Semper Ubi Sub Ubi

Quo Vadis, Holiness?

I borrowed a copy of Martyn Lloyd-Jones's Sermons on 2 Peter from a friend in Ithaca, NY, while I was there last weekend, and began reading through them on the plane en route home, and since. Lloyd-Jones is one of the great expositors, certainly one of the (if not THE) soundest and clearest of this century. A section of his sermon on chapter 1:8-11 follows - I was struck by how up-to-date his exposition was, and how urgent the appeal is today.
See if you agree:

Do I believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God? Do I believe in the Incarnation? Do I see why the Substance of the Eternal Substance vacated the courts of Heaven and came on earth? There is only one answer; He came to deliver His people from their sins. Why did He die on that Cross on Calvary's Hill? What is the meaning of it? What do the communion bread and wine represent? Why was His body broken and His blood shed? Is it just a picture, is it just a dramatic incident? No, the purpose and the object which He had in doing it has been stated once and for ever by the Apostle Paul in the second chapter of the Epistle to Titus, and the fourteenth verse, when he says that 'He gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.' You believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God; you believe that He went deliberately to that death on the Cross on Calvary's Hill? If you believe these things, says Peter, the logic of it is this - if you believe that He humbled Himself and divested Himself of the insignia of His Godhead, that He came and shared the life of men and women, that He suffered the contradiction of sinners for so long, that He was there in the garden sweating drops of blood, that He endured the shame and agony of the Cross that you might be delivered from the power and pollution of sin, that you might be made perfect, spotless and holy - if you believe that that is the background to and the beginning of your whole position, there is only one thing to do, you must get as far away from sin as you can, you must hate it. If you believe He delivered you from hit, how can you continue in it? You cannot! You must give all diligence to making you calling and election sure. You must be anxious to furnish your faith with virtue and knowledge, with temperance and patience and all these other things. The man that does not ... is utterly inconsistent with himself. He says he believes on the Lord Jesus Christ in order that he may be delivered from his sin, and yet he continues in sin. He is guilty even of making merchandise of the Cross of Christ. Such a man has forgotten the fundamental purpose of the Christian life.

But to proceed to the second argument. Peter exhorts men and women thus diligently to make their calling and election sure in that way, because to do these things produces an active and a fruitful life. That is the message of verse 8. 'For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.' Now it is generally agreed that the word 'barren' is a mistranslation. The margin in the Authorized version puts the right word - it is the word 'idle'. If these things be in you, they make you that ye shall neither be 'idle no unfruitful', etc. Now that is the second reason for doing these things... The trouble with so many of us Christians is that our Christian life is a very idle one. We say we believe these things, but what do we do about them? We are very active in connection with other things in which we believe; if it is a club, we take part; if it is a game we enter into it wholeheartedly; if it is business we put our energy into it. Yet, here, we claim that God is interested in us, and that Christ has died for us - here we make the biggest claim a man can ever make - but what are we doing about it? Is it leading to any sort of activity?

I wonder how we fare when we compare ourselves with our own forefathers? Sometimes I wonder whether the main difference between the modern Christians and the Christians in the last century is not just at this very point - that they were so active and we are so idle. Those men believed in prayer meetings. They went to prayer meetings, and they prayed; they had their fellowship meetings, their class meetings, their society meetings. They wanted to talk about these things, about the spiritual life and the problems of the spiritual life. They lived their Christian life; they organised missionary soceities. There was a great activity in their life. But somehow the idea has crept in that to be a Christian means a general subscription to certain views, and an occasional attendance at the House of God and the means of grace. We sit and listen, we receive, but we do nothing - there is no Christian activity in our lives. Let every man examine himself in the light of this word.