Jonathan Edwards, one of America’s greatest theologians, said that God’s ultimate purpose for creating the world was to display and communicate His own glory by creating beings capable of receiving and enjoying His glory. God’s innate fullness and desire to diffuse His own excellence is the purpose for creation. And the true happiness and glory of creatures are an extension of God’s own glory. God’s nature includes a disposition to communicate His own fullness, which is the cause of making a creation in the first place. God created beings in His own image to be recipients and expressions of his emanating glory, by praising and enjoying Him. Thus, human happiness is not an alternative to God’s glory, but an inherent aspect linked to it. The glory of God’s perfections is an inherently delightful good that creatures are meant to behold and enjoy (Edwards). i
God makes the revelation of, and communication of His moral Majesty, His animating cause, as He extends His glory through the work of His Son. God would not be God if He made a cause outside of Himself greater than Himself. The Almighty has tied His righteousness to the fulfillment of His Word (Jer 1:12). This means all His works are the progressive unfolding of His divine character. Genesis 1:2, carries the idea of brooding over His creative works in anticipation of bringing forth the unfolding mystery of redemptive history. God has a boundless propensity to share Himself. And nowhere is that proclivity more fully expressed than in the incarnation of Christ’s Person, and in Christ’s redemptive work in saving sinners (Heb 1:1-3ff.).
The wonder of the believer’s union with Christ means that the Father contemplates His people in the Son.
God saves a man by radically identifying him with Christ. So much so, that Christ’s righteousness and atoning work are credited to the believing sinner (2 Cor 5:21). This changes a man’s moral center. His conscience becomes captive to the blood of Christ and the power of Christ’s risen life. This yields peace, communion, and reconciliation. Thus, salvation is about an immense change in a man’s moral center. The core of a man is overwhelmed by gospel truth, by the reality that through Christ that man is now right with God’s righteousness. A new orientation takes place of peace, acceptance, communion, favor, right-standing, and sensitivity to sin. As this is worked into the life by the indwelling Spirit, it penetrates more deeply into the affections.ii The new man increasingly abandons trusted fleshly strategies, upon which he used to depend to deflect judgment, cocoon himself, and feed his pride.
God has brought His elect; the trophies of His grace into the heart of His marvelous plot. For He is revealing His excellence and perfections through His purpose to recover His own perfect image in us. This is tied to the progressive revelation of His hidden mystery, namely, the conformity of the elect to the image of Christ (Rom 8:29-30; 2 Thess 2:13-14). That is the wonderful core of His hidden mystery (Rom 16:25-27). And so, we ask, is God’s goal, conformity to Christ, your goal? It cannot be, unless you are devoted to Christ in self-denial. To be conformed to Christ is God’s purpose in His formation of a new humanity. There can be no greater wealth than this conformity in which we share in God’s holiness (Heb 12:10). We should view His chastisement through this lens of sharing His holiness—ultimately gaining the glory of Christ (2 Thess 2:13-14). Our glorification is necessary for us to enjoy the unbroken communication of His glory to us throughout eternity.
A ’friend of the cross’ is a person who lives to have the cross separate him from the guilt of his sin and from his practice of sin.
God’s intent to produce a new humanity is an end not reached by a mere declaration alone (by fiat). It is only reached by a complete vicarious identification of Christ with His elect so that the sinner’s ruin is legally borne by Christ, and carried away (Rev 1:5). Justification by faith grants a glorious status of right-standing before God (Rom 1:16-17). This solidarity with Christ has replaced our solidarity with Adam (see Romans 5). Out of this union comes a co-death with Christ so that the former tyranny of our sin nature is judged and neutralized (Rom 6:1-11). We are to practice reckoning this co-death on a daily basis. ‘Take to the morgue’ what Christ has died to slay. Don’t give fresh life to sins that were judged in the body of your Savior—for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:3-5ff.).
