The Whole Gospel Is Outside Of Us – Dawn From RealRealityZone Talks About Her Journey To Lutheranism, Part I
Friday, November 13th, 2009
Several weeks ago we tweeted a link to a blog post entitled ‘7 Reasons Why Lutherans Shouldn’t Jump on the Contemporary Worship Bandwagon’ written by Dawn K. on her blog RealRealityZone. It was a very insightful post, and after reading more on her blog I discovered she was a relatively new convert to Lutheran Christianity. She writes well, and we wanted to hear more of her story, so we invited her to guest blog for us. Here is the first of three posts tracing her journey into the Lutheran Church.
Somewhere near the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008 I was quietly standing on the verge of utter despair.
At that point I really feared that Christ’s terrifying words “Depart from me, I never knew you” might be for me. And there was nothing I could do about it. I was a Christian, but a poor excuse for a Christian. I looked at my life and everything I did was tainted with sin. Even the best works I did were tainted with sin. My heart was desperately wicked and I did not love God with all my heart. And worst of all, there was something inside me that hated God, that had contempt for Him. How could I possibly be saved?
Maybe I was fooling myself about being a Christian. The lives of true Christians kept getting better and better, and I felt as though mine was getting worse and worse. My “growth in holiness” and in love for God was supposed to assure me that I really was a child of God. But I did not see this. All I saw was sin. And I despaired that the salvation offered in Christ was really for me. Salvation was for people who really believed. And I was not sure I really believed. How could I be a true believer when I continued to sin and sin and sin and abuse the grace of God? How could I be a true believer if everything within me is sin?
* * *
It’s hard to summarize my spiritual life. I still struggle to make sense of it all. But I can say this: when I discovered the Reformation, my eyes stopped looking at myself and my faith and my sincerity, and raised to look at Christ alone. I finally understood that Christ’s death on the cross was really, truly for me, after years and years and years of struggling to find assurance of salvation.
I grew up in American evangelicalism of a moderately fundamentalist stripe. The church I grew up in instilled in me the importance of God’s Word. They emphasized that Jesus died on the cross for all our sins, that good works could not save us and that we were saved through faith alone.
This sounds great on paper. The problem was that the way faith was defined it became a work. My church taught decision theology – being born again meant praying the “sinner’s prayer” to accept Jesus into your heart and committing your life to Him. If you prayed that prayer and meant it, then you were a child of God – born again. Your life would be radically transformed and you could be certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were going to heaven.
I probably don’t have to tell you that it didn’t quite work that way. At least not for me.
According to my mother, I first “prayed the prayer” when I was six years old. The problem was that even a few years later I had no memory of the event. And no matter how many times I tried to “make sure of my salvation” by praying the prayer again or recommitting my life to God, I was in doubt as to whether I really meant it or was really sincere.
No matter where I was taught to look for assurance of salvation – be it by family members or people at my church or later, Bible teachers on the Internet – I was always taught to look inside myself. The decision theology I grew up with taught me to look at my sincere free will decision. Later I read various Bible teachers who repudiated decision theology but instead taught me to look to my works and my growth in holiness to determine whether or not I was really saved.
Well-meaning folks at my church said that if only one would surrender everything in one’s life to God like they had, one would have peace and joy and freedom from doubt, just like them. My problem was that I felt powerless to surrender in this way. I did not have this power. There was something inside me, even as a Christian, that would not submit to God’s Law, not even for a second, no matter how committed I tried to be. I hated it, because I wanted desperately to please the God that I loved. But there was always sin in my life that would not go away.
Somewhere down the line I discovered what can only be called a form of Christian mysticism. It had to do with “listening to what God is saying to you personally,” or “listening to God’s still small voice speaking to your heart.” I came to believe that God regularly spoke directly to my heart. And how could I not be a true Christian if God was working so powerfully in my life in this way? Yet I always wondered whether what I was hearing was really God, or just my own heart.
The only time I had any real peace was when I looked outside of myself to Christ. My favorite hymns were the ones that pointed to Christ alone. But in evangelicalism, these things were so often overshadowed by the hymns and praise songs and teaching that pointed me to myself – to my feelings, to my obedience, to my acts of worship, to my commitment.
By Pat K
Dawn,
I heard (really heard) and lived every word you wrote there, literally. When I read this it brought back so many memories because I lived that way too as a Christian for years. Same journey from decision theology to that which rejects it, scrapping every book I could find for assurance that in the end turned you inward even more, and I mean some of the best books out there the two camps could produce.
I could requite every thing you said and say, “Yep that was me 110%”. But three stand out and you’ll understand why having lived it:
“I was quietly standing on the verge of utter despair.”
