I recently had the incomparable joy of visiting the Grand Canyon. Though visit isn’t quite the right word, I suppose. You don’t just visit the Grand Canyon — you marvel at it, stand in awe of it, catch your breath before it, and find yourself transfixed and transformed by it. You come away “canyoned” by the juxtaposed emotions of feeling smaller and bigger at the same time. As a Christian, I reveled in knowing that the Creator of such beauty also happens to be the Savior of my soul.

I believe gospel-shaped humility can have similar effects. It makes us feel smaller and bigger at the same time. But only if we have a proper understanding of humility, carefully defined, delineated, displayed, and distinguished — that is, only if we move past some common confusions about humility.

Humility Confused

I’ve heard some Christians say things like, “I’m nothing. I’m just a worm.” Or, “I didn’t do a thing. I’m just an empty vessel.” I don’t think such statements reflect a healthy view of humility. The New Testament calls us saints and God’s children and goes out of its way to declare just how loved, redeemed, and blessed we are. Our new identity cannot square with “I’m nothing.”

It’s easy to get confused about humility. Consider how C.S. Lewis put these directions into the mouth of Screwtape, the senior demon in charge of training a new tempter:

Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? . . . Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, “By jove! I’m being humble,” and almost immediately pride — pride at his own humility — will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt — and so on, through as many stages as you please. But don’t try this too long, for fear you awake his sense of humor and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed. (The Screwtape Letters, 69)

Humility Defined

Merriam-Webster defines humility as “freedom from pride or arrogance.” But that leaves us needing another definition — one for pride. And we need the Bible’s authority, not the dictionary’s, to help us most.

“Humility is not thinking of yourself more highly than you ought but with sober judgment, according to what God says in his word.”

I suggest this definition adapted from Romans 12:3: humility is not thinking of yourself more highly than you ought but with sober judgment, according to what God says in his word. Thus, growing in humility is a lifelong venture as you increase in knowledge of God’s word and in appreciation for God’s work through Christ.

Humility Delineated

Clear thinking about humility is on display in Andrew Murray’s classic short book Humility: The Beauty of Holiness. He starts with this insight: “There are three great motives that urge us to humility. It becomes me as a creature, as a sinner, as a saint” (10).

First, we should be humbled by the fact that we did not create ourselves or have any say in the specifics of our birth. How is it that you weren’t born in the 1300s in an obscure, poverty-stricken, disease-ridden village? Can you provide breath at any given moment? Which talents came from your blueprint, and not God’s? Consider Paul’s insightful question, “What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).

Second, humility befits our fallenness. We’re sinners, rebels, transgressors, and worshipers of false gods. Reflect on Paul’s recounting of our before-salvation résumé: “We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another” (Titus 3:3).

Third, we are saved by grace, “not because of works done by us in righteousness” (Titus 3:5) “so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:9).

Humility Displayed

Humility’s central text is Philippians 2:1–11, where Jesus is lifted up as the perfect example of humility. It’s easy to zoom in on verse 5, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,” and think, “I should be humble like Jesus was humble.” He is indeed our supreme example.

But we can follow his example only because he was also our supreme sacrifice. Don’t race past the first phrase of this chapter: “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ . . . .” It is your union with Christ that transforms you into a new creature who can “consider others better than yourself,” and “look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:1–4 NIV).

Humility Distinguished

Humility, as the Bible puts forth, must be distinguished from vague ideas apart from the specifics of the gospel. Humility is not feeling bad about oneself. Humility is not comparing ourselves to others. And humility isn’t merely the absence of boasting. (What goes on inside our heads can be disgustingly self-exalting even while we keep our mouths shut.)

“Humility shaped by the gospel shows us just how bad we are and, at the same time, just how great God’s salvation is.”

Humility shaped by the gospel shows us just how bad we are and, at the same time, just how great God’s salvation is. It chastens while it emboldens. It puts us in our place, which, amazingly, is a place of both contrition and confidence. It is a proper and complete understanding of who we are — created, fallen, redeemed, and blessed. We live out our lives in humble boldness, knowing we deserve wrath instead of grace, judgment instead of justification, separation from God instead of the indwelling of his Spirit.

Humility Pursued

Note what immediately follows Philippians 2:1–11. Verse 12 begins with “therefore” and goes on to tell us to “work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling.” We do have a part to play in pursuing humility. Consider some practical suggestions.

Bodily Prayerfulness

The position of our bodies can make a difference in our prayer lives. Kneeling while interceding, raising our arms while praising, and opening our palms while giving thanks can intensify the blessings received through prayer. And it can help us grow in humility before God. It’s hard (although not impossible!) to feel self-empowered while kneeling.

Rigorous Confession

I’ll let C.S. Lewis present this case for me. He writes in The Weight of Glory,

I find that when I think I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality (unless I watch myself very carefully) asking him to do something quite different. I am asking him not to forgive me but to excuse me. But there is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing.

