Is it possible to please God? I raise the question because I suspect the common answer to be 'no'. Indeed, I read of someone saying recently '“I think a lot of people have the misunderstanding that going to church is going to please God by virtue of our activity.”
I think what the speaker was trying to avoid is the possibility that people think they are gaining justification by coming to church - that somehow church going is a work that enables sufficient merit to be accrued in order that God smiles upon it. But there are a great number of scriptures which teach precisely that Christians are able to please God. Indeed, this is one of the great freedoms of the Christian life. And, what is more, they can please God when they gather together to praise him.
Of the passages in the NT which talk about pleasing God, two stand out. Firstly, Romans 8:6-9:
6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law-- indeed it cannot, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
Now, there is only a negative here from which the positive is implied: the mind to which the Spirit is given, and the individual in whom the Spirit of Christ dwells can indeed please God. Is this just on account of Jesus's righteousness vicariously applied to us? Is there an imputed pleasing of God (as we can assume an imputed righteousness by which we are justified?) Was is not Jesus with whom God was 'well pleased', after all? Well all that is true, and the prior action of God in the spirit is assumed here; but it is also true that the context (see Romans 6 and 7) is talking about the wrestle to offer the members of the body to God as weapons of righteousness. The fleshly man of Romans 7 cannot please God, certainly; the spiritual man of Romans 8 apparently can, in the power of the Spirit. Paul will go in Romans 14:18 to speak of the one who serves Christ being pleasing to God...
The second text is Hebrews 13:15-16
15 Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. 16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
Here, the Christian is called on to offer sacrifices that are pleasing to God! Not cultic sacrifices. Not atoning sacrifices - but then, the OT sacrifices werent all atoning sacrifices either. But still - here are acts of sharing and praising - which we do when we meet together, in which God delights...
15 comments:
A very simple instruction: "find out what pleases the Lord." (Eph. 5:10). I'd think that meeting with the Lord's people to honour him and encourage him counts.
You're right.
I think we've been done a great disservice by the song that goes, "My works are filthy rags, no merit can I bring," because it makes us think saints can't please God.
But we're saints!
Thanks Michael for your post. Another ref would have to be 1Thess 4:1-12. Here we see it is possible to please God if we obey Jesus and His appointed messengers. A lovely word of encouragement to press on for those who are living in obedience and a timely rebuke for those who are not.
I recall Peter Adam gave an inspiring and, not surprisingly, humorous talk on this at Katoomba Easter Convention a few years ago. Highly recommend you have a listen - look out for mention of the 'Thethalonians! :)
P.S.
just to clarify the above post. Of course I was not referring to perfect obedience, otherwise there would be no need for Paul to include verse 4.
While I fight the spiritual battle, this wrestle as Michael describes above, I rest confidently in the knoweldge of, and my trust in, the perfect obedience of Christ.
Contemplation of Romans 7 inevitably leads me to think, of John Owen - to paraphrase: 'Be killing sin, or it be killing you'.
Further, I hope I'm not too pedantic to suggest that in light of 1Thess 4, would it be better expressed to say we DO please God when His people gather together to praise him, rather than 'can'.
Of course being a good anglican, you would also point out article XII, that works done before the grace of Christ are not pleasant to God, and have the nature of sin.
Naturally!
And furthermore:
... yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith insomuch that by them a lively Faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit.
How about Matthew 25:14-30—specifically verse 23: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.”?
And, for that matter, the last few clauses in the Athanasian Creed.
which means both you, and the person you are critiquing need to be careful to nuance your comments. We can only please God in Christ. Outside of Christ we can not please God.
Thus going to church does not only not bring justification (sorry for the multiple negatives), but it doesn't please God - unless you're in Christ and doing it in order to serve God.
Mike
It is precisely this nuance that I am providing!
Heb 11.6.
Michael (MPJ) I am arriving very late at this party, but I'm afraid I have to call you and Mike on your agreement with each other ... which seems to have been purchased too cheaply. Mike was plainly challenging you to agree with Article XIII, the uncompromising "Workes done before the grace of Christe, and the inspiration of his spirite, are not pleasaunt to God, forasmuch as they spring not of fayth in Jesu Christ, neither do they make men meete to receaue grace [yadda yadda yadda] ... we doubt not but they haue the nature of synne." He has written "Article XII" in a typo, and your reply proceeds to quote from the real twelfth article.
There are theologically respectable reasons for, and ways of, raising one's eyebrow at the wording of the thirteenth article, and they're moreover à propos of your original post. Here's Oliver O'Donovan on the point, in On the 39 articles:
`Here we become conscious of the constraints imposed by the mediaeval terms in which the discussion was conducted. It is perfectly clear why the Reformers had to reject the conception of congruent merit in justification. It was built upon a biographical notion of justification as an event in the believer's life, and upon a concept that individual human acts, treated in abstraction from the lives of which they form a part, could be the objects of divine favour or disfavour. What Cranmer needed to say was that neither the term "works" nor the term "before" was appropriate to the discussion. There is no "before justification" in a believer's life ... But instead of saying that, Cranmer merely denied the proposition ... in the terms in which it was put, and so gave rise to unnecessary offence in the minds of many who have failed to see what was really at issue. He appears to say simply that God looks on good deeds as sinful if they are not performed by believers --- a curious attribution of arbitrary wilfulness to the divine, itself reminiscent of late-mediaeval voluntarism'
You may count me among the unnecessarily offended (by the article's wording; not by you), and as I say, along the lines of your (MPJ's) original post: denying congruent merit need not precipitate one into the denial of the goodness of good deeds which you ("Mike") seem to feel obliged to press.
I was aware of the typo, and my reason for citing 12 was that it is the counterpart of 13.
Isn't there an Augustinian point here being made - that 'good works', though they may indeed be called good, become an occassion for spiritual pride?
No doubt that's a point that can be made, and should.
But is it the point being made in the article? To me it looks more plausible in the case of 12 than 13 on its face, but I'm not comfortable enough with the history to speak with confidence here. And I suppose that as the whole discussion is taking place in an Augustinian environment, the point may appear without being foremost in mind at any given moment ...
... all that said, I still think you and Mike are agreeing too cheaply. Whether driven by the need to deny congruent merit, or to mortify pride, or to address some speculative point about the state of the soul in some abstract state-space, isn't it just a Bad Thing to deny that good works (as far as they go) are pleasing to God? A lot can hide in the caveat. Fine. But granted the caveat, doesn't the proposition have to be accepted, by the nature of the words "good" and "pleasing", and the revealed character of God?
Radical attempts to deny this offend people, including me, because they are presumptuous. I don't propose some war on zealous persons who've felt obliged to say this sort of thing, but ... since the offence is unnecessary, shouldn't we be calling "Time"? Isn't this what you were trying to do with your initial post?
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