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Why Revoice is Wrong Voice (CRF)

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Introduction

This last summer, the Revoice Conference was hosted by Memorial Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, MO (PCA). The purpose of the conference as stated on the website is: “Supporting, encouraging, and empowering gay, lesbian, same-sex-attracted, and other gender and sexual minority Christians so they can flourish while observing the historic, Christian doctrine of marriage and sexuality.” Included in the talks was one workshop asking: What queer treasure will be brought into the New Jerusalem? Revoice and the related Gay Celibate Christian movement seek a way to identify with homosexual temptation while affirming the Bible’s teaching about homosexual practice and Christian marriage.

A Failure to Love Sexual Sinners

I want to frame my critique of this conference and the related ministries (Spiritual Friendship, Livingout dot org, etc) with a critique of the Bible-believing Church as a whole. But I need to state this point carefully. It is trendy to blame the conservative Church for not being loving enough, for forcing those who struggle with sexual sin underground or out of the church.

Revoice is one way to disobey God’s command to minister to sexual sinners, but in many ways, they are merely doing what much of the conservative church has done clumsily. That is, most modern conservative Christian churches fail to love sexual sinners by failing to preach the gospel and the full counsel of God to every sexual sin. I do not believe our sin has been in not being nice or kind or hospitable (though there are no doubt instances of that). Our sin has primarily been in cowardly silence and beating around the bush and embarrassment combined with a fumbling attempt to stay biblical.

But Jesus died a shameful death for shameful sin. If the human race has not committed abominations, then there was no need for Jesus to die a cursed death. And so, I do believe the Christian Church has failed to love sexual sinners, but it has done so primarily through a failure to name sin biblically, preach the gospel into every dark corner of human depravity, and to practice church discipline consistently. The church has not preached the gospel boldly to pornography, fornication, divorce, adultery – nor have we practiced consistent church discipline in these areas, and so we cannot be shocked when we fall down the next step of the staircase of sexual confusion.

