What’s the Center of Our Holiness?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | We end the week with episode 1800.

00:00:07.280 | Yes, episode 1800.

00:00:10.440 | It's an incredible benchmark for us

00:00:12.640 | and it's only possible for us because of you.

00:00:15.680 | So thank you for a decade of support

00:00:18.520 | and for your encouragements and email questions

00:00:20.680 | and for your 250 million episode plays

00:00:24.920 | and for hundreds of thousands of subscribes over the years.

00:00:28.280 | This podcast happens because you invest time with us,

00:00:31.600 | precious time we don't take for granted.

00:00:33.320 | And that's one reason why we don't have ads or sponsors.

00:00:36.040 | And it's one reason why we don't dilly dally around

00:00:38.300 | with windy introductions.

00:00:39.560 | So moving on to the episode,

00:00:41.080 | today's question is a great one, Pastor John.

00:00:43.080 | Scripture gives us a constellation of ways

00:00:46.320 | to think of the Christian life.

00:00:48.800 | And a listener to the podcast named Jason

00:00:50.920 | wants to know how they relate.

00:00:53.280 | Here's what he asks.

00:00:54.860 | Pastor John, hello, can you help me figure something out?

00:00:58.040 | Is the key to personal sanctification

00:01:00.280 | more about looking to Jesus, as Hebrews 12, two says,

00:01:04.480 | or is it more about being united to him

00:01:06.480 | who has been raised from the dead?

00:01:08.680 | As Romans 7, four puts it, some more on union,

00:01:11.880 | or is it mostly about beholding Christ's glory

00:01:14.400 | as 2 Corinthians 3, 18 puts it?

00:01:17.240 | Or is it more just about obeying

00:01:19.840 | and doing the work of faith,

00:01:21.640 | as 2 Thessalonians 1, 11 says?

00:01:24.120 | I know the answer is likely gonna be yes, all of those,

00:01:27.260 | but I'm trying to connect them all

00:01:28.520 | in a way that is practical to teach and to live.

00:01:31.160 | And I find myself jumping from one to the other

00:01:33.640 | as though they are multiple things.

00:01:36.160 | Surely there are logical connections

00:01:37.960 | that make them all one and the same.

00:01:40.240 | Pastor John, how would you put this puzzle together

00:01:42.040 | for Jason?

00:01:43.260 | - Wow, I just love this kind of--

00:01:46.600 | - It's a great question.

00:01:47.440 | - Not only this kind of question,

00:01:48.880 | but just this way of thinking.

00:01:50.560 | - Yeah.

00:01:52.020 | - Taking different parts of scripture,

00:01:55.120 | they use very different language,

00:01:56.840 | and asking, are there deep, common,

00:01:59.760 | unified, coherent realities here?

00:02:02.080 | That is so helpful to do.

00:02:04.880 | So let's see if I can weave these four strands together

00:02:09.880 | into some kind of cord that the Lord might use

00:02:15.100 | to bring us along in our pursuit of sanctification.

00:02:20.100 | That's what they're designed for.

00:02:22.060 | And I think the Lord is very pleased

00:02:24.640 | when we try to put the different parts of his word together

00:02:27.280 | in order to see the common realities behind them,

00:02:30.400 | even when different words

00:02:33.360 | are used to describe those realities.

00:02:36.040 | The realities in these four passages of scripture

00:02:40.620 | would include, I just made a list of them

00:02:42.600 | as I read these passages,

00:02:44.320 | God, word of God,

00:02:47.440 | Christ, death of Christ,

00:02:50.180 | glory of Christ,

00:02:52.880 | law of God,

00:02:54.760 | faith in Christ,

00:02:56.740 | faith in his word,

00:02:57.960 | hope, joy,

00:03:01.000 | Christian freedom,

00:03:02.600 | the Holy Spirit,

00:03:04.300 | human resolve.

00:03:06.120 | All of those are realities,

00:03:08.740 | and they are all at work in these passages,

00:03:12.820 | and they are not doing contradictory things.

