The Doctrines of Grace and the Regular Guy – pt 3 – Sola Scriptura (again)

Once again, I am a regular guy, and in addition to a healthy dose of procrastination, apparently regular guys go through stressful job situations, change jobs, clean off their computers at their old jobs only to realize that they saved their blog posts in an incompatible format so they have to hunt down friends to open the posts, save them to a compatible format and e-mail them back so that they can continue their posts after a month-long delay. What? This hasn’t happened to you? Okay, maybe that one is only me. Nonetheless (and gory details aside), today we continue the series of posts on the doctrines of grace as we seek to answer the question, “Why should the doctrines of grace make a difference to me?” Or, put another way, “What difference does it make if I believe in the doctrines of grace?”

Before we get into the promised discussion on depravity, it occurs to me that I did not completely answer that “so what” question with regard to the sufficiency of Scripture in the last post. Again, for the sake of clarity, the question would be, “What difference does a belief in the doctrines of grace make in regard to the sufficiency of Scripture?” So allow me a few paragraphs to speak to the impact that this had on my approach to Scripture.

The first affect was that it forced me to confront the fact that I did not have as high of a view of Scripture as I thought. This was a bit of a shock to me because I always considered myself to have a very high view of Scripture and doctrine in general. However, what I began to realize over time and through the influence of a few people was that when I was confronted with a passage of Scripture that was a little bit difficult, my natural reaction was to dismiss the passage and look for something a little more practical. For example, Ephesians 1:3-14 is a wonderful passage of Scripture that describes in great detail the transaction of grace that has taken place according to God’s wonderful and sovereign plan. But most of the time that I came across passages like this, I quickly set them aside so that I could get to something more “useful” for me, like Ephesians 5:22-32 (“Wives submit to your husbands…”). I can’t say that this was a conscious choice of mine, but it was certainly a practical reality. I had no patience to discover exactly what was being said in the former passage (even though it is rich with meaning), but I had great hunger to know how the latter could be used in my life and marriage. The affect was that I became like a sieve with very large holes in it. I would retain some of Scripture, but I would allow much of it to pass through, unencumbered by my thought and consideration. I believed in and cherished the authority and sufficiency of Scripture in the passages that I liked, but I dismissed the passages that held little interest to me. What I wound up with was the “Webster Authorized Version” that consisted of a few pet Scriptures, and some interesting historical passages.

Second, and most importantly, it caused me to understand Scripture (even familiar Scripture) in a different way. I want to be careful in how I say that because I do not want to be misunderstood as being a proponent of some new and mystical revelation. Far from it. What I am saying is that when I read Scripture now, I read it through the lens of God’s gracious choice, and not through the lens of my human effort or merit. For example, I used to be troubled by the behavior of God’s people in the Old Testament. Solomon’s wives and concubines, David’s adultery and rage, Jacob’s deceit and favoritism, Samson’s pride, Abraham’s lying about Sarah, and so on. If these people had chosen to follow God, how come they couldn't get it together more than that? Surely God's commands were clear. Surely they knew that their behavior strayed from His commands. Certainly they had enough common sense to know that their actions came with terrible consequences (with the possible exception of Samson--he might really have been that dim). The conclusion that I came to when I read these accounts through the lens of human merit and effort was that either they cleaned their lives up eventually or that God somehow turned a blind eye to those sins. Because really, those are some pretty bad sins—I mean, ugly, heinous stuff! Giving your wife away to some other dude just to save your own hide? Taking some other guys’ wife and having him killed even though he is selflessly committed to you? Sleeping with 1,500 women? Lying to your own dad and brother and expecting God to bless it? I mean really, it sounds like a “Best of Jerry Springer” marathon. What I failed to realize though, when I read these accounts through the spectrum of human merit, was that my sin was equally heinous to God. Jesus says so in Matthew 5. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” How many times have I done that? Once? Five times? Five thousand times? The point is that I had minimized God’s grace by believing that I had somehow earned it by my choice of Him, when the truth is that I was no more worthy of grace than His people in the Old Testament were. And my sin, even after having received His grace, was no less heinous to Him than theirs. And yet His matchless grace has convicted, covered, forgiven, and overcome my sin. Not because I have chosen Him, but because He has chosen me. We will explore this further in the next post.

Third, reading Scripture is no longer a chore. I used to read Scripture so that I could say that I had done it. You know the drill—5 Psalms, 1 Proverb every day; seven chapters in the Old Testament; three in the New; through the Bible in a year. Whatever the program was it was exactly that—a program. Not that reading the Bible that way is totally fruitless, because there were many times when the Lord spoke clearly to my heart through His Word. However, often times I would walk away from what I had just read and have no recollection of it whatsoever. The greatest benefit that I gained was being able to say that I did it—a level of self-righteousness that I am ashamed to admit. Now, it is much different. Don’t get me wrong, it still takes self-discipline and focus to set aside time to read Scripture, and I still have times when I skip Scripture reading to do other things like watch TV or sleep in. There are gaps in my journal entries just like everyone else’s. But now, reading Scripture is rich with meaning to me. It is not something that has to be done during the day, like getting the oil changed or going to work. And I don’t have a goal for getting a certain amount done during the day, week, or year. I just want to read with my mind fully engaged and my heart open to hear. When I do that (although very imperfectly) I am continually amazed at how clearly God speaks through His word.

Fourth, trials become much more significant in the plan of God. Now I notice that God not only ordains victory for us according to His word, He also ordains suffering and affliction according to His word. Jesus’ statement in John 16:33 that He has overcome the world is no more important than His statement in the same verse that we will have tribulation in this world. And both statements are to be attributed to His sovereignty. I used to think that only the part where Jesus has overcome the world should be attributed to His sovereignty, and the part where we have trouble is the devil’s fault. But the truth is that all things happen under God’s sovereign care and control. This is not to minimize the work of a cunning and malicious enemy of our souls, but even Job’s trials, though inflicted by Satan, came under God’s watchful eye, and were used to draw Job closer to Him. When we read Scripture carefully, we see God’s kind intention, even in our trials and difficulties (see II Corinthians 4:7-18).

Well, I’m sure that there are other things that can be said about the doctrines of grace and the sufficiency of Scripture in the life of the regular guy. But right now this regular guy’s son wants to use his computer to get on to cartoonnetwork.com. Next post, we will explore my total depravity. I can't wait!

Soli Deo Gloria!