Jul
01
2012
The Sermon On The Mount For Those Who Have Crashed And Burned
Last week I finished a nine week series on the Sermon on the Mount entitled “The Glorious Impossibility.” I opened the series by saying that we naturally treat the Sermon on the Mount like we typically treat the rest of the Bible–like it’s a divine self-help manual, a blueprint for having your best life now. But actually the Sermon on the Mount is intended to show that the Christian life is a glorious impossibility.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus wants to set us free by showing us our need for a rightness we can never attain on our own–an impossible righteousness that’s always out of our reach. The purpose of the Sermon on the Mount is to demolish all notions that we can reach the righteousness required by God–it’s about exterminating all attempts at self-sufficient moral endeavor.
So, in the deepest sense, the Sermon on the Mount is not a goal, but a wall we crash into so that we finally cry out “I can’t do it!”
You can watch/listen to the entire series here.
Here is part 1:
The Glorious Impossibility: Part 1 | Tullian Tchividjian from Coral Ridge | LIBERATE on Vimeo.
54 Comments
Hi Mitchell,
But to say that your view is the apostle Paul’s view, you would have to ignore or explain away that that Paul indeed speaks of the Christian life as a pursuit with a goal in Christ (Phil. 3:7-16; 1 Cor. 9:24-27). In Galatians, and Romans, and Corinthians he speaks many imperatives or instructions that are based on grace (since Christ is or has done this, therefore we can do this in Him through the Spirit), or are not considered to be futile or unfeasible, sometimes throughout entire chapters after he has just finished contrasting law with grace earlier (ex. Gal. 5:1-6:18; Rom. 6:11-23, 12:1-15; 1 Cor. 7:1-9:27, 10:1-14:30). It can’t be fit into a neat-and-tidy Law then Gospel theological construct which says that all imperatives or mention of us doing something is the killing “law” that can only stir up the old man or else leave us in despair.
In Romans 7 the apostle Paul describes what it’s like to try to keep the law with his own effort–the harder he tries to please God the harder he fails, because of the law of sin and of death in his members. We need this experience to expose our attempts to please God with our own strength. But on the other side of Romans 7 is Romans 8. In Romans 8 he describes the law of the Spirit of life that frees us in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death (vv. 2-4), and of our walking by the Spirit because of which we are not debtors to live by the flesh but can by the Spirit put to death the practices of the body (vv. 12-13). Was Paul therefore a “pietist”?
I understand that you had a negative experience in Southern Baptist groups. So maybe a bunch of Southern Baptists have a self-inflated view of their flesh, or liked comparing their “spirituality” and looking down on others. However, such negative expressions do not annul what the Lord Jesus and the apostles said about Christ living in us, walking by the Spirit, walking as a new creation, pursuing Christ or righteousness or sanctification or love, doing all things in Christ, etc., the clear distinction between doing things in the flesh (futile, vain) versus doing things in the Spirit (possible and profitable because of Christ’s living in the members of His Body). They didn’t say such things because are so competent in ourselves and we don’t need a Savior, but because we are saved and our Savior lives in us.
I think that part of the problem is that at the time of the apostles, “church” wasn’t a building people go to hear a pastor speak and administer word and sacrament once a week; it was the believers in their daily living together, in large meetings and from house to house. The Lord’s supper was typically in the homes with the trappings of hospitality, and not officiated by a clergyman as distinct from the “laity.” All were encouraged to function according to their measure in speaking the word of God (1 Cor. 14). In short, the word of God and the enjoyment of grace was not something that happened to us once a week in a church building as officiated by a clergyman, assuming we got ourselves to “church” that week; it was for us in our total living, not only in big meetings but at any time through means of prayer, the Spirit, the word of God, fellowship with one another, etc. Hence: “Always rejoice, unceasingly pray, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thes. 5:16-18) or “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God. / And whatever you do in word or in deed, do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Col. 3:16-17) or “And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissoluteness, but be filled in spirit, /Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and psalming with your heart to the Lord, Giving thanks at all times for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to our God and Father, / Being subject to one another in the fear of Christ” (Eph. 5:18-21). In other words, because of the history of the church (the organized distinction between clergy and laity, division into different denominations) and our personal religious history, today we might have a different view of what’s “normal” than the apostles and the early church.
