By request, here’s the complete paper from July 2010 from which the Completed by the Spirit blog series was adapted. You’re welcome to download it and distribute it freely as long as you do not modify it:
Completed by the Spirit: New Covenant Sanctification in Paul (PDF, 240 kb)
This is the 22nd and final part of a series of posts adapted from a paper I presented at a New Covenant Theology think tank in upstate New York in July 2010.
The apostle Paul writes throughout his epistles that the law was given for a different covenant and that believers are not under its jurisdiction. He makes no qualifications in this: he does not separate the law into component parts – moral, civil and ceremonial – and he does not prescribe commands of the Torah for our Christian walk.
Paul warns us of the power of the law to promote sin in the flesh and implores us not to submit to its yoke of slavery.
While John is often referred to as the apostle of love, love is a major focus of Paul’s teaching. (A search for “love” in the Pauline epistles returns 115 results in the ESV.) It is love that fulfills the law in the Christian; it is a perfect love of God and of neighbor that is a reflection of the relationship among the Trinity and it is a perfect love of God and of neighbor that is the outworking of our completed Christ-likeness in glory.
Until then, an increasing reliance upon the love of Christ – given to us by His Spirit –molds us more and more into His image.
No law can produce the fruit of the Spirit. All that the law can do is produce sin, despair, self-condemnation and self-righteousness in our remaining imperfection.
It is our union with Christ through His Spirit that results in our sanctification.
“I have come to realize,” writes Jerry Bridges, “that the deep work of spiritual transformation of my soul has been what the Holy Spirit has done, not what I have done. I can to some degree change my conduct, but only He can change my heart.”[1]
Thus, while Paul gives us imperatives in his exposition of what it means to be a follower of Christ in our hearts and in our conduct, those imperatives have their basis only in the indicative of what Christ has done in us.
“[1] There is therefore now no condemnation,” self or otherwise, “for those who are in Christ Jesus. [2] For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:1–2).
Next: Commentary on this series, the aftermath of the paper, and further thoughts on the Gospel vs. Law sanctification debate — perhaps several posts!
[1] Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2006), 106.
This is the 21st part of a series of posts adapted from a paper I presented at a New Covenant Theology think tank in upstate New York in July 2010.
Given all that we’ve studied in this series, how do we apply what is shown to us about sanctification in Scripture?
How do we grow in holiness or counsel those who are combating sin by relying on the Holy Spirit and following imperatives grounded in the indicative of the gospel and the gift of the Spirit of Christ to dwell in us?
Our study has provided us two answers: one positive and one negative.
We do focus on the gospel.
We do not focus on the law.
When we set our eyes on Christ and look at His person and work, we behold more and more what it is that our union with Him has granted to us. Continue Reading…
This is the 20th part of a series of posts adapted from a paper I presented at a New Covenant Theology think tank in upstate New York in July 2010.
As we noted from the writings of Thomas Schreiner in our previous installment, Paul doesn’t give us commands, or imperatives, in the form of laws, but rather as based in the indicative — that is, in our position in Christ. Paul exhorts us to be who we now are.
In addition to those previous examples, we can also look to Paul’s letters to the Ephesians and Colossians for imperatives grounded in the indicative.
Ephesians 4:1–3: [1] I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk,” (imperative), “in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, [2] with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, [3] eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” (indicative).
This is the 18th part of a series of posts adapted from a paper I presented at a New Covenant Theology think tank in upstate New York in July 2010.
If sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit in us, why do believers — who have received the Spirit — still need instruction and exhortation?
First, it is important to remember that believers are still imperfect this side of glory. As we have seen, the incarnate Christ as God-Man was the prototype of the believer given the Holy Spirit.
But unlike us, the incarnate Jesus’ communication with the Holy Spirit was perfect.
In Christ, the Spirit’s communication was complete. Continue Reading…
This is the 17th part of a series of posts adapted from a paper I presented at a New Covenant Theology think tank in upstate New York in July 2010.
The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges
Paul’s repeated explanations of the gospel and his doxologies to Christ are not given because the people to whom he writes do not have Christ — or don’t know Him — but because they do know him. Paul writes to the Romans words that echo those we saw last time from 1 Thess 4:9:
[14] I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. [15] But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God [16] to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. (Rom 15:14–16)
Paul is bringing the words and truth of Christ to remembrance, because it is the gospel of Christ that brings about all aspects of salvation: justification, sanctification and glorification.
But that’s not new information to these saints. Continue Reading…
This is the 16th part of a series of posts adapted from a paper I presented at a New Covenant Theology think tank in upstate New York in July 2010.
