Replacement Theology

no need to beg at the devil's door

Scripture Reading: Proverbs 7

              Every Christian struggles with and against sin. How we do battle matters. In the following prayer, Richard Baxter gets to the heart of the best path forward. Some people call it “replacement theology.” That just means that we don’t defeat sin head-on. We can’t remove it without replacing it. We have to have something more attractive, something more appealing than that which our sinful heart is lusting after.

              Think of your soul like a drinking glass. If you look inside and see filth you can try to reach in and remove it by scraping at it with your fingernail and trying to pick it out. Or you can run clean water into it and wash it out. Another way to say it is you can fill it with something clean that displaces that which is unclean.

              That is the essence of replacement theology. This is what is behind Baxter’s prayer:

O make your ways so pleasant to us, that we may have no need to beg pleasure at the Devil’s door, nor to steal the forbidden pleasures of sin. Let the thoughts of your precious love in Christ, of our pardon and peace with you, and of the heavenly endless joys with Christ which you have promised us, be the readiest and sweetest thoughts of our minds, and a daily cordial at our hearts, to rejoice them under all the crosses and vexations of this world, and the pains of our flesh, and the foresight of death, and to comfort us at our dying hour.

Amen