As we come to the third part of Dan Phillips' helpful "The World-Tilting Gospel," we would be wise to look back at the first 6 chapters and remember how the author has successfully woven together the doctrines of Theology Proper (God), Bibliology (Bible) Christology (Christ), Anthropology (man), Hamartiology (sin), Soteriology (salvation). What a Godward verbal tapestry!
In his chapter 7 Phillips addresses justification (being declared righteous before God) in which God deals with our record. Here the reader will find a detailed orthodox presentation of Reformed soteriology. Consider these comments:
Now, as the sin that Christ was made was alien to Him, was from outside of Him, so is this righteousness alien to us, coming from outside of us. (p. 142-143)
But these three will always be present in justification: hearing the Word, repentance, and vital faith. (p. 148)
The issue is seeking and finding God in Jesus Christ. We are heading in the wrong direction, so to seek Him we must turn to Him. In so doing, we must abandon our own self-absorbed, self-ruled lives; we must turn from our self-serving, self-centered thoughts. We must embrace God the Lord in Jesus Christ. Only in this way can we find Him and His rescue and forgiveness. (p. 159)
That is, if the “faith” we claim is not a repentant faith, it isn’t real faith; it’s merely a change of opinion. And if our “repentance” does not have faith at its heart, it is not real repentance; it’s merely a change of tactics. (p. 160)
He addresses the nature of genuine faith with 3 R's: recognizing the statements of truth; realizing that those essential, revealed facts are true; and resting, taking the truths to ourselves and resting our weight on them. (pp. 161-169)
In chapter 8 the author leads us to carefully consider regeneration, how God deals with our bad nature by causing us to be born from above. Phillips' discussion of the sequence of regeneration and faith is the weakest part of his book (while understanding that his weakest part is stronger than my strongest). While I may agree with the stated sequence, I think he could have supported his argument better. His reliance on 1st John 5:1 for his proof text is a tad misguided. I think he misses both context and telos. True, the present active participle is based on the perfect passive indicative, but John's letter is not addressing the sequence of regeneration and faith.
He concludes part 3 with this summary:
Given the world-tilting truth that our central problem is guilt before God, the world’s stabs at solutions involve schemes of evasion on the one hand, or programs of self-improvement on the other. All fall hopelessly short of dealing with the real problem.
The world-tilting truth is that God deals with our sin on His terms in Christ alone. We must abandon our own agendas and programs, and embrace Christ in His truth. We must bow to His lordship. In doing this, we do not realize the world’s dim notion of turning over a new leaf. Rather, we can do it only as God makes us new people, with new natures and imputed righteousness.
God’s Word shatters this illusion by identifying the source of our discomfort: We have been judged and condemned by His perfect standard.
We also saw how God’s Word shatters blurry sentimental notions of faith as a shapeless feeling, or of conversion as something we generate from within ourselves. We had to cast aside as well any delusions of contributing anything to our standing before God, of trying to make ourselves change by ourselves, or of controlling our relationship with God.
Instead, we saw that saving faith is a gift of God, a response of our whole beings to the revealed truths of Christ. We also saw that we only could respond that way by God’s transforming grace. Through this saving faith, God counts us eternally and perfectly righteous with Christ’s own righteousness. We stand before Him by grace alone, on the firmest of foundations. (p. 183)
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