There are few things in life as unenlightening as the postgame interview. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t always bad. Some athletes and coaches can be quite insightful. I’ve seen real poise and humility in some of these interviews. But in general you don’t expect to hear original insights surface thirty seconds after the game has ended. What you do expect is a lot of talk about how we never gave up, how we always believed in ourselves, how we gave it 110 percent, and how these kids deserve all the credit in the world (really? all of it? the whole world? no credit left for anyone else?). Part of the problem is that interviewers usually ask inane questions: “You caught the pass at midfield, slipped past the safety, and then sprinted to the pylon—take us through your thoughts.” What thoughts do you expect the slot receiver to have at that point? Probably something like, “Run faster.” It’s not as if he’s going to deconstruct Dostoevsky.
The pregame interviews aren’t much better. There you’ll hear a lot about playing within ourselves, winning the turnover battle, taking it one game at a time, and other revolutionary sports strategies. It’s not that any of these remarks are wrong. At one point they may have communicated something meaningful. But over time, and with overuse, bromides like “keeping your head in the game” and “not forcing it” became so common and so generic that they didn’t say much of anything at all. Has it been the aim of any team ever in the history of sports anywhere to keep their head in the clouds and take it three games at a time?
Unfortunately, Christians can speak in the same generalities. Again, it’s not that we are saying false things (not usually). We just aren’t digging deep enough to see what makes the true advice true. “Give it over to God” may be wise counsel, but what does that mean? How exactly do we give something over to him? Or someone else may tell you to “believe in the promises of God.” Yes, that’s true, but which promises? And how do those promises help me do the right thing right now?
It’s possible to be completely biblical and still less than helpful—especially when it comes to pursuing holiness. Most Christians know that sanctification is about God working in us as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12–13). Hopefully we would all agree with John Owen that trying to be holy “from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world.” It would be a big mistake to think justification is all about God and sanctification is all about us. We want to work and serve and speak, not in our own strength but in the strength that God supplies (1 Pet. 4:11).
And yet, it’s not immediately obvious what all this practically means. How does God work in us as we work this out? How can we serve in God’s strength and not our own? Or more to the point of this chapter, what does it mean that our effort toward holiness should be “Spirit-powered, gospel-driven, and faith-fueled?” It’s one thing to suggest that holiness comes when we “let the Spirit work in us” or by “letting the gospel grip our hearts” or by “fighting to believe the good news of God’s grace” or by “running to Jesus”—but how does any of this actually work? How does God use the Spirit, the gospel, and faith to make the possibility of holiness a reality?
HOLINESS BY HOLY SPIRIT POWER
It makes sense that the Holy Spirit would have a big role in making us holy. According to 1 Peter 1:2, we are saved “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit,” that we might be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled by his blood. Sanctification in this verse has two senses. The Spirit sets us apart in Christ so that we might be cleansed by his blood (definitive sanctification), and he works in us so that we can be obedient to Jesus Christ (progressive sanctification). Through the Spirit we are given a new position and infused with a new power. Or to put it in Pauline language, since we are no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit, by the same Spirit we ought to put to death the deeds of the flesh (Rom. 8:9–13).
But this brings us back to the practical question: how does the Spirit work in us to make us holy? One of the ways is to strengthen us with power in our “inner being” (Eph. 3:16). The work of the Spirit is often connected with power (Acts 1:8; Rom. 15:19; 1 Cor. 2:4; 1 Thess. 1:5). This power can manifest itself in signs and wonders, in spiritual gifts to edify the body, and in the ability to bear spiritual fruit. The same Spirit who was present at creation and caused you to be born again is at work to empower your inner person (that is, your will or heart) so that you might resist sins you couldn’t resist before and do the good things which would otherwise be impossible. Defeatist Christians who do not fight against sins because they figure they were “born this way” or “will never change” or “don’t have enough faith” are not being humble. They dishonor the Holy Spirit who strengthens us with supernatural power.
But that’s not all the Spirit does to sanctify us. The Spirit is power, but he is also a light. He shines into the dark places of our hearts and convicts us of sin (John 16:7–11). He is a lamp to illumine God’s Word, teaching what is true and showing it to be precious (1 Cor. 2:6–16). And the Spirit throws a spotlight on Christ so that we can see his glory and be changed (John 16:14). That’s why 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” Just as Moses had his face transformed when he saw the Lord’s glory on Mount Sinai (Ex. 34:29; cf. 2 Cor. 3:7), so will we be transformed when, by the Spirit, we behold God’s glory in the face of Christ.
