Peace, peace, grace, grace...
(David) In reading Jeremiah this week I was reminded of a friend's description of his PCA presbytery: "It's all brokenness and grace," he said, "whenever I hear them talk about brokenness I feel sick."
This friend is not loath to speak of sin or grace, but calling sin "brokenness" and then turning immediately to grace strikes him as a shallow Gospel--cheap grace rather than the Biblical picture of repentance and regeneration.
His words came to mind as I was reading Jeremiah 6:14 where God, speaking through Jeremiah, says of His unfaithful prophets and priests:
"They have healed the brokenness of my people superficially, saying, 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace.'"
Substitute "grace" for "peace" and you could have the redemptive-historical, "grace-filled" preaching of substantial portions of the PCA--only, none of us would ever say "peace, peace," because, after all, we've read the book of Jeremiah....
The difference between grace and peace, which Paul frequently pairs in his benedictions, is that grace is the work of Christ objectively applied to the sinner while peace is grace's subjective result in the conscience. But a declaration of grace IS a declaration of peace because peace is the product of grace.
Let's be clear about the fundamental nature of God's complaint against Israel's prophets and priests: it's not that these, His servants, were blind to Israel's sin. Did they not see Israel's sin? Of course they did--after all, they sought to heal her brokenness. Their failure was not one of vision or diagnosis, but of medication and treatment. They failed not by refusing to see sin, but by healing it superficially, by declaring God's benediction in the absence of repentance, without a prior declaration of judgment and wrath. They treated cancer by waving their wands lazily in the air and then declaring a cure. They treated with happy talk what radical surgery alone could cure.
Without first preaching the Law of God to bring sinners to repentance, the grace of our preaching is shallow, empty, cheap. A few verses later in Jeremiah 6:19 God says,
“Hear, O earth: behold, I am bringing disaster on this people, The fruit of their plans, Because they have not listened to My words, And as for My law, they have rejected it also."
Perhaps deep in our hearts we believe that salvation came by obedience to the Law in Old Testament times while in the New Testament era it comes by grace alone.
But if salvation in Old Testament times was as much by-grace-through-faith as in the New Testament, what do we make of God condemning Israel's priests and prophets for declaring His grace too readily even as they rejected His Law? And finally, could our declarations of grace be as odious to God as His prophets' declarations of "Peace, peace," to Israel if we fail to do surgery with His Law before declaring His grace and peace?
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I have usually connected the term “brokenness” much more with the contrite humility of repentance than with man’s innate sinful state of being fallen and broken. Though as we read Jeremiah we are greatly reminded of the two-fold brokenness of which you’ve posted, that of sin and judgment, rather than a fully redemptive tri-fold brokenness engaging repentance, which in Reformed perspective is an essential doctrine of grace; to say little of Jeremiah’s own broken-heartedness in writing the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations.
Of course, God’s grace is evidenced in many ways, conveyed for His own glory, especially particularised among His chosen, but of which all mankind reaps some temporal benefit. Still, when we address “peace, peace, grace, grace…” as pertaining to God’s people of the PCA, and of a shepherding administration of the PCA (and her presbyteries), is there an appropriately prophetic watchtower or diagnostic Reformed surgeon moment detailing urgent steps to grace?
Pelagius was known for the workmanship of holiness, of piety, of a spiritual emphasis for which he urged men to take responsibility through ability. In contrast, while Reformed likewise value Christian piety, we have emphasised the means of grace, where Augustine cried, “You command continence; give what you command and command what you will” (Confessions 10.29), and where Isaiah cries, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts… and… woe is me! For I am lost…” (Isaiah 6). Pelagius grew tired of Christians using our human frailty as an excuse for failing perfection, but any truly Reformed championing of “grace, grace” reaches even more firmly and authoritatively into responsible Christian living with due humility and sanctity. We agree there never was such a thing as “cheap grace”, and though we Reformed adoringly speak of free grace we always are aware of some measure of God’s awesome justice and divine propitiation. God’s grace is essential in any healing from brokenness, but you do well to caution of declaring “grace, grace, where there is no grace”.
