Why We Need the Puritans

Why We Need the Puritans
by Dr. J. I. Packer

1
Horse Racing is said to be the sport of kings. The sport of slinging mud has, however, a wider following. Pillorying the Puritans, in particular, has long been a popular pastime both sides of the Atlantic, and most people's image of Puritanism still has on it much disfiguring dirt that needs to be scraped off.

'Puritan' as a name was, in fact, mud from the start. Coined in the early 1560's, it was always a satirical smear word implying peevishness, censoriousness, conceit, and a measure of hypocrisy, over and above its basic implication of religiously motivated discontent with what was seen as Elizabeth's Laodicean and compromising Church of England. Later, the word gained the further, political connotation of being against the Stuart monarchy and for some sort of republicanism; its primary reference, however, was still to what was seen as an odd, furious, and ugly form of Protestant religion.

In England, anti-Puritan feeling was let loose at the time of the Restoration and has flowed freely ever since. In North America it built up slowly after the days of Jonathan Edwards to reach its zenith a hundred years ago in post-Puritan New England. For the past half-century, however, scholars have been meticulously wiping away the mud, and as Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel have unfamiliar colours today now that restorers have removed the dark varnish, so the conventional image of the Puritans has been radically revamped, at least for those in the know. (Knowledge, alas, travels slowly in some quarters.) Taught by Perry Miller, William Haller, Marshall Knappen, Percy Scholes, Edmund Morgan, and a host of more recent researchers, informed folk now acknowledge that the typical Puritans were not wild men, fierce and freaky, religious fanatics and social extremists, but sober, conscientious, and cultured citizens: persons of principle, devoted, determined, and disciplined, excelling in the domestic virtues, and with no obvious shortcomings save a tendency to run to works when saying anything important, whether to God or to man. At last the record has been put straight.

The Idolization of Success

Referring to Luke 10

"It is so easy to rejoice in success. Our self-identity nay become entangled with the fruitfulness of our ministry. Of course, that is dangerous when the success turns sour---but that is not the problem here. Things could not be going better for Jesus' disciples. And then the danger, of course, is that it is not God himself who is being worshiped. Our own wonderful acceptance by God himself no longer moves us, but only our apparent success.

This has been the sin of more than a few 'successful' pastors, and of no fewer 'successful' lay people. While proud of their orthodoxy and while entrusted with a valid mission, they have surreptitiously turned to idolizing something different: success. Few false gods are so deceitful. when faced with such temptations, it is desperately important to rejoice for the best reasons---and there is none better than that our sins are forgiven, and that by God's own gracious initiative our names have been written in heaven."

- D.A. Carson, For the Love of God Vol. I, February 24

A Word to Those Yearning for the Speeding Up of Their Sanctification

"Too often our practical view of sanctification, discipleship, and counseling is shortsighted. If you memorize and call to mind one special Bible verse, will it clean up all the mess? Will prayer drive all the darkness away? Will remembering that you are a child of God, justified by faith, shield your heart against every evil? Will careful self-discipline and a plan to live constructively eliminate all failure? Is it enough to sit under good preaching and have daily devotions? Is honest accountability to others the decisive key to walking in purity? These are all very good things. But none of them guarantees that three weeks from now, or three years, or thirty years, you will not struggle to learn how to love rather than lust. We must have a vision for a long process (lifelong), with a glorious end (“the day of Jesus Christ”), that is actually going somewhere (today). Put those three together in the right way, and you have a practical theology that’s good to go and good for the going.....WHAT MATTERS MOST IS NOT THE DISTANCE YOU'VE COVERED. IT'S NOT THE SPEED YOU'RE GOING. IT'S NOT HOW LONG YOU'VE BEEN A CHRISTIAN. IT'S THE DIRECTION YOU'RE HEADING." (emphasis mine)

- David Powlison, Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, Ch. 4 Making All Things New: Restoring Pure Joy to the Sexually Broken, pp. 80, 81

Ecstasy

"Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity... we cherish books even if unread, their mere presence exudes comfort, their ready access, reassurance."

- A.E. Newton

The 7 Penitential Psalms

I daily seek solace and refuge in these Psalms. Everyday there is reason to repent, and it is a life of repentance all the way to glory.


Psalm 6
1 O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger,
nor discipline me in your wrath.
2 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing;
heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.
3 My soul also is greatly troubled.

But you, O Lord—how long?
4 Turn, O Lord, deliver my life;
save me for the sake of your steadfast love.
5 For in death there is no remembrance of you;
in Sheol who will give you praise?

