The Sufficiency of Scripture

6 · Boice identifies the shift from inerrancy to sufficiency as the current crisis in evangelical theology, diagnosing the practical abandonment of Scripture's adequacy for evangelism, sanctification, and cultural engagement despite formal affirmation of its truthfulness

But as I look at the matter today from the perspective of several years now, seven years or so since the ending of the work of the council, it seems to me that the issue that is crying out to be addressed is not anymore the inerrancy of the Scripture. Because among the evangelicals there is general agreement that the Bible is truthful, but rather the problem today is the sufficiency of Scripture. People will say, well, yes, the Bible is from God and it's truthful, it has to be if it comes from God. But you know, it really isn't adequate for dealing with the issues of the day. We live in a different world than Paul lived in and James and John and all the others. We live in a secular age. We live in a scientific age. And so if we're going to do evangelism today, we can't do it in the old fashioned ways. We, we have to find sociological techniques to pull it off. And when we talk about growth in the Christian life today, it's not enough to study the Bible. That may have been all right for our fathers or our grandfathers, but what we need are special techniques to help us grow. And as far as making an impact on our society is concerned, well, we can't expect the Bible to do that anymore. What we need are Christian lobby groups and we have to get Christians elected to positions of political power and we have to spend money on advertising and force Christian laws upon non Christian people. And that's really what we have to do. Now I'm going to suggest that that really is the problem today where the role of the Scriptures are concerned. It's one thing to talk about what they are, but it's quite another thing to actually have them function as God intended the word of God to function. And so that's what I want to talk about now.

7 · Boice expounds the meaning of 'last days' in 2 Timothy 3:1, arguing that Paul addresses Timothy's present situation rather than only distant eschatological events, thereby establishing the passage's direct relevance to contemporary challenges

I think that's exactly what 2 Timothy 3 is addressing. Paul begins here in verse one by talking about the last days. He says, there are going to be terrible times in the last days. And you know, I'm sure that that phrase last days is used in different ways. It can be referring to the very, very, very last days immediately before the return of Jesus Christ, the second coming. I don't know how many last days are included in last days if you use the phrase that way, but weeks or years or something like that. And then the phrase can also be used to refer to this whole period of time in which we live between the first coming of Jesus Christ and the second coming of Jesus Christ. Now, you can argue it different ways, and depending upon what passage of Scripture you deal with, you may want to emphasize one or the other. We look at this and we say, well, that's just saying, isn't it? Before the coming of Jesus Christ, things are going to get worse, worse and worse. And this is some of the things that we're going to see. Now, I do believe that. I think that's what the Bible teaches, that there is going to be a great falling away before the coming of Jesus Christ. And yet in this context, it seems to me that this is not what Paul is saying, because after all, he's writing to Timothy, isn't he? And he's trying to give Timothy instructions for how Timothy is supposed to deal with the problems of the last days. And so it's a way of saying, Timothy, you're living in the last days now, and this is what's going to happen. It's going to become exactly like this. And so I want to give you instructions for what you should do. Now, if this applied to Timothy's day, it certainly applies to our day.

8 · Boice asserts the contemporary relevance of Paul's catalog of vices, pointing to current culture as evidence that we live in the conditions Paul described to Timothy

I look at these terms and I say, if you want illustrations of Them. All you have to do is pick up the newspaper because what you find here is exactly what our culture is like. I don't know when Jesus Christ is coming back. Sometimes we get questions about that. I think even this week, weekend, people were asking me, do I think the return of Jesus Christ is right around the corner? I don't know. But I do know we're living in ages and times like this.

9 · Boice exposits each vice in Paul's catalog, connecting terms like 'lovers of themselves' and 'lovers of money' to specific cultural phenomena (narcissism, materialism, corporate culture) to demonstrate that contemporary society exhibits precisely the characteristics Paul warned Timothy about