“At that point I really feared that Christ’s terrifying words “Depart from me, I never knew you” might be for me. And there was nothing I could do about it”
“No matter where I was taught to look for assurance of salvation – be it by family members or people at my church or later, Bible teachers on the Internet – I was always taught to look inside myself. The decision theology I grew up with taught me to look at my sincere free will decision. Later I read various Bible teachers who repudiated decision theology but instead taught me to look to my works and my growth in holiness to determine whether or not I was really saved.”
Yes, yes and yes!
Yours truly,
Larry
Hi Larry,
Thanks for the comment. I know you lived this too. It’s why we understand each other so well!
It’s very encouraging when you find that you’re not the only one who went through this kind of experience. My hope is that this telling of my story can help others who are dealing with the same sort of things.
Blessings,
Dawn
Dear Dawn,
All I can say is bingo! I lived what you wrote. I am a 62 year old grandmother of 12 and tried so hard to live “right” for 25 years as a believer but the whole thing of the Gospel “outside” myself was unheard of. I too had a momentary measure of joy when I would look at me against the backdrop of Christ but I was so consumed with digging at myself because I could not understand grace and justification and those great truths that came out of the Reformation but were unheard of in the church of my attendance. EVERYTHING had me looking at myself and trying to “fix” myself, always falling short, always condemned. The meadow of God’s grace was so hidden in the free will decisional “way”. Maybe nonexistent is a better word.
Thanks to you, and Larry’s response and especially Dr Rod and his most awesome and earthy demonstration of the love of God for sinners..in whose ranks I stand at the front line! Without shame,
fondly and looking forward to reading more of your gems, Dawn.
Mary in Canby, Or
Dawn, I could have written this, just about. I wrestled with TULIP for several years and it drove me to despair. I saw the perfect logic of it, but I couldn’t love a god of double-predestination. And if He was Sovereign (in the way that hyper-Calvinists paint sovereignty) then He was causing awful things to happen to me (long story short). A series of events drove me to look at my husband’s Book of Concord and when I read the Lutheran understanding of Free Will I was SOLD. It was what I believed all along after hours upon hours of study and sweat, put into words that I couldn’t articulate myself. I felt alive again after years of hanging onto one verse for dear life.
John 6:68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life…
As I pursued more Lutheran teachings I found the Gospel illuminated to me like never before.
Jen
Thank you, Mary and Jen, for your comments! It’s a wonderful relief to know that the Gospel is not dependent on anything inside ourselves, and that it is truly for all – including you, and including me.
Blessings,
Dawn
“very fact that I was worried about my salvation”
I’m glad you brought this one up. Because that’s an old favorite I got much from reformed readings. As a side note, every reformed book I read on assurance only left me assured I was reprobate for sure, and I scoured the library landscape for them. Every time I’d pick up a book on the subject I’d devour it, hoping to find hope and peace.
Anyway, that “very fact that I was worried about my salvation” sounds better than “if you have love in your heart” which is strong law. But EVEN that, “very fact that I was worried about my salvation”, never helped me and was strong Law. It gets back to a principle Luther recognized by all inward turnings without exception, “how much, how long, what quality and how can I be sure that I not in this just fooling myself”. It just ends up being a version of “do I really have faith”. The passage that always would slay me was “the heart is desperately wicked above all things…who can know it” (my paraphrase). I could never get past that because I knew I could fool myself even in assessing “very fact that I was worried about my salvation”. Is it genuine worry or is it just a pagan wanting “fire insurance” as we use to say. I saw that all those “signs” of conversion, election, salvation, etc… could be imitated by anyone to the point of fooling one’s self. Self delusion is so self deluding that you can be in it and by its very definition you deny its reality. No man can know for certain inwardly looking, not for one second if he/she is serious about it all.
That’s why Luther and the Sacraments per his teaching hit me like a ton of bricks and that breath of life giving air so strongly. Finely, something FROM God, indeed God Himself comes all the way down to me, not just 2000 years ago when I was not historically present, but today in real time and space and says, “Larry I forgive YOUR sins too”, without asking for my faith. Ironically faith arises from that.
“But they could only see the outside of me. They couldn’t see the awfulness inside of me.”
I hear you!
“All this makes me wonder how many other people suffer in silence like we did, too afraid to say anything. On the outside they look like reasonably happy and contented Christians and on the inside they are on the verge of despair.”
