No matter the bumps, no matter the bruises,
No matter the scars, still the truth is
The cross has made…the cross has made you
Flawless.
…or, has it?
Prelude
So, before I offer a theological critique of a Christian song, one might ask, “Hey, why offer a theological critique of a Christian song?”
It’s a worthy question. I do not do this very often. I’m no music critic. There’s always the risk, no matter how carefully one executes it, that criticism winds up being harmful or offensive. Before penning such a criticism, one ought to have good reasons. The following list includes some merely circumstantial points that narrate how this came up on my radar along with what I think are some substantive reasons why a post like this might prove to be worth the risks.
- MercyMe is a local group. They originated out of Greenville, TX, which is just up the road. Because they are a local group, I’ve been listening to their work for a long time. They’re automatically on my radar.
- MercyMe is more than a local group. They’ve succeeded internationally. What they write and sing has impact and is worthy of being treated seriously.
- “Flawless” is a successful, catchy, memorable song. Believe it or not, I do not hand over my mind to the task of careful theological analysis of just every song I hear on the radio, but “Flawless” caught my attention and had me singing along in the shower. Ultimately, my concerns about the lyrics arose not as I was listening to Bart Millard singing the words but as I was listening to Bart Barber singing them. MercyMe had ME singing, and I need to think about what I’m singing, right?
- “Flawless” is bigger than MercyMe. The song taps into and exemplifies something about American Christianity at this particular moment that is, in my estimation, both occasionally helpful and subtly dangerous.
- I write as someone who preaches multiple times every week and who humbly knows how often in trying to say just the right thing I miss it just a bit.
- I write as someone who knows how often missing just the right thing by just a little bit leads to conversations that teach me something important about the faith.
- “Flawless” is itself a critique, according to its lyricist. It is a kindhearted and gracious critique from a friend, but according to the video posted further down in this article, it is a critique of what is purported to have been the inadvertent teaching of Highland Terrace Baptist Church (a sister church down the highway from us), and presumably of many of her sister churches. A critique and correction can hardly be off-limits to critique and correction, right?
So, with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives me to see the right, I embark…
The Biblical Critique of “Flawless”
Exegesis before theology. Tattoo these words on your souls, my friends.
There are a number of words employed in the New Testament that mean something along the lines of “flawless.” None of them are ever employed in the New Testament to say anything like what the lyrics of “Flawless” say.
| Anenkletos | |
|---|---|
| 1 Corinthians 1:8 |
“…who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Most of the “flawless” language in the New Testament is eschatological in nature. Flawlessness is a future promise made to believers, not a present possession. In this passage, it is linked to (a) our “wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ,” (b) His active sustaining/confirming action to keep us through to that time, and (c) “the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” |
| Colossians 1:22 |
This passage gives us a tidy three-act synopsis. Past: We were alienated, hostile in mind, and engaged in evil deeds. Present: We are reconciled by Christ’s death (The cross has made…the cross has made you RECONCILED! AMEN!). Future: We will be presented blameless “if you indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast.” Now, I’m no Arminian. I don’t think there’s contingency bundled up in that “if.” But I do think there’s an undeniable “not yet” in it to balance out the obvious “already” features of this passage. I was formerly alienated. I am already reconciled. I am not yet “above reproach.” |
| 1 Timothy 3:10 |
Here being “blameless” (“above reproach”) is given as a qualification for service as a deacon. This is noteworthy, because that which the cross does at the moment of conversion in a punctiliar fashion is that which we can assume to be true of all genuine believers. The idea of being “blameless” or flawless is given here to us as a means of differentiating some believers (those qualified for deacon service) from others (those not qualified for deacon service). Although there is a palpable discomfort in the milieu of contemporary American Christianity with the idea of deeming any believer unworthy of anything, it is difficult to escape the implication of these passages that there are people qualified for office and people disqualified. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine why these particular texts would be in the New Testament at all if this sort of differentiation were not intended for the churches. Thus, contrary to being something that every believer already possesses by virtue of the cross, biblically speaking, flawlessness is something Christians are to pursue, the closer pursuit of which marks those who ought to be considered for potential service as deacons. |
