Imagine this scenario. Your friend at church (who is a believer) comes to you and confesses an ugly sin they committed. And they feel terrible about it. What do you say?
No doubt this scenario is played out countless times a week in evangelical churches all over the country–particularly given the church’s fascination with authenticity and vulnerability (see my post on that issue here). And it is not always easy to know how to respond.
But here’s one response that gets used a lot: “Don’t feel bad about this sin. If you are a believer, then God is always pleased with you. He can never be more pleased with you than he is right now.”
Is this response helpful? Yes and no. It depends on what a person means and how they frame it.
Our purpose in this post (as in all the posts in this series) is simply to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of this phrase. We will do this by asking three questions: (1) Why do people use this phrase? (2) What is correct or helpful about this phrase? and (3) What is problematic about this phrase?
Why Do People Use This Phrase?
The reasons for the popularity of this phrase are many, but I will mention two here. One is that some Christians have grown up in a church culture where guilt-mongering is the standard method to encourage obedience. God is portrayed as perpetually irritated and dissatisfied with us as his people, and our goal as Christians is to work really hard each day not to tick him off. The motivation for obedience is to earn God’s favor.
Needless to say, if that is a person’s perception of God and the Christian life, then this phrase would feel like a glass of cold water in a hot desert.
But there is also a second reason this phrase has become popular. In Reformed circles, there is (rightly) an emphasis on the wonderful doctrine of imputation. When a person trusts in Christ, the perfect righteousness of Christ is imputed to their account. This means that God regards us as “righteous” even though we are not. This is why there is “now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1).
Thus, for some people, the phrase “God is always pleased with you” is just another way to describe imputation. But, as we shall see, things are not quite that simple.
What is Correct or Helpful about This Phrase?
As with all the phrases in this series, there are positives worth noting. For one (as we just noted), if this phrase is designed to speak of imputation, then we can give it a hearty amen. The righteousness of Christ has been credited to our account. And, in this sense, God is “pleased” with what he sees.
Also, we can affirm that guilt-mongering is not a biblical tactic for motivating believers to obedience (although there is a proper place for godly sorrow as we will see below). God is not perpetually irritated with us and if this phrase helps eliminate that impression, then great.
What is Problematic about This Phrase?
Even with these positives, this phrase has (unfortunately) been used in problematic ways. In fact, sometimes it is flat out wrong. Here are a few of places of concern:
1. It confuses justification and sanctification. This phrase can be used in such a way that it takes what is true of justification (God sees the perfect righteousness of Christ) and applies it without qualification to our sanctification (therefore God is never concerned about our sin). In other words, it assumes that if God is pleased with us in justification (because of the righteousness of Christ), then he is always pleased with us in terms of our sanctification.
But, the Bible gives the opposite impression. God is not always pleased with our actions as believers. Indeed, this is why God is busy (through the Spirit) convicting us of our sin patterns and calling us toward repentance.
In other words, in sanctification God is very aware of our sin! This is why he disciplines those he loves. He is not finished with us, but is proactively shaping us more into his image.
It is analogous to the way parents think of their children. No matter what my son does, he will always be my son and I will love him (justification), but I am still concerned with his behavior and give him loving discipline (sanctification).
I would be a poor father if I used his permanent status as a son as a reason to overlook and ignore his sin patterns. In fact the opposite is true. It is because he’s my son (and has permanent status as such) that I will not overlook those sins, but actively discipline them for his good.
In short, there is a role for fatherly displeasure in both human parents and in God.
2 . It overlooks the fact that the Bible explicitly states God is not always pleased with believers. There are numerous examples of this in the Bible, but the most obvious is King David, a man whom God loved dearly. After David’s sin with Bathsheba, the text tells us: “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord” (2 Sam 11:27).
This one verse presents a hearty challenge to this phrase. It tells us that in the process of sanctification, God sees our behavior and is not always pleased with it.
3. It can be used to downplay legitimate guilt/sorrow over sin. Whenever a believer comes to us feeling bad over there sin, it is understandable that we would want to comfort that person. And this phrase is often used to do just that. We put balm on their wound by reassuring them that God is always pleased with them.
