The Gospel for Real Life II

The Gospel for Real Life

The Pleasure of Obedience – Chapter Three
The pleasure of obedience seems a concept so far from our grasp because we know how radically sinful we are. But for Jesus, there was pleasure in His obedience. Not only was Jesus outwardly sinless by action, but also inwardly by thought. This is not so for us, many times we act very proper on the outside, but sin in our hearts. What is key about Jesus is that He not only obeyed the Law of God, He always desired to do so. Obedience that is not delighted in is not perfect obedience.

So what does that matter for us? We can no longer continue to only look at Jesus' death we must revel in His perfect life. Why is this, because Jesus not only died for us, He also LIVED for us. All that Christ did in life and death, He did in our place as our substitute. There are two ways Jesus' perfect obedience applies to us. The first is that He came to do what we, because of sin could not do. It is this perfect obedience to the moral will of God that is called His active obedience. He actively obeyed the Father's universal moral will, which we call the Law of God. The second way this applies to us is that Jesus suffered in our place, that is His passive obedience. Jesus obeyed the Father's specific will for Him by suffering under the penalty of sin. This wasn't just at the cross, this was also by laying aside His divine glory and assuming a human nature when He came to us as a baby. In a sense Jesus reaped what we have sown.

The difference that this should make in our lives is that Jesus assumed our obligation and liability, obeying and suffering in our place. Jesus was appointed by God the Father as our legal representative. It is only because He lived and died as our representative that His work becomes beneficial to us. We can accurately say that when Jesus lived a perfect life, we lived a perfect life. When He died on the cross to suffer the penalty of sin, we died on the cross. All that Jesus did, we did, because of our legal union with Him. All that Christ did was credited to us, by faith, because we are united with Him.

Justice Satisfied – Chapter Four


We often think of justice in human terms and it is often tainted by sin. We need to remember that God's justice is perfect. Justice may be defined as rending to everyone according to one's due. Two things to note about God's justice, it is certain and it is inflexible. It is certain in the idea that it is coming, it is inflexible meaning, we get exactly what we deserve – nothing more, nothing less. God does not exalt His mercy at the expense of His justice. In order to maintain his justice, all sin without exception must be punished. We often want God just to let us off, that cannot be so. People think that God will somehow relax His inflexible justice and pardon all of us by mere sovereign prerogative. What is important to know is that God by the perfection of His nature cannot do that. He cannot exalt one attribute (mercy) at the expense of another (justice). Justice must be satisfied.

So where is our hope? As we looked at in chapter three we know Jesus served as our legal representative in life and death. Just as Jesus fully obeyed God's Law in our place, He also suffered its full penalty in our place. Jesus bore the full brunt of God's justice and He received the full punishment that was due to us. Jesus fully and completely satisfied the justice of God on our behalf as our substitute.

As believers we must steadily keep in mind that Christ has satisfied the justice of God on our behalf. Never again should we fear the retributive justice of God. We must not allow the accusations of Satan or the condemning indictments of our conscious to bring us under a sense of God's unrequited justice. Instead, we should by faith lay hold of the wonderful truth that God's justice has been satisfied for us by our Lord Jesus Christ. (46)

The Gospel for Real Life

I have often said one of my favorite books is The Gospel for Real Life by Jerry Bridges. This book is life changing and I do not say that lightly. Jerry Bridges challenges believers to put the gospel where it rightly belongs, in our every day life! I reading through it for the second time as I am leading our summer ladies Bible Study. I am excited to see how the gospel will not only continually shape and alter my life, but the lives of the women involved in the study. My hope is to blog a brief summary of each chapter to encourage you to seek to interact with the gospel in your life every single day and in every aspect of your life.  All these comments are either direct quotes or summarized thoughts from the book. 

Unsearchable Riches – Chapter One

Unsearchable riches are found in the gospel, however we set the gospel aside at the moment of salvation and seek to be disciples. What we forget is without the gospel we cannot become true followers of Jesus Christ. Instead of living victorious lives many believers live defeated and in desperation.  Why is that, “One answer is that we have a truncated view of the gospel, tending to see it only as a door we walk through to become a Christian… we fail to see the gospel as the solution to our greatest problem – our guilt, condemnation and alienation from God. Beyond that we fail to see it as the basis of our day-to-day acceptance with Him. As a result many believers live in spiritual poverty.” (14-15)

The gospel is the good news that directly addresses the bad news in our lives. Because of the gospel “we can begin each day with the realization that I am accepted by God, not on the basis of my personal performance, but on the basis of the infinitely perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.” (18)

Why the Cross – Chapter Two

Before we can ultimately understand the good news we must begin to understand the desperate need that we have as a result of our sinful condition.  Between God and mankind there is a huge spiritual debt that must be paid, the payment is found in the cross.

When Adam & Eve were placed in the garden they were placed with one restriction, not to eat of the forbidden tree.  This involved no hardship, no inconvenience, just simple obedience.  We know the story that the failed to obey and as a result we have the “fall.” The will that was bent towards God is now bent towards evil. Adam serves as our legal representative (this is called federal headship) because of the fall we also have a sin nature and are guilty before God.

Not only do we bear original sin but we consciously and unconsciously, willfully and unintentionally sin every day.  We fail to keep the greatest commandment (Love the Lord your God) and often do not even consider the second great commandment (love your neighbor as yourself). We must understand that our sinful nature affects and pollutes everything we do. 

The importance of understanding our own sin is “not to be measured by our own sense of need, but by what God has done to meet that need… the cross is an expression of God’s wrath toward sin as well as his love to us… God’s holiness demands it (the cross) as punishment for our sins, and God’s love provided it to save us from our sins.” (29)

“It is only against the dark backdrop of our sinfulness that we can see the glory of the cross shining forth in all its brilliance and splendor. And, as we gaze upon the glory of the cross, we will also discover that Christ, in His great work for us, not only resolved our sin problem, but also secured for us those “unsearchable riches” (30) 

I welcome and would love to hear your comments and interactions with these thoughts! Stay tuned for chapter's 3 & 4 next week!