Review:
In 1986 Merle Jordan wrote a fascinating book called Taking On the gods (Abington Press). In his book he described the gap between many Christians’ Professed Theology (what we say we believe based on Scripture) and our Operational Theology (our real, often unconscious, view of God and of ourselves.) Taking on the gods dealt with our physic gods -the gods who control our minds. Often these controlling forces are extensions of faulty family relationships – i.e., when Christians project their father’s or mother’s perfectionism or demand for certain performance standards or abuse onto the character of God. Jordan’s goal was to help Christians recognize and ultimately dethrone these gods, so Christians could live freely in the love and grace of the Biblical Trinity.
In 2008 Jerry Bridges wrote Transforming Grace (NavPress, 2008). His basic premise is also that Christians have a faulty view of themselves and God. Bridges’ insights coalesce remarkably with Jordan’s Operational Theology premise. In addition, both Jordan and Bridges long for Christians to close the gap between their Operational Theology and their Professed Theology. Bridges believes that once Christians really understand the abundance of God’s transforming grace that will motivate them to turn away from their performance based Operational Theology and live in terms of God’s true character. This is a critical step forward in a believer’s spiritual formation. The understanding of Operational Theology vs. Professed Theology, therefore, is a lens used in this review and summary of Bridges’ book.
- M. L. Codman-Wilson, Ph.D., 10/27/11
Summary:
Bridges begins with the clear Biblical teaching on the abundance of God’s grace. God offers one blessing after another (Jn.1:16) – blessing that is poured into believers’ lives on the merit of Christ (1 Pet. 1:2). So he asks: “Why aren’t believers experiencing more of God’s endless supply of grace?” (p. 66).
He gives 4 answers:
1. We have a misconception of God’s goodness and generosity. This was Satan’s first temptation to Eve – to cast doubt on God’s goodness (Gen.3:4-5). We need to resist this lie of the enemy (p. 67). The hymn “Come My Soul Thy Suit Prepare” says “large petitions with thee bring for His grace and power is such none can ever ask too much.” Yet we shy away from that truth (p. 67).
2. Our second misconception is that we are saved by grace initially but now need “to pay our own way. i.e., we must earn God’s blessings in our daily lives” (p. 68). We believe that God rewards our performance of good works we do for him in obedience. We accept God’s grace for salvation but then switch to our works for progressive sanctification. When we rely on our own good works, we are not totally dependent on God’s grace alone. Bridges calls this “evangelical legalism.” “Legalism indulges the sinful nature because it fosters self-righteousness and religious pride” (p. 146). It involves “anything we do or don’t do in order to earn favor with God. It also involves conformity to manmade religious rules and requirements – the ’do’s and don’ts of our particular Christian circle….We live in conformity to how other people think we should live instead of how the Bible tells us to live” (p. 144). In this legalism “we build fences to keep ourselves from committing certain sins…Soon these fences – instead of the sins they were designed to guard against- become the issue. We elevate our rules to the level of God’s commandments” (p. 147). Another “area of legalism arises from believers holding differing opinions about certain practices” (p. 150). We “universalize what we think is God’s particular leading in our lives and apply it to everyone else (p. 152). But Christians are not to be the moral policeman of other believers’ actions.
3. Third, Bridges says we don’t understand “our own total permanent spiritual bankruptcy” (p. 20). “One great problem today is that most of us really don’t believe we’re all that bad. In fact, we assume we’re good” (p. 29). “We have an erroneous understanding of deserving God’s healing or help or deliverance because of our good life. We may even be angry at God’s acts as we compare our struggles or suffering to someone else’s easier life. We grumble and complain about our lot when God doesn’t act towards us as we think he should. Instead, we need to be abundantly grateful for what we do have and realize we don’t even deserve that. We actually deserve nothing. All our righteousness, even as Christians, is tainted; our motives are tainted; we do not love God with all our heart etc. and we certainly do not love others with the degree or consistency with which we love ourselves” (p. 121). “The great mistake made by most of the Lord’s people is a hoping to discover in themselves that which is to be found in Christ alone” (Arthur Pink, The Doctrine of Sanctification). Our failure to grasp our own spiritual bankruptcy is fueled by our human pride in self-sufficiency. We don’t want to appear weak; we don’t want others to think we can’t do something. The culture says “Be strong. You can do it. Face your problems.” We don’t recognize that we are totally unfit in God’s eyes to do any of that. We need God for every aspect of Christian living...
