Beatitudes 47: Persecute 1

October 10, 2007

“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:10-12).

Last week I said that I was dealing with the last Beatitude. I received a phone call and decided to go ahead and deal with the next Beatitude. Perhaps down deep I didn’t want to deal with the issues that this particular beatitude raises and avoid the insults that might come. I will not deal with the more technical issues of whether there are one or two Beatitudes in verses 10-12, but will just treat them as one since at the least they are very close in meaning. This is perhaps the hardest of the Beatitudes and yet, after giving it more thought, one that is very relevant to our day in the United States in its own way and many other places too. All who are persecuted and insulted for the sake of Christ need to be reminded of the blessedness of what is happening to them. Of course that does not mean those who have zeal without knowledge and zeal from self-love that bring persecutions and insults on their own heads.

We can note how shocking it is to go from peacemakers to the blessedness of being persecuted and insulted. We know that peacemakers are blessed, but how is it that peacemakers are persecuted and insulted? How can it be that it is a blessing to be persecuted and insulted? It is shocking to our system when we think of Christ telling us that the one who mourns is a blessed person. But this one goes beyond that. We know that Jesus tells us that if people hated Him they will hate His people (John 15:18). We know that Paul told us that if anyone wished to live godly in Christ Jesus that person will be persecuted (II Tim 3:12). We know to some small degree the persecutions and sufferings that Christ went through and we have heard of some of the sufferings the apostles went through. We have heard of the sufferings of the prophets in the Old Testament. We have read and heard lectures of the sufferings of people through the centuries and during times of great upheaval when many within the visible Church were settled in to their religion with comfort and along came someone with a true love for God and was willing to stand up for it. We have heard of many who are dying for Christ even today in other nations of the world.

In the previous paragraph I kept using terms like “read” and “heard” to refer to things in the past or of happenings in other nations. We think that those things happen in uncivilized parts of the world. We might think that the United States is a Christian nation and so those things don’t happen here. We might even think that God has so blessed us here that these things don’t happen. But the text we are dealing with tells us with a great deal of clarity that those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness are blessed. They are the ones that it refers to when it says “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The persecuted are the ones that the text tells us “that your reward in heaven is great.” Is Scripture obsolete or archaic or both? Perhaps what we should begin to think about, however, rather than think of Scripture as anything less than the Word of God, is to come to grips with the realization that Christianity in the United States is so lukewarm at best that maybe it is being spit out of the mouth of our Lord. Perhaps the reason we don’t have many persecutions here is because true Christianity is so rare.

The United States is thought of as a “melting pot.” It is thought that all people are equal in all ways and their religions are too. It is said to be prideful if we speak out and say we have the truth. It is a sign of ignorance to say that one believes in moral absolutes. Everything that is said must be civil, winsome, kind (in a worldly way) and so on. We are not to say anything that would offend others. If a person gets angry we are speaking to we are said to be at fault. In rather blunt language, to live in a society like this and get along with all people it will effectively neuter Christianity and make spiritual geldings of us all. It is not possible to be like Christ and to be civil, winsome and kind in a worldly way at the same time. The prophets were not persecuted for being mean in truth, but by religious people for preaching the Word of God and pointing out sin. The apostles were greatly persecuted by the religious people of their day. It was the religious elite of His day that persecuted and eventually put Jesus on the cross. Are things different today or have we watered down the truth in order to avoid suffering the offense of the cross?

I think that that the visible Church is not being persecuted today because we are more like the world than we are of the real Christ. The modern conception of Christ today is of a man that walked around saying words that dripped with honey and offended no one. That is a lie. Virtually everything Christ said or did offended someone and the religious and moral people of His day tried to kill Him several times. When his apostles went out we are told that they were all martyred except for John who was sent into exile. Who killed them? Religious people did. When true Christianity confronts false Christianity and other religions, persecution will happen. There are some ways to do this that are nicer than others, but it will not be seen as nice. When we speak with clarity and true love, there will be persecution. Not many have the stomach for that. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that not many have the love of Christ in them so as to love Him more than self by telling people what they really need to hear.

There is another way that people flee from persecution too. That is by preaching in a hard way in order to gain the applause of many for doing so. They preach against others but only around those that agree with them. For example, an old style fundamentalist preacher rails against certain types of folks. But he is not telling the people who need to hear that, but to people who agree with him. This happens in all theological circles. Reformed people will say many things around those that agree with them but not around those who would get mad at them. There are also those with a lot of fire and they go out and say radical things that get people mad, but that is still not the type of persecution that comes from preaching the truth in love. People can get angry at being offended by many things and even the way things are said. But the kind of persecution that comes when people speak the words of Christ that reaches the hearts and consciences of others is different in many ways. A momentary anger at an insult is one thing, but a deep abiding anger that arises from an inner hatred of God is quite another.

We really should narrow this down and look at things within Reformed circles and the SBC. What things would a Reformed person do to keep others from persecuting him or her in the SBC? What type of things would people in the SBC do to keep others in the SBC from persecuting him or her? What things could the SBC do to keep people from persecuting it? To go back to the blunter type of language, what could we do to be neutered in the world and within religious circles? I think it is exactly what is being done right now. We would find a nice Jesus and tell people about Him (him?) in a nice religious way. We would water down the teaching of sin and make it more of a mistake rather than an act of hatred against God. We would tell people that God loves them and has a wonderful plan for them rather than that the wrath of God is upon them. We would tell people they need to pray a prayer or sign a card rather than a deep repentance of the heart. We would tell them they need to make a decision rather than they need to be born again by the will of God. We would bring in the “niceness” of the world and want everything to be civil and winsome. We would call anyone who made a profession of faith a brother or sister.

Some other things that are done would be to forget the historical distinctions between theological camps and water things down to void those. In the past the distinction between Protestant and Roman Catholic was clear. In the modern day those differences are ignored. Is it because those differences are not really there? No, it is because people don’t study their Bibles or theology enough to see the real differences. Just as long as salvation is said to be of grace and Christ it is enough to wash away the other differences. In the past the distinction between Reformed and Arminian was distinct and clear as well. In the modern day those differences are all but ignored. As long as anyone professes some major doctrines and says that he or she was saved by faith that is thought to be enough.

