Author Archives: Dan C.

The Clarity of Scripture

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“The Old Testament and New Testament frequently affirm that Scripture is written in such a way that its teachings are able to be understood by ordinary believers.” – Wayne Grudem, Ph. D., Phoenix Seminary

The Bible frequently affirms its own clarity.

1) In the OT, the people were expected to be able to understand the words of Scripture.

Deut. 6:6-7: And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

Ps. 1:1-2: Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

Ps. 19:7: The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;

Ps. 119:130: The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.

2) In the NT, both Jesus and the apostles have the same expectation.

  • Jesus never blames people’s confusion on the obscurity of Scripture.

Matt. 12:3: He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him:

Matt. 21:42: Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “ ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

Matt. 22:29: But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.

  • Most of the NT epistles are written to entire congregations.

1 Cor. 1:2: To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

Gal. 1:2: and all the brothers who are with me, To the churches of Galatia:

Phil. 1:1: Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons:

Col. 4:16: And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea.

  • NT authors expect that their Gentile audience would familiarize themselves with a translation of the OT (in their common language – Greek)

Rom. 15:4: For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

2 Tim. 3:16-17: All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Dr. Grudem’s complete definition for the clarity of Scripture as presented in his Christian Essentials classes:

“The clarity of Scripture means that the Bible is written in such a way that its teachings are able to be understood by all  who will read it seeking God’s help and being willing to follow it.”

Since the teachings of scripture can be understood by believers who apply themselves, he further provides as the three most important points to remember for rightly interpreting the Bible are: 1) Read it, 2) Read it, and 3) Read it.

Now that could make some false teachers out there, who depend on their flock fleecing expertise to stay in business, a bit nervous. When there is an entire religious organization/structure  that proclaims itself the only ‘capable’ interpreter of scripture, and adherence to what the ‘church’ teaches is how the masses are kept in bondage, even more is at state. Sometimes folks get tossed out of the church – ask Martin Luther.

One last point here. Most, if not all ‘former’ somethings that I know became formers by reading Scripture for themselves.

The Sovereignty of God Among the Nations

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The Apostle Paul,  in at the Areopagus, in Athens, spoke these words concerning the “unknown god” for whom there was a “just in case” idol:

“And he (God) made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” – Acts 17: 26-31, ESV

What an awesome testimony of God’s sovereignty over all things, especially the nations, all the nations of the earth! In these few words, Paul summarized the activity of God concerning the nations, from creation to final judgment!

Listening to the various forms of rhetoric concerning the state of our nation, one hears just about everything from the far left to the far right, and everywhere in between. I have my own opinions about things, and it is very difficult to remain silent at times and remember that God is sovereign over all the affairs of men. this is not to say that the voice of an old soldier will not be heard by way of the ballot box, but only to say that God is sovereign and all moaning and complaining will not change his divine purposes.

I am also reminded of how many times in the book of Ezekiel alone God spoke the words “Then they will know that I am the Lord!” Depending on the translation, those words, or words like them, were spoken between 25 and 30 times. God spoke them when he was blessing his people and when he punished his people, claiming divine responsibility for both the blessing and the punishment. God spoke those words over pagan nations he caused to rise up as the instrument of divine discipline, and when he caused the very nations he used as divine instruments to be themselves destroyed as his enemies.

God WILL have his way with the nations, and he WILL gather his elect, the remnant out of all the nations, chosen for Himself before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4 & Rev 5:9).

What are we, as Christians, to do in this time? What is our reason for remaining ‘among the nations”?

There is but one answer in the heart of this old soldier – the gospel of Jesus Christ! We have the great privilege of being used of God to take the gospel to all the nations – the gospel that Christ died for our sins for our justification and was raised up again, as we are raised up in Him as we yet live, and will one day be glorified with Him in the final resurrection.

Our mission – the Great Commission – has never changed.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” – Matt 28:19-20

Perhaps this is a time when we, as individual believers and as the Bride of Christ, should ask ourselves. “How are we doing?”

Question: "Are Catholics Christians?"

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Answer: “Some are. . .”

The question was asked of a teacher of systematic theology. The answer was his. Actually, you can substitute “Protestants” and the answer is the same, “Some are. . .” There might be a difference in percentages, but that’s God’s business, not mine.

