Where To Look When You're In Trouble
Tullian Tchividjian Blog | October 18, 2011
A shift has taken place in the Evangelical church with regard to the way we think about the gospel and it's far from simply an ivory tower conversation. This shift effects us on the ground of everyday life.In his book Paul: An Outline of His Theology, famed Dutch Theologian Herman Ridderbos (1909 - 2007) summarizes this shift which took place following Calvin and Luther. It was a sizable but subtle shift which turned the focus of salvation from Christ's external accomplishment to our internal appropriation:
While in Calvin and Luther all the emphasis fell on the redemptive event that took place with Christ's death and resurrection, later under the influence of pietism, mysticism and moralism, the emphasis shifted to the individual appropriation of the salvation given in Christ and to it's mystical and moral effect in the life of the believer. Accordingly, in the history of the interpretation of the epistles of Paul the center of gravity shifted more and more from the forensic to the pneumatic and ethical aspects of his preaching, and there arose an entirely different conception of the structures that lay at the foundation of Paul's preaching.
Donald Bloesch made a similar observation when he wrote, "Among the Evangelicals, it is not the justification of the ungodly (which formed the basic motif in the Reformation) but the sanctification of the righteous that is given the most attention."
With this shift came a renewed focus on the internal life of the individual. The subjective question, "How am I doing?" became a more dominant feature than the objective question, "What did Jesus do?" As a result, generations of Christians were taught that Christianity was primarily a life-style; that the essence of our faith centered on "how to live"; that real Christianity was demonstrated in the moral change that took place inside those who had a "personal relationship with Jesus." Our ongoing performance for Jesus, therefore, not Jesus' finished performance for us, became the focus of sermons, books, and conferences. What I need to do and who I need to become, became the end game.Believe it or not, this shift in focus from "the forensic to the pneumatic", from the external to the internal, has enslaving practical consequences.
When you're on the brink of despair-looking into the abyss of darkness, experiencing a dark-night of the soul-turning to the internal quality of your faith will bring you no hope, no rescue, no relief. Too often our preaching (and our counseling) is the equivalent of giving a drowning man swimming lessons: "Paddle harder, kick faster." We assume that people possess the internal power to get things right so we turn them in to themselves. (Interestingly, Martin Luther defined sin as "mankind turned inward.") But, as too many people already know, every internal answer will collapse underneath you. Turning to the external object of your faith, namely Christ and his finished work on your behalf, is the only place to find peace, re-orientation, and help. The gospel always directs you to something, Someone, outside you instead of to something inside you for the assurance you crave and need in seasons of desperation and doubt. The surety you long for when everything seems to be falling apart won't come from discovering the dedicated "hero within" but only from the realization that no matter how you feel or what you're going through, you've already been discovered by the "Hero without."
As Sinclair Ferguson writes in his book The Christian Life:
True faith takes its character and quality from its object and not from itself. Faith gets a man out of himself and into Christ. Its strength therefore depends on the character of Christ. Even those of us who have weak faith have the same strong Christ as others!
By his Spirit, Christ's continuing subjective work in me consists of his constant, daily driving me back to his completed objective work for me. Sanctification feeds on justification, not the other way around. The gospel is the good news announcing Christ's infallible devotion to us in spite of our lack of devotion to him. The gospel is not a command to hang onto Jesus. Rather, it's a promise that no matter how weak your faith may be in seasons of spiritual depression, God is always holding on to you.
Martin Luther had a term for the debilitating danger that comes from locating our hope in anything inside us: monstrum incertitudinis (the monster of uncertainty). It's a danger that has always plagued Christians since the fall but especially Christians in our highly subjectivistic age. And it's a monster that can only be destroyed by the external promises of God in Jesus.
Romans 5:1 says, "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." This is a bonafide peace that's built on a real change in status before God---from standing guilty before God the judge to standing righteous before God our Father. This is the objective custody of even the weakest believer. It's a peace that rests squarely on the fact that we've already been "reconciled to God by the death of his Son" (v. 10), justified before God once and for all through faith in Christ's finished work. It will surely produce real feelings and robust action, but this peace with God that Paul describes rests securely on the work of Christ for us, outside us. The truth is, that the more I look into my own heart for peace, the less I find. On the other hand, the more I look to Christ and his promises for peace, the more I find.So, when pressed in on every side, look up. In God's economy, the only way out is always up, not in.