6 I am weary with my moaning;
every night I flood my bed with tears;
I drench my couch with my weeping.
7 My eye wastes away because of grief;
it grows weak because of all my foes.

8 Depart from me, all you workers of evil,
for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.
9 The Lord has heard my plea;
the Lord accepts my prayer.
10 All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled;
they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment.


Psalm 32
1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
2 Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

3 For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

5 I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah

6 Therefore let everyone who is godly
offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found;
surely in the rush of great waters,
they shall not reach him.
7 You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah

8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
9 Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
which must be curbed with bit and bridle,
or it will not stay near you.

10 Many are the sorrows of the wicked,
but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.
11 Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous,
and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!


Psalm 38
1 O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger,
nor discipline me in your wrath!
2 For your arrows have sunk into me,
and your hand has come down on me.

3 There is no soundness in my flesh
because of your indignation;
there is no health in my bones
because of my sin.
4 For my iniquities have gone over my head;
like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.

5 My wounds stink and fester
because of my foolishness,
6 I am utterly bowed down and prostrate;
all the day I go about mourning.
7 For my sides are filled with burning,
and there is no soundness in my flesh.
8 I am feeble and crushed;
I groan because of the tumult of my heart.

9 O Lord, all my longing is before you;
my sighing is not hidden from you.
10 My heart throbs; my strength fails me,
and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.
11 My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague,
and my nearest kin stand far off.

12 Those who seek my life lay their snares;
those who seek my hurt speak of ruin
and meditate treachery all day long.

13 But I am like a deaf man; I do not hear,
like a mute man who does not open his mouth.
14 I have become like a man who does not hear,
and in whose mouth are no rebukes.

15 But for you, O Lord, do I wait;
it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.
16 For I said, “Only let them not rejoice over me,
who boast against me when my foot slips!”

17 For I am ready to fall,
and my pain is ever before me.
18 I confess my iniquity;
I am sorry for my sin.
19 But my foes are vigorous, they are mighty,
and many are those who hate me wrongfully.
20 Those who render me evil for good
accuse me because I follow after good.

21 Do not forsake me, O Lord!
O my God, be not far from me!
22 Make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation!


Psalm 51
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!

3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
19 then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.


Psalm 102
1 Hear my prayer, O Lord;
let my cry come to you!
2 Do not hide your face from me
in the day of my distress!
Incline your ear to me;
answer me speedily in the day when I call!

3 For my days pass away like smoke,
and my bones burn like a furnace.
4 My heart is struck down like grass and has withered;
I forget to eat my bread.
5 Because of my loud groaning
my bones cling to my flesh.
6 I am like a desert owl of the wilderness,
like an owl of the waste places;
7 I lie awake;
I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop.
8 All the day my enemies taunt me;
those who deride me use my name for a curse.
9 For I eat ashes like bread
and mingle tears with my drink,
10 because of your indignation and anger;
for you have taken me up and thrown me down.
11 My days are like an evening shadow;
I wither away like grass.

12 But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever;
you are remembered throughout all generations.
13 You will arise and have pity on Zion;
it is the time to favor her;
the appointed time has come.
14 For your servants hold her stones dear
and have pity on her dust.
15 Nations will fear the name of the Lord,
and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory.
16 For the Lord builds up Zion;
he appears in his glory;
17 he regards the prayer of the destitute
and does not despise their prayer.

18 Let this be recorded for a generation to come,
so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord:
19 that he looked down from his holy height;
from heaven the Lord looked at the earth,
20 to hear the groans of the prisoners,
to set free those who were doomed to die,
21 that they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord,
and in Jerusalem his praise,
22 when peoples gather together,
and kingdoms, to worship the Lord.

23 He has broken my strength in midcourse;
he has shortened my days.
24 “O my God,” I say, “take me not away
in the midst of my days—
you whose years endure
throughout all generations!”

25 Of old you laid the foundation of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
26 They will perish, but you will remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
27 but you are the same, and your years have no end.
28 The children of your servants shall dwell secure;
their offspring shall be established before you.


Psalm 130
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
2 O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.

5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

7 O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
8 And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.


Psalm 143
1 Hear my prayer, O Lord;
give ear to my pleas for mercy!
In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness!
2 Enter not into judgment with your servant,
for no one living is righteous before you.

3 For the enemy has pursued my soul;
he has crushed my life to the ground;
he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead.
4 Therefore my spirit faints within me;
my heart within me is appalled.

