Wednesday, October 1, 2014

The Spirit of Bondage and Adoption

15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.[f] And by him we cry, “Abba,[g] Father.”

     We have reached the 9th sermon of John Wesley's Standard 52. In this sermon, we begin to see Wesley's understanding of the journey of faith. While many, in Wesley's time and today, preach and teach that the only 'righteousness' we can have is imputed or ideal, Wesley taught that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we receive real moral freedom. The term "imputed righteousness" or "ideal righteousness" refers to the teaching that when we come to faith we have no righteousness of our own. Instead we are reckoned righteous, the righteousness is imputed upon us, because of Christ's righteousness. An illustration of this was when Martin Luther famously said we are only "dung heaps covered in snow."
     While Wesley did not reject this teaching altogether, he did reject the belief that we remained 'dung heaps covered in snow." Wesley believed that the whole point of the journey of faith was not to have righteousness 'imputed' so that one could pretend to be righteous. Instead the journey was to really become righteous by the power of the Holy Spirit. Wesley, and the Methodist movement that he started, emphasized this understanding. The understanding that in Christ, we do not have a spirit of bondage to sin. Instead, we can have a spirit of adoption, where the Holy Spirit witnesses to our spirit that we have become adopted children of our Father in heaven. Wesley breaks this journey down into three stages in this sermon:

1. The 'Natural' Person 
2. 1The 'Legal' Person 
3. The Person under 'Grace'

     Even in this sermon, Wesley does admit that these categories are not set in stone and people do vacillate between them. They are, however, useful in reflecting on our own faith journey. If you would like to read the full sermon you can find it by clicking here.

Introduction 

     In the introduction to this sermon Wesley briefly describes the three states that he discusses in the rest of the sermon. He says that the natural person is one who neither fears or loves God. The person under the law fears God but does not love Him. The final type of person is under grace. This person has given up their spirit of fear for a spirit of adoption. Therefore this person loves God and only fears sinning to separate themselves because it will separate them from the one they love.

The 'Natural' Person 

     According to Wesley, the person in this state is described as asleep in scriptures. He points specifically to Ephesians 5:14 which says, "Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you" and is the text used for his brother's sermon, the third in Wesley's Standard 52. This is the person that does not discern spiritual good or evil but lives unconscious of it, much like a sleeping person. They do not fear sin, God's wrath, or hell. Nor do they love holiness, goodness, or desire a relationship with the Lord. How could they, being completely unconscious to their spiritual state?
     This person is, in some sense, at rest. They are certain that no harm will come to them, although they really have no reason for it. They are living in blissful ignorance of any spiritual evil they commit. While they live in this kind of bliss they do not know the depth of joy of having fellowship with God through Christ. Despite this, they are happy to go along life avoiding reflection on their spiritual state. Wesley spends some time describing some of the ways in which they avoid this reflection.
     The first is simple, they say to themselves "There is no God" or "God sits in heaven and does not humble Himself by concerning Himself with earthly affairs." These are the routes of either atheism or deism. Atheism is affirming the statement "God does not exist." A deist, on the other hand, believes God exists but does not think He concerns Himself with our lives. These two ways of thinking result in the same attitude. An attitude that concerns itself with one's own pleasure as the greatest good. Wesley uses the five dollar phrase 'epicurien intents' but the way we say it today is, "be true to yourself." 
     The next excuse is a person says "God is merciful, I'll be fine." What makes this so dangerous is that it is half true, God is merciful. However, God does take Himself seriously. God has given us a choice to enjoy loving fellowship with Him or to reject it. It is not really a choice if we reject fellowship with God and He, in the end, forces us into relationship with Him. I have heard modern Christian philosophers make the point that 'It would be unloving of God to force us into His presence."   
     This also completely ignores the justice of God. None of us would want to worship a God who looks at a rapist and says, "I'm merciful, don't worry about what you have done!" Most folks will respond by thinking "That's true, but I'm not a rapist." Granted, most people do not rape, or murder. However, this ignores three important realities. First, if we have to be 'good enough' to receive God's mercy, it really isn't mercy. Second, where is the line of 'good enough,' to receive God's mercy? Third, and maybe most importantly, who gets to draw the line?  If I am drawing the line, it is going to be very favorable toward me. How is that fair? 
     Some are awakened to this reality, but are still sleeping. The final tactic of remaining willfully ignorant of one's own spiritual state is thinking "I will repent in the by and by." In other words, some who are in this unawakened state recognize their need to get right with God but they'll wait until tomorrow to do it. 
     Wesley closes this segment with two observations. First, sometimes those who are in the deepest sleep are people of great learning. Folks can rationalize anything and education does not stop rationalization, it simply gives one more ammunition to rationalize with. Wesley remarks about how many times people get a self congratulatory attitude. 
     This pride is fueled by what Wesley cals the "opiates of flattery and sin." In my mind this is when someone gets the mindset that essentially says "I'm a good person, because all of my friends say I am!" This, of course, does not prove that we are good people, it just proves that we tend to make friends that are similar to us. Wesley closes the segment by reminding us that the 'natural person' who is asleep to spiritual things is not just a dirty scoundrel. This is a person who could be well respected, liked, and indeed do things that we would categorize as good. Despite this, they are still asleep to any evil which might be lurking in their hearts 
     How does one who is sleeping like this wake up to the reality of their own state? That is the subject of Wesley's next segment.

