Category: Apologetics Page 6 of 7

http://www.westerfunk.net/archives/chri … e%20World/

I have archived the debate above from ChristianityToday.com that is quite interesting so far. I’ve only read the first two parts at this point and found something fascinating. The debate starts out with Christopher Hitchens accusations about how Christianity is utter non-sense (without going into all his arguments). Then Wilson responds. Of course, the Christian is the one that is supposed to be on the defensive, at least in Hitchens understanding. “You give me a good defense of why I should believe this,” is the thought indicated by Hitchens at the end of his email when he says, “Perhaps your response will make me reconsider?” Yet Wilson goes on the offensive, hitting at some of the Hitchens deeply ingrained presuppositions on the nature of reality and epistemology, as a good apologist is supposed to (while defending the faith at the same time) and asks Hitchens some questions like these:

Which way do you want to argue this? Do all human societies have a grasp of basic morality, which is the theme of your first point, or has religion poisoned everything, which is the thesis of your book?

You then go on to say that we who teach such stories to children have been “damned by history.” But why should this “damnation by history” matter to any of us reading Bible stories to kids, or, for that matter, to any of the people who did any of these atrocious things, on your principles? These people are all dead now, and we who read the stories are all going to be dead. Why should any of us care about the effeminate judgments of history? Should the propagators of these “horrors” have cared? There is no God, right? Because there is no God, this means that—you know—genocides just happen, like earthquakes and eclipses. It is all matter in motion, and these things happen.

But if there is no God, this disapproval will certainly not disturb my oblivion. On with the rapine and slaughter!” On your principles, why should he care?

Does Hitchens respond to any of these questions? Not one. Instead, he just ramps up the arrogance and impassioned hostility toward Christianity. Quite interesting to see that when you start hitting at the fact that within an atheistic worldview, there can be no objective morality because everything is just chemical impulses in our brains, that Hitchens would simply come back with more attacks instead of actual answers to the questions. I think that answers his questions though: no one is an atheist according to Romans 1, and this proves it. He knows there is a God and that there are moral absolutes governing the universe, and it demonstrates that the unrestrained heart of man will pursue radical rebellion against the rights of his Creator.

Anyway, as Wilson says in the debate, in an atheistic worldview, why care at all about insane, horrific atrocities, including genocide? It’s just a group of people that came and went. No significance, no meaning, total oblivion; they were here, some others did not like them who were stronger, and now they are gone. Answer the question Christopher Hitchens: what does it matter to you if genocide does or doesn’t happen if all is utterly meaningless and there is no God, no objective, definitive morality outside of ourselves, in the likeness of natural laws that govern the physical universe?

In order for Hitchens to argue for the gross absolute immorality of genocides committed in the past, he must borrow fundamental moral presuppositions from a Biblical worldview in order to make his case, though he does not realize it and would never admit it. As James White says, Hitchens is a perfect fulfillment of Romans 1 by suppressing the righteousness of God. It is angering and yet very sad all at the same time to see this kind of hatred against Christ, yet we should expect it. And leading up the end before Christ returns, it will just get worse. Yet, we are to stand firm and defend Christ and the Gospel in order that those who adhere to the thinking of Hitchens (and others in his likeness) would be cut to the heart by the Holy Spirit and be saved through faith in Christ imparted by God; it is their only hope.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (Romans 1:18-23)

Most believers (at least it seems to me) have never even considered this. Yet it is very Scriptural. I praise God He has shown it to me and am joyful to impart it to you if possible. We all want to give God the credit for our salvation and yet will inconsistently hold that we produced our faith out of our unregenerated human nature that is in bondage to sin. The air we breathe in this country is “my will to do whatever I want,” and it pervades our understanding of God’s work in salvation. It is said, God did the work through Christ on the cross for everyone, but we get ourselves in “because we are free to choose.” Are we though? How are we free? So our will is free from sin? Has sin not affected even this? And if this is so, how in the world can we make a right choice if even our wills (choosing what we desire most) are in bondage to sin? Our hearts are enslaved, our desires corrupted to the core, to the point that all things coming from our hearts naturally are vile and poisonous. Romans 3:9-18 makes this abundantly clear, as Paul’s argument of summing up the human condition. In ourselves, apart from any work exerted by God to cleanse us, we desire and seek nothing of Jesus unless a change happens first in us to cleanse our will and change our very desires, cure our blindness and heal our deafness, so that we see and hear beauty we’ve never experienced: that is, Jesus and His infinite suffering for sinners on the cross. Shining a light in a blind man’s eyes will not make him see. He must first be cured of his blindness and then he can see the light.

So, faith. What is it? “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” And where does it come from?

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” – Ephesians 2:8-9

You have been saved by grace through faith. We have that down. Then Paul says, “And this is not your own doing.” And I have understood this to mean the totality of the statement, “by grace through faith,” is not your own doing. But including our faith even? Was this the doing of God? According to this Scripture, yes. And it was purchased in the cross for us, being that unbelief was one of the sins for which Christ had to die. If you have believed in Christ, it means before the foundation of the world, it was granted to you by God to believe (Ephesians 1:4, 5, 11).

