Jon and Justin deal with common objections to "faith alone" and "Christ alone."
Regular Podcast
MEMBERS Podcast Transcripts
Justin Perdue: Welcome to the members' podcast. We want to thank you for your generous and kind support of this ministry. We couldn't do what we're doing without you. Along with us, we ask you to continue to pray for God to provide for Theocast and continue to encourage others to partner with us financially, so that we can see this ministry grow, and continue to grow, and then get this message of Jesus and the rest that is ours in him to as many people as possible. We know that it has been life-changing for you as it has been for us, and we want to see others come to see and taste that this is real and good as well.
We're going to go ahead and jump in, in this members' podcast episode, by talking a little bit about the book of James, since we just set that grenade on the table and pulled the pin, and didn't really finish that thought. Then we're going to probably go on to some other stuff that are, I hope, more edifying and encouraging for you, as those who are tracking with us and are absolutely there and are trying to help other people see that rest and sufficiency of Christ.
Jon, you were the one that did the whole pin-pull and grenade in James. Why don't you start? Then I'm happy to say some stuff.
Jon Moffitt: This is definitely where I like to be a little bit more nuanced where we're broadly bringing people into the conversation in the regular podcast here. I feel like I'm sitting down with my friends where we need to encourage each other, be encouraged, and strengthened, and we do. We love your emails, we love your comments. They fuel us, they help us know where to go with the podcast, what you guys are needing, and how to be encouraged.
One of my encouragement to you is, and I know that it shakes every time someone throws it in your face, you feel like, "Oh, yeah. They have a point. I don't know what to do with that." The podcast we did a couple of weeks ago on leaving pietism—I made the statement that pietism says you're saved, now prove it. Christ says you're saved, now love your brother. That blew a casket for a lot of people. We got a lot of kickback on that. The first thing that they wanted to do in the comments below was quote James and how faith without works is dead. I had a guy who just went off on me, quoting all of these passages of Scripture that had something to do with assuring or proving yourself. We have to be careful that we don't become biblicists—now it sounds like a good word, but it's not, it's a bad thing. A Biblicist is where we will shotgun approach the Bible, and we will load our barrels full of verses, and just spray them without any context, and without thinking about any relation to the subject that we are speaking of.
In this particular circumstance, when someone shoots James at you, along with 1 John, James is dealing with people who are claiming to be a part of the faith in the church, they are claiming Christ, and just being absolutely ungodly in the way in which they are treating each other. James is trying to shake them up and say, "You cannot continue to treat your fellow brother and sister in Christ this way and assume that it's okay." We're not dealing with a moral issue, we're dealing with a unity issue within the congregation.
Justin Perdue: Totally. It really matters that people understand that because, like you alluded to 1 John as well, if we don't understand the context of that letter, we'll do bad things with it at points, too. Though I would still contend that both letters are very clear just in terms of the words that are contained within them. If we take them all together, I think we could avoid a lot of the mistakes that are made.
But you're exactly right: James is dealing with a church that is showing partiality toward certain people and marginalizing other people. It's clear that there is not a lot of love and unity going on. Like you said, Jon, it's people that are claiming that they're in Christ and at the same time, saying functionally that it doesn't matter how they live.
I find it very interesting, when this whole thing is raised, nobody in my congregation is out there saying, "I'm in Christ and it does not matter what I do." Nobody has that posture. I feel like that's what people act like we're saying: if you're believing in Jesus, go live like hell, because it doesn't matter. No godly preacher or teacher, or no man around this microphone, has ever said anything remotely like that. It's just silly the objections that are often raised. It's very clear what James and John are dealing with, and they're trying to correct something. James is correcting obvious sin in a church, and people claiming Christ and not worried about loving their brothers. Then John is dealing with a context of false teaching in the form of Proto-Gnostic thought, and he's also dealing with apostasy, where people have left the church.
Jon Moffitt: I'll put it this way then I'll help clarify: we are saying what you do doesn't matter. We are saying that.
Justin Perdue: In terms of standing before the Lord.