Adapted from Jesus + Nothing = Everything
Comments:
October 25, 2011 at 04:24 AM
Ya'll
I was baptized twice once as an infant and then at the age of 22. that means i have a double portion and are more saved. (being sarcastic)
October 24, 2011 at 12:53 PM
You obviously believe that Jesus commanded us to do something just for kicks. And that even though He thought it so important as to make it a command, He would have nothing to do with it.
And you obviously don't believe it when Scripture says that "Baptism now saves you...".
OK. I would much rather have clarity on where each of us stands...than to have agreement.
October 24, 2011 at 12:03 PM
No, infants should not be baptized. Baptism is a public outward profession of faith.
October 24, 2011 at 10:50 AM
So infants already believe and are saved beforehand?
October 24, 2011 at 09:55 PM
And Christ has commanded more than two things for his disciples to do. Would you say that when we do other things that Christ has asked of us, that God is in it and granting what he commands. When you love your neighbor is that God's active action for you as well? I am just curious how consistent your beliefs are in this. I do understand that we may not agree but I can try to understand.
People decide to participate and follow through in both baptism and the Lord's Supper. The people baptizing or serving communion are neither here nor there, I do agree that it is Christ who is presently involved, I just don't see us as being non participants. I hope this struggle makes sense.
October 24, 2011 at 06:54 AM
You get baptized because you believe, have faith and are already saved. You do not get baptized to get saved but because you are. It is not Jesus + baptism = everything but Jesus + nothing = everything. I have read this somewhere recently.
October 24, 2011 at 04:11 PM
We Lutherans are oddballs (we know that).
We actually believe that when Christ commands something of us, that He is in it, granting what He commands. Strange, I know. But we are betting everything on God's action for us. And we believe that God is active in His Supper, and in Baptism.
We don't just come up with this on our own...but we actually get these notions from the Bible.
I'll leave you with the last word.
Thanks.
October 24, 2011 at 02:27 PM
I forgot that sola baptismo was the 6th point of the reformation.;-)
That said baptism is extremely important, and by no means do I believe that Christ has nothing to do with it. It is a response of obedience of true disciples and in which Christ is specially present.
October 23, 2011 at 02:30 PM
You can find an account in Acts 9:17-19. where The Apostle Paul received the Holy Spirit then baptized.
October 23, 2011 at 02:18 PM
Jeremiah
The Apostle Paul received the Holy Spirit then baptized. check it out.
October 22, 2011 at 08:05 AM
Steve, thanks for the reply.
I think that Christ dwells within believers before they are baptized and that infants who are baptized are not anymore indwelt by Christ than the moments before they were baptized. I know Luther's view of baptism is not easily understand by someone of Baptist persuasion who would affirm that it is an outward sign of an inward reality.
Might you be implying that Christ was within before baptism but baptism was an outward sign of it's reality and therefor a helpful external fact of Jesus within?
October 22, 2011 at 08:01 AM
Mitchell,
Exactly right.
He commanded them. He's in them.
Thanks, very much.
October 22, 2011 at 07:41 AM
Paul,
I agree it is by Grace that we are saved. But I would also add that the primary means by which God extends that grace to us is through Word And Sacrament. The sacraments are God's work to us.
October 22, 2011 at 04:57 PM
Jeremiah,
Acts 2:38 tells us that we receive forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit...in baptism.
1st Peter tells us that "baptism saves us".
Galatians 4 tells us that "those who have been baptized have put on Christ"
And Romans 6 tells us how we are to consider ourselves dead to sin, because of our baptism.
Jesus commands us to baptize and to be baptized. I think He must have had a very good reason since empty religious ritual was not His bag.
My 2 cents. Thanks.
October 22, 2011 at 04:28 PM
Ya'll
I believe baptism signifies repentance Matt 3:11. And new christians should be baptised. Acts 8:12-17 Futhermore, baptism initiates us into Christ. Rom. 6:3-8 but baptism is a figure and should be treated as such. In addition to individuals entire families of the early church were baptisted. Acts 16:33-34
October 21, 2011 at 09:28 AM
[...] Tchividjian continues his consecutive links-from-Forum Friday streak with this post, and gives us this quote: “By his Spirit, Christ’s continuing subjective work in me [...]
October 21, 2011 at 09:15 AM
if then u have been raised UP with him keep seekin the things ABOVE (away from self) and not the things on earth (within ourselves) col.3
October 21, 2011 at 04:38 PM
God is the One who baptizes us. Period.
