We have been in the Regeneration, Renewal and Perfection series for some considerable time. And we cannot yet conclude this series until we have dealt with one or two important questions that have not yet been touched upon. And I have dwelt at some considerable length on perfection for the reason that to some brothers and sisters it may still not be clear why this insistence upon perfection in the Church. When most Christians are barely just struggling to survive, perfection is simply too remote even to consider.
And we have seen that this misconception is born of the fact that one has not yet understood what perfection is. That perfection, far from being a luxury, is essential to survival in the Biblical sense of perfection. And what then is this Biblical sense of perfection which the Scripture itself lays such enormous emphasis upon? Perfection in the Bible, in Scripture, is something very practical. It is not some impractical spiritual idealism. Basically, perfection in Scripture has to do with function. It has to do with practice. It has to do with the operational ability of a Christian. That's what it amounts to.
Let me illustrate this very simply. Anyone who drives a car will know that if there are certain imperfections in the car, mechanically speaking, the car will not be properly operational. The perfection of the engine, when we speak of perfection, does not mean that the engine cannot be improved in its design. It does not mean that the engine could not be made better, more efficient, lighter, more powerful, or whatever it is. It merely means that particular engine we are talking about is running properly. That's what perfection means. It's a functional perfection. It is doing its job properly. It does not mean it cannot be further improved in terms of its function, but that given its present state of design, it is running properly. It's doing its job.
I mentioned that we went to Ottawa for the debate. And as we were driving to Ottawa, the three of us, that is Helen, Ealing, and myself, we were sitting there and saying, you know, we are sitting in a regenerated car. This car is a parable of regeneration. Why is it a parable of regeneration? Because oddly enough, the shell of the car, the body, is still the same. But inside, it's an all new thing. It has another engine inside now, which was put in for a few hundred dollars. The old engine was dismantled, ripped out, discarded. And another engine, also old, but still in good functional condition, was put in. As you know, we bought that old engine for four hundred dollars and put it in. And it's running very fine, very well. Perfectly functioning engine.
And the steering is new. The radiator is new. Virtually everything is new inside there, except the shell, the body. It's a reborn car. It's got a new heart. It's got a new circulation system. It's got new lungs. Everything is new. New air filter, everything. You see? It's a reborn car. A regenerated car. So, as we were sitting there, we said, isn't this a parable of the Christian life? When you become a Christian, when you are regenerated, you are born, you become a new person inside. I mean, you're still wearing the clothes you wore before baptism. Presumably, you didn't rush out and buy a new suit. Your body is still the same body. Everybody still recognizes your face. But inside, you're a whole new person. That's what regeneration is.
And this car was running along smoothly, purring along the highway. Oh, this is a nice new feeling in the car. I mean, before, all this noise and banging, the cylinders were burnt out. But now it was smoothly purring down the highway. So far, so good. The next day, Helen started up the car. She couldn't turn the steering wheel around. Wait, what happened? Steering is supposed to be new and is back in trouble again. And then I found that the next day, when I stepped on the accelerator, it wouldn't slow down. The engine just kept racing at full speed. I said, what happened to this regenerated car? This regenerated car is regenerated, renewed, but not perfect. Just lacking perfection. And if these imperfections are not speedily corrected, we're either going to have an accident, or this car is going to burn out. The whole engine is going to burn out.
Rather mystified, we wondered, what is happening with this? So I opened the bonnet and looked inside the engine to see what's going on, and I saw the steering fluid was dripping out. It was leaking. So I took this into a garage, and in fact, all that was happening was that some of the hoses had not been properly tightened on the steering system, and the oil pressure was such that it was forcing the fluid out between the joints. And inside, one joint was loose. It had not been properly tightened, and the pressure of the fluid had forced the connecting joints apart so that it was losing pressure altogether. That's why we couldn't turn the wheel. It was just a matter of tightening up the clips that were holding the hoses on the steering system. Very small. And imperfection is often these kinds of so-called little things that completely mess up the performance and make the thing non-functional.
And then the engine was racing, so the mechanic looked at it, and he saw that the whole problem had to do with a spring in it that was probably worth 50 cents. But because he didn't have the right spring to replace that one in the car, that spring is called the throttle return spring, which means that it pulls the throttle back. When you step on the accelerator, you let it go, that spring pulls the throttle back so that the throttle closes again. But this spring was too weak. It couldn't pull the throttle back, so the throttle remained open and the engine was racing. That little spring cost only 50 cents. But because he didn't have a spring of that kind, he had to mess around with that spring for 20 minutes, cutting it, making it shorter, stretching it out further. 20 minutes of labor charged for a 50-cent spring. I end up paying $15 just to have that spring adjusted and the hoses tightened. The imperfection cost $15. After that, the car was running just fine again.
Now this illustrates the whole thing about regeneration, renewal, and perfection. Isn't it wonderful? The Lord keeps dealing with me in such a way that I have a ready-to-hand illustration to illustrate the message every time I'm going to preach a message. How marvelous are the ways of the Lord. So that this point is vividly clear before our minds. Perfection then has to do with function. That means to say you may be regenerated, you may be in the process of being renewed, but you don't function properly like so many Christians. And when the steering fluid is leaking out of your life, you're going to find that you can't turn left or right. You're just not properly maneuverable. You're very stiff in all your movements. You don't know whether to go this way or to go that way. And when the Lord wants to turn you, he's got a hard time.
