Luther on ‘Free-Will’

Posted by Dan C. on

“It is not irreligious, wasteful, or superficial, but essentially healthy and necessary, for a Christian to know whether or not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining to salvation. Indeed, let me tell you, this is the hinge on which our discussion turns, the crucial issue between us; our aim is, simply, to investigate what ability “free will” has, in what respect it is the subject of divine action and how it stands related to the grace of God. If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatsoever of Christianity, and shall be in worse than the heathen! He who does not admit this should acknowledge that he is not a Christian; and he who ridicules or derides it should realize that he is the greatest enemy of Christianity. For if I am ignorant in the nature, extent and limits of what I can and must do in relationship to God, I shall be equally ignorant and uncertain of the nature, extent and limits of what God can and will do in me – though God, in fact, works everything in everyone. Now, if I am ignorant of the works and powers of God, I am ignorant of God himself; and if I do not know God, I cannot worship, praise, give thanks or serve Him, for I do not know how much I should attribute to myself and how much to Him. We need, therefore, to have in mind a clear-cut distinction between God’s power and ours, and God’s work and ours, if we would live a godly life.”

“This problem [the knowledge of what we contribute to our salvation] is one half of the whole sum of Christianity, since on it both knowledge of oneself and the knowledge and glory of God quite vitally depend.  . . . The other half of the sum of Christianity is concerned with whether God’s foreknowledge is uncertain, and whether everything we do could be done any other way.”

“Now, since on God’s own testimony, men are ‘flesh’, they can savour of nothing but the flesh; therefore ‘free-will can avail only to sin. And if, while the Spirit of God is calling and teaching among them, they go from bad to worse, what could they do when left to themselves, without the Spirit of God? . . .The same is true of all men, for all are ‘flesh’; as Christ says, ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh’ (John 3:6) How grave a defect this is, He Himself there teaches, when he says: ‘Except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God (v. 5)…I call a man ungodly if he is without the Spirit of God; for Scripture says that the Spirit is given to justify the ungodly. As Christ distinguished the Spirit from the flesh, saying: “that which is born of the flesh is flesh’, and adds that which is born of the flesh cannot enter the kingdom of God’, it obviously follows that whatever is flesh is ungodly, under God’s wrath, and a stranger to His kingdom. And if it is a stranger to God’s kingdom and Spirit, it follows of necessity that it is under the kingdom and spirit of Satan. For there is no middle kingdom between the kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan, which are ever at war with each other.” – Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will

Monergism vs Synergism

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When is the human heart regernerated? What comes first, God’s decision (choice) or man’s decision? What ‘event’ initiates/initiated God’s plan of salvation?

“Monergism is the . . . doctrine that regeneration (the new birth) both precedes and elicits faith in Christ in those whom the Holy Spirit sovereignly determines to dispense His grace upon (John 1:13; 6:63-65; Acts 16:14b; 1 John 5:1). When preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, the gospel has the power to open blind eyes and unstop deaf ears. Those dead in sin, therefore, play no part in their own new birth and are just as passive as a new born physical baby in the regenerative act. Thus, man does not cooperate in his regeneration but rather, infallibly responds in faith as the Holy Spirit changes our hearts’ disposition. Faith is not something produced by our unregenerated human nature. The fallen sinner has no moral ability or inclination to believe prior to the new birth. Instead, the Holy Spirit must open one’s ears to the preaching of the gospel if one would hear. While there is no temporal sequence, regeneration gives rise to all other aspects of our salvation. They all happen simultaneously like the turning on of the light, which is the cause of faith, justification, sanctification, new affections, and the like.

Synergism (or synergistic regeneration) is the . . . doctrine which believes that faith precedes and gives rise to regeneration. Man cooperates with God in regeneration. Faith is produced by our unregenerated human nature. The fallen sinner has the ability and potential inclination to believe even prior to the new birth. While synergism believes grace plays a role in salvation yet he does not believe salvation is by grace alone – instead it is grace plus our response which makes us to be born again.”

Another way to ask the question might be “Whose faith is it, anyway?”

Any thoughts or opinions? Please provide supporting scripture.    

The above definitions were extracted from an article by John Hendryx that can be read here.

Created for His Glory

Posted by Dan C. on

From the following scripture passages, what would you conclude is God’s first priority? 

“But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel, Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine! . . . Everyone who is called by My name, And whom I have created for My glory, Whom I have formed, even whom I have made.” Isa 43 1.7

“You are My witnesses,” declares the LORD, “And My servant whom I have chosen, So that you may know and believe Me And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me. “I, even I, am the LORD, And there is no savior besides Me. “It is I who have declared and saved and proclaimed, And there was no strange god among you; So you are My witnesses,” declares the LORD, “And I am God.” Isa 43:10-12

“The people whom I formed for Myself Will declare My praise.” Isa:43:21

“For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; For how can My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another.” Isa 48:11

“Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.” .”Rev 4:11

“For by him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether they are kings, lords, rulers, or powers. All things have been created through him and for him.” Col 1:16

“He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. . . to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.” Eph 2:5-6, 12

“For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Phil 2:9-11

“Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.” 1 Cor 10:31

Having read these passages, might it be that God’s first priority is His own glory? And if God’s first priority is His own glory, how should that be expressed in the way we “do” church (I hate the phrase, but it’s common today)? Should our sermons be all about ‘us’, and what God wants to do ‘for’ us to better our lives, or should they be be more about how we can bring Him glory? What about our worship music – should be more about our “warm fuzzies” or His majesty and glory”? What about our teaching? What about our programs? The list goes on and on. . .