I’ve always wondered the very same thing. Because having been there, and you too, you realize they are the very ones so pinned under the despair they fear ever opening their mouths or asking about it. I’m not sure how to put it but you capture it well. It’s a so in despair fear you are scared to ask anymore or reveal the trial you are under lest you be found out combined with you already know what the “help” response will be, just something else you need to do you can’t do and will at length not be a sign you are “saved, elect, born again, etc…”; but rather sign #500 that you are sure you are not saved, elect, born again, etc…”
When I first read Luther on baptism, it was a “tower experience” for me. I didn’t share with family much on this as all were Baptist and would have spoken against it. But I so treasured that Gospel Word in it I didn’t want to hear from them lest their words rob me of it. People don’t realize that is where the real spiritual warfare is, a war of words between the doctrines of Satan (that often go under the guise of “Christian”) versus the Word of God. A simple word from another confession (e.g. believers baptism) is a satanic war word against the Gospel Word in baptism itself. And in the mind of the believer a mighty struggle of “is it really true, or am I fooling myself again getting off the believers baptism reservation”. That’s where the war occurs for the believer, and it’s a mighty battle, worse than an outward sword battle. It occurs in the conscience more than anything else. It’s primarily the ground for all trials and temptations and sufferings. About a year ago I saw a movie, can’t recall right now, a scene that captured this. A boy in a orphanage had been abandoned for some reason by his parents who were still alive. He hung on a promise that his dad would find him again. The boys in the orphanage constantly made fun of him for this and beat him up. He could ultimately endure the physical beatings he received from them, even “steel” himself against them. But what killed his soul was their laughter at his dad’s promise to him, in this during the quite of night his mind was tormented with their persecuting word against his dad’s promise word and it nearly broke him every time. It tormented his soul.
This is the way it is for the believer. Rightly called are these last days of ours (between the two advents) the Great Tribulation. There is first the secular torments and trials of atheism and agnosticism that says, “There is no God”. This attacks the very object of our hope and faith. Then there are the other outside false religions that say, “Jesus is not unique but there are other gods and prophets”. This attacks the very object of our hope and faith. Then the most insidious of all is the heterodox doctrines of fellow Christians which say, “Baptism does not regenerate, give the Spirit, it’s not His real body and blood, absolution is just a man’s word”, these attack the very object of our hope and faith to the core. In some since these are worse than rank secularism because one can as a Christian say, “Well that’s just the way an atheist thinks, I’m not surprised”. But its harder to do from a trusted Christian source in another denomination, because you desire trust them and what they say, but you can’t trust their teachings because of what it says, and it speaks against the very doctrines that are utterly dear and life to your soul – the Word and the Sacraments as rightly divided and according to the institution of Christ.
To hold on to the sacraments is to hold on to Christ, who holds you. The strength doesn’t come from your holding, though you hold to Him, but His so that in them He holds you like a baby in His strong arms, and you cling to His neck.
Yours truly,
Larry
Dawn,
I too can totally identify with what you have gone though. I was raised in a very liberal United Methodist Church where they didn’t believe in God’s word. At the age of 16 a Baptist friend asked me if I was to die tonight if I would go to heaven. I said “I didn’t know”. She asked me if I believed the Jesus was the Christ, that he died for my sins”. I said yes and she proclaimed I was saved then. He then became real to me personally. However I started going to her church and was taught decision theology. I married my husband at age 26 and joined “Youth With A Mission” which taught all sorts of strange things. (That’s a story all of it’s own) We wanted to serve the Lord and be missionaries but our first son came 2 1/2 months early and we had no insurance and had were told to go home. So we started to try and put our lives back together. With a huge hospital bill and always living in debt life has never been easy or peaceful for us. But the hardest things for me was never really knowing for sure if I was truly saved. I started studying and then teaching Precept Bible Studies with Kay Arthur (did it for about 12 years) I loved studying God’s word for my own but she taught that we should never come to scripture with preconceived ideas or theologies. This sounded good yet when we studied the “End Times” books like Daniel and Revelation I saw she did have a theology “dispensationalism) and she threw all her so called “good bible study” methods out the window. This started my first sets into my journey out of Decisional Theology. It has been a long hard slow road for me. I guess it takes me longer then most. My husband went right to the word after we had been out of YWAM for about a year and saw from Romans that we were saved by grace alone. We spent about 30 years trying to find a Church that taught this. Hopping around from church to church and in away learning what Luther and Walther’s wrote concerning the Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel. For when I first read Walther’s book I knew exactly what he was talking about for we had been in churches that taught all of that.
Well I could go on and on. The most important thing is, Now I understand God’s love and grace like never before. Where I was once in so much bondage and fear always looking within and trying to have a “relationship” with God and hearing his voice all I could see was my sins. Now I know the Peace that only Christ can give by wearing His Robe of Righteousness. All I want to do now is tell everyone the Gospel. It’s so wonderful!!! And every day gets better even if we still are poor and struggling. We have so much and I thank Him daily for giving us a wonderful Lutheran Pastor.
Larry I too am learning so much about the Sacraments. It has opened the bible up to me in such a new way. I’ve got so much to learn. It’s wonderful and I can’t wait for Advent.
Lora.