Grace

Review: Transforming Grace

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Transforming Grace

Transforming Grace, Jerry Bridges. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2017 (book originally published in 1991, study guide, 2008).

Summary: A comprehensive study of the nature of grace and the experience of grace throughout the life of the believer accompanied by a study guide for group use.

“Sola Gratia!” was one of the rallying cries of the Reformation. We believed we are saved by God’s grace alone rather than through anything we’ve done or will do. Yet we often have a hard time believing in and living into grace as a transforming, ongoing reality in our lives. More often, it seems it is simply a theological formula or a point in our presentations of the gospel message.

Jerry Bridges, who died in 2016, wrote this book to address the question of how we may live in grace and experience God’s gracious transformation in our lives. Recently, the publisher released a new edition of this work, combining the text of the earlier work with a subsequently published study guide for groups.

The first couple chapters address a struggle facing many of us. We often profess to believe in grace but live Christian lives that are performance-based, where we tie God’s work in us to the balance of our own merits and demerits. Our crucial need is to come to the place of understanding our utter, permanent bankruptcy. Bridges writes:

“To the extent you are clinging to any vestiges of self-righteousness or are putting any confidence in your own spiritual attainments, to that extent you are not living by the grace of God in your life” (p. 24, italics in original).

Part of the remedy for us is to understand how truly amazing is the grace of God that utterly blots out our sins and remembers them no more. God is like the generous landowner in Matthew 20, who pays those who work only an hour a day’s wage, who gives us what we need and not what we deserve. This leads to godly lives motivated by the extravagant love we have received. Obedience is no longer adherence to a set of rules, but rather recognizing that the commands of God express how we might love him in response to the grace we have experienced.

We are called to live holy lives, even as we are already freely declared holy in the sight of God through grace. Grace also is evident in our growth into the holy character that is already ours as gift, a character enumerated in the fruit of the Spirit. This call to holiness is a call to freedom. Bridges uses the helpful illustration of a raised road running through a swamp where living by grace informed by the law of love that leads to liberty is contrast with going off one side into the  swamp of legalism or the other side of license. As we progress in grace, we discover that grace is sufficient in our lives, meeting us in our weakness and debilities, challenging our self-sufficiency, and bringing us to an awareness of both our own inadequacy and God’s utter adequacy.

Chapter Twelve was perhaps one of the most helpful in the book, on appropriating grace. We often struggle between our own desires and the will of God, and need to appropriate God’s grace to become what we believe. Bridges believes this occurs as we seek God in prayer for this ability to do what God bids, as we lay hold of scriptural promises and principles (which in true Navigators ministry is scripture we have memorized), and as we submit to the providential working of God in our lives. Bridges also commends the importance of trusted companions with whom we honestly share our struggles.

Finally, Bridges encourages us to put on “garments of grace” as we put on the qualities of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, and forgiveness, and an overarching love, as commended in Colossians 3:12-14. He concludes the book in observing how forgiveness is possible because we recognize our own indebtedness or bankruptcy toward God, and thus forgive the small debts we are owed by others. In this, Bridges nicely closes the book where he begins.

I thought this book a very clear, biblical, and practical explanation about how we might live into the grace of God. Bridges own humility in sharing his experiences of struggling with this in his own life make this even more winsome. The incorporation of the discussion guide (a bit more than 100 pages) into this work enhances its usefulness to groups. Although there are thirteen chapters, the guide is organized into eight discussions. For each, the guide summarizes the central idea for the covered material, offers a warm-up exercise, provides selected text from the book to read ahead, questions to help in “exploring grace,” a closing prayer, going deeper questions if there is time for this, and quotes from famous Christians to help us “ponder grace.”

As a Christ-follower for five decades, it was a delight to be reminded of these foundational truths and how we may live into them. Yet the text is clear and basic enough to be understood by new believers, and rich enough to provide fresh nourishment for those who have walked long with Christ. All of us have in common the reality that we more easily profess grace than appropriate it for our lives.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Lila

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lila

Lila, Marilynne Robinson. New York: Picador, 2014.

Summary: The story of the unlikely marriage between Lila, a homeless drifter, and Rev. John Ames, a widowed older pastor.