Have you tried turning power steering without power fluid in it? Oh, you really have to be Hercules. It's really tough to turn the car without power steering when the power steering is not working. This is really something to try. You have to hang your whole weight on the wheel to turn it around. And that's how many Christians are. They are just not maneuverable before the Lord. The Lord cannot direct your life, and you are so unresponsive to him. When he wants you to do this, you don't do this. When he wants you to do that, you don't do that. You're just not responsive to the Lord. In the same way, when he wants you to go fast, you go slow. When he wants you to go slow, you go fast. The throttle spring will not close. The engine is racing away. You're going at full speed when you're supposed to be going slow. And you're going to be burning out that engine in no time.
You see, those are the imperfections which hinder functionality. What's the good of having a brand new engine in there when you don't have even a proper 50-cent spring that helps the thing to work properly? You see. Now this is what perfection is about. Many Christians in the church are simply not functional. They're doing everything wrong. The engine is roaring away when they are standing at a stop sign. You see, what's this guy doing here? And he doesn't know what to do about it himself. That's the tragedy. He doesn't know how to slow it down. He has to come in and somebody else has to patch him up. He has to come in to the church garage and the church mechanic, usually the pastor, has to roll up his sleeves and through some more counseling sessions try to figure out now what's wrong with this person. What are his problems?
And that's why the church mechanic, as you can see, is usually very busy trying to sort out Christians who are not functioning properly and who have all kinds of headaches. They don't know why this thing doesn't work, why that thing doesn't work, how come I can't do this, how come I don't do that. Now what's the use, as I say, of having put in a few hundred dollars' worth of producing a new engine in there, putting in whole new equipment when the thing doesn't work properly? And haven't you discovered, for example, after your baptism, you say, ah, I'm a whole new person now, it feels good, and then next day you wake up like the car we have next day and hey, how come the steering won't turn? How come this thing doesn't work? How come that doesn't work? Everything is stalling in there and everybody needs to be sorted out.
Perfection, then, I stress again in the Bible, simply means that you are operational, you are functioning in the way the Lord meant you to function. Just like when we say that that engine is working perfectly, we mean it is behaving in the way it ought to be behaving, in the way that it was designed to behave, in the way that the engineer who designed that engine meant it to function. It is not consuming more gas than it ought to consume, it is not burning more oil than it ought to, and polluting the air and making everybody cough round about you, just like our old engine did, billows of black smoke coming out and everyone is coughing, and even my clothes smelled of engine oil because of these atomized molecules of oil flying everywhere and clinging up to everything. You see, that is not how it was meant to function. It wasn't working. That one couldn't be repaired anymore. It had to be ripped out completely and transformed.
In the same way, you cannot become a Christian simply by certain improvements or repairs. Regeneration means that your old life is beyond repair. God has to take your old life out altogether. It has to be finished with. You die in baptism. It declares that this old life is no longer functional. It cannot be repaired. It is out altogether. And God gives you a whole new life. But that new life has to be maintained in such a way that it's working properly. And when we mishandle it or we do some wrong things with it, or certain things were not properly adjusted by maybe other Christians or by ourselves, special attention has to be put into it to make sure that it works properly.
So when we talk about perfection, let's get something very, very clear in our minds. We are not talking about some super idealism of being a Christian. We are simply talking about everything working as it ought to work. Now ask yourself this question. Your Christian life right now, is it working as it ought to? Is everything working just fine? As I ask you, how are you doing? Excellent. Praise the Lord. Everything is fine. Oh, I have a hard time. How is it going? Oh, could be better. How are you doing? Ah, well, are there any functional Christians around here? What's going on? The church is not functioning because its individual members are not functioning.
And you say perfection is a luxury? I mean, is it a luxury to have a car that runs properly, or is it a luxury not to have a car running properly? It seems the luxury is when it's imperfect, because the luxury of imperfection means that the engine is going to burn out, other damage is going to happen. It's going to result in an enormously expensive repair. If those imperfections are not speedily corrected, every mechanic, every engineer knows that perfection is not the luxury. It's the imperfection that's the luxury. It's the imperfections that are going to cost terribly if they are not quickly put right. Everybody understands that in the world. Why are the Christians always the last to understand the things that are very simple for non-Christians to understand? Perfection is a luxury? That is nonsense. It is imperfection that's a luxury. Precisely because of the damage that imperfections will do and the cost to repair those damages.
So, when your life is not working properly, you have immediately to find out why is it not working properly. When your spiritual life is not functional, not operational, you must immediately ask what's going wrong. Because if you don't set it right real quick, your whole mechanism will break down. You're going to go back to square one. So that is perfection in Scripture. That's what we've been talking about in this whole series.
Now, when we say that perfection in the Bible means operationality, means being functional, we are talking, of course, primarily about relationships, that you have a working relationship with God, and you have a working and meaningful relationship with the brothers and sisters in the church. Relationships, interpersonal relationships, is what the working, functional, spiritual life is about. And that boils down into daily life, into matters of conduct. How we behave, how we do things. When the engine is roaring, when it ought not to be roaring, then we say it is behaving incorrectly. The engine is not doing what it ought to do. When a Christian is not behaving as he ought to behave, we say that there is something wrong with the spiritual life.
