Ask almost anyone, especially in America, whether or not mans will is free and most likely they will tell you "yes, of course." This is no less true, and perhaps even more true, when it comes to the majority of Christian "evangelicals." Let me pause a moment to ask you this same question. Is the human will "free?" Some Christians seem to think that this belief in human "free will" is crucial to the gospel message. The reformed position (that which I hold to) would argue quite the opposite.
Good questions to ask at the beginning of this discussion might be, "Where does the belief in human free will come from?" And "Is it in accordance with Biblical teaching?"
To answer these questions up front I would say:
1.) This belief stems from apparent truth rather than actual truth.
and,
2.) Depending on what you mean by "free will" it may or may not be Biblical.
Let me start with question one and give a little more depth to my simplistic answer. People tend to believe in free will because it appears to be true. For instance, if you are hungry, you decide whether or not you are going to go to Applebees or Pizza Hut. It's your decision... right! It certainly seems so. If you are faced with a decision between doing what is moral and what is sinful, it's up to you, right?
In some sense, this is absolutely true. I think we are Scripturally safe in saying that we as human beings are not forced to do anything against our will. We do that which we most want to do. However, does this necessarily mean that our will is truly free?
As Christians we must submit to the teaching of Scripture. So what does the Bible have to say about the issue of mans will?
While we do not have a specific discourse, persay, on the issue of human will in the Bible, that is not to say that the Bible doesn't reveal the state of the human will.
Consider with me if you will Pharaoh, king of Egypt in the exodus account. I've been reading this account recently once again and something I find interesting is the "hardening" of Pharaoh's heart. Sometimes it very clearly says that "God hardened Pharaoh's heart" and other times it says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. How should we understand this?
I suggest that we should understand this to mean that Pharaoh, a sinful man who did not fear God, did that which he most wanted to do. He hardened his heart. We could, as many theologians foolishly try and do, simply leave it at that. But what then does it mean when it says that God hardened Pharaohs heart? It's nonsense to say that God hardened Pharaoh's heart because Pharaoh chose to have a hardened heart. This is especially nonsense in light of the following passage:
Exodus 9:16-17
"But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth. 17 You are still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go."
God says that He raised Pharaoh up for the purpose of showing His power, so that His name would be proclaimed in all the earth, and yet God says that Pharaoh is exalting himself against God's people. So we see that God made Pharaoh for the purpose of making an example of him and yet He doesn't have to force Pharaoh to do evil, He does it of his own desire. But clearly it is the will of God that Pharaoh's heart be hardened, and it is God who initiates this hardening, not the other way around.
Romans 9:18 adds to this discussion "So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills." It is God's choice to harden hearts and to show mercy.
So though Pharaoh did that which he most desired to do, could he have done anything else? No, he couldn't have because he was doing what the LORD willed him to do, although God did not have to force Pharaoh. Interesting, is it not? And lest we think this is an isolated case, here is another prime example: Judas Iscariot.
Have you ever thought to yourself, "What if Judas hadn't betrayed Jesus?" What a thought. If he had not done so Christ would not have died on our behalf becoming sin for us on the cross and propitiating our sins. We'd be in some trouble to say the least. But could Judas have not betrayed Jesus? No, he had to.
As Jesus said in John 17:12 in His high priestly prayer for his disciples "While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled."
Judas had to do what he did for the Scriptures to be fulfilled. Consider Acts 2:23 in Peters sermon at Pentecost when he says "this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men." Clearly the plan of God was for Jesus to be crucified, but it was done by the hands of lawless men doing lawless deeds. They were not compulsed by God, they did as they desired to do, yet according to God's "definite plan", according to the will of God.
Some will surely say, "Perhaps God does this with certain people, but not all." Can this be true? Look at Ephesians 1:11.
"In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will."
It seems that the Scripture teaches that God "works all things according to the counsel of His will." This is pretty inclusive I would say. When you put this together with verses like Daniel 4:35,
"all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, "What have you done?"
And Proverbs 16:33
"The lot is cast into the lap,but its every decision is from the LORD."
There are many more verses we could look at that carry similar idea's about God's total sovereignty over all creation and yes even the will of man. It is clear that mans will is subject to God's will, and yet in practice we see only what we desire to do, giving the appearance of "free will."
There is more to consider on this subject as well concerning issues such as being enslaved to sin. When Romans 3:10-12 says "10as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; 11no one understands; no one seeks for God.12All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." Can we really say that our will is free when we are so in bondage to sin that we cannot even "seek for God" or do "good" in the sight of God?
Then the other side of the coin is that even when we become Christians, we become slaves to Christ. The Spirit of God comes into our life and influences (to say the least) what we do. And as Paul speaks of, even then we struggle between our old nature that we have died to in Christ and our new nature that we have received by the Spirit of God through faith in Christ.
Romans 7:15-20,
"15For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me."
So it seems that our will is not so free after all. In fact it seems that our will is subject ultimately to God's will, and below that it is subject to the effects of sin for both non Christians and Christians fighting their old nature.
Clearly if God allowed true "free will" and allowed us always to do that which we would do on our own, no one would ever choose Christ and be saved because all have sinned (Rom 3:23) and due to that sin "no one seeks for God" (Rom 3:10-12).
It would seem that the belief in human free will is indeed a great Christian myth based on a faulty understanding of the things we perceive and the decisions we make appearing to be freely made. There is much more that could be said on this subject, but it is clear that the human will is not free, at least not in the sense that most people mean when they use such terminology.
Serving Christ,
Jacob Allee
Showing posts with label The Sovereignty of God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Sovereignty of God. Show all posts
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
God's Sovereignty in Salvation: PART 4
Forgive the references to chapters, I wrote this section as it will appear in my book that I am writing, or at least the first rough draft. Most of the chapters I refer to are part of this series or the series on God's Sovereignty over all things as well as the issue of God's will versus man's will. Enjoy.
Irresistible Grace
We have already seen the clear biblical teaching that people are hopelessly lost in sin and unable to save themselves (Total Depravity), and that they need God to choose them or they have no hope, and God’s choice to save certain sinners is not based upon the sinners own actions (Unconditional Election), and we have seen that Christ specifically laid down His life not for all people, but specifically for the elect, those whom He has chosen to save (Limited Atonement). Now we come to the fourth doctrine in the doctrines of grace, most usually called "Irresistible Grace."
Irresistible Grace can be defined in this way:
"All who the Father draws to Himself will come to Him. When the gospel is presented, an invitation is issued from the Lord for all people to come, but due to the sinful state of man, man is rendered incapable of response. However as for those who are elect, God sends His Spirit to them and changes their heart, breaks the power of sin and reveals to that elect person their need for Christ as Lord and Savior. When the Spirit opens their heart, they respond in faith and by God’s grace the sinner receives salvation. The work of the Spirit irresistibly draws the elect sinner to Christ, making them willing to trust in Him."
To put this simply and bluntly, if God chooses to save someone, He is going to save them, and there is no way the sinner can resist His work in their life. The idea of this once again takes us back to our study of the sovereignty of God as well as our will and whether or not it is truly free.
First of all, remember in our study of God’s sovereignty that we concluded that God is completely in control of all things and therefore he does all things according to the council of His will (Eph. 1:11). In other words, everything that takes place does so because God wills it to be that way. Therefore if it is God’s will that a sinner should come to know Him, that is indeed exactly what will take place, or if God should will to leave a sinner to his condemnation, so that will be "...For who can resist His will?" (Romans 9:19). Everything that happens does so according to the will of God.
As we have already discussed in chapter 3, man’s will is not truly free. Man’s will is enslaved. The will of man is either enslaved to sin and does it’s bidding or enslaved to God and does His. Every man is born into sin and enslaved to sin. We all grow up and sin continually and love to do the sinful things we do. We will never choose God on our own because we are enslaved to sin, and we don’t desire or seek after God (Rom. 3:10-12). Therefore as we discussed in chapter 4 God has to actively save sinners because they will never turn to Him on their own. Hopefully if you’ve read carefully the preceding chapters you will agree that this is the case. The question now is "how does God bring this about?"
The Regeneration of the Holy Spirit
Clearly man will never choose God in the state that he naturally exists, enslaved to sin. Therefore God must change the very nature of man in order to bring about faith in the heart of the sinner. Ephesians 2:8-9 says:
"8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
It is by God’s grace that we are given faith which is the vehicle of salvation. All of which is completely "the gift of God" and in no way anything we can do within ourselves. Salvation is a sovereign act of God where He actually makes us a new creation that is capable of faith. In man’s natural state, he is spiritually dead because of sin. This was primarily the kind of death God warned Adam would take place if he ate of the tree in the midst of the garden. But when Adam and Eve rebelled against God and ate of the fruit which they were commanded not to eat, they died that day, not physically but spiritually. And because of that each person born since then has been born spiritually dead.
In Ezekiel 37:1-10 we are given a wonderful illustration of God taking what is dead and giving it life.
"1The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. 2And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. 3And he said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" And I answered, "O Lord GOD, you know." 4Then he said to me, "Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. 5Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD." 7So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. 9Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live." 10So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army."
While this passage is clearly speaking of the nation of Israel who had largely turned aside from following God, there is nonetheless great significance in this passage as to how God gives life to dead things. We humans are born spiritually as dead as that valley of dried bones. Incapable of doing anything. Only God could make those dry bones come to life. It would be utterly ridiculous to think that those dry bones could make themselves come to life.
A man I admire very much named Dr. James White gives a similar illustration when talking about this issue. He speaks of cadavers (dead bodies) in the morgue and how lifeless they are. You can poke at them, remove their insides, do whatever you want to them and they will not resist. Why? Because they are dead, they cannot resist. This is exactly how man is in the spiritual sense. You can poke and prod people with the gospel, but they will not respond. They wont because they can’t. They are spiritually dead.
Clearly that which is dead is incapable of doing anything, therefore in order for a person to be able to respond to the gospel they must be made alive. Who can make dry bones live? Only God. Look also at Ezekiel 36:26-27,
"26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules."
You see that Scripture teaches that God radically changes man, giving him a new heart, spirit and giving him even His own Spirit. Just as powerfully as God once breathed life into man when He first created him, so God puts life into the spiritually dead. 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 says,
"17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation"
So then we see that those who are in Christ are only in Christ because God has made them "a new creation." As they were naturally they could not be in Christ because they were spiritually dead, but God literally made them a new person, with a new heart and a new spirit and His own Spirit. It is the Spirit of God that makes man new or "regenerated" as theologians often call it, that enables man to respond in the faith that God gives him. The Spirit frees us from our slavery to sin and makes us able to trust in the gospel of Christ. 2 Corinthians 3:14-18 says,
"14But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. 15Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. 16But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."
The hearts of man are veiled from the truth of God until the Spirit enters into that persons heart and frees them from the darkness of sin. The Spirit unveils the heart of sinful man to see his need for Jesus Christ to save him. It is the regenerating work of the Spirit that allows man to come to Christ in faith. But can anyone whom the Spirit regenerates refuse to come to Christ? No.
All Who Are Drawn (Regenerated) Will Come
Many have tried to say that the Spirit works in everyone’s life and that the Father draws all people to Himself. They claim that man can merely reject God’s drawing of them to Himself. But is this biblical? I will show that it is not. Look at John 6:44,
"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day."
This verse was already used to demonstrate that man is incapable of coming to God unless he is first drawn by Him. We discussed that aspect chapter 3 on Unconditional Election. But furthermore the verse clearly states that those whom the Father draws, Jesus will raise up on the last day. This makes the correlation that anyone whom God draws, will inevitably be raised up to eternal life. So this verse single handedly defeats the notion that God draws all people, unless that is you believe that all people are going to heaven and you are a universalist. If that is the case I would point out the fact that Jesus talks more about Hell in the gospels than He does Heaven, and there is no Scriptural basis for your view.
John 6:44 leaves nothing open to any sort of conditions to be fulfilled by man. It does not say that "I will raise him up on the last day (if)...." It says that He "will raise him (whom the Father draws) up on the last day." This means, if the Father draws someone they will respond in faith to Christ. John 6:37 says also,
"All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out."
Scripture is very straightforward and clear that God sovereignly decides whom He will save and then does so to the fullest, it is not conditional upon our human will or action. When God’s Spirit comes into the life of a sinner and makes them new, their nature is transformed to the extent that they cannot resist their God given desire to place their trust in Christ. Whereas they were dead in sin and enslaved to do it’s bidding in their old nature, now they have been made new and given a new nature that desires God. The regeneration of God’s Spirit simultaneously causes faith in Christ. The new creature will not, cannot, does not resist coming to Christ when the Father draws him because the veil is lifted and his need for Christ is made clear.
It’s like a deaf and blind man who stands on a train track with a speeding train coming his way. He was born deaf and blind that was his nature and because of it he had no idea of the danger he was in. But what if that blind man was given the sight to see the speeding train and the hearing to hear the whistle blowing it warning, would he stay on the train track? No, how absurd. His nature has been changed and he cannot resist making the move that will result in his salvation from death.
This is the clear teaching of Scripture, man cannot resist the will of God. God makes the elect new creations at the time He draws them and with their new nature they cannot help but respond to the savior.
Irresistible Grace
We have already seen the clear biblical teaching that people are hopelessly lost in sin and unable to save themselves (Total Depravity), and that they need God to choose them or they have no hope, and God’s choice to save certain sinners is not based upon the sinners own actions (Unconditional Election), and we have seen that Christ specifically laid down His life not for all people, but specifically for the elect, those whom He has chosen to save (Limited Atonement). Now we come to the fourth doctrine in the doctrines of grace, most usually called "Irresistible Grace."
Irresistible Grace can be defined in this way:
"All who the Father draws to Himself will come to Him. When the gospel is presented, an invitation is issued from the Lord for all people to come, but due to the sinful state of man, man is rendered incapable of response. However as for those who are elect, God sends His Spirit to them and changes their heart, breaks the power of sin and reveals to that elect person their need for Christ as Lord and Savior. When the Spirit opens their heart, they respond in faith and by God’s grace the sinner receives salvation. The work of the Spirit irresistibly draws the elect sinner to Christ, making them willing to trust in Him."