“And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to cleanse thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. No eye pitied thee, to do any of these things unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, for that thy person was abhorred, in the day that thou wast born. And when I passed by thee, and saw thee weltering in thy blood, I said unto thee, Though thou art in thy blood, live; yea, I said unto thee, Though thou art in thy blood, live.” (Ezekiel 16:4-6, American Standard Version)

These verses and the remainder of Ezekiel 16 are ones to which Lila is strangely drawn when she begins reading the Bible she took from the pews of John Ames church. The verses, really a parable of Israel, seem to parallel her life, and perhaps more than she knows.

Lila was a neglected toddler, stolen away from her family by Doll, which probably saved her life. They fell in with other drifters on the road during the Depression and became fiercely loyal to one another. Eventually Doll is in a knife fight where she kills a man, possibly Lila’s father, nearly dies, but eventually escapes custody and disappears. Lila drifts to St. Louis, works for a time in a house of ill repute, and then flees the city with a woman returning to Iowa and ends up in a shack near Gilead, Iowa. One Sunday, she wanders into the church of Rev. John Ames, an older, widowed pastor. And so begins a relationship, a searching dialogue between the two with questions like “why do things happen the way they do?” He and the church help her out and give her work. She asks him to baptize her. She tends the grave of his wife, cultivating roses. At one point Ames thanks her for caring for the grave and wishes there were something he could do for her. She says, “You ought to marry me.” and he answers, “Yes, you’re right. I will.”

And so begins a most unusual marriage, where Lila, who has never trusted anyone but Doll, must somehow believe this man really loves her. The beauty of the story is that he does, and yet gives her the room to believe it for herself. And in the midst of it all, she finds herself pregnant with his child. Much of the story is her reflections on being the motherless child, and her life on the road as the months of her pregnancy progress, interwoven with the careful, tender love of Ames, never forced, but ever present; fearing she might leave, yet never compelling her to stay, but simply offering his love, his home, and himself.

Robinson uses the device of telling the story of her former life as memories Lila reflects upon as she embarks on this new life with Ames. She muses on the strange, dangerous, and sometimes unseemly life she has lived even as she wrestles with the possibility of having really found a home, a love with this man, and that she can be the mother she never had apart from Doll. The answer to her question of why things happen they way they do must remain somehow with the sovereign God, but the working out of the way things happen is a story of grace, the discovering of an incomprehensible but unwavering love.

The third of the “Gilead” stories, Lila explores the deepest questions of existence and the searching question of how far may grace reach. Can it reach Lila? Doll? And what about us the readers? It’s worth reading to find out.

Review: Covenant and Commandment

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covenant and commandment

Covenant and Commandment, Bradley G. Green. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014.

Summary: In light of the Reformation doctrine of justification by grace through faith, Green considers the place of works, obedience and faithfulness in the Christian life.

The Reformation doctrine of justification by grace through faith has been a doctrine of joyful liberation for so many who have despaired of ever being good enough for God. At the same time, it has been a point of contention, particularly when it is framed in a way that denies any role for works in the subsequent Christian life. Bradley G. Green argues in this installment (#33) of the New Studies in Biblical Theology that the traditional Reformation doctrine in fact supports a vibrant expression of works, obedience, and faithfulness, not as the basis of justification, but as the inevitable outgrowth of union with Christ and the transforming and empowering work of God’s Spirit.

He begins this study with a survey of relevant New Testament texts under fourteen categories demonstrating the reality and necessity of works, obedience and faithfulness. Then chapter 2 turns to the Old Testament books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel to show how the anticipate a wide outpouring of the Spirit and obedience from the heart and how the New Testament sees these prophetic words fulfilled in the first century new covenant people. Chapter 3 goes on to explore the relationship of law and grace and the relation of Old and New Covenants and argues that while we need not argue a radical contrast between law and grace between the two covenants and that believers under both were saved by grace, there is a qualitative and quantitative difference in the experience of New Testament believers of that grace.

Chapter 4 works out the relationship between Christ’s atoning work and the works of the believer. Green argues that the cross is not only outside and for us but works transformation in us, the death of the bridegroom to purify and prepare his bride for her wedding day. Chapter 5 then explores our union with Christ and how it is both we who obey and Christ who is obeying through us. Chapter 6 engages contemporary discussions about the future aspects of justification, the place of works, and the judgment. Green argues, against N.T Wright, that our understanding of justification does not need updating by appealing to the Reformers who in fact argue for the place of works in our ultimate justification.

The concluding chapter seems to tie up a number of loose ends and reiterate some themes demonstrating the contribution of the Reformers in the whole discussion. The epilogue then summarizes the argument of the book.