| Titus 1:6-7 |
This passage applies the same concept to qualifications for elders/overseers as 1 Timothy 3:10 has applied to deacons. The same sentiments apply. |
| Amomos | |
| Ephesians 1:4 |
As the TDNT reminds us, amomos “is used of the perfect moral and religious piety of Christians to which believers are obligated by membership of the holy community of the last time…. The point is always that Christians must manifest this blamelessness before the judgment of God and of Christ. The orientation is thus religious and eschatological.” Ephesians 1:3-14 contains a number of past milestones, present accomplishments, and future promises. The temporal context bounces around from “before the foundation of the world” (v4) to “until we acquire possession of [our inheritance]” (v14) and items in-between. Kittel ascribes our blamelessness to the end times for good reason: The purpose clause in which it appears suggests an eschatological interpretation, and the use of the word in its other contexts points us toward eschatological blamelessness as a consistent feature of Pauline theology. |
| Ephesians 5:27 |
Here our blamelessness is tied to the presentation of the Bride of Christ and the Marriage of the Lamb in Revelation 19:6-9. |
| Philippians 2:15 |
Blameless is something that we can accomplish by, in part, doing all things without grumbling or disputing. It is not something that all believers automatically possess; rather, it is something toward which believers strive by means of their conduct and attitudes. |
| Colossians 1:22 |
See note on this passage above. |
| Jude 24 |
God, by His power, is able to keep us from stumbling and, having done so, to present us in the end as blameless. Here again blamelessness occurs in a purpose statement demonstrating a goal accomplished by the power of God in the eschaton. |
| Revelation 14:5 |
The 144,000 are, in the eschaton, declared fully honest and blameless. |
| Anepilemptos | |
| 1 Timothy 3:2 |
The overseer must be “above reproach.” See comments above about qualifications for biblical offices. |
| 1 Timothy 5:7 |
The same qualification is applied to the office of widow. |
| 1 Timothy 6:14 |
In a personal charge to Timothy, the Apostle Paul commands him to keep himself blameless “until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” |
| Teleios | |
| Romans 12:2 |
Being able to discern the will of God, which is “perfect,” requires transformation through the renewing of one’s mind. This is not presented as something already accomplished for the believer through the cross. |
| 1 Corinthians 13:10 |
The time “when the perfect comes” is clearly an anticipated future event. |
| Ephesians 4:13 |
That time when “we all attain to…mature (perfect) manhood” is an anticipated future event, not something already realized. |
| Philippians 3:15 |
Some of us are “mature (perfect)”, but some of us are not. The biblical theme of maturity is significantly important and is at jeopardy here. If there is an idea of Christian maturity toward which believers must strive, then there is something yet undiscovered—something yet undone—toward which believers ought to move even after the work of conversion is complete. |
The list of occurrences of teleios and its cognates goes on for quite some time. I have learned that when I get tired of typing, the average reader is already tired of reading, so I will leave you for the further word study on your own.
Let us summarize the biblical data in this way: blamelessness, flawlessness, maturity, and perfection, insofar as they refer to humans other than Christ, appear in the New Testament as goals for Christian living and as promises pertaining to the Christian Hope in the End Times. This is true without exception. These concepts of blamelessness, flawlessness, maturity, and perfection do not appear in sentences alongside the cross or the atonement. Rather, they appear in sentences alongside admonitions related to Christian behavior and alongside promises about the second coming of Christ.
“God WILL MAKE you flawless.” That’s a lot closer to the language of the Bible.
There’s Worth in What You Do
Bart Millard has given us some insight into the events that inspired the lyrics. He’s trying to correct a perceived legalism in contemporary American Christianity and to overcome an apparent fatigue that he was experiencing as a believer.
There is indeed such a thing as legalism. It has indeed reared its ugly head in the context of American Christianity from time to time. It is indeed still with us to this day. Efforts to combat it are indeed a service to us all.
But the answer to legalism is not to say about ourselves what the New Testament never says about us: that it is the effect of Christ’s work on the cross that we are already flawless. Furthermore, it is not legalism to find worth in what we do. There is worth in what we do. It won’t save us, but there is worth in what we do.
1 Corinthians 3:10-15 speaks about worth in what we do, if we are doing worthy things. Not everything that we do is equally worthy. It is not legalistic to find value in conscientious Christian living. Certainly God does so.