God’s great goal to manifest His glorious perfections and excellences through the redemption of His elect, cannot be thwarted. Though we face a world of unbelievers, and an evil principality assisted by his innumerable demons, God’s goal cannot be blocked in the slightest. He’s going to communicate His attributes to His elect. When God’s cause is your cause, you are a friend of the cross. Friends of the cross depend upon the cross in their fight against sin. But those who lie down in their sin and do not fight it are not friends of the cross. They are enemies of the cross according to Philippians 3:18-19. The proof that Christ died to remove your penalty for sin, is evinced by the fact that He has also judged your sin nature. Thus, the redeemed no longer practice sin (1 Jn 3:9-10). You no longer serve sin as a master—you’ve been freed from the tyrannous rule of your fallen nature.
[To see God] “this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Cor 15:53).
The wonder of God revealing His unmediated glory to us in the Person of Christ is the substance of our hope (Col 1:27). As mentioned, this matchless blessing of being face to face with His glory can only be experienced by a glorified person. For the present, we still carry the remnants of a lower nature and the potential of corruption in the grave. There must be a change in us. We’re going to receive a heavenly body, which is perfectly suited for a heavenly existence (1 Cor 15:35-58). And because we suffer with Him, we will be glorified with Him (Rom 8:18-25). God’s purpose in Christ is the fountain head of all enduring blessing—namely to put a man right with His own righteousness and to conform that man to Christ’s likeness. Under the sovereign hand of God, all things are working together for a matchless good— for the elect are destined to gain the glory of Christ (2 Thess 2:13-14). But for the time being, we have a message to entrust to others, a war to prosecute, a race to run, and a crop to bring to harvest (2 Tim 2:1-6).
There are so many reminders in His Word that the Christian life is a war. But the word, war is not merely a metaphor to describe hardship, sacrifice, and resistance. War in describing the Christian life means obeying our crucified, resurrected, and exalted Commander. War means that we will have to resist temptation countless times. War means that victors in Christ are overcomers whose experience of conquest will fill eternity (Rev 21). In terms of the war’s outcome, no adjectives approach hyperbole regarding the magnitude of what is at stake. Consider that Satan took his weapons and went directly to the Seed of the woman, as recorded for our instruction in the fourth chapter of Luke’s gospel. And regarding the daily spiritual fight, Paul tells Timothy he is to consider himself as one enlisted in a war (1 Tim 1:18). Fight the good fight (1 Tim 6:12). Suffer hardship with me as a soldier of Christ Jesus (2 Tim 2:3-4). This dose of reality concerning self-denial marks our regeneration as the point of enlistment into God’s army. Conversion grants the weaponry to successfully engage in battle (see 2 Cor 10:3-5; Eph 6:10-20).
How is it so many admirers of the Christian faith ‘dodge the draft’ so to speak, making excuses to forsake the fight? ‘I have a family, a business, a farm, an important job, a retirement, a vacation to get to.’ We are enlisted into God’s army and our combat tour of duty ends only at death. To serve in God’s militia is to receive a twice-death sentence. That is a truth repulsive to the unconverted—to be bidden to lose oneself for Christ’s sake and the sake of the gospel (Mk 8:35). Therefore, we should not be surprised that the self-denial required in spiritual warfare is rarely articulated from most pulpits. I can think of no doctrine that has been greeted with more stubborn resistance than the doctrine of ongoing repentance and self-denial.
Saving faith is a ‘whole person’ act—and discipleship is also.
True discipleship cannot be reduced to a living room meeting with cookies and cocoa; discipleship is holistic. The Christ-follower is always building, sowing, watering, hoping in, mortifying, seeking first, serving, worshipping, adoring, beholding, running with endurance, treasuring up, edifying, and boasting in. These behaviors spring from a new nature. Can these aims be pursued without heart religion? No, without self-denial? No. This forces the question, why will the true believer be hated by all the nations because of Christ’s name (Mt 24:9)? I believe the answer has much to do with the cost of self-denial in following Christ. True religion is characterized by a love of the truth, therefore, to be a disciple of Christ is to be a “stakeholder” in the New Heavens and Earth. As such, we gain and hold territory by means of proclaiming and living God’s truth. Christ’s disciples make sacrifices on behalf of the ‘unseen things’ to come, spoken of by Paul (2 Cor 4:16-18). For the present, the Lord’s followers are aliens and strangers, but heirs of His Kingdom (Rom 4:13; Eph 3:6). They are citizens of a city to come, whose Builder and Architect is God (Heb 11:10). They have a guaranteed stake in Zion’s government, and will rule with Messiah (Rev 2:26-27).
