Would You Like Heaven?

“Most men hope to go to heaven; but few take trouble to consider if they would enjoy heaven if they got there.” J. C. Ryle

Total Depravity In Children

Don’t believe in total depravity? Consider the prevalance of deadly bullying in elementary, middle, and high schools.

Where Does The Light Come From?

The following is an excerpt from a sermon entitled “The First Dark Exchange: Idolatry” by Dr. John Piper, Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, MN.  The whole sermon can be heard, read, or downloaded at http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/the-first-dark-exchange-idolatry

The exchange of God’s glory for images is accompanied by darkness of heart

Verse 21b: “They became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” Why is the heart darkened when people exchange the glory of God for other things? The answer is that the only light in the universe that can fill the heart with light is the glory of God.

Compare physical light with spiritual light, which is what Jesus did in Matthew 6:22. Jesus said there, “The eye is the lamp of the body;so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.” In other words -there is no light-producing element in the body; all light comes from outside; the eye must be good if any of this light is to get into the body and let the body see.

So it is with the heart and the spiritual light which God designed to fill it. There is no light-producing element in the heart. All light comes from outside, namely, from the glory of God. (Not from the sun -we are not talking about physical light, but spiritual light.) Jesus is the spiritual Light of the world (John 14:6) because “he is the glory as of the only begotten from the Father” (John 1:14). Paul prays that the”eyes of our hearts would be enlightened” because only the prayer-hearing God can enlighten the heart (Ephesians 1:19). And in 2 Corinthians 4:6,Paul says, “God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

The only light in the universe that can bring light to the heart is the glory of God. If we exchange it for other things, we will live in darkness, no matter how brilliant we are or how many fires we may build or candles we may light.

 

 

 

Beliefs in a Nutshell

This is my position in a nutshell.

• I believe that from all eternity, since before the foundations of the world, God chose those who he would save and those that he would leave in their sin and rebellion. 
• I believe that ALL persons are born separated from God and that when Jesus talks to Nicodemus about the need to be born-again, he is using the water to represent natural birth and when he uses the word Spirit he is referring to the Holy Spirit.  Everyone is that is born is born in the natural and are therefore children of wrath.  Everyone that is to be saved must be born-again from above and this cannot happen apart from God’s electing (choosing) grace.
• We sin because we are sinners by nature; we are not sinners because we sin.  
• A completely sovereign act of mercy and grace on God’s part is necessary to open the blind eyes of the spiritually dead in order for them to be attracted to Christ and to hate their sin.  Grace is totally unmerited and God bestows it upon anyone that he will.
• I believe that the verses in Ephesians Chapter 2 are chronological; everyone begins walking in the way of the prince of the air and in rebellion towards God, but God takes the initiative to call (draw) the elect to salvation.    
• I believe that faith comes by hearing the word of Christ (the Gospel).
• I believe that for the elect, when the Word of Christ is preached (or read), God, through the Holy Spirit convicts them of sin, righteousness, and judgment. This happens in God’s timing; it may not happen at the first exposure to the Gospel, but if they are truly elect, it will happen according to God’s will.
• God gives the elect the ability to repent and the gift of faith to believe, both of these are gifts given to the elect only.
• The elect have nothing to boast about in this work because it is all of God; not a result of works, it is a free gift given by a loving God to his children.  God adopts his children, we don’t adopt God.

Regeneration Precedes Faith

Regeneration Precedes Faith

by R. C. Sproul

One of the most dramatic moments in my life for the shaping of my theology took place in a seminary classroom. One of my professors went to the blackboard and wrote these words in bold letters: “Regeneration Precedes Faith.”

These words were a shock to my system. I had entered seminary believing that the key work of man to effect rebirth was faith. I thought that we first had to believe in Christ in order to be born again. I use the words in order here for a reason. I was thinking in terms of steps that must be taken in a certain sequence. I had put faith at the beginning. The order looked something like this:

“Faith – rebirth -justification.”

I hadn’t thought that matter through very carefully. Nor had I listened carefully to Jesus’ words to Nicodemus. I assumed that even though I was a sinner, a person born of the flesh and living in the flesh, I still had a little island of righteousness, a tiny deposit of spiritual power left within my soul to enable me to respond to the Gospel on my own. Perhaps I had been confused by the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Rome, and many other branches of Christendom, had taught that regeneration is gracious; it cannot happen apart from the help of God.

