R.C. Sproul
Appearances
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
Paul's anger here is a response to what he considers to be a critical attack on the truthfulness and the purity of the Christian doctrine.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
He was defending his office, which was absolutely vital for the people's well-being. And so he begins, Paul, an apostle, Not Paul, a missionary, although he performed that task. Not Paul, the pastor, though he performed that task. Not Paul, you see, the leader for the faith, though he performed that task. Paul, an apostle. And he asked, not of men, nor by men. That's a forceful thing.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
He doesn't say it once. He says it twice. He covers himself from every direction. Paul apostles, he says, neither of men or by men. The human dimension is excluded here. Okay? What Paul is arguing already at the beginning of this is that my apostleship rests on divine authority. Not of men, neither by men, but by and through, you see, by the means of Jesus Christ. And that's not enough.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
God the Father who has raised him from the dead. You see, the line of authority goes like this. The Father has commissioned the Son. Jesus says over again, I speak nothing of my own, but only that which the Father has sent me to say. Don't tell me you love the Father and hate me. That was his debate with the Jews.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
Don't tell me you love God, but you don't need Jesus, because I'm the emissary, I'm the divine logos here. You reject me, you reject the Father. You say you love God and hate me, you're a liar when you say you love God. You say God is your Father and you don't hear the Son who comes from the Father's house. You're a liar when you use the word Father.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
Understand, the line of authority, God commissions Jesus, Jesus commissions the apostle. That's the line. And so what Paul is saying, you see, very clearly they understood this, what he's saying to the Galatians, if you reject my message, you're not just rejecting me, you're rejecting the message of Jesus.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
And not only that, but you're rejecting the message of God the Father, who has vindicated his son by resurrection. Now, when Paul says that he's an apostle not by man or through man, he's not denying the importance of a call.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
Paul had hands laid on to him by the disciples in Jerusalem and all the rest, and not denying the fact that he was commissioned by the Jerusalem church to be the apostle of the Gentiles. Paul's not denying his ordination, you know, in the context of men, but he's talking here about his call to the rank of apostleship.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
In other words, there are no serious controversies presently existing over the authorship of this epistle. This one was written by Paul. There were some skirmishes about it in the 19th century. Some of those coming out of the radical critical school tried to challenge even the authenticity of this epistle. but that was quickly disposed of and is no longer a live question.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
And the thing that differentiates the apostle from every other office in Scripture is that the apostle's call is an immediate one rather than a mediate one. Understand that. His call and commission comes directly and immediately from Christ. No human intervention.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
subsequent levels of authority in the church, the pastor, the deacon, you see, the missionary, they're called inwardly by God to be sure, but that call has to be confirmed by men, by the body of Christ. What I'm saying here is that Paul is not despising the call of man. Indeed, he himself is involved in the laying on of hands and the commissioning of men.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
He himself becomes one of those human mediaries to ordain other people into the ministry. But what he is saying is that there is a distinction between every office in the church and that office of apostle, which stands on a parallel line with the function of the prophet in the Old Testament.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
as being uniquely divinely commissioned as agents of revelation, as spokesmen of absolute authority from the Lord himself. Thus, in the Old Testament, the prophet can preface his message, his oracle, with the statement, not thus saith Isaiah, or according to my judgment, or in my opinion, saith Jeremiah, but he would begin his oracle with the statement, thus saith the Lord. In order to do that,
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
That prophet had to substantiate his call. Now, let me just again elaborate here. Part of the reason why Paul's apostleship was under dispute was the fact that there was a difference in his particular historical situation from the 12th. See, if you look at the book of Acts and you read about what happens when Judas dies and the church is called upon to appoint a successor, right? To Judas.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
What are the criteria that are used here to determine whether or not a person ought to fill that office? And we can glean from the text basically three kinds of consideration. One, that the person was first a disciple. Two, that the person was an eyewitness of the resurrection. Three, that he was directly and immediately appointed by Christ. That he was called.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
Paul didn't satisfy all those requirements. And so there was a way there that the question could come up on. He wasn't a disciple. He never knew Jesus caught the Sarka, that is, after the flesh. He didn't know him in his earthly ministry, wasn't he? Trained by Jesus in Jesus' own rabbinic school.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
The thing is that Paul's apostleship is not of men, neither by no human intermediary, but it's by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. And all the brethren which are with me unto the churches of Galatia. That notices a departure here from Paul's normal attitude. Normally he'll say, and from Phoebe and Gaius and Crispus and Timothy and whoever else is with them.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
He'll mention them by name. But here I say, and all the brethren with me, I usually say to this church and to all the churches in Galatia, and there's a kind of generalness here. Perhaps maybe I'm reading between the lines here too much, but you get the idea of the swiftness of movement of the salutations. Paul's in a hurry to get down to the issue. Deal with it.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
Not so fast, though, that he neglects to give them the apostolic blessing. Grace be to you and peace from God the Father. And from our Lord Jesus Christ. Polite enough and courteous enough and kindly disposed enough to give them this normal standard type of greeting, grace and peace. That's what he wants for these people. He wants them to experience the graciousness of God.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
He wants them to know the full dimension of peace that comes from Christ, from our Lord Jesus Christ. But again, you see, he doesn't say grace and peace to you from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ. You know, to him glory be forever and ever and amen. But what does he do? It acts on to the salutations. Something that touches the very issue that he's going to deal with throughout the epistle.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
Grace be to you and peace from God, our Father, from our Lord Jesus Christ. Karma! who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world according to the will of God and to our Father. Already, you see, the lines of the argument are being drawn here.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
What we do have in terms of background material that remains a problem, however, with Galatians is the question, what is the problem that has provoked Paul to write this epistle? Let me again say, by way of background, that first of all, the book of Galatians...
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
I wanted to remind these people, don't forget, this grace and peace that I'm sending to you is from that Jesus, you see, who died for your sins and who has delivered us from the evil of this world. That's the cardinal point that the people of the Galatian churches were beginning to forget. To whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Amen.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
is probably the clearest epistle that comes from the pen of Paul that really shows Paul's unique contribution to the development of Christian theology. This is the clearest exposition we have of Paul's theology, even more so than the book of Romans. And I might say that the book of Romans stands, of course, in a very close relationship to the book of Galatians.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
There's a sense in which they both ought to be read together. Galatians has been called time and again the Magna Carta of the Christian faith. This document is of supreme importance in terms of its content, particularly as it relates to the question of the relationship between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, between the Jewish community and the new movement called Christianity.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
We talk about this in terms of the vocabulary, at least theologically, of the relationship between law and gospel, between the law of Moses now and the dispensation that comes to us in the ministry of Christ. There's one other peculiar dimension to this epistle that I think needs to be stated, and that's this. This letter exudes, it breathes a spirit, a mood of hot indignation.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
If you want to see the reality of Paul, the man, come to this epistle. This epistle is written in anger and in astonishment. the kind of angry astonishment of which Paul is capable. And it's not against Paul that he manifests anger. His anger is proper. His anger is fitting for the problem that he is dealing.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
Paul's anger here is a response to what he considers to be a critical attack on the truthfulness and the purity of the Christian doctrine. He is responding... to a group of people who have made a serious inroad into the fidelity of the Galatian churches. And this group to which Paul is speaking, against whom Paul is writing, is traditionally called the Judaizers. The Judaizers.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
Capital J-U-D-A-I-Z-E-R-S. The Judaizers were a group of Jewish Christians, that is, converts coming out of Judaism, who were arguing militantly that Christians, all Christians, were bound to observe the ceremonial laws of Moses and of the Old Testament, and that circumcision as a religious rite was essential to salvation.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
In other words, they were arguing that if anybody comes into the new covenant, they must also submit themselves to all the prescriptions of the old covenant. Paul saw this not as a small intramural debate in theology. He saw this issue, you see, as attacking the very soul, the very heart, the very core of the riches of Christ, as we will see when we study this content.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
The issue that Paul was dealing with in Galatians was very, very similar to the issue that burned the church and split it in two in the 16th century. It's the issue of justification by faith and the free grace of God. Well, having said that, let's get on, if we can, with the body of the epistle itself. Let's just look at the first five verses, which is called the salutation of the epistle.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
Paul begins virtually all of his letters, at least most of his letters, with a personal greeting from the people that he's with, and starting in a spirit, you see, of warmth and kindness and gentleness. The first thing that strikes us in this salutation is a sense of abruptness. The kind of abruptness that's born in that anger that the apostle is feeling, obviously, as he's writing.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
And also, the second thing that strikes us about the salutation is the content of it. And I'm going to call attention to that in a moment. But first, just let me read the salutation. Paul, an apostle. not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
And all the brethren which are with me under the churches of Galatia, grace be to you and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he may deliver us from this present evil world according to the will of God and our Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. All right, the first thing is a standard procedure for Paul.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
It's normal for Paul when he begins the right letter to identify himself as the author, and he usually does it in terms of naming his name and his office. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, you see. Or Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ to the churches of Ephesus or whatever. You see, he goes on like this. But in the very beginning line of this epistle, we see the argument beginning to take form.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
Paul doesn't simply say, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ and God the Father, but there's a parenthetical statement added in there. Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. Now, at this point, you see, there's a subtle shift from the normal, easy flow of Paul's salutation. Now, there's a reason for that.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
One of the critical problems that Paul was involved with in the Galatian community in terms of the Judaizers is that the Judaizers who were coming into those congregations and trying to force them into this business of circumcision and adherence to the Old Testament ceremonial legislation and all the rest, these people knew very obviously that the teaching that they were bringing...
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
was an open conflict and on a collision course with the teaching Paul had given to those churches. Obviously, there were people in that congregation saying, hey, wait a minute. What you're telling us is not the same thing that Paul told us. So then the secondary issue came upon the church, namely the issue of authority. Who is the authority?
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
And the people in the church began to appeal to Paul, the apostle. Ha! And one of the main tenets of the criticism that came at the hands of the Judaizers was a criticism launched against the authenticity and legitimacy of Paul's apostleship.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
And they try to appeal instead to the Jerusalem church, to the original 12 apostles, the Judaizers did, and tried to belittle and deny the reality of Paul's apostleship. And so at stake in the whole epistle is the issue of Paul's apostleship. It's the same kind of thing, the same type of thing that happened at the time of the Reformation.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
Let me just review that for you very quickly, just by way of illustration, what's going on here in the church. Theologians historically have tended to make a distinction between the formal issue of the Reformation and the material issue, or maybe we'll call it the primary and the secondary issue that was at stake at the Reformation.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
The material issue, that is the matter, the core of the thing, the essence of the debate between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant movement in the 16th century was what? What was the doctrine under dispute in the 16th century? Justification. How is a man justified? The material issue was the question of justification by faith alone.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
But lurking behind all of the bait over this business of how is a man justified, which is a pretty critical question, isn't it? Huh? You bet. Eternity depends on the answer to that question.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
Behind the material debate, many times behind the scenes, but from time to time exploding from the curtains and coming out into focus where everybody could see it in the light of day, was the formal issue of the question of authority. In other words, how do we solve this debate of the matter? What's the formal principle that we appeal to in order to solve the material question?
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
Remember, for example, the whole thing started, you see, when Luther packed up his theses on the church door at Wittenberg asking for disputation in the matter of theology. The issue he was raising was what? The whole business of indulgences were being sold there in Germany. He's raising the whole question of justification. He wasn't raising questions about the Pope's authority.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
He wasn't raising questions about what the ultimate court of appeals was to be in the church. But more and more, you see, this became to be the issue.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
What I'd like to deal with today is a little bit of background and introduction to the book of Galatians, and if time permits, move into the content itself in the first chapter. A lot of the kinds of problems that surround this kind of introductory material to an epistle, Paul, are absent from the book of Galatians.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
So that finally, when Luther was called to the Diet of Worms to stand before the princes of the church and the princes of the world, and he was called upon to recant of his writings, recant of his work, you know, he gave his famous statement that the Diet of Worms says, unless I am convinced by Scripture or by evident reason,
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
I will not, indeed I cannot, recant, or to act against the consciences, neither safe nor wise, and all that. But here I stand. God help me, okay? What was introduced at that point was the formal issue, the principle of sola scriptura. What Luther was saying is, I'm not going to be convinced.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
If the Pope disagrees with me, if all the councils of the church disagree with me, I'm still not going to repudiate this thesis because my authority, finally, in the final analysis, is the Bible. Now, if you can show me that I've misread the Bible, I've misinterpreted the Bible, you see, or if the Bible doesn't say what I'm saying, I'll gladly submit and I'll repent of all the evil of my teaching.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
But until that day comes, I'm going to stand right here. What was the issue before it? And this is exactly what's happening, you see, in the Galatians situation. They're debating over this business of the relationship between the old covenant and the new covenant. They're debating, you see, between the relationship of the law and the gospel.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
And then the question comes up, okay, well, what this debate really centers around is that Paul says one thing and the Judaizers say another. And so the Judaizers begin to now come up with the formal question, all right, so what if Paul says, who's he? Why should we submit to his authority? And Paul is responding now, jealous to demonstrate his authority as an apostle.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
And we have the greatest defense by Paul himself to the legitimacy of his apostleship that's to be found anywhere in the New Testament right here in this epistle, beginning in the first line. Well, I have to say a word about this, too, before I go any further. And that is that, you know, there's a sense in which Paul's beating his own drum, blowing his own horn here. But Paul's not doing that.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
simply that he may receive the proper honor and adulation of the people. If there's anything that characterizes Paul, it's his own self-consciousness of being nothing more than a slave to Jesus Christ. He's not interested in self-aggrandizement. He's not interested in winning glory to himself.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
He's not playing the game that the disciples did earlier when they were hassling over who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom of God. You see, he understood what John the Baptist's attitude was when John would say, you know, I must decrease that Christ might increase.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
The idea here being, of course, that it's no significance whatsoever, whether in all eternity you or I are preferred among the others. That's insignificant in the kingdom of God. What difference does it make which one of us receives the most honor? Because any honor we receive, in a sense, is only that much applause and exultation that's directed away from Christ and to us.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
We should hate the applause of men. And this is a thesis that comes from Paul's pen over and over and over again. And to accuse Paul, you see, of defending or writing about his apostleship here simply for the sake of blowing his own horn is to miss the point altogether. But what Paul understood was his role in redemptive history was extremely important for those people.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
If there's any book in the Pauline corpus, that is, in that body of literature that is traditionally attributed to the Apostle Paul, if there's any book that today receives virtually unanimous consensus of scholarly opinion that it did indeed come from the Apostle Paul, it's the book of Galatians.
Renewing Your Mind
Introduction to Galatians
And he had to make it clear to them that his apostleship was genuine, that he had to make clear that part of the gospel of Christ includes apostolic authority. It's a very touchy situation to be in. It's like a minister fighting for his right to be heard as a minister. It's sort of against our grain for a man to have to defend himself like this. But Paul wasn't defending himself.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
Rome distinguishes between mortal sin and venial sin. Mortal sin is called mortal sin because it kills the grace of justification that's in your soul. Calvin opposed that by saying that all sins are mortal. in the sense that they deserve death, but no sin is mortal to the Christian that would destroy your salvation.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
Well, you would think that the answer to that question would be, well, you just get baptized again. But they say, no, you don't get baptized again. There's an indelible mark that's given to you when your original baptism, you never lose, no matter, even if you go to hell, you'll have that indelible mark.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
And so you don't have to get rebaptized, but you need another sacrament instead of the sacrament of baptism in order to be re-justified. And that's the sacrament of penance. And that's at the core and center of the controversy here in the 16th century. Why? Well, the elements of penance are these. There's, first of all, confession. If you've committed mortal sin, you've got to go to confession.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
You've got to confess that sin to the priest. And that confession has to be genuine. It can't merely be attrition. Attrition is repenting out of a fear of punishment. You know, like the little kid when you catch him in his hand in the cookie jar and you said, please don't spank me, please don't spank me. He's all very sorry because he's going to get punished, not because he's done something wrong.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
If you take the time to read Luther's 95 Theses, you'll see in there that there's very little about the doctrine of justification. But Luther's discussion that he wanted to have with the faculty over the theses had to do with the whole system of doctrine that was associated with indulgences.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
But true contrition is like you would find in David's Psalm 51, where his heart is broken before God, and he has this broken and contrite heart because he realizes he's sinned against a holy and righteous God.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
So you come to confess, and you say, you know, Father, I've done this, and I'm confessing I'm repenting not only out of a fear of God's punishment, but because I have offended thee, and so on in the prayer of confession. The second part of the sacrament is priestly absolution, te absolvo, the priest says. Now, Protestants get all exercised about that.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
They say, I don't have to go to confession if I sin. I don't need to go to a priest. I go directly to God. At the same time, we say that you are supposed to confess your sins. There's nothing wrong with confessing your sins to another person or to your pastor. There's nothing wrong with the pastor giving the assurance of pardon as we do regularly in our liturgy.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
We're saying if you confess your sins, God is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you of all unrighteousness. When the priest says te absolvo, I absolve you, he's not saying that I have the inherent right to forgive sins. Only God has that power. But he is exercising a delegated right.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
He is exercising a power endowed with him when he goes through the sacrament of holy orders and he becomes consecrated as a priest. Now, part of being a priest is he has the authority to pronounce the forgiveness of God upon a penitent person. So far, no harm, no foul. It's the third part of the sacrament of penance that created all the stir. And that's this.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
In the third part, after you have preceded absolution, to be fully restored to justification, you must do works of satisfaction in order to be justified. Here's where the works come in. Works of satisfaction. Satisfaction. such as saying so many Hail Marys, so many Our Fathers, giving alms, doing some other good deed. These are works that are required in order to be justified.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
The Reformed view is justification is by faith alone. In the Roman Catholic view, it's faith plus works in order to be justified. Now, these works are called works... that bring with them congruous merit. Meritum de congruo is the language of Rome, congruous merit, which is distinguished from meritum de condigno, or condign merit.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
Condign merit is merit that is so meritorious, so righteous, that it requires a blessing or a reward from God. God would be unjust not to re-justify a person if that person had condign merit. But Rome is saying, no, the sacrament doesn't bestow condign merit. It bestows congruous merit, which means that if a person does these works of satisfaction, it is now fitting or suitable or congruous merit
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
And initially, Luther wasn't opposed to indulgences in itself, but the abuse of the selling of them that was being carried out by Tetzel. However, when he began writing up his 95 Theses, and if you read them, you will see that he raises questions about the whole system that's tied to indulgences and to the Roman Catholic understanding of justification and of the gospel.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
that God reward them by restoring that person to justification. In other words, God would be acting incongruously if he didn't restore this person to salvation, you get it. So you have those things. Now, the person is back justified, and he stays justified until or unless he commits another mortal sin.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
If he commits a mortal sin, he can die and go to hell, or he can go back to that sacrament of penance and be restored again and again and again and again. Now, if the person dies, with any impurity on his or her soul, then the person goes to purgatory. Purgatory is so called because it is the place of purging. It is that place that purges you from any impurity that you die with.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
You may spend two weeks in purgatory. You may spend two million years in purgatory, depending how much you had to get cleaned up in order to get into heaven. But you will not get into heaven until or unless you are inherently righteous. Now that, in a nutshell, is Rome's version of the gospel.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
And you can see the radical contrast between that and the Reformation view, where in the Reformation view, the moment I have faith, I have heaven. There's no purgatory. I have eternal life. I'm adopted into the kingdom of God, and my sins are forgiven once and for all. And so the contrast between these two views is the contrast between good news and bad news.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
two radically different understandings of the gospel. Now, there's still more that I need to talk about briefly about the Roman Catholic view with respect to the indulgences. and the power of the keys and the treasury of merits. That's all part of the system that Rome employed and continues to employ in their understanding of salvation.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
And for us to understand, as I've said, the Reformation concept, I think the best way to do it is against the backdrop of the Roman Catholic view. Now, the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification was not set forth in all of its complexity overnight by Augustine or later by Gregory the Great or anything like that, but rather the system of
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
of salvation within Rome took centuries and centuries to develop with a layer at a time upon another layer. And from a theological perspective, the Roman Catholic system of salvation is called sacerdotalism, meaning that salvation is wrought through the ministrations of the church and of the priesthood.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
And the doctrine of justification wasn't defined until after the beginning of the Reformation when we saw what was called the Counter-Reformation. The Roman Catholic Church responded to Protestantism with a three-pronged counter move. The first was with the beginning of the Spanish Inquisition.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
in which people who embraced these heretical doctrines of the Protestants were subjected to severe forms of torture. And secondly, the founding of the Jesuit order, a special order of priests to deal with the intellectual issues of the day, the Society of Jesus, founded by Ignatius Leola. Sometimes, if you'll see writings by Jesuit scholars,
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
But in the Roman view, if you commit a mortal sin, if you die in mortal sin, you go to hell.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
You'll see their name, and instead of after their name, the initials PhD, you'll see instead SJ, Society of Jesus, means they're Jesuits. They're the creme de la creme of the academic priests in the Roman Catholic Church. But the major...
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
element of the counter-reformation was the calling of an international ecumenical council like Vatican II, Vatican I, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon, those great councils of church history. And in the middle of the 16th century, this council was called and began in Trento, Italy, and is called the Council of Trent. Sometimes references to decisions of Trent are called tridentines.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
So if you hear that phrase from now and then, the tridentine view means those views espoused and set down in concrete, officially, de fide, was at the Council of Trent. Now, that Council went through several sessions over several years, but the most important one for our consideration of justification was the sixth session of the Council of Trent, in which the sixth session does two things.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
In the first part of the session, it defines the Roman Catholic view of justification. The second part include these 20-some canons, which are pronouncements of judgment against heretical views or anathemas. You know, if anyone says this, let him be anathema, let him be cursed or let him be damned.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
And so it's still a debate, which we can talk about a little later, among contemporaries as to how definitive Trent is. But I just mentioned in passing that the decrees of the Council of Trent were reaffirmed in toto. in the Catholic Catechism of the 1990s.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
And so officially within the Roman Church, even though you'll find people in America and Canada and the Western wing of the church who are loose on Trent, the Curia of the Latin wing of the church and the papacy still affirms unequivocally the decrees and canons of Trent. So that's what we're going to do to understand its view of justification.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
Now before, again, I expound that so often in the discussion and debate between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, both sides set up straw persons and attack things that aren't true. They slander each other. You know, I hear it's all the time, well, we believe in justification by faith. Rome believes in justification by works, as if faith wasn't significant.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
or we believe in justification by grace, Rome believes in justification by merit. And that's a falsification, an oversimplification. Or some say, we believe in justification by Christ. They believe in justification by their own activities. That's not true. So let's ask the question, what does Rome teach on this question of justification?
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
Well, in the sixth session, it starts off this way by saying that the first step in justification is is the sacrament of baptism, which Rome defines as the instrumental cause of justification. the instrumental cause of justification. When we say justification by, we're using the instrumental data, we're talking about the means by which something takes place.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
That distinction of instrumental causality goes back to Aristotle's study of causes and Some of you may be familiar with that, where he distinguished among the efficient cause, the formal cause, the final cause, the material cause, the instrumental cause, and so on. All these different subtle distinctions about causality.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
Well, Rome believes that the instrument by which a person is justified initially is the sacrament of baptism. What happens in that sacrament is the infusion or pouring into the soul of the person baptized the righteousness of Christ. or what is also sometimes called justifying grace. Now there's a debate there of subtleties with Roman theologians about their whole understanding of grace.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
The language that they use describes grace as some kind of substance or thing. that is poured into the soul, that has a habitus. It inhabits the soul. We speak of grace as being an activity of God, a generous treatment of us that we don't deserve, but we don't think in terms of grace in substantive language.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
But again, to understand a Roman view, you have this grace infused or poured into the soul. and that it affects what it intends to affect ex opera operati. That means through the working of the works. They don't like to use the language automatic, but really it is automatic. If you are baptized, you do receive this infusion of grace and are at that state, in a state of justification.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
Now to continue in that state of justification, You have to cooperate with that infused grace. The language that they use, the Trent, is the language cooperare et assentare. To cooperate with and assent to this grace that has been infused into you. So that when you cooperate with this grace... and assent to this grace, then the righteousness that has been infused is now inherent.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
That is, it's inherent in you so that you are righteous. in the sight of God. And the reason why you're righteous in the sight of God is because you really are righteous. You've cooperated and ascended to this infused grace. And so you're in a state of justification until or unless you commit a mortal sin. Now at that point, Rome distinguishes between mortal sin and venial sin.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
Venial sin is real sin and needs to be confessed and forgiven and all of that, but it doesn't destroy your saving grace that inheres in your soul. Mortal sin, however, is called mortal sin because it kills the grace of justification that's in your soul. Calvin opposed that by saying that all sins are mortal in the sense that they deserve death.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
But no sin is mortal to the Christian that would destroy your salvation. But in the Roman view, if you commit a mortal sin, if you die in mortal sin, you go to hell. Now, first thing you have to know here is that you can have real faith, faith that is necessary for salvation, and have saving faith and still commit mortal sin. So let me explain that for just a second.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
We distinguish between a necessary condition and a sufficient condition. If I want to build a fire out in the woods, I need a certain amount of oxygen to have a fire occur. Oxygen is a necessary condition under normal circumstances for fire to occur. But it's not a sufficient condition. If it were a sufficient condition, it would mean all you need to have a fire is the presence of oxygen.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
If that were the case, then what? The whole world would be on fire right now because wherever there's oxygen, there would be fire. So you couldn't have oxygen without having fire. Now, the idea is you can't have fire without having oxygen, but you can have oxygen without having fire.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
Now, using that illustration between necessary and sufficient condition, the Roman view of faith is that faith is a necessary condition for justification. but not a sufficient one. You can have true faith and not be justified. Whereas in the Protestant view, faith is not just a necessary condition for justification, it's a sufficient condition for justification.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
If you have true faith, you have justification. You can't have true faith and not have justification. You can't have justification without having true faith. Am I going too fast? All right. Now, expanding on this mortal sin idea and on faith. In the sixth session of Trent, Rome defines faith as having this function. It has a threefold function with respect to justification.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
Rome calls faith the initium, the fundamentum, and the rhodex of justification. To translate that into English, faith is the initiation, the first step. of our justification. So when people say Rome believes in justification without faith or just by works, no, no, no. You have to have faith as the initiating element for your justification.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
It's also the fundamentum, the foundation upon which justification is established. And thirdly, it's the rhodex, the root or the core element of justification. So justification is not some loose-fitting option that you can have or not have in the Roman Catholic thing. It's a necessary condition for justification. It's the initiation, the foundation, and the root of justification.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
But if you have that faith, you can still commit mortal sin. And here's where the problem comes in. If you commit mortal sin, you lose your justification. And if you lose your justification, you need what Rome calls, Trent, the second plank of justification for those who make shipwreck of their souls.
Renewing Your Mind
The Roman Catholic View
Now, the idea of walking the plank or having a plank on a ship or a different plank of a, like the Republican program, they have planks or they have positions that they take. Well, here Rome is using the naval idea. You lose your salvation and your justification by mortal sin. Now, the question is, how can you get re-justified?
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
I want you to ingest it, and I want you to digest it so that this word of mine becomes a part of you. What word? Lamentations. Woe, mourning, and grief is the word that God feeds His prophet. Now here is where something radical and astonishing takes place. So I ate, and it was in my mouth like honey in sweetness. What?
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
The scroll of laments, the scroll of mourning, the scroll of grief, the scroll of judgment, the scroll of the woes of God is taken by Ezekiel and he eats it expecting an impalatable bitterness, something that will make him choke, something that will make him gasp, something that will make him wretch. Instead, he tastes it, and it has the sweetness of honey.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
Now, you could look at that in different ways. You say, aha, this is one of these prophets who's sadistic. He enjoys being a bearer of the judgment of God. He loves to go around and tell people how bad they are and how mad God is. No, no. That wasn't the personality of Ezekiel or any of God's prophets. They were men of compassion and men of immeasurable love.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
And yet, God was able to make even His hard sayings taste as sweet as honey. I remember reading Edward's in his own personal struggle as a young theologian with the doctrine of God's sovereignty and of the doctrine of election, and how he struggled so violently against this, thinking that it indicated that God was arbitrary or capricious or unfair or cruel.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
But he kept on trying to unravel this difficult and complex doctrine. And things came to him in stages, and Edwards said the first stage was he finally became convinced in his mind that the Scriptures were really teaching a sovereign doctrine of election. He said, I didn't like it, but I couldn't gainsay that Scripture was teaching this.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
And then he had an experience similar to that of Augustine centuries before when he was reading from the New Testament and he read the passage, you know, about the immortal, invisible, only wise God. And as he was reading that passage, the Spirit of God so illumined the text that Edwards had this glorious sense of the transcendent majesty of God.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
And suddenly he saw the whole concept of God's sovereignty and of His election in a totally different light. And he said, now I was awakened to the sweetness of the doctrine. Boy, can I testify to that. I mean, I went through that same struggle.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
But now I see one of the sweetest messages of all the Scriptures, the message of God's gracious, sovereign election, which is an anchor for my soul and for yours. And if we can get past all of the problems that we have to struggle with intellectually with that doctrine and come to rest with the God who is sovereign, That hard saying, which we initially recoil against, is now as sweet as honey.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
And we are delighted to swallow it, to digest it, and to get it into our bloodstream. And so I hope it will be for all of the hard sayings of the prophets and of Christ and of the apostles, that though they seem hard at the outset, by the work of God's gracious Holy Spirit, they will become for us like the sweetness of honey. We have a word in our language that is the word bittersweet.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
It seems to be an oxymoron, doesn't it? How can something be both bitter and sweet at the same time? Well, it can't be at the same time and in the same relationship. But even those things that come to us initially clothed in bitterness can, under the agency of God's Holy Spirit, become sweet to us. And there is nothing more sweet to the Christian than His Word.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
And so, I ask you, as we look at these difficult passages throughout Scripture, to look for the sweetness, to look for the beauty and the glory of God that stands behind them, because for God, His truth is always sweet. It is always glorious. It is always wonderful. And when we recoil against it in a spirit of bitterness, it's because we haven't yet tasted to see that the Lord is good.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
Today we're going to start a series on the hard sayings of the prophets from the Old Testament prophets. What we're thinking about here are those statements that we find in the Scripture that are hard. Now, they could be hard for one of two reasons. A saying can be called a hard saying because it appears to us, at least at first blush, to be severe. or harsh.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
In that sense, it's hard to swallow because these statements sort of jar us and jolt us and harm our sensibilities, and we recoil from them. We read, for example, in the Old Testament that God instructed the Israelites to institute the harem, which had to do with the wholesale destruction of the Canaanite nation, man, woman, and child.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
And that just seems so harsh, so severe, and it seems to cast a shadow on the love of God and on the mercy of God and on the goodness of God. And we say, how do we handle texts like that? They're difficult. They're hard because they are severe. to our senses. The second way we talk about hard sayings is that they are hard to unravel.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
They are hard to understand, not simply because of their harshness, but because They're difficult for us to conceive, much of what the Bible teaches about the sovereignty of God and His sovereign control over human behavior, coupled with the responsibility that we have as volitional agents and being responsible for the choices that we make. How do we put those things together? That's difficult.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
And so, we can call those sayings hard sayings. Now, before we get into this, let me say one other thing by way of preface. If there is a shortcut to accelerating your understanding of Scripture, the shortcut would be focusing your attention on the hard sayings.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
I say when you read through the Bible and you come upon a text that bothers you, you don't have to just be paralyzed and stop there and stay there forever. You know, move on, but mark it. And I say if you find a passage you don't understand, put a red mark next to it. And then later on, come back and focus on those red marks. Say, here's a portion of Scripture I don't understand.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
I'm going to devote special attention to trying to understand these passages that are difficult. What a great way to learn. If you focus on the obstacles to your progress and remove them one by one, you'll have this augmented understanding. But even more importantly are those texts that jar your emotions, and you read that and you say, I don't like what the Bible says here.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
Put a big mark next to that one, to those passages in Scripture that offend you, that at first glance you disagree with. Now, those are the ones you really need to put your focus and your attention upon if you want to grow rapidly because one of two things will happen. You may discover that the reason why that text offended you or annoyed your sensitivities is because you didn't understand it.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
And after you delve into it and examine it, read the commentaries on it, come to a better insight of what it means, now your problem is resolved and you can move on. And in the meantime, you've gained new insight and new understanding.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
But suppose you check all the commentaries and you're careful in your examination of the text and you find out that you understand it exactly right and it still makes you mad. and you don't like it. Wives, submit yourself to your husbands. I don't like that, you say. Well, put three checks next to that because that means one of two things.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
Either there's something wrong with the author of Scripture who wrote those words, there's something wrong with Paul's thinking, and Paul ought to change. or what? There's something wrong with my thinking because here, while I'm being critical of Scripture, Scripture is being critical of me. And if you want to grow in grace and in sanctification, find those places where you are critical of God.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
It might just be that these are the places where you need to change your thinking and change your life. Now, I'd like to ask you to turn to the book of the prophet Ezekiel in the Old Testament. to the beginning of the second chapter of Ezekiel. You recall that in the first chapter of Ezekiel, there is Ezekiel's description of an incredible visionary experience that he has.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
That first chapter has kept Old Testament scholars busy for centuries trying to sort it out with this vision of the whirling Merkabahs and the highly imaginative view of the whirlwind and the likenesses of these strange creatures and the means of conveyance of this thing that has wheels within wheels that some have even tried to identify as an Old Testament appearance of a flying saucer.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
but which we understand in the biblical imagery and literature that Ezekiel is having a vision of the transcendent majesty of God as he appears in his chariot throne, his movable throne, which is covered with glory and has the ability to shoot out in all different directions and appear here and there and everywhere, manifesting the appearance of God in His throne of judgment.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
Now, having seen that vision in the first chapter, Let's look and see what happens to Ezekiel in the second chapter. The first chapter ends with these words, This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. So when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard a voice of one speaking. Now listen to what the voice says.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
chapter 2, verse 1, And he said to me, Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak to you. And then the Spirit entered me when he spoke to me, and set me on my feet. And I heard him who spoke to me, and he said, Son of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me. For they and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
They are impudent and stubborn children. I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord God. And as for them, whether they hear or whether they refuse, for they are a rebellious house, yet they will know. that a prophet has been among them.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
Now this may not be a hard saying for you, but this is a hard saying for Ezekiel, because God says to Ezekiel, I am going to send you with My Word to a rebellious house. I'm going to send you to preach to people who don't want to hear your preaching. I am going to send you to minister to people who despise your ministry. That's not an easy thing for any prophet to hear. And you, son of man,
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
Do not be afraid of them nor afraid of their words, though briars and thorns are with you and you dwell among scorpions. Do not be afraid of their words or dismayed by their looks, though they are a rebellious house."
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
Say that to a young minister who's about to be ordained and has to walk out on Sunday morning and stand before a congregation and say to the young man, don't be afraid of their words and don't be afraid of their looks. Everybody that's ever spoken publicly knows what a contemptuous look looks like coming from the audience or from the congregation.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
And God says, don't be afraid of them, for you shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or whether they refuse. But you, son of man, hear what I say to you. Do not be rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I give you. Do you hear what God's saying?
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
He's saying, Ezekiel, I'm sending you to a rebellious people, and they are going to resist everything that you say. You will be speaking my word. They don't want my word. They've rebelled against my word. But that's not your responsibility. Understand, Ezekiel, that the people who will be angered by this word are really angry at me. Because it's my word. So don't worry about what they say.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
And don't worry about what they do. You worry about Ezekiel. Don't you be rebellious. Don't you join in this host that resists my word. And then he says something incredible to him. He says, open your mouth. and eat what I give you. Now when I looked, there was a hand stretched out to me, and behold, a scroll of a book was in it.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
And then he spread it before me, and there was writing on the inside and on the outside, and written on it were lamentations and mourning and woe. Listen to the hard saying. God says, eat what I give you. And Isaiah looks and he sees this hand stretched out. And in the hand is a scroll. And the scroll is written on the front and on the back, on the inside and on the outside.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
Ladies and gentlemen, the scroll is the Word of God. Now, it's a wonderful thing, a joyous thing, to announce peace to Jerusalem, to declare the gospel that people hear with great joy, to announce the good news of God's promise of mercy and of forgiveness and redemption and of His love. That's not hard to do. But the scroll that God gives to Ezekiel contains what? Lamentations, mourning, and woe.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
It's all bad news. It's all hard sayings. That's all the scroll has is hard sayings. Moreover, he said to me, Son of man, eat what you find. Eat this scroll and go speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth and he caused me to eat that scroll. And then he said to me, Son of man, feed your belly and fill your stomach with this scroll that I give you. Let's stop right there for a second.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
His truth is always sweet. It is always glorious. It is always wonderful. And when we recoil against it in a spirit of bitterness, it's because we haven't yet tasted to see that the Lord is good.
Renewing Your Mind
When Bitter Becomes Sweet
God says, I'm not just going to put this word in your mouth and have you taste it and spit it out. Nor am I asking you to chew on it for ten minutes and then discard it. I want you to put it in your mouth, to taste it, to chew it, and to swallow it, and to digest it. I want it in your belly, and then I want it in your bloodstream. I want it to be pervasive throughout your being.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
The biblical characters are not fictional. They are not fairytale characters. They are real people, real flesh, real blood, and we need to be reminded of, even as the Scriptures themselves remind us from time to time, as St. James does in his epistles when he exhorts the people of God to pray. He reminds them. of the effectiveness of the prayers of Elijah.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And when the person comes to me and said, I break down in my Bible study because I get bored. I say, how can you get bored? The blood is flowing in the streets. The sexual impulses of men and women burn like fire throughout the scriptures. Anger, hatred, hostility.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
Again, I think of Kierkegaard who said about his own age in the 19th century in the Church of Europe at that time, he said, my complaint is not that this age is wicked. My complaint is that it's paltry. It's dull. It lacks life. There's no elan. There's no verve. There's no excitement. He said, and so I am driven from time to time.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
When I'm bored by my contemporary surroundings, I am driven back to the Old Testament where people are real. And they breathe life, they lie, they kill, they steal, they cheat, they commit adultery in a word. They are men, they are women. And that's what I mean, that we get in touch with the lifeblood of Scripture as we read. If we practice looking for the drama,
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
There's no way that we can be bored because I'm convinced, dear friends, that this book is the most dramatic book that has ever been written. I remember back in the 40s, there was a radio program borrowed from the best-selling book by Fulton Owsler entitled The Greatest Story Ever Told.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
Hollywood has understood without any great desire to communicate the truths of Christianity that if you want to tell a story that has passion and drama, borrow from the themes of the Scriptures because the themes of the Scriptures lend themselves to this kind of drama. I can remember one last example that I'll give you later on in the book of Leviticus.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
We read in the 13th chapter the following instructions. See how interesting Scripture is. And the Lord spoke unto Moses and Aaron, saying, When a man shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, a scab, or a bright spot, and it be in the skin of his flesh like the plague of leprosy. Then it should be brought unto Aaron the priest, or to one of his sons of the priest.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And the priest shall look on the plague in the skin of the flesh. And when the hair in the plague is turned white, and the plague in sight be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is the plague of leprosy. And the priest shall look upon him and pronounce him unclean. How are you doing? You still with me? It goes on. And the priest shall look again on the seventh day.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And if the plague be somewhat dark and the plague spread not in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him clean. It is but a scab. Then he shall wash his clothes and be skinned. But if the scab spread much abroad in the skin after the day, you read that. It goes on, ladies and gentlemen, for three chapters.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And I know the first 15 times I read those chapters in Leviticus, they gave me an excedrin headache. I couldn't wait to get past all these pedantic points of description of various illnesses and disease that was like reading somebody's book on anatomy. And I thought, that's got to be the most boring stuff. How could God the Holy Spirit waste His time inspiring stuff like that?
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
Then one day I was reading. And I'd just been talking to a friend who had gone to their doctor and the doctor had found some strange shadowy marks that were showing up in an x-ray. The doctor wasn't sure what was causing these images and the x-ray plates. Was it a harmless mass of scar tissue? A benign tumor? Or did it show the beginnings of a virulent cancer?
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And so my friend then went to the hospital to have a biopsy performed. And then the tissue that was taken in the biopsy was sent to the lab to go through the various procedures of pathology that are involved in modern medicine. And do you realize what my friend went through while waiting? for the verdict that would come back from the lab.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
I want to look in this session at a very important principle that may be a little bit surprising to you as we begin, and that is the principle that we ought to read the Bible existentially. And when I talk about reading the Bible existentially, I am not using the word in the philosophical sense.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
Harmless, benign tissue or a fatal cancer that would snuff out their lives. That's what these people were going through when they went to the priest, when they saw a scratch on their skin, when they saw a scab form on their skin. In those days, they didn't just assume that it was a mosquito bite.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
It could very possibly be the first clue of the advent of the most dreadful, dreadful disease that could afflict them, the disease of leprosy. Even go from the Old Testament to the New and think of the drama that surrounds Jesus' ministry to the leper. How the leper comes down the street and sees Jesus, and he cries out in a loud voice, Jesus, have mercy upon me.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And that wretched man is begging on the street and Jesus walks over and breaks all the laws that are set forth here about contamination and contact with somebody involved with the scourge of leprosy. Jesus comes over and touches him. What does that say to you about your Lord who will stoop down from his throne on heaven and place his hands
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
on the most wretched flesh of mankind to bring healing to a human life. How would we understand it if we didn't first take the time to see the drama even in Leviticus, even in the dietary laws as we read the dietary laws? And we say, oh, what could be more boring than whether we're supposed to eat things that chew their cud or how many cloves they have in their hooves and all of that business.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And then we see men like Daniel and Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego who are taken away into captivity in a process where the Babylonians take not everybody from Israel into exile, but they take the cream of the crop, the best scholars, the best musicians, the best artists, the best businessmen, and they try to integrate them into the life of the culture of Babylon.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
But the Jews don't want to give up their heritage. They want to remain Jews. They don't want to be assimilated into the Babylonian culture. And so the Jews refused to break their laws of kosher, the laws of diet that God had prescribed from heaven itself. They would not bow down to the images of the emperor.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And for that, Daniel goes to the lion's den and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego end up in a flaming, fiery furnace. We wouldn't understand the drama if we didn't understand the crucial role that the diet provisions have for the one who is chosen of God to be special. It's all there. It's there in passion. It's there in drama.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
But for us to touch it and have it touch us where we live, we have to see the flesh, the humanity of the people in their existence and touch them. Let their existence touch our existence. That's what I mean by an existential reading of the Word of God.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
I do not mean that we ought to apply the philosophical method that is married to existentialism to the Bible, as many are doing. But what I mean by it is simply this. that we ought to read the Bible as people who are personally, passionately, and intimately involved with what we are reading. There is a link, of course, to existentialism at this point.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
I think of the philosopher Kierkegaard, the 19th century thinker who was so important for the shaping of later philosophy in the field of existentialism, who looked at mankind and said that there are different stages along life's way, or what he called stadia along life's way.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And as he explained that to his readers, he made a significant difference between what he would call the aesthetic stage and the existential stage of life. The aesthetic stage is defined as that dimension of life whereby we stand on the fringes of human activity and we remain always and forever spectators. We're never personally involved.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And he said, remember that Elijah was a man like unto you. His passions were just like your passions. His heartaches were just like your heart. But it's so easy for us to so romanticize the heroes and the personages of Scripture that we forget that they were just as we are.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And what Kierkegaard was calling us to was that particularly as Christians, we are called to be passionately involved in the affairs of life. We cannot afford as Christians to stand back on the fringes and merely be observers. Now it's that principle that I want to translate now to the reading of the Scriptures.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
We are not to come to the Bible and simply remain aloof from its message, trying to reduce it to an objective bit of information that we are to dissect and analyze and record in our memory banks. But this book is a book that is filled with life.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
It is addressing us in the midst of the stream of our own lives, and if it is going to speak to us, we need to step into its skin to read these stories in a certain sense as if they were written especially for us. I remember Adele Rogers St.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
John wrote a novel a few years ago in which the hero of the story was a man who was puzzled about what the Christian faith was all about, and he had a casual acquaintanceship with it. He knew people who were Christians, but he had never been serious about investigating the content of the Christian faith.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And he was like many people who felt, well, religion is something that we do by way of institutions and by church attendance, but I'm not going to get too personally involved in it. But somebody explained to the hero of the story that if Christianity was going to be meaningful in this man's life, he had to see its personal ramifications.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
So by way of experiment, what the man did was he went back to his office, he was a successful businessman, and he instructed his secretary to type up each of the epistles of the New Testament as if they were personal letters that were written just for this man.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And she even went so far as to address these letters, not as Paul to the Philippians or Paul to the Thessalonians or Paul to the church at Rome, but rather it was Paul to Hank so and so. And then they were put in an envelope and they were sent to this man's home, to his home mailbox. And he would go out every week and there would be a letter from the Apostle Paul addressed to him.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And what that little game did was that it forced him to read the Scriptures personally and existentially. The Bible is filled with drama, and to read it existentially means to try to bridge that gap between ourselves in the first century and the culture in which the Bible was written, and try to project ourselves into the life situation of the Scriptures so that we can feel it
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
as well as read it with our eye. There's some license that goes on here that preachers use all the time. It involves the task of reading between the lines. Again, it was Kierkegaard. who in his little book, Fear and Trembling, did this with a very poignant passage from the Old Testament.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
We know that the 22nd chapter of Genesis, for example, records one of the most moving stories in all of Old Testament history. It's the story of God calling Abraham and telling him to take his son, the child of promise, Isaac, and to take him into a far mountain. And there Abraham was asked by God to deliver Isaac to that mountain and to offer him on an altar of sacrifice to kill his own son.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And of course, the narrative of that event comes very abruptly, very concisely and succinctly to us in the Old Testament where God comes to Abraham and He says, Abraham, take now thy son, thine only son, the son whom you lovest, Isaac. and take him to this mountain where I will show you." And so on goes the instructions.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And Kierkegaard was reading that on one occasion, and he himself had suffered greatly in his soul from the pangs of a broken engagement. In fact, so much of Kierkegaard's writings, his poetry and drama, focuses on that release of the anguish of his soul that he experienced from that lost love.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And so when he reads this story in the Old Testament of God asking Abraham to take the most precious thing in his life and give it away, Kierkegaard felt it in his own soul. And he began to muse on it and he tried to think what was going on in Abraham's mind. And the text says simply, as it continues, and Abraham rose early in the morning.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And when Kierkegaard got to that portion of the text, he stopped and he said, wait a minute. Why did Abraham rise early in the morning? The Bible doesn't tell us. In order to know it, we have to read between the lines. We have to try to project what it would be like to be in that life situation.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And so he began to muse on it, and he thought, well, maybe it's because Abraham was such a man of so vital a faith, so disciplined, so rock hard in his commitment to God that no matter whatever God asked him to do, Abraham reported for duty early. God, you want me to sacrifice my son in the altar? So let it be said, so let it be done. I'll set the alarm clock for 5 o'clock in the morning.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And I'll get up and I'll report for duty and I'll take my son and do exactly what you said. I won't miss a beat. I won't skip a step. I'll do whatever you want me to do. Well, that's one way we can understand the text. And Kierkegaard sets that forth for us. But then he said, wait a minute. Abraham was a man. Maybe he was the friend of God. Maybe he's the prototype of all faithful men.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
Maybe he had faith such as to move mountains. But even Christ himself sweat beads of perspiration that were of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. And he was greater than Abraham. And Kierkegaard looks at the idea. He says, don't tell me that Abraham got up early in the morning out of a simplistic sense of obedience and duty to God. And Kierkegaard said, no, if that were I,
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
and God had come to me and said, kill my own son. I think the reason I would have woken up early in the morning is because I know I would have never been able to fall asleep. As soon as my eyelids grew heavy, the pain of that decision would intrude into my mind and I would begin to think, how could this be God? For me to sacrifice my own son, what kind of a God is that? Is he simply testing me?
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
Maybe at the last second God will deliver me, but then maybe he won't. And so the anguish of a soul wrestling with With his trust in God, the anguish of a soul hanging to faith by his fingernails was tormenting Abraham. And maybe, said Kierkegaard, that's why he got up early in the morning. We don't know. As I said, the Bible doesn't tell us. It's silent.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And of course, it can be a very dangerous and irresponsible thing for us to take too much license and intrude too much into the text. And we don't want to do that. I've already given a lesson on the dangers of subjectivism in interpretation. But that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about feeling.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
what the people in the Scriptures are feeling, because the biblical characters are not fictional. They are not fairytale characters. They are real people, real flesh, real blood, and we need to be reminded of, even as the Scriptures itself remind us from time to time, as St. James does in his epistles when he exhorts the people of God to pray.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
He reminds them of the effectiveness of the prayers of Elijah. And he said, remember that Elijah was a man like unto you. His passions were just like your passions. His heartaches were just like your heartaches. but it's so easy for us to so romanticize the heroes and the personages of Scripture that we forget that they were just as we are.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
One of my favorite illustrations comes in the 10th chapter of Leviticus, where we have there the record of the death of the sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu. We read the text as follows, Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereupon. And they offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
And there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. Now listen to that. Two verses, and we get the action. We don't get much explanation as to why they did what they did, but in two verses, Nadab and Abihu's act is recorded for us, and their deaths are recorded for us.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
Very, very sketchy by way of outline, really not filling in the details in their fullness, but it's hitting the main point that you would find in the front page article of a newspaper. Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that the Lord spoke. saying, I will be sanctified in them that come near me, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
There's not a word in there about Aaron's reaction to the slaughter of his sons except what is implied. Now what do you think it was like for Aaron? Do you think Aaron, after he hears that his sons have been slain at the altar, casually strolled over to the tent of Moses and said, Moses, I have a theological question for you. Perhaps you can help me.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
I'm just not quite sure why it is that God would take the lives of my two sons. Perhaps you can enlighten me. Do you think that's how it happened? You know that's not how it happened. When Aaron saw the bodies of his sons in front of that altar, he was tearing his hair out. He goes to Moses' tent. He's screaming, man, Moses! What's going on here? What kind of a God would do this?
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
I've served them faithfully day and night. Whatever He's asked me to do, I've done. I raised my own sons. I prepare them for the priesthood. One small little transgression and God destroys them. Why, Moses? And Moses says, Aaron, don't you remember that God made it perfectly clear? And he was serious. He said, I will be treated.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
as being holy by those who approach me and by those who minister in my name." Don't you see, Aaron? God will not tolerate sacrilege at the altar, even if it comes from the hands of your sons. God won't tolerate it. And Aaron bowed his head. As the Scripture says, Aaron held his peace.
Renewing Your Mind
Reading the Bible Existentially
He held his peace all right, but it took every ounce of strength and energy that he possessed to hold his peace, because his peace was screaming to let go into warfare against God. This is a moment of passion. And I suggest that as you read the Scriptures in this existential way, that you look for the drama that's there. because the Bible's filled with drama.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
How can an unjust person such as myself ever hope to stand before the just judgment of God? In a word, how are we saved? And this is a matter of eternal consideration.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
It means that we place our trust in Christ and His righteousness. We don't trust our own righteousness because we don't have any. But when we trust Christ's righteousness in our behalf, and embrace Him, then God transfers legally His righteousness to us. You see, what happens in your salvation is a double transfer is involved. Christ dies for our salvation, but He also lives for our salvation.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
On the one hand, your sins, and you hear this every Good Friday, that your sins are transferred to Jesus. He dies on the cross for you because He bears our sins. Now how does that happen? Does God reach down into your soul and grab a hunk of your sin out of your soul and then reaches over and places it on the back of Jesus? No. It's a legal transfer. God assigns your guilt to his son.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
He transfers it from you to Christ. But that's only half the transaction. The other half is that he takes Christ's righteousness and assigns it to you when you believe, so that when God looks at me, if He would look at me in my nakedness, knowing that all of my righteousness is as filthy rags, I would perish, but He gives me the cloak of the righteousness of Jesus.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
That controversy that culminated in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century that focused on the material cause of the doctrine of justification was asking the simple question, how can an unjust person such as myself ever hope to stand before the just judgment of God? In a word, how are we saved? How are we justified? And this is a matter of eternal consideration.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
This is that righteousness of God that Paul introduced in the first chapter of Romans, that righteousness not by which God Himself is righteous, but that righteousness that He makes available to all who put their trust in Christ. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe, for there's no difference. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. You know, if I were righteous inherently, it may be gracious to say that I'm justified because the only way I could have been righteous inherently was through the help of God. I needed God's grace to make it possible for me to become righteous. But that's not what Paul's talking about here.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
He's talking about a grace that goes so much deeper than that. It's the grace by which God freely gives the gift of the righteousness of Christ to somebody who's a sinner, who's at the same time just and sinner. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
as a propitiation by His blood through faith to demonstrate His righteousness because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness. And here's one of my favorite texts in all of the Bible, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith. in Jesus.
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Righteousness Revealed
There is no such thing, dear friends, as cheap grace. Do not think that the gospel is simply an announcement of pardon. Do not think that in your justification, God just decides unilaterally to forgive you of your sins.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
That's the prevailing idea that what happens in the gospel is that God just freely forgives you of sin because He's such a loving, dear, wonderful God that it doesn't disturb Him that in our sin we violate everything that is holy. Beloved, God never, ever negotiates His own righteousness. God will never lay aside His holiness to save you or anybody else.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
God demands and requires that sin be punished. That's why that object is the symbol, the universal symbol of Christianity, the cross. Christ had to die. Because the propitiation had to be made. Because God said, I will not negotiate my justice. Sin has to be punished. Your sin has to be punished. And so in the drama of justification, God remains just. He doesn't stop being just.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
He doesn't set aside His justice. He doesn't waive His righteousness. He insists upon His righteousness. You cannot be justified without righteousness. But the glory of His grace that He demonstrates along with His justice is that that justice is served vicariously by a substitute that He appoints.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
And so, by basing your justification on the righteousness of Christ, God's mercy is shown in that it's not your righteousness that saved you, it's somebody else's. You get in on somebody else's coattails. That's grace. But that somebody who is your redeemer is perfectly righteous and has fulfilled the justice of God for you perfectly.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
That's the glory of justification, that in it God demonstrates that He is both just and and the justifier. If he were only the justifier by negotiating his righteousness, he would not be just. If all he did was maintain his own righteousness without extending the grace of the imputation of somebody else's righteousness to you, he would not be the justifier. but he is both just and the justifier.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
The Reformation was not a tempest in a teapot. It was not a question of theological shadow boxing because what was at stake in that controversy where many paid with their lives was this doctrine central to the New Testament gospel of justification by faith alone. And yet in this day and age, there are few professing Christians who even can define the meaning of the term justification.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
Luther warned at the end of his life that unless the gospel were proclaimed clearly and persistently through the ages, that it would surely and soon fall once again into eclipse and people would begin once again to entertain the idea that they could be right with God on the basis of their good works. Luther, in insisting on the biblical doctrine,
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
declared that the doctrine of justification by faith alone is the article upon which the church stands or falls. Calvin added the sentiment to Luther's that the doctrine of justification was the hinge by which everything else turns. And so, if you're not clear of what the word justification means and what the doctrine is all about, let me say this. It's time that you became clear on what this is.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
Now, again, let me begin by saying further what justification does not mean. First of all, When we are justified in the sight of God, that act of justification is not an act of divine pardon. In justification, God does not pardon the sinner. When a governor or president executes executive clemency, and pardons a convicted criminal, that person is deemed to be guilty.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
But in spite of that guilt, the person in authority grants the mercy of giving a pardon and more or less forgiving him of his crime. and setting him free. Now, certainly justification involves forgiveness, as I hope we will see at some point, but let's not confuse the act of divine justification with an act of pardon.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
In justification, what happens is that God makes a legal declaration, what we call a forensic declaration. If you watch trials on television or pay attention to shows like Numbers or CSI, you're aware that there are those involved who gather what is called forensic evidence, evidence that is used in trials, in criminal cases. Forensics has to do with judicial decision judgments or declaration.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
And so when we find it in the New Testament, what happens in the act of justification is God makes a judicial declaration about a person's status before his judgment. And what happens in justification, again, is not a pardon, but it is an act whereby God declares a person to be just. Now,
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
Both the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestants in the 16th century agreed that in the final analysis, the act of justification is something that God does, and it is a declaration, and it is a judicial declaration.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
And even Rome, for those of you who have studied this in a theological manner, has its own view of forensic justification because they both sides agree that justification doesn't happen until God declares a person righteous. But the issue then and now is this. On what grounds does God make that declaration?
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
Why would God look at you when He sees one who is dead in sin and trespasses, when He sees one who by nature does no good, does not seek after Him, has no understanding of Him? How could He, on what basis would He ever say from heaven, you are a just person, when manifestly you are not a just person? And the good news of the gospel is that God pronounces people just in
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
astonishingly enough, while they are still sinners. Now, this was the debate with Rome. Rome set forth their doctrine then and now that God will never declare a person just until that person actually, under the divine scrutiny, is found to be just.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
In the sixth session of the Council of Trent in the middle of the 16th century, which was at the heart of the Counter-Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church defined her doctrine of justification, which it has echoed through the centuries, even as recently as the New Catechism, in which it declared, without equivocation, that before God will ever declare a person to be just, righteousness must inherit within that person.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
The Latin is the word inherens. That is to say, when God looks at you, He's not going to say that you're just until when He looks at you, He sees that you really are just. Now, Rome says you can't be just without grace. You'll never become just without faith, and you'll never become just without the assistance of Christ. So you need faith, you need grace, and you need Jesus.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
And you need the righteousness of Christ. infused or poured into your soul, and you must cooperate with that grace to such a degree that you will in fact become righteous. If you die with any impurity in your soul by which you lack complete righteousness, you will not go to heaven, but you if mortal sin is present in your life, you will go to purgatory, which is the place of purging.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
The point of the purging is to purge off the dross in this crucible of purgatory to make you completely pure. It may take three years. It may take three million years, but the object of purgatory is to get you so that you are in fact righteous so that you can be admitted into God's heaven. So let me go back so that we don't miss the point.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
In the Roman view, God will never, ever, ever pronounce a person just or righteous until by the help of God's grace and by the help of Christ, that person actually becomes righteous. Now if God were to judge you tonight, what would He find? Would he find sin in your life? Could he possibly rightly declare you just if all he considered was the righteousness that he found in your life today?
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
Remember what the apostle Paul said, by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Paul labors in this text that all have sinned and do sin and fall short of of the glory of God. That's precisely why the ground for our justification cannot be found in us or any righteousness that is inherent in our souls.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
That's why what we need so desperately is what Luther called a justitium alienum, an alien righteousness, a righteousness that comes from outside of ourselves, a righteousness that, again, he said was extra nos, outside of, apart from us. In simple terms, ladies and gentlemen, what that means is the only righteousness that would be sufficient for you to stand before the judgment of God.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
would be the righteousness of Christ. The doctrine of justification by faith alone is only theological shorthand for the affirmation that justification is by Christ alone, by his righteousness, which is received by faith. And so when Paul speaks here about justification, not talking about pardon, and he's not talking about God's declaration of of what it is he finds in us and in our behavior.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
He's talking about something else altogether. Let me just give one more historical background before we return to the text. One of the slogans that was formulated by Luther that was widely repeated in the 16th century was a little Latin phrase, and if you don't ever learn any other Latin phrase as long as you're a Christian, learn this one, the one that Luther said, simul justus et peccator.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
Four words, simul justus et peccator. What does it mean? Luther's slogan was this, that the Christian is someone who is at the very same time righteous and a sinner. How can that be? Well, if that person is considered in and of themselves, again, if God would come and examine your life, He would discover very quickly that you're still a sinner, that I'm still a sinner.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
And yet at the very same time, while I am still a sinner, I am righteous in his sight by virtue of the transfer legally that God has made by assigning the righteousness of Jesus to me if I put my trust in Christ. So by virtue of this transfer or imputation of the righteousness of Christ to the believer, the believer is declared to be righteous.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
while in and of himself that person is still a sinner. That's the good news, is that you can be declared just by God while you're still a sinner. That's the heart of the gospel. I don't have to wait to become perfectly righteous before I'm acceptable to God.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
And this is the point now that the apostle is laboring in this section of the epistle when he says, but now the righteousness of God apart from the law is is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. When we get to chapter four, Paul is going to show that this doctrine of justification by faith alone is not a novelty.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
This isn't a new doctrine that Jesus announces with his incarnation or the apostle Paul dreams up in his ministry, but that this doctrine of the gospel is one that is rooted and grounded in the testimony of the Old Testament. It is the whole point of the law that drives us to this one who possesses righteousness that we don't have. and it is in the teaching of the prophets.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
He will show us in chapter 4 that the same way that you and I are justified today on this side of the cross was how people in the Old Testament were justified, how Abraham was justified. And I don't want to get ahead to that illustration. I'll wait until it appears in the text. But the point that he's mentioning now by way of
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
giving us a heads up of what's to come, is that now the righteousness of God is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. And before I go on, let me just stop here. When we say that justification is by faith or through faith, We have to be careful that we don't misunderstand that.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
This does not mean that if you have faith, that faith is such a righteous thing, such a good response to the call of the gospel, that God looks at you and say, well, you have faith. There's your righteousness. You've made the right decision. You've responded to Christ. You've done the good thing. And your faith counts. for your righteousness.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
And because you have faith, I will declare you righteous. To be justified by faith is not to be justified because you have faith in the sense that your faith now is the supreme work that makes you righteous. No, no, no. The language here of being justified by faith or through faith simply means this, that faith is the means by which we lay hold of Christ.
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
What we're going to be looking at, dear friends, is this doctrine of justification by faith alone, which doctrine provoked the most serious controversy in the history of the Christian church
Renewing Your Mind
Righteousness Revealed
It is the means by which the righteousness of Christ is bestowed upon us. Faith is the alone instrument by which you are linked to Christ and by which you receive His righteousness transferred to your account. That's why it's so important for us to understand what faith is and why we call people to faith, why the New Testament calls us to faith.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
In our sanctification, the person who is declared to be just by faith, if that faith is in fact genuine, and not just a claim to faith or a charade here, but that it's authentic faith, then Christ will truly begin to be formed in that person's life, and that person will begin to show forth the fruit of righteousness.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
96% of us have systematically robbed you and have not made the building of your kingdom such a priority that we were willing to part from our own resources to give back to you what you've given to us. And I hear people saying already, ah, well, that's the Old Testament. We don't have to do that in the Old Testament. That's right. They got away easy in the Old Testament.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
Ours is a better covenant, a richer covenant with far more benefits than they've received in the Old Testament. And I might add, far more obligations and responsibilities. The starting place in the Christian life is the tithe. That's a simple, that's a little thing.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
What is it that God really cares about in terms of the chief focus, the chief goal, the chief end of the Christian life? And what I'd like to do in this session is to focus on what I think the Bible says is the answer to that question. As I read the Scriptures, it seems to me that the bottom line, the chief goal of the Christian life is righteousness.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
We can say to Jesus, Jesus, we want to please you with our lives, and so we're not going to worry about the lesser, lighter matters of the law like tithing. We offer to you justice and mercy and faith. I wonder how that will go down. I think unless we're faithful in little things, it's very unlikely that we're going to be faithful in the weightier matters of the law.
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Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
And so even when the Pharisees are being rebuked by Jesus, He at least compliments them by acknowledging the fact at least they tithe. They were tithers. What else? They were debating with Jesus constantly about what the Scripture says, and Jesus said, you search the Scriptures. and you do well, believing that in them you have eternal life.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
But this group of people, again, who received the most vehement denunciation from Jesus during Jesus' earthly ministry were acknowledged by Jesus to be serious students of the Bible. I doubt if there was a Pharisee in all of Israel who didn't believe in the inspiration of the Bible, the infallibility of the Bible, and the inerrancy of the Bible.
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Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
Their doctrine of Scripture was impeccably orthodox, and they not only had a good view of Scripture, but they studied the Scripture, they memorized, they would always win the sword drills in the churches. The problem was it never got into their bloodstream, did it? Do you see why this is so scary?
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Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
I mean, there are all kinds of people in the church who don't care at all about evangelism, wouldn't think about tithing, that have never cracked the Bible open, met the minimal requirements of the Pharisees. But what about if we have done all of these things, if we're evangelistic, paying our tithes, studying the Bible left and right? That doesn't prove anything.
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Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
One of the things that Jesus complained about the Pharisees was their ostentatious display of piety through their long-winded prayers. The Pharisees spent all kinds of time in discipline, spiritual exercises, and in prayer. In fact, they loved to be called upon at public meetings to pray because they were so eloquent, and the people applauded them.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
They were the teachers, the preachers, the prayers, the evangelists of their day. But the one problem that comes out over and over and over again as we look at the New Testament model of the Pharisee is that the Pharisees' religion was strictly external. The word that Jesus uses for them again and again is the word hypokritos, hypocrite.
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Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
which means one who is a play actor, one who on the surface manifests a religiosity, a kind of piety, but whose life in the deeper dimension never ever reaches authentic righteousness. Now again, the danger here of reducing the Christian life to externals is a danger that comes in every age. I don't mean that we're supposed to neglect the externals. Again, it's not an either-or here.
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Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
Jesus says, you know, these things you ought to have done and not neglect the other. I'm not suggesting that we can say, oh, well, we can dispense with prayer and we can dispense with the spiritual disciplines and we can dispense with Bible reading and all of that stuff.
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Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
as long as we really care about being kind to our fellow man and working for justice and all of that and forget all of this piety. No, no, no. It's not the letter or the spirit, but godliness is the letter and the spirit. It's the external and the internal. It's the outside and the inside. It's not the inside without the outside, and it's not the outside without the inside.
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Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
That authentic righteousness involves obedience to the commands of God. Let me simplify it. If somebody were to say to me, what is righteousness? I think I would be tempted to break a rule of definition. We know that in word definitions, in standard lexicography, that it is an error to use the word that we're defining or a form of the word that we're defining as part of the definition.
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Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
That what God wants from us, more than anything else, is righteousness. And I emphasize that for a reason. I hear Christians speaking all the time about piety, about spirituality, and even about morality, but you almost never hear anybody talk about righteousness. If Jesus were to walk in that room tonight and we said to him, Lord, what is the chief priority that you have for your church?
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
I'm going to break that rule right now to give a bottom line definition of righteousness. What the Bible means by righteousness, ladies and gentlemen, is simply this, doing righteousness. What is right? Doing what is right. I can remember driving across the Pennsylvania Turnpike with a man by the name of Wayne Alderson about 1230 at night after being on the road all day.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
And Wayne had spoken to several union groups that were involved and embroiled in a very bitter labor dispute with violence involved in the strike and so on. And we were coming down the Pennsylvania Turnpike, as I say, very late at night, and Wayne was totally exhausted. And I asked him in the midst of his weariness, I said, Wayne, why are you doing this?
