Dr John Stott - A Man of God

I was saddened yet glad for him to hear that Dr John Stott went into the Presence of His Lord this morning. He was one of my greatest evangelical heroes and I was fortunate enough to have met him twice at his home church of All Souls Langham Place - I also heard him preach a number of times and his succinct wonderful exposition made a tremendous impact on my learning.

His ministry was indeed international and I am sure that his funeral will be one of the best attended celebrations seen in London! For those who haven't heard him preach, here is a video of Dr Stott preaching at Keswick a few years ago;

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Rob Rufus!!

This is the second post looking at Rob Rufus's views on grace and how that relates to us being the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. The previous post was called; "Dr John Stott and Rob Rufus!!". A number of people have expressed concerns with Rob's teaching particularly in this area and particularly concerned that such teaching will "give license to sin". Now as I mentioned here - I am not a Bible exegete or a teacher and have no skills in looking into the Greek and Hebrew of particular texts. But I am blessed enough to be able to work back through my books and look at particular gifted ministries and see what they had to teach on this - and how it compares to Rob Rufus.

The particular quotes were from Dr Lloyd-Jones's commentary on Romans 3:20 - 4:25. Now this is very important to me - because I do think this particular wonderful doctrine of justification by faith carries HUGE implications for living the Christian life! Janelle Phillips, Julie and I are enjoying a lively debate about this exact subject over here on my post; "Effects of Grace and Law!!". Janelle always manages to make me think carefully through issues and this comment of her's particularly is important;

"All that to say, sanctification and being transformed into Christ's image is primarily done through confession of sin and working by God's grace to change. How else would that take place?".

I came back to her and quoted from Rob in his recent sermon; ""Do Christians Need To Confess Their Sins To God?" - that we do need to be consistent. If we join accountability groups and confess sins - then we need to confess ALL sins - not just the "big" ones! So why is confession of sin such a vital issue? Janelle touched on the answer in her response to me;

"I'm not talking about confessing my sin to become a Christian, I'm talking about confessing my sin to continue in sanctification".

This - theologically - is where I have always been (and still sort-of are). I am quite happy with the fact that Jesus Christ forgave my sins upon my conversion and wiped them away from His mind - never to remember them again. What I do struggle with - is the suggestion that my sins are STILL wiped from His mind! Would I be unfair to suggest (at least in my experience) that the same has traditionally been taught about "two types" of righteousness? Saving righteousness - (Romans 10:9, 10) that when we confess with our mouths and believe then we shall be saved. Then there is sanctifying righteousness - the sort Janelle has been referring to?

I find Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones incredibly similar to Rob at this point. He is obviously in the middle of expounding Romans 4 and speaking about Abraham. He starts off by mentioning the exact same hymn that John Stott refers to - Count Zindendorf's; "Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness". And he says;

"Let me use the kind of illustration that was obviously in the mind of Count Zindendorf when he composed his great hymn on this theme ... "Jesus Thy robe of righteousness, my beauty is, my glorious dress". This is the picture. There is a man standing in his rags, in his filth. There is the condemned, guilty sinner before God, the prisoner in the dock.

What happens? Well God puts on him this robe of righteousness - He puts on him the white robe of Christ's perfection and now He sees that and nothing else. That is the doctrine of justification. He puts that to our account".

"He sees that and NOTHING else!". So the question facing us is - is that situation a permament position? Or does our sin remove us from under that "robe of righteousness" and make God see us in our true sinful state? If that is not so, and we are indeed permamently and safely under that robe of righteousness, then what does sanctifying confession achieve? Let's go on. Dr Lloyd-Jones goes on to say;

"Notice this other interesting statement: "he is a man to whom the Lord will not impute sin, he will not reckon sin to him". What does that mean?". The man has committed sin, how then can he be a blessed man? The answer is that though he has sinned and is guilty of many sins, God will not put down sins to this man's account in His heavenly ledgers. He might do so, He has a perfect right to do so. He does not put them down in the account. He leaves them out. He has sent them away - He has covered them up. He has forgiven them!".

He could punish us! He has a perfect right to do so! But He does not! What awesome grace! But again surely the key is in the timing of this statement; "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin". The Lord DOES NOT impute sin! Is that based on our confessions? Or is that based on the sinless sacrifice of Jesus Christ then, now and forever? Dr Lloyd-Jones goes on in his explanation (one of the reasons I love him so much - he delves so deeply into these truths!) and says this;

"Let me put it like this: the man who is truly blessed is the man whose sin is forgiven as debt, whose sin is covered up so that God will never look at it again. He is one to whom it is never going to be imputed as a crime. There is the negative aspect. But it goes beyond that; he is also one to whom God reckons this righteousness of Jesus Christ. That is the doctrine of justification by faith. Here are we - all of us sinners in the sight of God.

What does this doctrine tell me? It tells me that as I stand there on trial my debt is cancelled, my sin is covered. God has cast my sin behind His back. He will never look at it again. He will never see it again. It is blotted out - out of His sight for all eternity. And I shall never be charged with it as a crime. I am completely delivered from it. But over and above that God puts this to my account and reckons to me, this righteousness of Jesus Christ His Son".

So there is this positive aspect to justification by faith in Dr Lloyd-Jones eyes and a negative aspect. The negative aspect - forgiveness of sin - is clear. But it is the positive aspect that I think Rob Rufus has devoted much of his ministry to. The fact that it is not simply our debts - our crimes that are wiped. But we receive the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ! This is probably one of the best definitions Rob gives to the gift of righteousness;

"Righteousness in the New Covenant refers to "right standing with a holy God without fear, without intimidation, without inferiority, without condemnation". You come boldly into the throne room of grace - you come with full assurance of faith to the most Holy Place with all your imperfections, all your failures and all of your mistakes and all of the things you still do wrong as a Christian and you come boldly with full assurance into the most Holy Place with the blood of the New Covenant that sprinkles your conscience from guilt and cleanses your conscience once and for all!".

