Chapter 3, part 1

Note: If you are new to this blog, I suggest you start at post #1 ("Introduction") and work your way from oldest post to newest.

"New inclinations are truly new"

In chapter 3, Marshall’s makes two points, the first of which we’ll look at in this post:

We can only get the essential qualifications mentioned before by receiving them directly from Jesus, from our fellowship with him.

The great majority of Christians think that our "new nature" isn't actually new but that it's a fixed or reformed version of our old nature. Hence, we need to work on our old natures to get them to behave and change. This agrees with common sense, and anything else strikes us as a mystery.

Marshall: "This mystery is so great that, notwithstanding all the light of the gospel, we commonly think that we must get an holy frame by producing it anew in ourselves, and by forming it and working it out of our own hearts. Therefore many that are seriously devout take a great deal of pains to mortify their corrupted nature, and beget an holy frame of heart in themselves by striving earnestly to master their sinful lusts, and by pressing vehemently upon their hearts many motives to godliness, labouring importunately to squeeze good qualifications out of them, as oil out of a flint" (p. 11).

"Squeezing oil out of a flint" is a good description of what results from "... pressing vehemently upon their hearts many motives to godliness" (p. 11). Sounds like many a well-intentioned sermon, Sunday-School class, Children's Church lesson, Christian-school teacher's admonition, Christian book.

Marshall: "On this account they acknowledge the entrance into a godly life to be harsh and unpleasing, because it costs so much struggling with their own hearts and affections to new-frame them" (pp. 11-12).

"New-framing" an old nature is not merely an unpleasant task—it’s impossible. Marshall: "If they knew that this way of entrance is not only harsh and unpleasant, but altogether impossible...." (p. 12).

Yet, what are the options? To not try to obey God? Unthinkable. Salvation, we know, comes entirely from God. But sanctification, our common sense tells us, must be our job. Marshall: "They account that though they be justified by a righteousness wrought out by Christ, yet they must be sanctified by a holiness wrought out by themselves" (p. 11).

Of course they realize that they have to ask for God’s help every step of the way. Marshall: "And though out of humility they are willing to call it infused grace, yet they think they must get the infusion of it by the same manner of working, as if it were wholly acquired by their endeavours" (p. 11).

It makes sense. How could it possibly be wrong to try hard to obey God? As Marshall continued to point out, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to please and obey God. But trying to do so by changing and reforming one's old nature isn’t the way and doesn’t accomplish anything. And the Bible teaches a different way.

The different way is that our “holy disposition”—that is, our inclination to do God’s law—must come from Jesus "as a thing already prepared and brought to an existence for us in Christ...." (p. 11). It’s not a reformed bit of old nature; it’s not something we’ve made by fixing or changing or correcting our old natures—even with God’s help. It’s an entirely new and other thing, entirely from Jesus.

Marshall: "So that we are not at all to work together with Christ in making or producing that holy frame in us, but only to take it to ourselves, and use it in our holy practice, as made ready to our hands" (p. 11).

This is a radical idea. Is it Biblical?

Marshall claimed that it was, that it was clearly taught in the Bible. Even so, it was something humans would still not understand unless God made it known by supernatural revelation.

Marshall: "Yea, though it be revealed clearly in the Holy Scriptures, yet the natural man has not eyes to see it there, for it is foolishness to him; and if God express it ever so plainly and properly, he will think that God is speaking riddles and parables. And I doubt not but it is still a riddle and parable even to many truly godly, who have received an holy nature in this way; for the apostles themselves had the saving benefit of it before the Comforter discovered it clearly to them (John xiv.20)" (p. 10).

In other words, even those of us who are true Christians and have received our new nature and who read our Bibles might be confused about what it means to be "united" with the Holy Spirit or how to access our new motivations and inclination through this union with him. We might only in a small or bumbling way take advantage of or enjoy it. Jesus's own disciples were a case in point. Jesus told them, "When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you" (John 14:20 NLT).

More to come in the next post: What the Bible teaches about having fellowship with Jesus, being in Jesus, and having Jesus in us by a mystical union with him.