5 I remember the days of old;
I meditate on all that you have done;
I ponder the work of your hands.
6 I stretch out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah

7 Answer me quickly, O Lord!
My spirit fails!
Hide not your face from me,
lest I be like those who go down to the pit.
8 Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love,
for in you I trust.
Make me know the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul.

9 Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord!
I have fled to you for refuge!
10 Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God!
Let your good Spirit lead me
on level ground!

11 For your name's sake, O Lord, preserve my life!
In your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble!
12 And in your steadfast love you will cut off my enemies,
and you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul,
for I am your servant.

Look

"If you’re a Calvinist you might ask, am I elect? If you’re not a Calvinist you just might ask, is my faith authentic? It’s the same kind of problem experienced at the same level. And the bottomline answer to that is not a simple little “here it says, ‘If you believe, you have the Holy Spirit.’” Have you believed? Yes. Where’s the Holy Spirit? He’s in my heart. That does not work. That simply does not work. That is so superficial, because the issue is, am I really believing? Because the Bible says there are going to be some people in the last day who are stunned when he says, “I never knew you; depart from me” (Matt. 7:23). They’re going to think they were believing all the time, but they were not believing. So how do I know if I am believing? That’s the kind of terror that will keep you awake at night and make life really hard. The bottom-line answer is: Look to Christ. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. Only in looking to Christ and the cross does Romans 8:16 powerfully happen. “The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” I can’t give anybody assurance that they’re truly saved.

I can’t give anybody assurance that they’re elect. But God can. And it’s a miracle. You pray for it and you wait for it, and you don’t stand in front of the mirror looking endlessly into your soul with introspection. That comes periodically, but mainly you stand in front of the cross and you keep looking and looking and looking. And in looking you are saved." (emphases mine)

- John Piper, Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, Appendix: An Interview with John Piper, pp. 229

In on the Plan Again

The self-esteem cult is a dud! It fails to deliver on its promise, and this is the expected outcome of anything that curls inward into man, looking to fill the void in his soul with, ludicrously, himself!

In contrast, the man with the greatest peace, assurance, and soundness of mind is the Christian who makes it a point to maintain a right standing before God. The apostle Paul understood:

Ac 24:16
And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men.

This kind of person is invincible. He is superman. But he can be reduced to a pulp just as easily by sin, and he is very much aware of this, his faulty heel. Restoration to power is therefore an integral aspect of his life dynamic and is, in reality, a daily process. It's called REPENTANCE.

Repentance is the wanting in again on God's plan after having deviated from it. It is acknowledging that nothing on this earth is more beautiful and more worthy of one's life than God. It has, at its core, the all-consuming passion and desire for the beholding of God's perfections and ultimate comeliness, as man was designed to pursue beauty and in this pursuit he spends his life, be it a beauty founded on deception or truth. Therefore, in repentance man reaffirms all these, confessing to God the many trivialities that he has allowed to occupy his time and drain his energies when they could and should have been utilized in the affairs of the Kingdom. And the man who travels on the road of God's plan is, indeed, the man! He is BLESSED:

Ps 32:2
Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

Ps 32:5
I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.

1Jo 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The Best Thing in Life?

"What is the best thing in life, bringing more joy, delight, and contentment, than anything else? Knowledge of God. 'This is what the Lord says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me"' (Jer 9:23)" (emphasis mine) - J.I. Packer, Knowing God

The best thing in life is THEOLOGY in the mind, in the affections, and in the will, integrated in a character robust with CHRISTLIKENESS.

The Pastor's Regress

"Since the 1960s, we have experienced an evolution in what we expect a local church pastor to be. FORTY YEARS AGO HE WAS EXPECTED TO BE A RESIDENT AUTHORITY ON THEOLOGY AND BIBLICAL TEACHING. Slowly this gave way to a model of the pastor as the CEO of the church, the administrative and organizational leader. Today the ministers we want are Christianized pop therapists who are entertaining to listen to." (emphases mine) - J.P. Moreland, Love Your God With All Your Mind - The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul, ch.10, pg.188-189

The anti-intellectualism that pervades most of evangelical Christianity today is lamentable. The average church-goer sees church as primarily a place for emotional stroking, perhaps a few laughs interspersed in between, good music and entertainment, and shallow socialization---a condition that is perpetuated by the pastor's willingness to pander to these whims. Whereas theological erudition was a key prerequisite to pastoral leadership in past times, charisma, a sense of humor, rhetorics and playing the crowd are all that's needed these days to qualify one as an overseer of God's people. It goes without saying that reform is badly needed.