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
Now, there weren't any television cameras around or newspaper reporters. This was a moment of total candor here between us. And in the privacy of that car, he just sighed and he said, because it's the right thing to do. That's what pleases God.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
people who do things because it's right, not because it's expedient, not because it's expected, not because it's political, not because it'll be rewarded, but because it's the right thing to do. That's the kind of person God is looking for.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
That's the kind of person Christ is trying to make us, that we're not putting on a show of piety or religion, but that we live our lives in the presence of God, seeking to do what is well pleasing to Him, seeking to obey His law because it is good and right so to do. When we live like that, Then and only then do we exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
If he answered that question this evening the way he answered it in the New Testament period, he would say this, seek ye first the kingdom of God. and his righteousness and everything else will be added unto you. Let's take a moment on that text that we've all heard of. When Jesus says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, the word for first there is the word protos.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
And in the Greek language, the term protos does not simply mean first in a sequence of events. That is a serialized procedure where you have the first and the second and the third and the fourth and the fifth and so on. Jesus doesn't simply mean number one in terms of chronological order. But this word protos in the New Testament means
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
carries the implication of that which is first not only in order of sequence, but it is foremost in terms of importance. That is to say, when Jesus says, seek first the kingdom of God, He's saying this is the top priority of the Christian life, seeking the kingdom of God and God's righteousness.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
And so what Christ wants from His people and from His disciples are people who actually manifest righteousness. Now I've often said that one of the most frightening statements that ever came from the lips of Christ was the statement that He made when He said, accept your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will in no wise enter the kingdom of God."
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
Now you've all heard that passage, haven't you? And I think what puzzles me about it is that we don't seem to be too troubled by it. I mean, here Jesus gives a ghastly warning. He gives an if-then necessary condition. Unless A takes place, B can't possibly follow.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
Unless your righteousness exceeds, that is, goes beyond the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you don't have a chance of getting into the kingdom of God. Now, there are a couple of ways that we can interpret what Jesus is saying.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
Some commentators look at that phrase by Jesus and they say, well, we don't have anything to worry about because what Jesus is talking about here is the righteousness that is required for us for justification. In order to be justified, we have to have righteousness. perfect righteousness. And obviously the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees was imperfect.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
And the only way you can get into heaven is by perfect righteousness. And thanks be to God, that's what we have by faith in Christ, where we receive through God's decree the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. And obviously, His righteousness exceeded that of the scribes and the Pharisees.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
And since we possess by faith the righteousness of Christ, we can breathe a sigh of relief, and we don't have to worry about that dreadful warning that Jesus gave on that occasion.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
Now, I think it's very possible that that's exactly what Jesus had in mind, that when He said, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you'll never enter the kingdom of God, that maybe what He had in mind there was, The imputation of his own righteousness is the only way that we can ever stand in the presence of God.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
But you remember that at the time of the Reformation, when Luther was running around teaching justification by faith alone, he used a Latin phrase that has since become so famous that every Christian can recite it, that that person who is justified is simul justus et peccator. You all know that phrase, don't you? At the same time, just…
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
and sinner just by the application of the righteousness of Christ, yet we receive the righteousness of Christ while we are in fact in and of ourselves are still sinners. But Luther said in our sanctification it doesn't stay like that.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
that the person who is declared to be just by faith, if that faith is in fact genuine, and not just a claim to faith or a charade here, but that it's authentic faith, then Christ will truly begin to be formed in that person's life, and that person will begin to show forth the fruit of righteousness.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
And so the other half of the commentators look at Jesus' warning and say that what Jesus means there is that unless our lives begin to manifest a quality of righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, then that's the surest sign that there is that the faith that we profess is not genuine.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
So even though we don't teach justification by works, we still are very much concerned with the fact that the New Testament calls us to show our faith by our works. And justification is by faith, but sanctification is where we grow in authentic righteousness. Now, if that statement by Jesus does not curdle your blood, Let me start the cauldron boiling.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
Consider the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. Consider that level of righteousness that we are called to go beyond. if we are to please God with our lives. It's so easy for us to simply dismiss that statement of Jesus because we say, well, to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, that's a piece of cake. That's duck soup, for heaven's sakes.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
They were the ones that were chief object of Jesus' wrath. Whenever we think of the bad guys in the New Testament, we think of the Pharisees. They were the worst of the worst. Well, why were the Pharisees called Pharisees? You don't read about Pharisees in the Old Testament, do you?
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
The reason why you don't read about Pharisees in the Old Testament is because there weren't any Pharisees in the Old Testament. The Pharisees as a party in Israel emerged after the exile and the return from exile, where what had happened? was that the new generation of Israelite people began to adopt the pagan practices of those who were now in place. and they forgot their traditions.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
They forgot the law of Moses and the covenant promises that God had made. And so a group of people who were especially devout arose in the nation. They were the ancient counterpart, ladies and gentlemen, to the Puritans. They had this profound desire to reform the faith of Israel and to restore godliness to the nation. They were the conservatives of Israel.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
who wanted to reach back into the past and recapture the pristine purity of the commonwealth of Israel. And so they set themselves apart out of this concentrated zeal to obey the law of God. And because of their single-minded desire towards righteousness, they were named the set-apart ones, the Pharisees.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
In other words, what I'm saying is this, that the Pharisees as a group of people got their start in history as a group of men whose sole business in life was the pursuit of righteousness. They majored in the pursuit of righteousness. There was nothing casual about their zeal to accomplish righteousness.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
I doubt if you know anybody who had the same kind of determination to find righteousness as the Pharisees as a group did. But we think, oh, well, maybe that's the way they started. But by the time the first century rolled around, they had degenerated into such godlessness that they were a bunch of hypocrites and so on that Jesus called vipers and threatened them with hell and all of the rest.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
Well, let's see if these people in the first century who incurred the wrath of Christ achieved any elements of righteousness, at least by the testimony of Jesus. We hear Jesus denouncing the Pharisees when He says unto them, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you compass sea and land to make one convert
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
And when he is made, you make him twice the child of hell than you are yourselves. Now, this is a pretty scathing indictment that Jesus makes of these people. But while he's making this criticism, He does acknowledge that they are evangelical, or at least evangelistic, not in the sense that they were running around preaching the gospel, but they had a zeal for missionary outreach
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
a zeal for evangelism and conversion that was unparalleled in the ancient world. So in that sense, let's say that the first thing we learn about the Pharisees of the New Testament is that they were evangelistic. How concerned about missions and evangelism were these conservative people? Jesus said they would go over land and sea to make one convert to their religion.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
One of the questions that I hear frequently from people who are earnestly seeking to do the will of God is the question, what is the most important thing that God wants from me in the Christian life? like the businessman who's always asking the question, what's the bottom line? Let's cut through all of the details and the myriad possibilities and the thousand and one commandments.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
And so in that regard at least, in terms of missionary fervor and evangelistic zeal, the Pharisees shame me and I suspect they shame most of you as well. What else does it tell us about the Pharisees? Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
These ought you to have done and not to leave the other things undone. Now, the second thing we learn about the Pharisees is that they were tithers. Not only were they tithers, ladies and gentlemen, they were scrupulous in obeying God's laws for tithing. In other words, they put their money where their mouths were.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
The last poll that I saw that was taken of, quote, evangelical Christians in the United States of America indicated that 4% of proclaimed evangelical Christians tithe their income, 4%. Pharisees understood the duty that every member of the covenant community had before God. And the duty was to pay that 10%, to pay that tithe to the storehouse in Israel.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
Now they were so scrupulous about it that they didn't just tithe in general. Now the tithe, for the most part, was paid in produce or livestock. And it worked out like this. If you raised cattle and a given year you had 10 new calves born, then what would you do? One out of those 10 calves would be returned to God. If you raised wheat or barley or oats, 10% of the yield went to God.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
And it went off the top, I might add. All right? Now, what the Pharisees and the scribes did was this. If they were growing vegetables and they had 50 barrels of wheat, they would take five barrels of wheat. But if they found 10 little plants of mint growing by their doorstep, They'd take one and give it back to the church. That's how scrupulous they were. It would be like this.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
If you, at the end of your month, you calculate how much income you have and you give your 10% to God, but you're walking down the street and you find a dime on the sidewalk, what the Pharisee would do is his conscience would bother him unless he took a penny and made sure he paid one cent out of that 10 cents to keep those accounts absolutely square with God.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
Now Jesus said, you're scrupulous about the tithe, but you omit the weightier matters of the law. It's good news to find out that Jesus didn't regard tithing as one of the weighty matters of the law. That was a small thing. That was a lesser matter of the law. He said, these things you ought to have done. I'm glad that you pay your tithe.
Renewing Your Mind
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
He said, but you've omitted the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith. And when I hear Jesus talk like that to them, I can just hear our defense as contemporary Christians saying, well, Lord, Yes, we've been negligent with the tithe.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
Carl Barth reflecting on it said Luther had no intention of making this a big public issue. He was going to discuss it simply with his colleagues.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
But for now, the church, in order to raise money for the completion of the building of St. Peter's that Julius II had started, and that ended in their running out of money and weeds growing in the foundation. Now Leo X wants to finish that grand project. So he authorized the distribution of indulgences for sale.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
Now the idea was for a person to give alms and have it count towards a work of satisfaction, they had to be given genuinely and from the heart. The church eschewed any idea of a crass notion of buying salvation. They say salvation isn't for sale. sort of, but indulgences are if the heart is right and so on. And so with an agreement among Albert, the Pope, and the Fugger bankers,
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
We have this special indulgence commission where Tetzel was commissioned from Rome to go to the provinces of Germany and to bring the papal bull that announced this new indulgence program. And so Tetzel was a great salesman. He wasn't that scrupulous. But he was very successful. And it was the sale of the indulgences was filled with pomp and pageantry.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
Weeks in advance of the papal legates coming to a particular town or village, the messenger would be sent out and say next month that such and such a day. On that day, the papal representative will be here and the indulgences will begin.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
be available to you if you give the alms necessary for them and they even had a scale worked out of how much money and indulgence would cost for a nobleman compared to or contrasted to a peasant and every different tradesman had a different level but in any case they would send the message in advance then the day when it would come there would be this mass of holy procession
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
where the papal bull, this document, would be carried on either a gold embroidered cushion or a velvet cushion, and it was like a circus coming to town. all of the people would rush to the town square and get in line and make their payments to get indulgences for their relatives and so on.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
But I think the supreme crisis for Luther that shaped his entire life and really was a provocative motivation for the entire Reformation, which was what he experienced in 1515. In 1507, we remember he was ordained at Erfurt as a priest. In 1510, he went to Rome. But in the whole time that he was there at Erfurt, he was studying theology and biblical studies for his doctor's degree.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
We don't know if it's truth or legend that Tetzel used the slogan every time, a gilder in the kettle rings, a soul from purgatory springs. And so the idea was that You buy the indulgence, you're home free. Now, this was taking place across the border from where Luther resided.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
But it was so popular that people were so excited about it that people from Luther's congregation went over the border together. took advantage of the sale of the indulgences from Tetzel, they would come back to Wittenberg with their document of indulgence and wave it in the face of their friends and say, look, I have all my sins forgiven. And Luther now, as a pastor,
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
was horrified because he knew some of these people were scoundrels and completely secularized pagans who were holding these documents up of indulgences. And it was because of that, out of his pastoral concern, that he wanted to discuss the matter with his fellow faculty members at the University of Wittenberg.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
Now, to have an academic discussion, you would post theses to be discussed in a scholarly colloquium, not for public consumption. That's why Luther wrote them in Latin. He wrote these 95 theses, posted them on the church door at Wittenberg, and inviting the rest of the faculty to discuss indulgences in the whole system that it was involved with.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
Well, some enterprising students saw them and were amazed by them. Without Luther's knowledge or permission, they took these Latin theses, translated them into German, and because of the newly invented Gutenberg Press, they were able to duplicate the theses, and within 14 days, a fortnight, two weeks, the documents, the theses were in every village, city, and hamlet in Germany.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
And it was now wildfire. And that's when people say that's when it all started. Karl Barth reflecting on it said Luther had no intention of making this a big public issue. He was going to discuss it simply with his colleagues.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
But the metaphor that Barth used was he said that it was like a blind man who was climbing up the stairs in a bell tower and he lost his balance and he reached out in the dark and grabbed a hold of the first thing he could hold of. rope for the church bell. All of a sudden, the church bell started ringing and waking everybody in town, and that was the result of the theses.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
And so not only was Germany astir, but the word got back very quickly to Tetzel about the theses and to Albert about And both Albert and Tetzel reported the incident of the 95 Theses to Leo X in Rome. And he just dismissed it out of hand as this drunken monk in Germany who cares or anything. But the thing just kept escalating and escalating until finally...
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
Luther was brought to that imperial diet at Worms in 1521 where he was called upon to recant. And he said, you asked me to recant, you asked me to answer non-carnutum without horns. I cannot recant unless I'm convinced by sacred scripture or by evident reason I cannot recant. For my conscience is held captive by the word of God and to act against conscience is neither right nor safe.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. And the rest, as we say, is history.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
In 1510, Frederick, a lecturer of Saxony, started a brand new university at Wittenberg. and he was trying to amass in its initial stages an outstanding faculty. And so he got Luther on loan for a couple of years of lectures from Erfurt, and he also brought in Philip Melanchthon as part of that faculty, and Karl Stott, and Jones and a few others.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
But in any case, Luther lectured for two years, then went back to Erfurt. He came back again to Wittenberg and lectured for quite a long time on the Psalms. And when he completed that work, he then began his lectures on Romans and Now, I'm using the year 1515. There's all kinds of debates about that. Some people say it was as early as 1512. Some say as late as 1519.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
Most scholars put it in between 1514 and 1515. For the sake of my cycle of five-year crises, I'm gonna go with the 1515 date. But in any case, as he was preparing, his lectures on Romans. He read an essay from St. Augustine on the Letter and the Spirit, which was not primarily an exposition of Romans, but it was dealing with other matters.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
But in that particular essay, there was a brief excursus that Augustine gave in which he cited the a verse from the first chapter of Romans, from Romans 1.17. Romans 1.16, Paul begins with his statement about not being ashamed of the gospel of Christ and so on.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
Then he goes on to say, "...in it," that is in the gospel, "...the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, the just shall live by faith." Now, Luther had commented initially that his entire career, he struggled mightily with against the whole idea of the justice of God.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
What he feared more than anything else was the justice of God, which is what every human being should fear more than anything else. As I warn my students, don't ever ask God for justice. You might get it. And so Luther hated the idea of the justice of God.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
Now he's preparing his lectures on this verse that talks about the revelation of the justice or the righteousness of God and concluded with the statement, the just shall live by faith. And while he's reading this passage out of Augustine, Augustine had written
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
that the righteousness of God that Paul is talking about in Romans 1 is not that righteousness by which God himself is righteous, but rather a righteousness that God provides for people who are not righteous. Let me say that again.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
Augustine was saying that when Paul writes in Romans 1 about the righteousness of God, he's not talking about the inherent righteousness of God, that righteousness by which God himself is righteous, but he's speaking of a different kind of righteousness, a righteousness that God bestows by his grace upon those who do not have it.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
That is, here we see the beginning of Luther's development of the whole notion of the imputation of the righteousness of God or the righteousness of Christ to the believer, which is affected by faith. As we will see later on, Paul expounds upon that greatly in the rest of his epistle to the Romans.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
But the idea of imputation, that it's not that we are inherently righteous, but rather God counts as being righteous, all of those who put their trust in Christ, because when they put their trust in Christ, the righteousness of Christ is transferred or counted or imputed to the believer by faith. And for this, this was Luther's great discovery.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
He said, when I understood that the righteousness that Paul is talking about in Romans, the doors of paradise swung open and I walked through. And he sees this as his conversion moment, as his discovery of saving grace.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
And after all of the agony that he had been through and all of the other ways in which he sought to gain peace with God and never accomplished that, suddenly he said he was reborn and he was at peace now with God, just as Paul explains in Romans 5, so that now you can have some understanding existentially
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
of what this meant to Luther that made him able to stand against an avalanche of criticism and hostility against him from the world and from the church and from people even in his own university initially. And so he was able to take his stand because... of his experience of salvation. He wasn't gonna trade that or negotiate that with or for anything. And so he said that that discovery then
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
made him reread the Psalms in a different way, changed his whole understanding of the Psalms. He began to see justification by faith on virtually every page of the Bible all the way through the New Testament, and now these passages would jump out at him and confirm what his understanding in Augustine before him was of Romans chapter 1.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
So here we can say even before there was a general controversy, the Reformation or the scenes of the Reformation were sown in the personal experience of Luther.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
But then what happened in 1517, which we usually think of as the beginning of the Reformation with Luther's tacking the 95 theses to the castle church door at Wittenberg, had its roots in a controversy with respect to the sale of indulgences. And to understand that, let's take a few minutes to go back to that. In 1513...
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
There was a Hohenzollern prince by the name of Albert who lived in the neighboring province called Brandenburg, and he was 23 years old. He had an older brother who had great ambitions for the Hohenzollern dynasty and for their household, and they wanted to have greater power and influence throughout Germany. And in 1513, what happened was three area bishoprics became vacant.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
There was, first of all, the Archbishopric of Magdeburg. There was the Bishopric of Halberstadt, and most significantly, the Archbishopry of Mainz. And whoever was the Archbishop of Mainz became virtually the Pope of Germany. I mean, it was the highest ecclesiastical place of authority in the whole nation.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
Now, the idea that Albert's brother cooked up was to gain those bishoprics for Albert, that he might be the Archbishop of Magdeburg, the Bishop of Kalberstadt, and the Archbishop of Mainz, all at the same time. And the way to achieve that was to purchase these offices from the pope. Now remember I said that the papacy at this time was at one of its most corrupt times.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
You had Julius II, who was a Borgia pope, followed by Leo X, who's the one who excommunicated Luther, and he was a Medici pope. But in the meantime, The practice of simony was widespread by now. Simony is that sin that is condemned in the New Testament.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
When you recall, Simon Magus saw the miraculous works of the apostles and wanted to buy the Holy Spirit—you remember that—from Peter, and Peter said, you and your money perish with you, which is a polite way of saying— You and your money go to hell. We're not doing this deal. And so simony, it was so called because it was Simon Magus who tried to buy the power of the Holy Spirit.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
And so this practice of selling church offices became widespread at this time in history. And, of course, Albert was trying to take advantage of it. Now, besides the biblical prohibition against simony, you also had ecclesiastical prohibitions in place in terms of canon law in Rome. Number one, you were not allowed to hold more than one bishopric at the same time, and Albert wanted three.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
But the metaphor that Barth used was he said that it was like a blind man who was climbing up the stairs in a bell tower and he lost his balance and he reached out in the dark and grabbed a hold of the first thing he could hold on and it was the rope for the church bell. All of a sudden, the church bell started ringing and waking everybody in town. And that was the result of the theses.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
Number two, He was too young to be consecrated as a bishop as he was only 23 years old. But as far as the Pope was concerned, money talked. And so a negotiation took place between the representatives of Albert and Albert himself with the Pope, and he was able to secure all three bishoprics, two archbishoprics and one regular bishopric. And the total cost of this was about $250,000.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
Now, when it came to buying these offices, he got involved in a little bit of negotiation with the Pope. For example, with respect to the Archbishopric of Mainz, this ongoing price was 12,000 ducats of gold. And In addition to that, the Pope wanted from Albert another 12,000 ducats. And he said, let's get our ducats all in a row here.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
Well, we've looked at the crises that Martin Luther had, as I said, in a cyclical manner every five years, 1505, 1510. We're going to look this morning at 1515. I'm not going to get into 1520, which was the year he was excommunicated by the papal bull, ex-Sergei Domino, or his great crisis in 1515. 25 when he was engaged to Catherine von Bora, but that's another story for another time.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
And he said, no, I'll offer you 7,000, one for each one of the seven deadly sins. The pope had wanted one for every disciple with 12. They finally compromised on 10,000 for the Ten Commandments. But in any case, for this big deal to go through, Albert had to borrow the money. And the big bank in that time was the Fugers in Germany. And so the Fugers brokered this deal between Albert and the pope.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
And so money was given to Albert, then given to the papacy in order to get these bishoprics in. And so the Pope entered into an agreement with the Fugers to raise the money to pay for all of these bishoprics, okay? Now, in order to do this, this is how the indulgence program that was represented by Johann Tetzel started out.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
For centuries, the Roman Catholic Church had had this concept of indulgence, which continued to expand in its application to get people to have reduced time in purgatory or to get out of purgatory all at once, to have a plenary indulgence to cover all of their sins now and forevermore.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
And it was tied to the sacrament of penance, which I'll explain a little bit later, to the works of satisfaction, which one has to perform, in other words, to be restored to saving faith. And among those works of satisfaction are commonly simple works.
Renewing Your Mind
The Ninety-Five Theses
Disciplines like saying so many Our Fathers, so many Hail Marys, like we saw Luther and his pilgrimage to Rome go through in order to get the indulgences associated with the sacred steps there at the Lateran Church. Well, now this thing has expanded to include almsgiving. that the giving of alms would help a person be restored to a state of grace. Again, I'm going to expand on that later on.
Renewing Your Mind
Counting It All Joy
And some of the most important products then and now, but particularly then, were the products that came from the fruit of the fig tree and particularly from the olive tree from which the Jews derived their oil, which had all kinds of commercial uses in the land.
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Counting It All Joy
And in addition to that, they lived not only by growing figs and olive trees from which they harvested the oil, but also the agricultural production of grapes was crucial for the Jewish people. All their wine came from grapes. You go out to the Napa Valley in California, and you can see how grape vines can be extremely important to a region's economy.
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Counting It All Joy
If those grapevines are attacked, if they are poisoned, or if they are destroyed by some kind of natural calamity, the whole region suffers from the economic loss of it. And if people weren't involved in vineyards and so on, they were maintaining flocks. If you go over to Palestine today, you will see the Bedouins out in the desert taking care of their flocks. Their livestock was crucial.
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Counting It All Joy
And he's saying, look, no blossoms on the fig tree, no fruit on the vines, the labor of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food, the flock is cut off from the fold, and there's no herd in the stalls. Translate that into modern terms.
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Counting It All Joy
Though the farming industry collapses, though the stock market crashes, though the automobile industry goes belly up, though the technological industries of computers and so on explode, though all of these things happen, nevertheless, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. I will joy in Him. And then he goes on to say why in verse 19. The Lord God is my strength.
Renewing Your Mind
Counting It All Joy
One of the hardest lessons that we have to learn as Christians is how to be joyful in the midst of pain and in the midst of suffering. Remember, James tells us, count it all joy when you enter into sufferings and trials and tribulations. When I hear James say that, I pick up on the word that he gives at the beginning when he says, count it all joy.
Renewing Your Mind
Counting It All Joy
He will make my feet like hinds feet and make me to walk in high places. Now what's that mean? He will make my feet like hind's feet. You mean my front feet will become like back feet? No. He's speaking in the archaic language there of the feet of the deer.
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that is so sure-footed that can move like the mountain goat on high and dangerous places where the ground is filled with loose gravel and where they have to cross narrow ridges without falling off into destruction. God will make my feet like the feet of a deer or the feet of a mountain goat. and cause me to walk in high places." I love that imagery. Even though all of these calamities befall us,
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Counting It All Joy
though the nation is ravaged, we're defeated in war, pestilence, disease, crime affects everything. Nevertheless, I'm not going to be cast down into the valley, but rather God will make my feet like the feet of a deer, sure-footed, swift, able to ascend into the high and to the holy places. That's what Habakkuk means when he says, the just shall live by faith.
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That's the basis for the joy that we have as Christians. Sometimes we use the expression that we have two left feet. Well, a deer has two left feet, and so does a mountain goat have two left feet, unless they've lost one of their legs. They also have two right feet. And it really wouldn't be a disadvantage to have two left feet if we also had two right feet so that we could be more stable.
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Counting It All Joy
as we progress through the dangerous and rocky places of life. But that's what Habakkuk is saying to us today. He will give us that kind of stability, even in the midst of calamity, if we will turn our attention to Him and place our trust upon Him. In whom does the deer trust? And in whom does the mountain goat trust?
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When he goes up mountains that we would only ascend with ropes and axes and that kind of equipment, and we see these animals so sure-footed walking in such dangerous places, Not that they're trusting consciously in God, but by instinct they're trusting their Creator, and they venture into dangerous places because of what God has given to them. And so we are called.
Renewing Your Mind
Counting It All Joy
not to be afraid to go to the valley of the shadow of death or into dangerous rocky places, as long as we trust in Him who promises to make our feet as the feet of deer.
Renewing Your Mind
Counting It All Joy
Now, what does he mean when he says, count it all joy? It's one thing to have joy and be in a state of joy and to be rejoicing, and it's another thing to count it as such. The word or the concept here is the idea of reckoning or of considering or of deeming something.
Renewing Your Mind
Counting It All Joy
That is, even when we're not feeling joyful about the sufferings we're enduring, we are called upon to count it, that is, consider it. as a matter of joy.
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Counting It All Joy
Not because the thing itself we are enduring is something that is pleasurable, but rather the reason we are to count it joy is because, as James tells us, as Peter tells us, as the whole New Testament tells us, that tribulation and pain and suffering work patience within us. so that there is at least something good happening to us even in the midst of pain and suffering and affliction.
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Counting It All Joy
And the idea of considering it is what we're called to do is to think about it, to think about our circumstances. As difficult as they may be to bear, they are not an exercise in futility. that God has a purpose for the afflictions we are called upon to bear. And that purpose is always good.
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Counting It All Joy
When we talked much earlier about the providence of God, I made a distinction borrowed from Dr. John Gerstner about different kinds of bad and different kinds of good. And Dr. Gerstner makes a distinction between bad-bad and good-bad. And what he means by good-bad is bad things that if considered in and of themselves are destructive and bad, nevertheless, they can be the occasion for good.
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Counting It All Joy
How else can God say to us that He works all things together for our good? to those who believe in Him and love Him and are called according to His purpose. So that what James is saying to us here when he says, count it all joy, when it's not all joy because it isn't all joy to be involved in pain and suffering, but we are to consider it as an occasion for rejoicing, knowing.
Renewing Your Mind
Counting It All Joy
But God is working in that situation for our sanctification and for our glorification and for our eternal felicity. In a sense, in order to be able to count these earthly sorrows and afflictions as matters of joy, we have to cultivate the ability of thinking in terms of the future. Sometimes the Christian's hope of heaven is ridiculed and mocked in our day as being hung up with pie in the sky.
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Counting It All Joy
Paul says it's not worthy to compare the temporal moments of anguish and suffering that we go through with the joy that has been laid up for us in heaven. But in the moment, it's hard, it's hard to keep your eye on the future.
Renewing Your Mind
Counting It All Joy
I mentioned before a dear Christian friend of mine, an old lady who died of cancer, and she was marked by such a buoyant spirit, so ebullient in her personality, and was a delight to be around. And I visit her in the hospital when she was undergoing chemotherapy at the time. And she was a little bit down. She wasn't her normal, buoyant, cheerful self. And I said, Dora, how are you doing?
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There is a time limit that God has established on our pain and on our sorrow and on our grief and our afflictions, after which we will enter into a condition where pain will be no more, no more tears, no more pain, no more anxiety, no more sorrow, no more adversity.
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Counting It All Joy
And she looked at me, and a tear was in her eye, and she said, R.C., it's hard to be a Christian with your head in the toilet. Right. And then she laughed, and her joy came and the spark came right back in her eyes and so on. But boy, could I relate to that.
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Counting It All Joy
And I've thought of that phrase that she said to me, when you're sick and you just feel wretched and you ache and you hurt, it's hard to feel a whole lot of joy. And Paul understands that, and he says we have to go through those periods and we have to endure them, but remembering all the while
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Counting It All Joy
that there is a time limit that God has established on our pain and on our sorrow and on our grief and our afflictions, after which we will enter into a condition where pain will be no more, no more tears, no more pain, no more anxiety, no more sorrow, no more adversity. That does sound like pie in the sky. But I'm afraid we've lost our taste for that pie.
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Counting It All Joy
That's at the very heart of the Christian faith, that this world is not our home, that we are simply passing through. We haven't reached our final destination. And if we think that life will always be pain and sorrow, then we are of all people the most miserable, because we would be without hope. And hope is called the anchor of the soul in the New Testament.
Renewing Your Mind
Counting It All Joy
You know, again, the New Testament says that if you are without Christ, you are ultimately without hope. And I've often said, when I struggle with life as a Christian, how do people who aren't Christians make it? How do they endure without the hope that is ours of the joy that has been stored up for us in heaven?
Renewing Your Mind
Counting It All Joy
So what we have to do is, again, in the midst of our pain and affliction, focus our attention on the promise of God and look to the future that He has guaranteed for His people. Now, one of the characters who displays this, I think, more poignantly and graphically than anybody else in all of the Old Testament is the prophet Habakkuk. Remember Habakkuk, he was in a dour mood.
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He was very unhappy and was not particularly joyful when he saw his whole nation being ravaged by a foreign power. And this created all kinds of theological difficulties for him. And in a real sense, Habakkuk suffered a crisis of faith. And so what did he say? I'm going to go up into my watchtower, and I'm going to start putting my fist in God's face, and I'm going to say, why God?
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How can you allow these things to happen? He said, how can you let all this evil and all this suffering go on in this world? Aren't you too holy as to even behold iniquity? And so he goes into his watchtower and he demands an explanation from God for all this pain and suffering in the world. Then in the third chapter of the book of Habakkuk, we hear the response of Habakkuk to the presence of God.
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Counting It All Joy
God comes to his mournful prophet, and God presents himself to Habakkuk in a way that was quite similar to the way God came to Job when Job was in the midst of his agony. Now, when God speaks to Habakkuk, I want you to consider for a moment Habakkuk's response. He said, When I heard...
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Counting It All Joy
My body trembled, my lips quivered at the voice, and rottenness entered my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble. When He comes up to the people, He will invade them with His troops." Now here he talks about being overcome by the message of God to the point that his body is shaking, it's trembling. His lip is quivering.
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Counting It All Joy
Have you ever seen a baby or an infant, a young child, when you see that lip start to quiver and you know what's going to come next? You know they're trying not to cry, but the quivering lip is the dead giveaway. You know they're not going to make it. Then in just any second, the tears are going to start to flow. And this is how he describes himself. Rottenness entering into his bones.
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Counting It All Joy
But that's not where the story ends. Let me, before I go to the next portion of the text, remind you that there is a text, a short phrase in the book of the prophet Habakkuk that is quoted three times in the New Testament. And one of those three times, it is used as a thematic statement by the Apostle Paul in his greatest theological work, the Epistle to the Romans.
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And if you don't remember it, let me remind you of it. It is the statement that the just shall live by faith. The just shall live by faith. Let me just put a little spin, different spin on that. That could be translated this way. The righteous shall live by trust. And what does it mean to live by faith? other than to trust in God.
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It's not just a question of believing in God or believing that God exists, that is the life of faith, but the life of faith is characterized by believing God, trusting God. I have this conversation with myself every time I'm afraid and every time I'm grieving or fearful. I say, R.C., do you really trust God?
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Counting It All Joy
Not do you believe in Him, but do you believe Him when He promises you that this is for good and this is for your ultimate salvation? Only if we can believe God can we maintain joy in the midst of hardship. Now, having said that, Let's look at the response of Habakkuk in chapter 3 at verse 17.
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Counting It All Joy
He makes this statement, "'Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit beyond the vines, though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food,' Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation.
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Now that may seem a little strange to our ears and foreign to our thinking because Habakkuk lived so long ago and in such a different cultural environment from ours. We don't lose sleep at night worrying about the blossoming of figs. We don't worry about whether the oil crop will fail, do we? But consider that this man was a Jew. And the basic economy of Israel was agricultural.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
Christ not only atones for the sin of His people, He not only lays down His life for His sheep, but then He prays daily as our High Priest and as our intercessor for our preservation that not one of His people for whom He has died will ever, ever be lost.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
If it ends up in the final analysis that somebody goes to hell and that not everybody is saved, that can only mean that it was never God's intention to save everybody. But it was His intention to save some people in this world. And we talk about ends and means. And a means is something that is used in order to accomplish the end, to get to the goal, to get to the purpose.
Renewing Your Mind
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Now, the question is this, is the cross of Christ the end of redemption or a means to the end? That's the issue. If it's an end, then that means all God ever intended to do was to make salvation possible. by providing a Savior and then leaving the consequences and the results of all of that up to us?
Renewing Your Mind
For Those Whom the Father Has Given
Or is the cross the means that God employed to accomplish His eternal purpose of saving His people? Reformed theology says the latter, says that the whole purpose of Christ coming into the world was to save the elect. The whole purpose for Christ going to the cross, according to God's eternal plan, was to save the elect. And that when Christ died, He laid down His life for His sheep.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
He did not lay down His life for everybody. That the atonement that He made, He made for His sheep, and that those who are not His sheep do not participate in that atonement, and He never intended for them to participate in that atonement because He wasn't dying for them with them in view. Now that sounds harsh. That's a hard say.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
And that's what brings us back to the seventeenth chapter, where here in John's gospel we see Jesus speaking repeatedly of those who have come to Him in faith who were given to Him by the Father. It was the Father who gave Christ. a body of children, if you will, a body of believers, so that the Son of God would see the travail of His soul and be satisfied.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
Can you imagine Jesus going to the cross, offering an atonement to the Father, and then hoping that somebody will make use of it, but yet theoretically realizing that He could have died completely in vain?
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
that He could have offered Himself on the cross, and it's theoretically possible, if you deny this concept of a particular redemption, that nobody would ever come to Christ and that He could have suffered all of this for nothing. But that was not the purpose of God. God wouldn't hear of such a thing. God sent His Son to the cross to make an atonement that would work. and that would do the job.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
And Christ offered Himself as an oblation to satisfy the demands of God for those that the Father had given Him. And Jesus also mentions here in John 17 that all that the Father had given Him came to Him. And He goes on to say what? That not one of them was lost except whom? Judas, who was the son of perdition, and elsewhere in the Scriptures, Jesus makes it clear, who was never, ever a believer.
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He was the son of perdition from the beginning. So, in reality, how many of those whom the Father has given to Christ are lost? None. None.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
Here we have an intimate opportunity to eavesdrop on Jesus as He is performing His work of intercession, not only for the disciples that were His at that time, but for all of His people who ever believe in Him. I say to people, this is the only place in all of Scripture where you are mentioned specifically.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
And the reason why we take such comfort in the intercessory work of Christ is that Christ not only atones for the sin of His people, He not only lays down His life for His sheep, but then He prays daily as our High Priest and as our intercessor for our preservation. that not one of His people for whom He has died will ever, ever be lost.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
And I take comfort in that, knowing that if I have faith, and the only reason I have faith is because of the gift of God and because God, for reasons unknown to me, has given me to the Son
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and that God will not allow anything to snatch me out of His hands, that I have a priest who has entered into the Holy of Holies, who has made an atonement, who has sprinkled His own blood on the mercy seat of the covenant throne of God, and who presents that oblation to the Father in my behalf and in your behalf, that I may never ever be lost.
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And so, the point is, what was the ultimate purpose of Christ's death? God's purposes do not fail. His plan is effective. What Jesus set out to do was to save His people, and He accomplished His mission. And He did it perfectly and effectively for all who are given to Him by the Father. Perhaps you're troubled by the idea of some kind of limit to the atoning work of Christ.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
There is no limit to the atoning work of Christ and its benefits for you if you are a believer. And there is a serious limit of the benefits of the atonement to anyone who is not a believer. And so, again, I remind you that the difficulty here is not whether everybody is saved or not everybody is saved.
Renewing Your Mind
For Those Whom the Father Has Given
And I think we would all agree that if God purposed from all eternity that all mankind would be saved. then all mankind would be saved. He certainly has the power and the authority to save the whole world if He is pleased to do that. For reasons we don't know, that was not His plan. That was not His desire.
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His desire was to save some and thereby show His mercy and His grace and to pass over others and thereby to show His justice and His holiness. And in both cases, those who are saved and those who are lost, the glory of God is made manifest and His holiness and greatness is vindicated, so that God displays in the cross both His justice and His mercy.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
But it was His plan from the beginning to save some, and the point is that those whom He intended to save, He saves. And that is the occasion of our rejoicing.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
not by name, but when Jesus prays, He prays not only for His disciples, but for all of those who will believe in Him through their testimony. So that in that sense, Jesus is praying for us, if it be so that we have embraced the testimony of the apostles. So, what's the problem that we would encounter in such a wonderful setting as this high priestly prayer?
Renewing Your Mind
For Those Whom the Father Has Given
Well, we'll look at that problem in just a second, but let me say another word of preface before we dig into the text itself. The setting for this prayer, if you recall, is on the night before Jesus was crucified. It takes place in the upper room, On the occasion where Jesus celebrated the Passover for the last time with His disciples and where He instituted the Lord's Supper.
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And so it is a particularly important occasion. It's also the occasion where we have the most extensive discussion ever from the lips of Jesus on the person and work of the Holy Spirit, John 14, 15, 16, very important segment of our Lord's teaching for us. But where is the hard saying? Well, let's take a look at the text now. In John chapter 17, and I'm going to begin at verse 6.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
This is not the entire intercessory prayer or high priestly prayer as it is most often called, but it's the segment that contains the difficulty. In verse 6, we read this, "'I have manifested your name.'" to the men whom you have given Me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to Me, and they have kept your word.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
Now they have known that all things which you have given Me are from you. For I have given to them the words which you have given Me, and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from you." and they have believed that you sent me. I pray for them.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
I do not pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours, and all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them, and now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you. Holy Father, Keep through your name those whom you have given me, that they may be one as we are.
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While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. And those whom you gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture may be fulfilled. But now I come to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
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I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your Word is truth. Well, what's the problem with this?
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
It's a wonderful prayer of intercession. It's very comforting and heartening to us to hear our Lord plead so passionately for the preservation of those the Father has given to Him. Well, the problem comes in with this one little qualifying statement that is made in verse 9. I pray for them, that is, for those whom the Father had given Him. I do not pray for the world.
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Jesus here makes a clear and sharp distinction between those for whom He is praying and those for whom He is not praying. He is not interceding for everyone, but He's only interceding for the believers, for those whom the Father has given to Him.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
And where this text becomes so controversial in church history is over the doctrine that is one of the most hotly disputed doctrines in Protestant theology and in the tradition of Reformation theology, and that is the doctrine called limited atonement. I don't particularly like that term, limited atonement, because I think it's misleading.
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But the reason why limited atonement is called limited atonement is because the phrase starts with an L, and it fits so neatly into the famous acrostic that is used to summarize the five points of Calvinism, which acrostic is known as TULIP. If we had tiny Tim here, he could tiptoe through this tulip with us and try to give us some explanation.
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But that little acrostic tulip has its roots back in a controversy that emerged in Holland among Dutch Reformed people, a group who had been influenced significantly by the theology called Arminianism, who were called Remonstrantes.
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remonstrated or protested against certain teachings of the Reformation, focusing on the doctrine of election that was so problematical for these remonstrants, and they isolated five points that they disagreed with. And those five points were the total depravity of man, the unconditional election of the redeemed, the limited atonement, the irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saint.
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And so that's where we get this idea of five, not that Calvin or the Reformed theologians said, okay, our theology is based on five points and spelled them out. No, these were the five points of disputation that came about at the Senate of Dordrecht earlier on.
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But of all of these five, all five points are controversial and have been controversial for centuries, but we have a whole generation of people today who identify themselves as so-called four-point Calvinists. This is particularly true in the dispensational community.
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where historic dispensationalism in America has grown out of a Reformed tradition, and many dispensational theologians and believers would readily affirm total depravity, unconditional election, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints. The one they choke on is this L, this so-called limited atonement.
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And the problem here is that limited atonement seems to suggest that Jesus did not die for everybody, that He did not die on the cross for the sins of the whole world, but that He only died on the cross for the elect.
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for a particular specified group of people whom God had chosen from the foundation of the world, and that the sacrifice that Christ offered on the cross was intended and designed simply to redeem them, not just anybody indiscriminately.
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Now those who object to limited atonement want to insist that the purpose of the cross was to make salvation possible for every person in the world, and that Jesus really did die on the cross for all the sins of all the people of all time in the world.
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Now, before I respond to that, let me say that I mentioned in passing that I wasn't all that enamored by the term limited atonement because it's somewhat misleading. I would rather use the phrase particular redemption. Now, to understand this controversy,
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Let me mention another one that is closely related to it, but it is not the same controversy, and that is the debate over universalism and what is called particularism. Universalism and particularism. Universalism, as the word suggests, teaches that all human beings ultimately are saved. and the basis of their salvation is the person and work of Christ.
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The atonement that Christ made on the cross guarantees the salvation of every human person. Particularism is that view that teaches that not everybody is saved, but only those who have faith in Christ, only believers are saved.
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Now, in the historic debate between Arminianism and Calvinism or between dispensationalism and Reformed theology and so on, Arminianism, dispensationalism strongly and consistently affirm particularism and deny universalism.
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Reformed theology, dispensational theology, Arminian theology all agree that not everybody is saved because it seems abundantly clear in Scripture that there will be people who will be in hell and who will be lost in the final analysis. Now again, this is not the debate over limited atonement, but all sides agree
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that in some sense there is a limit to the atonement of Jesus Christ, that they all agree that the atonement of Jesus Christ does not secure the salvation of all people. Now, recently I gave an examination to my seminary students, and one of the questions on the test had to do with the doctrine of the atonement and the meaning of the atonement of Christ on the cross.
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And I noticed that several of the students, in answering the question in general about the atonement, raised in their essay answers, they raised the matter of limited atonement, and the vast majority of them defined limited atonement in this popular way. They said limited atonement means that the atonement of Jesus Christ is sufficient for all but efficient only for some."
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Now, what does that mean? Well, that means that the value of the sacrifice that Christ made was certainly valuable enough to atone for all of the sins of all of the people who have ever lived, so that there's no dispute about the sufficiency of His merit or of His value of His death. But then the atonement only brings about the effect of salvation for those who embrace it in faith.
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And so it's only efficient or effective for the believer. Now, please don't misunderstand me. I don't disagree with my students. I agree with them completely that the atonement of Jesus is sufficient for all and efficient for some, but that's not what limited atonement is all about.
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That's not what the controversy is all about because Arminianism, dispensationalism, and Reformed theology all agree that the atonement is sufficient for all but efficient only for those who believe. The deeper question that is behind this controversy is simply the question of the design of the atonement. Namely, what was God's purpose in sending Christ into the world to die on the cross?
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Did God from all eternity intend to save everybody? Well, if He from all eternity intended to save everybody, what do you suppose that would mean? Everybody would be saved or else God's intents are completely frustrated by the affairs of men. Or if it was God's purpose to save the whole world, then that purpose was frustrated and God's plan of redemption would be a failure.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
When it comes to the hard sayings of Jesus, it would seem that the last place we would expect to find a hard saying is in the prayers of Jesus. and most particularly, when we read the magnificent account of the so-called high priestly prayer of Jesus that is recorded for us in the Gospel according to Saint John in the seventeenth chapter of that book.
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For Those Whom the Father Has Given
The assumption that the person in the Reformed tradition makes here, which I don't think is a gratuitous assumption, is that when God has a plan and a design and a purpose, it doesn't fail. He brings to pass what He intends to bring to pass. And this is nowhere more true than with His plan of salvation.
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Man’s Radical Fallenness
We insist that the first step of our justification, that which quickens us from spiritual death and enables us to come to Jesus at all, is the gracious work of God the Holy Spirit and is never the fruit of the flesh.
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that you must be born again. Jesus is saying, why should this surprise you? You're a theologian, Nicodemus. Don't you understand the fundamental point of man's fallen nature that that which is born of the flesh is flesh? And elsewhere he tells us that the flesh profits what? Nothing.
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But if we believe that God entices us to Christ and all we have to do in the flesh prior to our regeneration is cooperate or assent to that, if we can in fact cooperate and assent to prevenient grace, to the end that we enter into the kingdom of God and are redeemed forever, and we're doing that while we're still in the flesh, then I ask you, what would the flesh profit?
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Not just something, everything. Your eternal salvation. Oh, Paul speaks about this himself in chapter 8, verse 7 of the book of Romans. Let's start at verse 5. For those who are according to the flesh... set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
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For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace. Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do it." Now here the apostle tells us something about man's moral inability in the flesh. He says that man in his fallen state, in the flesh, is hostile to the law of God.
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And he does not obey the law of God. He is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed what? Can he be? So that fallen man, the apostle is saying here, is he not, cannot obey the law of God. And those who are in the flesh cannot please God. I might add to you that if God only wooed us to Christ and left it to us to make the final decision, I can't think of anything better.
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that would please God more than that we would respond positively to that enticement and to that willing. But the apostle here tells us that in the flesh there's nothing that man can do to please God. But now here is the crushing point. Verse 9, however, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit How do we know if somebody's in the flesh or in the spirit?
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You are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. The next word is crucial.
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What does if indicate? A necessary condition. That's right. If indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. Now, how many regenerate people have the Spirit of God dwelling in them? All of them. Okay? So if you are regenerate, then you are no longer in the flesh. If you are in the flesh, you are not regenerate. Is that clear?
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No one can come to me unless it is given to him by the Father. The first two words in this statement, no one, or some translations read no man, no person, no one, that statement, if we apply the categories of logic to this and the laws of immediate inference and so on, we see that this statement is what we call a universal negative. That is to say, it is all-inclusive.
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So when he speaks about those in the flesh, he is speaking of unregenerate people. And it's unregenerate people who cannot please God, who cannot obey God, who cannot do or be subject to God, who experience this dreadful situation of moral inability about which we have been speaking. But
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if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you, but if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. He goes on to say, however, if anyone does have the Spirit of Christ, then he does belong to Christ. And so that the crucial prerequisite for salvation is is a work of the Holy Spirit that is the necessary condition, the prerequisite for faith to be present.
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That's why we insist that the first step of our justification, that which quickens us from spiritual death and makes us and enables us to come to Jesus at all, is the gracious work of God the Holy Spirit and is never the fruit of the flesh.
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Well, this is the point. Before we're converted, you know, when you walk like a duck and you quack like a duck, chances are you're a duck. And when you're unconverted, you think like an unconverted person and you act like an unconverted person.
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The Old Testament tells us that as a man thinks in his heart, that is at the core of his being, not just the superficial thoughts that may go across his brain waves for a second, but that which he thinks about deeply, that which takes a hold of him and grabs him at the core of his being, as a man thinketh there in his heart, so is he.
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And so, if we want to be transformed, and that's what Paul is talking about at the end of his great letter on redemption in the book of Romans. You know, he says, ìTherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye transformed, right? Present yourselves as living sacrifices unto God, which is your acceptable worship, and so on.î Then he says, ìBe ye transformed, not conformed to this world.î
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An unconverted person is conformed to the patterns and the way of thinking of a fallen world. But a Christian who is converted is called not to conformity, but to transformation, to be transformed people, changed lives. And the question is, how does that happen? And what Paul teaches us there is the way you're transformed is in your life is to be, first of all, transformed in your mind.
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It's by gaining the mind of Christ to begin to understand things the way Christ looks at them, to love the things that Christ loves, to hate the things that Christ hates. You're not going to act like a Christian until you think like a Christian. I mean, there are plenty of people who think like Christians but don't really act like Christians because the thought never gets down into the bloodstream.
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But if we really want to be different, if we want to be conformed to the image of Christ, we have to be trained by the Word of God. The Word of God has to take a hold of us and grab us in the heart. That's what this is about. This isn't just about education or tickling our intellectual interests and fascinations. This is about redemption.
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What Jesus is saying is, without exception, there is no human being who, whatever it is He's going to say about them, that is, can come to Him unless it is given to Him of the Father. So this is an absolute. It's a negative absolute. And we have to understand that. Now the next word is also crucial to our understanding. It is the word can. No one can.
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Now the word can, or at least the word that is used here in the Greek text, is less ambiguous than the word can is in our language because in our language the word can is often mistaken for what other word? May. May. That's right, we've all been corrected. I remember when we were children and going to school, and we'd put our hands up and say, teacher, can I sharpen my pencil?
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And she would always say, I'm sure you can, and you also may. And she would then take that opportunity to teach us that lesson that seemed so difficult for us to learn of the difference between the word may, which suggests permission, and the word can. The word can has to do with ability.
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So what this verse is saying is that to say that no man can is to say that no one has the ability to do something. If I say no one can run 30 miles an hour, that means no one has the ability to run 30 miles an hour or 300 miles an hour. I don't know how fast people can run. All right, now what is it that no one has the ability to do that Jesus is talking about here?
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No one has the ability to come to Me, He says. Now let me ask this question. Does man in and of himself according to Jesus, have the ability to come to Jesus? No. Do some men have the ability to come to Jesus in and of themselves? No. No man can come to Jesus, no man can come to me, unless
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Now we see a clause that follows that we call an acceptive clause unless introduces an exception and unless points to what we call in philosophy a necessary condition. Now what is a necessary condition? a prerequisite, something that has to happen before something else can possibly happen. That's what a prerequisite is.
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And so Jesus is saying that there is a necessary condition that must be met before anyone can come to Him. Now what does He identify in this verse as the necessary condition for anyone to be able to come to Him? unless the Father gives it to him. Or other translations, unless it is granted by the Father. Another translation reads, unless the Father enables him.
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Now those words don't all mean the same thing. To grant means to give permission. To give means to give a gift. And to enable means to empower. All right? So there is a certain ambiguity here about what that necessary condition is. And there's another question that is still hanging out here, and that is, if a necessary condition is provided...
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Now we're not talking about coming to Jesus in any situation. If a necessary condition is provided in a situation, does a necessary condition guarantee that the result you want will in fact take place? No, that's why we make a distinction between necessary conditions and sufficient conditions. A sufficient condition is a condition that if it is met, guarantees the result. It suffices.
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So all of this verse is teaching is that in terms of man's natural ability, none of us has the ability in and of ourselves to come to Christ unless God does something. We're still not sure exactly what it is that God does. And we're still not sure that if God does it, it will guarantee that people will come. All we know is that whatever it is that God does is a necessary condition, a prerequisite.
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Okay? Now the classical Arminian approach to this or semi-Pelagian approach to this is that nobody can come to Jesus unless the Father entices him or woos him. Again, that's usually tied into some notion of prevenient grace. or the influence of the Holy Spirit to woo and to entice. And the word draw here is interpreted to mean to woo or to attract, just as honey draws bees and lights draw moths.
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But the idea is that the drawing that God does is still resistible. and those who respond to the enticement, those who respond to being wooed, are then redeemed according to Arminianism, and those who do not respond to being drawn are subsequently lost. The Augustinian interpretation of the verse is that the word to draw means more than simply to entice or to woo.
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Now, let's see how this Greek word is used elsewhere in the New Testament. If we would turn our Bibles here to James chapter 2, verse 6, we will find this same Greek word used in the New Testament. I shall read the verse. But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court?
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I'm going to ask you to guess which word is used in this verse that is exactly the same Greek word that is translated by the word draw in John 6. Does anybody have a guess? Drag. Now let's supply the semi-Pelagian interpretation. Okay? Let's look at another one. Let's look at Acts chapter 16, verse 19, which I will read.
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When her master saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. Can you guess again which word in this text is the same Greek word? Again, it's the word dragged. Again, substitute entice or woo. They seized Paul and Silas and wooed them into the marketplace before the authorities.
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This text clearly indicates an act of force in dragging Paul and Silas into the marketplace. Now it would make you wonder why it is that the translators use the word draw rather than the word drag. And I can only guess, and I'll try to guess in a moment, but first let me just go further.
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Whenever we have doubt as to the precise meaning of a word in the Scriptures, the first thing we do is that we go to the Greek, but then after we go to the Greek, we're still dependent upon the science of linguistics and lexicography in order to have an understanding of the meaning of that term at the time it was used in the writing of the documents.
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I think it's safe to say that in the academic world, the most highly respected linguistic and lexicographical source that the church has ever had for the meaning of Greek words is Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. In Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, the word that is being translated draw here in this text is defined by Kittel as meaning to compel
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by irresistible superiority. I might add that the framers of the dictionary were anything but Calvinistic, but they recognize that the classical, that is the meaning in the Greek language of this verb, is to compel. The force of this verb is the force of divine compulsion. And if that is true,
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then I would say that verse and that verse alone is sufficient to end the debate forever with respect to man's ability or lack of it to incline himself to choose Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Himself says that no man can do it unless the Father compels him to do it. And that is pure Augustinianism only stated much earlier than Saint Augustine.
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But if that isn't sufficient with respect to man's ability, let's look earlier in chapter 3 of John's Gospel. where John describes the encounter that Jesus has with the Pharisee, the theologian, Nicodemus, in which he says in verse 3, Jesus answered and said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless... What does that word indicate? What's coming? A necessary condition. Unless...
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One is born again. He cannot see the kingdom of God. Now what has to happen, according to Jesus, before a person can see the kingdom of God? He has to be born again. So regeneration precedes seeing the kingdom of God. Is that a legitimate interpretation of this passage? In fact, nobody can see it at all Unless they are first, what? Born again, regenerate. All right.
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Now he goes on to say, Nicodemus' puzzle, how can a man be born when he is old? He can't enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he? Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. So regeneration is a prerequisite for entering and seeing the kingdom of God.
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Semipelagians have people choosing Christ before they are regenerate. Semi-Pelagians have people in their human nature cooperating with prevenient grace, responding to this wooing and enticing and attracting of God the Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit is not yet in them having regenerated them.
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In this session, I want us to give some attention now to some very crucial statements that Jesus made regarding man's ability or the lack of it. Turn our attention first of all to the sixth chapter of John's gospel where Jesus says in verse 65, And he was saying, For this reason I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it is given to him by the Father. Now let's look at that verse.
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So the bottom line is the Arminian position has people who are not yet born again seeing and choosing the king of the kingdom of God. Boggles the mind, doesn't it? That's why the axiom of Augustinian theology is this, regeneration of precedes faith.
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Regeneration is seen as a necessary condition for faith, even as Paul elsewhere teaches in Ephesians 2 when he says that while we were dead in sin and trespasses, God has quickened us, that is made us alive in Christ, okay, when we were dead in And then tells us that therefore it is by grace you are saved through faith and that is not of yourselves but is the gift of God.
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And so we see faith is the gift of God that is the result of the Spirit's work of regeneration within us. That God Himself supplies the necessary condition. to come to Jesus. That's why it is sola gratia, by grace alone, that we are saved. Now, Jesus says, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you,
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False Prophet
Somehow we have captured something of the New Testament call to love. But have we really captured the New Testament concern for truth and the importance of and a fidelity to the gospel?
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That's what it means to stand for the gospel of Christ. I can remember, again, a personal illustration. I can remember at one point in my development, I had a zealous desire, the desire of the young Christian moving up. I said, God, I want you to make me not an able and competent scholar. What I want to be more than anything else is a great saint.
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I'll settle for nothing less than to be like Augustine, to be like Luther, to be like Calvin, to be like Edwards, to be like, make me like one of those guys. That's what I want to be. Dr. Gerstner, you know, in my formative years, made the statements once in a time of weeping at the contemporary situation of the church.
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He looked out at the church and what he saw, he said, Bob, we stand between Migdol and the sea. And we need a Moses that God will raise up to see who will lead us. from that impasse of the threatening sea in front of us and the armies of Pharaohs behind us. That rang in my ears, and I said, Oh, God, make me that man. Now my prayer is, God, we stand between Migdal and the sea.
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What Paul expresses here very clearly is a sense, a personal sense of what we might call apostolic astonishment. The word that he uses here is a word that is charged with emotional feeling. I'm astonished. I'm amazed. The King James says, I marvel.
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Please find somebody out there who will be that man. Amen. I don't make prayers like that for myself anymore. And the reason is I read the biographies of those guys, like Augustine and like Luther and Calvin. And then my prayer became more like Augustine's earlier prayer, oh God, make me a saint, but not now. I don't want to have to go through with those guys one.
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Either in the rigorous discipline that's necessary to be a saint in the first place, and said in the second place, to take. the obvious participation and baptism into the death of Christ that that would necessarily involve. I don't want to pay that price. I don't want to offend people. I don't want to be in enmity with my brother man.
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False Prophet
The basic characteristic of the false prophet, remember, is that he's a pleaser in name. He tells the people what they want to hear. Paul is not suggesting that one who is faithful to the truth, one who is faithful to Christ, and who exercises duties as a pastor, as an evangelist, as a teacher, with all fidelity, is called upon to consciously, purposely, you see, indeterminately offend people.
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Now, there are people like that who feel that it's their Christian duty to offend people, that they're not really being faithful to Christ unless they're jumping all over the feet of other people. Do you understand? I think you know the kind of personality I'm talking about. That's not what Paul's saying.
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Paul's talking about the kind of offense to people that will come if you are faithful to the truth. I want to say something that the contemporary minister and those of you who have ministers who are trying to be godly men, they need your prayers and they need your love and they need your encouragement, even when they're speaking on your talks.
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But the point that I think many people don't recognize is that in the Old Testament, there was kind of a division of labor between the prophet and the priest. The priest's function was to be the one who speaks to God in behalf of the people. He was the one who was basically the minister of compassion, the minister of the anointing graces of God. You see, he's giving that to the people.
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He's ministering constantly to the people and then interceding for the people, directing his attention to God, representing the people. The prophet's task, you see, becomes the spokesman of God to the people, and he primarily calls the people to repentance. But these two offices were not tied up in the same person, were they? The priest was the one who abided with the congregation.
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He had to live with these people day in and day out. The prophet, in a sense, he could run in and out of time and go out and live in the mountains for a few weeks and the next week come out of the desert. You know, people say that the desert is the traditional location of the prophet in the Old Testament because it was there. That God spoke to the prophet.
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Well, sure, that's true, but I think there's another dimension to that. I think there's another reason why the prophets spent a lot of time in the desert. It's the only place they were saved. And these guys had to continually get out of the community or they'd get killed. And they ended up being killed anyway.
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It's interesting that the word that Paul uses here, the Greek verb, is the one that is most frequently used in the New Testament to describe people's reaction. to the power of Christ as He does His miracles.
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where they didn't have the problem of having to live daily with the people that they were speaking to prophetically. But the minister today, you see, in the new covenant is called to be a combination of both priest and prophet. Makes his task even more difficult than the Old Testament prophet at this human level. Can you really be a prophet and a priest at the same time?
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That's the question that goes through my mind or went through my mind constantly as a pastor. However, there's a little irony here. I discovered that if the people know that you are their priest, they are more likely to accept your prophetic message. And this you find in Paul. Paul was a priest to his people, and they knew it. And so they could hear the prophetic criticism that he brought.
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Understand that? So what I'm saying is that there's a certain sense in which being a prophet and a priest at the same time makes the prophetic ministry more difficult because of you having to keep living with people. On the second face, there is a sense in which it makes it more easy. because you can show the other side. You have that opportunity.
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But I'm afraid that so many times what we get caught up into in the ministry is spending so much of our time building up the image of the priest that we never get to the work of prophecy. That's the danger. And God knows our church needs the voice of the prophet today. Do I now persuade men or gods? Do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
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Paul is not despising men. He's not despising the relationship. Again, when he characterizes his own M.O. as an apostle earlier, he said, I didn't come to you with great rhetoric and eloquent speech and all that, but I came to you in the power and the demonstration of the Spirit. And then he goes on to say, and I was with you in your suffering. He entered into their suffering.
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There was a sense in which Paul identified with his people, and they knew that. He wasn't one to disparage the people. He loved the people. But when it came down to the moment of conflict, you could depend on the fact that Paul, if there was a division between the people and of God, they knew where Paul was going to stand.
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If you recall throughout the gospel narratives when Jesus performs a miracle such as raising Lazarus from the dead or changing the water into wine or whatever He does, inevitably the crowd, the reaction of the observers, the spectators and the participants in this event is, we are told by the gospel writers, is that the people were astonished.
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He was going to stand with the side of Christ because he was first a servant of Christ and secondly, a servant of his people.
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This is not just a mild description, not just a little bit puzzled, you see. They are overwhelmed in a sense of astonishment, and this is the kind of word that Paul is using here. I'm astonished that you are so quickly removed, see, from him who has called you. Paul says, I marvel that you are so soon removed. You know, the King James there, right? Removed.
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The word that, again, is translated here is the word that is usually used to describe a traitor. One who totally turns around in his allegiance to his government. This is one of the ways it's used in the contemporary vocabulary. Or it may be a rapid shift in political allegiance. In other words, the basic meaning of the word is to change allegiance.
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It involves a defection, a kind of treason that Paul has in mind here. And obviously, he's not happy about this. And marvel that you're so soon removed from him who called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is not another, but there were some that would trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
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Notice that when the false prophet comes, he doesn't announce his message of saying, here you, here you, I want you people to move away from the gospel and embrace my teaching, which is heresy. Now, he doesn't say that. He doesn't come along and say, you know, let's get rid of the gospel altogether. But rather, the subtleties comes along while Paul got you off to a nice little start.
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But if we're really going to understand the truth of Christ, if we're going to have a real understanding of the gospel, then we need to go beyond this apostolic beginning. You see, no heretic in the history of the church has ever claimed to prefer the gospel. He might be saying that he's trying to bring it up to date. He may be talking about a new application or a supplement to it.
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But no, no, no heretic has ever. boldly declared that he was purposefully changing the gospel. Now, Paul says, verse 7, which is not another. Okay? You see the irony here? What he's saying is that you think you're going to another gospel, another message of good news. There isn't any other gospel. There's only one gospel. There's no better gospel. There's no second gospel.
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And the technicalities here, the Greek words here, is that Paul is talking about an other, that is, a different gospel. On the one hand, the one word he uses suggested that there's no other gospel, no different gospel, on the one hand. And the other word he uses there is the word that's translated another. In other words, in terms of a second gospel. There's no different gospel.
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There's no second gospel, you know, that would even be the same. There's no other gospel except the gospel. the apostolic gospel, the gospel that finds its source in the mouth of Jesus himself. I'm laboring this point this morning because that is the issue of the 20th century. Is the church today committed to the gospel of Jesus, ergo the gospel of Paul? That's the issue, are we?
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Committed to that. Or have we sought by every means imaginable to relativize and historicize that gospel to render it harmless to modern man? Paul is saying there isn't any other gospel. And here's where he comes on strong in his language. Listen to this. Verse 8. But though we, or an angel from heaven...
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preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that you have received, let him be accursed. I don't think there's any place in the New Testament where more harsh and strong language comes from the pen of any apostle than we have right here.
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This is not a slap in the wrist. This is very, very serious. Notice what Paul says. If anybody gives you any other gospel than the one you've received, I don't care who it is. I don't care what their credentials are. I don't care if it's me, you see. If I should give you a different gospel than the one you had already, then let me be accursed. I don't care if it's a professor in the seminary.
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I don't care if it's a pastor in the pulpit. I don't care how much charisma he has. I don't care how many gifts of the Spirit he manifests. I don't care how many academic degrees come after his name, you see. I don't care if it's an angel from heaven. Let him be rebuked? No. Silenced? No. Accursed? The word that he uses here, notice this, is the word anathema.
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from which we get the English anathema. That's the strongest possible judgment that a person can make. In the Old Testament, the Anathema was pronounced upon Jericho. In the conquest, you see, of Canaan, the cities were to be destroyed. The anathema of God was to come upon the pagan city in the destruction. Israel was not to preserve the walls of the city and incorporate it into their faith.
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The idea of God's making a clean sweep and starting with this separated people in a new community, untouched, unblemished by the influence of the present paganism.
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You see, this massive program that is carried out in the conquest of Canaan, so much to the fact that if Israel even saves the slightest bit of booty that would contaminate them, anyone who is caught doing that is to be executed, as was the case at Ai, who was responsible for the Battle of Ai. What's his name? Achan, who hid the booty under the tent.
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
And so God inaugurated the idea that when you go in there, I want you to destroy that city, and burn it to the ground so annihilated that it is impossible to ever rebuild it. Do away with any semblance of abiding value in that city. The word that is used there in the Septuagint is that God pronounces the anatema, the anathema on that city. It is to be reduced to rubble, total destruction.
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
And that's what Paul is saying, let that happen to the person who comes and teaches you another gospel. Let me just say that the severest punishment that we ever find in the Bible is that punishment directed not to the murderer or to the adulterer. That is not to suggest that those who are tolerated are allowed or anything, but the severest punishment is reserved for the false prophet.
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
They are the ones who come under the anathema. Teaching the people of God a gospel that is perverting the gospel of Christ is far more damaging to their well-being eternally than to rob them of their gold, or to rob them of their chastity, or to rob them even of their physical life. Do you understand that?
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
Somehow we have captured something of the New Testament called to love, but have we really captured it? the New Testament concern for truth and the importance of it and a fidelity to the gospel.
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
I can remember teaching at Gordon College, a class of 250 students, and in this particular class we were dealing with the business of Christology and the question of Jesus' preexistence and His eternal relationship with the Father.
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
And I mentioned the fact that there were movements in history, going back through the councils of Nicaea and that sort of thing, dealing with the question of those who would deny the eternal existence of Christ. Some would argue that Jesus is not eternal, but that he's created. And some have reached a compromise. He's not just a man, but he's sort of the highest of the angels.
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
He's the firstborn of creation, you see, where God creates Jesus first, and then Jesus creates everything else in the world. Now, this is what was going on back in the fourth century in those critical debates. But that issue, I pointed out, abides today in the sects of Jehovah Witnesses and of Mormons. And particularly the Mormons have this idea that Jesus preexists the world, but he's not eternal.
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
And they bring this doctrine as a corrective of classical Christian theology. And I was explaining to the class my reasons why this is not just supplementary to the Christian faith, but it's antithetical to the Christian faith and cannot be accepted as consistent with the gospel of Christ.
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
And at the end of this little dialogue with the students, I said, all right, now, I've given you the case for the orthodox view of the eternality of Christ and the biblical view of it. I've mentioned the Mormon view of it. And you recall, of course, that the authority by which Mormonism makes this change is their appeal to a new revelation that was received by Joseph Smith by the angel Moroni.
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
Okay? Now, I dispute that. And I'm telling all of you people here in this room that what Joseph Smith says is wrong. And it's not only wrong, it's seriously wrong.