We’re fond of hoping to be like David rather than Saul, and Peter rather than Judas when it comes to the brokenness of sin, judgment, and repentance. David was a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14; Acts 13:22) and Peter was Cephas, the Rock (John 1:42; Matt. 16:18), both humbled by sin and repentant from sin. I’ve always found the PCA to be much more substantive than mere “happy talk”, and to be much more akin to David and Peter even in her distress; but there has ever been prudent need of caution, as you have given. This side of heaven we hospital Christians will always need our medicine toward substantive healing at the hands of the Good Doctor. There remain sick people in the PCA, and as much of pastors, entrusted physicians of oath. And beyond a lingering malaise of elders and congregants, we do well to be wary of sterner enemies to Christ of all rank and station in our midst, seeking to devour. We indeed ought to give fair and humble countenance to any depreciation or misuse of both grace and graciousness in our midst, and we do well to always value the Law and the Scriptures; but we ought not be a church fearful of God’s judgment and wrath, but driven by love and, yes, grace abounding - “grace, grace”, to be sure, not in some dismissive blind eye toward impropriety or pharisaic flaunting of happy self-righteousness, but a grace rooted in the Law of Christ, of the love of God and one another.
- grit
Substitute "Christ-centered" for "redemptive-historical" (they are evil twins, IMHO, from left and right) and my late friend and former congregant Lester De Koster got it spot on.
"Wherever you take the text or the passage you find the Christ in it somewhere, and once you have found the Christ, the Christocentric element, you know the role of that text in the history of redemption, and then you can exposit the text,"
said De Koster. "Now you have to be blind as a bat not to see that is simply a way of reading into the Bible what you want to find."
In short, all good news all the time is not faithful to the text.
The great danger, as I tell my people, is not necessarily in:
saying nothing false
but
not saying everything true.
On Grace and Peace, at CGS the men's group is memorizing Colossians 1:1-2, and I was talking with someone about how Grace can come from men (or at least their passing of it on from God, e.g. sacraments) but the verse says "peace from God our Father". (Tho one could also read Col 1:2 as saying that both grace adn peace are coming directly from God the Father.)
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
to the holy ones and faithful brothers in Christ in Colossae: grace to you and peace from God our Father
Thank you, David, for calling out my sin and pushing me to faithfulness.
Love,
Ken wrote,
"Substitute "Christ-centered" for "redemptive-historical" (they are evil twins, IMHO)"
Wow, twin evils. Give me too much Jesus instead of too much of given pastor's personality and opinions anytime. If I am going to err, let me err on the side of grace and too much Christ.
Jesse,
That is a really gross false dichotomy. God forbid that any of our personality or opinions get in the way of the Scriptures.
How about more of what Jesus actually said, because what he says is many times pretty tough for modern evangelicals to hear.
"Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord' and do not do the things that I say?
Dear Jesse,
You go for a cheap score in your comment three above because, of course, you know that your criticism is only superficially related to Ken's point.
I think you're capable of better argumentation, as well as a greater degree of charity.
Love in Christ,
David Bayly
Ken,
Is it as gross as calling Christ-centered and redemptive-historical preaching evil? Is my false dichotomy more problematic then your suggestion that if I am going to preach Christ from all of Scripture then I somehow can't preach the hard sayings? Curious.
>Substitute "Christ-centered" for "redemptive-historical"
All Reformed preaching should be Christ-centered. That doesn't mean it can't be abused but to do anything else is a form of abuse in itself.
David,
I appreciate the exhortation to charity and clarity. The comment was written without much time to invest and therefore without much unfolding of what I meant. I can only say that I believe that every text points to Christ and his work in some way and that I also believe that only the grace of God can change a man (or even bring repentance), therefore to ignore Christ in the text or to not preach some aspect of the Gospel weekly would be, imo, to interject one's own opinion/interpretation/morality onto the text.
