Clarity in Philosophy: The Importance of Language

Introduction

I began my last sermon saying my point was a simple one. I begin this one by saying it’s not a simple one.

To gauge your readiness for this sermon, consider the following questions:

Have you ever eaten food?
Have you ever digested food?
Are you a biologist, physician, or nutritionist?

Although all humans have eaten food and successfully digested it, only a handful of people have formally studied the biology behind digestion. Most of us consume and digest food without ever having studied the exact process. We just assume that the food we eat each day will continue to pass safely in and out of our bodies.

Based on this illustration, I think you have what it takes to understand this sermon, which is concerned not with food or biology but with philosophy.

Now, I am one of the few people who took a course in college on the philosophy of food. (Sorry, Mom and Dad, you paid for that class one semester of my college career.) I use that example because I want you to understand that there are everyday matters we participate in—and assumptions we all rest on—even if we aren’t aware of the essential principles behind those activities or assumptions.

Biology of digestion is complicated. And it’s beneficial that there are experts in that field. But you don’t have to be an expert to engage in the process being studied.

The philosophy I want to discuss in this sermon is complicated. From the start, I want you to buy into the idea that, like digestion, this kind of philosophy is critical to your life, and you engage in it constantly. But there are aspects of it that, if not more closely examined, you’ll consume that are detrimental to your spiritual health.

Like digestion, this kind of philosophy is critical to your life, and you engage in it constantly.

The philosophy I talk about in this sermon, in my estimation, may be the hardest branch of philosophy. First, though, let me say something more on the idea of taking up hard ideas: We are to love God with all our minds, and that means wrestling with hard thoughts—even (and especially) on a Sunday morning at church. We should use this great gift God has given to us in our minds—taking ownership of our thoughts, facing them head-on, and not letting someone else do the thinking for us.

Our minds are not meant for entertainment purposes. We are in a prolonged war, and the weapons of our warfare are not playthings. The weapons of our warfare are, as the Scripture says, “divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses” (2 Corinthians 10:4). Those fortresses are the strongholds that are taken up in our minds; but God’s warriors, the Scripture says, are “destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (v. 5).

Know it or not, like it or not, you’re in a philosophical battle. We all are. And one of those philosophical battles involves language—the one I want to address in this sermon.

The Philosophy of Language

There is a sense in which the philosophy of language is unavoidable. You might never engage in its formal study, but when you engage in language—either attempting to talk to someone or listening to another speak—you will assume something about the nature of reality and truth. You will assume that spoken words are referencing something that both the speaker and the listener can point to that allows them to say, “We understand each other.” In other words, “We’re operating in the same world, and these words have meaning, and here’s what they correspond to in reality. And we call that reality truth.”

This does not mean that speaking or listening is tantamount to doing philosophy of language; it does, however, mean that speaking (communicating) always assumes some philosophy of language.

Ready for a little philosophy of language? Here goes:

Rizzo left tight f fly pass 37 punch waggle help baby dizzy x fan on the turbo.

Did you get that? Try this one now:

Explode gun rubber right flip zebra scat left wide drag x hook f trail can 52 sprint jaw easy, on 2.

Unless you have the gift of interpreting tongues, you’re probably wondering what all of that meant. Those are football plays. Yes, actual NFL football plays. When you watch your favorite football team, I promise you that the offensive coordinator for your team could not care less about the philosophical analysis of how the signals get from his headset down to the field, whether it’s someone on the sidelines or someone down on the field, who then hears it in the helmet and then conveys them via hand signals, or printed wristbands, or a string of verbal indicators, to 11 other men in a huddle. You could give some philosophical analysis about how those signs and symbols and synonyms and cognition could explain what they’re doing. And probably the only one able to do that would’ve been Andrew Luck, the Stanford University graduate (which is probably why he was smart enough to quit football and stop getting his brains beaten playing the sport).

Here is why all of that matters: language. Language is the vehicle by which God has chosen to give man salvation. Salvation is offered via language: preaching and hearing. “Faith comes by hearing.”¹

Language is the vehicle by which God has chosen to give man salvation.

The philosophy of language is necessary. It helps us understand why opposing philosophies might both lay claim to being called the “gospel.”

Let me show you what I mean.