To summarize, then, the Spirit is a light to us in three ways. (1) He exposes sin so that we can recognize it and turn away. (2) He illumines the Word so that we can understand its meaning and grasp its implications. (3) He takes the veil away so that we can see the glory of Christ and become what we behold. Or to put it another way, the Spirit sanctifies by revealing sin, revealing truth, and revealing glory. When we close our eyes to this light, the Bible calls it resisting the Spirit (Acts 7:51), or quenching (1 Thess. 5:19) or grieving the Spirit (Eph. 4:30). There may be slight nuances among the three terms, but they all speak of situations where we do not accept the Spirit’s sanctifying work in our lives. If we give in to sin or give up on righteousness, the fault is not with the Spirit’s power but with our preference for the darkness of evil rather than the Spirit’s light (John 3:19–20).
GOOD DEEDS BASED ON GOOD NEWS
It seems almost every Christian I talk with these days insists that personal holiness will flow from a true grasp of the gospel. That’s right, in so far as it goes. It just doesn’t go far enough. We need to be more specific. How exactly do good deeds spring up from good news?
Let me suggest a couple of ways.
First, the gospel encourages godliness out of a sense of gratitude. This is the thought behind Romans 12:1–2. In view of God’s mercies on display in Romans 1–11 (e.g., justification, adoption, predestination, atonement, reconciliation, preservation, glorification), our grateful response should be obedience to the imperatives in chapters 12–16. As John Stott remarks, “It is not by accident that in Greek one and the same noun (charis) does duty for both ‘grace’ and ‘gratitude.’”
Of course, we must be careful not to think of gratitude as some kind of debtor’s ethic, as if God showed us mercy and now expects us to make up for it with a lifetime of quid pro quo obedience. We cannot repay God for anything (Rom. 11:35). But if we understand all that God has done for us in Christ, we will be happy and eager to please him. I get a lot of things wrong as a husband, but I’ve managed to get my wife some pretty good gifts. They usually involve some combination of time away from the kids and flying her mom out to save our sanity. When my wife receives a thoughtful gift like this (as opposed to, say, a gym membership), I’m usually sitting pretty for the rest of the day. That’s not why I give the gift (really, Honey, it’s not!), but a season (or more) of joyful gratitude is my kind wife’s natural response. And besides, when we are grateful, we’re not only eager to please God, we’re less likely to get bogged down in ungodliness. The humility and happiness that come with thankfulness tend to crowd out what is coarse, ugly, or mean (Eph. 5:4).
Second, the gospel aids our pursuit of holiness by telling us the truth about who we are. Certain sins become more difficult when we understand our new position in Christ. If we are heirs to the whole world, why should we envy? If we are God’s treasured possession, why be jealous? If God is our Father, why be afraid? If we are dead to sin, why live in it? If we’ve been raised with Christ, why continue in our old sinful ways? If we are seated in the heavenly places, why act like the devil of hell? If we are loved with an everlasting love, why are we trying to prove our worth to the world? If Christ is all in all, why am I so preoccupied with myself?
This last paragraph is what Martyn Lloyd-Jones called talking to yourself instead of listening to yourself. It’s easy to become convinced that we can never change or that God is ready to kick us to the curb after we’ve screwed up in the same way for the millionth time. But don’t listen to yourself; preach to yourself. Go back to the gospel. Remember that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1). Remember that the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you (v. 11). Remember that you are a child of God, and if a child then an heir (vv. 16–17). Remember that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (vv. 38–39). God gives more grace (James 4:6). Draw near to him, recognize who you are in him, and keep on working to cleanse your hands and purify your hearts (v. 8).
STANDING ON THE PROMISES
Faith is central to Christianity. We get that. Justification comes by faith apart from works of the law (Rom. 3:28). But what role is there for faith after we are saved? Is the hard struggle to grow in holiness removed from the exercise of faith?
May it never be!
By faith we are justified. And by faith we make every effort to be sanctified. Faith is operative in both—in justification to receive and rest, and in sanctification to will and to work.
In a way, we’ve already talked about faith—trusting in the gospel and believing what the Bible says about our position in Christ. But in the pursuit of holiness we need to look at more than the past acts of redemption. We have to look forward and trust in “future grace.”
Justification is not the only remedy for sin. Understanding what God has done for us will not smash every idol. There are longings in our souls that will be satisfied only by the promise of future blessing. How else can we make sense of the hope of glory? God is constantly making promises in the Bible, and these promises are meant to fuel the engine of obedience.
