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Future Grace as the Basis for Personal Holiness Edited by Massimo Lorenzini Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord (Heb 12:14) Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God, according as we find His mind described in Scripture. It is the habit of agreeing in God's judgement-hating what He hates-loving what He loves-and measuring everything in this world by the standard of His Word. He who most entirely agrees with God, he is the most holy man. – J.C. Ryle Doubtless, every true Christian’s heart gives hearty approval to Ryle’s definition of holiness. For most of us, personal holiness is something we desire but struggle to attain. In his book titled Future Grace Pastor John Piper tells us that sin gets its power where the pleasure it offers is prized over delight in God. Our ultimate delight is not just in praising God but in prizing Him. With this principle in mind John Piper encourages us to trust in "future grace" to strengthen weak faith, trust in unconditional grace, and battle with unbelief. We reject the "Debtors Ethic," that is, obeying God out of gratitude for the salvation He has provided. This is like having a good meal at a friend’s house and insisting on repaying him. We would be horrified to have someone get out a check book at the end of a nice meal and be offered payment. Similarly when Christian service is motivated by a desire to "pay God back" we are doing much the same thing. What we should be doing, rather, is trusting in God to continue providing the resources for future living—"future grace." We cannot pay God back for the grace He has given. Every step you take in obedience does not pay God back; rather you are able to take each step by the grace of God. So in every step you take in obedience you get deeper in debt to God’s grace. "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me" (1 Cor 15:10). Backward oriented gratitude is not the power source for obedience. In other words, we don’t look back in time to the cross and to our initial conversion experience to empower us to obey God. Rather, we look forward to the hope we have in God; we exercise faith in the promises of God for future blessing to find momentum in obedience. We look forward to the future grace we expect to receive. "You can’t run your car on gratitude for yesterday’s grace," – says John Piper. We need to daily exercise fresh acts of faith in the grace of God for each new day’s challenges. Christian obedience is a "work of faith" (1 Thess 1:3; 2 Thess 1:11) or the "obedience of faith" (Rom 1:5, NAS); never do we read about the "work of gratitude" or the "obedience of gratitude." When you are faced with temptation to sin; when you are in the heat of battle with sin, take the promise of God and stab it to death. Faith severs the root of sin. Sin has power by promising a better tomorrow (or at least a better this evening) and by promising superior satisfactions. But true faith is of such a nature that it severs the root of sin by embracing a better future and providing a deeper satisfaction. The future grace of God is the deeper satisfaction and the better future. When you live by faith in future grace, the power of sin is broken by the power of a superior satisfaction and a better future. Thomas Chalmers was a great pastor, seminary professor, and leader in the Free Church of Scotland in the 19th century. He mentored men like Robert Murray McCheyne and Horatius Bonar (the hymnwriter), and he preached a landmark sermon entitled, "The Expulsive Power of a New Affection." It is a wonderful sermon in which he points out how we never lose our hold on one love until a new love comes along. He says that the only way to dispossess the heart of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one. The point is that there is no better way to overcome a bad desire than to push it out with a new one. It is in prayer that we summon the divine help to produce in us that new desire for God. A person never really gets over a crush until a new love comes along. Our hearts can be drawn from one affection to another, but they will never lose their longing to cling to something. This is why John Calvin said that our hearts are like idol factories. We will worship something. We will love something and until a new more beautiful, more believable, love comes along, we will inevitably cling to idols! But the Gospel comes to us and it brings an expulsive power—the expulsive power of a new affection. A new affection comes in, as we see Jesus as more beautiful and believable and it drives out these other affections! It is in worship, through the preaching, the singing, and the sacraments, that our hearts are drawn from other "beauties" as our eyes are opened to see Jesus for who He really is. Sinclair Ferguson applies Chalmers' biblical perspective to our own struggles today with expelling worldliness (unholiness). He writes: Sometimes we make the mistake of substituting other things for it. Favorites here are activity and learning. We become active in the service of God ecclesiastically (we gain the positions once held by those we admired and we measure our spiritual growth in terms of position achieved); we become active evangelistically and in the process measure spiritual strength in terms of increasing influence; or we become active socially, in moral and political campaigning, and measure growth in terms of involvement. Alternatively, we recognize the intellectual fascination and challenge of the gospel and devote ourselves to understanding it, perhaps for its own sake, perhaps to communicate it to others. We measure our spiritual vitality in terms of understanding, or in terms of the influence it gives us over others. But no position, influence, or evolvement can expel love for the world from our hearts. Indeed, they may be expressions of that very love. Others of us make the mistake of substituting the rules of piety for loving affection for the Father: "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!" Such disciplines have an air of sanctity about them, but in fact they have no power to restrain the love of the world. The root of the matter is not on my table, or in my neighborhood, but in my heart. Worldliness has still not been expelled. It is all too possible, in these different ways, to have the form of genuine godliness (how subtle our hearts are!) without its power. Love for the world will not have been expunged, but merely diverted. Only a new love is adequate to expel the old one. Only love for Christ, with all that it implies, can squeeze out the love of this world. Only those who long for Christ’s appearing will be delivered from Demas-like desertion caused by being in love with this world.   How can we recover the new affection for Christ and his kingdom that so powerfully impacted our life-long worldliness, and in which we crucified the flesh with its lusts?   What was it that created that first love in any case? Do you remember? It was our discovery of Christ’s grace in the realization of our own sin. We are not naturally capable of loving God for himself, indeed we hate him. But in discovering this about ourselves, and in learning of the Lord’s supernatural love for us, love for the Father was born. Forgiven much, we loved much. We rejoiced in the hope of glory, in suffering, even in God himself. This new affection seemed first to overtake our worldliness, then to master it. Spiritual realities—Christ, grace, Scripture, prayer, fellowship, service, living for the glory of God—filled our vision and seemed so large, so desirable that other things by comparison seemed to shrink in size and become bland to the taste.   The way in which we maintain "the expulsive power of a new affection" is the same as the way we first discovered it. Only when grace is still "amazing" to us does it retain its power in us. Only as we retain a sense of our own profound sinfulness can we retain a sense of the graciousness of grace.    Many of us share Cowper’s sad questions: "Where is the blessedness I knew when first I saw the Lord? Where is the soul-refreshing view of Jesus and his word?" Let us remember the height from which we have fallen, repent and return to those first works. It would be sad if the deepest analysis of our Christianity was that it lacked a sense of sin and of grace. That would suggest that we knew little of the expulsive power of a new affection. But there is no right living that lasts without it. THE HIDING PLACE You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah (Psalm 32:7) Amidst the sorrows of the way, Lord Jesus, teach my soul to pray; And let me taste Thy special grace, And run to Christ, my Hiding place. Thou know’st the vileness of my heart, So prone to act the rebel’s part; And when Thou veil’st Thy lovely face, Where can I find a Hiding place? Lord, guide my silly, wandering feet, And draw me to Thy mercy seat. I’ve nought to trust but sovereign grace; Thou only art my Hiding-place. O how unstable is my heart! Sometimes I take the tempter’s part, And slight the tokens of Thy grace, And seem to want no Hiding-place. But when Thy Spirit shines within, And makes me feel the plague of sin; Then how I long to see Thy face! ‘Tis then I want a Hiding-place. Lord Jesus, shine, and then I can Feel sweetness in salvation’s plan; And as a sinner, plead for grace. Through Christ, the sinner’s Hiding-place. —Daniel Herbert

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