The dust has now settled on this year’s ‘Together for the Gospel’.

It is a biennial conference for pastors and church leaders held in Louisville, Kentucky. I’ve caught up on sleep, unloaded all 14 of my free books and have had time to reflect on the many excellent talks.

Ligon Duncan’s address, ‘The Whole in Our Holiness’ was for many the standout message, indeed at the end it received a standing ovation from the 12,000 in the room. What follows is a summary of his talk and a few reflections on how it might be applied here in the UK.

Law and grace

Duncan began by noting that one of the main theological challenges for the modern-day church is a right understanding of the relationship between law and grace. On the one hand some pastors intimate that the law is a bad thing and that sermons including commands misunderstand the gospel of grace. On the other hand law without grace can easily become ‘moralistic, therapeutic deism’. Both of these positions badly distort the biblical view and misunderstand the character of God as a loving and gracious heavenly Father who desires that his children be holy as he is holy.

Wholeness

A biblical theology of wholeness means that we who bear God’s image should obey the law by loving our neighbour.

For the rest of his talk Duncan outlined the biblical theology of bearing God’s image in order to help us consider what the Bible teaches about law, grace, and being distinct from the world.

Genesis 1 & 2

Duncan explained that Adam and Eve were created to find their supreme enjoyment in God and to image him in this world. He noted that the very first words spoken to Adam and Eve were a blessing (‘God blessed them’) and this blessing came in the form of a command (‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’). In the Garden of Eden obedience did not condition God’s love, but was the sphere in which God’s love was enjoyed.

Genesis 3

One of the primary effects of the Fall was the disintegration of our person. Because of Genesis 3, our thinking, willing, desires, and actions all were corrupted. From this day forward our works and our words became inconsistent with our desires. In short, we were no longer whole.

Genesis 12–17

And yet, God – in his grace – intervened to reclaim humanity and restore the blessing of image-bearing. The first major step was through the Abrahamic covenant. In this covenant God called Abraham to, ‘walk before me and be blameless’ (Genesis 17.1). Duncan noted how the word for ‘blameless’ could also be translated as ‘whole’. However, although Abraham believed God’s promise (Genesis 15.6), he didn’t live in accordance with this faith and tried to produce the child of promise in his own way.

Leviticus 19

Duncan then camped out in Leviticus 19. In this chapter Moses elaborates on the Ten Commandments in four spheres of life: personal, familial, congregational and social. This text is the only one in the Old Testament that commands Israel to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’. The context of the verse explains that neighbour love is not a vacuous concept, but is real and is intertwined with everyday life. Loving our neighbour is how we express the image of God.

The New Testament

The command to love your neighbour is alluded to or quoted 12 times in the New Testament. Indeed Jesus used the phrase multiple times in his teaching. Two examples that Duncan pointed to are Matthew 19 and Luke 10. In these passages Jesus exposes the self-righteousness and legalism of his interlocutors. In response to the lawyer’s self-justifying question in Luke 10 (‘and who is my neighbour?’) Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. Duncan explained how the lawyer was looking for loopholes – trying to limit the application of Leviticus 19 in his life. In contrast Jesus’ heart beat with tenderness and care for others; he was always whole.

Duncan remarked that conservative evangelicals are often know for loving theology, but challenged those present to also be known for their love of others.

Duncan’s application focused on two difficult and current areas as case studies.

Race

First, he argued that racial tensions would be in a significantly better state in America if conservative evangelicals in the 19th and 20th centuries had rightly applied the second commandment. He noted that in America, Baptists and Presbyterians decided that slavery was too divisive an issue and therefore shouldn’t be addressed in the church – for the sake of ‘unity’. In reality, leaders and pastors were evading the second great commandment. During a particularly moving part of the talk, Duncan confessed how it has taken more than three decades for God to break through the blindness of his heart on this issue. Furthermore, aware of some push-back on this issue (on social media) he clarified that he wasn’t espousing a social gospel nor indeed ‘grooving’ on cultural Marxism, but that this issue is mere obedience to the second great commandment.

LGBT

Second, Duncan noted how the world vehemently argues that we can’t genuinely love our LGBT neighbours without affirming their sexuality. Yet this was exactly the same lie the serpent spoke in the garden (‘Did God really say’). Therefore Duncan exhorted us that if we want to image God we must tenaciously cling to his truth, whilst also ‘doubling down’ on gentleness, compassion, and the second great commandment to these neighbours.

The only truly good neighbour

Duncan finished the talk by reminding us that if the gospel was ‘love your neighbour and live’ it would be very bad news, for we have all fallen very short in this area. Yet the good news of the gospel is that we have a neighbour who loved us and laid down his life for us. The gospel is what enables us to love our neighbour. Those who repent of their sin and trust in Christ have been set free from the bondage of sin to finally be who God made them to be.

Reflections for the UK

Duncan spoke with a predominantly American audience in mind. However there were a number of takeaways that I think could apply to us on this side of the pond.

First, our culture is increasingly marching to the drumbeat of the LGBT agenda. Holding (and preaching) to a faithful biblical view on gender is now considered to be ‘bigoted’ and ‘medieval’ in our culture – no debate. Indeed we have been in the US for three and a half years and have noted the change in UK culture during this time. In such a culture we are called to uphold a clear, faithful, biblical position, but also to ‘double down’ on showing gentleness, compassion, and living out the second great commandment to our LGBT neighbours, just as Duncan urged us to.

Second, whilst it would be naïve to suggest that racism isn’t a problem in the UK, it certainly isn’t as pronounced as in the US. However, listening to the talk I wondered if class is to the UK as race is to the US. Listening to the talk, I pondered: has there been a failure of churches in the UK to apply the second commandment in the area of class? Do our churches exclude those or segregate between those who are of a different class to us? How can our churches accommodate image-bearers of a different class, rather than requiring them to assimilate to our culture? Am I intentionally making friendships with people in my church who are from a different class than I am?

These are challenging questions to think through and I’m grateful to Ligon Duncan for providing a clear biblical framework to help us. The talk is online at http://t4g.org/media/2018/04/the-whole-in-our-holiness/ and is well worth listening to.

Jamie Southcombe is due to return to the UK, having trained at Southern Seminary, to become Pastor in Training at Grace Church Guildford.