Is God sovereign in the act of salvation?  Or can we “make a decision” and control the act of salvation?  One of the subjects we are discussing in our Theology class is something called “natural theology”.  This is the idea that a person can understand and know God by his or her own reasoning processes.  But the bible is clear that “no one can understand the things of God unless the Spirit of God lives in him”(1 Corinthians 2:14).  Someone is saved when the gospel is presented and God grants repentance and faith(2 Timothy 2:25, Ephesians 2:8-9).  This is not something we can conjure up and those who go for this make themselves the determining factor in the process.  So if this is true, God is not sovereign in this process, which is absurd.

Salvation is from the Lord(Jonah 2:9).  People are “born(again), not of blood nor the will of the flesh(a decision) nor of the will of man, BUT OF GOD”(John1:13).  We are not saved by baptism or by making a decision.  God saves  us according to His perfect will.  So let’s get out there and share the gospel, and let God do what He does in saving the lost.

We went door to door around our church on Saturday.  Most of the folks around there are Christians, which was nice, but we never got to share the gospel.  We will go out again soon to see if there are some pagan households around ;).  It was different when we were living in Illinois.  We did some door to door evangelism and most everyone did not go to church or did not even claim to be a Christian.  We will see.

I have been participating in a thread of discussion online about the subject of law and grace.  It was nice to revisit the subject and write about it.  The body of the post is as follows..

God opposes the proud, but give grace to the humble(James 4:6). 

 When the rich young ruler (Matt 19)asked what is required to obtain eternal life, Jesus gave him the commandments.  When the rich young ruler was not humbled under them, Jesus did not give him grace, and he went away sad. 

When the woman at the well(John 4) admitted she had many husbands and was living with the present one, Jesus gave her grace.  The law was presented in the fact of her committing adultery, and she did not deny it. 

A lawyer stood up(Luke 10:24) and asked Jesus what was necessary to obtain eternal life.  Jesus said, “what is written in the law”?  Jesus did not give grace because the law did not humble him. In fact, he tried to justify himself in saying; “who is my neighbor”?

As Johnny Mac preached about 4 things the law does…….  first 2 go like this…..    http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/90-304

 Number one, the Law reveals sin   ..  So, for effective evangelism, preaching, teaching, personal witnessing, to be effective you must bring people under the tyranny of the Law. What leads to true salvation is an understanding of the absolute righteousness of God, the utter holiness of God, the Law of God expresses His perfect righteousness and His holiness and puts a demand on every soul that if you break this Law in one place, you’re damned. Where’s that message today? What leads to true salvation is an overpowering, frightening sense of the implications of breaking the Law. Truth about righteousness and holiness and sin and judgment is what awakens the slumbering sinner. You can’t just go to people sitting out there thinking they’re pretty good and say, “By the way, Jesus would like to come into your life and make you happy.” That’s an absurd approach. Long before you talk about what Jesus is prepared to do for the sinner, you’ve got to talk about the sinners situation

George Whitfield called preachers to wound deeply before they heal. He even said, “Lord, pardon me for giving comfort too soon.” Spurgeon wrote, “Sometimes we are inclined to think that a great portion of modern revivalism has been more a curse than a blessing.” Spurgeon. “Because it has led thousands to a kind of peace before they have known their misery, restoring the prodigal to the father’s love and never making him say, ‘Father, I have sinned.’ Unhumbled, they came into the church, unhumbled they remain in it, and unhumbled they go from it.” Gospel without Law produces faith without repentance. Where Christianity is nominal, the Law must be preached. Nothing is more important in this contemporary culture than quote/unquote evangelicalism, whatever in the world that means. Nothing is more important than to preach the Law.

Secondly, the Law aggravates sin.

Nothing wrong with the Law. The Law reveals what sinners we really are. The Law actually agitates, activates, exacerbates, aggravates sin everywhere. This is a good work because this is what drives us to salvation and the pursuit of sanctification

Law to the proud and grace to the humble.

