Jerry Bridges has a new book out, this one written with a younger man that he has been mentoring, Bob Bevington. It is their second book written together. This effort, The Bookends of the Christian Life, is a book that presents a personal worldview for every Christian. It is a picture of a Christian’s life as a bookshelf, with the books representing all of the activities of your life, including spiritual and temporal activity (work, recreation, home life, church, serving, etc.). The bookends that hold the life together are the two sections of the book: the righteousness of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Without those two truths holding the books up, our life becomes like a bookshelf without bookends: the books fall over, often causing a domino effect with others falling over, some onto the floor. We need to lean on each of the two bookends to stabilize our entire life.
The first half of the book discusses the righteousness of Christ. Our own righteousness is not enough because we fall short of God’s requirement, which is perfection. God does not grade on the curve. It’s 100% or we fail. So we are all under God’s curse. We need a Savior. The truth of our righteousness is found in 2 Corinthians 5:21 “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” In this verse we find the sinlessness of Christ, His perfect obedience; our sin is transferred to Christ because he was sinless (“just-as-if-I’d never sinned”); His righteousness is credited to us (“just-as-if-I’d always obeyed”).
This position of Christ should then motivate us to love and serve Him as it did Isaiah in the Old Testament and Zacchaeus in the New. They then explain the danger of two gospel enemies: self-righteousness, where we begin to think we deserve God's blessing because of our own persona obedience, and persistent guilt, when we will not accept God's forgiveness as already being secured when fall short of our own expectations. The end of this part of the book, then offers three suggestions, or focus points so that we lean on this bookend. First, we focus on our own sinfulness; second, on the righteousness that is secured by Christ on the cross; third, reject those actions and duties that we tend to depend on, which they call "functional saviors", things or activities upon which we depend (money, family, recreation).
The second bookend, the power of the Holy Spirit, is also needed to keep our lives under control. This is a fine balancing act, because it is the work of the Holy Spirit to change us into the image of Christ, yet we have responsibility. Bridges has called this in previous works "dependent responsibility". We depend on the work of the Holy Spirit while we obey the commands of scripture. The Holy Spirit uses a variety of means to enable us to grow in our salvation: the Word of God, prayer, fellowship. Of course, there is another danger, another gospel enemy, that arises. That is self-reliance. We depend on ourselves, our own efforts, to make us more like Christ. We become legalistic and proud as we look at all the wonderful works we perform. This section is closed with more focus points so that we lean on this bookend. First, recognize our desperate weakness; we are helpless to accomplish anything. Second, rely on the Holy Spirit to do the work of changing our lives. Third, reject self-reliance. We have to say that “God is God, and I am not.” Then we have to replace self-reliance with humility and godliness.
The book has a concluding chapter that puts forth the message of the book as an appropriate worldview for every Christian. And indeed, it does. The book identifies two truths that are absolutely essential for every Christian, and should be followed. The book is an easy read and every believer will benefit by leaning on these bookends. I highly recommend this book.
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