Forgiveness says, “Yes, you have done this thing, but I accept your apology; I will never hold it against you and everything between us two will be exactly as it was before.” But excusing says, “I see that you couldn’t help it or didn’t mean it; you weren’t really to blame.” If one was not really to blame then there is nothing to forgive. In that sense forgiveness and excusing are almost opposites. (178–79)

Humility makes a regular practice of asking God, and others, to forgive us instead of excuse us.

Regular Periods of Fasting

Simply put, fasting makes us feel physically weak. That’s a good state for trusting entirely in God’s provision for everything. Fasting can take all sorts of forms and varieties. All of them can help in growth toward humility.

Outward-Facing Intercession

Jesus told us to include “our daily bread” (the most basic unit of physical sustenance) as well as “your kingdom come” (the most expansive scope of church growth) in our prayers. Prayer guides like Operation World (both the book and the app), which inform us how to pray for gospel advance in every country, help us see our individual needs on a larger canvas and forge humility.

Others-Centered Conversation

Many so-called dialogues are really simultaneous monologues. A gospel-humbled conversationalist can allow the interchange to be unbalanced — in the direction of the other person. Asking questions to draw more out of the other person can display Philippians 2 humility in tangible, practical ways.

Bowing Low, Standing Tall

Some might say standing before the Grand Canyon should have made me feel like “nothing.” But that wasn’t my experience. To be sure, I had no doubt that the nearly two thousand square miles of a mile-deep chasm dwarfed my 5-foot, 9-inch frame. If I did not know the Creator of both the physical universe and my physical body, I would have felt like dust.

But standing before an even greater wonder — the cross, where we are “united with Christ . . . in the comfort from his love . . . with the fellowship of the Holy Spirit . . . with tenderness and compassion” (Philippians 2:1 NIV) — forges a gospel-humility that bows us low and stands us tall.

Few things in my fifty years of ministry have been more gratifying than to see the purposeful, all-wise, absolute sovereignty of God, which we call “providence,” move from being a stumbling block to faith to being a faith-sustaining, sanity-preserving rock of refuge for ordinary Christians passing through hellish circumstances.

For example, a quote from one of our missionaries, who at that time was in China:

In December 1987, my father died unexpectedly at age 63. . . . I was plunged into a journey of several months, struggling to understand what had happened. I was at Bethlehem, but new to the teaching, and apparently missing many of the distinctives. . . .

Fast forward to 1992. We had been in China for a year and returned home to have our first child. As you remember, she lived one day and died in our arms. It was then [that the teaching of God’s providence] came home to roost. God had not turned us loose to some natural events, but in his divine mercy had seen fit to give us a child, and through the process of taking her from us, work in us a honing and sanctifying unlike anything we had ever known. . . .

Thanks to the foundation . . . laid in my life through our years at Bethlehem, I was now able to embrace, and understand, such verses as “The Lord [gives], and the Lord [takes] away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

There was another missionary couple who went out from us to the Middle East. Not long after, they traveled to Turkey to have their first child. He too died. They came home, and their first Sunday back was the Sunday that we sang Matt Redman’s song “Blessed Be Your Name” for the first time. I was in the front row, as usual, and they were off to my right, so I could see them.

Blessed be your nameOn the road marked with suffering.Though there’s pain in the offeringBlessed be your name.

You give and take away.You give and take away.My heart will choose to say,Lord, blessed be your name.

Their empty hands were open in front of them. And I thought, “This is worth living for.”

Here’s another letter from a young woman who tells me of her uterine cancer:

I came to Bethlehem ten years ago. I had been a believer for only a few years. Within a few weeks of attending, I begin to hear you’re teaching on God’s sovereignty in salvation, and it was the weirdest thing I had ever heard. It sounded archaic and un-American, and later I realized it truly was archaic and un-American, but genuinely biblical. Eventually, by the awesome weight of Scriptural evidence, I was compelled to adopt the Reformed perspective on God’s sovereignty.

Little did I know that the hunger to understand God’s nature and his ways over the last ten years was graciously given to fortify me for this year’s surprise cancer diagnosis. Of course, the news that I had a life-threatening illness, and the realization that I would not be able to have children, was horribly painful, but the powerful assistance that comes from the truth amazed me. Theology can be so practical. It does wonders for anxiety and self-pity and despair.

I’m so glad God ordained my conversion to Reformed theology prior to ordaining my cancer. I know he is immeasurably strong and thoroughly in charge and one hundred percent on my side, even when he sends painful circumstances. Was it Spurgeon that said, “I will kiss the waves that dash me upon the Rock of Ages”?

The reason for lingering over these several testimonies, brothers, is to communicate a certain tone in which I want you to hear what I say. The reality of God’s all-governing, all-pervasive, purposeful sovereignty (providence) is controversial. From now until the day you see Jesus, there will be people who turn red in the face and speak angry words against you if you give the slightest hint that you believe it was God who took their child or their spouse. From now until the end of history, there will be scholars and pundits who write articles and essays and books describing the God of Jonathan Edwards as a moral monster.