What is being done, then, is clear. The distinction between Protestant and Roman Catholic theologies is being blurred because the distinction between Reformed and Arminian theology has been blurred. Roman Catholicism is Arminian at heart in its teaching. The heart of classical Protestantism was Reformed theology. When that is blurred the real differences between Protestants and Roman Catholicism is blurred. The desire to be civil has taken the edge off of our theological writing and the distinctions are blurred. We are afraid that some will say something bad about us and that we are not civil or winsome. A desire to be civil and winsome has dulled our theology. We desire to be approved by men more than God. We say we want reformation and revival but ignore the fact that God will not send revival to neutered religious people no matter what theology they profess with their mouths.

The answer is a true repentance in the hearts of all who love God. We must recognize that we have bought into a worldly way of thinking which has watered our theology and preaching down to where it is acceptable to all manner of people. However, God despises it. We are so man-centered and watered down that we are more concerned about civility than the truth of the living God. We have become neutered when we are satisfied with broad statements of orthodoxy rather than precise statements from broken hearts. When we are afraid of it being said that we are not nice enough or loving enough because of strong stands, we fear public opinion more than we fear God. That calls for true repentance. When we love to be called “civil” and “winsome” and want to be so-called peacemakers with those titles, we are not like the prophets, apostles, Reformers or our Savior. It might be that we are even non-Christian if we are so unlike Christ in this way. This is not a minor issue.

Do we really love what the great Protestant and Reformed preachers preached in the past? Are we so sure? Do we really love what they preached and how they preached? Howell Harris was persecuted and insulted by the religious people of his day and the world that he preached to. George Whitefield (pronounced Whit as if without the “e”) was despised by the religious leaders of his day too. He was insulted and persecuted. We love to hear of the thrilling stories of the men of old and think we are aligned with them, but we want to be known as civil and winsome in our day. We should ask ourselves if we are more like Howell Harris and George Whitefield or the last pope. Harris and Whitefield were men who were greatly opposed and suffered persecution. The pope sought to be tolerant of all and civil and winsome. Can we have the theology that Harris and Whitefield had if we are not of the same spirit? Does the rough theology that they had speak of a likeness to Christ and His prophets and apostles or does the civil and winsome spirit of today sound more like Christ and His prophets and apostles? I fear that Harris and Whitefield are more like Christ and His prophets and apostles and we are more like the world. They were blessed, had great rewards and theirs was the kingdom of heaven along with their persecutions. What is it that our age has? We have an ability to avoid any offense and any persecution. But where is the truth of the Gospel and the glory of God?

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When the Gospel Trumps Civility

October 9, 2007

In the last two BLOGS I responded to an article by Dr. Page in the October 2007 issue of SBC LIFE which was a plea for civility. I am sure that I might seem uncivil in even trying to point out that something else needs to be said. He might even agree with what I am saying. I don’t disagree with what he wrote, but there is more to the picture. In the same magazine Thom Rainer’s article (A Plea for a More Civil Discourse) was published. He says this: “I’m not saying avoid substantive issues and the calls for accountability, but I plead with my brothers and sisters in Christ, particularly in our denomination, to move toward a more civil discourse, a more Christlike attitude in what we say and write.” While we would all agree with the fact that we should all have more of a “Christlike attitude” in what we say and write, we might disagree on what that means. Jesus Christ absolutely blistered his opponents at times with withering replies and comments. Paul did the same thing. A civil discourse, as interpreted by modern Americans, is not always the most “Christlike” response. Are we still being Christlike when we are saying what Christ said in Matthew 23? If we are truly doing it out of love for God and other people, then we are.

He goes on to say that “our witness is compromised when a spiritually lost world sees us fighting with one another, when they see unloving words hurled without restraint, when they see terse comments cloaked in civility – when they see little evidence of Christian love.” That is correct in the main, but again these things have to be looked at closely. A lost world needs for Christians to be willing to stand up and fight for the purity of the Gospel. The glory of God demands that we be willing to fight for the Gospel. One thing that we have to be concerned about is worldliness. What is that? It is the spirit of the age. One spirit of our age is that of being tolerant and nice in all things. We can be very nice people and do that from being worldly. We can be very civil and do that from just wanting to be like the world or in insulating ourselves from criticism. To be Christlike means that we are to be like Christ in our outward lives and attitudes. Sometimes we must be uncivil (in terms of how modern Americans define the word) and speak in ways that will appear harsh. Good preaching that awakens lethargic people cannot be done in a civil way. It may be that writing books and articles that offend no one are worthless if people need to be awakened.

I would like to repeat that what Thom Rainer says is good, but there is more to be said on the subject. Without knowing his heart and what he meant in writing it, we know that some people will interpret his words in a modern and worldly way. For example: “Would you pray with me that the world will see us as men and women who love the Lord with all of our hearts, and who love one another? Will you be a part of the conversation that shifts from negativity to Great Commission obedience?” What does he mean by a conversation that shifts from negativity? Some people think that talking about sin is negative. Some people think that saying anything that is not positive in the superlative is negative. Without trying to get into what he might or might not mean, we must be careful to note that the Bible commands us to preach, teach and write against sin. We must be careful to speak the things that are of God as God tells us to speak and write them. Those things are termed “negative” by many people. If we love God with all of our heart and also love others, then we must talk and write in ways the world will think is negative. That will give us an opportunity to explain what real love is. Let us look at a few texts of Scripture.

Numbers 20:12 – But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.”

1 Tim 5:20 – Those who continue in sin, rebuke in the presence of all, so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning.

Jude 1:3 – Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.

Whatever Dr. Page and Thom Rainer mean by the need to be civil, we must remember that we are to treat God as holy and sometimes that means being uncivil in the eyes of the world. Whatever they meant by the need to be civil, we must remember that we are to rebuke people for sin in the presence of all. Whatever else it means to be civil; we are to contend earnestly for the faith. We know Jesus and Paul did and they would not be called “civil” today. Standing for the Gospel of grace will require us to be uncivil at times because the world and many religious people hate God and the Gospel of grace. While it will appear as uncivil and will be hated, true love for God requires it.