Language and the Galatians

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul makes clear that he wasn’t terribly pleased with his letter’s original recipients. In it, the philosophy of language issue surfaces. In particular, look at the confusion over a term and its meaning (though Paul uses it anyway, to convey a point):

I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!² As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! (Galatians 1:6–9)

How we use language matters because either in preaching or in listening to preaching it’s possible that opposite messages both get called the “gospel of Christ.” Paul uses the term in two ways, suggesting that one of these, though it goes by the name gospel, is not good news.

Failure to discern the truth of the gospel can ruin the life of the one receiving the message, and it can also ruin the life of the one giving the message—it can ruin the life of the hearer and the life of the preacher. As one who preaches regularly in an effort to lead his congregation (GraceLife), this is why I approached this job of becoming pastor four years ago with this principle in mind:

Clarify based on a sound philosophy of language.

This is the third of four principles I’m sharing with you in this sermon series. As a reminder, these principles are the four thoughts I wrote down for myself four years ago, just prior to agreeing to taking on the responsibility of pastoring GraceLife. They’re thoughts particularly related to what it means to pastor from a free grace perspective.³ The first two principles were as follows:

Principle #1: Celebrate what we are for, not what we are against.

Principle #2: Build upon the foundation, which is the only way to honor its purpose.

As we’ll talk more about during our Wednesday evening GraceLife University series starting September 25, a hallmark of free grace is clarity of the gospel. But what I hope to show in this message is that if we claim clarity, and yet we are not grounded in a sound philosophy, we will become guilty of the very thing we’re trying to prevent: we will confound the faith instead of reaching many for the gospel, our horizons will narrow, and we’ll reach very few.

If we claim clarity, and yet we are not grounded in a sound philosophy, we will become guilty of the very thing we’re trying to prevent: we will confound the faith.

I’ve said this third principle—clarity based on a sound philosophy of language—is not simple. How do you tackle a hard and heavy topic? By way of outline, during this message, I’ll give you a principle, a problem, and a prescription. Let’s begin with the principle.

The Principle: A Desire to Defend the Truth Is Good and Biblical

A desire to defend the truth—to fiercely defend the truth—is good and biblical.

Don’t take my word for it. We can justify a fierce defense based on Paul’s words and actions in Galatians. He pulls no punches in this letter. He’s even willing to call out the highest religious leaders. In Galatians 1:8, he uses some of the strongest language possible, calling anyone who preaches a gospel contrary to the true gospel “accursed” or “anathema.”⁴

Then in Galatians 2:11–14, he calls out the apostle Peter:

But when Cephas [Peter] came to Antioch,⁵ I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For prior to the coming of certain men from James,⁶ he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision.⁷ The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy.⁸ But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

Paul isn’t finished. Next, he writes:

“You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?” (Galatians 3:1)

Paul is calling his recipients “fools.” That’s not even the most offensive thing he writes in Galatians, but we’ll stop there.

The Problem: Inadequate Study

A desire to fiercely defend the truth is good and biblical, but here’s the problem. Or, rather, here’s how the problem starts. When we fiercely defend something, it can be tempting to speak with more passion than principle.

When we fiercely defend something, it can be tempting to speak with more passion than principle.

Potential abuse of the principle looks like this.

We have this good desire to defend the gospel—the true gospel.
When that good desire is partnered with inadequate Bible study—that is, with inadequate hermeneutics (the art of studying and interpreting Scripture)—or with inadequate philosophy of language, there are problems. And this isn’t just a free grace problem. There’s a reason the statement rings true that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” For the most part, people who seek to defend the true gospel mean well. But inadequate hermeneutics combined with a fierce desire to defend one’s position results in textual manipulation. We begin to manipulate Scripture to defend our positions. We have what we think is the truth, and we go to the Scripture to prove ourselves correct, and inevitably we manipulate the text in the process.

A warning: If in your defense of the truth—especially biblical truth—you’re going all in against another position, you better be right. And you better do it with a measure of humility.

If in your defense of the truth—especially biblical truth—you’re going all in against another position, you better be right.

So when the free grace pastor preaches, “That’s not the gospel,” he better know why.

The Prescription: Philosophy, Theology, Context

What’s the prescription or remedy for this problem?

These are five key terms that free grace theologians must be able to explain philosophically, theologically, and contextually. You need to understand the philosophy of language behind the terms, you need to understand the theology, and you need to understand the context.

Following are five terms I identified four years ago as ones that we need to wrestle with and understand: faith (believe), gospel, salvation, repentance, and assurance.

You might at this point say, if these terms are so hard to understand, or so easily confused, “Why not just give their definitions?” The answer is, “Because language is never that clean.”