People will be lovers of themselves. Well, that's not the term we use for it. Some years ago, Time magazine had a cover story called the New Narcissism. Narcissism is a word based on the new the name of the Greek character Narcissus, who was an attractive young man who one day looked into a pool of water and fell in love with what he saw there. And so he has become a symbol of self love or self indulgence and preoccupation with self. And Time magazine was saying that's exactly what has happened in our time. You know, Tom Wolf some years ago called the seventies the me decade. And it's not improved since. We are fascinated with ourselves. We think we are absolutely wonderful and that's what we have here. We do it at the expense of the love of God and unfortunately also at the expense of the love of other people. If you don't get interested in other people, if all you are interested in is yourself, then you have the kind of problems we have in the breakdown of relationships and so on. So this describes our time. How about lovers of money? Oh, that certainly does. People are on a money chase today. We tend to say, well, they always have been. And it's true people have been concerned with their own financial well being, but never quite to the degree that we see it exemplified in our time. You might say that our whole capitalistic system is built on the love of money, the pursuit of wealth. Boastful, proud, abusive. We have not only all of that today, but we even glorify those things today. You know, it used to be that the word arrogant was bad. Now you say somebody's arrogant in certain circles is good. It means they're self assertive, they're self confident, they put themselves forward, they push people out of the way to get what they want. The kind of people we want at the head of our companies, disobedient to their parents. Well, we call it the generation gap, but the Bible says it's mere disobedience, ungrateful, unholy. We call it the new morality, but it's actually the old immorality. And so on you go through every one of these terms, they describe our culture. So we're living in the last days, all right? And that's what the last days are like when people turn away from God.

10 · Boice identifies the climactic horror of Paul's catalog—not paganism but the visible church possessing religious forms without spiritual power—establishing that Paul's warnings concern false Christianity within the church rather than worldly immorality outside it

Now we think that's bad. But you come to the very end of that paragraph and in verse 5 you have Paul saying something that's even worse. You say worse? How could it possibly be worse? Now what Paul says in verse five is having a form of godliness but denying its power. I said Friday night that he couldn't possibly be talking there about the pagan world outside. Because Paul would never say in the pagan world that it had a form of godliness. What Paul says about the pagan world is what he says in Romans 1. And he says it's ungodly to the extreme. It's running away from God. It will not have God. It suppresses the truth about God. And so it gets into all the vices that are there in the last paragraph of Romans 1. So he's not talking about the pagan world. What is he talking about then? Well, he's talking about the church, the visible church. There are people that have the form of godliness. The people that worship on Sunday, the people that have the creed, people that go through all the motions of being godly but actually don't have the power of it within them. They don't have the Holy Spirit.

11 · Boice applies Paul's catalog of vices specifically to the contemporary evangelical church, indicting self-esteem preaching, televangelist fundraising, claims to special revelation, and other church practices as manifestations of the very sins Paul warned about

Now you go back and you look at these things then and you say, could it be possible that all of these things would be seen within the church? And when you look at it, the answer of course is yes. That's exactly what we see within the church. How about this matter of being lovers of ourselves? Isn't it true that so much of Christian preaching today has shifted away from Christ and his cross to the individual and his or her needs? And we preach man centered theology. Why you don't hear about sin anymore. Nobody wants to hear about sin. So we don't preach about sin. People feel good or want to feel good. And so we speak to all those felt needs. But we don't tell them what they really need, tell them how they can think well of themselves. One very well known preacher won't even use the word sin. He wants people to have self esteem. He said they feel bad enough already without talking about sin. I want to make them feel good. And so we have it in the church. Lovers of money I was in the hotel this morning. I flipped on the television. I never see it on Sunday, but I did add a few moments. I flipped from channel to Channel. I saw one after the other of these religious programs, and it seemed to me every single one of them was trying to raise money and trying to do it. What seemed to me to be terribly crass in commercial ways, it actually is revolting, the kind of things you see on television. I know it costs a lot of money, and so the only way they can do it is by raising a lot of money. But my goodness, lovers of money, the greatest scandals of our time having to do with money are those that have been propagated by the TV evangelists, not the scandals in the world. And so you have that in the church. You have boasting in the church. There's a tremendous amount of boasting. Don't we hear people saying how I. I have a special word from God. You know, God has told me that's the kind of boasting, isn't it? One of my favorite preachers stood up at Keswick years ago, and they were expecting a special word from God. And he began by saying, I don't have any special word from God for you. I'm here to teach the Bible. And he made his point. You see, there's not a special revelation. He's there to teach the Bible and so on. You can go through all of these things. Don't we have disobedience to parents in the church? Of course we do. Don't we have unholiness in the church? Of course we do. And so on.

12 · Boice creates dramatic anticipation about Paul's solution to the last-days crisis, setting up the congregation to expect either extraordinary means or novel strategies before revealing that Paul prescribes nothing new

Now, you see, that's the kind of time Paul's describing. You say to yourself, at that point, what in the world is he going to suggest here? He's moving on short time, he's going to be dead, go to glory, leaving Timothy behind, a young man, perhaps a little bit uncertain of himself. What is he going to tell Timothy? How's he going to advise him to deal with these terrible, terrible times that are coming in the last days? Certainly he is going to reach down into his bag of tricks and pull out something that nobody's ever heard of before. He's going to say, here, Timothy, this is what you can use. This will be your secret weapon for the last days.