The test of whether or not a specific individual is a Christian is a depends on which Gospel he/she believed, or are believing in for for salvation. Was it the gospel of grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, or was it a gospel of grace, through faith in Christ plus other stuff?

Even then, who is, or isn’t, a true Christian is still God’s business. He knows, I don’t.

If you ask however, “Is Catholicism, or Protestantism a “Christian religion?”, we have a slightly different issue. That would depend on the gospel that either adheres to and preaches, again grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, or grace and faith in Christ plus other stuff?

Paul had some very specific things to say about ‘other’ gospels. See Galatians 1:8-9. Even better, read the entire chapter, maybe the whole book.

Key Problems with Understanding Free Will – Problem 2

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Defining Free Will

So what do we mean by free will?

Free will is defined as the power of making free choices unconstrained by external agencies or coercion; the ability to determine one’s own fate or course of action without compulsion, also referred to as self-determination.

Jonathan Edwards defined an act of the will:

“The faculty of the will is that faculty or power, or principle of minds, by which it is capable of choosing: an act of the will is the same as an act of choosing or choice.”

Edward’s major premise is this:

“A man never, in any instance, wills any thing contrary to his desires, or desires any thing contrary to his will.”

What a man desires is determined by his nature. He can do anything he pleases, but what he pleases is always determined by his nature. Edwards considered the notion that man is capable of ‘uncaused’ acts of the will absurd. Edwards concludes, “Thus, this … notion of liberty of the will, consisting in the will’s self-determination, is repugnant to itself, and shouts itself wholly out of the world.”

Bob DeWaay provides this summary:

“Those who assert absolute self-determining freedom of the will have serious problems. Dependent human beings, coming into the world with their own desires and inclinations, will not choose contrary to their own natures. For example, a person who utterly loathes beef liver (for whatever reason) will not choose to eat it. Whatever it is about that person’s nature that makes him hate liver, also causes him to choose not to eat it. The human will does not show up out of nowhere, uncaused, sovereign (to use Finney’s term for it) and fully capable of self-determination. Whatever makes a person the way he is causes him to choose as he does.”

So what’s the bottom line? How ‘free’ is the human will? Human Is it completely free and self-determined, or it is constrained by the ‘nature’ of a man. Contrary to what most people think, free will is not specifically spoken of outside of the context of Jewish law and offerings made after the obligatory offerings requirements were met. Does a command to ‘choose’  necessitate the ability to choose ?

“Free” will is not as easy a topic to discuss as we like to think. We need to be asking, “What is in the nature of a man?” and take it from there. Now that subject the Bible does specifically address!

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Key Problems with Understanding Free Will – Problem 1

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Two Definitions

Here are two alternative definitions of free will. The first is the typical definition demanded by Arminians (those who believe that a free will choice to believe brings about salvation): “The ability to choose between options, either of which could be actualized by the act of choosing.” The second definition was proposed by Jonathan Edwards: “The ability to choose as one pleases.” I will explain these in the pages that follow and defend the second one. In so doing I will discuss several problems that arise in seeking to understand free will.

The Bible Does Not Directly Address Free Will

Free will is assumed from passages that teach human responsibility.

Free will is never directly addressed in the Bible. Even in passages where prophets and others asked God why He allowed so much evil to harm the innocent, it was not discussed. The answer was never that God was committed to the principle of free will and determined that allowing evil was a necessary by-product of free will. The will of humans is discussed in the Bible and the New Testament has a Greek word for it, but its relative freedom of choice is not directly discussed. To derive our understanding we have to go by implications from other Scriptures.

The bible clearly teaches that humans are responsible, and the ‘free will’ assumption is that, if we are responsible, we must have free choice in the matter.  However, if we say that in order for a person to be responsible, that person must be perfectly able to make correct choices to obey God—it is the same as rejecting the teaching of the Bible. The Bible teaches that humans are both responsible for their sin and in bondage to their sin. It teaches that God’s grace is necessary to deliver us from sin. If man were free to perfectly choose obedience, then someone other than Christ could have lived a sinless life and escape judgment based on human merit. That idea denies Paul’s teaching in Romans 3:9-18. Also, Paul teaches in Galatians 3 that the command to obey all of the Law or be cursed proves that those who are under the Law are cursed. Logically, if people had the ability to obey the Law perfectly, then it would not follow that being under the Law insured that they would be cursed. But Paul said that it did. This provides a fatal counterexample to any universal claim that responsibility implies ability.