How are things in your church? How are things in mine? How do I view my own life as a believer? Is my life as a believer more about what He can do for me, or how I bring Him glory as one who has been created, first and foremost, for His glory?

Progressive Theology

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“The idea of a progressive gospel seems to have fascinated many. To us that notion is a sort of cross-breed between nonsense and blasphemy. After the gospel has been found effectual in the eternal salvation of untold multitudes, it seems rather late in the day to alter it; and, since it is the revelation of the all-wise and unchanging God, it appears somewhat audacious to attempt its improvement. When we call up before our mind’s eye the gentlemen who have set themselves this presumptuous task, we feel half inclined to laugh; the case is so much like the proposal of moles to improve the light of the sun. Their gigantic intellects are to hatch out the meanings of the Infinite! We think we see them brooding over hidden truths to which they lend the aid of their superior genius to accomplish their development!” – C. H. Spurgeon from the April 1888 Sword and Trowel

For this old soldier, it is impossible to gaze across the landscape of today’s Christian church, and listen to what is nowadays called ‘gospel’, and NOT see what Spurgeon termed ‘progressive theology’. Call it ‘purpose driven’, ‘seeker friendly’, ’emerging’, or whatever suits your fancy, it boils down to a changing of the message of the Gospel. If there is a common thread that runs throughout these ‘new’ theologies, it is that they are all man-centered instead of God-focused.

Humanism and True Christianity

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Following are excerpts from the sermon “Ten Shekels and a Shirt”, by Paris Reidhead

Humanism is, I believe, the most deadly and disastrous of all the philosophical stenches that’s crept up through the grating over the pit of Hell. It has penetrated so much of our religion. And it is in utter ant total contrast with Christianity.

I’m afraid that it’s become so subtle that it goes everywhere. What is it? In essence it’s this! That this philosophical postulate that the end of all being is the happiness of man, has been sort of covered over with evangelical terms and Biblical doctrine until God reigns in heaven for the happiness of man, Jesus Christ was incarnate for the happiness of man, all the angels exist in the…, Everything is for the happiness of man! AND I SUBMIT TO YOU THAT THIS IS UNCHRISTIAN !!! Isn’t man happy? Didn’t God intend to make man happy? Yes. But as a by-product and not a prime-product!

Do you see? Let me epitomize, let me summarize. Christianity says,”The end of all being is the glory of God.” Humanism says, “The end of all being is the happiness of man.”

And one was born in Hell, the deification of man. AND THE OTHER WAS BORN IN HEAVEN, THE GLORIFICATION OF GOD!

Why should a sinner repent? BECAUSE GOD DESERVES THE OBEDIENCE AND LOVE THAT HE’S REFUSED TO GIVE HIM! Not so that he’ll go to heaven. If the only reason he repents is so that he’ll go to heaven, it’s nothing but trying to make a deal or a bargain with God.

So the reason for you to go to the cross isn’t that you’re going to get victory, you will get victory. It isn’t that you’re going to have joy, you will have joy. But the reason for you to embrace the cross and press through until you know that you can testify with Paul “I am crucified with Christ” (Gal 2:20), it isn’t what you’re going to get out of it, but what He’ll get out of it, FOR THE GLORY OF GOD!

You can find the entire text of the sermon, as well as a downloadable mp3 file, here.

Worship: Wonder and Awesome Fear

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So I said, “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” –Isaiah 6:5

“I have said it before and I will say it again: This low concept of God is our spiritual problem today. Mankind has succeeded quite well in reducing God to a pitiful nothing!

The God of the modern context is no God at all. He is simply a glorified chairman of the board, a kind of big businessman dealing in souls. The God portrayed in much of our church life today commands very little respect.

We must get back to the Bible and to the ministration of God’s Spirit to regain a high and holy concept of God. Oh, this awesome, terrible God, the dread of Isaac! This God who made Isaiah cry out, “I am undone!” This God who drove Daniel to his knees in honor and respect.

To know the Creator and the God of all the universe is to revere Him. It is to bow down before Him in wonder and awesome fear.”  Men Who Met God, 79-80.

Note Tozer’s inclusion of ‘awesome fear’ in this observation concerning the common concept of God prevalent in the middle of the last century. That seems to be something missing from much of American evangelicalism in our time also.