Once and for all! But if you are anything like me you can feel your head protesting against this. It's unjust! It's wrong! We sinned! We should pay for it! We should have to confess for it! We should have to pay penance ... somehow. Dr Lloyd-Jones agreed;

"So let me once again state this great and most blessed doctrine; God does not reckon our sins to us. But you may say how can He do that and still be God? We have committed these sins, how is it possible or God not to reckon them to us though we have committed them and are guilty of them? The answer is that He has reckoned them to His only, begotten Son".

I think I could be right in saying that the hardest thing we as Christians struggle with is the realising that there is NOTHING we can do. Everything within us struggles to do "something". But as Rob said; Jesus + anything = Nothing. It HAS to be "in Christ alone!".

"That is what is meant by justification. It is all God's action. We do nothing at all - we cannot do anything at all. We have no works, our righteousness is as "filthy rags", it is "dung", "refuse". We love nothing at all. We are ungodly. We are helpless. We are hopeless. God does it all. It is entirely God's action. It is what He does with these sins of ours which He puts on Christ and punishes them in Him. It is what He does with Christ's righteousness which He puts on us. It is all done to us and we receive it passively from God".

So my wondering is - if we can accept it is all God's action at salvation - why are we so eager to regain control and start "doing things" after conversion? Can we have the faith when we first become Christians to realise there is nothing we can do - yet react against that post-conversion? Are we dividing that which shouldn't be divided?

Anyhow - the debate will go on - of that I am sure! I don't call on Dr Lloyd-Jones as though he (like John Stott) will persuade the doubtful! These are all just men and ministries given by the ascended Christ as gifts. But the reason why I am reading around this subject is to discover and prove to myself that again - if we are TRULY to preach the gospel of grace then we WILL be accused of antinominanism. The gospel of grace IS outrageous! I wonder ... if our gospel in our own mind has become a bit respectable then maybe - it's not the true, pure gospel and we have slipped into Galatianism. But all this debate aside -whether we agree on having to continue confessing sin or not - all this study has refreshed my wonder at the Gospel and the cost of what Jesus Christ went through that we might enjoy unhindered fellowship with God Himself!

Dr John Stott and Rob Rufus!!

It seems like everyone I know who has a passionate interest in the grace message has had an absolutely rubbish week!! Even the wonderful guys in Hong Kong. Is that coincidence? I guess it may be. But what's worried me is the vicious attacks of long-term Christians against the message of grace and righteousness - in short the Gospel itself. The accusation is quite common that Rob Rufus is "inventing a new gospel" and of course the tired "concern"; "It will give people a license to sin". I was intrigued therefore to be stuck at a family function and happened to pick up a copy of John Stott's BST commentary on the Book of Romans.

I have copied a large amount of John Stott quotes onto the "Pentecostal/Charismatic Post-it Notes" blog and they can be found here.

Some of the quotes sound remarkably like Rob himself!

"The antithesis between grace and law, mercy and merit, faith and works, God's salvation and self-salvation is absolute. No compromising mish-mash is possible. We are obliged to choose".

"Some scholars maintain that 'justification' and 'pardon' are synonymous ... But surely this cannot be so. Pardon is negative, the remission of a penalty or debt; justification is positive, the bestowal of a righteous status, the sinner's reinstatement in the favour and fellowship of God".

And Stott made a number of comments on why Paul mentioned Abraham in Romans 4;

"The promise in mind must still be Genesis 15:5 that Abraham's posterity would be as numerous as the stars. It was a promise without any conditions or requirements attached to it. God's Word came to Abraham as a gratitutious promise - not as law. He simply believed God and was justified".

There was one extended piece of the commentary where John Stott dealt with the issue of whether we can talk about "being clothed in the spotless robe of Christ's righteousness". Now I must confess I took instant interest in this because I have heard Rob Rufus speak a number of times about "being clothed in Christ's righteousness". John Stott wrote this;

"A further question is whether the righteousness which God graciously imputes to us may be said to be the righteousness of Christ whether we may legitimately speak of "being clothed in the spotless robe of Christ's righteousness" and whether Zindendorf was correct to write in John Wesley's translation, of 'Jesus Thy Blood and Righteousness - My beauty are, my glorious dress'.

This kind of language even in devotional hymns is unfashionable today and is declared by some theologically inadmissable. Nevertheless on at least 3 occasions Paul comes close to this picture. I for one believe it is biblically permissive to use it. We are told that He was made sin for us, 'So that in Him we might become the righteousness of God', that "He has become for us ... our righteousness".

And that if we "gain Christ and are found in Him then the righteousness we have is not our own, but the righteousness that comes from God through faith in Christ" ... "Be clothed" with the righteousness of God or of Christ is not even mentioned. We are given even greater privilidge of "having it" and even "becoming it".

Once the reality of imputed righteousness is accepted, there can be little objection to the clothing metaphor".

Now I know that there is little value in quoting Christian "celebrities" because we can all find a quote to back up one's personal view. Maybe someone would dredge up a John MacArthur quote to disagree with all this ... I don't know. The point I was simply trying to make was - a plea for a little calm. Rob Rufus isn't preaching a false gospel. Much of what he says on the righteousness of God would concur with many respected commentators such as John Stott himself. Let us calm down and truly become Berean-like - examining these things for ourselves to see if they are so.