Interview
Jerry Bridges
by Art Azurdia
(Continued from Page 1)
AA: Following up on this, how would you describe the working relationship between grace and truth? There are some who seem to suggest that we need to strive for some combination of the two . . . perhaps 50% grace and 50% truth. How would you describe the interplay between grace and truth or grace and obedience, if you prefer?
JB: I believe grace motivates a person to obedience. I use Isaiah’s experience – the vision in Isaiah 6 – as a paradigm. At the conclusion of my sermon on Isaiah 6, I said that passage can be summed up in four words: God, guilt, grace, and gratitude. God’s holiness, our guilt, the gospel of God’s grace, and Isaiah’s gratitude is expressed. When God said, “Who shall I send?” Isaiah didn’t ask where he would go and what he would do. Instead, he answered, “Here am I.” And I believe that when we read of Jesus’ experience with the sinful women in Luke 7, we are seeing only the tail end of the story. The only way we can understand that story is to assume she had a prior encounter with Jesus and had become acutely aware of her sin and received his forgiveness. So now she comes out of gratitude to wash his feet. The parable of the debtor brings that out, of course. I define grace these days not just as unmerited favor. I say without guilt there’s no grace. So I define grace in this fashion: it is God’s blessings through Christ to the people who deserved his curse.
AA: So we’re not un-meriting; rather, we are ill-meriting.
JB: Yes; we are ill-meriting and ill-worthy.
AA: Right!
JB: When a person is gripped by that, the truth kicks in and they want to obey. In fact, in what I call a ladder of spiritual transformation, the bottom rung of the ladder is the holiness of God. The next rung is the increasing awareness of our sin, and then the gospel. I have a beautiful quote from Warfield, about 100 years old, in which he talks about the fact that our need of Christ does not cease with our believing, no matter what our attainments in Christian behavior might be. It is always about Christ’s blood and righteousness. When people really understand that concept of grace and begin to see the righteousness of Christ imputed to them, then they want to obey. Sometimes I explain it by drawing a little diagram in which time is the horizontal axis and progress in holiness is the vertical axis. I call the line going up knowledge and desire. We would grow in our knowledge of the will of God and giving everybody the benefit of the doubt and we desire to do what we know is right. Under that I draw a line of a lesser angle which represents our perceived progress in holiness. As those lines go out, they diverge, illustrating the tension between what I want to be and what I see myself to be. Then, up at the very top, I draw a horizontal line representing Christ’s obedience. When I keep my eye on Him, I want to pursue that obedience even though I know I’ll never make it. This is gospel-driven sanctification.
AA: I remember when John Reisinger was dealing with the accusation of being antinomian. He would say, “No, no, no . . . what some of these folks fail to understand is that grace teaches us to deny ungodliness.”
JB: Yes, exactly.
AA: If you were asked to address a group of pastors in a conference setting and given complete freedom to preach your passions, what subjects would you address and why?
JB: Living by the gospel. I would eventually get into progressive sanctification but I would start with the gospel. At Sinclair Ferguson’s church I am going to preach on 2 Corinthians 5:14-15. We are constrained by the love of Christ. I spent too many years preaching “ought-to” and that’s the way I lived. And I can recall one day when I was going through 2 Corinthians and the Holy Spirit arrested me with the phrase “Christ’s love compels me.” I asked myself, “What compels me?” And my answer was “duty.” Duty is a high virtue for me. I realized, however, that my sense of duty would not last a lifetime. I prayed, “God, will you begin to compel me by your love?” He led me back to the gospel.
AA: It’s the performance treadmill you talk about in Transforming Grace, right?
JB: Yes. But you see, the way to the cross is through our sin. We don’t need the cross until we see our sin. The gospel frees you up to be honest about your sin. Without the gospel you have to live in denial. Otherwise, you can’t take it.
AA: You mean, as a self-righteous person?
JB: Yes, as a self-righteous person you live in denial. But when you see the gospel and when you see that Christ really has died for your sin and you really have been forgiven, then it’s okay to be honest. When the Holy Spirit convicts of sin you don’t fight with it; rather, you say, “Okay Lord, that’s true. That’s the way I am. But thanks be to God for the gospel.”
AA: You have dealt with some exceedingly important theological issues in your various writings such as justification and sanctification. I think the first book of yours I read was the Pursuit of Holiness. Trusting God, on the sovereignty of God, was a book very helpful to people in our church. At the same time, you have done this theological work on a popular level. How have you managed to do this so successfully in a way that is simple without being simplistic?
JB: I think that within the gift of teaching God has given me the gift of simplicity- making things simple. Now, He didn’t just drop that down from heaven. In His providence I spent two years as an engineering writer for an aircraft manufacturer in San Diego writing for shop-floor mechanics. I learned to express engineering technicalities in very simple language, and am sure that has had some impact. But I am also highly motivated in what I’m doing, which I think is an essential aspect of gifting. Whatever you’re gifted in you’re motivated to do.
AA: So often pastors shy away from dealing with theological themes because they struggle to find a way to make it comprehensible especially those theological issues that are beyond our powers of comprehension. I have got to believe you have a word for pastors who are afraid to teach theologically. How can we do it in a way that everyone sitting in our congregations can understand?
JB: Jesus used a lot of parables and stories and so forth. I like to use analogies. Years ago I read an old 19th century book called The Seven Laws of Teaching. Teaching from the known to the unknown is one of the seven laws.
AA: Anyone who reads your writing knows that doctrine is essential to the way you think. Is it acceptable for me to say that, theologically speaking, you are a Calvinist?
JB: Yes.
AA: At the same time you are not doctrinaire. How have you sought to ensure this balance given the fact that so many of us trip up at this point? How can I be doctrinal without being doctrinaire?
JB: Well, I just try to teach the Bible as it comes and I try to be balanced. For example, when I come to a passage on the doctrine of election I always balance it with the universal invitation of the gospel. You let the Lord reconcile the various passages. That is his business-not ours. We just teach what the Bible says. So that’s been accepted and I don’t try to poke Calvinism down the throats of Navigators staff. I have never done that and yet I would estimate that 25% of the staff have become/are reformed. They would be on the same page with us.
