As the ancient Israeli soldier gazes across the field of battle, he sees a sea of chariots and horses and soldiers far outnumbering his own. His hands tremble. His mouth dries. His breathing shortens. The gentle burn washes over him: fear. He struggles in vain to combat the thought, Will today be my last?

Since a child he has read, “When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 20:1). Now, in war, God didn’t feel as near as the soldier imagined as a child. Visions of glory are giving way to heat and stench and hoards growing fiercer under a blinding sun. He blinks back lightheadedness.

The enemy’s taunts grow louder as the cobra smiles at the mouse. Secret doubts begin to unman him. Even if the battle is ours, he reconsiders, the promise doesn’t ensure that I will live to share its victory.

A distant figure approaches. The men gather. The priest of God speaks to the soldiers,

Hear, O Israel, today you are drawing near for battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, for the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory. (Deuteronomy 20:3–4)

To his dismay, this word does not shake his mounting suspicions of dying a horrible death. What if God does not show up and fight with Israel?

Next, an officer’s voice barks,

Is there any man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it. (Deuteronomy 20:5)

He has no new house to dedicate.

The officer continues,

And is there any man who has planted a vineyard and has not enjoyed its fruit? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man enjoy its fruit.
(Deuteronomy 20:6)

Never did our soldier envy those with new vineyards like now.

And is there any man who has betrothed a wife and has not taken her? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her. (Deuteronomy 20:7)

He had been married for years.

Three groups of men turn from battle — he remains — with less horses, and less chariots, and less fellow soldiers than before. What little courage remained rides off with them.

His heartbeat drums in his ears, nearly drowning out the officer’s last word:

Is there any man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own. (Deuteronomy 20:8)

He hates himself for sighing. His heart calms, his legs regain feeling. As his breathing settles and the army fades behind his back, he comforts his questioning conscience, At least I’ll live to see tomorrow.

Seeing Tomorrow

The real-life scene illustrates cowardice in ancient Israel that still plagues professing Christian men today — a fear that keeps them from mission and manly conviction. Soldiers today turn away from battle before Philistines who won’t slash throats as much as gossip about them. For centuries, many have feared the flaming stake and hungry lion; today, we fear the shaking head and disinvitation to the friend group.

Why be too salty in a bland world, they reason, shine too brightly in this cave full of bats? Why go forth and risk the awkward silence, the chill of disapproval, the loss of this world and all its comforts? Rubber bullets suffice on their sins, and they see no need to cause a disturbance. These too say under their breath — albeit it, metaphorically — “At least I’ll live to see tomorrow.”

I believe that this scene of Israelite warfare and the exemptions God provides has something to teach us about God, cowardice, and ourselves.

Exemptions of Grace

First, it is noteworthy that God made special exemptions from military service for four groups of men. The first three pairs go together: Those who have not enjoyed their house, the fruit of their vineyard, or the love of their wife.

These three exceptions prevent the Israelite man from experiencing the covenant curses, which read, “You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall ravish her. You shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it. You shall plant a vineyard, but you shall not enjoy its fruit” (Deuteronomy 28:30).

In this, the Israelite was to learn about his gracious General. The God of Israel was no Pharoah, whipping his soldiers into compliance. He cared for his men. None would go forth to battle who had untasted joys at home. Each exemption spared from the curse and ensured each knew blessing (Isaiah 65:21–22). Israel’s soldiers had households growing with family, friends, and feasting, before the possibility of dying on the battlefield arose. They had something at home to defend.

Men of Melting Hearts

But a fourth provision is given, separate from the other three: one for those of melting hearts. Though God commands over and over to his men, “Do not be afraid, for I am with you to fight for you,” these weaker souls cannot be comforted. Their hearts tremble within; their sweat beads without. They do not yet trust the God of their fathers with so much on the line. They consent to a release of duty, turn their backs on their brothers, and ride away to soft beds and supple securities.

In Israel’s history, such men went home by the thousands. When Gideon approached his army with a similar proposition — “Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home and hurry away from Mount Gilead” — we read, “Then 22,000 of the people returned, and 10,000 remained” (Judges 7:3). For every man that stood fast, two of his intimidated brothers turned and hurried home.

God Fights One-Handed

What can we learn from this surprising provision to the cowardly?

First, we learn what Moses previously said, “The Lord (Yahweh) is a man of war; the Lord (Yahweh) is his name” (Exodus 15:3). The supreme Man of War needs no help from men. Moses saw God singlehandedly bring the world’s greatest power to its knees without one human warrior. Other armies and other gods fed men to war — searching the highways and byways for any able-bodied man, setting soldiers behind the army to kill deserters — our God needs no big army or many chariots or terrified soldiers to conquer his foes. Our God puts himself at disadvantage but is never at disadvantage.

“Our God puts himself at disadvantage but is never at disadvantage.”

And he does so to humble his people. The Lord dismisses 22,000, reasoning to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me’” (Judges 7:2). He ties one arm behind his back, so to speak, and topples gods and nations to prove, “Yahweh your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory” (Deuteronomy 20:4). The weakness of our God, ever since the beginning, is stronger than men (1 Corinthians 1:25).

Contagion of Cowardice

Second, though, we see that cowardice is a sickness that calls for quarantine.

Is there any man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own. (Deuteronomy 20:8)

Warfare in ancient Israel was a contest of faith. A man before the swarming foe quickly discovers what he truly believes. Are the unseen promises, and presence, of his God real? Before a massive army, the soldier meant something different when he called texts “life-verses.”

“A man before the swarming foe quickly discovers what he truly believes.”

These men heard God speak through his priest: “Let not your heart faint. Be not afraid. Tremble not nor succumb to terror. Yahweh himself goes out with you. He fights with you. He will save you.”

But this does too little for the unbelieving man. He does not trust that his King is with him. And notice: his unwarlike spirit disheartens his brothers. His cowardice is contagious. His questions make others question. His hesitations cause more to hesitate. His timidity rusts blades beside him. His long journey home is better for the army as the leper dwelling outside the camp spared the rest. Israel’s forces were stronger without panicked soldiers.

Word to Collapsing Hearts

So how shall we profit from this word to ancient Israel?

A word to those men with melting hearts today (and a reminder to our own hearts in the process): To those who would swallow their tongues, who blush for God and his gospel, who have no stomach for conflict — whether in confronting untruth or killing their own sin, who hold no faith that God can yet bring about the unlikely victory, to those who count their lives more dear than their King’s cause, who prize this world above the next, who roar behind avatars and whimper in person, who mumble at Christ’s promises and who are ready to fight when society is on their side

but shrink when devils and Philistines draw swords against their Master — to you it might be said, sheath your sword and go home.

