Who is Controlling
Whom?
By Rick Shrader
On our church web site I received an interesting note from a young man
named Steve. Steve is an active member of a church that is going
through a typical change (which of course is not a “change” at all but
rather a conforming) from traditional to contemporary type of worship.
Steve is emotionally caught between the older members of his church who
are resisting the “change” and the new and younger leadership who is
insisting on the change. Steve has been reading a lot from a web site
that encourages believers to flee from “control freaks” who hold power
over another person for their own gain. The web site article begins,
“Many controlling groups, whether economic, religious or political, use
the ‘family’ model as their blueprint—with dominating, protective
parents’ and ‘children’ acting out the many types of offspring and
sibling behavior.” The author goes on to equate pastors and other
leaders who resist the typical change as “restrictive and controlling”
who suffer from being “vengeful, outspoken, preoccupied by sex or a
‘righteous’ abstainer from sex, prone to fits of anger, jealous,
distrustful of others, changes his mind without notice, sees everything
black or white.” The article tells readers not to listen to those who
would control you with their position of power, especially church
leaders. Steve has applied this to the older leaders of his church who
have been in control of the church for years. He feels stifled by their
resistance to a change in church policies. The serious challenge for
Steve, however, is to perceive who the real controller is.
There is no doubt that churches have been controlled by the
Diotropheses of the world for two thousand years. But that is not the
only kind of control, nor is it the most subtle. Eve was caught in the
same dilemma as Steve. Someone told her not to follow a heavy-handed
Controller who was withholding better things from her. She agreed with
this counselor and, rather than submitting to the first Controller,
submitted herself to the new controller. But, of course, she found the
proposed freedom had placed her under the most insidious control of
all—the lust of her flesh, the lust of her eyes and the pride of life.
Satan has always used these allurements to control believers through his
own spiritual children.
Paul feared this type of control for the Corinthian church.
Control by the flesh then was as subtle as what the serpent told Eve (2
Cor 11:3). The Corinthian believers were willing to let these “false
apostles” (11:13) strike them “on the face” (11:20) in order to gain
control of them (not unlike this web site’s tirade on church leaders).
They had been told that Paul was the problem! But Paul warned them,
You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own
affections . . . For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness?
. . . . Come out from among them and be separate (6:11-17).
Peter (and later Jude) wrote of those who seek control
through the promise of liberty, For when they they speak great
swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh,
through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who
live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the
servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he
brought in bondage (2 Peter 2:18-19).
All of Paul’s theology is brought under scrutiny by this
situation. Yes, he taught justification by grace alone without the
works of the law. But he also taught good works after salvation as an
obligation of the believer in Christ. L. Berkhof has noted this ongoing
problem: “In the historical unfolding of the doctrine of
sanctification, the Church concerned itself primarily with three
problems: (a) the relation of the grace of God in sanctification to
faith; (b) the relation of sanctification to justification; and (c) the
degree of sanctification in this present life.”1 The balance
of these doctrines was crucial because the imbalance causes theological
problems that remain with us today.
Legalism:
placing our justification in our sanctification
Paul spent much of his time fighting the
Judaizers who taught that one must be justified by keeping the law.
After his first missionary journey in Galatia where he was stoned by
them, he was called to attend the Jerusalem council because, certain
men which came down from Judea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye
be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved (Acts
15:1). Immediately after that Paul wrote the book of Galatians in which
he said, Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law,
but by the faith of Jesus Christ (2:16) and encouraged the believers
to Stand fast therefore in the liberty
wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the
yoke of bondage (5:1).
God cannot accept our help in salvation. If a rich man were
tried for murder and the judge sentenced him to 100 years in prison,
what would it do to the legal system if the rich man made a deal with
the judge to reduce his sentence by ten years for $100,000? What if the
judge accepted and the rich man then asked if he would reduce the
sentence 50 years for another $1,000,000? Soon, rather than justice
being meted out, punishment is rendered according to man’s station in
life. Paul wrote, Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by
grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed (Rom
4:16).