If a Christian is losing his temper, you say there is something wrong. The temperature is too high. In the car, you see the water temperature needle is going too high, it's moving into the red mark. You say, hey, I'm going to blow my radiator out real fast. There is something wrong with the thermostat. Maybe there is a blockage in the radiator core. Something is wrong. We've got to settle this thing real quickly because an overheated engine can mean a burnt-out transmission, among other things. You know how much it costs to repair a transmission. Therefore, you don't wait for the imperfection to continue until you have a disaster. You quickly correct it. That's what perfection is about. You restore it to perfection. That is, restore it to its proper functional order.
All this is extremely practical. The Christian life is very practical. I'm not talking about some pie in the sky thing. I'm talking about a Christian life that works from day to day. Look at your conduct. You get very impatient. You get hot under the collar. You speak rudely. You speak rashly. You speak unkindly. You are inconsiderate. And all these things are talking about a Christian life that is not what God meant it to be. Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion? Who is going to speak gloriously of Zion when they see you losing your temper? When they see you behaving badly? When they see you out of control? When they see you speaking rude, nasty words to other people? Glorious things are spoken? No, no, no. There's nothing glorious. The functional capacity of the Christian is what the glory of the church and the witness to God depends on.
People know Christ or reject Christ by looking at you and at me. When they look at an imperfect and non-functional Christian, they say, this kind of Christianity is nothing. I mean, I don't want to be a Christian. Right. And you say perfection is a luxury? What is my basic requirement? That you function properly as a Christian. That means you conduct yourself properly as a Christian in everyday life. That you and I live as we are meant to live.
And when we look into the Scriptures and you look at how the word perfection is used in the Bible, you will see that the word perfect always occurs in a practical context. Matthew 5:48, "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect," stands in a context. Look at it before and after. It's about conduct, about the way one functions. Just look at it. It all has to do with perfection of conduct, that a Christian is behaving as he was meant to behave, as God meant you to behave. You see it right in this context in Matthew 5:48. The previous verses are talking about how non-Christians, if you greet those who greet you, then what different are you from the non-Christian? They also greet their friends. So what do we mean? Perfection means that you behave extraordinarily, a little bit more than the non-Christian, a little bit more outstanding in the ways you behave. You are able to smile when the non-Christian cannot smile. You are able to remain composed when the non-Christian cannot remain composed. Are you able to do any of those things? If not, then what is perfection? Wherein have you got a new engine? Wherein have you been regenerated?
If Paul panicked when the ship was going down, as you remember in Acts, just like all the rest of the crew panicked, then he was not functioning perfectly. He was not functioning as a Christian was meant to function. But Paul—the ship was sinking—and the only one who didn't panic was Paul. He functioned in the proper relationship with God. He had faith. This is what impressed John Wesley so much, when you remember he went over to the States from England in the early days, the colonial days. When he was going over, the ship was caught in a terrible storm, and there was a group of Christians on board that, when everyone else panicked, what were they doing? They were singing hymns. They were worshipping the Lord. And John Wesley himself, a so-called Christian and a preacher, was staggered. Because for the first time he saw Christians who really functioned as Christians. They were functioning perfectly. That means they were behaving in the way that God meant a Christian to behave. And when he saw this group of Christians, he was utterly astonished. That was a turning point in his life when he saw these humble, unlearned Christians refusing to behave like everyone else. They didn't panic.
And this is what we have there in Matthew 5. A Christian who is truly regenerated does not behave in the way non-Christians behave. Doesn't behave in the way he behaved when he was a non-Christian. Are you very anxious? And if you are anxious like everyone else is anxious—oh, what's going to happen to my job? The unemployment rate is very high. What's going to happen to my job? What's going to happen to my future? I have no money to put into the RRSP this year. I'm going to be in this and that—and so on. This is a Christian? All the non-Christians talk like that and he talks the same way. That's a Christian? You see, that's not perfection. Perfection is when the unemployment rate is very high, you're going to lose your job, everyone panics, and you're at peace. That's perfection. That's as practical as that. And you think we are talking about spiritual pie in the sky? No way. That is how practical perfection is in the Bible.
But if we behave in all these unlovely ways, we are eaten up by anxiety. If your conversation is the same as the non-Christian, you also like to talk about the same things that they talk about. They love to talk about how much money they are making and how their job prospects are good and they are going to be promoted to this and that. And you are all delighted in the same things. You say, well, they love the world as much as we do. These Christians love the world. I mean, what's the point of being a Christian? These guys are no different from us. They cling to the same things as we do. They love money every bit as much as we do. Perfection is precisely what's lacking in the church. The church today cannot shine with glory because it is so terribly imperfect. And by imperfect I mean it is not functional. It is not doing what it's supposed to do.
