Jerry
Bridges is Vice President for Corporate Affairs of The Navigators.
Transforming
Grace, his third book, was
published by NavPress in 1991, 207 pages.
This
book has come out on the heels of Dr. Swindoll's Grace Awakening.
One would think that these authors had never heard of, much less read,
Dr. Chafer's unsurpassed classic on the subject, Grace--The
Glorious Theme.
Dr.
Chafer's masterpiece, unlike these two, presents dispensational, scriptural
grace--grace untainted by law. His
book is even more needed and relevant today than when it was written, just a
few months short of 70 years ago.
As
for Mr. Bridges' Transforming Grace, its over-all content belies its
title. It contains worthwhile
material on grace, but it is overwhelmed and nullified by Covenant
law-teaching.
It
is quite likely that if Mr. Bridges were asked if he is an Arminian, his
answer would be no. It would be
the same if he were asked if he is dispensational, or Covenant.
But the book proclaims the latter, in no uncertain terms.
If
you want to know just how law-bound Covenant-oriented authors are, read what
they write about grace.
We
can see at the outset the indicative list of Covenant authors quoted: Abraham
Booth, Jay Adams, Wm.
Hendriksen, R.C. Sproul, John Calvin, Martyn Lloyd-
Jones, Richard Gilbert, Charles Hodge, Samuel Bolton, Arthur Pink, John
Murray,
Wm. Coleman, Joseph Alexander, John Owen,
Louis Berkhof, and Wm. Arnot.
Have
you lost all confidence in your own moral or religious efforts and turned in faith
completely to Jesus to be clothed in His righteousness? (p. 44).
"...clothed
in His righteousness" is typical of Reformed external thinking.
The member of the Body of Christ is not clothed, he is!
"For He made Him, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21). "But of Him
are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us ... righteousness" (1
Cor. 1:30).
Such
teaching makes it all the more difficult for the Christian to realize that he
is united to the Righteous One, rather than being covered--or
"draped," as Dr. MacArthur teaches (Commentary on Romans, p.
335).
Our
motivation for commitment, discipline, and obedience is
as important to God, perhaps even
more so, than our performance.
As Ernest F. Kevin wrote,
"The Law's demands are inward, touching motive and desire, and are not
concerned solely with outward action" (p. 78)
Being
law-based, the key Covenant terms are "commitment,"
"discipline," and "obedience." As we shall see
throughout this book, the title is Grace, but the content is Law.
When
I stress a God-ward motivation for
our discipline and obedience, I am not talking about inclination and
feeling. We are not to wait until we "feel
like" having a quiet
time to have one. And we certainly are not to wait until we are so
inclined to obey God's commandments. Motive has nothing to do with
feelings and inclination; rather, it refers to the reason why we do, or
don't do, something (p. 80).
The
author says to just act, ready or not. Not only the law, but the spirit
of law has its penalty for the Christian. They keep him from knowing and
experiencing "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus"
(Rom. 8:2).
"For
the love of Christ continuously constrains me" (2 Cor. 5:14 Wms.).
Note the use of the word continuously, indicating that Christ's love is
the constant wellspring of Paul's motivation every day.
Paul
never lost sight of, never forgot, never took for granted the death of Christ
for him. And as he reflected on this infinite love manifested in
Christ's death, he was motivated, no, he was compelled and impelled to live
for the One who died for him and rose again (p. 81).
Do
you view God's moral precepts as a source of bondage and condemnation for
failure to obey them, or do you sense the Spirit producing within you an
inclination and desire to obey out of gratitude and love? (p. 111) .
I
asked God to purge those sinful traits from my character. I asked Him to
enable me to become more and more aware of specific instances when I was
committing those sins so that I could, by His Spirit, put them to death as
Paul tells us in Romans 8:13. I was compelled by His love to seek to put
away those sins (p. 83) .
Two
motives dominate this book--love, and law. Both are infinitely short of
the scriptural life-motive. "For me to live is
Christ"--"Christ, who is our life" (Phil. 1:21; Col. 3:3).
Those
who place themselves under law as a rule of life try to deal with sins, the
symptoms, not understanding what God has done positionally with their source,
at Calvary. Hence there is no counting upon the work of the Cross, via
Romans
6:11.