Let me show you what I mean by briefly looking at one familiar section of Scripture—the Sermon on the Mount. These three chapters (Matthew 5–7) are filled with commands. They are also filled with promises—some of them promises of judgment, many of them promises of future grace. Start with the Beatitudes. They all promise blessing of one kind or another. The meek shall inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5). The persecuted will have the kingdom of heaven (v. 10). The reviled will receive a great reward (v. 12). In my experience, Matthew 5:8—“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”—has been the most helpful verse in the Bible in battling the temptation to lust. The key is that Jesus fights pleasure with pleasure. Sexual impurity can be pleasing (in the moment), but Jesus promises a greater blessing for the pure of heart: they will see God. Years ago, there was a house in our neighborhood I often went past on my way to work. I don’t know who lived there and never met anyone from the house. But frequently in the summer a young lady in an immodest bathing suit would wash the car in the driveway. Matthew 5:8 was the sword I used to slay my temptation to turn my head and take a look. I thought to myself, “I want to see God. I want to know God. I don’t want to feel distant from him the rest of the day. I know fellowship with God is better than a three-second glance.” I was pursuing holiness by faith in the promises of God.
And the promises continue throughout the world’s most famous sermon. Many are warnings. If you murder, you’ll be liable to judgment (Matt. 5:21), and whoever says, “you fool” will be liable to hell (v. 22). If you don’t curb your lust, you can end up there too (vv. 29–30). Don’t forgive, and you won’t be forgiven (6:15). Walk down the easy path, and you’ll face destruction (7:13). Build your house on the sand by ignoring Jesus’ words, and your house will fall (7:26–27). These are all promises—albeit negative promises—meant to empower our obedience.
Jesus promises blessings too. If you uphold the commandments, you’ll be great in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:19). If you enter the narrow gate and walk down the hard path you’ll find life (7:14). If you hear the words of Jesus and do them, you’ll have true security (7:24–25). Jesus wants to motivate us by the thought of reward—real, eternal, lasting reward (6:1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 16, 18, 19–20). He understands that the fight against sin is a fight to trust in our heavenly Father. That’s why worry is not just a personality quirk, but a sign of unbelief (v. 30). If we have faith in God’s future grace, we will seek first the kingdom of God and trust that God will give us what we need (v. 33). Our Father promises to give good things to those who ask him (7:11).
As our covenant God, he guarantees blessing when we obey and threatens curses for disobedience. The blessings may not be what we expect and they may not come until the next life (Heb. 11:39–40), but they are always good and always for the ultimate end that we may become more like Christ (Rom. 8:28–29). The holy life is always a life of faith, believing with all our hearts that God will do what he has promised.
One last thing: I’ve been talking about faith in the gospel or faith in the promises of God, especially the promises of future grace. But we could also talk more broadly about faith in the Word of God. That’s essentially what spiritual warfare is: believing the truth from God instead of the lies from the devil. Satan is the father of lies, and his basic weapon is deception. He lies about God. He lies about your sin. He lies about your forgiveness. He lies about the Bible. Resisting the devil has nothing to do with haunted houses or spinning heads. It has to do with faith, trusting in truth instead of lies. That’s what Ephesians 6 is all about. Put on the belt of truth. Take up the shield of faith. Wield the sword of the Spirit. In spiritual warfare you stand fast against the schemes of the devil by standing fast on the Word of God.
EFFORT IS NOT A FOUR-LETTER WORD
I would be remiss if I didn’t finish this chapter by saying something about the last word in the chapter title. Yes, the Spirit empowers our pursuit of holiness. Yes, the gospel drives us toward Christlikeness. Yes, faith fuels our obedience. But we still put forth effort. God’s mercy does not automatically produce obedience. We must be told to obey and then go do it. God is the agent in our sanctification (1 Thess. 5:23). He is the one making us holy. But we must pursue what is God’s gift to us. Or as John Piper puts it, “When it comes to killing my sin, I don’t wait passively for the miracle of sin-killing to be worked on me, I act the miracle.”
It is the consistent witness of the New Testament that growth in godliness requires exertion on the part of the Christian. Romans 8:13 says that by the Spirit we must put to death the deeds of the flesh. Ephesians 4:22–24 instructs us to put off the old self and put on the new. Colossians 3:5 commands us to put to death what is earthly in us. First Timothy 6:12 urges us to fight the good fight. Luke 13:24 exhorts us to strive to enter the narrow gate. First Corinthians 9:24–27 speaks of running a race and disciplining the body. Philippians 3:12–14 talks of pressing on and straining forward. Second Peter 1:5 flat out commands us to “make every effort.” Your part as a born-again believer is to “toil, struggling with all his energy” as Christ powerfully works within us (Col. 1:29). We must never forget that according to Jesus the reward of eternal life goes to those who conquer and overcome (Revelation 2–3).