A disciple’s practice of self-denial is essential in caring for, and maintaining his relationship with the Lord.
The self-denial God commanded by Christ is not the asceticism found in medieval piety, for that severe treatment of the body was driven by insecurity; by an absence of assurance of salvation. By contrast, true self-denial is logically the outworking of one’s communion with Christ, and one’s sonship and union with Christ. The believer enjoys belonging; he possesses the Spirit of Sonship (Rom 8:15). Adoption means we are transferred from a situation of alienation and estrangement to one of Paternal love. How we see the Father now is through the vantage point of how the Son sees the Father. Yet, this must always be joined to ongoing communion with the Son, for our acceptance rests upon His Priesthood (1 Jn 1:3). No man will die to self, or bear his cross unless he is convinced that he has been accepted by God in Christ. The minister’s main task is to repeatedly introduce God to the sinner. “Give me God” is the cry of every redeemed heart (Jer 29:13).
Thus, the first step to follow Christ as His learner and disciple is to deny self. This is to regard and to present your body as a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1-2). The cross of Christ stands for a life that is voluntarily surrendered to the will of God.iii This is how our Savior set forth the terms of discipleship: Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me” (Mt 16:24).
Movement away from God, in departing from the dictates of discipleship means a person is living to please themselves, as if the true happiness they seek can be found in something that terminates on themselves. The cross causes us to trust God and distrust self—this is inherent in self-denial. The cross of Christ has ‘flipped the script’ so to speak regarding our source of reliance. We no longer are suspicious of God, trusting self implicitly. God is absolute Governor. His determinations are best, only He is fit to govern. It’s sinful to attempt to rob God of this prerogative of His governing. God will test and try His people and put them in situations wherein they must repeatedly choose His will over their own (1 Pet 1:6-9; 4:12-13).iv
Obedience brings joy; but the world, the flesh, and the devil depict self-denial as a source of boredom and deprivation.
Where self is the chief concern, there is an unsanctified man. The unsanctified man has refused to take God for his ultimate end and goal, whereas the sanctified man regards true gain to be pleasing God and finding pleasure in pleasing God (2 Cor 5:9), for all things are created for God’s glory. God will not give His glory to another Isaiah 42:8. We are to boast in the Lord only. Christ’s entire life exemplified self-denial, which reached the pinnacle of ultimate obedience to His Father in His work as sin-bearer (Phil 2:8).v
Dutch Reformer, Wilhelmus a Brakel defines self-denial as follows. Self-denial is a Christian virtue granted by God to His children, whereby they, out of love for God’s will, neither give heed nor yield to their intellect, will, and inclinations in so far as they are in opposition to the will of God, and oppose and suppress them instead. They do so by a voluntary forsaking and rejection of all that pertains to their natural well-being, if God’s cause demands such from them. This is to the honor of God and the welfare of their neighbors.vi
W. a. Brakel was a unique theologian in his time for his ability to delineate grace-driven sanctification so clearly (1635-1711). Regarding the Christian’s ability to practice self-denial, he certainly indicated that the Lord is the moving cause of self-denial in His people—granting them the grace to pursue it. He also explained that self-denial is not a negation, such as severe treatment of the body, or asceticism, but self-denial is a propensity, not a negation. A propensity means a desire to please God, walk with God, and commune with God. Therefore, self-denial is communion with Christ.vii
We are called to present ourselves to God as a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1-2). ‘You’re not your own you’re bought with a price’ (1 Cor 6:19-20). ‘We are to live unto God’ (Rom 14:8). Self-denial involves directing our whole mind to God, wherein all things are considered in reference to Him; unto His disposal and estimate. We learn to look to God in everything (Mt 16:24). There’s a world of iniquity treasured up in the human soul; many internal obstacles are impeding the pursuit of uprightness and moral excellence and righteousness. We cannot exempt ourselves from what is required to learn and to model patience. ‘The Son of God learned obedience through what He suffered’ (Heb 5:8). If that’s true for the holy, innocent Son of God, how much more so for redeemed sinners? We are destined to become conformed to Him (Rom 8: 29), which means He has left footsteps for us to follow (1 Pet 2:21). A man’s tribulations are necessary in order for him to enter the kingdom of God (Calvin) (Acts 14:22).viii
Our Heavenly Father’s disciplining hand provides His child with countless opportunities to exercise self-denial (Heb 12:5-6).
