Category: Theology Page 57 of 67

Something that’s really been striking me lately is how important it is for people who claim to be Christians to check whether they are actually in the faith or not. If they are not in the faith, this means they rest under the wrath of God, even now. What do I mean, you say? Our Christian culture is permeated with the idea that if you did this one little thing, “asked Jesus into your heart,” or prayed a little prayer, you are definitely saved, even if you turn away to another religion, rejecting Christ, and living with no regard or care for the things of God. It’s called being a Carnal Christian. Isn’t someone that claims to be a believer supposedly converted? And what does conversion mean? Is it not a heart change from being in total rebellion against God to at least having some concern or care for the things of God? Now that’s not to say that you will be perfect in your desires for the things of God, because we do believe in an idea known as simul iustus et peccator (simultaneously justified and sinful at the same time). But is there any care at all? If you reject the truth altogether, it proves something about the condition of your conversion: it’s non-existent. If someone claims Christ as their Lord and Savior (which aren’t these one in the same because He is indeed both of these, is He not?) and then doesn’t care to do anything that He said, with a willing, joyful heart, then were they converted at all to begin with, or just paying lip service to God? The Israelites did that, and God said, “With their lips they acknowledge me, but their hearts are far from me.” Jesus said a good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree bad fruit. Can a good tree bear bad fruit, and vice versa? No! Conversion is receiving a divinely regenerated heart by the Holy Spirit alone as a result of the work of Christ in His life, death, and resurrection, that desires, albeit imperfectly, to follow God’s commands willingly! But if someone claims Christ and doesn’t care for anything concerning Christ, lives just like they did before their supposed “conversion experience” or that isn’t convicted at all for their sin, it shows and proves that there has been no genuine conversion to begin with and they are just paying lip service to God. And this is my main frustration and point about Carnal Christianity teaching: To teach that someone can come to faith, but later reject Christ altogether, and yet state they are still saved, is teaching that essentially coddles unconverted souls straight into God’s eternal fury.

People against Lordship doctrine claim we’re adding to faith alone, nullifying this precious doctrine. However, this is non-sense mainly because we’re not saying the works save you at all, or that they are even apart of salvation in any respect, but that if you are saved and converted through faith alone, your faith will never be alone, but genuine care and desire for the things of God WILL follow your conversion, though it is an imperfect process over time called sanctification. If no desires follow at all, then you need to check the genuineness of your faith; you can have no assurance that you’re actually saved because conversion produces fruit, inevitably. Will you still sin? Of course! We’re fallen sinners even as believers! It’s not about perfection, but direction. Does your life in any way point the way to Christ as your Savior? As John Hendryx says, the key to this whole debate is what one believes concerning the doctrine of regeneration, or the new birth. Anti-Lordship people are awesome for wanting to defend Faith Alone, but they’re leaving out a huge doctrine that impacts this whole debate: Grace Alone. I believe that we are saved by [u]Grace Alone[/u] through Faith Alone in Christ Alone. Anti-Lordship people and many other’s believe we are saved by grace + faith alone in Christ alone, adding faith as something we contribute [u]of our unregenerate human nature[/u], to the price of our salvation. So really it is them who are adding requirements to salvation.

Lordship Salvation emphasizes that a love for Christ springs from our new nature (granted freely by God) which desires to believe the gospel as well as submit to Jesus Christ as Lord over one’s life. Both faith and obedience are the result of God’s invincible and indelible grace, not the cause of it. The so-called ‘free grace’ movement rejects the inward call of the Holy Spirit to the elect and thus, like Romans Catholics and other synergists, mistakenly ascribe belief in Christ as something within the ability of the old nature. So while they may appear as antinomian after salvation, they are guilty of semi-pelagianism prior to it. An odd mix, but naturally we all are tempted to try to contribute something to our salvation. This is where the fall off the horse away from historic Chrstianity by rejecting the biblical doctrine of salvation by grace ALONE in Christ alone. By not giving glory to God for their faith they add conditions for their salvaiton.