Ten Failures of Revoice & the Gay Celibate Christian Movement

  1. Muddled and contradictory language throughout, starting with the mission statement. How do you empower sinful identities to flourish while observing the historic, Christian doctrines of marriage and sexuality? How do you empower sin to be holy? If the answer to that question is anything other than repentance, we’re in trouble. What other gender and sexual minorities would Revoice be willing to include? Would they say that they want to empower pedophiles? What about those tempted to bestiality? What about those tempted to incest? What pedophile treasure will be brought into the New Jerusalem? To ask the question is to answer it. But the Bible actually tells us: “For without [the city] are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie” (Rev. 22:15, cf. Dt. 23:18). Other examples of muddled language can be found in a recent “Church Audit” published on the Livingout dot org website: “Your church family meetings include people who could be labeled LGBTQI+/same-sex attracted.” The ambiguities are rampant. “Include?” “Could be labeled as?” What is that “plus sign?” Are they included forever in any way? Is Church discipline an “inclusive” practice? Another statement from the audit: “Church family members instinctively share meals, homes, holidays, festivals, money, children with others from different backgrounds and life situations to them.” Without clear distinctions, the muddle creates real awkwardness if not terrifying naivete. Are same-sex tempted men sharing homes together? Are parents being encouraged to share their children with pedophile-tempted adults?
  2. The assumption built into the Revoice mission statement and in most of the Gay but Celibate literature is that there is some way of identifying with these sins without actually practicing them. The assumption seems to be that there is something inherently good about the inclination/orientation that should be redeemed while rejecting the lifestyle. But this is like trying to affirm the seed while rejecting the plant. But Paul says, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:11). There is no suggestion or inference in Scripture that the impulse/temptation to sin carries within it something inherently good, something to be appreciated or celebrated. Sin is to be uprooted, completely mortified/killed (Col. 3:1ff). The impulse/temptation (inside us) to sin is a result of our fallen nature (Js. 1:14-15). Jesus was tempted in every way just as we are, but without sin – but his experience of temptation was only from the outside.
  3. These movements have a strong tendency to flatten out all sexual sin. E.g. “We are all sexually broken,” etc. But the Bible clearly teaches that some sexual sins are the result of previous sin. “The mouth of the strange women is a deep pit; he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein” (Prov. 22:14). “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves…” (Rom. 1:21-24). Adultery is a judgment from God, and homosexuality is a judgment from God. There is a certain kind of hard-hearted rebellion that results in same-sex lust. It is true that all sexual sin equally deserves death and is therefore equally justified in the sight of God by the blood of Christ, but it is not true that all sexual sin is therefore equally vile or damaging. Some sexual sins are more unnatural, and therefore cause more damage in this world, requiring more sanctification/restitution to put right.
  4. Related, is the failure to name sexual sins biblically. “You shall not lie with a male, as with a woman: it is an abomination. Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it. It is perversion/confusion. Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you. For the land is defiled; therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants” (Lev. 18:22-25). “If a man lies with a male as he lies with with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them… (Lev. 20:13-16). “There shall be no harlot of the daughters of Israel or a [male prostitute] of the sons of Israel. You shall not bring the wages of a harlot or the price of a dog [slang for male prostitute] to the house of the Lord your God for any vowed offering, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God” (Dt. 23:17-18). Putting these texts together with the prophets, particularly Jeremiah and Ezekiel, I conclude that abominations are the sort of sins that defile the land. They are particularly infectious and socially polluting, requiring God to swiftly judge whole nations (cf. Jer. 4:1, 6:15, 8:12, 32:34-36ff). Speaking of the New Jerusalem, John says, “But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life” (Rev. 21:27). “For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting…” (Rom. 1:26-28). The word for “vile” literally means “dishonorable,” and likewise, the word “shameful” is used in the Old Testament Septuagint to translate the word “nakedness” (e.g. Lev. 20) as well as unclean excrement (Dt. 23:13-14). Finally, as noted earlier, the Bible refers to homosexuals as “dogs,” highlighting the beastly nature of these acts. Naming is act of submission to God and a means of exercising godly authority in the world. If the Church would embrace it’s calling to rule over these sexual confusions, we must name them biblically.
  5. Revoice and related ministries fail to condemn the sin of effeminacy and softness: “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves… shall inherit the kingdom of God…” (1 Cor. 6:9-10). The queer will not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. The word for “effeminate” is malakoi, and the word means “soft.” Robert Gagnon argues persuasively that this word does refer to passive partners in sodomy, but it can also include a man feminizing his appearance and manner. The only other use of the word in the New Testament is in the gospels where Jesus asks about John the Baptist and whether they would expect to find him in a king’s palace wearing “soft” clothes (Mt. 11:8, Lk. 7:25). Related, is the Bible’s prohibition against crossdressing: “A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God” (Dt. 22:5). The synonymous word in Hebrew is rak which means soft, tender, or fainthearted (cf. Dt. 20:8, 2 Chron. 13:7). This is also why the Bible describes men who grow fainthearted in battle as acting like women (Is. 19:16, Jer. 51:30). The failure of men to embrace their glory to be strong, and to use their strength to do the good things God has assigned them and protect the weak is the sin of effeminacy.
  6. Revoice and similar ministries often fail to emphasize the fact that Christians are new creations in Christ, with sexed bodies given as specific gender assignments. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). Some, like Sam Allberry, are eager to emphasize identity in Christ, yet sometimes, this “identity in Christ” effectively de-sexes individuals. But finding your identity in Christ means a sanctification of your created body and its attendant gendered assignments. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. If God created you with a male body, He has given you an assignment to live in this world as a man. If God gave you a female body, He has given you an assignment to live in this world as a woman. This means, to put it frankly, because of this binary sexed nature of human beings made in the image of God, all human interaction in this world is inherently heterosexual. There is only one obedient orientation and it is heterosexual. This affects everything from child-rearing to brother/sister relationships, to business and professional relationships to courting and marriage. And everything in between. Holding doors for women, being ready and willing to defend women and children, standing when a woman enters the room – these are ways we signal honor for the heterosexuality of the world. These are ways that the marriage bed is honored by all (Heb. 13:4). Being “in Christ” does not obliterate those good, creational differences and assignments. “There is neither male nor female in Christ” is speaking specifically about justification and the fact that all have an equal inheritance in Christ, but that fact that Paul can also say that women must not teach men or have authority over them but love the fruitfulness of childbearing because Adam was created first clearly indicates that these sexed creational realities have not been obliterated (1 Tim. 2). This also clearly indicates that there are only two sexes (Gen. 1:27, Mk. 10:6).
