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“The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” Romans 3:22It is a strange thing indeed and might be an oxymoron were it not true. How knowing more about Jesus can lead to forgetting about Him. And how followers of Christ can often leave their leader behind. Neither makes sense. And both are owed to a conflict within us – the battle between the flesh and the spirit, the physical and the transcendent.
John Bradford, a sixteenth century English reformer and martyr, was well acquainted with this very human phenomenon. Bradford described what he called “Christless talkers.” Those who seemingly forget the elementary principles of faith and repentance. He was well acquainted with those who were full of “a bare head knowledge of sound words [that] availeth nothing.” Christless talkers. A moniker we would do well to avoid.
The constant challenge of the Christian life is to take a great journey of faith without forgetting the starting point. To walk a great distance with Jesus without ever getting far from the cross. For his cross is the source of his grace to us, and his grace is the source of our life in him.
This journey is not without its pitfalls. It is a journey with Jesus, but our flesh is always along for the ride. This flesh that would rather do than be. This flesh that would rather achieve than receive. The flesh that desperately wants a righteousness of its own rather than a righteousness that comes through faith.
And that is why a bare head knowledge of Jesus will never do. Because head knowledge often leaves the heart untouched. In this way it offers a sense of well-being, but fails to confront the pride-filled flesh. Paul noted a group of people in his second letter to Timothy whom he described as “always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth” (2Tim 3:7). Knowing about Jesus. But not knowing Jesus. Giving lipservice to him, but serving ourselves.
If we want to be more than “Christless talkers,” we must remember the lessons from return regularly to what Bradford calls “the grammar school of faith and repentance.” We must return frequently and remember where it all began for us – where it can begin for you today – with a Savior on a cross and a sinner on his knees. It began with a heart crying out and Jesus answering her pleas.
This vision of Savior and sinner, the Righteous and unrighteous, must be woven daily into the very fabric of our hearts, lest we forget our need for him.
I speak from experience, because my struggle is not in knowing that I have been saved by grace through faith (Eph 2:8). Neither is my struggle in knowing that justification is a free gift (Rom 3:24). I have been taught that many times and read it countless more.
No, my struggle is in convincing my pride-prone heart that I need Jesus as much today as I did the day I met Him. My struggle is in remembering that today – in my own flesh – there is nothing to commend me to God (Rom 7:18). My struggle is in remembering that it is only by grace that I have been saved. And that is not my own doing. That is the gift of God.
My best days are the days that I live with an awareness of this fact: I am still an empty sinner in need of grace.
I like the way Roy and Revel Hession frame this in their classic work, We Would See Jesus:
“Grace permits us to come (nay, demands that we come) as empty sinners to be blessed: empty of right feelings, good character and satisfactory record, with nothing to commend ourselves but our deep need, fully and frankly acknowledged… The struggle, of course, is to believe it and to be willing to be but empty sinners to the end of our days…”
Empty sinners. To the end of our days. Seeing ourselves as empty sinners will keep us closer to the cross. Closer to the place where Jesus can be found. And closer to the source of his grace.
As Roy and Revel put it, when “our deep need (is) fully and frankly acknowledged… Then grace, being what it is, is drawn by that need to satisfy it, just as water is drawn to depth (by gravity) that it might fill it.”
How long has it been since you have allowed the grace of God to plumb – and replenish – the depths of your heart? Taking some time for a clear picture of your Savior in light of your sin can do wonders for the soul. Return again and again to the cross, in both humility and gratitude, and drink your fill of His glorious grace.
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A bare head knowledge will lead us away from Jesus,
blind to our need for Him.
But a heart that is mindful of its own poverty will keep us returning to the cross and the source of his grace,
that we might be filled again and again with the person and character of Christ.
For the Spirit says,
“I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