13 · Boice reveals Paul's actual prescription—not novel methods but continued faithfulness to Scripture—establishing the central thesis that the Word alone is sufficient for ministry in terrible times

And you know as well as I do that that's not what he does at all. He turns to Timothy and He says, verse 14 and following. No, no. As for you, just continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you've learned it and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures. They are what you need because they are able to make you Wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

14 · Boice articulates the theological foundation for Scripture's sufficiency: its divine origin as God-breathed Word means it possesses the same creative and regenerative power by which God spoke creation into existence, making it inherently adequate for producing spiritual life and transformation

You see a great statement of the sufficiency of the word of God. You say to yourself at that point, well, I mean, why should the word of God be sufficient? How could it possibly be adequate for those times are the times in which we live? The answer is in the very next verse. Because it's God breathed, it's from God. It's the very word of God. When God spoke at the very beginning of all things as we have it in the book of Genesis, the cosmos came into being. When God has spoken in the Scriptures, new life comes into being. And people pass from death to life, from ignorance to truth, and they become followers of the living God. That's the greatest miracle of all. And the word of God, the Scripture, is what accomplishes that.

15 · Boice calls for recovery of Reformation doctrine, specifically sola scriptura, lamenting that contemporary evangelicals have abandoned their theological heritage and no longer understand the sufficiency principles their movement was built upon

Now we need to relearn that today. The reformers knew it. One of the great rallying cries of the Reformation was sola scriptura. Scripture alone, that's all we needed. Scripture corrected the traditions of the church. Scriptures corrected the errors. Scripture told us how we should conduct our lives, how we should conduct worship, how we should impact the culture in which we live, how we should grow in the face sola scriptura. You see, we live in an age that's forgetting those great doctrines. We evangelicals. Evangelical church exists because of the heritage of the Reformation, and yet we're throwing those things out today. People in the churches can't articulate them. They don't know what it means. When you talk about sola scriptura or sola fide or sola gratia or soli deo gloria. They don't know any of the those things, even in the evangelical churches. We need to recover them.

16 · Boice transitions from general theological claims about sufficiency to specific application areas, beginning with evangelism

Well, let's just ask a little bit. Let's talk about evangelism.

17 · Boice critiques contemporary church-growth methodology—demographic surveys, entertainment-focused services, theatrical production values—as functional denial of Scripture's sufficiency for evangelism, sarcastically describing churches designed like shopping malls that avoid gospel symbols

What do you need to do evangelism today? Do you need sociological techniques? Do you need to entertain people today? Do you need signs and wonders? People out there are saying that. They're saying, you know, it doesn't work to teach the Bible anymore. People don't even want to hear the Bible anymore. And so what you really need to do is demographic surveys of your neighborhood. And you, you need to find out what people are like in your neighborhood and what they want. And then you need to construct a message that will reach those people and satisfy their needs. And perhaps if that doesn't work, what you need to do is design a church service in which people can have fun, because everybody wants to have fun today. It's the bottom line. We watch so much television we think that the chief end of life consists of being entertained. And. And if it's not that, the chief end of life is cruising the malls. And so we actually construct churches that are like malls, spiritual malls, where you get everything that you want. And when you come to the service, well, you know, you don't want it to look anything like a church because that turns people off. And so you make it into an auditorium and you get rid of anything that might suggest the gospel, like the cross, and instead you have a platform there where you entertain people. I. I read not long ago of a church out in the west that spent half a million dollars on theatrical effects. So they would have adequate lighting and could make fog machines that would do all kinds of theatrical effects and laser lights and that kind of thing.

18 · Boice distinguishes between attracting crowds through entertainment (which produces large gatherings but not conversions) and genuine gospel work (which God accomplishes through the Word), asserting that numerical success achieved through worldly methods does not constitute authentic evangelism

Well, you know, if you do that today, in an age where people want entertainment, people will come for the entertainment, of course. And you can build an enormous church that way. You see, it's not really a church. What you've done is provide the world with what it wants, and the world will come for what it wants. But it's not gospel work. It's not the same thing as conversions. God converts people through the Word.