God Almighty does not need your half-hearted, quaking service. He is never at a disadvantage. We wish you to find your valor, your faith in our conquering Captain, and remain among us — it would be your great privilege to do so. We wish to see a lionhearted trust in our God. We would find new strength rising in us to hear you respond as Leonidas’s general did when the countless enemy threatened to shoot enough arrows to block out the sun: “Then we shall have our battle in the shade!”

We wish you would stand firm as God’s men and believe, “Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, for Yahweh your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you victory.” We welcome you, desire your assistance, call you to entrust yourself to a trustworthy Savior and live for him — but if you will not have him decidedly as General, we cannot have you.

The cowardice of only ten spies soon proved so contagious, as to keep a whole nation from a victory they were “well able” to achieve (Numbers 13:30). You, in their lineage, unwittingly discourage God’s people and dampen his cause. Go home until God gives you a certain heart to venture on in his promises. But do not do so lightly. Buying a new field, purchasing new oxen, marrying a new bride, or being afraid will not discharge anyone from accepting and following Christ (Luke 14:16–24).

A courageous heart we earnestly pray for you since “cowards” will not finally inherit eternal life. “Do not fear what you are about to suffer,” Jesus charges his army in the vision at Patmos,

Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. (Revelation 2:10)

John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Providence.

As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. (1 Peter 1:15)

My hunch is that you are not a glib and shallow person. You are not the kind of person who would “pervert the grace of God into sensuality” (Jude 4). You are in earnest with the Lord, and you long to be holy. So do I. Indeed, what we deeply desire is nothing less than — may I come right out and say it? — sainthood.

But Christians like us — who care so sincerely about holiness and are reaching so diligently for its high standards — we face our own temptation. Let’s come right out and say that too. If others pervert the grace of God, we can “nullify the grace of God” (Galatians 2:21). We can have “a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge” (Romans 10:2). We can “go beyond what is written . . . being puffed up in favor of one against another” (1 Corinthians 4:6). How could it be otherwise? There is always, in this life, more than one way to lose our way!

Our very earnestness can become an opening to corruption, rot, and death. The great pastor and saint Robert Murray McCheyne warned his congregation, “Study sanctification to the utmost, but do not make a Christ of it. God hates this idol more than all others.” We should be serious about that too. So, let’s think about one way we can go so wrong, even while feeling we are so right.

Two Kinds of Holiness

Here is what we must understand. There are two kinds of holiness. One kind is Jesus’s holiness, and the other is our own self-invented holiness. Or to put it in other ways: There is the holiness of the Spirit, and there is the holiness of the flesh. There is the holiness from above, and the holiness from below. There is real holiness, and false holiness.

“Real holiness from Jesus is, of course, like Jesus.”

The difference is profound, even stark. But for us, it isn’t always easy to see the difference. Both kinds of holiness quote the Bible. Both talk about Jesus. Both go to church. Both are strict and firm and resolute. How then do these two holinesses differ?

Real holiness from Jesus is, of course, like Jesus. Look carefully at what our key verse actually says: “As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct” (1 Peter 1:15). His kind of holiness does not simply insist on a high moral standard. Any sinner can turn over a new leaf, and with enough willpower align externally with biblical norms. But real holiness reflects Jesus, it thinks like Jesus, its instincts resonate with Jesus. Real holiness embodies Jesus.

Beauty of True Holiness

When our Lord said, “Follow me” (Mark 1:17), he wasn’t recruiting our moral strengths to advance his cause. His call was and is, “I will teach you a new way of perceiving everything, including morality. I myself am how you avoid sin and become holy.”

Jesus is why the Bible speaks of “the beauty of holiness” (Psalm 96:9, KJV). His holiness is humane, life-giving, and desirable in every worthy way. His holiness is both serious enough to warn and light enough to laugh (1 Peter 5:8; Zechariah 8:5); it’s firm and yet also freeing (Deuteronomy 5:32; Malachi 4:2). When we encounter our Lord’s real holiness in someone today, it’s both dignifying and delightful.

But false holiness from us is, well, just us. It’s us at our worst, because it’s us exalting our smug superiority, us reinforcing our divisive preferences, us absolutizing our narrow rigidity, and so forth. It’s us asserting ourselves, in the name of the Lord, so that we become more demanding, more grim, more shaming of others.

Great Divide

I’ll make it still worse. Because false holiness comes so naturally to us, it feels good. Our moral fervor feels moral. But it isn’t. Our moral fervor is immoral. In those moments when we have enough self-awareness to see our carnal holiness for what it is, we are peering into a pit of hell. In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis teaches us,

The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport and back-biting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither. (102–103)

If this is so, and it is, then our pursuit of holiness is complicated. We might have expected a choice between two simple categories: sin versus holiness. But in reality, we are facing three categories: (1) sin, (2) our kind of holiness, and, (3) Jesus’s kind of holiness. And the great divide is not between (1) and (2). The great divide is between (2) and (3).

Heart of His Holiness

If our holiness is no more than that — our wretched rightness — then our holiness is a polished form of evil. The Pharisees proved that. They were morally earnest people and the archvillains of the Gospels.

“If our holiness is no more than our wretched rightness, then our holiness is a polished form of evil.”

The Pharisees hated Jesus, even while many sinners gravitated to him. Why? Because his kind of holiness has no pride at all. He isn’t pushy and strident and harsh. He really is “gentle and lowly” (Matthew 11:29). And that part of him isn’t a concession, moderating his holiness. It’s at the very heart of his holiness, because it is the very heart of Jesus himself. His kind of holiness melts in the mouths of all who humble themselves before him.

This distinction explains something that perplexed me for years. The most repulsive people I’ve encountered along the way are not the worldly party boys on their weekend binges; they are harsh “church people” with their high standards — and no forgiveness. But the loveliest people I’ve ever known have been sinners of many kinds who are turning from both their coarsened evil and their refined evil, and they are humbly opening up to Jesus and his grace for the undeserving.

When I hang out with them, Jesus is present. Sometimes I am moved to tears. But among genuinely holy people, I do not feel cornered, pressured, or shamed by their negative scrutiny. The real saints are too holy for that arrogant foolishness. And I hope you have a ton of friends like that!

Not Righteousness of My Own

It isn’t just our blatant sins that need correction. Our counterfeit holiness needs correction too. It doesn’t need intensification. A. W. Tozer wrote of his generation, “A widespread revival of the kind of Christianity we know today in America might prove to be a moral tragedy from which we would not recover in a hundred years” (Keys to the Deeper Life, 18). I believe that applies even more today.

What self-righteous holiness needs is not success, power, and prominence, but failure, collapse, and devastation. Then we can humbly receive Jesus, with the empty hands of faith, and enter into the profound experience Philippians 3:8–9 describes:

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.

