During the years allotted to me by God, I have
experienced many struggles and have come through several stages in my
spiritual growth. As I reflect on the changes that have taken place, I
can see that each advance in my spiritual life corresponded to a deeper
awareness of my own sinfulness before God.
As a child I had every spiritual advantage. My
family attended a Bible-believing church, where the gospel was preached
and an effort was made to see that the message of God's grace was
included in every lesson. Sermon after sermon spoke of God's love,
God's willingness to forgive, etc. Yet, in my case all this preaching
fell on deaf ears because I did not think of myself as a sinner. Oh
yes, I had been told many times that all have sinned. I had heard it
said, over and over again, that even wrong thoughts or desires were
sinful. The Lutheran order of service even required me to recite to God
the words, “I, a poor miserable sinner confess all my sins and
iniquities whereby I have ever offended Thee.” However, I did not think
that I had ever done anything “really” bad. After all I reasoned, I had
never worshiped an idol, robbed a bank, committed adultery, or killed
anyone. My sin-corrupted reason simply refused to think that anything
that did not cause physical harm to someone could really be bad. That
is the spiritual blindness which Jesus spoke of in Matthew 15:14.
As I entered my teenage years I began to experience
lusts and desires that sought to degrade me. In order to resist such
lusts I began to use God's Law as a motivation for self-control. Yet,
to my surprise, as I began to talk about the importance of keeping the
law in order to be saved my family jumped all over me. I was told that
salvation was by grace alone, and that I would go to hell if I trusted
in works (Ephesians 2:8-9). They all seemed to understand this grace
stuff, but it did not make any sense to me. What was grace? How could
that save anyone? To me faith was nothing more than believing that
Jesus was a real person who was born of a virgin and died on a cross,
and grace was simply a way of describing figure skaters, or dancers, or
acrobats. What on earth could that have to do with salvation?
About that time I began to partake of the Lord's
Supper. However, because I did not think of myself as a sinner I
received it to my own condemnation. Suddenly everything seemed to go
wrong in my life. My grades dropped, my confidence wilted, and I began
to experience seizures. At the same time, I felt confused, condemned,
and worthless. It seemed as if the very forces of the universe were
arrayed against me (Judges 5:20). There also seemed to be a spiritual
force at work in my life that was vexing me and driving me to admit
that I was a sinner (Job 27:2). The problem was that I did not think
that I had ever broken any of the commandments. However, I finally
heard a radio preacher preach on the sin of pride, and since that was a
sin I could confess to without feeling that I was a bad person, I
admitted that I was guilty of the sin of pride.
When my family first began to insist that salvation
was by grace alone, I resisted the idea. However, the same spiritual
power that was driving me to admit my sins seemed to be compelling me
to accept it. Finally, I was driven to my knees to ask God about it. In
prayer I told God that salvation by grace did not make any sense to me,
and asked Him to show me from His Word if it were true. As I was
praying, the idea that I would not be convinced by an interpretation
ran through my mind, so I also asked God to show me if it were true by
what the words themselves actually said, rather than an interpretation.
A few months later I picked up my Bible and began to read the book of
Romans. As I was reading, the words suddenly seemed to come alive. The
meaning of the words penetrated my heart and filled my soul with joy.
After that experience, I was convinced that salvation was by grace, but
I still did not really understand what grace was.
Although the joy of that moment continued for a
while, because I was using the law as a motivation to resist fleshly
lust, and had convinced myself that I must not only trust but must also
obey, I soon lost the joy of salvation (Galatians 5:4). I had accepted
the doctrine that salvation was by grace, but I had not yet put my
trust in Jesus. Of course, if asked, I would say that I was a sinner (I
had been trained to do that), but I still wanted to think of myself as
righteous, and, for that reason did not really think of myself as a
“bad sinner.” On the contrary, in my blindness, I was convinced that
God was pleased with me because of my efforts to resist the flesh and
to obey His law. As a result my life soon became cold and empty.
During this period in my life I had convinced myself
that I was saved, even though I had no real assurance of it. I had also
learned to use the language of grace, even though my sin-corrupted
reason redefined all of the evangelical terminology, and I still
thought of myself as a righteous person. For example, if I said that
God's Law must first bring a person to repentance before they can have
forgiveness, I did not mean that we must admit our sin and look to
Christ for forgiveness. On the contrary, I did not really see what part
Christ played in salvation. Instead, I imagined that forgiveness came,
not because of Christ but because one “repented,” and that by deciding
to obey God's law. Therefore, I had simply embraced another form of
works righteousness, one that was disguised by an evangelical
terminology.