19 · Boice transitions from critique of contemporary methods to biblical warrant, announcing an extended exposition of Mark 1 that will demonstrate Jesus' prioritization of preaching over crowd-pleasing ministry

There's always a tendency to get drawn aside. Let me take you to Mark one, where we have that temptation presented to our Lord. In a way, I want you to see how he answered it.

20 · Boice expounds Mark's introduction of Jesus, demonstrating that from the beginning of his public ministry Jesus was characterized as a preacher whose message was the gospel of the kingdom requiring repentance and faith

Jesus is introduced in the first chapter of Mark as a preacher. And you don't have to read very far before you understand that his understanding of his ministry was to teach the Bible. Verses 14 and 15 of the first chapter, where John begins. Where John is put in prison and Jesus begins his ministry. It says, jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God. Well, the good news is the gospel. That's what gospel means. So he came to proclaim the gospel. He's teaching the gospel. And then to give you some idea of what he was teaching, though it's a very brief statement of it, it says in verse 15, the time has come. He said, the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news. Well, the time has come. That referred to his coming. The kingdom of God is near because Jesus himself is near. The kingdom of God there is equated with the good news. It's the rule of God. And if you say at that point, well, how do you partake in the kingdom? How do you become a citizen of the kingdom? The answer is given. Repent and believe the good news. That's the gospel. Repent of your Sin and believe. The message that God has given chiefly about Jesus Christ. So although that's brief, that's the essence of the teaching.

21 · Boice traces Mark's repeated emphasis on Jesus as teacher in the Capernaum synagogue, noting that both the narrator and the crowd identify teaching as Jesus' defining activity, reinforcing the primacy of proclamation in Jesus' ministry model

Now the next section of this tells us how Jesus went to Capernaum, carried on his ministry there. And again the emphasis is on his teaching. Notice this. They went to Capernaum. And when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and he began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching because he taught them as one who had authority. And at the very end of this section it's all summed up. The people are reacting. They say, what is this? A new teaching and with what authority? So by this time you ought to be getting the idea Jesus is being introduced as a teacher.

22 · Boice narrates Jesus' healing of Peter's mother-in-law, setting up the crowd response that will create the temptation to abandon proclamation ministry for healing ministry

Now what happens in the next paragraph is that word comes that Simon Peter's mother in law is sick. She's in bed with a fever. That was a serious matter in those days. People died of fevers. And so they come to Jesus and they say, can you do anything about it? And Jesus goes, and we are told that he lifts her up by the hand, helping her up, and that the fever left her. So he heals her.

23 · Boice imaginatively reconstructs the crowd's reasoning as news of Peter's mother-in-law's healing spreads, creating vivid expectation that Jesus would continue miraculous healing ministry—an expectation Jesus will frustrate by returning to preaching

And then what happened is exactly what you would expect to have happen. Word gets out that here is somebody who has healed. Peter's mother in law was serious. We thought maybe she was going to die. And he made her well, just like that. Well, maybe he can heal Aunt Minnie. She's had this goiter for a long time and maybe make the goiter go away. And beside, Uncle Bill was injured years and years ago and he's had a limp ever since. Maybe Jesus can straighten out the leg and so, and so has this disease and somebody else has this particular physical problem. Let's bring them and see what Jesus can do. And so this great crowd begins to gather. And Jesus, we are told, heals them. He heals them because he can, he has the power. And also because he cares. He really does care about them. Cares about them, their bodies as well as their souls.

24 · Boice narrates the disciples' urgent summons of Jesus from prayer, supplying their probable reasoning that emphasizes the pragmatic opportunity of the waiting crowds over Jesus' prayer ministry—setting up Jesus' countercultural response

Now night comes, and when night comes, it gets dark. Everybody has to go home because they don't have any electric lighting in those days. And everybody goes to bed. Jesus goes to bed. The disciples go to bed. The night passes. In the morning, the sun begins to come up. And as soon as there's a little bit of light and people can stir, all these people come back again. Especially those who didn't get healed the night before. And I suppose by this time the word is spreading and everybody knows about it. And so they're coming from the nearby villages. Because here is Jesus who is able to heal you, to make you well. Now they go to get Jesus and he's not there. Well, where is he, do you suppose? Oh, I know where he is. He's out praying. That's what he does. He gets up early in the morning and he goes out to pray. Well, let's go get him. Because he. I mean, prayer is a good thing, but not now. We've got all these people here that need to be ministered to, right? So they go to get Jesus and they say verse 37. I think you have to read it this way. Everyone is looking for you. Why are you out here praying? You know, prayer is good and all of that and you've been teaching us to pray and we don't know how to pray very well. We want to get lessons in prayer. We don't. That's right. There's no time. But you know, all these people are here to be healed. Come on, get back down here and do it.