To put this simply and bluntly, if God chooses to save someone, He is going to save them, and there is no way the sinner can resist His work in their life. The idea of this once again takes us back to our study of the sovereignty of God as well as our will and whether or not it is truly free.
First of all, remember in our study of God’s sovereignty that we concluded that God is completely in control of all things and therefore he does all things according to the council of His will (Eph. 1:11). In other words, everything that takes place does so because God wills it to be that way. Therefore if it is God’s will that a sinner should come to know Him, that is indeed exactly what will take place, or if God should will to leave a sinner to his condemnation, so that will be "...For who can resist His will?" (Romans 9:19). Everything that happens does so according to the will of God.
As we have already discussed in chapter 3, man’s will is not truly free. Man’s will is enslaved. The will of man is either enslaved to sin and does it’s bidding or enslaved to God and does His. Every man is born into sin and enslaved to sin. We all grow up and sin continually and love to do the sinful things we do. We will never choose God on our own because we are enslaved to sin, and we don’t desire or seek after God (Rom. 3:10-12). Therefore as we discussed in chapter 4 God has to actively save sinners because they will never turn to Him on their own. Hopefully if you’ve read carefully the preceding chapters you will agree that this is the case. The question now is "how does God bring this about?"
The Regeneration of the Holy Spirit
Clearly man will never choose God in the state that he naturally exists, enslaved to sin. Therefore God must change the very nature of man in order to bring about faith in the heart of the sinner. Ephesians 2:8-9 says:
"8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
It is by God’s grace that we are given faith which is the vehicle of salvation. All of which is completely "the gift of God" and in no way anything we can do within ourselves. Salvation is a sovereign act of God where He actually makes us a new creation that is capable of faith. In man’s natural state, he is spiritually dead because of sin. This was primarily the kind of death God warned Adam would take place if he ate of the tree in the midst of the garden. But when Adam and Eve rebelled against God and ate of the fruit which they were commanded not to eat, they died that day, not physically but spiritually. And because of that each person born since then has been born spiritually dead.
In Ezekiel 37:1-10 we are given a wonderful illustration of God taking what is dead and giving it life.
"1The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. 2And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. 3And he said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" And I answered, "O Lord GOD, you know." 4Then he said to me, "Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. 5Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD." 7So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. 9Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live." 10So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army."
While this passage is clearly speaking of the nation of Israel who had largely turned aside from following God, there is nonetheless great significance in this passage as to how God gives life to dead things. We humans are born spiritually as dead as that valley of dried bones. Incapable of doing anything. Only God could make those dry bones come to life. It would be utterly ridiculous to think that those dry bones could make themselves come to life.
A man I admire very much named Dr. James White gives a similar illustration when talking about this issue. He speaks of cadavers (dead bodies) in the morgue and how lifeless they are. You can poke at them, remove their insides, do whatever you want to them and they will not resist. Why? Because they are dead, they cannot resist. This is exactly how man is in the spiritual sense. You can poke and prod people with the gospel, but they will not respond. They wont because they can’t. They are spiritually dead.
Clearly that which is dead is incapable of doing anything, therefore in order for a person to be able to respond to the gospel they must be made alive. Who can make dry bones live? Only God. Look also at Ezekiel 36:26-27,
"26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules."
You see that Scripture teaches that God radically changes man, giving him a new heart, spirit and giving him even His own Spirit. Just as powerfully as God once breathed life into man when He first created him, so God puts life into the spiritually dead. 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 says,
"17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation"
So then we see that those who are in Christ are only in Christ because God has made them "a new creation." As they were naturally they could not be in Christ because they were spiritually dead, but God literally made them a new person, with a new heart and a new spirit and His own Spirit. It is the Spirit of God that makes man new or "regenerated" as theologians often call it, that enables man to respond in the faith that God gives him. The Spirit frees us from our slavery to sin and makes us able to trust in the gospel of Christ. 2 Corinthians 3:14-18 says,
"14But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. 15Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. 16But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."
The hearts of man are veiled from the truth of God until the Spirit enters into that persons heart and frees them from the darkness of sin. The Spirit unveils the heart of sinful man to see his need for Jesus Christ to save him. It is the regenerating work of the Spirit that allows man to come to Christ in faith. But can anyone whom the Spirit regenerates refuse to come to Christ? No.
All Who Are Drawn (Regenerated) Will Come
Many have tried to say that the Spirit works in everyone’s life and that the Father draws all people to Himself. They claim that man can merely reject God’s drawing of them to Himself. But is this biblical? I will show that it is not. Look at John 6:44,
"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day."
This verse was already used to demonstrate that man is incapable of coming to God unless he is first drawn by Him. We discussed that aspect chapter 3 on Unconditional Election. But furthermore the verse clearly states that those whom the Father draws, Jesus will raise up on the last day. This makes the correlation that anyone whom God draws, will inevitably be raised up to eternal life. So this verse single handedly defeats the notion that God draws all people, unless that is you believe that all people are going to heaven and you are a universalist. If that is the case I would point out the fact that Jesus talks more about Hell in the gospels than He does Heaven, and there is no Scriptural basis for your view.
John 6:44 leaves nothing open to any sort of conditions to be fulfilled by man. It does not say that "I will raise him up on the last day (if)...." It says that He "will raise him (whom the Father draws) up on the last day." This means, if the Father draws someone they will respond in faith to Christ. John 6:37 says also,
"All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out."
Scripture is very straightforward and clear that God sovereignly decides whom He will save and then does so to the fullest, it is not conditional upon our human will or action. When God’s Spirit comes into the life of a sinner and makes them new, their nature is transformed to the extent that they cannot resist their God given desire to place their trust in Christ. Whereas they were dead in sin and enslaved to do it’s bidding in their old nature, now they have been made new and given a new nature that desires God. The regeneration of God’s Spirit simultaneously causes faith in Christ. The new creature will not, cannot, does not resist coming to Christ when the Father draws him because the veil is lifted and his need for Christ is made clear.
It’s like a deaf and blind man who stands on a train track with a speeding train coming his way. He was born deaf and blind that was his nature and because of it he had no idea of the danger he was in. But what if that blind man was given the sight to see the speeding train and the hearing to hear the whistle blowing it warning, would he stay on the train track? No, how absurd. His nature has been changed and he cannot resist making the move that will result in his salvation from death.
This is the clear teaching of Scripture, man cannot resist the will of God. God makes the elect new creations at the time He draws them and with their new nature they cannot help but respond to the savior.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
A Christians Response to the Virginia Tech Massacre
As I have listened to the reports flowing in about what took place yesterday at Virginia Tech, I cannot help but hurt for the people who lost friends and family in this tragedy. But I must ask myself, "How as a follower of Christ am I to think about things like this?"
The honest truth is as weird as it may sound, this incident and others like it, affirms my faith In Christ and His word. The common questions when something like this occurs are, "Why?" and "What kind of evil is this?" "How could someone do that?" The ultimate answer is, "Because it fits into the ultimate purpose and plan of God."
Perhaps that answer makes you disgusted at me. "How could you say that! God is a God of Love!" Yes, God is a loving God. But God is a God completely in control of all things too. We are told that God ordained the death of Christ Himself. What was more evil than the murder of the Son of God?
Look at Acts 2:23.
"this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men."
Whose "definite plan" was it that Jesus be crucified? God's. Who receives the blame? Lawless men. Make no mistake, God did not force this young man to murder 32 people and then kill himself. But God did ordain it to be so. God is in control of all things in this world. He has a purpose.
After Jacob (or Israel) dies, in Genesis 50, Joseph's brothers are fearful of him because they are afraid that Joseph will retaliate against them for all the wrong they did him by selling him into slavery. But what is Joseph's response? Genesis 50:20.
"As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today."
Who would have known that by the evil of Joseph's brothers that one day Joseph would be put in a place by God to save the lives of so many people? But God had a purpose in what Joseph's brothers did. God had a purpose in planning the death of His own Son, that He might save those whom He chooses to save.
I look at the Virginia Tech incident and I can say that God is working even in that. God is not impotent. God was not unable to stop that from happening. According to Ephesians 1:11 God "works all things according to the counsel of his will."
I remember listening to John Piper talk about the death of his mother. He described the incident. She was on a bus, I believe on a mission trip, and a truck in front of the bus was carrying lumber. A 2x4 fell from the truck and came through the window of the bus and struck and killed John's mother. John struggled with the grief of losing his mother, like all of us would, but at the end of it all he was able to say something like this: "I would rather serve a God that planned my mothers death like that, rather than God who couldn't stop a single 2x4 from coming through a window."
We do not see what God has planned. But we can know that He is in control and in the midst of this situation. Perhaps God will use this to bring about the salvation of some students seeking for answers. Perhaps it will resolve someones heart to reach out to lost and hurting people who might otherwise do more of the same kind of violence. The truth is, we will probably never know what all God is doing through this, but we can be sure He has it under control and is working it out for His glory, and the good of those who love Him.
I would be remiss if I failed to point out that this affirms may faith in the teaching of Scripture about sin as well. We as people are born inclined and enslaved to sin. If not for the grace of God, who knows what I would be today. I used to be a very angry and somewhat violent person. Romans 1:28-32 nails it on the head about what we as humans are capable of.
28"And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them."
It is by God's grace that His Spirit restrains much of the evil, otherwise we would see how bad it could really get. And we must remember in many places in the world, it is worse.
Sinful man, needs a perfect savior. This incident affirms my faith in Christ and His word as being true. And it also serves as a reminder to preach the gospel to a lost and dying world and pray for God to save souls as only He can.
-Jacob
The honest truth is as weird as it may sound, this incident and others like it, affirms my faith In Christ and His word. The common questions when something like this occurs are, "Why?" and "What kind of evil is this?" "How could someone do that?" The ultimate answer is, "Because it fits into the ultimate purpose and plan of God."
Perhaps that answer makes you disgusted at me. "How could you say that! God is a God of Love!" Yes, God is a loving God. But God is a God completely in control of all things too. We are told that God ordained the death of Christ Himself. What was more evil than the murder of the Son of God?
Look at Acts 2:23.
"this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men."
Whose "definite plan" was it that Jesus be crucified? God's. Who receives the blame? Lawless men. Make no mistake, God did not force this young man to murder 32 people and then kill himself. But God did ordain it to be so. God is in control of all things in this world. He has a purpose.
After Jacob (or Israel) dies, in Genesis 50, Joseph's brothers are fearful of him because they are afraid that Joseph will retaliate against them for all the wrong they did him by selling him into slavery. But what is Joseph's response? Genesis 50:20.
"As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today."
Who would have known that by the evil of Joseph's brothers that one day Joseph would be put in a place by God to save the lives of so many people? But God had a purpose in what Joseph's brothers did. God had a purpose in planning the death of His own Son, that He might save those whom He chooses to save.
I look at the Virginia Tech incident and I can say that God is working even in that. God is not impotent. God was not unable to stop that from happening. According to Ephesians 1:11 God "works all things according to the counsel of his will."
I remember listening to John Piper talk about the death of his mother. He described the incident. She was on a bus, I believe on a mission trip, and a truck in front of the bus was carrying lumber. A 2x4 fell from the truck and came through the window of the bus and struck and killed John's mother. John struggled with the grief of losing his mother, like all of us would, but at the end of it all he was able to say something like this: "I would rather serve a God that planned my mothers death like that, rather than God who couldn't stop a single 2x4 from coming through a window."
We do not see what God has planned. But we can know that He is in control and in the midst of this situation. Perhaps God will use this to bring about the salvation of some students seeking for answers. Perhaps it will resolve someones heart to reach out to lost and hurting people who might otherwise do more of the same kind of violence. The truth is, we will probably never know what all God is doing through this, but we can be sure He has it under control and is working it out for His glory, and the good of those who love Him.
I would be remiss if I failed to point out that this affirms may faith in the teaching of Scripture about sin as well. We as people are born inclined and enslaved to sin. If not for the grace of God, who knows what I would be today. I used to be a very angry and somewhat violent person. Romans 1:28-32 nails it on the head about what we as humans are capable of.
28"And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them."
It is by God's grace that His Spirit restrains much of the evil, otherwise we would see how bad it could really get. And we must remember in many places in the world, it is worse.
Sinful man, needs a perfect savior. This incident affirms my faith in Christ and His word as being true. And it also serves as a reminder to preach the gospel to a lost and dying world and pray for God to save souls as only He can.
-Jacob
Monday, April 9, 2007
God's Sovereignty in Salvation: PART 3
Limited Atonement
This is the doctrine that is usually the hardest for Christians to accept when they haven’t been challenged with it before. This was the doctrine that held me to an inconsistent 4 out of 5 point Calvinist until I just broke under the weight of Scripture’s teaching about this doctrine. First of all, let me say yet once again, you must have a biblical understanding of who God is in His Sovereignty before any of this will be acceptable to you. If you have not read the posts on the sovereignty of God, go back and read those first. Also this doctrine must be understood in the light of the first two doctrines presented in this series. The first doctrine is Total Depravity, the second is Unconditional Election, and now we have reached the third doctrine of the doctrines of grace Limited Atonement. Make sure you have read the first two before you read this part 3 of the series.
Let’s define Limited Atonement, sometimes also referred to as Particular Atonement/Redemption.
"Christ died, not for the sins of the whole world, but specifically for the elect. Christ’s substitutionary, atoning death was for those whom God sovereignly elected (chose) to save, and not all of mankind."
I’m certain that the objections are already flying through the minds of many of you, stick with me. I want to address first of all what this does not mean. This doctrine doesn’t teach that Christ "could not" have saved all of mankind by His death, only that He chose to die for a specific group of people. Should God have chosen to save everyone, Christ’s death would have been sufficient for everyone, but Christ as we have seen in this series does not choose to save everyone. So Christ’s atonement is limited, not in power, but merely in application to whom He chose.