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
Now, I said to this student, I said, what would happen if as I was standing up here talking to you right now, an angel, and you knew to be an angel, no doubt in your mind that it was an angel, that angel came in the door, the back room, and came up here and stood next to the platform, you see, glowing with this magnificent whiteness and heavenly glory all about him.
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
And that angel spoke and said to you, please do not listen to your professor, for he is not telling you the truth. But really, what Joseph Smith has said is right. And I urge you people to believe it. I said, how many of you then would believe in Mormonism?
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
If an angel came right in this room right now, and you knew to be an angel, and he told you that Mormonism was the truth, and what I'm saying to you is false, how many of you would believe the angel? Every single hand in that room. I said, well, I'll tell you how obstinate I am. An angel came in here and walked, floating through the air, performed miracle after miracle.
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
I said, and came up here and told me that Mormonism was right. I would pick up that angel by the seat of his ethereal pants and boot him right through the window and tell him to go to hell where he came from. He said, because of the fact that even I can recognize that that message is not the same message that we get in the New Testament.
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
We begin now with verse 6, where Paul moves into the body or the substance of the concern that he is dealing with here in the Galatian epistle. He moves into this almost abruptly in verse 6, where he says, "...I marvel that you are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel."
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
Paul is saying that his authority, not my authority, but his authority as an apostle, as an agent of revelation, cannot be gainsaid even by the angels from heaven. Christ has not commissioned the angels to be his messengers of the truth. Christ did not say of the angels, he who hears them hears me, and he who refuses to listen to them refuses to hear me. He did say that of his apostles.
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
That's what's at stake right here. If you grab that, Paul says, if we or an angel from heaven gave you any other gospel, which I give you, let him be anathema. Now, there's a different movement here now. And beginning in verse 10, Paul now moves into a defense of that authority that he's claiming, even over the angels at this point. For do I now persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men?
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
For if I yet please men, I should not be the servant of Christ. As a pastor and as a teacher, there's no verse probably in the New Testament that scares me more than this one. There's no rhetorical question before which I must tremble as much as I must tremble before this one. How do we answer that question?
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
I hate to think of standing before the judgment seat of Christ and having the first question being raised to me from Jesus is, did you seek to please me or did you seek to please me? That's the struggle of the flesh every Christian pastor has to go through. You'd have to be a masochist to not want to please people. We are human beings. I do not enjoy to be an enemy with my people.
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
No matter how much filled with the Holy Spirit I may ever become, I still have a great sense, an abiding sense of camaraderie with mankind. I am a man. I still belong more to the side of man than I do to God. Those are my peers, not the angels. And I sure don't want to have to isolate myself from the human community. Humanly speaking, do you understand that?
Renewing Your Mind
False Prophet
Even Luther, who was able to stand so much, confessed in his epistles how he struggled for the applause of men. Athanasius, who championed orthodoxy in the 4th century when he died, was buried with this epithet, Athanasius Contramundum. Athanasius against the world. Can you imagine what it costs a man? That man spent more time in exile than he did at home in the later years of his life.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
On what basis does God ever declare a person just? For Rome, it's because they are just. For the Reformed understanding, the sole grounds for the justification of a believer is the righteousness of Christ. It's Christ's righteousness and his righteousness alone that justifies us. In fact, the phrase justification by faith alone is simple shorthand for justification by Christ alone.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
If time permits later on, we'll expand that a little bit more, but I'm just trying to give you the basic definition of justification by faith alone. The second word is the word by. That's a simple little term. And I mentioned before that it has to do with the dative of means. That if you ask Rome...
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
by what means are we justified, they would say the instrumental means by which we are justified is baptism. Remember when I said we started this thing that baptism begins the process of justification? And it is the instrumental cause or the instrument by which a person is justified. Now let me just take a minute to talk about this instrumental cause idea.
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Defining Our Terms
One of the oldest questions of philosophy is the question of motion and of change. You might remember Heraclitus saying you never step into the same river twice because by the time you put your second foot in, the river is moved. And you have changed only by being a few seconds older. But he says whatever is, is changing. Change is the singular mark of creaturehood and affinitude.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
And from Aristotle's perspective, change was a kind of motion. And so he examined that and he asked himself, Are there different ways in which things change? Are there different kinds of changes? Well, he says when he looks for change, he's looking for the cause of a change. And he said it would be simplicity to assume that causes are singular.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
when in many cases a change is wrought by the application of several different things. And he used the classic illustration of a piece of art, a piece of sculpture, a statue that was being made in order to distinguish among various types of causes. And he would say the efficient cause.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
the main cause that brings the change to place, the chief efficient cause for creating a piece of sculpture is the sculptor. He's the guy that's making all the changes. But there's also the material cause. And the material cause for the statue is the block of wood or the block of marble out of which the statue is made.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
And so he defines material causality as the matter out of which something is made or changes. When we talk about the creation of the universe, what would we say is the material cause? Nothing, because there wasn't anything, except no matter at least. But God is the efficient and sufficient cause of all of creation. He creates the world not out of a previous existing substance or matter.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
He creates it ex nihilo. All right, but the material cause is that out of which a thing is made. The efficient cause is the one who makes it. The formal cause is the idea or blueprint that the artist is using in order to create his subject. He doesn't just go chiseling away at that piece of marble with no idea in mind of how it's going to look when it's finished.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
He has to have a form in his mind for it. And then the final cause would be the purpose for which something is made. In this case, maybe it is to just make the garden of the emperor more beautiful. And so Michelangelo creates a statue to enhance the beauty of the church or something. That's its final cause. Well, the instrumental cause...
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
are the instruments that are used to bring about the change. And in the case of making a statue, the instrumental cause would be the hammer and the chisel. The things that are used by which the change takes place. Easy enough.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
So when Rome talks about baptism as the instrumental cause, it is the means or the instrument by which the person is changed into having this reception or infusion of grace. And the reformers say, no, the sole instrumental cause of justification is faith. It's not baptism. It's not penance. It's faith, which is the instrumental cause.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
By the way, though both Protestants and Catholics used the language and terminology of Aristotle's distinctions of causality, they also, both sides, added another specific cause. which they called the meritorious cause of justification. And again, we get to the heart of the issue. On what basis does God ever declare a person just? For Rome, it's because they are just people.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
was the question of the treasury of merits. And the treasury of merits was critical to the whole concept of indulgences. We know how the indulgence controversy created a firestorm at the time because the way in which Johann Tetzel was selling indulgences the indulgences, but the bigger question is what's this whole thing of indulgences about and where did it come from?
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
for the Reformed understanding, the sole grounds for the justification of a believer is the righteousness of Christ. It's Christ's righteousness and His righteousness alone that justifies us. In fact, the phrase justification by faith alone is simple shorthand for justification by Christ alone. All right. So in the Protestant doctrine, you have sola fide.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
It's by faith alone, not by faith plus works. It's by grace alone, sola gratia. It's by grace, not merit. And it's by Christ alone, not by Christ plus me.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
Well, again, it developed gradually over the history of the Roman Catholic Church. It was based ultimately on the idea that Christ gave to Peter the keys to the kingdom or the keys of the kingdom. And so the Pope was seen as holding the office of the keys. And the keys of the kingdom included authority over the dispensing and distribution of indulgences.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
Jesus said to his disciples, whoever sins you remit on earth will be remitted in heaven and so on. Now, the treasury of merit became front and center in this whole idea of the sale of indulgences. And the treasury of merit is a treasury... that contains an infinite amount of merit, which is at the power of the church to distribute to those who were lacking merit.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
Now, in the first place, the chief deposit to the treasury of merits was the merit of Christ. But it was not only the merit of Christ that was or is in the treasury, because the concept of the treasury of merit still exists in the Roman communion. But in addition to the merit of Jesus was also the merits of Mary. In addition to the merits of Mary were added the merits of the saints.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
Now, there are very few people historically in the Roman view who die and go directly to heaven. The overwhelming majority of people who die, die with impurity still on their soul, so they have to go to purgatory, have those impurities purged or cleansed before they can go to to heaven. Again, purgatory is not hell. They don't go to hell and be punished. Purgatory is not a place of punishment.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
It's a place of cleansing, and it will ultimately, for all of those in purgatory, their ultimate destiny will indeed be heaven, but only after this purification process takes place. Now, The problem then is that people who are in purgatory don't have sufficient righteousness to get them directly to heaven.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
Now, as I say, there were a handful of people historically who died with no impurities on their soul, with sufficient merit to get them into heaven directly. But not only did they have sufficient merit themselves to go into heaven, but they had a third kind of merit that we haven't discussed yet. We've already looked at the distinction between condign merit—
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
and congruous merit with respect to the sacrament of penance. But in addition to condign merit and congruous merit was this third kind of merit, which was called supererogatory merit, which is achieved by people producing works of supererogation, not irrigation. but irrigation. Supererogatory works are those works that are so good, so meritorious, that they're beyond the call of duty.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
It's an excess or extra merit, which if you, for example, perform works of supererogation, more works than you need to get into heaven, those extra merits or excess merit is then deposited into the treasury of merit. And it's from that treasury that the church, through the pope, has the power to to apply merits to those who are lacking.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
And so in that whole system of indulgences, what was going on was that by the giving of alms, the purchasing of indulgences, as it were, withdrawals were made from this treasury and applied to those who were lacking them in purgatory so that they could move ahead to heaven. Now that concludes our basic overview of the Roman Catholic understanding of justification.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
I'll talk still further about it when we look at other contrasts between the Protestant view. But over against this, Luther's cry, of course, was sola fide—justification is by faith alone—
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
And we're going to spend a little bit of time looking at Paul's teaching of it in Romans, but just for an introduction to the Protestant view of justification by faith alone, I want to take some time to define the terms. First of all, the word justification itself.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
The word, the English word justification, comes over from the Latin justificare, which literally meant to make just or to make righteous. Now, one of the problems that produced this whole controversy historically was in the early centuries, the Latin fathers were not reading and developing their doctrine from the Greek, but rather from the Vulgate, from the Latin translation of the Bible.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
And when the Latin translation of the Bible speaks about justification, it uses the Latin justificare, which is drawn from the legal structure of the Roman system of law. And again, to make righteous means that here's a person who is not righteous, and the word to justify means that you make them righteous so that they become truly righteous in and of themselves.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
And so the system of justification that developed was the system of understanding how an unjust person is made just or righteous. Now, when we talk about the process of being made truly righteous, we're talking not about justification, but about sanctification. So we believe that first there's justification, and then what follows from justification is sanctification.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
Where in the ancient Roman view, because of the use of that term justificare, actually sanctification was preceding justification because God wouldn't pronounce you just until you actually had become just. But the Greek word dikasune means does not mean to make righteous. It means to count or reckon as righteous or to treat as righteous.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
And so the heart of the Reformation view is that while we are still unrighteous, We are declared to be righteous by God's applying to us the righteousness of Christ through imputation, which I'll also expand on later. And so when God looks at us, he sees that we are still sinful. But he nevertheless, once we have faith, he counts us or reckons us or declares us to be righteous.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
Now Luther's motto to explain that is one you've maybe already heard, the Latin phrase simul justus et peccator. And that was how he tried to define this state of affairs whereby when we are not righteous in ourselves, nevertheless, in the sight of God, we're considered or counted to be righteous. The phrase simul ius et peccator means simul. We get the word simultaneous from that.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
And so the simul means at the same time. Simul justus, at the same time, just or righteous. Et, now what's that? What does that mean? That's the past tense of the verb to eat, right? Et means simply and. Remember with Julius Caesar? When he stabbed, his final words are supposed to be et tu, Brute. That means and you too, Brutus. And so et simply means and. So simul justus et.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
At the same time, just and peccator, which means sinner. We talk about little sins as being peccadilloes. If we say somebody's pure, we say they're impeccable, and so that comes from the Latin word for sin. So Luther is saying at the very same time we are just and sinners. Now that sounds at the beginning as a contradiction. And what is the law of non-contradiction?
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
Something cannot be a and non-a at the same time and in the same sense or in the same relationship. Now, Luther is saying here we are at the same time a and non-a, righteous and sinner, but not in the same relationship. in and of ourselves, we remain sinners. but we are righteous by virtue of the transfer of Christ's righteousness to ourselves, by virtue of the imputation of his righteousness.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
Now, we said at the beginning of our study of the Roman view of justification that it starts at baptism, with an infusion of grace. And so a justified person, according to Rome, is justified on the grounds of infused righteousness that then is possessed inherently by the believer.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
The Protestant view is that we are justified not by an infusion of righteousness, but by an imputation of righteousness. Now, you know, as I said earlier, at the time of the Reformation, there were all kinds of attempts to overcome this enormous catastrophic split within Christendom. And the final one at Regensburg was,
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
We've been looking at the posting of the 95 Theses by Luther in 1517 and consequently at the Roman Catholic understanding of justification. And in Luther's theses, he brought into question the whole system of justification that was embraced by the Roman Catholic Church. At this point, he still believed essentially in the Roman system, but questions were beginning to haunt him, and among them
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
came this close to healing the breach and solving the schism and resolving the theological dilemma. But the sticking point that was never able to be resolved then or now is the case of imputation.
Renewing Your Mind
Defining Our Terms
Rome has always rejected the idea that we are justified on the basis of an imputed righteousness, a righteousness that is not our own, a righteousness that Luther called an alienum justitiam, an alien righteousness, a righteousness that is extra nos. outside or a part of us, a righteousness that is counted for us but is not our own.
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
Jesus stands up, looks at the waves, and he shouts a command saying, peace, be still. And instantly the seas like glass and everything is absolutely calm. Now, what would you expect that the reaction of the disciples would be at that? The Bible says they became exceedingly afraid.
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
And it's recorded for us in the fifth chapter of Luke's gospel, beginning at verse one, and I'll read it to you quickly. And so it was as the multitude pressed about him to hear the word of God, that he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, which is another name for the Sea of Galilee, and he saw two boats standing by the lake. But the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets.
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
And he got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat. And when he had stopped speaking, he said to Simon, launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. But Simon answered and said to him, Master, we've toiled all night and caught nothing.
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
Nevertheless, it's your word, I will let down the net. And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their net was breaking. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats so that they began to sink.
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
And then when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. What an incredible response. On the surface, it doesn't make any sense at all. You get the picture here. The disciples had been fishing. You know, again, they're veterans of the sea. They've come up empty.
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
Jesus says, take the boats out a little bit further and drop your nets out there. And you can just read the sarcasm dripping from Peter's lips here in the text, can't you? And he says... Oh, Lord, you know, we've been doing that all night, but nevertheless, go ahead, we'll try it. It's like he says to the other guys, humor him.
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
He may know all about theology and all about spiritual things, but we're the guys who know about fishing. But if Jesus wants us to drop the nets over here... We'll drop the nets over here. Well, you see what happens. As soon as they drop the net in the water, what happens? Every fish in the Sea of Galilee jumps into the net, and the nets are bulging to capacity.
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
There's the cords of the ropes are starting to break so that they had to bring the other boats over, get the other nets involved, and they fill both of these boats with fish to the point that they're starting to sink. Now, remember that Simon Peter was Jewish. and he was a Jewish businessman. Now what would you expect a Jewish businessman to do in a circumstance like that?
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
If I would have been there, I know what I would have done. I would have pulled a contract out of my coat and I would have said to Jesus, I'll tell you what Jesus, here's the deal. 50% of the business is yours, free. All you have to do is come down here to the dock one day of the month and do this little trick that you just did here. Fill up the nets like that. We're in business.
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
You get 50% of the profit. That's what I would have done. But that's not what Simon Peter did. Astonishingly, he says to Jesus, depart from me. for I am a sinful man." Jesus, please leave. I can't stand this. You're crowding me in a way that's driving me crazy. No.
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
Again, Peter's not giving this response because Jesus is standing there giving a message on evangelism and telling Peter that he's a wicked sinner, he has to repent, or he's going to perish. Jesus hasn't just given a sermon about hell that would terrify people. All he did was perform this miracle of providing this catch of fish. And when Peter says it, He says, I'm out of here.
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
But they'll usually say that he was a great prophet or a great teacher or a great man. And people were so kind in their assessment of the historical Jesus that it makes me wonder what it was about him that so infuriated many of his contemporaries that they actually clamored for his blood And of course, they executed him.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
I've got to get out of here because I'm sinful. What is it that revealed to Simon Peter that he was so sinful? It was the presence and the power of Christ. You see, when Simon Peter saw Christ, and saw who he was so clearly in that moment. He was overwhelmed just as Isaiah had been overwhelmed centuries earlier.
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
He looked into a mirror of his own soul and he realized that next to the standard of perfection, next to the standard of absolute purity, in the presence of one who was altogether holy, we can do nothing but tremble and quake at the contrast And so Simon wanted to leave.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
You can call this the Peter Principle, or you've heard the Peter Principle in business where organizations tend to elevate people to their levels of incompetency. So that if you're doing well at the job, you get a promotion and you get more responsibility and higher pay. And if you do well at that job, you go up the ladder and you get an even more responsible job and even a greater package of pay.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
And the tendency is in the corporate world to increase people's elevations to promote them to the level where they're incompetent and they fail. And then they talk about another person. the super competent person. The super competent person is a person who has one of the greatest difficulties in moving up the ladder. Why?
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
Because the people above that person are jealous and threatened by that person's superior skill. And so the way the super competent person advances according to this book is by moving to another company where they're looking for talent. And even then he has to go to another company to move up to the next step where he's not known to threaten people.
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
And that at a corporate level expresses our natural hostility to that which is better than we are. Why was Christ killed? He was killed Not because he said, consider the lilies, how they grow. But because he said, consider the thieves, how they steal. And because he said, consider the Pharisees, how hypocritical they are. And they hated him because he was holy.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
So as nice as we are about Jesus from a safe distance of about 2,000 years, if we go back in time and look at the period in which he was walking around this earth, we find all these people who hated him. Why? Why? Well, I think there are a couple of episodes recorded for us in the New Testament that'll give us an inkling at least as to why so many people hated him.
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
And the first one is found in the gospel according to Saint Mark, where we read in the fourth chapter in the 35th verse these words. Mark says, on the same day when evening had come, he said to them, let us cross over to the other side. And when they had left the multitude, they took him along in the boat as he was. And other little boats were also with him.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
And a great windstorm arose and the waves beat into the boats so that it was already filling. But he was in the stern asleep on a pillow. And they awoke him and said to him, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? And he arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. And he said to them, Why are you so fearful?
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What Manner of Man Is This?
How is it that you have no faith? And they feared exceedingly and said to one another, What manner of man is this? that even the wind and the sea obey him. I find this an extraordinary narrative and I have a special interest in it because I used to teach a course in the seminary on atheism.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
Even though we may be afraid of hurricanes and floods and fires and other natural disasters, there's something that is even more frightening to us than the wind or the sea. It's the presence of God.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
And I required my students in that course to read the original works of some of the most brilliant and formidable advocates of atheism. And I noticed, particularly among 19th century atheists, that there was a common strand of thinking among them, where people of that ilk were trying to explain why it is, even though there is no God, there are so many people who are religious.
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
And one of the most important voices from that period was that of Sigmund Freud. You've all heard of Freud, who's regarded as the father of modern psychoanalysis. And Freud came up with the thesis that the reason why religion emerges in history is out of people's natural fear for the forces of nature.
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
We're afraid of tornadoes, we're afraid of hurricanes, we're afraid of floods, we're afraid of diseases that can invade our bodies and destroy us. We're afraid of death and so on. And he said it's out of this fear of nature that we create religion.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
We create a God who rules over nature that we can talk to, that we can plead with, that we can try to butter him up with our praise and worship so that maybe he will steer the tornado in another direction. And so for Freud, it is the fear of nature. that causes us to be religious. Here we have a story in the New Testament where the disciples meet one of these fearsome natural forces.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
They're on their way across the Sea of Galilee. And remember, they're seasoned veteran fishermen. They're accustomed to the vagaries of the winds and the currents and so on.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
But where that lake is situated in the Middle East, it happens to be arranged in such a place where there is almost like a wind tunnel from the Mediterranean Sea that sometimes a storm will come flowing through that wind tunnel and hit that sea without any warning and turn it into a tempestuous, catastrophic, natural disaster. And that's what happened.
Renewing Your Mind
What Manner of Man Is This?
While they're going across the sea, suddenly this fierce storm arises, and the wind starts blowing a gale, and the water is turbulent, and it's boiling up, and it's filling the boats and threatening to capsize them. And all this time, Jesus is sound asleep in the back of the boat. Now, the Scriptures tell us,
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What Manner of Man Is This?
that the disciples run to their leader and they shake him awake and they said, Lord, do something or we're going to perish right here on this sea. And so Jesus stands up, looks at the waves, looks at the turbulent waters, and he shouts a command saying, peace! Be still, and instantly the seas like glass, there's not a zephyr blowing in the air, and everything is absolutely calm.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
Now, what would you expect that the reaction of the disciples would be at that? You would think they'd throw their sou'westers in the air and say, thank you, Lord, for removing the threat of nature from us at this moment so wonderfully. But what happens? The Bible says they became exceedingly afraid.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
See, this is the point that Freud didn't consider, that even though we may be afraid of hurricanes and floods and fires and other natural disasters, there's something that is even more frightening to us. than the wind or the sea. It's the presence of God.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
You see, when the disciples saw Jesus tame the storm and the sea by the mere force of his command, they stood back in horror and they asked the question, what kind of man is this? What kind of person is this? Now think about that. You meet new people all the time. You walk down the street, you see strangers coming, and you know that there are people walking around out there who are strange to you.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
You don't know them. And you also know that among those people that you encounter every day, are killers, rapists, murderers, people who are hostile towards other people who could represent a clear and present danger to your life. But they don't wear signs on them. They walk down the street and say, I am a murderer, watch out. I am a rapist, look out, no.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
When you're walking down the street, you're gazing in front of you and you give a quick once over with your eyes towards every person that is approaching you. And you may not even be conscious of this, but while this is going on, you're going through a classification process, a sorting process. You're making an assessment about that stranger that's approaching you on the sidewalk.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
What is his gait like? Is he smiling? Is he frowning? Does he look friendly? Does he look hostile? And all the while you're doing that, you're determining in your mind what kind of person it is that's coming. Because you wanna know, is that person safe or is that person a threat?
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What Manner of Man Is This?
And what happened to the disciples on the Sea of Galilee was they started through that sorting process and it wouldn't compute because they didn't have a category that would describe somebody who had the power to stop a storm just by speaking to it or yelling at it. What manner of man is this? that even the winds and the sea obey Him.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
They had a study a few years ago of the ten most frequent phobias that people have in the United States, and a phobia is a gripping fear. And in that top 10, the number one fear, by the way, was standing up and speaking in front of a group of people. People fear that more than death itself. But in any case, in the top 10, they included xenophobia. And xenophobia is fear of xenos.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
No, what xenophobia is means fear of strangers. Fear of aliens, isn't it interesting how Hollywood makes all the money it does by producing scary movies about the intrusion into our planet of aliens. People or creatures from another planet or from outer space that are terrifying because they're different. We don't know how to handle them.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
Notice how we react to people of different ethnic backgrounds. White people tend to huddle together and live at a distance from black people, and black people live separately from white people. And there's a fear between these people because they're different from each other. And so that's what xenophobia indicates, a fear or a phobia that we have towards people who are different from we are.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
But the person who manifested the most radical difference from us in all of history was Jesus because he was holy. Nobody ever had met a person who was without blemish, who was absolutely pure. And that threatens us. Now, who were the people who were considered the most righteous people in Israel at the time Jesus appeared? It was the Pharisees.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
The Pharisees were a group of people who had dedicated themselves to achieving the highest level of morality they could possibly achieve. Who were the people that were screaming the loudest for the blood of Jesus? It was the Pharisees.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
You see, they enjoyed the acclamation that they received from the people for being so righteous, but their righteousness was revealed as filthy rags as soon as the Holy One appeared in their midst. As soon as the true righteous one came, those who were fraudulently righteous were exposed for what they were and they couldn't stand it. I had a student, I'll never forget this,
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What Manner of Man Is This?
I had a student when I was teaching college several years ago and it was a young lady who was in her senior year in college and she was a straight A student, a four point student and she really was head and shoulders above everybody else in the class. I would give an exam, I couldn't make an exam hard enough to stump her.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
Most of the exams that I gave in philosophy and in theology, I had to grade on a curve. And do you know people who are curve busters, where everybody else in the class is making 50 and 40 and 30, and then there's that one student that makes 100? What happens when you have one student who breaks the curve all the time?
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What Manner of Man Is This?
Does everybody rush up to that person after the class and after the tests have been returned and say, congratulations, we're really proud of you. We think that what you did was fantastic. We wish we could be more like you. Is that your response? Or do you wanna take out a knife and put it in their back and say, I can't stand that goody two shoes.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
Why couldn't you be just like everybody else and flunk this test? Well, this actually happened. I gave a test on one occasion, second semester, senior year, and this girl flunked the test. I couldn't believe it. I said, there's something wrong here. So I called her into my office and I said to her, what's going on here? What happened? How could you flunk this test like this?
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What Manner of Man Is This?
And she started to cry. And I said, What's the matter? And she confessed that she had flunked the test on purpose. She said because her grades were making it impossible for her to get a date. And she was in her second semester of her senior year. She was suffering from what they call senioritis. She had hoped to find a husband while she was in college.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
And she says, none of the guys will take me out because they're intimidated by me because I make these good grades. She was not liked because she was too good. She was too perfect. And so people were uncomfortable around her. Another incident took place during the life of Jesus that's similar to the one I've just indicated, and we'll look at it in Luke's gospel.
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What Manner of Man Is This?
Have you ever noticed something that I at least find strange about people who are not professing Christians? That they sometimes are very hostile towards Christians and hostile to the church, but you almost never hear them say unkind things about Jesus. They're not willing to affirm his deity or that he is the savior of the world.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
God is saying centuries before Jesus cleansed the temple that the people had already defiled the temple. They're going through the ritual on the Sabbath day. They're going through all of the machinations of religion, but their lives are pagan during the rest of the week. They are religious, but they are not faithful. Their religion is phony.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
This is anticipating Christ's reaction in the New Testament when He cleansed the temple. And God is saying centuries before Jesus cleansed the temple that the people had already defiled the temple. They're going through the ritual on the Sabbath day. They're going through all of the machinations of religion. but their lives are pagan during the rest of the week.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
They are religious, but they are not faithful. Their religion is phony. And that's what Jeremiah is talking about here. And so God says, I know what you people are doing. You have taken my house, the house that is called by my name, and turned it in a place that mocks what it's about. Now what is he going to do about it? Now we really come to the hard part. Verse 12, but go now to my place and
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
We now turn our attention to one of the most famous speeches that was ever given by a prophet in the Old Testament, and I'm thinking of the famous so-called temple speech of the prophet Jeremiah. We have the record of Jeremiah's temple speech in the seventh chapter of his book. Let's look then at Jeremiah chapter 7, beginning at verse 1.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
And now because you have done all these works, says the Lord, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear, and I called you, but you did not answer, therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to this place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. Do you hear what Jeremiah is saying?
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
He's standing in front of this magnificent temple and he's saying, you people come here and you say, this is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. And you're trusting in your recitations because you think you're secure because you have the temple here. Well, here's what God says, go to Shiloh and look at it. And that's what Jerusalem is going to look like.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
Well, they knew what Shiloh was. Shiloh was a place which was one of the earliest places of worship in Israel. It had been the central sanctuary where people came to offer their sacrifices and to give worship before God until Jerusalem became the capital city under David and then became the central sanctuary where the temple was built. And at this point in history, Shiloh is rubble.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
Shiloh had been utterly devastated and destroyed. Nothing was left but garbage and heaps of stone. And Jeremiah, you think your confidence is in this building, is in the religious trappings here? Go to Shiloh. That's my exhibit A. I destroyed it because of the wickedness of the people of Israel, and I'll do it to Jerusalem."
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
This was the hardest message any prophet ever had to give, to announce to the people of Israel that Jerusalem was going to be destroyed. And Jeremiah taught it, Isaiah taught it, and all the false prophets denied it until the year 586 B.C. when the Babylonians came in and destroyed the city and carried the people away captive. And after the exile, the city had to be restored.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
The city had to be rebuilt. The walls had to be rebuilt. The temple had to be rebuilt. And then when Jesus came, and in the last days of his life, he came to the temple and he turned to his disciples and he said, not one stone is going to be left upon another of this building. And God did it again. In 70 AD, he ripped the city apart. because the people put their confidence in the institution.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
They put their trust and their devotion to the religion rather than to the living God. Go to Shiloh and look at it. I will cast you out of my sight as I have cast out all your brethren the whole posterity of Ephraim." A hard saying indeed. In every generation, people have put their confidence in their religious connections. The church is indeed a sacred institution.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
The visible church is not to be despised. Christ established His church, and the church is to be the body of our Lord Himself. But it is so easy for the church as an institution to become, instead of the body of Christ, a substitution for Christ. And in that sense, the institution becomes anti-Christ insofar as it is a substitute that stands against the living Christ.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
Now, for those who put their faith in the institution instead of Christ, they are trusting in a lie. The church cannot save you. The church did not die for you. The church cannot redeem you. The church did not purchase you. The church is not your Savior. The church is the body of the Savior. It is the house of the Savior. But we need to understand the difference.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
"...the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Stand in the gate of the Lord's house and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who enter in at these gates to worship the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel." amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
Do not trust in these lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. All right, now what's going on here? Jeremiah is instructed by God to go to the very gates of Jerusalem. there at the entrance to the temple itself in Zion, the holy city of God. God requires Jeremiah to deliver God's message.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
He tells Jeremiah to preface his sermon or his announcements by saying, "'Thus saith the Lord.'" Now the way in which Jeremiah begins is to call the people to solemn attention. Hear, O Israel. That is reminiscent of the Shema in the book of Deuteronomy. When God is calling for the attention of all of the people, He says to them, Hear, O O Israel, hear, O inhabitants of Jerusalem.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
That means that God is about to make a divine pronouncement that is of extreme importance. Now, Jeremiah comes and makes this announcement saying, Hear the word of the Lord, all of you of Judah who enter at these gates to worship the Lord. This is a message that is not given in church. It's a message given at the front of the church, if you will. If you can imagine Sunday morning at your church,
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
where all the people are coming from the parking lot and standing outside the front door of the church before the service has begun. And then suddenly this stranger appears and begins to give a sermon on the sidewalk. what would you think? You may be inclined to call the police or simply to drown out the preacher with your boos and your expressions of derision.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
But that's what God calls Jeremiah to do, to stand right in front of the gate of Jerusalem and give this message. And he says, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. There's something already strange about the message. What do you mean, amend our ways and our doings and you will cause us to dwell in this place?
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
Isn't this the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Is this not His city? Haven't we received the holy city of Jerusalem as the promise of God unto all generations? The Jewish people at this point in their history were utterly convinced that Jerusalem was indestructible. Other cities may fall. Other cities may be conquered in battle, but never Jerusalem.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
The walls were 150 feet high, but more importantly than the physical protection of the city was the divine protection because this was God's city. This was the capital established by David, and it was unthinkable to the Jews that anything could ever happen to disrupt or disturb the peace of Jerusalem.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
But there's something strange in the opening words of Jeremiah's speech, amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. But you hear the conditional hint of the words, the suggestion that's already being made that if they don't amend their ways and their doings, something dire, something dreadful, something unspeakable, could happen to Jerusalem itself.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
And Jeremiah goes on to say, do not trust in these lying words. The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. Now, some of you recall that in the past we did a study of the holiness of God, and we look closely at the sixth chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
where Isaiah had the vision into the heavenly sanctuary, where he saw the seraphim surrounding the throne of God, singing in antiphonal response to the glory of God, singing the trisagion, the three times holy, saying, holy, holy, holy. And on that occasion, I took the opportunity
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
to mention to you the singular importance of the literary form of the expression of the angelic host by taking the word holy and saying it three times. And I mentioned how extraordinary and how unusual that was because among the Jews, one of the means, one of the literary devices or techniques of communication that the Jews used to communicate emphasis was repetition.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
And the normal way of calling attention to something extremely important was to say it twice, just as Jesus prefaces some of His most important teaching to His disciples by saying, truly, truly I say unto you.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
But I also mentioned at that time that on a few occasions, extremely rare occasions in Scripture, something is deemed so important that it is elevated to the third degree, the superlative degree. It's repeated twice and therefore said three times. And we looked and we saw the significance of the angels declaring that God is not simply holy or even holy, holy, but that He is holy, holy, holy.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
In the book of Revelation, when the vials and the bowls of God's wrath are poured out upon the world, we see the announcement of the angelic being flying through the darkness of the night, crying out, woe, woe, The threefold announcement of doom indicates an extraordinary measure of divine judgment.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
Well, here what we find is Jeremiah is saying to the people, you come here to your church, you come here to the temple, and you say, this is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. Why does he do that? Why does Jeremiah make use of this literary device of repetition to the third degree?
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
What Jeremiah is doing here is emphasizing and underscoring the radical degree of the hypocrisy of the people. the people who think that by empty repetitions, by saying over and over and over again, this is the temple of the Lord, this is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
that they have done something holy or meritorious or something that now has magical power to sustain them and to protect them forever against the judgment of God. Now notice that Jeremiah called these words that were recited and repeated by the people who were so caught up in their churchmanship. And in their cultic practices, he called them lying words. Strange, because they're not lies.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
This was the temple of the Lord. Why does Jeremiah say that these are lying words? Because these words express the truth. But they were not proclaiming the truth truthfully. Rather, these words had become, even though the words themselves were true descriptions, they became lying words in the mouths of those who were bringing false worship into the presence of God.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
Just because a church is a church does not mean it's a church. Now, that may sound ridiculous, but what I mean by that, it can be a church outwardly But if it doesn't obey the Lord of the church, it's no longer really a church. And we can't put our trust in the building or even in the institution.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
As important as those things may be, what God is most interested in is our relationship to Him, our faith in Him, and our obedience to Him. And if we are disobedient to God, we cannot take refuge in our church membership or in our church affiliation. That's the warning that Jeremiah gives while he continues.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
Again, speaking for God, for if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to your heart,
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
Then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever. Then the next word should also get our attention. Behold. Isn't that an interesting word? Find that frequently in Scripture, don't you? When the angels come and they make an announcement, behold. Behold. We remember Mary when her response to Gabriel, Behold the handmaiden of the Lord.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
We remember Pontius Pilate standing on his porch of judgment presenting Christ to the screaming mob saying, Ecce homo, behold the man. That word behold means look here. It's a call to attention. And here Jeremiah says, Behold You trust in lying words, words that cannot profit. Let me talk about a hard saying. To come to the people of Israel in the very front of the temple of
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
As we continue now with our study of the hard sayings of the prophets, those sayings that when we read them or hear them strike us as either being extraordinarily harsh or unusually difficult to understand.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
and say to them, the creeds that you're professing, the liturgy that you're using have become now dishonest expressions and words that are empty, words that are vain, words that are deceitful, words that are hypocritical, and that kind of language, those words are futile. They are useless. They are words that cannot profit. These people were talking the talk, but they were not walking the walk.
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Jeremiah’s Temple Speech
Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know, and then come and stand before me in this house which is called by name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? Has this house which is called by my name become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, I, even I have seen it, says the Lord."
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God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
We can be so puffed up with our own righteousness. We have so deceived ourselves against the depth of corruption that still resides in our hearts that we have not learned humility. We have not learned grace. We have not learned to depend completely on the righteousness of Christ. We begin to take confidence in our own righteousness, which is filthy rags.
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God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
Whether it's Bing Crosby or whoever, Mozart, we just go into that. Well, a couple of days ago, I was Lamont Cranston. And his girlfriend, of course, his name was Margo. So all day long, I called Vesta Margo. But when she first woke me up, she knew the night before, she said, who are you going to be tomorrow? I said, I'm going to be the shadow tomorrow.
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God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
So when she wakes me up the next morning, the first thing I said to her was, who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Because that was, of course, the intro to The Shadow. But the question, who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The answer to that is not the shadow, but God. And God alone knows and plumbs the depths of wickedness that is present in
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
In each of our hearts, even in the hearts of the redeemed, there's still so much evil left in this world before our glorification that if God would not sustain us by His grace, if He would not check and bridle us by His grace, we would be caught up in the worst kinds of sins ever. And so sometimes God has to remind us that we only stand by His grace.
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God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
Boy, watch out if we start becoming self-righteous and we start being judgmental of other people in the world and looking at the unbeliever and saying, huh, you know, look at that wicked person. Instead of there but for the grace of God, go I. And so God sometimes will
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God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
even to the first fall of the human race and to the sins of people in this world, and not simply by a bare passive permission of God, but in a way that He orders and governs and so on. And now we come to another semicolon where we get a proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God, who being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be. the author or approver of sin.
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will allow that corruption free reign, stop his bridling of it and his checking of it in order to bring us to a proper humbling of our spirit. It's a dreadful thing to fall in the hands of the living God. And that's why, I mean, this idea of grace cannot just simply be a pious word that we use and bat back and forth with no thought to it. I mean, we live every second by grace and by grace alone.
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And so, to discover unto them the hidden strength, the hidden strength of It was at C.S. Lewis that called it that hideous strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts. Nothing is more deceitful. Our hearts are deceitfully wicked, the Bible says, above all things. The greatest deceit lies in our own hearts.
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God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
That they may be humbled, semicolon again, and to raise them to a more close relationship and constant dependence for their support upon Himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends." Again, God's leaving us to our own corruptions for a season is one of those things that we've been looking at already with divine providence.
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God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
It's a means to an end. And the end is a redemptive end. It is a good goal. It is a holy end, a holy purpose, so that when God turns His back on me for a season, it's not to abandon me fully and finally, but to bring me closer to Him into a deeper relationship with Him. You know, Thomas the Campos in The Imitation of Christ, that Christian classic,
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God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
said it's an extraordinary thing for the best of saints to conquer one bad habit in their lifetime. There is so much sin that still resides in the best of Christian people. How's the old poem go? The country preacher said, there's so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us that it ill behooves the best of us to talk about the rest of us.
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God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
That's the simple lesson that is before us here. Now in section 6, the scope of the consideration changes. As for those wicked and ungodly men whom God as a righteous judge for former sins doth blind and harden, let me put the comma there and just pause for the couple of minutes we have left to just in passing mention this, that the Bible does speak about God's blinding people. hardening people.
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God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
Jesus spoke in parables so that those who didn't want to see the things of God would be blinded. Those who didn't want to have God in their thinking, didn't want to hear the Word of God would be made deaf. That when God blinds, when God hardens, He does that always as a judgment. You see, we protest against that. We say, well, how can God be mad at us for not seeing him when he makes us blind?
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God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
How can God be mad at us for not hearing him when he makes us deaf? Well, the reason he makes us deaf is because we don't want to hear him. And what he does is he judges us with a kind of poetic justice. Let him who is wicked be wicked still. If you don't want to hear me, if you despise my word, fine. There's going to come a place where I'm going to make you deaf.
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so that you wouldn't be able to hear it if you wanted to. If you can't stand the sight of my glory, I'm going to make you blind to it. If you have a heart that's hard, I'm going to make it harder still as a judgment for your previous sin. We have to understand that every single time the Bible talks about God's hardening people in that manner, it is based upon judgment.
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a prior wickedness for which the hardening is a just and righteous punishment.
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God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
You see, the reason why it tells us that God can't be the author of sin or the approver of sin is because for God to approve sin, or to author sin, actually do sin, would be to act against His own nature, which is altogether holy, so that the law of His own person makes it utterly impossible for Him to do these things.
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God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
Sometimes we think the doctrine of God's omnipotence means that God can do anything. The Bible says with God all things are possible, but that is circumscribed by other teachings of the Scripture. With God all things consistent with His nature are possible, but it's not possible for God to be God and not be God at the same time and in the same relationship. It's not possible for God to die.
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God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
It's not possible for God to lie, and it's not possible for God to sin. It's not only that he doesn't sin, but he's utterly incapable of it because the necessary conditions for sin to take place don't exist in God's moral character. And so, as strongly as section 4 affirms the extension of God's providence over sin, it equally affirms that the sinfulness of that sin
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God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
resides strictly with the creature and not with the Creator at all. Again, yet in such a way that the sinfulness thereof, that is of these sins, proceeds only from the creature and not from God. who being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or the approver of sin.
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God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
So again, we see in summary that what section 4 is saying is that God's providence, His power, His goodness, and His wisdom extends over all things, including the fall, that God in a certain sense ordained that the fall should take place, but that the end would come not through His sinful behavior, but through the free sinful choices of His creatures. out of whose hearts come that wickedness.
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
Let's go to section 5 that relates God's providence to our sins. The most wise, righteous, and gracious God doth oftentimes leave for a season His own children to manifold temptations. Common, let me stop there for a second. that God will, in His graciousness, in His goodness, often will leave us open to manifold temptations. Now, let me just pause for a second.
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
Does not James tell us in the New Testament, let no man say when he is tempted that he is tempted of God? Because James goes on to explain that temptations arise from within ourselves. that God never lures us into sin or entices us to sin or tries to tempt us, as the tempter might, to sin. And yet in the Lord's Prayer, what do we pray? Lead us not into temptation.
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
The petition that our Lord gives us there as the model prayer skirts right along the boundary of blasphemy if the implication is drawn from that, that God might indeed be the one who would tempt us.
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
But in order to understand what is involved there in the Lord's Prayer, we have to understand the literary form in which it comes to us, because it involves a literary form common in Hebrew literature called parallelism, where there are stanzas set in juxtaposition one with another, and if you look at both of them, they'll shed light on each of the particulars.
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
Because if you look at that, it says, "...lead us not into temptation, but..." what? Deliver us from evil. What that means is this. First of all, it's a bad translation because evil in the abstract. Evil is a neuter noun, not masculine or feminine. In this case, the noun is masculine.
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
And the normal translation for the word that is used there, poneiros, that is translated evil, is the word or the phrase the evil one. So a more precise translation would be this, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. What is Jesus saying?
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
Ask that your Father not deliver you over to the place of testing, that the Father may not put you to the test like he put me to the test. God never tempts us to sin in the sense of entices us to sin, but He will from time to time put us to the test as He put Abraham to the test, as He put Jesus to the test.
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
And remember the great blessedness that Job enjoyed before Satan assaulted him that God had built a hedge around him. to protect him from the assaults of Satan. And so our Lord tells us that when you pray, Ask for God's grace. Ask God to protect you from being exposed to the unbridled assault of the tempter in your life. You're not asking that God Himself won't tempt you.
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
He will test us, but He'll never tempt us in the sense of, again, enticing us to sin. But He may, for His perfect and holy reasons. leave us for a season and expose us to manifold temptations. Now let's back up a minute and ask a couple questions.
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
The two clearest examples of human beings being placed in a position of testing in Scripture are Adam in the Garden of Eden and Jesus in the Judean wilderness. Now, in both cases, it was God who put the first Adam and the second Adam to the test. I'm going to ask a question to you that to ask the question is to answer it. Was it a sin for God to put Adam to the test?
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
Was it a sin for the Father to drive the Son into the wilderness to be tested? is there anything wrong with God putting a creature to a test of righteousness? There's no violation of His own holiness to do that. We may not like to be placed in that position, but God has every right to leave us to manifold temptations, to expose us to the assaults that come to us for his own righteous purposes.
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
What are those? They go on to say here, he leaves his own children to manifold temptations and the corruptions of their own hearts. for a season. This is not ultimately. God never abandons us ultimately. His ultimate punishment for the impenitent sinner in hell is abandonment, is leaving them to their own corruptions, giving them over to their own sinfulness. You know, this is what makes
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
the ecclesiastical act of excommunication, such a ghastly thing. Because what you're doing when you excommunicate somebody is cutting them off.
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
from the concentration of the means of grace that are there in the fellowship of the body of Christ and exposing them now for a season to the unprotected assault of Satan with the hopes that if that person is a true Christian, they'll come fleeing back for their redemption. And God, for disciplining us, may leave us, even His own children,
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
Thank God only for a season to the devices of our own corruption. You know, Christians, every Christian is capable of falling into sin, not just minor sin, but gross and heinous sin. and you see someone who was a professing Christian, maybe even a pillar of the Christian community, falling into gross and heinous sin, and the first question you ask is, was that person really a Christian?
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
And the answer is, maybe, maybe not. Because people who are not Christians make professions of faith in Christ and fool us all because we can't read their hearts, and then all of a sudden they resort to their own nature and their wickedness is made manifest, and they're never Christians at all. Or maybe that it's a Christian, a truly converted person, who is caught up in a gross and heinous sin.
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
Christians can do that. Christians can fall, and they can fall radically and seriously. What they can't do is fall fully and finally. So when you see someone in this particular condition, you haven't seen the rest of the story. So you can't know for sure whether it's somebody who made a false profession or somebody who made a true profession, but has fallen into a very serious state of sin.
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
And God will let his own children from time to time remain in such states of corruption before sending His Holy Spirit to convict them, to convince them, and to bring them back and to restore them to His grace. He may chastise them for their former sins.
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
Or to discover unto them, that is to reveal to them, the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled. That's why the warning is so severe. Let him who stands take heed lest he fall. And that the Bible says pride... The Bible doesn't say pride goes before the fall. That's one of those misquotes.
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
We're going to continue now with our study of the providence of God as it's found in the fifth chapter of the Westminster Confession in our last session. We were looking at section four, and we didn't quite complete that entire section. You will recall, I trust, that in that very troublesome affirmation that God's providence extends,
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
It says in the Proverbs, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before the fall. We can be so puffed up with our own righteousness. We have so deceived ourselves against the depth of corruption that still resides in our hearts. That we have not learned humility. We have not learned grace. We have not learned to depend completely on the righteousness of Christ.
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
We begin to take confidence in our own righteousness, which is filthy rags. I play a game with my wife. This is one of the silliest games you'll ever hear of, I think. And I'm almost embarrassed to tell you about it. But we have this little game. We have fun, and you'll think it's nuts, but I take on a different persona every day in our relationship.
Renewing Your Mind
God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
One day last week, I was Sherlock Holmes, and so during the day when my wife would ask me a question, I would say, elementary, my dear Vesta, and I would play the character of Sherlock Holmes. Today I was Popeye the Sailor Man. I am who I am who I am. Popeye the Sailor Man I am. And we'd talk, make jokes about olive oil and sweet pea and spinach and the rest. So we do this.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
I suddenly had a whole new understanding of the character of God the Father. Now, when I say a new understanding, I mean a different understanding. No longer could I look at God as kind of a celestial Santa Claus, a cosmic bellhop who was on call to respond to every one of my requests and my commands. No longer could I think of faith as being something that began and ended in my experience.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
That is, I had surrendered something in my soul, and I walked downstairs from the classroom. I went to the registrar's office, and I went in there and changed my major from Bible to philosophy. Now, when I did that, some of my friends thought that I had gone through a crisis of faith and that I'd lost my faith. They said, you mean you're not going to be studying the Bible anymore?
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
I said, oh, no, I'm going to study every class that I can possibly take in the Bible. I haven't changed my view of Scripture at all. They said, but why would you get involved in the study of philosophy? I said, because I want to read the writings of men like Augustine and others who have penetrated faith.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
to the depth of understanding that is humanly possible of the character and the nature of God, this God whom I received a glimpse of today. I have to know. in greater depth. I have to know more about this One who bestows and who reveals and who manifests such magnificent greatness and excellence. And so I changed my major for that reason, not because I was interested in speculative philosophy.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
but because I wanted to get the tools in order to go as deeply as I possibly could in my soul's quest for God. You see, what I experienced that afternoon would not let me sleep. It wasn't enough for me to think about it. It wasn't enough for me to study it. I didn't want simply an abstract understanding of ideas. What now I wanted more than anything else was to meet this God alone.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
And when I went to my bed that night, before I went to bed, I got on my knees and I sought him there. by the bed, but it wasn't enough. Now, I know that God is not isolated to the confines of a church building, but there is something about a sanctuary that is holy ground.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
There's something about the front door to a church that marks a threshold from the profane to the sacred, from the secular to the holy. Even in Israel, in the tabernacle and the temple, there was a place within that sanctuary that was called the holy place. And even the holy place was separated by this massive veil.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
Sometimes I think it seems to us that nothing ever changes. We feel like we're in a personal rut and that our lives just repeat a certain sameness over and over again. But that is not reality. The reality is that we do change and that we change every single day of our lives. But most of the changes that we undergo are superficial. We add some weight, we reduce and so on.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
from the inner sanctum that was called the sanctus sanctorum, the holy of holies, where only the high priest could go, and that only after elaborate rituals of ceremonial cleansing, and then only once a year. I was looking for a place like that. And that's why I had to get out of bed. And that's why I had to walk through the cold and through the snow. to go to that chapel.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
Again, not because I believed that was the only place God was present, but in there somehow I found a refuge, a haven, a sanctuary where I could be still and know that he was God. And I was not disappointed. That private and personal experience that I had in that chapel was a life-changing experience for me. And it was the beginning of a lifelong pursuit of the holiness of God.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
I think that's really easy to answer. When I became a Christian, I had one of those sudden dramatic conversions, like a Damascus Road conversion. And my virginal reading of the Bible, beginning at Genesis and reading through the Old Testament, You talk about shock and awe.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
The whole concept of God revealed to me on the pages of the Old Testament was utterly foreign from anything I'd ever been exposed to in the Christian culture in America. The God of the Old Testament was systematically hidden from view, from my view at least, growing up in a liberal church.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
And all of a sudden, when I was converted to Christ and I was confronted with the biblical portrait of Yahweh, the God of holiness, the Most High God, I quaked in my boots and I said, ìThis God is a God who plays for keeps. And if Iím going to be a Christian, I canít mess around with it as a religion. This has to be my life.î
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
And that's what came across to me through my maiden reading of the Bible. And then as I began to study more thoroughly—actually, you know, when I was in college, this was going on. First of all, I was a history major. Then with my conversion, I changed to a Bible major. But I had to take some courses in philosophy, which I thought were dry as dust, until about halfway through the semester—
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
the professor began to lecture on St. Augustine's doctrine of creation. And it was like I had a second conversion experience. I mean, I'll never forget sitting in that room, listening to this man lecturing on Augustine's exposition of divine creation. And again, it was a question of shock and awe. I had like a conversion to God the Father. I went down and I changed my major to philosophy.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
I still took a lot of Bible classes, but I wanted to go into the deeper dimensions of Christian thought with people like Aquinas and Augustine. others.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
And I began to see, as my studies unfolded, particularly in seminary and in graduate school, that when I would read a Calvin or a Luther or an Edwards or an Augustine or a Thomas Aquinas, the greatest titanic intellectuals of Christian history, though they differed at many points on fine issues of doctrine, the one thing that came across in all of them
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
is that they were overwhelmed by the transcendent majesty of God. It was in the writings of these great men, as well as in the pages of Scripture, that I found the transcendent holiness of God an inescapable aspect of who He was. And I have to say this. This is something I've got to be very forthright about.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
But changes in our personality, in the very direction of our lives, are for the most part gradual and almost imperceptible. But I think every one of us has experienced crisis moments in our lives that have radically altered the direction of our personalities and of our careers.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
Because I talk so much about the holiness of God, people look at me and think I'm some kind of saint. You know, they think, well, Anybody that's that interested in holiness must really be a paragon of virtue and a really holy person. And I'm saying, you don't understand. You don't get it. You know, I came from the streets. I had a lot of rough edges when I came into the Christian faith.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
And what I discovered was I could play games with myself and with my own conscience and with my own shortcomings until I would confront again sin. the most high God. And I have to focus my attention on the holiness of God, not because I'm holy, but because I'm not holy. But the holiness of God is not something I dread or fear.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
I delight in it because I know there's something so much greater than anything I've achieved or anything I see out there that I've long ago got past the idea of dreading God's holiness. I delight in it, even though it overpowers me.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
If you think back over your life, you will be able to identify, I'm sure, a handful of crisis experiences, crisis moments that forever afterwards changed the course of your life. But when I think over my own life, I always go back to a moment in the year 1958. It took place in the dead of winter during my years in college.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
I was lying in bed one night and it was close to midnight and my body was tired. I'd had a big day, but I couldn't get to sleep. I remember turning my head from one side of the pillow to the other side, trying to find a way that I would be able to drift off into peaceful slumber, but I couldn't do it.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
My mind was racing, and I had this overwhelming urge to get up out of bed and leave the building where I would stay. And so I swung my legs out over the bed, and I got into my clothes, and I went out into the night. And it was a bitter cold night. I remember it vividly. It had snowed the entire day long into the evening. But by now, nearing midnight, the skies had cleared. There was a full moon.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
The stars were bright in the heavens. And it was one of those ghostly moments in a country, rural setting after a fresh snowfall. where the night was silent and still, and we had this beautiful blanket of snow across the fields and hanging from the limbs of the trees. And I began to make my way up the street in this little college town in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. No one else was out.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
And there was this eerie silence, and I was left alone with my thoughts. I could hear the ice crunching under my feet as I was walking up the street, and I made my way deliberately to the college chapel. Now, if you can visualize it, the college chapel was adjacent to the chief administration building of the college that was called Old Main. And Old Main was adorned with this huge tower,
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
And in the tower, there was this large clock like Big Ben, and every 15 minutes, the chimes from that clock would reverberate clear across the quadrangle of the central portion of that campus. And as I was walking toward the chapel, it was so quiet, and it was almost exactly midnight,
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
that I could hear the gears in the mechanism of the clock shift and change and sort of clunk together before the chimes rang at midnight. And then following the chimes, there was the striking of the hour. And it was always my custom in those days, because I could hear those hours being chimed even as far away as I was staying.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
And I would lie in bed and I would listen to the chimes and count them every time to make sure that the clock was correct. But this night, it happened to be exactly midnight. as I approached the front entrance to the chapel and I counted the striking of the chimes to the number 12. And then I opened the front door of the chapel and it was a huge oak arched doorway into a gothic
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
Now my attention was not on the one who was saved, namely myself, but on the one who had reached out from heaven to meet me, to redeem me, to forgive me, and to claim my life for him.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
mini cathedral, if you will. And as I walked in that door, hearing every sound that the door made as I opened it, the creaking door, it was spooky. Because normally when we'd walk into the chapel, we'd be going in there with hundreds and a couple of thousand students at the same time milling about, and all of those sounds would be muffled by clothing and footsteps and people
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
having conversation, but this night every single sound was accentuated by the silence. And I walked in there and the door closed behind me and I was thrown into utter darkness. I had to stand in the foyer. of the chapel to allow my eyes to adjust to the darkness because the only light was that light from the moon that was kind of seeping through the stained glass windows.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
And I waited a few moments and then began to walk down the center aisle of the chapel. And have you ever been in a church at night? that is adorned with stained glass windows. In the daylight, each one of those windows acts something as a prism, and the illumination and refulgence of the light that comes makes the stained glass window a spectacle of unspeakable beauty. But at night,
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
When the light is almost non-existent, what you see standing out on the lights are the lead portions that separate the panes in the windows. And that's what I remember. As I walked in there, it was frightening. And I carefully went down the center aisle, and my footsteps sounded like hobnail boots of German soldiers marching on cobblestone streets.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
I could hear them reverberating throughout the chapel. And finally, I reached the front of the chapel, and there was a rug on the chancel stairs. And I knelt at that place. And the first sensation that I had was a sensation of a foreboding loneliness. I sensed that I was absolutely alone. And then almost in an instant, I was overcome by the sense of another presence. It was almost tactile.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
It was like I could reach out and touch the massive presence of God. And I didn't say anything. I didn't pray, either aloud or silently. I just knelt there and more or less basked in this sensation of being in the presence of God. And I had an inner conflict of two emotions that seemed to be colliding in my heart. On the one hand, I had this dreadful fear.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
I had this sensation, this chill that began at the base of my spine and ran all the way up my back and into my fingers, and I had goosebumps on my flesh. I was clearly frightened by the sense of the presence of God, and yet at the same time, I felt drawn. to luxuriate, to bask in that moment, and I sensed an overwhelming flood of peace come into my soul.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
And it was one of those experiences that I wanted to continue forever. I didn't want to move. I just wanted to stay there in quiet, peaceful ecstasy.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
Now, the reason I went there, the reason I walked through this cold night and along the snow and the streets, and I saw the icicles that had formed on the eaves of the buildings as I was walking up those streets, almost like gargoyles of nature, they added to the terror somewhat. The reason I made this mini pilgrimage was because of what had happened that afternoon in a classroom.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
I had been a Christian for a little over a year and my conversion to Christ was, up until this evening, obviously the most dramatic changing point in my life. I had fallen in love with Jesus And my life turned upside down. My friends thought I had lost my mind. They couldn't get over this transformation and concern that had marked my personality.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
And I was obsessed with learning the Bible in that first year. In fact, my first semester as a freshman, I made an A in gym. and an A in Bible and all the rest Ds because I didn't care to learn anything else but the scriptures. I just spent my whole time devouring the Bible.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
And we had a course that was required in our freshman year in the introduction of the Old Testament the first semester and introduction to the New Testament the second semester. And I resolved that the professor would never be able to ask me a question on an examination that I couldn't answer. And he gave these long objective tests, whose uncle was married to whose grandmother and so on.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
And it was almost a game with me. I wanted to master every one of the details of Scripture because that's all I cared about. Now, the second year, I was still finishing up course requirements that I needed in order to graduate, and one of them was a course in the introduction to philosophy. And I hated it.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
I thought it was the most boring, dry waste of time that I had yet to this point experienced in my academic training. And what I used to do in philosophy class was sit at the last row where the professor would have a hard time seeing me and I would prop up my notebook
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
in front of me and hide inside that notebook a little printed version of the latest sermon from Billy Graham, because that's all I wanted to read about was religion and to hear about was things of Christianity. I could care less about Kant and Hume and Locke and the philosophers that were so dull to my ears.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
But that day, the professor was lecturing on Saint Augustine, and he was speaking about Augustine's understanding of the creation of the universe. And he read to us portions from the works of St. Augustine. And almost against my will, even though I was trying not to listen, I couldn't help but hear what the man was saying.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
And so slowly and reluctantly, I put the Billy Graham sermon aside and began to pay attention to this teaching from St. Augustine. And Augustine was talking about the transcendent power of God by which he could bring an entire universe into being by the sheer force of his command.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
He was describing what Augustine called the divine imperative or the divine fiat, that powerful command by which God could say simply, let there be light, and the lights would come on. And as I listened to this, I had a sudden epiphany.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
of the grandeur, of the otherness, of the majesty of God, that even in my first year of absorption of interest in studying the scriptures, I had never fully realized. And what happened was almost like a second conversion experience for me. I had gone through this conversion to Christ. I had fallen in love with Jesus, the second person of the Trinity.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
But on this occasion, listening to this exposition of Genesis from one of the greatest minds in church history, St. Augustine, I suddenly had a whole new understanding of the character of God the Father. Now, when I say a new understanding, I mean a different understanding.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
No longer could I look at God as kind of a celestial Santa Claus, a cosmic bellhop who was on call to respond to every one of my requests and my commands. No longer could I think of faith as being something that began and ended in my experience. Now my attention was not on the one who was saved, namely myself, but on the one who had reached out from heaven to meet me, to redeem me, to forgive me.
Renewing Your Mind
The Otherness of God
and to claim my life for Him. And I began to get a new understanding of the God I had to deal with. And I remember when the class was over, I was stunned. I didn't say anything to the professor. I didn't say anything to my friends in the class. I walked out of the room, not in a spirit of excitement, but in a sober sense almost of reservation.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
At what point did God regenerate us? At what point did God make us alive? While we were dead, while we were utterly helpless, while we were completely morally unable to cooperate with the gospel or to respond to the divine summons, we first had to be made alive. And that is the action of God.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
We believe and teach the doctrine of justification by faith alone. And so in terms of the order of salvation, we say that faith comes before justification. But how long does a person have to have faith before they're justified? It's instantaneous. So the order of faiths coming before justification is not an order in time. It's not a temporal sequence. It's a logical sequence.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
We're going to begin with chapter 2. I'll be reading verses 1 through 10. And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
That is, justification logically depends upon faith. Faith does not logically depend upon justification. Am I going too fast? We got this? All right. Now he says that prior to our regeneration, our quickening, our being made alive by God the Holy Spirit, we walked according to this sinful nature that we have, and we were by nature, our constituent nature, children of wrath.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
The idea is that being a child of wrath is not an accident of birth. It's the essence of our fallen humanity. Now, again, that flies in the face of everything you've been taught from the time you were in kindergarten, that we are all by nature children of God. But the Bible says we are by nature children of wrath, children of Satan.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
There are very few times that I disagree with Calvin, but I differ with him on one point when he says newborn babies are as depraved as rats. I don't like that because I think it's an insult to the rat. The rat does what rats are made to do. They like to eat cheese and run away from cats.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
but newborn babies are born as children of wrath, dead in sin, born in a state of moral corruption, morally incapable of changing ourselves. We can no more change ourselves from our fallen condition than the Ethiopian can change the color of his skin or a leopard can change his spot.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
Now again, this flies in the face of all of that that you've heard, that you are the one who has to make that final decision of whether you're going to be saved or not. But Paul says, you were made alive. You were changed from this course you were on and from being under and living according to the power of the prince of this world. How?
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
In verse four, does he say, but you who finally came to your senses, exercised your free will and fled to Christ to be healed by him. There's no you in this passage, but rather it's but God. I used to have a needlepoint thing in a frame that one of our ladies who came to our Bible studies in Ligonier 100 years ago, and it simply said, but God.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
Because I said, this is the most important two words you'll ever hear in the Bible. Because what he is saying is that after this dreadful description of our fallen condition, he doesn't say, but you or but man, but it's but God. See that which intervened in the course to which we were walking was God.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
But God who's rich in mercy, this is connected to the whole first chapter when he talked about the mercy of God, that great mercy by which we are saved. Because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Now the question is, at what point did God regenerate us? At what point did God make us alive? While we were dead.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
While we were utterly helpless. While we were completely morally unable to cooperate with the gospel or to respond to the divine summons, we first had to be made alive. And that is the action of God. We call this action of regeneration the divine initiative. We would say that your regeneration, your rebirth, is an action that is altogether monergistic.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
meaning that there's only one actor involved in this activity. It's not a cooperative venture, a joint venture between God and you or God and me. But when you're reborn, it's the activity that God wreaks in our souls and God alone. And he does it while we're dead, as dead as Lazarus was in the tomb. When Paul in Romans talks about calling, he talks about all who are called or justified.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
He's referring not to the outward calling or the preaching of the gospel, but those who are called inwardly. When the Holy Ghost quickens you from spiritual death to spiritual life, this is called an internal calling that affects what God wants it to affect, just as he called the universe into being.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
Just as Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb, so the Holy Spirit called you to faith in Christ, and He didn't wait for you to say, okay. And you know, when I first understood this and learned this, I looked back on my own conversion, and I said, wow, that's certainly true.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
I was as far away from the kingdom of God and as hostile to the kingdom of God as the apostle Paul was when he was on the road to Damascus. I wasn't searching for truth, searching for Christ. When I came to faith, it was like God came to me like on the road to Damascus and opened these blind eyes and deaf ears and changed the disposition of my soul.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
Unless God changes the disposition of your heart, you will never choose Christ. And when He does change the disposition of your heart, you will always choose Christ. Because what regeneration does is not put you back in a state of moral indifference, but the change in the disposition of your heart is radical.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
where before you didn't want God in your thinking, you were totally disinclined to the things of Christ, now He changes the disposition and the inclination of your heart so that now what you want more than anything else is Christ. Now, do you choose Christ? Of course you do. Do you exercise faith in Christ? Of course you do, but not until or unless
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
God the Holy Spirit quickens you from spiritual death.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
This brief passage is one of the most pivotal New Testament passages with respect to two extremely important doctrines in the history of Christian theology. In the first place, as I will endeavor to show in a few moments, this passage weighs heavily on the church's understanding of the doctrine of original sin.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
And secondly, it also speaks profoundly to the controversial question of what is called the ordo salutis, or the order of salvation, that is, the order by which God works to bring us into a state of salvation. And so, it is important that we look at this section of the epistle very carefully that we may be instructed by it.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
Let me begin by talking about the historical controversy with respect to original sin. First, the doctrine of original sin is a doctrine that is held and maintained and confessed by virtually every church in the world council of churches. However, the understanding of the doctrine of original sin varies significantly from denomination to denomination, from theology to theology.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
That is to say, the church historically, since the Pelagian controversy of early centuries, has uniformly confessed that there is such a thing as original sin, but not everyone agrees as to its extent. Again, let me begin by saying that original sin ought not to be confused with the first sin, the sin that Adam and Eve committed in the Garden of Eden.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
Rather, the doctrine of original sin has to do with the consequences of that transgression committed by Adam and Eve. Now, in the early centuries, the first great controversy over original sin erupted when a British monk by the name of Pelagius challenged the teaching of Saint Augustine on this question of original sin. Pelagius argued that the fall of Adam affected Adam and Adam alone.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
It did not make any impact on the constituent nature of humanity. There was no change in human nature that resulted from the fall. Pelagius argued against Augustine that though grace facilitates living a life of righteousness, it is not necessary. That is, that human beings since Adam and Eve and since the garden experience there remain morally capable of living lives of perfect righteousness.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
And indeed, Pelagius argued that some have actually achieved that perfection without any aid from divine grace. One of the points that Pelagius argued was that since God requires moral perfection from his creatures, it would necessarily follow, according to Pelagius' thinking, that we would have the moral ability to meet that requirement.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
Otherwise God would be unjust in requiring us to be perfect when in fact we do not have the ability to be perfect. Now Augustine in response to this argued that the sin of Adam and Eve not only had consequences for the rest of the human race, but that those consequences were radical. And I choose the word radical carefully.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
That is to say, the term radical comes from the Latin rhodex, which means root, or core. Augustine is saying that because of the sin of Adam and Eve, subsequent humanity was affected at its core, and this core affectation has to do with sinful and immoral inclinations.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
In fact, Augustine went so far as to say that in the fallen humanity of human beings, the result of original sin, in fact the very essence of original sin, is that we are left in a state of moral inability. moral inability.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
That's what defines the human condition that the Bible describes as being in the flesh, that our fallen, sinful nature leaves every human being in such a state that no one has the ability in and of himself to incline himself to the righteousness required by God or to the things of God alone.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
that for human beings to be converted to Christianity and to embrace Jesus Christ, that would require an intervention by God the Holy Spirit to change the fallen inclinations of the human heart. Now, in the middle of that dispute, much of the controversy focused on the question of free will.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
And Augustine had argued that prior to the fall, man had free will, a liber arbitrium, and also liberty, which he called libertas. Now, the distinction was this. He said prior to the fall, every creature had the ability to choose righteousness or unrighteousness but the liberty was the ability to incline oneself to the things of God.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
After the fall, Augustine said, what humanity lost was not free will or the liberium arbitrium, but liberty. That is, what was lost after the fall was the moral inclination to do the things of God. man still retained a faculty of choosing, that we were still volitional characters. And since the fall, we still have the power to make choices, and we do make choices every day of our lives.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
The problem is, though free will remains, that free will is the will of a slave. That is, we still have the power to do what we want and to choose what we want, but the desires of our hearts are enslaved to sin. That is, the desires of our hearts are only wicked continually. So you might say, what kind of freedom is that?