If I preached that a man can do something to help gain his
salvation, I would be a legalist. If I preached that a man must do
something to help keep himself saved, I would also be a legalist. If in
any way I preached that a man is justified according to how well he
practiced sanctification, I would and should come under the same
condemnation as the Galatian Judaizers, let him be accursed (Gal
1:8).
License:
placing our sanctification in our justification
Though there is a positional sanctification of being
accepted in the Beloved (Eph 1:6) and there is a final
sanctification where we will be eternally confirmed in holiness, and
whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he
also glorified (Rom 8:30), most of the doctrine of sanctification
concerns the growth of the believer from a babe in Christ to full
maturity, That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro .
. . . But . . . . may grow up into him in all things (Eph 4:14-15).
Paul always had to warn immature Christians who see license
to sin in the grace of God as if all of their human effort in
sanctification were already taken care of in the divine act of
justification. Brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use
not liberty for an occasion to the flesh (Gal 5:13); But take
heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to
them that are weak (1 Cor 8:9); and Peter also warned, not using
your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness (1 Pet 2:16). It seems a
characteristic of human nature, when freed from punishment, to either
fall into selfish indulgence (they profess that they know God but in
works they deny him, Titus 1:16) or grow into grateful obedience (That
they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works,
Titus 3:8). Good works for salvation would be legalism, but a lack of
good works after salvation would be a license to sin that grace may
abound (Rom 6:1).
Love: Seeking
a sanctification that matches our justification
When Paul finished admonishing the Galatians to not use
their liberty as an occasion to the flesh, he added, but by love
serve one another (Gal 5:13). Love is seen in the servant who, when
set free, became a bond-slave to the one who set him free! Paul’s most
poignant statement is to the Philippians, That I may know him, and
the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings,
being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain
unto the resurrection of the dead (Phil 3:10-11). Paul’s goal in
life (this one thing I do, vs 13) was to so be changed into the
image of Christ before he died that his conversation would be
in heaven from whence also we look for the Saviour (vs 20).
Paul also speaks of the doctrine of mortification. If ye
live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do
mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live (Rom 8:13); Mortify
therefore your members which are upon the earth (Col 3:5). Older
writers used to emphasize this more, in a day when it did not sound so
repulsive to the average Christian. Charnock (1628-1680) wrote, “We may
gather from hence, the difficulty of conversion, and mortification to
follow thereupon. . . . The love of sin hath been predominant in our
nature, has quashed a love to God, if not extinguished it. Hence also
is the difficulty of mortification. This is a work tending to the honor
of God, the abasing of that inordinately aspiring humor in ourselves.”2
And So . . . .
The believer must not be controlled by the legalism of those
who claim we can gain or lose our salvation by good or bad works.
Neither must the believer be controlled by the license of those who
claim that a denial of the flesh is legalism. If we love the Savior we
will want to be conformed into His image as much as possible in this
life. Francis Schaeffer wrote,
This is the basic consideration of the Christian life. First,
Christ died in history. Second, Christ rose in history. Third, we died
with Christ in history, when we accepted him as our Savior. Fourth, we
will be raised in history, when he comes again. Fifth, we are to live
by faith now as though we were now dead, already have died. And sixth,
we are to live now by faith as though we have now already been raised
from the dead.3
If one would call such living “control,” I say amen!
Everyone is controlled by something. It is far better to be controlled
by the Holy Spirit; controlled by the Word of God; controlled by a clear
conscience; controlled by the history and testimony of saints throughout
the ages!
Notes
1. L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand
Rapids: Eerdman’s, 1977) 529.
2. Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of
God, Vol I (Grand Rapids: Baker Book, 1980) 164.
3. Francis Schaeffer, True Spirituality (Wheaton:
Tyndale House, 1971) 41.
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