Your job, when those things happen to you in your ministry, is not to return evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but to absorb the slander and the abuse, hand it over to God, and patiently minister to those in need.

I bear witness, brothers, some of those adversaries will do a complete one-eighty and love you someday. Don’t go online with guns blazing. This is not the kind of doctrine that should be handled that way. It is the great design of Providence to be the ballast in your peoples’ boats that keep them from capsizing in the waves of suffering. That’s the spirit in which I want you to hear this message, and that’s the spirit I think you should have when you speak of God’s absolute, purposeful sovereignty — of God’s providence.

So, let’s approach providence this way:

First, let’s say just a few more words about the meaning of “providence.”
Second, since the focus of this conference is on truth, and this is a message on “the triumph of truth through providence,” let’s identify some of the glorious promises of God, whose truth will not triumph without the providence of God.
Third, let’s look at some of the realities that threaten to defeat those promises, and how providence overcomes those threats and guarantees the triumph of those promises.

So: (1) clarify the definition, (2) identify some of God’s promises about our glorious future, and (3) show how providence secures those promises.

1. Providence’s Definition

What is God’s providence? The word providence doesn’t occur in the Bible, so if we are going to use it, we need to forge a definition from realities in the Bible, not from the use of the word itself. The short definition that I use is “God’s purposeful sovereignty.” Sovereignty and providence aren’t identical. “Sovereignty” means that God can do, and does do, whatever he pleases. “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Psalm 115:3). That’s sovereignty.

But the word sovereignty does not carry in itself any idea of design or purpose, just power and authority. “Providence” implies purposefulness. Buried in the etymology of the word providence is the word provide, which is formed from two Latin words: pro and videre — “to see toward,” or the unusual English idiom “to see to.”

As in: God saw to it that there would be a ram in the thicket to take Isaac’s place. He saw to it that Joseph would be sold into slavery. He saw to it that his Son would be killed. This way of talking implies purposefulness. He doesn’t act only in sovereign power. He acts according to plan, to wisdom — he acts in purposeful sovereignty. That is what I mean by “providence.” God sees to everything purposefully.

One more clarification on the meaning of providence, namely, on its extent. I use the terms all-governing and all-pervasive to describe the extent. We will see this from the Bible as we go forward, but what I mean is that this purposeful sovereignty governs everything in the universe, from the most insignificant bird-fall (Matthew 10:29), to the movement of stars (Isaiah 40:26), to the murder of his Son (Acts 4:27–28). It includes the moral and immoral acts of every soul. Neither Satan at his hellish worst, nor human beings at their redeemed best, ever act in a way contrary to God’s ultimate, all-embracing, all-wise plan — his providence.

2. Providence’s Role in God’s Promises

What are some of the promises of God that capture this ultimate purpose, whose truth would not triumph without the providence of God? I’ll mention three.

The Promise of Gospel Reach

First, the promise that the gospel of Jesus Christ will successfully penetrate all the peoples of the world, gathering into Christ all of God’s ransomed elect: “This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14). It is promised. It is going to happen. The gospel will reach all the peoples of the world. World missions cannot be stopped.

And as it reaches all the peoples of the world, the gospel will succeed in gathering all the ransomed into Christ. Revelation 5:9–10: “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

The risen, sovereign Christ promises to gather his flock. John 10:16: “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” “I must . . . I will . . . I will.” That’s the promise. It cannot fail.

The Promise of Glorification

A second promise: All of these ransomed elect, the bride of Christ, will be sanctified, glorified, and made perfectly beautiful for the eternal enjoyment of her divine Husband. Romans 8:30: “Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” The promise of the glorification of God’s predestined, called, justified people is as good as done. They will be glorified, that is, made splendid and beautiful for Christ.

Ephesians 5:25–27: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her . . . so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” Christ did not die to set in motion a failed marriage. She will be blameless and beautiful.

“The promise of the glorification of God’s predestined, called, justified people is as good as done.”

First Thessalonians 5:23–24: “May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” Or Philippians 1:6: “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” It is promised. It will happen. She will be beautiful, perfectly beautiful, for the mutual enjoyment of bride and Bridegroom.

The Promise of God-Centered Pleasure

Third promise: This beauty of the bride will consist essentially in the sinless echo of Christ’s excellencies, his preciousness, reverberating back to him in the all-satisfying pleasures that his people find in him forever and ever. Isaiah 55:12–13:

You shall go out in joy     and be led forth in peace;the mountains and the hills before you     shall break forth into singing,     and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;     instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;and it shall make a name for the Lord,     an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

What shall make a name for the Lord? What is it in the new creation that will magnify the worth of the Lord forever? All creation, especially the bride, goes out in joy and breaks forth in singing. Isaiah 35:10: “The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

And what is the center and focus and source of that joy? Revelation 21:3–4:

Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

God is their joy. The center, the focus, the source. Psalm 16:11: “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” This is the end of the story. This is the ultimate purpose of God’s all-wise providence. “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory” (Isaiah 43:6–7).