It is the struggle of Romans 7, rather than the rest of Romans 6.
The
term growing in grace is most often used to indicate growth in
Christian character. While I think that usage has merit, a more accurate
meaning is to continually grow in our understanding of God's grace, especially
as it applies to us personally, to become progressively more aware of our own
continued bankruptcy and the unmerited, unearned, and undeserved favor of God.
May we grow in this grace. As we grow in grace this way, we will grow in
our motivation to obey God out of a sense of gratitude and reverence to Him
(p. 84).
Wrong
direction--backward; wrong object--self. The author's remedy is that we
should become progressively aware of what we don't have in order to gain
adequate motivation of obey God. But the Word would turn us from the
fallen first Adam to the ascended Last Adam, the Source of the Christian life.
"Set your
affection
on things above, not on things on the earth." "...beholding as
in a mirror the glory of the Lord, [we] are changed into the same image from
glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (Col. 3:2; 2 Cor.
3:18).
One
clear evidence that we are living by grace is a loving obedience to the
commands of God (p. 88).
Covenant
thinking is that if your [attempted] obedience to the commands of God is
loving, it is grace; but if it is grudging, it is legality. But either
way, for them, obedience to the law is central.
We
are commanded to know and understand the commands of Scripture. And
quite obviously, we are to seek to know God's will and obey it (p. 89).
This
is a far and futile cry from knowing the One who is the personification of
both grace and truth, and resting and growing in Him via the Word and the
Spirit.
They
maintain that we have been freed, not only from the curse and condemnation
resulting from breaking the law, but also from the requirements of the law as
a rule of life (p. 90) .
When
He is known only as Lord and Saviour, and not as Life, all that remains is the
law to govern the life--"And the law is not of faith" (Gal. 3:12),
hence not of grace. "By the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom.
3:20). The bondage and wretchedness of Romans Seven is the abode of
those who struggle under the law as their rule of life--you can take Paul's
word for it.
We
need to always keep in mind that God is not only our Savior and heavenly
Father through Christ, but He is also God, the supreme Ruler and moral
Governor of His creation. The sons and daughters of a king are still
under the obligation to obey the laws their father has decreed for his realm,
even though they are his children. They are no more exempt from the laws
than any other citizen (p. 91)
The
Covenant-oriented have no conception of living the Christian life by His life
and nature--the effortless flow and manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit.
They fail to realize that they through the law have died to the law, and that
"the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth" (Gal. 2:19;
Rom. 7:1).
So
we as God's children are subject to the laws of the realm. Out of
response to His grace, we should obey in a loving and grateful way. And,
as we shall see, because God has written His law on our hearts, we will, as a
rule, be in agreement with His law written in His word. But we are still
to regard God's law as commands to be obeyed (p. 91).
Here
is the first reference to the law written on the Christian's heart--the
contemporary trend of linking the Church with Israel's New Covenant.
Reformed/Covenant theology is actually Kingdom/Jewish. Its adherents
consider God primarily as God and law-giver. Their theological center of
gravity is in the OT and the kingdom law of the Synoptic Gospels, therein
seeing Jesus primarily as Messiah and Lord.
This
law-orientation bars them from the Christian realm of the rightly-divided
Word, the Pauline Church Epistles. Hence they do not really know the
glorified
Lord Jesus Christ in their hearts as their Life. They would see the
glory and
character of God in the law, rather than seeing the "light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6).
Infinite loss!
There
is no question that obedience to God's commands prompted by fear or
merit-seeking is not true obedience. The only obedience acceptable to
God is constrained and impelled by love, because "love is the fulfillment
of the law" (Rom. 13:10). God's law as revealed in His Word
prescribes our duty, but love provides the correct motive for obedience.
We obey God's law, not to be loved, but because we are loved in Christ (p. 92)
Here
is the fatal twist: God's love for the Christian causes him to love
God, and provides the motivation for him to do his duty and obey His law.
The law-oriented are unable to realize that the Father's love in Christ
is the first fruit of the Spirit--the primary characteristic of the Christian
life--not our love in response to His love for us.