As always, let’s go to the Scripture and see where this doctrine is taught. I will then follow that with some logical arguments for this doctrine that accompany the Scripture, and I will end with answering some common objections to this doctrine.
John 10:1-18
"1"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. 2But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers." 6This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. 7So Jesus again said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 11I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father."
Right before this passage Jesus has just chastised some of the pharisees for not recognizing Him for who He is. And then He goes on to talk about how He is the Good Shepherd and His sheep hear His voice and follow after Him. We must recognize by what Jesus is saying that He is clearly making a distinction between those who are His sheep and those who are not.
When Jesus spoke to a crowd, those whom He had called to be His own would recognize Him as the Messiah and follow after Him, those whom He had not called would not recognize Him and would not follow. You can imagine this illustration better if you realize that in Jesus’ day they would pen many sheep together in a pen with sheep all owned by different people. But the shepherd’s knew their sheep so well and vice-versa that he knew his sheep by name and they knew his voice. A shepherd would literally call to his sheep as the gatekeeper opened the gate and just the sheep who recognised the voice of their master would come to him and follow him.
So clearly Jesus is making a distinction that there are those who are His sheep and there are those who are not His sheep. Hopefully we can all agree on that. But look what Jesus says in connection with this distinction in verses 14 and 15.
"14I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep."
Jesus knows His sheep, and He lays down His life for them. He doesn’t lay down His life for other people’s sheep, He lays down His life for the sheep he knows. And as we looked at last time in Part 2 of this series, Jesus knows intimately those whom He calls from the foundation of the world. That is the meaning of "foreknowledge."
Furthermore look what Jesus says just a little bit later again rebuking the Pharisees in verses 25-30.
"25Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, 26but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. 27My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. 30I and the Father are one."
Jesus specifically tells the Pharisees that the reason they don’t believe in Him is because they are not part of His flock. Think it through carefully now, Jesus doesn’t say "because you do not believe in me you are not part of my flock" He say because you are not part of my flock you do not believe in me! Sheep do not pick their shepherd, shepherds pick their sheep! Jesus says that He gives His sheep eternal life, Jesus says that He lays down His life for His sheep. And Jesus says that there are those that are not His sheep. This equals, people, that Jesus does not give His life for everyone, He gives His life for those who He has chosen.
This could make you angry or confused if this is not what you have been taught since becoming a Christian. The Pharisees wanted to stone Jesus for the thing He just said. But I urge you to set aside presuppositions that you have and just look at the text of Scripture. What does it say? Am I making this up? I am not.
Again, as I have said, it is crucial that you understand God’s sovereignty, if you do not you will surely reject this. It is also crucial that you have considered Total Depravity and Unconditional Election, but if you have considered those things and you agree that God is truly sovereign and in control of all things (even our decisions). And if you agree man is totally depraved and that God must choose (Elect) us because we cannot choose Him and not because of works that find favor in His sight because all of our works are evil (Romans 3:10-12) then you must accept this also!
Here are some things to consider about the beliefs that are commonly held by Christians who reject or have not been confronted with this doctrine.
Is Christ’s death on the cross truly substitutionary?
We often talk about the substitutionary atonement of Christ. That is to say that Christ Jesus died in the place of the sinner as a substitute. I believe indeed that this is biblical and true, however only for the elect, not for all people. Let’s think this through carefully.
Romans 3:23-26
"23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."
We see that God made Jesus a "propitiation.... so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Propitiation isn’t exactly a commonly used word in the English vocabulary. I would assume that outside of a discussion on the atonement, it pretty much just isn’t used. What it basically means is a sacrificial turning away of the wrath of God for sin, an appeasement of God’s wrath for sin. Jesus took upon Himself the wrath of God for sin. But whom did He do this for? "The on who has faith in Jesus." Who has faith in Jesus? Only those whom God elects and sovereignly breaks them out of their depravity and gives them faith and repentance. Man does not seek for God on his own, so the one who has faith in Jesus is the one whom God calls and gives faith. Jesus died for the elect, not everyone.
If Jesus Christ died, literally in the place of all sinners, why do people go to Hell? Indeed to take it further, since Christ died not only for the atonement of sin for those who would come after Him but for those who came before such as Moses and David, if Jesus died for "all people" then Jesus died for the sin of people who were already in Hell. Before anyone shouts "heretic", step back from your presuppositions and think this through. "Christ died in my place" we say. And if you are a born again believer, that is true. But it cannot be true for the person that is going to or is already suffering for their sin in Hell. If Jesus bore the wrath of God’s anger against sin for everyone, all times, all places then God would be unjust to place anyone in Hell. But Scripture clearly testifies that He does. God would equally be unjust for pouring wrath upon His son for sin that someone else was going to or already is paying for in Hell. For the doctrine of substitutionary atonement to be true, it must be understood that God died, not in place of all people, all places, all times, rather God died to pay for the sin of those whom He had chosen to save.
If you have followed with me through God’s Sovereignty and seen that man is totally depraved and unable to turn his heart to God (nor does he want to). And if you have seen that because of mans depravity that God must actively turn the heart of the sinner to Himself, not on the basis of good works (because there are none), but on the basis of His free and sovereign will, then you must accept this doctrine also.
Why would God die for people whom He has not chosen to save?
It would be illogical. God did not merely make salvation possible, He made salvation actual. Evangelicalism loves to preach that God died for all mankind and wants everyone to know Him, "but He wont force anyone to come to Him." That is pathetically unscriptural. Let me ask you this, does God fail? Jesus defined His message in this way:
"For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost." - Luke 19:10
Did Jesus fail in His mission? No. Jesus came to seek and save the lost and so He did, perfectly. Jesus saves all whom He intends to save. Or do you think that God is just going to be eternally unhappy? "Oh I wish John Smith would have given His heart to me, but I just couldn’t mess with his sovereign free will, now I have to know I failed to save John Smith for all eternity," says God. I don’t think so! But indeed this is just our problem, we think that our will is free and sovereign and that God "would not" and perhaps some think "could not" override our free will. But it is God who is sovereign and in control God is not sad that people go to Hell. He did not try to save them and fail. God justly puts them in Hell because they are rebellious sinners who have cursed the name and authority of God since birth. We all deserve Hell but God shows His love and mercy in choosing some of those same kind of sinners and making them His own, and God shows His justice and wrath by punishing the rest. Both the free exercise of God’s wrath and His free exercise of grace bring glory to God.
Romans 9:19-24
"14What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! 15For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 16So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." 18So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. 19You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" 20But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" 21Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? 22What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory-- 24even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?"
Scripture clearly teaches that:
1. God sovereignly controls all things, yes even you and me.
2. Man is totally depraved because of Sin, we do not seek for God.
3. God in His sovereignty chooses (elects) some of this sinful mankind to be saved, merely by His free grace and not by our works, because no one does good in His sight.
4. God sent the Son to die in the place of the elect. He saves all whom He intended to save.
Common Objections:
The primary objection to this doctrine as well as the teaching of unconditional election, is that this makes God unloving. I think this is a finite mans viewpoint. After all, what is fair? Fair is that we would all go to Hell. We have all broke God’s law, and the penalty of that transgression is eternal death. So it is purely by God’s goodness and mercy that He saves anyone. I’m glad that God didn’t give me what I deserve. Instead Christ died in my place and He gave me, a depraved God hating sinner, faith and repentance and He has saved me to the full.
Other objections usually center around passages that have or use the word "all" in them when referring to Salvation. I can’t tell you how many time I’ve heard pastors and evangelists use texts such as these and then have the entire crowd repeat the word "all." As if "All" is some kind of word that trumps this doctrine that I am teaching right now. As if the word "All" laughs in the face of the rest of Scriptures teaching. For those who think the word "all" is so universal as to mean that everyone, all places, all times, no matter what, here is an illustration for you.
Let’s say on a Sunday morning I am preaching and I look out the window and see how nice it looks outside. It’s mid 80's with a nice breeze and I get the inclination to move this service outside. I then say to the congregation, "It’s such a beautiful day, let’s all go outside."
Now when I said "all," did I mean that everyone in the entire world should go outside? No. I meant my specific audience whom I was addressing should go outside. The problem with many people who try and interpret Scripture when the word "all" shows up is that they do not allow the context of Scripture to define who "all" is. Sometimes it is universal, sometimes it’s not.
An obvious example is Romans 8:32 which says:
"He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?"
Isolate that verse and you could make it say whatever you want. But what does the next verse say?
"Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies."
Now we have some context, Paul is talking about the elect. Not everyone, all places, all times. And if you read the book of Romans as a whole, which is the best way to grasp the context of any verse, you will see that Paul is largely addressing people who are Christians. So who is "all?" Christians, the elect.
So let God be the one to decide what is fair. Read Scripture in its context. The doctrine of Limited Atonement is true.
This is the doctrine that is usually the hardest for Christians to accept when they haven’t been challenged with it before. This was the doctrine that held me to an inconsistent 4 out of 5 point Calvinist until I just broke under the weight of Scripture’s teaching about this doctrine. First of all, let me say yet once again, you must have a biblical understanding of who God is in His Sovereignty before any of this will be acceptable to you. If you have not read the posts on the sovereignty of God, go back and read those first. Also this doctrine must be understood in the light of the first two doctrines presented in this series. The first doctrine is Total Depravity, the second is Unconditional Election, and now we have reached the third doctrine of the doctrines of grace Limited Atonement. Make sure you have read the first two before you read this part 3 of the series.
Let’s define Limited Atonement, sometimes also referred to as Particular Atonement/Redemption.
"Christ died, not for the sins of the whole world, but specifically for the elect. Christ’s substitutionary, atoning death was for those whom God sovereignly elected (chose) to save, and not all of mankind."
I’m certain that the objections are already flying through the minds of many of you, stick with me. I want to address first of all what this does not mean. This doctrine doesn’t teach that Christ "could not" have saved all of mankind by His death, only that He chose to die for a specific group of people. Should God have chosen to save everyone, Christ’s death would have been sufficient for everyone, but Christ as we have seen in this series does not choose to save everyone. So Christ’s atonement is limited, not in power, but merely in application to whom He chose.
As always, let’s go to the Scripture and see where this doctrine is taught. I will then follow that with some logical arguments for this doctrine that accompany the Scripture, and I will end with answering some common objections to this doctrine.
John 10:1-18
"1"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. 2But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers." 6This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. 7So Jesus again said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 11I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father."
Right before this passage Jesus has just chastised some of the pharisees for not recognizing Him for who He is. And then He goes on to talk about how He is the Good Shepherd and His sheep hear His voice and follow after Him. We must recognize by what Jesus is saying that He is clearly making a distinction between those who are His sheep and those who are not.
When Jesus spoke to a crowd, those whom He had called to be His own would recognize Him as the Messiah and follow after Him, those whom He had not called would not recognize Him and would not follow. You can imagine this illustration better if you realize that in Jesus’ day they would pen many sheep together in a pen with sheep all owned by different people. But the shepherd’s knew their sheep so well and vice-versa that he knew his sheep by name and they knew his voice. A shepherd would literally call to his sheep as the gatekeeper opened the gate and just the sheep who recognised the voice of their master would come to him and follow him.
So clearly Jesus is making a distinction that there are those who are His sheep and there are those who are not His sheep. Hopefully we can all agree on that. But look what Jesus says in connection with this distinction in verses 14 and 15.
"14I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep."
Jesus knows His sheep, and He lays down His life for them. He doesn’t lay down His life for other people’s sheep, He lays down His life for the sheep he knows. And as we looked at last time in Part 2 of this series, Jesus knows intimately those whom He calls from the foundation of the world. That is the meaning of "foreknowledge."
Furthermore look what Jesus says just a little bit later again rebuking the Pharisees in verses 25-30.
"25Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, 26but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. 27My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. 30I and the Father are one."
Jesus specifically tells the Pharisees that the reason they don’t believe in Him is because they are not part of His flock. Think it through carefully now, Jesus doesn’t say "because you do not believe in me you are not part of my flock" He say because you are not part of my flock you do not believe in me! Sheep do not pick their shepherd, shepherds pick their sheep! Jesus says that He gives His sheep eternal life, Jesus says that He lays down His life for His sheep. And Jesus says that there are those that are not His sheep. This equals, people, that Jesus does not give His life for everyone, He gives His life for those who He has chosen.
This could make you angry or confused if this is not what you have been taught since becoming a Christian. The Pharisees wanted to stone Jesus for the thing He just said. But I urge you to set aside presuppositions that you have and just look at the text of Scripture. What does it say? Am I making this up? I am not.
Again, as I have said, it is crucial that you understand God’s sovereignty, if you do not you will surely reject this. It is also crucial that you have considered Total Depravity and Unconditional Election, but if you have considered those things and you agree that God is truly sovereign and in control of all things (even our decisions). And if you agree man is totally depraved and that God must choose (Elect) us because we cannot choose Him and not because of works that find favor in His sight because all of our works are evil (Romans 3:10-12) then you must accept this also!
Here are some things to consider about the beliefs that are commonly held by Christians who reject or have not been confronted with this doctrine.
Is Christ’s death on the cross truly substitutionary?
We often talk about the substitutionary atonement of Christ. That is to say that Christ Jesus died in the place of the sinner as a substitute. I believe indeed that this is biblical and true, however only for the elect, not for all people. Let’s think this through carefully.
Romans 3:23-26
"23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."
We see that God made Jesus a "propitiation.... so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Propitiation isn’t exactly a commonly used word in the English vocabulary. I would assume that outside of a discussion on the atonement, it pretty much just isn’t used. What it basically means is a sacrificial turning away of the wrath of God for sin, an appeasement of God’s wrath for sin. Jesus took upon Himself the wrath of God for sin. But whom did He do this for? "The on who has faith in Jesus." Who has faith in Jesus? Only those whom God elects and sovereignly breaks them out of their depravity and gives them faith and repentance. Man does not seek for God on his own, so the one who has faith in Jesus is the one whom God calls and gives faith. Jesus died for the elect, not everyone.