And how will the infinite worth and beauty and greatness and preciousness of God’s glory be on display in this new world? It will enter God’s people and awaken in them undreamed-of pleasures, which will echo back to him, and to all the universe, that God is an all-satisfying treasure. It’s a promise. That’s going to happen.

The nations will be reached, the elect will be gathered in, and they will be made beautiful for the enjoyment of Christ, as they echo back his excellencies in the everlasting pleasures that they find in him.

But none of that is going to happen without the omnipotent exercise of the providence of God. Why? Because there are massive threats or obstacles standing in the way of God’s ultimate purpose. We turn to our third main point.

3. Threats to God’s Promises — and How Truth Triumphs

Now we look at some of the realities that threaten to defeat those promises, and how God’s providence overcomes those threats and guarantees the triumph of truth. But let’s say it a little differently: the providence of God doesn’t just overcome the threats and obstacles to the triumph of God’s promises; it actually makes the threats and obstacles serve the triumph of those promises.

I take that to be the meaning of Romans 8:35–37: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered’—” There they are, the obstacles threatening to nullify the promises of God. To which the apostle Paul says, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” I take “more than conquerors” to mean that God doesn’t just prevent the threats from sabotaging his purposes; he does more, and makes them serve his purposes.

So, the banner flying over Joseph’s brothers’ sin of selling him into slavery flies over every sin and threat to God’s purposes. Genesis 50:20: “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” Not “used” it for good, but “meant” it — planned it, designed it — for the good of his people. So it is with every obstacle and every threat. So it is with every evil from the fall of Lucifer to the lake of fire.

Now, to name a few.

The Threat of God’s Wrath

The greatest obstacle standing in the way of the final, glorious purpose of a beautiful, happy bride of Christ in the presence of an all-holy God is the wrath of God because of our sin. Nothing compares to the horrible, blazing barrier of God’s wrath between us and our everlasting happiness in him.

“The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18). This is why we pour out our lives in the course of world missions. The greatest obstacle to the everlasting happiness of every culture, every people group on the planet, is the wrath of God.

One thing can remove this obstacle: the love of God, propitiating the wrath of God through the death of the Son of God to vindicate the glory of God. Romans 3:25: “God put [Christ] forward as a propitiation by his blood.” But right here, at the most important point in redemptive history, at the most horrible, sinful point in history, the providence of God is in total control, without which there would be no salvation. Acts 4:27–28:

Truly in this city [Jerusalem] there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

Herod, Pilate, mobs, soldiers — you thought you were threatening and destroying the saving purposes of God. No. You were fulfilling them. In God’s providence you were doing whatever God’s hand and God’s plan had predestined to take place. “You meant it for evil. God meant it for good.”

The Threat of Satan and Sin

So now, the ransom for Christ’s bride is paid, the sins are covered, the condemnation is endured and past, the justice is satisfied, the impeding wrath is removed. But for the bride to enjoy all of this purchase, she must hear and believe (Romans 10:14–17). And Satan, in concert with human depravity, will do everything in their power (Satan and sin’s power) to keep that from happening.

Satan and sin conspire to turn kings and governors — the ones who make laws and break laws that hinder the spread of the gospel. “They will lay their hands on you and persecute you . . . and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake” (Luke 21:12). And what does that mean for the spread of the gospel? “The kings of the earth . . . and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed. . . . He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision” (Psalm 2:2–4).

Why? Because “the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will” (Daniel 4:32). “He removes kings and sets up kings” (Daniel 2:21). When they are in place, they act according to his plan: “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will” (Proverbs 21:1).

Do you think, O king of Assyria, because you destroy my people, that you are not a hatchet in my hand?

Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it,     or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?As if a rod should wield him who lifts it,     or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood! (Isaiah 10:15)

No. When Satan and sin conspire to raise up kings and governors against the mission of God, they cannot succeed. They simply find themselves to be advancing his ultimate purpose. “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”

The Threat of Disaster

But what about disease, like missionary kids in intensive care? What about freak accidents that take two missionaries from driving over a cliff, or a whole family of five wiped out on their way to the mission field? What about imprisonment and murder?

Disease? We have a sovereign Lord in heaven, to whom all authority is given. He rebuked fevers (Luke 4:39), cleansed lepers with a touch (Luke 5:13), opened the eyes of the blind (Matthew 9:29), made the deaf hear and the mute speak and the lame walk (Mark 7:34–35; Matthew 11:5). He raised the dead (Luke 7:14), and all the powers of hell obeyed him (Mark 1:27). And he “is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

To be sure, Satan strikes with sickness (Luke 13:16). But he is on a leash. He cannot act contrary to God’s decisive plan. God can step in at any moment. And what he permits Satan to do, he wills to permit. He plans to permit. He doesn’t permit on the spur of the moment. He plans his permissions, and planned permission is providence. This is why Job 2:7 says, “Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores.”

