Prayer as if Justification by Faith Were True
Learning to rest on the work of Christ as you pray
One of the important questions to task concerning our spiritual practices (whatever those might be), is: How does the gospel shape this practice? I have an earlier reflection on prayer in light of the gospel as a whole, but here I want to focus solely on the question: What is prayer in light of justification by faith?
“we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” (Gal. 2:15-16)
As Paul articulates the gospel to the church of Galatia, he emphasizes that Christians are justified by faith and not by works. But as Paul continues in his letter, he is clearly worried that the Galatians have failed to fully internalize this truth. So he declares,
“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:1-3).
We find similar warnings against a worldly spirituality in Colossians 2, a spirituality based on the common sense of the flesh, and built on presuppositions about what God wants from his people. Paul claims this so-called spirituality has “an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body,” but has “no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Col. 2:23).
In contrast, the truth of justification orients us differently. As those with faith, we can trust that there is “now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). We can trust that “The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth” (Ps. 145:18), and that in the flesh we are always tempted to draw near not in this truth, but to draw near with our lips alone (Isaiah 29:13). But we cannot merely affirm these truths. We need these truths to lead us to the Lord.
Prayer that rests upon our justification recognizes that when we mine the depths of our sinfulness, rebellion, and brokenness with Christ – trusting that Christ has done all for our salvation – then we grow in dependence upon him. We recognize that the more we know our desperate need for forgiveness, the more love can pour forth from a thankful heart (Luke 7:47).
Prayer governed by justification by faith is prayer that rests on the truth that:
“He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.” Psalm 103:10-14
In our flesh, this doesn’t strike us as good news. In our flesh we are convinced that we can utilize building blocks upon which to construct a spiritual life, what Paul rejects as the “elemental principles” (Gal. 4:3) or “elemental spirits” (Col. 2:2) of the world. When we embrace this prayer of the flesh, prayer becomes a performance – one that we judge based on how good we were. We end up focusing more on the form of prayer than actually drawing near to God. But when we judge prayer this way, our focus is on our rhetoric, the length of prayer, or our ability to stay engaged.
Spurgeon was certain right when he said, “true prayer is measured by weight, not by length. A single groan before God may have more fullness of prayer in it than a fine oration of great length.”[1] The way to weighty prayer is the way of sharing in the true groaning of the Spirit (Rom. 8:26), which is only ever a groaning in reality and never in our religious fantasies.
To pray to the Father, in the Son, and by the Spirit, is to pray resting on their work, and therefore resting on the justification we know in Christ. This creates the space to name the truth, regardless of what the truth is. It trusts that our sins, temptations, and struggles are not somehow outside of God’s care.
A failure to pray in truth is a failure to trust that Christ has cancelled “the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands,” and fails to proclaim, “This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:14). We pray as those who have been justified in our sin, and not in our virtue. This leads to prayer that draws near, not because it trusts in our own inherent goodness, but because we have a great high priest in Jesus.
Prayer that trusts in him seeks to draw near in confidence to the throne of grace (Heb. 4:14–16). This is to pray as the Psalmists prayed, trusting that the Lord meets us where we are, and not where we are not.
When we pray from the truth of our lives we discover that it was in our sin that Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8), and that it is in our sin, temptation, and struggle where he meets us now. It is in these places where prayer becomes real, because it is here where prayer becomes about the deepest longings of the soul that God is seeking to reorder around himself. When we avoid these aspects of our lives, thinking that God is too holy to receive them, we fail to pray along the truth of our justification, and the way God has met us in Christ by his Spirit. The Spirit’s groaning is in the reality our lives, and the reality of what God desires for us.
Therefore we too must draw near in truth, not trying to pray with our avatar – projecting the most cleaned-up version of ourselves we can muster – but always seeking him in the truth of our needs in the abundance of his mercy.
For more on prayer, check out Where Prayer Becomes Real, the book I wrote with John Coe, exploring what it means to pray honestly.
[1] Spurgeon, Charles, The Complete Works of C. H. Spurgeon, Volume 34: Sermons 2001-2061 (Delmarva Publications, Inc., 2015), 30.