If Jesus Christ died, literally in the place of all sinners, why do people go to Hell? Indeed to take it further, since Christ died not only for the atonement of sin for those who would come after Him but for those who came before such as Moses and David, if Jesus died for "all people" then Jesus died for the sin of people who were already in Hell. Before anyone shouts "heretic", step back from your presuppositions and think this through. "Christ died in my place" we say. And if you are a born again believer, that is true. But it cannot be true for the person that is going to or is already suffering for their sin in Hell. If Jesus bore the wrath of God’s anger against sin for everyone, all times, all places then God would be unjust to place anyone in Hell. But Scripture clearly testifies that He does. God would equally be unjust for pouring wrath upon His son for sin that someone else was going to or already is paying for in Hell. For the doctrine of substitutionary atonement to be true, it must be understood that God died, not in place of all people, all places, all times, rather God died to pay for the sin of those whom He had chosen to save.
If you have followed with me through God’s Sovereignty and seen that man is totally depraved and unable to turn his heart to God (nor does he want to). And if you have seen that because of mans depravity that God must actively turn the heart of the sinner to Himself, not on the basis of good works (because there are none), but on the basis of His free and sovereign will, then you must accept this doctrine also.
Why would God die for people whom He has not chosen to save?
It would be illogical. God did not merely make salvation possible, He made salvation actual. Evangelicalism loves to preach that God died for all mankind and wants everyone to know Him, "but He wont force anyone to come to Him." That is pathetically unscriptural. Let me ask you this, does God fail? Jesus defined His message in this way:
"For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost." - Luke 19:10
Did Jesus fail in His mission? No. Jesus came to seek and save the lost and so He did, perfectly. Jesus saves all whom He intends to save. Or do you think that God is just going to be eternally unhappy? "Oh I wish John Smith would have given His heart to me, but I just couldn’t mess with his sovereign free will, now I have to know I failed to save John Smith for all eternity," says God. I don’t think so! But indeed this is just our problem, we think that our will is free and sovereign and that God "would not" and perhaps some think "could not" override our free will. But it is God who is sovereign and in control God is not sad that people go to Hell. He did not try to save them and fail. God justly puts them in Hell because they are rebellious sinners who have cursed the name and authority of God since birth. We all deserve Hell but God shows His love and mercy in choosing some of those same kind of sinners and making them His own, and God shows His justice and wrath by punishing the rest. Both the free exercise of God’s wrath and His free exercise of grace bring glory to God.
Romans 9:19-24
"14What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! 15For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 16So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." 18So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. 19You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" 20But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" 21Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? 22What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory-- 24even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?"
Scripture clearly teaches that:
1. God sovereignly controls all things, yes even you and me.
2. Man is totally depraved because of Sin, we do not seek for God.
3. God in His sovereignty chooses (elects) some of this sinful mankind to be saved, merely by His free grace and not by our works, because no one does good in His sight.
4. God sent the Son to die in the place of the elect. He saves all whom He intended to save.
Common Objections:
The primary objection to this doctrine as well as the teaching of unconditional election, is that this makes God unloving. I think this is a finite mans viewpoint. After all, what is fair? Fair is that we would all go to Hell. We have all broke God’s law, and the penalty of that transgression is eternal death. So it is purely by God’s goodness and mercy that He saves anyone. I’m glad that God didn’t give me what I deserve. Instead Christ died in my place and He gave me, a depraved God hating sinner, faith and repentance and He has saved me to the full.
Other objections usually center around passages that have or use the word "all" in them when referring to Salvation. I can’t tell you how many time I’ve heard pastors and evangelists use texts such as these and then have the entire crowd repeat the word "all." As if "All" is some kind of word that trumps this doctrine that I am teaching right now. As if the word "All" laughs in the face of the rest of Scriptures teaching. For those who think the word "all" is so universal as to mean that everyone, all places, all times, no matter what, here is an illustration for you.
Let’s say on a Sunday morning I am preaching and I look out the window and see how nice it looks outside. It’s mid 80's with a nice breeze and I get the inclination to move this service outside. I then say to the congregation, "It’s such a beautiful day, let’s all go outside."
Now when I said "all," did I mean that everyone in the entire world should go outside? No. I meant my specific audience whom I was addressing should go outside. The problem with many people who try and interpret Scripture when the word "all" shows up is that they do not allow the context of Scripture to define who "all" is. Sometimes it is universal, sometimes it’s not.
An obvious example is Romans 8:32 which says:
"He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?"
Isolate that verse and you could make it say whatever you want. But what does the next verse say?
"Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies."
Now we have some context, Paul is talking about the elect. Not everyone, all places, all times. And if you read the book of Romans as a whole, which is the best way to grasp the context of any verse, you will see that Paul is largely addressing people who are Christians. So who is "all?" Christians, the elect.
So let God be the one to decide what is fair. Read Scripture in its context. The doctrine of Limited Atonement is true.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Who's driving this boat anyway?
Ever feel like everything just kinda happens for no reason? I know that I've felt that way from time to time. Things take place in our life that we just cannot understand. The death of a loved one, especially a young child. Perhaps the loss of a job, or rebellious children. Maybe you look at all the war in the world and you just think to yourself, "The whole world has gone mad and out of control."
I think from time to time we all feel that way. It seems like things both good and bad happen by mere chance. However, despite our limited view of life and the way the world is going, we see that Scripture presents a very different picture than what we are normally able to ascertain on our own.
I read a verse the other day on my friend Erik's site: http://www.irishcalvinist.com/ as well as post a post about this same topic. The verse really stuck with me and here it is.
Proverbs 16:33
"The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD."
When I read that, I remember thinking to myself how awesome and weighty the meaning of that verse is. We cannot be sure exactly what "casting lots" was, but we know that it was basically the equivalent of rolling a dice, drawing straws or Rock, Paper, Scissors. A game of "chance" as it would seem to our human perspective. But what we are told is that what we view as chance is not chance at all. Rather the outcome of every cast is determined by the Lord.
Think about that the next time you are playing Monopoly. God does not merely know what will come of each cast, but God is sovereign over it and makes it what it is. If God concerns himself with things that are seemingly as trivial as the rolling of a die and indeed ordains the outcome of every such thing, there is nothing that God does not sovereignly control.
A great example of God's sovereignty over such things came my way as I was reading through 1 Samuel.
1 Samuel 10:17-24
"17Now Samuel called the people together to the LORD at Mizpah. 18And he said to the people of Israel, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.' 19But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses, and you have said to him, 'Set a king over us.' Now therefore present yourselves before the LORD by your tribes and by your thousands."
20Then Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot. 21He brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its clans, and the clan of the Matrites was taken by lot; and Saul the son of Kish was taken by lot. But when they sought him, he could not be found. 22So they inquired again of the LORD, "Is there a man still to come?" and the LORD said, "Behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage." 23Then they ran and took him from there. And when he stood among the people, he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward. 24And Samuel said to all the people, "Do you see him whom the LORD has chosen? There is none like him among all the people." And all the people shouted, "Long live the king!"
God had already told Samuel that He was going to make Saul the king of Israel, and Samuel had already made this known to Saul. However, nonetheless, the people of Israel were gathered together and lots were cast to see whom would be called to be king of Israel. As lots were cast by man, the lot fell to Saul's tribe, then his clan and then to Saul himself. All under the guidance of the Lord.
Never mind the fact the Saul was hiding from his calling. God made Him king, and God directed each casting of lots to lead to Saul. As verse 24 says "Do you see him who the LORD has chosen?"
Later in Scripture you see soldiers casting lots to see who would win Jesus' clothes (Luke 23:34). To the pagan mind everything happens by chance, but to the person who fears the LORD, the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, to the one who knows and love Jesus Christ, our mindset should be that God is in control of all things. Nothing is beyond the reach of God's sovereignty.
Even the apostle when choosing one to take the place of Judas narrowed it down to two whom would be a good replacement and then left it to God's Sovereignty to decide who would take Judas' place (Acts 1:26).
So when we look at the world, and see what looks like chaos, or when we see things happening in our own life, good or bad, that seem to happen by mere chance, we as Christians must trust that it is no mistake, not by chance, but God's sovereign hand working in the midst of this crazy world and our crazy lives. Indeed nothing is out of control, but in God's perfect control. One more reason to praise God, and take hope in His plan. One more reason to trust the Lord Jesus Christ.
-Jacob
I think from time to time we all feel that way. It seems like things both good and bad happen by mere chance. However, despite our limited view of life and the way the world is going, we see that Scripture presents a very different picture than what we are normally able to ascertain on our own.
I read a verse the other day on my friend Erik's site: http://www.irishcalvinist.com/ as well as post a post about this same topic. The verse really stuck with me and here it is.
Proverbs 16:33
"The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD."
When I read that, I remember thinking to myself how awesome and weighty the meaning of that verse is. We cannot be sure exactly what "casting lots" was, but we know that it was basically the equivalent of rolling a dice, drawing straws or Rock, Paper, Scissors. A game of "chance" as it would seem to our human perspective. But what we are told is that what we view as chance is not chance at all. Rather the outcome of every cast is determined by the Lord.
Think about that the next time you are playing Monopoly. God does not merely know what will come of each cast, but God is sovereign over it and makes it what it is. If God concerns himself with things that are seemingly as trivial as the rolling of a die and indeed ordains the outcome of every such thing, there is nothing that God does not sovereignly control.
A great example of God's sovereignty over such things came my way as I was reading through 1 Samuel.
1 Samuel 10:17-24
"17Now Samuel called the people together to the LORD at Mizpah. 18And he said to the people of Israel, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.' 19But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses, and you have said to him, 'Set a king over us.' Now therefore present yourselves before the LORD by your tribes and by your thousands."
20Then Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot. 21He brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its clans, and the clan of the Matrites was taken by lot; and Saul the son of Kish was taken by lot. But when they sought him, he could not be found. 22So they inquired again of the LORD, "Is there a man still to come?" and the LORD said, "Behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage." 23Then they ran and took him from there. And when he stood among the people, he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward. 24And Samuel said to all the people, "Do you see him whom the LORD has chosen? There is none like him among all the people." And all the people shouted, "Long live the king!"
God had already told Samuel that He was going to make Saul the king of Israel, and Samuel had already made this known to Saul. However, nonetheless, the people of Israel were gathered together and lots were cast to see whom would be called to be king of Israel. As lots were cast by man, the lot fell to Saul's tribe, then his clan and then to Saul himself. All under the guidance of the Lord.
Never mind the fact the Saul was hiding from his calling. God made Him king, and God directed each casting of lots to lead to Saul. As verse 24 says "Do you see him who the LORD has chosen?"
Later in Scripture you see soldiers casting lots to see who would win Jesus' clothes (Luke 23:34). To the pagan mind everything happens by chance, but to the person who fears the LORD, the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, to the one who knows and love Jesus Christ, our mindset should be that God is in control of all things. Nothing is beyond the reach of God's sovereignty.
Even the apostle when choosing one to take the place of Judas narrowed it down to two whom would be a good replacement and then left it to God's Sovereignty to decide who would take Judas' place (Acts 1:26).
So when we look at the world, and see what looks like chaos, or when we see things happening in our own life, good or bad, that seem to happen by mere chance, we as Christians must trust that it is no mistake, not by chance, but God's sovereign hand working in the midst of this crazy world and our crazy lives. Indeed nothing is out of control, but in God's perfect control. One more reason to praise God, and take hope in His plan. One more reason to trust the Lord Jesus Christ.
-Jacob
Monday, March 26, 2007
God's Sovereignty in Salvation: PART 2
"Unconditional Election"
When last I left you, in part 1 of this series, we discussed "Total Depravity." It is a necessary prelude to this second post in the series of God’s sovereignty in salvation, if you have not read it, please do so before you engage this post.
At the end of the first post I left with a very open ended question. The question in itself was one that make’s the soul in whom God is working despair. The question in essence was this: "If what Scripture teaches is true, and no one seeks for God and no one can choose God, and apart from God there is no salvation, what hope does mankind have?"
Scripture does clearly teach that this is the state of mankind. Lost, and hopeless to do anything about it. No amount of good works can save, because in God’s eyes "...No one does good, not even one." (Romans 3:12) If we were left alone to do what our heart desired, no one would ever choose to follow God. All would be lost.
So what hope do we as sinful humanity have? God’s Sovereignty is our hope of salvation. It is His free-will that He has, that saves those whom He chooses. God unconditionally elects, or chooses, those whom He will save.
Unconditional Election can be defined in this way:
"God has shown us in His word that from eternity past He has elected some sinners to be saved from the condemnation that is justly deserved by all, purely on account of His gracious mercy and love, not because of any foreseen merits in those sinners. Because of the fact of total depravity, salvation must originate with God, and we read in the Bible that it is God’s sovereign will alone that has determined the recipients of salvation."
Now, as always, let us turn our attention as well as our hearts and minds to the Scriptures, so that we can see that this is the teaching of God and not man.
Ephesians 1:3-12
"3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory."
What incredible language God uses here! "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world." This rules out any possibility that our works justify us before God. God chooses us before we had the chance to even exist. Let’s look at some more Scripture.
Romans 9:9-13
"9For this is what the promise said: "About this time next year I will return and Sarah shall have a son." 10And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, 11though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad--in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call-- 12she was told, "The older will serve the younger." 13As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
Romans 8:28-30
"28And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,
for those who are called according to his purpose. 29For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified."
Clearly, it is the teaching of Scripture, that tells us it is God who is completely responsible for salvation. Look what Jesus says in John 6:44.
"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day."
Is this not merely compatible with what Scripture teaches about mankind’s fallen condition because of sin? We do not want God, seek God, know God. Therefore, because we are unable to turn to God ourselves, God must draw the sinner to Him by His power and grace. Indeed this is what Ephesians 2:8-9 teaches.
"8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
Grace is a gift of God.
Salvation is a gift of God.
Faith is a gift of God.
