and I am now complete in Thee
[Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are from Bullinger’s Decades and have been lightly adapted.]
We’ve now finished three decades of Bullinger’s sermons. That’s just a much more impressive way of saying we’ve looked at 30 sermons, but never mind. Over halfway through. Sort of. The final 20 sermons take up roughly the same amount of page space as do the first 30 sermons. That just means more reading for me…
In theological college I had modules on systematic theology. These were week-long intensive classes, usually 8am to 4pm on specific doctrines. My systematics lecturer was a progressive dispensationalist (don’t worry if that doesn’t mean anything to you), but while I ended up going a different direction to him in my own theology, his lectures still stand out to me as one of the high points of my theological education. I have never before or since seen a man lecture straight from his Bible like he did. He had notes, outlines really, but he kept his Bible in his lap, and he just flipped from passage to passage as he explained the various doctrines we were examining in that particular module. His personality was rather dry, and I don’t mean regarding his sense of humor (he didn’t really have much of one). But in his theology he came alive. There was a driving pastoral concern to every doctrine we looked at. There was a sobriety, the sense that these topics really mattered for our own souls and for the souls of our sheep.
I think it was the second module we had with him. We were looking at the doctrines of sin, man, and salvation. We looked at the nature of man as revealed in scripture. We looked at all the words scripture uses to describe our sin. Man is sinful, utterly sinful, and in himself irreparably sinful. Two and a half days or so had gone by. There was a palpable sense of unease, maybe even despair. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Then we looked at the doctrine of salvation. It was as if light flooded into the room. The storm broke and the sun poured through.
The church circle I grew up in believed the message of salvation. We talked about a bridge to life, the plan of salvation, the Romans Road. The Gospel-Centered movement wouldn’t take off till I was in theological college, and the theological college I was in was outside the circle that was becoming Gospel-Focused. It wasn’t that we didn’t believe the gospel, it just wasn’t talked about in that way. It wasn’t central. I was a Christian, I knew what the Bible said about sin and salvation. But Titus 3.3-8 was new to me. The gospel as the single over-arching theme of scripture, the message of redemption as the near-obsessive focus of God’s revelation to his people, that was all new to me. Until that day in systematic theology. It was like water in the desert for me. God redeems his sinful people who are completely unable to redeem themselves. That’s what the Bible is all about. From beginning to end, that’s the singular theme of scripture.
Growing up in the land of Dispensationalists, this made sense of the whole sweep of scripture. Everything in scripture started to make sense. I finally understood how the Bible fit together, how all the various doctrines formed one cohesive whole.
The Gospel-Centered movement has since gone off the rails. Everything has become Gospel-Centered, and in so doing, the Gospel-Centered movement has cheapened the doctrines of sin, man, and salvation. The silliness and even carnality of what’s been labelled ‘Gospel-Centered’ over the last decade…echoes of 1 Corinthians in our own day; all the while Dispensationalists have largely resisted this silliness and are still preaching Christ more faithfully than many Reformed brothers. God seems to have a sense of humor. But the gospel is still absolutely central to absolutely every part of life. Whatever man has done to doctrine, God has still revealed the gospel. It’s still the only solution to our sin.
The first three decades (or first 30) of Bullinger’s sermons focuses on the law. Last week we saw his lengthy sermon on sin and judgment. What’s the solution to men and women born into sin and born under the law? What’s the solution to creatures enslaved to their own lusts? What’s the answer to those who are held captive under sin and death?
The title of Bullinger’s sermon is, ‘of the gospel of the grace of God, who has given his Son to the world and in him all things necessary to salvation, that we, believing in him, might obtain eternal life.’ The solution to sin and death is the gospel. It’s not a buzzword, it’s not a cultural touchstone, it’s not a theological fad. It’s the message of life. The only message of life. Summarising Romans 3 and 4 Bullinger states,
Men are justified for Christ’s sake simply by the grace or mercy of God, without any help or merit of their own, if only they believe that God has given his Son to the world, to shed his blood, and to reconcile to his Father in heaven the sinners he purifies. In these words is the whole manner and order of sanctifying, purifying, and justifying of sinners most fully and plainly declared.
