John Piper and Tim Keller Wrestle with Sanctification

thank you Tim for taking whatever time we can squeeze in here right over at the Redeemer offices in New York I don't think I've been here on this floor anyway before so thank you we're going to do some other things together tonight but right now we want to talk about sanctification and holiness and it's in the air especially as it relates to gospel and motivation yes so how do you like to talk about it we'll just give you a free menu right here to just say when you consider sanctification and holiness what's a helpful way to talk about what is it why is it important well you know you would usually say that I absolutely believe in what the reformed people call the third use of the law that now that I'm a Christian and I've been saved by the gospel I'm still obligated to obey the law but the law demands both inner holiness inner change as well as external righteousness and behavior and I say what what the gospel does is it gives me especially a new profoundly new motives that before I understood the gospel I might have tried to be moral and virtuous but I think what Edwards would say in nature true virtue is that you it's basically selfish it's essentially I may be obeying God but I'm to obeying for myself and I'm actually not obeying for God's sake I'm a bang for my sake because I want to get something that's radically different once you understand the gospel my motivations now aren't fear their delight desire to delight him and please him that means I'm not I'm essentially essentially positive motivations to do it it means my obedience will be more unconditional because I won't be looking so much at what am I getting out of it right now I'm doing it just to please the one who saved me and and to honor the one who's a character I aspire to to imitate I think Walter Marshalls gospel mystery of sanctification is says it this way that you need the comforts of the gospel in order to fulfill the law so that's pretty much what I would say too so when you talk about third use of the law or holiness external righteousness internal purity of heart yes my motives right what is it out here that we're conforming to it's really not the legal codes of the Old Testament when you when you say law yeah right I mean the New Testament talks about the law of Christ right right what are you sending well you know there might be a little different sweetness I I mean the department the Presbyterians sometimes over don't make the distinction like they should but generally it's that the difference the Mosaic law had this ceremonial law involved which we do believe was fulfilled in Christ not so much it was abrogated but the crisis fulfilling it well I believe in Christ now I don't need to go through the washings and I'm cleaning him so in that sense it's it's been fulfilled in Christ the the the moral nub of the law which is restated in the New Testament as the law of Christ is continuous with the Old Testament Ten Commandments and that's still binding on us but I've just been reading through Calvin on this in his Institute's he says every one of the Ten Commandments he believes actually also enjoins an inner an inner heart attitude as well so thou shalt not kill does mean love your neighbor and so there that's the reason why he would say to obey the law means to look for an interchange in my heart as well so we love the doctrine of justification which is God's imputing an alien righteousness to us right through faith alone faith alone yes and then the Westminster standards say the faith that justifies is never alone but is always accompanied by all its Grace's so what's in your mind how how is justification imperative different from sanctification period are they both necessary for final salvation and if so are they necessary in the same way well I think a lot of people stumble over okay I understand I'm a I'm a sinner I need forgiveness I'm a sinner I need righteousness imputed to me okay I believe I trust and then this preacher stands up Piper or whoever and he says there's a holiness without which you won't see the Lord no I take that passage to mean there are behaviors and attitudes that if you persist in you go to hell mm-hmm and they say I thought I was justified by faith so what what what do you respond to a person like that I'd go back to what you just said you're saved by faith alone but not by faith which remains alone I think it's uh as a pastor I think I've been able to clarify this for people when I say you're really saved by faith not by how sanctified you are but if you're not getting sanctified then you don't have saving faith saving faith will issue in it and so the meze sanctification is are the signs of salvation but not the cause again it recently been rereading Walter Marshall in this and he says he says there is a danger of saying you're justified by faith but you're sanctified by works and to teach it in such a way that people essentially feel like I'm saved meaning my sins are forgiven but now it's up to me to live a good life which is almost half of justification it's like my sins were put on Christ but now in some way I have to weave a righteousness I'm given a chance to start over and I do think how awful lot of simple Christians do think of justification like that it's it's just the pardon and now sanctification is what I do to keep God happy with me and I think we have to say no here's your justification doesn't mean imputed righteousness sanctification is a sign that you've got the saving faith I think that's how I've been doing it and to use words of James is a sign because if your faith isn't producing a change isn't producing love it's not real right which is and that would be Galatians 5:6 right circumcision or uncircumcision counts for anything but faith working through right so can you get at the the psychological dynamics how that works faith working through love yeah let's actually let's spend time on that that's very important so what I'm about to tell you I don't believe gets to the bottom of it but uh some years ago I'm ever talking a woman who wasn't a believer yet this is only one this is only one part of the answer she wasn't a believer yet but she was just coming to grips with the idea I'm saved by grace and faith not by my works and she said I used to go to church years ago and when I came up in that church I never heard that you were saved by grace and faith I always heard you were saved by being a good person she says why haven't I heard this why it don't more churches teach it and fortunately by some wonderful providence in most ministers