00:03:17.400 | There is one great work of God,

00:03:20.960 | weaving all these realities together

00:03:23.960 | in the process of making us holy,

00:03:26.720 | making us sanctified, more Christ-like.

00:03:30.840 | Different texts focus on different ones of these realities,

00:03:35.840 | but none of them leads us in a direction

00:03:38.920 | that would in any way contradict the other passages.

00:03:42.360 | We've misunderstood the text.

00:03:43.760 | If one text is sending us off in a direction

00:03:47.300 | that flies in the face of the other passages.

00:03:49.960 | So let me take them one at a time

00:03:51.680 | and just see if I can draw out

00:03:53.480 | some of the common connections.

00:03:56.280 | Hebrews 12, one and two.

00:03:59.080 | Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,

00:04:02.340 | let us lay aside every weight and sin

00:04:04.540 | that clings so closely and let us run.

00:04:07.160 | Let us run with endurance,

00:04:10.420 | the race that is set before us.

00:04:12.840 | And here's how,

00:04:13.680 | looking to Jesus,

00:04:15.800 | the founder and perfecter of our faith,

00:04:20.000 | who for the joy set before him,

00:04:24.120 | endured the cross.

00:04:25.200 | That's how he did it.

00:04:26.280 | Despising the shame and seated at the right hand

00:04:31.360 | of the throne of God.

00:04:32.640 | So in this text,

00:04:34.040 | looking to Jesus is given as the means

00:04:38.720 | by which we run our race with endurance.

00:04:42.380 | That race, of course, includes becoming holy,

00:04:44.520 | staying on the narrow racetrack to the end.

00:04:48.520 | And when we look to Jesus,

00:04:50.080 | we see three things that affect our running.

00:04:55.040 | First, he's called the founder and perfecter of our faith,

00:04:58.960 | which means he has done the decisive work

00:05:03.960 | in dying and rising and sitting down

00:05:06.280 | at the right hand of God.

00:05:07.760 | Because of Christ, our faith is well-founded

00:05:12.760 | and well-finished.

00:05:16.620 | It's as good as done.

00:05:18.440 | In other words, because of Christ,

00:05:20.640 | we're going to make it to the finish line.

00:05:23.680 | He founded our faith, he'll finish our faith.

00:05:27.840 | Second, we look to Christ as inspiring our endurance

00:05:32.840 | because of his endurance, enduring the cross.

00:05:36.980 | He ran his race successfully through suffering.

00:05:39.720 | This emboldens us to run our race through suffering.

00:05:45.160 | And third, when we look to Jesus,

00:05:47.180 | he shows us how he ran his race.

00:05:49.660 | He says he ran it for the joy that was set before him.

00:05:54.480 | Therefore, the key to our endurance

00:05:57.480 | is to stand on that finished work of Christ

00:06:02.480 | and be confident that all satisfying joy

00:06:07.560 | is just over the horizon.

00:06:09.480 | He's going to finish it.

00:06:10.360 | He's going to bring us great joy in front.

00:06:12.760 | That's how we keep going,

00:06:14.120 | because that's how he kept going.

00:06:16.920 | So this confidence in the joy that is set before us

00:06:21.140 | is called in Hebrews, faith.

00:06:24.360 | In the chapter just before,

00:06:25.700 | faith is the substance of things hoped for,

00:06:29.740 | the joy hoped for.

00:06:32.620 | Faith is the foretaste, the substance.

00:06:35.460 | Right now, you can taste it.

00:06:37.780 | The foretaste of the joy of the promise of God.

00:06:41.660 | Over and over in Hebrews 11, the saints obey by faith.

00:06:46.820 | It is this faith, this confident hope of a joyful future

00:06:51.780 | is the key to their obedience,

00:06:53.580 | just like it was the key to Jesus' obedience.

00:06:56.580 | So that's the picture, and that's the reality

00:06:59.420 | of how we are sanctified in Hebrews 12.