  7. Bad homosexual genealogies: what is the origin of homosexual desire? “For this cause God gave them up to vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another…” (Rom. 1:26-27) The origin of homosexual desire is a rejection of heterosexual desire. It is not a desire for same sex friendship. It is a rejection of what is embedded in nature. This desire may certainly be driven by deep hurts or abuses or loneliness. But the Bible gives no indication that there is some kind inherent gift or glory in not embracing the natural glory of being made male/female in the image of God and therefore oriented toward heterosexual marriage.
  8. Frequently, the space that these folks are seeking to carve out is found in the categories of celibacy, friendship, and singleness. I believe this is a pastoral noose and a burden that is too heavy for many to bear. First, in some of the Spiritual Friendship writings, there is reference to lifelong covenants, buying houses together, vacationing, and even raising children together as “just friends.” But this is just as foolish as a man and woman doing the same thing as “just friends.” God has made the world such that certain liturgies, rituals create a certain kind gravity. You can’t be “just friends.” And while it’s certainly possible for two men or two women to be “just friends” this needs to be done without practicing certain rituals/liturgies that signify marriage or romance. But some of the Revoice folks are actually saying that it’s perfectly fine to “date” your same-sex friends, snuggle on the couch, and hold hands. This is pure folly. Two dudes sharing an apartment together should live as men and avoid any appearance of effeminacy. But all of that folly is built on the assumption that many same-sex tempted Christians just won’t or shouldn’t get married. But this is contrary to the teaching of Scripture. “But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: it is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion (1 Cor. 7:8-9). What does it mean to “burn with passion?” I submit that it refers to anyone with any sort of ongoing, regular temptation to sexual sin. If you have any sort of temptation toward sexual sin, you ought to seek marriage. One of the common rejoinders to this is that Paul is clearly talking about heterosexually tempted people not homosexually tempted people. But this is to assume that the origin of homosexual temptation is fundamentally different that heterosexual temptation. But as we have seen, homosexual temptation is derived from a rejection of heterosexual orientation (Rom. 1). And interestingly, Paul describes homosexual lust as “burning” (Rom. 1:27). It’s a different Greek word, but it’s lexically synonymous. In Romans 1, it is clear that repentance for homosexual lust would be to return to the right and natural use of the sexes. And that is only expressed sexually in marriage. As Paul also says in 1 Cor. 7:5, marital sexual relations is one of the ways God protects His people from the temptations of Satan. None of this is an excuse for rushing into marriage imprudently, and it certainly remains a live possibility that some who seek marriage will not find a spouse. But in either case, we may confidently say that individuals who experience sexual temptation of any kind ought to be carefully pastored toward Christian marriage.
  9. One of the great failures of this movement is the frequent lack of distinction between reigning (justification) and remaining sin (sanctification). From the Livingout church audit: “No-one would be pressured into expecting or seeking any ‘healing’ or change that God has not promised any of us until the renewal of all things.” The rhetorical effect of this (whether intentional or not) is certainly to discourage expecting much healing. But the truth is that the gospels proclaim a marked deliverance from the power of reigning sin in every believer, while recognizing the ongoing battle with remaining sin (Rom. 6:11-12, Col. 3:1-4ff). This ambiguity is hardly surprising since many within the “Spiritual Friendship” movement are Roman Catholic. Roman Catholicism does not recognize the Protestant/biblical distinction between justification and sanctification. This is why Roman Catholicism (and Eastern Orthodoxy) have such a difficult time articulating a doctrine of eternal security by grace. It’s impossible not to feel the weight of sanctification as your necessary contribution to your salvation, especially when you believe that you lose your justification when you sin (according to the Catholic catechism). But the Bible teaches that justification means a radical new and permanent identity in Christ along with the destruction of the power of reigning sin, and from that firm rock of Christ, an all-out war against remaining sin commences with an absolutely sure victory in view because of the cross. It is a serious mistake for Protestants to make an alliance with Roman Catholics when it comes to proclaiming the gospel to those ensnared by sexual sin.
  10. Finally, one of the great errors of evangelicalism (for many decades) has been the assumption that experience with sin grants authority to speak on it. So adulterers or divorcees are sometimes granted authority to speak or even ordained as ministers because we think their experience in sin (and presumably repentance/forgiveness) somehow makes them understand those sins better. But this is not true at all. Jesus is our Great High Priest who sympathizes with us in our weakness. But He understands us better than anyone else precisely because He did not give into any sin. So too, those who remain firm and resist sin and preserved by God, are in a better position to lead and serve and teach the church than those burdened by temptations and past sins (Gal. 6:1, Lk. 7:41-42). While God is free to raise up the occasional Saul of Tarsus, and I would not automatically disqualify a man from office because of past homosexual temptation, our instinct should not be to grant authority to those who have fallen. They need our love, our care, true friendship, church discipline, but they do not need to be made authorities. But this is precisely what many of these men and women are clamoring for. Nate Collins, the founder of Revoice, spoke in his talk at this year’s conference about the idea that “LGBT Christians” were something like lonely prophetic voices calling the Church to faithfulness. But there is a massive difference between refugees of the world and apostles of the world. The former are welcome and the latter are not. The Christian Church must not submit to men and women who are struggling with these sins, or bow to their dominant narratives (e.g. they cannot be healed, many cannot marry, etc.). You do not turn the cancer ward over to the cancer patients. We certainly must listen to them, but they are not authorities on their sin. God and His Scriptures remain our perfect authority. Extreme patience and prudence should be practiced, but three (or fifteen) sad stories do not render Scripture incompetent to address our needs. God’s Word remains true and absolutely sufficient.