But Job, three verses later, says, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” To which the inspired author comments, “In all this Job did not sin with his lips” (Job 2:10). Indeed, the writer speaks his final word over the whole book in Job 42:11: “[Job’s family] showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him.” And Paul called his painful thorn in the flesh “a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited” (2 Corinthians 12:7). How it must gall Satan to be made the means of Christian holiness. “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”

And yes, Satan throws into prison (Revelation 2:10). Satan kills Christians (Revelation 2:10). Satan orchestrates freak accidents (John 8:44; 12:31). But from God’s standpoint, there are no accidents — freak or otherwise.

James 4:15 tells us how to speak of random events: “Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’” If the Lord wills, we live. If the Lord wills, we die. We are immortal until our work is done. And while we live, James says, “this or that” will happen to us if God wills. From man’s viewpoint it can feel like “random this, random that.” But not with God. “If the Lord wills, this or that happens,” no matter how freakish it looks to us.

And if Satan and the enemies of God rub their hands together in triumph when a Christian witness languishes and dies, let them hear this word from Revelation 12:11: “They have conquered [the accuser, the serpent] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” The death of a Christian is not Satan’s victory. All of heaven knows it, and we need to teach our people to know it.

The Threat of Shipwreck

Glance briefly at one last threat to God’s plan. God’s ultimate purposes would fail if Satan’s blinding power over the depraved human heart were sovereign. If he could hold God’s elect in the blindness of spiritual death, or if he could deceive the Christian elect and cause them to turn away from the path of holiness and make shipwreck of their faith, God’s purposes would fail.

Neither Satan nor man is sovereign, either in the blindness of unbelievers or the fragile perseverance of Christian faith. God is. And over the new birth of every blood-bought sinner fly the words, “[God] made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:5). And over the miracle of every glory-seeing and glory-savoring Christian flies the banner, “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

At the end of every person’s life, for those who have persevered in faith, fought the good fight, finished the race, flies the banner, “Now to him who has kept me from stumbling and presented me blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen” (see Jude 24–25).

Providence Will Stand

I conclude that the truth of God, the promises of God, triumph.

The gospel of Jesus Christ will successfully penetrate all the peoples of the world, and will gather into Christ all of God’s ransomed elect.
All of these ransomed, the bride of Christ, will be sanctified, glorified, and made perfectly beautiful for the eternal enjoyment of her divine Husband.
This beauty of the bride will be the sinless echo of Christ’s excellencies, his preciousness, reverberating back in the all-satisfying pleasures that his people find in him forever and ever.

These truths, these realities, cannot fail, because God’s providence is his all-governing, all-pervasive, purposeful sovereignty, or, as he himself says, in Isaiah 46:10, “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.”

I’ll begin by stating the aim of this message six different ways:

My aim is that those of you who preach or teach the word of God would make clear the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. And I mean the killing of our own sin, not the sins of others.
. . . that you would make clear the effective connection between canceled sin and conquered sin.
. . . that you would make clear the effective connection between the horrors of Christ’s suffering and the holiness of Christ’s people.
. . . that you would make clear that in releasing his people from guilt, Christ effectively secured their lives of righteousness in this world.
. . . that you would make clear the effective connection between justification by Christ’s blood and progressive sanctification by that same blood.
. . . that you would make clear the effective connection between the tearing of Christ’s flesh in crucifixion and the tearing out of your eye in the battle against lust.

I chose to pursue this aim with you because it seems to me that in the last forty years or so of the gospel-centered emphasis in America, there has not been a biblically proportionate emphasis on preaching holiness of life and godliness and righteousness and radical, countercultural Christlikeness. Instead, it seems to me that to be gospel-centered has often filtered down to the pew as something like this: “Preach the gospel to yourself every day,” which is heard to mean, Rehearse the good news that you are loved, accepted, and forgiven. No condemnation. No judgment. No hell. Acquitted. Vindicated. Clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

Saved for More and Greater

Here’s the problem with that emphasis. Suppose you are condemned to be hanged by the neck until dead tomorrow morning. But when they come to open your cell at dawn, instead of taking you to the gallows, they set you free because someone has volunteered to take your place. This would be the happiest experience of your life, at least up till that moment. Your heart would overflow with joy being free from condemnation and execution. And you would be full of tearful thankfulness for the substitute. This would be an absolutely overwhelming, all-embracing experience of joy.