It is not a work of our doing.
Christ commanded it. He is in it.
When God says in 1st Peter that "baptism now saves you"...He means it.
Can God save apart from baptism? Sure! But He can save in baptism, as well. And He has chosen to do so.
Thanks, very much.
October 21, 2011 at 04:35 PM
Jesus IS baptism.
He commanded it (Matthew 28). The Scriptures tell us that "baptism now saves you" (1st Peter)
Galatians 4 tells us that "those of us who have been baptized have put on Christ."
Can God save apart from baptism? Sure He can! But He has chosen to save in baptism, as well.
Christ never commanded us to do anything where He would not be present in it.
By the way, baptis, is not something that WE DO. God is the One who baptizes. Not Pastor Moe, or Father Larry, or Deacon Jones. God baptizes us. Those others are merely His instruments.
Thank you very much.
October 21, 2011 at 04:17 PM
There has never been but one way of salvation, and that way is grace. It is not grace plus works that saves, but grace alone produces salvation.Rom 11:6. It is not Jesus Christ plus baptism (Matt. 1:21) that saves, but Christ alone. Luke 19:10. The old testament saints are saved by the same grace. Acts 26:22-23 W.E. Best
October 21, 2011 at 04:00 PM
The God approved man ascended , (after He finished His work), to heaven in order that He might send the Holy Spirit to reveal Himself to the hearts of men. Now we have the subjective Spirit focusing our attention on the objective fact of Jesus Christ as the man approved of God. "The Person and Work of Jesus Christ" by W.E Best
October 21, 2011 at 03:57 PM
Jeremiah,
"How do you know if Christ is in you?"
I would answer the question the same way Luther answered it.
"I am baptized."
This is some superstitious, rabbit's foot belief (as many make it out to be)...but a trusting the external Word of promise, spoken by God to me at my baptism. He adopted me there. And I can trust this is true despite how I happen to feel at any given point of time, or how obedient I happen to be (or not), or any internal yardstick that I or others might foist upon me.
October 21, 2011 at 02:21 PM
mike, we have been raised with Christ and we are seated with Him in heavenly places and our lives are now hidden with Christ in God -Col.3. We can look to Him within us because the mystery is true that Christ is in us and we in Him! Seeking the things above, does not imply away from self but away from the system and the ways of this world ie. earth.
October 20, 2011 at 11:02 AM
Mark Lovett,
As one who has grown up in the Southern Baptist denomination I can honestly say I now understand why you are Lutheran as well. It is absolutely the "happiest" theology and understanding of the Gospel. The Lutherans introduced me to the fact the Gospel is really "Good News." I love your comment. It says much about your faith in Christ.
October 20, 2011 at 10:12 AM
Mark Lovett,
Interesting comment. Care to elaborate?
Blessings,
Terry
October 20, 2011 at 09:03 AM
That's why I'm a Lutheran.
October 19, 2011 at 09:14 AM
Pastor Tullian,
I just wanted to drop you a line and say thank you for "running" with the Gospel alone. I've been leading worship for about 10 years and have found myself, by God's grace, more in love with the Gospel itself than all the music and methods that the church can throw at me! This has caused me to change church homes a few times out of what I call, "holy discontent", not because I'm pure but because He is, I think you know what I mean. I listen to you a few times a week, when I'm not listening to WHI and Horton...(:?D> When I hear your story I hear of myself because we have so much in common(age, kids, ministry, daughter named Jenna), I won't list all the things involved, but I do want to say that the refreshing of the Gospel washes over me when you speak and I am most grateful! (Isaiah 12:2-3). The older I get my keenness towards my brokenness, not my piety, becomes more glaringly front and center causing me to cry out to God in mercy. Please keep ringing the Gospel bell correctly! I'm praying for you my friend!
blessings in Christ,
Chuck Cobb
I have some fun music at this link below, you'll like my band name, it's Sola-Gratia!
www.myspace.com/oneweighout
October 19, 2011 at 09:10 AM
Great! Great! Thanks for the post!
Some more thoughts on the same subject of how Andreas Osiande messed this up in the 16th century.
http://www.pastormattrichard.com/2011/09/christs-work-for-us-but-not-within-us.html
October 19, 2011 at 07:17 AM
Conversion, new life has come. We who are in Christ have been transferred from darkness to light. This is not exhaustive by no means for I am late for work. How would you answer the question yourself? grace and peace
October 19, 2011 at 07:08 AM
How do you know if Christ is in you?
