Divorcing love from morality - the New Liberalism infecting British Evangelicalism

The Old liberalism had its roots in the radical biblical criticism of the 19^th century. Old liberals doubted core Christian doctrines like the incarnation, Christ’s death and resurrection, his ascension and second coming, the authority of Scripture, justification by faith, the day of judgement, the sovereignty of God, and so on.

The New liberalism is actually orthodox on these things. New liberals will gladly tick the boxes of the church creeds and the doctrinal basis of the Evangelical Alliance and many of them know their Bibles well.

They are liberal not on what we might call the core beliefs of Christianity, but on ethics (for examples of the wide range of views on ethical issues amongst British evangelicals see here). They would argue that ethical issues are in the category of what Paul, in passages like 1 Corinthian 8 & 10 and Romans 14, called ‘disputable matters’.

‘Disputable matters’ are things on which Bible believing Christians can legitimately disagree whilst remaining in fellowship with one another. If you like they are in the same category as debates about the timing and amount of water to be used in baptism, the modus operandi of the Lord’s supper, the sequence of events around the return of Christ, forms of church government and the place of Israel.

I see this view as a revival of what in a previous generation was called ‘situation ethics’.

Situation ethics is a Christian ethical theory that was principally developed in the 1960s by the then Episcopal priest Joseph Fletcher (pictured).

Fletcher taught Christian Ethics at Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and at Harvard Divinity School from 1944 to 1970 and wrote ten books and hundreds of articles, book reviews, and translations.

Situation ethics basically states that other moral principles can be cast aside in certain situations if love is best served; as theologian Paul Tillich once put it: ‘Love is the ultimate law’.

The moral principles Fletcher was specifically referring to were the moral codes of Christianity and the type of love he is specifically referring to is ‘agape’ love.

Fletcher believed that in forming an ethical system based on love, he was best expressing the notion of ‘love thy neighbour’, which Jesus Christ taught in the Gospels.

He believed that there are no absolute laws other than the law of ‘agape’ love, meaning that all the other laws are only guidelines on how to achieve this love, and could be broken if an alternative course of action would result in more love.

In order to establish his thesis he employed a number of examples of ‘situations’ in which it might be justified to administer euthanasia, commit adultery, steal, tell a lie etc.

But in effectively divorcing ‘agape’ love from moral law Fletcher was steering a subtly different path from Jesus himself.

Jesus indeed said (Matthew 22:34-40) that the most important commands in the Old Testament Law were love of God and neighbour (Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18). In fact he said these two commandments summed up the whole of Old Testament Law (Matthew 22:40 and Luke 10:25-28). Furthermore he criticised the Pharisees for obeying the less important parts of the law (tithing mint and cumin) whilst neglecting the ‘more important matters of… justice, mercy and faithfulness’.

But he also said that ‘anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven’ (Matthew 5:19) and reproved the Pharisees by saying that they should have ‘practised the latter’ (important commandments) ‘without neglecting the former’ (lesser commandments).

Certainly there is no place in the Gospels where Jesus implies that those commandments which deal with the shedding of innocent blood and sexual immorality (numbers six and seven of the Ten Commandments) should be disobeyed.

By contrast he exhorts his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount to go beyond the mere legalities of ‘you shall not murder’ (6) and ‘you shall not commit adultery’ (7) to embody the very spirit of love which undergirds them. Not only no murder or adultery but no hate or lust either! (Matthew 5:21-30).

It is this more exacting moral standard that also underlies the ethical teaching in the epistles. Christians are exhorted to be imitators of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1) and God (Ephesians 5:1&2), to walk as Christ walked (1 John 2:6) and to ‘abstain from sinful desires’ (1 Peter 1:11).

In short we are to live by the law of Christ (1 Corinthians 9:21 and Galatians 6:2) and to love one another as he has loved us (John 13:34-35). And love of Jesus means obedience to Jesus (John 14:15,21 and 15:12). In fact Jesus famously answered one of the Devil’s temptations in the wilderness by quoting from Deuteronomy, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’. Note every word.