There have been people who have tried to come up with a language for which every word has an exact meaning. That way, whenever you talk, there’s never misunderstanding. But such a language didn’t last very long. You can’t write songs and poetry with a language like that. (To be precise, you can’t write good songs or good poetry with that kind of language.)

There is a false concept that a definition will unlock the meaning of a term, and that is all that is needed for understanding its usage. It’s not the case that definitions fail to convey meaning; it’s simply that a single definition tied to one word is a dangerous assumption about how language functions.

A single definition tied to one word is a dangerous assumption about how language functions.

An Illustration: “Believe”

Consider how we use the word “believe.”. Here are five statements using this word in the English language:

I believe it will rain today.
I believe my wife loves me.
I believe my wife.
I believe in school choice.
I don’t believe in God.

These sentences each use the same word, believe, yet its usage and meaning differ across all the sentences. Believe, in these cases, might mean to think (“I think it’ll rain today”), to trust or have confidence (“I have confidence that my wife loves me”), to support, or to confirm the existence of.

Clearly, just asking for a definition won’t work. Well, maybe if I just knew what the word meant in Greek (or Hebrew), the language(s) the Scripture was written in. There is a popular line of thinking that assumes that somehow knowing the Greek word is the key to unlocking its theological meaning—and that gaining this singular meaning is how we’ll understand every usage of that word moving forward. Again, that’s not how language works.

There is a popular line of thinking that assumes that somehow knowing the Greek word is the key to unlocking its theological meaning. … Again, that’s not how language works.

The language of Scripture is special. But not because the words are some sort of magical meaning conveyed to them through the Greek. The words are not special because of their inherent nature. The special nature in the Scriptures is that they have been inspired by God. They are, as Paul put it, God-breathed.⁹ They are exactly what God wanted to say to us from Him. The words of Scripture are authoritative; they are effective. But they still must be interpreted correctly.

5 Words & Their Interpretation Problems

For each of the five terms I mentioned (gospel, faith/believe, salvation, repentance, and assurance), I’ll now state the interpretation problem of what we’ll call the non-free grace position (which, for simplicity’s sake, we can also call the majority position¹⁰). I’ll also note how to guard against inadequate free grace responses.¹¹

Gospel

Two weeks ago I said something that made some raise an eyebrow: “If I were to fill the whole stage with Christian books or literature that attempted to convey the message of eternal salvation, 99 percent of them I could pick up and say, ‘That’s not the gospel.’” Let me clarify what I meant: It’s not that 99 percent of each entire book is wrong. It’s that almost always these days in Christian books, there is just something—perhaps even a small something—that attempts to inject works into the gospel. It twists the gospel in some way, however small.

Popular gospel presentations almost always say too much.

Popular gospel presentations almost always say too much. The intention is well meaning. They want to talk someone into salvation, to say how good salvation is and what a good place heaven is going to be. And it is. But in that excess of words to explain further, we say too much.

When we talk about a works-based gospel, there’s a spectrum, from the Catholic tradition to the Reformed tradition. And those are often held in opposition, but in some ways, those positions are perhaps a lot closer than you think. One will tell you from the start that works are required, while the other will tell you from the back end (“Yeah, you should have been working this whole time”). In the latter case, people will use works to say, “Oh, you must not be saved.” That’s the failure of the majority position.

What’s the failure of the free grace position when it comes to the gospel? Free grace contenders often oversimplify an understanding of the gospel. (I’m a free grace pastor, but I’m speaking here of those who write the majority of the works from a free grace point of view, of those who lead organizations that hold to free grace theology, and of those who speak—e.g., at conferences.) These individuals tend to have (and present) an oversimplified understanding of other gospel positions and of their own position.

I’ll use the Roman Catholic position as an example. Many free grace pastors, authors, and speakers oversimplify the Catholic understanding of the gospel. It’s easy to look at Catholic theology and just say, “Hey, that’s a works-based gospel.” And it’s not that I disagree with that assessment, but if you declare such a thing without ever having looked at the position—or examined the writings and why they say what they say—you’re going to be shocked at some things you read.

In Galatians, Paul says that those who pervert the gospel are anathema.¹² And the Reformation came about because there were some disagreements about the gospel. And so the Reformers write all about these things concerning the gospel. Then, Catholics, in response to the Reformation, write some other things about the gospel. Here are the words of the Catholic Church from the Council of Trent:¹³

CANON I. -If any one saith, that man may be justified before God by his own works . … without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema.¹⁴

That’s the Catholic Church reacting to the Reformation! Sounds like us (Protestants), right?