The biggest obstacle to the “no-Lordship” position is its misapprehension of the work of the Holy Spirit in giving rise to our faith and affection for Christ. For HOW CAN AN UNREGENERATE MAN SEE CHRIST’S BEAUTY, EXCELLENCY OR ANYTHING TO DESIRE IN HIM AT ALL. One must have a new heart and the mind of Christ in order to understand and love spiritual things. It erroneously views the Lordship position as having added a contribution of commitment, and thus works, instead of recognizing that they themselves are doing this very same thing by making faith itself a contribution to the price of their redemption. i.e grace + faith. But those of us who embrace a “lordship salvation” believe faith and obedience are the result, not the cause of of the new birth. Unless the Holy Spirit changes the disposition of our hearts from hostility to affection for Christ, no one would exercise saving faith. Any “faith” which exists apart from the work of the Spirit is spurious and of the flesh (Luke 8:4-15). God alone does the work of regeneration which infallibly gives rise to a spiritual faith that desires to obey and commit itself to Christ. In this case God gets all the glory. But the “no-Lordship” position would have us believe that one could produce faith from our unregenerated human nature. The question is, why do some believe and others resist? Are some more wise or humble? Isn’t it grace itself which makes us wise and humble? The Scripture says, “What do we have that we did not receive”. So, in fact, while the “no-Lordship” position is admirably attempting to protect the doctrine of “faith alone”, but in the process it has cast aside the biblical doctrine of “grace alone”. “No-Lordship” may believe in a salvation by grace, but not salvation by grace alone (sola gratia). That man must somehow cooperate with God to be born again, as they hold, is to say that some men innately have the natural capacity to believe, independent of God’s action of grace, while others do not. How is this different than salvation by merit? So in reality the burden of proof to explain belief apart from grace alone, is on those who hold to “no-Lordship”. Different understandings of the work of the Holy Spirit in our regeneration is the key to the debate..

John Piper has a simple format he uses whenever there is something that is coming up against him, or whenever there is a circumstance that simply lies out of his control. Whether studying Scripture, preaching, teaching, trials, or whatever it may be, this format seems to be very helpful. It’s simplistic and many people may say, “oh of course, I know all those things.” But does your heart know these things? We can simply acknowledge information with our lips and our heart be very far from the content of what the words mean. Just as the ACTS acrostic is useful in prayer (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication), this is also useful in the same context, particularly when you have something difficult coming up against you. It’s APTAT and it goes like this:

A – “Admit you cannot do it without Christ.” This is simply the acknowledgement and agreement with Christ that we can do nothing apart from Him. We must tell our hearts this, otherwise we can slip into self-sufficiency and non-reliance upon Christ.

P – “Pray for assistance and help and enablement.” This is acknowledging your totally depraved nature, that sin has disabled all your faculties, all facets of your life, every aspect, and that the only way you can do anything for God’s glory is by His Spirit giving you power.

T – “Trust in a particular promise of God to give you what you need for that situation.” Use your mind to think about the various promises of God and meditate upon these. They are set in stone and we cannot be moved because of His promises, appropriated through the cross. Consider the promises of Romans 8, for example.

A – “Act, no passivity.” At this point, we act (we don’t sit around and wait for God to zap us or make us move, we start to act with our hands and hearts). We utilize the abilities we’ve been given in the name of Christ, relying upon His strength to give us power in the midst of what it is we have to do or go through.

T – “Thankfulness to God for His work in helping you.” After we have accompished or gone through these events, we submit to God, giving Him glory for all of it, every aspect, from beginning to end. This is simply attributing to God what is rightly His work. Praise Him for His faithfulness!

We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
> Hebrews 6:19-20

The hope we believers have from God is secured and rooted in Jesus’ work on our behalf, both in His life in living sinlessly before the Father, as well as His work on the cross to deliver us from the wrath of God, in order that we may be reconciled to Him and gain God as our treasure. And more specifically in this passage we see the work of Jesus as our faithful High Priest who forever lives to intercede on behalf of those who have faith in Him. Before Christ came and instituted the new covenant by His blood, there was an old system God setup, by which each year, the High Priest would enter the most holy place of the temple through the shedding of blood in order to atone for the sins of the people. This was a very specialized practice where if one thing was done wrong, the High Priest would die instantly. And this illustrates one thing amongest many things: God is holy and just and He takes His glory seriously, so seriously that people would die if they did what He told them not to do in the temple as well as with the ark. And this system was setup to typify that which would occur later, that Christ Himself would be the greatest and final High Priest on behalf of those who possess faith in His blood. He came in order to be not only that High Priest who intercedes for His people, but also to be the very sacrifice Himself offered on the altar to remove sins, blotting them out forever. And the hope we have, this anchor of the soul, enters “behind the curtain,” or into the place where God Himself dwelled amongest the Israelites. That is our hope! We get God for all eternity! This is the best part of salvation. The mighty majestic pillar of fire that appeared to the Israelites is now the one who dwells in us and we ourselves have become sancutaries of the most high God, slowly but surely being conformed to the image of Christ by His work. And all this thanks to the work of Christ to absorb God’s wrath in Himself on the cross, to take on and experience hell itself so that we don’t have to, and give us the very righteousness and perfection we need to stand before God at the judgment of all men. And instead of getting hell, we get the very Spirit of God Himself, the one behind the curtain in the old system, that now dwells in our hearts. How wonderful and amazing is this, that God can indwell sinners! And it could only have happened through the death and resurrection of the Son of God. As it recently said on the DesiringGod.org website (my paraphrase), “Christ did not so much die as an example to follow, but as a sacrifice to actually pay for sins.”

