How can we love our Savior?  Let’s begin with prayer and ask the Lord to show us how, especially as we read his Word.  The Bible isn’t just about other people, no matter how strange they are.  God had it written for us, that we might know him.  From beginning to end it’s about people and their struggles and how the Lord rebukes them or encourages them—now just be alert to see whether that person’s life resembles yours, be ready for that, ask for that.

Coming again from Reformation Day (same day as Halloween), I’m thinking about justification. Jesus has given himself for us, bearing our guilt and our judgment, and because of that we know that now the Lord looks at us in love and compassion and that our sin and guilt no longer stand between us. We have seen that as right at the ‘beginning’ of our new relation to our God, that’s what everything else builds upon. But now we’ve been learning that our sanctification is at the beginning too; call it ‘definitive.’  More than that even, we now know that at the very, very beginning is our ‘union with Christ.’ More basic even than the Lord’s gifts and blessings to us is the reality of Jesus Christ himself with us, as the giver of all the gifts.

Is your justification important to you?  Churches ask me as a church historian to talk to them on Reformation Day, and you know, what I tell them seems new to them, and not really important to where they are. That could be my fault, I know. But how important is it to us right now?

The old story is that late medieval Nominalistic Christianity didn’t have a lot of certainty and joy in it. The message was mostly just: Do the best you can and possibly God will give you more credit than you deserve, just because he feels like it.  Not really because of the finished work of Jesus Christ, but because God is God and sometimes he just feels like doing surprising things—but don’t count on it.

Martin Luther’s replied to that: Jesus did it all for us, just trust him for that, rely on him your whole life long. Not: ‘possibly God will do something amazing for us,’ but rather that Jesus Christ has already done it all.  Depend on Jesus right now, never ever trust in how hard you’re trying.

Whew! That was an enormous load off of Luther and thousands besides, who could then hardly wait for a man on horseback to come to town with yet another God-glorifying Luther sermon, a gospel message rejoicing their hearts. But the old Catholic Church felt those words sent the wrong message: If Jesus has truly done it all already, then nobody will take God seriously any more, will they?  Aren’t those Protestants saying: chill out, live it up, drink way too much Pilsner—naturally, how else could you do anything else, if everything is already taken care of as far as going to heaven is concerned?  Their Council of Trent replied to that, in Canons XV and XVI:

If any one saith, that a man, who is born again and justified, is bound of faith to believe that he is assuredly in the number of the predestinate; let him be anathema. If any one saith, that he will for certain, of an absolute and infallible certainty, have that great gift of perseverance unto the end, unless he have learned this by special revelation; let him be anathema.

That’s clear enough: ‘assuredly’ and ‘certainty’ are very bad words, from the Catholic point of view. Who could possibly know he was elect, or that he will persevere to the end? Thinking that way is bound to lead to an arrogant cocky lifestyle isn’t it, without any real solid repentance or whole-hearted obedience? That’s what the Catholic Church stood for. That was why Luther’s rediscovery led not to a reformation of the whole church but instead to a brand-new church that the old church could hardly stand (anathema!).

When the Reformation came to English Presbyterians they put together their Westminster Confession of some 31,000 words, very thorough and precise. See chapter 18:4, how it finishes talking about assurance:

True believers may have the assurance of their salvation divers ways shaken, diminished, and intermitted; as, by negligence in preserving of it, by falling into some special sin which woundeth the conscience and grieveth the Spirit; by some sudden or vehement temptation, by God’s withdrawing the light of his countenance, and suffering even such as fear him to walk in darkness and to have no light: yet are they never utterly destitute of that seed of God, and life of faith, that love of Christ and the brethren, that sincerity of heart, and conscience of duty, out of which, by the operation of the Spirit, this assurance may, in due time, be revived; and by the which, in the meantime, they are supported from utter despair.

There is much encouragement there, that we can know that even when we fall into a pattern of sin that grieves the Spirit and leads to God’s ‘withdrawing the light of his countenance,’ there are still so many of the Lord’s blessings of which we are ‘never utterly destitute.’ But it still finishes up with that we ‘are supported from utter despair’—I wish it had gone to say more, at least a ‘nevertheless.’

Can you see a sharp dividing line between Westminster and Trent, after all?  How is it really between you and the Lord?  It isn’t that easy. I think it’s because Westminster isn’t really talking about justification, but more about your heart attitude and the level of your obedience, not your justification but your sanctification instead. That is after all a mark of being Reformed—Lutherans seem to run everything through justification, but we want to do it and sanctification at the same time.

Could it be that this is what we’re thinking: our justification is the ‘already’ part, but our sanctification the ‘not yet’?  The way we do Bible doctrine today is to talk a lot about ‘the already’ and ‘the not yet.’ We live in the eschaton, the end of time, and ‘Christ is risen, he is risen indeed.’ There’s the already—but we still battle sin, sometimes half-heartedly, joylessly, without much expression of our new life in Jesus.

That’s why we Reformed don’t always see things the same way. We have those ‘grace-boys’ who are always ‘preaching the gospel to themselves.’  We also have those ‘law-boys’ who take the battle with sin seriously, about all they ever do.  The ‘law-boys’ seem to talk about the ‘grace-boys’ the way Trent did—how can those people keep saying happy words about Jesus and not notice or care how messed-up their lives are? The ‘grace-boys’ keep wondering, how can the law-boys talk so much about their lives without saying anything much about Jesus?

