Yesterday I finally got my awaited book Gospel in Life Study Guide, I starting flipping through the pages right away and stopped at the first Home Study, on page sixteen, titled Three ways to live.
In this first home study Timothy Keller begins by talking about the ways people think we can relate to God, he says people tend to think there are only two ways but he comes to the conclusion that in fact there are three: religion, irreligion and the gospel. He describes all three ways, one falls in the range of legalism/moralism, another in the range of secular/irreligious relativism and the last one through Christ.
Keller states that most Christians have been through their share of each of these ways and that while the differences between irreligion and the gopsel are evident, it is harder to discern the difference between religion and the gospel. And so on the next page we find a table stating the differences between the Gospel and Religion:
In this first home study Timothy Keller begins by talking about the ways people think we can relate to God, he says people tend to think there are only two ways but he comes to the conclusion that in fact there are three: religion, irreligion and the gospel. He describes all three ways, one falls in the range of legalism/moralism, another in the range of secular/irreligious relativism and the last one through Christ.
Keller states that most Christians have been through their share of each of these ways and that while the differences between irreligion and the gopsel are evident, it is harder to discern the difference between religion and the gospel. And so on the next page we find a table stating the differences between the Gospel and Religion:
Taken from Gospel in Life Study Guide: Grace Changes Everything by Timothy Keller. Copyright © 2010 by Reedemer City to City and Reedemer Presbyterian Church. Used by permission of Zondervan, http://www.zondervan.com/.
In the first paragraph Edwards poses three questions(well two of those questions are basically the same only posed differently):
1. “What are the distinguishing qualifications of those that are in favor with God, and entitled to his eternal rewards? Or, which comes to the same thing,
2. What is the nature of true religion?
3. And wherein do lie the distinguishing notes of that virtue and holiness that is acceptable in the sight of God?”
Then he basically explains why these questions need to be answered. The importance of knowing the difference b/n True Religion and False Religion. As someone explained, since there were great “revivals” going on back in the day it is important to discern if such revivals were an act of God, or if they were Satan’s way of causing division among the brethren. Because amidst these revivals much false religion prevailed and multitudes of hypocrites sprung up among true saints.
He describes the way Satan has caused strife, damage and division in the Church:
By the mixture of Counterfeit religion with true, not discerned and distinguished is that the devil has:
- Prevailed against all revivings of religion.
- Hurt the cause of Christianity (even more than by all the persecutions of both Jews and Heathens)
- Prevailed against New England, to quench the love and spoil the joy of her spousals.
And says that it will continue to be that way in the Church until we learn to discern between true and false religion, between saving affections and experiences. He says than when these revivals occur and we don’t distinguish between true and false religion, between saving affections and experiences:
The devil is gratified by making us think that the way these revivals occur, that what we are doing is pleasing and acceptable to God when in fact it is abominable to Him. And so it is that the devil deceives many about the state of their souls, making them think they’re saved when they are not.
And finally describes the consequence of said lack of discernment, the devil:
- Damps and wounds religion in the hearts of the saints, obscures and deforms it.
- Causes their religious affections woefully to degenerate, and to be like the manna that bred worms and stank; and dreadfully ensnares and confounds the minds of others of the saints and brings them into great difficulties and temptation,
- He encourages the hearts of open enemies of religion, and strengthens their hands, and fills them with weapons, and makes strong their fortresses; when, at the same time, religion and the church of God lie exposed to them, as a city without walls.
- he brings it to pass, that men work wickedness under a notion of doing God service, and so sin without restraint.
- he brings in even the friends of religion, insensibly to themselves, to do the work of enemies, by destroying religion in a far more effectual manner than open enemies can do, under a notion of advancing it.
The worst consequence of it all is that the devil manages to scatter the flock of Christ, and sets them one against another, and in this way religion, “by degrees degenerates into vain jangling; and during the strife, Satan leads both parties far out of the right way, driving each to great extremes, according as he finds they are most inclined, or most easily moved and swayed, till the right path in the middle is almost wholly neglected.”
If there would be a keyword to describe the introduction, the keyword would be discernment, as someone else mentioned in one of their post I believe. The importance of discernment would be the theme. At least that’s what I understood from what I read and re-read in the introduction.