Some may ask, how in the world do the covenants practically relate to my relationship with Christ. Well it’s simple and it plainly gets down to the nuts and bolts of the Gospel itself. Recently I was talking with someone who had been reading through the Old Testament and as they were reading through it, they became more and more downcast in their relationship with Christ and feeling unworthy to approach Him. This person saw all these laws, stipulations, and requirements, and it just brought despair and self-loathing. How can I ever measure up, they thought. And my response was simply, that’s the point! This person didn’t understand the differences between the Old and New Covenants and thought the New Covenant in Christ was simply an addition to the Old one. Rather it abolishes the Old because it fulfills it. The Old Covenant, with all of it’s laws and regulations, cannot save us. As soon as you start comparing yourself to it, you will find that you are absolutely hopeless to bring any right thing on your own before God. The Old Covenant brings self-deprication when a person seriously examines their life in comparison. However, the Old Covenant points to a new one that would come, and indeed already has come. The New Covenant is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant through the perfect obedience and work of Christ. God the Son came to this earth, putting on human flesh and subjected Himself to the law, obeying it perfectly. He then suffered under the wrath of God on the cross on behalf of anyone who believes in Him. He then gives them the very thing they need to enter the presence of God, His perfect record. By faith in Jesus Christ, because of His work on the cross, He gives us His very righteousness, perfect record, and obedience. Once I conveyed this to this person I was talking with, they suddenly saw that Christ’s work itself is the new Covenant on behalf of believers. Here is an excellent resource pertaining to this … http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/a … nants.html

“I 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.” – John 10:14-15

In reading this, I was considering what a wonderful thought this is, that Christ knows His people just as the Father knows Him. But what does this mean, that He simply knows information about them? No, but that Christ initimately, infinitely loves them, just as the Father loves Christ. And consider how great is the love of the Father for the Son! And He loves us this much. Was this not demonstrated on the cross, where He bore the brunt of what we earned from our sinning and took the fruits of that labor upon Himself? And if that wasn’t enough, He gave us His perfect record instead! What a wonderful God is this that would give His life as a ransom for many. What amazing grace this is …

I continue to realize more and more the importance of staying in almost constant communication with God, but more specifically setting aside time everyday that is dedicated to prayer. I at times can feel sufficient in my walk with Christ whenever I read Scripture or read a theologically minded book, as if I check off things on a list that I have gotten done, but I don’t always feel the weight of my guilt-burden lifted. And that’s because I’m forgetting to just stop everything, everyday, and submit to God in prayer and experience the presence of God Himself, His Holy Spirit. I do indeed experience that in Scripture, but I must have time that is solely devoted to communicating with God, and I, like everyone else, seem to forget that, and can slump into my own personal misery that is a result of my own laziness in not going to God in prayer through the redeeming work of Christ. I just write this as a reminder to set aside time everyday that is solely devoted to communicating with Christ the praise He deserves, confess your sins, and lay down all of your needs to Him. Just as we have time set aside for work, sleep, eating, etc, how much more important is it for us to set aside time for the Creator of all these things? How much more important is He than food, work, money? Is He not infinitely more valuable than all of these things?

And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
> Acts 2:38-39

Who is the promise of salvation for? “Everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself.” Peter offers forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ to all who were there. The offer is genuine. But who is the promise intended for by God? For those whom He calls to Himself. This could not be clearer from what Peter says. And taking it to the level of the whole world, if the promise was effectually (meaning the benefits of the promise will indeed be applied) to every single person who ever lived, then would it not follow that the promise must be followed through to every person by God, and that every person would be saved in the end? Otherwise, what kind of promise is that? It would be null and void, would it not? We know how the story ends though. The promise is true because God made it and He is true. And sadly, people reject the Gospel and will indeed perish, just as we are told in Revelation. So if the promise of salvation is effectual for everyone in the world, why are there still people who will be damned? It’s because the promise is for people God has foreordained to inherit salvation, not based on any foreseen works or faith, but simply because God was pleased to graciously give them the gift of life. The offer to all is genuine, but for the most part, it falls on unrepentant, deaf ears of people who reject the Gospel. And the only reason anyone accepts the message is because the Holy Spirit went before them to open up their minds, ears, eyes, and hearts to the message of the Gospel in order that they could not help but believe it.