One day this thought came to me. What if God has a
different standard of righteousness than I do? I think that I am
righteous, but what if God's standard of righteousness is so much
higher than mine that He would see me as a wicked person? If that were
the case the only way I could be saved would be to throw myself on His
mercy. Suddenly something clicked in my mind. Suddenly, I realized that
God's grace is His mercy. For the first time, the doctrine of salvation
by grace made sense. To be saved by grace was to be saved by God's
mercy. The Bible passage, “All of our righteousnesses are as filthy
rags” then came to my mind (Isaiah 64:6). As a result, for the first
time I actually saw my self as a sinner in need of God's forgiveness.
Therefore, my entire way of thinking began to change. Instead of seeing
God as a harsh taskmaster, I began to think of Him as a merciful
Father. Nevertheless, I still wanted to be motivated by God's law, and
could not see how I could give up that motivation without going to the
opposite extreme.
During that period in my life I saw various statements that the Bible
made about redemption, justification, and other topics but had no idea
where various “doctrines” were found. I was blind to the fact that
doctrine is explicitly stated in Scripture “here a little, and there a
little” (Isaiah 28:10). As a result, doctrine seemed to be largely a
matter of opinion.
Soon after I realized that God's grace was His mercy
in Christ, the seizures that had troubled me ceased. Years earlier I
had asked God to give me certain signs so that I would know when He had
healed me of that problem, those signs came to pass just as I had
requested and I have not been troubled with that problem since.
Then, as I read a description of Martin Luther's
conversion experience, my thoughts went back to the experience of grace
that had brought joy to my heart years before. As a result, I asked God
to allow me to experience an understanding of His grace such as Luther
experienced, one that would open my understanding of the Bible and help
me to see how the various doctrines of Scripture fit together.
When that prayer was answered (in 1971), the Bible
suddenly seemed to come alive. As I read God’s Word it seemed as if the
Holy Spirit was speaking to my heart through what was written. In my
soul I began to feel the height and depth, the horror of sin and the
joy of salvation (See Ephesians 1:17-18). During the years previous to
that time I had read the Bible but remembered little of what I had
read. However, as the Spirit began to speak to my heart He brought
various passages to my remembrance (John 14:26). As a result, within
about six months I had a good working knowledge of the Bible, and could
find almost any passage without the need for a concordance. My eyes
were also opened to see how the Bible should be interpreted, and how
the various doctrines all fit together to form a unified body of
theology.
There were also several areas where the Holy Spirit
corrected my thinking. The first of these had to do with emotionalism.
Before I was saved, I imagined that the Holy Spirit would make me
excited and emotional. However, when the Spirit actually came, He
taught me to value discipline and self-control over fleshly emotion
(1Corinthians 14:32). I had also imagined that the Spirit would give me
information not found in Scripture, information that would supplement
and explain what the Bible said. However, to my surprise He taught me
just the opposite. He taught me to shun all revelation outside of the
Bible itself (John 8:31). At the same time, He enabled me to
distinguish between what the words of Scripture actually said, and what
they were interpreted to mean.
As I studied the Word, He led me to see that truth
is not a matter of which interpretation is right, but a matter of what
the Bible explicitly says. In short, The true doctrine is what the
Bible actually and objectively says, not what some man claims that it
says (2 Peter 1:20). In fact, any interpretations that are not found in
Scripture itself should be rejected, because they are the word of man
not the Word God. He then led me to see that God's doctrine is plainly
stated in the words of Scripture and is revealed, “Line upon line,
precept upon precept, here a little there a little” (Isaiah 28:9-10).
In that way, He led me to reject all forms of millennialism as private
interpretation, while opening my eyes to see the importance of
concentrating on the gospel, and allowing Scripture to interpret
itself, instead of speculating about Bible prophesy.
Since I had asked God to send me teachers who would
guide me into the truth, the first one he brought into my life was Dr.
William Leberecht, an elderly gentleman who had received a classical
education. Dr. Leberecht taught in a way similar to Socrates, by
discussing, listening, and then asking deep questions. From him, I
learned to clearly define my terms, think in precise logic, and analyze
thoughts by breaking them down into assumptions and premises. The
second teacher that the Lord provided was Daniel Koelpin, who had also
received a classical education. Under his guidance, coupled with
intense personal study, I acquired a good working knowledge of
theology. Other teachers and authors, such as Wayne Mund, later helped
me to round out my education. Throughout this period the Holy Spirit
helped me to grow in wisdom, and impressed upon me the importance of
critically judging my own opinions in the light of God's Word. I was
taught to subject my own opinions to rigorous examination in order to
find and eliminate any error (Isaiah 8:20, 1 Corinthians 11:31, 1 John
2:27).