In salvation, God brings all the glory to Himself and this is indicated in this passage when Paul says, “It (meaning salvation “by grace through faith,” the whole thing) is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” We alone believe. But God is the One who grants that faith. Just as God spoke the world into existence from nothing, so also, He goes into dead hearts and speaks into existence that which is not there, namely faith in Christ alone which saves us. Apart from this work, as Jesus said, you cannot enter the kingdom of God (John 3). May we consider that even our faith has been given to us by God and that even in this, we cannot boast, but rather thank God for the work of Christ, that He would grant us eyes to see and ears to hear the Gospel and respond positively to it.

Here are some other examples of how God is the only One who gives causal priority to our faith (or in simpler terms, that God is the One who imparts faith to the spiritually dead, hardened sinner):

“One of those listening (to the Gospel being preached) was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.” (Acts 16:14)

Notice, Lydia is the one who believed, she responded. Listen to me here: I’m affirming that she was solely responsible for her belief or unbelief in the message. She is not a robot, but a living, responsible moral agent. God did not believe or respond for her. But what is the reason she believed and responded positively? “The Lord opened her heart,” which caused her to respond positively to Paul’s message. God performed a work in her that produced an effect. That is the only explanation for her and every believers faith: God alone and His work to make dead sinners alive. He gets all the glory. This is called regeneration, or the new birth, or (as it has been so abused as a political label for evangelicals) being born again. It is not something we do at all, it is something done to us by God alone. Just as we have nothing to do with our physical birth and have no choice in the matter, so also, we have nothing to do with our second birth, but it is something done to us. And yet are fully responsible to believe the message of the Gospel. But the new birth, this is God’s operation to perform. And the new birth creates in the sinner a faith (assured hope, deep conviction of things not seen, Hebrews 11:1) that was not there. Faith is the result of this new birth, not the cause. God, and more specifically, the cross, is the cause of our faith in Him. This is our hope in evangelism! We speak the message of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit does His work. It doesn’t rest on our convincing people into the kingdom but the work of God to save sinners.

Continuing, Jesus says Himself,

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:44)

No one comes to, or believes in, or trusts in, or rests in, or loves Jesus unless that person is first drawn by the Father. And the Greek word for drawn is literally dragged, as the same Greek word appears in Acts in speaking of Paul being dragged out of the city. This is our condition spiritually before God: we must be dragged and have life supernaturally breathed into us. The implication here is undeniable: no one believes unless God does a work in them. How does this square with Jesus’ statement in John 3:16 that, “whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life”? Well that’s absolutely true! Whosoever believes will be saved.

But read the rest of Jesus’s comments in the Bible, particularly the book of John. It is Jesus Himself who says no one believes unless they are drawn by the Father. Their very coming to Christ is granted by the Father, or it is not. He is God, we’re not. Faith in Jesus is a part of the grace of God, not of works, so that we, in no way at all, boast before Him. He gets all glory and honor for our believing. This is the wondrous hope and beauty of election. It is cause for great joy in the believer and should in no way make us recoil in horror! If you believe, you have been “mercied” by God through the cross, brought from death to life by His power. This should bring you to tears and awe at the infinite work of God to save sinners by Christ.

Jesus also says:

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” (John 6:37)

The Father has a chosen, elect people He gives to the Son. The Son purchases for those people all the benefits of salvation, from beginning to end, uniting them to Himself at every point of His life. Jesus makes an emphatic statement there by saying “they will come to me”. It is as good as done. His work to bring them from death to life is infallible, unstoppable. His work results in their coming to Him, and nothing will stop Him from bringing them to Himself. How awesome. What joy fills my heart just thinking about that. The work of the cross is definitive, effective, not passive, waiting for us to get ourselves into its benefits. Rather, He sovereignly bestows those benefits as He desires, in mercy, making sure His people come to Christ by His power alone. Oh the glory of the cross!

Paul makes clear in 1 Corinthians 12:3 that, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” Jesus says, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all.” Again, the flesh is no help at all. Does this not destroy the misconception of free will? John says, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” (John 1:12) Most people will simply stop at that verse and say “Whosoever, whosoever, see? It proves free will.” Yet they will not continue on in the same sentence of the next verse. It says, “…who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” Preempting verse 12, they were born by God, their very believing came by a prior work of God. It specifically says they were not born “of the will of man.” You did not will yourself into being born again. Is this not conclusive?