Jon Moffitt: Yes. And that is the greatest news of the gospel: no matter what you do or don't do, you are safe in Christ. But it is not an either-or. This is what's so frustrating about this entire conversation: it's not either-or. No matter what you do or don't do, it cannot remove your adoption. Just like my son, no matter what he does, you cannot remove the fact that he is my son—but he still needs to obey. That's the thing about it is that you have to help people use that. I think it's important that we start using this language. This is not an either-or conversation. You are not either proving your salvation or you're an antinomian. You don't have to prove your salvation. You are saved, you are sanctified, and glorified, all by the work of Jesus Christ. From the beginning to end, it's him alone, to the glory of God. Amen. Now, as Paul says, act worthy of that gift you have received. Now go love somebody with the love of Christ. But we have to categorize it and we have to make sure that it's measurable—and God just doesn't do this. You have no measure to be met—it's been met. Now, go imperfectly, and in full repentance, and depending upon grace and the means of grace, and your church. Go obey.
When someone tells me, "But, Jon, faith without works is dead," we don't disagree with that. You're not listening to what we're saying.
I want to hear their objections, and maybe we need to reword what we're saying. Maybe we need to think about new ways in which we communicate this, because the same objections keep coming. How do we adjust? How do we say it in a new and fresh light? I think that language for me has been the most helpful when I tell people, "Maybe you misunderstood what I was saying." it's not either you are resting in Christ and not obeying or you're obeying. It doesn't work like that. We are saying, if you're resting in Christ, you will obey. It's not either-or, but your obedience is never the result of you resting in Christ.
Justin Perdue: Your obedience is never what puts you in Christ in the first place or keeps you there.
Jon Moffitt: It always flows one direction. Resting flows this way. It can never flow the other direction.
Justin Perdue: No, the streams don't flow uphill. One flows out of the other; obedience and good works flow out of union with Christ. They flow out of justification, and they flow out of being born again. You can't reverse engineer it. I'm with you completely. It's a both and not an either-or conversation. I feel like it's this hypothetical category that people always want to argue from or argue with—and it's a category that does not exist. To say that there is such a thing as a person who is in the Lord Jesus, who, over the course of their entire Christian life, is just going to give the proverbial finger towards loving others and obedience is just not a category.
I think our assumption is, like you just said, is that imperfectly, but really, those who have been born again and united to Christ, and are resting in him, these things will come at various amounts and various seasons. But we're not saying rest in Christ and don't obey. That's not what we're saying at all.
Jon Moffitt: Sometimes, I hear these guys who say faith without works is dead, and what they're going after is the lazy Christian. I'm looking at that poor, lazy Christian. There's a difference between laziness and exhaustion, and they are exhausted by our theological, legal beat down, that they cannot live up to your standard. So you're going to sit there and quote James to them, and I'm over here trying to rebuild their foundation. I'm over here gently holding their feet up while I'm slipping Christ underneath them, and you're over there, poking them in the eyes, saying, "Well, faith without works is dead." These poor people can't even walk and you're trying to make them run. Maybe we need to start assuming people are exhausted and not lazy. That may change our tone.
Justin Perdue: And maybe we need to reconsider what we understand to be the fuel of the Christian life in the first place. Guys that just beat people up with Law and imperatives only, like, "Oh, well, you're not living as you should. You claim to be a Christian, so you better get to work," that whole posture is wrong and off. You've used the language of wanting to build a good foundation for these people. I agree. What I want to do is I do want to instruct people, as the word of God does, as to how Christians ought to live with one another in the church. I want to do that. But to simply tell people how they are to live is completely insufficient. You've got to give them fuel, power, and sustenance in order that they may be able to do it. What is that? First of all, it's supernatural: the Spirit of God will produce it. But in the New Testament, it's quite clear that the apostles understand that the fuel of the Christian life and the lifeblood of the Christian life is Jesus, and us be holding him, and understanding better his love for us, and knowing more deeply his love for us, and considering Jesus and what he did and who he is for us. These are what will carry us along in the Christian life, as we are being sanctified by the work of the Spirit of Christ in us.
I was in Ephesians 3:14-21 this past Sunday. It is incredibly significant that as Paul comes to the end of his "doctrinal section" of Ephesians, he's about to pivot to life in the church, and he's going to pray for them. He could pray anything, but what does he pray? That they would be strengthened by God's Spirit in their inner man, so that they might have strength to comprehend, with all the saints, the height, the depth, the length, and the breadth of the love of Christ and to know the love of Christ for them, so that they may be filled with all the fullness of God. That is massive in its significance. He could pray anything. He was like, "I prayed for you that you would be strengthened by God's Spirit in your inner man, so that you might know the love of Christ for you." Clearly, in his mind, knowing the love of Christ for them more deeply is how they're going to be filled with all the fullness of God.