None of these thing are our own doing, they come from God who is the "the founder and perfecter of our faith." (Hebrews 12:2)
If you accept the clear teaching of Scripture regarding the fall of man and the doctrine that has been called "Total Depravity" then you must see that this is the only way anyone could be saved. The doctrine of "Unconditional Election" is also very clearly taught in Scripture as I hope you have seen.
What about some common objections to this doctrine? For instance, often it is proclaimed that when Scripture talks about God foreknowing someone as in Romans 8:29, "For those whom he foreknew he also predestined...", that it means God looked into the future and saw that a person would accept Jesus as savior and so God predestined them to salvation.
Obviously, however, that cannot be the case. Why? Because man is depraved and no one seeks for God. If God simply let us do our thing and did not intervene, no one would choose Him, and no one would be "elect" if this were how God did things. The problem with this view is that it is man centered. Man likes to assume that he is in control of his life, and yet that is just not true. As we discussed in one post ( http://reformationinprogress.blogspot.com/2007/03/does-man-really-have-free-will.html ), man’s will is enslaved to either sin or to God, but it is never truly free.
So "foreknowledge" does not mean to know in advance what is going to happen. In fact if you do a word study here, you will find that the root word here "knowledge" is the Greek equivelant to that of the Hebrew word "yada" which also means know. Let’s look at a few places where this word is used in Scripture, both in the Hebrew and the Greek.
Genesis 4:1
"Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have gotten
a man with the help of the LORD."
Exodus 33:17
"And the LORD said to Moses, "This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name."
To quote from James White’s book "The Sovereign Grace of God", which you all should read by the way, and can buy it here: www.aomin.org, this is what Dr. White has to say about this same issue.
"Hence, we have seen that "to know" in Scripture, especially when it is God who is doing the "knowing" and when the object of this "knowing" is personal (a person, or a people, as in Israel), refers not to a knowledge of data and facts, but a personal relationship between God and the "knowee." With this concept in mind, let us now look at the concept of God’s foreknowledge in the New Testament." (White; 145)
Yes, let’s.
Acts 2:23.
"this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men."
This again is the exact same word as we saw in Romans 8:29. Let’s put in place here in Acts 2:23 the same meaning that many try to place upon Romans 8:29. If we were to do that, it would read something like this:
"This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan of God, well, definite that is, because God looked into the future to see what Jesus (who is God) would do and since He saw that Jesus would indeed be crucified, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men."
You see the problem? Foreknowledge is not God’s knowledge of future events. Foreknowledge is God’s decision to enter into a personal relationship with a person from before they exist. Or in Jesus’ case God has known Him (or Himself within the trinity) personally for all eternity.
Clearly God chooses on the basis of His own free-will, and not on the basis of anything we do, whom He will save and whom He will not. As for other objections to this doctrine here is what
God says through Paul in Romans 9:14-24.
"14What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! 15For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 16So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." 18So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. 19You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" 20But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" 21Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? 22What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory-- 24even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?"
Ultimately it comes down to this. God is God and I am not. I am unable to save myself, so my only hope is that God will save me.
If you accept the clear Scriptural teaching of Total Depravity, you must accept the equally clear Scriptural teaching that God chooses people by His own free will, unconditionally, apart from what we do. That is Unconditional Election.
In Him -Jacob
When last I left you, in part 1 of this series, we discussed "Total Depravity." It is a necessary prelude to this second post in the series of God’s sovereignty in salvation, if you have not read it, please do so before you engage this post.
At the end of the first post I left with a very open ended question. The question in itself was one that make’s the soul in whom God is working despair. The question in essence was this: "If what Scripture teaches is true, and no one seeks for God and no one can choose God, and apart from God there is no salvation, what hope does mankind have?"
Scripture does clearly teach that this is the state of mankind. Lost, and hopeless to do anything about it. No amount of good works can save, because in God’s eyes "...No one does good, not even one." (Romans 3:12) If we were left alone to do what our heart desired, no one would ever choose to follow God. All would be lost.
So what hope do we as sinful humanity have? God’s Sovereignty is our hope of salvation. It is His free-will that He has, that saves those whom He chooses. God unconditionally elects, or chooses, those whom He will save.
Unconditional Election can be defined in this way:
"God has shown us in His word that from eternity past He has elected some sinners to be saved from the condemnation that is justly deserved by all, purely on account of His gracious mercy and love, not because of any foreseen merits in those sinners. Because of the fact of total depravity, salvation must originate with God, and we read in the Bible that it is God’s sovereign will alone that has determined the recipients of salvation."
Now, as always, let us turn our attention as well as our hearts and minds to the Scriptures, so that we can see that this is the teaching of God and not man.
Ephesians 1:3-12
"3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory."
What incredible language God uses here! "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world." This rules out any possibility that our works justify us before God. God chooses us before we had the chance to even exist. Let’s look at some more Scripture.
Romans 9:9-13
"9For this is what the promise said: "About this time next year I will return and Sarah shall have a son." 10And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, 11though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad--in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call-- 12she was told, "The older will serve the younger." 13As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
Romans 8:28-30
"28And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,
for those who are called according to his purpose. 29For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified."
Clearly, it is the teaching of Scripture, that tells us it is God who is completely responsible for salvation. Look what Jesus says in John 6:44.
"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day."
Is this not merely compatible with what Scripture teaches about mankind’s fallen condition because of sin? We do not want God, seek God, know God. Therefore, because we are unable to turn to God ourselves, God must draw the sinner to Him by His power and grace. Indeed this is what Ephesians 2:8-9 teaches.
"8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
Grace is a gift of God.
Salvation is a gift of God.
Faith is a gift of God.
None of these thing are our own doing, they come from God who is the "the founder and perfecter of our faith." (Hebrews 12:2)
If you accept the clear teaching of Scripture regarding the fall of man and the doctrine that has been called "Total Depravity" then you must see that this is the only way anyone could be saved. The doctrine of "Unconditional Election" is also very clearly taught in Scripture as I hope you have seen.
What about some common objections to this doctrine? For instance, often it is proclaimed that when Scripture talks about God foreknowing someone as in Romans 8:29, "For those whom he foreknew he also predestined...", that it means God looked into the future and saw that a person would accept Jesus as savior and so God predestined them to salvation.
Obviously, however, that cannot be the case. Why? Because man is depraved and no one seeks for God. If God simply let us do our thing and did not intervene, no one would choose Him, and no one would be "elect" if this were how God did things. The problem with this view is that it is man centered. Man likes to assume that he is in control of his life, and yet that is just not true. As we discussed in one post ( http://reformationinprogress.blogspot.com/2007/03/does-man-really-have-free-will.html ), man’s will is enslaved to either sin or to God, but it is never truly free.
So "foreknowledge" does not mean to know in advance what is going to happen. In fact if you do a word study here, you will find that the root word here "knowledge" is the Greek equivelant to that of the Hebrew word "yada" which also means know. Let’s look at a few places where this word is used in Scripture, both in the Hebrew and the Greek.
Genesis 4:1
"Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have gotten
a man with the help of the LORD."
Exodus 33:17
"And the LORD said to Moses, "This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name."
To quote from James White’s book "The Sovereign Grace of God", which you all should read by the way, and can buy it here: www.aomin.org, this is what Dr. White has to say about this same issue.
"Hence, we have seen that "to know" in Scripture, especially when it is God who is doing the "knowing" and when the object of this "knowing" is personal (a person, or a people, as in Israel), refers not to a knowledge of data and facts, but a personal relationship between God and the "knowee." With this concept in mind, let us now look at the concept of God’s foreknowledge in the New Testament." (White; 145)
Yes, let’s.
Acts 2:23.
"this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men."
This again is the exact same word as we saw in Romans 8:29. Let’s put in place here in Acts 2:23 the same meaning that many try to place upon Romans 8:29. If we were to do that, it would read something like this:
"This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan of God, well, definite that is, because God looked into the future to see what Jesus (who is God) would do and since He saw that Jesus would indeed be crucified, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men."
You see the problem? Foreknowledge is not God’s knowledge of future events. Foreknowledge is God’s decision to enter into a personal relationship with a person from before they exist. Or in Jesus’ case God has known Him (or Himself within the trinity) personally for all eternity.
Clearly God chooses on the basis of His own free-will, and not on the basis of anything we do, whom He will save and whom He will not. As for other objections to this doctrine here is what
God says through Paul in Romans 9:14-24.
"14What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! 15For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 16So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." 18So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. 19You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" 20But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" 21Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? 22What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory-- 24even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?"
Ultimately it comes down to this. God is God and I am not. I am unable to save myself, so my only hope is that God will save me.
If you accept the clear Scriptural teaching of Total Depravity, you must accept the equally clear Scriptural teaching that God chooses people by His own free will, unconditionally, apart from what we do. That is Unconditional Election.
In Him -Jacob
Monday, March 19, 2007
Does Man Really Have "Free-Will"?
I have been reading as of late a book by Martin Luther called "The Bondage of The Will." As the title implies it addresses the issue of "free will" versus the "enslaved will." And thus is my question of the day to you, my readers. Is mans will really as free as most would like to think? I dare to say no, it is not.
Just a couple of posts ago on this blog we took up the issue of God's sovereignty in salvation and the first part of that series was on the Total Depravity of man. In that post I gave Scripture that conclusively taught that mankind is totally depraved, and in bondage to sin. Not only are we as people enslaved to sin, but we are incapable of doing anything about it ourselves.
I see the discussion of "free will" finding its answers in the doctrines of grace and a proper understanding of the sovereignty of God. In my series on the sovereignty of God in part 4 which you may see here: http://reformationinprogress.blogspot.com/2007/02/sovereignty-of-god-part-4.html, we looked at how God is the mastermind behind all things. Everything that takes place, does so by the will of God.
From the above linked article:
"Here is an illustration that I find helpful. God observes His creation not as we do as temporal beings, but as the sovereign Lord over all creation. He is the painter, we are a part of the painting. God is not merely in the process of painting the picture, the picture is already complete. God views the past, present and future, complete and simultaneously. He asserts prophecy not because He is merely confident He can make it happen, but He asserts prophecy because it is already done.
Consider the following verses from Hebrews 2:6-96.
It has been testified somewhere, "what is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for Him? 7You made Him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned Him with glory and honor, 8putting everything in subjection under His feet." Now in putting everything in subjection to Him, He left nothing outside of His control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him. 9But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. (Emphasis mine)
Look at what Scripture tells us. It says that everything has (past tense) been put into subjection under the feet of Christ. It’s done, finished, complete. But Scripture also tells us that as of now we do "not yet see everything in subjection to Him.
We look at the world and say "there is evil all over the place" we don’t see that Jesus has all of this under His subjection, but He does. Why? Because God sees the future judgement of Satan, evil and sin as already completed. It is finished. We don’t see it now as temporal beings, but God has already won the battle in the future. He exist outside of time and the story is already over. This is part of why God knows all things, because it is already finished and done according to His will. Not that God would be incapable of seeing the future, but it’s a moot point, because God wrote the future."
For more about God's sovereignty I recommend that you read the whole article and 6 part series. But nevertheless, Scripture clearly teaches that the ultimate reason things happen the way they do is because God ordains them to happen as they do. God is in control.
That said, let me here ask, do we have truly "free" will? Since we ultimately do what God has ordained us to, the answer is no. However, here is where we will enter into the discussion of whether what we do is by compulsion, or by necessity.
Compulsion would refer to an outside source forcing its will upon us, making us do something that we did not really want to do. Does God make us do things we don't want to do? No, He doesn't force us to do anything against our "will."
What do I mean by that? Someone might say here "You just said that we don't have free will and then you say that God won't make us do something against our will. What are you smoking?" You can be sure, I meant just what I said. Let me quote Luther when discussing "necessity" versus "compulsion."
"I could wish, indeed, that a better term was available for our discussion than the accepted one, necessity, which cannot accurately be used of either man's will or God's. Its meaning is too harsh, and foreign to the subject; for it suggests some sort of compulsion, and something that is against ones will, which is no part of the view under debate. The will, whether it be God's or man's, does what it does, good or bad, under no compulsion, but just as it wants or pleases, as if totally free." (Luther, 81)
Let's talk this out for a bit shall we? Remember in the discussion of "total depravity" that we discussed how mankind loves its sin. We sin because we want to, and we have no desire on our own to stop sinning. God has ordained all that we do, but he has not forced us against our will, because we love what we are doing and we long for more of it. So man freely does what man wants to do, however they do so, not by compulsion but by necessity, for that was what God had predestined for them to do.
In the same way God does not force someone to love Him, but instead he takes out their heart of stone and gives them a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26,
"And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."
God gives the sinner His Spirit making them a new creation who no longer wants sin, they want God. They have not been compulsed to do anything, they freely do just what they want, but they do it out of necessity because God ordained them to do so.
Ultimately it comes down to this, the will of man is enslaved either to Satan and sin or to God and righteousness, but regardless of which one it is enslaved to the will of man does its bidding not under compulsion but freely and gladly, and they do so because God has ordained it to be so.
Let's look at how Luther explains this in an analogy.
"So man's will is like a beast standing between two riders. If God rides, it wills and goes where God wills: as the Psalm says, 'I am become as a beast before thee, and I am ever with thee' (Ps. 73:22-23). If Satan rides, it wills and goes where Satan wills. Nor may it choose to which rider it will run, or which it will seek; but the riders themselves fight to decide who shall have and hold it." (Luther, 103-104)
I would note, as would Luther if anyone should question his meaning, that God always wins the fight when it is His desire to ride a particular beast.
I think this example wonderfully illustrates the position of mankind. Although I would add, again, that the beast is not being driven by compulsion with whips and spurs, but by a carrot or sugar cube in front of them, the beast pursues willingly the direction it is led.
So does man have free will? Ultimately the answer is no. But we carry on day to day, feeling as though our will is totally free, because we do only that which we desire most to do. And it depends upon whether our will is enslaved to Satan and sin or to God and righteousness as to what desires we have in our hearts.
-Jacob
Luther, Martin. The Bondage of the Will. Grand Rapids, MI: Revell, 2005.