25 · Boice creates a hypothetical internal monologue for the disciples, contrasting the small teaching audience with the large healing crowds, satirically presenting the pragmatic church-growth reasoning that prioritizes numerical results over proclamation—the exact temptation Jesus will reject

Jesus, I know you're not interested in numbers. We don't understand that. We know you're not interested in numbers, but we are. And we just like to point out that when you were teaching in the synagogue yesterday morning, there were not very many people. Now you got very involved with those people in the teaching and I know you get a lot of personal satisfaction from that and it must seem good to you and all, but there were only about 30 people there. And then when you, when you healed Peter's mother in law and the people started to come, we had hundreds of people. That's a. That's the key to it. We found what really works. So, you know, come on down here. Let's get on with the work of building up the kingdom.

26 · Boice expounds Jesus' decisive response—refusing to return to healing ministry in favor of preaching in new villages—highlighting Jesus' explicit claim that preaching (not healing) is the reason for his coming, the purpose statement that governs all ministry decisions

Now notice what Jesus says. I hope you won't forget this. It's something we ought to think about again and again today. Verse 38. Jesus replies in the negative, doesn't say no, but that's what he's saying. Let us go somewhere else, to the nearby villages so I can preach there also. That is why I have come. Refuse to heal them.

27 · Boice explains Jesus' reasoning—that physical healing without gospel preaching results in temporal comfort followed by eternal death, while gospel preaching even to the physically sick produces eternal salvation—demonstrating Jesus' spiritual priorities over pragmatic crowd appeal

Well, why did he do that? Doesn't he care about them anymore? Yes, of course he does. He does do other healings throughout the gospel. Has he lost his power? No, of course not. He still has the power. Well, then why doesn't he go down there and heal all those people? Well, the answer is simple. He knew that he could heal them, make them perfectly well. They could live for a long, long time, eventually die. But without the gospel, what would happen is that they go to hell. And he knew that he could preach to sick people. And even if he didn't heal them, even if they went through a whole lifetime physical suffering, that if they heard and believed the gospel and trusted in him for salvation, then when they died, they go to heaven. And Jesus saw things spiritually. He saw them that way.

28 · Boice applies Jesus' example directly to contemporary ministry temptations, asserting that churches face the same pressure to abandon proclamation for more immediately appealing methods

You see, we need to hear that again today. We're constantly being drawn off to other things.

29 · Boice presents John 6 as a parallel case where Jesus' doctrinal teaching drives away crowds seeking physical benefits, using Peter's confession to demonstrate that those who understand spiritual realities recognize the supremacy of Christ's words over temporal provisions

It happens again in John's gospel. Remember, in the sixth chapter, Jesus multiplies the loaves and the fish. Everybody thinks this is wonderful. People are getting fed. He's solving the hunger problem. We're not going to have any more hunger in our time. Let's make him king and let him do it. And so Jesus begins to teach. And what Jesus teaches, as he always did, was Calvinism. And people got all upset at that. They all began to go away. Finally, the only people that were left were a small crowd of his own disciples. And he turned to them, he said, will you go away? Also on that occasion, Peter spoke for the rest. And he said, lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

30 · Boice applies Peter's confession to contemporary ministry, asserting that proclamation of life-giving words (not pragmatic methods) is the essential ministry work, accomplished by the Holy Spirit through the proclaimed Word following Christ's pattern

You see, Peter often said very foolish things, but he got it right that time. You see, it matters whether you hear the words of eternal life, because the words of eternal life give life. That's what the Holy Spirit does. That's what we're in the business of doing. And so we follow the pattern of Jesus Christ.

31 · Boice transitions from evangelism to sanctification, the second major application area for Scripture's sufficiency

Let me raise another matter. How about this matter of fact. Sanctification or growth in godliness? How do you grow in godliness?

32 · Boice critiques the therapeutic turn in contemporary sanctification teaching, where psychological analysis and counseling programs displace biblical categories of sin and faith, representing another area where churches functionally deny Scripture's sufficiency

You listen to people today. You would think that what you had to have was psychiatry or psychology. Now, don't misunderstand me. I think there is a place for that. But what we are saying and in some churches are saying very, very clearly is that there's no real growth. You can't really grow unless you submit to some kind of analysis. You. You have to get into a counseling program. That's the only way it happens. And so we begin to talk in those terms. We adopt the language of our culture and the thinking of our culture, and we begin to consider the work of the gospel in therapeutic terms. Instead of sin that needs to be confessed and faith that needs to be exercised, we think about people being sick. And they have to deal with their problems and work it all out and so forth. And so we got an enormous distortion at that point.