Christians work—they work to kill sin and they work to live in the Spirit. They have rest in the gospel, but never rest in their battle against the flesh and the devil. The child of God has two great marks about him: he is known for his inner warfare and his inner peace. As gospel Christians, we should not be afraid of striving, fighting, and working. These are good Bible words. “No one can attain any degree of holiness without God working in his life,” Jerry Bridges writes, “but just as surely no one will attain it without effort on his own part. God has made it possible for us to walk in holiness. But He has given us the responsibility of doing the walking.” Putting off the corruption of the flesh is, as Calvin put it, “a work arduous and of immense labor.” Therefore, God “bids us to strive and make every effort for this purpose. He intimates that no place is to be given in this case to sloth.” When it comes to sanctification, we don’t just look to the Lord. We don’t just get gripped by the gospel. We also work hard to be holy.
Let’s not make the mistake of the old Keswick theology with its “let go and let God” view of sanctification. In The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life (an unfortunate classic from the Higher Life movement), Hannah Whitall Smith argues, “All that we claim then in this life of sanctification is that by a step of faith we put ourselves into the hands of the Lord, for Him to work in us all the good pleasure of His will; and that by a continuous exercise of faith we keep ourselves there. . . . Our part is trusting, it is His to accomplish the results.” This may sound super-spiritual, but it’s not biblical. Sanctification is not by surrender, but by divinely enabled toil and effort.
Listen to Martyn Lloyd-Jones:
The New Testament calls upon us to take action; it does not tell us that the work of sanctification is going to be done for us. . . . We are in the ‘good fight of faith’, and we have to do the fighting. But, thank God, we are enabled to do it; for the moment we believe, and are justified by faith, and are born again of the Spirit of God, we have the ability. So the New Testament method of sanctification is to remind us of that; and having reminded us of it, it says, ‘Now then, go and do it’.
This is why when one old Dutch theologian listed his “Reasons Why Believers Do Not Grow as Much as They Ought,” he mentioned not only “gospel” reasons like doubting their conversion or presuming upon grace, he also included plain old laziness: “We indeed desire to be in an elevated spiritual frame and to grow as a palm tree, but we are not willing to exert any effort—and thus we also do not receive it.” Which is another way of saying there’s no place for quietism in the quest for Christlikeness.
These issues matter because some Christians are stalled out in their sanctification for simple lack of effort. They need to know about the Spirit’s power. They need to be rooted in gospel grace. They need to believe in the promises of God. And they need to fight, strive, and make every effort to work out all that God is working in them. Let us say with Paul, “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Cor. 15:10). Without this biblical emphasis, we’ll be confused, wondering why sanctification isn’t automatically flowing from a heartfelt commitment to gospel-drenched justification. We’ll be waiting around for enough faith to really “get the gospel” when God wants us to get up and get to work (Phil. 2:12–13). Because when it comes to growth in godliness, trusting does not put an end to trying.
John Owen, The Mortification of Sin (Fearn, Ross-shire, UK: Christian Focus, 1996), 23.
See Kevin DeYoung, The Holy Spirit, The Gospel Coalition Booklets, ed. D. A. Carson and Timothy Keller (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 18–19. This section on the Spirit repeats some of the same points and a few of the same sentences in this earlier work.
John Stott, Romans: God’s Good News for the World (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 321.
John Piper, Future Grace (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 1995), 48. It should be noted that in general Piper is cautious about gratitude-based obedience because he fears it slides into a debtor’s ethic.
I’ll say much more about this in chapter 8.
See, for example, Martyn Lloyd-Jones Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1965), 20.
If you want the better, longer version of what I’m trying saying in a few paragraphs, read John Piper’s book Future Grace. See also the smaller version Battling Unbelief: Defeating Sin with Superior Pleasure (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2007).
The best book I know of on spiritual warfare—as the Bible understands it—is the old Puritan classic by Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies against Satan’s Devices (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1997 [1652]).
See Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 749–750.
http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/i-act-the-miracle. Accessed July 15, 2011.
This is a paraphrase of a line from J. C. Ryle, Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots (Moscow, ID: Charles Nolan, 2011), 69.
Jerry Bridges, The Pursuit of Holiness (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2006), 10–11.
Calvin’s commentary on 2 Peter 1:5. See Calvin’s Commentaries Volume XXII, ed. John Owen (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1993), 372.
The theology is so named because it was first promoted at conferences held in Keswick, England in the late nineteenth century. The conferences continue to this day, but one should not assume the theology is the same. At present, the conferences are on solid footing. For an excellent examination of the old Keswick movement and its theological problems see Andrew David Naselli, Let Go and Let God? A Survey and Analysis of Keswick Theology (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010).
Hannah W. Smith, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life (Gloucestershire, UK: Dodo Press, 2008 [1875]), 7.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: Exposition of Chapter 6: The New Man (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1972), 178 (emphasis mine).
Wilhelmus A Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, trans. Bartel Elshout, ed. Joel R. Beeke, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 1994), 4:154.