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Beatitudes 46: Peace 8

October 6, 2007

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:8)

This will be the last issue on the Beatitudes. However, as you reflect on the beauty and wonder of the Beatitudes, surely it is clear that there is much more that could be said. These wonderful words of Christ are simply full of wisdom, glory and truth. These truths run throughout the Scriptures and can be seen and applied at virtually any point. This week we will primarily look at what it means to be called a son of God. While it may be thought to be a minor thing to be called a son of God, this is something that the Scripture sets out as amazing.

This aspect of blessedness is actually part of the blessing of the other beatitudes as well. To be a son of God is indeed to have the kingdom of God in us. To be a son of God is to be comforted by God and to inherit the earth. To be a son of God is to be satisfied with Him, to receive mercy from Him and to see God. In one sense all of the blessings of the Beatitudes cannot be separated, but in another sense they all flow from being a son of God. We will look at several verses in an effort to draw out just a little of the blessing it is to be a child of God and to encourage us all to be peacemakers in the true sense so as to glorify our Father and see others as His children.

“See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him” (1 John 3:1). While the world can read or hear this verse with barely a motion of the heart or mind, John did not write it that way and it should not impact the children of God that way. There is a great love bestowed on all who are the children of God because they are children of God. The children of God did not deserve to be His children, but instead this love was bestowed on them. In other words, these children of God have had love poured out on and in them by grace. Those who are true peacemakers, and not just those who run around doing something called evangelism, are those who have the love of God in their souls and have had it bestowed on them by grace. They are truly blessed people.

“By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:10). This text points us to the alternative of being a child of God. It is to be a child of the devil. How blessed, then, are the children of God because they are no longer children of the devil. The child of God is blessed in many ways, but to be freed from the devil is to be freed from the kingdom of darkness and the bondage to sin and from eternity in hell which is the eternal home of the devil and all of his children. The love of the Father (from I John 3:1) is seen in an ever brighter light when it is compared to the hatred that the evil one has for his children.

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13). All who are children of God have been given this right or authority. Where did that come from? It came from God and they were born of the will of God and not their own. That shows that this is of grace and only of grace. To be called a child of God in truth is to be a true child of God which means that one is born of His Word and of the Spirit (John 3:5-8; I Peter 1:23-25). When one is born in the world one is born dead in sins and trespasses and children of wrath and the devil. When the Spirit works in and through the Word a person is born with life and holiness and is now a child of love and of God. That is true blessedness.

“For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him” (Romans 8:14-17). This text shows another beautiful part of the blessedness of being a child of God. It is to be led by the Spirit of God. The children of the devil are in bondage to the devil and are led by him to sin in all that they do. The children of God are led by the Spirit of God who is the Holy Spirit and He leads His children into true freedom. Those who are free in this way are heirs with Christ instead of heirs with devil of eternal torment. The blessedness of being a peacemaker by being a child of God should be evident at this point. If we could only see with spiritual eyes we could see how blessed it is to be led by the Spirit and to be an heir with Christ. Such the children of God have and are.

“And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” Says the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:18). Here is another glorious blessing of being a child of God and therefore a true peacemaker. God Himself is their Father. Not only is He a Father, He is all that a Father should be. He is the Lord Almighty and He is the perfect Father. He becomes the true provider and the true protector of His children. When a believer is a true peacemaker, that believer goes out in his or her duties as a peacemaker knowing that he or she has Almighty God as a Father to watch over and protect him or her. It is not that the Lord will make everything go perfect in the human sense of the word, but that all that happens comes though the perfect love of the Father.

“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:26). The true peacemaker knows how he or she came to be a son of God. It is through faith in Christ Jesus. Christ is the true Son of God and all who come to the Father come through Him by faith alone. The true peacemaker is blessed in that he or she has stopped all works to be accepted by God but now rests in Christ alone. In Christ, who is the perfect Son, one has union with Him and all the blessings of God in Him. The true peacemaker knows the blessing of being accepted as a Son on the basis of Christ. No one has the right to be a child of God based on anything but the work of Christ and the application of the work of Christ by the Spirit. Another way to put the same thought is Romans 5:1: “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” One must be declared just by God on the basis of faith in Christ to have peace with God. The true peacemaker is one that has peace with God through Christ and has that same message. It is the only way to the Father. But the peacemaker knows what it means to have peace with God based on justification by faith alone in Christ and so is blessed.

“Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6). Here we see the beauty of the New Covenant. In that New Covenant all who are justified by God have the Spirit of the Son in their hearts. They are not left to work their way into heaven or even part of the way. They are not left after justification to a system of works and self-effort for sanctification. But instead they have the life of God in their souls and they live by grace each and every moment. It is God who is at work in them to will and to work for His good pleasure (Phil 2:13). The Spirit is the one who is crying out “Father” which is one aspect of the testimony of the Spirit in the believer. Those were the same words that Christ used to refer to the Father and He is working that in the other children of God as well. This is true blessedness.

We must learn from this that there is no peace in us or others without the grace of God in Christ. We must learn that only those who teach peace through Christ and His cross by grace alone as taught in Scripture are true peacemakers. Anyone who teaches a peace with God apart from Christ and His cross by grace alone is a false preacher, a deceiver and a liar. They are the ones running around crying out peace, peace, when there is no peace (Ezekiel 13:10-16). There may be many with false theology telling us many things, but the true peacemaker is ready to go to war for there to be true peace. God has used strong and blunt men like Martin Luther and John Knox who were more concerned with truth than civility to build His Church on the foundation of Christ. It matters little what one’s external theology is if one is not willing to stand firmly for the Gospel and the true way of peace. It would then be a theology of straw. There are those who are more concerned with outward niceness than with the edges of the truth and they will never be used for true revival and reformation until they repent. The Gospel has an edge to it and it is always edgy and offensive to those who deny it whether they are admitted unbelievers or not.

True peace with God is a fruit of the Spirit and is not natural to a fallen nature. Human beings want peace on their terms and their own ways. All false gospels make salvation too easy, though some make it with many hard works. But this is a fruit of the Spirit and cannot be obtained by any work or works. True peacemakers realize their helplessness to be peacemakers and instead plead with God to do the work through them because there is no peace anywhere without Christ. The peacemaker realizes that the messages of sin and of repentance and even of justification by grace alone are hard truths. This means that this person will be persecuted. We are promised persecution and also blessings from that as well. The true peacemaker must cease from his sinful self-interest and pursue true peace at the expense of peace with men and religious groups. It is a great sin to be at war with God for honor in seeking peace with men rather than seeking peace with God. To be a true peacemaker requires us to be men and women to be tender of heart while using the sword of the Spirit and enduring hostility from the world and religious people alike. It is being a child of God and it is to be very blessed.