Audio Transcript

Happy Monday, and welcome back to the podcast. Today, I’m going to batch several questions together all on the same Bible text: Colossians 1:20. Here’s the first one, from John, a listener to the podcast in Mullumbimby, Australia. “Pastor John, hello! What does it mean that God reconciled to himself all things, whether in heaven or on earth? And why did he need to reconcile all things to himself?”

A listener named Ryan writes in, “Dear Pastor John, a friend of mine and I have been discussing Colossians 1:20 and the reconciliation of ‘all things’ in heaven and on earth, making peace by the blood of the cross. What does this mean for those who are not elect? Does Colossians 1:19–20 allude to a reconciliation for both elect and non-elect alike? Many thanks from a longtime listener!”

And a listener named Lake writes in, “Pastor John, I understand that earth needs reconciliation. But what’s in heaven needing reconciling?” So also asks Vikki in Dayton, Ohio. “Pastor John, Colossians 1:20 seems to imply that not just earth but also heaven has been reconciled to God. The ladies in my Bible study group can’t agree here. Some think Paul means the general universe. Others think he means the actual heavenly abode of God. We’re wondering which is correct? It would seem to me that when the devil originally sinned, he contaminated heaven. Therefore, part of Christ’s atonement also cleansed the heavenly sanctuary. Maybe. Is that consistent with Scripture?” So, a lot of questions on Colossians 1:20.

Well, let’s get the text in front of us. This is Colossians 1:19–20: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

So, the questions our listeners are raising revolve mainly around what it means that God, through the ministry of the divine Christ, will reconcile to himself all things. The phrase “all things” raises the question of universalism for a lot of people. That is, will every person, even the demons and Satan himself, be reconciled to God — and there will be no hell, and there will be no final judgment, no final destruction of anyone? That’s the first question. Second question is raised by the phrase “whether on earth or in heaven.” What would it mean to speak of reconciling anything or any being in heaven? What in heaven needs reconciling? And then the third question I hear would be, How does the blood of Jesus establish peace in heaven and on earth?

Let’s take these one at a time.

Will Everyone Be Saved?

First, through Christ, God reconciles all things to himself, whether in heaven or on earth. Does that mean that there is universal salvation and that, in the end, hell will not exist, and all unbelievers and all demons and Satan himself will be reconciled and saved?

The first problem with that interpretation is that Paul himself, both in this letter of Colossians and elsewhere, teaches that there will be the final wrath of God that will last forever on people. It’s not even that they will be put out of existence (called annihilationism). For example, in Colossians 3:5–6, he says, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.”

Then if you ask, “Well, how long will that wrath last? What will that experience be like?” And he says in 2 Thessalonians 1:9, “[Those who do not obey the gospel] will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”

And if we look for confirmation that we’re on the right track here in understanding Paul, we find in the teachings of John and the teachings of Jesus the same kind of thing. For example, in Matthew 25:46, Jesus says, “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” And since “eternal life” is parallel with “eternal punishment,” then it seems clear that the eternal punishment will have the same duration as the eternal life.

And then in Revelation 14:11, John uses the strongest phrase possible in Greek to express eternity. He says, “And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.” The Greek phrase behind that “forever and ever” is as strong as it can be.

So, we’re talking everlasting duration of wrath, and therefore, the problem with thinking that Colossians 1:20 is teaching that all things will be reconciled and thus saved — with no hell, no eternal punishment, and no unbelievers or demons in existence — is that Paul says that’s just not true.

What Does ‘All Things’ Mean?

So the question is, Well, what does it mean? If it can’t mean universalism or annihilationism, what does it mean — “through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven”?

I would say to our readers, Have you ever asked why it doesn’t say “to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven or under the earth”? Why does Paul omit “under the earth”? And I say that because he uses that phrase in Philippians 2:10, when he says that every knee will bow to Jesus and confess that he’s Lord — every knee “in heaven and on earth and under the earth.” Even the unsaved will grant that Jesus is Lord.

But here in Colossians 1:20, he doesn’t mention “under the earth” as what will be reconciled. It only says that he will reconcile all things to himself in heaven and on earth. So, here’s my suggestion: Paul is not at all contradicting the fact that the Bible teaches eternal judgment on Satan and his angels and on humans who are unrepentant, but all of those persons will be consigned to a realm outside the new heavens and the new earth.

“Everything in the new heavens and the new earth that has been contaminated with sin in any way will be reconciled.”

In Matthew 22:13, Jesus calls this “outer darkness.” They will be in a realm that is not part of the new heavens and the new earth. Everything in the new heavens and the new earth that has been contaminated with sin in any way will be reconciled, will be redeemed.

So, when Paul says that all things will be reconciled in heaven and on earth, he means that because of the work of Christ, there will be nothing unreconciled on earth, nothing unreconciled in heaven, when God consummates his purposes. For demons and unbelievers, there will be another entirely different realm of existence, which we call “under the earth” or “outer darkness,” but it will not be part of the new creation. All things will be reconciled in that earth and that heaven. So, that’s my answer to the first part of the question.

What Needs Reconciliation in Heaven?

Let’s turn to the second question: What would it mean to speak of reconciling anything or any being in heaven? What in heaven needs reconciling? What would Paul mean when he says that through Christ God reconciles to himself, “whether on earth or in heaven,” all things? And one answer is implicit in what I’ve already said — namely, he may not be talking about reconciling what is in heaven now but what will inhabit the new heavens and the new earth. And his point is, nothing contaminated by sin will inhabit the new heavens and the new earth that’s not reconciled to God. Everything will be reconciled that’s there.

But if someone pushes back and says, “Well, it looks, Piper, like it’s referring to the present heaven and earth, not just the future heaven and earth,” then my suggestion would be — if they’re right and I’m mistaken in that first suggestion — that Paul teaches in the next chapter, Colossians 3:4, and in Philippians 1:20 and 2 Corinthians 5:8, that Christians who have died are now in heaven. And Paul would then be saying that all of them are reconciled to God by the work of Christ.

That’s my suggested answer to the pushback and the suggestion that he may be referring to the present heaven and not just the future heaven: Christians are there. Christians are reconciled in heaven through the blood of Christ.

How Does Jesus’s Blood Make Peace?

One last question: How does the blood of Jesus establish peace in heaven and on earth? Paul says, “making peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20). And I add this question for two reasons. One, because we know that demonic beings not only inhabit the earth but are referred to, for example, in Ephesians 6:12 as being operative in the heavenly places. For example, Job teaches that Satan had some kind of access to God.

“The blood of Christ takes away the one damning weapon that Satan has: the power to accuse us for sin.”