Most free will theology is based on philosophical considerations that are imported to the discussion from outside the Bible. Since the Bible does not directly discuss the meaning of “free will,” the concept must be derived from passages about human bondage to sin and human responsibility and culpability before the Law of God.

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Above adapted from Critical Issues Commentary, Issue 92 – January / February 2006

Gospel Definitions from Christians in the Present – No. 2

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John Piper

“The heart of the gospel is the good news that Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead. What makes this good news is that Christ’s death accomplished a perfect righteousness before God and suffered a perfect condemnation from God, both of which are counted as ours through faith alone, so that we have eternal life with God in the new heavens and the new earth.” – Christianity Today, June 2009

Tim Keller
The ‘gospel’ is the good news that through Christ the power of God’s kingdom has entered history to renew the whole world. When we believe and rely on Jesus’ work and record (rather than ours) for our relationship to God, that kingdom power comes upon us and begins to work through us.”

Alistair Begg

Here’s the gospel in a phrase. Because Christ died for us, those who trust in him may know that their guilt has been pardoned once and for all. What will we have to say before the bar of God’s judgment? Only one thing. Christ died in my place. That’s the gospel.

Mark Dever

“Here is what I understand the good news to be: the good news is that the one and only God, who is holy, made us in his image to know him. But we sinned and cut ourselves off from him. In his great love, God became a man in Jesus, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross, thus fulfilling the law himself and taking
on himself the punishment for the sins of all those who would ever turn and trust in him. He rose again from the dead, showing that God accepted Christ’s sacrifice and that God’s wrath against us had been exhausted. He now calls us to repent of our sins and to trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness. If we repent of our sins and trust in Christ, we are born again into a new life, an eternal life with God. Now that is good news.” – from The Gospel and Personal Evangelism

Derek Thomas

“The gospel is not ‘God loves us,’ but ‘God loves us at the cost of his Son.’”

Let the Bible Speak -It’s God Talking

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Sometimes there is a theme or topic in scripture that can be found throughout the Bible. Sometimes passages can be gathered together that speak to a theme or topic, not to “prove” something we want the Bible to say, but to more clearly articulate what just might be a very important doctrine. One must be very careful in doing this, I think, because the human heart is still deceitful beyond measure (Jer 17:9), although as believers we also have the indwelling Holy Spirit. Are these some of those passages that go to important doctrine?

Isa 55:10-11 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

Eph 1:4-6 “…even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. “

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

Joh 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.”

Joh 6:65 “And he said, ‘This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.’”

I am just asking here. The answer to the question might be a matter of further study. If these passages of scripture us to further study concerning what they might be pointing to – mission accomplished.

Gospel Definitions from Christians in the Present – No. 1

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R.C. Sproul
“There is no greater message to be heard than that which we call the Gospel. But as important as that is, it is often given to massive distortions or over simplifications. People think they’re preaching the Gospel to you when they tell you, ‘you can have a purpose to your life’, or that ‘you can have meaning to your life’, or that ‘you can have a personal relationship with Jesus.’ All of those things are true, and they’re all important, but they don’t get to the heart of the Gospel.

The Gospel is called the ‘good news’ because it addresses the most serious problem that you and I have as human beings, and that problem is simply this: God is holy and He is just, and I’m not. And at the end of my life, I’m going to stand before a just and holy God, and I’ll be judged. And I’ll be judged either on the basis of my own righteousness – or lack of it – or the righteousness of another.

The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus lived a life of perfect righteousness, of perfect obedience to God, not for His own well being but for His people. He has done for me what I couldn’t possibly do for myself. But not only has He lived that life of perfect obedience, He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice to satisfy the justice and the righteousness of God.

The great misconception in our day is this: that God isn’t concerned to protect His own integrity. He’s a kind of wishy-washy deity, who just waves a wand of forgiveness over everybody. No. For God to forgive you is a very costly matter. It cost the sacrifice of His own Son. So valuable was that sacrifice that God pronounced it valuable by raising Him from the dead – so that Christ died for us, He was raised for our justification. So the Gospel is something objective. It is the message of who Jesus is and what He did.