Perhaps a year later the experience is still vivid and intense with happiness and thankfulness. And perhaps for the next five years you wake up every morning, and go to bed every night, preaching to yourself: “I’m not condemned! I’m not going to be hanged! I have a reprieve! No condemnation! No execution. No gallows! No punishment! Accepted! Forgiven!” Ten years later you are still preaching this same message to yourself. Thirty years later. Fifty years later. “I’m not going to be hanged! I’m not going to be hanged!”

You see the problem. There are vast reaches of the human heart — depths, heights, breadths — that can never be filled, never be satisfied, with that truncated gospel. We must have more than the message of justification. We must have more than: No condemnation. No hell. No guilt. Justification by faith is a means to something more and greater. The propitiation of God’s wrath is a means to something more and greater. Forgiveness of sins is a means to something more and greater. Escape from hell is a means to something more and greater. Redemption from slavery is a means to something more and greater.

Ultimately, finally, that “more and greater” is God himself. First Peter 3:18 puts it like this: “Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” To see God. To know God. To have God as a companion. To enjoy God. To be irradiated with the glory of God. To finally, in some suitable measure, reflect God. To become, at last, a fitting echo of the excellence of God. Brothers and sisters, that is a million times greater than justification and forgiveness. Just as walking into heaven is a million times greater than walking out of hell. Because God is there. There is no comparing the pleasure of walking out of prison and walking into the arms of your wife.

But between the glories of justification and forgiveness that launch us by the blood of Christ into life, and final glorification with its perfected vision of God, and sinless savoring of his fellowship — between the first beginning and the final goal of our redeemed existence — there is the Christian life, a life of faith and hope and love and truth and righteousness and purity and holiness and courage, and countercultural conformity to Jesus over against selfishness and pride and greed and lust and rebellion and a hundred forms of worldliness.

Another Way of Preaching Grace

There is a kind of unhealthy preaching that focuses on holiness of life but in a way that fails to make plain the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. It fails to make plain the relationship between Christ’s canceling sin and our conquering sin. And therefore holiness, in this kind of preaching, becomes a burden too great to bear. And people become despairing, or they become self-righteous, moral achievers.

“There is a way to preach that only preaches grace that pardons, but doesn’t preach the grace that empowers.”

And there is a way to preach that is so allergic to biblical imperatives and commands and warnings that it never preaches with any sense of urgency about the biblical demand for holiness. It never says, “Tear out your eye because it’s better to lose one of your members than for your whole body be thrown the hell” (Matthew 5:29). It never says, “Pursue the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). It never says, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (Luke 13:24). It only preaches grace that pardons, but doesn’t preach the grace that empowers. Grace to forgive sin, but not grace to kill sin.

My aim in this message is to plead for another way of preaching and teaching that commits neither of those two errors. My aim is that we would preach so as to show the people the effective connection — yes, even by grace to establish the effective connection — between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. Between canceled sin and conquered sin. Between the horrors of Christ’s suffering for us and the holiness of our life in him.

Canceled Sin and Conquered Sin

Of all the texts we could look at to make these connections (for example, Romans 8:4; Colossians 1:22; Hebrews 10:10), I want to look at two passages in 1 Peter. Let’s look first at 1 Peter 1:14–16.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Four observations from those three verses: First, holiness is commanded. “Be holy” in verse 15 is an imperative (geneitheite). Not a suggestion. But a command.

Second, God’s holiness is the ground of the command. Verse 16: “Be holy, for I am holy.”

Third, God’s holiness means that he is so separate from all that is ordinary, indeed all that is created, that he is in a class by himself, one of a kind — like the rarest diamond. We call this kind of separateness transcendence. And the Bible adds a moral dimension to this transcendence so that we call it transcendent purity or goodness.

God’s holiness means that he is perfectly separate from all that is finite and all that is defiled. Transcendent purity. And since God’s purity is not measured by anything outside himself, he is the measure of all purity and all goodness and all worth. For God to be actively holy, therefore, is for all his words, and all his attitudes, and all his actions to be in perfect harmony with the infinite value of his transcendent purity. That is what it means for God to be holy.

Fourth, therefore, our holiness derives from his. It means that all our attitudes and words and actions should be in harmony with his infinite worth. First Peter 1:14 fills out what it means for us to be holy as God is holy: “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions [the word is simply “desires”] of your former ignorance.” Unholy desires flow from ignorance — of what? God. The worth of God. The greatness of God. The all-satisfying beauty of God. The holiness of God.

So, human holiness is the transformation of our knowledge, replacing “ignorance” (agnoia, verse 14) and the transformation of our “desires” so that they conform to the true worth of God and not to our former ignorance. Human holiness is to know the true greatness and beauty and worth of God, and to have desires that conform to that knowledge. They’re the attitudes and words and actions that follow.

Blood-Bought Ransom and Holy Conduct

Now comes the connection between the holiness of the Christian and the horrors of Christ’s suffering. Verse 17:

And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear [another imperative, like “be holy”] throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. (1 Peter 1:17–19)

Now, notice carefully that there are two ways that Peter makes the connection between the blood-ransom of Christ and the holy conduct of the Christian.