obviously we media were so happy to have a question because we can hold forth but for some reason I said well why do you think and she says well it's this is scary I said what he says if you're saved by works there's a limit to what God can ask of you you're like a tax payer you've paid your taxes you paid your dues and he could ask certain things of you but not anything but if I'm really saved by grace because of what Jesus has done there's no limit to what he could ask of me and my obedience would have to be unconditional and I looked at her and I said you realize that most people when they first hear that you're saved by grace alone and not by works think well this is great that means I can live any way I want mm-hmm but see for her she was already by the way she probably was saved at that point I look back I think she just hadn't professed the faith yet because she understood the gospel so well and she said she said psychologically what if you realize that you've been saved by grace it means I owe him everything which of course you're not your own you're bought with a price and say that's one psychological thing that has to happen if you're looking at your justification you're looking at your free justification and costly to God okay and immediately says I don't have the right to make these calls I've got to do what the Lord says I mean that's one and that's it's motivated by joy it's not like oh I gotta obey okay and press on it you said we owe him everything so now I've yeah I've used the phrase the debtors ethic as a bad thing I know I heard you say I mean I didn't hear you say because money to me you said I'm not sure I know what Piper means that's right when he when he when he says that and so right here is where I heard a little glimmer not I'm sure I know you well enough to say you're not you're not a debtor's ethic guy but a person could take that phrasing I owe him everything and now he okay in the past now yeah exactly I'm right I'm at this clarification there's a place in in the Institute's which I read two nights ago I've been reading him at night where Calvin said because we're so blind that we we should obey God just because of the beauty of the good you'd like that turn but because we because we're so blind God actually has to give us rewards and punishments and he then says by the way this is book 2 chapter 7 he says we actually are debtors to his majesty now here he's talking about the fact that we just oh him everything he says and he says the payment of a debt deserves a reward therefore we actually should he shouldn't have to say if you obey me I'll bless you and do things and yet he gets up his right now say he uses the term debt there and you got to take a look at that at some point and he doesn't say debt to his grace debtor to grace he says debt to His Majesty but then he says God he says we shouldn't be we should just be doing it out of the beauty of who he is and what he is as in the gospel I see the beauty of what he's done for me which is his love and sacrifice in just as his creator I see the beauty of his holiness and that should be what I mean when I say Oh him it means he deserves it I want to say he he deserves it because of the beauty and the greatness of who now the trouble with the o thing I agree is it looks like he's done something I have to pay him back rather than say great music deserves praise a noble deed you just attracts and evokes praise and that's what I'm trying to get at so right right um but the two things are in my mind adjustment for which one should come out next one is to clarify how to help people not go the wrong route of oh yeah and and the other is to lean on what you mean when you say it's it's debtors majesty or it's just sheer fitness to respond to that way that's the better word you that's Edwards yes it's fitness otherwise you're not seeing regularly first one and if I remember okay I come back to the next one I like Fitness better than that by the way yeah now that you mention hum so the when when when Paul says by the grace of God I am what I am and His grace toward me was not in vain but I worked okay now that's what I think that's holiness day I mean I did good things I I did the right thing I'm minute I worked harder than any of them and then he says Nothe less it was not i but the grace of god that was with me no the way I picture that is paul received grace by the grace of God I am what I am so grace has come into his life it's awakened a new person has given him these desires and now as he contemplates how shall I respond he says I'm going to work my tail off for Jesus right and then and then he says but it wasn't me working my television so as far as debt goes goes like this so he says I'm going to take a step for Jesus and and then he says I took that step by the grace of Jesus it wasn't I but and so every step you take in obedience to tease your going deeper in debt yeah so that's right so being a debtor to grace I think it's just a wonderful phrase as long as you don't ever think it's HIPEC because yes you can up forever I think forever and ever we go deeper and I also think that when you say debtor to grace it does get across some idea that he's done all this for me I just it now is fitting for me to live for him that's what this woman was saying that I have to take the conditions off because he's done everything for me now I owe him everything but then there has to be another shoe that drops otherwise it's it's repayment I agree and I actually like the idea it's unfitting it's unfitting for someone to for me to receive something from someone else and then not respond in a fitting way right but Fitness I had with the average person just didn't go down just and they're that they're not an aesthetically drippers like well you know yeah praise fits over that's what song with so I'm 53 well there's a place in Psalm 33 what it talks about praise him with skillful songs it's fitting yeah Ray's fits him totally agree

Channel: Desiring God

Views: 311,635

Rating: 4.9061117 out of 5

Keywords: Desiring God, John Piper, God, Jesus Christ, Christianity, Christian Hedonism

Id: QecyvLgSuN8

Length: 14min 6sec (846 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 26 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/delk82]

I, for one, would just like to see Piper and Keller wrestle.

[u/bykim]

With works, God can only ask so much of me. But by grace, He is fit to receive all of me.... wow!

[u/rtz13]

Sanctification with the RKO out of nowhere!!!!

[u/thisisredditnigga]

That was really good

[u/centurion88]

Part 2 is even better.