So whilst we may say that there are situations where choosing not to shed innocent blood or to carry out a sexually immoral act requires great grace, courage, restraint and self-sacrifice, there are no situations where one may choose to murder or to do something sexually immoral and claim to be acting in love.

If Christ had been directly tempted in such a way, and indeed he must have been if he was ‘tempted in every way, just as we are’ (Hebrews 4:15) as we are told he was, we can imagine him answering as he did in the wilderness, ‘It is written, “you shall not murder”, “you shall not commit adultery”’.

By my reading Situation Ethics is a distortion of biblical ethical teaching. It is, in short, heresy. But it is a heresy that appears to be very much alive and well amongst British evangelicals in the 21st century. No more clearly is it evidence than in the shifting views and lack of clarity amongst evangelicals about sexual morality and the shedding of innocent blood.

Interestingly, Fletcher later identified himself as an atheist and was active in the Euthanasia Society of America and the American Eugenics Society and was one of the signatories to the Humanist Manifesto. When he started out, his position was barely distinguishable from orthodoxy. But he finished up in a very different place altogether.

This is exactly what happens when we define ‘love’ in a different way from the way it is defined in the Bible. 

What does the Bible actually say about life before birth?

The Bible does not support the view that some human lives are worth less than others. All are made in the image of God and all are equally precious.

Devaluing or discriminating against any group of human beings is therefore inconsistent with God’s justice. He does not show partiality.

The heart of Christian ethical teaching is that we must love as Christ himself loved (John 13:34), that the strong should make sacrifices for the weak and if necessary lay down their lives for the weak (Philippians 2:5-8, Romans 5:6-8). 

So to suggest that the weak might be sacrificed in the interests of the strong is simply not biblical morality.                                              

But what about human life before birth? Do these principles apply here too?

It is striking just how many references there are in Scripture to human life in the womb.

Perhaps the most famous of these is Psalm 139. The Psalmist, looking back to the beginning of his life declares:  

‘For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful...

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place...

your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.’ (Psalms 139:13-16)

John Stott has argued that this passage affirms three important things about the human life before birth.

First, it affirms that the preborn baby is God’s creation. It is God who knitted him together. The Hebrew word used by the Psalmist for ‘knit’ (other versions translate it as ‘weaved’) is raqam, a comparatively rare word in the Old Testament, which is used almost exclusively in texts that describe the curtains and veils of Israel’s wilderness tabernacle and the garments of the high priest.  

To say that an unborn child is ‘roqem’ is therefore to say something about the cunning skill of the weaver and about the beauty of his fabric. The tabernacle was the place where the presence of God dwelt. The high priest acted as the mediator between God and man and was the only one able to enter the Holy Place. He also pointed forward to Christ, the true mediator and great High Priest to come who would deal with our sins once and for all (Hebrews 7:26-28).

With its allusions to the 'roqem work' of the tabernacle, the Psalm implies not only that God has made the infant in the womb, but also that the infant is being woven into a dwelling for God himself.

Next, God is in communion with the preborn baby. At this stage the baby in the womb can ‘know’ nothing and is in fact not even aware of its own existence. But this is not important. The key point is that God knows it. It is God’s love for the psalmist during his time in utero that gives him significance. We see echoes of John’s first epistle here, ‘This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins’ (1 John 4:10). God’s relationship with the baby is a relationship of grace to which the baby itself contributes nothing. It is not its own attributes that give it value. It is the fact that God knows and loves it.

Finally, the Psalmist affirms the continuity between life before and after birth. The baby in the womb is the Psalmist, the same person, not a different person and not a non-person.

These three themes of creation, communion and continuity are seen in many other Old and New Testament Scriptures.

God calls the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah before birth (Isaiah 49:1, Jeremiah 1:5) and  before they are capable even of hearing or understanding his call. He forms Job ‘in the womb’ as well as bringing him out of it (Job 10:8-9, 18-19).  

The Isaiah reference is particularly noteworthy because it comes from one of the so-called ‘Servant Songs’ and therefore speaks prophetically of Christ himself. Jesus was also called from the womb.