No man has the power to raise himself from spiritual death. Divine assistance is necessary. This grace, according to Rome, comes in the form of what is called prevenient grace. “Prevenient” means that which comes from something else. Rome adds to this prevenient grace the requirement that we must “cooperate with it and assent to it” before it can take hold in our hearts.

This concept of cooperation is at best a half-truth. Yes, the faith we exercise is our faith. God does not do the believing for us. When I respond to Christ, it is my response, my faith, my trust that is being exercised. The issue, however, goes deeper. The question still remains: “Do I cooperate with God’s grace before I am born again, or does the cooperation occur after?” Another way of asking this question is to ask if regeneration is monergistic or synergistic. Is it operative or cooperative? Is it effectual or dependent? Some of these words are theological terms that require further explanation.

A monergistic work is a work produced singly, by one person. The prefix mono means one. The word erg refers to a unit of work. Words like energy are built upon this root. A synergistic work is one that involves cooperation between two or more persons or things. The prefix syn – means “together with.” I labor this distinction for a reason. The debate between Rome and Luther hung on this single point. At issue was this: Is regeneration a monergistic work of God or a synergistic work that requires cooperation between man and God? When my professor wrote “Regeneration precedes faith” on the blackboard, he was clearly siding with the monergistic answer. After a person is regenerated, that person cooperates by exercising faith and trust. But the first step is the work of God and of God alone.

The reason we do not cooperate with regenerating grace before it acts upon us and in us is because we cannot. We cannot because we are spiritually dead. We can no more assist the Holy Spirit in the quickening of our souls to spiritual life than Lazarus could help Jesus raise him for the dead.

When I began to wrestle with the Professor’s argument, I was surprised to learn that his strange-sounding teaching was not novel. Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield – even the great medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas taught this doctrine. Thomas Aquinas is the Doctor Angelicus of the Roman Catholic Church. For centuries his theological teaching was accepted as official dogma by most Catholics. So he was the last person I expected to hold such a view of regeneration. Yet Aquinas insisted that regenerating grace is operative grace, not cooperative grace. Aquinas spoke of prevenient grace, but he spoke of a grace that comes before faith, which is regeneration.

These giants of Christian history derived their view from Holy Scripture. The key phrase in Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians is this: “…even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace have you been saved)” (Eph. 2:5). Here Paul locates the time when regeneration occurs. It takes place ‘when we were dead.’ With one thunderbolt of apostolic revelation all attempts to give the initiative in regeneration to man are smashed. Again, dead men do not cooperate with grace. Unless regeneration takes place first, there is no possibility of faith.

This says nothing different from what Jesus said to Nicodemus. Unless a man is born again first, he cannot possibly see or enter the kingdom of God. If we believe that faith precedes regeneration, then we set our thinking and therefore ourselves in direct opposition not only to giants of Christian history but also to the teaching of Paul and of our Lord Himself.

More Conversation With AMG

AMG commented on Disputed by Calvinsts Refuted by the Truth.

You said, “First, and most important, is the fact that, there is NO SUCH WORD OF GOD THAT SAYS WE ARE BORN WITHOUT THE CAPABILITY OF EVER BELIEVING IN GOD.”

 I didn’t say “ever”, what I did say is that our faith is preceded by a Sovereign act of God upon our hearts.  “…if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:3-6 ESV)  God, through the Holy Spirit first has to open our eyes to see radiance of Christ’s glory.  Before then, the idea of a condescending deity that willing lays down his life to redeem sinners is either going to be a stumbling block or foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:23).  If you want some verses that say that God has to act first on our behalf, how about, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44), and, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:37-40 ESV).  The Father doesn’t draw everyone, does He?  The text clearly says that it is God that has to be the initiator of genuine saving faith by drawing them to the Son.  The Father draws and those that he draws (gives) will come.  1 Peter 2:9 says that God calls us out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Romans 8:30 says that God predestines, calls, justifies, and glorifies.  What do you do with Ephesians 2:3 which says we all“…were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind?  How can some be simultaneously “children of wrath” and have a sincere desire to know God in truth?   God doesn’t have wrath for the righteous or His children, He has wrath on te wicked and disobedient.

 You said, “THERE IS NO SUCH WORD FROM GOD THAT WE ARE TOTALLY DEPRAVED.”

 Maybe there is a misunderstanding about what total Depravity means. Total depravity has never meant that we are as wicked as we could be or that we are totally wicked.  What it means is that in relationship to God, mankind’s natural inclination is opposed to the Gospel and in rebellion against God!  We are no different from those spoken of in Romans 3:10-18 where Paul is talking about the universal state of sin and wickedness that marks ALL people, Jews and Gentile!  When speaking of mankind’s natural sinful state, I use these verses primarily; if Paul, who is a much better exegete than I, interprets those Old Testament verses as applying universally to mankind, I must believe that he knows what he is talking about. 