Just a couple of posts ago on this blog we took up the issue of God's sovereignty in salvation and the first part of that series was on the Total Depravity of man. In that post I gave Scripture that conclusively taught that mankind is totally depraved, and in bondage to sin. Not only are we as people enslaved to sin, but we are incapable of doing anything about it ourselves.
I see the discussion of "free will" finding its answers in the doctrines of grace and a proper understanding of the sovereignty of God. In my series on the sovereignty of God in part 4 which you may see here: http://reformationinprogress.blogspot.com/2007/02/sovereignty-of-god-part-4.html, we looked at how God is the mastermind behind all things. Everything that takes place, does so by the will of God.
From the above linked article:
"Here is an illustration that I find helpful. God observes His creation not as we do as temporal beings, but as the sovereign Lord over all creation. He is the painter, we are a part of the painting. God is not merely in the process of painting the picture, the picture is already complete. God views the past, present and future, complete and simultaneously. He asserts prophecy not because He is merely confident He can make it happen, but He asserts prophecy because it is already done.
Consider the following verses from Hebrews 2:6-96.
It has been testified somewhere, "what is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for Him? 7You made Him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned Him with glory and honor, 8putting everything in subjection under His feet." Now in putting everything in subjection to Him, He left nothing outside of His control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him. 9But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. (Emphasis mine)
Look at what Scripture tells us. It says that everything has (past tense) been put into subjection under the feet of Christ. It’s done, finished, complete. But Scripture also tells us that as of now we do "not yet see everything in subjection to Him.
We look at the world and say "there is evil all over the place" we don’t see that Jesus has all of this under His subjection, but He does. Why? Because God sees the future judgement of Satan, evil and sin as already completed. It is finished. We don’t see it now as temporal beings, but God has already won the battle in the future. He exist outside of time and the story is already over. This is part of why God knows all things, because it is already finished and done according to His will. Not that God would be incapable of seeing the future, but it’s a moot point, because God wrote the future."
For more about God's sovereignty I recommend that you read the whole article and 6 part series. But nevertheless, Scripture clearly teaches that the ultimate reason things happen the way they do is because God ordains them to happen as they do. God is in control.
That said, let me here ask, do we have truly "free" will? Since we ultimately do what God has ordained us to, the answer is no. However, here is where we will enter into the discussion of whether what we do is by compulsion, or by necessity.
Compulsion would refer to an outside source forcing its will upon us, making us do something that we did not really want to do. Does God make us do things we don't want to do? No, He doesn't force us to do anything against our "will."
What do I mean by that? Someone might say here "You just said that we don't have free will and then you say that God won't make us do something against our will. What are you smoking?" You can be sure, I meant just what I said. Let me quote Luther when discussing "necessity" versus "compulsion."
"I could wish, indeed, that a better term was available for our discussion than the accepted one, necessity, which cannot accurately be used of either man's will or God's. Its meaning is too harsh, and foreign to the subject; for it suggests some sort of compulsion, and something that is against ones will, which is no part of the view under debate. The will, whether it be God's or man's, does what it does, good or bad, under no compulsion, but just as it wants or pleases, as if totally free." (Luther, 81)
Let's talk this out for a bit shall we? Remember in the discussion of "total depravity" that we discussed how mankind loves its sin. We sin because we want to, and we have no desire on our own to stop sinning. God has ordained all that we do, but he has not forced us against our will, because we love what we are doing and we long for more of it. So man freely does what man wants to do, however they do so, not by compulsion but by necessity, for that was what God had predestined for them to do.
In the same way God does not force someone to love Him, but instead he takes out their heart of stone and gives them a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26,
"And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."
God gives the sinner His Spirit making them a new creation who no longer wants sin, they want God. They have not been compulsed to do anything, they freely do just what they want, but they do it out of necessity because God ordained them to do so.
Ultimately it comes down to this, the will of man is enslaved either to Satan and sin or to God and righteousness, but regardless of which one it is enslaved to the will of man does its bidding not under compulsion but freely and gladly, and they do so because God has ordained it to be so.
Let's look at how Luther explains this in an analogy.
"So man's will is like a beast standing between two riders. If God rides, it wills and goes where God wills: as the Psalm says, 'I am become as a beast before thee, and I am ever with thee' (Ps. 73:22-23). If Satan rides, it wills and goes where Satan wills. Nor may it choose to which rider it will run, or which it will seek; but the riders themselves fight to decide who shall have and hold it." (Luther, 103-104)
I would note, as would Luther if anyone should question his meaning, that God always wins the fight when it is His desire to ride a particular beast.
I think this example wonderfully illustrates the position of mankind. Although I would add, again, that the beast is not being driven by compulsion with whips and spurs, but by a carrot or sugar cube in front of them, the beast pursues willingly the direction it is led.
So does man have free will? Ultimately the answer is no. But we carry on day to day, feeling as though our will is totally free, because we do only that which we desire most to do. And it depends upon whether our will is enslaved to Satan and sin or to God and righteousness as to what desires we have in our hearts.
-Jacob
Luther, Martin. The Bondage of the Will. Grand Rapids, MI: Revell, 2005.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
The Sovereignty of God: Part 6
Let us go ahead and finish the definition that was originally given for the sovereignty of God. The last part of the definition that remains yet to be explained is the following:
"God is Holy, perfect and sinless and is Himself the author of truth, the standard of good.
Anything that pleases God to do, He does. Nothing can hinder the plans and /or the will of God."
So let’s start with "God is Holy, perfect and sinless" and go from there. It would take forever to cite all the verse that teach the holy perfection and sinlessness of God, but here are just a few to make the point.
Leviticus 11:44
"For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground."
Psalm 77:13
"Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God?"
Psalm 99:9
"Exalt the LORD our God,and worship at his holy mountain;for the LORD our God is holy!"
Next we see that God is "perfect" in all his ways.
Deuteronomy 32:3-4
"3For I will proclaim the name of the LORD; ascribe greatness to our God! 4"The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he."
2 Samuel 22:31
"This God--his way is perfect;the word of the LORD proves true;he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him."
And now we come to God is "sinless."
Speaking of Jesus the Scripture says in Hebrews 4:15
"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin."
The holiness and perfection of God really defines the fact that He is sinless. In fact it is this that leads us to the next part of our definition. God " is Himself the author of truth, the standard of good."
It is because God is the creator and that He is perfect and Holy that He Himself defines what sin is. Sin is anything that is contrary to law of God. And since God makes the law and it is against His nature to break His own law, God is sinless.
God as creator is the one who says what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false, what is holy and what is sinful, it is His right to set such parameters and His alone as sovereign creator. God’s person, nature and word as revealed in Scripture, is the standard for truth and good. No one else can lay claim to this. Truth and that which is good is objective and comes from the creator.
If I were to make up a rule and say it was true and good, what authority would I have to do so. My opinion is subjective. However God as the creator of this universe is the only one who can set parameters on truth, and goodness. His opinion is objective. He created the law of gravity which is true whether we like it or not and He created the law in Scripture which is true whether we like it or not.
Next in our definition we see "Anything that pleases God to do, He does."
Psalm 115:3
"Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases."
The final part of our definition is this "Nothing can hinder the plans and /or the will of God."
Daniel 4:35
"all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,and he does according to his will among the host of heavenand among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his handor say to him, "What have you done?"
Who could blame God of wrong doing? No one, God is God and can do as He pleases. God is the standard of good and therefore He is just in all His actions even when we cannot understand them. Who can stop God from fulfilling His plans? No one, God is almighty, no man can hold Him back.
This concludes our study on the definition of the "Sovereignty of God." This was of course just a prelude to discussing the "Doctrines of Grace" a.k.a. the five points of Calvinism. I encourage you to review all 6 parts of the Sovereignty of God series before you jump into the discussion of the 5 points because it will inform you as to God sovereignty in the salvation of man.
God bless and we’ll get to the "Doctrines of Grace" very soon!
"God is Holy, perfect and sinless and is Himself the author of truth, the standard of good.
Anything that pleases God to do, He does. Nothing can hinder the plans and /or the will of God."
So let’s start with "God is Holy, perfect and sinless" and go from there. It would take forever to cite all the verse that teach the holy perfection and sinlessness of God, but here are just a few to make the point.
Leviticus 11:44
"For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground."
Psalm 77:13
"Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God?"
Psalm 99:9
"Exalt the LORD our God,and worship at his holy mountain;for the LORD our God is holy!"
Next we see that God is "perfect" in all his ways.
Deuteronomy 32:3-4
"3For I will proclaim the name of the LORD; ascribe greatness to our God! 4"The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he."
2 Samuel 22:31
"This God--his way is perfect;the word of the LORD proves true;he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him."
And now we come to God is "sinless."
Speaking of Jesus the Scripture says in Hebrews 4:15
"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin."
The holiness and perfection of God really defines the fact that He is sinless. In fact it is this that leads us to the next part of our definition. God " is Himself the author of truth, the standard of good."
It is because God is the creator and that He is perfect and Holy that He Himself defines what sin is. Sin is anything that is contrary to law of God. And since God makes the law and it is against His nature to break His own law, God is sinless.
God as creator is the one who says what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false, what is holy and what is sinful, it is His right to set such parameters and His alone as sovereign creator. God’s person, nature and word as revealed in Scripture, is the standard for truth and good. No one else can lay claim to this. Truth and that which is good is objective and comes from the creator.
If I were to make up a rule and say it was true and good, what authority would I have to do so. My opinion is subjective. However God as the creator of this universe is the only one who can set parameters on truth, and goodness. His opinion is objective. He created the law of gravity which is true whether we like it or not and He created the law in Scripture which is true whether we like it or not.
Next in our definition we see "Anything that pleases God to do, He does."
Psalm 115:3
"Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases."
The final part of our definition is this "Nothing can hinder the plans and /or the will of God."
Daniel 4:35
"all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,and he does according to his will among the host of heavenand among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his handor say to him, "What have you done?"
Who could blame God of wrong doing? No one, God is God and can do as He pleases. God is the standard of good and therefore He is just in all His actions even when we cannot understand them. Who can stop God from fulfilling His plans? No one, God is almighty, no man can hold Him back.
This concludes our study on the definition of the "Sovereignty of God." This was of course just a prelude to discussing the "Doctrines of Grace" a.k.a. the five points of Calvinism. I encourage you to review all 6 parts of the Sovereignty of God series before you jump into the discussion of the 5 points because it will inform you as to God sovereignty in the salvation of man.
God bless and we’ll get to the "Doctrines of Grace" very soon!
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The Sovereignty of God: Part 5
God’s immutability. When I first heard of this attribute of God I thought that it meant that no one could shut God’s mouth, but I was a little off. Here is how we will define God’s immutability:
God is remains exactly the same in His nature and being eternity past, present and future. God not only does not change, He cannot change nor can He be changed by anyone or anything.
Let’s look at some Scripture to show where this doctrine come from.
Malachi 3:6
"For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed."
Psalm 102:25-27
"25Of old you laid the foundation of the earth,and the heavens are the work of your hands. 26They will perish, but you will remain;they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, 27but you are the same, and your years have no end."
Numbers 23:19
"God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?"
James 1:17
"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."
Hebrews 13:8
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."
It is clear that Scripture teaches that God does not change, and indeed He cannot change because it would be contrary to His nature. We see above in Malachi 3:6 that it is said as clear as possible that "I the LORD do not change." Therefore should God change He would become a liar, and if He became a liar then He would become a sinner and cease to be God.
It’s a misnomer to say that God can do anything. More accurately we should say that God can do anything that is not counter to His nature. "God is not man, that He should lie." Lie is counter to God’s perfect and Holy nature therefore God is incapable of lying. So the age old question "Can God make a rock so big that He can’t pick it up?" is quite answerable. No, He cannot. God is omnipotent and has unlimited strength as well as unlimited creative powers. God could not create something that would deny His omnipotence, like a rock to big to pick up.
All that said, God’s immutability is very important. If God could say one thing and then change His mind, then the believer would have no security in the promises of God. God might decide not to save the one who places their faith in Jesus.
Furthermore, Scripture teaches that God is perfect. Therefore if God were to change He would not change for the better, there is no better than perfect. So by default if God were to change He would become imperfect. What kind of confidence could we have in an imperfect God? If God could change from being perfect in Holiness, and might, and such as these and become not holy, not almighty, what promise is there that we could be sure that He would or could keep. Perhaps in the end Satan would prevail over this changing God.
However this changeable God is not the God revealed in the Scriptures. The God of the Bible is a perfect God that cannot change or be changed. And we should thank Him daily for this part of His nature, for the security of the believer is found in this doctrine of God’s immutability.
-Jacob
God is remains exactly the same in His nature and being eternity past, present and future. God not only does not change, He cannot change nor can He be changed by anyone or anything.
Let’s look at some Scripture to show where this doctrine come from.
Malachi 3:6
"For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed."
Psalm 102:25-27
"25Of old you laid the foundation of the earth,and the heavens are the work of your hands. 26They will perish, but you will remain;they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, 27but you are the same, and your years have no end."
Numbers 23:19
"God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?"
James 1:17
"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."
Hebrews 13:8
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."
It is clear that Scripture teaches that God does not change, and indeed He cannot change because it would be contrary to His nature. We see above in Malachi 3:6 that it is said as clear as possible that "I the LORD do not change." Therefore should God change He would become a liar, and if He became a liar then He would become a sinner and cease to be God.
It’s a misnomer to say that God can do anything. More accurately we should say that God can do anything that is not counter to His nature. "God is not man, that He should lie." Lie is counter to God’s perfect and Holy nature therefore God is incapable of lying. So the age old question "Can God make a rock so big that He can’t pick it up?" is quite answerable. No, He cannot. God is omnipotent and has unlimited strength as well as unlimited creative powers. God could not create something that would deny His omnipotence, like a rock to big to pick up.
All that said, God’s immutability is very important. If God could say one thing and then change His mind, then the believer would have no security in the promises of God. God might decide not to save the one who places their faith in Jesus.