But we have to be careful here. Not all guilt/sorrow over sin is bad (2 Cor 7:9-11). Telling someone that God is always pleased with them might sound compassionate, but we may find ourselves working against the Spirit as He works to bring conviction and repentance.
And in our world today, genuine sorrow over sin seems in short supply. Our kids grow up in a world where everyone tells them how awesome they are all the time. No one is ever displeased with them. Everyone is a winner.
In such a context, the fatherly displeasure of God is an important category that we cannot allow to get swallowed up into the doctrine of justification and forgotten.
In the end, this phrase has positives and negatives. Positively, it can help celebrate the greatness of God’s justifying work in Christ and how his righteousness covers all our guilt. But negatively in can be used to downplay the importance of sanctification and God’s active role in it.
goodfeltg says
A lot of the problem arises because of the misuse of John 3,16.
Again and again we hear th verse quoted as, “God loved the world soooooo much (i.e very much) that he gave….”. That is, we are all loveable. In this way the word is used as an adverb.
But of course the word “so” in this context means “in this way” and refers back to v. 14 , “so the Son of Man must be lifted up”.
We live in a worls where sentimentality rules above truth!
jimpemberton says
I had a Christian tell me that John 3:16 was all they needed to know of someone was a Christian or not. It actually took some work with them to help them realize that the whole Gospel isn’t in that verse.
dantespencer says
“Our kids grow up in a world where everyone tells them how awesome they are all the time.”
This is our Freudian culture and I think it is from the world, more than reformed theology, that the statement under question comes from. There are a few quotes you’re going to address that sound like they come from that tullian kid.
jimpemberton says
The scenario is a good fellowship/discipleship moment. This is where believers are available to each other for this kind of confession. I’ve learned that the first thing you say is to express gratitude for confiding in you. Then, given their genuine grief over their sin and hatred of it, you can acknowledge Christ’s forgiveness. However, the consequences of their sin and the possibility that they will likely still be tempted by this sin must be dealt with. So there is a strong a practical application to the correct theology here.
As an example, last week we were working with a family of young believers who have gained a heart for their neighbors. There’s no church nearby and the church we work with wants to help them evangelize their neighbors and plant a church in their neighborhood. When the wife and mother of the family came to faith, she became convicted of how badly she had been treating her neighbors, and there were many whom she had treated this way. The woman who is discipling her told her that she needed to seek forgiveness from her neighbors. It was expected that this would take some time. She made it throughout the whole neighborhood in only three days. Needless to say her change of heart was noticeable. But although her sin was forgiven by God, she still had to suffer these consequences. The result is that she now has a tremendous testimony to her neighbors.
And the correct theology is another thing that is often misunderstood. I’ve been in countless discussions where someone conflated justification and sanctification. I taught this past Sunday at our church in Venezuela on sin. It included Paul’s struggle at the end of Romans 7. Someone asked about people that they know who use that passage to justify their sin. Obviously it doesn’t, but the path to good theology on the matter lies in the attitude of the heart. Are we looking for self-justification through the technicalities of theology, or do we hate our sin and long for the righteousness of God to be worked out in our lives? Only the latter yields the true fruit of good theology.
Barbara H. says
I appreciate this, and it is timely for me. I’m reading a book about parenting that emphasizes telling children that “God is always pleased with you.” I had some problems with that, particularly sanctification and fatherly displeasure, as you mentioned. I also thought of verses that talk about pleasing the Lord, such as: Colossians 3:20: Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord and 1 John 3:22: And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight – indicating that we can please or displease Him by our actions ever as Christians. I was suspending judgment until getting further into the book to see whether the author would address these issues, but this post helped clarify my thoughts.
Nick says
Is it too late to suggest another phrase to debunk/disambiguate? “We’re all God’s children.” JI Packer puts it most clearly when he writes, “The idea that all are God’s children is not found in the Bible anywhere.”
Joe M says
Helpful.
czarita aguja says
Can’t wait for your next post, Sir Michael!