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Covenantal Contentment

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Introduction

Christians are called to contentment not merely because this is a good thing, but because it is a central component of joining God’s mission, of establishing His Kingdom here in this world, and learning to fight like Christians.

The Text

Paul is writing in a context of intense struggle in Philippi. There are enemies outside and there are challenges inside the Church, and Paul urges the Philippians to rejoice in all of it (Phil. 4:4). A Christian should be known for being calm and stable because they know that the Lord is present and near to them (Phil. 4:5). And therefore, we fight all anxiety through prayer: casting our cares on Christ, with thanksgiving (Phil. 4:6). When we pray like that, God’s promise is that His peace which passes all understanding will guard our hearts and minds through Christ (Phil. 4:7). This joyful resting in Christ is marked by a disciplined thought life: keeping a common place book of all the good things, true things, just things, lovely things, etc. (Phil. 4:8). This attentiveness should include imitating mature Christians like Paul – this is the path of God’s peace (Phil. 4:9). Finally, Paul models this joyful contentment by expressing his delight in the gift he recently received from the Philippians (Phil. 4:10). He was truly thankful but certainly not desperate for the gift because he had learned to be content in every situation because Christ strengthens him (Phil. 4:11-13).

Knowing God

Contentment in God requires that you actually know the God you are content in. Christian contentment is not contentment in whatever you imagine God to be like. You can say the word “contentment” a whole bunch, but if you are not resting in who God actually is, you are not actually learning Christian contentment. So, who is this God? He is the God who is set on taking this world from glory to glory. We see this beginning in the very first chapter of the Bible. God creates something good, and then He comes back the next day and restructures it and improves it (Gen. 1). If you had been there watching, you might have been tempted to urge God to stop. If the Light was good, why make the firmament or the sun, moon, and stars? If the dry ground and seas were good, why add animals and fish? What we see in the creation week is the beginning of God’s pattern of taking good things and making them better. This is the God we rejoice in and remain calm in. This is God is not far off. He is near.

