Chapter Six: The Motivation of the Gospel
CHAPTER SIX
The Motivation of the Gospel
I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”
ISAIAH 6:8
Isaiah had been totally devastated, morally and spiritually, by his vision of the infinite holiness of God. Then the seraphim had announced the gospel to him: “Your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for” (Isaiah 6:7).
Soon he heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah responded, “Here am I! Send me” (verse 8). His response is immediate and spontaneous. He said, “Here am I,” not “Here I am.” The latter denotes location, whereas, “Here am I” means “I am available.” He didn’t ask any questions, such as, “Go where?” or “Do what?” He, in effect, gave God a blank check for his life. He said, “Here am I. Send me.” Why did he respond in this way? It is because Isaiah was so deeply impacted by the gospel that he responded in heartfelt gratitude to God for what He has done for him.
Let’s consider the timing of Isaiah’s call. Suppose he had heard the call of God before his vision of God’s holiness. If our assumption is correct that he was an outwardly righteous, law-observant Jew, he might well have responded, “Here am I, Lord. I’m qualified to be Your spokesman.” He then would likely have gone to his people in an attitude of self-righteousness rather than love and compassion.
Or suppose Isaiah had heard the call of God after he had been totally devastated over his sin but before he had heard the gospel. His response would probably have been, “Not me, Lord. A few minutes ago I would have volunteered, but not now. I am a man of unclean lips. I am totally unqualified to be Your spokesman.”
It was only after he had become painfully aware of his sinfulness and had received the assurance that his sins were forgiven that he was in a position to hear the call of God and respond so immediately out of deep heartfelt gratitude.
Let me enlarge on the word gratitude. You may lend me your pen for a moment to sign my name, and as I return it, I say, “Thank you.” That’s a very basic level of gratitude — actually, a common courtesy. But if you rescue my child from a burning building and I say, “I can never thank you enough,” that’s a significantly higher level of gratitude. Now take the occasion of our gratitude to the highest possible level: Christ’s rescuing us from God’s eternal curse by becoming a curse in our place (see Galatians 3:13) and you have Isaiah’s gratitude. It is this level of gratitude that will motivate us to obey Christ as Lord and serve Him as Master.
THE SINFUL WOMAN
Isaiah was not the only person in the Bible who demonstrated the sequence of “guilt, gospel, and gratitude” in action. We see it also in the beautiful story of the sinful woman who anointed the feet of Jesus, as recounted by Luke in Luke 7:36-50. The late radio commentator Paul Harvey, in his daily news broadcast, often used his famous line “And now for the rest of the story.” The only way this story in Luke 7 makes sense is to assume that Luke gives us the rest of the story. What then is the beginning?
Luke described this woman as a “sinner.” He did not tell us the nature of her sin. She may or may not have been an immoral woman, but she did have a bad reputation in the city. Simon the Pharisee was scandalized that Jesus would allow her to touch Him because he knew that she was a “sinner” (verse 39).
The beginning of the story, then, is that this sinful woman had had a prior encounter with Jesus, possibly not long before the story in Luke 7. She, like Isaiah, had become painfully aware of her sin and, again like Isaiah, had received from Jesus the assurance that her sins were forgiven. Picking up the story with Luke’s account, Jesus was invited to eat at the house of Simon, a Pharisee. The sinful woman learned of this and went to Simon’s house with an alabaster flask of ointment to anoint the feet of Jesus.
According to the custom of the day, it was not unusual for uninvited guests to come into the room where a dinner was being held. They would take a place around the perimeter of the room and listen in on the table conversation. What made the action of the sinful woman unusual was that she, a known sinner with a bad reputation, would dare enter the home of a Pharisee, a group well known for their strict outward observance of the law and also known for their self-righteous attitude toward others. (See Luke’s account of the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the temple, Luke 18:9-14, for a good example.)