Philippians 4:18 finds worth in what we do. The offering given by the Philippians church and sent through Epaphroditus constituted “a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.”
Revelation 14:13 finds worth in what we do. The dead who die in the Lord have the promise that, having rested from their labors, “their deeds follow them.”
Frankly, it would be a despondent, nihilistic worldview to own if we really believed that there was no worth in what we do. Enough worth to offset the damage done by our sin? Nowhere near that! Will anyone earn his or her way into Heaven? Not in a thousand millennia. But there’s nothing in the Bible even to suggest that the labors and sufferings of Christian believers and the sometimes-fatiguing process of Christian discipleship are worthless. What you do matters!
Not Quite Antinomianism
In earlier days I’ve spoken about incipient antinomianism in contemporary American Christianity. I’m no longer entirely comfortable with that terminology. What our culture (Christian and secular alike) is becoming no less legalistic than that which it once was, the fact notwithstanding that culture is engaged in a sort of changing-of-the-guard with regard to which sins feature prominently in its legalism. Previous generations had to put boys and girls into separate swimming pools. Future generations have to buy free-trade coffee and electric cars.
If not antinomianism, though, I do discern in some quarters of Christianity at present what I’ll call an anti-striving sentiment. There’s an ongoing assumption that whatever is difficult, fatiguing, contrary to my inclinations or feelings, likely to confront me with occasional despair, contributory toward an ongoing sense of guilt, or confrontational toward my present self-esteem must be wrong. Only Twenty-First-Century America could produce something akin to this sentiment. I think this is perhaps a feature of the “therapeutic” part of “moralistic therapeutic deism.” Whatever might cause a contemporary therapist to wrinkle his brow in concern for our emotional health is to be suspect on those grounds.
“The cross was enough” is a sentiment I certainly don’t want to attack. We do have reason to question, however, whether, “it’s OK” (I’m OK. You’re OK) is the conclusion that scripture asks us to draw from Christ’s atonement—whether a Thomas Harris book title actually summarizes the effect of the gospel.
The New Testament contains a lot of material AFTER the cross. The preponderance of it is a call to striving. We’re promised that it will be difficult. We’re promised that it will fatigue us. We’re promised that it will require the transformation and renewal of our inclinations and feelings. Everyone who undertook it in the New Testament encountered despair, and it was in their despair that they discovered a hope greater than their despair. Anti-striving Christianity robs us of so much that is beautiful (albeit counter-intuitive) about the faith once delivered to the saints.
What The Cross Has Done For Us
Because of the cross (to crib lines from Augustine) we find ourselves newly posse non peccare (able not to sin). The cross has not yet made us non posse peccare (not able to sin). It has not made us flawless, but it has put flawlessness on the menu for us and in our inheritance. Striving toward flawlessness isn’t legalism; it’s the thing you are able to do by grace that was not even a possibility for you apart from the cross. To be able to strive toward flawlessness is a blessing and a gift. It is also arguable the unifying theme of the epistles and the calling of every Christian.
If you are fatigued and despondent and if “Flawless” gives you encouragement to soldier on, then I salute you. If you found in the song a beautiful reminder that you have been JUSTIFIED and FORGIVEN by the cross without having really delved that deeply into the implications of using a word like “flawless,” then I celebrate together with you our mutual joy over the way that we have been freed from the Law.
If, however, you have found in “Flawless” encouragement not to work too hard on this whole Christian Living thing, then get your lazy butt up off the couch and start striving toward flawlessness.
Bart,
I haven’t heard the song, so I am not commenting directly on it.
There, in the way I think, two ways to look at our flawlessness or lack of it.
It is the two ways to look at sanctification.
One way is to know we are set apart, sanctified, and accepted by God for WHO we are. In WHO we are, we are considered flawless.
Its like righteousness. In one sense we are either righteous or we are not. We are righteous before God in WHO we are.
Romans 4:
Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven,
And whose sins have been covered.
“Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.”
Other places we see that our lives are hid with Christ and it is not we who live but Christ who lives in us.
In that sense, in the sense that we are united through the Holy Spirit by the cross of Christ, we are flawless, perfect, holy, righteous. We can do no better than that, in WHO we are.