Let’s start over, let’s work hard together to value and rejoice in the heart of all God’s good news to us. We’re both right: Jesus is our only hope and joy, and following him is very hard.  When life is tough, look harder at Jesus and bear down.  Couldn’t we all agree on that?

I’m still deeply moved and shaken by the sermon I heard Sunday from my son Marco, from Revelation 2 about the Ephesian church: You do so many things right, but you’ve lost your first love! That’s how Jesus said it would be, didn’t he?  “You will be hated by all nations because of me . . . because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24: 9, 12-13).

I think I understand that. The age of American cultural Christianity is over, the time when everyone was a good Christian and went to church to show it. But now, when we just take God’s word seriously about marriage and homosexuality and abortion and many other things, everyone around us sees us all guilty of the worst kind of hate crimes and it’s time for them to tell us about it, loud and clear.

I think it will get worse. Why do you think Jesus says that will take away our love?  Have we become too used to being respectable? So that we have to rethink radically what following Jesus means?  Yes, it’s about being faithful and bearing up and keeping at it—but why?  Isn’t it deep down from our love for the Lord and his Beloved Son and the Spirit of holiness—and for each other as we glorify Jesus together? Without that ‘first love,’ what are we doing? Toughing it out?

‘If you love me, keep my commandments’ is how Jesus said it. Too often we take that this way: since I’m better than most, I must love Jesus.  That’s sort of right, but it can’t mean that I can keep on ignoring facing up to whether I do love him or not, can it?

How can we love our Savior?  Let’s begin with prayer and ask the Lord to show us how, especially as we read his Word.  The Bible isn’t just about other people, no matter how strange they are.  God had it written for us, that we might know him.  From beginning to end it’s about people and their struggles and how the Lord rebukes them or encourages them—now just be alert to see whether that person’s life resembles yours, be ready for that, ask for that.

(I think that was what Jack Miller was doing, reading that Pauline doctrine through the way Luke showed him Jesus relating to different kinds of people. Are you ready to admit you’re needy? Jesus will heal you! Or are you proud and self-sufficient today? When you see that and repent then Jesus will heal you too! I know that’s too brief, but it’s where I am right now as I follow Jack along.)

That rubs off too on when you come to the Lord’s Table. Jesus told you he’s about to leave but that will be good news for you since he will send his Spirit!  As you take the bread and wine, be intentionally aware and focused that Jesus went to Golgotha for you, and that he’s risen and intercedes for you right now. (Maybe I’m still too low church? Something bigger is going on, beyond what I’m aware of?  High or low, we can all just trust the Lord as we reflect on what Jesus did for us.)

Be aware, Jesus Christ loves you to the end, and right now! There’s that ‘already’ we need so much. If your heart works like a Lutheran’s, there’s your justification, again and again.  Whatever else happens in my life, wherever my sinful heart goes, I am joyfully forgiven! The ‘already’ must be justification!

But what if we’re still Reformed? Then Jesus is all the world to me, my sanctifying healing, too. It has already begun, ‘definitively.’  In our experience though that doesn’t register very clearly, does it? The more we grow in Christ the more we realize how short we still are! Spiritual growth leads to our sensitivity, our ability to see our hard hearts more sharply; now there’s the puzzle.

But we can start to rejoice even there, that now we’re much more godly-alert than we ever have been before! That journaling thing can help. Write for 10 minutes at the end of the day how that battle has been going, then five years later take a look at what you said—and be amazed!  You just won’t recognize how far the Lord has taken you!

There’s the Reformed challenge for you, look at your heart and life with hope and joy. That’s what scary, almost enough to make a Lutheran out of you. But by the Lord’s grace you can see where your life has been going, without a hint of self-righteousness.  What in the world has the Lord been doing for me, and in me?  He has been keeping all of his promises, taking away that barrier between us of his judgment, and also doing his saving work within us!

For too long I’ve been telling my presbyteries that I struggle with that chapter 18 on assurance that leaves me just this side of ‘utter despair.’ I know now that all that’s wrong with it is the order.  That ‘utter despair’ should be earlier, and the real conclusion is what was said before: ‘yet are they never utterly destitute of that seed of God, and life of faith, that love of Christ and the brethren, that sincerity of heart, and conscience of duty.’

Now that works, doesn’t it? That nonsense I was thinking a couple hours ago, now that was self-righteous, that was indifference to Jesus Christ, wasn’t it? But since then ‘that life of faith, that love of Christ’ brought me to my senses, maybe temporarily only—but the Lord is there, his Spirit is hard at work in my heart. Yes, in my heart, but much more important, there it is that his blessed Spirit works to the end.

You Ephesians out there, me included, listen up now. Hard work and doctrinal alertness are good, but without your first love it is just trash in the end. So ‘ask and you will receive’: Make my heart alive again, my faithful Savior. I claim your covenant promise; you are my faithful Savior indeed.

Dr. D. Clair Davis, lives in Philadelphia, Penn., is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America, and is a Professor Emeritus of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.