‘Ransomed from Futile Ways’

The first is in verse 18 where he says, “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers.” He does not say we were ransomed from guilt, or from condemnation, or from Satan, or from hell. He says we were ransomed from “futile ways.” The word for “ways” (in verse 18) is the same word used for “conduct” in verse 15: “Be holy in all your conduct (anastrophei).” So, to show the parallel we can say (verse 18): You were ransomed from your futile “conduct” (anastropheis) by the precious blood of Christ.

Which means that when Christ died and shed his infinitely valuable blood, he purchased, by means of a ransom-payment, our transfer from futile conduct to holy conduct. He bought our holiness — our holy conduct. Not with perishable things like silver and gold (verse 18), but with the most precious thing in the world, the blood of the Son of God. That is what he paid for our holiness. That is what he paid to bring all our attitudes and words and actions into harmony with the infinite worth of God.

And the purchase was effective. Remember I used the word “effective” in each of my six statements of my aim for this message. I said my aim was a kind of preaching that makes clear the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. Christ’s ransom-payment was not a failure. He didn’t shed his blood in vain. He obtained what he paid for. The holy conduct of God’s people is sure. Which is why the Bible repeatedly makes plain that if you don’t have this holiness of life, you have no warrant to think you are part of the ransomed. This is serious. Perhaps you can feel something of why this message feels so important to me.

‘Because You Were Ransomed’

I said there were two ways that Peter makes the connection in this passage between the blood-ransom of Christ and the holiness of the Christian. And the first way is that by his blood he effectively ransomed his people from futile conduct into holy conduct. He effectively obtained the holiness of his people.

Now, the second way is seen in the logical connection between verses 17 and 18. In the second half of verse 17 he gives the command: “Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile” [that is, be holy, for God is holy] and then comes a participle that functions as a ground (verse 18a): “ . . . knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways.” So, the logic connecting the two verses is: “Conduct yourselves in holiness, because you know you were ransomed from futile ways into holy ways.”

This is the preaching I am pleading for. Peter cries out to his congregations (the churches in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia) — he cries out with a clear imperative, command, “Conduct yourselves in godly fear! Be holy, because your God is holy. Bend your whole life into harmony with the infinite worth of God in Christ. Make holiness complete in the fear of the Lord” (as Paul does in 2 Corinthians 7:1). And he gives the great ground: Because your freedom from the old, futile ways, and your new holy way of life in Christ Jesus, has been bought by the most precious reality in the world, the blood of Jesus.

It’s not as though God saw his kidnapped wife in the hands of the enemy and paid the ransom to have her back, and then watched as she walked free and, instead of coming home, went and shacked up with another man. It didn’t happen like that. That’s not the way to think about the blood of Jesus. It is not impotent. It is effective. It was not shed in vain. The ransom bought a new way of life for his people. They will walk in the way he bought. And if they don’t, they have no warrant to think they are his people.

You recall how Paul put it in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” The new way of holy living for the redeemed has been prepared by God. And part of that preparation was the ransom of 1 Peter 1:18. God did not spill the blood of his Son in vain. The good works of his people were purchased — prepared. The command is to walk in the steps he obtained with his blood.

That We Might Live to Holiness

Now, look with me at 1 Peter 2:20–24. Let’s start in the middle of verse 20. Peter is talking to slaves, but what he says applies to all Christians:

. . . If when you do good and suffer for it you endure [that is, endure in faith and love — holiness of life], this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called [so, this is God’s will for you, his call on your life. This is the imperative of a new way of life: not returning evil for evil, but good for evil. Then comes the ground], because Christ also suffered for you.

So, God’s call on your life to live a holy, humble, patient, radically countercultural life of returning good for evil is based on the suffering of Christ for you. That’s what we saw in chapter 1. Now we see it again here.

But someone might say: wait a minute. You are interpreting the phrase “for you” in verse 21 (“Christ also suffered for you”) in a substitutionary way, but the very next phrase describes the death of Christ as an example, not a substitution. So, verse 21 goes on: “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.” So, why do you take the words, “suffered for you,” to mean, “suffer in your place,” when the defining participle describes it as suffering to give you an example of how to live?

My answer is: I take the words this way because that’s where Peter goes in his explanation in verse 24. The death of Jesus “for you” (verse 21) is not simply to give you an example for how to live, but even more fundamentally to bear your sins (verse 24): “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.” So, that’s the ground of the call on your life to return good for evil and walk in all holiness. And to make that crystal clear Peter adds at the end of verse 24 the purpose clause for the sin-bearing work of Christ, namely, “that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” — live to holiness. That we might be holy.

So, the life-altering logic is the same as 1 Peter 1:17–18. “Be holy, because God is holy, and conduct yourselves in godly fear, because he ransomed you from a futile way of life for a life of holiness by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.”