Abraham Kuyper
The Holy Spirit is “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” Paul wrote in Colossians 1:27. It is, according to Abraham Kuyper, a “mystical union with Immanuel.”[1]
Our sanctification is achieved by God through our union with Christ. “He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (1 Thess 5:23–24).
The great existence-altering event that happens in our salvation is our union with Christ through His Spirit.
Paul writes in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
To the Romans, he writes:
[3] Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? [4] We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. [5] For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his (Rom 6:3–5).
Pastor Chad Richard Bresson at the 2011 Bunyan Conference
At last week’s Earth Stove Society think tank, Chad Richard Bresson presented a paper entitled, “The Incarnation of the Abstract: New Covenant Theology and the Enfleshment of the Law.”
Chad asks the question, “What does the Priority of Jesus have to do with New Covenant ethics?” He lists five implications:
1. That the Law is a Person means the Law of the New Covenant is not encoded in external imperatives or principles.
2. The Law Incarnate has placed a Person, the Holy Spirit, within the believer as the law written on the heart. That’s the upshot of 2 Corinthians 3’s understanding of Jeremiah 31. The law written on the heart should not be identified in its typical form, but its Antitypical… a Person, living and breathing life into and through the New Covenant member. The entire law “category”, as it moves from Old Testament to New, lands on a person. The trajectory of the fulfillment of the law does not land on a new set of rules or principles, or even a summarized list of the law of Christ. The Law as a type has its end in Christ. The law as a type fades away into oblivion because all types do… it has become a person
3. Abrogation of the law and a denial of third use is a given. The law, like any other type of the Old Testament, has fulfilled its prophetic and revelatory role and is gone and done now that the AntiType has filled up its intended meaning to the fullest.
4. Imperatives have a role to play in the New Covenant, but they cannot eclipse the Indicative, a Person, from whence they come. It’s not a matter of balance, as some have suggested. The New Testament doesn’t not speak of, explicitly or implicitly, a so-called balance between the Indicative and imperative. In fact, seeing the New Testament as having a heavy emphasis on the imperatives says more about the presuppositions of the interpreter than it does about proper hermeneutics.
5. An Incarnate Law does not mean that commands in the New Covenant are not important. It does not mean that obedience is not important. It simply means the grounds for the discussion have changed. Obedience to commands is the manifestation of the inward obedience-causing law written on the heart.
Chad has more at his blog, The Vossed World, including a link to his paper on Scribd.
Pastor Moe Bergeron
Pastor Moe Bergeron spoke at the Earth Stove Society’s 2011 Think Tank (in which I participated) on July 27 on the topic “The Neglect of the Spirit of God in NCT.”
Paul contrasted the Old Covenant economy of the letter with the New Covenant economy of the Spirit (2 Cor 3, Gal 3) but most theological systems — including the New Covenant Theology movement — obscure, ignore or diminish the role of the Holy Spirit as the indwelling Spirit of Christ in the believer. Moe believes that it’s time to change that.
I highly recommend you give Moe a listen: http://earthstovesociety.com/?p=314
This is the 14th part of a series of posts adapted from a paper I presented at a New Covenant Theology think tank in upstate New York in July 2010.
In our last installment in this series, we noted that love is a God-given, Spirit-provided quality that impels actions in the believer and that it is that same Spirit-provided love that forms the outworking of the New Covenant ethic.
Love In Hard Places by D. A. Carson
We’ll continue and wrap up our look at love with a rather long quotation from D. A. Carson, in which he summarizes Paul’s view on love as it relates to those two loves – God and neighbor – which have their exposition in the two tables of the Old Covenant:
Similarly, Paul insists that what is fulfilled in one word, viz. Leviticus 19:18, the command to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is the entire second table of the Decalogue: love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom. 13:8– 10). Despite arguments to the contrary, the double command to love is not some sort of deep principle from which all the other commandments of Scripture can be deduced; nor is it a hermeneutical grid to weed out the laws of the old covenant that no longer have to be obeyed while blessing those that are still operative; nor is it offered as a kind of reductionistic substitute for all the Old Testament laws. In some ways, the twin laws of love, love for God and love for neighbor, integrate all the other laws. They establish the proper motives for all the other imperatives, viz. loving God and loving one’s neighbor.
But the “fulfillment” language suggests something more. All the laws of the old revelation, indeed all the old covenant Scriptures, conspire to anticipate something more, to point to something beyond themselves. They point to the coming of the kingdom, the gospel of the kingdom; they point to a time when life properly lived in God’s universe can be summed up by obedience to the commandment to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength and by the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.[1]