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Choosing Between Love and Civility

October 5, 2007

This discussion is about the October 2007 issue of SBC Life today. Just inside the front page an article with large letters stands out: A Call for Christian Civility. This is not an open attack on that article, but is simply to say that there is a gaping hole in it that does not deal with the reality of the Christian life in many ways. It is the God-centeredness part that is not really brought into play. Being civil is not the same thing as love and one can be civil as a way of covering up our cowardly hearts that need to be standing for the glory of God when others personally attack God by their sin and their theology. We are to love God above all and as the primary thing. True love for God will never be opposed to true love for another though it may be opposed to the appearance of civility.

Believers must love God and His glory by seeking growth of His kingdom in the hearts of others. That means it is good to be corrected if it makes us more like God. It is a good thing when a brother corrects something in our life or theology. It is true love if the heart is right with God to be corrected and to correct. Ephesians tells us that the church grows when believers grow in love. It is not love to be outwardly kind and civil without telling a person about a dangerous growth on him or her if that person does not see it. Neither is it love to be so given to outward kindness and civility that one ignores the much greater dangers of sin and bad theology. Even more, it is not love for God.

If we chafe at being corrected it demonstrates pride in us. Pride is that exaltation of self over God. The only thing that a correction that is true does to us is hurt self and the feelings of self which is pride. If it is pointing out a truth about God and His glory, it is good for us in reality. Imagine being Paul who was sort of the new kid on the block. “But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you” (Gal 2:5). Paul saw that the Gospel was at stake. What would he do at this point? It is easier within a social or religious context to remain quiet and conform to the rules of niceness, but the Gospel itself was at stake. Some of the Jews had come in and had brought some teachings that were contrary to the Gospel. True love means that we stand for the Gospel no matter the cost and sometimes that includes the cost of being outwardly nice.

Not only that, “but when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned” (Gal 2:11). Peter was one of the inner circle that was taught by Jesus Himself. Peter was a big gun and leader in the Church. But when he began to be led astray, Paul opposed him to his face in front of them all (Gal 2:14). Was Paul being civil? Not by modern day standards. Was Paul being nice and polite? Not by modern day standards. But Paul was a man who loved God and the Gospel. What he did was moved by love for God and for the souls of the people in that time and is good for the souls of people now. Love for God and the good of the souls of others must always take precedence over civility. Does that mean we are to be rude and run roughshod over people? No, it means that we are to love God and others at all times. Most of the time that means we will be what people think of as civil. But there are times when what is thought of as civil would require us to be idolaters and to be quiet when the character of God is being attacked. At those times love for God must take precedence over civility.

We have other examples of Paul speaking out against religious leaders: “Paul, looking intently at the Council, said, “Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day.” 2 The high priest Ananias commanded those standing beside him to strike him on the mouth. 3 Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Do you sit to try me according to the Law, and in violation of the Law order me to be struck?” 4 But the bystanders said, “Do you revile God’s high priest?” 5 And Paul said, “I was not aware, brethren, that he was high priest; for it is written, ‘YOU SHALL NOT SPEAK EVIL OF A RULER OF YOUR PEOPLE.'” (Acts 23:1-5). Paul only said he was wrong because of the Scripture that says one should not speak evil of a ruler of the people. Was Paul speaking in love when he said what he said here? We must be careful about setting up standards of civility for all people in all cases that would not allow us to be like Paul and Jesus.

What did Paul mean when he called Ananias a “whitewashed wall” in this context? He was being like Jesus when he did so. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matthew 23:27). The same Greek word for “whitewash” is used in both instances. Paul was speaking to the same type of religious people that Jesus was. He told the man that he was covering his wicked heart with a washing of external religion. Being like Jesus and Paul in this case is not lacking in love, but it is not being civil. At times we have to choose between love and civility. Jesus and Paul chose true love even though it would not be considered civil today.

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Responsibility & Inability Continued

October 2, 2007

It is perhaps disingenuous to entitle this as Responsibility and Inability, but it is still in the overall context of the real issue of this BLOG. I received the October 2007 issue of SBC Life today. Just inside the front page an article with large letters stood out: A Call for Christian Civility. The antonym for “civility” is “rudeness” while synonyms are “polite” and “courteous.” While there are a lot of positive things that can be said about Dr. Page’s article, there is a gaping hole in it as well. It is the God-centeredness part that is not really brought into play. Let me explain.

There is a lot of concern today about love. That is a concern that is biblical, but we must take care that what we mean by love is what the Bible means by love. If we replace the biblical meaning of love as that which simply means being outwardly nice, polite, and courteous and things like that, we have missed a large part of the meaning and perhaps the most important part. There is no love apart from the love of God dwelling in a human soul. The outward man can be nice and polite and have no love at all. The outward man can sell all he has and even give his body to be burned and have no love (I Cor 13:1-3). One can practice all of those things and have no love at all. We must be careful or we will replace biblical love with external actions or appearances.

The heart of true love is a love for God first and foremost. I never love another person if I am telling them something that is not to the glory of God and is not intended that way. I also do not love another person if I withhold the truth of God in order to be polite. In fact, it can be idolatry to be outwardly polite and nice if the other person needs to hear some truth of God which is best for his or her soul. This past weekend Paul Washer was in Kansas and spoke several times over a period of three days. He spoke of a physician that would not tell the person what was wrong with them. That is a great analogy. Can you imagine a physician that would not tell patients what was wrong with them because he wanted to be nice and polite? How can we tell people in a way that they will hear us that they are dead in sins and trespasses? How can we tell people in a nice and polite way that they are enemies of God and that they hate Him?

It is true enough that Dr. Page is speaking of believers speaking to believers. However, the same truth still exists for believers as well. We must know that just because a person is religious does not mean that person is a true believer. It is also true that believers are wrong on many issues and need correction. In fact, just after II Timothy 3:16 which teaches the nature of Scripture it teaches us a few of the purposes of Scripture: “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction” (II Timothy 4:1-2). The Word of God is breathed by God, but that same Word is to be preached and taught and people are to be reproved, rebuked and exhorted by that Word. We must never lose sight that true love is never opposed to the application of the Word of God.

