Living by Rules - Glenn Conjurske
Living by Rules
by Glenn Conjurske
The Bible has something to say about living by rules—-something for it, and something against it. On the one side, all that the New Testament says of keeping the commandments of Christ or of God certainly implies our living by rules. I am of course aware that the very idea of keeping commandments is abomination to all those of the antinomian stamp, but they must set aside the very warp and woof of the New Testament in order to maintain their position. It is needless to quote proof texts here. All who have read the New Testament know very well that it speaks a great deal of the commandments of Christ, the commandments of God, and of keeping them. Yet in the teeth of all this, a man like Lewis Sperry Chafer can contend that God “does not lead His children by any rules whatsoever.”1
No? And what then was the Bible written for? Why are we told, “Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth”? (Eph. 4:28). Why are we told to lay not up for ourselves treasures on the earth, to speak the truth, to forsake not the assembling of ourselves together, to put off all malice, to obey those who have the rule over us, to honor all men, to obey our parents, to love our wives or obey our husbands? Are not these rules which are given of God to lead us?
Chafer and all his kind are extremely careful to reiterate everywhere that we cannot keep the commandments of God by our own strength, or “in the energy of the flesh,” but if this is so, what of it? Am I therefore not to keep them at all? If God tells me to labor, working with my hands, I simply do so, because God tells me to, and never trouble my head about whether I am doing it “in the energy of the flesh,” being certain meanwhile of this, that if I neglect or decline to do it, on the plea of inability, or unwillingness, or any other plea whatsoever, I am most certainly acting “in the energy of the flesh.”
But we are told we must be led and empowered of the Spirit, that it is not ours to do the work, but God’s to do it in us. Chafer writes, “The divine standards for the believer’s character and conduct are superhuman. This is reasonable since he is a citizen of heaven. The superhuman manner of life is to be lived by the enabling, supernatural power of the Spirit. … He is not exhorted to attempt to do what the Spirit alone can do; he is rather to maintain the attitude of co-operation with, and yieldedness to, and dependence on, the Spirit.”2 Very well, then: sit in your rocking chair, fold your hands, and “yield” to the Spirit of God till he moves your hands to milk your cows or to saw your wood. I will come to see you in a year, and will find a skeleton in your rocking chair, with its hands still folded.
And I must object to the subtle sophistry of all of this. It looks very plausible to say that we cannot keep the commandments of God, and are not exhorted to attempt what God alone can do, but this sets aside half of the New Testament with one stroke. The fact is, we are continually exhorted not only to attempt, but to do. Chafer’s doctrine is indefensible. The plain fact is, no man ever yet obeyed the commandments of God except by his own volition. If we “yield” to God, we do this precisely by choosing to obey his commandments, and acting upon that choice. Any other sort of “yielding” to God is mere delusion.
For what purpose does Mr. Chafer suppose “the commandments of God” exist? “The grace-manner of life in the Spirit,” he says, “will be lived according to the grace teachings. These teachings, or principles of life, are written both to prepare the Christian for an intelligent walk in the Spirit, and to furnish a norm by which he may compare his daily life with the divine ideal. The grace teachings are not laws; they are suggestions. They are not demands; they are beseechings.”3
This may appear plausible enough, so long as he employs his unscriptural terminology of “grace teachings” and “grace-manner of life,” but what will he do with “the commandments of God”? Are these only suggestions? Are they not demands? That Paul understood the difference between law and grace we can scarcely doubt, yet he speaks of keeping the commandments of God. It is Paul who says, “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God” (I Cor. 7:19)—-the plain and only possible meaning of which is, “the keeping of the commandments of God is something.” That some of the “teachings of grace” are suggestions or beseechings we do not deny. So are some of the “teachings of the law.” Does this prove that there are no commandments in the law? No more do the suggestions of the New Testament prove that there are no commandments under grace. If a father sometimes advises his son, is this proof that he never commands him?
