A Theology of Christian Counseling

Jay E. Adams

• Editorial: Zondervan
• Año: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780310877080
• Categoría: Theology & Religion
• Categoría: Christian Ministry

Connecting sound biblical doctrine to the practice of effective counseling.

Jay E. Adams—vocal advocate of a strictly biblical approach to counseling and author of the highly influential book Competent to Counsel —firmly believes that the Bible itself provides all the principles needed for understanding and engaging in holistic counseling.

But in order to bring the practice of counseling—whether by professional therapists or by the church—under biblical guidance, we first have to deepen our understanding of Scripture.

A Theology of Christian Counseling is the connection between solid theology (the study of God) and its practical application. Each of its sections are devoted to increasing our understanding of counseling's potential by looking at it through the lens of doctrines such as:

• Prayer (and the doctrine of God).
• Human Sin (and the doctrine of Man).
• Redemption (and the doctrine of Salvation).
• Forgiveness (and the doctrine of Sanctification).

"No counseling system that is based on some other foundation can begin to offer what Christian counseling offers…No matter what the problem is, no matter how greatly sin has abounded, the Christian counselor's stance is struck by the far-more-abounding nature of the grace of Jesus Christ in redemption. What a difference this makes in counseling!" (Jay E. Adams).

With this book, you'll gain insight into the rich theological framework that supports and directs your approach to how you help people change.

CHAPTER ONE
THE NEED FOR THEOLOGY IN COUNSELING

From the beginning, human change depended upon counseling. Man was created as a being whose very existence is derived from and dependent upon a Creator whom he must acknowledge as such and from whom he must obtain wisdom and knowledge through revelation. The purpose and meaning of his life, as well as his very existence, is derived and dependent. He can find none of this in himself. Man is not autonomous.

“In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1) says it all. Man needed God’s Word from the outset—even before the fall. His revelatory Word was necessary to understand God, creation, himself, his proper relationships to others, his place and functions in creation and his limitations.

Contrary to Carl Rogers’ views,¹ which have been accepted as the preferred counseling stance of so many ministers,² man did not come from God’s hand with all the resources that he would ever need prepackaged within. Instead of the “autonomous” being that Rogers (and his system) contemplates as the ideal end product of non-directive counseling, the Bible teaches that man was made for God (Rev. 4:11) and dependent upon Him (Acts 17:28). Man was created as a dependent being. Any attempt to transform him into an autonomous being not only constitutes rebellion against the Creator, but is bound to fail. The tragic circumstances with which counselors deal bear unmistakable traces of this sinful rebellion which from the fall onward has been the root of the bitter fruits of human chaos and misery. It is this basic rebellion—thinking we can go it alone—that lies behind, and is the occasion for, so much counseling. To offer more of the same (as do counselors who stress autonomy), therefore, is to encourage more (not fewer) problems.

Whenever people try to live on their own (whether as the outworking of the sinful propensities of their corrupted natures or as the result of following a system like Rogers’), they must fail miserably. I mean that literally: they not only fail inevitably in the course of time (they must, because they were constituted dependent creatures), but their failures bring misery upon themselves and those around them.³

Man is dependent upon his Creator and Sustainer for all that he is, has and knows. He was created for a life of joyful, grateful, dependence. It is upon the last one of these three elements, in particular, that I should like to focus attention for a few pages: human knowledge.

From the beginning, God’s Word was a necessary factor in human existence; that need did not begin with the fall. Man does not (and did not) live by bread alone; life requires a Word from the mouth of God. Without that Word, a human being has no personal ability to understand, make sense out of, or know how to use the world in which he lives. He doesn’t know the ways of living with others, and he can’t properly relate to God. As the existentialists have observed, such life is absurd.

Life without God’s Word is absurd (it is sheer vanity, as the writer of Ecclesiastes put it) because capacity for knowledge (understanding of facts, properly interpreted and related) is derived, not native to human nature. That means that from the creation on, man was made to be molded by counsel (which is the directive Word of another, given from the outside).⁴ Meaning, purpose and function depended upon this interpretive Word. General revelation (in creation) itself does not provide any such interpretation. Without God’s Word, therefore, misery was bound to follow. This was inevitable (among other things) because the universe (and man within it) would be improperly interpreted. It would appear chaotic and absurd, and human choices and decisions would be made on the basis of no solid standard. The plague of relativism would descend upon man.