00:07:02.940 | Now here's Romans 7, 4, and 6.

00:07:07.100 | You also died to the law through the body of Christ

00:07:12.100 | so that you may belong to another,

00:07:16.060 | to him who has been raised from the dead

00:07:18.100 | in order that we may bear fruit for God.

00:07:22.860 | We are released from the law,

00:07:25.700 | having died to that which held us captive

00:07:29.340 | so that we may serve in the new way,

00:07:32.260 | the new way of the Spirit,

00:07:34.420 | not the old way of law-keeping or the written code.

00:07:39.520 | Now, the new reality that Paul introduces here

00:07:46.340 | that wasn't in Hebrews 12

00:07:50.340 | is the fact that when Christ died,

00:07:53.700 | we died, specifically, we died to the law.

00:07:58.700 | We were released from law-keeping

00:08:03.040 | as the way of getting right with God,

00:08:06.300 | as the way of ongoing fellowship with God.

00:08:09.780 | Now that's new, that's new, right?

00:08:11.860 | Nothing was said about the law in Hebrews 12, 1 and 2.

00:08:16.260 | So Paul is coming at sanctification

00:08:20.000 | with a different problem in view,

00:08:23.020 | not the need for endurance through suffering,

00:08:25.300 | that's the issue in Hebrews, that's not the issue here,

00:08:28.860 | but the need for liberation from law-keeping,

00:08:32.420 | that's the issue here.

00:08:34.060 | How do we relate to God?

00:08:35.160 | How do we become holy without law-keeping

00:08:37.680 | as the foundation for our lives?

00:08:39.860 | Because that we died to.

00:08:42.300 | And the other new reality that Paul introduces

00:08:45.300 | in Romans 7, 4 is the Holy Spirit.

00:08:48.340 | He says that we have died to the law

00:08:50.620 | so that we might serve in the new way of the Spirit,

00:08:54.580 | not the old way of law-keeping.

00:08:57.260 | And that wasn't in Hebrews.

00:08:58.820 | And I would say that this new way of the Spirit

00:09:03.500 | is precisely the way of Hebrews 12,

00:09:08.020 | describing the Christian life,

00:09:10.180 | namely the life of faith in the promises of God

00:09:13.380 | to fulfill us, to fill us with hope for future joy.

00:09:18.380 | That's the new way of the Spirit in Romans 7.

00:09:22.940 | That's the alternative to law-keeping

00:09:25.820 | as a way of walking with God.

00:09:29.180 | So they are complementary texts

00:09:31.860 | coming at sanctification from two very different angles.

00:09:35.900 | Thirdly, Jason introduces,

00:09:37.820 | or he brings up 2 Corinthians 3, 18.

00:09:42.380 | In this text, Paul combines the reality of the Holy Spirit

00:09:47.100 | mentioned in Romans 7

00:09:49.060 | and the reality of looking to Jesus mentioned in Hebrews 12.

00:09:53.300 | And he adds the realities of glory and freedom,

00:09:58.300 | neither of which had been mentioned explicitly

00:10:01.900 | in those other two texts, but are mentioned here.

00:10:04.860 | So he says, "Now, the Lord is the Spirit,

00:10:09.540 | and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

00:10:13.780 | And we all, with unveiled face,

00:10:16.180 | beholding the glory of the Lord,

00:10:19.220 | are being transformed into the same image

00:10:24.140 | from one degree of glory to another,

00:10:26.060 | for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."

00:10:30.900 | What this text adds to the new way of the Spirit

00:10:34.940 | described in Hebrews 12 and Romans 7

00:10:38.500 | is that looking to Jesus in Hebrews 12

00:10:43.340 | means not only seeing him as enduring the cross,

00:10:47.860 | but seeing him as glorious in all that he's done.

00:10:52.740 | The focus is on how beautiful and glorious

00:10:56.180 | and magnificent he is,

00:10:58.580 | and finding that glory so riveting, so satisfying,

00:11:03.580 | that it has the effect of transforming us.