The other reason I ask this question is because Paul connects the blood of Christ with the defeat of the demonic rulers and authorities in Colossians 2:15. So, right after saying that the record of our sins, the record of our debts, is nailed to the cross so that our guilt is removed and our forgiveness is secure, he says in Colossians 2:15 that God, by this work of Christ, stripped (or disarmed) the demonic powers and shamed them and triumphed over them in him.

I take that to mean that the blood of Christ takes away the one damning weapon that Satan has — namely, the power to accuse us for sin, because they’re all forgiven. Our sins are all forgiven. He doesn’t have that weapon because of the blood of Christ. He’s stripped of it. He’s disarmed. And with that triumph over Satan and his demonic forces, all demonic hopes of victory are shattered, and Satan is finally consigned to outer darkness with his forces. And in that way, complete peace is established in the new heavens and the new earth.

So, when Paul says that God made peace through the blood of his Son, he means not only that Christians enjoy no condemnation and peace with God forever, but also that the marauding, tempting, destructive work of Satan and his forces is totally disempowered and consigned outside the new heavens and the new earth forever. There’s only peace.

Soon after becoming a Christian, I started wondering if I really was a Christian. The first doubt struck unexpectedly, like lightning from a cloudless sky. Am I real? I seemed to love Jesus. I seemed to trust him. I seemed to bear the marks of a changed life. But, the thought crept in, so too did Judas.

Though the long night of wrestling slowly passed, I emerged from it like Jacob, limping into the daylight. Assurance has been, perhaps, the main question, the chief struggle of my Christian life over the years, sending me searching for what Paul and the author of Hebrews call “full assurance” (Colossians 2:2; Hebrews 10:22).

The topic of assurance is complex, to put it mildly. Genuine Christians doubt their salvation for many different reasons, and God nourishes assurance through several different means. So the needed word for one doubter often differs from the needed word for another. Nevertheless, for those who find themselves floundering, as I did, perhaps unsure what’s even happening to them, a basic guide to assurance may prove useful.

Possibility of Assurance

By assurance, I simply mean, to borrow a definition from D.A. Carson, “a Christian believer’s confidence that he or she is in right standing with God, and that this will issue in ultimate salvation.” Assured Christians can say, with Spirit-wrought conviction, not only “Christ died for sinners” but “Christ died for me.” Though sin may assault them, and Satan may accuse them, they know themselves forgiven, beloved, and bound for heaven. And the first word to offer about such assurance is simply this: it’s possible.

Your faith may feel small, and your hold on Christ shaky. Even still, it is possible for you to feel down deep that he will never cast you out (John 6:37). It is possible for you to cry “Abba!” with the implicit trust of God’s children (Romans 8:15–16). It is possible for you to “rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8). It is possible for you to have “confidence for the day of judgment” (1 John 4:17) — indeed, to “know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13).

God’s desire for his people’s assurance, even for the most fragile of them, burns brightly through the Scriptures. He has knit assurance into his very name, whether old covenant (Exodus 34:6–7) or new (Matthew 1:21). He has spoken assurance in promise upon promise from a mouth that “never lies” (Titus 1:2). And as he once wrote assurance with a rainbow (Genesis 9:13–17), and flashed assurance through the stars (Genesis 15:5–6), so now he has sealed assurance with the greatest sign of all: the body and blood of his dear Son. Week by week, we eat the bread and drink the cup of his steadfast love in Christ (Matthew 26:26–29).

If God’s new covenant is sure (and it is), if his promises are true (and they are), and if his character cannot change (and it can’t), then full assurance is possible for everyone in Christ, no matter how strong our present fears.

Enemies of Assurance

If, then, Scripture testifies so powerfully to the possibility of assurance, why does anyone ever lack assurance — and why do some seem to struggle with it ongoingly? Because Christian assurance is not only possible, but opposed. Of the enemies that assail us, three are chief: Satan, sin, and our broken psychology.

Satan

We might expect “the accuser of our brothers, . . . who accuses them day and night before our God” to war against the Christian’s peace (Revelation 12:10). And so he does.

In his classic on assurance, Religious Affections, Jonathan Edwards reminds readers that the devil assaulted even the assurance of Jesus (172). “If you are the Son of God, command these stones. . . . If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down” (Matthew 4:3, 6). The Father had just said, “This is my beloved Son” (Matthew 3:17), but the devil loves to trade his own if for God’s is.

“The devil knows that well-assured Christians threaten the domain of darkness more than any other.”

Many a true Christian has, in turn, heard that dreadful if: “If you are a Christian, why do you sin so much? Why is your faith so small? Why is your heart so cold?” And though Satan’s charges cannot condemn those whom God has justified (Romans 8:33), they certainly can ruin our comfort.

The devil knows that well-assured Christians threaten the domain of darkness more than any other. And so, he protects his property with one of his most-used weapons: doubt.

Sin

Alongside Satan, Scripture presents sin as one of the foremost enemies of assurance. Now, of course, assurance in this life always coexists with sin. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Nevertheless, habitual sin, unrepentant sin, or particularly grievous sin darkens our assurance as surely as drawn curtains darken a room — and it should.

“By this we know that we have come to know him,” the apostle John writes, “if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:5). And therefore, when a pattern of commandment-keeping gives way to commandment-breaking, and a pattern of repentance to stubbornness, and a pattern of confession to secrecy, we cannot “know that we have come to know him” with the same confidence as before. We may be secure in Jesus’s grasp, as Peter was even when he denied his Lord, but our sense of that security is rightly weak until we “have turned again” (Luke 22:31–32), and again have heard his pardoning voice (John 21:15–19).

Psychology

Finally, our own psychology plays an influential, but often overlooked, role in assurance. (By psychology, I refer generally to matters of temperament, patterns of thought, and self-reflection.) Assurance is not only a spiritual phenomenon, but a psychological one: its strength depends on a rightly calibrated conscience, mature self-awareness, and the ability to distinguish gold from fool’s gold in the mines of the soul. John warns us that the time may come when “our heart condemns us” unfairly (1 John 3:19) — and the hearts of some, due to a more broken psychology, condemn more often.

Sinclair Ferguson writes,

An individual may have strong faith, much grace, and rich evidence of fruitful service yet lack full assurance because of natural temperament. We are, after all, physico-psychical unities. A melancholic disposition de facto creates obstacles to the enjoyment of assurance — partly because it creates obstacles to the enjoyment of everything. (The Whole Christ, 219)

Or to paraphrase the Puritan Thomas Brooks (1608–1680), if the eyes of the soul wear dark-tinted glasses, then even the sun may seem black.

Means of Assurance

Such are the enemies to a settled, joyful Christian assurance. But great as they are, “he who is in you is greater” (1 John 4:4). God will not allow Satan, sin, and fallen psychology to thwart the possibility of assurance. And so, he offers, through the ministry of his Spirit, means by which we can overcome their assault and “draw near [to God] with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:22). And in his providence, his three great means counter our three great enemies: promises defeat Satan’s accusations, Christlikeness overcomes sin’s darkness, and the Spirit’s witness silences our broken psychology.