Human beings were created morally and physically good. But the development of neither side of man was complete. Perfection, while admitting of no flaws, allowed for advance (e.g., eating of the tree of life with its new effects). Adam, before the fall, had not yet reached those states of perfection that are now attained (1) in the intermediate state at death,⁵ or (2) in the final state when the body as well as the spirit attains resurrected perfection.⁶

Man’s relationship to God, then, was to be a growing one. In the garden he had only begun to enter into the possibilities and potentialities of human existence. These all lay before him. Further development of knowledge, experience, etc., was anticipated in such commands as “be fruitful and multiply” and “subdue the earth.” How that first command would be followed (with all of the consequent social and political implications of the conduct of human affairs among a race), and what the subduing (or bringing under human control) of the earth would produce in the course of scientific and political activities, would depend upon the regulatory and interpretive revelation of God’s Word. Change, then, even developmental changes in a perfect man, always depended upon God’s counsel.

Man was created perfect, but that does not mean that he was ever able to live on his own. Perfection itself implies an acknowledgment of his dependence upon God’s revelation. By counsel (he didn’t decide to do it on his own) Adam named the animals. By counsel he dressed the garden. By counsel he learned of the trees in the garden and the proper use of them (as well as the possible consequences of misuse). All this came after creation, to a man who was made to be dependent on God’s counsel for all his life, and who was capable of being changed and developed by that counsel.

That is the first crucial factor to grasp at the outset: man was created in such a way that for his own good, and God’s glory, it was necessary to depend upon divine counsel and to be changed by it.

If man had obeyed God’s counsel faithfully, he would have been changed into a being possessing the eternal life that somehow inhered in (or was symbolized by) the tree of life.⁷

But something happened that led to the misery we have already mentioned: man turned from God’s counsel to heed Satan’s counsel. In doing so, Adam attempted to achieve independence of God and to assert his own autonomy. He accepted the false counsel to eat and the lie upon which it rested: “You will be like God, knowing good and evil” (knowing good and evil is an expression that means knowing everything⁸). Following false (evil) counsel plunged mankind into sin with all its miseries.

The Adamic rebellion only pointed up the futility of any such attempt at autonomy. Confusion and heartache resulted, humanity was subjected to fear, ignorance and death, and—as it turned out—man had not become autonomous at all. He had only exchanged a holy, beneficent and liberating counsel for a devilish, demonic, enslaving one. In following Satan’s counsel, he lost the freedom and capacity to do good and to follow God’s good counsel. He became a slave of sin and Satan. In opting for Satanic counsel, he once more demonstrated (in a perverted way) the very facts of his creation:

(1) he was dependent upon outside counsel;

(2) he was capable of being changed by counsel.

Only (tragically) the counsel that he chose to follow brought misery and slavery rather than the promised joy and freedom.

It is clear, then, that from Adam’s time on there have been two counsels in this world: divine counsel and devilish counsel; the two are in competition. The Bible’s position is that all counsel that is not revelational (biblical), or based upon God’s revelation, is Satanic. When counsel is given by those who align themselves with some other counsel than God’s the counsel that is given is called “the counsel of the ungodly” (Ps. 1:1). Both the counsel and those who give it are ungodly. It is ungodly (1) because it competes with and tries to overthrow God’s counsel, (2) because it is inspired by Satan and (3) because (intentionally or otherwise) it is given by those who rebelliously side with the devil. Over against such counsel (and in direct opposition to it) the psalm places God’s Word (vs. 2).

Throughout the course of human history both godly and ungodly counsel always have been present, vying for man’s acceptance. The history of individuals, families and even nations, has stemmed directly from whichever one of these two counsels was followed. There is no third counsel, as the psalm clearly indicates. There are just two ways to go: Satan’s way or God’s way. Man has no counsel that is strictly “his own.”⁹ If he rejects God’s counsel, whatever counsel he follows instead turns out to be Satan’s counsel. Man was made to follow another’s counsel; he will do so. He cannot throw off his dependency. Knowingly or unwittingly he always depends upon Satan or God. He was made to be motivated and molded by counsel.