4. Or, we really don’t believe that His grace is sufficient for us (2 Cor. 12:9). Our Operational Theology demonstrates that reality when we say unconsciously “No, I will do; I will prove I can; I will be self-reliant….Or we say “I am not worthy or God doesn’t really mean it.” But God wants to deal a death blow to our pride and self-conceit. “Before we can understand the sufficiency of God’s grace, we must learn the insufficiency of ourselves” (p. 174). “God wants to keep us conscious of our human weakness and our dependence on Him so that we might experience the sufficiency of His grace and the adequacy of His power” (p. 179). “God’s grace is sufficient for our weakness. Christ’s worth does cover our unworthiness and the Holy Spirit does make us effective in spite of our inadequacy. This is the glorious paradox of living by grace” (199). But it takes the crucifixion of our self and death to what others will think of us to celebrate our weakness, as Paul did, so we can experience God’s sufficient grace.
Bridges urges Christians to appropriate God’s grace so they can move from a performance based legalism to a life lived each moment by God’s grace.
1. “The first avenue of appropriating God’s grace is simply to ask for it in prayer” (p. 211). We come “to the throne of grace with confidence” (Heb. 4:14). Jesus is there; he understands our weakness. He knows that “in ourselves we are weak, unworthy and inadequate…We are not denigrating ourselves when we recognize this truth. We are simply acknowledging reality and opening ourselves to the grace of God. As we do this, we can expect to experience His grace working mightily in our lives…through the aid of the Holy Spirit” (pp. 199, 216). The Spirit’s empowering is part of the amazing grace given to those who ask.
2. When we understand the extent of God’s goodness and his mercy, that gives us “the motivation to Present our bodies to God as living sacrifices (Rom.12:1-2). “Living sacrifices connotes the idea of a perpetual sacrifice never neglected or recalled, a constant dedication…Is God worthy of such sacrifice? Of course He is! He is infinitely worthy. But our motivation to obey and serve God cannot rise to such heights until we learn to live daily by grace and to experience freedom each day from the bondage of the performance treadmill. I believe a genuine heart response to the worthiness of God is the highest possible motivation for obedience and service to God. But we cannot break through to that level of motivation until we are first motivated by His grace, mercy and love. We cannot be free to think about God’s worthiness and God’s glory as long as we are struggling to earn our own acceptance with Him” (pp. 101-102).
3. Bridges urges Christians to couple our surrender with total obedience. Jesus says if you love me, obey My commands (Jn.14+15). “Often we think the commands of Christ are nothing more than a set of directions. If we follow them, they will help us get through life without falling on our face and getting hurt too many times. But we forget that the word ‘command’ carries the idea of authority. A command is not just guidance that one may accept or reject. A command implies that the one giving it has the authority to require obedience and the intention of doing so” (p. 106). However, our commitment must spring out of our gratitude and understanding of the love of Christ. “We are responsible and dependent. We are responsible to obey the Lord in everything, to do only what pleases Him. That means we must be dependent on the Holy Spirit to give us the will to empower us, to work in us so we will do God’s good pleasure (Phil.2:13). At conversion God begins the work of sanctification. He puts a new spirit and a new heart in us and writes his law upon our hearts; he makes us a new creation (2 Cor.5:17). But then He expects us to go on to grow in progressive sanctification (p. 140)…However, we must preach grace before commitment because understanding the abundance of God’s grace will lead to commitment but requiring commitment to our own legalistic do’s and don’ts of Christian life without understanding God’s grace, will lead to legalism (p. 154) – i.e., the rules we make, the human efforts to please God on our own.
