Counsel from the Cross: Connecting Broken People to the Love of Christ [Paperback]

It seems as if there is a "movement", if I can use that word loosely, afoot in the reformed evangelical community. It's a movement squarely based on the doctrines flowing out of the gospel, a movement epitomized by ministries like Redeemer Presbyterian Church (and her Senior Pastor, Tim Keller), The Gospel Coalition, The Resurgence, Acts29 Church Planting Network, and many others. One of the many by-products of a gospel-centered movement has been gospel-centered books. And this is one of them -- perhaps one of the best produced thus far.

It's ostensibly a biblical counseling work. And it is that, and so much more. In short, it's a gospel-oriented take on what counseling should be if one was to have the gospel directly under-girding and being applied to a person's broken life/heart.

What this book does is tear the mask off of Christian counseling that applies various sanctification strategies in order to deal with sin w/o necessarily "exploiting" the objective realities and benefits of the gospel of Christ. It shows the reader why those strategies fail and why the gospel is the only real panacea to every soul-sickness.

It has a realistic take on our broken world, the heinousness of sin, the self-deception web that our hearts spin over themselves, and most wonderfully, the idol-destroying and hope-renewing power of the gospel.

Fitzpatrick and Johnson connect the dots from gospel-doctrine to gospel-change. Through dismantling powerless legalistic sanctification methods and proffering, in crystal-clear terminology, specifically how doctrines like justification, resurrection, incarnation (etc.) CAN & DO break the cycle of sin-repentance-good works-sin. The authors show how we can so often, in fighting sin and putting on holiness, bypass Christ and let the gospel become white noise.

Awesome book b/c it's so challenging (to all my old notions of what it means to put off and put on) and so convicting. Take your time w/ it. The authors wisely shepherd our hearts by reminding us that faith & fruit (gospel-life) takes time. There is no simple or direct equation that churns out godliness. It takes time for faith to mature and fruit to be borne. And the Spirit goes wherever He decides to go.

I think that such sober counsel goes a long way to ensure not only that the book will be taken seriously but also taken as just a resource that points the way to THE Resource: Jesus Christ and His life, death, and resurrection. I'm thankful for the humility of the authors.

JP

Counsel from the Cross is the next generation text for Christian counselors and the next generation manual for Christian living for believers. This book excels at explaining the connection between the Christian gospel and Christian counseling.

Authors Elyse Fitzpatrick and Dennis Johnson state in their preface that they want to lay before their readers the provocative claim that "the cross of Christ and the gospel that proclaim it really are `the power of God for salvation [comprehensive rescue] to everyone who believes' (Rom. 1:16." Their book Counsel from the Cross engagingly demonstrates that in the cross lies the power to liberate hearts and to instill hope. Thankfully, they have the audacity to believe that change can actually happen--because of what Christ has already done.

Paul Tripp gets it right in his back-cover recommendation when he says the book is "a triumph of a maturing biblical counseling movement." At times, the modern biblical counseling movement has been good at communicating, "It's horrible to sin," but not always as good at communicating, "It's wonderful to be forgiven." Fitzpatrick and Johnson understand the truth of Romans 5:20 that where sin abounds, grace super-abounds. They understand our guilt before a holy God and our salvation from a loving God. As they beautifully state it, "The cross declares that we are loved with an intensity that defies our capacity to comprehend, not because we are intrinsically lovable but because God is intrinsically love."

The authors rightfully claim and artfully present throughout their book that "in the cross of Christ and in the surprising combination of ego-smashing humility and despair-smashing confidence . . . lies the power to set struggling people free." In this, they follow the ancient Puritan arts of loading the conscience with guilt and of lightening the conscience with grace. They follow the principle of historic reconciliation that combines the truths that "it's horrible to sin, and wonderful to be forgiven."

Here's the profound truth communicated in Counsel from the Cross. "We believe that when God the Creator provides a cure-all, it really cures all." Fitzpatrick and Johnson are convinced that "this reality is profoundly relevant to the way Christian counselors address the struggles of those who come to them for help."