Reform? But how? It must start with the realization of the truth that every form of devotion to God begins in the INTELLECT. One must first of all value truth in order for progress in the Christian life to ensue. Nowadays, EMOTIONALISM has taken the place of primacy in the Christian's mode of approaching the living of the Christ life. This is a perversion. One's emotions must be informed by truth for it to be sound, and not the other way around.

It's about time for the Church to once again send out THINKERS in the global marketplace of ideas, contending for the sole spot that the Christian worldview must occupy in the minds and hearts of people. The truth must be---and will be---known.

Mt 22:37
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

Joh 8:32
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Joh 16:13
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

1Jo 3:19
And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.

Joh 14:6
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

The Humility of True Success

Within every human being resides the desire to be all that he or she can be. It could not be otherwise for God designed man this way, honored with His image and likeness. However, because of sin, man is blinded to that which he must truly pursue in order for him to be all that he can be. A counterfeit standard is then offered by the world by which he can measure his progress towards full potentiality. Even supposed Christians are hoodwinked into believing the world's criteria for success.

The world's definition of success may be summarized as follows: YOU ARE SUCCESSFUL IF YOU HAVE THE POWER TO ACQUIRE EVERYTHING THAT YOU WANT AND MAY EVER WANT. There is nothing essentially wrong with this. Desire is key to the achievement of man's destiny. What is tragically amiss in the world's view of the successful life is that it leaves out the ground by which this kind of life is truly attained, namely God, and in place of Him enthrones money, influence, sensuality and physical beauty as the foundations of success. No wonder then that the new generation has adopted a pessimistic/nihilistic view of society and life. The world's "success" is chiefly unattainable by the majority of human beings and is actually not meant to be pursued.

What then is TRUE SUCCESS? It is the carrying of the easy yoke:

Mt 11:29
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

Mt 11:30
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

It starts with LEARNING about God--beginning in THEOLOGY, then carried out in a LIFE OF OBEDIENCE TO GOD, culminating in GLORY:

Ec 12:13
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

Let us not taint the presentation of the Gospel with even the slightest offering of the world's "success", but boldly proclaim the PURE and LIBERATING truth that A SUCCESSFUL LIFE IS A LIFE FILLED WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, LIVED OUT IN DEVOTION TO HIM.

The Humility of True Treasure

"Suppose He put ten million dollars into your bank account every morning for the rest of your life, but He didn't save you? Suppose He gave you the most beautiful body and face of anyone who ever lived, a body that never aged for a thousand years, but then at death He shut you out of Heaven and into hell for eternity? What has God ever given anyone that could compare with the salvation He has given to you as a believer? Do you see that there is nothing God could ever do for you or give to you greater than the gift of Himself?" - Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, ch.7, pg.119

The funny thing is that the heretical and diabolical "prosperity gospel" promises the same "millions", the same "beauty", and the same DECEPTION, but with an added bonus: A FREE TICKET TO HEAVEN!

Morning Surrenders

Every morning I am brought face to face with my weaknesses. God was pleased to grant me a new day of life and, as I try to focus my soul on Him, I see the stark incongruity between Him, in His sheer beauty, and me, in my utter imperfection. I am brought to despair. I am sick of the failures that arise from the corruption that still festers within me. I want to be free of this ugliness.

In brokenness, I fall prostrate before God. I realize that Christ's life, His perfect righteous life, with its merits imputed upon me, is the ground for my being able to approach the God who cannot tolerate the ugliness of sin in His presence. In Christ, I can "...come boldly unto the throne of grace, that (I) may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." (Heb 4:16) Hope is rekindled as I ponder on the grace and favor that God has promised to bestow upon those in whom He sees Christ formed and being formed. And all this in spite of my present disfigurement, for no one can earn by performance the grace and favor of God. I have the holiness of Christ imputed upon me in one sense and the holiness of His character being formed in me by the Holy Spirit in another. And it is for more of this latter holiness that I surrender everything every morning, hoping on His word that "for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." (Ro 8:29)

I worship God for the hope of being as Christ, fully, one day.

Hypocrisy and Grace by Cornelius Plantinga Jr.

A Meditation for Lent

In a 1995 film Anthony Hopkins plays Richard Milhous Nixon, that great and devious man. In this role, Hopkins is very, very good. In fact, while he was making the film Hopkins walked and talked and gestured like Nixon not only on the set but also off it. At home, in restaurants, even out on the streets of Hollywood, Hopkins adopted that awkward, formal manner of one of the tragic figures in international politics.