The same thing in 1 Peter 1, verses 15 and 16. In that context again, Peter is saying, be holy as he who called you is holy. Let your conduct show forth that holiness. He is again talking about holiness, which is another word for perfection, in terms of conduct. Holiness is not something that you sit there and all day your hands are clasped together and you shave the top of your head so that a little bit of light can shine forth. I mean, what is this? Holiness has nothing to do with the kind of garment you wear, whether you tie a string or a belt around. I'm sure the Lord doesn't mind whether you use a belt if you have one. I'm sure you don't become more holy because you tie a rope around your waist. It has to do with the quality of your conduct. It has nothing to do with these outward things. And there again we see, be holy, be perfect as he is perfect. Again, it has to do with conduct. As I say, everywhere in Scripture, perfection and holiness has to do with this very practical concern.
But now here we must contend for the faith that we are called upon to defend. In Jude, in the letter of Jude, verse 3, it says that we vigorously, earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to us. I want to point out to you that the kind of Christianity I am talking about and the doctrine that I am here delineating for you signifies fundamentally a different kind of Christianity from the kind that we are accustomed to hearing. Now I've taken one major leap in the statement that I'm making here. Let me make this position a little more clear. Christianity as we know it today has quite a different concern from that which I am talking about right now. And I will have to explain this more fully.
The kind of Christianity, especially among evangelical circles today, is defined very well in the language of Unger. Many of you know Unger's Bible Dictionary. And here I have to attack a position, unfortunately, so popular among evangelical circles, which is very false. And I must attack it most vigorously in order to save, if God so permits me, to save the church from this kind of falsehood and error. Now Unger's Bible Dictionary is very popular. In many ways it is quite good. But when it comes to perfection, sanctification, and the vital doctrines of the Christian life, it is producing a terribly false teaching there. And I have to warn you. If you have Unger's Bible Dictionary and you go home and you look under the article called Perfection, you will see that half of that article on Perfection is devoted to something called position in Christ. I will call this quite simply positionalism. This kind of doctrine is a very, very dangerous doctrine. And let me try to define it for you more clearly.
When you look at that article in Unger's Bible Dictionary, a number of verses are quoted to defend its position called our position in Christ. And I will try to explain it to you a little more fully. Now, what it is saying here is that when you are saved, you are in Christ. And because you are in Christ, you are positionally perfect. What do you mean positionally perfect? It means you are perfect in Christ. What does that mean? Well, it means that Christ is perfect. And because you are in him, therefore you are in a perfect position. He is perfect. You are in Christ who is perfect. Therefore, you are perfect in him. Now, this is very, very standard evangelical doctrine. And at first sight, it sounds very convincing. But exegetically, in every aspect, it's false. And I cannot go into exceedingly long details to expand this. Because I want to stress to you that we are standing in two entirely different Christian positions. One is the New Testament position of a dynamic Christian faith, a functional Christian faith. The other is a doctrine of positionalism, which is non-functional. It is static. It doesn't move. You simply are perfect by being nothing, by doing nothing. You simply are perfect somehow by just being in Christ.
Now, I want you to begin to see what's happening here. Firstly, let me point out the errors of this positional teaching. First of all, the verses cited by Unger in the article under Perfection all deal with the phrase "in Christ," which Paul often uses. But of course, the great error of its use is that "in Christ" does not have anything to do primarily with position in Scripture. Let us bear one thing very clearly in mind. Christ is a person, not a place. Get this clearly into your mind. Christ is not a geographical location. He is not a locus, a place. He is a person. To talk about "in Christ" as though he were some kind of a thing, or some kind of a geographical location, and you are located somewhere in him, you have to completely misunderstand Paul's expression "in Christ."
You see, why I have to take on this positional teaching is because they will say, ah yes, but we don't need all this stress on functionality and so on. We are already perfect in Christ. It sounds so quiet, but so forth. Brothers and sisters, whenever you look at verses being quoted in a Bible dictionary, or in a theological book, or in a systematic theology book, long lists of verses are quoted behind a statement. You check those verses carefully, as I do, and look at what those verses are really saying. And when you look at Unger, you will find that those verses don't support the statement at all. Those verses merely are quoting verses about being in Christ. And we can all agree that we are in Christ. But we do not agree that "in Christ" is a geographical, or in any other position. Christ is not a place. Christ is a person.
To be "in Christ," in the biblical meaning, means to stand in relation to him. To stand in a living relationship to him. That's what "in Christ" means. You are in Christ or not in Christ depending on whether you are in relationship to him, whether you have a living relationship to him or not. We are in Christ if we are in relationship to him. If he is the one by whom we live. If he is the one in whose power we live. If he is the one in whose grace we live. It's in his grace, in his power, in his life that we live. That is in relation to him. When I say that we stand in life or in grace, we don't mean that grace is a place, that life is a place. We are talking about a relationship. And yet this kind of very basic error of thinking and exegesis is what's being made by people like Unger. "In" does not have to do with place, with locus. Let's bear this in mind.
Jesus is a person. To be in Christ means we live in relation to him. We live in his power, in his grace, in his mercy, in his life. And mercy, grace, life, all these are not places. It means that these things are the ones that empower us. It's in the power of these things—grace, mercy, kindness—that come from him that we can live. Paul basically based his statement about being in Christ from the Lord's teaching in John 15, of course. "I am the vine, you are the branches. You abide in me, I abide in you." Now this, you abide in me, I abide in you—I am talking about relationships. Just like the vine is related to the branch. The branch is related to the vine. The branch is not strictly in the stem, or the stem not strictly there, connected to each other. "In" means they stand in a direct living relationship to one another.