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
Well, we still have the kind of freedom, the ability to choose what we want to do. We still have the freedom to sin. but that freedom is at the same time a bondage because our choices are governed and ruled by our fallen humanity, which is inclined only toward disobedience rather than to obedience. Then when he says that the essence of original sin is moral inability,
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
What he meant by that is in our fallen condition, we are unable to do the things of God, unable to choose the things of God. We aren't even able, without the intervention of God's grace, to choose Christ. Now you can see what a tremendous dispute that has created over the centuries of Christian history.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
In between Pelagius, who was condemned by the church as a heretic, and Augustine, there arose a man who tried to seek a synthesis between Pelagius and Augustine, and his theology, John Cusanus, is called semi-Pelagianism. And so I sometimes refer to semi-Pelagianism as being introduced by Pelagius' cousin, Semi. But that's not what it meant.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
Semi-Pelagianism tried to take a middle ground and say that yes, Adam's sin affected all of his subsequent progeny. And it did change the constituent nature of humanity. and that there is such a thing as original sin, and it is necessary to have God's grace in our lives before we can ever possibly be redeemed.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
So all of those points, Cusanus was in radical disagreement with Pelagius, yet at the same time, He also differed with Augustine, particularly with Augustine's doctrine of predestination and moral inability, saying that even though the fall is serious and it has powerfully weakened our ability to choose the things of God, there still remains a remnant of moral inability.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
inclination to the things of God so that when the gospel is offered to us, we still have the power and the volitional ability to say yes or no to the gospel.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
I might add, interestingly enough, that Semi-Pelagianism was also condemned as heretical at that period in church history, leaving room for the triumph of Augustinianism, which of course has been the classical view of Reformed theology, and we remember that Martin Luther, who was a monk in Erfurt, was of the Augustinian order, and no prior theologian influenced Luther as much as did Augustine.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
And so Luther's teaching on predestination, for example, and on the bondage of the will, which he wrote about more extensively than John Calvin ever dreamed about, was basically a consistent exposition of what Augustine had taught before him. Also, in terms of the theologians of antiquity, none influenced John Calvin more than did Augustine.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
So at their core, both Luther and Calvin were thoroughly Augustinian in their understanding, A, of original sin, and B, of the moral inability of fallen humanity.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
Now, with respect to the order of salvation or the ordo salutis, which is the other matter that is so vitally important to this text and is also inseparably related, though may be distinguished from the issue of original sin, has to do with the question, What comes first and so on in the order of our salvation?
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
Paul, for example, in Romans 8, gives us a partial order of salvation when he talks about those whom he foreknew that he also predestined, those whom he predestined that he also called, those whom he called that he also justified, those whom he justified that he also glorified. Now, there's an order there that goes in a sequence.
Renewing Your Mind
Dead in Sin, Made Alive in Christ
Now when we talk about that order of salvation, however, it's important to understand the distinction between a temporal order and a logical order. A temporal order means that one thing occurs before another in time. A logical order means one thing logically is dependent on another thing, though both may happen simultaneously. Let me explain the difference.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
Not only in Mark's gospel, but in other gospels, it seems like the first people or the first ones to fully recognize the identity of Christ in the hiddenness of His incarnation are the demons. Before the people recognize Him in His fullness, these ambassadors of hell instantly recognize Him.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
He begins his ministry by announcing the coming of the kingdom of God. Then he manifests the power of that kingdom in his teaching and now by his confrontation with the world of evil forces and power. It's also interesting to me to note that if you look not only in Mark's gospel but in other gospels,
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
It seems like the first people or the first ones to fully recognize the identity of Christ in the hiddenness of His incarnation are the demons. Before the people recognize Him in His fullness, these ambassadors of hell instantly recognize Him.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
And so this man who's possessed is there in the synagogue, and when Jesus turns his attention to him, this man with the unclean spirit begins to scream, saying, let us alone. Get away from us. Why the plural? Is it because the man is filled with many demons or is this singular demon saying in behalf of himself and the man he's possessed, is that the reason for the plural?
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
I suspect that what he's talking about is he's representing that whole kingdom of Under the dominance of the prince of the power of the air, the prince of this world, Satan himself, and in behalf of Satan and his legions of demons, this man screams, this demon screams against Jesus saying, get out of here. Go away. Let us alone. Have you come here to destroy us? What do you have to do with us?
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
What do we have to do with you? Well, the answer to that question is in one sense, absolutely nothing. The demons had nothing in common with Christ. Two different realms, the godly realm, the ungodly realm. The realm that is satanic and demonic The realm of God, never the twain shall meet. The only relationship these demons have with Christ is one of conflict. What do we have to do with you?
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
Nothing, except now you're confronting your judgment. And that's what the demons recognized. The demons knew that they were under the sentence of God. They knew that when the Son of God would appear on the earth, that their doom would be certain, that Christ was coming to bind the strong man, to bind Satan with all of his hellish powers.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, saying, Let us alone. What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Did you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be quiet and come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had convulsed him and cried out with a loud voice, he came out of him.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
And so, these satanic junior grade demons telling Jesus to leave. And then the this strange expression, I know who you are, the Holy One of God. What's going on here? Remember in the Old Testament, the power struggles that would go on between men and men, men and angels. The idea was that if we could get our adversary to reveal his name, that that was like an act of submission.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
It's like saying, uncle, when you're in a battle, Remember when Jacob wrestled with the angels, tell me your name. He was asking him to submit. And so the demons try one last foil here to get rid of Christ. They reveal his identity, thinking that if they name him properly, they can defeat him. Oh, we know who you are. You're the Holy One of God. There's irony in here.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
Only once in the Old Testament is anybody called the Holy One of God. And it was a man, not an angel, but a man who was endowed charismatically by the Holy Ghost with incredible strength and power. He was the Judge Samson who was called The holy one of God, the strong man.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
And the irony here is that this one who's the holy one of God has come to bind the strong man, the prince of the demons, Satan himself. But they realize in the presence of Jesus, they were in the presence of the holy man. Nothing strikes more terror into the heart of creatures than to be in the presence of the holy.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
We will see this motif throughout the gospel of Mark, that when the holiness of Christ is made manifest, the immediate straight response is fear and dread. We fear the holy, the ultimate xenophobia, because we are not holy. And when we are brought into the presence of the unveiled holiness of God, like Peter, we say, depart from me, for we are sinful people.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
And so the demons scream when the Holy One of God comes into their presence. Jesus puts up with just so much of this screaming and yelling and protesting. And he finally rebukes him saying, be quiet. Now, we're not supposed to say this in polite company. We're not supposed to say it in school. We're not supposed to say it to our children. We're not supposed to say it to each other.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
But a more accurate rendition here would be Jesus said to these demons, shut up. Shut your mouths. I don't want to hear any more from you people and come out of here. When the unclean spirit had convulsed him, his last shudder of strength, he cried out with a loud voice one more time. But he came out, and everyone was amazed. So they questioned themselves, saying, what is this?
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
What have we just seen? What new doctrine is this? What kind of power has just been made manifest? What kind of authority does he use to command even the unclean spirits and they obey him? Jesus didn't act like a magician or a shaman and shake and rattle a bunch of beads and so on and play games of healing saying, can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
None of those tricks that we see with the charlatans. Jesus just spoke the And the demons obeyed because they know he had authority even over them.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
Then they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, What is this? What new doctrine is this? For with authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him. And immediately his fame spread throughout all the region around Galilee. Now as soon as they had come out of the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
But Simon's wife's mother lay sick with a fever, and they told him about her at once. So he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, And immediately the fever left her, and she served them. He who has ears to hear the word of God, let them hear. Please be seated. After Jesus called his first four disciples,
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Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
He began His Galilean ministry in Capernaum, as we read in verse 21, that they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath, He entered the synagogue and taught the We just take a moment to mention a little background about this town of Capernaum, which was one of many towns along the shore of the Sea of Galilee.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
This was on the northwest side of the lake, and it was really probably the most upscale town in that region at this time. And there's quite a bit of evidence that indicates that after Jesus died, moved away from his childhood home of Nazareth, that he made Capernaum his home.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
There's even further evidence that later, at least, he possibly lived in the home of Peter that is mentioned here in the text that we read today. Capernaum had a seawall of eight feet that extended for half a mile in the front of the village, and there were several piers that extended a hundred feet out into the water, and so there was a tremendous fishing industry located here in Capernaum.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
as well as a gathering of merchants and artisans and scribes and other people. There was also a Roman colony that was friendly to the Jews here in Capernaum. The name of the town, Capernaum, comes from the Hebrew, Kefer Nahum, meaning the village of Nahum, which may date back to the days of the Old Testament prophet by that name.
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Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
that there was a synagogue in Capernaum is without any doubt in antiquity. All that was required for a synagogue to be established in a village was that there had to be at least 10 Jewish men who were older than 13 years of age to be the required quorum to begin a synagogue. Now remember, the synagogue was not the temple. where people came in Jerusalem for worship.
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Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
But the synagogue, the name means a place of assembly, a gathering place. It was a place of assembly where the Scriptures were taught, not by the leader of the synagogue, who was basically an administrator,
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Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
but the Scriptures, the Torah, and the rest of the Scriptures of the Old Testament were read and then commented on by various teachers and also by visiting rabbis, which Jesus was obviously here. So, In the fourth century AD, we see that the town of Capernaum was still in existence and was still very prosperous.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
Something unusual happened in the fourth century, and that is that the synagogue was remodeled. Almost all of the synagogues in the ancient Palestinian world were constructed of black basalt, and they were pretty basic in their building.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
But as you architects who are visiting us this morning will be interested to know, in the fourth century, the new synagogue that replaced the old one right on its foundation, the one that Jesus spoke in, was built from white limestone that had to be imported. And so it was a place of grandeur and
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
that time, and it testifies to the long time in which Capernaum enjoyed a place of prominence there in Galilee. But in any case, it was into Capernaum that Jesus came to begin his ministry there in Galilee, and we are told that on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and he taught the
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
Now the significance of this event that Mark wants us to understand very early in his gospel is the character of the teaching ministry of Jesus. Jesus' ministry was marked by teaching and by healing and by the casting out of demons. Those were the three elements that distinguished him in the first century ministry.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
And so Mark begins with calling attention to Jesus' teaching, and most importantly, to the response of the people to his teaching. We read that Mark says this, that they, that is the people of Capernaum there in the synagogue, were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. A couple of things here.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
First of all, the reaction of the people to Jesus' teaching was one of sheer amazement. But even the word amazement or the word astonishment, neither of those terms do full justice to the import of the term that is appearing here in the text. The idea is that not only were they surprised, but they were terrified.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
There was an element of fear that was part of this amazement or astonishment because they had never, ever heard anybody talk like this. that Jesus exhibited an authority that was on a whole new plane, a whole different level from any kind of authoritative utterance that they had ever been exposed to. He said he spoke as one having authority, not like the scribes.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
Now, beloved, the scribes were not without their own human authority. The scribes were the most learned expositors of the Old Testament law. The scribes were the PhDs in theology who came and rendered their opinions. And so their opinions were accorded great weight by those who heard them. But now when Jesus speaks, there's a whole new dimension.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
way beyond anything they'd ever experienced with the scribes. The scribes with their PhDs would give their opinions and they would cite other scholars. They would cite the rabbinic tradition. They would try to marshal arguments to support the weight of what it was that they were teaching, just as we try to do that today in the academic world. But Jesus didn't do that.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
No footnotes, no citations, no marshaling of other worldly authorities, but he would be the one that they would put bumper stickers on the chariots after Jesus spoke were saying, Jesus said it, that settles it. No, I believe in between. We know that's bad theology. When God says something, the argument's over. Now, I just want to play for a second on the word that is used here.
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Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
The word translated by authority comes from the Greek. It is a word made up of a root and a prefix, exousia. Ex, we all know what that means. That means out of or away from. The exit sign points the way out. And what we're most concerned about is the root of that word, which is the word ousia.
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Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
And if you know anything about Greek, you know that ousia is the present participial form of the verb to be. So its literal translation would be being. Now, The ancient Greek philosophers were very much concerned with that word usia because usia represented the ultimate reality for which the philosophers were seeking, the ultimate transcendent supreme being of all reality.
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Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
We know that the great controversy that the church went through in the fourth century at Nicaea with respect to their understanding of the person of Christ came to the formulation that Christ was homoousios of the same being, essence, or substance as the Father. And so this word ousia, not just simply a participial form of the verb to be, but is a term loaded
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Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
with content in the history of Greek thought and in the history of Christian thought. And so we could translate being as substance. So as I said, I was going to play with this word a little bit. When Jesus spoke, he spoke exousia, out of substance. His teaching was supremely substantive. Nothing superficial, nothing light.
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Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
This was the utterance of the one who was of the same essence as the Father so that Jesus' authority, beloved, was that authority rooted and grounded in God himself. And that's what terrified the people. They said, never have we heard anybody speak like this.
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Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
was reminiscent of the Old Testament prophets who would preface their statements and their oracles not by saying, in my studied opinion, so and so and so and so. But the Old Testament prophets would preface their announcements by what? By saying, thus saith the Lord.
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Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
And here was the Lord Himself now, the Word of God incarnate, rising to speak in the synagogue, rising to speak on matters theological. And when He opened His holy mouth, everyone present was stopped in their tracks, filled with amazement and pierced by a sense of dread to hear the truth proclaimed with this transcendent finality.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
This morning I will be reading beginning at verse 21 and through verse 34. So I'll ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word of God. Then they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught. And they were astonished at his teaching. for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
Let me just pause for a second and say, beloved, that's how we should respond. Every time we hear the word of God, that we're not listening to scribes, We're not listening to preachers. We're not listening to theologians. And our hearts should be filled with a holy dread and awe before the Word of God. Immediately, the transition takes place to the event that followed his teaching.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
It still was in the context of the synagogue where Mark tells us that there was a man there in the synagogue with an unclean spirit. And he cried out saying, let us alone. What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Did you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. So this day in the life of Jesus,
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
witnesses in the first place his manifestation of his transcendent authority in teaching. And now a further evidence of that power, because exousia is sometimes translated power, as well as authority, and we can combine the words. Exousia means authoritative power or powerful authority.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
Now we see the manifestation of that exousia not simply in his verbal address, but in his confrontation with the forces of hell itself. You notice that in the Old Testament, The idea of demonic possession is extremely rare. You have very few references to the demonic world in all of the Old Testament. And in later church history, there's also very limited reference to it.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
But while Jesus was on the earth, all hell broke loose. And the involvement and engagement of the demonic representatives and ambassadors of Satan himself were everywhere oppressing people.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit
And later we will see that Jesus announces the significance of His work of demon exorcism by saying to His hearers, if you see me casting out demons by the finger of God, which is a metaphor for the Holy Ghost, if you see me casting out demons by the finger of God, then what? Then you know the kingdom of God. has come upon you. So you see the line here.
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Jairus’ Daughter
Well, Jairus had one child, an only daughter who was about 12 years of age, and she was dying. And his only hope at that point was Jesus.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
He may be able to give sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf and fix people with legs that won't work, but now it's too late. She's dead. Jesus said, everything's going to be made well. And so when he came into the house, he permitted no one to go in except Peter, James, and John and the father and mother of the girl. They all wept and mourned for her. But he said, do not weep.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
Stop your crying. She's not dead, but sleeping. What do we make of this? Did Jesus just cure a young girl that had become comatose? He just simply went in and woke her up?
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
Is Jesus teaching us here the heretical doctrine of psychopinicchia, that when we die, we don't really die, we just fall into a slumber where we go into what is called soul sleep and remain in a condition of suspended animation until the final judgment when we are awakened on the last day, and it seems as though no time has passed, we weren't really dead, we were just asleep? No.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
This is a common way of Jewish speaking that speaks euphemistically. And now Jesus is saying, she's not dead in the sense of dead once and for all, gone forever, but I just need to wake her up. Now, notice this, that when he said this, they ridiculed him, knowing that she was dead. Now, what's the antecedent of they? Who was it? that ridiculed Jesus when He said this? Peter, James, and John?
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
And so in this last narrative, we had people saying to Jesus, please go. And in the very next passage, we hear the begging of the ruler of the synagogue saying to Jesus, please come. But of course, it was on the other side of the Sea of Galilee when the people After Legion was healed, begged Jesus to leave, he departed from them and crossed again to the shore by Capernaum.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
The mother and the father? No. The ones that ridiculed Him were that crowd that was pressing around outside, wailing and playing the music. Who were they? They were the professional mourners that gathered like buzzards as soon as the deaths occurred. These professional mourners were paid to play the flute and to wail and to scream at funerals, and they were paid to do this.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
And so when a person who had a death in the family who was somebody of means, as soon as the news came, they would flock to have the funeral immediately. So you have these professional mourners out there And Jesus says, hey, be quiet. Stopped the screaming, silenced the flute, no flute, and said, she's sleeping. And they ridiculed him. They weren't mourning now, they were mocking.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
And they were mocking Jesus. And they mocked why? because they knew she was dead. I don't know if you saw the movie Princess Bride, Billy Crystal was the miracle worker, and Dread Pirate Robert was sick unto death. He was 99% dead. Nobody could fix him. And so his friends took him to see the miracle worker, Billy Crystal, because they said he could do anything.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
Billy Crystal looked at Dread Pirate Robert and he said, he's not dead. He's mostly dead. He said, dead I can't fix. Mostly dead I can fix. And he fixed him. Well, these people say that the little girl wasn't mostly dead. She was all the way dead. This was not a resuscitation. This was a resurrection. but He put them all outside, took her by the hand and called.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
There it is again, the divine effectual call. The means by which the world, the universe came into being was by divine imperative, divine fiat. God called the universe into being, let there be light. And there was light. Lazarus came out of that tomb because Jesus called him out of the tomb.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
If you are in Christ this morning, if you are a Christian, it's because God the Holy Spirit called you out of darkness into light, and He just didn't invite you. That call was not simply the outer call of preaching. It was the inner call of God the Holy Ghost, the omnipotent God who brought you into the alive from spiritual death, what we call in theology the effectual call of God.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
How did Jesus calm the sea? He called the waves and the wind to stop, and they stopped. And so now He called this inert 12-year-old daughter saying, little girl, arise. This is a foretaste of the last judgment. When all who are in Christ will hear the same effectual call, and the dead in Christ will rise at the sound of his voice when he says, my little ones, little boy, little girl, get up.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
And we will rise on that day. And then her spirit returned. Again, Luke understood that she was not comatose because when you're comatose, your soul doesn't leave the body. If you're in soul sleep, your soul doesn't leave the body. But this little girl was dead because her soul had gone. And Jesus called it back. He said, come back here. And reunited her soul with her body.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
And she arose immediately. He commanded that she should be given something to eat. Feed this little girl, will you? She's been so sick, she's got to be hungry. So let's get about the daily business of taking care of our kids. Will you parents please fix her something to eat? She's fine. And their parents were astonished. but he charged them to tell no one what had happened. Not yet.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
And it's on that side that we pick up the narrative in verse 40 that now the multitude on that side of the lake welcomed him. Note the irony. The multitude on the other side of the lake wanted him gone. Now the people who were more familiar with him near Capernaum were happy to see him returning, for they were waiting for him.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
Don't tell anybody yet. That moment will come when he will charge them and all who received the grace of Christ to tell everybody. What an incredible day in the life of Jesus.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
And behold, there came a man named Jairus, who was identified by Luke as a ruler of the synagogue. The synagogue in those days was ruled by elders, and those who had that position were given great esteem and authority in the Jewish community. And so this is a man of some status, and when he comes to Jesus, he humbles himself completely and falls at the feet of Jesus.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
He's a desperate man, and Luke tells us the reason for his desperation. Luke tells us that he had one child, an only daughter who was about 12 years of age. and she was dying. It's obvious that this ruler would have summoned the best physicians in and around Capernaum to treat his daughter, but whatever treatments she received were not successful, and his only hope at that point was Jesus.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
Jesus was the only one who could fill the need that he has. Let me pause at this point for a little scurry down a rabbit trail. I don't know how many people I've had say to me that they didn't need Jesus. That's a common sense of people outside the kingdom of God. Oh, there are times of crisis that visit them during the course of their lives where suddenly they may turn to Jesus seeking help.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
But for the most part, fallen and lost mankind feels no need for Jesus, which is one of the most tragic misunderstandings of the human predicament that we find anywhere, because there is nothing in this world that every person in it needs more, more desperately, then they need Jesus. Well, Jairus at least understood his need, and so he came humbly to Jesus and begged Him, saying, please come.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
And so Jesus went. But as he went, obviously, the crowd that had welcomed him on the shore of the sea got wind of what was going on. They witnessed the beseeching of Jairus. They heard his lament. They heard him beg Jesus to come and save his daughter. And so the whispering goes among the crowd, and they all fall in step with Jesus. And you hear the murmuring say, this I have to see.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
And they had already probably been eyewitnesses of other miracles that Jesus had performed, but this was something that they had never seen, a raising from the dead or the healing, I should say, of somebody at least on the point of death. And so the multitudes thronged him.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
And now the narrative of the raising of Jairus' daughter is interrupted just as Jesus is interrupted on his way to Jairus' house where we read this event taking place. Now a woman having a flow of blood for 12 years who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any. This woman is given no name. just her condition and her situation.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
Here's a woman who, presumably the same year that Jairus' daughter was born, she came down with a chronic case of hemorrhaging, wherein she lost her health, first of all. And Luke tells us that she spent every penny that she had going to doctors trying to find Jairus. a cure for this chronic hemorrhaging.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
And so we see a woman who's lost her health, who's lost her wealth, but not only that, since she had this hemorrhaging, she would have been made ceremonially unclean and therefore would have lost her status and her reputation in the Jewish community.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
So everything that was important to her, her health, her money, her status in the community were gone, not for a month or 12 months, but for 12 years. And she was as desperate in her condition as Jairus was in his having a daughter who was dying. And we see what this woman did with her need.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
As Jairus had come and fell down before Jesus, now this woman reasoned in her heart in this manner, if I can just touch His garment, I don't need to have Him give me an audience. I don't need to have Him lay His hands on me. I don't need to have Him say anything to me. He doesn't need to touch me. Besides, I'm unclean. And it would be presumptuous of me to ask Him to touch me.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
But if I can just get close enough to touch one of the tassels on the edge of His garment, I'm sure that's all it will take. Now, here's a woman who had no reason at all to trust any man that she had ever met to heal her. Again, she'd spent every penny that she had with professional healers who were stymied by her condition and unable to help her at all. And yet, she sees Jesus.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
And when she sees Jesus, she said, I don't need to go to any more doctors. I just want to touch the hem of His garment, and I'll be healed. And so she came from behind him and touched the border of his garment. And instantly the flow of blood stopped. The hemorrhaging finished. And Jesus stopped. And he looked around and he said, who touched me? Now this poor woman is now cowering in terror.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
The last thing she wants to do is to come forward and say, I did it. But in the meantime, Jesus wants to know who touched him, and everybody denied it. All the people crowding against Jesus say, I didn't do it, not me. And Peter, now impetuous Peter, prone to correcting Jesus when Jesus needed to be corrected,
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
They said, Master, the multitudes throng and press against you, and you say, Who touched me? Do you hear the tone in Peter's voice? Are you out of your mind? How in the world are we going to know who touched you? There's all these people bumping and pushing against you every second, and you want to know. You're asking us, Who touched you? Jesus politely said,
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
ignored the outburst from Peter, and simply said, look, somebody touched me. I know it because I perceived power going out for me. Now, this statement that Jesus makes in this particular circumstance can tell us something about him. that when Jesus used His power to redeem people from whatever condition they were in, it cost Him something. When He calmed the storm, it cost Him something.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
When He healed the man of a legion of demons, He was drained from the power that left Him. And now as he's on his way to deal with the dying daughter of Jairus, he feels the power go out of him again. And he understood that that exit of strength from his body did not occur willy-nilly, that it only occurred when redeeming power was being used in a saving way. He said, Peter, somebody touched me.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
I know that somebody touched me because I felt, not the touch, but I felt the departure of my power. And now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and falling down before Him. This is the second person that has fallen down before Jesus in this narrative. First Jairus and now the woman. She declared to Him in the presence of all the people,
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
that she touched him, and in the presence of all the people, she said why she touched him. Master, I've had this flow of blood unceasing for 12 years, and nobody can help me. And I thought that if I could just touch the hem of your garment, I didn't want to interrupt you. I didn't want it to cost you anything. I didn't want you to have power leave you.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
I just wanted to touch the hem of your garment, that's all. And when I did it, I was healed immediately, instantly, totally, and completely. And he said to her daughter, you know, I wonder how old she was. She'd had this condition for 12 years. She wasn't a child, obviously. She may have been just as old as Jesus. And yet Jesus called her daughter. Don't miss the significance of that.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
We are not by nature sons and daughters of God. God is not the father of us all. In biblical terms, God is only the father of His only begotten Son, and all the rest of His children, sons and daughters, are adopted. There's no other way to get into the family of God except through adoption. And the only way you can be adopted in the family of God is through God's only Son.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
When last we looked at the text after Jesus healed Legion, we see that the people came out to witness what had happened and when they realized what had taken place, they were filled with fear, even as the disciples had been filled with fear when Jesus calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee. And they implored, they begged Jesus to leave.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
And so this woman who's trembling, telling the story, wondering what Jesus is going to do, the first thing He does is welcomes her into God's family by calling your daughter. Be of good cheer. Stop trembling. Stop being afraid. now my daughter." He's on his way to heal Jairus' daughter, and instead he stops to heal what is now his own daughter. Your faith has made you well. Go in peace.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
It wasn't her faith that was the power to heal her, as some mistakenly believe. But because of her faith, as a consequence of her faith, because she trusted in Christ, she was healed. And so Jesus said, go in peace. How many times does our Lord say this to people? Is this not His favorite litany for His people? Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives I unto you.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden. I will give you rest. And that's not all he gives. He gives peace. And he says to this woman, your body's fine. Your soul's even better. So go now in peace. And while he was still speaking, again, he's interrupted. For someone came from the ruler of the synagogue's house and with bad news for Jairus. Jairus, I'm sorry. Your daughter's dead.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
Jairus, don't bother the master anymore. It's too late. Remember in John's gospel when Jesus got to the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, four days after Lazarus died and the women are wringing their hands and saying, if only you would have been here, Lord, he wouldn't have died. And now you come four days later, it's too late.
Renewing Your Mind
Jairus’ Daughter
Do you know how many millions of people have assumed in their lifetime that it was too late for them to meet Jesus or to have Jesus do anything for them? And I've been a pagan all these years and too late for me. Are you still alive? Then it's not too late. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, do not be afraid. Only believe, and she will be made well. You didn't hear us, Jesus. It's too late.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
The knowledge of God is so high that the most brilliant of scholars hardly ever scratches the surface of our understanding of who God is.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
There were those in those days who wanted to make a division between the God of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New Testament. In fact, some even want to say that the God of the Old Testament is not really the creator God, he's merely a demiurge, and that he's kind of a bad guy, that Jesus is reconciles and improves the attitude of this Old Testament sub-deity. No, no, no.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
Paul's again saying that the one who reveals this mystery is the Creator God who redeems us through the same Creator is our Redeemer through Jesus Christ. And so he goes on to say again, that he created all things through Jesus Christ just in passing. This is a common concept in the New Testament, that the creator of our universe was Jesus.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
But with the advent of Christ and his work of redemption, now that which had been hidden to some degree, is now openly proclaimed and is of vital importance for the understanding of the makeup of the church. We know that one of the most significant controversies of the early Christian church of the first century was the question of what part do Gentiles play in this new covenant community.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
That the Logos, who's introduced in the Gospel of John, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was good. All things came into being through him. Nothing was made except by him. All things are made by him and for him and consist in him.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
And so Paul again points out that all things that God created, he created through Christ to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church so that the church participates faithfully. in spreading this knowledge, spreading this revelation. We're not the agents of the revelations.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
We're not the ones who were originally endowed by the Holy Spirit with this information. But now through sacred scripture, it's given to us and we're entrusted with it with that same stewardship of making sure that the whole creation knows of these manifold things of the wisdom of God. Made known to the church to whom?
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
and here's a shocking statement, to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. Who's that? We're supposed to make the revelation of Jesus Christ and this mystery, the church is to make this known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. Now, when you read about the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, usually you're thinking about what? The demonic world.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
the devil and his minions. And I think Paul means more than that here. I don't think that this revelation is given simply to be announced to the devil and his demons, but also to the good angels, to those angels who looked into these things in times past, but even from them was to a certain degree hidden. But now that this mystery is made known,
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
It's part of our task to show it to the angels, the powers and the principalities, the heavenly places. According to what? To the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. Again, I've mentioned in the past that when we talk about the five points of Calvinism, the one point that causes so much stumbling is the idea of limited atonement.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
How can you believe that the atonement of Jesus is limited and given only for the elect? The Bible talks about his dying for the world and all that sort of thing. Well, it's not about the sufficiency of the atonement or the efficiency of the atonement. The whole question is about the design of the atonement. God in all eternity had a plan of salvation.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
And that plan was designed that God would initiate redemption, that his son would accomplish that redemption, and the Spirit would apply that redemption to the elect.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
So God didn't just say back in eternity, well, I'm going to send my Son and make salvation possible for some people who will believe in Him, and I'm going to wring my hands up here in heaven and hope and pray that somebody will put their faith in Him and somebody will get saved. No. God had a plan from all eternity to save every person that he was going to save, and he sent his son to save them.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
And again, this all comes back to our understanding of the character of God. God never has a plan B. He doesn't have a halftime where they change the strategy. This was the eternal plan. That's what Paul is saying. according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
That eternal purpose was fulfilled and accomplished in Christ, in whom we now have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him. Again, in Romans, when he talks about the fruit of justification therefore being justified, But we have peace with God and access into his presence. And we're called to come boldly into the presence of God. That is to come with confidence.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
But let me pause for a minute. There's a thin line between confidence and arrogance. We are to come boldly into the presence of God. Confident that we've been adopted as children. So confident that we can say, Abba, Father. But we still come humbly and not acting as if God is the great commoner who is at our level. That's blasphemy. He is still altogether holy.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
And we still, though we come with confidence and boldness, we still come with a holy fear, a sense of reverence, a sense of adoration because of who he is. Therefore, I ask that you, he's writing now at the Ephesians, do not lose heart at my tribulations for you. Don't be discouraged because you hear that I'm languishing in a Roman prison situation. I'm here for you.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
And Paul is now declaring to the Ephesian church of this great mystery that has now been revealed of the full inclusion of Gentiles in the church. And so Paul says, for this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles. He says that he was a prisoner of Christ Jesus. He could have said, here, I'm a prisoner of Caesar in Rome.
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The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
And that I'm here for you is not for your shame. It's for your glory. What a statement of encouragement to the people to whom he ministered, whom he loved. And to whom he was happy to suffer in their behalf.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
But Paul had a higher imprisonment in view, that his ultimate captor was Christ, to whom Paul declared that he was a bondservant and prisoner. He said, which he has given to me for you." Again, Paul is referring to the singular ministry that by the grace of God he was given to be not merely an apostle, but to be the apostle to the Gentiles.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
That was his priority and his primary mission and why he was the first great missionary of Christendom in the first century, taking the gospel to the Gentiles.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
And he said, how that by revelation he made known to me the mystery as I have briefly written already, by which when you read you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, but has now been revealed by the Spirit.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
to his holy apostles and prophets, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of his grace.
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The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
Again, Paul is adding this concluding footnote to his exposition of the wonderful things that God has brought to pass in behalf of the Gentiles, including them now in the building of the church, whose foundation is the prophets and the apostles.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
And Paul is saying now that this mystery that he is setting forth to them is not something he discovered through his own theological research into Judaism or rabbinic Judaism, but that Paul is declaring that he has learned this mystery by revelation. And he mentions that in the past, this revelation was also given to other apostles and to the prophets.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
Now, the thing that the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New Testament had in common is that both of these activities, apostleship and the prophetic office, made those who had these offices agents of revelation. That is, they were specially endowed by God to be vehicles or instruments through which God would reveal His truth to those whom He ordained for that purpose.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
Paul is also making it clear in this paragraph that this whole business of his ministry is And his reception of this revelation comes from the grace of God. He couldn't be an apostle except by the grace of God. He couldn't be an agent of revelation apart from the grace of God. and he couldn't be a minister except by the gift of grace of God given by, notice, the effective working of his power.
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The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
Once again, we see an apparent redundancy there in the Scripture. When God works with his power, it's always effective. He doesn't have any other power that is ineffective. But just so that we understand that God is not fooling around. When God, by his grace, endows the Apostle Paul for his apostolic ministry by the Holy Spirit, it is an effectual working of the Holy Spirit on him.
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The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
I've gone over this first paragraph rather quickly tonight. because I want to spend most of our time together on the next paragraph. So let's take a look at that if we can. To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given to that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, comma. But I'm going to stop momentarily at the comma.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
Paul again identifies himself as being less than the least of all the saints. Now, we could take that as an exercise of an overabundance of humility, and that Paul, in his humility, is exaggerating, for some special point, his low estate. Now, if you're familiar with the writings of the apostle, you know this is not the only time that he refers to himself in this sense.
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The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
Elsewhere, he calls himself the chief of sinners. And you have to ask the question, why does he do this? Again, I don't for a minute think that it's because he's indulging in some kind of false modesty. I think to the end of his life, Paul, though he was forgiven, though he was cleansed, though he now had a saving relationship with Christ, never forgot where he came from,
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
and what God saved him from. There were many people who were hostile to the preaching of the gospel. There were many people who made themselves enemies of our Lord Jesus Christ during his earthly ministry. We think of the scribes and the Pharisees who opposed him at almost every turn. But no one else carried out with the credential of the Sanhedrin
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
the widespread persecution against Jesus as was carried out by Saul of Tarsus, who was described as breathing out fire as he went from house to house, dragging people and having them imprisoned and worse. And when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Amaskus and spoke to him in Hebrew, saying to him, Saul, Saul, Why persecutest thou me? Jesus didn't say, why are you persecuting my church?
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The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
Why are you persecuting my people? But why are you persecuting me? Because from Christ's perspective, the persecution of his body, the church, was nothing less than an act of persecution against him. So Paul never forgot that he started out as a vicious persecutor of Christ Himself. And now, through no merit of His own, but only by the grace of the forgiving and tender mercy of Jesus.
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The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
His life is turned upside down. Instead of the enemy par excellence, he becomes the missionary par excellence in behalf of the effective power of the Spirit of God that made him a minister of the gospel. And so he says to me, this grace was given. Why? Why? that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. I want to talk about the unsearchable riches of Christ tonight.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
Unsearchable riches of Christ are not merely unsearchable with respect to his earthly ministry. but they are unsearchable as they include his deity, his unity with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. This is the thesaurus. This is the treasury of Holy Scripture, the triune work of redemption by Almighty God. Now, I spent many years teaching theology in the theological seminary.
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The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
And, of course, my principal task was teaching what's called systematic theology, which covers the entire scope of Christian doctrine. The opening lecture on the doctrine of God would always be the doctrine that we talked of, of the incomprehensibility of God, which is to say the depths, the riches, the heights, the breadth, the width of who God is is beyond our comprehension.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
At the beginning of chapter 3 here, Paul continues his exposition of the theme to which he gave great attention already in chapter 2, which had to do with the revelation of this mysterion or mystery that once had been concealed but now has been revealed. And that theme, though, for many ways, lay dormant throughout Old Testament days, at least. It was not front and center.
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The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
It is a knowledge that is so high that on our best days, our understanding of it is feeble. John Calvin was famous for a little slogan that he used that went like this, Finitum non capox infinitum. The finite cannot contain the infinite infinite. or the finite cannot grasp the infinite.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
The knowledge of God is so high that the most brilliant of scholars hardly ever scratches the surface of our understanding of who God is. Now, having said that, though we cannot in this world fully comprehend God, the nature and character of God. That does not mean that God has left us in total darkness by which we have no apprehension of Him. This is why this concept of revelation
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
is so vital to our faith. We can know something about God principally because God in his mercy has stooped to unveil, to disclose, and to reveal himself to us in more than one way, but chiefly through sacred scripture. Now, Despite the grand revelation that God has given and the manifest and manifold aspects of that revelation, there still remains those things that are unsearchable.
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The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
Who can put their arms around them? I mean, do you ever think about it? I mean, I think about, I got a letter from a fellow this week who went to the same seminary I did. And he's trying to be an evangelical, but he's not doing a good job of it. And he was telling me that Jesus didn't know the day and the hour of his return, not simply in his humanity, but he didn't know it in his deity either.
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The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
Because the Son's knowledge is limited. He is part of the truth. The Holy Spirit's knowledge is limited. He is part of the truth. And the Father's knowledge is limited. And he is part of the truth. This is absolute fundamental denial of the Trinity. That the omniscience of God is a necessary and incommunicable attribute of God, which is shared by every person in the Godhead.
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The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
So, just because I don't have omniscience and I can't plumb the depths and the riches of all the things that God knows, let's not jump to the conclusion that God has to search for more knowledge than He has. That's a dreadful conclusion to come to. But how can God be infinite in His being and have His being fill the universe?
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The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
And how can that one who creates the universe by the word of his power stoop to having a personal relationship with me? That's incomprehensible. And so Paul goes on to say here,
Renewing Your Mind
The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things through Jesus Christ. Now, Paul here, unlike the Gnostics of the later times, makes a clear link between creator and redeemer.
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Legion
If it took invading the pigs with these demons to rescue one human being from Satan, Jesus would sacrifice the whole herd of pigs. Jesus told us that God notices the landing of every bird in the air. Every sparrow that lands is noticed by God. And are you not worth more than a bird? Are you not worth more than a pig? Of course, we are in the scheme of creation.
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Well, Jesus knew that that kairos, that time that God had appointed, was not yet. And so on the surface, it seems as though Jesus now is negotiating with these demons because they are reminding Him that it's too early to be sent into the pit. And we see then that Jesus doesn't send him into the pit. And some commentators look at that and they say, what's Jesus doing here?
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Surrendering to the pleas and to the wishes of these evil beings. But he's not. Jesus acknowledges by his actions that it isn't the time to send him into the pit. But it was time for them to come out of this man. And so Jesus responded in this manner as Luke tells us.
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There was a herd of many swine feeding there on the mountain, and they begged Him that He would permit them to enter them, and He permitted them. Oh, does this cause a hue and cry among people who are saying, see, Jesus wasn't such a good guy after all. He was unfair, unjust, and gave cruel and unusual punishment to these animals.
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In fact, there were those in the town that wanted to start a whole movement called Save the Swine. and make the swine protected species lest this Jesus ever come back into their village again. But you know, Jesus understood the difference between human beings and the beasts of the field. Jesus created the world, and He knew that the animals were created for man, not man for the animals.
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Jesus knew nothing of a world where fish eggs were protected unborn human beings were destroyed. That was as foreign to his way of thinking that anything could be. I read in the paper this past week, by the way, a lady wrote a letter and said she criticized some man for questioning the legitimacy of abortions, you know, with the same old argument.
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afraid that they would perish, and after Jesus performed this astonishing act, instead of their fear being removed, it was intensified, and they became very much afraid, and they cried out, what manner of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him?
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She knew before she read the rest of the whole article that it was a man that wrote it because men know nothing about pregnancy, and men, of course, obviously are incapable of making any kind of analyses of ethical issues. Only women can do that, and she said, reciting the mantra that you hear all the time, abortion is a matter between a woman and her doctor.
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And I think that, I mean, now there's an intelligent observation, and I wanted to hear her say next, and bank robbery should be a matter of choice. It's a matter between the robber and the banker. And homicide should be a matter of choice between the murderer and the victim. What madness that people use these statements and nobody laughs at them. I don't get it. But anyway, back to the story.
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Legion
There those are upset that Jesus harmed these poor little pigs. Well, as you know, pigs were considered unclean animals by the Jews. There were a lot of Gentiles that lived here in the Decapolis, and this was probably a Gentile herd of swine. But here's the point. If it took invading the pigs with these demons to rescue one human being from Satan, Jesus would sacrifice the whole herd of pigs.
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Legion
Jesus told us that God notices the landing of every bird in the air, every sparrow that lands is noticed by God. Are you not worth more than a bird? Are you not worth more than a pig? Of course, we are in the scheme of creation. And so Jesus sent the demons out of the man into the swine, and immediately the herd ran violently down the steep place into the lake and drowned.
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And when those who fed them saw what had happened, they fled, told it in the city and in the country. They went running back home and said, you can't believe what happened out there. This fellow came along and he secured that wild man that we know about who kept breaking his bones. But he told, sent these demons into our pigs. And then the pigs went down over the hill into the water and drowned.
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Now we've lost the whole herd. So they went out to see what happened, of course, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had opened, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed now and in his right mind. Not only had Jesus calmed the sea, He healed a human being who was tormented by demons and now was in his sound mind. And what was the response of the townsmen?
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The same response the disciples had on the boat on the Sea of Galilee, and they were afraid. Now the reason why they sent that man out to the tombs in the first place is because they were afraid of him. And now they come and they find him calm, clothed, in his right mind, and they're scared. What does this tell you?
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They also who had seen it told them by what means the demon-possessed man was healed. And so the whole multitude of the surrounding region of the Gadarenes asked him to depart from them. When they heard how this man was healed, they didn't ask Jesus to come into the city and set up a practice. They said, please leave. Nothing terrifies human being more than the presence of the holy.
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Now, what happened immediately after that, we don't know because Luke doesn't take up the narrative until the boat in which Jesus and the disciples are sailing reaches shore. I can't help but wonder if there was any conversation among the disciples or with Jesus after they asked their question, what kind of a man is this, and I wonder how long
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And these town people realized that they were in the presence of one God. who was holy, and they were not, and they wanted Him out of there. You wonder why Jesus was killed? He wasn't killed because He was bad. He was killed because He was holy, and He had to be done away with. So Jesus got into the boat and left.
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But the man from whom the demons had departed begged Him, and went up and grabbed the gun on the boat and said, Please don't leave. Take me with you. Jesus said, no, return to your own house and tell what great things God has done for you. And he went his way and proclaimed throughout the whole city what great things the Son of the Most High God had done for him.
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I don't know that I was ever possessed by demons, but I was certainly in bondage to sins. like every unbeliever is, and served Satan rather than God, as every unbeliever does. But once God rescued me, He gave me the duty and you the duty to proclaim His great works to the whole world.
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the terror that they experienced in Jesus' presence remained with them. But I can only imagine that as the boat came nearer and nearer to the shore there on the Sea of Galilee in the area of the Decapolis, that they were feeling a greater sense of relief.
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because they wanted to get out of that boat, and for a time at least, they wanted to get out of the presence of Jesus, because for them, this has been one of the most traumatic and terrifying days of their lives.
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Legion
Now, of course, what follows immediately is only more trauma and more terror, because as the boat comes in to land on the shore, it is greeted by the wild man that Luke defines and describes here in the text. And so we read,
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that when they sailed to the country of the Gadarenes, which is opposite Galilee, and when he, that is Jesus, stepped out on the land, there met him a certain man from the city. who had demons for a long time. Let me just pause there for a second. This is not the only incident of demon possession that we encounter in the New Testament.
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Legion
It's not the only case where Jesus cast out demons from these people who were so sorely afflicted. And we are not generally accustomed in our day to seeing people demon-possessed and at least in this part of the world, though there are occasional accounts of that. Nevertheless, we see in the New Testament a heavy concentration of this phenomenon.
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But in any case, we have the record here of a man whom we're told is demon-possessed, but he differs from other demon-possessed persons. To what degree? Well, Anyone who is demon-possessed is in a serious state. It's a horrible thing to have to experience or to contemplate. But if demon possession can admit to degrees, this particular fellow was severely demon-possessed.
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And if for no other reason, it was for the number of demons that had entered into him. Obviously, the New Testament sees the possibility of demon possession as involving more than one demon on any occasion. But in this case, we're told that this man is possessed by a multitude of them, as the conversation explains. We read,
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This man who had been in the city and who had been demon-possessed for a long time now wore no clothes. He ran around naked, nor did he live in a house. He wasn't living in the city anymore, but he lived in the tombs. And the area that is being described here is right on the edge of the Sea of Galilee where it rises up a steep cliff to the top, and on that cliff was built a cemetery.
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Legion
that is multiple graves and tombs, most of which were filled, but some of which were still vacant. And you talk about a homeless person. Here was this poor soul living not in the streets of the city in a cardboard box where he was from, but he had been banished from his own town, sent now out into what was the wilderness, and lived naked in a tomb.
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And we said when he saw Jesus, he's up there on the hill, and he sees this boat coming to the shore. And when he saw Jesus, he cried out and he rushed down to Jesus as Jesus steps foot on the shore. And with a loud voice, he screams at Jesus this question, and to be faithful to the text,
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Legion
I should screen the question, but I don't want to scare you to death, and so I'll just try to do this in a normal tone of voice because I might scare you to death if I imitated a demon, which some of you would call method acting. Thank you. I try to have humor that's a little bit subtle, but maybe it's just too early in the morning. I don't know.
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Legion
But anyway, this man said in a loud voice, what have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Now, obviously, the voice that is coming out of this man is not his own voice. It's the demonic voice that is addressing the question, what do we have to do with you, Jesus? What are you doing here? Son of the Most High God." Now, I see supreme irony in here.
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Legion
The last time we saw a question in this text was the question raised by the disciples when Jesus calmed the storm. What manner of man is this? Who is this fellow? Well, the answer to that question is provided by the demons. The demons don't have to say, what manner of man is this?
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They knew exactly what manner of man it was, and they recognized what the disciples didn't recognize, that they were in the presence of God incarnate. And they used the title, Son of the Most High God. You know, when I read that phrase, Most High God, in the New Testament, I sort of get chill bumps because of it. For this reason, it's not a description of God that we normally use.
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Legion
But yet in the realm of anthropology and sociology, where scholars have gone around the world that I mentioned the last time about discovering religion among the most remote people in the world and among animistic tribes and so on, and for the most part that the religion that the animists have is one that's completely negative.
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They have evil spirits that they have to appease, spirits that indwell the crocodile or the rhinoceros or whatever. and their religion does not focus upon a monotheistic deity. But the anthropologists have said that when they probe the people about their religion, they are able to discover that they have a vague memory of the God who is on the other side of the mountain.
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the God who is not a part of their daily lives, and they refer to Him as the Most High God, which verifies what the apostle Paul tells us in Romans chapter 1, that God reveals Himself plainly and clearly to all people everywhere. and that all the amount of false religion that we have cannot extinguish that revelation that God gives of Himself.
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So in every tribe and every tongue and every nation, there is an awareness, repressed as it may be, not only of a God, not only of the God, but of the Most High God. I like that. the theological implications that it has. There's a term in Latin that is used in technical theology to describe God where He's called the ens perfectissimus. I love it. The most perfect being.
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Legion
Even there, the theologians of the Middle Ages who invented this kind of language were prone to stutter and to redundancy to talk about the superlative degree of perfection. I didn't know that perfection admitted to degrees. If something is perfect, It can't be most perfect because most perfect gains nothing over perfect. If you're perfect, you've reached the ultimate limit of what can be.
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Legion
But as a matter of intentional hyperbole, the theologians spoke of the most perfect being because they couldn't find an adequate way to extol the perfection that resides in God. And now these demons understand that, and they recognize Jesus. And now it's not the men in the boat that are terrified, it's the demons who are terrified, and they're the ones who are saying, what are you doing here?
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Legion
Have you come to torment us? for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. And then more background is supplied by Luke, for he says, for it had often seized him, and the man had been kept under guard, bound with chains and shackles while he was still in the town.
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Legion
He was demon-possessed when he was in the town, and he behaved in this wild manner while he was in the town, so much so that he was a threat to the well-being of the citizens, so they bound him as tightly as they could. But no matter how tightly they bound him, This man found a way to break his bonds and free himself, and so the people drove him into the wilderness.
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Legion
So now Jesus asked them a question. They had acknowledged that they knew Jesus and what His name was, and so He says to them, okay, well, what's your name? You know my name. You have me at a disadvantage. Please tell me your name." And he said, Legion, because many demons had entered him, and they begged him that he would not command them to go out into the abyss.
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Legion
Oh, there's a lot in that sentence. The demon-possessed man, whoever was the spokesman for the demons, identified himself by the name Legion. Now, a legion in Roman categories consisted not of a handful of soldiers, but a multitude of soldiers numbering 6,000. So, if you take this literally, a demonic being is saying, our name is legion because there's 6,000 of us in this poor man. Well,
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Legion
I doubt if that was the case. I doubt if there were 6,000 demons crammed into this one poor guy. But rather, here we have another evidence of hyperbole. We're saying that we're so many that we're like a legion, like a whole host of us are here. Well, maybe when we're in heaven, we can get the exact number.
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Legion
But for now, the message is clear that this man's possession was from a multitude of demonic spirits. And they begged Jesus. What was it that they begged Him? This is significant. They begged Him that He would not command them go into the abyss. The abyss is a bottomless pit and obviously is symbolic of hell itself.
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Legion
And if we compare this with the other Synoptic Gospels, there was another element added to it where they begged Jesus not to command them to go into the abyss, quote, before the time These demons knew what their future held. They knew their destiny. They knew that God and His sovereignty had appointed a day in time where the demons would be shut up forever in the abyss.
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Legion
If you recall the account of Jesus calming the storm that came up on the Sea of Galilee, and on that occasion, prior to Jesus' calming of the storm, the disciples were
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Legion
But that time had not yet come. The atonement had not yet been made. The kingdom of God had not reached its consummation as it would at the end of the age, and in fact the demons knew that the day in which they would be sent into the abyss was way off in the future. At least that was the theology they had been taught by the prince of demons, Satan himself.
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Unity in Christ
A chief cornerstone to a builder in the first century was that stone without which the building could not stand. It's in Christ that the whole building is knit together through and by the cornerstone.
Renewing Your Mind
Unity in Christ
They're fellow citizens with us of the kingdom of God. That was a wonderful taste of the mercy and grace of God. But what he's saying is that the Gentiles now, through the ministry of Christ, have been brought into the city of God. Now, In this metaphor, he speaks about first of all, that this house has been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.
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Unity in Christ
If you ask the average Christian on the street, what is the church's foundation? They will say the church's foundation is Jesus Christ. Now that's usually because they've heard the hymn. The church's one foundation is Jesus Christ our Lord. Well, the Bible teaches us that the only foundation that can be laid is the one that is laid in Christ Jesus.
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Unity in Christ
But again, the main metaphor for the foundation of the church is not that Jesus is the foundation, but the foundation is built upon the prophets and the apostles. Now, what does that mean? And why is that important? We have seen in the last 200 years a wholesale assault against the authority of the Bible.
Renewing Your Mind
Unity in Christ
And now he's been turning his attention to what I regard to be the central theme of the entire epistle, which is Paul's teaching concerning the nature of the church and particularly how Gentiles in the first century fit into this body that we call the church.
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Unity in Christ
And that assault has not come simply from unbelieving secularists, but in a main it's come from within the church, from critics of the scripture who claim to be Christians. Speaking of the higher critics of the academic world who have leveled this assault.
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Unity in Christ
The founder of the university where I did my doctoral studies was also the prime minister of the Netherlands, Abraham Kuyper, said at the turn of the century that biblical criticism can no longer legitimately be called biblical criticism, it must be called, to be accurate, biblical vandalism. That the attacks upon biblical authority have been so severe it betrays the work of vandals. Now,
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Unity in Christ
to say that the church is built on the foundation of the prophets and the apostles is to say that the foundation of the church is based upon the truth that is revealed by God through his agents of revelation. Those agents of revelation in the Old Testament were the prophets, in the New Testament, they are the apostles. We see that same imagery found in the book of Revelation, for example.
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Unity in Christ
And again, when the psalmist wrote, he raised the question, if the foundation of the house be shaken, how can the building stand? And the foundation of the church is the teaching, the words of the prophets and the apostles. To put it another way, the church is built on the word of God. And when that foundation is shaken, building cannot possibly stand.
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Unity in Christ
But again, the prophets and the apostles do not serve merely on their own power and even on their delegated authority as the whole of the foundation of the church. But that foundation, in order to be able to support the building and has to be neatly fit together and built upon a sound basis. And that which knits it together is the cornerstone without which the building will not be unified.
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Unity in Christ
And so that foundational imagery of the prophets and the apostles is seen to be knit together and unified by the the Lord, Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. And a chief cornerstone to a builder in the first century was that stone without which the building could not stand. In whom the whole building being fitted together. Again, it's in Christ that the whole building is knit together
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Unity in Christ
through and by the cornerstone. So this image now, we've gone beyond citizen, to family, to the building, which is knit together by Christ himself. And it grows. Here the building is organic, but it grows into a holy temple.
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Unity in Christ
This foundation really makes the old temple of brick and mortar to be obsolete because we now have a holy temple in the Lord in whom you are also being built together for a dwelling place of God in the spirit. Again, you had the foundation and then you had the cornerstone, but what makes up the rest of the building?
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Unity in Christ
And so now, when we look at this in the New Testament, the New Testament has much to teach us about the nature of the church, and the Bible uses several different metaphors. The body of Christ is one of the most prominent, and other such metaphors, the people of God, the , so on. And each one of these metaphors gives us some insight as to the nature of the church.
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Unity in Christ
Who are the stones, the bricks that are knit together to make this magnificent building? We are, as the apostle Peter said, we are the living stones that Christ uses to knit together and he's taking Gentile stones and Jewish stones and knitting them together to build together a dwelling place of God in the spirit.
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Unity in Christ
If we just would believe those last words, that last phrase of this last verse of chapter two, I believe the life of this church would be transformed. I believe we would have revival like we've never seen. I believe that our worship experience on Sunday morning would undergo a metamorphosis. Why? Because we have been built together as a people to be a dwelling place.
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Unity in Christ
A dwelling place of God in the Spirit. See, if we really believed that, we would know that when we come together on Sunday morning for worship, that we're coming into the manifest and manifold presence of God. And if we really believe that, if we really believe that God was here in the power and presence of the Holy Ghost, our worship experience would go through the roof and we would experience
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Unity in Christ
a renewal of our souls, a refreshment of our spirits, a fullness of reverence and adoration, because we know that we have spent time with the Lord.
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Unity in Christ
Last time we looked at that section of the text where Paul had contrasted the former situation, the relationship of hostility between Jews and Gentiles, saying that now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. And then he says in verse 14, for he himself is our peace. In this case, Jesus is not merely the peacemaker.
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Unity in Christ
It's not as though Jesus himself brings the Jew and the Gentile to the bargaining table and affects a successful negotiation for the cessation of hostilities. It's not simply that he brings peace or that teaches peace, but he himself, Paul is saying now, in a remarkable way, is our peace. Now, what does Paul mean by that? He speaks elsewhere of Christ being our righteousness.
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Unity in Christ
That is, his righteousness is imputed to us. But Jesus himself brings peace between these warring parties. not only because he is peaceful, but because he is the very incarnation of peace. You remember his last will and testimony, his legacy pronounced to his disciples in the upper room on the night before he was crucified when he said to his disciples, peace, I leave with you.
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Unity in Christ
My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your hearts be troubled. Now, how does this work? I think Paul here is alluding at least to a very core doctrine that he teaches throughout his epistles, and that is the doctrine of the mystical life. union of believers with Christ.
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Unity in Christ
When we recite the Apostles' Creed, one of the affirmations that we make in that creed is that we believe in the communio sanctorum, the communion of saints. Have you given much thought to that? What does it mean? Again, if I can break down the word, it's a simple word, another compound word. There is the prefix com, which means what? With. and then the root unio.
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Unity in Christ
So a communion is a uniting of people together with each other. There's a certain witness, a unified witness that we all share as Christians. Now the foundation for the communion of saints is our mystical union as individuals with Christ. As I've said before, when looking at this epistle, when you become a Christian, you believe into Christ. And when you believe into Christ, Christ comes in you.
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Unity in Christ
He is now in you and you are in him. But this mystical union goes far beyond the individual. If I am in Christ, and Christ is in me, and you are in Christ, and Christ is in you, then our peace, our reconciliation, our union, is found in him. So that he is our unity, he is our peace. He himself,
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Unity in Christ
that's the emphatic reference here to Christ, is our peace, who has made both one, that is Jew and Gentile, and has broken down the middle wall of separation. We remember that the day of our Lord's death, that when he satisfied the demands of God's holiness and justice, that the veil of the temple was rent vertically. opening up access from the holy place to the holy of holies.
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Unity in Christ
But that wasn't the only separation. There was the porch of the Gentiles, the area that separated the Gentiles from the Jews. And that was a place of separation. And now that wall of separation, not only the curtain between the holy place and the holy of holies has been torn asunder, but the separation between the Jew and the Gentile has also been,
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broken down, having abolished in his flesh the enmity. Now, we know, I think, what the word abolish means. We went through a war in this country to abolish slavery. And to abolish means to get rid of, to terminate, to end, particularly with respect to legal requirements.
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Unity in Christ
And so the enmity that exists between the Jew and the Gentile is not only overcome by the peace of Christ, but by his authority has been abolished. It's over. There is no justification to continue any enmity between Jew and Gentile once Christ has abolished that enmity. And how did he do it? He did it in his flesh. That is, he did it on the cross.
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Unity in Christ
He did it by suffering both for the sins of the Jewish elect as well as the sins of the Gentile elect. And so in the sacrifice of his physical death, he set aside not only the enmity between God and us, but also the enmity between Jew and Gentile. He abolished in his flesh the enmity that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances.
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Unity in Christ
Again, the big stumbling block between the Jews and the Gentiles were those particularly ceremonial laws that dealt with the liturgical cultic life of Israel that distinguished them from all the nations of the world. And so one of the things that the Gentiles hated about the Jews were all these Jewish rituals and rites and ceremonies and regulations that they did not participate in.
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Unity in Christ
So as to, that is for the purpose here, to create in himself, again, you see that this is an act of creation by Christ, that is an act of creation that is not only by Christ, but it is in Christ, and you might say it is for Christ, just as the world itself was created by Christ, for Christ, and he is the one who holds all things together. So now he's creating in himself one new man.
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Unity in Christ
Now that singular use of man there may mislead us for a moment and we may miss the point. But what Paul is speaking about here is that Christ has introduced a new humanity. a new humanity that abolishes this wall of separation between Jew and Gentile so that now in him there is no Jew nor Greek, only one common humanity.
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Unity in Christ
Now again, this is not just abstract theology, but in the first century church, one of the biggest questions that the early Christian community had to face was what
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Unity in Christ
place the Gentiles have now in the new covenant community and the apostle Paul is making it abundantly clear that the place they have is one of equality with the Jewish converts and that there's no priority given to Jewish converts and there's no second class citizenship in the kingdom of God so
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Unity in Christ
In himself he created one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, therefore putting to death the enmity. These images are simply repeating by way of emphasis what he's already said here. And so he came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near.
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Unity in Christ
He preached the same message both to the Jews and to the Gentiles of the presence of the kingdom of God. For through him peace, We both have access by one spirit to the Father. If there's ever a Trinitarian passage that you're going to run into, here it is. Because it says that this work of reconciliation, this making peace between Jew and Gentiles, is a Trinitarian work.
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Unity in Christ
It was through Christ, by the Holy Spirit, unto the Father. So that all three persons in the Trinity are working for the same purpose and to the same end here. He says, now therefore, you're no longer strangers and foreigners. The Old Testament saw the Gentiles as strangers foreigners and strangers to God's covenant community. That old system is gone. It no longer stands.
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Unity in Christ
Before I begin with the exposition of the text, let me just review a little bit of what we have seen so far. Paul, in the second chapter at the beginning, spells out the radical need for that grace by giving us a perfectly accurate but somewhat grim account of our fallen humanity and our natural deadness in sin.
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Unity in Christ
But instead of being strangers and foreigners, Paul says that this unity manifests itself fundamentally in three ways. And let's see if we can discover them. Now, therefore, you're no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints. What's a citizen? A citizen belongs to some political group. A city really comes from the word city or a nation.
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Unity in Christ
I told the story at some point on Sunday morning about what happened to Vesta and me and two of our friends when I was doing a three-week series of lectures in Eastern Europe right after the wall came down and the communists had departed. And I had lectured for a week, first of all, in Czechoslovakia, which is now the Czech Republic, and then a week at the seminary in Budapest in Hungary.
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Unity in Christ
And from there, we were traveling to Romania to do another week of lectures there. This is shortly after Ceausescu had been overthrown. But we were warned in our journey that things at the border between Hungary and Romania were difficult and that we might encounter trouble by the authorities at the border. And so when our train, which was an antiquated train, I believe World War II vintage,
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Unity in Christ
crossed the border from Hungary into Romania and came into the first stop. We were met by the border patrol and two somewhat rough and crude soldiers got on the train and demanded that we open up our luggage, which we did. And they were being very aggressive and unfriendly towards us.
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Unity in Christ
And then a moment later, the head officer got on, a great big burly guy, and he walked over to see what was going on here and looked down and one of our persons that were with us had a Bible in a brown paper bag. And this chief of the border patrol saw this Bible and said, what's that? And she pulled it out and she said, it's a Bible. He looked at the Bible and he said, you Christians?
Renewing Your Mind
Unity in Christ
We said, yes. And then he said, looking at our passports, you know Americans. We said, oh, we're in trouble now. You're not American. I'm not Romanian. And then he opened the text of scripture and said, what does this say? We are fellow citizens of the kingdom of God. Here he was a Christian, and he told these other guys, he says, leave these people alone. They're fine.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing the Paralytic
When I say your sins are forgiven, your sins are forgiven. And he looks at the man and said, rise, take up your bed and walk. And he did. And he went home. But the greatest thing that happened to the paralytic that day was not the healing of his body. It was the forgiveness of his soul.
Renewing Your Mind
Healing the Paralytic
But Jesus is not suggesting here that the man's problem is that he's paralyzed by sin. But he does recognize that the man has a deeper problem than his paralysis, and it is the problem of sin. And Jesus said, I did this not only to heal this man, body, and soul, but I did it that you may know that the Son of Man has the authority to
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Healing the Paralytic
the exousia, the power that we've talked about already on earth to forgive sins, which is like saying that you may know that the Son of Man is God incarnate. Two titles that are frequently used for Jesus in the New Testament, Son of Man, Son of God.
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And we have a tendency to say, oh, well, we believe that Jesus has two natures, a human nature, a divine nature, and that the title Son of God describes His divine nature, and the title Son of Man shows His solidarity with us in His humanity. But if we make that assumption, we miss a very significant point that the New Testament makes about Jesus. Let me just take a moment to explain this.
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The title Son of Man is used for Jesus. I've told you this before over in the paid school, but some of you have come since then, and others have forgotten it since then. But the title Son of Man occurs 83 or 84 times, I forget which, in the New Testament. And in every single case except two of them, the title Son of Man is used by Jesus for Himself.
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In the New Testament, if you look at the frequency of titles that are used for Jesus, the number one title in terms of numerical frequency that is used for Jesus in the New Testament is the title Christ. The number two title in terms of frequency is the title Lord. The number three title in terms of frequency is the title Son of Man.
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And we remember that Jesus then withdrew from Capernaum and took His ministry to the other villages around the Sea of Galilee. Here in the text this morning, we read that Jesus returned to Capernaum, and we read that it was heard that He was in the house.
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Healing the Paralytic
But what I find astonishing is that even though the title Son of Man is number three overall in terms of frequency, it's far and away number one in terms of Jesus' self-designation. When Jesus tells who He is, the favorite title that He used for Himself is the one that He uses for the first time here in the gospel of Mark. Son of Man. Well, who's the Son of Man? This week, dig a little deeper.
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Go back to the book of Daniel. Go to the seventh chapter of Daniel, where the seventh chapter of Daniel describes in graphic detail the appearance, description, and character of the Son of Man. The Son of Man is a heavenly being. It is the Son of Man who is appointed by the Ancient of Days. to be the judge of the earth. It is the Son of Man to whom the Ancient of Days gives the kingdom forever.
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It is the Son of Man who descends from heaven and then ascends into heaven, so that when Jesus calls Himself the Son of Man, He's not practicing humility. He's not saying, well, I'm just a poor country human being. What he's saying is, I have descended from heaven. I am heavenly, not from this earth. And so that title is pregnant with theological significance of the deity and the office of Jesus.
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And Jesus said, that's why I said your sins are forgiven, that you may know that the Son of Man has divine authority. I have the authority, the exousia, the power and the authority to say your sins are forgiven, and when I say your sins are forgiven, your sins are forgiven." And he looks at the man and said, "'Rise, take up your bed and walk,' and he did, and he went home.
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Healing the Paralytic
But the greatest thing that happened to the paralytic that day was not the healing of his It was the forgiveness of his soul. At the heart of the controversy that erupted in the 16th century between the Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church was the church's understanding of the sacrament of penance. And there are many factors to that, but part of the sacrament of penance was confession
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Another way of translating the text here is that He was at home, which adds more credibility to the notion that Jesus made His home in Capernaum after His family had moved away from Nazareth. And it's also possible that at this time the home that was in view was the home of Peter that Peter was perhaps again sharing with Jesus. But in any case, he comes to the house.
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and priestly absolution, where the penitent church person would come into the confessional and say, Father, I have sinned, and it's been so long since my last confession. He would recite his sins and so on, and he would have to go through his act of contrition and so on. And the highlight was when the priest would use the words, te absolvo, I absolve you.
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Now, some Protestants get really upset when they hear about that, And they say, what right does the priest have to say, I absolve you? Well, the church was very careful for centuries to point out that no priest has the inherent authority to forgive sins. Only God can forgive sins. But what the priest is saying in shorthand when he says, te absolvo, in the name of Jesus Christ.