Furthermore, Scripture teaches that God is perfect. Therefore if God were to change He would not change for the better, there is no better than perfect. So by default if God were to change He would become imperfect. What kind of confidence could we have in an imperfect God? If God could change from being perfect in Holiness, and might, and such as these and become not holy, not almighty, what promise is there that we could be sure that He would or could keep. Perhaps in the end Satan would prevail over this changing God.
However this changeable God is not the God revealed in the Scriptures. The God of the Bible is a perfect God that cannot change or be changed. And we should thank Him daily for this part of His nature, for the security of the believer is found in this doctrine of God’s immutability.
-Jacob
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
The Sovereignty of God: Part 4
We have already seen that God is all powerful, all knowing, and all present. Now we look at God’s eternal nature. The eternity of God can be defined in this way.
God is eternal. He existed eternity past, present and future. God is outside of time because He is the creator of time. Because God exists outside of time, He see’s the past, present and future simultaneously.
Get ready to be stretched if this concept is new to you. It was new to me not to long ago and it stretched me in a good way. Sure I always believed God existed eternally, but the application of that truth is what got to me and made me really have to study the Scripture in order to be able to say, "yeah that’s what it teaches." But before we get into all the application and philosophy of God’s eternal nature, let’s examine some Scripture so that you know I’m not just making this all up.
Exodus 3:13-14
13Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" 14God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM."
And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"
This is one of the definitive verses concerning God’s eternal nature. Notice the present tense of the name that God gives, "I AM." God is not the merely the one who was and is and is to come (sure He is all that to; Revelation 1: 8) but He is also the self existent one who transcends time because time itself is created by Him. Perhaps another verse that is similar in nature to the passage in Exodus would help to illuminate this point.
John 8:57-58
"57So the Jews said to Him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" 58Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am."
Ponder that statement for a moment with me. It would seem to be grammatically incorrect. Was Jesus merely incorrect in His grammar? Did the apostle John just make an error when He wrote down Jesus’ statement? No. Jesus said what He said quite intentionally. By saying this the way He did Jesus clearly identified Himself as God. He said he is the "I AM" of Exodus 3:13-14. The Jews reacted quite unfavorably to such an assertion and attempted to stone Him (John 8:59).
Aside from the clear identification as being one with the Father that Jesus made here, we can learn a lot from this statement concerning the eternal nature of God. Jesus could have merely said that "Before Abraham was I was there because I’m God." But He chose His words carefully to reveal Himself in a more descriptive way. The present tense that Jesus used when He said "before Abraham was I am" not only tells us that He is God, but also that He, as God, is eternal and He transcends time itself. Jesus did not merely exist in the present but He also existed in the past as He does also in the future.
(Now might be a good time to pause, take some Tylenol, drink an 8oz. glass of water and get ready to turn the wheels in you brain.)
God is not only omnipresent at all places at once in the physical sense, but also He is omnipresent throughout time. Past, present, and future. God can confidently make assertion about what will happen not only because He can control the outcome of the future and make sure His will isn’t thwarted, but instead He can say that the victory is won and the devil is defeated because God has already wrote the ending to the story and exist in the future as much as He does the present and as much as He does the past.
Here is an illustration that I find helpful. God observes His creation not as we do as temporal beings, but as the sovereign Lord over all creation. He is the painter, we are a part of the painting. God is not merely in the process of painting the picture, the picture is already complete. God views the past, present and future, complete and simultaneously. He asserts prophecy not because He is merely confident He can make it happen, but He asserts prophecy because it is already done. Consider the following verses
Hebrews 2:6-9
6It has been testified somewhere, "what is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for Him? 7You made Him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned Him with glory and honor, 8putting everything in subjection under His feet." Now in putting everything in subjection to Him, He left nothing outside of His control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him. 9But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. (Emphasis mine)
Look at what Scripture tells us. It says that everything has (past tense) been put into subjection under the feet of Christ. It’s done, finished, complete. But Scripture also tells us that as of now we do "not yet see everything in subjection to Him."
We look at the world and say "there is evil all over the place" we don’t see that Jesus has all of this under His subjection, but He does. Why? Because God sees the future judgement of Satan, evil and sin as already completed. It is finished. We don’t see it now as temporal beings, but God has already won the battle in the future. He exist outside of time and the story is already over. This is part of why God knows all things, because it is already finished and done according to His will. Not that God would be incapable of seeing the future, but it’s a moot point, because God wrote the future.
Now here come the objections, I can imagine, that this doesn’t seem fair. After all we as humans like to think that the story is still being written, the picture is still being painted. And on that note, we like to think that we have an active part in how things turn out. We tend to assume that God reacts to what we do to accomplish His purpose. I submit to you that such a view is unbiblical. In fact I submit to you that nothing happens apart from the will of God. God does not dance around the "Janga tower" trying to keep us humans from knocking it over as we manipulate it however we want. God does not sit and wait to see what we do and react accordingly to keep the world on course. God is the author of creation. Look at what Scripture says about our glorious God Jesus Christ.
Colossians 1:15-17
15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through Him and for Him. 17And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. (Emphasis mine)
God created all things and He is the one who gives authority to rulers and kingdoms, and He uses them to accomplish His purposes. This theme occurs time and again throughout Scripture. People think they are in control, and indeed it is true that they are doing what they want, but only according to God’s will.
Someone might here object, "are you saying that sin is according to God’s will?" Well, no. Not the sin itself, God hates sin. But God does use people’s sinful actions that they already want to do, according to His will. How about an example.
Jesus, before Pontius Pilate, is a perfect example of God’s sovereignty in appointing rulers and using them according to His purpose.
John 19:10-11
10So Pilate said to Him, "You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?" 11Jesus answered him, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin."
Pilate’s authority was given to him by God, and it was Pilate who delivered Jesus over to be crucified. Romans 13:1 tells us "....For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God." God throughout Scripture uses men’s sinful actions to fulfill His plan.
Acts 2:23 says,
This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. (Emphasis mine)
Clearly the murder of Jesus was a sinful thing, and yet clearly it was ordained by God to take place. Another great example was the sinful actions of Joseph’s brother’s. They sold him into slavery and lied to their father saying that a wild beast had killed him. Even though this was a sinful thing for them to do, because it happened, Joseph eventually (through a long chain of trying events) became second in command of the nation of Egypt. Because of this many people were saved from a great famine in the land. (Read the whole story to fill in the details Genesis 37-50) This was not merely coincidental, but the plan of God. After Joseph’s father died, his brother feared that Joseph would seek revenge, however Joseph replied in this manner.
Genesis 50:20
20As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
Constantly God uses the sinful actions of people and nations to fulfill His plan. He does not merely react to them and make something good of it, He plans them. Does this make God responsible for sin as some might object? No. God doesn’t make anyone do anything that they don’t already want to do in their flesh. (Or as NIV would say, in their "sin nature")
We will talk more about the will of man versus the will of God as our conversation continues into the doctrine of Unconditional Election. But for now I will leave you with the previous Scriptures to ponder for yourself.
Let’s get back to the main point of this post, which is God’s eternal nature. It’s easy to go on rabbit trails when talking about the eternal nature of God, because it effects so many other doctrines in Scripture (if not all other doctrines). The point I am really trying to make is that God is eternal, He is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, and because of this He interacts with His creation in a way that is totally "other" than the way we interact with creation. He interacts one way as "creator", we interact in another way as part of His "creation." Because of God’s timeless eternal nature, He interacts with the world in the past present and future simultaneously, and that is sure to effect the way we understand God as we look at any other teaching in Scripture.
I will also note that it is because God exists outside of time and sees His creation as a "finished painting" so to speak, that God was able to apply forgiveness of sins to the "Old Testament believers." In God’s perspective, the sacrificial, substitutionary death of Jesus Christ was finished when creation was created. Therefore the sins of Abraham and other like Him were forgiven on the merit of Jesus Christ’s death satisfying God’s wrath for sin. Therefore it is written in Romans 3:23-26,
"23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be receive by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. 26It was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." (Emphasis mine)
God passed over the sins of the Old testament saints like Abraham, among others, who were justified by their faith in the promises of God to save them (just as we are saved today). God was just in so doing because in the sight of God, His wrath for sin had already been satisfied by Christ.
This, again, is by no means an exhaustive discussion on the issue and there are more Scriptures then I could count that would be applicable tot this discussion, but hopefully this has been a good introductory discussion on a subject that is probably a little bit new to many. I encourage you to study it further yourself.
In Him -Jacob Allee
P.S. Soon we will touch on the issue of God’s immutability.
God is eternal. He existed eternity past, present and future. God is outside of time because He is the creator of time. Because God exists outside of time, He see’s the past, present and future simultaneously.
Get ready to be stretched if this concept is new to you. It was new to me not to long ago and it stretched me in a good way. Sure I always believed God existed eternally, but the application of that truth is what got to me and made me really have to study the Scripture in order to be able to say, "yeah that’s what it teaches." But before we get into all the application and philosophy of God’s eternal nature, let’s examine some Scripture so that you know I’m not just making this all up.
Exodus 3:13-14
13Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" 14God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM."
And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"
This is one of the definitive verses concerning God’s eternal nature. Notice the present tense of the name that God gives, "I AM." God is not the merely the one who was and is and is to come (sure He is all that to; Revelation 1: 8) but He is also the self existent one who transcends time because time itself is created by Him. Perhaps another verse that is similar in nature to the passage in Exodus would help to illuminate this point.
John 8:57-58
"57So the Jews said to Him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" 58Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am."
Ponder that statement for a moment with me. It would seem to be grammatically incorrect. Was Jesus merely incorrect in His grammar? Did the apostle John just make an error when He wrote down Jesus’ statement? No. Jesus said what He said quite intentionally. By saying this the way He did Jesus clearly identified Himself as God. He said he is the "I AM" of Exodus 3:13-14. The Jews reacted quite unfavorably to such an assertion and attempted to stone Him (John 8:59).
Aside from the clear identification as being one with the Father that Jesus made here, we can learn a lot from this statement concerning the eternal nature of God. Jesus could have merely said that "Before Abraham was I was there because I’m God." But He chose His words carefully to reveal Himself in a more descriptive way. The present tense that Jesus used when He said "before Abraham was I am" not only tells us that He is God, but also that He, as God, is eternal and He transcends time itself. Jesus did not merely exist in the present but He also existed in the past as He does also in the future.
(Now might be a good time to pause, take some Tylenol, drink an 8oz. glass of water and get ready to turn the wheels in you brain.)
God is not only omnipresent at all places at once in the physical sense, but also He is omnipresent throughout time. Past, present, and future. God can confidently make assertion about what will happen not only because He can control the outcome of the future and make sure His will isn’t thwarted, but instead He can say that the victory is won and the devil is defeated because God has already wrote the ending to the story and exist in the future as much as He does the present and as much as He does the past.
Here is an illustration that I find helpful. God observes His creation not as we do as temporal beings, but as the sovereign Lord over all creation. He is the painter, we are a part of the painting. God is not merely in the process of painting the picture, the picture is already complete. God views the past, present and future, complete and simultaneously. He asserts prophecy not because He is merely confident He can make it happen, but He asserts prophecy because it is already done. Consider the following verses
Hebrews 2:6-9
6It has been testified somewhere, "what is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for Him? 7You made Him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned Him with glory and honor, 8putting everything in subjection under His feet." Now in putting everything in subjection to Him, He left nothing outside of His control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him. 9But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. (Emphasis mine)
Look at what Scripture tells us. It says that everything has (past tense) been put into subjection under the feet of Christ. It’s done, finished, complete. But Scripture also tells us that as of now we do "not yet see everything in subjection to Him."
We look at the world and say "there is evil all over the place" we don’t see that Jesus has all of this under His subjection, but He does. Why? Because God sees the future judgement of Satan, evil and sin as already completed. It is finished. We don’t see it now as temporal beings, but God has already won the battle in the future. He exist outside of time and the story is already over. This is part of why God knows all things, because it is already finished and done according to His will. Not that God would be incapable of seeing the future, but it’s a moot point, because God wrote the future.
Now here come the objections, I can imagine, that this doesn’t seem fair. After all we as humans like to think that the story is still being written, the picture is still being painted. And on that note, we like to think that we have an active part in how things turn out. We tend to assume that God reacts to what we do to accomplish His purpose. I submit to you that such a view is unbiblical. In fact I submit to you that nothing happens apart from the will of God. God does not dance around the "Janga tower" trying to keep us humans from knocking it over as we manipulate it however we want. God does not sit and wait to see what we do and react accordingly to keep the world on course. God is the author of creation. Look at what Scripture says about our glorious God Jesus Christ.
Colossians 1:15-17
15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through Him and for Him. 17And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. (Emphasis mine)
God created all things and He is the one who gives authority to rulers and kingdoms, and He uses them to accomplish His purposes. This theme occurs time and again throughout Scripture. People think they are in control, and indeed it is true that they are doing what they want, but only according to God’s will.
Someone might here object, "are you saying that sin is according to God’s will?" Well, no. Not the sin itself, God hates sin. But God does use people’s sinful actions that they already want to do, according to His will. How about an example.
Jesus, before Pontius Pilate, is a perfect example of God’s sovereignty in appointing rulers and using them according to His purpose.
John 19:10-11
10So Pilate said to Him, "You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?" 11Jesus answered him, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin."
Pilate’s authority was given to him by God, and it was Pilate who delivered Jesus over to be crucified. Romans 13:1 tells us "....For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God." God throughout Scripture uses men’s sinful actions to fulfill His plan.
Acts 2:23 says,
This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. (Emphasis mine)
Clearly the murder of Jesus was a sinful thing, and yet clearly it was ordained by God to take place. Another great example was the sinful actions of Joseph’s brother’s. They sold him into slavery and lied to their father saying that a wild beast had killed him. Even though this was a sinful thing for them to do, because it happened, Joseph eventually (through a long chain of trying events) became second in command of the nation of Egypt. Because of this many people were saved from a great famine in the land. (Read the whole story to fill in the details Genesis 37-50) This was not merely coincidental, but the plan of God. After Joseph’s father died, his brother feared that Joseph would seek revenge, however Joseph replied in this manner.
