Guilt, Grace, Gratitude - How this Paradigm Changed My Life

"This is not an artificial arrangement. Guilt, Grace Gratitude. This is what will set your life free in the joy of the comfort of the Gospel - both in life and in death. Know it well and live by it" - John Fonville 

What is your only comfort in life and in death?  (Heidelberg Question and Answer 1)

Answer: That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way, that without the will of my Heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head. Indeed all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore by His Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him.

How many things must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?  (Heidelberg Question and Answer 2)

Answer: Three: First how great my sin and misery are; second how I am delivered from all my sins and misery; third how I am to thank God for such deliverance. 

The word paradigm is defined by dictionary.com as a standard, perspective, or set of ideas - a way of looking at something. Throughout the past few months, I have been reflecting greatly on the paradigm that defined my view of God for much of my Christian life. If I could describe this paradigm in one word, it would be suspicion. As a newer believer, the joy that came from receiving the love of God through Christ was palpable. However, that joy soon melted into the fear that perhaps my faith was not real, and I became suspicious of God's underlying favor and love towards me in Christ. I was not always faithful with practicing certain spiritual disciplines such as bible reading and prayer. Whenever I did look at the state of my obedience, I knew that I was sorely failing to meet the standards that God has set forth in His law. Through failing to understand the important distinction between the Law and Gospel, I embraced the paradigm that portrayed my Heavenly Father as a wrathful Judge whose very joy was to ultimately cast me out of His presence. I failed to understand that it was the love of the Father that motivated Christ to come and reconcile sinners to Himself. Two years ago, the Heidelberg Catechism introduced me to an alternative and biblical paradigm of seeing Christ as my loving Redeemer rather than a wrathful Judge. This paradigm of guilt, grace, and gratitude refers to how the Catechism is structured, and ultimately how believers everywhere can live and die in the joy of the comfort received in the Gospel.

Guilt: How great my sin and misery are

The brutality of God's holy and righteous requirements thunders down on us the reality that not only is this law binding for us, but we are also utterly without any hope of ever meeting its commands. I remember hearing of how Adam, my federal representative, plunged the entire human race into sin and rebellion by his act of treason. I remember how I despaired of my own righteousness when I learned that I was not a sinner by my actions alone, but by my very nature. I remember feeling the weight of hopelessness when I realized that there is nothing I can do to escape the condemnation of the guilt and shame that came from understanding that, - "There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none who understands, there is non who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they together have become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no not one, their throat is an open tomb; with their tongues they have practiced deceit, the poison of asps is under their lips"- Romans 2:10-13. The surging reality of my guilt and misery in light of the exacting nature of God's law set the groundwork for me to finally and fully receive the comfort and joy of Christ's kindness without the dull cloud of suspicion that always seemed to hover near me whenever the law and gospel were mingled together without distinction. "Oh wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God-through Jesus Christ our Lord!"- Romans 7:24-25

Grace: How I am to be delivered from all my sins and mystery

Coming to grips with my own depravity and feeling the weight of my guilt allowed me to receive Christ without the tincture of God's wrath hovering in the background. Without the false security of my own righteousness, I saw that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ was fully mine.I saw that Christ will willingly and joyfully receive a weary sinner burdened by the guilt of their sin. How did Jesus deliver us from all our sins and misery? The Lord Jesus Christ condescended to live a perfect, human, and obedient life in the place of sinners. He obeyed in their place, earning righteousness for His people. He died on the cross, exhausting and extinguishing the full wrath of the Father.  He was raised from the dead for our justification. He ascended to heaven and is now interceding for those who trust Him. He sent the Holy Spirit to convict, comfort, and remind us of these things. One day He is coming back to judge the living and the dead, to vindicate His people, and to bring about the fullness of the redemption promised to all of creation.  Because of the Gospel, I know that "neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord"  - Romans 8: 38-39 In the law you viscerally feel the brutality of the Judge's condemnation. In the Gospel you are overjoyed with the Father's pardoning favor for the sake of Christ alone.

Gratitude: How I am to thank God for such deliverance

Since we have been delivered from our misery by grace through Christ without any merit of our own, why then should we do good works? 

Because Christ, having redeemed us by his blood, also renewing us by his Spirit into his image, so that with our whole lives we may show that we are thankful to God for his benefits and that he may be praised through us, and further so that we may be assured of our faith by its fruits and by our godly living our neighbors will be won over to Christ.  (Heidelberg Q&A 86)

From receiving the good news of justifying faith through Christ, I also received sanctification - the process by which believers are more and more conformed into the image of Christ. The law, apart from the Gospel, was the ministry of condemnation. However after receiving the Gospel, the law has come back to me as a rule of gratitude. What am I left to do but to show forth my thankfulness for such a sweet and precious gift? All of the imperatives in scripture became less burdensome to me when delivered amidst the backdrop of the Gospel. When I was finally assured that God really loves me through Christ, I could not help but to love Him back. 1st John 4:19 says, "We love because he first loved us".

Comfort and Joy

Seeing my christian life through the prism of guilt, grace, and gratitude has brought much comfort and joy. My obedience in this life is not perfect and still tainted with sin.  We believers will always continue to struggle with our sinful nature daily until glory. However, we can rest assured that the meta-narrative of our lives is always comfort. We never have to be suspicious that on judgement day the Lord will say "depart from me". We can look back and see that 2000 years ago, the Lord Jesus became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God (2nd Corinthians 5:21) . We can strengthen ourselves daily in this promise and run the race with full assurance of faith, that "he is able to keep us from stumbling and present us blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy" Jude 1:24.

"Do you want to confess your sins to God, pray to him, and praise him from your heart for all his goodness to you? Do you want to praise God for suffering as well as prosperity? Then believe with full assurance that God is faithful and just to forgive your sin through Christ"  - Gospel Mystery of Sanctification