We must also learn from the New Testament that true love will take strong stands on the Word of God and that is always oriented toward God. It is almost never love for another person to withhold what is good for another’s soul. It is never love to allow others to malign the name of God in their theology. Dr. Page rightly bemoans personal attacks on other people, but we must also realize that all sin of life and theology is a personal attack on God Himself. There are times when we must be something other than what our modern age thinks of as nice in order to rebuke people for their personal attacks on God. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is primarily the display of the glory of God. When a person does something in life or theology that is contrary to the Gospel, that person has personally attacked God. This is something that must explode into our reality. We are to be lovers of God and of the Gospel first and foremost. When a human being attacks God by word or life, it is love for God and the other person to rebuke that other person even if it does not have the appearance of niceness or politeness to it. It can still be love.

We are to be people that live before God first and foremost. If the society does not appreciate that, it may simply be that they don’t appreciate people that live in the presence of God. Love is not the same thing as politeness though they do converge many times. But since they are not the same thing, they are not always seen at the same time. A desire to be polite and nice can keep us from true love. In that case, civility and politeness can be stumbling blocks and we must be non-civil for Christ’s sake. For Christ’s sake, people, love God and others enough to be willing to be less than civil and polite in appearance. Love for God demands it.

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What Moves the Will?

September 29, 2007

In setting out the ability and inability of man we see how pernicious the true nature of inability is. The enmity man has with God cannot just be taken away by a mere choice, prayer and/or decision. Man must be born from above in order to truly believe. This enmity is not taken away by a choice, but by a new heart. This sets out the Gospel by grace alone. Man does nothing in terms of work for salvation and does nothing but what grace enables him to do. We must never let these things slide away or we will have allowed the Gospel to slide. Man’s inability is from his enmity with God and even a hatred of God. Man will always fight with God until God changes man’s heart. Until the heart is changed, man will always be at enmity with God and will not love God. Until all the enmity has been removed there will be no faith because there cannot be love.

Here the issues are clear. Does the will move by grace and all of grace or does it move by some power of man? Can we say we are saved by grace alone if in fact there is an unaided part of the will that works in salvation? Even if there is an aspect of the will that is aided to a degree but not completely, is that grace alone? If there is an unaided part of the will that acts in salvation, then there is something in man that is not fallen and is able to love God apart from grace alone. Romans 4:5 speaks to this with utter clarity: “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.” We must stop working in order to be one that does not work. Faith is opposed to any work at all in terms of the Gospel. It is after a person is converted that faith works but at that point it works by love (Galatians 5:6). Any unaided part of the fallen will of man will be a part of the will that is at enmity with God. That would require a person to have some hate for God with part of the will and then love God with the other parts of the will.

The will is not moved by grace to any degree other than it is moved by love. We must note this carefully. God always works in His people love for Himself as that is what is best for His glory and their good. It is also because the only thing acceptable to God is love for Him in line with the Greatest Commandment. To believe that God savingly loves a person is not possible unless His love is in the person and giving that person a love for Him. It is not that we have to believe that God loves us and so believe in the Gospel and are saved, but we have to know that His love is in us and giving us a love for Him. It is not that we must force ourselves to believe that God loves us, but as I John 16-17 teaches: “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.” In this text we see that we have come to know the love of God because of God who is love abiding in His people. In this case we believe because that love is in us. In this case as in all cases the love of God in a person is because of grace.

In the moving of the will or the soul to Christ, is this part of the sovereignty of God or of a free-will with ability that is not under the sovereignty of God? In this question we can see the battle in its real nature. Is man free from the sovereignty and dominion of God because of the ability of free-will or not? Is there some part of man that is powered by self and is not under the sovereignty of God? This is at the heart of the real issue. How free is man or is he in complete bondage to his sin and completely at the mercy of God to show mercy or not to show mercy? Here man wants to retain just enough power in order to decide for himself. But notice, in saying that man decides for himself man is also saying that God does not and perhaps cannot decide. If the will is indeed free, then it is free from any sort of help from God at all and of any hindrance from Satan too. There can be no such thing as free-will in salvation. The devil does not leave the will alone from any influence as he is always working to deceive. If God does not step in and move the will by grace, there will never be a soul that flees to Christ for salvation. There is no such thing as a human being that is free at any point from outside influence. The natural man is under bondage to sin and is under the complete dominion of the evil one. The will is not free from the evil one at any point until God frees it and makes it His slave.

The Gospel comes to people who are in bondage to the evil one. Part of that bondage is an illusion of freedom. As long as man is under the illusion of freedom, he will not see his bondage and be broken of all hope in himself. As long as man has hope in himself he will not fully hope in Christ alone. It is utterly vital that human beings see their true nature and their true state before the true God. As long as they don’t see this, they are in bondage to the evil one and are under some illusion. It is only Christ that will set sinners free and that is by grace alone.

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A Spiritual Nature is Needed to Exercise Faith

September 27, 2007

Let us now look at other aspects of faith and see if they are part of man’s fallen capacity. If they are not, we will see that man as fallen cannot believe of himself and needs a new principle in order to believe. In the previous BLOG we looked at faith as an act of man as either a spiritual act or the act of the natural man. It is clear that man cannot look to Christ with saving faith from the capacity of his fallen nature. Instead, man must have a spiritual nature given to him which has the capacity to see Christ as the outshining of the glory of God (II Cor 4:4-6). It is the deep conviction and love that the sight of God’s glory brings is that which tells us what true saving faith is.

Faith is also a trust in Christ and nothing else but Christ. In other words, for a man to believe in Christ alone for salvation that man cannot believe or trust in anything else for salvation. During the time of the Reformation the doctrine of Scripture was set out that one is saved by faith alone in Christ alone. The term “alone” is surely self-evident, but we must draw attention to it for a moment. To have faith alone would mean faith without anything else but faith. To have Christ alone means to have Christ as the object of faith without any other object of faith at all.
The word “alone” should teach us that nothing that comes in our own strength and power is acceptable in terms of trusting in Christ alone with faith alone. The natural man’s fallen nature has no capacity to exercise anything that is acceptable to God. True faith is spiritual in nature and all of grace. Man’s fallen nature cannot assist in this.

