In this case—what matters most?
It's been said, and I'm going to accept it as essentially
true (though these days I'm less trustful of reports of what the
ancients believed unless I can see for myself their own words in
context), that the heart of Pelagius' teaching was: "I can be good if I
will. God rewards me when I'm good but does not make me good; His reward
is an incentive to good but it's no more than that." I confess I don't trust the obviously brilliant Augustine of Hippo as a complete guide to the teaching and convictions of Pelagius.
But if that is
what he taught he was dead wrong. The little we know for sure about
Pelagius tells us that he was a truly upright man whose attitude and
behaviour was such that most of us would wish it were our own. But my
suspicion is that people of genuine moral maturity are severely tempted
to think that we all can be and should be as morally upright as
they are. [I think this is part of the explanation for the hardness we
find in so many of them. They think the rest of us aren't trying. "If I
can be morally upright to this degree everyone can be too if they truly
wish it," seems to be the way they think.]
There is
real appeal in that kind of thinking but I'm sure in my bones that it
underestimates the difficulties of working against sin; it
underestimates the differences between sinners and their life situations
and it misses this truth that the Bible (and the NT in particular)
stresses: "The ultimate question about a person is not how morally mature and rich he/she is but what is her/his relation to God."
Christians
don't (shouldn't!) profess that they alone are morally fine. It's
demonstrably true that some non-Christians have been at least as morally
upright and fine as some Christians! I judge all talk to the contrary
is Christian imperialism at its worst and a misuse of the Bible.
What
Christians do (and should!) insist on is, that in Jesus alone sin is
truly assessed and righteousness is truly exalted. This is where
repentant faith enters the Christian life and message. Christians are
sinners like the rest of humanity but unlike the rest of humanity by
God's grace they have come to believe in Jesus in a commitment of faith,
to welcome his mind as their own about sin and righteousness and God as
the fountain and meaning of all that.
The
difference between the Christian and the non-Christian, at this point,
is a profound difference of faith. It is not that one has gained a
better record than the other of moral excellence, of fine attitudes and
upright behavior; the difference is one of faith! Jesus makes
God to be all in all and the Christian makes everything of Jesus who is
God being a man. Anything less than Jesus is less that the complete
truth! One of the essential truths Jesus has brought to us is this: In
humans there is not only the loathing of sin, the terror of sin, the
tyranny of sin—there is also the love of it!
Sin
is not adequately dealt with until by faith we look to God who is
beyond ourselves and who brings us to faith and into loving someone
greater than we love our sin.
On the matter of
success and growth in moral excellence—does God help Christians in their
pursuit of these? If, yes, how should we unpack that truth? You might
think there's something useful in a brief series I've begun here.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, theabidingword.com.