You can say the branch ends at the stem. It doesn't somehow go right into the stem, nor does the stem go right into the branch, if you like, except in a most metaphorical way. And anyway, this is metaphorical language. There is a possibility that we can actually be in a stem, or a stem could be in some sense in a branch, in some way, because we are dealing with things. But Jesus is not a thing. So we must not use metaphorical language in this kind of way so as to misuse it. So when Paul, for example, in Romans speaks about being in Adam, he is hardly suggesting that you and I are somehow geographically located in Adam, or legally located in Adam, whatever that might mean. Adam is not a place. To be in Adam, or to be in Christ, means we are either talking about our relationship to Adam, or our relationship to Christ. Now these things are very, very clear.
# Perfection: Functioning Spiritually (Part 2)
In the Spirit, the Spirit is not some kind of a geographical location that we are located in the Spirit or in the flesh. It just means that we stand in a relationship to the Spirit or to the flesh, being either controlled by the flesh or controlled by the Spirit. And you would think that anyone who writes a Bible dictionary would at least get his exegesis straight. But it's amazing. You never cease to be amazed at this kind of confusion and ignorance that comes up.
I have to say to the credit of the New Bible Dictionary that it doesn't make this mistake. In fact, J.I. Packer is very careful not once to raise the matter of position when he talks about perfection in the New Bible Dictionary. So I have to concentrate only on one Bible dictionary, namely Unger, that makes this mistake, but not the other Bible dictionaries who are careful not to make this kind of mistake. And as I said, J.I. Packer, in his article on perfection in the New Bible Dictionary, never once talks about this absurdity about some position, as though we were in some geographical location in Christ or something of this sort.
So once we get this thing clear, we are ready to consider the further errors of the positional perfection notion. Why is this teaching dangerous that Unger delineates? Well, the danger is this: that because he is perfect, it somehow absolves us from being perfect. That because he is perfect and we are in Christ, therefore we don't need to be perfect anymore. So that the very teaching of the Lord is contradicted. "Be perfect as I am perfect" is now said to mean, "I am perfect, therefore you don't have to be perfect." Can you see what it does? It completely turns the Lord's teaching upside down and destroys his teaching. It is a perversion of his teaching. How dare we say that because he is perfect, we don't need to be perfect because we are perfect in him. This is nonsense. We cannot deal with false teachings of this kind and accept this kind of teaching.
Somewhat amusingly perhaps, but tragically, another instance is this. Another verse cited by Unger is Galatians 3:27. And it would be laughable if it were not so tragic. Galatians 3:27 says that as many as have received Christ have put on Christ. So we are in Christ in the sense that we have put on Christ. And Paul is using the language of garments, that we wear Christ as a garment, as it were, in the new life. And therefore we are in Christ so that we put on the garment. And the reasoning goes on like this: that whenever God looks at us, he doesn't see us because he sees Christ. Why? Because we have put on Christ. And therefore, when we have put on Christ who is perfect, then when God looks at us, he only sees the perfection of Christ. He doesn't see our imperfections anymore.
Now as I say, this would be comical if it were not altogether stupid, not to say ridiculous. Let me ask you a question. When you put on your shirt today, did you put it on your face? I hope you didn't put your trousers on your face. I hope you know where to wear your trousers or your shirt. I mean, I sometimes feel embarrassed that we have Christians who can come up with such stupidity. Does anybody wear their clothes on their face? Well, obviously not. Then when you put on Christ, where do you put on Christ? Do you put him on your face?
When Jesus is put on, he's talking about clothes, is he not? In Genesis chapter 3, verse 21, it says that God clothed Adam and Eve with the skin of a sheep. I presume that God didn't wrap the sheepskin around their faces so that in future all he saw was two sheep walking around. He didn't see Adam and Eve anymore. He so clothed Adam and Eve that all he could see was two sheep. I mean, this kind of thing is really too absurd to talk about. So if we are going to talk about clothing, which is the language, if you like, that Paul is talking about in Galatians 3:27, we have put on the robes of righteousness. They are not meant to hide us. They are meant to beautify us. You don't wear clothes to hide yourself, presumably. You wear clothes to carry the beauty, the glory of Christ. And because you go tomorrow to buy a new dress, I hope I can still recognize you. I presume you are not going to wear the dress over your face. I mean, this is too ridiculous.
You know, there is so much nonsense said in the name of theology that I can't believe this. I sometimes find it embarrassing to have to even expose such error. I mean, for a non-Christian listening to this, I must think—some Christians must be nitwits, and I have to confess that it sounds that way. I mean, surely we put on Christ. The language of Paul is perfectly clear. We are clothed in his righteousness. We are clothed in his beauty. We haven't lost our identity. People can still see, that's you. That's him. The human said, hey, who are you? Oh, this is Jesus coming. That would be wonderful. I mean, it would have been really wonderful. I'm still waiting to see the Christian who has been clothed with Christ in such a way that not only God doesn't know the difference, even you and I don't know the difference anymore.