At this point we can see that humility is an absolute necessity for faith. Habakkuk 2:4 shows this: “Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.” In this text it is the proud one that is not right and it is the righteous that have faith. Pride is opposed to faith which shows that humility is necessary for faith. Matthew 18:3 also shows this: “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus’ words were to the disciples who were acting from pride in the preceding verses in desiring to be great in the kingdom. Jesus tells them that instead of being great in the kingdom they must be turned or converted and become like little children to enter. Humility is the proper place of the creature before the Creator and that is to be on our faces empty of self. In order to believe in Christ from humility one must be empty of self and all trust in self and the power of fallen man at all points.

Faith comes from the work of the Spirit rather than the capacity of fallen nature. To see this we must see that man must be raised from the spiritual dead. A person that is spiritually dead has no spiritual nature or capacity (Eph 2:1-4). Yet true faith requires us to believe Christ which requires us to see the glory of God shining in Him. Hebrews 11:13 shows us this: “All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.” This is the practical application of verse 1: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” The people in verse 13 had faith which is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. They had faith because they saw and welcomed the promises which they could not see with their physical eyes. It was because their faith operated within the spiritual realm that they could see the true nature of the promises. This leads us to verses 24-26 where we see that the faith of Moses saw into the spiritual realm: “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, 26 considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward.” This shows the need of a spiritual capacity.

Scripture sets out true faith as something that is of a spiritual nature and can only be exercised from a spiritual capacity. This is not possible for the person that is dead in sins and trespasses and has no spiritual life at all. If faith is a spiritual act it must come from a spiritual nature and that must come to human beings based on grace and grace alone. Faith is a trust in Christ alone without any trust in self at all, so again this shows us that faith cannot be a mere act of a free-will or the act that comes from the power of self. Faith is the deepest conviction of the soul and is always accompanied by love and in fact works by love. We know from the book of I John that love is how to see if one is converted even though justification is by faith alone. Love must be the pure act of God in the soul as God alone is the source of true love (I John 4:7-9). If faith is a spiritual act done without trust or help from self at all, then the fallen will cannot assist in the matter in the slightest. If faith must see the glory of God in order to rest on Christ, then this is also not within the capacity of the fallen soul. If the Holy Spirit must open the eyes to see, then this is not in the capacity of fallen man. Human beings have no ability in themselves to savingly believe. As long as we trust in self for salvation, even a little, we will not have it because we must trust in Christ alone for all things.

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Beatitudes 45: Peace 7

September 25, 2007

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:8)

The great issue of being a peacemaker is not a small thing. In one sense the blessing of being a peacemaker is set out in the Beatitudes. Yet there is even more to being a peacemaker than what we normally think of. In the realm of theology there is one attribute of God that is rarely mentioned. It is the attribute of simplicity. Historically this has a different meaning than what the word might imply today. What it refers to is that in a very real sense, that is, in the depths of the essence of God all of the attributes of God are really one. God Himself is gloriously one and He sees Himself in the beauty, splendor and glory of who He really is. That bright light shines out from the being of God and comes to human beings who cannot comprehend such glory. We cannot comprehend the blazing glory of God in His oneness so we have to have it broken down to us in little bits. We see His holiness and His love as attributes that are different, but in reality they are one. We see justice and mercy as virtual opposites in our fallen and finite state, yet they are really but one.

The beauty of the simplicity of God is not thought of very much today, but that does not negate its glory. This newsletter is not on the simplicity of God in a direct way, but that is being spoken of to point out another unity. That unity is the unity of Scripture which comes from God who is one in all of His being. More directly, the teaching of Scripture on the blessedness of being peacemakers is tied in with the Great Commission and the Greatest Commandments of God. All of the truth of God set out in Scripture is tied together as expressions of His glory. His glory is the effulgence or shining forth of Himself though Christ. While we see the oneness of His glory diffused as through a prism in and through Christ, we must recognize that God is essentially one in His being and all of Scripture flows from His character and being. Each verse of Scripture is intimately linked with all Scripture.

The blessing of being a peacemaker is not really distinct from the Great Commission given by Christ. Being a peacemaker is not really distinct from the Greatest Commandments either. If we love God, then we will want the glory of God to shine through the Gospel of His glory in Christ in all places on this planet. If we love God, then we will want His name to be exalted through the Gospel in all places on this planet. If we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, then if we would want someone to take the Gospel to us we must take the Gospel to the whole world. Simply put, being a peacemaker requires us to be global in our mindset. To be peacemakers might require you to go to a hard place because God deserves it and you must love your neighbor as yourself. What would you be willing for others to do to bring you the Gospel? What are you willing to do to take the Gospel to others?

There are many places of dire need in the world today. I think that the United States is in dire need of hearing the true Gospel rather than the culture of religion that goes under the guise of Christianity today. However, there are places that have never heard the Gospel and there are places that were under communistic teachings for a long time and are virtually swallowed up in an atheistic worldview. There are places where the Muslim religion oppresses anything that appears as Christian. Our God deserves His glory to be made known and those people have no right to live in a way that is not to His glory. We simply must, whether we go ourselves or finance others going, take the message of His glory in the Gospel to our neighbors. It is not an option. The only question that remains is how we are going to do this. It is easy to think that others will do it. Without trying to get the quote exactly, I think it was Jim Elliot who put it this way: “If not you, then who? If not now, then when?”

A missionary in Indonesia is crying out for help. Perhaps his cries for help and this newsletter are not like the dream that Paul had of a man calling out to him to come and help. But let us make no mistake about this, the area where the missionary in Indonesia is asking for help is a dark place in terms of the Gospel and virtually no one is there with the Gospel. If the love of God for His glory and your neighbor is in your soul, how can this bit of information not move you? There is a place on this planet where God is not being glorified and many of your neighbors there have not heard the Gospel. There are a few believers in the area of Indonesia but the few need to be discipled and the many who have not heard need to hear. Let us all who read this not blow this off as we do so much other information. It is easy to stand back and argue about the fine points of theology and various issues and deceive ourselves into thinking we are doing something. Nonsense!! The only question left is what are we going to do? Are we hearers who walk away without doing anything? Is our faith accompanied by love?