That point would take me an awful lot of time to prove and I don't think a comment box is likely the best place to do so. But there is plenty of stuff written to speak to that issue and I am sure Ken has engaged with it to some extent, so I thought the shorthand would be okay, especially since he called my (by association) preaching evil (and all this time I thought I was doing good...).
Now all that said, there are good redemptive historical preachers and there are poor ones. And for those who take some emotional point to get to the Gospel to fix the "brokeness" that they projected on the text are also guilty of preaching their opinions, since the text didnt drive the conclusion.
I cant recommend chapter 4 of, "Why Johnny Can't Preach" enough. It is a short faithful summary of why I responded so negatively. My apologies for not taking the time to flesh it out in a more fruitful way.
Jesse,
Where exactly did I call your preaching evil? If that was the impression, I ask for your forgiveness.
I could have picked my words more carefully, I guess, but evils and evil are two different things. It was clearly a hyperbolic statement --you know like Jesus saying gouge out your eye?
The point is certainly not that we shouldn't proclaim Christ or do so from all of Scripture.
It is that we should not muzzle God's clear word to all of life with a simple "But Jesus did it all and there is nothing left for us to do." That is certainly true in salvation, but it is an untruth when applied to the Christian's life or his thinking about the world.
I see that I wrote "evil twins" not "twin evils." Still, the word "evil" was not meant in the "from the devil" sense. It was simply meant in the literary sense.
If you preach Christ in the indicative and imperative, then God forbid that I would call your preaching evil.
David,
"Christ-centered" has become a slogan for something less than Christo-centric preaching, hence the "scare quotes."
Dear Ken,
I caught that, and understood it. That's why I thought Jesse was unfair in his subsequent comment. But I may be assuming unfairly in thinking Jesse must have grasped your meaning.
Love in Christ,
David
Dear Jesse,
I think it's a twisting of Scripture to make every passage and every sermon end in Christ--moralizing of the altar call sort rather than preaching the Word in its fullness. Over time, yes, it all leads to Christ; in every sermon, no, the point at times is obey, repent, turn, fear....
There are vast chunks of Scripture, such as much of Proverbs, where I think the RH approach doesn't deal with the text.
I may be misreading you on this.
Love in Christ,
David
How convoluted this has become. It was David Gray that I feared missed my meaning, not David Bayly, who so ably expounded the same point in the original post!
Right Rev. D. Bayly,
I understand that altar call type Gospel preaching weekly is insufficient. But even in the preaching of obedience, repentance etc., I dont see how we can fail to mention that the only hope or power of those things comes through our life in Christ and ultimately how that life comes to us by faith and repentance in the good news of Christ. Law without Gospel is death. It is a car without an engine.
I guess I would say,
Obey - how? Only can be done in Christ through the Gospel
Turn - why? The only proper motivation is the kindness of God in Christ through the Gospel.
Fear - what sort? Perfect love casts it out, so ending with trembling only would be a cruel handling of the text. Fear of the Godly sort is a fear of not pursuing a God who has given all for us.
I know this is a major philosophical divide in our circles, so I am not counting on us coming to perfect unity but I do think it is easier to get to Jesus in the text then usually stated and without having to do cartwheels. I mean, if the Apostles could do it, we should be able to as well! I jest, cheers.
Dear Jesse,
Two weeks ago in evening worship I preached on the "strange woman" of Proverbs 7 in calling the young men of our congregation to godliness in their pursuit of girls--and eventually marriage.
Now, the link between adultery and idolatry is clear in Scripture, and I mentioned it briefly in the context of the sermon, but this was essentially preaching Proverbs as proverbs rather than preaching Proverbs as Romans.
I did it in the evening, but I'd have done it as readily in the morning. Evening's simply how it worked out.
Perhaps we're not as far apart as it appears if you'd preach to young men about lust, recognizing the wrong woman, etc.
Love in Christ,
David
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