Monday, October 18, 2010

Strive to Stop Striving

Galatians 2:17 is the five finger exploding heart death punch of Galatians 2:
"But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not!"

As I studied for my sermon on Galatians 2:15-21, this verse gave me the most fits. It looks straightforward enough, but it is deceptively complex.

First, I am seeing Paul turning the language of the legalistic Judaizers on its head. There is an echo here of "Shall we sin all the more so that grace may abound?" The more I gnawed on Gal. 2:17 the more clearly I could see that Paul is sort of saying "If justification is not by faith alone in Christ alone, should we circumcise all the more so that justification may abound?" (And in Galatians 5:12 he does kind of say that.)

In a nutshell Paul is saying "If justification in Christ alone reckons us still 'sinners,' Christ's work is worthless and he is a minister of sin."

But something else catches my eye. Still playing off the Judaizing zeal, he uses the phrase "endeavor to be justified in Christ." Why would he use the word "endeavor"? Isn't the truth he's proclaiming about the end of endeavoring to be justified? That justification comes via faith (not works) in the finished endeavor of Christ?

Yes, but there's something else here besides just tweaking the legalistic "work" lingo. There is a very real sense in which we must endeavor to be justified in Christ. This idea is repeated in Hebrews 4:9-11:
So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
Strive to enter rest? Endeavor to stop endeavoring? Why this language?

The gospel bids us strive to stop striving.

Because it takes conscious effort to orient our stubborn selves around the gospel. Our flesh yearns for works, for the merits of self-righteousness, so it's hard work to make ourselves rest in the finished work of Christ. It is a daily work, the labor of crucifying the flesh, taking up the cross, and faithfully following he who has finished the labor.

Even after you are converted by the gospel, your heart will go back to operating on other principles unless you deliberately, repeatedly set it to gospel-mode.
-- Tim Keller

Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know the gospel well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.
-- Martin Luther

4 comments:

III said...

This post reminds me of a series of quotes from a really old book called Christ Is All, that changed the life of a man named Hudson Taylor, and through its publication in the biography written by his son, changed mine as well. Hudson Taylor's spiritual secret

Recovering Recoverer said...

Jared,

How or where do we find the balance between not yearning for works and the merits of self-righteousnes and the idea D.A. Carson calls "grace driven effort"?

He says "People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, and obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord".

I struggle sometimes putting forth the right amount of "grace driven effort". And yet still making sure I orient my stubborn self around the gospel, as you put it.

Is it a simple matter of practicing the right amount of Christian discipline and understanding that even then it's Him giving me the ability in the first place?

Thanks

Jared said...

Is it a simple matter of practicing the right amount of Christian discipline and understanding that even then it's Him giving me the ability in the first place?

Aaron, great question.

Short answer is yes. Longer answer is that we stop worrying about "the right amount of effort," not by ceasing our efforts, but by going back to the gospel each day, many times a day, to remind ourselves that our approval is not in our works but in Christ.

It's the mindset that says "I do these things because I'm approved" (or to show myself approved) rather than "I do these things to be approved."

Recovering Recoverer said...

Thanks Jared for the clarification.