Of course, after he made the film Hopkins reverted to his own self. Of course. Who would want to get inside Richard Nixon and stay there? Who would want to be Richard Nixon—a man in whom ambition, defiance, and shame seemed to struggle for pre-eminence? As a professional actor, Hopkins played Nixon and then put him away.

But the remarkable thing is that some actors never do get all the way back to their old selves. They absorb their roles and are never the same again.

In Character
You might almost say that in such cases an actor converts to his role. Some of our ancestors used to worry about acting for this very reason. They worried about what it does to a person’s integrity. What does it do to you to climb inside somebody else’s character? Is it safe to pass yourself off as somebody else and to do it convincingly? What if you forget who you are? What does it do to Anthony Hopkins to play a ghoulish villain like Hannibal Lector in The Silence of the Lambs? Would some of the character’s evil stick?

But then, of course, we might ask what it does to Anthony Hopkins to play C.S. Lewis in Shadowlands. Maybe getting inside somebody else’s character could do you some good. Lewis himself used to recommend that one way to become a Christian is to pretend to be a Christian, to act like a Christian, to, so to speak, dress up like Jesus Christ. We have to “put on Christ,” as Paul says (Gal. 3:27), almost as if we could pull Jesus Christ over our heads like a costume. The idea is that strange and wonderful things can happen when we absorb a role into our innards. Maybe Christ’s character will seep into ours. Maybe we will convert to our role and approach others as Jesus did, “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

But here a question arises: Assuming that we go around acting like Christians, how do we know we are sincere? How do we know what our real motives are? How do we know that we aren’t just acting?

One Man’s Agony
Did you know that, in part, the Reformation grew right out of that very question? Martin Luther was a good Roman Catholic Christian who did what good Roman Catholic Christians were expected to do. When he sinned, he took his medicine. He took the cure. And what was that? The cure for sin was the sacrament of penance. In this sacrament a sinner confesses his sins out of a contrite heart, and then his priest absolves him.

The whole thing started to trouble Luther. He began to question it: “How do I know that my confession of sin is sincere? How do I know my heart is really contrite? Suppose I get on my knees before God to confess my sins—I think I am sorrowful because my sin grieves God. But what if I’m deceiving myself? What if the real reason I confess my sins is just to take out the garbage so I’ll feel better? What if I’m put off by my sinfulness not because it wounds others and grieves God but because I think sinning is a scummy lifestyle that’s beneath me?”

Luther worried about the possibility that he might be a hypocrite. And why not worry about it? Isn’t hypocrisy the one sin Jesus really goes after? Have a look at Matthew 23: “Woe to you, hypocrites. On the outside you look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” Woe to you. Woe to you. Woe to you. Seven times Jesus says, “Woe to you.” Seven times Jesus pronounces reverse beatitudes on people who aren’t as good as they look. Jesus Christ lays a sevenfold judgment on those who play the role of righteous people but who are only half-converted to their role.

In Matthew 23 through 25 our Lord addresses his disciples and then some teachers of the law and then his disciples again in a pattern that tells us he is talking to the leaders of his people, no matter who they are. He addresses the theological leaders, but he also addresses his followers. In his address our Lord brings judgment and grace, and he brings them right at us.

Because we are religious people, because hypocrisy is one of our natural vulnerabilities, and because it’s time for Lenten self-examination, I think we should know what hypocrisy is and why it matters so much to our Lord.

Only Playing a Role?
Hypocrisy is a kind of “disintegrity” in which people present themselves as godly when their hearts are far from it. People do this all the time, and at Calvin Theological Seminary we worry about it because hypocrisy may be a special temptation of ministers. People expect ministers to carry on in certain caring and pious ways, and ministers want to oblige. They want very much to look and sound like a minister, adopting solicitous tones of voice and expressions of concern, praying with spontaneous fervor. Some, as Fred Craddock once put it, “boast of their weaknesses and humbly confess their strengths.” All this lays a burden on a minister’s heart, which may have to race to catch up. As you know, ministers sometimes get converted to the Christian faith while they are in ministry. Something happens—maybe a crisis, maybe some other teachable moment—and the minister turns to face God straight and square for the first time:

Create in me a clean heart, O God,and put a new and right spirit within me (Ps. 51:10, NRSV).