It reminds me of one of those interviews you do of someone on the street, or on a talk show, and you read him a political statement, and the person responds, “Oh yeah, I really like that statement.” Then you ask, “Who do you think said those words?” As soon as they guess wrong and they find out it’s a quote from the person on the other side, they immediately change their tune (“Oh wait, actually, I don’t like that statement…”).

Now, don’t assume from what I just read that I’m really sympathetic to Catholic theology. Some of my favorite people are Catholic. I went to a seminary that wrestled with this problem a lot (as did GraceLife’s other two pastors, so we’ve had this test). But the very same council also said, “If any one saith, that men are justified, either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ …; or even that the grace, whereby we are justified, is only the favour of God; let him be anathema.”¹⁵

How can the same group have said both (seemingly contradictory) things? It’s hard to answer that question without a good philosophy of language.

Free grace contenders can also oversimplify their own position by making the gospel only about acknowledging facts. There’s this tendency among many authors and speakers to equate the gospel as a set of facts to be believed about Jesus, when ultimately the gospel is believing Jesus about a set of facts.

There’s this tendency … to equate the gospel as a set of facts to be believed about Jesus, when ultimately the gospel is believing Jesus about a set of facts.

Speaking of belief, let’s turn to the second term on our list.

Belief/Faith

The failure of the majority position is that faith is conflated with faithfulness. In their desire to express that every believer should live out their faith (and, indeed, they are right), the non-free-grace or majority position confuses categories of faith. We have gone over categories of faith in a previous sermon, but briefly, they are:

Category 1—faith that results in justification and eternal life
Category 2—faith that results in anything else
Category 3—the idea of faith as doctrine (something we can hold fast to)¹⁶

While the majority are confusing faith and faithfulness, the failure of the free grace position is that its definition sterilizes faith. They compare faith to a math problem. They say, “I believe 2 + 2 = 4, and in the same way, I believe God exists.”

Want to destroy someone’s faith? Tell the person he or she has to have assurance that God exists just like 2 + 2 = 4. Tell the person that faith is knowledge, and they better know it and know it well. (I’ll address assurance more in a moment.)

Repentance

Like faith/belief, we’ve covered this term in recent sermons in our Oracles of God series. Here’s the failure of the majority: They preach a message that you have to pay for your sins before Jesus does; you have to turn away from sin to come to Jesus—doing so is, they say, required for salvation. But I say this: Try turning away from sin without Jesus. That is the point of coming to Him! He helps us live differently. So the concept that I have to clean up my life before I come to Jesus is an offense to the gospel. If you can clean up your life without Christ, Christ died needlessly.

If you can clean up your life without Christ, Christ died needlessly.

What’s the failure of free grace when it comes to repentance? Several, if not all, free grace leaders demand that repentance can never involve change of action—they throw out the baby with the bath water. If it reeks of work, these leaders think, then we can’t have works anywhere.

Works do have their place in Christian living—just not in our justification before God.¹⁷

Works do have their place in Christian living—just not in our justification before God.

Salvation

Let’s look at Paul’s letter to the Philippians to consider this next term (salvation)—in particular what it has to do with works. He’s writing these words from prison, where he’s been locked up for the gospel:

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12–13)

The majority view of salvation fails to draw a distinction between justification and sanctification. They combine the two, seeing them as one and the same, or they say that if you’re working out your salvation, it proves you always had it (and if you’re not doing so, it proves you never really had salvation). The free grace position would say that sanctification is the process by which we work out our salvation, that is, by which we become more and more who it is that we are in Christ. You don’t do that to earn heaven because you can’t earn heaven. It’s a gift.

On the free grace side, the error can be an allergy to using the term salvation in any context outside of justification. Personally, I find this tendency strange, because I think free grace theology does a good job of saying that salvation consists of three phases: justification, sanctification, and glorification. We’re saved from the penalty of sin, the power of the sin, and the presence of sin.

But sometimes when we see salvation used in the sanctification setting within the Scriptures, it bothers us. That’s why, in our study on baptisms, I had to gently correct. At some point, when people say “We know baptism doesn’t save you,” I have to say, “Actually, the Scriptures do say ‘baptism saves us,’” but the question is “saves from what?” Baptism doesn’t save us from hell or eternal damnation, but according to Peter, it does save from something.

What are you going to do in your fierce desire to defend your position? Manipulate the text?