The same pattern follows through the rest of Scripture, particularly in God’s covenantal dealings with His people. The covenant with Noah grows into the glory of the covenant with Abraham, and that glory grows into the covenant with Moses, and that glory grows into the covenant with David. The glory of the covenant with David grows into the glory of the covenant under Ezra and Nehemiah, and Christ is the culmination of all the covenants in the New Covenant. Paul says that when we see the gospel unfolding and culminating in Christ, we are being “changed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18). The whole Bible is the story of Christ: “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Lk. 24:26-27). The center of Christian contentment is the cross of Jesus, in which God broke the best thing in order to make an even better one.

How Does Covenantal Contentment Pray?

Paul says that Christian contentment is learned through prayer (Phil. 4:6). The pattern for Christian prayer is laid out in the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father” means that we approach God as the One who made us and cares for us. He is not detached or distant. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” means that we entrust our stories to His story. He has a plan that He is carrying out in this world that is wonderful, glorious, and all together lovely. His Kingdom and Will are taking this world (and us) from glory to glory. It’s in that context that we are invited to ask God for our daily bread. It’s actually pretty audacious of us to think that we know what we need, but God is our Father and He wants us to ask for what we think we need. But we are to do so first of all “with thanksgiving” (Phil. 4:6). This recognizes that what we have today is already from God’s hand, and whatever God gives for our daily bread is good. Nevertheless, we do want to be learning to pray in the will of God, toward the will of God. We want to pray, as far as we can help it, for those things that we see that would work toward the coming of Christ’s Kingdom. And this is why it is important that all of our requests include a spirit of surrender: yet not my will by Thy will be done (Lk. 22:42, Js. 4:15).

Militant Christian Contentment

Christian contentment is not apathetic, not stoic. Christian contentment, grounded in the mission of God, is militant. “And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you” (Rom. 16:20). It is not merely that it’s a nice thing to have God’s peace. It is the peace of God that crushes Satan under your feet. When we pray with contentment, the promise is that the peace of God, which passes all understanding will guard our hearts and minds (Phil. 4:7). The peace of God is our armor, our fortress. Paul says elsewhere that we need to wear the gospel of peace on our feet (Eph. 6:15). The peace of Christ is what takes us into battle. You cannot fully participate in the mission of God without the peace of God. This is because the conquest of the gospel is a mission of healing and restoration, not destruction. The gospel is very disruptive to the old world, the old man, the old systems of sin, death, and the devil. But it destroys that slavery, those strongholds in order to establish freedom, joy, and peace. And therefore, you cannot be a peacemaker if you are not already a fortress of peace and contentment. One of the greatest meditations on Christian contentment is The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by the puritan pastor Jeremiah Burroughs, who preached this series of sermons in the middle of the English Civil War.

Conclusions

At the center of our text, Paul says to meditate on the true, honest, just, pure, and virtuous things. In fact, the word means to reckon or impute. It can simply mean to think about, but this is how the word is frequently used: Abraham believed God, and He reckoned it to him as righteousness (Rom. 4:22). Paul goes on: “Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead…” (Rom. 4:23-24). God imputes the righteousness of Christ to us who believe in Him, and if you understand that, you begin to imitate that, which is gospel war.

 

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A City With Walls: Self-Government & All Governments

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Introduction

We live in an age ruled by passions and lusts. We are cities broken down without walls. As Christians, we need to constantly remember that the source of this anarchy is the heart of man. Unless the heart of man is regenerated so that it can be self-governed by the Spirit of Christ, all other governments will fall.

Various Texts: “He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls” (Prov. 25:28). “Now as he reasoned about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid…” (Acts 24:25). “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22-25). “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments and do them” (Ez. 36:26-27).

Deep Water

On the one hand, we know that the “heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). And the following verse says that the Lord searches the heart and tests the mind. But this doesn’t let us off the hook. Proverbs says, “Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out” (Prov. 20:5). So it really is like deep water in our hearts, but a man of understanding lets down the bucket of God’s Word (Js. 1:25). In other words, the dominion mandate/Great Commission includes our own hearts. If we have been given rule over all creation and commissioned to disciple the nations (and we have, cf. Gen. 2:28, Ps. 8, Mt. 28), this includes self-dominion, self-government, self-discipleship. But this is still an odd and challenging endeavor. How do you look at you? How do you rule you? Or, how do you obey you rightly? This is highly mysterious, but the Bible says that it can and must be done: “The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the depths of his heart” (Prov. 20:27). “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life” (Prov. 4:23).