But any Christian who thinks that they in thought and deed is flawless is quite mistaken. If we say we have no sin…
So that sense we still need to sanctify ourselves, to continually set ourselves apart from the world, to continually renew our minds to be more like our Lord. If the song, “Flawless”, says we have achieved that kind of perfection, it is just plain wrong and in great error.
As to legalism. My understanding of it is that its proponents promote a Gospel of acceptance by God as to WHO we are by how well we do. Maybe there is other ways of looking at it then that.
Off to work. Be blessed.
mike
Thanks, Mike,
I think there’s a difference between being COUNTED righteous and actually being righteous. And I think it’s awfully tough to make a case from the language of the New Testament that there is any sense in which we are already flawless. It’s important to recognize imputation for what it is.
Bart: What if the day of our Lord Jesus Christ is not future but now. What if it began the day of the Cross and resurrection. Then interpret those passages in that light?
If that were true, we’d be at a loss to interpret those passages in post-ascension epistles that refer to the day of the Lord as a future event not yet accomplished. Perhaps the most relevant of those for the present discussion would be a well-known verse that speaks of the day of the Lord as a future event and explicitly ties the ongoing work of sanctification to that not-yet-here day.
“Being confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6)
Distinctions matter in theology and in life. The difference in “counted righteous” and “made righteous” is, in my judgment, one of the weightiest. Good work as usual Bro Bart.
Thanks!
Happy Thanksgiving.
Bart,
I looked up the lyrics on break last night and it turns out I have heard the song, but I didn’t know it well enough to, well sing it in the shower.
Two things in reply. The second will be about the song itself, and the first towards the idea of flawless in the NT.
Before that, a little analogy:
If you hired me to work for you, and for three years I came to work every day as scheduled, only took the appropriate time for lunch, and left as scheduled, it could be said that my attendance record was flawless. But in three years, I probably would make a mistake, so it could also be said that i was not perfect as an employee.
A person can be flawless a way without being perfect in every way.
On to the NT.
Nothing new here.
In 1st John 1 we who say we have no sin have not the truth. But as we all now, the passage continues to say that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
When we are forgiven and cleansed, are we flawed in that way? The cross has made us flawless before God, in that way.
John 15 tells us:
I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
and Paul in Romans 11 speaks to the idea of branches and vine:
If the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also; and if the root is holy, the branches are too.
and in the OT, we know that some animals were unclean and some were clean, and that the Israelis should not eat of the unclean ones, in part, to show the holiness of God. But Peter is told in Acts 10: “Again a voice came to him a second time, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.” This happened three times, and immediately the object was taken up into the sky.”
Now was this just about types of animals? Oc course not.
Bart, you mentioned several times about the eschaton, and certainly there we will be flawless in most every if not every way. But in another sense the eschaton is upon us. It has broken into history and into our lives, so that there is a duality, a tension of not yet but still now, or now but not yet.
We are now the body of Christ. We are now the redeemed. We are now covered by His blood and cleansed. We are now walking in robes washed white. We are now the new man in Christ.
The righteousness we have now is imputed, but it is real.
Consider the Psalms.
For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the wicked will perish.
For it is You who blesses the righteous man, O Lord,
You surround him with favor as with a shield.
Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones;
And shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart.
What makes a man righteous in God’s eyes?
Our faith makes us righteous in the eyes of God.
Now should we discount that attitude of God towards His people? is it just an accounting transaction?
No. We are more than just counted righteous because in the Book we have our names indelibly written.
We are counted righteous because we have in ourselves a union with God through Christ by the Spirit.
we read:
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”
So how are we flawless? We are cleansed by the blood. We are called clean by God. We are righteous by faith, a righteousness acceptable to God.
Our root is holy. These are all NT truths.
Now to the song:
In good exegesis, as you know better than I, context plays a big part in interpretation.
You gave us the NT idea of flawlessness from a perspective that is true. In the sense of perfection, we are all flawed.
But to critique a song, you must allow the context of the song to define itself , at least where and when it does.
How does the song itself define flawless?
Lyrics, I think stanza 2:
Could it possibly be
That we simply can’t believe
That this unconditional
Kind of love would be enough
To take a filthy wretch like this
And wrap him up in righteousness
But that’s exactly what He did
The song is defining flawless as a person who is a filthy wretch, loved unconditionally, and wrapped in righteousness.