OLD Truth and NEW Things

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I’m hearing a lot these days about how God is doing a NEW things in our time. Now, I am not saying that God CANNOT do new things, for I would be trampling on His sovereignty if I did. I’ve been told by well meaning folk that God doesn’t need to do new things, but that he just IS doing a new thing in our time. While I totally agree with the former, I am skeptical about the latter. When I look as some of the touted NEW things taking place these days I see more of man’s imagination at work along with a little help from the ‘dark side’ (in some cases), than God being manifested in His true glory, majesty and sovereignty.

These NEW things range everywhere from ‘softening’ terms we use (‘Christ follower’ instead of ‘disciple’), how we ‘do’ church (I hate that term but it’s everywhere) to the completely unbiblical and sometimes even heretical. I have also discovered that most, of not all of the NEW things dancing around on the stages of many ‘churches’, are just based on old lies that surfaced early on in the history of the church that the Apostle Paul even warned against.

When I have thoroughly investigated some of the NEW things popular in our time, I find that scriptural ‘evidence’ for them is either slim and taken out of context, or non-existent. I have offered scripture after scripture, with contextual explanations, and been told what is plainly read is just my opinion man’s doctrine.

I offer here the twin notions that God has not changed and neither has man. Scripture still means what it says to us and what it says about itself. (See this post.) The only things that have changed since men first appeared on planet Earth are the ‘toys’ we play with. Could it be that perhaps WE are the ones fascinated with NEW things and not God? Just a thought. . .

In Christ Alone – Stuart Townend, Keith Getty

Posted by Dan C. on

In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones he came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied –
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave he rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine –
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath.
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

– Stuart Townsend, Keith Getty

The song and video are here.  The story behind the song is here.

When I first heard this, I thought it was an historic hymn of our faith with more contemporary styling, until I read the story of how it came about. I’ve also found out that it was sung at a denominational Christian convention and the lyrics were modified in that setting. From the second verse, the words “The wrath of God was satisfied-” were changed to “the price of sin was satisfied”. How sad. That’s not unlike when, years ago, words to the hymn Amazing Grace were changed from “Saved a wretch like me” to simply “Saved someone like me”.

Why do I find that incredibly sad, you ask? When clear biblical teaching is tampered with and modified so that it becomes more ‘palatable’ or non-offensive, when we soften the ‘hard’ truth about the nature of the unregenerate and what Christ actually accomplished on the Cross, at a minimum we have cut out the ‘heart of the matter’.  Far more seriously, we have tampered with the very sovereignty and glory of God!

Thinking Rightly About God

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“The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us… The decline of the knowledge of the holy has brought on our troubles. A rediscovery of the majesty of God will go a long way toward curing them.”

“A right conception of God is basic not only to systematic theology but to practical Christian living as well. It is to worship what the foundation is to the temple; where it is inadequate or out of plumb the whole structure must sooner or later collapse. I believe there is scarcely an error of doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be trace finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.

It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity.”

(A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy)

 

What Does it Matter, Who Chooses Whom, as Long as We Get to Heaven?

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A close friend and fellow believer asked me the other day, concerning the salvation of sinners, “What does is matter who chooses whom, as long as we get there?” Being somewhat taken aback, I did not immediately reply and considered it something I really needed to think about instead of just offering what was on my mind at the moment (something I am really good at). We agree on many spiritual things, my friend and I, but seem to get stuck on the matter of who chooses whom for salvation, in what order, and why it should matter at all.

Looking back at our little conversation, hindsight being what it is, (always 20/20) I must admit that the question is a valid one! If God’s primary purpose for the awakening of spiritually dead, hopeless, lost sinners to new life in Christ is so that we would live with Him in heaven someday (and our best life now), why would God really care about who chose whom and when?  If, however, God has a different ‘first purpose’ in the salvation of men, we might need to reconsider things.

Consider the following, from Paul’s letter to believers in Ephesus:

“He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, TO THE END THAT we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation–having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, WITH A VIEW TO the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.” – Ephesians 1:9-14 (NASB) (Emphasis mine.)

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, SO THAT in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. – Ephesians 2:4-6 (NASB) (Emphasis mine.)

Here we have WHAT God has done on our behalf, and WHY He has done it – God’s first purpose in the salvation of men. I could have emphasized in these short passages, additional scripture to state the case, but I would ask you to consider for a moment the ‘purpose’ clauses, TO THE END THAT, WITH A VIEW TO, and SO THAT and the highlighted phrases that follow.  Consider the thought that the primary reasons God saves even a portion of fallen men is for the praise of his own glory and so men through the ages will see the demonstration of his power and riches of His grace!

Back to or question, “What does it matter who chooses whom, as long as it we get there?” You tell me. Hint – Think God’s sovereignty, honor and glory.

P.S.

Translations/versions consulted for the accuracy of the above ‘purpose’ clauses in the referenced scripture: NKJV NIV, NASB, NASB 1995 Update, NLT, ESV, NET Bible, and The Message. With the exception of The Message, all translations spoke in unison concerning our salvation being first and foremost for God’s own glory.  

That places our benefits, as bountiful as as they may be, both temporal and eternal, secondary, wouldn’t you think?