Last time I checked, to be filled with all the fullness of God certainly means that you're being sanctified, and certainly means that you're being matured. How does this occur? Does it occur through being beaten to death and thrown on a hamster wheel, and being told, "Hey, go harder, go harder, go harder," or is it fueled by, "Consider Jesus. Look to Christ. Behold your Savior. I pray for you that you would know better the love that he has for you, and thereby, you will be filled with all the fullness of God." That's the apostolic path, and that's honestly all we're trying to say.
Jon Moffitt: That's right. I'm going to add one other thought. We always say James 2 and 1 John are talking about people who are unwilling to love. Sometimes I've heard that used against people: "You can't love someone if you don't go to church." I've met people who genuinely hate every Christian they've ever met. I could be one of those people, by the way.
I was preaching a couple of weeks ago on a sermon. I am convinced that most people hate God. I know that's a bold statement. You have to stay tuned when we do this podcast soon. I said this in my sermon: I hate God. My four-year-old son leans over to my wife and says, "He doesn't hate God." I've met people who legitimately can't love someone, but it's not because they're unregenerate or because they're unwilling. I honestly think they're scared because they have been abused and hurt so bad in the past. They are weak, meaning that they don't have the energy to deal with the mess of Christianity, and the scars are there. They've got too many, they can't handle anymore. When you hear why they don't want to be a part of Christianity, and you start peeling back the layers, and you start giving the balm of Christ and healing them, it is unreal. It is supernatural to see God heal someone as hard-hearted and beat up by the church as someone like that. I know this for a fact because you're listening right now. There are listeners on this membership podcast who have emailed us and told us of how the gospel broke their hard-hearted hearts, and just molded them, and allowed them to see a freshness of Christ. It wasn't by being beat over the head by revivalistic preaching, It was the balm of Christ that brought them back into the capacity to love. That's what Justin and I believe in.
Justin Perdue: Amen. What we don't want for Theocast, or for our own local churches even, is to just be our own kind of cliquish club of people who have been burned and jaded by the church, and thereby just have these antennas up all the time in ways that are unhelpful. That's not at all what we're after what we're after. We don't need this group of jaded people who are, in their own way, saying, "The heck with the church. We're only about this kind of thing." that's not the posture that we want to have. That's ungodly and unloving. What we want to do is, because we have had our eyes opened anew and in deeper ways to Christ and the gospel, and the love of Christ for us, we then, in turn, want to go and love other people, and offer the same rest, peace, and hope to them—not in some condescending, irritated, elitist way, but in a compassionate, humble, kind and gentle manner. That's what we want to do.
Good conversation. Hopefully, this has provoked some thoughts in you and has helped you reflect in ways.
Jon Moffitt: You guys are on our team. You're part of Theocast. You're at its core. I hope you don't think this is an advertising ploy, but Theocast does not exist without you. We're changing very soon. We're changing what we're doing at Theocast, and we are figuring out ways to allow you to join in on this transformation that's happening. More and more people are finding this theology, more and more churches are being planted, there is a definitely a movement going on that Justin and I, it is not because we're clever or smart or wealthy, but it's you; you are taking the gospel and you are allowing it, through social media, through online sources, and through your conversations, and through your churches. It is changing. People are finding rest and hope. We want you to hear that Theocast is trying to figure out how to wisely allow that to happen more. We want to get you more involved in what we're doing. So stay tuned if you want to know what that looks like. Shoot us an email and we'll start telling you how you can help us. We're not quite ready to launch it. Logistically and financially, we're on an uphill climb, but Theocast will be making a shift soon so that you, the listener, will be involved in making sure that this transformation, this Reformation, is going forward, and we want you on board with it.
Justin Perdue: To be very clear, the podcast is going nowhere, the podcast is going to remain. We're talking about adding stuff, not taking things away. They're very exciting and, we think, necessary. We think the time is right. We'll talk more about that, I'm sure, at other points in time.
As Jon said, we're grateful for you. Keep communicating with us. We appreciate the encouragement. We always appreciate your questions. Like I was saying, I hope that this family style conversation that we've had today has been helpful to you in some way, and as always continue to trust Christ and rest in him. Remember that he will do. He is enough to give you peace before God now and forever.
We love you. We'll talk with you again next week.
