This one was written by our fallen friend, Julian Brooks.
A few years back I was blindsided by the Gospel of Grace. Things I had heard for years about God’s love and forgiveness started to take on flesh and become more than just recited truths; they became a living person. And that’s when the downward spiral began. I started falling away. Everyone warned me this would happen if I focused too much on God’s love and forgiveness. I just didn’t expect it to happen so fast. The world of control and manipulation around which I had built my life and identity was collapsing. I have fallen from Law, and now I can’t get up.
There are moments when I read something or hear a quote from my past, and I realize just how far I have fallen. One quote in particular jumped out at me the other day…perhaps you’ve heard it before: “Is what you’re living for worth Christ dying for?” The credit for that one goes to the late great Leonard Ravenhill. Definitely a challenging question. One that used to haunt me. And by ‘haunt’ I mean literally—this quote is the inscription on Ravenhill’s tombstone. It had such an impact on me that I couldn’t preach a sermon without referencing it. “Are you sure you are living the life Jesus Christ would want you to live?” “Are you doing enough?” “Are you wasting your life? Yes, God loves you, but you can’t just sit around and not even try to get better.” Sound familiar? I wouldn’t doubt that many of you reading this have heard similar questions, or the above Ravenhill quote, dished out in a variety of ways. This was my life before, and great was the fall from it.
And because I hate being alone, I’ve done my best to take down anyone I can with me. Just to make sure I wasn’t the only one losing it, I asked a few of my fallen comrades what they thought of Ravenhill’s question. I asked them two things. “What is your first reaction to a question like this?” Followed by: “Would you classify this as Law or Gospel?”
Oh how I have ruined the lot of them. Without fail, the question made them think about their lives and failures. It made them want to take their Christianity more seriously. And they all claimed it must be Law, because it produced the stinging awareness of sin in their lives. Now all that is fine and dandy. In fact, the Law is a necessary word that God gives us; it’s one we need to hear. But the problem is that when God’s Law, which is sent to diagnose us, is not followed with a word of deliverance, or if we are told that his word of diagnosis is also his word of deliverance, we only harm and hurt, and perhaps even destroy, lives.
This little rant isn’t meant to start a theological debate with a dead saint. I do not even mean to criticize anything about Ravenhill’s life. But his question, when left to itself, uses what God has given to absolve us of guilt as a way to motivate us with guilt. It takes the very thing God uses to save us from ourselves and twists it back into another self-salvation project. It’s frustratingly anti-gospel without God’s final word. The cross is the one place where we find relief from a world that screams that we need to make ourselves count. It’s the one place where the Law can no longer declare us guilty. And its purpose is not to squeeze us into excelling more at morality. The cross by itself declares our lives worthy in spite of us.
“Is what you’re living for worth Christ dying for?” It’s ironic question to say the least. I’m guessing its intent is to cause someone to make his or her life more about Christ. And yet it only makes things more about ourselves. From my place in the distant camp of the fallen antinomians, I’ve noticed that this question strongly implies that grace was and is nothing but a loan. Yes, God gives us what we don’t deserve, but in the end, did we do enough to deserve it? It’s so subtle and yet so silly. In the end really nothing was free. And God, didn’t actually love us unconditionally–he simply saw that we had some potential, that we were people who needed a second chance but not a total resurrection.
Now to answer the question. After all, fall from Law or not, we should give a proper answer to such a pertinent question. I would have to say, “No.” When I get to heaven and I’m sitting around the dining table with Mr. Ravenhill and we look up at that spotless lamb, I doubt there will be anyone who, in light of him, will say that they lived a life worthy of his death. When we see him there, wounded from before the foundations of the earth, we will say, “I do believe not a one was worthy. And yet here we are.” For whatever reason, he did die for me, and through his death I was once and for all declared worthy.
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15 responses to “Falling from Law”
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Whoa…
Great post! I think the honest answer for everyone is, no, I am not living a life worthy of Christ’s death. That’s why it was necessary. In fact, it is biblical that no one, not even the cherubim and the 24 elders who never cease to say “Holy Holy Holy” around the throne of God, are worthy.
2 And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the book and to break its seals?” 3 And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the book or to look into it. 4 Then I began to weep greatly because no one was found worthy to open the book or to look into it; 5 and one of the elders said to me, “Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals.” 6 And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth. 7 And He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. 8 When He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. – Revelation 5:2-9 NASB
Thanks jim for the insight. That’s the scripture that I thought of when I heard this quote! It’s almost like this grace stuff is biblical.
A friend quotes the early reformers – who diagnosed much of our theological talk as “mistaking the law for the Gospel.”
Yup.
Gerhard Forde liked to say: “beware of ‘ship’ words. Words like stewardship and discipleship get us to look at ourselves, and not at Jesus.”
Discipleship is important.
Its not the Gospel.
Like this very much, been reading Falling into Grace on an MBird recommendation, and there’s much resonance here…
I used to say and think things like that all the time, and still do actually. Realising lately I’ve never graduated at all from understanding how dead I am, but how alive in Christ. And realising with gratitude, that even that faltering failure to grasp this is still covered. Not sure where I can escape this crazy love God has for us, his ragamuffin kids.
Thanks Mockingbird for continuing to repeat the call of the Gospel. I need it every day.
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts Becky, how awesome is this grace that is ours even when we don’t get it or believe it most of the time. Amen
The only thing I didn’t like was the use of the term “antinomians.” I assume it was used sarcastically since nothing in this blog is remotely antinomian. It’s too soon Julian!
Sarcasm, what’s that?
You Mockingbird guys always make me weep. I’ve lost everything but perhaps this has been a good thing. I’ve lived stupidly and selfishly and all along thought I was doing right. Grace, mercy ,love, forgiveness are new friends of mine.
Keep writing,
Thanks
Oh.MY. Oh, how I NEEDED this–particularly this week!!!
Bless you, Julian Brooks!! I am bookmarking this post, for those times when I feel utterly unworthy.
Thanks!!
God bless you Patricia! We all need this reminder everyday
Thank you.
A great word in due season!
Every time I watch Saving Private Ryan, it reminds me of why grace matters. The last words Private Ryan hears from Captain Miller are, “Earn this.” At the grave when he returns to Normandy, those words have an older Ryan on his knees, wondering almost fearing whether he has “earned” what the deaths of others have given him, with family and a full life behind him. His wife assures him that he has, but the words ring hollow. Thanks for another phrase to help remind me that the cross allows us to relax a little bit, even as it sends us out into the world filled with much to do. Reminds me of Luther: “Faith redeems, corrects, and preserves our consciences so that we know that righteousness does not consist in works, although works neither can nor ought to be wanting; just as we cannot be without food and drink and all the works of this mortal body, yet our righteousness is not in them, but in faith; and yet those works of the body are not to be despised or neglected on that account.”