We were talking last night in class about the fact of Jesus being fully God and fully man.  It got me thinking about how this can be and an earlier discussion on “kenosis”, or the self emptying of Christ(Philippians 2:7).  If you think about it, how is it that God Himself in the flesh,  can live as a man on this earth.  Crazy stuff, but necessary to be a perfect sacrifice for our sins.  But how does this happen?  Kenosis is best described as, ”a voluntary act, consisted in the surrender of the independent exercise of the divine attributes”.   All of these words are important and necessary, and this description has been debated for a long time and all the smart guys have agreed that it is correct. 

•  You have a divine person in the fullest sense of the word and He remains fully divine throughout eternity past, the incarnation, and eternity future. This fits best with the phrase that He is the “same yesterday, today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)
•  You have a man who was perfect. He was a man of like nature that was tested and tempted in like manner as we(Hebrews 4:15). He was fully relying upon the Holy Spirit for His strength. 
• You have the perfect union of both divine and human. He was just as much God as if He had never been man and He was just as much man as if He had never been God.

 As we are studying the history of the church and the ongoing disagreements about this, as it has been an issue with the church for a long time.  The early church especially had an issue with this and the Arian heresy became a big thing in the 4 and 5 century.  Constantine even conveined the Council of Nicaea to address this issue in 325.  Even after condemning the Arian heresy, it would not go away and even became stronger as Constantine was sympathetic of it.  But the following Council of  Contantinople in 381 finally put an end to it.  This idea of Jesus not really being God incarnate, or that He only had the “spirit of God” which was with Him in between His birth and crucifixion, was popular then, as it is still around today.  Those who deny the incarnation of Jesus and the fact of Him being fully God and fully man are probably not saved in the first place.  God Himself is the only one who can be a perfect sacrifice for our sins. 

Anyway, just something to chew on.

                  Proverbs 17:15……  He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous,

   Both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.

   I have been thinking a lot about this passage lately.   How is it that God can justify the wicked(us) through faith (Romans 3:22), and still be just? 

   How can we be seen as righteous before a just and holy God?  It is clear that those who are unrighteous will not see the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9).  Being justified means that we are declared righteous.  It is a legal term that describes how a just God can declare a sinner perfectly righteous before Him.  God forgives, but also justifies.  To forgive means that someone must accept the cost of an offense.  If you were to visit a friend and break a lamp that he has at the house, he can forgive you, but that means that he must absorb the cost of a new lamp.  The cost of the offense does not disappear into the air.  Someone must bear the responsibility of paying for the offense done.  But God does more than forgive us, He DECLARES US RIGHTEOUS through faith in Him.  As believers, we are seen by God as perfect and never having any offense before Him.  Jesus Christ, who was perfect and righteous, became sin for us(2 Corinthians 5:21), so that we can become the righteousness of God.  As believers, we are seen by God as perfect before Him through the substitutional atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross, who bore our sins and took upon Himself the penalty of death that we deserved.  He satisfied the righteous and just wrath of God for our sins, and thus God can be just and the justifier in our salvation. 

God would be still good and just if He never saved anyone.  Our sin is so vile before Him that we deserve hell.  We have offended Him and who He is, by our sin.  But because of His mercy and grace, we can still be saved.  It is because of Him and not us.  It is by grace we are saved through faith, and this is not of ourselves but a gift of God, and not by works, so no one may boast(Ephesians 2:8-9).  God is holy and righteous and He hates all those who sin (Psalms 5:5).  Christ died on the cross to save you from God Himself.  His holy, righteous and just wrath was appeased(propitiation, Romans 3:25) on the cross so His righteousness and justice be displayed. This is not about us, but about Him.  It is all from Him, through Him and to Him (Romans 11:36).    As Paul says in Ephesians 1:6, “to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in  the Beloved”.   Glory be to God.

One of the frustrating things I see when out sharing the gospel is the amount of people who consider themselves to be Christians, but deny the authority of the bible.  They are everywhere in this town(Colorado Springs) that some people call the Vatican of Christianity.  Even the huge church down the street that we have visited once or twice has Rob Bell’s videos in the bookstore.  This emergent nonsense is everywhere in the Christian community here in town and those who listen to this stuff are totally at odds with the gospel.  When talking to them, they discard the bible entirely and say that all road lead to heaven, God is not a God of judgment, God is love, Christians have a bad history of violence, no one can understand the bible, if Jesus died on the cross then God is a child abuser…….and on and on and on.