Promises

To counter the accusations of the devil, God gives “his precious and very great promises” (2 Peter 1:4), and especially those promises that pledge his patience, kindness, and favor toward us in Christ.

J.I. Packer (1926–2020), in one of his books, notes the inconspicuous but crucial for connecting Romans 5:5 and 5:6. In the former verse, Paul offers a picture of warm-hearted assurance: “Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” We might assume such a heart-pouring happens unaccountably, perhaps even mystically. Not so. In the next verse, Paul’s little for draws us to the Spirit’s fountain: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). In other words, God’s love enters the hearts of those whose minds are fixed on Calvary.

“Assurance is, first and chiefly, the fruit of beholding Christ and the promises he holds out to us.”

Paul takes the same road later in Romans 8, where he sets the “charge against God’s elect” next to the death, resurrection, ascension, and intercession of Christ (Romans 8:33–34) — implying that, in the court of the soul, the devil’s accusations die only when we rest our case on the person, work, and promises of our everlasting Advocate.

Assurance is, first and chiefly, the fruit of beholding Christ and the promises he holds out to us with nail-pierced hands. So, as Brooks says, “Let thy eye and heart, first, most, and last, be fixed upon Christ, then will assurance bed and board with thee” (The Quest for Full Assurance, 127).

Christlikeness

Then, without taking our eye and heart from Christ, the Spirit also nurtures our obedience. As he unveils the glory of Christ, he transforms us “into the same image from degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). He makes us a little garden of grace, where the fruits of Christlikeness take root and grow (Galatians 5:22–23). He also puts a helmet on our head and a sword in our hands to do battle with the un-Christlike “deeds of the body” (Romans 8:13).

As we walk by his power — looking to Christ, becoming like Christ, and confessing our failures along the way — the Spirit assures us that, indeed, “the old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Christlikeness may grow slowly; it usually does. We also may struggle in different seasons to discern genuine spiritual fruit amid the thorns of our indwelling sin. But the same Spirit who grows his grace inside us can train us also to recognize it. As Thomas Goodwin (1600–1680) writes, the Spirit “writes first all graces in us, and then teaches us to read his handwriting” (Quest for Full Assurance, 137).

Embracing obedience as a means of assurance does not require obsessive introspection — in fact, obsessive introspection usually does more to stifle grace than grow it. In general, grace grows best when no one’s watching, including you. And so, like Paul, we forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead, keeping our eyes on the Gracious one all the while (Philippians 3:13–14). And then, occasionally, an inward look at our hearts and an outward glance at our lives (perhaps with a pastor or trusted brother or sister) can show us what the Spirit has done.

Witness of the Spirit

The third enemy to Christian assurance, our own broken psychology, likewise finds its match in the ministry of the Spirit, and particularly in what Paul calls the Spirit’s “witness”:

You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. (Romans 8:15–16)

Much debate surrounds Paul’s words about the Spirit’s witness. But this much we can say with confidence: Assurance does not ultimately depend on your background, personality, conscience, or common temptations. Rather, assurance depends on the gracious witness of the Spirit, who not only shows us Christ, and not only makes us holy, but who also silences all objections and testifies, “Here is a child of God.” And so, as J.C. Ryle writes, assurance “is a positive gift of the Holy Ghost, bestowed without reference to men’s bodily frames or constitutions” (Holiness, 128).

The Holy Spirit “knows our frame” (Psalm 103:14) — the human frame in general, and our frame in particular. And whatever our psychological makeup, he knows how to communicate his own witness in ways we can hear. He may do so in one dramatic moment, as we read a specific promise or hear the gospel preached. Or he may do so gradually, even almost insensibly, through daily meditation and obedience pursued over years. But no matter how strong the walls, the Spirit can break into the city of our doubts and, where insecurity reigned before, enthrone assurance in its place. So why not ask him?

Preciousness of Assurance

The pursuit of assurance may last long. We may find, moreover, that doubt can return after a long season of confidence, for assurance once enjoyed does not mean assurance always enjoyed. Our peace can rise and fall, requiring a fresh pursuit of assurance through the means God has provided. But however long we have to travel this road, and however often, remember: the preciousness of assurance outweighs all the world.

Who tastes more of heaven on earth than those who walk, freely and happily, through that holy city of assurance, marveling at the heights of Romans 8:31–39? To know with Spirit-given confidence, and not just a frail wish, that the Almighty God is for us, that he gave up his Son to save us, that the blood of Jesus covers us and his intercession upholds us, that neither devils nor conscience can condemn us, and that his love will never leave us — to know all this is to walk, right now, on streets of gold.

Assurance, Ryle writes, enables a man to “always feel that he has something solid beneath his feet and something firm under his hands — a sure friend by the way, and a sure home at the end” (Holiness, 139). Yes, a sure friend, Jesus, and a sure home, heaven: such is the precious gift of assurance — a gift, let it be remembered, that God delights to give.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15090624/finite-sinful-headship-in-marriage

People who ought to know keep saying that this year we will finally put the pandemic behind us. I’ve given up predicting myself, but I hope they’re right. If they are, I wonder how we’ll remember these last couple years.

For those who suffered the death of someone close to them, the defining experience of the pandemic may be loss. For many of us, I imagine the primary experience will be disorientation. We saw our plans upended. We felt time suspended. We saw what had been pillars in life crumble one after another — from time with aging family, to the joy of in-person worship, to a simple smile on the unmasked face of a friend.

Far beyond the physical impacts of the disease itself, the pandemic experience has exposed the fragility of so much of what we take for granted in life. How will we cope with the disorientation of the last couple years? Where will we look for stability and renewal coming out of them?

Nothing New Under the Sun

The Bible’s wisdom literature is given to help us answer questions like these. Wisdom provides proper orientation to the world. It’s a learned instinct for living in the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. And of the Bible’s wisdom books, perhaps ironically, it is Ecclesiastes that offers the perspective we badly need in responding to what we’ve been through.

“Wisdom is an instinct for living in the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.”

I say ironically because Ecclesiastes itself can be a disorienting book. It offers the perspective of a man called “the Preacher,” who essentially had everything he wanted in life. No one told him no. But in the end, he found it all to be nothing but vanity. A mere vapor. Meaningless. Empty.

It is striking to me how closely the list of his pursuits in life resembles the main options we have for reorienting ourselves after a difficult couple of years. We’ll be tempted to look for stability or hope in the same vanities that collapsed under his weight long ago.