Someone may disagree and say, “But Peter says, ‘For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off.'” Yes he does say this. This is the call to everyone that they may be saved. And I affirm it with him, all of you repent and believe in the name of Jesus Christ and you will be saved! However, he qualifies this statement by adding the phrase, “Everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” So people are saved by being called by God. Is this not so? In essence he’s saying, “The promise is for all of you, all of you whom the Lord calls to Himself.” So he makes a general statement in offering salvation, and then qualifies it to say everyone whom the Lord calls to Himself. This is a very important qualification to the statement, because so many people simply want to stop and say the promise is for all, but Peter is very clear here. The promise is genuinely offered to all, but no one will believe unless God does a work to first replace their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. God’s ultimate intention is to save specific people whom He has foreordained. Predestination. This is a scary and frightening word to many of you …

But the foreordination of God of certain people to salvation answers a question that all of us should and must ask. We all know that none of us can boast in the fact that we believed while others didn’t correct? So here’s the question: when two people, side by side, both attentively hear the same Gospel message, why does one believe while the other rejects it? If you say the other guy just saw the message to be true, I ask you, why did he see it to be true? Prior to this individuals conversion, do you not agree that he had a heart of stone, as the scriptures attest? And what is a heart of stone? An unrepentant, unbelieving, faithless heart, right? So again, why did he believe? Can he boast that he was more spiritual, more knowledgable, wiser than the other guy? No! They were both wicked sinners, just as the scriptures say about all of us. This would be exalting himself above the level of God for his own conversion! How dare he ever do this! His conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit alone. The Spirit worked in His heart to open his eyes and ears to the message of the Gospel. Otherwise, he would have rejected it just like every other unbeliever, because that’s our nature to reject God and deny His glory. The reason you and I are believers, fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, is not because God thought you were a better person in any manner, but because God chose to move in your heart to change your nature, in order that you would be inclined to Him and believe in His Son Jesus Christ for salvation. Grace alone saved you, and even now, grace alone changes you. We are not saved by Grace + Faith Alone. But we are saved by Grace Alone through Faith Alone in Christ Alone. And this grace was decisively purchased on the cross on your behalf. His blood effectually and actually secured your pardon from wrath. How wonderful this is! We can boast of nothing in ourselves, but it is simply God’s mercy that you are saved, for the sake of Christ’s glory.

Let us fall at His feet in adoration for His mercy poured out on us by His Holy Spirit!

“For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”
> Romans 3:20

What a remarkable verse this is. It sums up so much thought on religion, moralism, and every other way, besides the gospel of Jesus Christ, of entering the Kingdom of Heaven. If the scriptures are the inerrant Word of God, given to us as God’s words Himself, then this verse is saying what God states concerning works of the law. And what He says, through the apostle Paul, is that by works of of the law, by your own moral toiling and by the sweat of your brow, you cannot present yourself clean, without impurity before the God of the universe. It is not possible. In fact, just to go a step further, Paul didn’t just leave it there, but he then adds, “Since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.” But what does that have to do with anything in this context? We go from speaking of justification to talking about the knowledge of sin coming through the law.

So what’s the point? He’s saying that you cannot be justified by works of the law because through them comes the knowledge of sin, and through the knowledge of sin you then, because of your sinful nature begin to do the very things the law tells us not to do. And in reading further on in Romans 7:7-8, Paul qualifies this by saying, “What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness.” And so we see that the law cannot justify us because we are that desperately wicked.

So many Christians out there will say, “God helps those who help themselves.” But the Biblical response to people who think this, is that God helps those who can’t help themselves and give up on their own righteousness and trying to please God on their own moral strength (Isaiah 65:1-2). What’s the answer though if we’re helpless to help ourselves? Faith in the blood of Jesus Christ. Belive in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Justification before the Father, being presented clean without spot or blemish, cannot be accomplished of your own moral working, but can only become yours through faith in Jesus Christ. You see, through Christ, we can be presented clean because He was clean and yet still went to the cross for us who believe, taking on our filth called sin and its deserved penalty, that we might be clean before Him forever. It’s called the Great Exchange.

By faith in Christ, He being perfect, takes on our sin and its penalty, and then in exchange gives us His very righteousness. Or to put in theological terms, by faith in Christ, our sin and the deserved wrath of God as a result is imputed to Him on the cross, and in return, He imputes His righteousness to us. This is the only way we can be presented perfect and righteous before God almighty. Nothing else will do. Christianity is the only religion with a suffering deity, where God actually humbles Himself and becomes one of His own creation, uniting His deity to humanity. His name is Christ. He was fully man and fully God at the same time. Two natures consisting in one Messiah.

Many people think of God as being angry and furious and asking, “How can He allow such awful things to happen in the world? If He only knew what it was like.” Well, actually, He does. Christ experienced more pain and torment than we can possibly imagine. And I’m not talking about the physical pain He experienced on the cross. I’m talking about the pain deep within His soul as He experienced the full fury and wrath of God for sinners. God knows what pain is and has Himself experienced it. And we cannot even begin to compare our pain and misery to His. And it is through this pain and suffering that christ has purchased pardon for any who would believe in Him. Believe in Jesus and you will be saved. There is salvation in no one else. Acts 4:12 confirms this, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”