October 19, 2011 at 07:06 AM
If Christ is in you, then looking in can be looking up. God, for the believer, is no longer without but within!
October 19, 2011 at 05:34 AM
Great article! I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it to all.
October 19, 2011 at 03:46 PM
Great stuff! I can't wait for your book to come out.
October 19, 2011 at 03:03 PM
Great! This is why grace is a superior engine for personal virtue, and for everything else. Even the most well-meaning milk toast 'seeker-sensitive' advice-for-successful-living sermon cannot help but dish out condemnation if it isn't rooted and grounded in Christ and Him crucified. Focus on the external nature of Christ's work liberates us from inward focus, from placing the responsibility for our justification on ourselves. I don't need advice, I need salvation. I am terrible at taking advice. Love the Tozer quote Terry Rayburn!
October 19, 2011 at 02:33 AM
“How am I doing?”
If you can answer that one "not too badly"...then you have a problem.
October 19, 2011 at 01:41 AM
[...] professor of theology at Reformed Theological Seminary, and a grandson of Billy and Ruth Graham. Here is some good stuff by Tullian. Look to Christ, saved or lost! Categories: Current Issues Click here to cancel [...]
October 19, 2011 at 01:13 PM
But I thought that Peter started to sink because he did not have enough faith in himself... Why should the "message" of Love Wins come as a surprise years later?
With the increased ease to create, share, "cut and paste" and change text has come a loss of meaning and divine inspiration. We are in the driver's seat.
tweet tweet twiddle twiddle
October 18, 2011 at 12:57 PM
Pastor
pastor Tim was a little taken back at first when I wrote him a one page letter stating that He did not put enough emphasis on what Jesus did for us and too much emphasis on what we need to do.
He told me that if someone thinks they are the smartest, I need to move to a place where I am not the smartest.
I just Prayed about it and he did realize that he was being too religious minded. And said to the congregation as such. And he will be putting more emphasis on Grace, He got it thanks pastor T because you enboldened me to speak up.
October 18, 2011 at 12:31 PM
Sounds alot like this all over again - Introductory Essay
to John Owen’s Death of Death in the Death of Christ. J. I. Packer. Alot more of this and alot more of that - John 10:27 continues with the Lord’s statement “they follow me,” which teaches satisfaction. The Greek word for “follow” (akolouthousin, which means are following) is the present active participle of akoloutheo. The Bible does not teach that Christians will not sin, but it does teach that we will repent and return to following Christ. People who are the sheep of God will genuinely repent when we hear the truth. our repentance will not be forced. It will come from the heart because the grace of God within us prompts it. This is progressive sanctification. Seeking assurance of election outside of holiness of life is nonsense. Election is inseparable from holiness of life: “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy
and without blame before him in love” (Eph. 1:4). There is too much literary grace and not enough experimental grace among professing Christians. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord (Heb. 12:14). Sanctification is not like a pump which sends forth water only when primed from without. It is like an artesian well from which a stream is ever spontaneously and naturally flowing...
October 18, 2011 at 11:26 AM
Excellent!
Reminds me of a favorite quote from A.W. Tozer:
"The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ, the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him. It will be God working in him to will and to do." - From The Pursuit of God
October 18, 2011 at 09:33 AM
Thank you for focusing diligently on the gospel and what it is. I appreciate reading your posts and the quotes you use.
But are you saying the central message of the gospel is justification by faith? I have been reading Scot McKnight's latest, The King Jesus Gospel, and I find much to agree within it.
Doesn't reduction of the gospel to justification still lead to 'man turned inward on himself,' focusing on what he has in Jesus? To me, looking to 'the Jesus who justifies' still encourages me to focus solely on what I get in salvation... keeping my attention on me.
In Dallas Willard's, The Divine Conspiracy, he seems to be showing that a 'Jesus who justifies' is too narrow, too: "What must be emphasized in all of this is the difference between trusting Christ, the real person Jesus, with all that that naturally involves, versus trusting some arrangement for sin - remission set up through him - trusting only his role as guilt remover."
If I instead reduce gospel to the idea that Jesus is King, then I am looking upward and outward to 'the Jesus who is King.' Yes, in His death, resurrection, and exaltation I am pardoned, justified, and sanctified... but He is the point of this story, not me or my salvation (that is a wonderful sub-plot). My attention remains on Him.
