Gospel Accounting

Christianity is meant to be different. Most religions give the worshiper a to do list and then build everything else off how you do at the list. You want to be a good Buddhist or Muslim or Hindu, you get the list, and you apply all of your powers to completing the list better than anyone else.  In fact, how good you are at the list determines the outcomes in those faith traditions. Failure to keep the list becomes the downward pull that might keep you from eternal reward. And so, in one sense, we could say that all the other major religions are essentially accounting. Good goes in the ‘a’ column bad goes in the ‘b’ column and we add a and b then we subtract a from b- hoping against all the odds that somehow, a is greater than b.

But, as I said, Christianity is meant to be different. Unlike other religions where the starting point is a to do list, Christianity to start with a death and a birth, which happen simultaneously and keep impacting the worshiper for the rest of eternity. The death is a death to self. It is a radical desertion of one’s own life. And such a death has one purpose only that a new birth might bring new life. Our rebirth does not come from us. Our rebirth comes by the grace of God. He sent His Son to live a perfect life and then offer Himself as the sacrifice for our sinful lives. God accepted His sacrifice because God raised Him from the dead. Our new birth is into Jesus’ new kind of life. So we die to self and ask God to save us and give us new birth because of Jesus’ death and new life. And by the greatest miracle ever known, men and women, sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, are reborn into God’s family.

In other words, Christianity is not a to do list which seeks to mold a person into a child of God. Christianity begins in new birth from God. This reality is vital or like all other religions Christianity becomes a to do list and an impossible accounting problem. But, if we begin with a new birth, if we begin with our identity as God’s children, then and only then can the commands of God and Christ become the outgrowth of that new life. Any other approach to life as a follower of Christ will create a list that either beats us down to despair (because we cannot fulfill it) or fills us with pride (at the foolish notion that we have done well in keeping it.)

Thomas Schreiner says it this way, “God’s commands are always rooted in his grace. Another way of putting this is to say that indicative (what God has done for us in Christ) is always the basis of the imperative (how we should live our lives). To confuse the order here would be disastrous, and the result would be works righteousness instead of seeing holiness as the result of God’s grace and power, as a response to the love of God in Christ.”

This does not mean that we take the commands of the Bible lightly. Or that we treat holiness as simply a lofty ideal. Rather it means that for the first time we have hope to be holy. For if our holiness rests on our efforts, it will always be a failure. But, if our holiness rests on the Holy Spirit enliven-ing and empowering us then we can walk as obedient children. What incredibly good news is the Gospel, that holiness is Christ in us not our list keeping!

If we get the indicative right, it does not set aside the imperative. It enables the imperative. So the indication that I have the indicative down is not laxity toward God’s call to holiness but a serious embrace of that standard. Wayne Grudem observes, “Christians should delight in imitating God, both because he is their Father and because his moral excellence is inherently beautiful and desirable- to be like him is the best way to be.” He further helpfully observes, “Membership in God’s family, great privilege though it is, must not lead to the presumption that disobedience will pass unnoticed or undisciplined.” So, keep pursuing holiness but not as a to do list so you can become a ‘good’ Christian, rather as an outgrowth of who you are.