Thus the words of H. Richard Hiebuhr ring so true….

A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of Christ without a cross.

A critique of Brian McLaren’s new book (McLaren is one of the Emergent spokesman) ends with this summary…

In McLarenism there is no original sin, no wrath, no hell, no creation-fallredemption,
no definite future, no second coming that I can see, no clear statement on the deity of
Christ, no mention of vicarious substitution or God’s holiness or divine sovereignty, no ethical
demands except as they relate to being kind to others, no God-offendedness, no doctrine of
justification, no unchanging apostolic deposit of truth, no absolute submission to the word of God, nary a mention of faith and worship, no doctrine of regeneration, no evangelistic impulse to save the lost, and nothing about God’s passion for his glory.

I see this all the time.  And those who live out this social gospel agenda use it to promote the liberal mindset in everything including politics.  Now I do see a lot of bible believers using that position to defend their conservative agenda too.   Because of this, I stay far away from political stuff any more.  We are but a “vapor, that exists for a little while and vanishes”, James 4:14.  My goal is to proclaim the gospel and to glorify God. Eternity is going to last for a long time.  Once someone is saved, God will work out the details, so I need to just be faithful in focusing on Him and His glory.

As some of you are aware, I am currently getting my Masters Degree in Biblical Studies at the Front Range Bible Institute here in Colorado Springs.  For my New Testament Survey class, I had to write a short thesis on Romans 7:13-25.  Here it is. 

            In this paper, I will be defining the main theme of Romans 7:13-25 and will support why I believe it to be so.  This will be accompanied by other required points, such as the biggest phrase, context of the passage, whether the author is speaking of salvation or sanctification issues, and what the text is trying to convey to the reader. 

            This portion of Romans 7 could be interpreted as the life of a non-believer due to the references of the author, Paul, not being able to stop being a sinner.  This argument can also be supported by references to the previous chapter in Romans that describes a Christian as someone who is not a slave to sin anymore.  But in reading the passage, it is clear that Paul is talking of himself in present tense, so this must be the life of a Christian in general, and particularly in the life of Paul, the author.  In other words, there is nothing in this passage that says this struggle with sin is only reserved for Paul in particular, so we can assume it is relevant for all Christians.

            So after making the point that all Christians sin, Paul laments the fact that he still practices the sin he doesn’t want to do and doesn’t do what he knows is right (v19).  This struggle is more clearly defined as the sin still present in his flesh, or the sinful nature still around from his pre Christian days, and the law of God in his mind now that he is a Christian(v25).  The struggle against sin is described here as a battle that wages war in our body and lives.  This is particularly applicable to the Christian reader as we understand the battle within us.  The fact of sin still being present is not necessarily a bad thing as we battle against it.   For if we consider ourselves to be a Christian, we are aware of the battle and consider it a worthy battle and one that confirms that we are indeed, saved. This fact is necessary to know for those who do not have this battle, for if we do not have this war within us, then our salvation is in doubt.    The battle with sin is something that we, along with Paul, can know as a Christian and say, “thanks be to God”(v25)!   For we understand that before we were Christians, we were slaves to sin, and now we have victory through Jesus Christ. 