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who does have the authority to forgive your sins. I declare you absolved by your repentance. So the problem with the Reformation wasn't with that. It was with other aspects of the sacrament of penance that we can treat on another day. But, you know, Luther kept the confessional. For this reason, he said, because people repent. need a word, assurance that they're being forgiven.
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Very seriously, I told you this again. Twenty-five years ago, a psychiatrist who had a very prosperous practice in South Florida seriously asked me to come on his staff And he offered me what at that time would have been a princely sum of $100,000 a year to join his team. I said, I don't even have a degree in psychology. Why would you want me?
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And he said, because, R.C., 95% of my clients don't need a psychiatrist. They need a priest because their lives matter. are destroyed by unresolved guilt. Wouldn't it be great if Jesus came in this room this morning, and He walked up to you, and He put His hand on your head, and He said, your sins are forgiven.
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And no sooner does Jesus come into the house, but once again a huge multitude presses together in order to gain entrance to this place to hear Jesus teach and to watch him perform his powerful works. Mark describes the scene in this manner. that so many people were pressing about that the whole house was filled with people.
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And not only that, but they were crowded outside at the door so that you couldn't even get close to the entrance to the house. Now, on a couple of occasions so far in our study of Mark, I've asked you to use your imagination, try to visualize the scenes in which Jesus operated. in the first century.
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And once again, this morning I'm going to ask you to try to imagine yourself being one of those people who had made it inside the house and that you are in a posture of rapt attention as you're listening to the teaching of Jesus. And while Jesus is speaking and you're listening, You look up and you see some dirt falling from the ceiling. And you think to yourself, what's up with that?
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Is there an insect up there disturbing the roof? And you try to keep your attention on Jesus, but your curiosity has the best of you because this disturbance continues at the ceiling. And you look up and you see pieces of the ceiling being removed. Now you can look up and see the sky, and the hole in the ceiling gets bigger and bigger.
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Now I know that there have been disturbances and distractions in congregations where I've been preaching, and it's maddening to a speaker to have everybody's attention directed away from the one who is speaking, and I don't know what Jesus felt like when everybody in the room started looking at the ceiling. My guess is that our Lord Himself
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looked at the ceiling and this disturbance that was taking place, just a little word of background. In Palestine at this time, the normal structure of a house was to be one story with walls, and on top of that one story was a flat roof.
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And the normal way in which roofs were constructed were that beams were set across, resting on the walls of the house, and then between the beams were interlaced sticks and reeds, and within the reeds and sticks then were woven a kind of thatch like we know of, thatched roofs.
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If you want to go down to Disney World, to the Animal Kingdom, you can see buildings down there with authentic thatch roofs, and you had this thatch that was woven on top of the sticks, and then on top of the thatch was several inches of mud that
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And this mud was packed down hard against the thatch, and they even had a kind of roller in the ancient world that they would get up to the roof, and they would roll out this mud until it was very hard and stable. And there were stairs that went outside the building up to the roof. because the roof is the place where people would go just for fresh air.
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They would often eat their meals on the roof, receive company on the roof. So the roof serves sort of like we would have a deck. Mark tells us, that while Jesus is teaching, these four men come carrying a stretcher or a pallet upon which this paralyzed man is lying. They're obviously coming seeking healing for this afflicted gentleman. but they couldn't get anywhere near Jesus.
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The entrance to the building, as I said, was blocked by this crowd that was there. And so, pressing on with their mission to get this suffering man to Jesus, they carry him up the stairs to the roof, and they began digging on the roof, taking apart the tiles, cutting through the thatch, breaking the sticks. to make a hole big enough for them to let this man down that Jesus may touch him.
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Now, of course, I have to ask questions like that. When I use my imagination, I'm looking up there, how big of a hole? Do they make the hole big enough that they can let this man down on the stretcher horizontally, room for the whole stretcher in the man? That'd be a big hole in the roof. Or is it just a small hole that they let him down feet first on ropes?
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Certainly don't think they're going to drop him down there head first into the room. But my guess is they made the hole big enough to let the man down on the stretcher. But the thing that's so amazing to me is how determined these men were to bring relief to their friend.
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that they destroy, at least temporarily, somebody's roof and interrupt the teaching of Jesus, doing anything they can to bring their friend to Jesus. Now it says here that when Jesus saw their faith, He spoke to the paralytic. He saw this wretched man on the stretcher, and He looked at him in compassion, and He said, "'Son, your sins are forgiven you.'"
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Now, there's nothing here in the text that would suggest that the man was looking for forgiveness. What he was looking for was healing. But notice Jesus doesn't say, "'Sir, your sins are forgiven.'" He addresses him as an adult would a child, and this is not a child, as one who's in a superior position of authority would to a subordinate. He calls him son. And he said, son, your sins are forgiven.
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Well, that statement was so radical that it occasioned a reaction from those who were the theologians, the clergy of the day, who were part of that crowd listening to Jesus, paying attention to every word.
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Already they're beginning to try to trap Jesus if they can, but the scribes are there, and we read that when they heard Jesus say to the man, your sins are forgiven, some of them were reasoning in their hearts, why does this man speak blasphemies like this? Why were they thinking of blasphemy? All Jesus said was, your sins are forgiven. Why would that be blasphemy?
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Because every scribe knew the principle in Old Testament Judaism that no man, not even the Messiah, would have the authority to to forgive the sins of human beings because they took the position and held it tenaciously that God and God alone has the authority to forgive sins. And so what does Jesus say? Your sins are forgiven. They're thinking blasphemy. This man
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is acting as if he had the authority of God Himself. And one of the things that's fascinating in the New Testament record of Jesus is that there are some people like the Jehovah Witnesses and the Seventh-day Adventists who argue that the New Testament doesn't really teach the deity of Christ. in spite of the explicit teachings of the text of the New Testament.
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But not only does the New Testament explicitly teach the deity of Christ, but we see in narratives like this the clear implication of Jesus' claim to deity. And the point is that what the Jehovah Witnesses, the Unitarians, and the Mormons failed to get, the contemporary Jews of Jesus' day, they got it. They understood that Jesus was claiming divinity. That's why they're so exercised.
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That's why they didn't say anything yet, but they're thinking it inside themselves. Why does He blaspheme? Why does He presume divinity? to forgive this man of his sins. Well, Jesus reads their minds. He knows what they're thinking.
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And so He perceived in His Spirit when they reasoned this way, and so He said to them, and notice this method of debate in antiquity of answering a question with a question. They're saying, why does He blaspheme? Who can forgive sins but God alone? Jesus raises the question to them, why? Why? Do you reason about this in your hearts?
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Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven you, or to say, arise, take up your bed, and walk? Let me just stop there for a second. Jesus poses a question, and the question is, which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven, or get up and walk? How would you answer that question?
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This is a difficult passage because on the one hand, it would seem that the easier of the two options would be to say your sins are forgiven because nobody can test whether the sins are forgiven. There's no visible evidentiary test that can be taken to verify or falsify the truth of what Jesus pronounces.
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But if He says, rise, get up, take your bed and get out of here, then He's putting Himself to the test, and people are going to know whether He has the power to heal the man or not. If the man goes back out on the stretcher the way he came in, except through the door instead of the roof, that would prove that Jesus didn't have the power to heal him.
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Or if he got up off the bed and walked home, that would also prove that Jesus did have the power to heal him. So manifestly, it would seem, at least at first glance, that the easier option when Jesus asked the courtier, which is easier, to say your sins are forgiven or rise, take up your bed and walk?
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But I don't think that what Jesus had in mind was that it was easier to say, your sins are forgiven. Because in that culture, in that context, in the presence of the scribes and the presence of His enemies, it would have been far easier for Jesus to say, get up and walk. Because Jesus knows if He says, your sins are forgiven…
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Mark continues his narrative. He had told us earlier that Jesus had made His headquarters in Capernaum, but that the crowds had so pressed against Him there, it became no longer possible for Him to continue the mission that the Father had sent Him to perform, namely to preach the coming kingdom of God.
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The gauntlet has been laid down because He's claiming to be divine, and that is not an easy thing to claim in that particular instance. So Jesus is not saying, I took the easy way out. No. I took the hard way out. Well, now the plot thickens, and you're still there, remember. You're listening to this exchange, and you're wondering what in the world He means, which is easier.
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And He tells you why He did what He did, why He chose the words that He chose. Listen carefully. But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. Here's why I said it. Not just to heal this man thoroughly, body and soul. I went deeper than his paralysis. I went to the deepest need that the man had, his relief from guilt.
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Healing the Paralytic
Now this is not to say that the man's suffering was directly a result of his particular sin. It could have been, but the New Testament makes it very clear that we are not to ever draw the conclusion that our suffering in this world is on an equal basis with our guilt. It does teach that suffering enters the world because of sin.
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Paul's saying, remember where you were. You're separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
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It's a philosophy of despair. And never, I think, in the history of the West has hopelessness more permeated a culture than it does today, that's one reason why we're a drug-ridden and suicidal culture. Because without the covenants of promise, we have no hope. And without Christ, we have no hope. And then the final thing, without God in the world,
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The way it's translated in the Greek is not without God in the world. It is kai athioi ento cosmo. The word there that is translated in English without God is the word athioi, from which we get the English word atheist or atheism. Now, when you think of the nature of atheism, what do you think of? You say an atheist is a person who says, I will not affirm the existence of God.
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Or put it the other way, I don't believe in the existence of God. I'm not persuaded of the existence of God. And it has to do with a philosophical conviction.
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But in any case, the point I want to make here is that when Paul is describing the situation of the Gentiles before this period and is asking them to remember what they were, he's not simply saying, remember that you were atheists, but that you were, as an atheist, without God in the world. You were godless. And that's the description of of everyone who is outside of Christ. They're godless.
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Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
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And Paul is saying, that was your circumstance before. And he's not just talking to a group of people in Turkey. He's talking about us. This is our pedigree. This is our background. Nobody is ever born a Christian. You may be born into a Christian home, but you're DOA. You're dead on arrival spiritually. You're a pagan when you take your first breath.
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You're not aware, at least, of the Scriptures yet. You're dead in sin. You're without Christ, and you're godless. That's our natural fallen condition.
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Now, I mentioned earlier when Paul, in the beginning of chapter 2, in verse 4, you know, after he said, you were dead in trespasses in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
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And then, after this terrible indictment, who? We breathe a sigh of relief when Paul says, but God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace, who you say through faith and so on.
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Well, after he just did that in the early part of chapter 2, after describing the fallen human condition, he interrupts that grim evaluation with the words, but God. I remember I emphasized this so much in a Bible study I gave 42 years ago. Some ladies that were in the class did needlepoint, and they needlepointed me a little thing with the words, but God.
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And I had that hanging on the wall in my office because that's, in a nutshell, the history of my redemption. Because it wasn't that I was dead in sin and trespasses, but Saul resolved to change his ways, to turn over a new leaf, pull himself up from his bootstraps. No, salvation is of the Lord fully and completely.
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And so now, after Paul talks about these five things that we're missing in the condition in the lives of of the Gentiles saying that they had no hope and were without God in the world. But now, but now, he says, remember where you were, but now understand where you are. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near.
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You were so far away from the kingdom, we couldn't see you with Galileo's telescope. You were so much strangers and foreigners to the things of God that the only way to describe it is not that you were jammed up close to it, just on the threshold of coming to faith, just on the doorstep of the kingdom of God. No, you were far away in the distance, but you've now been brought near.
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For he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace." and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
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by dromedaries, by horses, camels. No, what has allowed you to pass over that distance? He said, the means, the instrument that has carried you from afar to near, it's the blood of Christ. That's what's changed my situation. from death to life, from hopelessness to hope, from godlessness to God, is the blood of Jesus Christ. He's talking about the atonement. The atonement is the great equalizer.
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If Christ dies for a Gentile, that Gentile is now no longer separated from the Jewish believer. He's no longer an alien to the commonwealth of Israel because the blood of Christ has made him clean. Remember, again, the most common designation of the Gentile in the Old Testament is that he's unclean, he's impure, with a filthiness It couldn't be cleansed by soap.
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And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father.
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So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
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in whom you are also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Keep in mind that one of the major themes of Paul's letter to the Ephesians is the theme of the nature of the church of Jesus Christ. And so what he teaches in this lesson tonight, I think, is critical for our understanding of what is the church.
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So he starts this portion by calling the Ephesian Gentiles to remember something. He says, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh—let me just comment briefly on that phrase, in the flesh— because Paul uses the term flesh in two different ways. Sometimes he refers simply to a person's physical human nature without any particular reference to their fallen condition in original sin.
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Other times he uses that term flesh to describe our fallen nature where we are in bondage to sin.
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But now I think here when he talks about the Gentiles in the flesh, he's not talking about their fallen condition, but that those who are defined as Gentiles in terms of their ethnicity, the fact that they are not Jewish by nature, but that they are in fact non-Jewish in their physical and personal background. Remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh
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called the uncircumcision by what is called circumcision. Now actually, this is kind of a euphemistic and polite translation that we have here, because we know that the term that was used by the Jews to describe non-Jews or Gentiles was not simply that they were uncircumcised,
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but they referred to them in a pejorative sense as the foreskins because they still had foreskins which had been removed from the Jews by the rite of circumcision. So that was a little bit more crass than simply being called uncircumcised by what is called the circumcision, which of course refers to the Jews, which is made in the flesh by hand.
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Now, again, he calls the Gentiles to remember their former situation and their former estate. And I would ask us to pay close attention here because he lists specifically five things that separated the Gentiles from the Jews. Remember that you were at that time, first of all, separated— from Christ. Being Gentiles, you had no relationship with the Messiah that was promised to Israel.
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Remember the term Christos or Christ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew term for the anointed one, which referred to the Jewish promise and hope of the coming anointed Messiah. And the Gentiles, being non-Jews, did not have this historic background and preparation for the coming of the Messiah.
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And so in their circumstance and whatever religious involvement they were in, they were completely separated from Christ. Now, for the Apostle Paul to describe people's condition as being in a state of separation from Christ is, is one of the most grim diagnoses that he could make about any human's condition. There are millions and millions of people in our country today
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both Jew and Gentile, who remain separated from Christ. And that's a dreadful thing. And if it was the only thing that Paul introduced here to describe their previous condition, it would be ghastly enough. But he doesn't stop at that point. He continues to spell out the further ramifications of what it means to be separated from Christ. Remember that.
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Remember the time before Paul came to Ephesus and planted that church there. Remember before you heard the gospel. Remember before you were converted. Remember before you were made alive by the Holy Spirit. What condition you were in. First off, you were separated from Christ. Second of all, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel.
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Now, not only were they separated from Israel, but there existed tension and conflict between Jew and Gentile that can be described in terms of alienation. Alienation is often rooted in ethnic differences between And, you know, we have lists of phobias that you learn about in freshman psychology class.
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These deep-rooted fears that are often irrational, but nevertheless powerful fears that produce deep agitation within our souls. You know, there's hydrophobia, fear of water, and agoraphobia, fear of going out into public places. and you have all these kinds, arachnidophobia, fear of spiders, and we could go on with them. And do you know what xenophobia is?
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It's fear of foreigners, fear of people who are different culturally, racially, religiously, And we have a tendency to be frightened by those apparent differences. And so here, Paul is speaking of that kind of deep-rooted alienation between the Gentile community of that period from the Jewish community.
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Indeed, there was not just a discomfort and a fear, but there was, again, much hostility that was generated between the two groups. And so he said, separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. And there, the commonwealth of Israel is that place what's called the polity or the cultic life of the Jewish people.
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The Gentiles didn't understand Jewish traditions, didn't understand Jewish practices, didn't understand Jewish religion, and go on here for a second, and strangers to the covenants of promise. so that the ones who were aliens, who were separated, were also strangers, not just strangers to Jewish customs and not just separated from Christ, but strangers to the covenants of God.
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What does that really spell out? They didn't know the specific content of of the covenant promises of God. Because what is it that they didn't have that would have taught them of the covenants that God made with Israel? They didn't have the Scriptures. They didn't have the Word of God. You remember elsewhere in Romans when Paul talks about he who is a Jew is one who is a Jew inwardly.
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and it's not merely by being circumcised in the flesh, but you have to have the circumcision of the heart. And when he talks about both Jew and Gentile are together under sin, and then he gives such a grim evaluation of the behavioral patterns and the status of first century Judaism, he then asks the rhetorical question, what advantage then is there in being a Jew?
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And the way he goes through all of these things that show that this is an advantage, and that is an advantage, and this doesn't really get you into heaven, that won't get you to heaven, you expect him to answer his question, what then is the advantage of the Jew to say, not much, or there's none? But that's not what he does. He says, much in every way, and chiefly what?
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They had the oracles of God. That they had the Word of God. They had the canon of the Old Testament. So working without the oracles of God, without the special revelation of sacred Scripture, the Gentiles were consigned to a serious disadvantage and were left in so much more darkness than being without the light that God gave to Israel. And so Paul's saying, remember where you were.
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You're separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. Those last two really spell out the depths of their lostness. and of their condition. Being without the knowledge of Scripture, being without Christ, being strangers to the commonwealth of Israel, they were in a condition of hopelessness.
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We're going to continue our study of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, and we are in chapter 2, and I will be reading beginning at verse 11 through the end of the chapter. Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands.
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Imagine a life without hope. Thoreau said that the vast majority of human beings, men, live their lives in quiet desperation. I think about this a lot, particularly with respect to my friends and acquaintances and family even who are without Christ. And I'm thinking today, how can they live? How can you live in a situation of hopelessness?
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Well, they are without, really what is being said here is that they're without any meaningful hope, without any substantive hope, but they still conjure up worldly hopes. And they think, you know, and they just go through life and they say, well, I don't like school, but as soon as I'm 16, I'm going to get my driver's license. And so that sustains them through earlier hopelessness.
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But they get their driver's license, and it doesn't satisfy them. They say, well, as soon as I graduate from high school, then I'll be happy. They graduate from high school, that doesn't happen. As soon as I'm 21, as soon as I get out of college, as soon as I get married, as soon as I have a baby, as soon as I have a job,
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As soon as I get my bank account to a certain level, as soon as we own our own house, mortgage-free, and I keep postponing happiness, putting it to the future. But then there comes a time when you realize you're really caught in a vortex of hopelessness. You know, and you start putting bumper stickers on your car that say, he who dies with the most toys wins. That's a philosophy of hopelessness.
Renewing Your Mind
The Duty of Pursuing Assurance
How do we know that we won't be among this group of people who at the last judgment will come expecting entrance into the kingdom, addressing Jesus in intimate terms, and then be cast out?
Renewing Your Mind
The Duty of Pursuing Assurance
but he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself. You can go to evangelistic meetings, see huge crowds thronging to the front of the church to respond to the call of the gospel, where people like what they hear and Maybe you're moved emotionally. Make a decision to follow Christ.
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But as soon as the sun sets or as soon as the sun rises the next day, they've banished this from their minds altogether. It was a spur-of-the-moment response and a spurious response to be sure. Now when we read these so-called evangelistic statistics of hundreds or thousands or millions of people who make decisions,
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I don't want to be too harsh about that because one of the problems that all outreach ministry have is how to measure the effectiveness of the ministry. And churches do it by telling how many people are members in their congregation and how much they're growing in the last so many years.
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The Duty of Pursuing Assurance
and evangelistic ministries say, well, we put on an evangelistic mission and 15 people came to the altar or 25 people raised their hands or 30 people signed a card or prayed a prayer so that they have some kind of statistics to measure the response that people are making. Because how do you measure spiritual reality?
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The Duty of Pursuing Assurance
We know, and I think anybody that's ever been involved in evangelism knows, that you can't see the heart. And so the next best thing is to count the number of cards or the number of decisions or the number of whatever that people make. But Jesus warns us about that here when He says, I mean, there are many people who hear it with joy. It's like the seed that falls on the stony ground.
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but it is so shallow that as soon as the sun comes up and begins to scorch this seed, the seed crumbles and there is no fruit. Then there's another group that responds, and here's what Jesus says about that group. Now he who receives seed among the thorns… is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful."
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The Duty of Pursuing Assurance
Again, some of the seed falls among thorns, and again the person receives it with joy, but the first struggle, the first time there's any conflict between the flesh and the news that he's received in the gospel, he goes for the world. because again the seed has not found the good earth.
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And then Jesus says, but he who receives seed on the good ground is he who hears the Word and understands it and who bears fruit and produces. See, not everybody that hears the Word will be saved, but those who were doers of the Word will also be saved. And sometimes this is called the parable of the sower. Sometimes it's called the parable of the soil.
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The Duty of Pursuing Assurance
And so I'd like to begin this particular series by turning your attention to a text in the New Testament that I believe is one of the most terrifying texts that we can ever see in the Bible. and it comes from the lips of Jesus in the end of the Sermon on the Mount.
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Because for true conversion to take place, God changes the soul of the hearer. God provides the soil for that seed to take root, to grow, and to bear fruit. There's a very serious error running through the church today that talks about people who become Christians and they're true Christians, but they're carnal Christians, meaning that they remain in the flesh.
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The Duty of Pursuing Assurance
And they, for a long season or perhaps for their whole lives, never bear fruit. And yet they're called sincere believers. And I think that's on a collision course with the teaching of the New Testament. The fruit saves no one. But if there's no fruit... That means there's no spiritual life, because where there's spiritual life, there will inevitably, necessarily, and immediately be some fruit.
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Now the fruit may vary a hundredfold, sixtyfold, whatever. Not every true Christian is as fruitful as other Christians, but a true believer bears fruit he's not a believer. That's why Jesus said, you will know them not by their profession, but by what? By their fruit.
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And so where we have been immersed in a Christian subculture that puts so much attention on the making of decisions, the responding to altar calls, the praying the prayer of the sinner,
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that we miss the important point that making a decision to follow Jesus, let me say this as clearly as I know how, making a decision to follow Jesus has never converted anybody because it's not your decision that converts you. It's the power of the Holy Ghost that converts you.
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And what gets you in the kingdom is not that you made a decision or that you walked down an aisle or that you raised your hand or that you signed a card, but that there is true faith in your heart. And that's the question we're going to be looking at in this series. How can I know whether my profession of faith is authentic? Do I really have what I profess to faith? I say this again many times.
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No one has ever been justified by a profession of faith. Now everyone who is justified is called to profess that faith. Everyone who is a Christian is called to confess Christ before men. Don't get me wrong. There's absolutely nothing wrong at all with public professions of faith. They should be done.
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The problem is that when we rely on that as the litmus test of our conversion, because Jesus warns these people, honor me with their lips while their hearts are far from me. So my question again is how do I know that my profession of faith is motivated by the possession of true saving faith. That's what we're going to be looking at in this series as time goes on.
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We tend to think of the Sermon on the Mount as strictly an upbeat proclamation that Jesus made where He talks about the Beatitudes, blessed are those who do this and blessed are those who do that, And Jesus has this reputation because of the Sermon on the Mount for being not only a popular preacher, but one who accents the positive rather than the negative.
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And what is often overlooked is the climax of that sermon, which we read in verse 21 of chapter 7 of Matthew's Gospel, where Jesus says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven.
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And many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness."
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So here Jesus gives us a preview of the last judgment where He says the people will come to Him, addressing Him by the title, Lord, Lord, which I'll explore in a moment. and these people will say to Jesus, Lord, we did all these marvelous things in Your name. We served You. We preached in Your name. We cast out demons.
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The Duty of Pursuing Assurance
We did all of these things, and Jesus said, I will turn to these people and say, please leave. Not only does He say, I don't know you, but He said, I never knew you, you who are workers of disobedience or lawlessness or godlessness in various translations.
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Now what I find particularly poignant about this terrifying warning that Jesus gives to the church is that He begins by saying, not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom, and then He repeats that by saying, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord.
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The Duty of Pursuing Assurance
Now in other contexts, another series that we've done at Ligonier, I've explored in great detail the significance of the repetition of the title Lord. There are only about 15 occurrences in all of Scripture when somebody is addressed by the repetition of their name. Remember when Abraham…
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was at Mount Moriah and he was ready to plunge the knife into the chest of his son, God intervenes at the last second and says, Abram, Abram, lay not your hand upon your son. When God speaks to Moses out of the burning bush in the Midianite wilderness, He addresses him by saying, Moses,
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Moses, and we see the occasion where Jacob was afraid to go down into Egypt, and God speaks to him saying, Jacob, Jacob, the voice from heaven calling Samuel in the middle of the night, Samuel, Samuel, and so on. We see that throughout the Old Testament into the New Testament. Remember when Saul is confronted by Jesus on the road to Damascus, Christ calls him saying, Saul,
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Saul, why do you persecute me? When he had to rebuke Martha in Bethany, when he said to her, Martha, Martha, and to Peter, when Peter said that he would be strong throughout all the time, he said, Simon, Simon, Satan would have you, sift you like wheat. And even did Jesus lament over the city of Jerusalem when He cries out, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
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you who stone the prophets and kill those who have been sent to you, how often would I gather you to myself as a hen gathers her chicks, but you would not. And of course, the most poignant ever in Scripture is from the cross when Christ calls out, Eloi, Eloi. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
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And there are others, you know, Elisha when he sees the angel coming, the chariot of fire, and so on. But this rare... Grammatical structure has a significance in the Hebrew tongue. When somebody repeats the personal form of address, it suggests and communicates an intimate personal relationship with the person who's being addressed.
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And so Jesus is saying that on the last day, not only will people come to Him and say, We belong to you. We're yours. But He said they will address Him in terms of personal intimacy. They will use this form of address saying, Lord, Lord, as if they knew Him in a deep, personal, spiritual way. And Jesus is going to say to them, please leave. I don't know who you are.
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you who are workers of lawlessness. Now again, what Jesus is saying here is that there are many people who profess to be Christians, who use the name of Christ, call Him by His exalted title, Lord, who are not in the kingdom of God. who do not belong to Him and who will not make it past the last judgment."
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The Duty of Pursuing Assurance
That's why I say that's scary because these are not people that he's describing who are out at the fringe of the church, but these are people who are immersed in the life of the church, heavily involved in the ministry of the church, and maybe have made their reputation by being professed Christians. that Jesus doesn't know, and Jesus will banish from His kingdom.
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The Duty of Pursuing Assurance
Now the reason I brought this up at the outset is that when we make a profession of faith as Christians, we have to ask ourselves, how do we know that we won't be among this group of people who at the last judgment will come expecting entrance into the kingdom, addressing Jesus in intimate terms, and then be cast out.
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The Duty of Pursuing Assurance
How do we know that our confidence in our spiritual state, that we're in a state of grace, is sound and genuine? or whether we have deceived ourselves. Just yesterday I saw a report about a massive evangelistic campaign that has gone on internationally in which the report said millions of people have made decisions for Christ. And I read that and I thought, I wonder how many
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The Duty of Pursuing Assurance
of those decisions for Christ were true conversions, and how many of them were spurious. Again, in light of this text, let me just take another text to work on top of this, also from Matthew's gospel that speaks to this problem. In chapter 13 of the gospel of Matthew,
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We read in verse 1 this narrative, on the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea, and great multitudes were gathered together to Him so that He got into a boat and sat, and the whole multitude stood on the shore, and He spoke many things to them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went out to sow.
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And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places where they didn't have much earth, and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up, they were scorched, and because they had no root, they withered away." Now first of all, let's notice the immediate context of this famous parable of the sower.
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What comes right before it in verse 47, somebody says to Jesus, look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak with you. But He answered and said to the one who told them, who is my mother and who are my brothers? And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven
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Today we're going to begin a new series focusing on the question of the assurance of salvation, which I think is an extremely important theological question to examine.
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is my brother and sister and mother." Notice what he's saying is the true brother of Christ is the one who does the will of the Father, not simply one who made a decision to follow Jesus. Always keep in mind that nobody forced Judas to become a disciple. Judas chose to follow Jesus.
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Judas made his own decision to become a disciple, to enter the school of Jesus, and he was with our Lord during His earthly ministry for three years, and yet we are told in the New Testament that he was a devil from the beginning. that it wasn't that Judas was genuinely converted and then fell out of grace and was lost. But the point is, as close as he was to Jesus, he was never lost.
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a converted man. That ought to give us pause as we consider the state of our own souls. Well, a few verses later after Jesus gives the parable of the sower, He gives an explanation of it which is one of the rare times that that happens in the New Testament. And also, this parable flows in a different manner from normal parabolic instruction.
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The normal rule for interpreting parables is that parables generally have one point, and it's a very dangerous thing to turn all parables into allegories where allegories have symbolic meaning sprinkled throughout the story. But in this case, we do approach the level of the allegory as Jesus makes several applications from it when He explains its meaning to the disciples.
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In verse 18, He said, Therefore hear the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, Then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received the seed by the wayside. So the first group he talks about are those where the seed is thrown and it lands in the path and it has no place to take root.
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Not simply that we may fulfill our interests in theological investigation or curiosity, but this is a question that touches us where we live as Christians because it has a tremendous impact on our senses, our feelings, our comfort, and our behavior as Christians to get it settled in our lives whether we are in a state of grace.
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It doesn't take root at all and the birds come and eat that seed. because in antiquity the seed would be sown first and then the ground would be plowed under, and sometimes the seed would fall on the roadway and it would not be plowed under, it would have no way to take root, and that leftover seed would simply be devoured by the birds. And Jesus likens this to the birds represents Satan.
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So that this seed is something that does not take root at all. And there are people all over the place who hear the preaching of the gospel, where the gospel has no impact on them. It has no roots in their lives. But it doesn't just stop there. Jesus goes on to say,
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We need to understand the proper biblical doctrine of election, and we need to understand the proper biblical doctrine of salvation, because those two concepts are inseparably related.
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Now, the reason why that prescient view of election that I mentioned earlier is so popular is because people come to this text and they say, well, the first step is foreknowledge. Ha-ha! Therefore, that means that election or predestination is based upon something that God knows about people in advance. Now, the text doesn't say that.
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In fact, as Paul elaborates this in Romans 9, I think he precludes that possibility. But because foreknowledge is mentioned first, people make the assumption that it is on the basis of foreknowledge that predestination takes place.
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But from a Reformed understanding of election, let's understand this, that people who are elect in God's decrees and according to God's purposes are not nameless ciphers. From all eternity, God elects Abraham. From all eternity, God elects Jacob. But for him to elect somebody, he has to have some idea of who it is he's electing.
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So obviously foreknowledge must precede predestination because God is predestinating somebody, people. And so he has to know those people before he predestines them. So obviously the first thing is foreknowledge. The second thing is predestination. But notice the elliptical structure of this passage. That is, there are things unstated that are clearly implied.
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And what goes on in here is that those whom he foreknew that he also predestinate, those whom he predestinate that he also call, those whom he call that he also justify, those whom he justify that he also glorify. What is clearly understood here is that all who are in the category of the foreknown are predestined. Now again, God's foreknowledge in general includes all people, not just the elect.
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And so now we're going to turn our attention to how can we actually gain a true and sound basis for our assurance of salvation. And I think the first place that we have to look, again, is at theology.
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But here he's speaking about that foreknowledge that he has of his elect, because all whom he foreknows in the sense that he foreknows them here are predestined, and all who are predestined, what? Are called. Now the critical point is this. Don't miss it. All who are called are are justified. So if all who are called are justified, this can't possibly refer to the external call.
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It has to refer to the internal call because all who receive this particular call are receive justification, just as all who are justified are glorified. So if I want to know if I am glorified, if I'm going to be glorified, if I'm going to be saved in the final analysis, if I can determine whether I'm justified, I know I'm going to be glorified.
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If I'm justified now, I have nothing to worry about that. He who has begun a good work in me is going to finish it to the end, and we'll look further at that in our next lecture. But now we want to ask the question, where calling fits in to my assurance?
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If this calling has reference to the operation of the Holy Ghost on the soul that prepares us for faith and justification, then if I know that I have been called, then I know that I'm elect. Well, how do I know if I'm called? Well, let's go quickly to Ephesians chapter 2. Chapter 2 of Ephesians begins in verse 1 with these words,
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And you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sin, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others."
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But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, raised us up together, made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
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Again, in our day and age, people tend to downplay the importance of theology, but when we examine Peter's charge that we be diligent in making our election and our calling sure in order that we might grow and produce the fruit of our sanctification, we see there in his thinking the close relationship that exists between election and assurance.
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For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that, and the antecedent of that is faith, is not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
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In this brief summary, what Paul is focusing on is the work of the Holy Spirit that he describes in terms of quickening, which means being made alive. which we understand in theological categories to refer to our rebirth, to our regeneration, that which Jesus told Nicodemus was a prerequisite for anyone's even seeing the kingdom, let alone entering the kingdom of God.
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And that is tied to this internal calling. And so my basic question as I seek assurance is this, am I a regenerate person? If I'm a regenerate person, then I know I'm numbered among the elect. because without election, this work of the Holy Ghost will never take place in your soul.
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So all who are elect will become, at some point in this life, regenerate of the Holy Spirit, and all who are regenerate are numbered among the elect. So if you can be sure of your regeneration, you can be sure of your election. If you're sure of your election, you're sure of your salvation. Now again, what is critical is is that we understand what regeneration is.
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There is massive confusion out there in the Christian world about the nature of regeneration. And people who call themselves evangelicals in America walk around believing very, very different things about what happens to a person in the case of the Holy Spirit's quickening them or regenerating them from spiritual death to spiritual life.
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And that's why, again, I say having a sound doctrine of regeneration. is critical to having the full assurance of our state of grace and our relationship to God. And so in our next and final session, I want to look at the work of God the Holy Spirit in our lives as the most important foundation for our ever-achieving genuine assurance of salvation.
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Now, we need to understand the proper biblical doctrine of election, and we need to understand the proper biblical doctrine of salvation, because those two concepts are inseparably related. We can distinguish between election and salvation, but we can never tear them apart. Some people think that after we are saved, that becomes the grounds of our election.
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So in a certain sense, salvation precedes election. Those who hold the view of election that we call a prescient view or a foreknowledge view of election are those who believe that God elects to salvation salvation. those people whom he knows from eternity from his perspective of foreknowledge.
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He looks down the quarter of time, and he knows in advance who will respond positively to the offer of the gospel and who will not. And on the basis of his prior knowledge of what people do in response to the gospel, he makes his decree or decision of authority. election. So when he sees people exercising faith and entering into a state of salvation, on that basis, he elects them.
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But that view of election I don't think is a biblical view. I don't think that it explains election. I think it fundamentally denies the biblical view of election. And unfortunately, it is a doctrine of election that in the final analysis makes the deciding factor rooted and grounded in something that we do. rather than purely on the grace and mercy of God.
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And I think people that take that view of election are of the same group, basically, that struggle inevitably with their assurance because their assurance is tied to their performance, as it were. But as I understand the Scripture, election is unto salvation. so that if you are elect, you are saved. And if you are saved, that's the clearest sign that you are numbered among the elect.
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And let's state it another way. None of those who are saved are not elect. and none of those who are elect fail to be saved. Salvation flows out of election. So if I wanna be sure of my salvation, the first thing I need to know is am I numbered among the elect?
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So I see there in Peter's teaching why it is so important that I be diligent in making my calling and my election sure, because if I'm sure about my being numbered among the elect, then I can be certain with respect to my salvation, not only today but in the future as well. Because election is not simply to make salvation possible, but the purpose of God in election is to save the elect.
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And that purpose is not frustrated. Let me read a passage that's not usually mentioned in this regard, but one that I take great comfort in. It's found in the 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St. John. which is in the middle of Jesus' high priestly prayer for His disciples and for those who believed after them. And this is a passage of great encouragement for the whole church of all time.
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But in verse 6, Jesus says in His prayer, I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your Word. Now they have known that all things which you have given me are from you.
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For I have given to them the words that you have given me, and they received them, and have known surely that I came forth from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours." and all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.
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Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you. Holy Father, keep through your name those whom you have given me, that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you gave me, I have kept." None of them is lost except the son of perdition that the scripture may be fulfilled.
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Now, this idea that Jesus expresses in this prayer is that the father gives the gifts of people, of the redeemed, to the son. And all that the father gives to the son, Jesus says earlier in John's gospel, come to me. and all that come to him are kept by him.
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And so this refers back to the elect who are the ones whom the Father gives to the Son, and the elect that the Father gives to the Son are preserved by the Son. The basis of our assurance is not to be a confidence in our ability to persevere.
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You know, we talk about the perseverance of the saints, and I believe that the saints do in fact persevere, but the reason why they persevere is because they are preserved. And so it's better to speak of the preservation of the saints than the perseverance of the saints. And so we hear in this chapter, Jesus appealed to the Father that those who have been given to him may be kept. Now,
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When we look further at this whole relationship between election and salvation, we need to be concerned with what we call in theology the ordo salutis. It was just a fancy way of describing what we say in English, the order of salvation.
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Gaining True Assurance
And when we talk about the order of salvation, we're talking about a sequence of things or actions or events that take place that are the discrete aspects of all that's involved in our salvation. But also when we talk about the order of salvation, we're talking about what we call a logical order rather than a temporal order. Now, here's what I mean by that distinction.
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We say and we believe that we are justified by faith alone. Now, the question is, how long after we possess true saving faith are we justified? Is it five minutes, five months, five years, five seconds? No, we would say that justification and faith are coterminous with respect to time. The very moment we have true faith, in that same instant, God receives us as justified people.
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Gaining True Assurance
But we still say that faith comes before justification, not justification before faith. even though they occur at the same time, one precedes the other one logically, by a logical priority. Now, what we mean by logical priority is this, that since our justification depends upon and rests upon faith,
Renewing Your Mind
Gaining True Assurance
Faith is the prerequisite, the necessary condition that has to be present for justification to take place. So faith is logically necessary for justification. It precedes justification, not in time, but in terms of logical necessity.
Renewing Your Mind
Gaining True Assurance
So when we're talking about the order of salvation, keep in mind that what we have in view here are distinctions with respect to prerequisites, to logical necessities. Now with that in mind, let's turn our attention briefly to the so-called golden chain in Romans chapter 8. In Romans chapter 8... We have one of the most famous and beloved verses in all of the New Testament in verse 28.
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Gaining True Assurance
We read, "...and we know that all things work together for good." to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose. Now, let me just pause for a second and say, notice that this promise that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are described here as the ones who are the called according to his purpose. So that's a special kind of calling.
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Gaining True Assurance
The Bible speaks about the call of the gospel that goes out to everybody, what we call the outer call or the external call. And not everybody that hears the gospel with their ears, not everybody who hears the outer call is saved. But we also speak of the inner call. The call of God in the person, in the heart, that is a work of God the Holy Spirit, which call is effectual?
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Gaining True Assurance
We're going to continue now with our study of the question of the assurance of salvation. We've spent quite some time already examining false and counterfeit methods of assurance, and we've seen that one of the most critical problems that we face with respect to false assurance is the having a false understanding of salvation and its requirements.
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Gaining True Assurance
That is the call by which the Holy Spirit opens the ears of the believer and the eyes of the believer, the heart of the believer, working within us to bring about the purpose of God. So this is just another phrase or another descriptive term for the elect. All of the elect receive this inner call. All of the elect receive the purposive call of God.
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Gaining True Assurance
And all who receive this inner call of God are numbered among the elect. And I think that becomes very clear in the verses that follow from this. Let's look at it. For whom he foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. Now Paul's talking here about the purposes of God with respect to salvation. And he begins by mentioning God's foreknowledge.
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And those whom He foreknew, He predestined to what? What was the goal of the predestination? To be conformed to the image of Christ so that our election is in Christ. Now here comes in verse 29 what is called in theology the golden chain. I'm sorry, verse 30. Moreover, whom he predestined, these he also called. Whom he called, he also justified. Whom he justified, he also glorified.
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Now this is an abbreviated version of what we call the order of salvation. There are other aspects to the order of salvation besides what are mentioned here. This hits the highlights. Notice that sanctification is not in this list. But what is in this list include the following items. First of all, foreknowledge. Second of all, predestination. Third, what? Calling. Fourth, justification.
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Gaining True Assurance
Fifth, glorification. Now there is an order here that is a logical order that is followed. And it's very important to our understanding of assurance of salvation to grasp what is going on here in this order of salvation. It starts with foreknowledge.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
In His sovereignty, He has so designed His plan of salvation as to work through the prayers of His people. And that's why the Bible again and again encourages us, not only encourages us, but commands us to be actively involved in prayer.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
But when we look at the doctrine of divine providence, we recognize that God governs the entire universe and all things in it, and that He is sovereign over everything that takes place. And as soon as we begin to wrestle with the sovereignty of God over His creation and really examine
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
Don't say that you're going to do something next week or next month or next year without saying at the same time, Deo Volente. God willing, I will see you next week. But God may not be willing. God may take me between now and then, or God may put me on my back and incapacitate me so that the plans that I have prepared for next week will not come to pass because God doesn't will it.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
You see, faithful prayer, true faith, what faith is in its essence is trust. And the prayer of faith is a prayer that trusts God for the outcome. Even if he says no. That's what Jesus teaches us in Gethsemane. Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. So if you want me to take that cup, I'm going to trust you while I'm drinking the cup. That's the posture of Job. Though he slay me.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
yet will I trust Him. And so again, we go back to the principle, the premise I've been repeating, that when we pray, remember who it is we're talking to. Remember who it is whose will is sovereign. And God's will does not always agree with my will. And aren't you glad that because if it did, that would make me God.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
And I guarantee you, I would be an extremely poor substitute for the one who already holds that position. So saying, if it be thy will, is not an act of unbelief. It is an act of trust, trusting in God and in His will. Nevertheless, having said all of that,
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
Again, James will not allow us to retreat into fatalism where we just say, que sera, sera, what will be will be, and I don't have to be engaged in serious prayers. But he goes on to say, the fervent, effectual prayer of a righteous man avails what? Everything? No. But it avails much. And that answers the question, does prayer change things? Yes. a whole lot of things. Does it avail for anything?
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
Yes, it avails much. But again, he doesn't say the cavalier, casual, insipid prayer of an unrighteous person avails much. It's the fervent prayer. that avails, the fervent prayer of a righteous person, a righteous person relatively speaking. So what about fervency?
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
Well, it's not that we have a Richter scale that measures the emotional intensity of every prayer, but fervency means praying with some degree of passion. And that passion should be in proportionate relationship to the severity of the need and the seriousness of the thing.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
the fine points of the doctrine of providence, one of the first questions we encounter is, well, if God is sovereign, And if He ordains everything that comes to pass in some sense, what use is there in praying? Why should we pray at all? I get that question all the time.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
It's not that we just scream and yell and carry on in church on Sunday morning so that we can exhibit passion over who's going to win the football game that afternoon. No. Passionate prayer is should be fitting serious and severe needs.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
Now we see another commentary on the significance of the fervency of prayer in the parable of the unjust judge, or sometimes called the parable of the importunate widow. You remember the story. Jesus says there was a judge in a certain city who regarded neither God nor man. And there was this poor woman who had been wronged, and she came to the gate seeking justice.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
But the judge had no time for her. He was too busy. He didn't want to be bothered with her. But she kept knocking at his door. She kept asking to be heard. She persisted in her prayer until finally he couldn't stand it anymore. And just to get her off his back, to get rid of this pest, he heard her case and delivered her. And what does Jesus say? What's the point of the parable?
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
Jesus doesn't say, okay, just like this woman pestered this corrupt judge until she finally got what she wanted, so you have to pester the unjust judge who rules heaven and earth until you can finally get a hearing. That's not his point. His point is this. If even corrupt judges in this world from time to time
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
will hear somebody's prayer, how much more will the true judge of heaven and earth, who has no corruption in him at all, hear your prayers? And he asked the rhetorical question, will not God vindicate his elect who cry out to him day and night? Again, Jesus is talking about the efficacy of prayer. In fact, at the beginning we're told, and Jesus taught them a parable to the end. What?
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
That men ought always to pray and not faint. That was the point of this parable. That's the point of this series, that we want to emphasize what Jesus taught in that parable, that we ought always to pray and not faint. And if we feel from time to time on the edge of fainting, if we feel like we're about to give up, the chances are
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
we have been lax in our prayer because there is a corollary between prayer and courage, prayer and hope. So the next time you're thinking of fainting, Remember that the fervent, effectual prayer of a righteous person avails much.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
And of course, the simple answer, the easy answer, which doesn't satisfy too many people, is that God not only ordains the ends of of the universe and of human history, but He also ordains the means to those ends. And just like He sovereignly has a plan of salvation that He is unfolding in history, part of the way in which He works out His plan of redemption is through the preaching of the Word.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
And it is a mandate, but again, it is one of the greatest privileges that God has given His people that we can come to Him where no one else cares and nobody else wants to listen. He cares and He will listen.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
It's God who brings the increase to the preaching of the Word, but He uses that means for His end. And so, therefore, we have a responsibility in light of divine sovereignty and in light of His providence to be engaged in preaching. Well, the same thing can be said for prayer. God works in and through the prayers of His people.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
And so it's not that the New Testament says, well, God is sovereign, so you can just go back and put up your heels and take a nap and don't be engaged in preaching or in praying or in any activity. On the contrary, it's
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
It's because God is sovereign that we get so excited about the whole role of prayer because in His sovereignty, He has so designed His plan of salvation as to work through the prayers of His people. And that's why the Bible again and again encourages us, not only encourages us, but commands us to be actively involved in prayer. Well, then the question comes, well, do you mean then, R.C. ?
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
that prayer changes God's mind. I get that question a lot. Let's look at that. Does prayer change God's mind? I said, well, if we ask the question in that manner, obviously to ask that question is to answer it. I mean, the only answer I can give to it is not simply by saying, no, prayer doesn't change God's mind. The only real answer I can give to that question is, of course not.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
What could be further from your imagination than that your prayer or my prayer would have the power or the influence to change the mind of the Almighty? I mean, just think about that for just two minutes, and you will see that to ask the question is to answer it. Because what would have to happen for God to change His mind?
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
What kind of a view of God do we have when we assume that God has worked out a plan, and He has His plan A, and He's about to implement this plan that grows out of His perfect knowledge, of His absolute wisdom. and his total righteousness and integrity. So he's utterly incapable of having an evil design, and he's incapable of having a foolish plan, isn't he?
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
And so he has his plan A, and he's going to implement it, and then all of a sudden, something he hasn't anticipated takes place. You begin to pray, and you say, well, God, could you please change this plan a little bit? I would prefer that you do it a different way. Have you considered this, and have you considered that? And suddenly, you're God's guidance counselor.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
and you get him to change his mind because you persuade him that his first plan was not a good one, or you give him information that he lacked before you talked to him. Now think about it. What kind of a God do you have if you think that you have to inform Him of the details of what's going on down here? Well, the Scriptures tell us that the Lord knows what you need before you ask it.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
And what's the conclusion? Therefore, you don't need to bother to ask. Isn't that amazing? that the Father who knows everything about you, He knows every hair on your head. He knows every thought in your mind, every word before it's even formed on your lips. He knows what you're going to say before you say it. There's nowhere that you can escape from His presence. He knows you inside and out.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
He knows what you need, but He still says, come and tell me what you need. Now, beloved, when he does that, that is not for his benefit. It is not for his education. And it's not for his edification. Who's it for? The answer is obvious, isn't it?
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
When he asks us to come and tell him what our concerns are and our needs, he's inviting us into the sacred presence of the Almighty in heaven itself and to say, come and talk to me. for our benefit. Because we walk away from that communication, from that experience of speaking our needs and our concerns before the Lord, encouraged and at peace. because we have been with him in that discourse.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
But let's not flatter ourselves to the place where we think that our wisdom is greater than his wisdom or that our knowledge is such that we can give him information that he didn't previously have. Well, again, when I give that kind of an answer to people, to the question, does prayer change God's mind?
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
When I say no, it doesn't change God's mind because God's mind knew what you were going to pray before you prayed it. And that knowledge was factored in to his plan all along. Well, then you say, well, then again, that sounds like it's all programmed and there's no reason to pray. Well, let's ask the question another way. Not does prayer change the mind of God, but does prayer change things?
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
Does prayer have any impact on what actually comes to pass? And the answer to that biblically is yes, and not just a simple yes, but a by all means. Let's take a moment to look at James' teaching on this subject in the fifth chapter of his book, beginning in verse 13. We read these words, "'Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray.'" Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church. Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it didn't rain on the land for three years and six months. He prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
Now first of all, you have to understand something about the kind of literature that I just read from this book. The book of James is called the only book that fits the genre or the literary category of wisdom literature in the Old Testament. It's very Hebrew in its orientation. You don't get long, abstract, developed arguments in James.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
Rather, you get, for the most part, aphorisms, short, pithy statements that incorporate truths that are given without all the detailed qualifications that you might find in the didactic literature, for example, in the style of the Apostle Paul. So you have to be careful when you read this because some read it and says, well, wait a minute. He says the prayer of faith will save the sick.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
The Lord will raise them up as if this were an absolute promise to every inquiry. We know in the New Testament that there were the prayers of the saints to which God said no. For example, by inference, we'll take a look at what happened when Peter was thrown into prison. And the disciples gathered together to pray fervently for Peter's rescue. Do you remember that event?
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
And as they were praying, there's a knock at the door. And somebody goes to the door and opens the door and sees Peter standing there. And what happens? closes the door in his face, said, Peter's ghost is out there. I mean, God answers the prayer, and when the answer to prayer is right before their eyes, they still don't believe it.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
But there is where we see how the early church prayed for the release of Peter, and God answered that. But the same narrative tells us about the martyrdom of James. Are we to believe that the early leaders of the church didn't pray for James? We're told in Paul's epistles of those who had been sick and had not been healed.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
Even Paul talked about how he had prayed several times for relief from the thorn of the flesh, whatever that was. And God's response to the apostle was what? My grace is sufficient for you. You see, sometimes God says no, even when we are sick. But at the same time, what James is encouraging is he's saying, hey, we understand.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
Earlier in our study of prayer, I made mention that our prayer life is intimately related to the providence of God. And we talked about how it's God's provisions that we are praying about and for when we entreat Him in our communication of prayer.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
That's a given that God doesn't always say yes, but don't miss out on the opportunity. Pray for the sick. Pray for those who suffer because God does answer those prayers. God does heal the sick. He does relieve our suffering. but it's not cast as an absolute guarantee.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
If that were the case, I mean, keep in mind that every Christian who lived in this world before, let's say, just to be on the safe side, 1880 has died because Christians die. Not just unbelievers, but Christians die. And when Christians get sick, there are always Christians that pray for Christians that get sick. And at some point, the Christians die.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
And that was true of every apostle in the New Testament. There is no absolute guarantee that Christians are going to escape suffering, pain, and disease, and so on. We know that. But nevertheless, we still are to be encouraged because there's a massive impact from that prayer that God does at times heal people and restore them and also alleviates their suffering. Sometimes He says yes.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
Sometimes He says no. Now, one of the things that's really misappropriated from this text is that James said it's the prayer of faith that will save the sick. And so we've had a whole theology emerge in the popular culture associated with so-called faith healing, so that if you are not
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
rescued from your malady and delivered from your disease, then obviously the problem is you didn't have the faith. And if you have true faith, you'll never be sick. You'll always be cured and so on. God always wills healing. You hear that kind of theology. You just have to name it and claim it and so on.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
This is such a gross distortion of the total picture of what prayer is supposed to be and do in the Bible. I've had people tell me that if you pray for somebody and you say, if it be thy will, O Lord, please raise this person up, that that is a sin. It's an affront against God to say, if it is God's will, because God always wills that. I say, wait a minute.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
If it is a lack of faith to say, if it be thy will, what does that say about the posture of Christ's prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane? The greatest teacher we have on how to pray is Christ Himself. And when He was faced with His great passion, His ultimate suffering, that none of us can imagine what it was like to have the cup of God's wrath set before Him. We can't imagine that.
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Providence and Prayer: If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
And He, in agony, sweating beads of blood, is on His face before God in the Garden of Gethsemane, and He says, O Lord, if it be Thy will, let this cup pass from Me. Was that an act? of unbelief on Jesus' part? By no means. And he hastened to add, nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done, which is also mentioned by James, those two little words, Deo Volente.
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Jesus talked more about hell than he did about heaven, and he frequently warned his hearers that on that last day, every idle word would come into judgment. But if there's anything that we want to repress psychologically, it's that threat, because none of us wants to be held accountable for our sins.
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False Assurance
That's natural concerns that we have one for another. But when God looks at the act, He wants to say, does this work proceed from a heart that loves God fully? Remember the first commandment, thou shalt love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your mind, all of your strength. And if I obey the law outwardly, while my heart is not fully given to God, then my virtue has been tainted.
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False Assurance
That's why Augustine said, even our best virtues are but splendid vices. Because as long as we're in this body of flesh, there will be sin that attaches itself to everything that we do. But again, this is what the richer and the He thought he'd met the standard.
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False Assurance
Again, Paul warns in the New Testament that those who judge themselves by themselves and judge themselves among themselves are not wise, because that's how we do. We look at each other's performance, and we think that God is grading on a curve.
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False Assurance
And if I keep myself from adultery or keep myself from murder or from being an embezzler and doing some egregious sin like that, I can always find people who are more sinful than I am. And I think, well, compared to them, I'm doing pretty well. And this is the mindset of this man that comes to Jesus. You know, he thinks Jesus is a good man.
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False Assurance
And so he stops him in his track, and he says, you know the law. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery. And this man now reveals his superficial understanding of the law because he says to Jesus, like, is that all? All these things have I done from my youth. I've kept the Ten Commandments all my life.
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False Assurance
Now what Jesus could have done with that young man and say, well, I see you weren't at the Sermon on the Mount when I explained the deeper implications of these laws. You missed that lecture. But instead of doing that, He used a beautiful pedagogical method to teach this man his error. He said, oh, you've kept them all, huh?
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False Assurance
He could have said, you haven't kept any of them since you got out of your bed this morning. But instead he said, okay, go sell all that you have, give it to the poor, take up your cross and follow me. Now at that point Jesus was not giving a new way of salvation. where you can be saved by donating your goods to the poor.
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False Assurance
Nor was Jesus implementing a universal mandate for people to divest themselves of all their private property. He was dealing with this man, and this man was a rich man, and this man's heart was obviously completely captured by his wealth. And so for him, his money was his God. It was his idol. And so Jesus said, you kept all the Ten Commandments? All right, let's check number one.
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False Assurance
Those who have no other gods before me, go sell everything you have. And the man who had been so enthusiastic only moments before, we were told, began to shake his head. He walked away sorrowfully because he had great possessions. You see, what that whole encounter was about was about goodness. Do we have enough righteousness to satisfy the demands of a holy God?
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False Assurance
And so those who are in a state of salvation now have to ask the question, how can I be sure that my assurance is not like the false assurance of those who think they're being saved but are not? And again, that takes us right back to the first lecture where we looked at Jesus' warning in the Sermon on the Mount where He said that many would come to Him
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False Assurance
The New Testament on every page belies that premise, that all of our righteousness is as filthy rags, and the person who is trusting in their righteousness… to be saved has a false assurance. There aren't enough works in the world that you can do to be saved. You're an unprofitable servant. That's what the sixteenth-century Reformation was all about.
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False Assurance
Well, then there's another false method of salvation, which I'll call sacerdotalism. Sacerdotalism means that salvation is accomplished through the priesthood, through the sacraments, and or through the church. And so people can say, hey, I was baptized, or I had the sacrament of penance, or I had the Lord's Supper, or I had last rites, whatever.
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False Assurance
I've had these sacraments, and these sacraments are means of grace. They saved me, and so I draw my confidence or my assurance from having experienced the sacraments. It's the same error that the Pharisees committed
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False Assurance
in biblical days because they assumed that because they were circumcised, that is, that they had had the Old Testament sacraments, that therefore they were guaranteed a place in the kingdom of God. The sacraments are very important. The sacraments communicate the promises of God to us for our salvation. The sacraments are means of grace, but no sacrament has ever saved anybody.
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False Assurance
And if you put your trust in the sacraments... then you have a false assurance of salvation because you're trusting in something to save you that neither does save you nor can save you. Now closely related to this is the idea, and many people have it, is that all they have to do to be saved is to join a church. So if they join a church, they figure they're in.
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False Assurance
They're in the visible body of Christ, and they assume that if you're in the visible body, you must be in the invisible church as well. And so their confidence is now placed in their membership. So if you're a church member, you say, are you saved? Well, certainly, I'm a Methodist. Are you saved? Sure, I'm an Episcopalian. Are you saved? Well, I'm a Presbyterian, of course.
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False Assurance
And again, membership in the church does not justify anybody. And so there we have another false way to have assurance, which is an illegitimate basis for assurance altogether. Now finally, as I mentioned earlier, in the so-called evangelical world, we have other ways. Pray the sinner's prayer. Raise your hand in an evangelistic meeting. Go forward at an altar call. Make a decision for Jesus.
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False Assurance
These are all techniques or methods that are used to call people to repentance, to call people to faith, and they're fine. But the danger is that if you say the prayer, raise your hand, walk the walk, make a decision, that you trust in that. where we've already seen that those outward professions may be deceiving, and you are not really possessing the necessary steps for salvation.
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False Assurance
and the last day saying, Lord, Lord, didn't we do this, and so on. Obviously, these people come to Jesus fully assured that they belong to Him, and He rejects them. thereby exposing their assurance as counterfeit, as false. So what I want to do in this segment is to ask the question, how can it be possible, or what different ways are there that lead to a false sense of assurance?
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
Well, we'll look in the next session at how we can find authentic ways to salvation and how these counterfeit ways can be overcome.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
I'm going to look at several different problems that we encounter, but they all reduce basically to two things. The first one is people have a false sense of assurance of salvation because they don't understand the requirements for salvation. They have a misunderstanding of what salvation entails. And so if you have a bad theology of salvation, that can lead you to a false assurance.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
And then the second big problem is that if you have a correct theology, then you have to see that it's also possible for a person to have a sound theology, a sound grasp of what it is that is required to but they are mistaken in terms of whether they personally have truly and authentically met those requirements. So this complicates matters doubly.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
The first major error that leads to a false sense of assurance of salvation is the error of universalism. Universalism teaches that everybody is saved. Everybody goes to heaven. And so if I am persuaded of this doctrine of salvation, it's a simple syllogism for me to go from the doctrine of universal salvation to the state of my destiny as a particular individual.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
I can do it this way, syllogistically. Everybody is saved. I am a buddy. Therefore, I am saved. Obviously, if all people are saved and I am a person, then I can be sure that I will be saved as well. This also carries with it the idea of what I call the doctrine of justification by death. which I believe is the most prevalent doctrine of justification in our culture today.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
The greatest controversy in the history of the church took place in the 16th century between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Reformers over this very question of how justification takes place. This issue of justification by faith alone or some other means became the most volatile theological dispute ever.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
Today, however, this is not the prevailing issue in our culture, but rather the doctrine that most competes with the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone is the doctrine of justification by death. I've already made reference to the evangelism explosion diagnostic questions Well, there are two of them.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
I mentioned one where in the discussion for evangelism, a person is asked, have you come to the place in your spiritual life or in your thinking where you know for sure that when you die, you're going to go to heaven? And then that question is followed up by the second question, well, suppose you were to die tonight and you stood before God and
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
and God said to you, why should I let you into my heaven? What would you say? I've asked that question to many, many, many people, and frankly, by far, the most frequent answer you get to that question is what we call works righteousness answer, where people will say to God, well, I lived a good life, or I did the best that I could, and so on. But we'll look at that further in a minute.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
But I asked this to my son when he was a boy, and I said to him, son, if you were to die tonight and stood before God and God said to you, why should I let you into my heaven? I said, what would you say to God? And my son looked at me like that was the silliest question anybody could ever imagine. And then he says, well, I would say, because I'm dead. Like, what could be simpler?
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
And I thought, here he is being reared in a home that's committed to biblical theology, and not only have I failed to communicate justification by faith alone to my own son, he's already been captured by the pervasive view in our culture that everybody goes to heaven and that all you have to do to get there is to die.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
We have so eliminated the last judgment from our thinking and expunged any notion of divine punishment or of hell from our thinking and from the church's thinking, that is now an assumption. that all you have to do to go to heaven is to die.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
In fact, the most powerful means of grace for sanctification there is in our culture is to die, because the sin-blistered sinner is automatically transformed between the morgue and the cemetery. So then when they have the funeral service, this person is presented to us as a paragon of virtue. And all of a sudden, the sins are removed because they've died.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
It's very dangerous business because the Scriptures warn us again and again that it is appointed for every person once to die and then the judgment. People like to think that the threat of a last judgment is something invented by sawdust trail evangelists like Billy Sunday or Dwight Moody or Billy Graham or Jonathan Edwards or George Whitefield. No, no, no, no.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
Nobody teaches more clearly about a last judgment and a division between heaven and hell than Jesus Himself. Jesus talked more about hell than He did about heaven, and He frequently warned His hearers that on that last day, every idle word would come into judgment. But if there's anything that we want to repress,
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
psychologically, it's that threat because none of us wants to be held accountable for our sins. That's our nature. And so there's nothing more appealing to human beings than universalism, the idea that all are saved. Now, the second false basis for assurance is what I would call legalism, which means works righteousness.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
This view teaches that what you have to do to get into heaven is to obey the law of God and to live a good life. That is, that your works and your good deeds will get you into heaven. And so people think that they have met the standard of
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
that God has set forth, and the basis of their self-evaluation of their character and of their performance, they have a confidence that they're going to pass the exam, that they will meet the requirements and meet the standards for entrance into heaven.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
As I said a few moments ago in the Evangelism Explosion program, not only did I ask those questions to multitudes of people, but I had trained over 200 people who went once or twice a week out into the community and talked to people and asked these questions, and we would correlate their answers, 90% of the answers.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
fell into the category of works righteousness, when we would say to somebody, if you were to die tonight and stand before God and God said to you, why should I let you into my heaven, what would you say? And the people would say, I've lived a good life, or I gave a tithe to the church, or I worked with the Boy Scouts, or I did this, or I did that, and so on. But their confidence rested
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
on some kind of performance that they had achieved in their lifetime. Now, this again is a counterfeit basis for assurance because the Scriptures make it very clear that by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. If anybody embodies this false understanding of salvation, it would be the rich young ruler that encountered Jesus during Jesus' earthly ministry.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
Again, we're going to continue with our series on the assurance of salvation. In our last segment, we looked at the four different groups of people in the world, those who were not saved and know that they're not saved. We looked at those who were saved and know that they're saved, those who were saved and don't yet know that they are saved,
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
You remember that narrative when the rich man came to Jesus and he came with compliments dripping from his lips. He says, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Now he's asking the question about what is required for salvation. but he calls Jesus good.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
And before Jesus answers his question about the requirements to be saved, he stops the man in his tracks and challenges him by saying to him, why do you call me good? Don't you know that no one is good but God? Because of that answer, some critics say, well, Jesus clearly is denying His own goodness here and His own deity here. No, no, no, no, no.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
Jesus knows very well that this man hasn't a clue about the person He's speaking to. He doesn't know who Jesus is. He doesn't know that He's asking this question of God incarnate. For all the rich young ruler knows, he's talking to an itinerant rabbi, and he's asking him a theological question. What do I have to do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus stops and says, wait a minute.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
This is kind of a superficial view of goodness that you're using here. Why do you call me good? Haven't you read the Psalms? I know you haven't read Paul's letter to the Romans because it hasn't been written yet. But in that letter, Paul, citing the Old Testament, says again, there is none righteous, no, not one. There's none who does good. Wait a minute. That seems absurd.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
We see people who aren't believers doing good all the time. Well, again, it depends on what you mean by good. The biblical standard of goodness is the righteousness of God. And we are judged two ways. One, by our behavioral conformity to the law of God. And two, by the internal motivation or desire to obey the law of God.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
Now, I can look at somebody on the outside, and I see people all around me who aren't believers, who are performing what John Calvin called civic virtue. They do good things. They donate their money for good causes. They help the poor. They may even sacrifice themselves for somebody else, and they do all kinds of wonderful things on the horizontal level.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
They drive their car according to the speed limit, but they're not doing it because their hearts are have a pure and full love of God. There may be what Jonathan Edwards called an enlightened self-interest involved here. I heard the story once of a man who was an unbeliever who was standing outside in the street when this building caught on fire, and
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
There was a rush to rescue the people who were in the inferno, and the firemen went in and brought out as many people as they could. But it was now too dangerous to go back into the building, and then they realized there was a child still trapped in the building.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
And out of the crowd of bystanders, this one man, ignoring the flames and ignoring the inferno, rushed into the building, and everybody on the street cheered for him. And a few moments later, he came back out alive and safe with a bundle in his arm. And the people continued to cheer until they realized he had brought out his life savings. and left the child to die. Now the question is this.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
and then the one that messes everything up, the fourth category of those who are not saved, but who have the assurance that they are saved. And so what complicates our quest for the assurance of salvation is we see that there are two categories of people here who are sure that they're in a state of salvation. The only problem is one of them is in fact not in a state of salvation.
Renewing Your Mind
False Assurance
Suppose the man had perished in the flames. He would have been a local hero because the assumption would be that he was risking his life to save a child, not to save his fortune. but we have to go even further than that. I believe it's possible for unbelievers to rush into that building to save the child and lose their life in the process. That's civil righteousness.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
There are two things that you must always remember when you pray. You have to remember who God is, and you have to remember who you are. You are addressing the one who is absolutely sovereign, who is the king over all things, whose almighty power governs every iota of the universe. And you need to realize that he is the God of absolute glory who will share his glory with no man.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
As we continue now with our study of prayer, we look again to the Lord's Prayer, which we began in the last session. And you will recall that the Lord's Prayer was given by Jesus to the disciples in response to their request when they came to Him and said, "'Lord, teach us how to pray.'" And so when Jesus answered that request, He said, when you pray, pray like this.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
You remember also the story that's found in the book of Job, where you have this dialogue that takes place in heaven, where in his arrogance, Satan comes from walking to and fro upon the earth and begins to mock God, saying, look at your people down there. They're all in my pocket. They're all following me. Nobody's really obeying you. And God says to Satan, have you considered my servant Job?