Take pleasure, for example. In the earliest days of the pandemic, traffic to major porn sites skyrocketed. So did Netflix subscriptions. And now, after two years in which so many plans were disrupted, pleasure-seekers are booking luxury vacations at record pace. As one Forbes writer put it, what we learned from the pandemic is that “the future is unpredictable,” that “life is short,” and that “dreams should not be put off.” “If all goes well,” he continues, “2022 is going to be a big year for dream trips.”

The Big Quit

Some have chased dreams; others are looking to work for a fresh start. In September of 2021 more than four million people voluntarily left their jobs for other opportunities. That number broke a record set the previous month, when millions more made the same choice. It’s a trend so significant that pundits are calling this “The Great Resignation” or “The Big Quit.” Given how much of the disruption of these past years directly affected our work, it shouldn’t surprise us that so many would look to move on with a change of scenery.

Then there’s money and what it can buy. Retail therapy was a go-to treatment for months before any vaccine hit the market. With stimulus money going around, people purchased new fire pits and television upgrades, and started home improvement projects to take the edge off what had gone wrong. So many months later, retail therapy still sells. As one recent AT&T commercial put it, “I think we can all agree that after the past year-ish, we all deserve something new.” Why not reward your survival with the latest iPhone?

Still others have looked to mastery of some new skill to redeem the strange time and restore a sense of control. In April of 2020, I heard one economist talk about the loss of control as the primary stressor he was feeling since his job is to predict what’s likely to happen. His advice to others feeling that pain was to find something you can control, however small and insignificant it might be. Some learned to bake bread. Others took up a foreign language. I smoked my first couple briskets. What did you do with your pandemic? We want growth opportunities, to move from victory unto victory. If COVID was a curveball, we want to hit it out of the park.

All Was Striving After Wind

The Preacher warns us, however, that life doesn’t work this way. Ecclesiastes opens with a poem on the relentless, repetitive weariness of life under the sun. “What does a man gain,” he asks, “by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 1:3).

We want gain. We’d like to see life as one long process of acquisition. Where we have setbacks, we want to bounce back better than ever. We want steady upward progress. But just as the sun rises and sets (Ecclesiastes 1:5), just as the wind blows round and round (verse 6), so it is with all of life: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun” (verse 9).

In chapter 2, the Preacher explains how he reached this conclusion, with a catalog of where he turned for some sort of gain in this life. It’s a list that sounds eerily familiar. He looked first to pleasure (Ecclesiastes 2:1). He tried comedy (verse 2), fine wine (verse 3), entertainment, and sex (verse 8). He looked to his work, and to mastery over his slice of the world: “I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees” (Ecclesiastes 2:4–5). He built up more money and more possessions than any before him in Jerusalem (Ecclesiastes 2:7–8).

Pleasure, work, wealth, control — everything we might look to under the sun — he’s already had in abundance. We need to hear the lesson he learned the hard way: “Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 2:11).

What We Can See Now

If you’re feeling disoriented by a difficult two years, you won’t find your footing in the same old vanities that let the Preacher down so long ago. But we do have an opportunity now for a greater clarity about the world than perhaps we could have had back when things seemed normal.

“Nothing is certain about life under the sun except the death that comes at the end of it.”

Nothing is certain about life under the sun except the death that comes at the end of it. The things we take for granted have always been fragile. Our control over what matters to us has always been severely limited. And the grip of death on what we love has always been stronger than ours. COVID didn’t cause these problems. Whatever comes next won’t solve them. That’s the perspective Ecclesiastes offers to us.

When the Preacher writes of “life under the sun,” what he has in mind is life from a strictly human perspective. As if what we see is all there is. Death really is the end. There’s no satisfaction for our deepest hunger pains. In other words, “life under the sun” is life on your own, left to your own ideas for what’s best, your own resources for pulling off your vision, and your own handful of years to make the most of it.

Ecclesiastes is a devastating critique of human self-sufficiency. We won’t find a cure for what ails us under the sun. Our only hope rests on a radical intervention from beyond.

Light from Beyond the Sun

The message of Ecclesiastes is that if God is silent, the whole world is a vapor. The message of the rest of the Scriptures is that God has spoken to us. Even better than that: the Word has become flesh and lived among us (John 1:14).

Peter Kreeft has described Ecclesiastes as “a perfect silhouette of Jesus, the stark outline of the darkness that the face of Jesus fills” (Three Philosophies of Life, 51). Under the sun, on our own, all is vanity and death has the final word. Ecclesiastes exists to make “the darkness intolerable” (Derek Kidner, The Wisdom of Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, 103). And to prepare us for the only certain hope: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4–5).

Whatever else we may take with us from a disorienting couple of years, into another year under the sun, let’s at least embrace the message of the Preacher. We won’t find the stability we crave short of the help and hope and satisfaction that only comes beyond the sun. If we haven’t learned that lesson, we’ll be just as unprepared for the next time the world turns upside down. And there will be a next time. “What has been is what will be. . . and there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

I won’t soon forget visiting “Angola,” the Louisiana State Penitentiary, and nation’s largest maximum-security prison. In November 2009, I accompanied John Piper as he preached in chapel to hundreds of inmates, broadcast to thousands. Beforehand, he spoke and prayed for half an hour with a man just seven weeks prior to his execution by lethal injection.

Much could be said about Angola, once considered the nation’s most dangerous prison, and its stunning transformation (not just morally but spiritually) under warden Burl Cain, beginning in 1995. Cain, a lifelong Southern Baptist, wasn’t shy about sharing his Christian faith and welcoming influences like Piper. He took fire for it over the years.

Doubtless, Cain instituted a breadth of important reforms and gospel-friendly initiatives, but he’s often remembered for prohibiting profanity from both inmates and guards. It was a striking decision. Seeing with unusual clarity the complex and catalytic relationship between words and behavior, Cain did the almost unthinkable: he outlawed cussing at the state pen.

How many of us would think a maximum-security prison of 6,000 murderers, rapists, armed robbers, and habitual felons had far bigger fish to fry than profanity? Why even bother?

Words Give Rise to Action

Cain believed that violent words not only express but also entrench, and cultivate, violent instincts in the soul that eventually give rise to violent acts. Giving voice to unrighteous anger puts us one step closer to acting on it.

Soon enough, even Cain’s many detractors found the results difficult to dispute. In 2004, The Washington Post reported on the rise in morale and the plummet in violence at Angola:

The year before Cain arrived, there were nearly 300 attacks on the staff and 766 inmate-on-inmate assaults, half of which were with weapons. . . . Since Cain took over as warden, inmate attacks on the staff have plunged nearly 70 percent, and inmate-on-inmate violence has dropped 44 percent.

“Giving voice to unrighteous anger puts us one step closer to acting on it.”