In other words, in the sense that we are sinners loved we have an IMPUTED FLAWLESSNESS.
Is the song saying we now live flawless lives? No.
How has the cross made you flawless?
By giving you the righteousness of Christ.
The song critiques those who think there is worth in what we do. The video equates that sentiment with a sort of legalism. The song, I think CONFUSES the idea of imputed righteousness (which is the focus of the verse that you’ve mentioned) and flawlessness.
Now, we’ll never know unless Bart Millard follows SBC Voices (unlikely, I think), but I never thought that he was suggesting any sort of a Wesleyan perfectionism (we actually…at least some of us…have been perfected through to utter sanctification). Rather, I take the song to be suggesting something else (which I tried to describe in my section on anti-striving Christianity):
1. The work of the cross provides atonement for our sin, and by means of that work Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us. I agree with this sentiment. I think the song is asserting this sentiment. I think the verse you have cited is based upon this.
2. That work of imputation means that God regards us, when He beholds us, according to the righteousness of Christ rather than according to the sinfulness of our fleshly selves. According to the strictest sense of what this means, I agree with this sentiment.
3. Therefore, we ought to rest contented in the idea that this imputed righteousness is quite enough to satisfy God’s desires for our lives and stop thinking that the things that we do contribute any value or make any difference whatsoever in the way that God sees us. At this point I entirely disagree.
Imputed righteous doesn’t FOOL God. God still knows when I sin. God still disapproves of my sin. Imputed righteousness simply means that there is therefore now no CONDEMNATION for my sin. God doesn’t condemn my sin. Imputation is forensic, to put it in other words.
So, here’s how the cross actually is enough.
1. The cross is enough at the moment of conversion to impute to me the righteousness of Christ such that I am no longer condemned but am instead acquitted as righteous.
2. The cross is enough to initiate in me the process of sanctification, the progress of which process is giving me not just imputed holiness, but actual holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. That work will be completed when I reach Heaven.
3. But that very holiness is something which I must even still, as a converted man, pursue. I do not have it; I must pursue it [extend effort toward it] (Hebrews 12:14).
4. The process of sanctification and the pursuit of holiness are very much bound up in the “worth of what you do.” And truly, we should acknowledge at this point that it is this very phrase that (a) provides all the context we need to understand the song and (b) brings me to my keyboard this week. There is worth in what we do. Behavior matters. Actual holiness matters. Sanctification matters. It can never save you, but once you have been saved, it is a very important, very worthy thing to pursue holiness in what you do. That task—the task of becoming flawless—is not something that the cross has accomplished; it is something that the cross IS ACCOMPLISHING and WILL ACCOMPLISH. That’s the difference between the song’s perspective and the biblical argument I’ve sought to make in this thread.
Bart,
You said:
The song critiques those who think there is worth in what we do. The video equates that sentiment with a sort of legalism. The song, I think CONFUSES the idea of imputed righteousness (which is the focus of the verse that you’ve mentioned) and flawlessness.
I see a nuance here that either you don’t get or that I don’t see you getting.
“The song critiques those who think there is worth in what we do.”
Of course there is worth in what we do. Or nothing is worth doing.
Rather the song critiques the idea that we find our worth from God in what we do.
That idea is far greater in our society than what I consider legalism. Let me unpack that.
To me, legalism is religious folks who say we must do this or that or be unacceptable to God. Its like the circumcision party of the NT where they might say, “Okay Jesus is the Messiah, but you still have to be circumcised and keep these dietary laws.” So the legalists of today will push for short hair on men, no smoking or drinking at all, suits in church and dresses to below the calf, and a whole host of outward ‘signs’ that one is saved.
Now the song addresses them but it goes beyond to the church society where the immature [either due to newness in the Lord or a confession that wasn’t from the heart but who walked the aisle and the church dunked them] don’t get the Gospel truth at all: that its not what you do that makes one acceptable to God but rather its the cross of Christ that makes you acceptable unto God.
The system of the world is that one’s worth is by what one does. Those with more money or high profile jobs like ball players or politicians or actors or singers are worth a lot and that the rest should aspire the best they can to gain what they can and emulate these stars.
The system of God is that one’s worth is found in His eyes alone.