Christ has called us into fellowship with Himself in much of our affliction, tribulations, testing, and our adversity. Calvin wisely observes, even the best men, will tend to trust their own imagined strength, and fortitude, and constancy, if they’re not brought to a more thorough knowledge of themselves by the trial of the cross. This certainly was true of the great king and prophet, David, who spoke rashly of his perpetuity as if by circumstances he would not be moved. “Now as for me, I said in my prosperity, ‘I will never be moved’” (Ps 30:6-7). We naturally have a depraved confidence in the flesh. But God works patience in us through tribulation and He comforts us amidst our affliction (2 Cor 1:4). We must learn what we cannot do in our own strength. Patience and proven faith, borne of experience is the result of being humbled and made conscious of our weakness.ix
Faith is confirmed when we’re humbled—the fruit being, we recline on God and demonstrate patience and distrust of self. God grants His children the ability to obey amidst testing. Faith is proved by tribulation (1 Pet 1:4). We are put in the furnace of testing, and there the ‘gold’ of our faith is purified. Tested faith is proven faith. We’re not to live according to our own wishes, and our own accord, but to live at God’s disposal—that is the heart of self-denial. We’re chastised that we might not be condemned along with the world (1 Cor 11:31-32). The more perverse we are, the less we can bear God’s scourging and chastisement. But He is actually manifesting His goodwill to us, and He is showing incredible care and wisdom for our salvation. By contrast, a lost person, when he undergoes that type of testing, is becoming worse under the rod of correction (Heb 12:8,12-13). But the true sons under chastisement, turn to repentance. They don’t become more obstinate under the lash. Blessed are you when you suffer for righteousness’ sake (Mt 5:10; Acts 5:41).x
Our Lord by His obedience marked out the ‘narrow way’ for us; we run the race fixing our gaze upon Him (Heb 12:2-3).
Self-denial; there’s no other way to be conformed to our Great Master. He came from heaven to teach us the lesson of self-denial. As soon as He took on our human nature, He felt our wants and our miseries, but He did not please Himself (Rom 15:3). Every true believer will not be allowed by God to live a life for himself (Rom 14:8; 2 Cor 5:14-15). Self is the greatest enemy of God and the greatest enemy of man. Therefore, self must be denied.
