Is it sinful to be “spurred” on to obedience by the fear of hell (rather than obeying out of a thankfulness to Christ for what he did on the cross for us)?
First and most importantly, turning to the Bible: Paul wrote of his struggle with sin in Romans 6-8 in which he always points back to God as the one whom he wants to obey and who helps him in his struggle. Romans 6:22 and 23, “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is ETERNAL LIFE. For the WAGES of SIN is DEATH, BUT the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8: 2, “Through Jesus Christ…set me free from…sin and death.” And verse 5, “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the spirit have their minds set on what the spirit desires.” I believe that the spirit would desire God and Heaven, so we have been set free from the dread and fear of Hell and we are to set our gaze on heaven. But Verse 15 is the crux, “ For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ “ Paul seems to be saying so clearly not to fear but to hope in Christ and this is the hope in which we should obey. Later on, in verse 23 he is still using this language when he says to “wait eagerly for our adoption as sons.”
Now we come to a sermon preached by the famous, morning star of the reformation, John Wycliffe, entitled “The Armor of Heaven:”
“The right spur is the love that God’s dear children have for the lasting prosperity that shall never end. The left spur is dread of the pains of hell, which are without number, and never may be counted out. With these two spurs prick thy horse if he be dull and unwilling to stir himself to good. And if the right spur of love be not sharp enough to make him go forward on his journey, prick him with the left spur of dread to rouse him.
‘This spur of dread shall make our horse awake, and keep him in the right way and speed him fast forward, and cause him always to flee from deadly sin, which is thus dearly bought and maketh man to be thus bitterly pained for ever.
‘And this is the right spur that should quicken thy horse to speed in his way: that thou learn to love Jesus Christ in all thy living. And therefore send thou thy thoughts into that land of life, where no disease is.
‘For there is nothing that men may fear, but instead pleasure and joy.
‘This is the right spur, which should stir men joyfully to love Jesus Christ, and to hasten in the heavenly way…This love would move such a man to live more virtuously, and to flee from sin, a hundred times more than any dread of the pain of hell. For perfect love putteth out all dread, and cleanseth the soul from filth, and maketh it to see God, and to flee oft to heaven in its desires, hoping to dwell there for ever.”
So I come to the conclusion first of all, that it is superior to obey out of a love for Christ, which stems from gratitude for his sacrifice on the cross saving us out of our miserable estate, for without him we would all be damned to Hell. Also, it should be understood that Salvation does not come from good works but, “it is by grace you have been saved, though faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8). So the logical train of thought would then be that since God saved us we should want to give something back to him out of gratitude, that being our obedience to His Law. We have to find a place for our obedience to come in (in other words, our good works) because the Bible repeatedly speaks of it (Psalm 119). Paul even says, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin” (Romans 6:1-2). Therefore, since the Bible commands us to put our sinful nature to death but that this action will not help us move towards Salvation in any way, we must conclude that we are to obey out of gratitude to Christ.
So, does this mean that Wycliffe was wrong in saying that we should use the dread of Hell to spur us on to obedience? While the joy of heaven is greater, some times our stubborn, sinful nature needs a hard jab, as if it were a horse being spurred on, to wake it up and send our actions in a God-fearing direction. The Bible is not only full of pictures of Salvation and hope, it also states that God is a just God, who in his wrath will condemn sinners. Yes, he has saved me, but the Bible doesn’t let me forget about the fire and brimstone he has saved me from. The dread of Hell drives my thoughts to how great God’s gift is for me, which in turn makes me “overflowing with thankfulness” (Colossians 2:7).
In his letter to the Colossians Paul also overflows with thankfulness to our Savior, writing, “When you were DEAD in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us ALL our sins, having CANCELED the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them,TRIUMPHING over them by the cross” (Colossians 2:13-15).
Paul continues to say that “Since, then you have been raised with Christ set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God…put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature” (Colossians 3:1 and 5), and he finishes out his letter with rules for holy living and a Christian household.
So is it wrong to be spurred to obedience by the fear of Hell? Or is it just better to be spurred on by the joy of our Salvation?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Hey, Effie!
Great question! I think I really agree with what you already said--it's superior to obey Jesus out of gratitude and love, but fear of Hell is a perfectly legitimate reason, too. Maybe fear of Hell is the first reason the sinner comes running to Christ, and then once he or she realizes how much he or she has been given, he or she learns to obey out of love for Christ.
That's interesting, because recently I've been learning about how important it is to love God for Who He is, not just for what He's done for us! In our Sunday School class a few weeks ago, our pastor mentioned that, and also how the truer a Christian's repentance is, the happier they will be to have been forgiven!
Oh, another thing about works versus grace. I was reading a passage in Ezekiel awhile ago that talks about the righteous man and the wicked man and the consequences of their sin, and it made me wonder, well, of course, no one is righteous--we all only have righteousness imputed to us by Christ. But so often the Bible talks about "the righteous man." Are we just supposed to assume that means "the forgiven man"? Well, our works do count for something, don't they?...
One last thing. I've been given so much, I feel like a sponge. I really want to do great things for God to try and repay Him--but obviously there's no way I can! I think if I'm not careful, that can actually be my pride saying, "I'm going to give God a really big gift," or "I'm going to show other people how holy I am." There's no way I can ever do enough to impress God, and trying to impress others is--just plain wrong! I guess maybe I should start doing more things that nobody notices....
I do remember a Bible class freshman year when pastor D went over the levels of hell and how the Lord does reward our good works. but I think the part about the "righteous man" that you were talking about is how Christ sees us after redemption. Drew talked about that a lot at the beginning of college group. How we are soo soo sinful but Christ died for us and NOW God sees us as righteous because Christ's righteousness was imputed to us like you said.
Also, the Bible does say not to pray on the street corner like the pharasee because he receives his reward here on earth, that of men's praise. Instead we are to do good things in secret so only the Father can see and our reward will be in heaven. And lastly, I would say about learning to love Christ and how our good deeds should spring from that, read some Piper...he very much touches on these things.
oh and one last thing: do you think we can really have a truely righteous motive? I think it is Christ in us that helps us to do good but that is not us so we cannot, correct?
Yeah, I think what Drew said is right--it just seems like the Bible talks so much about our righteousness, especially in the Old Testament--Psalm 15 and stuff.
But I guess maybe the reason it does is just to show us how utterly hopeless it is for us to try to be righteous.
Yeah, I think you're right that in ourselves we can have no truly pure motives at all. Which makes you wonder, what about all those super-nice unbelievers? Why do they do good things? Maybe because that's just what they were taught, and they realize the easiest way to get along in the world is to be nice to other people. But I think part of it is common grace. We do all have that sense of right and wrong in us, and occasionally we will do selfless things. Nobody is completely bad, right?
No I actually completely disagree with that last statement. We are all inherently sinful as romans 3:23 says. We are ALL completely Bad. BUT GOD saved us in his love anyway. I don't think anyone's motives are selfless. We are all selfish. And I know for a fact that I myself do acts that may look good purely because I want to be liked and praised for them.
Mmm, but what about our consciences? Everybody does have a little sense of good. I think that's because of Common Grace. Like what C.S. Lewis says in the (I think) second chapter of Mere Christianity; sometimes sinful people do truly selfless things that hurt themselves, and there's no way to explain it except that we have a little bit of good in us. I see what you mean though; and I definitely could be wrong. Maybe we should ask somebody else?
Post a Comment