And finally, these verses make it abundantly clear that Peter confesses Jesus is the Christ because the Father revealed it to Him, not because he finally made himself see Jesus as the Christ (note specifically that Jesus says flesh and blood has not revealed this to him, including his own):

“Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.'” (Matthew 16:13-17)

So yes, faith is indeed the gift of God and comes only by the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit through the indiscriminate preaching of the Gospel from God’s word. We evangelize the lost because that’s how God sovereignly works, according to Romans 10:14-15. And God does His work as He pleases. How freeing! God has people He will infallibly save through preaching the Gospel! We must pay close attention to these passages in order that we may feel the deeper sense of just how helpless we really were to even believe apart from God’s work in us. That is exactly how dead in sin we really are. Praise God all the work is His and that we can only boast in the work of Christ on the cross having purchased this undeserved, unearned benefit of faith for His people! To God alone be the glory!

In looking up some Scripture and quotes yesterday for my entry on the Ordo Salutis, I came across this article on faithalone.org, the website of the Grace Evangelical Society (Free Grace/No-Lordship position). The article was dealing with Acts 16:14, where, “The Lord opened Lydia’s heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.” Here are a couple of quotes at the beginning of the article in particular with my rebuttals:

“What is God’s part and what is our part in salvation? There are few more difficult subjects than this one. One extreme is to so emphasize God’s sovereignty as to totally eliminate any human role in salvation at all. Reformed theology does this.”

Ha! Really? I’ve never said that, and neither have most historic Calvinists. And if Spurgeon, Whitefield, Calvin, Luther, Edwards, ever said something along those lines, please quote it. All historic Calvinists affirm man’s responsibility to believe. Man does indeed choose something in response to the Gospel call, either affirmation of its truth and acceptance, or denial and opposition. Calvinists deny man’s ability to choose anything other than that which is displeasing to God though, because of the corruption of his nature by sin. Man is by nature an enemy of God, a child of wrath, and does according to that evil nature. Apart from God granting eyes to see, ears to hear the Gospel, we would all choose to turn away from Christ when presented with Him and His work. Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:44) So we preach the Word (the Gospel, that Christ bore wrath in the place of sinners and rose from the dead, that if you believe you will be saved from His coming wrath), and the Spirit does His job in bringing to faith those whom He desires. “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

The “extreme” view Mr. Wilkin is arguing against is called hyper-Calvinism, not Reformed theology. Hyper-Calvinists deny man’s responsibility and believe that God forces people either into heaven or hell (a sort of unbiblical Greek determinism). This is highly erroneous and unscriptural. Historic Calvinists (and myself) affirm the responsibility of man to believe in Christ for salvation. We believe that because of the corruption of his soul though, by nature, every area of his being has been infected by sin, including his will, desires, heart, and mind. As a result, the only thing he wills and desires is evil in God’s sight, for he can do no other, of necessity. The natural man is unable to overcome the corruption of his own heart, desires and will in order that he might see the value of Christ, believe, and thus be saved. “It is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean but what comes out of a man that makes him unclean.” Man’s nature, his heart, his will, are like a well bubbling up with cyanide. The whole well (along with the source of the problem, the spring) is ruined unless it is dug up by an outside source, and the water replaced with clean, pure, fresh water. This is the very thing the Lord prophesied long ago He would do for us in Ezekiel 36:24-27, decisively removing our heart of stone, giving us a heart of flesh. In man’s plight of sin, spiritual ruin, and the corruption therein of his whole being, it takes a supernatural act of God (the work of Christ applied by the Holy Spirit) to raise us from spiritual death, regenerating every facet of our being so that we see who Christ really is and thus cannot help but trust in Him unto salvation. Jesus affirmed in John 3 that no one can even see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.

“[Reformed theology] suggests that unbelievers are like rocks, totally incapable of responding to God.”

Bzzzzz. Wrong answer. Of course we affirm that man is capable of responding to God. The question is why does a sinner, dead in sin, ever respond to God positively, in faith? Where did his correct response come from if he was “dead in sin”? The answer is the work of the cross for us. The cross effected faith within us. As John Hendryx says (paraphrase), does faith arise on its own out of the unregenerate human nature? I see no where the Scripture affirms this. If the very foundation upon which a person makes choices is corrupted by sin, how can he make himself choose that which is good in God’s eyes (namely Christ)? We love Him because He first loved us, as 1 John 4 affirms. Something from outside of us must illuminate our minds, hearts, and yes, even regenerate our wills, so that we desire Christ and inevitably believe in Him. We need God to save us through and through. Apart from this gracious work, we would all choose to depart from God forever, in total rebellion against Him.

In sum, Mr. Wilkin would position himself as neither a Calvinist nor an Arminian, and yet at the same time he borrows fundamental theological ideas from both systems, inconsistently. In addition, his statements characterizing Reformed theology as true Hyper-Calvinism shows me just how much he does not understand Reformed theology really at all.

Hyper-Calvinism Section on Monergism.com – Please read these before accusing Calvinists of excluding man’s responsibility in salvation.

Also, here is a great example of good Calvinist preaching that God does indeed desire all men to be saved; I believe that with all my heart:
http://www.banneroftruth.org/pages/arti … il.php?436