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 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 fourth 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.
Despite Paul’s warnings that the law arouses sin, many will point to the law as a prime mover in sanctification, essential to convicting us about our remaining sin and measuring our growth in holiness. In doing so, they will attempt to draw a distinction between being “under the law” and following the law. For example:
This convicting use of the law is also critical for the believer’s sanctification, for it serves to prevent the resurrection of self-righteousness — that ungodly self-righteousness which is always prone to reassert itself even in the holiest of saints. The believer continues to live under the law as a lifelong penitent.
This chastening work of the law does not imply that the believer’s justification is ever diminished or annulled. From the moment of regeneration, his state before God is fixed and irrevocable. He is a new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 5:17). He can never revert to a state of condemnation nor lose his sonship. Nevertheless, the law exposes the ongoing poverty of his sanctification on a daily basis. He learns that there is a law in his members such that when he would do good, evil is present with him (Rom. 7:21). He must repeatedly condemn himself, deplore his wretchedness, and cry daily for fresh applications of the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses from all sin (Rom. 7:24; 1 John 1:7, 9).[1]
This is the third 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 first of the five propositions we introduced in Part 1 of this series is that the law cannot cope with sin.
The law cannot prevent sin; the law can’t curb sin; the law is powerless against sin.
In fact, Paul tells us, the law provokes sin.
Although what the law commands is holy, it was given to stiff-necked Israel to increase transgressions until the Messiah, the single seed of Abraham, was to come:
[19] Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. [20] Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.
[21] Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. [22] But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
[23] Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. [24] So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. (Galatians 3:19–27)[1]
In his analysis of this passage, Jason C. Meyer references Thomas Schreiner’s argument that, “although the phrase ‘because of transgressions’ could refer to defining or increasing transgression, the latter option is preferable.”[2] Schreiner gives three reasons for that interpretation: first, that the context of the passage is that salvation cannot be attained by the law; second, that the relationship of “under law and under sin” reveals the law’s role in arousing sin; and third, that there is a parallel with Romans 5:20: “Now the law came in to increase the trespass. …”[3]