But it seems easier to fool God than to fool us, isn't it? I mean, these people are telling us that God fooled himself by dressing you and me in Christ, but everybody else is not fooled. Especially not your parents, especially not your roommates. No one else is fooled except God. God must be the easiest person around here to fool. What kind of teaching have we got? What kind of theologians have we got? I mean, it's disgraceful. These are called theologians. I mean, what do they take everyone else for? Who fools? What kind of a God do they worship? A God who specializes in deceiving himself, so that he clothes you in glory and the beauty and perfection of Christ, and every time he looks at you he says, ah, that's Jesus. And so when Brother Boo comes into the presence of God, he says, how are you, Jesus, today? As I said, this would be comic if it weren't so tragically foolish. God is a God who wants to kid himself? But what kind of teaching is this? This is called positional perfection. As I said, you manage to fool everyone—in fact, I should say, you manage to fool no one except God. And the only one who is fooling himself is God. God is fooling himself, and all of us know this guy is—look at him, look at all his faults. I mean, I don't see any Jesus in him at all. And he is clothed in the perfection of Christ. I mean, who are we talking about? Positional perfection. To quote Galatians 3:27 in this way is to make Galatians 3:27 a joke. It is an act of absurdity.
And so, we have to be Christians who function. And I think that anyone who can come up with a doctrine like this is really spiritually not very functional, I'm sorry to say. I mean, the mind, somewhere, the spiritual inside, something is not functioning. How can we come up with such absurd doctrines? And yet, let me tell you, brothers and sisters, this doctrine, which is a caricature, is held today by millions of Christians, just like Unger's. That's the tragedy. Millions of Christians have held this kind of so-called positional perfection teaching. And I'm sure you have heard it before. I think many of you have heard this teaching before. It's not the first time you are hearing it from me, I'm sure. Positional perfection, as dangerous as I say, precisely because it's telling us, because Jesus is perfect, you don't have to be perfect. Dreadful.
So that the Lord's command, "Be perfect as I am perfect," is written off. In fact, the implications of this are so dreadful that if I pursue the example, you'll see what I mean. It means that because Jesus is forgiving—boiling down to practical instances—you and I don't have to be forgiving. So that even if you don't forgive, so long as Jesus is forgiving, you are in Christ. God doesn't see your unforgiving attitude. He doesn't see your sins. He only sees the forgiving heart of Jesus. And he therefore accepts you anyway. This kind of teaching is going to hide every sin under the so-called perfection of Christ. It hides every manner of evil. It gives you license to do everything wrong. But that's not the Lord's teaching. The Lord's teaching is, if you don't forgive, neither will you be forgiven. And there is no positional perfection teaching in the Lord's teaching at all. This is a pure invention, a distortion of the Word of God. And we are the ones who have to defend our teaching. We are being attacked for saying wrong things. Who speaks the truth? Let anyone who has eyes to look at the Scripture decide for themselves who speaks the truth.
Now, we see that from this teaching then, instead of it bringing us closer to the Lord, this positional perfection, it makes our drawing near to God unnecessary. Put in another way, it can say like this: because Jesus is interceding for us day and night, he is praying all the time, and because we are in him who is interceding all the time, then we don't even have to pray, because he does all the praying for us. I mean, this is vicarious—not only vicarious dying, it's called vicarious living. I mean, he dies for us and he lives for us, and we don't have to do anything but be transported as we are, just as I am, sin and all, unrepentant and unregenerate, whatever you like, carried up into heaven.
In fact, a lot of what Unger says in the article on perfection is so absolutely nonsensical, I can't make head or tail of it. He says we are positionally perfect in Christ, and now we have to realize it by reckoning what we are in Christ through faith. What are we talking about? I mean, how did you get into Christ if it was not by faith in the first place? And then, are we talking about another act of faith subsequent to the previous act of faith by which we realize what we are? I must say, more nonsense is said in the name of theology than anyone can quite imagine. So he is really saying we are perfect in Christ, but if we want to become functionally perfect, if we want to behave like Christians, we have to reckon what we already are in Christ by applying it into our life as some kind of separate act of faith. How do we need a separate act of faith? If it was not the original act of faith that placed us into Christ in the first place, that same faith should be functional. In other words, position and function in the New Testament are not two different stages, two different things. They are one and the same thing. We cannot separate these two things. We have the position because we function in that way.
One last word on this matter. If our position in Christ—and we can speak in some sense of a position in Christ, I don't mean to say that it is absolutely wrong to speak of position in any sense—but it is wrong to speak about positionalism in that particular way. If we have any position in Christ, then it was granted to us by grace. And far from a position absolving us from the necessity to function, it is position that imposes upon us the need to function. Because as the Lord says in Luke chapter 12, verse 48, to whom much is given, much will be required. If our position in Christ is a position given to us by grace, then much will be required of us from being in that position. And so we can go on in this way to see very clearly how we must avoid the errors of this kind of teaching.