But no man with a system so flagrantly contradictory to both sense and Scripture as Chafer’s is can be altogether consistent with himself. He grants in various ways that we are to keep the commandments of God, when he speaks unguardedly. Yet when he explicitly sets forth his particular theses, he all but denies it, saying we are not exhorted to attempt it, that the commandments are only suggestions, and given only that we might compare our progress with the standard. God, in other words, has given to us a detailed book of instructions and maps for our journey, and then put us into the back seat, to do the driving himself. If we ask what we are to do with the book, we are told that we may use it to compare our progress with the standard—-to pass judgement, in other words, not upon our own work, but upon the work of the Holy Spirit within us. Duty, obedience, resolve, choice, determination, and everything else human, is rigidly excluded, with the single exception of yielding. But in maintaining that single responsibility, he in effect gives up his whole ground, for this yielding is certainly as “superhuman” as anything else which God requires of us, and if we are able by any means whatsoever to do this, by the same token and in the same manner we may do all. The plain fact is, in spite of all his subtle endeavors to eliminate it, in the end he makes the whole process of our sanctification dependent precisely and entirely upon our own responsibility and our own act. Not that his system is therefore harmless. No, for with a wisdom far in advance of Scripture he substitutes that one act for every other duty, and the natural tendency of this is to leave all else undone.
That the righteousness of the law is to be fulfilled in us, but not by us, is the contention of C. I. Scofield (Chafer’s mentor) and all the deluded adherents of a one-sided grace theology. This, I say, is delusion. If God works “in us,” it is first “to will” and then “to do” of his good pleasure. We ourselves must both will it and do it, or it will never be done at all. He moves us to do his will, and this he does in no other way than by moving us to will to do it. This he does, not merely by some secretive operation directly upon our will, but through our hearts and minds and consciences, by the commandments and admonitions of his word, and by chastening us in the event that we neither do nor will to do them. He no more directly or supernaturally moves our wills to choose, than he supernaturally moves our hands to do. He leads us by his commandments, and by the rod of his discipline, which is proof enough that these commandments are not mere “suggestions.” God did not move Abraham’s feet to go to Canaan, but moved his will to choose to do so, by binding his conscience with a peremptory command, and drawing his heart with an alluring promise. Abraham chose to go, and moved his own feet to do so, and Paul’s description of this is that “By faith he obeyed, and he went out.” And he did not trouble himself all the way to Canaan as to whether he was acting in the flesh or the Spirit.
The plain fact is, no man ever did or can walk with God except in the way of obedience to his commandments, and this obedience is our own act, consequent upon our own choice. The yielding of which Paul speaks is not a mere abstract yielding of our hearts to the inner working of the Spirit of God, but a concrete yielding of our members to outward righteousness. “…for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.” (Rom. 6:19). “As ye have yielded, so now yield YOUR MEMBERS.” When we yielded our members to uncleanness and iniquity, this was no mere abstract yielding to the power of the world, the flesh, or the devil, but a very concrete and specific yielding of our eyes and ears and hands and feet to particular acts of sin, committed because we chose to commit them. “So now” we yield those same “members” to specific acts of righteousness, in obedience to specific commandments. This and this only is the doctrine of yielding in Romans 6. Chafer’s doctrine is a mere delusion, as directly against Scripture as it is against common sense.
But there are rules of another sort than the commandments of God. Many impose upon themselves self-made or man-made rules, and to my mind this is bondage indeed. But bondage or no bondage, there is often a great deal of evil in these self-imposed rules.
To begin with, to govern my conduct by a rule is simply to adopt an easy way, a way which requires no wisdom, no exercise of heart, soul, or conscience, no weighing of particular difficulties in particular circumstances, no scrutinizing of motives, no thoughtfulness or carefulness. The rule settles all—-and may often enough settle it on the wrong side. Many have adopted, for example, the rule never to speak anything to the disadvantage of another in that person’s absence. This proceeds on the assumption that it is always wrong to do so. That the most of such speaking which now exists in the world is wrong we may grant. It is the fruit of pride or ill will. But this is not always the case. Paul spoke to Peter’s disadvantage in Peter’s absence, and wrote it for all posterity by inspiration of the Holy Ghost. This was not wrong. There are many cases in which it is a simple necessity to speak to another’s disadvantage, to warn others against following his example or his doctrine, to warn them to be on their guard against his devices, to enable others the better to help him, to vindicate my own course with reference to him, or to vindicate the course of a third party. But to know when and what to speak requires wisdom. It requires the searching of our own hearts also, to ascertain whether our own motives are pure. The need for any such wisdom or self-examination is set aside by the rule.
