Viewed from one perspective, the Protestant Reformation was an effort to remake every sector of the church according to biblical direction. In another sense, however, the spiritual heart of the Reformation was more simply an effort to rebuild the understanding of the Christian life, incorporating Luther's insight on justification. The full success of this venture has been repeatedly thwarted by the ease with which sinful people can twist the essential truth of Luther's insight. On the one hand, justification by faith can be transformed into the wholly unbiblical teaching of justification without sanctification, which Bonhoeffer has called "cheap grace." On the other hand, Puritan and Pietist efforts to guard against this abuse often led to an admixture of ascetic legalism in the realm of spiritual discipline. An unbalanced stress on auxiliary methods of assurance- testing one's life by the inspection of works and searching for the internal witness of the Spirit- obscured Luther's teaching on assurance of salvation through naked reliance on the work of Christ. Later the shift toward rationalism in parts of the church began to obscure the holiness of GOd and the depth of sin, introducing a moralism which found no use at all for the doctrine of justification. These three aberrations from the biblical teaching on justification- cheap grace, legalism, and moralism- still dominate the church today.
Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of the Spiritual Life, 100.
What a great paragraph! I love Lovelace and I am so thankful I had a chance to know him and learn from him. He was a kind mentor! In most of his analysis of the spiritual life, I believe he is so biblically faithful that he cannot be ignored even though the book was written forty years ago. All he can be is learned from, copied, and made more contemporary in example! If in doubt of this, read Tim Keller and compare his thoughts with Lovelace.
Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Of course it is always the first day of the rest of our lives! Yet, I feel it strongly. I have been preparing notes, thinking, jotting down notes, and preparing for the next several months of what I hope to be intense writing. This blog has been a resource for me to write my thoughts and to learn how to write in a way that folks can understand. I do not know if I succeeded in the later goal, but I have written much.
Daily readers have probably noticed that the frequency of my posts has slowed down. Also, the originality of my posts also is flagging. Why? I have been working on taking my ideas and rounding them into larger works.
Please pray for me. Pray for clarity of mind, health for me and my family, joy in the journey, and the ability to write like the wind. I will keep posting here several times a week. Blessings and peace!
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