Many other references to life before birth in the Bible reinforce these principles (eg. Genesis 25:22-23, Psalm 22:9,10, 51:5, 71:6,  119:73,  Ecclesiastes 11:5,  Isaiah  44:2,24, 49:5, Hosea 12:3, Matthew 1:18, Luke  1:15,  41-44).  

In Genesis 25, Esau and Jacob wrestle in the womb, displaying the beginning of the competitive and combative behaviour that would later characterise their family life. In Psalm 51 David talks about being ‘sinful from the time my mother conceived me’ and says that God ‘desired faithfulness even in the womb’ and ‘taught me wisdom in that secret place’.

The Psalm 22 and the Genesis 25 references also look forward prophetically to Christ. Jesus’ suffering is clearly foretold in the Psalm and he actually quotes its words from the cross to emphasise that his death was to fulfil its prophecy. The Genesis passage reminds us that Jesus is the new Israel.

In addition there are over 60 references which mention the event of conception explicitly underlining its importance.

One of these is Matthew 1:20 in which an angel tells Joseph, referring to Mary the mother of Jesus, that ‘what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit’.

Particularly striking are the verses describing Jesus conception and inter-uterine development in Luke 1. Here we see Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, prophesying over Christ in his first month of gestation, and the baby John ‘leaping’ in her womb.

The timing is given in some detail. It was in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy that the angel visited Mary (Luke 1:26). She then went to visit Elizabeth who gave the prophecy accompanied by her baby leaping (Luke 1:41). As we have already noted, a baby’s movement cannot be felt until about 18 weeks but ‘in the sixth month’ means at very least 22 weeks gestation.

The Scriptures record that, ‘Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home’ (Luke 1:51), and that Elizabeth gave birth after that (Luke 1:57). Given that pregnancy lasts nine months we can deduce from this that Mary must have left to see Elizabeth almost immediately after the angel’s visit and that Jesus must have therefore been in the very first few weeks, if not days, of pregnancy at the time of the prophecy.

Why is this relevant? It is important because Jesus’ humanity tells us something about our own humanity. We know that in order to act as our substitute on the cross, Jesus had to be ‘made like his brothers in every way’ (Hebrews 2:17). He had to be like us in his humanity so that he could take our place. So it follows that if Jesus was alive in the womb in the first month of pregnancy then so were we.

To deny the humanity of the human embryo is therefore to undermine not only the doctrine of creation, but also the doctrine of the atonement, Christ’s taking the punishment for sin on our behalf.

Although it does not state it explicitly, the Bible points very strongly to the conclusion that human life begins at conception, a process that we know from science begins with fertilisation, the point at which a new individual human life comes into being.

At very least then, should we not be giving the human embryo the benefit of any doubt?

The strong biblical testimony about life before birth points to the conclusion that human life, from the time of conception is, like other human life, made in the image of God and worthy of the utmost respect, wonder, protection and empathy.

Showing this degree of love respect to human beings before birth may in some circumstances be very costly for us personally. This brings us back again to the foot of the cross, and the willingness to walk in the steps of the master who gave himself fully for us and who calls us to love one another as he has loved us (John 13:34,35).

Jesus Christ was unashamedly speciesist

In 2011 British farmers slaughtered 26,000 cattle and introduced emergency measures to curb the spread of bovine tuberculosis, costing the taxpayer £90 million.

In response, government ministers approved the cull of up to 100,000 badgers thought to be responsible for harbouring the disease. 

The move provoked the largest animal rights protest since those over fox hunting in the 1990s. Dr Brian May, particle physicist and lead guitarist for the popular rock group Queen, set up an e-petition to ‘stop the badger cull’. When over 155,000 people signed it prompted a parliamentary debate.

It was Australian philosopher Peter Singer who popularised the term ‘speciesism’ in his 1975 book ‘Animal Liberation’ which many regard as giving the animal rights movement its intellectual basis.