This is how we are saved. God saves us by his grace and entirely apart from our own works. God saves us. Titus 3.3-8…we were sinners and were enslaved in our misery. But God…he saved us.
Bullinger points to the tenderness and the authority Jesus used when proclaiming this gospel, this good news of salvation.
He was loving and gentle to sinners, repeating still and beating into their heads that he came to save them and call them to repentance.
How the church can so emphasize either one or the other of these approaches. For some, Jesus is only gentle and lowly, and so they lose his authoritative calls to repentance and faith. They lose the seriousness with which Jesus preached the gospel. For others, Jesus is only thundering the law and damnation if the gospel is rejected. They also lose a key aspect of Jesus’ ministry, that is, his tenderness and compassion with sheep who have gone astray. We need both. We need all of who Jesus is, the whole Christ, as one pastor has written. If we lose either his tenderness or his authority then we have distorted the portrait of the Savior given us in the gospel. We have crafted a savior in our own image rather than the Image of God shown us in scripture.
What is the heart of those who have believed this gospel? Who have understood who Jesus is and what he offers? Desperate hope. The sort of hope the disciples displayed.
The apostles, after they had eaten this heavenly bread, that is, after they truly believed in Christ when many others departed and chose to forsake Christ, answered him when he asked them if they would leave as well, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.’ See this, those who truly believe neither will nor can forsake Christ, because there is no one else to whom they can join themselves; he alone is the life and salvation for those who believe, and he is so in such an absolute and perfect way, that in him alone may they content and rest themselves.
Where else can we go? Where else can we find life? Where else can we truly see God? In Jesus, and in Jesus alone. We’ve tried the other approaches. We’ve tasted the rotten fruit of self-salvation and false worship. We’re steeped in the guilt of our own depravity. Who will wash us? Only Jesus.
Here is the complete summary of the whole gospel: that we are justified, absolved from sins and the definitive sentence of death and damnation, sanctified and adopted into the number of the sons of God, by faith, that is, by a whole-hearted confidence in the name of Christ who is given by the Father to be our only Saviour. And all this entirely excludes works, so that there is no opportunity for us to entangle faith with works or to credit works with the glory and title due to faith alone, or rather to Christ alone, the one upon whom our faith is grounded and upheld.
This is our hope. This is our only hope. If he does not save us, we are surely damned. The sentence is just. We’ve sinned. The only hope is that Jesus just might show us mercy.
And he does. Oh he lavishes such mercy on all who come to him in faith, to all who come to him knowing this: they need salvation. And coming to him in faith, coming to him and him alone for cleansing and healing and saving, we find this…he saves us. We are redeemed, we are cleansed, we are healed, we are saved.
Yea, justified! O blessed thought!
And sanctified! Salvation wrought!
Thy blood hath pardon bought for me,
And glorified, I too, shall be!
Complete in Thee! no work of mine
May take, dear Lord, the place of Thine;
Thy blood hath pardon bought for me,
And I am now complete in Thee.
Refrain:
Yea, justified! O blessed thought!
And sanctified! Salvation wrought!
Thy blood hath pardon bought for me,
And glorified, I too, shall be!
Complete in Thee! no more shall sin,
Thy grace hath conquered, reign within;
Thy voice shall bid the tempter flee,
And I shall stand complete in Thee. (Refrain)
Complete in Thee–each want supplied,
And no good thing to me denied;
Since Thou my portion, Lord, wilt be,
I ask no more, complete in Thee. (Refrain)
Dear Saviour! when before Thy bar
All tribes and tongues assembled are,
Among Thy chosen will I be,
At Thy right hand, complete in Thee. (Refrain)
Words from https://hymnary.org/text/complete_in_thee_no_work_of_mine
Next, on repentance