We
don't need to get "lost" time and again, but we certainly need to be
reminded that we are still sinners. The best way to do this is to take
seriously the commands of God as a required rule of life. As we do, we
will be continually reminded that we are spiritually bankrupt--even as
believers. And as redeemed sinners in a perpetual state of bankruptcy,
we will come to appreciate more each day the superabounding grace of God (p.
93).
Putting
himself under law will keep the Christian at the "redeemed sinner"
level, and it will certainly reduce him to "perpetual bankruptcy"
[even gross hypocrisy!]. This is to know grace only at the rescue level.
But
to know and partake of "the true grace of God in which ye stand" (1
Pet. 5: 12), one beholds Him who is the personification of grace. "...and
we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of
grace and truth" (John 1:14). "For in Him dwelleth all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in Him" (Col. 2:9).
Redeemed
sinner? Bankrupt? By His grace I am His son, an heir of God and
joint-heir with Christ, complete in Him, and my life is hidden with Christ in
God. All that and much more is to be our perspective of grace.
So
then, God's law, as a rule of life, is not opposed to grace. Rather,
used in the right sense, it is the handmaid of grace. Or, to use an
analogy, it is like a sheepdog that keeps driving us back into the fold of
grace, when we stray out into the wilderness of works.
The
Christian, having "died to the law" (Gal. 2:19), is "not under
the law, but under grace" (Rom. 6:14).
Death separates the two! For the coming kingdom Jew, the
theocratic law written upon his heart and the indwelling Spirit of God causing
him to keep it, that will be kingdom grace.
But
if we realize the moral law as a transcript--a written reproduction of the
moral character of God... love provides the motive for obeying the commands of
the law, but the law provides specific direction for exercising love (p. 93).
Even if the moral law were a written transcript
of the moral character of God--which it is not--it is still of no benefit to a
member of the Body of Christ. As for the believer's rule of life, Paul
does not say, To me to live is law; but, "to me to live is Christ"
(Phil. 1:21). Dr. Chafer said, "Law cannot give life, nor have,
therefore, any control over it."
The law the written
transcript of God's character? Not hardly. "He that hath seen
Me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9). "God ... hath in
these last days (in this dispensation?) spoken unto us by His Son... who,
being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His (intrinsic)
person... (Heb. 1: 1-3).
Under the bondage of the law
in order to grow in grace? Never! "Where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is liberty"; liberty to behold with unveiled face the
glory of the Lord (not the law), and to be changed into that same image from
glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor. 3:17,18). If
the ministration of death, written and engraved in stones, was glorious ...
how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be more glorious? (2 Cor. 3:7,8).
"But,"
some say, "didn't Paul say in Ephesians 2:15 that Christ "abolished
in His flesh the law with its commandments and regulations"? Didn't
he say that Christ has set us free from the law, and didn't he urge us
to stand firm in that freedom"? (Gal. 5:1) (p. 97).
Watch
now the well-worn Covenant escape route!
Paul,
then, surely meant that Christ abolished the curse of the law and the
condemnation of the law for those who have faith in Him (p. 98).
Covenant
theology has stolen the law from its exclusive God-given recipient, Israel,
and has sought to appropriate its "benefits," while leaving its curses
and condemnation for them!
Christ
has freed us from their Jewish insistence on observance of the law as a
means of salvation (p 98).
We
have indeed been set free from the bondage and curse that results from
breaking the law. And we have been called to freedom from works as a
means of obtaining any merit with God. But we have not been called to
freedom from law as an expression of God's will for our daily living (p. 99).
Is
there now any question in your mind as to where Covenant theology stands
concerning the law? Its recognition and knowledge of grace is limited to
salvation (justification). When it comes to sanctification, growth, it
is law all the way-even to the extent of including Israel's Kingdom
law.
God
always gives justification and this initial impartation of sanctification at
the same time. The author of Hebrews describes this truth in this way:
"This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the
Lord, I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their
minds" (Heb. 10:16) (p. 106).
One
of the best descriptions of this initial act of God in sanctification is found
in Ezekiel 36:26,27 where God makes this gracious promise: "I will give
you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart
of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you
and move you to follow my desires and be careful to keep my laws" (p.