Let me now again come back to saying that we are talking about basically two fundamentally different concepts of Christianity. The one is the New Testament concept of Christianity, and the other is what we may call the current or traditional concept of Christianity. These are two quite different concepts. The one sees being in Christ as a static thing, as being positional, which is static, it doesn't move. The other sees being in Christ as a relational thing, and therefore as a functional thing, as a dynamic thing. You see, these are two different ways of talking about "in Christ." In the New Testament, "in Christ" is functional, it is relational, it stands about in our relationship with Christ. It is dynamic because it's functional. But Unger in his type of talking is talking about a static thing. It is positional, it doesn't move. It's located there, nothing happens.
Now these, as I say, are two vitally different concepts, and I wonder what kind of concept of Christianity you have, whether your concept is dynamic or static, because the Biblical concept is absolutely a dynamic concept. It means that every Christian does not become a Christian so that he just has a position in Christ. It means rather that you become a Christian in order to do something, to become functional. That's why I said perfection is functional.
It produces two kinds of Christians, two kinds of churches. The current kind of church today is you have a lot of people who sit in the church and they are just positional Christians. They are just there waiting to be saved. This interim period in the world is a complete waste of time, you might say. And we just sit around waiting to get to heaven. We have no particular function, we have no particular task, we have nothing to do, we just sit here and wait. And in the meantime we occupy ourselves with some church activities and that's the extent of our function as we go. We get ourselves busy with some youth group maybe because it's a bit boring to do nothing, and therefore we occupy ourselves with this and that. But we are talking about spiritual functioning. That means living like Christians, not being engaged with this and that activity, but being dynamic Christians who live the spiritual life in such a way as to show forth the glory of Christ.
Picture two entirely different churches. In fact, just go to two different churches and you will see what I'm talking about. You go to one church and you meet the Christians there and you wonder, what about these Christians? They don't seem to me any different from non-Christians. They are not more friendly, they are not more loving, they are not more polite, they are absolutely not more anything. They are just ordinary people. They are just people who come to church for a social gathering. And you go to another church and immediately you sense there is something dynamic, there is something powerful, there is something functional there. You sense there is love moving in there. You sense there is holiness. You sense a spiritual vitality in that church. It shows that two different concepts of Christianity are implemented in these two different types of churches. Fundamentally different. One seeks salvation by being in the position, so-called, of being somewhere located in Christ, whatever that means. And the other one is saved in such a way that he is now working, spiritually functional. His life shows forth new qualities. He behaves in ways that manifest grace, that manifest considerateness, that manifest kindness, that manifest spiritual purpose and dynamic. Oh yes, it is very easy to tell these two kinds of Christians apart. Very, very easy.
And Pastor Xu could tell the difference at a glance. He came and he took one look and he saw, hey, this is something different. Because, why? Because we are better people? No way. We are not one bit better than anyone else. It is because we are learning to function in God's grace and truth that the glory and the power, as Paul says, is not of us, but of him. And that's why people are not drawn to us, but to him, through us. These are two fundamentally, I stress this, fundamentally different concepts of Christianity—the Biblical and the current.
Now, once we begin to grasp these things, we see throughout Scripture the kind of Christianity that we are called to. One more point, and very speedily we must close. The positional Christianity loves to stress the matter of our being sons. Once a son, always a son, so they say. Why? Sonship is understood by them as something static. It's a position. We are sons. Even the way they handle it shows that how you think affects the way you interpret Scripture. But in the Bible, brothers and sisters, sonship is no mere position. Sonship in the Bible is conceived dynamically. Let me very briefly try to demonstrate what I mean.
We have thirty parables of the Lord Jesus. At least thirty. Some reckon thirty-two, maybe more. But let's stick with the basic thirty parables of the Lord. If you ever look through the list of parables that the Lord gave, you will notice something very interesting. Of these thirty parables, seven speak about servanthood, speak about the Christians as servants, stewards, laborers. These kinds of parables—the parable of the talents, the parable of the pounds, the parable of the steward, the parable of the unforgiving servant. Seven specifically. More than seven will touch on these themes, but seven specifically deal with the Christian as a servant of God. Only two out of thirty deal with sons. The two sons and the lost son. Those are the only two parables dealing with sons.
Now, remarkably, we want to talk about sonship as a position. That's not the way the Bible looks at it. The concept even of sonship in the Bible, in the Lord's teaching, is dynamic. Look at the parable of the two sons in Matthew 21. We don't have time to read it now. Matthew 21, verses 28 to 32. And you will see that the Lord speaks about two sons. And both these sons are spoken of in terms of dynamic. The father told one son, go to the field and do this and that, and he said, "I go, sir," and didn't do it. And the other son, he said, go, and he said, "I will not go," but he changed his mind and went and did it. One son was functional, the other was non-functional. Which of the two did the father's will? The Lord asked. And who are my brothers and sisters? Who will I know in the day of judgment? Those who do his will. Those who do his will. Functional.
Anyone who hopes to be saved on some positional teaching has not understood the Bible at all, brothers and sisters. You are not going to be saved by some position. You will only be saved if you are spiritually functional by the grace and transforming power of God. On that day the Lord said they will come to me and say, "Lord, did we not do this and that?" No. You didn't do it unless you did the will of my Father. To be functional means functioning according to his will. Not according to your idea, not according to my idea, but according to his idea.