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
And what's the response of Satan? He laughs. He said, your servant Job? Yes, he's real obedient. Why shouldn't he be? He's been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. You've put a hedge around him. You've given him wealth. You've given him happiness. You've given him everything that his heart could possibly desire. Does Job serve you for naught? You take away that hedge.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
Tear down the physical protection that you have. Let me at him, and we'll see how long he's faithful to you. And so now the whole drama of the book of Job has to do with the question of whether Job will maintain his integrity, whether he will maintain his loyalty to God in the midst of this test. And of course, the supreme test is the one we've already mentioned,
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
where Jesus Himself is sent into the wilderness to be tested. Now what is our Lord saying here when He said, lead us not into temptation? He's not saying that you should ask God not to test you or entice you to sin, but you say to Him, God, please don't put me to the test. Lord, don't put me in that place where I am left totally exposed to the assaults of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
Don't remove from me the support system of your grace that you give me. A person, for example, who is under discipline in the church, who's threatened with excommunication, should be praying that prayer every minute, saying, oh Lord, please don't let me be cut off from the benefits of the covenant community where your grace is so heavily concentrated. Don't send me out into the outer darkness.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
Don't deliver me into the hands of Satan where I am defenseless against him. Remember when Peter was told by Jesus that he would deny Christ, and Peter was adamant that he would never do such a thing, and Jesus said to him, Simon, Simon, Satan would have you and sift you like wheat. You're a piece of cake in his hands. But I have prayed for you so that when you turn, strengthen the brothers.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
What is he saying here? In this prayer, he's saying, don't ever overestimate your spiritual strength against the forces of evil. And you pray, you say, oh Lord, please don't ever put me in that situation where I'm exposed, unprotected to the assault of Satan.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
And that he's talking about Satan here makes it very clear because in the second part of this stanza, lead us not in temptation, the old translation read, but deliver us from evil. Now that's really a mistranslation because the term that is used here in the Greek is the word poneros, which is used in the masculine singular form of the noun.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
Evil is the Greek word poneron, which is the neuter form of the same noun. Now when you have it in the masculine form, The proper translation is not evil in the abstract, but it is the evil one, which is a title in biblical times for Satan. So what Jesus says is, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Deliver us from Satan.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
Again, asking that he put a hedge around us that we might be protected from the wiles of the enemy. And that should be a part of our prayer, because an ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure. So again, we ask for forgiveness. but we also ask for strengthening and protection from further temptation to sin.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
And I remind you that Jesus did not give this prayer simply as something to be recited over and over and over again by His people, although there's nothing wrong with praying the Lord's Prayer. He didn't say, when you pray, pray this prayer. He said, rather, when you pray, pray like this. And so now we're examining the elements of the Lord's Prayer
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
Finally, the ending of the prayer as we find it in Matthew is with this expression, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. In one sense, this may be the most important part of the prayer. Remember I said in simple terms there are two things that you must always remember when you pray. The first is who it is to whom you are speaking.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
And the second is who it is who's doing the speaking. You have to remember who God is, and you have to remember who you are. And at the end of the prayer, there is a thinly veiled recitation again of adoration and of humility, a posture of humility with which all prayer should be accompanied before Almighty God. With the final remembrance and reminder that Jesus gives is this.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
When you're done praying, you acknowledge that the kingdom does not belong to you. You're not the king. This is not your kingdom. You don't reign here. The power is not your power, and the glory does not belong to you. But as you pray and you're remembering who it is you're addressing,
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
you remember that you are addressing the One who is absolutely sovereign, who is the King over all things, whose almighty power governs every iota of the universe. And you need to realize that He is the God of absolute glory who will share His glory with no man.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
One of my favorite Christmas carols is the carol, Angels We Have Heard on High, that ends with the chorus that is repeated, the Gloria in Excelsis Deo. which is a refrain borrowed from the Christmas narrative of Luke 2 when the heavenly hosts appear to the shepherds outside of Bethlehem singing what? Glory to God in the highest. That's what Jesus is saying.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
When you finish your prayer, you finish glorifying God. It's his kingdom. It's his power. It's his glory.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
to see what instructive value it has for us to guide us in our broader prayer life. Now, when I was a seminary student, we had a rather cynical New Testament professor who, when he came to this text in the New Testament, said that it only takes 28 or so seconds to recite the Lord's Prayer.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
And so part of what Jesus was telling us is that when you pray, be brief and to the point and don't spend more than a half a minute or so in your prayer life, which created quite a controversy in the classroom that day as we reminded the professor that Jesus set an example for spending hours at a time in prayer in His own life and that
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
Obviously, what our Lord was communicating here in His response to His disciples was not the length of such a prayer, but rather the elements that are to be included in a normal prayer. response. And so let's continue with looking at what we see in the prayer. We saw that the beginning part of the prayer, the opening petitions, were petitions concerning the advancement of the kingdom of Christ.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
And then we read in verse 11 of Matthew's version of chapter 6 of Matthew of the Lord's Prayer, the first petition regarding our own needs. And this one is the petition, give us this day our daily bread. Now again, if we see the prayer as a paradigm to instruct us, Jesus is not saying that the only need that we have that we should pray for is bread.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
But the use of bread here in the prayer indicates that we have a daily dependence on God's providence to supply the needs that we have that are basic and fundamental to our lives. He could have said, give us this day our daily water or our daily rest or whatever else we need to survive as human beings.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
But He uses the reference to bread to symbolize, I believe, or to indicate this broader consideration that Jesus is saying, you come before the Father and you ask Him Him to provide your needs. Now Jesus had in the Sermon on the Mount given an expanded teaching on our dependence upon God's providence for our daily necessities. And so that's incorporated here as part of our Lord's Prayer.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
And let me suggest again the importance of the word here, daily. It's not that we're to come before God once a year and say, Dear Lord, please take care of us for the coming year. Or once a month, give us this month our monthly needs. Or give us this week our weekly needs. But Jesus calls attention to our daily. moment-by-moment dependence upon the goodness of God's providence for our well-being.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
And we'll talk a little bit more about that providence as it relates to prayer later, but just let me remind you that the word providence comes from the same root in the English language as the word provision. God's providence has to do with how God provides for the needs of His people. And so what Jesus is saying is that we need to be aware
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
on a day-to-day basis, that we live and move and have our being by His mercy, by His grace, and by His provision, and not fall into the trap of thinking that we are self-made people and that we are able to meet all of our own needs by ourselves. Then Jesus goes on to say, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Now, I find this to be the most scary part of the Lord's Prayer.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
Indeed, I find it downright terrifying because here we have an inclusion of the element of confession that we've already examined in our acrostic acts today. that the confession should be part of our normal prayer experience. But you notice the way it's cast here in the Lord's Prayer by Jesus when He says, when you ask God to forgive you your sins, what do you say?
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
Forgive us our sins or our trespasses or our indebtedness as we forgive our debtors. Now, what's so scary about that? Well, let's turn this around a little bit and say, God, please be as gracious to me as I am to those who have offended and violated me. Or, dear God, please give the same proportionate amount of mercy to me that I give to my enemies.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
He said, no, wait a minute, that's pushing the envelope a little bit there because we're not actually enemies of God, are we? Well, by nature, we are enemies of God. And when we sin against God, we create hostile acts against His character and against His lordship. And then we come to Him and we ask Him to forgive us. But Jesus said, ask the Father to forgive you
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
in the like manner as you forgive those who trespass against you." What's so scary about that? Well, again, in the final analysis, if God's grace is as limited to the forgiving of my sins as my forgiveness is of forgiving those who have offended me, I'm afraid I'm going to be in deep trouble.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
Again, if we think of this teaching, we are being instructed not only of our dependence upon God's forgiveness, but our responsibility as forgiven people to manifest the grace of God in our dealings with other people who are offending us. Now, there's an inference that is drawn from this text by many people that I frankly disagree with and I have to make note of.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
I don't hear Jesus saying here that the Christian is obligated to give unilateral forgiveness to every person that violates the Christian. If somebody sins against you, What you are called to do is to stand ready to forgive that person the moment that person repents. But that's not the same thing as saying you must forgive them whether they repent or not.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
I find nowhere in the Scripture that requires of the Christian to forgive somebody unilaterally, although we do see the example of Jesus, where when He was wronged, and even from the cross, He cries out, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. They were anything but repentant.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
And while they were involved in this destructive act against him, Jesus prayed for their forgiveness because he loved his enemies, he prayed for his enemies, and we are called to pray for our enemies, and we are called to pray for the well-being of our enemies.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
But at the same time, God in both the Old Testament and in the New Testament established all kinds of procedures where wronged people in this world can go to the church courts and even to the civil courts at times to seek redress for wrongs suffered by somebody else's hands. And so, we need to understand that we're not required to just cloak everybody with forgiveness if they remain impenitent.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
However, if they do repent, then we have no option but to forgive. I remember an experience I had with this many, many years ago in the very beginning of my ministry. I had said something that offended a person. And when that person told me that they were offended, I felt very badly about it, and I said, oh, I should never have said that to that person.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
And so I went to that person, and I apologized for what I had said. And the person refused to accept my apology, refused to speak to me. And so I went a second time. And again, I confessed that I had wronged that person and I asked for the person's forgiveness and so on with tears. and still the person refused to accept my apology.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
So this happened in the context of a church I was dealing with as a student in seminary, and the moderator of our session was an 85-year-old retired missionary who was a saint. He had spent five years in a prison camp in China during World War II, separated from his wife, and so on. And I had just enormous admiration for this man's spiritual work. wisdom and grace.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
And I went to him and I told him what I had done and I said, I hate to tell you this, but I said such and such to this lady and it really offended her. And so I went to her and I asked for her forgiveness and so on. I told him the story. And he said, well, you made two mistakes. And I said, what's that? He said, well, the first mistake you obviously understand.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
You should never have said what you said to the one in the first place. I said, yes, sir, you're right. He said, the second mistake was going twice. He said, when you repented and apologized and she refused to forgive you, you had done your duty, and from that moment thereon and thereafter, the coals of fire were on her head for her refusal to grant forgiveness.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
And I never forgot what he told me there. We are to stand ready to forgive. And when we say we forgive people, we can't do it glibly. It has to be earnest. And it's sometimes very difficult to do that.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
That's why I think we need to understand that Jesus here ties together our vertical relationship with the Father and our horizontal relationship with the people that we are involved with in our daily lives. Well, then he goes on beyond confession, and he says, and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us. from evil.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
Now this is one of the, again, most misunderstood parts of the Lord's Prayer because of the phrase, deliver us from evil. The idea here first in the first part of the statement, lead us not into temptation, may suggest to some people that God is in the business of enticing us to sin, but
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
But James, of course, warns against that conclusion in his epistle when he says, let no one say when he is tempted that he is tempted of the Lord, because temptation in that sense comes from within when we have these lusts that are fanned into flames from our internal predilections. And the point is that God never entices people into sin. So why would we say, God, lead us not into temptation?
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
Well, there's two ways. in which this term is used in the New Testament, and one of them is to test.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
Now do you remember that when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, as soon as the heavens had opened and the Spirit of God had descended upon Him and the voice from heaven said, this is my beloved Son in whom thou is well pleased, at the end of that episode we read in the New Testament that then the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted of Satan for 40 days.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
Now, it wasn't as if God was enticing Jesus to sin, and it was certainly not the Holy Spirit who was tempting Jesus, but this temptation that involved God's testing of Jesus, putting Jesus to the test. Now, we see that concept liberally throughout Scripture.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
At the very beginning of creation, Adam and Eve are placed in the garden environment, and they are our representatives, and they are, as it were, on probation. And they are placed before the crossroads of the test that is brought there by the serpent. And if they pass this test, great benefit will come to them and to their progeny.
Renewing Your Mind
The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God
If they fail that test, then catastrophic consequences will befall them and all of their descendants. And that's exactly what happened. They failed their probation, and through their sin, the whole world is plunged into ruin. But it was God who designed that that test take place.
Renewing Your Mind
Four Kinds of People
One of the most dangerous things you can do as a Christian is to determine your theology by your experience. We have to determine our theology from the Word of God, not from what we feel. And not only that, we are open to misunderstanding and misinterpreting the meaning and significance of the experiences that we go through.
Renewing Your Mind
Four Kinds of People
The fourth category, people who are not in a state of grace, but who think they're in a state of grace. They're not saved, but they are assured that they are saved. Now, we're going to spend some time on trying to unwrap that particular group and see why it is that people can have a false sense of assurance, because it's just as important for us to be able to understand the counterfeit
Renewing Your Mind
Four Kinds of People
if we're going to be able to recognize the authentic. And in that sense, the church has been aided historically by false doctrine, by heresies, not because heresies are good or false doctrine is good, but what happens in the history of the church is that every time a serious heresy arises, and the church has to address it, it forces the church to examine the truth much more carefully.
Renewing Your Mind
Four Kinds of People
We wouldn't have a Bible today to read from, presumably, if it weren't for the heretic Marcion. Marcion was the first one to produce a copy of the New Testament, but it was an expurgated version of the New Testament. He had nothing but animosity towards the God of the Old Testament, so every reference to Yahweh of the Old Testament in the New Testament record was expunged by Marcion.
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Four Kinds of People
And he got rid of much of the gospel material and many of the epistles and so on, and he presented, really, a counterfeit Bible. which forced the church to say, wait a minute, let's set down the guidelines for what is to be included in the canon of Scripture and what isn't. And if it hadn't been for the impetus of that heretic, I don't think the church would have gotten around to that.
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But then the same thing happens in the fourth century with the heretic Arius, who denies the deity of Christ. Now, it's not like the church didn't believe in the deity of Christ until the fourth century into the Council of Nicaea and the writing of the Nicene Creed. That's not true. The church confessed the deity of Christ from the very beginning, but there was ambiguity there.
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The clear definition of the deity of Christ and of the Trinity didn't come until heresy forced the definition. So again, understanding the counterfeit can help with our gaining a better understanding of the authentic.
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A few years ago, we did a tour of the Reformation, and we followed in the footsteps of Martin Luther and went through all the various places in what had been Eastern Germany where Luther's ministry was carried out. We were in Erfurt and Wittenberg and Worms and places like that, Nuremberg. And we had this woman who was with us who was funny. She was really one of these characters.
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And one day we had visited a site on the bus and then we were free for lunch on our own. And so groups of people from the tour went in different directions in the town and we had instructions as to what time to be back and where to meet to regroup for the tour. Well, we went out and we wandered around the town. We had our lunch and we came out of the restaurant and
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I said, now, which way did we come? How do we get back to the bus? And this lady said, I know. So she goes to the front of the line, and she starts walking through this town, and we're all following her, and we're wandering all over the place. And I started getting a little worried, and I said, excuse me, Mary, I said, are you sure that we're going in the right way?
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And so now I want to look at some of the problems that we encounter when we're diligent in our quest for the assurance of salvation. When I deal with this subject, I frequently mention that there are four kinds of people in the world.
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and she said, yes, I'm positive, and I felt great. And she took a couple more steps, and then she turned around and she said, of course I'm always sure, but I'm rarely right. So maybe that's what we're talking about when we talk about these people who exude confidence that they're on their way to heaven, that they're Christians who They're sure of their salvation.
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They don't worry about their salvation. They have assurance, but it's false. So this is what creates the tension and the anxiety that we're trying to deal with in this series, particularly as we compare number two and number four. This group comprises the people who are saved and have the assurance of salvation. This group comprises the people who are not saved but have the assurance of salvation.
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So the question that we face in the very first lecture is, raises its ugly head again, doesn't it? If I have the assurance of salvation, this group has the assurance, this group has the assurance, how can I be sure of my assurance? You've been in those discussions where you ask somebody something, and they give their affirmation or assertion, and you say, are you sure? And they say, yes, I'm sure.
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And the next question is, are you sure that you're sure? because when we talk about certitude or certainty, we're talking not simply about philosophical categories of certitude, but we're really describing, in a sense, our emotional state with respect to various questions or assertions. And the tendency for human beings when it comes to assurances of truth claims is
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is that there is a broad continuum on which our assurance operates. For example, somebody could say to you, do you believe that God exists? There are many ways you can answer that question. You could say, no, I don't. Or you could say, I don't think so. Or you could say, I don't know, I hope so. Or you could say maybe. Or you could say yes, I believe in God.
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Now, I know that that differentiates us from the standard division of people in the world where normally we say there are two kinds of people in the world, and those two kinds of people in the world are those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don't. Or as James Kennedy says, there are three kinds of people in the world. those that can count, and those that can't.
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Or you could say of course I believe in God. Each of those answers describes a different level of intensity of confidence that attends a proposition or an assertion. So we're not talking about mathematical certitude, the two and two are four here. We're talking about assurance of my personal state, which vacillates from day to day.
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There are days when somebody says to me, R.C., are you sure that you're saved? And I would say, absolutely. And the next day, if I'm under the burden of guilt, I would say, you know, I think so. But there are ups and downs in the Christian life.
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And so what we have to understand is where we can find a foundation for the strength of assurance by which we can say, I know whom I have believed and am persuaded, I am fully persuaded that He's able to keep what I have committed against that day. And so the big problem here is discerning between false assurance and true assurance, which we'll take up in our next session.
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But we're now going to look at the four types of people that we must discriminate in terms of this issue of the assurance of salvation. And let's start with the first type of person, and that is the person who is unsaved and who knows it.
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I remember once sharing the gospel to a man in Cincinnati, and I asked him the evangelism explosion diagnostic questions, and I began with the first question, have you come to the place in your spiritual life where you know for sure that when you die, you're going to go to heaven? And this man didn't flinch. He looked me straight in the eye, and he says, oh no. He says, I'm sure I'm not.
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He said, I'm sure I'm going to hell. And I was really stunned by that response because I had never met a person before who was that certain of their destiny in terms of it being hell itself. But this man was. This man was living a godless life, and he knew he was living a godless life, and he knew the consequences of living a godless life.
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which again bears out what the Apostle Paul tells us in the first chapter of Romans. At the very end of that chapter, after giving a list of all the various sins and vices that fallen humanity practices, he comes to the conclusion, he said, but we as fallen people not only do these things but encourage others to do them, knowing that those who do such things are worthy of death.
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And what Paul is saying there is that in God's natural revelation, not only in the Bible, one doesn't have to be exposed to biblical preaching to be aware of this, but as God writes His law on the hearts of people, implants into the human mind His Word by way of conscience,
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People deep down know that they are culpable for their behavior, and they know that they are out of fellowship with their Creator. And so there are many, many more people in the world who know their condition of being lost than often we recognize, because on the surface, most people will deny that that they are exposed to the wrath of God, or they may even deny the existence of God.
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But as the Bible says, the wicked flee when no one pursues. and that the wicked tremble at the fluttering of a leaf, so that there is beneath the surface and behind the facade of natural fallen humanity an awareness that they are in serious trouble before God. That's why we have the phenomenon that we have called the foxhole conversion.
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where people at the last days of their life, if they know that they are dying, they suddenly sober up. They'll call for the priest or they'll call for the minister and are prepared to get their eternal life insurance. You know the story of W.C.
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Fields, who was on his deathbed, and to everybody who knew him, his astonishment, you know, one of the friends came in, found him on his deathbed leafing through the Bible. And his friend said, WC, what are you doing? And he said, looking for loopholes. So even in his humor, he was aware that he was in a very precarious state as he was about to face his Maker.
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And so that's the first category of people who are unsaved, and they're aware of it. They know that they aren't in a state of grace. They know that they're out of fellowship with God. They know that they're estranged from God, and so their assurance is of quite a negative sort. But then you have the second person, and that is the person who is saved and knows that that He is saved.
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That is, this person has full assurance of being in a state of grace and in a state of salvation, and we're going to be talking further as we proceed here in this series on how it is possible to gain from Scripture and in our relationship with God, a full assurance of our being in a state of grace.
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And so you have people who aren't saved and know they aren't saved, and you have people who are saved and know that they aren't. are in that condition of salvation. So these two represent mirror opposites. Both have assurance. One of the assurances is for a good end. The other assurance is for a bad end. All right, the third group are those who are saved but don't know it.
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So it's possible to be in a state of grace and not to have the full assurance that you are in a state of grace. Now, some people would challenge that, not only from those who would challenge number two, that you can even know that you have salvation, but some would say that it's impossible really to be in a state of grace and not know it, because if you have saving faith…
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The very content of that faith is a trust in a Savior who you are believing will save you. And so if you have faith but don't have the faith that He is saving you, then the question becomes, do you really have faith? Or another way of looking at it is that some people say, well, I think I'm converted, but I'm not sure. And we run into people like that all the time.
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And part of that problem has to do with kind of a subcultural, popular view of religion. We hear of Billy Graham, for example, who can tell you the day and the hour where he became a Christian. He points back to his conversion after playing baseball, and he went to this evangelistic meeting after the game, and this itinerant evangelist, Mordecai Ham, was preaching.
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Billy Graham went forward and had this sudden conversion, turned his life upside down. I can tell the same kind of story in my life. I know exactly the time when I met Christ. I can tell you the date and the hour were exactly where I was and how it happened. Then you have other people who can't tell you the year or within five years when they became Christians.
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Ruth Graham, for example, Billy's wife, doesn't know when she became a Christian. And we have a problem in the church where we have a tendency to project our own personal experiences and try to make them normative for everybody else, so that people who have had a sudden dramatic Damascus Road conversion, where you can name the day and the hour,
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sometimes become suspicious of people who haven't had that kind of experience. And they wonder, if you can't point to the day and the hour, they think maybe you're really not a Christian. And at the same time, there are those who can't point to the day and the hour who are suspicious of those who preach that they do know the day and the hour.
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And the whole point is nowhere in the Scripture does it say that we have to know the exact time of our conversion. Now, here's where the plot thickens and becomes a little bit problematic. Nobody is half-regenerate or semi-regenerate. You're either born of the Spirit of God or you're not.
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And regeneration, which is that work of God by which we are transformed from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, is a real conversion. And regeneration happens immediately by the power of God, by the work of the Holy Spirit. It happens instantly, and you're either in that state or you're not in that state. Again, there's no process of regeneration. It is instantaneous.
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Well, if that's the case, then that would raise suspicions about people who can't tell you the day and the hour. No, no, no, no. We have to distinguish between a conversion and a conversion experience. and have to recognize that not everybody is instantly aware of the moment when the Spirit of God has done His supernatural work within the soul.
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That's why it's very dangerous when we create categories by which we suspect people who don't meet our experience. In fact, as much as I talk about my conversion experience, I can tell you with certainty the day and the hour of my conversion experience. But that experience may not actually correspond to the work of God in my soul.
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God the Holy Spirit may have regenerated me a week before that, a month before that, five years before that, before I experienced the reality of what had happened internally. So even my assurance of that particular time of conversion only applies to my experience of conversion, not to the fact of it, because again, we can fool ourselves in terms of our experience.
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And our experience can be one of the most misleading things that we can encounter in our Christian life. One of the most dangerous things you can do as a Christian is to determine your theology by your experience. Because your experience and my experience, neither of those is normative for the Christian life. We have to determine our theology from the Word of God, not from what we feel.
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And not only that, we are open to misunderstanding and misinterpreting the meaning and significance of the experiences that we go through. That's why we're called to go and check our experiences with the Scripture, with the Word of God, so that we are defining our faith by what Scripture says, not by what we feel. or by what we have experienced.
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And so that's a caveat that we need to be aware of as we work through this whole business of the assurance of salvation. Because if we rest our assurance on an experience and not on the Word of God, We're asking for all kinds of doubts and problems to assail us in our pilgrimage.
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Again, people have experience of feeling warm fuzzies in their spirit, in their soul, and say, well, I felt something that night, and therefore I'm converted. It might have been indigestion. And we don't know that.
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And again, when we look at this business of being saved and don't know that we are saved, we have to allow for the ways in which we can be fooled, the ways in which we can be deceived, so that we seek the authentic knowledge of our assurance and not just some fuzzy experience. But again, this third group has to do with the people who are saved but don't know that they are saved.
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They haven't learned the way in which to be grounded in the Scriptures to be certain of their salvation. And again, This is even presupposed when Peter writes to his constituents in the first two books of his writings where he says, be diligent to make your election and your calling sure. I mean, it would be foolish to give that admonition to people if all of them were already sure.
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We're going to continue now with our study of the subject of the assurance of salvation. And in our first two messages we saw the controversy that there is in various camps of theology about the very possibility of having assurance of salvation. And then in our second message we looked at the biblical call to seek that assurance of salvation.
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So that presupposes that people can be in this condition of being in a state of salvation without actually having the assurance of it. Well, so far so good. This is easy for us to follow, that there are those who are unsaved, and they know it. Then there are those who are saved, and they know that they're saved. And then there are those who are saved, but have not yet
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for one reason or another, come to the assurance of their state of grace before God. These categories are all kind of clean and easy to understand. It's the fourth one that puts the monkey wrench in the whole business of assurance of salvation. There are those who are unsaved who know they are saved.
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I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they are dead. That is, the manna in the wilderness sustained them from day to day or from week to week, but eventually they died. This bread is different. I am the living bread.
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And all of those who come to the Son are in no wise cast out. They receive their nourishment from the one whom the Father sent in their behalf. Now this, as well as his statement of his origin, is provoking no small amount of discussion. And so when Jesus says in verse 43, do not murmur among yourselves, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.
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Twice in the sixth chapter of John, Jesus speaks about man's natural ability to respond to Jesus on their own. And elsewhere, Jesus says, no one, no man, no one can come to me unless unless it is given to him of the Father.
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And then he turned back to the disciples and said, well, who do you say that I am? And it was on that occasion that Peter gave what is called the Great Confession, when he said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. But what we're going to be looking at in this course is not so much other people's views of Jesus, but we're going to be asking the question, who did Jesus say that He was?
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Now, we have the assumption in our day that Jesus was sent into the world by God as a potential Savior for everybody, and everybody in the world has the ability to come to Jesus or not come to Jesus. And we struggle when Jesus himself says, wait a minute, Nobody is able to come to me unless.
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And that little word unless underscores what we would call a necessary condition, a condition that must be met for a desired consequence to occur. And so Jesus reminds these people, he said, you can't come to me. You won't come to me. because you can't come to me, not because you don't have a will, not because you don't have a mind, not because you don't have a heart, but you are dead in sin.
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You are in bondage to your sin. And just like the leopard that can't change his spots and the Ethiopian the color of his skin, so you in your natural state, in your fallen corruption, are powerless. to come to me unless God does something, unless God gives it to you to come, unless God gives you a gift. Now, some people say that's true, but God gives that gift to everybody.
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But remember, Jesus is saying all that the Father gives to him comes to him. And now he reinforces this statement in this segment of the text when he says, again, I say to you, nobody can come to me unless the Father draws him. I can't believe how much debate has gone on in church history over the significance and meaning and application of the word that Jesus used here, which is the word to draw.
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I've always been fascinated that that's even the English word that is chosen in most English translations because the same word is used elsewhere when people are thrown into prison, and the theological dictionary of the New Testament translates the word draw as the word to compel. When I think of drawing, I think of enticing, wooing, you know, trying to persuade people to come.
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And we can interpret this by saying that Jesus is saying, nobody can come to me unless the Father woos him, unless he entices him, unless he persuades him. But the verb is much stronger than that. The wooing, if you will, the drawing that God does is effective. When God, the Holy Spirit, actively draws a person to Jesus, that person comes to Jesus. Let me say it again. The person that God, the
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comes to Jesus, not because he's raped, not because he's coerced, not because he's dragged kicking and screaming against his will, but because God the Holy Spirit in that act of effectual drawing changes the heart of the person.
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where that person previously was blind to the things of God, now the scales of the eyes have been removed, and that which was unpleasant to the soul now is shown to be sweet, attractive, and something that is altogether desirable.
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So the heavenly drawing of God is one by which God changes the attitude or the inner disposition of the soul of the person so that when the Father draws them to His Son, they come to His Son. And they eat this bread that gives them the spiritual life that is forever. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up the last day.
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And in declaring His identity to the people during His earthly ministry, He used a very unusual structure to identify characteristics of his person. These sayings are recorded for us in John's gospel and only in John's gospel, and these sayings are called the I Ams.
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It is written in the prophets, and they shall be taught by God. Therefore, everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. All that the Father teaches, all that the Father opens, as it were, come to Jesus." Not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God, he has seen the Father. And most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life.
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I, again, I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they are dead. That is, the manna in the wilderness sustained them from day to day or from week to week, but eventually they died. This bread is different. This is the bread that comes down from heaven that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which comes down from heaven.
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And if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. This is seen by some as obviously linked to the Lord's Supper.
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I don't think it was intended at that time, but you can't help but draw parallels from this discourse on the bread of life to what Jesus teaches in the upper room when he said, of his own body. And when he refers to the bread, this is my body which is given for you, because the bread from heaven gives his flesh. as a sacrifice for his sheep.
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And those who partake of this heavenly bread, those who partake of the bread of life of Jesus himself, have life everlasting. So in summary, Jesus is saying, I'm a heavenly babe. I'm sent from the Father. I come to nurture you, to feed you, to give you the life that is eternal. There is no other source for that anywhere under heaven than in Christ himself.
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of Jesus because he introduces these statements by the words, ìI am,î things like, ìI am the bread of life,î ìI am the light of the world,î ìI am the good shepherd,î ìI am the door,î and so on. And so we'll be looking at each one of these statements of Jesus to see what they reveal to us about his own self-understanding. And the first one that we will look at today
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is the statement, ìI am the bread of life,î which is found in Johnís Gospel, chapter 6. In verse 30 of the sixth chapter of John, we read these words, ìTherefore they said to him, What sign will you perform then that we may see it and believe you?î what work will you do? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat.
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Now, in this discussion that Jesus is having with his contemporaries, and they're discussing his identity, and they're asking for some sign that will prove to them the truth of the claims that he had been making about himself. And they hearken back to the pages of the Old Testament where God manifested his presence with the children of Israel by providing for them food to eat supernaturally.
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It was the manna that God gave in the wilderness. And so they're saying, God gave the people of old a sign. Now what sign are you going to give us? to indicate your identity. Jesus answers by saying, Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
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For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. And they said, well, Lord, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life, and he who comes to me shall never hunger. and he who believes in me shall never thirst.
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So this is the first I am in which Jesus, in the context of this discussion of manna from heaven, says to those who are around him, I am the bread of life. Now, the thing that we notice that is extraordinary, not only in this I am, but in all of the I ams that are recorded for us in the gospel of John, is the structure of Jesus' statements. Normally,
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In the Greek, when somebody wants to say, I am, they use the word ego. We get the English word ego, which is our personality or our personal identity. And so that word simply means in Greek, I am. But the Greek language has another form of the verb to be that also can be translated by the English I am. And that is the word eimi. Again, in the Greek, eimi means I am.
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Now, what is strange about this particular statement of Jesus that he doesn't say, "'Ego, the bread of life, I am the bread of life,' nor does he say, "'Eme, the bread of life, I am the bread of life,' but rather he puts these two verb forms together, saying, "'Ego, eme, the bread of life.'" It sounds like a redundancy.
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It sounds as if Jesus is stuttering because literally what he's saying here is, I am the bread of life. Again, what is so significant about this is that this structure of the verb is exceedingly rare. But one of the most important places where we find it elsewhere is in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament.
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And in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, when the Greek translators came to chapter 3 of the book of Exodus, where God reveals his name to Moses in the burning bush when he says, I am who I am. The way in which that strange phrase that God uses to reveal himself is rendered in the Greek is by this exact form, ego eimi.
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So there's a thinly veiled reference back to the sacred name of God when Jesus refers to himself with this language, ego eimi. There's something else about the grammar when this structure occurs. If I were to say, ìI am the bread of life,î ìI amî would be the subject, or ìIî would be the subject, and ìbread of lifeî would be the predicate.
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But when this occurs in the Greek language, that's reversed, so that really the literal translation would be, the bread of life is I. so that he is the focal point of the affirmation rather than the concept of bread. So in any case, these statements in the Gospel of John have been used historically to call attention to Jesus' claims for deity.
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that he self-consciously uses language that is usually associated with divine pronouncements. And of course, that was not missed by his contemporaries. They were aware of that, and that's what provoked such hostility on many occasions when he talked in this manner. But apart from the actual construction of the language, what I want us to look at in the IMs It's principally the content.
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What is it that he is saying about himself, and what do these things that he says about himself indicate about his identity? So let's go back to the text then, where Jesus said, first of all, to his contemporaries, in referring back to the manna of the Old Testament, he reminds his hearers that the manna in Israel was not provided to by Moses. Moses was the mediator of the covenant people.
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He was the leader at the time when the manna was given. He announced the giving of the manna, but it wasn't Moses that provided the manna. It was God who sent the manna. The manna came not from earth. It didn't come from Moses. It came from God. It came from heaven.
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And this critical to Jesus' identification of himself with this same kind of provision that God had made in the Old Testament when he said, Moses did not give you the bread, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. What is he saying here? He's speaking about his own origin.
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And this is a point that is critical for our understanding of Jesus' self-consciousness, that Jesus doesn't say, hey, I come from Bethlehem or I come from Nazareth. Rather, he is saying, I come from heaven. I am the one that the Father sent from heaven himself. I am the true bread, the bread that gives life to all who partake of it.
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Again, the New Testament is very much concerned about the exaltation of Christ after His death and resurrection and about His entering into His glory. And at the heart of that concept of the exaltation of Christ is His ascension into heaven. And the word ascension does not simply mean going up somewhere. Although there are times when the verb to ascend means to go up simply.
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People ascended to Jerusalem, they went up to Jerusalem. But when the New Testament speaks about the ascension of Jesus, they're not talking simply about a point that's elevated to which Jesus goes. They're talking about his going to a particular place
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for a particular reason, so that his ascension is to go to the right hand of the Father, where he then has his coronation as the King of the kings and as the Lord of the lords, and where he enters into the heavenly sanctuary as our great high priest. That's why Jesus can say, no one ascends into heaven.
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Now, when he says no one ascends into heaven, he's not saying that his people will not follow him in the resurrection. In fact, we are all promised that sometime we will go up to heaven at the time of our death and so on. So when Jesus says no one ascends into heaven, he doesn't mean no one else will go there.
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He means that no one will ascend in this unique sense that he ascends to that place of cosmic authority. But when he talks about the uniqueness of his ascension, what does he say? No one ascends into heaven except he who has descended from heaven. so that in Jesus' understanding, his ascension is linked to his prior descension. When he ascends into heaven, he's merely returning to
Renewing Your Mind
The Bread of Life
Today we're going to start a brand new series of lectures, and we're going to be focusing our attention in this series on the person of Christ. We remember back to the occasion where Jesus met with his disciples at Caesarea Philippi. and he asked his disciples the question, who do men say that I am? And they gave the report of what the scuttlebutt around the countryside was about Jesus.
Renewing Your Mind
The Bread of Life
to the place from whence he came in the first place. And so here in this discourse, Jesus is calling attention to his heavenly origin, that the place from which he has come is heaven itself. So let's continue then with our examination of the text. When he says the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world, they say, Lord, give us this bread.
Renewing Your Mind
The Bread of Life
And he said, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger. He who believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me, and yet you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me. and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
Renewing Your Mind
The Bread of Life
And this is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all that he has given me, I should lose nothing. but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up at the last day.
Renewing Your Mind
The Bread of Life
Now, at this point, the Jews begin to complain, and they say, he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. They said, isn't this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that he says, I have come down from heaven?
Renewing Your Mind
The Bread of Life
And so Jesus answers and says, don't murmur, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up the last day. Now, in the historic dispute between Augustinian theology and Pelagian theology, John chapter 6 has been a focal point of the discussion with respect to the dependence of the believer upon the grace of God for salvation.
Renewing Your Mind
The Bread of Life
In other words, the sixth chapter of John in general, and this passage in particular, reeks of the doctrine of predestination. And it's interesting to see how many commentators, when they come to John chapter 6, dance all around this.
Renewing Your Mind
The Bread of Life
But at the heart of these sayings that Jesus makes here is his affirmation that he repeats in his high priestly prayer in John 17 that there is a body of people that the New Testament calls the elect people. that the Father gives to the Son. And Jesus says here that all who the Father gives to him will do what? Will come to him. because God is determined that Christ will have an inheritance.
Renewing Your Mind
The Bread of Life
We go back to Isaiah 53, where we hear the statements in chapter 53 of Isaiah that he will see the travail of his soul and be satisfied. And so God the Father sends the Son into the world as the bread of life to provide life for His people, for the ones whom the Father gives to Him. And every one of those persons that the Father gives to the Son comes to the Son.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
The practical reason why we're called to make our salvation sure that we settle it in ourselves is that we can be productive, that we can be fruit-bearing Christians.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
Now again, don't interpret that to mean you have to be justified by the works. The works don't justify you. The faith links us to Christ. But if the faith is authentic, if the faith is true, You won't come to the last day saying, Lord, Lord, and have him look at you and call you a person of lawlessness. You will have fruit.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
Now, you would think then that the easiest way to solve this problem of assurance of salvation is to examine the fruit, to look at the fruit of your lives, to determine whether it reflects or manifests a consistent pattern with your profession of faith. And that's one of the scary parts about being a Christian, because none of us lives up to the full measure of what we say we believe.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
None of us does. And if you focus your attention simply on your performance, at that point, authentic assurance becomes very slippery, doesn't it? But there is a place for us to examine our lives, as the New Testament tells us, and I'll get to that in a little while. And there is a place to examining the fruit to see if that gives any evidence of the state of our souls.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
But we would be misunderstanding what Peter is saying here if we came to this conclusion that we have to perform the fruit in order to get the assurance of but when Peter tells us diligently to make our election and calling sure, the reason why we are to seek our assurance is that we might bear fruit. And that's the thing we don't want to miss.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
It's not that we bear fruit in order to be assured, but we need to be assured that to be fruit-bearing Christians, because the double-minded man, as we're told, is cast to and fro with every wind of doctrine. And the person who is not sure, I mean, there are people, as we will see, who are truly converted who don't have that assurance.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
And yet, they're in a state where they're easy prey for the enemy to come and accuse them and paralyze them in their Christian life. They're going to bring forth fruit, but it's going to be meager because they're not living the Christian life out of a position of confidence of their standing before God. And so what Peter is speaking about here in a very practical way is, get it settled.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
so that you may be fruitful. Listen to what he says around this same point. In verse 5, also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
Now, when we look at this question of how can I know whether I'm numbered among those who have made a false confession of faith and who think I'm in a state of grace with Christ, how can I make the distinction between that and somebody who really is in a state of grace as opposed to a spurious profession? And we may even broaden the question. The question we have to look at first is, is
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
For if these things are yours and abound, you will not be barren or unfruitful. Okay? Now, this is Peter's list that if you look at the virtues that he describes here, they look very similar to another list we find in the New Testament, the list set forth by the Apostle Paul that we customarily call the fruit of the Spirit.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
And it's immediately after Peter gives the charge to his people to be diligent in adding virtue to faith, kindness, perseverance, patience, love, all of these different things that we call the fruit of the Spirit. It's right in that context that he says, therefore, diligently make your call and election sure. so that you may progress in these things.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
And so the practical reason why we're called to make our salvation sure, that we settle it in ourselves, is that we can be productive, that we can be fruit-bearing Christians. Let's go earlier in Peter's writing to his first epistle in
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
In chapter 2, verse 1 of 1 Peter, he says, therefore, laying aside, he's talking about those who have been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible through the Word of God, which lives and abides forever. And he goes on to say, therefore, having been born again, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and evil speaking, as newborn babes,
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
Desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Coming to him as a living stone… rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
Now, and then he says, therefore, to you who believe, he, that is Christ, is precious. And that's going to be one of the important keys for gaining assurance, to understand how the believer views Christ. But to you who believe, he is precious. Now again, let me remind you that Peter addresses this epistle to the elect. He writes this apostolic teaching to the elect.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
and teaches the elect what it means to be elect and what election is supposed to look like in our spiritual journey. And that's why in the second epistle, when he's addressing the same people, he reminds them how important it is to make their election sure. So I'm convinced that we can know if we're in a state of grace.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
But what we have to do is learn to discern the difference between true assurance and false assurance. Because we recognize that there is such a thing as false assurance. And if there is such a thing as true assurance, we have to learn the difference. And that's what we'll examine in the messages to come.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
assurance of salvation even possible? And if possible, is it desirable? Now, those questions may seem as elementary questions and basic to our New Testament faith. However, we have to understand that in church history there's been tremendous controversy about those questions.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
Roman Catholic Church, for example, in the 16th century at the Council of Trent in the Sixth Session clearly denied the normal or ordinary possibility for someone to achieve assurance of their salvation. except in rare circumstances.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
And what Rome goes on to teach, according to the Jesuits, is that the only people who can ever rise to assurance of their salvation in this life are the special saints to whom God gives a special revelation of their status before Him.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
But apart from those rare incidences, the average normal member of the church cannot have assurance of salvation because, the Roman Catholic Church says, such assurances in the final analysis are based upon human conjecture, human opinion, and ideas that come from the hearts of people whom the Bible defines as being deeply rooted in deceitfulness.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
The Scriptures tell us that the heart is deceitfully wicked among all things, and so it would be easy for us as we speculate about the state of our souls and the state of our salvation to to deceive ourselves and to rest our confidence on mere opinion. And so that is the dogma of the church that assurance of salvation is not really possible apart from some special act of revelation.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
But of course, it's not only the Roman Catholic Church who deny the doctrine of the assurance of salvation as the Reformers taught in the 16th century. Those Protestants who come out of what we would call a semi-Pelagian background, for example, Arminianism teaches that a person can have assurance of their salvation for today.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
but no assurance for tomorrow because they hold to the possibility that people who have faith at one time can fall away into faithlessness and lose their salvation. That's why historically the doctrine of the assurance of salvation has been so closely tied with the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
And so you have one group saying you can't have assurance, another group saying you can have limited assurance for a limited time, but you don't know what your ultimate state is going to be. And then you have the Reformed theology that teaches not only can you know today that you're in a state of grace, but that you can also have the full assurance that you will at the time of your death
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
still be in a state of grace. And that's why these different theologies and approaches to salvation have very strong practical consequences to them. Now, I think that the Reformed faith, while it teaches that we can have the assurance of salvation, also recognizes that there are false assurances.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
And so then the plot thickens because you have to ask yourself, how do I know that my assurance is true assurance and not false assurance? And we'll look at those questions as we proceed. But the first point, of course, from the Reformed perspective on this question is that not only can we have the assurance of salvation, but God in His Word commands us to have it. Let me pause for a second.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
I remember when I was in seminary, and one of my fellow students in the seminary went around the campus and took his own little opinion poll and asked the other students and the faculty individually if they were sure of their salvation. And like over 90% of the students answered that question by saying no, they were not sure of their salvation.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
And there was this huge response in which it was said that they thought it would be arrogant for somebody to claim that they were sure of their salvation, so that the idea of assurance represents not a virtue but a vice. And I've never forgotten that little episode when I was in seminary where there was this negative
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
idea associated with the very pursuit of assurance of salvation that it would ultimately leave us in a state of arrogance. Of course, there's no worse arrogance than to have the assurance of something that you don't really possess, and to be certain of your salvation when you're not in a state of salvation would be arrogant.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
But on the other hand, if it's true that God commands us to seek assurance If we don't, or if we say it's not possible, then we are really arrogant because now we're slandering the truthfulness of God Himself. So let's look at some of the important texts that we find in the New Testament with respect to this question. In the second epistle of Peter, in the first chapter,
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
And the tenth verse, we read these words from the apostle, Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble. for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
Here without ambiguity, the apostolic mandate is for us not simply in a cavalier, casual way inquire into the certainty of our election, but but that we are to make our calling and our election sure through a diligent pursuit of that.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
So the apostle tells us it's very important, and he goes on to tell you why, and we'll get to that, for practical reasons, that we be diligent to make our calling and our election sure. Now, there are lots of people who don't even believe in election. forgetting that this is a biblical concept. But I hear people all the time saying, well, how do you know if you're elect or not?
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
And we're going to address that question in this series as well. But I want to say at this point, I'll say when I talk to people who are bothered by that question and who are struggling with the whole concept of election, I say to them, I can't think of any more important question for you to get resolved in your Christian life than that question. Am I numbered among the elect?
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
Because if we have a sound understanding of election, and if we know that we're numbered among the elect, then that provides unbelievable comfort to us. as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, and as we encounter the various afflictions that are placed before us in the Christian world.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
You remember Paul and his writing from which the hymn has been written, I know whom I have believed, and I know that he is able to keep that which I've committed, in him against that day.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
See, Paul himself there is talking about his own confidence in his own future because of his knowledge of where he has placed his trust, where he has placed his faith, and he places his trust not in his own power to persevere, not in his own power to finish the race, but he places his confidence in the one in whom he has believed, knowing that he is able to keep him.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
But in the meantime, we have Peter here saying, be diligent to make your call and election sure. Now again, if we're called to make our election sure, then it would certainly follow that we are able to make our election certain. We ought to be able to know.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
whether we are numbered among the elect and again as we progress in this class we'll look at how that can be done but right now i want us to understand that assurance is not an option for us
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
Assurance is something that we're not supposed to postpone to the end of our Christian life, but it's something that we're supposed to seek diligently now to get it settled so that we know that we are numbered among the elect and that we are in the kingdom of God and that we have been adopted into the Father's house and that we are in Christ and that Christ is truly in us. Now,
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
One of the things that we've already seen is in the case of spurious assurance are those many people who come to the judgment seat of Christ at the end and say, Lord, Lord, who obviously have had a false assurance. And so, when Jesus declares their assurance false and declares that he doesn't know them and dismisses them from his presence, we remember the reason. Why?
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
We're going to continue now with our study of the question of the assurance of salvation.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
Because they were workers of iniquity, and they were people of lawlessness, and they were, as we saw in the parable of the sower, without fruit. Let me just pause there and do a little parenthesis, a little reminder of our understanding of justification. We know that we are not saved by our works. We say that we are justified by faith alone. And so we don't look to our works to get us into heaven.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
And yet we also remember that in the 16th century, the magisterial reformers like Martin Luther said, we are justified by faith alone and but not by a faith that is alone. In the Roman Catholic schema, you have to have faith to be justified, but you also have to have works, and so there is faith plus works equal justification. But in the Protestant view, faith equals justification plus works.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
In our first session, we looked at the frightening warnings that come to the church from Jesus saying that on the day of judgment, at the last day, there will be many coming to Him saying, Lord, Lord, that is professing to have a personal relationship to Him, and He will reject saying, please leave, I never knew you, because they were workers of iniquity or of lawlessness.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
That is, the works are a consequence, a manifestation of the state of grace in which we're in. These works are on that side of the equation, and the works that I do in my Christian life add nothing to my justification. The only works of righteousness that will ever justify me are the works of Christ.
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
And so when we say that we're justified by faith alone, we mean by that we're justified by Christ alone, by His works. My works don't count a thing than my justification. So then you have people say, oh, well, I guess that means that I don't have to bring any fruit. I don't have to bring forth any manifestation of righteousness because I'm saved by faith. But remember, the faith that justifies
Renewing Your Mind
Assurance Enhances Sanctification
as James tells us in his epistle and as Luther argued, is not a dead faith. It's a fides viva, a living faith, a vital faith, true faith that connects us to Christ, always and ever manifests itself in works. And if there are no works over here, what that tells us is there's no faith over here. and if there's no faith over here, there's no justification.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
The supreme test came upon Abraham when he made that dreadful journey to Mount Moriah, which tradition says is located on the exact spot that later in history is called Mount Calvary, where God took his son, his only son, the son whom he loved, Jesus, and went through with the sacrifice.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
God says to Abraham, Abraham, I want you in your old age to get up from your father's land, from all of the familiar surroundings that you have, and I want you to move. And I'm going to take you to a land where you don't know where you're going, and you're not going to know where you're going until you get there. And I am going to give this land to you.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
So the first promise has to do with land, and we'll talk about that more in a second. The second is promise. I will make you the father of a great nation. And later on, that is spelled out, more specifically, when God says to Abraham, look at the midnight sky. And if you can, try to number the stars that are in the sky.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
If you've ever been out on a clear night in the summer and gazed toward the heaven, toward the Milky Way, and on a clear night, the Milky Way appears as a dense cloud in the sky. But it's not a cloud. It appears as a dense cloud because it is made up of millions and billions of individual stars. And God said to Abraham, look at that night sky, count the stars.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
And there he goes, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. He could have stood there from the day God asked him to count the stars to today, and he would still be counting if he were counting as fast as he possibly could.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
And then he took him to the seashore and he said, look at the grains of sand along the shore and count them, number them if you can, because so will be the number of your descendants. Now, this is a man who had just, God said to him, Abraham, I am your great reward. And he said, well, what reward do I have when I'm childless? And my heir is my servant, Eliezer of Damascus.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
I'm too old, my wife is too old to have any children. But God said, not only are you going to have descendants, but they're going to be like the stars of the sky and the sand by the sea. You are going to be the father of a multitude of people. So we have the second part is the promise of descendants.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
I think we're living in a very interesting time. It's a time of crisis. We're in a period of history that is somewhat unusual, where we're in that time where we're making a transition not only from year to year or even in terms of the turn of a century but rather the time of the turn of a millennium.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
And thirdly is the promise that through Abraham and his seed, a blessing will come upon the nations, that through this action, the whole world will receive a magnificent blessing. So herein are the three aspects of this covenant promise that God makes to Abraham. Now what really happens if we look through the rest of the period and we look through the rest of the history of these promises?
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
How much land did Abraham own and possess? The only parcel of real estate he lived to possess was Machpelah. was his burial site. That was the extent of his ownership. And what about his descendants? Well, we know the story of how God promised to bless him, make him the father of a great nation, and so he expected to have a son, but no son was given.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
And even when the promise was given to Abraham in his old age, one year passes, two year passes, five year passes, years upon years pass and his wife is still barren.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
And following a custom that is incidentally demonstrated to be part of the ancient ritual through these tablet discoveries that I mentioned earlier in the 20th century, his wife, Sarah, gave her servant slave to Abraham that she might be a surrogate mother so that the promise of God would be fulfilled. And so Abraham unites with Hagar, and they have a baby, and his name is is Ishmael.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
And now Abraham says, I have a son, and the promises of God can now take place, and maybe I will have descendants like the stars and like the sea. But the promise of God was not through Ishmael. It was through Isaac that the seed of Abraham was to be fulfilled.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
Abraham tried to make it happen in an artificial way, but it's not what God had in mind until then God supernaturally works to make the womb of Sarah fertile, and the true son of Abram and Sarah is born, and his name, as we know, is called Isaac.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
which in Hebrew means laughter, because when Abraham told his wife that she was going to have a baby according to the promise of God, she thought that was the funniest thing she ever heard. She just roared. If we have a baby, I'm going to call his name laughter. And then Isaac is born. But he didn't realize what happened with the promise of land.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
Abraham waited and waited and waited, and he was put to the test. time and again to trust the truthfulness of that divine promise. And as I said, he never inherited the promise of land other than his grave.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
And now as he rejoices in the birth of Isaac, God comes to him and puts him to the supreme test in Genesis 22 when he says to Abraham, Now take your son, your only son, the son whom thou lovest, Isaac, and go to Mount Moriah and there give him to me. Sacrifice him to me. Kill him.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
And the supreme test came upon Abraham when he made that dreadful journey to Mount Moriah, which tradition says is located on the exact spot that later in history is called Mount Calvary, where God took His Son, His only Son, the Son whom He loved, Jesus. and went through with the sacrifice and took his life as a substitute for us and for Isaac
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
And of course, any time you have that transition from millennium to millennium, all of the historians and the sociologists and the prognosticators of the future talk about the significance of this moment in history. Now, the historians of our day have described our time as the post-Christian era.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
because Abraham passed the test and Isaac was spared so that Isaac could have a son and that Isaac's son could have a son. And so through this descendancy, the promises of the covenant would come to pass. And through this heritage, through this line, as the Apostle Paul said, through the seed of Abraham, all of the nations of the world
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
are now given the benefits of exposure of the work of Christ, Abraham's greatest son. But this was not without testing. And the point is, it didn't take place immediately. That blessing that was promised to Abraham had to take 2,000 years before it was realized until this little girl heard the announcement of Gabriel. And she is saying, he remembered. He remembered the mercy.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
He remembered the promise that he gave to Abraham. And as the Spirit announced to Zacharias that his son would be the forerunner, the herald of the coming Messiah, under the same Holy Spirit, Zacharias said he remembered the promise. And the whole history of redemption is the working out of that event 4,000 years ago.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
We experimented with radio where we took like three to five minute spots and we would have people call in questions and they would ask their theological questions and we titled that program Ask RC. And that's where we put our toe in the water with radio, only we were in a very limited way and very few cities, and we didn't really know too much about how radio worked at that time.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
a time where the teaching of Christianity has been deemed increasingly irrelevant, a time when the church is seen as a museum, outdated, outmoded. It's been reduced in certain places of Europe to the role of the mausoleum, indeed the gravesite for those who have declared the death of God.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
And then we had a vision for a longer program, and I was very skeptical because I said, you know, my thing is teaching theology, and I don't know whether the radio works as a theological classroom. I was shocked and pleasantly surprised to see that there was a deep hunger for out there in radio land, so to speak, for substantive theological instruction.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
And I have found over the years that the response that we get from people who write in and call in and all of that is that while it's actually caused our ministry to like triple or quadruple in size, and we get floods of letters of people who say they listen every day because they want to learn the truths of God and grow in their faith as a result of it.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
Every single day we get letters that I can hardly imagine because— I record these lectures in a small room with 15 or 20 people as a live audience for it. And I have to somehow look past them to the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people that are really involved in renewing your mind.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
But it's so weird when you're in a room with just a few people and try to imagine this vast audience that you're speaking to.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
Well, I usually don't use the term Calvinism with respect to the content of my theology. I usually use the more generic term Reformed or Classically Reformed because the theology I teach is that theology that was recovered at the time of the 16th century Reformation.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
and encoded in the great Reformation creeds of the 16th and 17th century, both out of the Lutheran community and out of the Reformed community in Switzerland and John Knox's Scotland and so on. And I've been teaching Reformed theology for... almost 40 years in various venues. And so, obviously, I wasn't going to change the content of what I taught when we came into this particular medium.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
But I agree with Spurgeon when he said that Reformed theology is just a nickname for biblical Christianity. I mean, I really believe that. Now, I would say that we hear from people all the time for whom This particular tradition is new because broad evangelical thought in America has departed dramatically from Reformation thinking.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
And so for many people, though what I'm teaching is quite old and classical, to their ears it's something new. And that's exciting because people get excited when they hear these truths from the Word of God. It also awakens quite a lot of opposition.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
There's been some books written that have been sent to me where I've been accused of single-handedly, you know, turning evangelicals into Reformed thinkers. And I would like to plead guilty to that as much as possible, but I think that people give me too much credit there. At that point, even though they're trying to discredit me, it's a backhanded compliment.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
And yet, there remains in this world today a pulsating group of believing Christian people who still live at this point in time trusting in promises that were made 2,000 years ago. Two thousand years is a long time, and there's some irony in this, in that we're at that point now where just about two thousand years have elapsed since the birth of Jesus.
Renewing Your Mind
Covenant with Abraham
But on the occasion of the birth of Jesus, you recall the angel Gabriel came to this young girl and announced that she would give birth to a baby whose name would be Immanuel. And this young maiden, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, 2,000 years ago sang a song. And we all know the song. We love the song. It's called the Magnificat.
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Covenant with Abraham
in which Mary, under the power of the Spirit, sang out, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior. And if we look through the text of the Magnificat and come to the very end of that song, here are the words that came from Mary. She said, He has helped His servant Israel as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever."
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Now shortly after this song of praise inspired by the Holy Spirit from the lips of Mary, another song appears in Scripture, and this is the song that is sung by the father of John the Baptist, Zacharias. And in the midst of his song, he said this,
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that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to our father Abraham." Now here's the irony. We're standing on the threshold of a change of a millennium. We're standing in that point in history being 2,000 years distantly removed from the promises of Christ.
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And some people are having a hard time believing them because so much time has elapsed. So much time. And yet, Mary and Zacharias... ironically, were in virtually the same situation because they were looking back two millennia. They were looking back for 2,000 years and blessing God for remembering a promise that He had made to somebody else 2,000 years before they lived.
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And so, in a very real sense, Mary and Zacharias represent a similar situation to what we are facing today. And both of these people, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, celebrated that God remembered something. God remembered His promise. He remembered a promise that was a promise to give mercy, and of course that promise was the promise that He had made 2,000 years earlier.
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to the patriarch Abraham." Now we've already said that the Old Testament in a certain sense is the autobiography of God, that its chief character is God the Father, as His character is revealed in every word that is spoken in the Old Testament text, every deed that is recorded, every relationship that is remembered.
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But from a human perspective, from the plane of human history, we could come at it in a different way. We could say, well, The whole record of the Old Testament is a history of the descendants of Adam and Eve. But of course, all history is a history of the descendants of Adam and Eve because they're the parents of all people who have ever lived.
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In a more narrow and specialized sense, the whole scope of Old Testament history is the history chiefly of the descendants of one man. In fact, if it were a soap opera today, it would probably be called something like this, One Man's Family. And the man whose family history is recorded throughout the Old Testament literature is Abraham.
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Now of course, one of the points of crisis in our time where this spirit of skepticism that declares that we're living in the post-Christian era is manifested is in this skeptical attitude towards the historical reliability of the Old Testament and particularly the earlier chapters of the Old Testament.
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And in the corridors of biblical scholars and those who indulge in what's called higher criticism, there has been in the last 150 years a massive attack against the historical character of Abraham. Abraham has been regarded as a mythological character, merely a legend whose life gives us some kind of parabolic lesson.
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But apart from the moral lessons that we can learn from this saga, there is no real historical substance to it. And of course, in the 19th century, these assumptions were considered to be assured results of scholarly research. But something has happened. Many things have happened indeed in the twentieth century to bring a dramatic change to that spirit of skepticism.
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The late William Foxwell Albright, before he died, made a sharp rebuke of biblical scholars for ignoring the hard evidence of archaeological research and allowing philosophical speculation to bring an undue spirit of cynicism and skepticism to the Old Testament text. And at the heart of this is the story of Abraham.
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Now, let me mention in passing a few things that have happened in the 20th century that are very important to our understanding of Old Testament history. In 1929, There was a discovery in Rosh Shomra that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that writing had been developed as early as the second millennium B.C.
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in the Middle East because the skeptics of the 19th century said there wasn't even any writing in the world at this time and that the record of Abraham must have come significantly later because writing hadn't even been developed in this part of the world.
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In 1935, the Mari tablets were discovered, which indicated a historical record of customs and behavioral patterns that exactly mirrored and duplicated the customs that are recorded in the account of the life of Abraham.
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Also in the 30s, another dramatic discovery was made with the Nuzu tablets, which did the same thing, gave us a wealth of information of Old Testament times and showed a correspondence of customs and behavioral patterns, legal documents, that sort of thing. And then more recently, the Ebla discovery, which there demonstrates the existence of cities,
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peoples, even names that occur in the Bible, all of which has demonstrated that it seems like every time an archaeologist turns over a shovel full of dirt, another aspect of this record is verified for its authenticity. So what we're going to say here at the beginning is that when we look at the story of Abraham, we ought not to look at the story of Abraham as an exercise in mythology.
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but rather as an announcement that comes to us in the sacred scriptures of something that takes place in real history, in real space, in real time, where a real God calls a real individual out of a land of paganism, speaks to him, consecrates him, and makes a promise to him that changes everything. the entire course of history.
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Let's look at that record as we find it in the twelfth chapter of the book of Genesis. We read at the very beginning of chapter 12 of Genesis this account. Now the Lord had said to Abram, get out of your country, from your family, and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. and I will make you a great nation.
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I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing, and I will bless those who bless you." Some of you will remember the Old Testament survey that was produced by some Lutherans called the Bethel Bible series. And that particular introductory survey of the Old Testament uses interesting graphics with each segment of the period that is being studied.
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And the way in which this segment of the life of Abraham is captioned is by the words, blessed to be a blessing. And I thought that was a marvelous method of succinctly and tersely capturing the very essence of what is going on here in terms of the historical significance of this man Abraham. God does not simply bless him as an individual for his own benefit, but Abraham is blessed
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so that He might be a vehicle of blessing to manifest multitudes of people who come after Him. He was blessed to be a blessing. And that motif is carried on throughout the whole Old Testament period and even into the New Testament period, that when God blesses us, He blesses us that we might become a blessing to those who are around us.
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But if we look now at the elements of this promise, we see, first of all, that what is going on here is the making of a covenant, a covenant that is announced here in chapter 12 and ratified in an amazing way
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in chapter 15 of Genesis that I commend you to study carefully, because there, in chapter 15 of Genesis, God answers the questions of Abraham when Abraham said, how will I know that these promises that you're making to me will come to pass? And God, in the context of that chapter, seals his promise with an oath.
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And in that oath, God is saying to Abraham, Abraham, if I don't keep every word that I have promised to you, may I be cut asunder. that God backs up His promise by swearing not by His mother's grave, He has no mother, not by the earth, that's His own footstool, or by the heavens, His dwelling place, but rather God swears by His own holy character and His own divine nature.
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Now again, what are the terms? of this covenant promise that God makes to Abraham, and how do they impact the rest of biblical history, and how are they relevant to us, and what is it about them that would cause Mary to sing the Magnificat and Zacharias his song of praise? Well, if you notice what I read here, there are three elements to this promise. The first one is there is the promise of land.
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The Just Shall Live by Faith
If you give your testimony to your neighbor and say, you know, I became a Christian last year, you're bearing witness about Jesus, but you're not telling them the gospel, because the gospel is not about you. The gospel is about Jesus.
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What do people want today when they go to the person who promises healing and slays them in the Spirit? What are they looking for? I can tell you what they're looking for. They're looking for power. They want a Christian experience that is powerful. They want power to manipulate their own environment. That's the great goal of the New Age movement, to be able to bend spoons with your mind and
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Only one is omnipotent, and it's the Lord God. And the Lord God has power to spare. He doesn't need Joseph's pants. He doesn't even need the gospel. Yet it has pleased the Lord God omnipotent to invest His power not in Joseph's pants, or in the preacher's ability to slay somebody in the Spirit, but the power is invested in the gospel.
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Paul is continuing his greetings and his opening comments to the church at Rome before he plunges into the content of the theological understanding of the gospel that he sets forth throughout this entire epistle. And so he begins by saying, first of all, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all. The apostle had a heart that was constantly filled with thanksgiving.
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There is no program known to man that has the power that the gospel has. It is the Word of God that He has promised that He will not allow to return unto Him void. That's the method, the foolishness of preaching that He's chosen to save the world. Paul says, I'm not ashamed. I want to preach the gospel. Why? Because it's the power of God and the salvation.
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It's the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew and to the Greek, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. In the gospel, The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.
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The Just Shall Live by Faith
This was the verse that God the Holy Spirit used to awaken Luther as he was preparing his lectures on the book of Romans when he glanced at a manuscript from Saint Augustine where Augustine read this text, and it says here when it speaks of the righteousness of God, Augustine said in his note, this is not the righteousness by which God Himself is righteous.
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But it is that righteousness that God provides for people who don't have any righteousness. It's that righteousness that He makes available by free grace to all who believe. what Luther called the alien righteousness, the righteousness that is not our own, but it is somebody else's righteousness.
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It's Jesus' righteousness, and this Luther who had sought every means that he knew in the monastery to satisfy the demands of God's law and never had peace, who would spend three, four hours in the confessional every day confessing the sins from the last day. He said, and all of a sudden,
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He understood another righteousness, a righteousness that was the free gift of God to all who put their trust in Christ, a righteousness that would avail to satisfy all of the demands of God's law. Luther said, when I saw that, the doors of paradise swung open, and I walked through. No wonder that man stood against kings.
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and officials of the church who would refuse to compromise because once he tasted the gospel of Jesus Christ, once he was delivered from the pangs and torment of the law, nobody was going to take it from him. I was involved in this international council on biblical inerrancy. many years ago, a ten-year initiative to defend the doctrine of Scripture, and I was the president of that council.
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And I was asked to go to a seminary and meet with their whole faculty because the faculty had departed from that view, and I had this discussion behind closed doors for about three hours. And afterwards, I was walking to my car in the parking lot, and the dean was with me, and he said, I just don't understand you, R.C. He said, what do you care so deeply that the Bible is inerrant.
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What difference does it make? What difference does it make? I said, my life was saved by this Word. There is nothing more precious to my soul than every word that's found on this page. How can you be the dean of a theological seminary and ask me, what difference does it make? It's the Word of God. So I understood the sense of liberation that Luther experienced from reading that text.
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This is the thematic verse for the entire epistle. Everything that comes after it will be an explanation of this one line. For in it the righteousness of God, the word there, dukeosune. It's the word that is used for justification in the New Testament, and we're going to be seeing that word again and again as we pour over this manuscript to the Romans.
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And finally, Paul says, and if the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. Three times that verse is quoted in the New Testament. Here, it's in Galatians, it's in Hebrews chapter 10. All three times, the text that is quoted goes back to the Old Testament book of the prophet Habakkuk. Behold the proud.
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His soul is not upright in him, but the just shall live by faith. That is the righteous person, righteous in the sight of God, not by his own righteousness. We've already established that. The righteous lives by trust. Jesus in the Judean wilderness under the unbridled assault of Satan, lonely, hungry, Satan says, take these stones and make them bread. I can't do that.
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Don't you understand, Satan, that man does not live by bread alone? but by every word that proceeds forth from the mouth of God. I've said to the people of St. Andrews really a hundred times, anybody can believe in God. What it means to be a Christian is to believe God, to trust Him when He speaks. And that does not require a leap of faith. That does not require a crucifixion of the intellect.
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It requires a crucifixion of the pride. Because there is no one ever more trustworthy than God. Why wouldn't you trust God? When we don't trust Him, it's because we transfer to Him our own corrupt qualities. God doesn't have any of those corrupt qualities. You can trust Him with your life. And that's the theme of this book, that just shall live by faith. And from that vantage point,
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The Just Shall Live by Faith
The word that he used here in the epistle was the word eucharisto, from which the church derives the term eucharist, which was a word used to describe the celebration of the Lord's Supper in the primitive Christian church, because at the heart of the celebration of the Lord's Supper was a profound spirit of thanksgiving for what God had wrought for us in the work of Jesus Christ.
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Paul opens up the depths and the riches of the whole gospel for the people of God.
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And so, Paul mentions his spirit of thankfulness for these Roman Christians, and he says, because your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. When first century people spoke of the world, they were speaking of the known world. They were speaking of basically the Mediterranean world. That was in their purview.