Others impose upon themselves the rule never to say anything about another which they would not say to him. This rule has all the faults of the preceding one. There may be very good reasons for saying something about someone, and equally good reasons for not saying it to him. Some men will not receive admonition. “He that reproveth a scorner getteth to himself shame, and he that rebuketh a wicked man getteth himself a blot.” (Prov. 9:7). There is nothing to be gained by admonishing such men, and something to be lost—-no good to be done to the offender, and harm to be gotten to ourselves. Yet we may have good reason to speak of his ways or his wrongs to others. This is to be determined by wisdom, weighing the merits of each case, and examining our own motives also. The rule is merely an easy way, eliminating the need for wisdom or virtue.
Not only so. These rules which eliminate the necessity for wisdom often entail putting wisdom in abeyance, and actually moving us to act unwisely. The man who will never speak to another’s disadvantage behind his back will sometimes fail to do what is wise and right, and what may be his plain duty. So likewise the man who will never say to a third party what he will not speak to the man himself. His rule will often put him on the wrong side, either in refraining from speaking what he ought to to others, or in getting himself a blot by speaking it to the man himself.
Some have imposed the rule upon themselves that if they possess anything which they have not used for a whole year, they will get rid of it. There is apparent wisdom in this, but also a good deal of actual folly. It may be generally true that if we can live a year without using a thing, we have no need of it, but this is certainly not always true. I may drive for a year without a flat tire, and therefore never use my jack or my lug wrench. Shall I therefore get rid of them—-and my spare tire also? Ah, but those who live by this rule never meant that it should apply to a lug wrench or a spare tire. No, but why then do they profess to live by the rule, and why seek to impose it upon others? The fact is, the rule itself is faulty. It has as much of folly in it as of wisdom. There are many things for which we have only an occasional need, and these are not to be parted with because we pass a year without using them. I have a great many books which I do not use once a year—-perhaps some which I do not use once in five years—-but I surely would not part with them. There are times when I need them.
Now it seems to me that the faultiness of such a rule consists precisely in the fact that it is too detailed and specific. The time of one year is completely arbitrary. Where does the Bible suggest anything like this? Wisdom will teach us to part with—-or to abstain from acquiring in the first place—-those things which we do not need and are not likely to use at all. This is a sound principle, and wisdom is required in the use of it. The rule that I must possess only what I use every year requires no wisdom, and will often lead us to do what is foolish—-to throw away one year what we must buy again the next.
And this is the case with the most of such rules. They prescribe what may be generally good and right, but which is not always so, and in so doing they entail some things which are wrong or foolish. This is not the case with the rules of Scripture or the commandments of God. We suppose they are usually broader and more general than the self-imposed rules of men. Where the Bible requires temperance, man imposes abstinence, and this with such determination that the very word “temperance” has come to mean abstinence to many minds. God gives a broad rule which requires the exercise of our moral faculties. Man replaces this with “Touch not, taste not, handle not”—-a rule which we might teach to a cat or a dog, and which may be kept without wisdom or moral exercise. The rules of Scripture are not so detailed and specific. They consist of principles which actually require wisdom in their application. They require the weighing of circumstances and the examination of motives, for what may be right in one circumstance, or for one reason, may be wrong upon another.
The commandments of God are wise, and will keep us in the paths of righteousness. The rules of men often contain a mixture of wisdom and folly, and the same rule will often cause us to err on both sides, requiring us sometimes to be righteous overmuch, and do more than our duty, and at other times relaxing us into a moral turpitude which satisfies itself with less than its duty. On the one side, the conscience whips us to do more than God requires, and it may be more than we are capable of under the present circumstances, while on the other side the conscience is satisfied when the rule is kept, though our duty at the time may go much beyond the rule.
D. L. Moody, in his early days in Chicago, adopted for himself the rule never to let a day pass without speaking to someone about his soul, and he took his rule seriously. R. A. Torrey tells us, “His was a very busy life, and sometimes he would forget his resolution until the last hour, and sometimes he would get out of bed, dress, go out and talk to some one about his soul in order that he might not let one day pass without having definitely told at least one of his fellow-mortals about his need and the Saviour Who could meet it.”4
This was perhaps going beyond the call of duty. It is certain that God has imposed no such rule upon his people, and the rule itself would be impertinent and impracticable to many, such as a mother in a country cottage. The much greater danger, however, lies on the other side. Such a rule is very likely to move its adherent to suppose that when he has kept his rule, he has fulfilled his duty, and so to content himself with speaking to one, when he might have spoken to twenty.