00:11:07.420 | We tend to take on the traits of those we most admire.

00:11:12.420 | This is freedom because it happens by the Spirit

00:11:17.420 | as a natural process.

00:11:19.660 | This is what Paul called bearing fruit for God in Romans 7.

00:11:25.340 | Faith and hope and joy are not mentioned

00:11:30.340 | in 2 Corinthians 3,

00:11:33.060 | but I would say that they are implied in the phrase

00:11:37.660 | beholding the glory of the Lord.

00:11:41.500 | I think that transforming beholding is the sight of faith.

00:11:46.500 | That's the way faith sees Christ.

00:11:51.020 | Faith beholds the beauty of Christ.

00:11:54.740 | Faith finds joy in him when it looks at him

00:11:59.740 | and all that God promises to be for us in him.

00:12:03.060 | And beholding him that way, faith transforms.

00:12:08.060 | And that's sanctification.

00:12:11.180 | And one more, Jason refers us to 2 Thessalonians 1, 11,

00:12:16.020 | where Paul says, "May God fulfill every resolve for good

00:12:23.340 | and every work of faith by his power."

00:12:27.100 | So in the process of sanctification, we do make resolves.

00:12:32.100 | Yes, we do.

00:12:33.500 | We intend things, we will things, we exercise our will.

00:12:38.500 | But Paul says that all of these volitional actions

00:12:42.100 | are "works of faith by God's power."

00:12:46.700 | In other words, we are back in the realm

00:12:49.780 | of God's empowering Spirit.

00:12:52.100 | We work by trusting God's promise

00:12:56.940 | that he is at work in us.

00:12:59.780 | So Jason, good question.

00:13:03.500 | I think if you bore into the actual reality

00:13:08.500 | of these four descriptions of sanctification,

00:13:12.780 | you will find they are deeply unified

00:13:17.780 | and mutually illuminating.

00:13:21.380 | It's a thrilling thing to meditate

00:13:24.380 | on the realities of scripture

00:13:26.980 | until we see how beautifully they cohere.

00:13:30.780 | - Thanks for assembling that constellation

00:13:32.420 | of texts for us, Pastor John.

00:13:33.660 | And thank you for joining us today on episode number 1800.

00:13:37.460 | It's amazing, we're so grateful for each of you.

00:13:39.180 | It's taken us a decade to build this archive

00:13:41.700 | and you can search all of it,

00:13:43.100 | all 1800 episodes at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:13:50.860 | Well, for the next two weeks,

00:13:51.820 | we're gonna look at hard Bible questions

00:13:53.820 | related to eschatology,

00:13:55.540 | questions you have asked us

00:13:57.300 | on the first two chapters of 2 Thessalonians.

00:13:59.740 | Namely, there's three of those questions.

00:14:02.220 | Is God present or is he absent in his eternal judgment?

00:14:06.940 | That's a question from 2 Thessalonians 1.9,

00:14:09.500 | which seems to say that he's absent.

00:14:11.620 | That's on Monday.

00:14:13.060 | Then many of you have asked about the man of lawlessness

00:14:15.900 | in 2 Thessalonians chapter two.

00:14:17.420 | Who is that?

00:14:18.820 | That's next Friday.

00:14:20.020 | We're gonna address that.

00:14:20.860 | And then a question about God sending strong delusions

00:14:23.660 | into the world.

00:14:24.680 | Does he do that today?

00:14:25.860 | If so, how so?

00:14:27.560 | That's a question on 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 11.

00:14:30.620 | And that will be on the table in two Fridays from now.

00:14:33.600 | Some hard but very important texts that we need to address.

00:14:37.700 | I'm your host Tony Renke.

00:14:38.540 | We'll see you back here on Monday.

00:14:40.700 | (upbeat music)

00:14:43.280 | (upbeat music)

00:14:45.860 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

What’s the Center of Our Holiness?

Chapters