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And when Paul says, I'm rejoicing that your faith is known throughout the world, he's talking in the way people talked at that time, and he's saying that I'm glad that throughout the our known world, throughout the Mediterranean world, people everywhere are talking about your faith, which has made an impact. He's so eager that the people who receive this epistle understand
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the depth of passion that he feels in his grateful heart for the remembrance that is published throughout the known world of their faith that he swears a vow. He says, for God is my witness. And we will see later, God willing, that this is not the last time in this epistle that the apostle takes such a vow to guarantee the truth of what he's saying.
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God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers, making request if by some means, now at last, I may find a way in the will of God to come to you. But I also don't want us to jump too hastily over a little comment that he makes in passing here when he says this vow.
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God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son. Earlier on in the first chapter, Paul said that he was separated as an apostle and was called by God to preach the gospel of God. That phrase, the gospel of God, did not mean the gospel about God. but it is the gospel that is the possession of God. God owns that gospel. He's the one who invents the gospel.
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He's the one who commissions Paul to teach the gospel. The gospel does not originate with Paul. originates with God. But now, he uses the same structure to talk about the gospel. Instead of talking about the gospel of God, he talks the gospel of God's Son, Jesus Christ. So, in the same sense, the gospel is the possession of Jesus. But it's not only the possession of Jesus.
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Jesus is the heart of the content of the gospel. During the earthly ministry of Jesus, the term gospel is linked with not particularly the person of Jesus, but it is the gospel of the kingdom. And Jesus would say in His parables, the kingdom of God is like unto this, or the kingdom of God is like unto that. And so, on the lips of Jesus, the gospel is
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was about this dramatic moment in history where the long-awaited Messiah, the long-awaited Son of David, who would restore the kingdom to the people, the kingdom of God Himself, was now breaking through in time and space. And the good news was the good news of the kingdom. But by the time we get to the epistles, and particularly the Pauline epistles,
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The term gospel takes on a new shade of understanding. Now it's the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the gospel of Jesus Christ has a clear content to it. At the heart of the gospel is the announcement of who Jesus is. and what He accomplished in His lifetime.
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If you give your testimony to your neighbor and say, you know, I became a Christian last year, I gave my heart to Jesus, or whatever, you're bearing witness about Jesus, but you're not telling them the gospel, because the gospel is not about you. The gospel is about Jesus, what He did, His life of perfect obedience.
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His atoning death on the cross, His resurrection from the dead, His ascension into heaven, His outpouring of the Holy Ghost upon the church. Those are crucial elements of the gospel that we call the objective aspects of the New Testament gospel of Christ. However,
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In addition to the person and work of Jesus, there is also in the New Testament use of the term gospel, the question of how the benefits accomplished by the objective work of Jesus are subjectively appropriated to the believer. So first of all, there is who Jesus is and what Jesus did, and then the question is how that benefits me.
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The Just Shall Live by Faith
And that's why Paul conjoins with the objective account of the person and work of Jesus, particularly to the Galatians, that essential to the gospel is the doctrine of justification by faith alone. So that in preaching the gospel, we preach about Jesus, and we preach about how we are brought into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
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And so, Paul now speaks of the gospel of his son and then says that without ceasing, he mentions them in his prayers, making the request that he might find a way to get there, as I said. He said, for I long to see you. I've heard about you. I get reports from Rome, but I haven't seen you. I haven't met you. And I long, I have this deep yearning, this passion in my soul to meet you face to face.
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Why? That I may impart to you some spiritual gift so that you may be established. And established means not started in the Christian faith, but confirmed, built up, edified. That's what he means by established. He said, I want to come to you not for what you can do for me. And I don't want to come to you and lay hands on you so that you can receive one of the charismatic gifts.
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That's not what he's talking about here. I'm talking about establishing you in confidence and in maturity in your Christian faith. Now, let's keep that in mind, that this is why Paul wrote this letter to the Romans, and it's why in the providence of God this letter is given to us. It's for our edification.
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that the faith that has taken root in our souls may be established, that we may grow to maturity and full conformity to the image of Christ. And he makes this comment in passing. I don't want to labor it, but he says, that is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith, both of you and me. One of the things that made Paul such a tremendous believer
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pastor as well as a theologian and missionary and evangelist and all the other things he was. You notice when he wrote to the church at Corinth and recalls the experiences that he had with them, he said, and I was with you in your afflictions, in your trials. He said, Paul didn't just preach at people or preach to people.
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but he became involved with them in his heart, in his prayers, in his concern for their well-being. And he wanted to encourage them. And he said, I long to be with you, not just that I can encourage you, but you can encourage me. Is there anybody who doesn't need to be encouraged?
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If people are throwing stones at you everywhere you go, it's nice to have somebody give you a word of encouragement from time to time. And he said, I long to come to Rome that I can encourage you and that you can encourage me. But he says, I'm a debtor both to the Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. Wow.
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the language that he uses here, notice he doesn't say, I'm a debtor to the Jew and to the Greek. Not at this point. He's saying, I'm a debtor to the Greek and to the barbarian. Now when he talks about the Greek here, he's talking about the highly cultured, civilized, intellectual elite of the ancient culture as distinguished from the rest of the Gentiles who were pagan barbarians.
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And he says, but I'm in debt both to the Greek, the high-minded, and to the barbarian. And what does he mean? He's not talking here about a pecuniary obligation or debt. It's not that he owes money to both sides. But he felt a moral debt. He was burdened by an obligation that went with his office as an apostle. Remember, he was the one who was set apart to be the apostle to the Gentiles.
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And he said, I'm spending my whole life discharging this obligation that I owe. Ultimately, it's the debt he owes to God. It's the debt he owes to Christ. But yet at the same time, he's transferring that indebtedness, that obligation to the people who need to hear the gospel. He says, as long as I'm alive, I can't pay that debt because I owe my life to
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to every person that I meet, to the wise, to the unwise. He's putting them all together to say, everyone I meet, I meet as one who owes my fellow person the message of the gospel. So, he says, as much as is in me, I'm ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also. Again, he's reaching down into his soul to speak of the depth of his own passion.
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He says, as much as is in me, every fiber of my being is ready to preach the gospel to you. I can't wait to get there. Why? Why does he say it? Well, he answers that question. Listen to what he says. for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ." And he says why in a moment, but let's just listen to this statement, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
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Have you ever been ashamed of being a Christian? Have you ever tried to duck the hostility of this world, the scorn that is heaped upon those who are known as disciples of Christ? in a culture that is hostile to Christianity. If you think our culture is hostile to the gospel, think of the culture that Paul was dealing with in the first century. He says, I'm not ashamed. I glory in it.
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Let him who boasts, let him boast of the Lord. There's nothing that turns his crank more than to be known as a Christian. No shame. Jesus warned us, didn't He? If you're ashamed of Me before men, I'll be ashamed of you before My Father. But that's a real crunch for many Christians. They want to be Secret Service Christians or what I call Clairol Christians.
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Only their hairdresser knows for sure whether they're a Christian. They don't want to be known as being holier than thou. I mean, if you say one word to your friends about Christ, you'll be accused of trying to shove the gospel down their throat. That's the nature of the beast. And so, we get rebuffed enough times that pretty soon we become embarrassed about our faith. Not the apostle.
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He says, as much as is in me, I can't wait to get the Roman. I'll tell you why. Because I'm not ashamed. of the gospel. Now again, why is he not ashamed? And listen to this because this is dynamite literally. Dunamis is the Greek word from which we get the dynamite. For it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also for the Greek.
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The Goal of Christian Living
The big idea of Christianity is to live quorum Deo, to live all of one's life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, and to the honor and to the glory of God.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
The zeal and the fire and the passion that you had and you probably turned off all your friends because you were obnoxious and too pushy and you were so excited you wanted to tell everybody about what happened to you and so on. We all went through that. But then we have learned how to adjust to accommodate our friends, and we've learned how to adjust our goals downward.
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The Goal of Christian Living
Because as we started to grow, it was sort of like a puberty spurt. Then we suddenly reached that plateau and we cooled off. We said, oh, I'm going to read the Bible from beginning to end. We went through Genesis. We went through Exodus. And then we hit Leviticus. And many of us fell off when we hit Leviticus. Some persevered through Leviticus all the way into Numbers.
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And he mentioned that there were Japanese corporations that didn't have simply three-year plans or five-year plans for their businesses, but some of them extended their business plans out into time 100 and 200 years so that they had an overarching goal that they kept before them at all times so that they could check periodically to make sure that everything that they were doing in their company
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And after they got into Numbers, they said, I can't do it anymore. And so they quit. And this is what happens. We start, but we don't finish what we start. Ladies and gentlemen, what pleases God is somebody who signs up for the duration. Somebody who prays every day, thy kingdom come. Somebody who spends his life, not just the beginning of his life, his life seeking the kingdom of God.
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The Goal of Christian Living
Again, Edwards made this statement that the seeking of the kingdom of God is not something that unbelievers do. The seeking of the kingdom of God is the chief business of the Christian. And it's a lifelong enterprise. It's a lifelong pursuit. And I think that that's what it means to be a disciple. is to come under the discipline of someone more mature.
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The Goal of Christian Living
If I wanted to get over my periods of paralysis where I was stuck in music, I had to go to a teacher. a teacher who was on the other side of that plateau, who could help bring me across the threshold into a new liberation and a new freedom. And I think the same thing's true in spiritual life and in spiritual growth.
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The Goal of Christian Living
Finally, let me give you this one illustration of how God is pleased by those who seek his kingdom. Again, when I was a boy, I went to a movie, and I don't remember even the exact title of the movie or who even starred in the movie. It had to do with the adventures of Robin Hood. And I don't know whether it was Earl Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks Jr. I think it was Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
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who played in this particular version where Basil Rathbone was the sheriff of Nottingham. And I saw this magic story of Robin Hood. on the screen and I was captured by it. What a tremendous story. The king of the land, Richard, has to depart and go on a spiritual mission. And while he is gone, his reign and his power and his authority is usurped by wicked Prince John, his younger brother.
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The Goal of Christian Living
Now Robin Hood is loyal to the king, but the king's gone. And so Robin Hood and his men are forced to live out in the woods, finding shelter there in the countryside. And so a price comes on his head, and we see the conflict throughout the whole story of one who is loyal to a foreign king, to the king who has gone. And he will not submit to the usurper who has supplanted the rightful king.
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The Goal of Christian Living
Robin Hood lives to please King Richard, not Prince John. He harasses Prince John. He sends little forays out into the forest to bother his tax collectors and so on. Well, then we see at the end of the movie this magnificent scene where Richard the Lionheart is coming back from the Crusades and is returning to England. But he's going to enter into the country incognito.
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The Goal of Christian Living
And so he and his traveling partners are robed in the robes of monks. And wearing this disguise, they stop at a neighboring inn, and one of the merry men of Robin Hood's band spots these men dressed as monks, and he thinks that they're the entourage of Prince John. And they run back to the camp, and they said, hey, there's some of these men coming through here.
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The Goal of Christian Living
They look like they're carrying some money. Let's go get them. And so as King Richard is on his horse, and the horse is sort of walking down through a narrow glen in the forest, suddenly the trees are alive. with the men of Robin Hood's band and they jump out of the trees and they stop King Richard and they capture him and they bring him back to the camp.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
And they present these two monks, apparently, to Robin Hood. And Robin Hood comes out, and he begins to interrogate these men and speak to them in a kind of authoritative voice. But this one monk will not be cowed before Robin Hood. And he begins to speak to him with the words of regal authority. And Robin Hood is taken aback.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
was on target. Now after this businessman related all this to me about what was going on in the international field of finance, he looked at me and he said, now about the Christian life, R.C., he said, tell me, please, what is the big idea?
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
And then in one dramatic moment, Richard pulls apart the robe of the monk. And there is his shield, his heraldic sign on his chest of the lion. And Robin immediately recognizes him, and he falls to his knees and says, My liege. And the king, having heard of Robin's loyalty and devotion, said, Rise, Robin.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
And then at the end of the movie, Sir Richard knights Robin Hood, making him the Earl of Locksley because he persevered. Robin Hood lived in the presence of his king, under the authority of his king, to the honor and to the glory of his king.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
I see no finer parallel to the call of the Christian who would please his God than to serve the one who is now enthroned as the King of Kings and in his absence seek to please him, to honor him, and to obey him.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
We listen to sermons, we read the scriptures, we get caught up in the maze of the details of theology, but we long for the opportunity to cut through all of the fine points, the particulars of Christianity, and get down to the core, the very essence of what the Christian life is all about. That's what we mean by discerning the big idea. So when this businessman said, R.C., what's the big idea?
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
I thought about it for a moment, and the answer that popped into my head came out of the 16th century Reformation. when the Protestant Reformers of that time had to define themselves to a watching world. And so they had to crystallize the essence of what their ministry and their movement was about.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
And out of that crystallization process came a phrase, of course it was Latin, that was introduced and used frequently by Martin Luther to declare the essence of the Christian life. And Luther used this phrase, that the essence of the Christian life is to live one's life quorum Deo. Now that may be a strange phrase to you. Quorum Deo. Literally what it means is before the face of God.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
And what Luther was saying simply was this, that the Christian life means to live all of your life in the presence of God. Now, we add to that a couple of other ideas. The big idea of Christianity is to live quorum Deo, to live all of one's life in the presence of God under the authority of God and to the honor and to the glory of God. Let me say that again.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
The big idea, quorum Deo, is to live one's life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the honor and glory of God. That's what it's all about. Jesus said it succinctly this way, if you love me, keep my commandments, which is to say, if you want to please me, You please me by doing what I have commanded you to do. But to live this kind of life,
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
Obviously, at the outset, sounds rather idealistic, doesn't it? There's nobody that lives all of their life in a constant sense of the presence of God, and none of us is so righteous that everything that we do is in submission to the authority of God and done under his honor and to his glory.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
We can say that religiously and define it theologically, but to put that into actual living practice is not a simple thing to do. We can get excited and emotionally moved and have spiritual experiences where we make vows and promises, oh God, you know, my life is yours, my heart is on the altar, I'm gonna please you and live for you and so on.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
But through the day to day activities and the pressures that come upon us, that zeal and that excitement begins to fade. And we fall back into our old patterns where we live in the absence of God, in defiance of God, and to our own glory. So what it means to please God is not simply to make a commitment or a vow, but to press forward God.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
through those moments and times where we are paralyzed and frustrated in our spiritual growth. Let me ask this question. How many of you have ever taken piano lessons. Let me see your hands. You've taken piano lessons. About three out of four in the audience have responded here that you have taken piano lessons at some time in your life.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
Are any of you, incidentally, at the present time functioning as a concert pianist? Can't find any of those in here. Isn't it strange that every year literally millions of people in the United States of America start piano lessons?
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
But there are so very, very few that ever become concert pianists like von Kleibern or even great jazz pianists like Thelonious Monk or Oscar Peterson or Schering or one of the others. when I started taking piano lessons, my mother had a big idea and she put her hands on her hips and said, young man, you're going to start taking piano lessons.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
And so she sent me off to this woman who was 110 years old And she lived in a house that was 150 years old that was so musty and creaky and scary. That woman's name was Miss Bliss, and she brought anything but bliss into my life, doing all of these exercises. But I remember vividly my first lesson.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
I came into this scary, creepy, old, musty house, and I sat down on this bench next to this woman who was as scary and creepy and musty as the house was, and she opened up to the first lesson of John Thompson's piano book series. And she showed me on the keyboard where Middle C was located.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
And then she told me to play middle C with my index finger, and I followed the first lesson on the page, and I even remember the words to it. As I would strike middle C repeatedly with my index finger and my right hand, the song went like this. I am playing middle C. Then the left hand hit the same note. I can play it well you see. I said, hey, this is a piece of cake.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
I started piano lessons with a flurry, with gusto. It was simple, and I ripped through the first half of John Thompson in just a few weeks, and I had visions of becoming a great pianist. Five years later, I quit taking piano lessons, and I was only in the middle of of John Thompson's second grade book. My development as a piano player was arrested. It was frozen.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
It reached a point of difficulty that signaled a plateau where I was stuck. I was frozen. Couldn't go any further. And so I gave it up. But what I learned about life from studying the piano is this, that we have a tendency to make a running start at certain enterprises and get all involved and all engrossed in what it is that we're trying to learn or trying to achieve or trying to do.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
And as soon as we run into an obstacle, or we reach one of those difficult plateaus where we are temporarily paralyzed, that's where we quit. We say, I've reached the limit of my ability. I'll go no further. But the only way to advance in any enterprise is to persevere through that level of paralysis so that we can get beyond the roadblock and move ahead.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
In fact, if you look at something, you will see that the higher we go in our attempts to master a procedure, the easier it is to get better and better after we learn how to make it through plateaus. Now, what does that have to do with pleasing God. Obviously not all of us are called to be concert pianists, but all of us are called To please God.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
I've spoken many times on the priority of the Christian life as Jesus declares it in his teaching when he tells his disciples to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all of these other things will be added unto you. Elsewhere, Jesus makes a very strange and cryptic statement about this kingdom of God.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
He speaks about the kingdom of God appearing and he calls his disciples to press into the kingdom of God saying that the violent take it by force. Now that perhaps may be a negative idea suggesting that the enemies of the kingdom of God use violence to try to oppose God's reign
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
Or it may mean, and I think it means, that those who mean business about pleasing God are not casual or cavalier in their pursuit of the kingdom of God. But they are like men of violence who storm the battlements of the enemy until they break through. Jesus said, that's the way the kingdom is.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
It's like, he said, a woman who has lost a coin, who sweeps the entire house, turns everything upside down. She's obsessed until she finds that coin. I can't imagine how Jesus was insightful enough in the first century to tell a story based on the life of my wife.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
If you would see what happens in my household when my wife loses her purse, you would know what Jesus had in mind when he talked about this woman sweeping the house clean to find that coin. My wife... is always hiding things to keep them safe from burglars or from children. I don't know what she's hiding them from. But she has these wonderful hiding places for her jewelry and for her purse.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak with a friend of mine who's a businessman in Orlando, and he was telling me all about the latest developments in the international world of finance, and he talked about a study that had been made of international corporations in terms of their future planning.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
The only problem is that after she hides them, she forgets where she hides them. And they have been such wonderful hiding places that she can't find what she has hidden. And then we have to go through the procedure, lifting up the rugs, taking the drawers out of the car, going through the winter clothes, everything to try to find this thing.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
Jesus said, the kingdom of God is like a man who finds an extraordinary pearl that is so precious and so valuable, singular in its magnificence. that that person has such a profound passion to possess that pearl, which is more costly than any other pearl, that he goes and sells all that he has that he might possess that one single pearl.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
Jesus said the kingdom of God is like a man who lost his son. I've already mentioned that son, the prodigal son who goes to the far country, squanders his father's inheritance. You see these vans, RVs on the highway and bumper stickers on the back of them where you see this nice retired couple driving this wonderful Winnebago down the highway.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
And it says on the back of the thing, we're spending our children's inheritance. Well, how about when your children spend your children inheritance before you die? What about a sign on the back of the kids card says, I'm spending my dad's retirement money. That's what the prodigal son did. He went out and squandered everything that his father worked so hard to earn.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
And then he disgraced the family with his riotous living. You know the story. But yet when he came to himself, and in utter degradation and humiliation after he lived with the pigs and smelled of swine. With his head bowed and in tatters, he started to make his way home. He said to himself, I will arise and I will go to my father.
Renewing Your Mind
The Goal of Christian Living
All of those parables, the prodigal son, the lost coin, the pearl of great price, are parables that emphasize the importance of pressing in to the kingdom of God. Of pressing beyond the points of paralysis. The plateau where things become so difficult that we stop. Now you who are Christians, remember the beginnings of your Christian experience.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
To understand Luther, you have to understand this enormous burden of guilt that haunted him in the monastery. He would say, you ask me, do I love God? Love God? Sometimes I hate God. I see Christ with a sword, with judgment, coming to condemn me.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
And so Luther now was going to be able to go personally to the holy city. And that was worth a huge number of indulgences, which concept we'll explore more later. And though he was still alive and not in purgatory, he couldn't apply the indulgences he would get from this pilgrimage to Rome to himself. He decided to devote this pilgrimage, this trip to Rome, to his grandparents.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
And so finally, after months of travel, he and his partner arrived in Rome. And it was an experience of raw disillusionment. The first thing that upset him was the immoral lives of the priests in Rome who openly were involved with prostitutes, both male and female.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
and that the moral and sexual corruption of the Roman priesthood there in the city was not a secret behind closed doors, but it was openly. It was one big orgy from Luther's perspective. the way in which the priests were selling their services for reciting the Mass. They would be paid so much money for saying a Mass.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
And in order to enhance their profits on that, they would say the Mass as fast as they possibly could. showing no reverence to the elements of the mass, but simply doing the mass for personal gain. And Luther saw that and was devastated because in his estimation before he got there, he said, this is Mecca from a Christian perspective. This is where the holiest of holy men are to be found.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
At the time, presumably, Julius II was the pope who, even for a moment, Catholic historians' evaluation was one of the most corrupt of all popes. He was a Borgia pope, and he had had the plan of building a new cathedral. or basilica, which would house the bones of St. Peter and St. Paul.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
And so he undertook this massive building project to build a new cathedral or basilica, but he ran out of money. And so the foundation was built, and then it became overgrown with weeds and so on. And the building project was abandoned until later on, until Julius' successor, Leo X, came into power. But we'll see that a little bit later.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
I think one of the most interesting ways of studying church history is by focusing our attention on the people who made history. And when we think of the Protestant Reformation and the central importance of the doctrine of justification by faith alone, we think immediately of the role that was played by this Augustinian monk from Wittenberg, Martin Luther.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
But the third event and the most decisive event that got to Luther when he went on his visit to Rome was his visit— to the sacred stairs that were in the Lateran Church, which was the previous basilica for the Pope, the Pope's headquarters. In the Lateran Church was this set of stairs, I don't know, 29 or so many stairs long, and these stairs were part of the judgment hall
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
where Pontius Pilate sat to hear the case of Jesus and that Jesus presumably walked up and down these stairs during his trial. And so these sacred steps in Jerusalem were rebuilt in front of the Lateran church. And this became the central point of visit for those who were doing pilgrimages to Rome.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
Because the idea was that if you could go up these stairs on your knees and on each step recite an Our Father and a Hail Mary, go to the next step on your knees and recite the Hail Mary and the Our Father. And you did that on every step till the top, you would get a certain amount of indulgences that you could use for your family to get them out of purgatory or to reduce their time in purgatory.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
So Luther, having made this journey to Rome, wanted to go up the stairs on his knees and perform this ritual for the sake of his departed grandparent. Now, if you've ever been to Rome, you know that those sacred stairs are still there at the Lateran Church. I don't know exactly how wide that staircase is. I'm guessing 8 to 10 feet. It's not a narrow stairway. It's a wide stone stairway.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
And the first time I went to Rome and went to the Lateran Church, in fact, I have to back up and say, our tour guide said, what do you want to see the most? And he expected me to say the Vatican or St. Peter's or this or that, the Colosseum. I said, I want to see the sacred stairs at the Lateran Church. And he did a double take. He said, no tourist ever asked him that.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
I said, well, that's what I want to see. So I was on my own pilgrimage, a Lutheran pilgrimage. But anyway, I got to the site. And I wanted to go up the stairs. And I looked. I couldn't get near the stairs. Every square inch of those stairs was occupied by somebody on their knees with their rosaries doing their ritual.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
And on the wall next to the stairs was this plaque that announced how many indulgences going up this staircase would be worth. Now we're talking 20th century, 21st century. We're not talking the 16th century. And those who think that all that is gone, all they have to do is go to the sacred steps and you'll see that that practice is still alive and well.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
And so Luther, in any case, when he got there, he went up the stairs on his hands and knees. And when he got to the top, he stood up and he mumbled to himself these words. Who knows if it is true? He had a crisis of whatever faith he had. He had done all the things that the church required of monks and priests to do, and he still had no peace, no hope, no sense of redemption.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
And so what I want to do by way of introduction to our study of the doctrine itself is to look at the historical framework in which the controversy broke out and also look, first of all, at the person of Luther to see how he was involved the way that he was in the Reformation. Luther, according to most experts, was born in 1483. Nobody's absolutely certain for sure of the date of his birth.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
Some set it at November the 20th, others at December the 7th. Maybe that's why that date is a date that lives in infamy. according to future generations.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
But Luther was born in a little town called Eisleben in eastern Germany, but one of the ironies of church history is that his family moved away from Eisleben very shortly after he was born, and so he spent the vast majority of his life outside of the town of Eisleben, but yet That's the town in which he died in 1546.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
But when we look at Luther as a person and look at his history, one of the things that jumps out is that he tended to have crises every five years, at least for a while, beginning in the year 1000. 1505. Luther was the son of a man who owned several mines and foundries in the area, Hans Luther.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
And though he wasn't extraordinarily wealthy, he was certainly not a peasant and had the funds to send Luther to good schools. And his dream is that his son would become a lawyer. And And so Luther enrolled as a young man in the University of Erfurt, and there he studied law.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
And even as a student of jurisprudence, he was already gaining for himself a reputation for being a brilliant jurist, a brilliant student of law with a marvelous future ahead of him, which greatly excited his father.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
And then in 1505, after coming home to visit his parents on the way back to the University of Erfurt as he was nearing the city, there was a violent thunderstorm that took place and the lightning bolt hit right next to where Luther was. and he was terrified, and he called out in horror, save me, Saint Anne, or help me, Saint Anne, I will become a monk.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
Saint Anne, who of course was the mother of Mary, the mother of Jesus, was in the Roman Catholic panoply of saints, the special saint for miners and for those who were involved in dangerous enterprises such as mining. And so Luther, being terrified at that moment, said that he, if he survived this lightning bolt, would become a monk. And so he went to the
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
university, got his personal belongings, had a goodbye session with his friends, and they walked with him to the Augustinian monastery there in Erfurt and begged him goodbye as he turned his back upon them and walked through the door into the monastery to present himself as a candidate for for the priesthood.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
You can't understand a reformation, you can't understand Luther's role in it without understanding this crisis that took place in 1505 that drove him to become a monk, much to his father's consternation. Old Hans was fit to be tied that this son of his decided now to go into religious service as a clergyman, as a priest of all things, rather than to be a prominent attorney.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
Well, in any case, when Luther entered the monastery and went through the different stages to become ordained, which he was ordained in 1507. This was one of the most critical periods of his life, without which would never understand the doctrine. There's some great irony, however, involved. in Luther's being ordained in Erfurt.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
A century earlier, a Czech preacher by the name of John Hus, or Hus as it were, was accused of heresy because he denied the infallibility of the church and put scripture over the canons and decrees of the Roman Catholic Church. And he was interrogated at the Council of Constance, and there at the Council of Constance was condemned to death.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
And the bishop who ordered his execution by being burned at the stake had this response from John Hus. Hus said, you may cook this goose or you may burn me, if you will, but there will come after me a swan. whom you will not be able to silence. Again, John Hus' name meant goose. And so he said, you can kill this goose, but there's going to come a swan that you're not going to be able to shut up.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
I was in Prague on one occasion and couldn't believe the irony of two Catholic churches in the center square. And in the middle of the center square was this statue to John Hus. And our guide was telling us the story of his execution. And he said, this is where he pointed to a particular spot. He says, this is where John Huss was fired.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
So we got a new perspective on what it means to be fired from this man who had a little trouble with the English language. But anyway, Huss was burned at the stake, and he made that comment. Now, the apocryphal part of the story is the story that I make up, which really isn't true. But what happened a century later is,
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
is that when Luther was ordained there in the monastery at Erfurt, he was, of course, prostrated at the base of the altar and made his body in the shape of a cross, and there he was consecrated to the priesthood. And the man who was buried there, Under the altar at Erfurt was the bishop who condemned John Hus to death by being burned at the stake.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
And so my apocryphal addition to that story is that when Hus said, you can kill this goose, but there will come after me a swan whom you will not be able to silence. I have the bishop saying, over my dead body because he really was ordained over that bishop's dead body.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
In the 500th anniversary of Luther's birth, all of Germany was adorned with giant posters with a picture of Luther against the background of a swan. because he was considered to be that swan that was foretold by John Hus. But of course the years in which Luther was in the monastery were years of great anxiety, great stress, great torment.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
The best history that we have of it indicates that he was a superb monk, that he was very well behaved and extremely productive in the monastery, except for one problem. The monks were supposed to have daily confession with their father confessors.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
After they would go through the rigorous times of prayer each day, they would have a time set apart for entering the confessional and rehearsing the sins of the past day, and most monks would come in and Father, I have sinned and would say that they coveted Brother Jonathan's extra bread at dinner last night or something like that.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
And in five minutes, the priest would get the absolution and he'd be out and back to work. Luther would go in. And he would spend 20 minutes, a half an hour, an hour, sometimes two hours and more confessing the sins that he had committed in the last 24 hours. And when you think about it, you're in a monastery confessing. How much trouble can you get in in 24 hours?
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
But Luther would think of all these things and ways in which he had disobeyed the law of God in the last 24 hours and then would finally get his absolution. And then on his way back to his cell, he would think of a sin that he forgot to confess. and would lose the peace that he had received from absolution.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
Now some historians have looked at that procedure in Luther and considered it evidence that the man was insane, that he was crazy to have that kind of a guilt complex that he would spend so much time confessing his sins every day. And we know that at that time Luther was a haunted man about his guilt. But at the same time you have to understand that he had the mind of a lawyer.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
And he would study carefully with great scrutiny the law of God. And then he would measure himself against that law. And he would realize that he was sinning against the law of God every minute. Here's how Luther would think.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
He would say, the Bible says the great commandment is thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and all your strength and all that, and your neighbor as much as you love yourself. Well, nobody does that. And so who gets exercised about it? Well, Luther would think like this and say, well, if that's the great commandment,
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
then the violation of that great commandment must be the great transgression. And so Luther would go to his cell and he would beat himself up physically with self-flagellation and he would enter into periods of fasting that were somewhat extreme, trying to get peace from the guilt that he was experienced for breaking the law of God.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
I haven't kept the great commandment since I got out of my bed this morning. I haven't loved the Lord my God with all of my heart and all of my mind and all of my strength and all of my soul a single day of my whole life. But nobody else does, and so I don't get so upset about it. But Luther...
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
did get upset about it, so much so that his confessor would get frustrated with him and say to him, Brother Martin, if you're going to come to the confessional, come with something serious. Come with some real crime against God instead of these peccadillos that you're always reciting there. But again, to understand Luther, you have to understand this enormous burden of guilt that haunted him
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
In the monastery, he would say, you ask me, do I love God? Love God? Sometimes I hate God. I see Christ with a sword, with judgment, coming to condemn me. Many people believed in the church that an extra bonus for getting into heaven was to go to a religious vocation. And thinking that by being a monk and consecrated to this religious vocation, that would help him get into heaven.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
But he wasn't getting any peace from it. And then the next crisis came in 1510, five years later. To Luther's unadulterated joy, he was informed by the leader of the monastery that he, along with one of his fellow monks, had been selected in behalf of the monastery to make a visit to Rome. to carry out some business for the monastery.
Renewing Your Mind
Martin Luther
And so that these two men were chosen to represent the monastery at Erfurt. And they basically walked the whole way from Germany to Rome, and Luther was so excited because one of the most significant things you could do to acquire salvation was to make a pilgrimage. And the two great sites of pilgrimages were Jerusalem and Rome.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
It is the Christian's duty. It is the Christian's moral obligation to be joyful. And the failure of the Christian to be a joyful person is sin.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
Well, again, when I receive a command and have an obligation or a duty to something, that seems to presuppose the idea that If I am responsible to be joyful, then there must be something, particularly if I'm a regenerate person, there must be something I can do about it if I find myself lacking in joy. Well, here the New Testament is filled with admonitions and teaching on how to be joyful.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
Paul doesn't just say, be happy, press a button. He doesn't say that. He tells us to be joyful, and the New Testament points us to the how again and again and again. And that basic how, as we will explore in greater detail, is by focusing our attention on the grounds of our joy, on the source of our joy. Do you find yourself in a very practical way ever struggling over that?
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
I find myself at times depressed, down in the dumps, worried, unhappy, grousing, annoyed, irritated, and I find this bad mood coming over myself. And I think of what the apostle will say at other times, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are good, think on these things. Meditate upon the things of the Lord. Turn your attention to the things of God. Return to the source of your joy.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
that Paul gives in Galatians of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, so that we see that joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit and that joy is a Christian virtue. Now that may sound somewhat strange to our ears today. Sometimes we struggle with the relationship between how joy or happiness is defined and described in our culture and how joy is articulated in the Bible.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
And then these other things begin to be seen in their perspective, and they pale into insignificance when we consider the circumstances of this life over against that which we have received from God. You know, sometimes we are only as happy or as spiritual as the intensity of our memory of the latest blessing that we have experienced at the hands of God. We're always looking for spiritual retreats
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
for the mountaintop experience, for a spiritual high that will get us all excited and filled with joy. But we know that these great feelings of intensity tend to wear off. They tend to wane. And I think about that a lot, and I say, wait a minute.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
If I don't experience another blessing in my entire life in addition to the blessings I've already received from the hand of God, what possible reason would there be for me to be anything but filled with joy until the day I die? God has already given me so much.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
to be thankful for, so much to experience gratitude about, and to provoke my soul to delight and to gladness and to joy that I should be able to live on the basis of that surplus capital of blessedness to keep me basically joyful all of my days. Now the good news is God won't stop right now manifesting His care, His providential love, and giving you His tender mercies and His blessings.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
He continues to do that, and every day that we live as a Christian, we have more reasons. reason to rejoice than we had the day before because we've spent one more day under His care, receiving His love, receiving the benefits that He pours out upon us, all those things that make us joy. But what's the great enemy of joy?
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
In the New Testament, it seems to be not so much sorrow, not so much grief, it's anxiety. Isn't it interesting that here in the Philippian message where Paul says, Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. He goes on to say in verse 5, Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Whose teaching does that sound like?
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
It almost seems as if Paul was an eyewitness to the Sermon on the Mount and to the teaching of Jesus when he said to his own disciples, be anxious for nothing. It's worry, it's anxiety that robs us of our joy, isn't it? And what is anxiety but fear? Fear is the enemy of joy. It's hard to be joyful when you're afraid, when you're worried, when you're concerned.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
But again, what's the solution to that? It's going back to our Father. It's going to Him in prayer. It's entering into fellowship with Him. It's staying close to the source of our joy so that our anxieties can be shed from our souls and the virtue and the strength of the fruit of the Spirit may come alive again within us. What are you worried about? Notice I didn't say, are you worried?
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
I don't have to know you. I know you're worried. I worry about all kinds of things. Sometimes I think I'm a worry wart. We have that expression in our culture. And when I am worried, particularly fearful about things, I don't feel a lot of gladness or elation or joy. And I think the greatest manifestation of the weakness of our faith comes at that level, at the level of fear.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
As I've said before, the prohibition that Jesus gives more than any other in all of His teaching in the New Testament is the prohibition, fear not. But it's hard, isn't it? Because we are frail. Our faith is fragile. We don't like pain. We don't like loss. And there is much in this fallen world to be afraid of.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
And there seems to be much in every way and every day that presses upon us to make us anxious. Anxiety is deeply, deeply rooted in the human soul. But if we would just understand who Christ is and what He has done for us, then we can have a new dimension of joy, the joy that marked the Christian community in the first century.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
In all of their pain, in all of their persecution, in all of their suffering, the Christians were the happiest people in the world.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
I know that one of the common methods of interpreting or translating Jesus' teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is to take the traditional language of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says, blessed are the poor, or blessed are those who mourn, or blessed are those who hunger and thirst at the righteousness, and so on, to translate that in the modern vernacular by saying, happy are those who are the peacemakers, or so on.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
And I always kind of cringe when I see those modern renditions, not because I'm opposed to happiness, but because that term happy in our culture has been so sentimentalized and trivialized and is so superficial in so many of the statements that we hear about it.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
You remember the statement that was made famous a few years ago, happiness is a warm puppy, or the adage or maxim that's become part of our folk wisdom in the last few years, don't worry. be happy. And it kind of suggests a kind of carefree, cavalier attitude of delight. Whereas in the New Testament, particularly in the Beatitudes, the word there is not happy, it is blessed. And
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
And to be blessed certainly includes happiness, but it calls attention to a profoundly deep matter of the state of the soul that enjoys profound peace, comfort, stability, as well as great joy.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
And so, we need to be careful when we come to the text of the New Testament that we don't confuse some of these popular understandings of happiness with the biblical concept of blessedness or the concept of joy. Now there is something that we have in common between the teaching of the New Testament and this popular adage, don't worry, be happy.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
You notice how that adage is communicated in our culture, don't worry, be happy. or the simple phrase, smile, you know, is that those adages communicate an imperative. They communicate a duty. It's not a suggestion, well, come on, let's all pack up our troubles in an old kit bag and smile, smile, smile. No, it's be happy. It's like a command. Now, what's the problem with that?
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
What do you feel is the problem with that? Sometimes you get annoyed or irritated when somebody comes up to you and says, what's the matter with you? Why don't you be happy? And you feel inside yourself, how can I just push a button or make a decision or by an act of my will conjure up happiness? We tend to think of happiness as something that is passive. That is, it happens to us.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
We have no control over it, but it's rather involuntary. It's something we desire and want to experience, but it's not something that we can create by an act of the will. Well, we have to say here that when we look at this concept of joy in the New Testament, the idea of joy is communicated over and over and over again in the Scripture as an imperative, as an obligation.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
Now let me summarize it this way and say something that may strike you as outrageous. It is the Christian's duty. It is the Christian's moral obligation to be joyful. And the failure of the Christian to be a joyful person is sin. That unhappiness and a lack of joy in a certain way and in a certain dimension, is a manifestation of the flesh. Now, please don't misunderstand me.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
Certainly, there are times when we are filled with sorrow. Jesus Himself was called a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. The Scriptures tell us that it is better to go to the house of mourning than to spend our time with fools. And again, even in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
Now, we could sort of play with that statement a little bit. I hope not irresponsibly play with it. And hear Jesus saying, happy are those who mourn. Now wait a minute. Or joyful are those who mourn. How can a person be in mourning and still be joyful? How can Jesus be a man of sorrows and still at the same time be a man of joy? Well, I think we can unravel that somewhat easily.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
When the Bible tells us that it's perfectly legitimate to experience feelings of mourning and of sorrow and of grief, these things are not sinful feelings. But the reality of the New Testament concept is this, that a person can have the biblical dimension of joy even when they are in mourning, even when they are experiencing grief and in the very midst of sorrow.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
because our mourning is directed in one way to one thing or one concern, whereas in that very moment, considering other things, we still can possess a measure of joy. even in the midst of affliction and the midst of suffering. In fact, in our next message, I want to speak specifically to that question of how we can have joy in the very midst of of suffering and in the very midst of affliction.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
But for now, I want to concentrate on this idea of joy as a fruit of the Spirit and as a Christian virtue. Now, in the first instance, let me call your attention to Paul's writings to the Philippians.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
If one would read the small letter that Paul writes to the Philippians, I don't know the exact number of times, but again and again and again, in this particular epistle, Paul speaks about joy and about the Christian's duty to rejoice. For example, in the fourth chapter of Philippians, In verse 4, Paul says this, Rejoice in the Lord always. Notice that. Rejoice in the Lord always.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
Not sometimes, periodically, or occasionally, but rejoice in the Lord always. And what's the next sentence? Again, I say... rejoice." Now if you read this whole epistle, Paul deals with some very, very somber matters here of his own potential for being martyred, of being poured out as a sacrifice.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
And yet he says to the people that they should be joyful about Paul and his circumstances as well as being joyful about other things. How can we be joyful, though, as a matter of discipline or of the will or of decision? And how is it possible to be joyful all the time? Well, I think the key to it is what Paul says, rejoice in the Lord always.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
And we'll look at this more fully later, but for now in passing, again, the key to the Christian's joy is where that Christian joy is located, and what is the foundation of that Christian joy, and it is that which is in the Lord. If Christ is in me and I am in Him, that relationship of being in Christ is not a sometimes experience.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
Today we're going to be looking at the biblical theme of joy. It's a word that occurs over and over and over again in the Scriptures, not only in the New Testament, but for example, the Psalms are filled with reference to joy and to rejoicing. I'm particularly interested in this concept of joy because it is numbered in the list of
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
The Christian is always in the Lord, and the Lord is always in the Christian, and so by virtue of our relationship with Christ, there is always a reason for joy. And that reason is a rejoicing.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
If we can't rejoice in our circumstances, if we can't rejoice in the pain we're experiencing, if we can't rejoice in the sorrow or grief that we know, in the midst of that very sorrow and grief, we rejoice in Him. We rejoice in Christ. We rejoice in the Lord, and we rejoice always. And I think that it is understood here that
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
Since joy is a fruit of the Spirit, this is one of the marks of our sanctification, that our sanctification is displayed not only by faith and gentleness and patience and longsuffering and goodness and the other things that are mentioned in that list that Paul gives us in Galatians, but also one of the manifestations of the Spirit of God working in our souls is the presence of joy.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
the presence of joy. Now, not too long ago we did a little summary study of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and I mentioned at that time that the fruit of the Holy Spirit is not the same as the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We notice in the New Testament that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are distributed to different people for various reasons. Not everyone has the gift of teaching.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
Not everyone has the gift of preaching. Not everyone has the gift of giving. Not everyone has the gift of administration. We understand that. But it's not the same idea when we come to the fruit of the Spirit.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
It's not like some Christians have the fruit of faith while other Christians don't have faith, or that some Christians have the fruit of goodness and gentleness while other Christians don't have the fruit of goodness and gentleness, or that some Christians have the fruit of joy but other Christians don't. No. Every Christian is to manifest all of the fruit of the Spirit.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
And that means that the more we grow in grace, The further we progress in our sanctification, the more gentle we should become, the more patient we should become, the more faithful we should become, and obviously what? The more joyful we should become. Now in simple terms, that means that the Christian life is not to be a life of dourness or of a miserable spirit or attitude.
Renewing Your Mind
Don’t Worry: Be Joyful
We all have our bad days. I understand that. But the basic characteristic of a Christian personality is a personality that is characterized by joy. We should be the happiest people in the world because we have so much to be happy about. And so Paul doesn't hesitate to say rejoice, to make it in the imperative, to make it a command. We're commanded to rejoice.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
They accuse Jesus of performing His works by the power of Satan. Now, beloved, that's blasphemy. It is blasphemy to accuse Jesus Christ of being satanic and of being in league with the devil. And it's on this occasion that Jesus, knowing their thoughts according to the gospel, takes this opportunity to give this very severe warning to the Pharisees.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
And so there is a certain forbearance that is given here in the Scriptures to those who were responsible for the death of Christ, an acknowledgment of a certain level of ignorance. Now, for us to understand this passage, I think it's critical that we look at what precedes this warning that Jesus gives. If we go back to Matthew 12, And look at verse 22. We read this account.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
Then one was brought to him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute. And he healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw. And all the multitudes were amazed and said, Could this be the son of David? Now when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub. the ruler of the demons. Do you hear what's going on?
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
People recognized in the miracles of Christ the manifestation of the Messiah, the Son of David, but the archenemies of Jesus wouldn't even acknowledge His identity then, and they accused Jesus of performing His works by the power of Satan. Now, beloved, that's blasphemy! It is blasphemy to accuse Jesus Christ of being satanic and of being in league with the devil.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
And it's on this occasion that Jesus, knowing their thoughts according to the gospel, takes this opportunity to give this very severe warning to the Pharisees.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
It's as if Jesus is saying, look, you guys, you've been plotting, you haven't listened to me, you have rejected me, you've done all these things, and I've patiently taken it, but you are coming now to a line in the sand that if you cross that line, you're finished. It's as if He's saying to these men, watch it. Watch yourselves. Be careful.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
You're coming so close to committing the ultimate sin, the unforgivable sin, but if you don't be careful, you're going to forfeit any possibility of forgiveness either now or in the future. but he couches that by this distinction between speaking against him and speaking against the Holy Spirit.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
Now, let's take a look at one of the versions of that record, looking at Matthew's account of it, where we read in Matthew chapter 12 this statement from Jesus, "'Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men.'" But the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
Now, time doesn't permit a fuller exposition of this, but if you look carefully, after the resurrection of Christ, if we go into the book of Hebrews in chapter 6 and chapter 10, there is now a falling away of the distinction between blaspheming against Christ and blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. Once a person
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
has been illuminated and they have received from this Holy Spirit the clear revelation that Jesus is the Christ. If the Holy Spirit would open your eyes and get you to see that Jesus is the Christ, and then after you know by the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus is the Son of God, and then You accused Jesus of being satanic. Now, you have committed the unforgivable sin.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
Now, let me say two things in closing that I hope will give you some comfort. On the one hand, the only kind of person that could theoretically commit the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit would be a Christian because they're the only people who have received this revelation and have a clear understanding by virtue of the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus is the Son of God.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
So they're the only ones who know full well that Jesus is not satanic. That's the bad news, that only Christians could do it. The good news is, theoretically, I think all of us are capable of that kind of sin and that kind of evil.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
I don't believe many of us ever have or ever will commit that sin because this is the very thing that Jesus intercedes for us at the throne of grace that we would be preserved from falling and and from losing our salvation that He has purchased for us.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
And so, though the warning is a real warning to the Pharisees to be very careful, I don't think that this is something that need concern us in terms of having to worry that we are going to lose our salvation.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
I mean, not that we shouldn't be concerned about our mouths and about our decorum and so on, but I have no worries that any of you who are in Christ, who have been made alive by the Holy Spirit, who have known the illumination of His knowledge of the identity of Christ, that you would ever sink so far as to accuse Jesus of being satanic.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
In our Coram Deo thought for today, I want to remind you again of what Coram Deo means. It means to live before the face of God, under the authority of God, and to the glory of God. I've tried to comfort you, if you are a Christian, to being at rest and at peace, that you're
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
you're not going to ever commit the unforgivable sin, not because you're not capable of it in and of yourself, but because your Lord is gracious enough to hold your tongue from it and preserve you from this ghastly crime. But that ought not to give us a sense of being at ease in Zion with respect to the very serious nature of blasphemy.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
Remember that one of the Ten Commandments safeguards the sanctity of the very name of God. And Christians need to be exceedingly careful with their tongues about how they speak of Christ, how they speak of God, how they speak of the Holy Spirit. It is extremely offensive to God to have His name used in vain.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
And I doubt if there's anything more offensive to the Father than to hear the name of His beloved Son be used as a common, ordinary curse word. And for those of you who are not believers, I realize that you use the name of Christ frequently without even thinking as part of your expletives.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
I plead with you to think about what you're doing, that you are heaping abuse upon the one whom God has appointed to be your judge and our Redeemer.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come. Now it's obvious why this passage has become such a problem to so many people. It describes and discusses a sin that is unforgivable. And, of course, many people ask the question, have I committed that sin? And there are those who labor.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
painfully under the fear that they have in fact committed such a sin which has excluded them from any possibility of forgiveness either here or at the judgment seat of Christ. And there are Christians who live in mortal fear that they might at some point commit that sin which would cause them to lose their salvation and to lose the hope of heaven.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
Obviously, our Lord is teaching something here that is hard, and it is equally obvious that He is saying unambiguously that there is a sin that is unforgivable. And he also is unambiguous by identifying that unforgivable sin with the term blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Now, so far, so good. That is, so far, we don't have to wrestle with ambiguities.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
But as soon as we ask the next question, we plunge into a sea of ambiguity and of great difficulty, and that question is, what is this unforgivable sin that Jesus identifies as blasphemy against the Holy Ghost or blasphemy against the Holy Spirit?
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
There have been many attempts in church history to answer this question specifically, identifying exactly what this unforgivable sin is, and some have identified it with murder because murderers are to be put to death. Others have identified it with adultery because the body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and to commit adultery, Paul tells us, is to sin against
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
the Holy Spirit, and so that's been advanced as a thesis. But we have an immediate problem with either one of those options, don't we? Obviously, David was guilty of murder, and he was able to receive forgiveness. He was also guilty of adultery and likewise was able to receive forgiveness. So we would rule those two out. But even more importantly, Jesus is talking about blasphemy.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
And we have to understand that blasphemy is something that is done verbally, either in writing, but more often in the spoken word. Even someone as brilliant as Augustine argued that the unforgivable sin of which Jesus speaks is
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
total and final unbelief, that is, that if a person persists to the end of their lives in rejecting Christ, in remaining in a state of unbelief, they will not receive a second chance in heaven, that unbelief is ultimately and permanently unforgivable. I don't quarrel with Augustine's judgment about the results of permanent unbelief. It's true.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
There is no reason to hope for a second chance after the grave. If you persist in this world and in this life in the rejection of Jesus Christ, you will not be forgiven for that rejection in the final day of judgment. But if you have rejected Him up to this point in your life,
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
you still may be forgiven because who of us didn't reject Christ for a portion of our lives, in many cases a large portion of our lives before we submitted to His Lordship. But not only that, we see that Jesus in this passage makes a distinction between a sin committed against Him and a sin committed against the Holy Spirit. And that's, I think, what makes the problem all the more difficult.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
Let's look at it again, where he says in verse 32, anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come, which suggests that it's okay. to blaspheme Christ or to blaspheme the Father. But as long as you don't blaspheme the Holy Spirit, you're okay.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
I mean, you still have an opportunity to be forgiven. You can feel the weight of that difficulty. I mean, my goodness, we ask ourselves the question, what difference does it make whether we blaspheme the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit? It's just as heinous to blaspheme against the Father or against the Son as it is to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. Well, again, let's focus our attention.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
And remember that what Jesus is talking about here is blasphemy. And as I said, blasphemy is something we do principally with our mouths. It's something that we say that denigrates the character of God. Now, if every form of blasphemy against God were unforgivable, dear friends, none of us would literally have a prayer. Because we have all blasphemed.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
And if every sin against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable, we would not have a prayer because all of us at some point in our lives have grieved the Holy Spirit in one way or another. So, do you see how that just makes this all the more excruciatingly difficult? Because we do see that the Bible seems to give us provision for forgiveness of all kinds of blasphemies.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
There is one particular kind of blasphemy, and Jesus particularly applies it to the Holy Spirit when He says that a word against the Son of Man, obviously when He speaks about the word against the Son of Man, He's referring to Himself. But that is forgivable.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
And not only does Jesus preach that it is forgivable, but He practices what He preaches when He's on the cross as the Son of Man, as the Lord of glory, in the midst of His own crucifixion, when people are mocking Him. and ridiculing Him and blaspheming Him, He utters a prayer for those people by saying to the Father, Father, forgive them. But what does He add there?
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
It's important for us if we're going to understand this text. He says, forgive them for what? They know not what they do. That doesn't mean they were ignorant. Just because they were ignorant of what they were doing does not automatically excuse them.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
It's important to realize that in the Old Testament sacrificial system, when God ordained and commanded certain sin offerings to be brought in the whole system of atonement of the Old Testament, there were special provisions given for sins done in ignorance. that may cause you a further difficulty of understanding.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
This is a reason, incidentally, why the Roman Catholic Church historically has made an important distinction in their moral theology between two kinds of ignorance, ignorance that they call vincible ignorance or ignorance that is called invincible ignorance. Now, something that is invincible, is unbeatable. You can't conquer it. You can't defeat it.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
Something that is vincible is something that can be conquered, something that can be overcome, something that can be beaten. Now, what does Rome mean when it gives us this distinction between vincible and invincible ignorance? Well, let me illustrate it my favorite way. I live in the state of Florida.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
Suppose I drive my car into the state of Georgia, and I enter into a little village there, and I come to the intersection, and there's a traffic light there, and the traffic light is red. But I don't want to stop for the light.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
I just go right on through the red light, and the next thing I see is another red light, only this time it's on the top of the roof of a car behind me, and it's flashing, and here come the police, and they pull me over. And the man said, did you see that red light back there? And I said, yes, I did. Well, why didn't you stop? I said, well, I didn't know you were supposed to stop.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
I plead ignorance. I said, I had no idea that I was supposed to stop. He said, let me see your driver's license. And I show him my driver's license. It's a Florida driver's license. He said, well, don't you have red lights, traffic lights in Florida? I said, yes. What do you have to do there? I said, well, in Florida, I know I'm supposed to stop at a red light at an intersection.
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The Unpardonable Sin
I stop at red lights in Florida, but I'm not in Florida now. I'm driving here in Georgia. How was I supposed to know that the law in Georgia requires me to stop at a red light? Now how far do you think that argument would go before the magistrate if I tried to dodge that ticket by pleading ignorance?
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The Unpardonable Sin
It's tacitly understood that if I presume to drive my car in any state of this union, that I assume responsibility to know what the traffic laws and the motor vehicle regulations are in that state, and I am held accountable. Why?
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The Unpardonable Sin
Because those laws are published, they're public, they're easily accessible, and I am responsible to know what the rules are before I presume to drive my automobile in that state. We all understand that. So there...
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
Even if I didn't know that the traffic light meant to stop, I had the opportunity to know it, and my ignorance would have been easily overcome, and I can't plead ignorance as an excuse. Now, beloved, think about this in a multitude of ways. There are lots of things that we do out of ignorance. There are lots of ways that we disobey God out of ignorance.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
And we're going to plead ignorance on the final day like the old-time song, I didn't know the gun was loaded and I'm very, very sorry, my friend. And these arguments are not going to wash because we should know. what the Word of God is. The Word of God has been given to us, and some of the times we sin in ignorance.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
We sin in ignorance because we have neglected a sober, diligent study of the things of God, which God has made perfectly clear and readily accessible to us. So we have to be very careful of trying to hide behind the cloak of the excuse of ignorance. But there is such a thing, the Roman Catholic Church teaches, as invincible ignorance. Now let's change the scenario.
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The Unpardonable Sin
Suppose the city fathers of Orlando here are facing a budget squeeze, and they need to raise money in a hurry, so the city council gets together this evening. And they say, well, we have an idea. Tomorrow morning at 7 o'clock, we're going to have a new law in the city that everybody that drives into the city has to stop on green and go on red.
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The Unpardonable Sin
One of the most difficult passages in all of the New Testament, a passage that certainly qualifies for the category of a hard saying, are those passages recorded in the Gospels where Jesus speaks about an unforgivable sin. Which unforgivable sin is identified as being blasphemy against the Holy Ghost?
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The Unpardonable Sin
And if you drive through a green light, it's going to be a $100 fine. And we'll post police at every traffic intersection. And we'll make a fortune because we're not going to tell anybody that we've changed the law and changed the rule. And so the next morning, we drive happily into the city. We see a green light. We go through the green light.
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The Unpardonable Sin
The next thing you know, we're pulled over and we're arrested for driving through this green light. Now, if we plead ignorance before the magistrate, do we have a just defense? Yes, of course we do, because that ignorance was invincible. There was no possible way we could have known that they had changed the rules in the middle of the game.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
So, obviously, the ignorance that the people had when they brought Jesus to the cross and crucified him did not excuse them. They were guilty of crucifying Christ, and they should have known better. Had they searched the Scriptures, they would have seen that Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures and was not this villain that they declared Him to be at His execution.
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But even though their ignorance was vincible ignorance and not invincible ignorance, Jesus interceded for them on the cross, saying, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.
Renewing Your Mind
The Unpardonable Sin
You see, the same kind of thing in the book of Acts when the apostles are rehearsing to the Jewish community the travesty of the crucifixion of Christ and where we read in Acts, "...had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
When the truth of the gospel is at stake, then the Christian has another obligation. Paul, elsewhere, he's lenient, he's flexible, he's pliable. But now, the issue of the truth of the gospel is at stake, and so Paul resists it.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
and self-abasement that he preaches elsewhere and indeed practices. Now, we're going to see how crucial that is as we go on. For these who seem to be somewhat whatsoever they were, it makes no matter to me. God accepts no man's person. This, of course, is a Hebraic expression. God is no respecter of persons.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
The word that is used here for person, the word prosopon, suggests the outward appearance of the person. God is not impressed by the outward credentials of a person. God's not fooled by that. God's interested in the inner man. "...for they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
But contrarywise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter..." For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
And when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave to me and to Barnabas the right hands of fellowship that we should go unto the heathen and they unto the circumcision. Only they would that we should remember the poor.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
If the only point that they were jealous to preserve was that we should remember the poor in Jerusalem and send our gifts and contributions down there. But the point that Paul is driving home now is that when I left to go to the Galatian church and establish this ministry, we went with the full endorsement of the pillars of the apostles. This is the point he's laboring over and over and over again.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Now comes the problem. But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles. But when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Paul is saying, I am going on record here. I want to make it abundantly clear. I want this to be certified and be known and published. This is not an aside comment, a casual remark, but with all the earnestness and seriousness that I can muster, I want to guarantee to you is what the force of this verse is by Paul, that the gospel...
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. Hypocrisy. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If you, being a Jew, live after the manner of Gentiles and not as do the Jews, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
We who are Jews by nature are not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even when we believe in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law. For the works of the law shall no flesh be justified, etc.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
But the point that he's saying here is, look, he says, I had to reveal Peter publicly. After this conference, after we endorsed him, after we agreed on the strategy of the gospel, the guy who deviated from it was not me, but Peter. And the apostle Peter was rebuked and was stood openly by Paul.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Not only openly did he do it, but now he incorporates that in Scripture for the whole history of the church to read of his description. Paul is saying here is not that he's any less committed personally to the ministry of Peter, that he loves his brother any less than he did before.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
But what Paul is saying is that even if somebody who has the stature of Peter departs from what Christ has revealed and what God has ordained, that he's going to resist him. Peter had deviated at a crucial point, and what had he done? What had he done? When Peter went out to the Gentiles, remember the vision he had in Cornelius' household where God abrogated the dietary laws?
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
And Peter, he's had this vision, and the vision said, take and eat all these unclean things. And Peter said, God forbid I would eat any of that stuff. I won't do it. It's not clean. And then the vision of Christ rebuked him and said, hey, don't you call common or unclean what I have declared clean. So now the way is open. for the Jewish Christians to participate in the Gentile dietary laws.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
This is a big issue here, this business about eating with the Gentiles. Remember in the Babylonian exile, what happened? If they didn't take all the Jews into exile, who did they take? the cream of the crop, the best of Israel. And they took them up there, and what the Babylonians did was that they invoked a systematic Babylonianization program of the Jews.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
They really wanted to assimilate the Jews into the pagan culture. In other words, to have them really abandon their Judaism. And one of the first things they went after was their dietary laws, because that was a critical distinctive that separated Israel from the other nations.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
And at that point in history, the Jews, such as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, such as Daniel, were willing to pay with their lives rather than sit down there and eat the food that was set before them by the Babylonians. In other words, for them to break kosher, they would die first. The reason I brought that in is to understand this was no small thing.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
That I preach to you, that gospel which was preached by me is not something that comes from men. Its origin and its authority rests ultimately not with men, but as Paul goes on to say, but it rests upon the authority of Christ himself. Verse 12 is significant. He says, For I neither received it of men, neither was I taught it.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
This was part of the Orthodox Jews' heritage, of his being a wholly set-apart person involved such mundane things, as you will, as eating food. This particular food, not that particular food.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
If we're going to zealously and tenaciously hold to the fact that we are a chosen people, that we're set apart, that we are to be the light of the world, then we're going to keep that law down to the smallest detail. And so what I'm saying is that for the pious Jew to give up this long heritage... of kosher food. Really, it was difficult.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Now, I want to do that so that you understand that Peter just wasn't crassly and grossly going out, you know, flippantly. He had an inner struggle to beat all inner struggles. I mean, even the vision didn't totally convince him of this. For a while, it did. But then, you see, Peter vacillated. The vision Christ told him, okay, now look, this is okay. Go ahead and eat it.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
So he went out and he ate with the Gentiles. Then all of a sudden, all the Jews come up. Peter says, what are they going to think of me? They see me up here eating all this pork. I'm going to be in trouble. So all of a sudden, Peter withdraws, and he doesn't eat pork anymore. And now, is Peter going to come to the position where after he himself has eaten with the Gentiles,
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Where he himself has broken kosher, is he now going to change to the degree of arguing that the Gentiles can't eat Gentile food? That they've got to be Jews? Hey, Peter, this is serious. This has to do with the whole question of whether we're justified by the law or justified by faith. Are we still in the old covenant or are we in the new covenant?
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Are you going to repudiate the finished work of Christ? That's what's at stake here. And we'll see that more clearly as we go on in the text, what really is at stake. And so Paul says, I was willing to resist even Peter on this point because he vacillated. Now that should be a warning to us practically. That as somebody of the stature of Peter, you see...
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
could be so much a slave to public opinion, how much are we? How much are we like that? When we're with people who believe like we do, we take such a tremendous stand. But when I find myself surrounded by people who don't share my opinion, you know, we're a little less militant, a little less convinced, you know, a little less strong in our convictions.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
We have a tendency to which we are all prone, even to somebody like Peter. It's a whole business of being a man pleaser. Peter himself is a common one. Temporarily.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Now, the words here in this particular verse that Paul uses are a bit more specific in their meaning than perhaps the English words convey that are used here in the King James Version of the Bible. When Paul says, I didn't receive it, he has something special obviously in mind. The word that he's using there is a technical term.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
It's the term that a Jewish scholar might use in terms of the receiving of the tradition. The receiving of the oral tradition, which is passed on by word of mouth over and over and over again. Paul is saying, I didn't just get this gospel from listening to other people pass it along from generation to generation or from community to community. That's not where I got it.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
At this point, he's not even suggesting that he got it from the apostles. Secondhand. When he says he doesn't receive it, in a sense, what Paul is doing here is eliminating the middleman. He didn't receive it, and he wasn't taught it. This gospel I received from Christ by revelation. So, in a sense, what Paul is saying, if you reject this gospel,
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
You're not just resisting the consensus of academic opinion. You're not just resisting the highest truths that I was able to learn through the scrutiny of my very sharp mind. If you resist this gospel that I've taught you, you are resisting not my authority, but the authority of Christ, because my gospel is gained from revelation, from Him, from Christ.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Now Paul goes on to give us a lengthy rehearsal of his personal background And let me just preface this by saying that what Paul is having in mind here is that he's trying to give us enough information of his background to validate his claim of apostleship. That's what he has in mind. This isn't just a biographical personal testimony. but rather a defense of the authenticity of his apostleship.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
And so he selects that material from his background that is relevant to that particular point. He said, you have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion. How that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and wasted it. In other words, my reputation as an intensely devout person in Judaism is known to you.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Paul had been commissioned by the Sanhedrin to pursue his vast work of persecution of the Christian sect, as it was considered from the Judaistic viewpoint. And so he did that with all of the energy that Paul could muster. He said, you want to talk about somebody who was committed to Judaism, take a look at my dossier. The Judaizers are nothing.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
They're small fry compared to the position I had in my zeal and my intention. He's trying to say, look, I've been there where they are. They don't have to persuade me, you know, as if I don't understand what those guys stand for. I stood for it in spades. I was more zealous than they were. But God, through Christ, has revealed to me my error.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
And, of course, if it's been revealed to me that my particular mentality and my particular work was in error, what does that say about the Judaizers? By implication. See, they're also resisting the church of God. He says, and I've been profited in the Jews' religion above many of my equals in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the tradition of my father's.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Verse 15, But when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen, Let me stop with that. And now Paul talks about the fact that his call, his vocation, his purpose was established before he was even born.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Paul makes the statement that God not only had separated him from his mother's womb, but as he had consecrated him from all eternity. He's not suggesting here that Paul was converted. in the womb or that Paul was born a Christian or anything like that. Obviously not. The details of his conversion are made abundantly clear to us as a later experience on the road to Damascus.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
He wasn't a Christian all his life, but he was ordained by God before this even came to pass. This ordination was realized concretely in Paul's own personal history on the road to Damascus. But the point that Paul is saying is that his conversion was not an accident. And his ministry was not an accident.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
This has its roots in the sovereign ordination of God for the purpose of establishing his church. Verse 16, "...to reveal his Son in me." What does that mean? There's some dispute about that. Is Paul saying that God has ordained that Christ's Son be revealed to Paul to reveal his Son to me so that I may reveal it to others?
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Or is Paul speaking here of a higher sense in which Paul is not only a bearer of revelation in the sense of verbal revelation, but he himself manifests the revelation of Christ in his own person. To reveal his Son in me that I may preach him among the heathen. My distinctive past, my particular vocation as apostle is what? I am the apostle to the Gentiles. That's the distinctive.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Paul's task in the history of redemption is to be the missionary par excellence of the early church, carrying out the commission of Christ, taking the gospel to the Gentiles. Now, immediately, I conferred not with flesh and blood. Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me, but I went to Arabia and returned again unto Damascus.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
And then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter. I think that's significant. I don't think we can deny the fact that Peter emerged in the beginnings of the early church as the leading apostle in the Jerusalem church. We see this through the book of Acts, that Peter is obviously the spokesman and the leader of that community of believers in Jerusalem.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
I don't think you can deduce from this that Peter is somehow catapulted into the position of some kind of pope. in the early church. This is our dispute here with the Roman Catholic Church, of course. And, of course, they want to locate him as the first bishop of Rome, which is a questionable matter from a historical perspective. But Peter did have a preeminent position in the Jerusalem church.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
It seems to be pretty clear. And this is assumed here when Paul, he doesn't say, I just want to talk to the twelve. I went to visit Peter in Jerusalem and abode with him 15 days. But other than the apostles saw I none save James, the Lord's brother. All right, now verse 20. Here's an interesting thing. Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God I lie not.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
You see, he's saying if I want to tell you that before God Almighty, I'm telling you the truth. And that's a very, very serious thing for the Jew to do that. The Jew understood in a way that we've missed the sanctity of that file. So when Paul goes to the extreme here, I'm taking a holy vow before these people. Say, I swear to you, before God I lie not. What I'm saying is true.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Afterwards I came to the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and was unknown by faith unto the churches of Judea which were in Christ, but they that had earned only, that he which persecuted us in times past now preached the faith which once he destroyed, and they glorified God in me. There's a little subtle undertone here.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
These other churches, they got it secondhand that I was converted and I started preaching the gospel. These churches were rejoicing. You people is the implication here. I've been there in your midst. I've labored there. You've seen. the genuineness of my conversion, and you guys are still raising questions.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Then 14 years after I went again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took Titus with me also, and I went up by revelation and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles. but privately to them which are of reputation, lest by any means I should run or had run in vain. Okay, now look, I want to tell you something. I went up to Jerusalem and I conferred with these people.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
I explained to them my program. I'm not just some isolated missionary running out there doing anything I want to do and not sending back home any word of what I'm doing, what the content is. But I've talked this over with the apostles. Don't you start appealing to the apostles in Jerusalem and set them over against me? What I have done, you see, I've done through conversations with them.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
My ordination doesn't rest there. My authority doesn't rest there. I didn't get my gospel from them. But don't take from that that I'm working apart from them or in opposition from them, you see. But neither Titus, who was with me being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. Now, the first time the issue is laid on the table. Circumcision.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Paul's saying, hey, look, when I went down to Jerusalem, I took Titus with me, and Titus was my co-labor, and he was a Gentile. And I was going out to minister to the Gentiles' churches. Now, the argument, you know, I'm reading between the lines now.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
What Paul's saying, he says, look, if the apostles in Jerusalem believed that circumcision was necessary for salvation, as the Judaizers are teaching the people here in Galatia, What do you think they would have said about my taking as my co-laborer an uncircumcised Gentile? Don't you think they would have insisted at that time that Titus be circumcised? But just the opposite was the case.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Neither Titus, who was with me being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. And that because a false brethren, unawares, brought in who came in privately to spy out our liberty... which we have in Christ Jesus, that they may bring us unto bondage, to whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
All right, then there's this false brother who came out to take a look at us and started raising questions. I did not subject myself to them, not for a minute. This raises a question. In the Corinthian letters, the first Corinthians, Paul deals with the whole business of the conscience of the believer, the whole business of Christian liberty.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
In those areas where God has left us free, where he has not legislated, where he has not given us any commandments, but those areas which Paul calls adiophorous, those areas which are ethically neutral, you see, without ethical bearing. Some people have certain scruples, right? Let me take an illustration of this.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
I remember going into a church one time where the head pillar of the church was convinced that playing bridge was of the devil, that card playing intrinsically was evil. And here I am playing in the amateur bridge tournaments. as a sport, see? And all of a sudden, the minister, he's involved in playing bridge, and the pillar of the church believes that playing bridge is sinful. Okay, what do I do?