“The sin-bearing work of Christ is the ground of the sin-killing work of the Christian.”

And the logic here in 1 Peter 2:24 is that the sin-bearing work of Christ is the ground of the sin-killing work of the Christian. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, in order that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” Or as verse 21 says: we are called to return good for evil because Christ suffered “for us” — not only to give us an example, but also to bear our sins in his suffering for us.

So, my message is: Preach this! Preach the pursuit of holiness this way. Preach the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. Preach the effective connection between Christ’s canceling sin and our conquering sin. Preach the effective connection between the horrors of Christ’s suffering and the holiness of Christ’s people. Preach the effective connection between the tearing off of the flesh of Jesus and the tearing out of our lustful eyes.

Five Reasons Preachers Avoid Holiness

I’d like to close by addressing five possible reasons some pastors don’t preach the pursuit of holiness with the kind of blood-bought urgency we find in the New Testament.

First, perhaps some have simply not seen the connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. It’s just a blind spot in their biblical thinking. I hope this message helps remove that blind spot.

Second, perhaps some are reluctant to press the conscience of their people with the biblical demand for holiness because they fear the rebuke of Jesus that he gave to the lawyers when he said,

Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. (Luke 11:46)

To such pastors I would plead that you not try to address a real, biblical danger in an unbiblical way. The point of this message is that the Christian fight for holiness is connected to the forgiveness of sins in a gloriously unique gospel way not found in any other religion. Namely, that the only sin that can be successfully fought is a forgiven sin. And not only that, but also since the forgiveness has been secured infallibly by the blood of Jesus, the fight will be successful. Get to know this pervasive New Testament dynamic of holiness, and you will not have to fear the rebuke of Jesus that you have made his yoke hard and his burden heavy. Just the opposite.

Third, some pastors avoid preaching on the urgency and necessity of holiness because their own secret lives are morally compromised. They are wasting their time on trifles. They are watching movies that fill their minds with worldliness, not godliness. They are dabbling in pornography, or worse. They are dishonest in their financial dealings. They continually overeat in bondage to food. They neglect the teaching of their children and don’t pray with their wives. They are starting to medicate with wine, which they once called freedom. Their casual mouth has become crude. They’ve grown weary of fruitful Bible study and are becoming second-handers, depending on other people’s sermons.

Is it any wonder that these pastors preach week in and week out on the grace of God to forgive sins, but rarely celebrate the glory of God’s grace to defeat sinning? They lift high the cross as a covering for all their sins, and never make the biblical connection that Christ was crucified to conquer pornography, crucified to conquer laziness, crucified to conquer gluttony, crucified to conquer dishonesty, crucified to bring back the joy of creating their own sermons.

“There are pastors who are deeply infected with the coddling culture of contemporary America.”

Fourth, some pastors avoid anything approaching a kind of preaching that would confront people with their sin and would risk making them unhappy. There are pastors who are deeply infected with the coddling culture of contemporary America, and who are not only hyper-sensitive to being offended, but in the pulpit are fearful of stirring up anyone’s displeasure. There are reasons for this kind of reluctance to preach the urgency of holiness, and one of them is a deep-seated insecurity that shows itself in a desperate need to be liked — to be approved by other people.

Such pastors need to dig down deep into their hearts, and perhaps into their past, to find why these insecurities have such a hold on them, and then, perhaps with the help of counselors, apply the sovereign grace of God more deeply to their own hearts than they ever have.

Finally, some pastors are so fearful of being labeled as conservative, or fundamentalist, or progressive, or woke, or whatever the circles they care about would look down on, that they avoid any radical, biblical command that would seem to put them in some camp that they don’t want to be part of.

So perhaps, for example, they will not deal with racial discrimination, because that will make them sound woke. Or they won’t deal with, say, modesty, or nudity in movies, because that will make them sound fundamentalist. Or they won’t deal with the fact that we are citizens of heaven first and not American first, because that will make them sound unpatriotic.

The remedy for this bondage to the opinions of others is first to become more like Jesus, who had this reputation (Mark 12:14): “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God.”

And the second part of that remedy is to be so radically committed to all that the Bible teaches that just when people think they have you pegged in some camp, you bring out of your biblical treasure chest something that throws them completely off-balance — until it becomes well-known: you are nobody’s lackey. You do not live to please men, right or left, rich or poor, white or black, male or female. You march to the biblical drum, no matter what.

Power in the Blood

My prayer for you is that when all of these obstacles are out of the way, you would preach and teach and live in such a way as to help your people experience the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. Between the glorious justifying and glorious sanctifying effect of the precious blood of Christ. That you would sing with your people, and mean it:

Would you be free from the burden of sin?     There’s pow’r in the blood, pow’r in the blood.Would you o’er evil a victory win?     There’s wonderful pow’r in the blood.