Genesis 50:20
20As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
Constantly God uses the sinful actions of people and nations to fulfill His plan. He does not merely react to them and make something good of it, He plans them. Does this make God responsible for sin as some might object? No. God doesn’t make anyone do anything that they don’t already want to do in their flesh. (Or as NIV would say, in their "sin nature")
We will talk more about the will of man versus the will of God as our conversation continues into the doctrine of Unconditional Election. But for now I will leave you with the previous Scriptures to ponder for yourself.
Let’s get back to the main point of this post, which is God’s eternal nature. It’s easy to go on rabbit trails when talking about the eternal nature of God, because it effects so many other doctrines in Scripture (if not all other doctrines). The point I am really trying to make is that God is eternal, He is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, and because of this He interacts with His creation in a way that is totally "other" than the way we interact with creation. He interacts one way as "creator", we interact in another way as part of His "creation." Because of God’s timeless eternal nature, He interacts with the world in the past present and future simultaneously, and that is sure to effect the way we understand God as we look at any other teaching in Scripture.
I will also note that it is because God exists outside of time and sees His creation as a "finished painting" so to speak, that God was able to apply forgiveness of sins to the "Old Testament believers." In God’s perspective, the sacrificial, substitutionary death of Jesus Christ was finished when creation was created. Therefore the sins of Abraham and other like Him were forgiven on the merit of Jesus Christ’s death satisfying God’s wrath for sin. Therefore it is written in Romans 3:23-26,
"23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be receive by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. 26It was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." (Emphasis mine)
God passed over the sins of the Old testament saints like Abraham, among others, who were justified by their faith in the promises of God to save them (just as we are saved today). God was just in so doing because in the sight of God, His wrath for sin had already been satisfied by Christ.
This, again, is by no means an exhaustive discussion on the issue and there are more Scriptures then I could count that would be applicable tot this discussion, but hopefully this has been a good introductory discussion on a subject that is probably a little bit new to many. I encourage you to study it further yourself.
In Him -Jacob Allee
P.S. Soon we will touch on the issue of God’s immutability.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
The Sovereignty of God: Part 3
Another aspect of the sovereignty of God is God’s omnipresence. Omnipresence can be defined in this way: God does not have size or spatial dimensions and is present at every point of space with His whole being, yet God acts differently in different places. (Grudem, 173)
God is present everywhere.
Psalm 139:7-12
7 "Where shall I go from your Spirit?Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8If I ascend to heaven, you are there!If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 9If I take the wings of the morningand dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10even there your hand shall lead me,and your right hand shall hold me. 11If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me,and the light about me be night," 12even the darkness is not dark to you;the night is bright as the day,for darkness is as light with you."
Jeremiah 23:23-24
23"Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God afar off? 24Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD."
God does not have spatial dimensions.
1 Kings 8:27
"But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!"
God acts differently in different places. He can be present to punish, to sustain, or to bless.
A. Present to punish.
Amos 9:1-4
1 "I saw the LORD standing beside the altar, and he said:"Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake, and shatter them on the heads of all the people; and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword; not one of them shall flee away; not one of them shall escape. 2"If they dig into Sheol, from there shall my hand take them; if they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down. 3If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,from there I will search them out and take them; and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them. 4And if they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them; and I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good."
B. Present to sustain.
Colossians 1:17
"And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together."
Hebrews 1:3
"He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,"
C. Present to bless.
Psalm16:11
"You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."
2 Corinthians 3:17
"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."
-Jacob
Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994
God is present everywhere.
Psalm 139:7-12
7 "Where shall I go from your Spirit?Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8If I ascend to heaven, you are there!If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 9If I take the wings of the morningand dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10even there your hand shall lead me,and your right hand shall hold me. 11If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me,and the light about me be night," 12even the darkness is not dark to you;the night is bright as the day,for darkness is as light with you."
Jeremiah 23:23-24
23"Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God afar off? 24Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD."
God does not have spatial dimensions.
1 Kings 8:27
"But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!"
God acts differently in different places. He can be present to punish, to sustain, or to bless.
A. Present to punish.
Amos 9:1-4
1 "I saw the LORD standing beside the altar, and he said:"Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake, and shatter them on the heads of all the people; and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword; not one of them shall flee away; not one of them shall escape. 2"If they dig into Sheol, from there shall my hand take them; if they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down. 3If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,from there I will search them out and take them; and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them. 4And if they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them; and I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good."
B. Present to sustain.
Colossians 1:17
"And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together."
Hebrews 1:3
"He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,"
C. Present to bless.
Psalm16:11
"You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."
2 Corinthians 3:17
"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."
-Jacob
Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994
Monday, January 22, 2007
The Sovereignty of God: Part 2
Part of God’s sovereignty is His omniscience. This means that God knows all things. He doesn’t merely know the things that are, or the things that have been, but He also knows all that will be. Even further, I would add, God knows all things that could have been if He had wanted them to be so. God knows everything there is to know including the things that are not a reality. The ultimate answer to why God knows all things is because He is the one who ordained all things. God does not merely look into the future, He writes the future. More accurately I should say He has already wrote the future. God exists outside of time and views the past the present and the future like one masterful painting that He has already finished.
Let’s look at the Scripture and let it speak for itself about God’s omniscience.
Psalm 139:1-6
"1O LORD, you have searched me and known me! 2You know when I sit down and when I rise up;you discern my thoughts from afar. 3You search out my path and my lying downand are acquainted with all my ways. 4Even before a word is on my tongue,behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. 5You hem me in, behind and before,and lay your hand upon me. 6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;it is high; I cannot attain it."
"Too high" indeed! God’s knowledge is tremendously superior to that of His creation. There is nothing that escapes the knowledge of God. Verse 5 stands out strongly to me when David says "You hem me in, behind me and before, and lay your hand upon me." How in credible that God is behind us and in front of us as well as lays His very hand upon us. God Is God of our coming and going and indeed He directs our every step.
The omniscience of God is well displayed in the person of Jesus, the "God-man." In the gospel of John chapter 4, Jesus has an encounter with a woman of Samaria and reveals His detailed knowledge of a person whom He had never met.
John 5:16-19
"16Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." 17The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true." 19The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet."
So enamored with the knowledge that Jesus had of her life the woman went into the town and proclaimed "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" (Jn. 4:29)
Matthew 9:4
"But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts?"
Luke 11:17
"But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls."
Above are two example out of a number we could pull out where Jesus as God knows the thoughts of those around Him.
It only makes sense that God as creator would no everything about His creation. God, afterall, is the designer of the earth and all that is in it. Henry Ford knew all the ends and outs of the Model-T, why because he designed it and put it all together. In Job chapter 38 God outs Job in his place because of his questioning God. God asks Job a series of piercing questions that reveal God’s omnipotent power and by default His omniscience of all things as the author of all that exists.
Job 38:1-41
1Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: 2"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 3Dress for action
like a man;I will question you, and you make it known to me.
4"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?Tell me, if you have understanding. 5Who determined its measurements--surely you know!Or who stretched the line upon it? 6On what were its bases sunk,or who laid its cornerstone, 7when the morning stars sang togetherand all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8"Or who shut in the sea with doorswhen it burst out from the womb, 9when I made clouds its garmentand thick darkness its swaddling band, 10and prescribed limits for itand set bars and doors, 11and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther,and here shall your proud waves be stayed'?
12"Have you commanded the morning since your days began,and caused the dawn to know its place, 13that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth,and the wicked be shaken out of it? 14It is changed like clay under the seal,and its features stand out like a garment. 15From the wicked their light is withheld,and their uplifted arm is broken.
16"Have you entered into the springs of the sea,or walked in the recesses of the deep? 17Have the gates of death been revealed to you,or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? 18Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?Declare, if you know all this.
19"Where is the way to the dwelling of light,and where is the place of darkness, 20that you may take it to its territoryand that you may discern the paths to its home? 21You know, for you were born then,and the number of your days is great!
22"Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, 23which I have reserved for the time of trouble,for the day of battle and war? 24What is the way to the place where the light is distributed,or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?
25"Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rainand a way for the thunderbolt, 26to bring rain on a land where no man is,on the desert in which there is no man, 27to satisfy the waste and desolate land,and to make the ground sprout with grass?
28"Has the rain a father,or who has begotten the drops of dew? 29From whose womb did the ice come forth,and who has given birth to the frost of heaven? 30The waters become hard like stone,and the face of the deep is frozen.
31"Can you bind the chains of the Pleiadesor loose the cords of Orion? 32Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth
in their season,or can you guide the Bear with its children? 33Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?Can you establish their rule on the earth?
34"Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,that a flood of waters may cover you? 35Can you send forth lightnings, that they may goand say to you, 'Here we are'? 36Who has put wisdom in the inward parts
or given understanding to the mind?
37Who can number the clouds by wisdom?Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens, 38when the dust runs into a massand the clods stick fast together?
39"Can you hunt the prey for the lion,or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, 40when they crouch in their densor lie in wait in their thicket? 41Who provides for the raven its prey,when its young ones cry to God for help,and wander about for lack of food?
God designed you and me and all that we see, and He intimately knows how all of it works. God is the chief scientist if you will, as much as that statement would gripe an atheist.
So we see that Scripture does in deed teach the omniscience of God. The given examples are but a drop in a very, very large bucket about what the Bible has to say about the omniscience of God. It would not be hard to find numerous more examples of God’s omniscience, but I am not trying to give an exhaustive list. My intent was to show that Scripture does indeed teach the omniscience of God. I think that has been clearly demonstrated.
-Jacob
Let’s look at the Scripture and let it speak for itself about God’s omniscience.
Psalm 139:1-6
"1O LORD, you have searched me and known me! 2You know when I sit down and when I rise up;you discern my thoughts from afar. 3You search out my path and my lying downand are acquainted with all my ways. 4Even before a word is on my tongue,behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. 5You hem me in, behind and before,and lay your hand upon me. 6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;it is high; I cannot attain it."
"Too high" indeed! God’s knowledge is tremendously superior to that of His creation. There is nothing that escapes the knowledge of God. Verse 5 stands out strongly to me when David says "You hem me in, behind me and before, and lay your hand upon me." How in credible that God is behind us and in front of us as well as lays His very hand upon us. God Is God of our coming and going and indeed He directs our every step.
The omniscience of God is well displayed in the person of Jesus, the "God-man." In the gospel of John chapter 4, Jesus has an encounter with a woman of Samaria and reveals His detailed knowledge of a person whom He had never met.
John 5:16-19
"16Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." 17The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true." 19The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet."
So enamored with the knowledge that Jesus had of her life the woman went into the town and proclaimed "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" (Jn. 4:29)
Matthew 9:4
"But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts?"
Luke 11:17
"But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls."
Above are two example out of a number we could pull out where Jesus as God knows the thoughts of those around Him.
It only makes sense that God as creator would no everything about His creation. God, afterall, is the designer of the earth and all that is in it. Henry Ford knew all the ends and outs of the Model-T, why because he designed it and put it all together. In Job chapter 38 God outs Job in his place because of his questioning God. God asks Job a series of piercing questions that reveal God’s omnipotent power and by default His omniscience of all things as the author of all that exists.
Job 38:1-41
1Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: 2"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 3Dress for action
like a man;I will question you, and you make it known to me.
4"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?Tell me, if you have understanding. 5Who determined its measurements--surely you know!Or who stretched the line upon it? 6On what were its bases sunk,or who laid its cornerstone, 7when the morning stars sang togetherand all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8"Or who shut in the sea with doorswhen it burst out from the womb, 9when I made clouds its garmentand thick darkness its swaddling band, 10and prescribed limits for itand set bars and doors, 11and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther,and here shall your proud waves be stayed'?
12"Have you commanded the morning since your days began,and caused the dawn to know its place, 13that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth,and the wicked be shaken out of it? 14It is changed like clay under the seal,and its features stand out like a garment. 15From the wicked their light is withheld,and their uplifted arm is broken.
16"Have you entered into the springs of the sea,or walked in the recesses of the deep? 17Have the gates of death been revealed to you,or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? 18Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?Declare, if you know all this.
19"Where is the way to the dwelling of light,and where is the place of darkness, 20that you may take it to its territoryand that you may discern the paths to its home? 21You know, for you were born then,and the number of your days is great!
22"Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, 23which I have reserved for the time of trouble,for the day of battle and war? 24What is the way to the place where the light is distributed,or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?
25"Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rainand a way for the thunderbolt, 26to bring rain on a land where no man is,on the desert in which there is no man, 27to satisfy the waste and desolate land,and to make the ground sprout with grass?
28"Has the rain a father,or who has begotten the drops of dew? 29From whose womb did the ice come forth,and who has given birth to the frost of heaven? 30The waters become hard like stone,and the face of the deep is frozen.
31"Can you bind the chains of the Pleiadesor loose the cords of Orion? 32Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth
in their season,or can you guide the Bear with its children? 33Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?Can you establish their rule on the earth?
34"Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,that a flood of waters may cover you? 35Can you send forth lightnings, that they may goand say to you, 'Here we are'? 36Who has put wisdom in the inward parts
or given understanding to the mind?
37Who can number the clouds by wisdom?Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens, 38when the dust runs into a massand the clods stick fast together?
39"Can you hunt the prey for the lion,or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, 40when they crouch in their densor lie in wait in their thicket? 41Who provides for the raven its prey,when its young ones cry to God for help,and wander about for lack of food?
God designed you and me and all that we see, and He intimately knows how all of it works. God is the chief scientist if you will, as much as that statement would gripe an atheist.
So we see that Scripture does in deed teach the omniscience of God. The given examples are but a drop in a very, very large bucket about what the Bible has to say about the omniscience of God. It would not be hard to find numerous more examples of God’s omniscience, but I am not trying to give an exhaustive list. My intent was to show that Scripture does indeed teach the omniscience of God. I think that has been clearly demonstrated.
-Jacob
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