Questions

1. In this segment Wesley speaks of a state where one is asleep to his or her spiritual state. Have any of us been asleep in this way? What were the consequences?

2. Have we used any of the excuses to remain sleeping that Wesley brings up here? If not what excuses did we use?

The "Legal Person"

     Wesley describes the act of awakening well when writing: 
"By some awful providence, or by his word applied with the demonstration of his Spirit, God touches the heart of him that lay asleep in darkness and in the shadow of death. He is terribly shaken out of his sleep, and awakes into a consciousness of his danger."  
     We read of this experience when Isaiah is before the throne of the Lord and says, "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Wesley goes on to describe a person in this state realizes that not only is God merciful but He is also holy, pure, and perfectly just. This state is characterized by a frightening clarity about one's spiritual state. All of the excuses used in the natural state evaporate in the holy fire of a holy God.
    It is at this point that the thought that "God knows my heart," goes from being a numbing agent to a terrifying reality. This reality becomes terrifying because we see, perhaps for the first time, the pure intent of God's law  and the impurity of our hearts. We realize that we may have never murdered someone, but how often have we stabbed them with our words, or indifference. The legal person realizes that he or she is worthy of hell. No more excuses, no more psudointelecutal smoke screens stand between us and the reality of who we are and who God has called us to be. Wesley puts it like this:
he sees himself naked, stripped of all the fig-leaves which he had sewed together, of all his poor pretenses to religion or virtue, and his wretched excuses for sinning against God.
     This person fears God but does not love Him. The fear of God is an often misunderstood concept in scripture. Many times people think it is fear of some cosmic bully ready to throw us into the inferno of hell. God, however, is not mean, vindictive, or retributive. Instead the fear of God is more like the way we fear gravity. Right now I am experiencing gravity as grace. It is holding me down on this planet and without it I would float out into space, not a good thing. However, if I were dangling from the top of a skyscraper, I would fear gravity.
     Has gravity become mean, vindictive, and retributive? Of course not, I have gone out of right relationship with it. In the same way, the legal person does not fear God because they realize that God is mean. Instead this is a person who realizes that he or she has gone out of right relationship with the ground of all that is real! This is one of the amazing and great truths we learn from God's name. When Moses asks what God's name is, the response is not something humans would make up, like Bob or Steve. Instead God says "I Am" or it could be translated, "I Exist," "I Am Becoming," or "I Am because I Am." Everything that is real finds its reality in Him. Sin is our moving away from reality. 
     Because of this realization in the legal person, that which used to please him or her is now appalling. This person earnestly desires to "get right with God." They set out to work on their outward behavior and their inward motivation. To their great frustration, however, they discover that they cannot overcome the evil within them. This is the spirit of bondage that Paul talks about in the passage out of Romans 8 that this sermon is based on. Wesely points out Paul's piercingly clear description of this state in the previous chapter of Romans when Paul writes:
 Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
     This leads the person under the law to despair and bondage. Thus he or she is willed to do the good that the Lord prescribes for our lives but cannot. This person fears God but does not love Him.  

Questions

1. Have we had any moment like Wesley describes as being "terribly awakened from our sleep?" What was the cause and what was it like?

2. Are there any sinful habits, thought patterns, or attitudes that we have and cannot shake? What are some of the things we have tried to get rid of them?