 You said, “GOD’S WORD DOES NOT SAY THAT HE WILL ACT UPON A HEART TO THOSE WHO HATE HIM TO MAKE THEM BELIEVE IN HIM.”

 Explain then what Ephesians 2 means when it says that we were all, “…following the course of the world, following the prince of the power of the air…carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, …But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love…even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…”  Or how do you interpret Romans 5:8 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”?    What about Romans 5:10, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”?  What about the Apostle Paul’s conversion?  The Bible says that while he was breathing out threats against the church and against Jesus himself, God called him.  Actually the Bible says that God chose Paul before he was born, as he did Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jacob (Israel) and everyone else who is in Christ.  Did not God choose Abram while he was an idol worshiper, and leave all the Gentile nations, in darkness; “…having no hope and without God in this world” (Ephesians 2:12)?  God’s choosing comes first and then His call effects its purpose.   

 You said, “THOSE ARE MANUFACTRUED DOCTRINES. I DO NOT FOLLOW MAN’S DOCTRINE. I ONLY FOLLOW THE WORD OF GOD.”

 Do you have a Pastor?  Do you have elders, teachers, or evangelists?  Do you read books, magazines, or articles that help shape you Biblical understanding?  Surely you don’t get all your understanding by just reading the Word without help with interpretation or exposition!  Sometimes, while things might not be spelled out exactly, if you consult the whole counsel of God, one can deduce truths from Scripture from the accumulation of corroborating texts.  A prime example of this is the Doctrine of the Trinity.  The word trinity doesn’t appear anywhere within Scripture, however as one looks at the totality of God’s word, the progressive nature of revelation attests to the truth of one God in three persons. 

 You said, “There are people who gladly do right, yet they continued to sin against God’s ways. You believe that God caused them to want to do right—yet God could not cause them to follow through with doing right?”

 I said that the Prophet Isaiah was talking about 2 different groups of people; one group was the faithful within the 2^nd group which was the rebellious nation.  

You said, “The similarities of Calvinism and Catholicism are that they both think that the word of God is not understandable by the average person.

I think that you said it once that you weren’t an Arminian, and I would like to say that I am not a Calvinist; I follow the word of God.  I may believe in some of Calvin’s doctrine and teaching, but I do so because I have searched the Scriptures and come to the conclusion that some of his teachings are Biblically correct.   To say that I believe that the Bible is not understandable is patently untrue.  What I do believe is that many people do not look into the Bible and test the teachings that they sit under and blindly ascent to what they are being taught.  It was the reformers that wanted to put the Bible into the language of the common man so that they could read the Word of God for themselves and find out about the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church!  Many of these founders of the Reformation gave their lives in martyrdom because they dared to put the Bible in the vernacular. 

You said, “Catholics perform the unbiblical act of infant baptism likewise do Calvinists.

Well, I happen to be Baptist and I believe in believer baptism.  I know that there are some of those of the Reformed Tradition that hold to paedo baptism, and I think that they are wrong.

You said, “Catholics believe repenting is to feel bad about a sin and confess it, all the while continuing the sin likewise do Calvinists.”

I don’t know of any reformed theologians, thinkers, adherents that believe that repentance is how you characterize it.  I believe that if you are truly are in Christ, and have put off the old man and put on Christ, continued growth in Holiness is the result, not because of duty, but as fruit of your justification and sanctification.

You said, “Catholics have killed many for the sake of their religion. Calvinists have deemed many heretics and have had them burned at the stake.”

I don’t deny this sad fact.  I don’t know enough about this subject to comment any further.

You said, “You said, ‘I know from Romans Chapter 1 that humans are born with a knowledge of God, and all types of idol worship exhibit the proclivity of humankind to worship something.’  What are you saying now? So now, we are not totally depraved but are born with a knowledge of God? Do all Calvinists believe what you just said right there?”

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.  (Romans 1:18-25 ESV)

You said, “People CAN believe God’s word. Jesus has opened up the eyes of people to understand AFTER they were believers!

Do you believe that Jesus opened everyone’s eyes?  What about those who have never heard?

 

Don’t Loiter in That Ditch

I’ve  never “share”[d] anything before so I’m not sure what this will do.  I liked the quote though.

Don’t Loiter in That Ditch.