The same is true of other rules to which Christians subject themselves. Many vow to read so many chapters of the Bible every day. On some days this may be scarcely possible, as in a time of sickness, or of mental anguish. Yet they will read over the words, in order to keep their rule, though they may be physically or emotionally incapable of reading to any profit. On the other side, when they have read their chapters, and so fulfilled their rule, they will cease, though they might profitably read much more. There really ought to be some spontaneity in our spiritual life, and these rules are a poor substitute for this. Not only so, but they may serve to blind us to our actual spiritual condition. The man who must resolve to kiss his wife every day really stands in need of something deeper than this, but so long as the outward expression is kept up, the inward deficiency is not perceived.
Others adopt the rule of reading the Bible straight through—-and of course keep count of how many times they have done so. There may be more of pride than of profit in this, and more of folly than of wisdom. It may be that we ought to read the book of Luke ten or twenty times while we read Leviticus but once, but the self-imposed rule stands in the way of this.
Others adopt the rule of “one book at a time.” This may contain a grain of sense for “fools,” who according to the old proverb, “are always beginning,” and never finishing, but the rule is too sweeping. The fact is, some books are not worth finishing, and we cannot know this until we begin them. Other books may be very profitable, though as abstruse and heavy in content as they are ponderous in size. Am I to read such a book straight through, without reading anything else meanwhile? This is not wisdom, but folly. Too much of this heavy reading will weary us, and what ought to be for our profit will become an unprofitable drudgery. Wisdom would lay the heavy book aside for a time, and read something lighter, but the self-imposed rule holds us to the unprofitable chore. Common sense will teach us better than this, and better than any of these specific self-imposed rules.
To conclude, the commandments of God are wise, and the keeping of them will develop our moral faculties while it keeps us in the path of right and duty. The rules of men are most often a mixture of wisdom and folly, which will both lead us astray and dull our moral senses. It is a matter of plain and peremptory duty to keep the commandments of God, while it is rather will-worship and mistaken zeal to impose self-made rules upon ourselves or others. Yet here we find a strange anomaly. It is often the same people who slight the keeping of the commandments of God, as some kind of dreaded works of the law, or label as legalism those rules which are in fact necessitated by Biblical principles or common morality (such as forbidding women to wear tight or skimpy clothing), who also submit themselves to gratuitous rules of their own, and seek to impose them on others. This is double folly.
We are quite willing to grant, however, that such rules may be of some use, especially as a temporary crutch to the weak, to aid them in establishing proper habits or overcoming weaknesses, yet we think it a great mistake to adopt them as permanent vows, or in any way to bind the conscience by them. Those who stand in need of such crutches might benefit from the wisdom which many of these rules embody, and avoid their folly, if they would employ the rules loosely, leaving themselves free to act contrary to their rule when wisdom so dictates. Yet I frankly suppose that those who so employ their rules will soon find that wisdom will suffice without them—-that when wisdom is allowed its proper place it will soon supersede the rules, and make the rules themselves quite needless.
POSTSCRIPT: Since writing all of the above, I have run across an editorial in the Uplook magazine (Open Brethren), for November of 1998, which contains the following remarkable statement, under the head of “Jewish Legalism.” “The devil is resurrecting this tactic as many overcompensate for the careless living we see all around us. There is a growing emphasis on physical circumcision as a ritual, dietary schemes (not for health reasons but as spiritual placebos), and dress codes which move one up the ladder of spiritual superiority.”
This is typical of the careless spirit of modern Evangelicalism, but it is a mystery to me how any teacher of the church can put dress codes in the same category with ritual circumcision. If a woman has a “dress code” by which to avoid exciting and tantalizing the passions of men, this has no more to do with “Jewish legalism” than it has with Mormon polygamy. Neither is it to gain any “spiritual superiority,” though as a plain matter of fact, to refuse or abandon such a dress code is a pretty certain mark of spiritual inferiority—-either that or unaccountable ignorance—-and I would guess there is generally a good deal more of spiritual pride in those who despise the poor “legalists” than there is in those whom they despise.
But more, if a woman follows a “dress code” to avoid offending God, this is no more “legalism” than it is to lay not up for herself treasures upon the earth, or to forsake not the assembling of the saints. Plain and modest dress is of God. Costly, showy, fashionable, and immodest dress is of the flesh. It is high time that the saints of God cease to be intimidated by cries of “legalism,” whenever they endeavor to maintain standards of righteousness, or to keep themselves unspotted from the world.
Glenn Conjurske