3. Have we ever felt the fear of God as it is described here?

The Person under Grace

     This final state is when the bondage of of sin is over. This final stage describes the person under grace. This is the person who feels the Holy Spirit witness to his or her spirit that he or she is a child of God. This is the spirit given to a person that enables us to cry out to God saying, "Abba Father!" In my minds eye I envision a young child who is lost in the woods and cries out "Daddy, save me" and the child's father comes running, scoops the terrified child up and says "I got you, your safe now!" The person no longer sees God as an angry judge but as a loving Father. 
     Thus is the spirit of adoption as children of the King of the Universe. Wesley goes on to describe the powerful change this brings about in a person's life. The result is that the person under grace is freed from the guilt and the power of sin. The person under grace struggles against sin and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, is victorious against it. Whereas, the natural person does not fight or conquer sin, the person under the law fights but is conquered, the person under grace fights against sin and conquers it!   
     It is important to note here that Wesley is clear that we will struggle against sin after conversion. The person under grace is not given immunity to falling, or being tempted. Instead, the person under grace is given the desire and ability the get up again and conquer temptation. This is what makes it possible for us to make actual progress in our faith walk. We are not saved by grace to just stay the way we are but to be continually re-made into the image of God.
     Not only is the person under grace freed from the guilt and power of sin but they are also freed from fear. This person no longer fears hell, because God has saved them out of it through Chirst. They also no longer fear the devil and his works, because Christ has defeated them in His death and resurrection. Finally, perhaps most remarkably, this person no longer fears death because they trust, not in themselves, but in the one who has conquered it.
     Wesley closes the sermon with a summary, warning and encouragement. First in the summary Wesley says that the natural person does not fear or love God. This person is a willing servant of sin and has a false peace. The person under the law fears God but does not love Him. This person is an unwilling servant of sin, desiring to break free but unable to. The person under the law has a clear understanding of where he or she is but is unable to change. 
     Finally, the person under grace loves God and only fears sin. They only fear sin because it will take them away from the one they love. This person serves the Lord, has a clear understanding of themselves but relies not on their own strength but on the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit witnesses to their spirit that they have become adopted children of their Father in heaven through Christ. The person under grace lives out this identity under the guidance, and power of the Holy Spirit. 
     The warning Wesley gives is to those who are asleep in the natural stage. He warns them to not ignore it when they feel the Lord trying to stir them from their spiritual slumber. Wesley calls the wilful ignoring of God's prodding of our souls "stifling the grace of God." To those who do not examine themselves and assume that they are good enough Wesley goes so far as to say "Heathen, pull of your mask!" I think what Wesley is warning us all against is complacency. While the grace of the Lord comes to comfort us in our lost state it is not meant to make us complacent! To the person who is complacent in sin he encourages them to be humble before the Lord.
     To those who are unwillingly serving sin he gives an encouragement. He says to them "Art thou fighting, but not conquering striving for the mastery, but not able to attain Then thou art not yet a believer in Christ; but follow on, and thou shalt know the Lord." In this Wesley is trying to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, so that all may experience freedom from sin and love of God. He further encourages both groups to not rest until they have the spirit of adoption upon them. In his closing Wesley encourages both groups by saying:

     "Beware, then, thou who art called by the name of Christ, that thou come not short of the mark of thy high calling. Beware thou rest, not, either in a natural state with too many that are accounted good Christians; or in a legal state, wherein those who are highly esteemed of men are generally content to live and die. Nay, but God hath prepared better things for thee, if thou follow on till thou attain. Thou art not called to fear and tremble like devils; but to rejoice and love, like the angels of God. "Thou shalt love the lord thy God will all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." Thou shalt "rejoice evermore;" thou shalt "pray without ceasing:" thou shalt "in everything give thanks." Thou shalt do the will of God on earth as it is done in heaven. O prove thou "what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God!" Now present thyself "a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God." "Whereunto thou hast already attained, hold fast," by "reaching forth unto those things which are before:" until "the God of peace make thee perfect in every good work, working in thee that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ: To whom be glory for ever and ever! Amen!"

Questions

1. Has there been a time in our lives, as a parent or a child, when you have experienced a helpless child crying out for his or her parents and the parent swoops in and saves the child? What was that like? How might this help us understand how God feels when we cry out to Him "Abba Father?"

2. When have we been struggling to conquer a sinful pattern in our lives and were able to, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to overcome it? 

3. How does the spirit of adoption enable us to conquer sin?

2 comments:

  1. The "sleeping" person sounds a lot like a postmodern thinker of today.

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    1. I can see what you mean. Many times a postmodern thinking, and many of us, have assumptions that we are not even aware of.

      For example, a postmodern thinker may embrace a statement like "all truth claims are relative" having no consciousness that this statement is, in fact, an absolute truth claim. Therefore if taken seriously, it negates it's own objectivity!

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