So the idea of being flawless in His eyes speaks [to me anyhow] of His acceptance despite the many ways I don’t measure up. Such flaws would include moral failings [sins] as well as other failings as measured against the expectations of others and of one’s self. It also speaks against pride where one might think because of his own successes in life [riches, trophy wife, fame, etc.] that he doesn’t need to humble himself before God.
So here is where I think we are at:
You look at the term ‘flawless’ and define it as perfection.
I look at it as a general acceptance by God. No one gets into His presence with out holiness and righteousness but yet God has made an abode within me. Flawlessness is acceptance by God, imputed righteousness but real.
Are you wrong in your glance?
No, its a subjective interp.
And if it bothers you, then don’t sing it.
But when I hear it, I don’t think I’m perfect, but accepted because of Christ.
And its from that place of acceptance, of unconditional love, that place of being counted worthy even though I haven’t earned it that I seek to walk to please God. To live out who I am.
That’s fine except for one thing: “Flawless” is a word with a meaning apart from what you or I think of when we hear it. The entire point of my post is that…
1. The word signifies a biblical concept.
2. Words indicating that concept (i.e., Greek words that could reasonably be translated “flawless”) in the Bible never appear in any context saying what the song says about flawlessness (and no one in the thread has offered such).
3. There’s something I’ve identified as a sort of “anti-striving” sort of Christianity afoot that (regardless of the author’s intent) is encouraged by such wording. I’d put Tullian Tchividjian near the top of that list, if you need me to try to put a finger on it a little more precisely.
What I read from you is something along the lines of, “You know, Bart, I could choose to interpret this song differently and come up with something acceptable.” Sure. My final paragraph pretty much acknowledged that. That’s totally irrelevant, because succeeding 100% at making that argument refutes my point not at all: The Bible speaks of flawlessness (not ideas that you could massage theologically into some sort of an idea of flawlessness, but instead I’m talking about actual words that mean the equivalent of “flawless”), and it never speaks of it in any way similar to what this song says.
That point (“You’re articulating a theology of this word that is different from what the Bible says about it.”) counts, in my universe, as worthy of consideration.
Bart,
The cross is what makes us flawless.
Though we are growing in grace and being conformed to Christ as we live, we never attain that kind of flawlessness in this life.
So does the cross do more for us after we die than it already has even when we first believed in its work to make us flawless, or righteous, or holy before God?
No.
You are only looking at one part of the tension of the now and the not yet.
The cross has made us flawless.
It just isn’t evident yet.
“The Bible speaks of flawlessness (not ideas that you could massage theologically into some sort of an idea of flawlessness, but instead I’m talking about actual words that mean the equivalent of ‘flawless’), and it never speaks of it in any way similar to what this song says.”
–I think I’ll just keep replying this until someone refutes it. 🙂
“not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on…..Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do…..I press on for the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
As long as we have the flesh we will not be “flawless” yet we are not called to give up on the pursuit of sanctifying our whole being by the power of the Spirit. We cannot split the flesh out of who we are. When we die the flesh is left behind and we get a new body which is “into conformity which the body of His glory.” Then we will be declared “flawless.”
Now, now. Don’t start using the BIBLE in blog arguments!!
A flawless diamond in a less than flawless ring doesn’t negate the flawlessness of the diamond.
We have been cleansed of all unrighteousness.
We have been washed clean.
We are the righteous ones.
Because of the cross we are the flawless diamond in a ring that’s yet to be flawless.
Or what part of your soul is not 100% forgiven?
What part of your soul is not 100% washed clean?
What part of your soul is not 100% acceptable to God.
And that is what the song is speaking to, and not to the idea that we still sin in the body and stumble in sin, which we still do.
It’s a nice sentiment. It’s just not anything that the Bible ever says. The Bible does say things about flawlessness; it just never says this.
Bart,
Which part is sentiment?
Is it…
when we get saved we’re 100% accepted by God?
or when we get saved, we are declared 100% righteous?
or when we get saved we are 100% washed clean?
or when we get saved not one of our sins is accounted against us?
I’m just wondering why you call such things… sentiment?
Well, technically speaking, they’re all sentiments (“sentiment” = any view or opinion, or any feeling about something), as are the things I’ve said. The next sentence (and the point I’ve made repeatedly without much luck in engaging you) gives the qualification: “It’s just not anything that the Bible ever says.”
