http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14769962/how-do-saints-build-the-body

Does our right standing before God depend on our becoming more like Jesus, or does our becoming more like Jesus flow from our right standing before God? I first began wrestling with that question twenty years ago as a college student.

The Bible uses a variety of terms for what God has done for us in Christ — salvation, regeneration, justification, sanctification, adoption, election, redemption, glorification. The question I struggled to answer was, How do all of these terms relate to one another? More specifically and personally, when and how and in what sequence will they happen for me?

Historically, my question was about the relationship between justification (being declared righteous before God) and sanctification (the ongoing progressive work by which we are conformed to the image of Jesus). Did justification precede and give rise to sanctification? Or was justification in some way based upon my sanctification?

Resurrection and Redemption

Romans 8:29–30 often sets the tone for the debate:

For those whom [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Here we have a basic order: foreknown, predestined, called, justified, glorified. The question was how the rest of the saving realities — saved, redeemed, adopted, and sanctified — fit into the picture.

As I wrestled, I came across a book that proved to be a watershed for me: Resurrection and Redemption by Richard Gaffin, a longtime professor at Westminster Theological Seminary. The book is small — around 150 pages — but packs a theological punch. The basic thesis of the book has been profoundly helpful to me in thinking through how to bring the various biblical threads together on all that God has done for us in Christ.

We Will Be Raised

The book begins with the claim that the unity of the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of believers runs through the New Testament, citing texts like these:

1 Corinthians 15:20: “Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

Colossians 1:18: “[Christ] is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.”

1 Corinthians 15:16–18: “If the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.”

2 Corinthians 4:14: “[We know] that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus.”

Each of these passages expresses the reality that the resurrection of Christ is both unique and necessarily connected to our future resurrection. He is the firstfruits, the firstborn from the dead. He is the pioneer, the inaugurator, the forerunner who leads the way.

We Have Been Raised

This unity, however, is not merely a connection between Christ’s past resurrection and our future resurrection. The New Testament also stresses that we have already been, in some sense, raised with Christ.

Ephesians 2:5–6: “Even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

Colossians 2:12–13: “. . . having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.”

Romans 6:3–4: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

These passages teach that we are united to Christ not only in his resurrection, but in the whole of his life and death as well. We have died with Christ. We have been crucified with Christ. We have been raised with Christ. We have been seated with Christ.

From passages like these, Gaffin draws the conclusion that this existential union with Christ is the most basic element of Paul’s teaching on salvation.

Inner Man and Outer Man

The personal and existential union between us and Christ is intertwined with being chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world as well as being in some sense “in Christ” when he was crucified, buried, and raised in the first century. In other words, while we can distinguish between redemption planned (in eternity past), redemption accomplished (in history two thousand years ago), and redemption applied (in our own individual lives), we can never separate them, since all of them take place “in Christ.”

Gaffin draws attention to the already-not-yet dimension of redemption applied. In particular, the resurrection of Jesus has been refracted in the experience of the believer. We have already been raised with Christ (Ephesians 2:5), but we have not yet been raised with Christ (1 Corinthians 15:12–20).

Gaffin uses Paul’s distinction between the inner man and the outer man to make this point. We have been raised in the inner man, while we await the resurrection of the outer man — that is, the resurrection of the body at Christ’s second coming. Paul makes this point explicitly in 2 Corinthians 4:16: “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”

What then does this have to do with the order of salvation and the various terms used to describe what God has done for us in Christ? Let me attempt to express the lessons in my own words.

Five Glimpses of One Reality

When God saves us, the fundamental thing he does is unite us to Christ by faith.

“When God saves us, the fundamental thing he does is unite us to Christ by faith.”

Union with the crucified and risen Lord Jesus is what salvation fundamentally is. But in order to help us understand the wonder and glory of our union with Christ, God gives us multiple word pictures or metaphors to reveal the significance of what Christ has done for us. Each of these word pictures or images enables us to comprehend the incomprehensible fact of our union with the Lord Jesus.

We can unpack union with Christ in terms of a law court, in which words like guilt and condemnation, righteousness and justification figure prominently.
We can unpack union with Christ using imagery from the temple, in which holiness and impurity, sanctification and cleansing are used.
We can unpack union with Christ using familial imagery, with the language of new birth and adoption taking center stage.
We can unpack union with Christ using the image of slavery and redemption, with mentions of bondage and captivity, of purchasing and freedom.
We can unpack union with Christ with the language of salvation and deliverance, of danger and rescue by a Savior.