\A warning, self can build a cozy nest for itself in religion (Jude 3-4). Carnal religion with its heartless externals, its boasting in men, and its shallow ‘score cards’ can be a cover for narcissistic self-worship. Religion can smuggle in the covert worship of self. Self-worship is nothing more than having a religious cover for the conceit of our own worth (2 Cor 10:12). Paul chides the praise-hungry Corinthian believers, ‘let no one boast in men’ (1 Cor 3:21-23). It’s a very sad doom to be given up to self (Ps 81:12). Thankfully, the Lord diligently disciplines those He loves (Heb 12:4-11; Rev 3:19). Christ’s disciples are not their own men (1 Cor 6:19-20). Christ owns you. He owns your faculties, He owns your time, He owns your giftedness, your ambitions. He owns it all. We must live that way. Every believer must deny himself.xi
Discerning what is valuable is a special function of faith, for faith is the soul’s inclination to esteem true worth. Yes, faith is the soul’s treasure sensor. God’s mercy in Christ is the most precious thing (1 Tim 1:15). All other ‘treasure’ is rubbish by comparison. When faith comes, it causes us to commune with God, resting upon the mercies of Christ, trading everything for the merchant’s pearl (Mt 13:45-46). When God’s work first begins in the heart it reveals that you have busied yourself in the wrong way (1 Sam 12:21). You have been ignoring true treasure while placing a premium upon the temporal, occupying yourself with what is corruptible. Thus, repentance is releasing your estimate of earthly things for the true preciousness of what is eternal (Col 3:1ff.). These are the beginnings of conviction—the Spirit shows you that you’ve brought your time, talent, and affection to carnal things that do not last.xii Self-denial is treasure-oriented; therefore, it is the godly response to His discipline and to His chief purpose to conform us to Christ. For God is at work in His people, both to will and to do His good pleasure (Phil 2:12-13).
The true follower of Christ is always consolidating his true treasure, counting its infinite weight and value, weighing it against the wind-blown ‘feathers’ of this world (Phil 3:7-8). For every believer still has a course to complete, the daily sacrifices of self-denial to make, and ultimately a hell to avoid and a heaven to gain. This is the great lesson set forth in Pilgrim’s progress—the citizen of the Celestial City is in a pitched battle to surpass each obstacle hindering his progress to his heavenly home.
How did we reach the point wherein discipleship came to be viewed as elective for Christians? Christ so clearly and fully lays out the terms of discipleship—namely, that living the life of a disciple is how we follow Him. A true believer is a Christ-follower who seeks to obey the Lord Jesus Christ in self-denial—in unconditional surrender to His rightful Lordship. This is what it means to be a true believer. This begs the question, has a believer accepted certain truths, or an actual Christ?xiii
Genuine discipleship and self-denial are inseparable. A disciple is both a learner and a follower. He is called to a life of self-denial. This removes all middle ground and sets forth what a commitment to Christ actually looks like. A majority of church members have never been personally challenged along these lines. The narrow way described by Jesus is not the 'higher spiritual life'; it is the way of life and salvation. Those on the narrow way are not spectators, passengers, or consumers. For every true believer is a disciple and a disciple-maker who pursues relationships of closeness to imitate the godly and be imitated as godly (Luke 6:40). This is what Christ meant when He said a true disciple denies himself and loses his life for His sake and for the sake of the gospel (Mk 8:35). This self-denial shows up in some very basic ways, being a man or woman of your word, being punctual, being a caring listener, having integrity, and keeping your promises. As those who practice self-denial for Christ’s sake, true followers of Christ are not ‘balanced’ people in the eyes of the world. They are 'lop-sided', eccentric for Christ, sold out for Jesus.xiv
End Notes:
i. Jonathan Edwards, “The End for which God created the World,” The Works of Jonanthan Edwards
ii. John H. Rodgers, The Theology of P. T. Forsyth
iii. Arthur W. Pink, 1886-1952, “Cross-bearing,” Free Grace Broadcaster, Chapel Library, Pensacola, FL
iv. Richard Baxter, 1615-1691, “Selfishness and Self-denial,” Free Grace Broadcaster, Chapel Library, Pensacola, FL
v. Ibid.
vi. Wilhelmus a Brakel, 1635-1711, “Self-denial Defined,” Free Grace Broadcaster, Chapel Library, Pensacola, FL
vii. Ibid.
viii. John Calvin, 1509-1564, “Christ’s Cross and Ours,” Free Grace Broadcaster, Chapel Library, Pensacola, FL
ix. Ibid.
x. Ibid.
xi. Thomas Manton, 1620-1677, “Reasons for Self-denial,” Free Grace Broadcaster, Chapel Library, Pensacola, FL
xii. Ibid.
xiii. Memorial for Pastor Von Trutzschler, his life of discipleship, Claremont Immanuel Baptist Church, San Diego, CA, Jan. 28, 2017
xiv. Ibid.