This week I had the privilege of giving a message on clinging to Christ at the Oyumino Alive! Worship service. What a blessing! Yoji Horino translated the sermon into Japanese.
I spoke from Philippians 2:12-18. There Paul speaks to the Philippian church about obeying even when he is not there. (don’t cling to the approval of others) He contrasts obeying when he is present with obeying because it is God who is at work in us. What is our heart motivation for obedience? Is it a fear of man? Is it a fear of punishment? Are we motivated by guilt; trying to atone for our past sins and failures?
Paul’s specific command in this passage is to do all things without grumbling or questioning. When we think about how easy it is to grumble and question, we realize our lack of pure delight in God and His law. We noted the similarity of the Pharisees’ external righteousness and our own tendency toward mere external obedience when other Christians are watching. We recognized that we must have internal
righteousness. But, we then see that by ourselves we cannot produce this type of righteousness. “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:16 & 24) But, thanks be to God, He sent Jesus not only to atone for our sins, but He also fulfilled all righteousness as our representative (the second Adam, cf. I Cor. 15:45). And we concluded by seeing that though Christ obeyed perfectly in our stead, we are not released from our duty to obey; rather we are now motivated and empowered to obey by His great love for us . We must cling to Christ and His perfect work as the source of our salvation and as the source of power to live the Christian life.
Not sure if i understand your reasoning? I get the sense that you might be reformed, am I correct? Are you saying that our sin nature is now posse non piccare?
Well, yes. I am reformed. I would say that we (believers) are posse non pecarre (possible not to sin). though I wouldn’t say that our sin nature is. But, let’s not confuse this with any kind of perfectionism. We, because of the sin nature, cannot live perfectly holy lives. God is transforming us by His Spirit into the likeness of Jesus. But, we are still ‘works in progress’ He isn’t finished with us yet. In the day to day living of the Christian life we must cling, not to our own abilities to obey God, but in faith cling to the perfect work of Christ as we seek to obey.
What reasoning did you not follow?
If I follow what you are saying, you state that we are posse non picarre, but our sin nature is not? This I would agree with since our sin nature can not be seperated from our being therefore, it cannot act of it’s own will since it has no will of its own! I would suggest that there is a gross misunderstanding of Augustines analysis on sin. For example, As new creations in Christ we have been imputed his prefect rightousness therefore we now have the ability not to sin. No where did Augustine state that we are therefore perfect. He left that perfection to Christ alone (non posse picarre). Yet how do we explain Gods command to Be Holy For I am Holy. We confuse the term perfect with perfected. Perfect canotes the idea that we have finalised our sanctification. Being Perfected, canotes the principle of the process of sanctification.
Therefore, when I say that we are posse non picarre, I’m saying that we now have the ability to choose not to sin. Not to be confused with non posse non picarre. That is to say that in Christ we are free not to sin because of his propitiation and appeasement of Gods wrath by making attonement for our sin!
Kalos, since you are one of my dearest brothers in Christ, I appreciate your comments. However, I think that there is the slightest misunderstanding here. We both agree that the believer is posse non pecarre (possible not to sin). And God does command us to be holy. But, even Paul obviously struggled in his walk to live holy before God: “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:16 & 24). He also told us elsewhere in Romans of a righteousness from God is revealed…and apart from the law. We can choose not to sin, yes. In the strength given to us by the Holy Spirit as we look to Christ’s righteousness to be vicariously pleasing to God. This stands in contrast to our trying in our own efforts to please Him. Although, we can now through the power of the Holy Spirit choose not to sin, our corrupted sinful nature is still with us. In our own best efforts our best works are tainted with sin. However, as we continue to look to Christ’s perfect work to be that which pleases God; and as we are empowered by the Spirit and the knowledge of His great love for us, we CAN obey and please Him.