107).
This
is the trend of contemporary theological leaders who are infected by Covenant
influence--that of seeking to draw the Church down from her heavenly Christ-centered
position, to Israel's earthly, New Covenant, kingdom-law level. Who
would
ever attempt such a thing if he really knew who and where he was in the
ascended and glorified Life and Head of the Body, which is the Church (Col.
1:18)?
Note
the changes God brings about in our inner being when He saves us. He
gives us a new heart and puts a new spirit within us--a spirit
that loves righteousness and hates sin. He puts His own Spirit within us
and moves us to follow His decrees and keep His laws....
David
said in Psalm 40:8, "I desire to do your will, 0 my God." Why
did he have this desire? It was because, as the remainder of the verse
says, "Your law is within my heart." David found a law written
in his own heart corresponding to the law written in God's word. There
was an agreeableness between the spiritual nature within him and the objective
law of God external to him.
It
is that way with a person who is a new creation in Christ. There is a
basic though imperfect correspondence between the law written in a believer's
heart and the law written in Scripture (p. 107).
Mr.
Bridges is here referring to the regenerate Jew in the coming dispensation
[Millennium], and the regenerate Jew (David) in the past dispensation.
But the law of those economies is not to be applied to the Christian in
this period of grace.
It
is not the law, but rather the Lord Jesus Christ who indwells the
"heart" of the Christian. "I
in them..." "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (John 17:23;
Col. 1:27). The Spirit of Christ's ministry is Christ, not the
law.
The
Lord Jesus said to the disciples, "When the Comforter is come, whom I
shall send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth
from the Father, He shall testify of Me." "When He, the
Spirit of truth, is come (Pentecost) He will guide you into all truth.... He
shall glorify Me; for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto
you" (John 15:26; 16:13-,14).
The
Spirit's primary ministry in this dispensation of grace [sic] is to bring us
into fellowship with and worship of the Father and the Son in Glory.
He has positioned us There, in Him (Eph. 2:6).
At the same time He ministers the life of the Lord Jesus within us,
"that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal
flesh" (2 Cor. 4:11).
We
Died to the Law -- From these passages
(Rom. 3:20, 6:14, and Gal. 3:10) we understand that we died to
the observance of the law as a
requirement for attaining righteousness
before God. We died
to the curse and condemnation that
resulted from our inability to
perfectly keep the law.
Then
we see in Romans 6:14, "Ye are
not under law, but under grace," that being under law is the opposite of being under grace.
Because of our sin against
the law, being under law implies the wrath of God, whereas grace implies forgiveness and favor.
So when Paul said we died to the law, he meant we died to that entire state
of condemnation, curse, and alienation from God
(p. 109).
Covenant
theology teaches that we died to the law as a means of righteousness, and that
we died to the condemnation of the broken law--but we did not die to the
law itself!
But
the Christian died to ALL of the following: the First Adam, sin, Satan, the
world, and the Law. As unsaved, he was not condemned because of
breaking the law. He was condemned in Adam, before the law was in
existence. "By the offense of one (Adam) judgment came upon all men
to condemnation" (Rom. 5:18).
The
moral precepts of God are written in
our hearts as well as being an
external code. The Spirit inclines
our hearts and gives us a desire
to obey. The Spirit enables us to
obey the law's demands (p. 110).
It
is easy to understand the Covenant insistence and emphasis upon Commitment,
Discipline, and Obedience. It takes that and somewhat more ... when it
comes to the law. The law gives no enablement for its demands, and the
Holy Spirit never enables the Christian to keep the law. But He
will enable the kingdom Jew to keep the theocratic law, in the coming kingdom
dispensation.
We
have been focusing on the initial act of sanctification: the radical change God brings about in the heart of
a person who trusts Jesus Christ as Savior. It is the passing from spiritual
death to spiritual life. It is the
beginning of a new creation in Christ and the writing of God's law in our hearts. It
means a new relationship to the law of
God and a new attitude toward it (p.
112).