33 · Boice identifies two deficient approaches to sanctification—legalistic formulas (Bible reading, prayer, witnessing without doctrinal foundation) and charismatic experientialism (second blessing, tongues, miracles)—both of which fail to produce genuine holiness

Now, how do we talk about sanctification today? I think there are Two basic ways that we approach it in the church. One is by a formula, and sometimes psychiatry and counseling fit into that. But what we basically say is, you ought to read the Bible and pray and go to church and witness and help other people. And all those things are good. By the way, don't misunderstand me. We say, you do that, you'll grow. But we don't always. And over here you have people say, no, no, no, that's not it. That's too rigid and legalistic. What you need is a second work of grace. You need an experience of the Holy Spirit. You need to speak in tongues. You need to do miracles. Something like that has to happen in your life, and that's the way you become holy. But you have a lot of people claiming that and aren't holy at all.

34 · Boice transitions to his own exposition of Romans 6, framing it autobiographically as the most important lesson from his eight-year study, establishing that Scripture presents a third way beyond legalism and experientialism

I find as I study the Bible, that that is not the Bible's approach either one of them. The Bible's approach, Approach to holiness. I learned a lot of lessons during those years that I was studying Romans, and we were airing it on the Bible Study Hour. We studied it and aired it for about eight years. Probably the greatest lesson I learned during that time was how St. Paul in the Book of Romans approaches the matter of sanctification. He does it in the sixth chapter. He's already talked about the work of Christ and a number of other things earlier. But in the sixth chapter, he begins to talk about what it is to live a holy life and how to do it.

35 · Boice expounds Romans 6:11 as Paul's foundational sanctification instruction, arguing that Paul's first imperative is not to achieve union with Christ but to reckon on the already-accomplished reality of death to sin and life in Christ, making understanding precede action

And he introduces the section verse 11 by saying, in the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. And then after that, he goes on to say, don't let sin reign in your body. Offer the parts of your body to God in righteousness, and so forth. This is the first place in the Book of Romans where he introduces imperatives. And that is the first place where he actually tells us to do something. Before that, it's all been teaching. And it's interesting that when he first introduces these imperatives, what he has to say is the first thing you have to do is understand what God has done and then begin to act upon it. Because that's what that verse means. Count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. He's not saying, now what you need to do is work real hard at dying to sin and becoming alive to Christ. Christ, referring to something that's already happened to us. If we're a Christian, we were dead in sin, but that's the past. And now we are alive in Christ. And that's the work of the Holy Spirit in us. He says that's what's happened. By very definition, that's what it is to be a Christian. So he says the very first step, the start of what it really means to be sanctified or to grow in grace is to get that into your head, understand that that's happened, and live accordingly.

36 · Boice asserts the central thesis about sanctification—that holy living flows from doctrinal understanding, and the contemporary church's behavioral failures result from doctrinal ignorance about what God has accomplished in Christ

In other words. Could I put it this way? Sanctification all boils down to doctrine. The reason we have such poor behavior in the church today, and it includes the evangelical church, is we don't know the doctrine. We don't know what God has done. It's not filling our minds here.

37 · Boice expounds Romans 5's Adam-Christ typology as the doctrinal foundation for Romans 6's sanctification imperatives, arguing that understanding the transfer from union with Adam (death) to union with Christ (righteousness and resurrection) makes holy living the only rational response

You go back to the previous chapter. It's where he deals with Christ and Adam, and you hardly hear any preaching on that because. Because it's difficult. And yet that's what he's building on. He's saying, look, there was a time when you were in Adam, you were part wrapped up in that union with Adam. And so when Adam sinned, that was your sin. And when God judged Adam with death for his sin, death passed upon the race. And so you die because of Adam's sin. And God took you out of that and he joined you to Jesus Christ. So that in exactly the same way we. What Christ did applies to you. So his righteousness becomes your righteousness and his resurrection becomes your resurrection. Now, that's what happens. He just spelled that out in chapter five. Now he says in chapter six, what you have to do is understand that and get it into your head that that's what God has done. And if you understand that and you know what God has done, then you know you can't go back to being what you were before. You know, if you can't go back to being what you were before, the only rational thing is to get on with being what you are. Can't go back. So go forward. That's what he's saying.