In a landmark article titled ‘Sanctity of Life or Quality of Life?’, published in the influential American Journal ‘Paediatics’ in 1983, he wrote:

'We can no longer base our ethics on the idea that human beings are a special form of creation, made in the image of God...Once the religious mumbo-jumbo surrounding the term 'human' has been stripped away, we may continue to see normal members of our species as possessing greater qualities of rationality, self-consciousness, communication and so on than members of any other species, but we will not regard as sacrosanct the life of every member of our species, no matter how limited its capacity for intelligent or even conscious life may be... If we can put aside the obsolete and erroneous notion of the sanctity of all human life, we may start to look at human life as it really is, at the quality of human life that each human being has or can achieve.'

To Singer and many influential thinkers like him, man is nothing but the product of matter, chance and time in a godless universe; merely a highly specialised animal. The value of an individual human being is determined by his or her level of rationality, self-consciousness, physical attributes or capacity for relationships.

This view has led him controversially to support human embryo research, abortion, infanticide and euthanasia.

There is an element of truth in what Singer says. Humans are living beings with body plans and physiological functions that are very similar to many other living creatures. In fact we share over 98% of our DNA – our genetic programming – with chimpanzees.

But Jesus Christ taught that we are different from animals.

Human beings are made in God’s image. Animals are not. This does not mean that we don’t share some characteristics with animals. We do. Both animals and humans are made of flesh and blood out of inanimate matter, ‘from the dust of the ground’ (Genesis 2:7). We have body plans and organ systems (anatomy), functions (physiology) and complex cellular activity (biochemistry). But we are also unique in being made in God’s image.

Human beings are fundamentally different from all the other beings of God’s creation.

The Bible says that ‘the righteous care for the needs of their animals’ (Proverbs 12:10). This is what God himself does (Psalms 104:10-18). But Jesus also said that people were far more valuable than birds and sheep (Matthew 6:26, 12:12) and on one occasion he sent 2,000 pigs to their deaths in order to restore the sanity of one demon possessed man! (Mark 5:1-20)

Jesus was, in other words, unashamedly ‘speciesist’. The clue as to why he was can be found in a well-known encounter he had with some of his opponents.

When the Pharisees tried to trap him by asking whether it was right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar Jesus asked them to show him a coin. They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, ‘Whose image is this? And whose inscription?’

When they replied ‘Caesar’s’, he said, ‘So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.’

When we read this familiar story we are drawn to focus on the coin, but Jesus’ comments uncover a much deeper question. If a denarius bears the image of Caesar, then what is it that bears the image of God? Because the thing that bears the image of God belongs to God and must be given to him.

The Bible begins with the four majestic words ‘In the beginning God…’.

At the end of the creation narrative in Genesis 1 God creates the animals:

‘God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.’ (Genesis 1:25)

But then in the next verse he reaches the crowning point in his whole creative process:

‘Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.’

It is human beings – both male and female – who are made in the image of God and who therefore belong to God and should be given to God. This was the point ironically lost on the Pharisees in Jesus’ encounter over the coin. They had refused to give themselves to God despite belonging to him.

Of course everything in the universe belongs to God (Psalms 24:1), even Caesar’s coins, but in all God’s creation only human beings are made in God’s image and have a special status that no other part of creation enjoys.

This has huge implications for the way we should treat human beings.

Euthanasia - what does the Bible say?

There are two instances of euthanasia in the Bible. In the first, Abimelech, believing himself to be fatally wounded (with a fractured skull after being hit on the head by a millstone), asks his armour-bearer to kill him to spare him the ‘indignity’ of being killed by a woman (Judges 9:52-55). In the second, an Amalekite despatches the mortally injured Saul, still alive after a failed attempt at suicide (2 Samuel 1:6-9).

These two cases demonstrate the two main arguments for euthanasia, autonomy (‘death with dignity’) and compassion (‘release from suffering’).

The Bible tells us that human beings are unique amongst God’s creatures in being made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26) and it is on this basis, after the flood, that God introduces to all humankind the death penalty for murder (Genesis 9:6,7).