As
a new creation in Christ, He becomes my life, my all. That
glorified life is beyond and without need of the law. Not being a Jew, I
never had a relationship to the law. As a Christian, my attitude toward
the law of God is that it is "holy, and just, and good" (Rom. 7:12).
But my new life in Christ requires it not; I am under grace. And
since I am risen with Christ, I seek those things which are above, where
Christ sitteth on the right hand of God (Col. 3:1). No law There!
This
transformation is much more than merely a change of outward conduct. It is a renovation of our inner life. It
means our motives as well as our
motivations are being constantly changed, so
that we can say with the psalmist,
"Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long,"
and "I rejoice in following your
statutes as one rejoices in great riches" (Ps. 119:27 and 14) (p. 114).
Upon
becoming a Christian, I was not "transformed," neither was my inner
being "renovated." I became a "new creation"
(2 Cor. 5:17) in Christ Jesus, receiving the new-creation life of the Last
Adam in exchange for the old-creation death of the first Adam.
"I (Adamic) have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I
(Adamic) that live, but Christ liveth in me (new creation)" (Gal. 2:20).
My
"Psalm" is: "Oh, how I love Thy Son (Col. 3: 1); I meditate
upon Him all day long (2 Cor. 3:18); and I rejoice in abiding above in Him
(Col. 3:3); as one rejoices in great riches (Eph. 1:3)." Neither
David, nor anyone else outside of the Lord Jesus Christ, ever dreamed of what
I have, by grace, in the One who is my Life (Col 3:4).
Dr.
Chafer said that "the Church is the purpose of God in the present
dispensation and His supreme purpose in the universe." That is
because He "hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in
heavenly places in Christ Jesus; that in the ages to come He might show the
exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Jesus
Christ" (Eph. 2:7,8).
"...continue to
work out your salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil.
2:12). Paul urged the Philippian believers to apply themselves
diligently to working out
their salvation. He urged them to display the evidences of salvation
in their daily lives through their obedience to God's commands and through
putting on godly character traits that Paul elsewhere called the fruit of
the Spirit.
And
according to William Hendriksen, the tense of the verb continue to work out
indicates "continuous, sustained, strenuous effort" (p. 114).
Mr.
Bridges failed to include the key to that exhortation: "For it is God who
worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure" (vs. 13).
That should somewhat ease the strain and struggle that he indicates.
His
ingrained law bent causes him to couple obedience to God's commands with the
fruit of the Spirit; but, "against such there is no law" (Gal.
5:23). And one does not put on godly character traits--an impossibility.
One is to put on the new man, and abide in Christ--who is the
New Man formed in the Christian (Eph. 4:
24). "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 13:14). It
is from that indwelling
life and nature that the fruit of the Spirit flows. Rest in the Source.
God
in His grace sends the Holy Spirit to create a new heart within us and to
write His law on our hearts,
thus changing our basic disposition
(p. 117).
This
is non-dispensational, Covenant teaching, as taught by John MacArthur and
Renald Showers. Rather, we have received a new life, that of the
glorified Lord Jesus Christ. One does not refer to His indwelling life
as a "disposition."
The
person who wants to experience God's
transforming grace in his or her life
must be prepared to let the Holy
Spirit transform self-assertiveness into Christ-like humility and
servanthood (p. 202).
Covenant
thinking is on the symptomatic level; it has never allowed Paul to take it to
the source level. The Holy Spirit does not seek to change the
unchangeable Adamic self. He exchanged the old man, via our death in
Christ on the Cross (Gal. 2:20), for the life of Christ, who requires no
changing. He is ever the same perfect One, "yesterday, and today,
and forever" (Heb. 13:8).
Nearly
all theological teaching since the Reformation has failed to set forth
clearly, if at all, our judicial end in death with Christ on the Cross.
The fatal result of this terrible error is to leave the Law as claimant over
those in Christ: for "the law has dominion over a man as long as he
liveth" (Rom. 7:1).
Unless
you are able to believe in your heart that you died unto sin with the Lord
Jesus Christ, that you were buried, and that your history before God in Adam
the first came to an utter end at Calvary, you will never get free from the
claims of the Law upon your life and conscience. --Wm. R. Newell
"The
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the
Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen" (2 Cor. 13:14).