So, to answer your question more directly, each of your statements above for which you have a passage in the Bible saying precisely what you have written is ipso facto more than a mere sentiment. Exegesis before theology. I provided a full page of exegesis. Take the words I’ve listed (or produce synonyms that perhaps I’ve missed) and simply show us biblical texts asserting what you’re asserting, and I’ll be entirely satisfied.
I really want to weigh in, but since I don’t know that I know the song, my ignorance would be greater than usual.
Dave,
Google:
“Mercy Me Flawless lyrics.”
Its not long.
Impossible.
Liberal. Nerd.
Democrat.
No, sorry, that last one goes too far! No one should be accused of that, not even Dean.
Interesting Thread, but I think in the end I have to agree with parsonsmike:
1. “It’s just not anything that the Bible ever says.”
-Christians WERE washed (1 Cor. 6:11),
-Hebrews 10:22 – let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (If we’re drawing near this way NOW, it must mean we are in some way CLEAN now.
-We are already a new creation. (1 Cor. 5)
-I suppose I would simply say that if we are not IN ANY WAY flawless, then it means we have been only made somewhat clean, and that this new creation of God has some flaws. As you admitted at the beginning, your standard of proving this as a “never” is very high, and given the many synonymns and words with similar meanings in both greek and english, I don’t think it can be shown that the song is saying something that is NECESSARILY opposed to scriptural teaching. “The cross has made you flawless” sound an awful lot like “You were washed”, “our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience,” “a new creation.”
2. I think the value in your post is that it DOES correct a common mis-remembrance of what scripture ACTUALLY says about this issue, that it repeatedly tells us that perfection/flawlessness/blamelessness is something to strive for…and that it is true that it refers to our present condition as perfect/clean/flawless much less often than we may think it does.
However, it is not entirely absent. One more scripture that comes earlier in Hebrews 10, I think makes it clear: But when Christ2 had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he ksat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time luntil his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. V14 – “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” BOTH are true. We are being sanctified, but the offering of Christ has perfected us in some way NOW. I don’t understand that completely, but it seems to be what Hebrews is teaching: We have been perfected, so we can NOW enter the holy place with confidence (and the whole curtain torn thing seems to re-enforce this idea).
3. You may throw me in with Tullian Ticantspellthat for saying this, but I think you are wrong to fear that simply pointing a Christian to their being cleansed, perfected, accepted, created anew-ness, etc; is going to make them think they don’t need to strive for holiness and fight against sin.
Thanks for reading a long post,
-andy
Thanks for interacting, Andy,
1. It is part-and-parcel of my position (and I think the major differentiation between mine and Mike’s) to resist theologizing from “cleansed” to “flawless.” The concepts are not the same. Cleaning has to do with removing from you some external something that is defiling you. Flawlessness has to do with repairing or upgrading something of your essential self such that no inadequacies remain. They are not the same thing.
To stoop to analogy, I could place a bleeding cut under a stream of pure water. The cut would be cleaned and would remain clean (due to the ongoing effect of something that is cleansing it), but it will not be flawless until the cut itself is healed. I’m not asserting necessarily that this is a good picture of the Christian theology of cleansing and perfection; I’m merely trying to demonstrate that the concepts of cleansing and flawlessness are different from one another, and that the difference in Greek vocabulary between these two concepts ought to be honored in the way that we do exegetical work.
2. Hebrews 10:14 is an interesting citation to make at this point.
I give you William Lane (Word Biblical Commentary) “The precise nuance in the verb teteleioken is difficult to determine. The translation “decisively purged” follows Johnsson (“Defilement,” 454) and has the merit of sustaining the emphasis of 9:9 and 10:1. The perfect tense of the verb connotes an accomplished fact. As an alternative, Johnsson proposes to translate “he has incorporated those who are sanctified” (261-63). The notion of incorporation signifies a state rather than an act of becoming, and Johnsson argues that it is this view of teleioun that is supported by the data of Hebrews 9-10.”
I further give you David Allen (New American Commentary): “Lane argued that the perfect tense defines a finished work on its author’s side (Christ), but one that is progressively realized (subjective sanctification) in the process which the present participle depicts in v. 14.”