The great contribution of this book is to highlight how clearly the scriptures affirm that justification by grace and the life of works, obedience and faithfulness are not contradictory. Green’s survey of Reformers from Calvin to Henri Blocher is a valuable contribution. Yet I thought the brief engagement with N. T. Wright’s work was inadequate to demonstrate the superiority of his argument to that of Wright (but he wasn’t writing an 800 page tome but a 170 page monograph!).

A valuable study that demonstrates the richness of the biblical material and the Reformers theological work on the transformation worked in the life of the believer through union with Christ and the work of the Spirit.

 

Review: The Relational Soul

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Relational SoulThe Relational Soul, Richard Plass and James Cofield. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014.

Summary: Our relational capacity is essential to being human but often hindered by the false self that struggles with trust, but may be transformed through God’s gracious intervention, often through other people, that allows us to receive the gift of discovering our true self.

It is too rare that I read a book that develops an idea with a succinct, logical flow that connects head, heart and human spirit, and does so with just enough explanation and illustration and nothing extra. This is such a book, and on a subject so basic to the nature of being human — our hunger and drive for meaningful relationships.

Plass and Cofield begin the book by contending that we were created for relationship, for enjoying meaningful connections with others. How we make, or fail to make attachments is formed very early in life and our “emotional thermostat” is set by our early attachment patterns–avoidant, ambivalent, scattered, or stable. Growing in our capacity begins with awareness of these patterns and our conscious and even unconscious memories and a receptivity of moving from distrust to trust.

They then turn to a construct others such as David Benner have discussed in formational work, the “false self”. These authors particularly focus on the mistrusting soul, that is both guarded in its trust of others and reliant upon oneself to project a self that we can control that we think will gain us affirmation while protecting ourselves from hurt. The breakthrough in relationships comes when Christ comes to us in grace, often through another person, and we experience relational connection as a gift rather than an achievement we control. This opens the door to discovery of our true selves, which comes through receptivity that begins to accept oneself with all our limits and losses, because we are accepted by Christ.

The second half of the book goes deeper into this journey of discovering true self in relationship by first of all exploring how our stories connect to God’s story and help connect head and heart. Community is crucial in deepening our relational connections–community that is particular, mysterious, and messy–in other words real rather than some idealized place. Plass and Cofield commend the four disciplines of silence, solitude, contemplative reading of scripture and contemplative prayer as disciplines that nurture the relational soul. They conclude by talking about the long, patient journey of love into relational wholeness, one that involves openness, curiosity, and acceptance of limits and loss.

The book includes a bibliography of further readings, helps in developing one’s life map, and a brief introduction to the Enneagram (probably the least helpful aspect of the book because of the lack of instruction in how to discern one’s personality style). Each chapter includes helpful reflection questions for personal or group discussion.

It seems to me that this is a good book to read in the context of working with a spiritual director or for individuals or groups wanting to go deeper in their understanding of relational alienation and relational disconnectedness. This seems especially important in this age of projected selves on social media where we may have many “friends” but rarely if ever experience deep connection with humans or God.

Review: Erasmus and Luther: The Battle Over Free Will

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Erasmus and Luther: The Battle over Free Will Luther Erasmus edited by Clarence H. Miller, translated by Clarence H. Miller and Peter Macardle. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2012.

Summary: This work is a compilation of the argument between Erasmus and Luther over the place of free will and grace in salvation, excluding most of the supporting exegesis but giving the gist of the argument.

How free is the human will? This is a theological and philosophical discussion that has been ongoing for at least two millenia. In our present context the question arises in light of research findings in evolutionary biology and neuroscience. More narrowly, this has been a point of contention within Christian theology from the disputes between Augustine and the Pelagians (fourth century) to more present-day discussions between Calvinists and Arminians. The argument between Luther and Erasmus at the beginning of the Reformation comes a bit over midway in this history and helps us understand some of the theological fault lines between the churches of the Reformation and the Roman Catholic Church that are still under discussion to the present day.