38 · Boice illustrates the adult-child analogy to explain how Christians can sin without reversing their regeneration, with the appropriate response being exhortation to act according to their actual identity rather than attempts to re-accomplish what God has already done

You say, yeah, but can Christians sin? Yes, of course they sin. But let me put it this way. Here's an adult. You say, can this adult become a child? Again, the answer is no. You can't reverse the aging process. But now we ask the question, can that adult act childish? And the answer is yes, of course the adult can act childish. But what do you say to an adult who's acting childish? Well, every woman knows the answer to that because they say it to men all the time. What do women say to men? They say, for heaven's sake, just grow up right now. That's it.

39 · Boice applies the adult-child analogy to Paul's sanctification teaching, asserting that the proper approach to Christian living is not attempting to accomplish union with Christ but acting in accordance with the irreversible union God has already accomplished, motivated by gratitude for rescue from spiritual death

You See, that's exactly what Paul is saying. If you're really a Christian, you can't go back to being a non Christian because of the work of God. You can't reverse the work of God. It was your work. You can't could reverse it. But it's God's work. You can't reverse it. You can't go back to being what you were being a non Christian, you are a Christian. So for heaven's sake, start acting like a Christian. Now. That's Paul's approach to it. And when you begin to appreciate the wonder of what God has done in rescuing you from death, spiritual death, and joining you to Jesus Christ, you find yourself saying, yes, that's exactly it. I want to live for him.

40 · Boice transitions to the third application area—cultural engagement—establishing the contemporary concern for societal transformation as the context for examining whether Scripture is sufficient for cultural impact

Let me touch on one more area. It has to do with our society, the world in which we live and are concerned for it. Especially in an age of decline like ours. We are very concerned for our world and the culture. And we say what should we do?

41 · Boice challenges the Christian Right's political strategy, distinguishing between church and state functions and arguing that civil government requires competence rather than Christianity, using Luther's provocative statement to make the point that political and spiritual spheres operate by different principles

Should we really form Christian lobby groups and try to force Christian laws upon non Christian people? Should we try to get Christians elected to high positions of power, Christian president, Christian senators and so forth? Well, I'm glad to have Christians in public office. I think that's a calling like anything else. But what we are looking for in civil government is not Christianity. We have to understand the difference between the state and the church. What we're looking for is competence and civil government. You know, Martin Luther certainly appreciated the gospel, but he said he'd rather have a competent Turk at the head of the empire than an incompetent Christian. All he was saying was it's two different functions.

42 · Boice articulates his theology of cultural transformation—that genuine change comes from gospel-transformed individuals creating laws reflecting God's law, not from top-down political imposition, warning that seeking salvation through government is idolatrous statism displacing God as savior

And change when it comes in a culture, comes not from the top. By electing a Christian president, we've had Christian presidents not doing much good. Is it what happens in a culture where there's change that it starts from the bottom up. It's the gospel, changes people and then, and then people together create laws that reflect the law of God and then you begin to get good government. That's the way it works. You see, if you, if you look to government to be your savior, you're really making the government the savior. Statism. And that's a kind of blasphemy because it's only God who saves us status, not going to save us. So if we're going to see changes, it has to be by the preaching of the word and the changing of individuals.

43 · Boice introduces the Geneva illustration by describing the city's pre-Reformation immorality and the failure of both legal prohibition and official Protestant declaration to produce change, setting up Calvin's proclamation ministry as the actual mechanism of transformation

Let me give you an illustration. In the 16th century, Geneva, in the early years of that century was a very immoral city. It had a bad reputation. It was sort of like New Orleans at Mardi Gras. People used to have wild parties. They used to run around the streets naked. They used to sing blasphemous songs. And the leaders of the city, the Council of 200 that ruled Geneva would pass law after law to say things like, you shall not run around the city naked and sing blasphemous songs. And it didn't do any good at all, because laws don't change the hearts of people. And so in the year 1535, they said to themselves, now the reformation is making changes in Germany. Maybe we should bring the reformation here to Geneva. Let's make Geneva a Protestant city. So they declared that henceforth, Geneva would be a protestant city. And. And you know what happened? Nothing at all. Of course, the same things went on. You don't do it that way.