At this time, I began to think about the importance
of looking at my own sins. Since I realized that it was blindness to my
own sin that had kept me from understanding the gospel, I was impressed
with the fact that throughout history, the men who received the deepest
insight into the gospel were those who had deepest awareness of their
own sin. Therefore, I asked God to help me to see myself as He saw me,
and to see clearly that even my righteousnesses were as filthy rags.
During that period I critically analyzed every
thought, urge or idea that came into my head, condemning everything
that was not in accord with righteousness. In time, I came to see that
even my “righteous” acts were corrupted by sin, and that even when I
did a kind thing (such as giving a gift) my giving was not perfect.
There were always some second thoughts that went through my mind.
Questions such as, “Do I really want to spend that much?” always arose.
At the same time, I did not try to deceive myself, for I knew that even
though such sins seemed small to sinful man they were only present
because my nature was corrupt (Jeremiah 17:9). Therefore, they were
crimes worthy of hell in the eyes of a holy God (James 2:10). After a
time, I came to the point where I felt condemned no matter what I
choose to do. When I came to that point, I decided that I no longer
needed to critically examine and condemn everything that I did.
Instead, I began to walk by faith, doing that which
seemed good and right without trying to make myself righteous (Romans
7:6). Although I almost felt like a rebel when I took this step, to my
surprise it brought me to a new level of spiritual growth, for through
it I experienced sanctification by faith. In saying that, I by no means
want to imply that I ceased to be a sinner. My nature was still sinful.
However, the struggle with sin was far less intense. If you have ever
struggled with a problem in your life only to give up, and found that
the problem disappeared after you gave up, you have experienced, at
least in part, sanctification by faith. As I began to walk by faith new
insights into God's Word flooded my mind. At last I could see clearly
that those who try to live by a list of do's and don'ts are not keeping
God's law at all. In fact, the more they try to make themselves
righteous the harder they are rebelling against God, for they are
refusing to see their sin (Romans 10:3, Galatians 5:4). In other words,
because the purpose of God's law is to expose our sin, only those who
critically look for their sins are keeping God's law. Furthermore, if
keeping God's law involves condemning ourselves as sinners, then
freedom from the law is freedom from condemnation (1Corinthians 11:31,
Romans 8:1-2). Moreover, it was one thing to know that truth as
doctrine and another to actually live it. I was free, free at last,
free not to be unrighteous but to be righteous (Romans 9:30). I was
free to be a good citizen, a faithful husband, and a godly father
without constantly being condemned by God's law (Romans 6:18). At last,
I fully understood what Martin Luther and the Apostle Paul had seen so
clearly. I did not need to constantly look at the Bible in order to
know how to live. The years of self-condemnation had inscribed the law
of God upon my heart (Jeremiah 31:33, Hebrews 8:10). At last, I could
see clearly that the forgiveness which I had in Christ Jesus did far
more than simply get me declared righteous. That forgiveness and that
forgiveness alone made me pure, perfect, and holy in the sight of God
(Hebrews 10:10,14, Romans 10:4). And, once I was free from the delusion
that my works somehow helped to sanctify me before God, I could see
many truths of Scripture more clearly. Such as the fact that those who
trust in the flesh to make them righteous are carnally minded (Romans
7:6 and 8:2-4). At the same time, many of the end time prophecies that
had before seemed so confusing, became clear. As a result, one paper
that I wrote several years ago accurately predicted the fall of
communism on the basis of God's Word.
I enjoy writing, possibly because I regard each of
the articles that I write as a work of art, and labor over each one
carefully trying to forge a thousand strands of thought into one clear
presentation. It is art of thought rather than style or rhyme, and of
words carefully chosen to convey that thought in a way that is clear
and concise.
Far too many who profess to believe in
“Justification by Faith” as a doctrine do not really live by it. They
may talk about the importance of faith, but they are still trying to
gain God’s favor, blessing, or protection by keeping the law.
Therefore, even though they appear to be dedicated believers, they are
really in rebellion against God, for they are refusing to submit to the
true righteousness that comes only by forgiveness, and that through
faith in Christ (Acts 13:39, Romans 10:3-4). [Works do not make us
righteousness before God, they simply reveal the fact that we are
righteous through faith in Christ, James 2:18.]
If I had grown up believing that the Bible was full
of error or that what it said was all a matter of opinion, I would very
likely be in hell today. Likewise, if my family had believed that
religion was a private thing that everyone should decide for himself, I
might still be in my sins. It is only by the grace of God that I am
saved. However, God used people who believed His Word and cared enough
about my salvation to condemn the errors that I once held to bring me
out of darkness and into the light.