4. Therefore, Bridges urges Christians to know the Scripture. In Acts 20:32 Paul speaks of “the word of God’s grace which can build you up.” “The reference here is to the ongoing use of Scripture in our daily lives to build us up in our Christian faith….If we are to appropriate the grace of God then, we must become intimate friends with the Bible. We must seek to know and understand the great truths of Scripture: truths about God’s character and truths about man and his desperate need of God’s grace.
We need to get beyond the ‘how-to’s in scripture – how to raise children, how to manage finances, how to witness to unbelievers and all other such utilitarian approaches to Scripture…We need a regular plan of reading, study and yes, memorization. Bible study and memorization earn no merit with God…but the regular intake of God’s word is necessary to sustain a healthy spiritual life and to regularly appropriate His grace” (pp. 217-219). Just as God provided manna every day for the needs of the Israelites in the desert, so He will provide grace for us moment by moment when we look to Him. “For daily needs there is daily grace; for overwhelming need, overwhelming grace; for sudden needs, sudden grace” (p. 176). As the hymn writers say, “Day by day and with each passing moment, strength I find to meet my trials here” (p. 177). And: “He giveth more grace when the burdens grow deeper” (p. 183).
5. Relying totally on God’s grace is not a passive stance for the believer, however. Bridges contends that realizing the depth of God’s grace toward His children will make us more fervent in our effort to love God back and to choose dependence on Him in the midst of daily struggles. He quotes Paul in Col 1:29 who seeks to bring people to maturity in Christ and adds: “For this I struggle, striving with all the energy which He mightily inspires within me.” “The word ‘struggle’ connotes great intensity, to ‘put forth every effort, involving toil…But Paul worked hard because God’s grace, that is God’s power through the Holy Spirit, worked effectively within him” (p. 198).
6. When there is adversity, we often see it, erroneously, as God deserting us. We need to understand God’s grace in discipline and trust in him in humility (p. 222). As Peter says, we need to humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand (I Pet. 5:6). This means we need to be content with all God does in our lives. “An ever-growing attitude of gratitude will certainly make us more content since we will be focusing more on what we do have both spiritually and materially rather than on what we do not have. Discontent is a sign we are living by works...that God isn’t being fair to us” (pp. 244-245). [It is part of our erroneous operational theology.]
7. Bridges stresses that believers need to be channels of grace to one another. “The ministry of other believers is one way that God’s grace is mediated to us. We have to receive permission to minister grace to one another but we need to have some who know us well and hold us up to receive grace through prayer support, counsel, scripture they give us” etc. (p. 230).
8. Lastly, he talks of the garments of grace to be worn by every Christian. These are the character traits of gratitude, contentment, humility, forbearance and forgiveness” (p. 241). (It is interesting that some people use the expression ‘saying grace’ for the prayer of thanksgiving at meal time…We actually ought to ‘say grace’ continually throughout the day for the temporal and spiritual blessings that come our way so abundantly” (p. 244). Out of such gratitude, the other character traits can flow.
In Summary: “We are brought into God’s kingdom by grace; we are sanctified by grace; we receive both temporal and spiritual blessings by grace; we are motivated to obedience by grace; we are called to serve and enabled to serve by grace; we receive strength to endure trials by grace; and finally we are glorified by grace. The entire Christian life is [to be] lived under the reign of God’s grace” (p. 21). Then we can truly say: “Lord, all we have accomplished you have done for us.” (Isa. 26:12) (p. 199). Amen.
Questions: for Reflection or Discussion:
1. Why do we shy away from making large requests of God in prayer?
2. Why don’t we rely totally on God’s grace in our Christian walk?
3. Where do you see the traces of legalism in your relationship with God and with others?
4. What do you think about Bridges’ claim that we are utterly spiritual bankrupt – as Christians?
5. From Bridges’ message of grace, what speaks to your own heart and walk of faith now?
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