Romans 5:1 tells us this: “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” We are to proclaim the Gospel to the people in Indonesia so that they would bow in submission to God and have peace with Him. Until that time they will be at war with the One we say we love with all of our being. With John Piper’s book in mind, don’t waste your life. If you have wasted your life in one sense up to this point, then don’t waste the rest of it. You have been created for the purpose of manifesting the glory of God. What are you going to do with the rest of your life? Are you looking for a life of ease and comfort? If so, that is not the life of Christ in you that is doing so. The same Christ that lives in His people is the Christ who did not have a pillow to lay His head on when on this planet. He is not leading you to a life of ease and comfort. If Christ is in you He is calling you to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Him. That may be to the hard places of the world, but that is also to the blessedness of knowing what it means to be a peacemaker.

The missionary in Indonesia is looking for people who would be willing to be part of a team working with the local people and other team members. The plans are to be “circuit riders” in a sense by using boats and planes to go to surrounding tribes. If someone has an interest in teaching children, someone could go to teach the children of other missionaries. This is not a call to those who want an extended vacation or to those who have a romantic idea of missions. This is a call to go and suffer hardship for the sake of His name in getting the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people who have never heard it. We are told to pray for the Lord to send workers to the harvest. Let us all commit to doing that, but some of us need to bow to the lordship of Christ and go. We live in a day in the United States were we don’t waste things but instead are told to recycle them. You cannot recycle your life and use it again, so don’t waste it. We are also told that we only have one life so live it with gusto. We have only one life so we must not waste it but use it as an expression of the glory of God. Pray for the grace to live to His glory. Pray and see if it is you that God would send as a peacemaker to the hard places of the world. By pray I am not meaning to offer sounds from the lips, but earnestly and honestly pray to the Lord about this.

If anyone is interested in going to a hard place in Indonesia, please get in contact with me. I will get you in touch with the missionary on the field. Did I mention that there are security concerns? More importantly, however, there are eternal security concerns. First make sure that it is out of love for the glory of God and the souls of your neighbors that is your motive. This is something that will require a willingness to act and tenacity of love to keep acting. This must not be just a momentary flare of desire. If you have a real desire to join this team, your airfare will be paid if all that is needed is a visit to confirm your call. Several families are needed in order to maximize the impact there. Don’t just think that another will do it, the need is for several. There will also be opportunities for shorter term missions in the coming months. Perhaps some would go and build an airfield or help build a house. There is always the need for financial help too from individuals and churches.

One example of the great need there is that there are villages that are not accessible at the moment by any other method than on foot. What that means is that it may take ten hours to hike to a village. One aspect of a work like this is that it will take a lot of work in some of these areas to build airstrips so that there is easier access to the villagers. As you can see, the need is great and the hardships are many. It will take a lot of grace and love in the hearts of people to go to places like this and labor in many ways to get the Gospel. Is this a real obstacle? Yes, but not one that God cannot overcome. What are you going to do with the rest of your life? You don’t know how long it will be no matter where you live. What is the purpose of your life? In reality it is not your life and it is not your choice. You don’t belong to yourself and you have no right to disobey God. The real question, then, is whether God is calling you. If He is, you have no option. The only option you have is to go as you are commanded. That is what a peacemaker does who is more concerned with the kingdom of God than his own kingdom. After all, it is His kingdom that we still pray to come. Do we mean that prayer enough to go?

There is also a place in the Czech Republic. A man and his family have been in a city in the Czech Republic laboring away for several years in the Gospel without apparent outward success, though there is always true success when one lives out of love for God. He can promise no outward success if anyone would come. However, the need is great. He would love to have someone come and help there. It would be great if a person could go over and teach English at the university there as that would be an opportunity to build relationships. Here is a man that is wearied at times from the burden of working many hours and trying to minister. Will someone go to stand alongside this neighbor of ours and our brother and hold up his hands?

Sometimes I feel the burden of being in Kansas and having the need for the Lord to send workers into the harvest as the need is so great. There are so many towns here that are without a Gospel witness. There are so many churches that are in need of ministers to preach the true Gospel to them. The need in Kansas is so great, yet it seems as if the need in Indonesia and the Czech Republic is even greater. The vast majority of people in those places have never even heard the true Gospel. The reality of it all is that there are many other places in the world where God’s name is not loved either and the Gospel has scarcely been heard or not at all. Let us quit playing with our tinker toys of the world and quit being so concerned about what others think of us (family and friends) and simply bow to what Christ teaches us in Scripture about being peacemakers, the Great Commission and the Great Commandments. All of those things are telling us the same truth about the same God and our duty. All of them are utterly impossible to carry out in the strength of the flesh. The Gospel of the glory of God will never shine through people; regardless of how religious they are, if the love of self dwells in them rather than the love of God. Let us be broken from our self-love, selfishness and self-centeredness and go out in the strength of grace. I can only hope and pray that some will go out in the strength of grace to Indonesia and that others will go to the Czech Republic while still others will go to other places. Maybe some will even come to Kansas. May the rest go by supporting those who do go. May all of us never forget the blessedness of being peacemakers which consists in seeing the glory of God shine through ourselves and others.

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Natural Man Cannot See God’s Glory

September 25, 2007

We can now move into a discussion on the issue of faith. With the last BLOG in mind, we can question if faith is either a spiritual act or the act of the natural man. Man must believe in Christ, true enough, but what does that mean? Does it mean that man has the capacity within his fallen nature to believe on Christ and be saved? Is man commanded to do what he has in his natural power to do? We know that all the commands of God are really ways that men are to love God. While man has the capacity within his fallen nature to do the outward commands of God, man does not have the capacity in his fallen nature to love God in doing the outward commandments. While it is true that man may have some capacity to have an external belief in some way in Christ, it is not true that man can believe in Christ from a love for Christ. Only the faith that is accompanied or consists in love is saving faith.