And, of course, ministers aren’t alone when it comes to the temptation to make a false presentation of piety or concern. Anybody can do that. Sometimes the presentation is deliberately false. A man may flatter a woman, and she may even enjoy it. But sooner or later she figures out that the praise is too high or too contrived and that the flatterer is out to finesse her. He wants something from her, and he’s manipulating her to get it. That’s deliberate hypocrisy, and the hypocrite knows it. But I think it’s crucial to see that at some point the hypocrite becomes blind to his falseness. He becomes that most impenetrable of creatures, the sincere hypocrite.

The Sincere Hypocrite
Jonathan Edwards wrote about this odd creature. A person may be a hypocrite, but she can’t see it. That’s the nature of corruption, you know, that sooner or later it gets to our brain. And then we can’t see straight or think straight. We don’t know who we are anymore. We can’t tell when we’re acting and when we’re not. Our corruption is too advanced. We deceive ourselves about our sin, we will our own ignorance, we play a role that we think is in character but isn’t, and we blind ourselves to the whole sorry mess.

I think that’s why Jesus (in Matt. 23, for example) speaks against hypocrisy with such a lash in his voice. He’s trying to cut through the layers of self-deception. His grace comes in the form of rebuke. The problem with the hypocrites among the religious teachers is that they are blind. They are blind guides, blind Pharisees—vainly trying to finger a speck out of somebody’s eye but making a bad job of it because of the logjam in their own. The hypocrites Jesus confronts are so blind, so foolish, and so frighteningly sincere.

“Woe to you, hypocrites; you look beautiful on the outside . . . but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness” (Matt. 23:27-28).

The terrible truth here is that without a change of heart the hypocrite is doomed. He’s one of the surprised reprobates of Matthew 7 or Matthew 25. He’s been honoring God with his lips all his life, but his heart is far from God. He once knew that, and even regretted it, but that was a long time ago, and the memory has been buried under layers of self-deception.

An actor pretends, but a hypocrite deceives, and eventually one of the persons a hypocrite deceives is himself. He cannot tell that he is only a half-converted actor. He cannot tell that he is a Christian only in his head but not in his heart. He cannot tell that he is wondrous only in the eyes of people who are just as divided as he is. Above all, a hypocrite cannot tell that he needs Jesus Christ, our Savior.

The Cradle of Grace
And so the Heidelberg Catechism is right (and ironic): the first thing we need to know in order to live and die happily is how great our sins and miseries are. The catechism is straight as a post on this topic: How can we praise our Savior when we don’t grieve over our sins? How can we embrace true religion while not looking for signs that we are false people? How can we get into real union with Jesus Christ when half the time we’re just playing a role, or might be?

Here’s our Lenten problem: We’re like Martin Luther. We don’t know how straight our confession is or how contrite our hearts or how real our enthusiasm for the faith. We don’t really know because our capacity for self-deception is, frankly, fathomless.

And so we need what Luther taught the whole church: If we need to trust our own sincerity in order to get saved, if the cost of salvation is the offering of a pure and contrite heart, then we are priced right out of the market. All of us are still divided creatures. As Geoffrey Bromiley once pointed out, we may despair of ourselves and of all our efforts. In good, old-fashioned Reformed style we may despair of ourselves but also be fiercely aware of this despair and keenly interested in its merit. We may humble ourselves before God in repentance and be quite proud of our humility. We may get up a head of steam in our prayers and hope that heaven is as impressed with them as we are. Everybody knows, as Helmut Thielecke once said, that while we are at worship the wolves may be howling in our souls.

Thus our need for the grace of God. There are lots of reasons why we need the grace of God. One of them is that we don’t even know how sincere we are. We don’t know how divided or deceived we are. We don’t know each other’s hearts, and we don’t even know the maze in our own hearts. Lent is as good a time as Reformation Day to say with our lips and believe in our hearts that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Nothing shows us the need of our Savior more than this simple fact: we may be hypocrites and not even know it.

“Woe to you, hypocrites.” It’s a terrible word, and we need to hear it. But it’s not the last word. Sin is never the last word. The wonderful truth is that our confession of sin and of folly, and of the folly that is sin and the sin that is folly, and all else that is so messed up we don’t know what to call it—all this is confessed inside the cradle of grace, underneath the wings of God.

What makes God’s grace so amazing is that it comes not just for the proud and the envious and the angry, but also for us hypocrites. And when it comes, a miracle happens. After all our years of playing a role, we convert to it. We finally become the person we have been practicing for all these years. At last we are in character as sons and daughters of God, just the way we were redeemed to be.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (Ps. 139:23-24, NRSV).

Source: http://www.thebanner.org/magazine/article.cfm?article_id=92