Surely, the ban against profanity didn’t do all the work. Hundreds of inmates, if not thousands, not only cleaned up their mouths, but testified to Christ’s cleansing their hearts — and that will transform any prison. Still, the correlation between words and eventual behaviors is not one to ignore. And it may be far more important to life outside of prison than many of us are prone to think.

Holy Fight and Flight

Healthy Christians do not make peace with sin. As we grow in love for Christ, we grow to delight in holiness. Yet we live in a world of sin, and still have indwelling sin within us. So, we often discuss various holy fight-and-flight tactics against temptation.

For one, we want to be ready to resist sin when we encounter temptation. Not only do we “resist the devil” (James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:9), but we also resist “in [our] struggle against sin” (Hebrews 12:4) — against temptations from without and from within. In a moment of temptation, we want to fight, resist, make holy war.

Another important strategy is flight. When Potiphar’s wife tempted Joseph, he fled. So too, the apostle Paul writes, “Flee youthful passions” (2 Timothy 2:22), “Flee sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18), and “Flee from idolatry” (1 Corinthians 10:14). If you find yourself in the presence of some temptation, and it’s in your power to leave, then by all means flee.

Avoidance is a third time-tested plan. Before the moment of fight-or-flight confronts us, we seek to avoid some temptations altogether. For instance, avoid divisive people (Romans 16:17; 2 Timothy 3:5). Avoid quarreling (Titus 3:2). Avoid “irreverent babble” (2 Timothy 2:16). Avoid “foolish controversies” (Titus 3:9).

However, one particular tactic we might be prone to overlook in the multi-front war against sin involves the power of words. Warden Cain was onto something — not just (negatively) to curb violence at a prison, but also (positively) for the Christian life.

Our Own Words Shape Us

Not only is it true, as Jesus says, that “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart” (Matthew 15:18), but our heart-expressing words also echo back to move and shape us.

On the one hand, to speak evil is an additional step, subtle as it may be, to thinking and feeling evil. As we give vent and verbal expression to otherwise inaudible evil in us, we reinforce it. It takes root. One little word at a time, we habituate ourselves to sin. Now, we’re one small (but not insignificant) degree closer to acting on it. And on the other hand, when we speak against sin rising in us — and speak for the joy of righteousness — we marshal the power of words to mold our hearts for holiness.

To be clear, the point here is not “stop talking about sin” but rather, declare to your own soul sin’s deception, and miserable outcomes. In other words, do talk to yourself about your own sin. And in the moment of temptation, tell yourself “no” and why.

Evil Curbed and Smothered

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) knew of the power of our own words in leading to, or away, from sin. He writes in Life Together,

Often we combat evil thoughts most effectively if we absolutely refuse to allow them to be expressed in words. . . [I]solated thoughts of judgment [against our neighbor] can be curbed and smothered by never allowing them the right to be uttered, except as a confession of sin. (90–91)

Before saying more about his insight, first note confession as an exception. To confess sin as sin is not to incline ourselves to relapse, but instead to make war against it. Which means that real confession is not mere admission, but a form of renouncing our sin.

“Real confession is not mere admission, but a form of renouncing our sin.”

But then notice the role our own words have to play in the pursuit of holiness, and the war against sin. Our souls can be cauldrons of good and ill. Dwelling in us, for now, is both remaining sin and the very Spirit of God. Evil thoughts grow as we voice them with approval, and they diminish — are “curbed and smothered” — as we deny them the dignity of utterance (or utter them only in spirit of confession).

Renounce Ungodliness

At the height of his letter to Titus, the apostle Paul writes about the appearing of God, in Christ, and the disappearing of our sin, in time, as we pursue holiness. And he uses the word renounce to acknowledge the place our words can have in combatting sin:

The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age . . . (Titus 2:11–12)

The grace of God — manifest and incarnate in Christ — not only saves sinners by covering our failings but also trains us. God’s grace is too great to simply forgive our sins and leave us in them. He loves his sons and daughters enough to train us for new and better life, for genuine holiness, for the freedom and joy of an existence less and less encumbered by sin. And here, remarkably, the link between God’s training grace and our godly living involves our own words as we renounce ungodliness.

‘Be Gone, Satan!’

The pattern is one we find even in Jesus, who leveraged the power of his words against sin and the devil. In the wilderness, he renounced temptation audibly as he quoted Scripture to combat Satan’s enticements, culminating with “Be gone, Satan!” (Matthew 4:10). So too he later responded to Peter’s foolish statement (that Jesus would never go to the cross) with “Get behind me, Satan!” (Mark 8:33).

There is power, for good and godliness, in a clear, settled “no” — whether in our own heads, or out loud to ourselves, and all the better in confession to God or neighbor. Liberated and energized by God’s grace, and looking to the reward of superior joy, we are given the dignity of participating in God’s decisive action in making us holy. And even before it involves our behavior, it can begin with our words.

The words we speak, especially when pointed, shape our souls for good or evil. Renouncing sin, as an expression of holy desires in a divided heart, is no empty act. When our renouncing of sin and Satan proceed from a heart growing in its disdain for sin, and delight in holiness, our words reinforce and buttress and fortify our hearts. Words of renunciation against specific sins and temptations are not time-outs from the actual fight but a valuable weapon in the campaign.

Declare Your No

Because of this power in the act of renouncing, some baptismal traditions, going deep into an annals of church history, ask the baptismal candidate, right there in the waters, as we do at our church, “Do you renounce Satan, and all his works, and all his ways?” Baptism itself is a kind of public forsaking of sin and Satan and a confession of Christ, but there is added power for shaping the soul, banishing demons, and strengthening the church, to not just depict it but declare it — and not just at baptism, but in the everyday waters of temptation.

When pride feeds us thoughts of being better than others, we respond with, “No, no good will come from boosting self, compared to others. I’m an unworthy servant, and any good in me is only by God’s grace. Pride, be humbled.”

Or, when feeling envious over another’s abilities or applause, “No, envy, my Father knows exactly what I need and when. Rejoice in his gifts to others.”

When tempted by lust, “No, God’s design and command is best: one woman, my wife, for life. Lust, you are foolish, and not welcome here.”

Tempted to gossip, “No, there is more joy in the self-control of holding my tongue than sinning against someone with my words.”

Or, when tempted by greed, “No, my Father owns it all, and I will share in it fully in due time. Greed, be gone.”

And all the better when we can renounce sin in the very words of Scripture: When angry with others, “No, the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). Anger, however righteous or not, be put away (Colossians 3:8).

Temptation thrives, and grows, when unacknowledged and unaddressed. But with the help of the Spirit, and through the power of words, we can say “No!” and drive it away with God’s better promises.

