). Christ is the Architect; the Builder; and the Blueprint of the new man (Col 3:10).
Being righteous before God without works clears the way for works. When the reality of justification sinks in; preposterous joy hits us—a new day dawns when we understand by the Spirit that the righteousness we have in Christ is complete in itself. It is like the joy and ecstasy of being in love. Justification in Christ is all-sufficient. “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness” (Rom 4:5) (Ibid, pp. 104-106).
B. Now in Christ good works are God’s works in the believer (Eph 2:10; Gal 2:20). We have all
we need in Christ. For, faith restored by grace plants all new motives in us. A good work is good only if it is done out of faith, hope, and love. The cross of Christ takes away the possibility of doing something meritorious before God.
The power to do good comes from the wild claim that everything has already been done in Christ. The outrageous assertion that in Christ all that God demands has been fulfilled has become the basis for good works. None of our works now are affect our acceptance with God; for Christ dwells in us by faith and works through us (Gal 2:20) (Ibid, pp. 109-111).
C. The believer is aroused to work through living faith in Christ’s work. In the gospel order, the
impetus to do good works comes entirely from being moved, aroused, and motivated by the completed work of Christ who dwells in the believer through faith. Says Luther, “Deeds of mercy are aroused by the works through which Christ saved us.”
Those who find their all and all in Christ are motivated to be imitators of God. “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma” (Eph 5:1-2). It was Augustine who said that Christ must first be a sacrament for us BEFORE He can be an example. His point is that our motive to walk as Jesus did will only be true IF Christ is our righteousness; status; standing; favor; sonship; and acceptance before God. (Note that in all non-evangelical forms of Christendom the order is inverted; Christ is an example to follow first. In so doing human works are made a support of the soul.) (Ibid, pp. 111-112).
D. The cross is the only way of holiness. Christians gain victory over sin by enjoying the favor
of God and by living in communion with the cross. Joy in the cross is evidence of the love of God and the hatred of sin. The cross subdues hearts—making friends out of enemies; for the cross is the refuge of the polluted and the condemned.
The motives and influences whereby persons become holy are not found in a purely legal dispensation. A legal spirit operates by fear—and it awakens no holy affections. Those under the rule of law alone are slaves and not children (Gal 3:21-24; 2 Cor 3:4-11). But the law plays a vital role in leading us to the dispensation of mercy in Christ (Gal 3:24-29).
VI. The truth of the cross is our only theology (Luther)
A. In contrast to instinctive religion, the cross differs from all other methods of changing man.
The cross does not attempt to harness natural inclinations. The cross works AGAINST natural inclinations. For the cross considers nothing accomplished until the living God has displaced every idol and the soul is disrobed of every badge of loyalty to other masters—the power of the cross secures this change. Of course this is another reason why unsaved men hate the cross; for the cross is utterly clear concerning God’s ownership of us (Spring, p. 305).
B. The power, wisdom, and truth of the cross is seen in:
- Its intrinsic excellence as the power and wisdom of God
- Its binding obligations to believe and follow Christ
- Its perfect fitness to reverse man’s ruin
- Its effectiveness in securing everlasting life beyond the grave
- Its power to attach the conscience to confidence in the Son
- Its ability to give the knowledge of self and of God
CONCLUSION: How you view your character (whether objectively or not) is revealed in how
you treat the cross. The cross is the test of character. Christ is appointed for the rise and fall of many (Luke 2:34). To reject the cross is to be an enemy of God. Friends of the cross are those who love God’s character and who therefore serve God. The godly renounce every other confidence but the cross of Christ. Their sole dependence is upon Christ who is able to save them to the uttermost (Heb 7:25-26). Thus, the cross is the test which reveals a person’s source of trust for salvation (Ibid, pp. 205, 209, 306).