Getting the Balance between Expecting Too Little and Too Much Moral Progress

When we become Christians, we receive the Holy Spirit, who then sets about transforming us into the moral likeness of Jesus. The Bible is very clear on this.

But this raises an important question. How quickly should we expect this change to happen?

I would suggest that on this issue, as on so many other issues to do with the Christian life, it is possible to go too far one way or the other. There are many Christians who are expecting too little from God in this area, and there are many others who are expecting too much.

Expecting too little transformation

Firstly, there are those who don’t expect enough from God in terms of moral transformation.

This attitude often ties in with a lack of expectation generally in spiritual matters. Importantly, however, the Bible encourages us to think big as regards what God is going to do, in various ways.

As far as moral transformation is concerned, we should be expecting God to act in a significant way.

In 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul states:

‘And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.’ (ESV)

This is clear that the Spirit is making Christians ever more glorious, where our glory refers to our moral purity.

Similarly, in Galatians 5:22-23 Paul says:

‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.’ (ESV)

There is no doubt that as we live our Christian lives we should expect to increase in these virtues.

Again, in Romans 8:13 we read:

‘For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.’ (ESV)

This verse implies that if we put in the required effort, we can expect to grow in moral purity.

The verses I have quoted, along with many others, show that we should expect to change as times passes. We should be becoming morally better people.

It seems to me, based on conversations I have had with other believers, that there are many Christians who are expecting very little in terms of moral transformation, and this is a big mistake. The Holy Spirit is ready and willing to change us if we let Him, which we are under obligation to do.

Expecting too much transformation

Secondly, there are Christians who expect too much moral transformation.

This is a problem, because if we have unrealistically high expectations of things, it can be extremely discouraging when these expectations are not met. If, by contrast, we have more realistic expectations, we won’t be so disheartened by failures and will be quicker to dust ourselves down and get ready for the next fight.

One key Bible verse on this subject is James 3:2, where James says:

‘For we all stumble in many ways.’ (ESV)

Stumbling in this verse refers to committing unpremeditated sins of short duration, and James is clear that every Christian commits these. Importantly too, James himself had very probably been a Christian for many years when he wrote these words.

This short sentence makes it clear that there is a limit to how much moral transformation we can realistically expect.

Another passage that points in the same direction is 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul discusses marriage and singleness.

Generally speaking, in this chapter Paul clearly rates the unmarried life more highly for a Christian than the married life.

In v. 7 he says:

‘I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.’ (ESV)

When Paul says ‘as I myself am’ in this verse, he means unmarried as he is. And the fact that he implies here that being married and unmarried are both gifts from God doesn’t negate what he says about a preference for Christians being unmarried.

Similarly, in verses 32-34 he says:

‘The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband.’ (ESV)

There is no doubt that Paul has a preference for Christians being concerned with ‘things of the Lord’ rather than ‘worldly things’. So, all other things being equal, Paul clearly has a preference for unmarried Christians remaining unmarried.

However, other verses in the chapter show that all other things are not in fact equal. In v. 2 he says:

‘But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.’ (ESV)

Note the phrases ‘each man’ and ‘each woman’ in this verse. Even allowing for some hyperbole in the word ‘each’, it seems clear that Paul is thinking that because of sexual temptations it would be best for most unmarried Christians to get married. If possible, he would like most unmarried Christians to remain unmarried, but he realises that sexual temptations make this unrealistic.

My point is that Paul is making a remarkably big concession to human weakness here. We might have expected him to say something like this:

It is better for unmarried Christians to remain unmarried. And if you are struggling with celibacy, look to the Holy Spirit’s empowering and transformation. Expect God to cause you to rise above your struggles and temptations.

But Paul doesn’t say this. Instead, he implies that if Christians are struggling with celibacy, it would be good for them to get married, even though this means that they won’t be able to have such wholehearted devotion to God. And he thinks that most Christians will actually be in this group!

So Paul clearly has very limited expectations of how quickly Christians are going to be transformed by the Spirit to gain sexual self-control.

This is another passage, then, which clearly implies that there is a limit to how much moral transformation we can realistically expect.

Summing up

There are many other biblical passages that could be used to make the points I have made in this article. Basically, the Bible is clear that as we live our Christian lives, we should be expecting God to transform us morally for the better, but this is typically a slow process.

On the one hand, where we have moral weaknesses, we mustn’t resign ourselves to thinking that these will continue for the rest of our lives.