And it also has a subjective dimension. How are the benefits of Jesus subjectively appropriated to us? How do I get it? The Bible makes it clear that we are justified not by our works, not by our efforts, not by our deeds, but by faith – and by faith alone. The only way you can receive the benefit of Christ’s life and death is by putting your trust in Him – and in Him alone. You do that, you’re declared just by God, you’re adopted into His family, you’re forgiven of all of your sins, and you have begun your pilgrimage for eternity.”

Human Will and Choosing to Obey God

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How “freely” do men choose to obey God?

Consider these three basic positions on the will of man in relationship to ability to choose to obey God:

  1. Famous 19th century evangelist Charles Finney taught that humans are fully able to obey God without any special work of grace. The mere presence of a command from God, they say, requires the reality of free will ability to comply. that position, called Pelagianism, actually goes all the way back to the 5th century and an ascetic named Pelagius, who denied the doctrine of original sin as developed by Augustine of Hippo, and was declared a heretic by the Council of Carthage.
  2. Semi-Pelagianism teaches that without prevenient grace, man would not be able to respond freely to the call to believe; but that God has already provided such grace to all humans. “Prevenient” is an old English term that means “to go before.” The semi-Pelagian view is also “synergistic”—meaning that salvation and sanctification are a cooperative effort between God and man.
  3. Luther and the other reformers taught the bondage of the will. This position, anathematized by Rome in several canons on justification, was that all fallen sinners are in bondage to their own sin so much so that they will not submit to God without a prior sovereign work of God’s grace. This became the Reformation doctrine of “grace alone,” also called “monergism.” By this thinking salvation is an act of God alone.

This Topic is Complex

This a complex topic because the relative freedom or bondage of the will is different for different types of people addressed in the Bible. Adam and Eve were certainly created by God with a level of freedom of will – they had the ability to choose based on the nature God gave them. The Fall impacted that freedom of the will, and the human will of every human being born thereafter. Therefore the freedom of will, or lack thereof, is different for people born with a sin nature after the Fall.

Also, the relative freedom of will experienced by a regenerate person differs from an unregenerate sinner. A person cannot believe in and trust in Christ for salvation without an effect on human will and its freedom to obey God.

Furthermore, consider the uniqueness of freedom for the redeemed in heaven. Clearly these differences are important to any discussion of the freedom or bondage of the will as the case may be. Whatever definition of free will we defend should account for these cases.

Further posts will discuss problems inherent to the understanding of free will.

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Adapted from Critical Issues Commentary, Issue 92 – January / February 2006

Gospel Definitions from Christians in the Past – No. 2

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Jeremiah Burroughs

The gospel of Christ in general is this:

It is the good tidings that God has revealed concerning Christ.

More largely it is this:

As all mankind was lost in Adam and became the children of wrath, put under the sentence of death, God, though He left His fallen angels and has reserved them in the chains of eternal darkness, yet He has thought upon the children of men and has provided a way of atonement to reconcile them to Himself again…Namely, the second person of the Trinity takes man’s nature upon Himself, and becomes the Head of a second covenant, standing charged with sin. He answers for it by suffering what the law and divine justice required, and by making satisfaction by keeping the law perfectly, which satisfaction and righteousness He tenders up to the Father as a sweet savor of rest for the souls that are given to Him…And now this mediation of Christ is, by the appointment of the Father, preached to the children of men, of whatever nation or rank, freely offering this atonement unto sinners for atonement, requiring them to believe in Him and, upon believing, promising not only a discharge of all their former sins, but that they shall not enter into condemnation, that none of their sins or unworthiness shall ever hinder the peace of God with them, but that they shall through Him be received into the number of those who shall have the
image of God again to be renewed unto them, and they they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

C.H. Dodd

The Gospel” Summarized in 6 Parts

1. The Age of Fulfillment has dawned, the “latter days” foretold by the prophets. (Acts 3:18-26)

2. This has taken place through the birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. (Acts 2:22-31)

3. By virtue of the resurrection, Jesus has been exalted at the right hand of God as Messianic head of the new Israel. (Acts 2:32-36)

4. The Holy Spirit in the church is the sign of Christ’s present power and glory. (Acts 10:44-48)

5. The Messianic Age will reach its consummation in the return of Christ. (Acts 3:20-21)

6. An appeal is made for repentance with the offer of forgiveness, the Holy Spirit, and salvation. (Acts 2:37-41)