Not only does the woman dare enter Simon’s home, she does not take a place around the edge of the room; she goes straight to Jesus with the intent of anointing His feet. As she stands behind Him at His feet, she begins to weep — not just a few tears but profusely, so that His feet were wet with her tears. To appreciate her next act, it is helpful to observe that because of Simon’s total lack of extending the customary courtesies to Jesus, His feet had not been washed (see verse 44). So when Luke told us that the woman wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair, that act was more than simply drying them. She was actually cleansing them with the hair of her head. Then she kissed His feet and anointed them with the ointment.
Simon was appalled that Jesus would allow this sinful woman with a known reputation to touch Him. Jesus, knowing Simon’s thoughts, told him the parable of a moneylender who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Then Jesus asked Simon who of them would love him more. Simon responded, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” Jesus said to Simon, “You have judged rightly.”
Jesus then compared the rather egregious lack of even common courtesy displayed by Simon with the lavish display of affection shown by the sinful woman. His conclusion in verse 47, “Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven — for she loved much,” seems confusing because the statement, taken out of context, seems to mean that she was forgiven because she loved much. This obviously cannot be Jesus’ meaning, because it is the very opposite of the point of the moneylender parable. Additionally, it flies in the face of the entire New Testament principle that our love to Christ can only be a response to His love for us.
Rather, Jesus was saying that the woman’s lavish display of love to Him was proof that she had already experienced deep down in her soul the reality of His forgiveness. Why then did Jesus say to her at that time, “Your sins are forgiven,” if she had already been forgiven?
Remember, this woman was a known sinner in the town. She had a bad reputation, so Jesus’ words of forgiveness had a twofold audience in mind. First, Simon and his other guests needed to hear Jesus say that He had the authority to forgive sins, something the Pharisees vehemently questioned (see, for example, Luke 5:17-26). But Jesus’ words were also for the woman’s benefit through a public declaration that she was forgiven; that her sinful past was made clean; that though her sins were like scarlet, they were made as white as snow (see Isaiah 1:18). Of course, Jesus could say this only in view of the yet-to-be shedding of His own blood that would provide the basis of her forgiveness (see Hebrews 9:22; Revelation 7:14).
CONTRAST AND SIMILARITY
A comparison of the experiences of Isaiah and the sinful woman is a study in both contrast and similarity. By way of contrast, the backgrounds of the two are poles apart. Isaiah was a highly regarded member of the Jewish upper class — a member of the elite of society and presumably a righteous law-observing Jew. The sinful woman, if not a known woman of immorality, certainly had a bad reputation in the city, very likely an outcast from the respectable part of society. In fact, Jesus Himself referred to “her sins, which are many” (Luke 7:47). The contrast could hardly be greater. But their experiences are amazingly similar. Both had an encounter with God. Isaiah saw Him sitting on His throne in His infinite holiness. The sinful woman encountered Jesus in His incarnate humanity. Both, however, in the presence of God, became painfully aware of their sin. Both experienced the deep-felt joy of the gospel. Isaiah heard, “Your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for” (Isaiah 6:7). Luke did not tell us what the sinful woman heard, but undoubtedly it was some version of “Your sins, which are many, are forgiven.”
Both Isaiah and the woman expressed deep heartfelt gratitude for the forgiveness of their sins. Isaiah expressed his in his grateful response to the call of God, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” The sinful woman expressed hers in her daring and lavish display of worship of the One who had forgiven her.
Norval Geldenhuys, who authored an outstanding commentary on the gospel of Luke, wrote at the conclusion of his comments on the story of the sinful woman,
All real love towards Christ must be preceded by a deep consciousness of our own sinfulness and unfitness for acceptance before the Holy God and by the assurance that for Jesus’ sake our sins, however great they may be, are forgiven. Love of the Lord that is not founded upon these two foundations cannot be genuine or permanent.
In more concise words I would say, “Consciousness of one’s own sinfulness and assurance of forgiveness are the foundation of our love for God.”
GUILT, GRACE, AND GRATITUDE
The famous Heidelberg Catechism, published in 1563, is well known for the fact that it is deliberately structured on three concepts: guilt, grace, and gratitude. I have chosen to use the word gospel instead of grace, but the idea is the same. The gospel is the message of what Christ accomplished in His life and death. Grace, as we will see in the next chapter, is the result in our lives of what He accomplished.