The prohibition against killing legally innocent people is later formalised in the sixth commandment, ‘You shall not murder’ (Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17). The Hebrew word for ‘murder’ is ratsach (Greek phoneuo) and its meaning is further defined in four main passages in the Pentateuch (Exodus 21:12-14; Leviticus 24:17-21; Numbers 35:16-31; Deuteronomy 19:4-13).

These passages resolve any ambiguity for us and give a precise definition of what is prohibited, namely the ‘intentional killing of an innocent human being’ (Exodus 23:7; 2 Kings 21:16; Psalms 106:37,38; Jeremiah 19:4). Euthanasia clearly falls within this biblical definition. There is no provision for compassionate killing, even at the person’s request and there is no recognition of a ‘right to die’ as all human life belongs to God (Psalms 24:1). Our lives are not actually our own. Suicide (and therefore assisted suicide) is therefore equally wrong.

Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount that that we should go beyond the mere letter of the sixth commandment  to fulfil the very spirit of love on which it is based (Matthew 5:21,22) . We are called to walk in Jesus’ footsteps, to be imitators of God, to love as he himself loved (1 John 2:6; Ephesians 5:1,2; John 13:34, 35).

Sadly, however, many Christians today are confused about euthanasia and fall prey to emotive hard cases and false dichotomies.

It is often argued that we have only two equally undesirable alternatives to choose from - either ‘living hell’ or the euthanasia needle – both of which are imperfect and unloving solutions.

But there is a third way - the way of the cross. It calls us to give our whole selves to the love and service of others by expending our time, money and energy in finding compassionate solutions to human suffering (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 8:34; Philippians 2:4-11; Galatians 6:2, 10). It has found practical shape historically in the hospice movement and in good palliative care - pioneered in large part by Christian doctors and nurses. When a person’s physical, social, psychological and spiritual needs are adequately tended to requests for euthanasia are very rare indeed.

But perhaps the most powerful Christian argument against euthanasia is that death is not the end. God’s intervention through Christ’s death and resurrection for our sins (Romans 5:8; 1 Corinthians 15:3) means that through the eyes of faith we can look forward to a new world after death with God where there is ‘no more death or mourning or crying or pain’ (Revelation 21:4). For those, however, who do not know God euthanasia is not a ‘merciful release’ at all. It may rather be propelling them towards a judgement for which they are unprepared.  It may be the worst thing we could ever do for them! (Hebrews 9:27; Revelation 20:15)

Euthanasia is wrong because God says it is wrong. Instead he points us to a better way, offering hope, love and compassionate care. 

Cheap grace – a false gospel and a deadly enemy of the church

Many evangelicals are suspicious of ethics. They think it undermines grace and distracts from the preaching of the gospel. They also fear that it leads to legalism.

They want to emphasise, quite rightly, the fact that salvation is a gift that we cannot earn. Salvation is through God’s grace alone and received by faith alone.

Two of the texts most commonly used to establish this are Ephesians 2:8,9 and Galatians 2:16:

^‘ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.’ (Ephesians 2:8,9)

‘We know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.’ (Galatians 2:16)

These verses of course teach great biblical truths rediscovered by the Reformers, and all of us would say to them, a hearty ‘Amen’.

But is there a danger of emphasising the gift aspect of salvation without reference to the rest of Scripture?  Is there a risk of imbalance in the opposite direction?

Let first me dispel any doubt that I am in any way attempting to undermine the absolute centrality of the cross and the doctrine of substitutionary atonement.

The idea of substitutionary atonement, that Christ died in our place for our sins, is absolutely central to both Old Testament and New Testament.

It underlies the Passover, the Jewish sacrificial system, temple worship and the Day of Atonement and is clearly taught throughout the Gospels and Epistles.

As the prophet Isaiah said of Christ, ‘Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering…
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed…
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.’ (Isaiah 53:4-6)

Paul teaches that Jesus died ‘for us’ (Romans 5:6-8; 2 Corinthians 5:14; 1 Thessalonians 5:10) and also that he died ‘for our sins’ (1 Corinthians 15:3; Galatians 1:4).

Jesus through dying on the cross took the wrath and judgement that our sins deserved; and because he has taken that wrath and judgement in our place we receive mercy and are thereby forgiven. 

