Southwood Presbyterian Church

Holiness by Grace (a book you’ll LOVE)

Monday, October 24, 2011

Below is an excerpt from the introduction of Bryan Chapell’s book, Holiness by Grace. You should buy this book. It is balanced, bold and for broken people who long to see the grace of God take root in their lives and actually propel and motivate them to holiness. Chapell doesn’t disclaimer away the radical grace of God, nor does he soft-sell grace motivated obedience. If you find yourself reading the book and wondering if it was written by two authors then you are probably reading it right, but processing it wrong. God’s radical grace and the radical response He desires from it will often seem to be at opposition to one another, but it precisely the opposite is true. Grace must be EXPERIENCED and EXPRESSED or it is not grace at all!

‘God says, ‘Be holy, for I am holy.’ The young preacher quoted the
words of Leviticus with such fervor that I had little doubt he really
expected us to live up to this command for untarnished righteousness.
Yet, as my eyes scanned those seated between the pulpit and my pew,
I wondered if he recognized the true challenge in his words:

• On the front row were two sisters; both divorced in the past
year. One had recently confided to friends that her loneliness
since her marriage had driven her into sinful relationships with
other men. The second sister had found more frequent solace
in alcohol that trapped her in a horrid cycle of depression that
made her treat her kids cruelly, making her feel guilty, and
causing her to drink again to escape her guilt.

• Behind the sisters were a successful businessman and long-term
elder who had engineered the ouster of the previous pastor with
a combination of biblical proof-texting and political intrigue. The
elder’s wife, seated next to him, had conducted a skillful phone
campaign that created enough questions about the pastor’s
credibility to disarm any defense he tried to make.

• In the same pew was a young mother trying to manage two
out-of-control preschoolers. Simultaneously she was ignoring
disgusted glances from the nearby elder while glaring daggers
at her own husband to motivate him to discipline the children.

• Directly in front of me a teenager sat at the opposite end of
the pew from his parents as a geographical statement of what
he felt about his relationship with them since he had been
grounded for ignoring curfew the previous night.

• Ultimately my attention rested on me, the seminary professor
who had been moody with his family for days because of a letter
from a stranger that had criticized his work.

My eyes and my heart testified there was not a sinless person among
us. Yet the preacher seemed oblivious to our obvious faults. He said it
again, ‘Be holy, for God is holy’ (see Lev. 11:44, 45; 19:2; 20:26; 1
Pet. 1:16).

Does God really expect us to be holy as he is? He is infinitely pure.
I am an imperfect person. So is everyone about me (see Ps. 14:1-

3; Eccles. 7:20). His standard seems either to ignore human frailty
or to impose certain failure. We must make sense of this command
for perfect righteousness lest our hearts harden into a shrugged, ‘Get
real,’ or break into sobbed, ‘I can’t do it.’

VISIONS OF HOLINESS

How does God enable us to meet his requirement of holiness? An
answer lies along the path of John Bunyan’s famous travelers in the
children’s version of Pilgrim’s Progress that out family has read after
dinners (which have had their own share of imperfect behavior).

Late on their journey, Bunyan’s pilgrims discover a wonderful mirror.
There is nothing unusual about the front of the glass. However, on
the back of the mirror appears an image of the crucified Lord Jesus.
Everyone who looks in the mirror’s face sees an ordinary reflection
that includes the blemishes and scars that always accompany our
humanity. Yet anyone who observes these same persons from the
reverse side of the mirror sees only the glory of the Son of God.

The amazing glass from Pilgrim’s progress pictures the answer to how
we can be holy in this life. Our holiness is not so much a matter of
what we achieve, as it is the grace our God provides. Grace is God’s
willingness to look at us from the perspective that sees his holy Son in
our place.

God can certainly see the faults and frailties reflected in the mirror
of our lives. Still, he chooses to look at those who trust in his mercy
through the lens that features the holiness of his own child in our
place. As a consequence he loves and treasures us as much as if we
had never sinned.

Many years ago, the preacher Phillips Brooks explained –G-R-A-C-E as
God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. The acrostic beautifully expresses
how the blessings of God, which Jesus alone deserves, are mercifully
passed to us as a consequence of his suffering and dying for our sin.
When we trust that Christ’s work, rather than our own achievements,
is the basis of our righteousness, then God mercifully grants us the
riches of his love that only Jesus deserves. God looks at us as though
we are as holy as his own Son, and treats us as lovingly despite our
many imperfections.

Most Christians cherish the beauty of the truth that God viewed us
through the lens of Jesus’ goodness when we claimed him as our

Savior. We trusted that Christ’s death paid the penalty for our sins,
and that we were made right with God – justified – not by our own
holiness but by trusting in the holiness he provided. Just as objects
look red when viewed through a red lens and green when viewed
through a green lens, we believed that when God looked at us through
Jesus he viewed us as his own child.

Belief in his provision of grace, whereby God chose to view us as
his beloved through no good of our own, became the greatest joy
of our souls. What robs many believers of this joy, however, is a
misunderstanding of how God continues to view us after we have
received the grace that justifies us.

After initially trusting in Christ to make them right with God, many
Christians embark on an endless pursuit of trying to satisfy God with
good works that will keep him loving them. Such Christians believe
that they are saved by God’s grace but are kept in his care by our own
goodness. This belief, whether articulated or buried deep in a psyched
developed by the way we were treated by parents, spouses, or others,
makes the Christian life a perpetual race on a performance treadmill to
keep wining God’s affection.

While the Christian life can be characterized as a race (see Gal. 5:7;
2 Tim. 4:7; Heb. 12:1), we persevere on the course God marks out
for us not by straining to gain his affection but by the assurance that
he never stops viewing us from the perspective of his grace. God
continually offers us unconditional love and encouragement that our
status as his children does not vary even though our efforts do.

When I see my son’s energy flag in his cross-county meets, I shout
encouragement to revive his resolve and keep him going. I know
intuitively that threats or expressions of frustration would sap his
strength for the long race ahead (and the many races to come) even if
my pressure were to spur him on for the moment.

God is a better father than I, and his encouragement rings more
powerfully, wisely, lovingly, and continually in his children’s souls.
We race in the confidence that his grace does not cease just because
we have faltered. Grace becomes not only the means by which God
once justified us, it is also the means by which we are continually
encouraged and enabled to serve him with undiminished delight.

Since grace is the means by which we find the joy that gives us
strength, it is vital that we refine our vision of how God views us.

Whether our lives will be typified by joy or by despondency depends
largely on the perspective from which we view ourselves. Will earth’s
or heaven’s perspective dominate our vision?

The first purpose of this book is to make heaven’s view so clear to
us that we will never stop seeing ourselves as God sees us. For if
we cannot lift our eyes from an earthly perspective, then we will so
focus on our weaknesses and stumbles that the race to please God
will be misery. But if we remember that God is the lifter or our heads
(Ps. 3:3), then we will raise our eyes to see the affections in his own.
When we see that his regard for us does not waver, then his grace
will quicken our steps, strengthen our hearts, and delight our souls to
carry on.

Special thanks to Bob Bradshaw who recommended this book to me!