Good Hearts & Good Governments

The Bible teaches that this self-government is the first government, the foundational city for all cities. This is self-evident simply by the fact that all governments are made of people: families, churches, and nations. But the point really does need emphasis. You cannot get a just nation from unjust men. You cannot have a pure church made up of impure men. You cannot have a gracious family, if the hearts of the members of that family are not full of grace. Good laws are God’s gift to sinful men to constrain them, but long term, even the best laws will be overthrown by unrighteous men. No amount of outward constraint or pressure can create good men. Out of the heart “springs the issues of life.” Men cannot ultimately be other than what they are in their hearts: “every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit” (Mt. 7:17-18). So in the flesh, man is ruled by the flesh and therefore he does the works of the flesh (Rom. 6-7, Gal. 5). “So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His” (Rom. 8:8-9). The central stronghold of rebellion against God and His justice is in the citadel of the heart of man. Christ always conquers that city first and rebuilds it into a new city with walls, governed by His Spirit, to keep God’s law (Ez. 36:26-27). “But judgment will return to righteousness, and all the upright in heart will follow it” (Ps. 94:15).

Applications

Personal: You may or may not be able to keep rules, but unless you have the Spirit of Christ, you cannot please God. And it is only the pleasure of God that makes obedience a real joy and real freedom (Ps. 16:11). “Bless the Lord, all you His hosts, you ministers of His, who do His pleasure” (Ps. 103:21). Autonomy means “law unto self.” Fundamentally, this is the great war: between the true God who is Autonomous and every god-pretending heart that demands autonomy. You can never be happy in that state because you are at war with God. Lay down your arms, surrender to Christ, and begin to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). And when you do this, God will give you a new heart, and you will begin to take glad responsibility for your heart and its fruit, not in servile fear but in real joy and freedom.

Family: You cannot rule in your home rightly, if Christ is not ruling in your heart completely. “But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor. 11:3). Husbands, you cannot be a good head to your wife if you are not constantly submitting to your head in Christ. If you are unsubmissive to Christ, it doesn’t matter what you say, you are teaching rebellion. “And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). Parents, you can only teach this discipline and culture of the Lord if you are practicing it. You cannot give what you do not have.

Church: Learning wise rule in the family is directly related to being able to rule in the church: An elder must be “one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?)” (1 Tim. 3:4-5). “Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct… Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you” (Heb. 13:7, 17). An elder is someone who is qualified to watch out for your soul because by the grace of God and power of the Spirit, he has been watching his own soul and the souls in his house. You know this by the outcome of his conduct. And this means you really do need to pray for them, and you need to let them meddle in your life.

Nation: “Now therefore, be wise, O kings; Be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling” (Ps. 2:10-11). This means that a king cannot be wise or rule well apart from the fear of the Lord ruling his heart. “Therefore I exhort first all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and humility” (1 Tim. 2:1-2). Paul wrote this in the midst of the Roman Empire, and this is not political apathy. He preached “righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come” to Governor Felix (Acts 24:25). Prayer is political activism because the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, like rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes (Prov. 21:1).

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Finding Your Identity in Christ

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The Text

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

Introduction

Who are you? From one vantage, the gospel is a great re-memory project. To be lost and dead in our sins is to have forgotten who we are and what we are for, and this makes us afraid. But the gospel of the cross of Jesus is God’s perfect mirror showing us our sin, showing us our Savior, showing us who we really are in Him so that we will not be afraid.

Overview of the Text

Paul is in the middle of an argument here seeking to call the Galatians back to the gospel of Christ (Gal. 1:6-7). And the central point of contention is between the freedom of finding your identity in Christ and the bondage of seeking the approval of man (Gal. 1:10). Paul told his own story of being saved in order to demonstrate that his gospel was not from man but directly from Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:11-16). Paul relates how he was received by the other apostles as a fellow apostle in his ministry to the gentiles, leading to a confrontation with Peter in Antioch who withdrew from eating with Gentiles when some Judaizers showed up (Gal. 2:1-13).