Rather than trying to put the different terms into the exact sequence, we can instead see them as multiple ways that God has chosen to reveal the greatness and glory of what he has done for us.

Five Already-Not-Yet Pictures

More than that, because of the already-not-yet dimension of our salvation, we can see that each of these word pictures contains three distinct phases: a definitive positional phase, an ongoing progressive phase, and a climactic final phase. If we run through the images again, we might say the following:

In terms of the law court, we are guilty and stand condemned, but Christ lives, dies, and is raised on our behalf, and therefore God declares us righteous in him. This is definitive and has to do with a new position and legal status based on the finished work of Christ. As a result, we leave the courtroom and seek to live upright and godly lives, walking in righteousness before God, as we wait for the day when we are publicly vindicated as his people when he bodily raises us from the dead.

In terms of the temple, God is holy and therefore cleanses the impure and sets apart the common for holy use. There is a decisive cleansing and sanctifying work when we trust in Christ (positional), and then the rest of our lives is an attempt to live holy lives, increasingly and progressively set apart from sin and evil, while we await our full and final cleansing in the new heavens and new earth.

In terms of the family, God decisively causes us to be born again, and then we seek to walk faithfully as his children. Or alternatively, he adopts us into his family (that’s conversion), and we now walk as obedient sons, as we wait for the final declaration of our sonship and conformity to the image of his Son when we are glorified.

In terms of slavery and redemption, we were enslaved to sin and death, and God decisively liberates us when he unites us to his Son. From then on, we seek to increasingly and progressively live as free men, since it is for freedom that Christ has set us free, as we wait for the redemption of our bodies on the last day.

In terms of danger and rescue, God delivers us from the penalty of sin (death), and then throughout our lives increasingly rescues us from the power of sin, all in anticipation of the day when we’ll be completely delivered from the presence of sin in his eternal kingdom.

For Me and Conforming Me

Resurrection and Redemption proved to be a watershed for me because the book resolved the tension over whether my right standing with God (justification) depended on my increasing conformity to Jesus (progressive sanctification).

“Justification is by faith alone, because faith unites me to Christ, who is my righteousness.”

Gaffin assured me, with Scripture, that my position before God — whether we’re talking about the courtroom, the temple, or the family — was decisively and definitively settled, simply by trusting in Jesus. Justification is by faith alone, because faith unites me to Christ, who is my righteousness. The righteousness beneath my justification is not something worked in me by God, but something accomplished for me — outside of me — by Christ. Union with him — his life, death, and resurrection — puts me right with God, so that God is completely for me.

Then, flowing from this new standing and position before God, God begins to progressively and increasingly conform me to the image of Jesus. The work is often slow, frequently painful. Sin remains, even if the wages of sin no longer hang over me. But my pursuit of holiness and obedience to God is rooted in the finished work of Jesus, both in history and in my life, and I hope for the coming day when God raises me from the dead and publicly displays what he has done for me and in me.

Audio Transcript

Many of you know I love to read books — so much so that I wrote a whole book about reading books. And I’m always encouraged to hear from readers who have put new emphasis on their own book reading because of the book I wrote. It’s a powerful discipline in the Christian life, as you know, Pastor John. I’m reminded of an episode we did this spring, about how “1 Percent of a Book Can Change Your Life.” That was the title of APJ 1910. Books have played a huge role in your development, and I know this, Pastor John, because every once in a while I get to study a book from your library.

Most recently, I looked through your copy of Mortimer Adler’s classic How to Read a Book, for another project in the works — a book about this podcast, actually. And being able to thumb through your own book was really instructive to see what sentences you underlined and what sections you marked and how you jotted down notes in the front and back of the book. Perhaps we can talk about how you mark up your books in the future. But this week — for these next two episodes — I want you to explain to us why you read books and whom you read: the why today, the whom on Thursday. So first, speaking from a macro perspective, what has been the impact of books on your life?

Well, what a wonderful question. It would be hard to overstate the life-shaping impact of books on my life. But I’m going to go back a little bit and lay a foundation.

