Impossible Christianity

Kevin DeYoung

Reviewed by: W. Reid Hankins

Impossible Christianity, by Kevin DeYoung. Crossway, 2023. Hardcover, 160 pages, $19.99. Reviewed by OP pastor W. Reid Hankins.

Kevin DeYoung wrote Impossible Christianity to address a common temptation: making the Christian life so difficult that one is constantly mired in guilt or doubting one’s salvation. The problem, he argues, is incorrectly interpreting biblical standards of godliness as something completely unattainable, or adding things to the standards that are actually impossible to fulfill. DeYoung emphatically affirms justification by faith alone, yet critiques the well-intentioned sentiment, “God loves us even though we are spiritual failures,” as something that is “unbiblical, inaccurate, and unhelpful” (6). While admitting that the Christian cannot have “perfect obedience” in this life, the book instead makes a nuanced case for a “true obedience,” by which the ordinary Christian may live a life pleasing to God. Each chapter sets forth an aspect of what DeYoung calls an “impossible Christianity.”

An impossible Christianity undermines the biblical category of subjective assurance—how can one evaluate one’s life for fruit of the Spirit if one believes such is unattainable?

An impossible Christianity takes the proper rejection of perfectionism and incorrectly applies it to make Christians feel like they can never do enough to please God. Personal times of devotion and efforts at evangelism are common examples where a Christian might be tempted to think that they can never satisfy God.

An impossible Christianity can make someone think that unless they have given up all their riches to live a life of poverty, they cannot please God.

An impossible Christianity can make someone feel perpetually guilty, especially when it comes to all the world’s problems. Contemporary culture has contributed to this by blaming people for problems they haven’t personally created and can’t possibly solve.

An impossible Christianity takes biblical commands, such as those found in the Sermon on the Mount, and makes them to be an unattainable standard, so that they don’t serve their God-given intention to guide in godliness, but simply expose one’s ongoing failures and keep one feeling guilty.

An impossible Christianity effectively makes the Christian life only about our justification, since it doesn’t believe Christians can actually live holy lives pleasing to God. In contrast, biblical Christianity teaches that through God’s work of sanctification, Christians can live a life that is pleasing to God, even though none will do so perfectly.

An impossible Christianity has unrealistic demands for everyone to live some extraordinary life that accomplishes grandiose things, while biblical Christianity commends a quiet life through an ordinary calling lived in faithfulness to God.

God’s law has both pedagogical and normative uses. In the pedagogical use, it is the impossibility of keeping God’s law that drives us to find justification by grace in Christ. But in the normative use, born-again Christians are enabled to truly use the law as a guide for Christian living. While DeYoung affirms the pedagogical use, his strong emphasis on the normative use might cause readers to miss that when studying God’s law both uses are simultaneously there.

In conclusion, DeYoung shows a shepherd’s heart to counsel those who have become exasperated with Christianity for the wrong reasons. His book is a helpful reminder of the possibility of the ordinary Christian life.