Guilt, gospel (or grace), and gratitude is the story line of both Isaiah’s and the sinful woman’s experiences. It is the story line of this book to this point, except that I have added a fourth “G”: God. It is Isaiah’s vision of the infinite holiness of God that awakens his painful awareness of his sin, leading him to a deep appreciation of the gospel and resulting in a joyful expression of gratitude.
In the story of the sinful woman, Jesus said, “He who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:47). This seems so descriptive of our contemporary Christian culture. Because we tend to define sin in terms of the flagrant ones in our society, we have little sense of our own personal guilt before an infinitely holy God. Consequently, we have little appreciation for the forgiveness of our sins and so little enthusiasm to earnestly pursue holiness or serve God sacrificially. There is no “guilt, grace, gratitude” sequence in most of our lives.
I realize none of us has had an Isaiah-like vision of the holiness of God, and few of us come from a notoriously sinful past as did the sinful woman. Many of us have come from Christian, or at least morally upright, homes, so it might be difficult to identify with either Isaiah or the sinful woman. The question for us then is not whether we have had an experience similar to Isaiah or the sinful woman; the question is whether we are growing more each year in our awareness of our own remaining sinfulness and, consequently, of our desperate dependence on the shed blood and righteousness of Christ.
Anglican Bishop J. C. Ryle (1816–1900), a contemporary of Charles Spurgeon, wrote, “The man whose soul is ‘growing’ feels his own sinfulness and unworthiness more every year.… The nearer he draws to God, and the more he sees of God’s holiness and perfection, the more thoroughly is he sensible of his own countless imperfections.” Are we growing? Do we see more of our remaining sinfulness each succeeding year? Are we embracing the gospel daily for the forgiveness of our sins and for the crediting of Christ’s righteousness to us?
Jesus said, “He who is forgiven little loves little,” but the opposite, as seen in the lives of Isaiah and the sinful woman, is also true: He who is forgiven much loves much, and loving much will obey much and will serve much.
CONTROLLED BY LOVE
The apostle Paul experienced the motivation of Christ’s love for him. In 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, he wrote, “The love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” Paul said that the love of Christ [for him] controls him — that is, it exercises a strong directing or restraining influence over him. Notice the words directing and restraining.
Kenneth Wuest, who was a lecturer in Greek at Moody Bible Institute in the last century, wrote an expanded translation of the New Testament in an effort to capture more of the nuances of many Greek words. Here is how he translated 2 Corinthians 5:14: “The love which Christ has [for me] presses on me from all sides, holding me to one end and prohibiting me from considering any other, wrapping itself around me in tenderness, giving me an impelling motive.”
Notice that it is Paul’s awareness of the love of Christ that governs and controls him. It holds him to one end, or goal, and prohibits him from considering any other. It is neither the fear of punishment nor the expectation of reward but solely being overwhelmed by the fact of Christ’s love for him that so controls and governs and motivates him. And where did he see Christ’s love? It was at the cross. It was his conclusion that Christ had died for us, and especially for him, for in Galatians 2:20, he wrote of “the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (emphasis added).
There is a sense in which we see elements of both Isaiah and the sinful woman in the life of Paul. Like Isaiah, he came from a rich Jewish heritage and could honestly say, “As to righteousness under the law, blameless” (Philippians 3:6). But in his own words, he was “a blasphemer, persecutor [of Christians], and insolent opponent [of Jesus]” (1 Timothy 1:13). Near the end of his life, he referred to himself as the foremost of sinners (see verse 15).
But then he had an encounter with the risen and glorified Christ on the Damascus Road. He realized to his horror that this Jesus, whom he had been blaspheming and whose followers he had been persecuting, was none other than the Son of God. But he received mercy and grace (see 1 Timothy 1:13-14). He, like Isaiah and the sinful woman, experienced the love of Christ, which pressed on him from all sides and, from that point on, governed and directed his life.
Paul experienced the same guilt, grace, and gratitude that Isaiah and the sinful woman experienced. And though few of us can identify with Isaiah, the sinful woman, or Paul in how dramatic their experiences were, we should desire the results: a response of gratitude and love toward Christ that compels and impels us to live not for ourselves but for Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.