But on the other hand, if we don’t see dramatic progress, we shouldn’t be discouraged. Instead we should persevere, fighting forward.

 

See also:

Getting the Balance between Expecting Too Little and Too Much from Prayer

The Importance of Taking Steps to Avoid Temptation

The Importance of Learning All We Can from Sins and Mistakes

What Does 1 John Mean When It Says That Christians Do Not and Cannot Sin?

The Importance of Learning All We Can from Sins and Mistakes

Whenever we commit a sin or just make some sort of honest mistake, we will usually want to put that thing to the back of our mind and forget about it as soon as possible.  After all, thinking about what we have got wrong is hardly a pleasant experience.  

Nor is it healthy for us to dwell on our failures.  As Christians we should be trying instead to spend most of our time thinking about positive things.  This is what the apostle Paul encouraged the church in Philippi to do, when he wrote: 

‘Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about these things.’ (Philippians 4:8) 

Spending time dwelling on our sins and mistakes can hardly be reconciled with Paul’s instruction in this passage.  Besides, we know that when we confess our sins God forgives us (1 John 1:9), and we should join Him in forgiving ourselves, which will mean banishing thoughts of what we did from our minds. 

Learning from what we do wrong 

Nevertheless, before we finally let go of what we have done wrong, we should still take time to learn what we can from it.  All of us have weaknesses in our characters, and unless we are careful we will tend to commit the same sins repeatedly.  I am sure that Christians often fall into the same sin time and again partly because they are not learning, or even really trying to learn, from their mistakes. 

Unpleasant though it may be, if we make an effort to think through the build up to a sin or mistake, as if on slow-motion replay, it may be possible to pinpoint the exact moment when we stepped out of line.  We will then become better aware of exactly what sorts of situations and temptations are dangerous for us personally.  And in some circumstances we will then be able to do things to avoid being tempted.  

Taking steps to avoid temptation 

The Bible makes it clear that normal Christian living should include taking steps, sometimes radical steps, to avoid temptations when that is possible.  

In Matthew 18:8-9 (paralleled in Mark 9:43-47) Jesus has powerful words to say on this subject: 

‘If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away.  It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into the eternal fire.  And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away.  It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell fire.’ 

This is a very striking way of putting things, and Jesus’ instructions here are clearly not meant to be taken literally.  However, when reading something in Scripture that obviously contains hyperbole, i.e., language that is deliberately exaggerated for effect, Christians can often fail to take what is said as seriously as they should.  An over-compensation for the hyperbole can occur when interpreting, with the result that the forcefulness of the words is not properly recognised.    

The reason why Jesus uses such powerful language in this passage is both to show the seriousness of sin and also to underline that if necessary His followers should be taking radical steps to avoid sinning.    

All of us are vulnerable to temptations in various ways, and we will be aware of at least some of the sins we are most in danger of committing.  We should ask ourselves if we are doing what we can to avoid getting into situations where we are tempted.    

In some circumstances, we might find that there is not much we can do, such as when the temptations concern only thoughts in our minds.  However, even in situations like these we can experiment to see if doing anything helps us to avoid being tempted.  For instance, we might find that trying to fix our mind on something good is a help. 

When temptations concern actions, it is much more likely that we will be able to take steps that greatly reduce the amount we are tempted.  And some of these steps might need to be radical.  I know of Christians, for example, who found that they were yielding to temptations to watch bad programmes on TV, or to watch more TV than they should, and who got rid of their TVs as a result.  I think this is a good example of how Jesus’ command can be put into practice in the modern day.     

It is not enough, then, for us to fight temptations that we experience.  We should also be taking steps to avoid being tempted in the first place. 

And on those occasions when we do, regrettably, yield to a temptation, or even when we just make an honest mistake about something, we should try to learn everything we can from what has happened.  

 

See also: 

The Importance of Taking Steps to Avoid Temptation 

The Radical Nature of the Normal Christian Life 

Getting into the Habit of Doing Everything with Jesus

Technical and Non-Technical Language in the Bible

One thing that is important to understand about the Bible is that it contains very human language. Of course, this set of books was inspired by God, so what it teaches is also divine. But nevertheless, it was written by human beings who used their own language to express things.

This means, for example, that the writing styles of different biblical books vary. Some authors use more colourful or free-flowing language than others.

It also means that Scripture includes a wide variety of figures of speech. Metaphors, hyperboles, metonymys, plurals or singulars according to the sense, and many other figures of speech are often used.

That the Bible contains features like these is well understood, and not many would even try to dispute it.