These things are all givens, the foundation from which we start.

But my real concern is that in emphasising ‘grace’ conservative British evangelicals have fallen into what the German war-time Christian martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer termed ‘cheap grace’ in his book ‘the Cost of Discipleship’.  

I read this book as a teenager and it had a profound effect on me – so I was most interested to see that Mike Ovey had picked up on it in his address last month to those at the GafCon conference in Nairobi, Kenya. Bonhoeffer defines cheap grace as follows:

'Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate’

But what does this cheap grace look like? Bonhoeffer points especially to two things that mark out cheap grace from real grace.

• Cheap  grace is without repentance
• Cheap grace is a grace we bestow on ourselves, in other words, it is a grace we give each other when we see fit, rather than according to the pattern of God

It’s my conviction that the current misunderstanding about grace amongst evangelicals results from a lack of understanding of the true nature of repentance and faith. And that furthermore this misunderstanding of the true nature of repentance and faith is built on a failure to appreciate the holiness of God, seriousness of sin and the necessity of judgement.

I believe it also explains many evangelicals’ discomfort with the kind of questions the new atheists are now raising about the character of God in questions around the problem of suffering, the eternal destiny of unbelievers and God’s acts of judgement in the Old Testament.

Scripture tells us that both repentance (Acts 5:31, 11:18; 2 Timothy 2:25) and faith (Ephesians 2:8) are themselves gifts of God’s grace – he enables us to repent and have faith because we are incapable of doing it on our own.

But what is the nature of this repentance and faith?

Repentance and faith

Repentance is much more than saying sorry, or even being genuinely remorseful about our sin. It involves an active turning from sin to obedience. We leave our former life behind and follow in Jesus’ footsteps. He becomes our Lord and master. Furthermore it is a lifelong orientation; an on-going lifelong turning from sin in response to God’s word. 

The parable of the sower (Matthew 13:1-23) is not just about conversion – it addresses our on-going lifelong response to God’s word. It’s not just about starting off well, but persevering through both hardship and temptation.

John the Baptist, at the beginning of his public ministry in Luke 3 tells those who come to be baptised by him to ‘Produce fruit in keeping with repentance’. When they ask him what he means he outlines specific steps of obedience that they must take.

He tells the crowd, ‘Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.’ He says to the tax collectors, ‘Don’t collect any more than you are required to.’ He tells the soldiers, ‘Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely - be content with your pay.’

Jesus takes the same approach: to the rich young ruler, ‘sell your possessions and give to the poor’; to the healed cripple by the pool of Bethesda, ‘stop sinning or something worse will happen to you’; to the woman caught in the act of adultery, ‘leave your life of sin’.

To say sorry, and to then continue in sin, is not repentance. It is presumption.

In the same way faith is more than mere belief, mere intellectual assent to a doctrinal checklist. It is trusting obedience. James tells us that even demons believe – and shudder.  Demons however, do not possess saving faith. They do not trust and obey.

As evangelicals we are quick to assert that we are saved by faith alone, but in fact the only verse in the Bible which uses the two words ‘faith’ and alone’ together (James 2:24) appears to say the very opposite.

‘You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone’.

Of course this does not mean in any sense that we contribute something to our salvation. We are powerless to do anything to save ourselves, but nonetheless the evidence of genuine saving faith is a changed life – actions. James gives us the examples of Abraham and Rahab who demonstrated the genuineness of their faith by what they did.

They were, we are told, ‘considered righteous for what they did’. If we were in any doubt, James summarises it for us, ‘Faith without deeds is dead’ (James 2:26)

The faith heroes of Hebrews 11 who are held up to us as examples all demonstrated their faith through what they did: Abel offered a sacrifice, Noah built an ark, Abraham left his home, Joseph gave instructions about his bones, Moses refused to be known as the son of Pharoah’s daughter, Rahab welcomed the spies, Gideon conquered kingdoms, and so on.

Each one demonstrated their faith by what they did and they did these things at considerable personal risk.