Upon this foundation, the authors send the following invitation to their readers. "So we invite you to join us in a venture of exploration to discover the power to defeat sin and sadness, conflict and bitterness, and self-pity and self-contempt, not by walking beyond the gospel that first brought us into the favor and family of God but rather by moving more deeply into that same gospel."

Martin Luther based his ministry of spiritual consolation and spiritual direction upon the truth that "sanctification is the art of getting used to our justification." Fitzpatrick and Johnson similarly believe that the truth of our acceptance before God by Christ's righteousness alone must be made practical as we live our everyday lives. They say it so memorably. "We become people who ask WWJD (What would Jesus do?) without ever considering the gospel or WDJD (What did Jesus do?). They add: "We naively press the gospel out to the margins of our faith because we have never really been taught how it's meant to connect with our daily lives."

In the spirit of the book's entire message of applying truth to life, Fitzpatrick and Johnson include in each chapter personal illustrations, counseling vignettes, and real-life narratives. They also conclude each chapter with a built-in discussion/application guide aptly labeled Pursuing Counsel from the Cross. Their questions are carefully crafted to engage readers in personalizing the truths in each chapter by applying them to their lives and ministries.

Counsel from the Cross is a refreshing, nourishing, and nurturing examination of what makes biblical counseling truly biblical and what makes Christian living truly Christian. Pastors, counselors, educators, and students would all do well to build their ministries upon this model. As believers, we would all do well to build our lives upon the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ--as explained in Counsel from the Cross.

I received this book back in May. It's now November. So I'm ridiculously overdue with this review, but there's a good reason. I really READ this book. I mean, seriously. I picked it up to review it and was in tears by the end of the first chapter. Just then, my husband (a pastor) and I were facing some daunting personalities and conflict at our church, and I went from absolutely discouraged to "I need to read more NOW" in the space of about 5 minutes. The Gospel does that for a person, and the authors do a fabulous job of explaining not just the Gospel OBLIGATIONS, but just as important, the Gospel DECLARATIONS. The former tell us what to do; the latter, which MUST come first, tell us who Christ is, and who we are.

The authors write for the counselOR, but address the reader much of the time as a counselEE, which I found eminently helpful. COUNSEL, in the title, can be taken both as a verb and as a noun. Their work does remind the counselor how the Gospel can be applied to every category of "issue" you'll encounter in the counseling room, but it first counsels the counselor, helping the reader apply the Gospel to what they're facing right now. Early on, the authors explain the two sides of the "Gospel-deficient" coin: "Sad moralists" apply the Gospel obligations without any of the declarations. They get trapped in legalism and, eventually, begin to deceive themselves that their obedience gains them favor with God. They see most often how far their practice deviates from the perfection God seeks to build in them, and only end up discouraged and defeated by their sin and pride. On the other side of the coin, "happy moralists" remember many of the Gospel declarations, but don't follow through with the Gospel obligations. They rejoice in who they are in Christ, and think that position is "enough," and that their practice doesn't need to change. These get trapped in license and a lack of understanding of what it cost God to give them that position. As one of my counselees puts it, they "trample on grace." Everyone fits into one of these categories (most of us will swing back and forth according to our individual areas of sinful bent), so the authors spend the rest of the book applying the Gospel to these two extremes in the "big-box" arenas of emotions, relationships, growth in Christ, and life purpose and focus.

I picked up COUNSEL FROM THE CROSS to read through it quickly enough to get a sense of it and write a knowledgeable review, and realized I needed to slow waaaaaay down. I needed to let the truth of the Word soak into my spirit, warm me, recharge me, kick me in the pants a few times, and remind me of the goodness and unfailing love of the God I serve. As a Biblical counselor and teacher, I've already been using the material, and look forward to getting this book into the hands of the women I meet with on a regular basis as soon as possible, beginning with going through it (again) with a counselee this winter. I highly, highly recommend that you allow Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Dr. Johnson to offer you "counsel from the cross."