As I become captured by King Jesus and His story, I find my place in that story and play my role. My focus remains on Him, and I learn how to walk with the Holy Spirit and grow naturally in my obedience. I do not need to focus on my ongoing sins or try to manage them; rather, I continue to look to King Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith.
To me, this is significantly different than having justification at the center of the gospel.
Sorry for the absurd length of this, but does this make any sense?
October 18, 2011 at 09:02 AM
Appreciate this very much. But I wonder, is there both a subjective and objective ground to our assurance? Consider Carson and Woodbridge's counsel to a young (fictitious) disciple of Christ named Timothy who is struggling with his assurance [from Letters Along the Way]...
"Since becoming a Christian, you have become more and more aware of the sin in your life, and you are discouraged by it. But what discourages you, I see as a sign of life—not the sin itself, but the fact that you are discouraged by it. If you professed faith in Christ and it did not make any difference to your values, personal ethics, and goals, I would begin to wonder if your profession of faith in Christ was spurious (there are certainly instances of spurious faith in the Bible—for instance, John 2:23-25; 8:31ff.).
But if you have come to trust Christ, then growth in Him is always attended by deepening realization that you are not as good as you once thought you were, that the human heart is frighteningly deceptive and capable of astonishing depths of selfishness and evil. As you discover these things about yourself, the objective ground of your assurance must always remain unfalteringly the same: ‘if anybody does sin we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One’ (1 John 2:1). Let your confidence rest fully in that simple and profound truth.
What you will discover with time is that although you are not as holy as you would like to be or as blameless as you should be, by God’s grace you are not what you were. You look back and regret things you have said and thought and done as a Christian; you are embarrassed perhaps by the things you failed to think and say and do. But you also look back and testify with gratitude that because of the grace of God in your life, you are not what you were. And thus, unobtrusively, the subjective grounds of assurance also lend their quiet support."
(p. 23)
October 18, 2011 at 08:27 PM
The more I study the history of worship, especially in the United States, the more I find this shift true...and especially in the Second Great Awakening. Frontier worship mirrored frontier theology--anthropocentric and performance-based rather than Theocentric and Christ-based. Great post.
October 18, 2011 at 08:10 AM
So grateful for powerful, gospel-centered, Christ-exalted, self-crucifying words. I needed to hear this today, and probably every day. Looking forward to reading the book!
October 18, 2011 at 07:36 PM
[...] Where To Look When You’re In Trouble – Tullian Tchividjian [...]
October 18, 2011 at 05:22 PM
[...] Excellent post from Pastor Tullian. No Comments [...]
October 18, 2011 at 01:37 PM
your words are like oxygen to my soul pt, I hope that dosent sound to subjective but your posts always touch and answer the very questions I ask-have. I was at our local book store today and asked bout ur book & without a blink they said it was on order and then another employee chimed in "yea we'll b gettingin this month" they knew exacly what I was talking about, kind of cool I thought! mike
June 20, 2012 at 10:01 PM
[...] movement often emphasizes the internal progress of self-help books. Tullian Tchividjian in "Where To Look When You're In Trouble" quotes Donald Bloesch: "Among the Evangelicals, it is not the justification of the ungodly (which [...]
Todd Christensen
September 12, 2012 at 04:06 PM
Thanks! I recently went through a dark night of my own soul. This is exactly what got me through. I hate so say it but some calvinists are the worst for producing and irritating doubt in believers. I was living in a way that was obviously grossly sinful and I came under serious conviction. I started to ask: will Christ take me back? Was I even saved to begin with? Am I even elect? I would read that the only way to alleviate these fears was to believe in Christ, but I would think: if I am not elect what does it matter? Then I would read that the way to tell if I was elect was to have Godly sorrow. I would then start to look within for Godly sorrow. I would read that Godly sorrow has nothing to do with hell but is a result of being greived that we have hurt Christ. (I guess that's wiser advice than Christ gave himself when in the Gospel of John he repeatedly told his listeners to come to him and believe in him to escape CONDEMNATION AND WRATH!) I would then think how can I possibly be sorry for sinning against the mercy of Christ if I am not even sure he died for me?! What an awful cycle. It's never ending. Constantly looking within to determine one's election. I finally broke free from this when I quit listening to everything that was being said in "commentaries" and listed to the simple objective promises of scripture. If you too are struggling with doubt, I urge you to actually believe that Christ meant what he said when he declared "Whoever comes to me I will in no wise cast out" and "Whoever wishes let him take the free gift of the water of life'!