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
I think we should begin this morning then, still in the first chapter, and I'm going to start with verse 11. But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man, for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." Let me just stop with that particular point there and just look at those two verses.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
I'm convinced that bridge in and of itself is not intrinsically evil. There's no bearing on the kingdom of God, which of course ethically all he offers. But this lady is convinced in her conscience that it is indeed evil. Now, what do you do? Paul says what? About the meat offered to idols. If that's going to offend my brother, I'm not going to eat meat for the sake of the weaker brother.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
This particular moral dilemma came to me while I was still in seminary. I had a church as a student pastor, and this was an issue. Here's what I was faced with. If I submit to this woman's insistence of my not playing cards, it saves the peace of the relationship. And so maybe what Paul's statement is to the Corinthians should be followed here, that I should just not do it.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
On the other hand, this woman is making this a big issue and that a person cannot be a Christian if they play cards. Now the truth of the gospel is at stake. And if I submit to that, am I allowing her to perpetrate the idea that the kingdom of God in a person's life is decided upon whether you play cards or not? Did you see the dilemma? I'm in there.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Because obviously she has now taken this issue and made it a substantial, intrinsic aspect of the gospel itself. And that's devastating. That's a radical misrepresentation of the gospel. I didn't know what to do. I went down to see Dr. Gerson. You know, as a student. No, I do not, Chief. You know. Oh, I ain't a list. Paul says in Corinthians, and I said, submit.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
And I said, I'm perfectly willing to submit, to give up card playing and all the rest. He said, ah, he said, you're called to yield to the weaker brother, but not to allow the tyranny of the weaker brother. I'll never forget that distinction. You see, when the truth of the gospel is at stake, Then the Christian has another obligation, you see.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul’s Authority
Paul, elsewhere, he's lenient, he's flexible, he's pliable. Oh, well, I'll bend it. If eating meat bothers you, I won't eat meat. But now, the issue of the truth of the gospel is at stake. And so Paul resists it and refuses to subject himself to it. The point here is, if you follow that subtle distinction there, this is not inconsistent with the principle of humility and
Renewing Your Mind
The Barber Who Wanted to Pray
Today on Renewing Your Mind, a story about a monk, a baba, and prayer.
Renewing Your Mind
The Barber Who Wanted to Pray
Well, we're glad to bring this story to you again as we approach Reformation Day. Here's R.C. Sproul reading The Baba Who Wanted to Pray.
Renewing Your Mind
The Barber Who Wanted to Pray
As a father of four, I hope that any parents or grandparents listening right now will take to heart what Dr. Sproul was saying there about how important it is to emphasize these truths to the children in our lives. Isn't the barber who wanted to pray a great story? Not only do you get to learn about prayer from Martin Luther himself, you also get to hear some church history as well.
Renewing Your Mind
The Barber Who Wanted to Pray
Please consider giving a donation to support Renewing Your Mind and Ligonier Ministries reach the next generation with truth, whether through this outreach and our other podcasts, our Always Ready Youth Apologetics events at our Bible college, or as we develop new resources to serve the rising generations.
Renewing Your Mind
The Barber Who Wanted to Pray
When you make your donation by calling us at 800-435-4343 or when you give online at renewingyourmind.org, we'll send you the hardcover, beautifully illustrated edition of The Barber Who Wanted to Pray. Plus, Dr. Sproul's popular title, Does Prayer Change Things? Receive both in the mail when you give a gift at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes.
Renewing Your Mind
The Barber Who Wanted to Pray
This is a one-day offer, so make your request before midnight tonight. But before we close today, I'd like you to hear another testimony. You've already heard from Andrew. Well, here's a message from Liz.
Renewing Your Mind
The Barber Who Wanted to Pray
So thank you for praying as the Word of God goes out through outreaches like Renewing Your Mind, because the Lord is at work renewing minds and transforming lives. And if you'd like to financially support Renewing Your Mind and extend the reach of this trusted teaching, you can always do so at renewingyourmind.org. Next week is the final countdown to Reformation Day on October 31st.
Renewing Your Mind
The Barber Who Wanted to Pray
R.C. Sproul was such an amazing communicator, whether in a seminary classroom, the pulpit, or at the Ligonier Valley Study Center, where Ligonier began over 50 years ago. Dr. Sproul sought to serve every age and stage of the Christian life, and he knew the importance of reaching the next generation, which is one reason why he wrote his children's books.
Renewing Your Mind
The Barber Who Wanted to Pray
You can own a beautifully illustrated edition of the story you'll hear today when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org. This is a one-day only offer and ends at midnight. You might think these stories are just for children, but listen to what Andrew shared with us.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
You've heard it said, doesn't matter what you believe just as long as you're sincere. Well, Christianity says eternal life matters concerning what you believe. There is a content to the Christian faith.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
Now, there's nothing new on the other side of the equal sign from what was already present in the first part because 2 plus 2 are 4. And four equals two plus two, so there's no new information added after the equal sign. Did you get that? An analytical statement is a statement that is true by definition. Let me give you another one. A bachelor is an unmarried man.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
Now, what have you learned after the verb to be about the fellow bachelor? A bachelor, by definition, is an unmarried man. A bachelor can't be anything else but an unmarried man. Now, you don't turn it around and say the unmarried man is a bachelor because he could be a widower and so on. But we know by analysis that a bachelor is an unmarried man. So it's true by analysis.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
And so an analytical view of justification, according to Rome, God declares a person to be just only if and when that person under analysis is just, right? God analyzes the person. He sees that that person possesses inherent righteousness. He knows that that inherent righteousness came through the aid of grace and faith and Christ and all of that.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
heard Luther teaching a kind of licentious libertinism or antinomianism, the idea that you can just believe in Christ and then live however you want because works were not considered necessary for justification. And so Luther had the task of defining what saving faith really means.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
But in the final analysis, God will not make the declaration that he is just unless under analysis he is just. A synthetic statement is a statement where there is something added in the information in the predicate that's not found in the subject. If I told you that the bachelor is a wealthy man,
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
I would be predicating of the subject of the bachelor something that's not inherent in the term bachelor, namely the possession of wealth. Okay? So now a synthetic statement is something that adds something that's not automatically found in the subject. Now, why is the Protestant view called synthetic?
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
It's because I am declared to be righteous by God, not because he looks at me and finds righteousness, but something has been added to me. That foreign righteousness, that righteousness that is extraneous, that righteousness that is not my own has been added to me. So when he looks at me, he sees me covered by the righteousness of Christ and declares me to be just.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
Now when we talk about God's declaring people to be just who are not just, we frequently use the term forensic justification because justification is a legal judgment. whereby God declares someone to be just. And you understand what forensic medicine is and forensic psychology.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
You've watched enough trials to know forensic evidence has to do with evidence that is applicable to a legal consideration or to a trial. And so when we say that justification is forensic, we mean that God declares judicially declares us to be just. Now, there's a little hitch here. Forensic justification historically has been used as shorthand for the Protestant view.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
But if you look at the Roman Catholic view, you will see that justification takes place in the Roman view when God declares a person just. So even in Rome, justification is a forensic judgment made by God. It's a legal statement about our status before him. But the difference is, of course... In the Catholic view, it's analytical forensics. And in the Reformed view, it's synthetic forensics.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
I can remember when the first document of Evangelicals and Catholics Together was put out and created a firestorm. And then the second document came out, much more detailed, trying to show that there's been great rapprochement between Roman evangelicals. And I had a very distinguished historian, evangelical historian, who signed that document, called me on the phone, and he was so excited.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
He says, R.C., in this document, this is the first time that the Roman Catholic Church has declared the justification is forensic. And I said, I hate to burst your bubble, but they've always thought that it was forensic in the sense that God is the one who makes the legal declaration of those who are to be
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
Also, in that particular document, they said we've been able to come together on so many issues regarding justification, and they think that they have a substantive agreement between evangelicals and Roman Catholics. And then it ends up by saying, of course, imputation is still on the table.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
And they had said earlier in the document that all the elements of justification have been handled there, except for imputation. Mike Horton made the point, he says, you can take flour and you can take sugar and you can bake cookies. And you can have all the elements of chocolate chip cookies, but if you don't have the chocolate chips in there, you don't have chocolate chip cookies.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
You got cookies, but you don't have chocolate chip cookies. And so, as again, this issue of imputation remains the sticking point. And it is an either or. We're either justified by our righteousness or by somebody else's righteousness. There's no tertium quid here. There's no way that you can slice and dice that to get rid of the word alone.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
And historically, there's a difference among scholars as to how the Reformers expanded their understanding of the elements of saving faith. Teryton, for example, in the 17th century, included six or seven or eight subtle, nuanced elements of saving faith.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
That's why Luther kept coming back to that align alone idea that you can't mix it with anything else because it's only Jesus and his righteousness that justifies us.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
Gordon Clark in the 20th century reduced those elements to two, but the usual customary understanding of the elements of saving faith in historic Reformed thought is that saving faith consists of three distinct elements, and those three distinct elements are called notitia, ascensus, and fiducia. Now, the first element, notitia, or sometimes called noti,
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
refers simply to the information or the data. You've heard it said, doesn't matter what you believe just as long as you're sincere. Well, Christianity says eternal life matters concerning what you believe. There is a content to the Christian faith, and we don't have the authority to fill it up with whatever we want to fill it up with.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
And so to be justified by faith, you had to have the basic information. about christ about his person about his work he had they have the elements of the gospel that are understood that there is this god man jesus who died on the cross for our sins and so on those amount to the notitia or the note the notes or the information that one has to believe in order to be justified
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
But in addition to being aware of that data or of that information, you have to assent to the truth of that information. You have to believe that these ideas of Jesus and his person and his work are are realities, not just myths or interesting imaginative ideas. And so saving faith requires an intellectual, cognitive assent to the truth of the data.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
Now, so far, the reformers would say, if we have the information, the notitia, and we assent to its truth, a sensus, all that qualifies us to be is a demon because the devil knows the information and he knows that the information is true. The devil can make a hundred on any theological exam you ever gave him. He's not stupid. He knows the information.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
But in addition to having the intellectual awareness and the intellectual assent to the data, one must have fiducia. And fiducia has to do with trust. You must not only trust Again, know the information, believe that it's true, but trust in it personally for your redemption.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
I've always said that it's very simple intellectually to understand the content of the doctrine of justification by faith alone, but to get it in the bloodstream.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
is a whole other matter to really trust for eternity the work of Christ for your salvation and not mix with that trust in Christ a reliance on your own performance or on your own activity or your own works or your own merits or, and this is crucial, your own profession of faith. One of the great problems that we have in our day is distinguishing faith from the profession of faith.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
Anyone who has faith is called to profess that faith, but not everybody who professes faith has that faith. Jesus warns frequently that on the last day, many will come to him saying, Lord, Lord, didn't we do this in your name? Did we do that in your name? And so on. And he will say to them, depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you. Please leave.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
These people had made a profession of faith, but they didn't possess what they professed. Elsewhere, he said, these people honor me with their lips. but their hearts are far from me. And that's why this element of fiducia is so critical to the Reformation biblical doctrine of justification by faith, that you have to have true trust and not a mere profession. This is the danger.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
for example, that we see practically speaking in methods of evangelism that we encounter through church history. There's that movement or that idea called decisional evangelism where we try to get people to make a decision to believe in Christ and to follow him.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
When I was first converted to Christianity, the first year I was a Christian, the local church where I was going to college was having an evangelistic series of meetings. And they brought this evangelist from some other city to come and give this series of messages. And I met with him privately. And he said to me, give me any man alone for 15 minutes, and I will get a decision for Christ.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
And I thought, after spending 15 minutes with this guy who was so forbearing, I could understand that people would give a profession of anything just to get away from after 15 minutes. But how arrogant it was to think that you can just manipulate people into the kingdom of God. Now, at a philosophical level, there's a different matter.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
the British empirical philosopher David Hume, in analyzing the substance of belief, how and why people believe what they believe. He made it clear that you can make a decision to do lots of things. You can make a decision to go to the store this afternoon and go to the store. You can make a decision to read a book tonight and you read the book.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
You can make a decision to study the things of Jesus and study the things of Jesus. But what you cannot do as an act of the will is to believe something intellectually that you don't really believe. I can't decide to believe that Jesus is is the Lord and Savior of my life.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
I have to be persuaded that I really have to have that a census, not as a matter of decision, but as a matter of persuasion that I have been convinced of the truth claims of Christ before I can put my trust in it. So, again, we get a lot of problems with the language that we use with respect to faith. Now, the fourth word in the formula is alone. Justification is by faith alone.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
And what does that mean? It means that there's no admixture of works in our faith that are in any way the foundation or the basis for God's declaring us to be just. If I had a blackboard here and could write on it some little formulae, like your math formulas, two plus two equals four, I would write three of them on the board for you.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
The first one would be the Roman Catholic view of justification. Faith plus works equals justification. I could write the antinomian view, the carnal Christian view that's so popular in our day. Faith equals justification. minus works, so that you can be a Christian and converted, be carnal.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
Christ is not the Lord of your life, and so you believe him as Savior but not as Lord, and so this idea of antinomianism is that you can be a true believer and never have any works. Luther said, on the other hand, a different formula. Faith equals justification plus works. What does he mean?
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
He means that if you have true faith, you will manifest that true faith by works of obedience after you're justified. Right? Now those works that you manifest after you are justified contribute nothing of merit to your justification. But if they're not there, it proves that you don't have what? Faith. Faith. because true faith will always manifest itself in works.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
So Luther said it this way, justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. Saving faith alone. will always accompany itself with works of obedience. But again, when he talks about alone, it means that those works contribute nothing to your justification. That another way of saying this is that we are justified by the righteousness of Christ alone.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
We've been looking at the Reformation formula justification by faith alone. And I'm going to look briefly now at the question of faith. What is meant in the formula justification by faith alone by the word faith? In the initial stages of the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Communion
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
I can't add anything to the merit of Christ, nor can I ever subtract anything to the merit of Christ. It's by his merit or his works that we're justified. Another way of turning this upside down is to say we believe in justification by works alone. Well, that would seem to be the exact opposite, diametrically opposed to the idea of justification by faith alone. But what I'm getting at is this.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
We are justified by works, but they're not our works. They're his works. And it's because Jesus fulfilled the law perfectly in his perfect act of obedience that we are able to be justified before God. Because he earned justice. the blessing, which is then transferred to us. So do you see how we can turn that around and say we're justified by works alone?
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
As long as you understand it's by the works of Christ alone. There's nothing that I can add. We will see when we look at Paul's statements in Romans that Paul says, "...by the works of the law shall no man be justified." But nevertheless, we're justified by faith in the one who did keep the works of the law. Now, I've been saying throughout this discussion the importance of the idea of imputation.
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
And I want to just spend a couple of minutes more on that. When we distinguish between the Roman Catholic view of justification and and the Reformed view of justification, we make this distinction, that the Roman Catholic view is analytical and the Reformation view is synthetic. Right? You've heard that a thousand times. You've probably never heard that, have you? Well, what are we talking about?
Renewing Your Mind
By Faith Alone
Well, when we look at propositions, statements, We can distinguish between analytical statements and synthetic statements. An analytical statement is literally a tautology. There is nothing new in the predicate that's not already found in the subject. If we put a mathematical formula on the board that was a copula, we would say 2 plus 2 equals 4.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
The greatest distortion in our thinking, dear friends, is that God owes us mercy, that God is somehow obligated to be gracious to us, because grace by its very definition is voluntary. God is not required to be merciful.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
didn't feel so bad the second time, encouraged her friends to get involved, get her culture to accept it, and through repeated offenses, she could now be engaged in the worst kind of sexual activity and not even blush about it. See, that's true not only of the harlot. That's true of the human who takes advantage of the mercy of God.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
And so what Kung says is that because we do this, that from time to time in redemptive history, God will send his justice instead of his mercy to remind the people of the difference between justice and mercy.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
You may never become professional theologians, but if there are any two concepts in the Bible that you need to get clear in your mind, it is those concepts and the difference between the concepts of justice and mercy.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
And as I was reading the curriculum, it began to talk about some of the things we read in the Old Testament where God seems so fierce in the manifestation of his wrath, where he kills people instantly and things of that sort. And the curriculum was teaching the children this. It said, when we read these stories in the Old Testament, we have to remember that things didn't really happen like this.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
My favorite illustration that took place when I was teaching in a college 100 years ago, I was teaching a class of freshmen, the introduction to the Old Testament, and I had 250 students in my class. So the first day of classes for the freshmen, I have to give them their instructions and give them their syllabus. And I said, we have three little term papers during the course of this semester.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
The first one's due on September 30th at noon. The second one, October 30th. The third one, November 30th. And they're all Philadelphia lawyers. So I had to explain to them, you know, I want it on my desk, 12 o'clock, September the 30th, unless you're physically confined to the infirmary or the hospital or there's a death in the immediate family. Does everybody understand? Right.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
If you don't turn it in on that day, what you get is F for that assignment. Does everybody understand? I understand. September 30th came. 225 students come with their term paper, dutifully, appropriately. 25 trembling students are in the back of the room, scared to death because they don't have their papers done.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
Oh, Professor Sproul. We didn't budget our time right. We didn't make the transition from high school to college like we should have. Please don't flunk us for this. Give us two more days to get the paper done and we'll never let it happen again.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
I said, okay, I'll do it. But you better have your paper in on time next. Oh, we will. October the 30th came along. 200 students came in the class with their term papers. 50 of them don't have their term papers. Where are your term papers? Oh, professor, this was homecoming week and we were all caught up with the excitement of homecoming.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
Besides that, I had all these midterm exams and all the professors had papers due. We're so sorry, but we'll have them in in two days. Please give us one more chance. And they're begging me. I said, okay, but this is the last time. You don't get it in next month on time. It's an F for short. Does everybody understand? You know what they did? They started to sing spontaneously.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
We love you, Prospero. Oh, yes, we do. I was Mr. Popularity on the faculty because I gave them a break the second time. November 30th came. You tell me what happened. That's right. 150 students come with their term paper. And a hundred of them don't have them. And they're casually strolling in the back door of the chapel, you know, just as cool as they could be.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
I said, hey, where's your term paper? They said, hey, prof, no sweat. Cool. We'll have them for you in a couple days. Don't worry about it. I said, Johnson, where's your term paper? He said, I don't have it. I took my little black book and I opened it up to J for Johnson. I wrote, Johnson, F. McIntyre, where's your paper? I don't have it, sir. McIntyre, F. Llewellyn, where's your paper?
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
I don't have it. F. Now what do you suppose they shouted? That's not what? Tell me. Fair. I said, what did you say? We said that's not fair. I said, Johnson, did you just say that's not fair? And he said, yeah. I said, oh. Do I remember correctly, Johnson, that you didn't have your paper in on time last month either? And he said, that's right. I said, okay.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
The last thing I want to be to you people is unfair. Johnson, if it's justice that you want, it's justice that you shall get. And I opened up the book, and I said, I'm going to change last month's grade to your just grade, F. I said, now, who else wants justice? Nobody raised their hand. What happens is we get accustomed to God's grace. At first, we're amazed by it.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
that these were myths that were articulated by the Old Testament writers because these were Jewish people who were warriors and they were somewhat fierce and so on, and they were primitive, pre-scientific people who didn't really understand the love of God.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
The second time, not quite so much surprised. By the third or the fourth time, we begin to expect it. Then we assume it, and then we demand it, and we're angry if we don't get it. Because the greatest distortion in our thinking, dear friends, is that God owes us mercy, that God is somehow obligated to be gracious to us, because grace by its very definition is voluntary.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
God is not required to be merciful. He reserves the right to be merciful to whom he will be merciful and to be gracious to whom he is gracious. You can plead for grace. You can beg for mercy, but you can never, ever demand it. Justice may be required, but never, ever mercy. What Moses was saying to Aaron is, on this occasion, Aaron, God was not gracious to Nadab and Abihu. He was just.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
On this occasion, God was not merciful to Uzzah. He was just. And the one thing I warn you, please don't ever ask God for justice. You might get it. It would be the worst thing that could possibly befall you.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
And so we have to understand these passages in light of what we know about God from the New Testament, that He's a God of love, that He's a God of mercy, that He's a God of grace and a God of kindness, and not anything like this mean God of the Old Testament. Well, needless to say, we didn't use that curriculum. But you hear this attitude voiced all the time.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
like there are two different gods, a New Testament God and an Old Testament God, and we just have a difficult time relating to the God of the Old Testament because of certain narratives that we encounter therein. And I'd like to call attention to a couple of those stories that we read in the Old Testament that cause people to react so negatively to to the character of God.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
The first one is found in the book of Leviticus in the 10th chapter, where I'll be reading verses 1 through 7. And this is the story of what happened to the sons of Aaron, the high priest. We read in verse 1 of chapter 10 of Leviticus, Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it,
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
put incense on it and offered profane fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And so fire went out from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord. And Moses said to Aaron, This is what the Lord spoke. Now, before I read what Moses said to Aaron, let's reconstruct the story. Here are the two sons of Aaron who have followed in their father's footsteps.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
They have become consecrated to the priesthood, and they are attending the altar, and they bring this strange fire, fire that was not part of the regular ritual of the altar, and they're sort of playing around and experimenting with profane or secular, unconsecrated, unholy stuff.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
And they bring this stuff, and they put it on the altar, and as soon as they do, the fire from the altar gushes up and consumes them and burns them to death on the spot. Now, you can imagine how Aaron felt when he hears that God has just executed his two sons for this prank at the altar. And so what does Aaron do? He goes to Moses, and the Bible doesn't tell us what he says to Moses.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
So let me have a little license here, and let me speculate a little bit. I can imagine what Aaron said to Moses. I can hear Aaron going into the tent of Moses and looking at Moses and saying, what's going on here? I give my life to the service of God. My sons are giving their life to the service of God. One little mistake, and God kills them on the spot. What kind of a God is that?
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
Let's read what Moses said. Moses said to Aaron, This is what the Lord spoke, saying, By those who come near me, I will be regarded as holy. And before all of the people, I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace. It's like when he came in all upset, what's God doing here? Moses said, Aaron? Don't you remember your own ordination?
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
Don't you remember the elaborate process that we had to go through to be set aside for this sacred task of priesthood? And don't you remember the commandment of the Lord when he said, I will be regarded as holy by all of those who come in my presence. And I will be glorified in front of all the people And he shut his mouth. That was the end of the protest. That's not the only story like that.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
I won't read the text this time, but you remember in the book of 2 Samuel, in the sixth chapter, we have the story of Uzzah. Do you remember him? The Ark of the Covenant was being brought towards Jerusalem by for celebration. David wanted to bring it there. And so Uzzah and his friends are responsible for transporting the Ark of the Covenant.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
You remember the Ark of the Covenant was the most sacred vessel in Israel. It was the throne of God. And if you would read the description of the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament, when it was first fashioned, the Ark of the Covenant had rings at its edges. And those rings served a purpose.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
These poles were inserted through the rings so that those who carried the Ark of the Covenant could put the poles over their shoulder and walk down the road carrying the Ark without ever touching the sacred vessel. But on this occasion, they're in a hurry to get the Ark into Jerusalem, so they put the Ark of the Covenant on an ox cart.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
And the story tells us while the ox cart is moving down the road toward Jerusalem, one of the oxen stumbles. and the ox cart starts to teeter, and it looks like the Ark of the Covenant is going to fall off of the cart into the mud, that this would be a terrible sacrilege to allow this holy vessel to become filthy by the dirt. And so instinctively, what does Uzzah do?
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
The Ark's starting to fall into the mud. He reaches out to steady the Ark. And as soon as he touches, what does the Bible say? A voice comes from heaven saying, thank you, Uzzah, for saving my ark. No, that's not what happened. The second he touches it, God kills him on the spot. Jonathan Edwards preached on this text, and he talked about the presumptuousness, the pride of Uzzah.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
where Uzzah assumed that what would desecrate the Ark of the Covenant would be the dirt on the ground, forgetting that the dirt is in obedience to God. There's nothing profane or unholy or evil about dirt. Dirt does what dirt is supposed to do. When you put water on dirt, it makes mud because it obeys the natural laws that God has decreed for dirt and water when they mix.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
No, the thing that God commanded so clearly in Israel that should never come in contact with his throne, with his sacred ark, was not the mud, but the touch of man. It is the touch of man that would mar the holiness of the throne of God. And so God had decreed that no human being would ever be allowed to touch that ark, and if they did, they would die. Uzzah touched it. Uzzah died.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
Still, we struggle with this. Why does God do this? A Roman Catholic theologian, Hans Kuhn, in one of his books, talks about these episodes as well as others, such as the flood or the harem, which involved the conquest of Canaan. And you read in the Old Testament how God commanded that the Israelites would go into Canaan and slaughter
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
All the people were there, men, women, and children, and burned down their villages. He put the ban on these people so that there'd be no mixture between the pagan culture of the Canaanites with His holy people. And you look at the civil sanctions in the Old Testament, and you'll see that there are about 35 crimes in Old Testament Israel that were capital offenses. that were punished by death.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
If you went and consulted a fortune teller, you went and had your palm read, you'd be put to death. If you blasphemed the name of God publicly, you could be put to death. If you were an unruly, sassy, disobedient child to your parents, you could be put to death. If you were engaged in homosexual activities, you'd be put to death.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
30-some crimes were delineated as being capital offenses, whereas in the New Testament, it seems that that list is greatly reduced. And there's a whole different atmosphere in the New Testament of persevering, patience, and so on. So again, the question is that Kung was struggling with, why these eruptions of fury and By God in the Old Testament.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
And not only in the Old Testament, in the New Testament. Remember Ananias and Sapphira? When they lied to the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, what did God do? Executed them on the spot. Well, Hans Kuhn said, here's what happens. We think that the Old Testament list of 35 sins, this being capital offenses, is cruel, severe, harsh, and barbaric.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
in contrast to the New Testament where it's so loving and kind. Forgetting that the number of capital crimes that are found in the Old Testament already represents a massive reduction in the number of capital offenses. Koz Kung reminds us that in creation, in creation, Every sin is a capital offense. God said at the beginning, the soul that sins shall die.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
And if God were to treat the human race strictly according to his justice, every one of us would have been executed a long time ago. But we don't really believe we deserve to be killed for our sins, do we? There are a few crimes that are capital crimes in America. Murder still, but there's another one, folks. High treason. And God is the king of the universe.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
Several years ago, I was working on the staff of a church and we received a new curriculum for junior high school Sunday school that the denomination had sent down to us. And I was asked by the session of the church to read through the curriculum and see whether we wanted to use it.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
And every time we refuse to obey his law, we are engaged in treason. We are setting ourselves up as having more authority than he has. And we're saying, you have no right to govern me. And not only am I going to do what I want to do rather than you want to do, but I dare you to do anything about me. You're not going to kill me.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
And he says that the basic way that God relates to his people after the fall is with his forbearance, with his mercy, with his grace, with his tenderness. And instead of killing them every time they sin, he is long-suffering and patient towards them. And the Bible said that that patience that God gives to us is designed to give us time to repent. to turn from our rebellion to him.
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
But instead, what happens is the nicer God is to people, the harder our hearts become, the more calloused we become in our sinfulness. In fact, Jeremiah said this, he said to the people of Israel, you have received the forehead of a harlot. What's he mean? He said, you've lost your ability to blush. How do you think that harlot felt the first time she was engaged in sex that was prohibited by God?
Renewing Your Mind
Cosmic Treason
She was probably sick in her stomach. Her hands probably trembled because she had a crisis now of her own identity because she realized she had violated God's holiness. But she did it again.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
In his famous book, The Bondage of the Will, Luther makes this comment, "'Mere human reason can never comprehend how God is good and merciful, and therefore you make to yourself a God of your own fancy, who hardens nobody, condemns nobody, and pities everybody.'" That's an interesting statement that Luther makes there.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
One question is this, if God created Adam unfallen, good in every respect, which the Bible seems to teach clearly, how could He have sinned? How could he have sinned without a prior inclination to sin? And if he had a prior inclination to sin, Where did he get it? If God made him inclined to sin, then the answer would be God gave him the inclination to sin.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
So, if God gave him the inclination to sin, that would seem to suggest that God is the author of evil and that God has done something wicked Himself by creating Adam to sin with a propensity for sin, with an inclination for sin, and so on. Now the question ultimately is where we put the mystery.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
Those who argue that God did create Adam with some inclination to sin nevertheless say that God is not unjust in so doing. It's mysterious to them how God could create a person with a disposition to sin and then punish that person for exercising that disposition. and still be just in doing it. They don't know how that can be. It remains a mystery to them.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
The advantage of that position is that it retains clearly the sovereignty of God. There's no lack of God's sovereignty in that. But it does raise a question about the goodness of God. On the other hand, if we say that God created Adam without any disposition to sin, then it remains an insoluble problem to answer the question, how then could he have sinned?
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
And the host of theologians in church history have usually chosen to put the mystery at that point, saying, we don't know how Adam could have sinned. We only know that he did sin and that God didn't make him sin. In that regard, God's goodness is preserved, but it raises a question about His sovereignty. And so, we're on the horns of a dilemma here.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
Which view we take is going to raise a significant question about the character of God, either with respect to His justice or with respect to His sovereignty. Most people don't feel the weight of the dilemma and simply say, well, it was man's free will. but they haven't really wrestled with how free will is exercised.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
Luther, in his own work on Romans, quotes Augustine from Augustine's In Caridion, where he says this. Blessed Augustine writes, quote, "...the whole human race was condemned in its apostate root by a divine judgment so just that not even if a single man were saved from it, no one could possibly rail against God's justice. And those that are saved had to be saved."
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
on such terms that it would show, by contrast with the greater number of those not saved but abandoned to their holy just damnation, what the whole mass deserved and to what end God's merited judgment would have brought them had not God's unmerited mercy intervened." What Augustine is saying though clearly here is that this judgment is a judgment given to the whole human race after the Fall.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
and that after the fall, once the world has fallen, God is under no obligation according to His justice to save a single person. And if every person perished after Adam, God would be perfectly just in condemning them. And so we see that Augustine takes the position here that this being made sinful is itself a judgment on the fall of Adam. Now the question is, which of these views is Paul teaching?
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
I think he's teaching the latter rather than the former, because the context in which he is writing here is emphasizing the mercy of God on sinners. And that is the general concept here in the text. We know that Pharaoh was judged for his sin after he was hardened, but he was a sinner before he was hardened.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
And he is responding to the statement, he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens. And you will say to me, why then does he still find fault for who has resisted his will? And Paul answers, but indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? And so on.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
And in verse 22, what if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? That there is a certain patience in longsuffering that God is manifesting to people who are manifestly wicked. But He says He prepared them for destruction.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
The one thing I want us to notice in closing is that Paul contrasts those who were prepared for destruction with those who were prepared for mercy. The voice of the verb that is used here to prepare is passive with respect to those vessels fit for destruction and active with respect to those vessels fit for mercy. And there's something in that distinction that I think is important.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
We come to the conclusion now of our brief series on the hard sayings of the Bible, and I think what I've done here is saved the worst till last. That is, the passage that I want to look at today I think is one of the most difficult texts in all of Scripture to deal with, if not the most difficult, and it's found in Paul's letter to the Romans in chapter 9.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
It's one thing to say that God actively prepared a vessel fit for destruction. It's another thing that He did it passively. The fact that it's passive in a certain sense absolves God from being the author of evil.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
As we've wrestled with this text, we remember again that in this text, in the broader context of Romans 9, Paul appeals to the Old Testament book of Hosea, where God promises to make a people who were no people. And the analogy that he uses there again refers to the salvation of people who were fallen. And he also uses the term, O man, but indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God?
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
Our natural tendency is to interpret that question to mean all men universally. But if we look carefully at the book of Romans, we will see that the expression, O man, that Paul uses on several occasions in this epistle is a term that he uses to describe Israel. And again, the broader context of Romans 9 has to do with God's being merciful to some within Israel and judging the rest.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
But the basis for that judgment is that those who were of Israel, who were supposedly the holy people of God, were nevertheless wicked, and some of Israel were not to receive God's saving grace.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
We remember that in chapter 9, Paul deals with the election of Jacob and the passing over of Esau. And in verse 14 of this chapter, he raises this question, what shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy on. and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you. and that My name may be declared in all the earth. Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens."
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
The God that we want to believe in is a God who not only is sometimes merciful, but who is always merciful and who never condemns anybody and never hardens anybody.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
Now we've already examined the problem of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart in an earlier message, but I've read this portion of the text as background for the very difficult part that follows. In verse 19, Paul says, anticipating objections to the doctrine of election, "'You will say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who has resisted his will?'
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, Why have you made me like this? Does not the potter have power over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called?" Not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
As He says also in Hosea, I will call them My people who were not My people, and her beloved who was not beloved, and it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, You are not My people, there they shall be called sons of the living God. Now, what is so problematic about this text
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
is Paul's reference to the metaphor of the potter who makes clay and who uses the clay to prepare vessels fit for destruction. And he raises the question, will anyone say to God, why have you made me thus? Now, the problem that this passage poses is this. Is the Apostle saying that God creates human beings evil and then punishes them for the deeds that they perform according to their nature?
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
Does God, like the potter, take a piece of clay that from the very beginning is destined to destruction, and He shapes it and molds it according to that end and for that purpose, and after He makes it, He condemns it to judgment? I mean, this is probably one of the most scary passages that we run up against because the text certainly seems to suggest
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
that God creates people for His own purpose who are already wicked and then punishes them for acting out the state in which they were made. Now there are those who take this text to mean exactly that, though they are few in number in church history.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
The normal understanding of this text is a reference to the broader context of the chapter, which deals with the election of Jacob rather than Esau, by which God shows mercy to one sinner and passes over the other sinner. but that both Jacob and Esau are considered in divine election as fallen sinners. One receives mercy, the other receives justice, and no one receives injustice.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
And that's the problem that we're going to deal with. Let me first of all make a reference to the thinking of Martin Luther on this text. In his famous book, The Bondage of the Will, Luther makes this comment. mere human reason can never comprehend how God is good and merciful, and therefore you make to yourself a God of your own fancy, who hardens nobody, condemns nobody, and pities everybody."
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
That's an interesting statement that Luther makes there. He's speaking, of course, to Erasmus and talking about the propensity of the human heart to fashion God in man's own image and to create an idol in our understanding of God. The God that we want to believe in is a God who not only is sometimes merciful, but who is always merciful and who never condemns anybody. and never hardens anybody.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
Now Luther goes on to say, you cannot comprehend how a just God can condemn those who are born in sin and cannot help themselves, but must by a necessity of their natural constitution continue in sin and remain children of wrath. Let me say it again. You cannot comprehend how a just God
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
can condemn those who are born in sin and cannot help themselves, but must by necessity of their natural constitution continue in sin and remain children of wrath.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
Luther is saying, we cannot see how God can be just in this manner to have people who were born in a state of sin into such a degree of sin that they are rendered morally incapable of turning themselves away from their sin and inclining themselves to righteousness
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
And how can these people then be held accountable by a just God if they're only doing what comes naturally, if they're only working out what is their constitutive nature to do? And Luther is saying that we cannot comprehend how a just God can condemn people who are born in sin. Now before I finish this quote from Luther, let me just make the problem even more exacerbating.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
I don't think there's any doubt that the New Testament and the Old Testament teach uniformly that we are indeed born in sin, and that we are born with a fallen nature. and then we sin according to that corrupt nature, and that God indeed expresses His wrath and judgment upon us even as we work out this sinful nature.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
Now Luther's answer, which I find less than satisfactory, but nevertheless somewhat insightful, the answer is, says Luther, God is incomprehensible throughout. and therefore His justice, as well as His other attributes, must be incomprehensible. It is on this very ground that St. Paul exclaims, "'O the depths and the riches of the knowledge of God!
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!' Now, says Luther, his judgments would not be passed finding out if we could always perceive them to be just. Now, in a flip way, we could say that Luther runs for cover here and hides under the doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
and the incomprehensibility of God is really the first article of systematic theology by which we recognize that though we know God in part, we do not know Him exhaustively and totally or comprehensibly. It doesn't mean that we are completely ignorant of the character of God, but that His ways are not our ways, and His ways are past finding out,
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
and that there is a depth dimension to the very perfection of God that eludes our grasp and our ability to understand in every circumstance. And so what Luther is doing here is reminding Erasmus, and through Erasmus reminding all who would read his work,
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
that God is incomprehensible, not only in His grace, not only in His being, not only in His love, not only in His mercy, but also in His justice. Now in simple terms that means we don't always understand the justness of God. but the Bible makes it abundantly clear that He is altogether just.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
And we assume His justice even when we cannot penetrate it and cannot understand it in its fullest measure. And so I don't think that Luther is simply copping out here, but he is saying this remains a mystery to us, how God can be just and still hold people responsible for their fallen nature and then judge them accordingly. Now,
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
Again, I want to back up a little bit and say we can understand this text in two different ways. One way is to say that we are born in sin because of Adam's sin, and that the fall of the human race in Adam involves a judgment upon the entire human race, which human race was represented by Adam and Eve in the fall.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
Now earlier in this epistle, Paul in chapter 5 makes it clear that we in fact all did fall in Adam. and that the situation or the condition that we call original sin is the judgment of God upon Adam and his seed for the first transgression that was made. Now that's one way of looking at this text, namely that Adam represented all of the human race.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
And had he passed his probation with flying colors, God would have rewarded him and all of his descendants, and nobody would ever be complaining about injustice. However, the problem is that Adam fell, and with Adam we fell. and we are born under the judgment for this representation that took place in the past. Now, I don't have the time today to work through the whole doctrine of the Fall.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
We've done that in the past. I'm sure we'll do it again in the future. But this is not nearly as difficult to deal with as the idea that God created Adam Himself wicked, as a vessel fit for destruction, and then visited His judgment upon Adam when Adam sinned.
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
As I say, there are very few people who would go that far to suggest that, that there is that view in church history that some, even some contemporary thinkers maintain, that the inclination to evil by which Adam sinned in the first place was given to him by his Creator, and that God
Renewing Your Mind
Vessels of Destruction
not only ordained that Adam sin, but He created him for that purpose, and Adam nevertheless is somehow responsible for sinning, and he cannot say to God, why have You made me thus? Now, there are two great theological questions that we encounter when we look at the origin of human sin.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
The power of the flesh is never completely eradicated. That doesn't happen until glory. In the meantime, we struggle every day against the flesh and against the world and all of the power of the world. Why did Demas leave Paul? Because he loved the world more than he loved Christ.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
that the spirit of the lawbreaker is to find comfort in partners in crime and inciting others to participate in their wickedness with them. This is basic to human nature. And so, even God in His providence will fuel our corruption. by giving us the very occasion to commit more sin.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
But again, not because God gleefully enjoys the creature's wickedness, but rather this is part of His judgment upon us. And that's why we need to be on our knees all the time pleading with God not to expose us to those places where we have weaknesses.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
The old Methodist minister, the itinerant preacher, once told the story of a man who was a Reformed alcoholic, and he had been on the wagon for several years, but then he got into the habit every time he rode into town, he tied up his horse at the hitching post in front of the saloon. It was only a matter of time until he walked in to the saloon and fell off the wagon because he placed himself.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
in that position where his greatest weakness was, and he was exposing himself to his own temptations. And that's, again, what we pray that God will keep us from those things. We need to be profoundly aware of our own weaknesses because our weaknesses are are tremendous.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
Again, the warnings that him who thinks that he standeth take heed lest he falls because there's nobody in this room and there's nobody anywhere that I know who's immune from serious temptation and from serious fall. And so we need to plead with God in his mercy to keep us from those occasions. that we may not be given over to our own lusts, to the temptations of the world and the power of Satan.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
Remember Luther saw that the trinity of evils that seek to destroy the Christian in the Christian life are the three things, the world, the flesh, and the devil. In our sanctification, we are given the Holy Spirit within us And the Holy Spirit rescues us from bondage to the flesh. But in this life, the power of the flesh is never completely eradicated.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
where it says as follows, as for those wicked and ungodly men whom God as a righteous judge for former sins doth blind and harden, from them he not only withholdeth his grace whereby they might have been enlightened in their understandings and wrought upon in their hearts, but but sometimes also withdraws the gifts which they had.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
That doesn't happen until glory, until we go to the zenith of sanctification, which is our glorification. In the meantime, we struggle every day against the flesh. and against the world and all of the power of the world.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
Remember when Paul wrote to Timothy at the end of his life in 2 Timothy, and he was talking about his situation there as he was languishing in prison and was ready to give himself over to death, and he speaks of his loneliness because he had been betrayed by his closest friends. and his comrades. Remember that?
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
And he speaks of Demas particularly, who was part of the apostolic entourage and had been a co-worker with Paul in his missionary enterprises. And he talks about how Demas had departed. Why did Demas leave Paul? Because he loved the world more than he loved Christ.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
And the world sets before us the glittering enticements of all that is worldly, and it can undermine the strength of our sanctification. The world, the flesh, and finally the devil Here's again where most Christians, at least true Christians, if you ask them, do you believe in a devil, a real personal devil, most Christians will say yes. Yet at the same time, there is this fading interest.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
affirmation of the reality of Satan. And even though we profess here's a case where we can reduce our faith to an abstraction and remove our hearts from it, we say we believe in Satan, but we live as if he didn't exist. And yet the Scriptures are filled with admonitions about guarding ourselves from the wiles of Satan and what an extraordinarily formidable foe he is to the Christian life.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
and He does go around as a roaring lion seeking to devour those whom He will. If the Word of God teaches anything, it teaches us that from the dawn of creation, Satan has been at work to undermine the lives of the people of God. And so,
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
We have to be aware of these temptations that come from the world, the flesh, and the devil, and realize that it's only in God's benevolent providence that we can escape the power of these things. It goes on to say, "...whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves..." even under those means which God uses for the softening of others. That's an interesting almost footnote, isn't it?
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
We've already talked about this business of how God hardens the heart, not by creating fresh evil in the heart, but by giving people over to their own lusts and to their own desires and so on. But the very things that God uses to soften the hearts of His people, those very things harden the hearts of those who hate Him.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
The law of God softens my heart because it exposes my sin and brings me the conviction of the Holy Spirit. But to the unbeliever, the law hardens them rather than softens them so that those very things that are the means of grace for us can be the means of destruction for For those who are outside of faith, those who have ears to hear, let them hear.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
A sobering reminder today from R.C. Sproul. May we each be prayerful as we're aware of our own weakness. You're listening to the Friday edition of Renewing Your Mind, a listener-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. For 30 years, Renewing Your Mind has been broadcasting truth over the airwaves and around the world thanks to the internet.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
And let me just stop at that point, and you recall that we pointed out that when God hardens people or delivers them over to sin, it's not arbitrary on His part, but that... delivering unto sin and hardening is already a punishment for sins that were previously committed. So, we always have to keep that in view when we think about God's wrath at that point. Now, before I continue…
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
And when you give a donation of any amount to further the reach of this outreach, thank you for your generosity, we'll send you a hardcover edition of R.C. Sproul's helpful and detailed commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith. It's called Truths We Confess. Call us at 800-435-4343 or visit renewingyourmind.org to give your gift and we'll get a copyright to you.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
This is not merely a reference book, but it is a commentary on a church confession that can help deepen your understanding of the Christian faith as it addresses God's sovereignty. Man's fall, repentance, the church, the resurrection, the last judgment, and more.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
in this exposition of the confession, which I've been doing now for several months and following line upon line, precept upon precept, through a historic confessional standard that was developed in the 17th century.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
And before I continue, I just want to say that we're living in a period of time today where there is a growing hostility, not just to theology in general, but particularly to confessional standards. by which the received Christian faith is set forth in what we call propositional statements.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
there has been a tremendous reaction against propositional theology, thinking that when we discuss doctrines in abstractions, that what we are doing at that point is reducing the wonderful truths of the Christian faith to pure abstractions, and that our theology becomes a reification, a making of stone or calcium, the living, breathing, dynamic truth of our relationship with God.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
With the advent of existential philosophy in the 19th century, and its tremendous impact on theology at the beginning of the 20th century, the idea was that doctrine and truth must be understood not in terms of proposition, but in terms of event, that the Bible is not a revelation of propositions, but rather it is a revelation of stories.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
This side of glory, Christians still sin, some of them even seriously. So how are we to think about the sin in our own lives and why it is that in God's providence we do sometimes give in to temptation? This is the Friday edition of Renewing Your Mind as we conclude a week on the providence of God. R.C.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
of stories of how God interacts with human beings in the plane of history, and what it's all about is personal relationships. And as soon as we try to formulate the truths of those stories in abstract propositions, such as creedal statements, that somehow we destroy and limit the power of that biblical revelation.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
Now, I don't know if you're hearing that sort of talk where you live and where you experience your Christian life, but this idea has become so pervasive in evangelical circles, even in Reformed circles, that we're in a very severe crisis in our time.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
And I'm standing here talking really to a handful of people who have shown interest in studying the affirmations of a historic creed like the Westminster Confession. Now, I don't believe that any proposition can contain or capture or all of the dynamic that's involved in a personal relationship with God.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
But when God gives those stories in Scripture, when He gives narratives and when He gives events, He also gives us the apostolic interpretation of the meaning of those events. And the truth of God is not a pure, subjective, personal experience. There are objective truths that God has revealed to us about Himself and about salvation and about the Christian life.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
And as soon as we start throwing propositions under the rug, you might as well kiss Christianity goodbye as far as I'm concerned. And so that's just a word of introduction before we proceed again that I'm treating these propositions of the Confession in a propositional manner because I believe in a very clear and important way they explain to us the content of sacred Scripture.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
And the Scriptures themselves, as I say, is filled with propositional truths, not just stories that are left for you to interact with in your own subjectivity. But in any case, we read, But sometimes God also withdraws the gifts that they had had. Now here we're speaking about those who are unconverted.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
And one of the persons that immediately comes to mind whenever we read a statement, at least whenever I read a statement like this about God withholding gifts that He had given to people in the first place, the first person that comes to my mind is Saul. because you know that Saul was gifted of God. He was endowed with grace and charisma by God for his kingship.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
And then in his madness and in his wickedness, God took those gifts away. Now, some people look at that and say, does that mean that Saul was a saved man who then lost his salvation? Not necessarily. I really am not certain whether Saul ever was in a state of salvific grace or not. But you remember when David, who was called a man after God's own heart, who was not an
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
Sproul has used Scripture this week and the summary of the Christian faith laid out for us by those who penned the Westminster Confession to help us think through the important concept of God's providence. If you've listened all week, you've seen how each section builds upon the one prior to it. And this is true for each of the 33 chapters in the confession. So if you'd like R.C.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
fell in the gross and heinous sin, when he gave his great penitential prayer in Psalm 51, one of the petitions he gave to God in great earnestness was he pled with the Lord, "'Take not thy Holy Spirit from me.'" Now, when I read that psalm, again, I'm not sure if what David had in mind because he didn't explain in the Psalm in what sense he was asking God not to remove the Spirit.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
Was he saying, don't remove the Spirit by which you've regenerated my soul? I doubt that. I think that what he's saying is, don't remove the gifts that you have given to me because I need them. in order to function in the role to which I have been called.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
Now, whether God takes such gifts away from the believer is one question, but here in the confession, it's saying that God gives gifts even to the wicked. we find in this world people who are not only not Christian but are overtly hostile to Christianity who are supremely gifted, intellectual gifts,
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
musical gifts and talents, athletic gifts and so on that they have, and we read in the Scriptures that every good and perfect gift is given to us from God, and so that the gifts that we receive even as unbelievers are gifts of God. And with every gift that comes from God, there also comes with that package the responsibility of using that gift and using that talent to the glory of God.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
But those who are wicked yet have been gifted by God use those gifts for their own glory, not for the glory of God. And God will from time to time, as a punishment of their wickedness, take their gift away. caused them to lose their talent, to lose their ability.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
This afternoon, I was watching an old movie that was made in 1952 with Charlton Hespin called The Greatest Show on Earth, which was about the Ringling Brothers' Barnum & Bailey Circus, and the story centered around this great aerialist, this trapeze artist who was billed as the Great Sebastian, and he fell.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
And in his fall, he injured his arm so severely that he was no longer able to be a trapeze artist. And part of the story involves his crisis of being grounded permanently from what had brought him fame and riches and all the rest. And that illustrates what can happen to a person in terms of what the confession is saying here, is that God can take away the ability, can take away the gift.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
Now, again, in the sacred Scriptures, We are warned not to assume that every time a person receives a debilitating injury or disease or suffers any personal calamity, that that automatically indicates a divine judgment upon them. I can think of two biblical incidences where this question comes front and center.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
Sproul to walk you through each of these 33 chapters, today is the final day that you can request the hardcover volume, Truths We Confess. Give your gift at renewingyourmind.org before this offer ends at midnight tonight. Well, here's Dr. Sproul to conclude this week's study on providence.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
Of course, there's a whole book in the Old Testament that deals with that question, and it's the book of Job. No person in biblical history is portrayed as dealing with the degree of affliction and suffering as Job does in that story. And we remember that when Job is in the midst of his agony and is sitting on the dung heap in abject misery, his friends come to comfort him.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
And one by one, the assumption that they bring to him is what? Job, the only explanation for this degree of suffering that you are experiencing is you must be guilty of some terrible sin, because the assumption was that we suffer in this world in direct proportion with a kind of mathematical calculus that of suffering equated with the degree of our sin.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
And yet the beginning of the book of Job, as well as the end, makes it clear that the purpose of Job's suffering is not that Job may be corrected by God, by God's wrath, but that Job is suffering for the glory of God to stop the mouth of Satan who has accused God of of having Job serve him only because he had been supremely gifted and blessed.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
And so the whole book of Job should stop us in our tracks from ever assuming that there's a one-to-one correlation between sin and suffering. Likewise, in the New Testament, in John, where the disciples come to Jesus and ask Him about the man born blind, you remember the question they ask, was this man born blind because of his sin or because of the sin of his parents?
Renewing Your Mind
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And Jesus, of course, answers by saying, neither. He was born this way for the purpose of manifesting the glory of God through His Son and so on.
Renewing Your Mind
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But the question that was raised by the disciples was not completely out of left field because the disciples realized that in spite of the book of Job, there are manifold illustrations in Old Testament history where God does inflict judgment as a direct result of sin and so that the warning is this.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
We cannot assume that our suffering is a direct response to God's judgment upon us, but neither can we assume that it's not. because the point is from time to time God does visit judgment upon people for their wickedness in this world by even withdrawing gifts which they had and exposing them to such objects as their corruption makes occasion of sin.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
You know how Paul develops this concept, doesn't he? When the law comes, the law, which is designed in the one hand as a restraint against sin, nevertheless, in a very real way, often functions as an excitement to sin. That if you want to have people stirred up into sin, just tell them that there's something they can't do. The
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
We're continuing now with our study of the Westminster Confession of Faith, and we're still in chapter 5 on the providence of God. And in our last session, we started section 6, but I wasn't able to complete an exposition of that section. So, just to refresh your memory, let me go back and read over the beginning phrases that I did comment on.
Renewing Your Mind
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You tell a child that there's something they're not allowed to do, that's the first thing they want to do. And so the law becomes an occasion to fuel the corruption of the human heart that's already there. But when the law is given to corrupt people, it can be used to make them all the more corrupt.
Renewing Your Mind
Does God Harden Hearts?
And again, when we see Paul's indictment of the entirety of the human race beginning in Romans chapter 1, when he gives that catalog of sins that is common to the whole world of violence and murder and adultery and so on, he goes on and says that not only do people do what they know God forbids, but they encourage others to do it as well.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
Do you remember the warning of Jesus, Simon, Simon, Satan would have you and sift you like wheat? But I have prayed for you, so that when you turn, strengthen the brothers. Now, he fell, but he returned. He was restored. And so his fall was for a season. And that's why we say that true Christians can have radical and serious falls, but never total and final falls from grace.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
And he not only just initiates the Christian life, but the Holy Spirit as the sanctifier, the convictor, and the helper is there to help in our preservation. Now, two important terms are told with respect to the work of the Spirit in the Christian's life that are related to this idea of the preservation. One is that we are sealed by the Holy Spirit, and the second is
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
We are given the earnest of the Spirit. Let's take the second one first. The term earnest of the Spirit is drawn from the commercial language of biblical days. And the only thing I can think of that's a parallel in our own day would be what we call earnest money when somebody is going to purchase a home.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
That when you make the initial contract, you give a little bit of money as pin money or as a down payment, which is a promise that that you intend to get your loan and close the deal and pay the rest of the balance due. And to show that you're in earnest, you give this down payment. Now, I know that there are people who have paid earnest money who failed to follow through.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
Maybe they weren't earnest in the first place, or maybe circumstances came along that made it impossible for them to go the rest of the way. But beloved, when God the Holy Spirit is given to you by the Father as an earnest. When the Spirit Himself who is indwelling you is the Father's earnest for your future, do you really doubt that the Father is going to bring the final payment?
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
It reads as follows, "...all those whom God has predestined unto life, and those only He is pleased in His appointed and accepted time effectually to call by His Word and Spirit out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature."
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
we possess not a handful of dollars, but the indwelling Holy Spirit of God Himself as God's promise to finish the job. And not only does He give us the earnest of the Spirit, but He seals us in the Holy Ghost. When God writes our names in the Lamb's Book of Life, he doesn't do it with an eraser handy, that he does it for eternity and that he seals us in the beloved for all time.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
Now, finally, one of the reasons why we have confidence in our future is not only because of the ministry of the Holy Ghost that I've just mentioned quickly in passing, but most importantly, because of the ongoing work of Jesus.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
Sometimes I think we have the tendency to think that when Jesus came and lived his life of perfect obedience and fulfilled all the demands of the law that we have failed to fulfill, and then by his passive obedience paid the price for our sins with his perfect atonement, that he's done everything that we ever need him to do for us.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
But we forget that when he ascended into heaven and was seated at the right hand of God and enthroned as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, he was not just going for his royal realm, but he also entered into heaven as our great high priest. And the chief function of our high priest, as he tells us, is to intercede for us daily for the Father. Jesus prays for me, for my ultimate salvation.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
Not only did he pray for his disciples in John 17, that they would never be snatched out of God's hand, but he prays for us, that we would be preserved. Now again, look at Judas and Peter. Both betrayed Christ. One was a believer, the other one wasn't. Both of their actions were repugnant in the extreme, total betrayal of Christ. Both were predicted by Christ.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
And when he told Judas what he would do, he ended those comments by saying to Judas, what you have to do, do quickly. And he dismissed him. But when he made the same type of prediction about the behavior of Peter, as we've already mentioned, Satan would have you as sifty like weed and so on. Do you remember what he said?
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
But Simon, I have prayed for you so that when you turn, not if you turn, so that when you turn, strengthen the brothers. My confidence in my preservation is not in my ability to persevere. But my confidence rests in the power of Christ to sustain me with His grace and by the power of His intercession for us that He is going to bring us safely through.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ, enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone and giving unto them a heart of flesh, renewing their wills and by his almighty power, determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ, yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace."
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
It really did work, and it was a wonderful experience from the beginning in that he had a live audience. Well, first of all, he was the only speaker, so there were a number of years that he just had to keep doing all these lectures. And he would do two days a week, and he'd do, I think it was four or five lectures a day. But there were people there who were homeschooled, and they came every week.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
and retired people. And it was just a wonderful group. And they were so eager to learn that that gave him the encouragement he needed. And he and I used to travel a lot. And when you're traveling, it's a new audience each time. And So he'd have to win them and get him to know the audience and the audience to know him.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
Well, with this group, and it was the same almost every time, the same group of people, they were just so eager to learn. And it was like a family.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
You know, I hear a lot, too, when we're out for different things that we're doing. People come up to me and say, oh, I always wanted to tell R.C. how much I appreciated him, but you're the next best thing. And I want to tell you, a number of them have cried on my shoulders.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
There is such an appreciation for particularly holiness of God, things that people never heard before, that there was a depth and a beauty to who God is that he was able to talk about. And now it's not just him. We have so many others that do wonderful work, too, on renewing your mind.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
It's exciting. It is. And it's being translated. That's what gets me. The places we're able to go now where the gospel is heard. And we're so grateful for it and for the people that support it. It means so much to be growing in this manner and feeling like we're doing the Lord's business.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
And I'd like to just add, I'm so appreciative of the people at Ligonier that make all this happen. It's just wonderful. And RC started us on a certain path back in 1971 in Pennsylvania. I'm going to say that we're still on the same path. We've not fallen off, slid off, or even tiptoed off.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
Now, I make this reference once again to the efficacy of the grace of regeneration as a bridge, a transition to the final point of the acrostic tulip, which brings us to the P in tulip and tulip. Now, I'm sure you'll be delighted to know I'm not going to change this letter. And the letter stands for the perseverance of the saints.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
Well, this will sound strange, but we did everything together. But because of this audience, I felt like they needed him to themselves. I just wanted to be out of the way and have them enjoy him and him enjoy them and not have anybody have any concern about me. And it worked wonderfully. I mean, occasionally I went and everyone was welcoming, but I just thought they needed him by himself.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
And to the new people, I just say, welcome, and please keep listening. There's nothing better than knowing who God is.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
However, even though I'm not changing the letter, I'm going to make a change in the word. I also think that that little catchphrase, perseverance of the saints, is true. dangerously misleading because, again, it suggests that the persevering is something that we do perhaps in and of ourselves.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
Now, I believe, of course, that saints do persevere in faith and that those who have been effectually called by God and have been reborn by the power of the Holy Spirit endure to the end. so that they do persevere.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
But they persevere not simply because they are so diligent in their making use of the mercies of God, but the only reason we can give why any of us continues on in the faith even till the last day is not because we have persevered so much as it is because we have been preserved. And so I prefer the term the preservation, the preservation of the saints.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
because this process by which we are kept in a state of grace is something that is accomplished by God. We read this statement from the Confession about God's effectively calling us to faith, that regeneration we call the divine initiative. And it refers to the first step in our transformation, just as we enter into this world through the process of biological birth.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
Rebirth does not refer to the whole of the new Christian life, but rebirth refers to the beginning of it, the very first step, the step that is accomplished by God's initiative when He quickens our souls from spiritual death to spiritual life. And so we call this divine initiative the beginning point. And it's a beginning that is performed, again, as I say, by God.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
Now, what does Paul write to the Philippians? He says that he who has begun a good work in you will perfect it to the end. Therein is the promise of God that what God starts in our souls, he intends to finish.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
And so the old axiom in Reformed theology about the perseverance of the saints is this, if you have it, that is, if you have genuine faith and are in a state of saving grace, if you have it, you will never lose it. And if you lose it, You never had it. Now, we know that there are many, many people who make professions of faith who then turn away and repudiate or recant their profession of faith.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
As John writes in the New Testament, there were those who left the company of the disciples. And John says of them, those who went out from us were never really with us. Now, they were with them in terms of outward appearances before they departed, before they left the cadre of Jesus' disciples.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
They had made an outward profession of faith, and Jesus makes it clear that that's possible to do even when you don't possess what it is you're professing. Remember, Jesus says, this people honors me with their lips. but their hearts are far from me.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
And he even warns at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that at the last day of judgment, many will come to him saying, Lord, Lord, didn't we do this in your name? Didn't we do that in your name? And he will send them away saying, depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you. Not that I knew you for a season and then you went sour and betrayed me. No, no.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
You never were part of my invisible body of the invisible church. The same kind of comments are made by Christ with respect to Judas, who is called the son of perdition from the beginning. And in his high priestly prayer, Jesus prays that those whom the Father has given him will never be lost and that no one will ever snatch them out of his hand.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
And he thanks the Father that all that the Father gave to him came to him. and not one of them had been lost.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
And we could enumerate for the next several minutes a host of similar passages in the New Testament where that assurance is stated by the apostles that the people who are dwelling in Christ have a future, a future inheritance that has been established from the foundation of the world, and that someday we will hear that
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
The fathers say, come, my beloved, inherit the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world. But again, the point I want to stress is that this enduring in the faith is not something that rests upon our strength. Even after we're regenerated, we still lapse into sin, and not only into sin, but into serious sin.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
And we say that it is possible for a Christian to be engaged in a very serious fall. We talk about backsliding. We talk about moral lapses and so on. I can't think of any sin other than blasphemy against the Holy Spirit that a truly converted Christian is not capable of committing.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
When we look, for example, at the model of David in the Old Testament, where David was surely a man after God's own heart, he was certainly a regenerate man. He had the Spirit of God in him. He had a profound, passionate love for the things of God, and yet this man
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
not only committed adultery, but he also was involved in a conspiracy to have his lover's husband killed in war, which was a conspiracy really to murder. Now, that's serious, serious business. And we see the serious level of repentance to which David was brought as a result of the words of the prophet Nathan to him.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
But the point is that David fell, and he fell seriously as the apostle warns us against having a puffed-up view of our own spiritual strength by which he says, "'Let him who thinketh he stands take heed, lest he fall.'" And we fall, and we fall away from grace. Not that we fall out entirely, but we do fall away into very serious activities.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
None more serious than that of the Apostle Peter, who publicly, with cursing, even after being forewarned, rejected Jesus Christ, swearing that he never knew him, a public betrayal of Christ. He committed treason against his Lord. Do you remember that before that occasion, when he was being warned of this eventuality, you know, Peter said this would never happen.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
He would never behave in such a manner. And do you remember the warning of Jesus, Simon, Simon, Simon? Satan would have you and sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you so that when you turn, strengthen the brothers. Now, he fell, but he returned. He was restored. And so his fall was for a season.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
And that's why we say that true Christians can have radical and serious falls, but never total and final falls from grace. Even in the church, when people profess faith and become involved in very serious and egregious sins, sins so serious that they are involved in church discipline. And even with the process of church discipline, it goes through several stages, the final stage of which is what?
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
And I think that it's possible—we know that it is possible for a person who is truly regenerate, a true Christian, to be so caught up in sin that that person is called to the church, is involved in discipline, they're suspended from the sacraments, they still don't repent, all the way to the end of the list, which is excommunication, where they are shut off from the fellowship of the body of Christ and are to be treated as unbelievers, to be declared as unbelievers by the church.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
But even that act of excommunication is done with the hope that the person is a true believer who is now engaged in a very persistent state of sin and that this final discipline of being cut off from fellowship in the body of Christ will be that which the Spirit of God uses to bring them to repentance.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
And we see that example found in the New Testament in the Corinthian situation with the incestuous man. You recall how The church was doing nothing about disciplining this man who was living a scandalous life until the apostle had to rebuke them and admonish them and command them to excommunicate him. Well, what happened when he was excommunicated?
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
He repented, and he applies for readmission to the church, and now the church won't let him back. And so Paul had to go back again and say, now look, the whole purpose of that excommunication was to provoke him to repentance. Now that he's repented, let him back. even as Christ welcomed Peter back into the fold after his treacherous act of treason.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
We come now to our session in this series on the nature of Reformed theology, and I just want to read a brief entry from the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is a historic doctrinal standard of Reformed theology dating back to 17th century England, where we have this reference to the doctrine of effectual calling.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
So again, the sin of the Christian can be radical and serious, but never total and final. So how do we judge people who have made a profession of faith in our presence, perhaps, and then we've seen them later repudiate it? Well, the first thing you do is you make a judgment of charity because you don't know the real state of their souls. That's the one disadvantage we have.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
I can't read anybody's heart. You can't read my heart, and I can't read your heart. We're called to be discerning and wise and look at each other's actions and evaluate and discern accordingly. But even by the best of your actions, I don't know what your soul is, and you can't know what is in my soul."
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
And so we are called to be exceptionally forbearing with one another and to have that charity that covers a multitude of sins among ourselves in the fellowship of the church. But God does read the heart. And when God says that a certain person never was in a true state of faith, we can rest assured that that person never was in a true state of faith.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
But what about if we happen to encounter somebody who is in the midst of a serious protracted fall where they have repudiated the faith publicly? Can we then know that they're not Christians? No, because we don't know tomorrow. We don't know if they're still like David was before Nathan came to him.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
If anybody would have been by that bonfire when Peter says, I never knew the man, they certainly wouldn't have made the judgment that Peter was a Christian, because they were catching him while he was in the midst of this serious protracted fall. But we can still hope with people who have left us that it's temporary. and that they'll be back.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
And we just have to acknowledge that one of two things can be the case. One, either their initial profession was not authentic and not genuine, it was an empty profession of faith and that they never were believers, or that their faith profession was genuine and they'll be back. But we leave that to God at this point.
Renewing Your Mind
Perseverance of the Saints
But what the New Testament teaches us is that it is the Holy Spirit, again, who alone raises us from the dead, and he raises us unto eternal life. The whole purpose of God's election is to bring his people safely to heaven. so that what he starts, he promises to finish.