At the beginning, man walked and talked with God in the cool of the day. Doubtless, God counseled him at such times. The pre-fall fellowship was unbroken and entirely open, and the counsel consisted of positive, good, beneficial revelation calculated to develop man’s full potential. As he was growing under such counsel, he began to grasp something of the potential of language to bring about order and to express concepts. He saw this in his classification of the animals. He experienced something of the joys of the satisfaction and fulfillment of work as he kept the garden according to God’s instructions. He tasted the sweet fruit of understanding and fellowship as he talked with God and communicated with his wife Eve. He discovered that God’s counsel was clear, uncomplicated and plain: “eat from all the trees but one.” In singularly unmistakable words, God identified and labeled the forbidden tree, “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” He even located it for Adam: “[It] is in the middle of the garden.” And with equal clarity and explicitness He warned, “Don’t eat from it or the very day that you do you will die.” This counsel was necessary for man’s well being. He was dependent upon it and was held responsible for obeying it. Man was a responsible being. It was God’s counsel, true and plain; therefore it was good.

In contrast to God’s counsel—a counsel that was simple, plain, true and beneficent—Satan introduced a counsel that complicated, confused and contorted God’s truth. The third chapter of Genesis tells the sad story.

The first question in history was asked by Satan: “Has God said…?” (vs. 1). By this question, Satan attacked God’s Word, i.e., God’s good counsel. “Perhaps His counsel is not so simple, so plain or so beneficent as it seems,” he intimated. The initial question, however, did not constitute a direct attack upon God’s revelation; Satan is much too subtle to do that. Instead, to begin with, he merely cast doubt upon God’s counsel. He questioned God’s Word and His plain intentions. He has never ceased doing so. Ever since, the method has proved effective.

Having sown seeds of doubt¹⁰ about God’s Word by questioning it, Satan did not hesitate to continue by distorting it. He misstated God’s command: “Has God said that you may not eat from every tree of the garden” (vs. 1)? This corruption of truth (typical of the way that Satan throughout history has continued to distort God’s truth through his willing servants) was intended both to confuse and to challenge God’s gracious gift of all the trees but one. What once had been plain and simple, he now tried to confuse and complicate. Eve’s response seems to indicate that she was not totally taken in by this approach, but possibly also reveals that she was sufficiently influenced to the point where she altered the commandment by adding the words, “neither shall you touch it.”¹¹

Finally, because he had made inroads by doubt and distortion, Satan was able to attack God’s counsel directly. At this point he turns to his last ruse: outright denial. That a progression is intended is almost certain.¹² Satan’s assertions that eating would not produce death, and that God forbade eating because He did not want man to be like Him (i.e., autonomous, free of dependence upon God for knowledge and counsel) amounted to calling God a liar and a cheat and attributed bad motives to Him. These three attacks—doubt, distortion and denial—were designed to lead to distrust. Satan’s object was to create distrust in God’s Word.

Through the years the situation has not changed appreciatively. Basically, Satan always has concentrated upon this progression as his principal tactic—with great effectiveness. And as you can see, the attack has been upon God’s Word.

In counseling, this fact has been more than evident; it has been glaring. Within the church the sufficiency of Scripture (God’s written Word) has been challenged. Distrust in God’s way, His verity, etc., has been propagated by those who have set up rival systems offering different counsel (still) purporting to open men’s eyes in one way or another, and still offering autonomy. Satan’s approach has not varied; nor has his success in duping the sons of Adam.

The church, throughout the years, like Adam and Eve, either has been deceived by Satan’s counsel or has found itself in conflict with it. There is no neutral ground. Compromise or conflict are the only two alternatives. We are (hopefully) now beginning to emerge from an era of compromise. Hence the present need for conflict with the counsel of the ungodly. For a long time Satan’s deceitful counsel has prevailed in the church; only during the 70s has a successful challenge been mounted.

Now, at such turning points it is not unusual to discover Christians who unwittingly continue to side with the enemy, and who fight against their brothers when they try to defend and promote the cause of God’s truth in counseling. Frequently this results from good motives, wrongly directed. Yet, their influence is tragic. They not only set back helpful counsel, but confuse many who are in transition. Still, it is not the persons, as persons, whom we must challenge, but their teachings. In bringing such a challenge to the church’s sad compromise with the competition, it is time to proclaim the relevance of the first psalm, with its plain contrast between the counsel of the ungodly and the counsel of God’s Word. Let us look at verse 1.