Audio Transcript

The church is fractured. Over the past couple years, we have experienced a lot of division among Christians at the levels of networks and denominations, but also inside local churches and among friends, too. So is all this division a good thing? Is it only a bad thing? Will division work for the church’s greater purity and final good? Or will division work to the church’s final detriment and the lessening of her testimony in the world today?

It’s a relevant question, and it comes from a listener named Connor. “Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for this encouraging podcast! I have heard a lot from fellow Christians recently about the sadness of the church being so divided with all its disagreements splitting local churches and denominations and even old friends. Division is everywhere. While there is much to be sad about in much of this, especially given Jesus’s emphasis on his desire that his disciples be unified in love, I have been wondering whether some of the divisions in the church today are good, even necessary as a means to distinguish the sheep from the wolves, something Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 11:19. But can we distinguish healthy from unhealthy divisions in the church? Some ‘big-issue’ divisions seem obvious and good. But other divisions seem petty and insignificant. What do you think of the disagreements in the church today?”

Well, there are so many ways to come at this, let me come at it like this. The point that I would like to emphasize about the divisions in the church is this: Don’t make light of it, and don’t make death of it. It is tragic, but it is ordained.

Don’t Make Light of Divisions

It is possible to speak about disunity and division as though they were a small thing, which would be a mistake. Making light of it is a mistake. Just listen to John 13:34–35: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

That’s a very convicting text. Lovelessness among Christians is not a light thing.

In John 17:21, Jesus prays “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
Ephesians 4:1–3: “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
1 Corinthians 1:10: “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.”

“Lovelessness among Christians is not a light thing.”

So, just a few texts — and there are so many more. We simply must not make light of our divisions, especially those that are unnecessary for the sake of truth or that are maintained with unloving attitudes and actions. Three things stand out from those passages of Scripture.

Spirit-Wrought Unity

The deepest unity among God’s elect is a given. It’s a given. We don’t create unity. Man doesn’t make it happen. When we come to Christ, we are grafted in by the Spirit to one body, Jesus Christ, and members one of another, so that the command in Ephesians 4 is to “maintain the unity.” Don’t create it — show it to the world.

Relational Unity

A second thing that stands out from those passages I just read is that the public effectiveness of our unity is not at the level of institutional oneness or collaboration, as though the absence of denominations would be a compelling witness to the world. Rather, the public effectiveness of our unity is when unbelievers see on the ground attitudes and acts of love among believers.

This is where the energy for unity should be mainly expended, I think. “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:31–32). That’s the level at which the miracle happens. That’s the level at which the unbeliever sees and says, “I’d like to be part of that kind of community.”

Truth-Grounded Unity

The third thing that all these texts either say or assume is that the only kind of unity that glorifies God is unity in the truth. He’s a God of truth. “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). Paul says in Ephesians 4:15, “speaking the truth in love.” For Christ and his apostles, it was inconceivable that one could love another person by throwing away truth for the sake of peace.

“The only kind of unity that glorifies God is unity in the truth.”

Listen to Jeremiah: “They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14). The only peace that matters is truth-based peace. So, when I pray for unity in the church, which I do regularly — little church, big church — I pray, “O God, grant us unity in the truth.” So Francis Schaeffer, at the end of his life, said that what the world needs to see is not the Christian church tearing down every fence that was built for the sake of truth — protecting truth, declaring truth. Rather, what we should do is stop throwing hate bombs over the fences, and instead love each other across genuine disagreements, genuine fences.

I don’t think the world stumbles mainly over doctrinal disagreement among Christians. It stumbles mainly over the way we treat each other in the light of those disagreements. So, all of that to say that we should not make light of the contentions and divisions in the church. But now let me say that we should not make death of these divisions either.

Don’t Make Death of Divisions

Don’t make light of them, don’t make death of them. That is, we should not have an unbiblical, Pollyanna view of what Jesus and his apostles said would actually come to pass as time goes by in the church. It’s not a rosy picture. Now, to be sure, “This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14). There will be a completion of the Great Commission, and God will gather his elect from the peoples of the world. That is the triumph of this age before Christ comes.

But the conditions of the church, and of the world in which the church finds itself, while that mission is happening successfully, is not a pretty picture. One of the texts that Connor mentioned when he asked his question is 1 Corinthians 11:18–19: “I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.”

Now, that is a startling statement. It assumes that there is underlying disunity in the church that needs to be exposed. He just seems to assume it. Why would Paul assume such a thing? I think that assumption goes back to Jesus.

Weeds Among the Wheat

Jesus did not paint a rosy picture of the climax of history. In God’s strange providence, Jesus stated a principle like this: “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation [the stumbling, the traps, the deceptions] comes” (Matthew 18:7). That’s amazing. This is divine necessity. When he says, “It is necessary,” he’s talking about the way God has ordained for the world to come to its climax. God has willed these kinds of troubles.

Jesus pictured this kind of inevitable trouble in the parables of the fishing net and the parable of the wheat and the weeds:

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate evil from the righteous. (Matthew 13:47–49)

So, the kingdom, the visible church, draws into itself unconverted people that the angels will separate out in the day of Christ’s second coming. Same thing in the parable of the wheat and the weeds. The workers, they wonder if they should go out and pull up the weeds that are growing among the wheat — false brothers. And Jesus says, “Let both grow together until the harvest” (Matthew 13:30).

In other words, Jesus predicted that disunity and conflict would be built into the church from the beginning. It is necessary that such temptations come. These weeds are not going to keep their mouths shut. They’re not going to keep their opinions and attitudes to themselves as time goes by.

Love Grown Cold

Then, in Matthew 24, when the disciples ask Jesus about the signs of the end, Jesus says over and over in that chapter how torn the church is going to be with betrayals and apostasy. Listen to these words (I’ll start reading at verse 4 of Matthew 24):

Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name [these are people in the church, in the name of Jesus], saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. . . . Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death [these are ‘Christians’ putting Christians to death], and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another [this is not just trouble from outside the church]. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 24:4–5, 9–13)

So, we’re talking about Christians’ love growing cold and not enduring to the end. Now that’s a horrible description of the condition of the church. This is what the church will do to each other. Incredible. And the apostle Paul joined this bleak description of the condition of the church in the last days — and remember the last days began in the first century. First Timothy 4:1: “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits.”

So, it’s part of prophetic wisdom in the first century that things are not going to end well on the earth. It’s going to be bleak. The mission will be done. There will be white-hot Christians to the end, risking their lives and laying down their lives to get the gospel to the ends.

Tragic and Predicted

So, I conclude, don’t make light of divisions, and don’t make death — that is, the death of the church — of divisions. They are tragic. We should give our lives for the sake of the unity of the church. They are tragic, and they are predicted. It is necessary that stumbling blocks come, but woe to those by whom they come.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15086535/how-is-christ-head-of-the-church