The Apostle Paul’s letters are full of the same principle. His letters are full of ethical instruction: ‘Because these things are true about Christ and his work, therefore do this, and don’t do that.’

He talks to the Thessalonians of their ‘work produced by faith’ and their ‘labour prompted by love’ (1 Thessalonians 1:3). He prays that the Colossians will ‘bear fruit in every good work’ (Colossians 1:10). He tells Titus that Jesus gave himself for us ‘to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good’ (Titus 2:15).

He tells the Romans that they are called ‘to the obedience that comes from faith’ (Romans 1:5, 16:26).

The books that most emphasise that we are saved by grace through faith – Galatians and Ephesians which we quoted from earlier – also demonstrate that this faith is evidenced by good works.

In Galatians we are told that ‘the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love’ (Galatians 5:6). Not a feeling but an action.

Ephesians tells us that we are saved by grace and not by works (Ephesians 2:8,9) but that we are ‘created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do’ (2:10).

The Apostle John tells us in his first epistle that those who continue to sin have neither seen Christ, nor known him (1 John 3:6).

The Apostle Peter exhorts his readers, ‘As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy”.’ (1 Peter 1:14, 15)

Nowhere is this principle of obedient trust more evident than in the Gospels themselves. Jesus says that to those who call him Lord but do not do his Father’s will, he will say ‘I never knew you’ (Matthew 7:21-23). The difference between the man who built his house on the sand and the other who built it on the rock, is this: Both heard Jesus’ words but only one ‘put them into practice’ (Matthew 7:24-27).

The exacting commands of the Sermon on the Mount, going as they do right to our innermost heart and motivations, are intended to be obeyed.

Obedience to Christ is of course only possible by God’s grace, through the indwelling work of his Holy Spirit (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:24-27), but Christians are nonetheless called to obey him. In fact the heart of the great commission, sadly so often distorted into an exhortation merely to evangelise, is to ‘make disciples of all nations… teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you’ (Matthew 28:19, 20).

God intends us to grow into full maturity. Consistent with this the writer of Hebrews calls his readers to leave aside what he calls ‘the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity’. They are instead to become acquainted with ‘the teaching about righteousness’ and by taking ‘solid food’, ‘train themselves to distinguish good from evil (Hebrews 5:11-6:3). It is about actions; trusting obedience.

As a clear corollary of this teaching we are told that a life without demonstrable evidence of faith through a changed life is valueless. It is evidence of non-regeneration.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 tells us, ‘neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God’.

Galatians 5:19-21 warns that those who exhibit the ‘acts of the flesh’ - sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;  idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions  and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like - will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Ephesians 5:3-5 echoes, ‘But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people…. For of this you can be sure: no immoral, impure or greedy person – such a person is an idolater – has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

The book of Revelation (20:12) tells us that the dead will be ‘judged according to what they have done’.

In case we are in any doubt it adds that ‘the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practise magic arts, the idolaters and all liars – they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulphur’ (21:8).

Outside the holy city will be ‘those who practise magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practises falsehood’ will not partake of the tree of life (22:15).

The book of Hebrews (10:26) tells us that ‘If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God’.

These are very serious warnings indeed and they are there to stop us falling into the error of cheap grace.

We are called not to embrace a cheap grace, without repentance and self-bestowed, but to receive God’s costly grace that only he can give.

We are called to a repentance that doesn’t just say sorry but actively turns from sin.

We are called to a faith that is not mere intellectual assent but trusting costly obedience.

We are called to carry the cross – to bear one another’s burdens and to love one another as he has loved us – because this is the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2; John 13:34, 35).

We are called to live holy and godly lives - lives set apart to show his character and display his fruit – as we look forward to the day of God and speed its coming (2 Peter 3:12).

We are called to all these things by the one, who did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and became obedient to death on a cross, that we might be reconciled to him for all eternity (Philippians 2:6-11).

Lord Falconer's 'assisted dying' bill is 'asking Parliament to sign a blank cheque' say Peers

In a report published today by think-tank Living and Dying Well three Peers with distinguished legal backgrounds explain in layman's terms what the law on 'assisted dying' says and how it is applied.