The New Testament letters are filled with imperatives — that is, exhortations and challenges to pursue holiness, put on Christlike character, and present our bodies as living sacrifices. But these imperatives are always based on the objective truth of what Jesus did for us in His sinless life and sin-bearing death.
As a young Christian, I did not understand this. I went directly to the imperatives to learn what I was to do. And in my early years of Bible teaching, I taught from the same dutiful perspective. I would contrast the “ought tos” of Scripture with the sinful desires of the flesh. I taught that we should fill our minds with the “ought tos” of Scripture in order to fortify ourselves against the desires of the flesh. But the reality is that in the internal conflict between ought and desire, desire too often wins out. And even when ought wins, it is often a dutiful response rather than one of love and gratitude.
But then in the midst of what I thought would be a fruitful and rewarding ministry, the Holy Spirit began to peel back the layers of my heart to reveal something of the corruption and depravity still there. There were no “big” sins, just an ugly nest of what I call “respectable” sins.
I was driven to the gospel. Isaiah 53:6, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned — every one — to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all,” became my lifeline. I began to sing some of the old gospel hymns I had learned as a child. Such words as “Just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me” and “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling” took on new meaning. I learned experientially that as a believer engaged in ministry, I still needed the gospel — every day in fact!
As I began to study the Scriptures with this new understanding, God providentially brought to my attention the writings of older generations, going all the way back to the Reformers of the sixteenth century and the Puritans of the seventeenth century, that emphasized the importance of the gospel in our transformation process. You saw just a few samples of such teaching in the previous chapter.
But let me give you a couple more, one from the eighteenth-century pen of the well-known John Newton, author of “Amazing Grace,” and the other from his poet friend William Cowper.
Our pleasure and our duty
though opposite before,
since we have seen his beauty
are joined to part no more.
JOHN NEWTON
To see the law by Christ fulfilled
and hear his pardoning voice,
changes a slave into a child
and duty into choice.
WILLIAM COWPER
Yes, the Scriptures are filled with the imperatives of God’s will for us. They are one of the several instruments the Holy Spirit uses to transform us. And, yes, we do have a duty to respond in obedience to those imperatives. But God wants us to desire to do what is our duty to do. He wants us to want to do what we ought to do. And it is the love of Christ as seen in the gospel — it is our response of gratitude for His grace — that gives desire to duty and changes “ought to” to “want to.”
But the reality of the Christian life is that even as we come more and more to desire to do our duty, we still experience the combat between the flesh and the spirit. Though we may not understand all that Paul was saying in Romans 7:14-25, most of us can at least identify with some of Paul’s words, such as “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (verse 15) or “I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand” (verse 21).
Obviously this tension between desire and performance can cause frustration and discouragement. And the truth is, the more we grow, the more the tension between knowledge and desire and perceived progress becomes greater. This is because, as J. C. Ryle said, “the man whose soul is growing feels his own sinfulness and unworthiness more every year.” How then can we keep motivated in the face of this growing tension?
The answer is through the gospel, particularly the perfect righteousness of Christ credited to us. While we are struggling daily with our tension between knowledge and desire and perceived performance, we are in fact united to Christ (in Him) in His perfect obedience. We must keep our eye on that glorious truth, and we must do it daily as we embrace the present reality of our justification: our righteous standing in Christ. Only then will we be motivated to keep pursuing holiness even in the face of the increased tension.
We have now devoted three chapters to the gospel and learned what it is, how we must daily embrace it, and how it provides the motivation for our part in our spiritual transformation. You may be wondering when we are going to get to the actual transformation process. That’s coming soon. But first we need to consider the subject of grace: what it is and how we can fall into some common misunderstandings of it that can hamper the process of spiritual transformation.
FOR GROUP DISCUSSION
1. Have you ever felt a high level of gratitude for the gospel and love toward Christ? Why or why not?
2. Think about your sins for several moments. Do “big” sins come to mind? What “respectable” sins are you aware of?
3. What is the key to changing “duty” to “desire” and “ought to” to “want to”?