An Interview with Michael Horton

Interesting interview here with Michael Horton by John Starke concerning his new book, Gospel Commission, The: Recovering God's Strategy for Making Disciples.

One great portion:

You regularly raise the concern that many are confusing Christ’s work with our work. Can you briefly explain where the confusion lies?


This concern follows from the previous points.  The Reformers made the startling point, so evident in the Scriptures, that in relation to God we are only receivers.  All good gifts come down from the Father, in the Son, by the Spirit.  So then where do our good works go?  God doesn’t need them.  I don’t need them, because Christ is my righteousness.  The only place for our good works to go, then, is out to our neighbors in love.  They need us to bring them the gospel.  They also need us to help them fix their roof, rebuild after an earthquake, watch their children while they take a sick child to the hospital, and so forth.  Through the many works that Christians execute in their daily lives, God loves and serves the world in common grace.  Through our witness to the gospel, God loves and serves these neighbors with saving grace.  But if we eclipse God’s service, which we receive supremely in the public ministry of Word and sacrament, into an emphasis on our service, then the salt loses its savor.  We may be really, really active in the world, but are we Christian in that activity?  Scripture gives us commands as well as promises; tasks to perform as well as Good News to embrace.  However, if we take it for granted that everybody already “gets” God’s saving grace in Christ (as though it were merely a matter of assenting to a series of doctrines and then moving on to the real stuff of Christian discipleship), we’re doing things backwards.  Works flow from faith and faith feeds daily on the gospel.