They also examine a number of claims made by proponents of legalised physician-assisted suicide and conclude that they fail to stand up to serious scrutiny.

"The law", the Peers write, "accurately and conscientiously reflects the perceptions which as a society we have of suicide - that, while those who attempt to take their own lives should not be punished, suicide itself should not be encouraged or assisted".

They point to the strenuous efforts, including 'suicide watches' and suicide prevention strategies, which are taken to avoid suicides.  "What the advocates of 'assisted dying' are saying, in effect, is that for some people we should put this process into reverse and facilitate their suicide".

The authors - Lord Brennan QC (pictured), The Rt Hon Baroness Butler-Sloss GBE and Lord Carlile QC CBE - observe that "the law's combination of deterrence with discretion means that the incidence of illegal action is small and generally of a nature where prosecution is not necessary".

They reject the argument, sometimes advanced by proponents of legalised assisted suicide, that infrequency of prosecution means that the law is not working.  "On the contrary", they argue, "it indicates that it is working as it should.  The effectiveness of a law is not measured by the number of prosecutions brought under it.  An important consideration is its effectiveness in deterring the offence in question from happening at all".

The Suicide Act is not, they conclude, an oppressive law: "it is a law with a stern face but an understanding heart".

Lord Falconer's Private Member's Bill, the Peers write, "proposes no mere amendment of the law but a fundamental change to it.  It is asking Parliament to agree that it should be lawful for some people to involve themselves in deliberately bringing about the deaths of others".

Moreover, they observe, the bill contains no safeguards - beyond stating basic eligibility criteria - governing the assessment of requests for physician-assisted suicide.  It leaves these crucial questions to be decided by others after Parliament has approved the bill.  "As it stands", the Peers write, "the bill is asking Parliament to sign a blank cheque".

Commenting on the notion that the House of Lords should focus on the principle behind the bill and leave its practicalities to others, the Peers observe that "as legislators we have a duty to satisfy ourselves that any laws we enact will work in practice and will not put vulnerable people at risk of harm.  Of course the House must consider the principle of the bill.  But we should not forget that public safety is itself a key principle of legislation: it cannot be offloaded onto others".

Click here to access the report.

British government hesitates on three parent embryos as international opposition mounts

The legalisation of three parent embryos for mitochondrial disease in Britain has been facing massive opposition all over the world with so far little response from Westminster.

But an answer to a parliamentary question this week gives the first sign that the government may be pausing to draw breath before implementing the new technique.

Apparently they are not going to proceed with three parent children regulations for now but rather have opted for yet another consultation.  

In response to a Parliamentary question asked this week by Lord Alton Government minster Earl Howe said that the Government will publish draft regulations as part of a public consultation shortly:

‘The Government is currently developing draft regulations, which will describe in more detail the proposed approach for regulating mitochondria donation treatment. The Government is planning to publish these, as part of a public consultation, shortly.’

I recently highlighted an article in Nature arguing that the UK’s decision to trial the technique is ‘both premature and ill-conceived’.

Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society in Berkeley, California had argued  in an piece titled ‘A slippery slope to germline modification’ that were the United Kingdom to grant a regulatory go-ahead, it would unilaterally cross ‘a legal and ethical line’ observed by the entire international community that ‘genetic-engineering tools’ should not be used ‘to modify gametes or early embryos and so manipulate the characteristics of future children’.

Christian Medical Fellowship has recently published a paper on ‘three parent embryos for mitochondrial disease’ which was strongly critical of this new technology on both theological and scientific grounds. 

This followed submissions that CMF made on the issue to both the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) and the Nuffield Council. We have more recently made similar points to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

I have also argued on this blog that the technique involved is unsafe, unethical and unnecessary (see here, here, here and here).

Genuine concerns about this new mitochondrial technology have been swept aside in Britain in the headlong rush to push the scientific boundaries.

But in many countries around and the world, and by commentators from both secular and faith based scientific backgrounds, Britain is viewed as rogue state in this area of research.

Let’s hope that this hesitation means that the government is at last beginning to listen.