Our text is part of Paul’s confrontation of Peter or at least his continued meditation on that topic. He explains that Jews and Gentiles are alike justified by faith in Jesus Christ and not by works of the law, not the least because nobody can actually be justified by works of the law (Gal. 2:16). Paul’s next thought seems to be a sort of reductio on Peter’s conduct, pointing out that if a Jew eating with a Gentile is wrong, then wouldn’t that make Christ’s ministry through Peter sinful? Isn’t Peter contaminated? God forbid (Gal. 2:17). Besides, why would we try to rebuild exactly what we already broke with our sin (Gal. 2:18)? The law literally curses all lawbreakers and requires their cursed death, which the law specifies as crucifixion on a tree (Dt. 27:26, Gal. 3:10-13). Therefore, in terms of justification, the law’s job is to slay us so that being dead in our sins, we can live by being identified with the One who died for our sins (Gal. 2:19-20). This is where Jesus always meets us. Beginning with Mary Magdalene, Jesus has always met His people in graveyards. Or as Paul says here, Jesus meets us in the cross, at the cross. He saves sinners who are crucified with Him.

Crucified with Christ

Paul is here speaking of what it means to be a Christian. He doesn’t necessarily mean literally dying or being killed on a cross. He means being so identified with Christ by faith, that you reckon yourself, you think of yourself and your life as virtually crucified with Christ. Paul speaks this way with regard to baptism and sin: “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? … reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:3, 11). He also speaks this way in terms of repentance and mortification of sin: “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God… Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection…” (Col. 3:3, 5). So on the one hand, reckoning yourself crucified with Christ, dead with Christ, means that you reckon all of your sin crucified in Christ. Part of this is in seeing what our sin deserves, and part of this is wanting to be truly free of it. But elsewhere Paul also speaks this way about his human achievements: “Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of Hebrews… But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” (Phil. 3:4-5, 7-8). So on the other hand, reckoning yourself crucified with Christ means reckoning any good thing as nothing compared to Christ; you count it as essentially lost for the sake of Christ’s work. It is not lost as in good for nothing, but lost as in laid completely at the disposal of Christ who is reconciling all things to Himself (Col. 1:20). Finding your identity in Christ means reckoning all that you are, good and evil, as crucified with Christ. This drives away all fear.

The Life We Live

Paul considers this embracing of Christ’s death the way of Christian life and not just one time at the beginning of your Christian life. Christian life is an ongoing identification with Christ crucified. Paul says that he no longer lives, but Christ lives in him (Gal. 2:20). But this life he now lives is actually by the “faith of Jesus Christ.” This is a highly debated phrase since it can rightly be translated as “faith of Jesus Christ” or “faith in Jesus Christ.” The Bible does teach that salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ, and that faith is a gift of God (Eph. 2:8-9). But the Bible also teaches that our salvation rests on top of Christ’s finished work, His faithfulness. In other words, our imperfect faith in Jesus saves because His faith was perfect. Romans 1:17 says that the righteousness of God is revealed “from faith to faith.” Jesus is the Righteous One who lived by faith and so became our Righteousness by faith. Elsewhere, Paul seems to have both in view: “And being found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Phil. 3:9). The Christian life in this sense is the faithful and perfect sacrifice of Jesus living inside you.

Who Loved Us

It is entirely possible to talk about all of this as though it were a possibility for some people out there somewhere in principle, in the abstract, as though it were something that just happens to befall some people. Maybe some people get identified with Christ like some people get the chicken pox. But Paul grounds this reality of identifying with the crucifixion of Christ with the love of Christ in personal terms: “who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Christ did not go to the cross with a vague or ambiguous or general goal in mind. He went to the cross with you in mind. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Jn. 15:13). So this too is what it means to find your identity in Christ. It means knowing that Christ laid His life down for you in particular, by name. Those welcomed into heaven are those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life (Rev. 21:27).

Conclusion

Who are you? Learn to say, I am not my own but belong body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. Learn to say, I have been crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life I live I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. You are not defined by your sin or by your successes, but by the perfect finished work of Jesus on the cross. This perfect love casts out all fear.

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