Word and NAC are two of the better scholarly commentaries produced during my lifetime. Both have hedged over the extent to which “made perfect” can be applied to our imperfect state. I’m entirely comfortable with asserting the finished work of Christ with regard to our salvation and our sanctification. Certainly there is no more to be done at Calvary.
3. The idea of flawlessness in the song, I think, cannot be separated from the derision the song flings in the direction of the thought that there is “worth in what we do.” To think that there is worth in what you do, in the context of this song, is the opposite of realizing that you are flawless. We don’t have to feel about in the dark for what exactly Bart Millard means by being flawless; he has told us in the song. If you think there is worth in what you do, then you are the person who needs this message.
So, the song teaches us that the effect of the cross is that it doesn’t matter what we do. This is a monergistic sanctification (a monster that even strict monergists with regard to soteriology have labored to slay). Either you place some importance in your behavior, or you receive the fact that the cross has made you flawless. That’s the contrast struck in the lyrics.
Thus, to close, I agree that simply pointing a Christian to the wonders of the pardon that we have received is no cause for worry or concern. Pronouncing them flawless while tut-tutting their attention to their behavior, on the other hand, is quite the horse of another color.
Bret,
Thanks for the debate. This will be my last post on it.
Feel free to have the last word.
Before I comment, I am not objecting to your on anyone’s desire to make what we sing reflect truth. It should. And since that is your desire, I commend you for it.
I just disagree. From your comments to Andy, let me point out a few of things.
One. The song, IMO, wasn’t saying that there is NO worth in what we do. In that, you have taken it too far. Its point is to say that we are not accepted by God for what we do, which speaks against a broad cultural understanding, and a worldwide religious understanding.
Two. As to your metaphor, its completely backwards, In your metaphor the outer flaw is healed [the bleeding stops] but the inner flaw [the cut in the skin] remains, and thus we remain flawed by the cut. The reality of Christian walk is quite the opposite. The cross makes us flawless as to WHO we are before God, though outwardly we still look like many in the world.
In other words, and to use your analogy, the beauty of the cross is that we are healed in our inner being but our outward self has not caught up to the truth of who we are.
As to progressive sanctification, well, thats a lark, at least as far as this topic goes. Do you think that anyone of us is closer to Jesus and holy perfection when we die than when we were saved. Rather, I think we have a long way to go, even the best of us.
So as long as you focus on our deeds, yes, even the best of us are not flawless.
But that is not the point of the song.
It points us away from our deeds, and pointedly so.
Yet you think it is focusing on our deeds.
When you sang the song, in the shower, or wherever, did you think it was telling you that you never sinned?
And you kept singing it? Please. C’mon.
The song certainly uses artistic license in defining flawless, but the message of the song isn’t that we never sin, but that because of the cross we are 100% accepted by God. And we are 100% accepted by God because of WHO we are now, and not because of what we do. That’s the message of the song.
Have a blessed day,
mke
So much for my typing lol.
He’s Bart, not Bret, and I’m mike not mke…..
Yes, I think it is fair to conclude that we just disagree.
One: I hope you are correct as to the author’s intent, and I think that’s quite possible. As to what the song actually says, I think I’m spot-on.
Two: As I stated in the comment, my analogy existed merely to show that clean and flawless are two different things. Because they are two different things, our exegetical work ought not to equate them without warrant. Mine is, at its essence, an exegetical argument. My impression of our disagreement (and perhaps my impression is flawed, since neither you nor I are flawless) is that we have been talking past one another primarily because I have been making exegetical points while you have been making theological ones. Theology is good (er…that is…GOOD theology is good 🙂 and I’m sure yours is as good as mine), but there’s also room for us to discuss exegesis, and theology ought to serve exegesis, not vice-versa. I’m sure you’d agree.
Three (I think there was a three, unidentified in there): Progressive sanctification is not a lark. I’m quite a bit further along than I was when I started. The Apostle Paul was quite a bit further along as he matured. The progress in Simon Peter is hard to miss. To ignore the idea that believers mature and grow in sanctification is to snip out rather large sections of the New Testament and to deny a major work of the Holy Spirit. That even the best of us still have a long way to go is not in dispute here. The question is whether any of us have shorter to go than we did at the beginning of our walks with Christ.
One final thing, Andy…
Never apologize to ME for being a bit wordy. You run the risk of having a roof cave in over you or something.