The tragedy set forth in that psalm again appears in the progression of compromise with evil (Satan’s old tactic, gradual defection from God’s truth, is plainly marked out). First, the compromiser “walks” in the “counsel” of the ungodly. That is to say, he begins to listen to pagan advice and counsel. He approves of falsehood, mistaking it for truth; he begins to confuse and intermix the two. He defends error, calling it truth. “All truth is God’s truth,” he declares. Soon he is found “standing” in the “way” of sinners. Intellectually accepting Satanic counsel leads to living according to it. This is sin; he takes the sinful way. He is seen standing in the path of sinners, believing what they believe, doing what they do, saying what they say.¹³ At length, he is a leader of those who scoff at biblical truth; he “sits” in the seat of the “scornful.”

There are Christians today who are so caught up in the views and practices of unbelievers that in their writings they spend more time attacking those who attempt to set forth biblical positions that those who oppose them. They often go to great lengths to defend ungodly counsel.¹⁴

This might seem incredible if we did not understand how it comes about. The progression of compromise tells us. No Christian sets out to pervert and deny God’s truth; the process is gradual. It happens in stages, not all at once. That is the warning of Psalm 1. Such compromise with ungodly counsel, therefore, can happen both to counselors and (sadly) to those who are counseled by them.¹⁵

It is important to note that neither Genesis 3 nor Psalm 1 leaves any room for a third, neutral counsel. One of Satan’s ruses (as an angel of light) is to convince those who claim theological sophistication to accept error under the slogan, “All truth is God’s truth.” Under that banner nearly every error in the book has been blamed on God!

Of course all truth is God’s truth. But there is only one touchstone for determining whether a given statement claiming to be true is, indeed true: Does it square with God’s standard for truth—the Bible?

And, when compromisers talk about all truth as God’s truth, they call it “common grace.” They abuse this concept too. They mean by such use that God revealed truth through Rogers, Freud, Skinner, etc. God does, of course, restrain sin, allow people to discover facts about His c...

Índice

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER ONE THE NEED FOR THEOLOGY IN COUNSELING
• CHAPTER TWO THEOLOGY AND COUNSELING
• CHAPTER THREE COUNSELING AND SPECIAL REVELATION: THE DOCTRINE OF THE SCRIPTURES
• CHAPTER FOUR COUNSELING AND MAN’S BASIC ENVIRONMENT: THE DOCTRINE OF GOD
• CHAPTER FIVE GOD’S NAME AND COUNSELING (The Doctrine of God, Continued)
• CHAPTER SIX COUNSELING AND PRAYER (The Doctrine of God, Continued)
• CHAPTER SEVEN COUNSELING AND THE TRINITY (The Doctrine of God, Continued)
• CHAPTER EIGHT COUNSELING AND HUMAN LIFE: THE DOCTRINE OF MAN
• CHAPTER NINE COUNSELING AND HUMAN SIN (The Doctrine of Man, Continued)
• CHAPTER TEN COUNSELING AND HABIT (The Doctrine of Man, Continued)
• CHAPTER ELEVEN HOW SIN AFFECTS THINKING (The Doctrine of Man, Continued)
• CHAPTER TWELVE MORE THAN REDEMPTION: THE DOCTRINE OF SALVATION
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN FORGIVENESS IN COUNSELING (The Doctrine of Salvation, Continued)
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN COUNSELING AND THE NEWNESS OF LIFE: THE DOCTRINE OF SANCTIFICATION
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN COUNSELING AND THE SPIRIT’S FRUIT (The Doctrine of Sanctification, Continued)
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN COUNSELING AND RADICAL AMPUTATION (The Doctrine of Sanctification, Continued)
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN COUNSELING AND PERSEVERANCE (The Doctrine of Sanctification, Continued)
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN COUNSELING AND SUFFERING (The Doctrine of Sanctification, Continued)
• CHAPTER NINETEEN COUNSELING AND THE CHURCH: THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
• CHAPTER TWENTY COUNSELING NEW CONVERTS (The Doctrine of the Church, Continued)
• CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE COUNSELING AND CHURCH DISCIPLINE (The Doctrine of the Church, Continued)
• CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO COUNSELING AND WORKS OF MERCY (The Doctrine of the Church, Continued)
• CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE COUNSELING, DEATH AND DYING: THE DOCTRINE OF THE FUTURE
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR COUNSELING AND JUDGMENT (The Doctrine of the Future Continued)
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE CONCLUSION
• APPENDIX A WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU COUNSEL AN UNBELIEVER
• Resources by Jay E. Adams
• Copyright
• About the Publisher