            This brings me to the defining phrase of this portion of scripture.  This phrase can be found in verse 13 as something that made Paul see his sin as “utterly sinful”.  In the preceding verse, Paul talks of the Law of God being holy, righteous and good, and the catalyst God uses to make him understand the enormity of it.    As the most important phrase goes, “so through the commandment, sin became “utterly sinful”.  For it seems that until Paul, and everyone who is not a Christian, was confronted with the Law of God, he was ignorant of what sin really was in his life.  The life we have before Christ is described as a “body of death”(v24), of which a dead body is not one able to respond to God.  In fact, Paul said that he would not even known what sin was if the Law of God was not presented to him(v7:7).  But when the Law was presented to him, he “became alive to his sin”(V7:9) and that part of him died.  So Paul was ignorant of his sin and also a slave to it and not even knowing it.  The Law of God is thus described as good in this sense that it “makes us alive” to our sin and makes it “utterly sinful”.  Until then, we blindly go on our way thinking we are not that bad in our eyes, or the eyes of God (if there is one, Romans 3).  But the Law of God is written on our hearts, our conscience bears witness(Romans 2:15), and what the Law says, it says to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed, and the whole world become accountable to God(Romans 3:19).  The Law of God is necessary to show the unbeliever what sin is.  Once the goodness of God and His law is presented, the depravity of our sin can be fully understood.  And as Paul says in Romans 3, until we are Christians, no one understands and no one is good.  This process is described in verse 13 as, “sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good”.  Paul concludes that through this, “sin became utterly sinful”. 

                     Once sin is exposed for what it is, and an unbeliever is brought to salvation, the process of sanctification starts.  The war we fight against our flesh is a necessary battle and a good one to confirm our salvation and to trust in the grace of God to fight.  But the presence of sin is still around in our lives and something we must battle.  In fact, our old sinful life is compared to an old bad marriage in our past.  But once our old spouse of sin was dead, when we were saved, then we can live for God instead of living in the past of that deadly marriage.  But even though we are not bound to that spouse of sin anymore, we can still live like we are, and that is where we must fight.  We are not bound to it anymore and now must live for God.  For as it is described in v7:3-4, “So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.  Therefore, my brethren, you also were  made to die to the Law  through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God”.

                     So the Christian reader can identify with Paul in the struggles that we all have in the battle with our old sinful nature.  This is not necessarily a bad thing as our struggle confirms the fact that we are Christians and we can be reminded of the gospel and the power of God through Jesus Christ.  We can even say, “thanks be to God” for it!  For now we can understand the process of the Law of God that is holy, righteous and good and that it that awakens us to our sin.  

                     Our evangelistic response to the unsaved world is this. Even though we are not perfect, our lives are becoming more like Christ as we grow in holiness and righteousness.  We do this not to be saved, but because we are.   We are not slaves to sin anymore and are now truly alive to live for God and not our lusts.  The Law of God is a wonderful thing, not that it saves us, but because it makes sin alive to us and we can be delivered from it and be saved.  So we should be living lives of growing holiness and using the Law of God to confront unbelievers so that they may be “made alive to his sin” and be saved.    

From CS Lewis….

If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (The Weight of Glory, 26)

This gospel presentation is great!  Isn’t it true that you can take your life to understand, but is still something a child can present and a child can understand.

I am reading a book by Will Metzger, called, Tell the Truth.  In it he quotes Tozer on the subject of the “me centered” evangelism out there that does not focus on opposition to sinful human nature.  Tozer calls it, “the new cross”. 

How many times have I heard “gospel” presentation saying just “accept” God or “confess” Him?  Then the false convert can go on his way thinking he is saved and be innoculated against the real thing.  The unbeliever should not be concerned about accepting God, but be concerned about Him “accepting” him!!!

The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him.  It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self respect.  To the self assertive, it says”come and assert yourself for Christ”.  To the egoist it says, “come and do your boasting for the Lord”.  To the thrill seeker it says, “come and enjoy the thrill of the abundant Christian life”.  The idea behind the kind of thing may be sincere, bu ti sincerity does not save it from being false.  It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross.  The cross is a symbol of death.  it stand for the abrupt, violent end of a person.  God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him to newnesss of life.  The corn must fall into the ground and die.  God then bestows life, but not an improved old life.  Whoever would posess it must pass under the rod.  He must repudiate himself and concur in God’s just sentence against him.  How can this theology be translated in life?  Simply, the non-Christian must repent and believe.  He must forsake his sins and then go on to forsake himself.  Let him cover nothing, defend nothing, excuse nothing.  Let him not seek to make terms with God, but let him bow his head before the stroke of God’s stern displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die.  Tozer, The Old Cross and the New, (Harrisburg, PA Christian Publications).