We can’t have an allergy to the term salvation when it exists outside of justification.

Another error that free grace leaders make is to assume that salvation must always be neatly divided as either justification, sanctification, or glorification. That’s a great question to ask when it comes to Bible study, but sometimes the Scripture may use it to reference all of those. It may be giving just a general idea of what Christ has done for us, without specific reference to any one of these phases.

Assurance

The failure of the majority position is going to be to ask questions like, Are you sure? Are you really sure you’re saved? Do you know that you know that you know?

Well, I don’t know—how do you check? How are you living? What are you doing? We often appeal to works, as if our works could save us.

I grew up in Baptist circles, so revivals or talks that I went to featured this sort of thing—how to know that you know that you know. It was one know too many for me, and in their effort to help me know that I knew, I no longer knew. That’s called assurance in assurance, not assurance in Christ.

That’s called assurance in assurance, not assurance in Christ.

The free grace response will correctly respond, You can know. You can know you’re saved if you take to heart why John wrote his first epistle: “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). You can know that that’s the truth of what the Scriptures teach. I don’t know how you’ll feel about that truth, but, and I say this kindly, I don’t really care either. Some days you won’t feel very saved. Thank God it’s not dependent on our feelings.

The failure of some in the free grace movement is they made assurance synonymous with believing. They substituted this idea that assurance is the same thing as belief or faith. And if you ever doubted, if you never could point to a time in your life when you had absolute assurance of your salvation, then you must never have believed.

The irony is this: both the free grace and non-free grace positions desire that you be assured in your salvation, but in this zealousness to make you sure, they both cause you to doubt.

Both … positions desire that you be assured in your salvation, but in this zealousness to make you sure, they both cause you to doubt.

It’s like the person who continues to ask their significant other, “Do you really love me?” At some point, you’re likely to hear, “Well, now I’m not sure.” (Free marriage and dating advice: If you want to help them not love you, keep asking that question.)

And that’s the result when any or all of these terms aren’t handled properly: Faith is confounded. People are confused. And any clarification effort not based on a sound philosophy of language gets narrower and narrower, and larger horizons are not embraced.

Conclusion: Beware!

Let me you read the full statement I wrote when I began to pen the note to myself titled “On Pastoring a Free Grace Church”:

Clarify based on a sound philosophy of language. Inadequate hermeneutics combined with a desire to defend one’s position results in a textual manipulation that confounds the faith and fails to embrace larger horizons. Free grace theologians must be able to explain the philosophy, theology, and context of these key terms lest they reduce their ministry to the talking points or pet positions of others

So beware of religious talking points. Beware of adopting someone else’s pet position without giving it any real thought. It’s easy to do. Easy to think, Oh, there’s a passionate person, there’s a smart person, I’ll just believe what they believe.

The Importance of Autonomy

As pastor of a free grace church, as pastor of GraceLife Church in particular, it is important that we maintain autonomy, that we’re not ruled by some larger movement with a religious title. And that’s why, outside of sermon series like this, you’ll rarely hear me use the term “free grace” (or identify our church as one that holds to free grace theology—even though we are).

With that autonomy, however, comes a great responsibility to know and understand the Scriptures—and to know how to go about knowing and understanding the Scriptures. We need to know how other disciplines, like philosophy, fit into that process.

We’re not seeking to be unique, to hold on to some secret gospel that no one else gets right. It may be that adherence to the truth is unique. The days are evil. So if that’s the case, then may God sustain us in our smallness.

But if truth leads to freedom, then the truth should expand our horizons, not shrink them. That is my belief.

The truth should expand our horizons, not shrink them.

Being Guarded and Gracious

Sound philosophy of language means we can share the gospel with a child or an adult. It means that we’re ready for the gospel to be on our lips in the academic hall or at the corner bar. It means we are guarded and gracious.

We guard against gospel perversions. We also guard against the snap judgment that destroys common ground. We see if there’s room for grace when we hear or read a position that at first blush doesn’t toe the party line.

There are men and women like Apollos out there, mighty in the Scriptures, who need other mighty disciples like a Priscilla and Aquila to help them see even more of God, not less of Him.¹⁸

Most of us didn’t start in a position of free grace. Someone, I hope, gave you grace and patience in your journey. I don’t expect you to study the philosophy of language. But I expect you to seek to understand Scripture, to seek to become a better student of the Bible. I must defend the gospel—and I must continue to do so—but without closing it off to anyone.

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