The other parable is the parable of the lost son, as you know, in Luke chapter 15. And in this parable, Luke 15, verses 11 to 32, you have again two sons. And you know, both sons were non-functional. That's the parable of the lost son. It should be called the parable of two lost sons. Both of them were lost. One was lost by staying at home, and the other one was lost by leaving the home. The one who was lost staying at home was because he did things—he obeyed or did things externally. He functioned in terms of legalism, not in terms of a spiritual dynamic. That one is also lost. And the one who went out, who didn't want to be functional, he wanted to go and do his own thing, like so many Christians—I want to do my own thing—he went and got lost out there. But thanks be to God that he repented and he came back and he learned from henceforth to be a servant. "Accept me no more as a son, but accept me as a servant." You do not become a son in the Bible until you become a servant. That's the point of the parable. Do you understand that?
That son learned his lesson. Before, he thought he would be saved by positionalism, by being a son. Everything he had. But only when he came back and said, "Father, I am not worthy to be a son. I am going to be a servant of yours from now. Just accept me as a servant." Only from that day on do you become a son. Until you learn the lesson of that parable—that you do not become a son until you are willing to be a servant—until then you have not understood the teaching of the Lord. That's why there are seven parables about servants and only two about sons, and both parables about sons have to do with service. Interesting, isn't it?
I hope I have made the teaching of the Lord perfectly clear. We are not saved by any position, and you will deceive yourself if you think you can be saved by being in some kind of position. You have to become spiritually functional. You have to repent in such a way as you come to the Father and say, "Lord, just let me be a servant. Let me function as a servant." Then you will truly be a son.
Our time is gone, and I wanted to expound a little further, but we have no further time. I wanted to point out to you also—and I just leave this verse with you—in James chapter 3, verse 2, how practical is perfection in the Lord's teaching and in the Scriptural teaching. It is practical to the point where it governs not only our conduct generally but the way we talk. James chapter 3, verse 2, says that anyone who can be perfect in speech, that is a perfect man. There is the word perfect. In the Greek, perfection is conceived so practically in the New Testament that it has to do even with the manner you talk. That is what we mean by spiritually functional perfection. And you think that is a luxury? The way you talk is not a luxury, because every day you have to talk, and every day the way you talk affects other people. That's how practical perfection is in the New Testament.
And the picture that the apostle James gives in James chapter 3 onwards—he says that the tongue cannot be controlled by any man, as he says that in verse 8. Only God can control the tongue. And James has a very practical and remarkable concept. What Paul speaks about the flesh in Romans, James sees that the whole pivotal energy of the flesh is centered in the tongue—this unruly piece of flesh. And he says that if anyone can bring the flesh under control, he has to first bring the tongue under control, as he says in James chapter 1, verse 26: to bridle the tongue, to put a bridle upon the tongue, to control it. Perfection then is expressed in terms of a person who can speak in such a way that his words are completely controlled. The perfect man is seen from the way he talks. That's what the Bible tells us.
Now in the Bible, Proverbs tells us that the tongue is exceedingly powerful and exceedingly dangerous, just as James says there too. In Proverbs, it says here in Proverbs 18, verse 21, that the power of life and of death are in the tongue. The power of life and of death. You have an enormous power entrusted to you in that little member in your mouth. And that little member can do all kinds of damage, or it can do a lot of good. One wiseacre once said that the tongue is in a wet place and therefore it has the tendency to slip. And how often it does slip, and when it slips it causes problems for other people.
Rabbi Gamaliel, a great Jewish teacher, had a servant called Tevi. And he once told his servant, go to the market—I want to celebrate—to buy something really good in the marketplace. So the servant went and came back with a tongue, an ox tongue. And Rabbi Gamaliel said, why do you buy a tongue? The best thing! So the Rabbi said to Tevi, tomorrow go to the market and buy the worst thing you can find in the marketplace. And what does Tevi come back with? A tongue. The Rabbi said, what is it? Yesterday I told you to buy the best thing, and you—he sat under a good teacher, didn't he? He said, well, the tongue is the best in the world, but it can also be the worst in the world. And exactly that's what Proverbs is saying: the power of life or the power of death are in the tongue.
And it says there in Proverbs 12, verse 18, the tongue of the wise brings healing. The tongue of the fool brings destruction. It breaks the spirit, as it says in Proverbs 15, verse 4. The tongue of the wise is a tree of life, but the perverse tongue breaks the spirit. Breaks the person's spirit. Literally destroys the man. Wow, the tongue is something exceedingly powerful, and you have power in your hands. How you use the tongue is the most important thing. The perfect man, therefore, is one who has got his tongue under control. He can build others. He can heal others. He is a tree of life to others. What blessing, what encouragement, what upbuilding, what joy you can bring to others if only you live perfectly as God meant you to live, functioning spiritually, bringing blessing every day with that powerful tool that the Lord has entrusted to you.
So the perfect man has the tongue under control. But the tongue no man can tame, so only God can tame it. That means the perfect man is somebody who lives under the control of the Spirit of God. Let us pray that you and I will learn this functional, practical meaning of perfection, Biblical teaching, and go forth and do good in such a way as to become a channel of God's life to all those round about you. Let us pray.