The “battle” is really a disputation in a formal sense that was initiated somewhat reluctantly by Erasmus who was actually sympathetic to many of Luther’s contentions for reform but felt that Luther’s Augustinian embrace of sovereign grace alone with no place for human will in salvation to be extreme. His initial discourse with Luther was a somewhat moderated appeal that sought to thread a path between grace alone and some allowance for the place of human will assisted by grace. Luther’s reply, which we know as The Bondage of the Will argues forcefully, and at times acerbically, that when it comes to our salvation “free” will is a non-existent entity. Erasmus responded with a two part reply, known under the title of The Shield-Bearer Defending in which he more forcefully defends the place of human will in salvation.

The arguments are lengthy, detailed and at points repetitious and thus the group I read this work with were glad for a compilation rather than the full versions of both works. In the introductory material, the editor outlines the works, showing in bold print the sections included in the compilation. This edition is well-annotated, providing background material for allusions and helpful connections back to opposing arguments when these are referred to.

As I mentioned, this debate helped delineate some of the fault lines between Catholic and Reformation churches:

  • The question of the perspicacity of scripture–how easy or difficult is it for the individual reader to understand scripture?
  • How important is the tradition of how the church has read scripture versus the priority of the individual reader, particularly Luther?
  • Assumptions about “fallen” human nature. Are we utterly incapable of doing anything to contribute to our salvation or is there some “spark” of goodness which may be assisted by grace?
  • Related to this, is our salvation to be attributed exclusively to the sovereign grace of God or is there some place for the human will in seeking and believing?

We concluded that the arguments did not resolve these questions for us. In our reading group were those leaning toward Luther and those toward Erasmus, although most of us were troubled on the one hand by Luther’s exclusive emphasis on sovereign grace, and on the other by Erasmus’s language of “meriting” grace and his implication that justification is a process, confusing justification and sanctification. We wondered if the word “free” might be a sticking point and a discussion of human agency might have been more helpful. We recognized that we are dealing with things that are either paradoxical (apparently contradictory) or antinomies (two contrary things that are both true). We saw the challenge of attempting to reconcile as abstractions (“free will” vs. “grace”) realities lived out in the existential life of faith where we experience both our “chosenness” and our “choosing” under the grace of God.

Hence, if one is looking for a “pat” answer to this discussion, this work will either simply confirm your pre-understanding or not help. But if you wish to understand the discussion, listening to these two great figures will prove illuminating and perhaps help you think more deeply about some of the fundamental questions in Christian theology.

Review: Visions of Vocation

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The main thesis of this book is that to live as a called person is to be implicated in what one knows, to have a sense of responsibility that flows out of understanding the world and our place and work in it.

Steven Garber writes this book out of a lifetime experience of helping people discern the calling of God in their everyday lives. He has particularly worked in recent years among young leaders who come to Washington, DC on various internships as the principal of The Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation & Culture. Much of this book is a weave of thinking about vocation and stories of calling culled from the many people he has walked with on this journey.

He begins with talking about what it means to know the world as it is in all its ugliness and love it. Such a love is sacramental and joins with God in his care for the world. Later on, Garber speaks about how those who know and love most deeply also mourn deeply while yet living in hope. Seeing and knowing for a person living attentively to God’s call must eventuate in doing. Yet as he talks about in his chapter “the landscape of our lives”, we live in the midst of a mind- and soul-numbing glut of information that can leave us indifferent to any and everything. He talks about the sobering example of an Eichmann who could read Goethe, listen to Schubert, and plan the destruction of thousands of Jews and somehow see himself not implicated in their deaths.

Perhaps the only remedy, Garber thinks, is to “come and see” afresh the incarnate Christ, the Word become Flesh. The coming of Jesus tells us that words have to become flesh and have to be lived out in our actions in the physical world. He then gives us narratives of friends who have done this in fields as diverse as cattle ranching to health care in indigent communities. He tells of Kwang Kim, who starts asking as a student “what should the world be like” and “what should I be doing” and has translated that into decades of work in the World Bank shaping development plans that are sustainable for loan recipients and not just profitable for the bank.

The latter part of the book explores the dangers of cynicism and the necessity of realizing that all of our efforts to live out our callings will be proximate rather than perfect. We realize that we live between the already and the not yet of the kingdom and do what we can rather than what we cannot. He concludes with the story of his father whose life brought him joy and was contrasted with the high-roller with whom he was a seatmate on a flight and was stopped in his boastful tracks by the simple question of whether any of this had brought him happiness. We are left to conclude that only the life lived attending to the call of God to love the world for the good of the world can bring a deep sense of joy and satisfaction with one’s life. Garber’s book both leaves us wanting that and points the way.