The Bible Is a Book

Foundation number one is that the Bible is a book. The implications of that fact are simply staggering. When God contemplated all the possible ways that existed for him — as an infinite, omnipotent, all-wise God — to transmit and preserve his revelation to the world, he chose a book. And that’s simply astonishing. We have no other authoritative access to the knowledge of God, the way of salvation, and how to live a life pleasing to the Lord than through this book —either directly by reading it or indirectly from others who have read it.

“The Bible is a book. The implications of that fact are simply staggering.”

The book is absolutely unique. It’s inspired in all of its words, and that inspiration secures the sufficiency of the book in equipping us for every good deed. I mean, that very phrase in 2 Timothy 3:17 — “every good work” — is amazing to me. It’s an awesome claim that we are equipped, fitted out, by this book for every good deed that God expects of us. He won’t expect of us anything he doesn’t equip us to do through this book. So, it’s astonishing how unique and powerful this book is.

Meaning Through Reading

Then you add to that Ephesians 3:4, where Paul said, “When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ.” That’s breathtaking to me. The inspiration of the book and the reading of the book are the junctures between God and man, where saving truth is moved from the divine mind into the human mind and spirit. These are staggering implications of saying that reading is the way “you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ,” as Paul says.

Of course, this is not possible without the almighty agency of the Holy Spirit. It’s not merely an intellectual affair. But it’s not less than an intellectual affair, because God has ordained that his truth come through a book. Reading is a work of the mind.

And of course, it also doesn’t mean — and nothing I’ve said is intended to imply — that we can just go about this in our own little private cubicle without taking anybody else into account. The Bible is crystal clear that God has appointed pastors and teachers — people with spiritual gifts that include wisdom, knowledge, prophecy, teaching, and other ways that humans clarify, apply, and inspire us with the Scriptures.

So, even though God is giving us a book, he means for us to understand the book, apply the book, and be inspired by the book with the help of other people — some who are dead and left their insights in books, and some who are alive and teach us, preach, counsel, and converse with us.

Once the reality of God’s privileging the written word — with his choice of a book as the decisive means by which he would reveal and preserve the revelation of himself — has sunk in, you can never be indifferent to the reality of books. God has privileged the book, honored the book, elevated the book, and esteemed the book above all other means for his centuries-long preservation and explanation of his revelation.

Seven Reasons to Read

So, when I say it would be hard to overstate the life-shaping impact of books on my life, I think I’m saying something very much in line with God’s purposes for the world. All that to justify my first sentence. So, let me be specific and answer your question.

1. Books have shown me the glory, the greatness, the character, the attributes, and the beauties of God.

“Books have shown me the glory, the greatness, the character, the attributes, and the beauties of God.”

2. Books have convicted me of sin. In fact, most books convict me of sin one way or the other. There was an extended period of time in Germany when every Sunday evening I would read an extended portion of Edwards’s Religious Affections, and I found myself devastated — week in and week out — as he peeled away the layers of the self-exaltation of my heart.

3. Books have shown me the path of righteousness.

4. Books have given me inspiration and encouragement in some of my most difficult days — and I’m thinking here mainly of biography.

5. Books have shaped the way I think and the way I express myself. I’m thinking, of course, of C.S. Lewis here — razor-sharp logic and a deep belief in the reality of reason and logic, while never elevating it above the essential importance of the imagination and the affections. It’s not only his deep belief in exemplification — setting an example of logic — but the touchable, smellable, tasteable concreteness of his language. Oh, the power of the concrete over the abstract in helping people grasp the greatest things!

6. Books have cultivated deep convictions in me about things like the aims of reading. I think here of E.D. Hirsch in his book Validity in Interpretation, which profoundly persuaded me that the only objective grounds for any claim to validity in one’s interpretation is that we have found an author’s intention in writing. I think that’s right, and what a vast implication it has for how you read everything.

7. Finally, I would say books have clarified for me biblical concepts that I may never have gotten good clarity on by myself because of how extensive the scope of one’s grasp of Scripture needs to be in order to synthesize in the way books do. And I’m thinking here of George Ladd, for example — one of my professors — in A Theology of the New Testament or his book The Presence of the Future.

Join Me

So, that’s the tip of the iceberg. To the person who struggles with reading, I would simply say, “Join me.” Join limited, slow-reading John Piper. Admit your limitations. Lay down all resentments, anger, self-pity, and self-justification, and humbly accept your limitations. Admit them, and then do the best you can. Be thankful for every measure of reading you’re able to do.