Brandon,
There have always been preachers, teachers and evangelists within the body… the Church… and then those who were taught. This isn’t to say pastors aren’t taught or instructed by their congregations. There is the distinction though in the Bible. I’ve also seen the absolute aberrations that show up when everyone gets to speak “their measure.” No thanks… I’ll take someone, an institution if you will, that has taken the time to understand the Scriptures in their original contexts. This is exactly one of the problems with American Evangelicalism… anyone can be a pastor or teach and God gives their own personal vision.
They met in homes early on because they had to. They would’ve gladly met in public if they could have. The church has always met for Word and Sacrament… from Acts onward to today rather than pastoral pet subjects and music solos to make one “feel the presence of God.”
I agree… the Grace of God is given throughout the week.
I think we are speaking past each other my friend. Good talking to you again.
Brother Mitchell,
All the members being encouraged to speak the word of God is clearly depicted in 1 Corinthians 14 (in the meetings); Col. 3:16, Eph. 5:19-20 (in daily life); etc. “What then, brothers? Whenever you come together, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up…For you can all prophesy one by one that all may learn and all may be encouraged” (1 Cor. 14:26, 31). It’s not a matter of every speaking their own private “vision,” but of the gifted members perfecting the other members to function like they do unto the work of the ministry, the building up of the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:11-12). Even when the saints could meet openly in the temple or the portico of Solomon, they still met and broke break from house to house (Acts 4:46); “church” wasn’t a building they went to, but the people. I agree with some of your points about pastoral pet projects within evangelicalism. My point is that the thought of the building up of the church being located merely in a word and sacrament service officiated where the majority are mostly passive is foreign to the apostolic times; grace was a total living through means of prayer, the Spirit, the word, fellowship, the larger meetings, etc. Hence, the apostle Paul speaks of the Christian life as a pursuit with a goal, and locates the building up of the Body in the daily mutual interactions and functions of all the members (1 Cor. 14:3, 5, 12, 26; Rom. 14:19; Eph. 4:11-16; 29), not merely in an event that happens to them week by week.
I don’t think that we’re talking past each other so much as I can’t get you to accept how the apostle Paul spoke about these matters. When the apostle Paul says, “I am able to do all things in Him who empowers me” (Phil. 4:13) or “But I say, Walk by the Spirit and you shall by no means fulfill the lust of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16) or “And those members of the body which we consider to be less honorable, these we clothe with more abundant honor; and our uncomely members come to have more abundant comeliness…And whether one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it” (1 Cor. 12:23, 26) was he advocating an unrealistic view of man? If we take a close look at his utterances, I think that Paul held that as regards to our flesh, we are utterly helpless, rotten to the core, and good for nothing but death and burial. Yet he also held that through God’s work the Spirit is in us, Christ is in us, we are regenerated children of God, a new creation, members of the Body of Christ, who can do all things in Christ by the Spirit rather than by our flesh. (The same goes for the Lord Jesus, and the other apostles.) It’s not as if the former renders all thought of living by Christ or the pursuit of Christ, righteousness, godliness, etc., as futile and unfeasible; and it’s not as if the latter nullifies the need for justification, forgiveness and the knowledge that in our flesh nothing good dwells.
To me your view seems to pit Paul against Paul and then purport to be Paul’s view, rather than accepting both aspects of Paul’s view in its completeness. I emphasize the “life in Christ” side on pastor Tullian’s blog, because it is here that it is claimed that all imperatives concerning growth in Christ are nothing but the killing law (or else the “first use” of the law). But in forums where Roman Catholicism or “salvation” as nothing but a process holds sway, I definitely emphasize the fallenness of humanity and the need for imputed righteousness based on Christ’s finished work.
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John Thomson,
Amen, good points. There’s so much that can be said concerning the many differences between God’s commandments in the new covenant and the Law. Another difference, which you’ve mentioned before: the Law is all demand that never supplies us, but Christ’s commandments can supply us with the Spirit, life and grace. In the mouth of the Lord Jesus “Go and sin no more” (John 5:14; 8:11) can be a life-supplying word.
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