44 · Boice narrates Calvin's initial Geneva ministry and exile, emphasizing his lack of political power, financial resources, or social prestige—possessing only the teaching office and having already been rejected once—to set up the remarkable transformation that biblical teaching alone accomplished

The year following that, 1536, John Calvin came to Geneva and he began to preach. He didn't come with any prestige, and they didn't pay much attention to him. They didn't even pay him for the first year. But he began to teach the Bible. And as he began to teach, we know what he was teaching. He was teaching California. And people got upset with him just the way they got upset with Jesus when he taught the doctrines of grace. And so they got rid of him. They said, get this guy out of here. We don't want to hear that sort of thing. And Calvin went down the Rhine, actually to the north, to Strasbourg. And he settled in there, and he began to have a very fruitful ministry. And yet things were continuing to decline in Geneva. And finally they said, well, let's give Calvin another chance. Maybe we ought to take another crack at it. So they sent Pharaoh up to get him. And when Pharaoh came, Calvin didn't want to go back to Geneva. He said, I'd be crucified there a thousand times a day. And Pharaoh said, if you don't go there, God is going to judge you, because that's where you ought to be. I don't know where Pharaoh got the revelation, but Calvin took it seriously. And so he went back to Geneva. Now he came without any political party or any. Any power. And he didn't have any money. All he was was the teacher. And he even failed once. They threw him out not many years before.

45 · Boice catalogs the comprehensive transformation Calvin's biblical teaching produced in Geneva—conversion leading to social concern, infrastructure development, educational systems, economic reform, and theological understanding of wealth—presenting the city as a historical demonstration of Scripture's power to transform culture when faithfully proclaimed

It was 1541 there in Geneva, Calvin did what he had come to do. He began to teach the Bible. That's all he had. And as he taught the Bible, the city Was literally transformed. People were changed. They were converted. They began to change their lifestyle. They got concerned with other people. There were a lot of beggars in the city in those days, and they said, that's not honoring to God. So they built places for the beggars to live and they provided for them. Geneva, like so many other cities in the Middle Ages, was a filthy place. There was all kinds of disease, and they passed laws that began to clean it up. They developed a sewage system. They had laws for the sale of things in the marketplace to keep disease from spreading through contaminated food. Food. They were concerned with education, and so they established a school system for everybody in the town. It went all the way from the lower grades right up to the great academy which trained the ministers for the Reformation, sent them out all over Europe. And they even brought industry into the city because Calvin thought it wasn't right for people to be idle. And so they began to teach about hard work. They brought the silk industry. Geneva became prosperous. Calvin's started to talk about capital, how it wasn't a sin to have money, but money had to be used rightly, that we were stewards of these gifts of God and so on. And Geneva in those days became what was called, literally a new Jerusalem. People went to that city, the refugees from France and other places, and they held it up as a great model of what God is able to do.

46 · Boice applies the Geneva illustration to contemporary believers, arguing that while scale differences exist, the principle remains—individual Christians are responsible for faithful proclamation in their sphere of influence, where Scripture alone remains sufficient for producing genuine transformation

Now. I know there are differences between Jesus, Geneva there in the Middle Ages and our cities today was relatively small compared to our cities. One man, one church, one fellowship could make a tremendous impact on a whole city in those days. I'm not sure it's quite the same today. But you and I aren't responsible for the whole city, much less the whole country. What we're responsible for is where God has placed us. Our families, our church, our neighborhood. And we have a great opportunity to demonstrate, even in this matter of civil concern, that the word of God not only is sufficient for producing change, it's the only thing that does.

47 · Boice concludes with a prophetic warning and doxological prayer, pronouncing woe on churches that abandon Scripture's sufficiency for secular methods while praying for grace to maintain faithful proclamation in continuity with previous generations

And we'll be to a church that abandons that for the mess of secular pottage and offers something else to a perishing world. May God give us grace to be faithful and to hold out this word to a generation that desperately needs it, as others have done before us.

48 · Boice closes with pastoral prayer, asking God to establish the congregation as people of the book across all three application areas—evangelism, sanctification, and cultural engagement—trusting the Holy Spirit to work transformation through faithful proclamation

Let's pray. Our Father, we are thankful that we have had these days to study your word together and begin to think in terms of the use of the scriptures and the sufficiency of the scriptures for our time. We ask that you will bless our study we pray that as we function in sharing the gospel with others or trying to grow in the faith ourselves, or even trying to make a difference in the neighborhoods in which we live, that we might be found by your grace to be increasingly men and women of the book, living by the book, teaching what is found there, and praying that you, by your Holy Spirit, will work through that teaching to bring about beneficial change. We ask it in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior, Amen and amen.