We are having
to get used to something which is
new for many people in the United Kingdom: a coalition government. The
circumstances arose when none of the political parties gained an
outright majority in the general election. One of the inevitable
features of such an arrangement is that neither of the parties in the
coalition can pursue their full manifesto. There has to be government
by mutual consent, and that means give and take.
In
the Christian
life, however, things are different. The psalmist prays, ‘unite
my heart to fear thy name’ (Psalm 86:11). We cannot have a
divided heart – or what we might call, a ‘coalition’
heart. We cannot give and take. We must not pick and choose. We dare
not mix and match. The Lord God both requires and desires our undivided
heart, and one of his complaints concerning his people of old at one
point was this: ‘Their heart is divided’ (Hosea 10:1).
A helpful way of
working this out in practice is to remember that there are certain
things which cannot exist or be pursued together if we are to live
genuine, consistent and (most important) God-glorifying lives. They are
such things as these:
There can be no
coalition between grace and works.
Either our salvation is of grace (God’s) or it is of works
(ours). It is all of grace, from first to last.
There can be no
coalition between Spirit and flesh.
As saved people we ‘are not in the flesh, but in the
Spirit’, and so we must ‘through the Spirit …
mortify the deeds of the body’ (Romans 8:9, 13).
There can be no
coalition between Scripture and
tradition. Either the word of God is our sole rule both for
doctrine (all that we believe) and practice (all that we do), or it is
not. It is.
There can be no
coalition between delight and
drudgery. Our command and privilege is, ‘Rejoice in the
Lord’ (Philippians 4:4), and to know ‘the joy of the Lord
(as our) strength’ (Nehemiah 8:10). This is very different from
begrudging God the happy, spontaneous and obedient service which is his
holy due.
There can be no
coalition between heaven and earth.
We cannot belong to both. The Christian lives on earth (for now) but is
a citizen of heaven (even now). We are not here to stay, but here to go.
Our calling is not
to be ‘coalition Christians’ but
‘decided Christians’. May God grant us grace to be so!
