WWJD

Pastor Charles Monroe Sheldon died seventy-five years ago today, February 24, 1946. He was a sweet man who became famous for WWJD. He wrote the popular In His Steps (1896) enshrining forever: What Would Jesus Do (WWJD) as a maxim for Christian living. It has sold more than 50 million copies, and non-biodegradable WWJD bracelets contribute significantly to landfills across America! The gravitational force of moralism is the second most powerful force the world has seen. In one way or another, in pulpits across America, preachers manage to reduced the announcement of what God has done for sinners, to helpful advice for becoming better persons. 

This “easy-listening legalism,” as Michael Horton calls it, makes Christianity about me and my moral improvement. When the preacher tells you “how to” pray, read the Bible, volunteer for Sunday school, fight lustful thoughts, tithe, and improve your marriage, he is telling you it’s your responsibility to create the Kingdom of God. He is preaching law, not gospel, and it is deadly. With all the imperatives of the Bible added to the fussy new demands of the preacher every Sunday, very soon it’s a heavy bag of potatoes that you  carry around everyplace you go. It’s not only burdensome, it crushes. Who can possibly do enough? And the list gets heavier every time I listen to famous preachers reminding me to obey and to show fruit befitting of repentance. I need a Savior in my despair, not a coach.

Jesus did not say, “Come to me and I will load you up with things to do,” he said, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest . . . you will find rest for your souls” (Mt 11:28). Becoming fishers of men and disciples will follow, to be sure, but any performance that is pleasing to God does never precedes his joy and delight (and acceptance!) of us. The heaviness of the law’s demands serves a large purpose in God’s plan; it’s first use is to lead us to the dumps where we can leave our WWJD bracelets, and then and there in our despair we will find the “rest for our souls” that is ours because of God’s completed work for our salvation. The law shows us our need for a power and righteousness from outside of us that is strong enough to save us (Rom 1:16-17): then it points to Jesus as the solution to the law’s demands!  If moralism is the second most powerful force there is, the gospel of Christ is the first, the “incredible greatness of His power toward us who believe” (Eph 1:19).

Martin Luther said that “whoever knows how to distinguish the Gospel from the Law should give thanks to God and know that he is a real theologian.” He wrote in his Heidleberg Disputation: The law says “do this” and it is never done; the gospel says “believe this” and it is already done. Anglicans are not Lutherans, of course, but Luther’s influence on the English reformers was profound, fundamentally effecting the way they understood the gospel. The Elizabethan historian John Foxe memorably wrote: 

“There is nothing more comfortable for troubled consciences than to be instructed in the difference between law and the gospel. The law shows us our sin; the gospel shows us the remedy for it. The law shows our condemnation; the gospel shows our redemption. The law is a word of ire; the gospel is a word of grace. The law is a word of despair; the gospel is a word of comfort. The law is a word of unrest; the gospel is a word of peace. The law says pay your debt; the gospel says Christ has paid it. The law says you are a sinner, despair you shall be damned. The gospel says your sins are forgiven, be comforted you shall be saved. The law says where is your righteousness? The gospel says Christ is your righteousness.”

Thomas Cranmer was influenced by Luther in many ways, weaving the distinction between law and gospel into his writings. His Holy Communion liturgy, for example, begins with the law (recitation of either the Ten Commandments or the Summary of the Law) which naturally and inevitably leads to: “Lord have mercy upon us!” The sobering awareness of our brokenness before the law’s demands begs for the relief and comfort of the gospel in the sermon and the Creed: a hearing of what God has done for us when we tried and failed to live up to the law’s demands. Cranmer’s ordering of the Homilies was intentional and indicative of the same distinction. After the first homily on Scripture, in which Cranmer described the authority of God’s law and gospel, the second homily leads the whole church to see its sinfulness and need (“Of the Misery of Man”). This then is quickly followed by the Homily on Salvation which announces the good news of God’s gospel. The law and gospel narrative is then followed by three homilies that describe our lives lived in response to God’s gracious gift. Cranmer read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested the words of Scripture - as law and gospel.

There is small comfort in Jesus as an example to follow, but what we really need is a Savior who brings us from death to life. We don’t need self-improvement tips from the pulpit; the word that saves and sanctifies is not a laundry list of things to do, but the “rest” that Jesus promises in the Comfortable Word. Moralism always leads to dull, defeated, judgmental Christians on a moral-improvement pilgrimage - begging for any morsel of good news. Cranmer’s 2nd Homily states that “We are sheep that run astray, but we cannot of our own power come again to the sheepfold, so great is our imperfection and weakness.” Ashley Null points out that Cranmer chose the word “travail” instead of the usual “labour”  in his invitation (Come to me all that travail) specifically because it includes more than physical weariness, but emotional as well (Divine Allurement: Cranmer’s Comfortable Words). Erasmus paraphrased Matthew 11:28:

“Come unto me (sayeth he) as many of you as be grieved with afflictions, cares, or with conscience of your sins, and as many as be oppressed with the burden of adversity, I will refresh you, I will give you solace and comfort against all kinds of displeasures.”

WWJD is bad news. What God in Christ has already done for us is the best news ever delivered to the ears of men and women.