Something that is often not recognised

Despite the wide agreement about the things I have just mentioned, there is one aspect of biblical language that is often not recognised. This is the fact that Scripture varies in how technically it talks about certain things.

Just as human authors generally vary in how technically they express things, so the same is true of the human authors of the Bible. Often Scripture expresses things very technically, but often it doesn’t.

Seeing God as a case in point

A good example to illustrate this point is what the Bible says about seeing God.

In John 1:18, for instance, John writes:

‘No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.’ (ESV)

Similarly, in 1 Timothy 6:16 Paul says this about God:

‘. . . who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see.’ (ESV)

These passages are explicit that no one has ever seen God.

There are other biblical passages, however, that speak of people seeing God.

For example, in Genesis 32:30 Moses says:

‘Jacob named the place Peniel (which means “face of God”), for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.”’ (ESV)

And in Isaiah 6:1 the prophet says:

‘In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.’ (ESV)

Importantly, there is not the slightest suggestion in either of these passages that Jacob or Isaiah are at all mistaken in thinking that they have seen God.

So what do we make of all this? At first sight there seems to be a contradiction. Some passages say that no one has seen God and others say that certain people have seen God.

In fact, there is no contradiction. Instead, this can be explained by seeing different levels of technicality in how things are expressed.

John 1:18 and 1 Timothy 6:16 are speaking technically and highly literally. God is immaterial spirit (John 4:24), so by definition He is invisible. It is impossible literally to see God.

By contrast, Genesis 32:30 and Isaiah 6:1 are speaking non-technically and non-literally. What these passages mean is that Jacob and Isaiah saw visions that represented God. In this loose sort of sense they did see God, so these passages say that they saw Him.

Less technical language isn’t inferior language

It might be tempting for modern Western readers of the Bible to think that speaking technically is really a better way of using language than speaking non-technically. The mindset of us modern Westerners tends to love this sort of precision.

To think in this way, however, would be a mistake. Speaking loosely and non-technically is not inferior to speaking precisely and technically, it’s just a different way of using language. Technical and non-technical language each have their place. Both are capable of conveying meaning in certain contexts.

A key to understanding passages on being saved by faith

There are times when understanding that different levels of technicality are in play can be a key to resolving apparent problems in Scripture.

A good example of this is how the Bible refers to the means of salvation.

Technically speaking, Christians are saved from God’s punishment after death by faith in Jesus Christ and not by doing good deeds.

Ephesians 2:8 makes this clear:

‘For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,’ (ESV).

Also technically speaking, this saving faith is always accompanied by good deeds.

As James 2:26 tells us:

‘For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.’ (ESV)

The good deeds/works that James refers to don’t save us, but where saving faith exists, these good deeds tag along.

So technically speaking, we are saved by faith alone, and good deeds accompany that faith without contributing to our salvation.

If we speak loosely and non-technically, however, we can say that we are saved by having the faith-plus-good deeds package, and some Bible passages speak along these lines.

For instance, Matthew 25:34-36 is a passage that speaks loosely about this topic and whose focus is only on the good deeds that accompany saving faith. In this passage, when Jesus is referring to those who will end up eternally saved, He states that at the final judgment He will say to them:

‘34 . . . Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ (ESV)

Notice the word ‘For’ that begins v. 35. This word indicates that the reason why God’s people will inherit the kingdom is because they did the various good deeds mentioned in verses 35 and 36.

At first sight, this seems to be teaching salvation by doing good deeds, and if we were to take these words technically and precisely we would have no option but to conclude that they contradict verses like Ephesians 2:8 that I quoted above.

Crucially, however, there is no need to take these words technically. Instead, we can understand Jesus to be speaking loosely and to be highlighting that those who will inherit the kingdom do the good deeds that are part of the faith-plus-good deeds package.

Technically, it is the faith part of the faith-plus-good deeds package that saves us. But in this passage Jesus isn’t interested in speaking technically and precisely. His focus is on encouraging good deeds among His followers. So He uses looser language instead.

Once we understand that Scripture varies in how technically it uses language, such as in the passages I have mentioned, it becomes clear that we have a key that can sometimes be used to resolve apparent contradictions and difficulties in the biblical text. 

 

See also:

Salvation Is Not by Doing Good but Only Those Who Do Good Will Be Saved

The Bible Is Often Very Imprecise about Things

The Bible is True – But This Is a Bit More Complicated Than You May Think

Should Christians Be Troubled by Uncertainties in Bible Translation?