Many believed in Christ in biblical times but were not converted (John 2:23-25). They saw a miracle or heard His words and believed in some way, but were not converted. Nicodemus was told that he must be born again to see the kingdom. In John 6 Jesus fed thousands and the people believed in some way and sought Christ. But they did not seek Him out of love for His Person; they sought Him for more free food. By the end of the chapter they had all left Him. They believed in a sense but their deepest convictions and loves were not for Christ but self. What we must see, then, is that true faith operates in the spiritual realm. The Gospel is not just a list of historical facts; it is the display of the glory of God. A person cannot just have some sort of historical belief in Christ that the natural man can come up with, but that person must see the glory of God in Christ in order to savingly believe. Man cannot believe in Christ with a love for Christ while maintaining a core belief in and love for himself.

One cannot believe in Christ apart from believing who He really is. Christ was the very temple of the glory of God and the very outshining of the glory of God. To believe in Christ is to believe in Him as the display of God. To believe in Christ in truth is to see Him as the shining forth of the glory of God. To believe the Gospel is to see the glory of God in the Gospel. No man has natural ability to do this; it is the work of the Spirit of God. This is clear in other texts, but especially clear in II Corinthians 4:4-6 which teaches us that the Gospel is the shining forth of the glory of God in Christ. Faith in Christ is not the kind of faith that the fallen man has the capacity for, but instead this kind of faith is one that requires man to have a spiritual capacity given to him. One must have the capacity to see the glory of God in Christ and so the Gospel is far more than a belief in some historical information, it is a change of heart so that one trusts in Christ alone because one has been changed from a self-centered heart to one that loves Christ and delights in the glory of God in Christ as it shines in the Gospel.

The natural man is bound up in self-love and cannot see the Gospel of God as good news if he has to repent of his self-love. To believe the Gospel of the glory of God requires that man no longer be the center of his own love. The Gospel requires that man die to self and repent of his selfish actions and even die to the very core of his self-centered being in order to love and believe in what is truly good news. No natural man will ever believe in the Gospel of the outshining of God’s glory in Christ. Men hate God. If we change the Gospel to make man the center of it, then men will flood to it. If the Gospel is presented to where man is still in control just a little and make it all about him, then man is not humbled and brought to a point where he is even able to trust in Christ alone. Man has to stop trusting in what he can do in his fallen nature and that capacity. Man has to look to Christ alone with spiritual eyes and that only happens by grace and grace alone. A true faith from a spiritual capacity will only happen when man does not trust in himself to believe but is given a true faith in Christ with a spiritual capacity.

Faith is either an act of the natural man and is within the fallen man’s capacity or it is the act of a man made new in Christ with a spiritual capacity. We must force ourselves to look at this in this way. If it is an act of the natural man and can be done within the fallen man’s capacity, then we will have to instruct man or evangelize him in that way. If saving faith is not within the fallen man’s capacity but instead is something that man does by a new capacity given to him by grace alone, then we have to evangelize and instruct man in accordance with that. If man does not have the capacity within his fallen nature to savingly believe, that instructs us in regards how to instruct the people we speak to. If we teach people in a way where they believe they have that ability to do from a capacity that they do not have, then we are instructing them falsely and in a way that can and does lead to many being deceived. Jesus told us that no one can come to Him unless the Father draws him (John 6:44). In the next verse he tells us what is meant by that. It is the Father teaching them. It is only those who hear and learn from the Father that will come to Christ. That is not the same thing as having the capacity to do it themselves. We must teach this.

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Jonathan Edwards on Responsibility & Inability

September 23, 2007

Let us examine some teachings of Jonathan Edwards on the point of responsibility and inability. The sermon we will mostly look at is taken from Knowing the Heart: Jonathan Edwards on True and False Conversion. This book contains a series of sermons that currently cannot be found anywhere else except in this volume. It is put out by International Outreach. This particular sermon, “Persons Ought to Do What They Can for Their Salvation,” is called by John Gerstner perhaps the most important of the general writings of Edwards on his view of evangelism.

Edwards tells us that “’tis impossible that man should be under obligation to do anything that is above the capacity of his nature because his incapacity for it is from God.” He also says that “God never requires anything of man but what is commensurate to the faculties that he has given him. He never commands him to do anything above the capacity of the human nature.” While God does not command man to do things that are above his capacity, for example, do certain things that only the angels can do, however He does command man to do things that he cannot do in his fallen state without new principles. Those things are “to know God, to love God, and to believe in Christ, to exercise a gracious humility, repent, [be] submissive, [exercise] charity, or to perform any spiritual or gracious action. These things are none of them above the capacity of man’s nature.”

We are told that man is obliged and obligated to do things that he is wholly impotent (inability) to do. Yet his impotence in these things is not that which excuses him from it. The reason for this is because his inability or impotency is from himself and not from God. This is a very important point. God gave man the capacity to do certain things and man still retains that capacity. However, man’s perversion of will is of himself and so his inability leaves him without excuse. Man’s inability does not give him any excuse at all but rather shows how he is even more without excuse. If we try to excuse our badness by saying that we are so bad that we are unable to do good this is no excuse at all. What it does is show a greater degree of our badness.

We can look at this now with the term “responsibility” in mind. The terms itself at the very least seems to imply ability. The Arminians say that one must have the ability in order to have an obligation to do something. Reformed people have said the same thing in the past. Man does have the ability in terms of his pre-fall nature and even his present capacity, but the Reformed have gone on to say that man has an inability that he is still without excuse for. Again, man is responsible in that he is obligated but it is also true that he has the capacity to do. His inability is in the moral realm and it is that inability that darkens his mind and his whole nature. But since man bears the fault of his moral inability and the standards of God never change, God commands man to do what is holy in accordance with the nature and capacity that God gave man. Man still has the capacity to do what God commands so God is holy in commanding man to do them. But since man has changed as a result of the fall and he has a moral inability which is of himself, man is still at fault and liable to the judgment of God.

We can also look at this in one other way. What God commands man to do is still possible for man in Christ. God still commands every man everywhere to repent and believe (Acts 17:30-31). Man is now commanded to humble himself and believe in Christ. The problem with this, however, is that man is too self-sufficient, independent and proud to trust completely in Christ. Man still wants some control and just a little power in the situation. But man still wants to be in charge and trust in his own free-will just a little because man does not want to quit trusting in himself and be cast totally in the arms of sovereign mercy. One real problem is that man still thinks that it is in his power to repent and believe. Hear Jonathan Edwards again: “If you imagine that you have it in your own power to work yourselves up to repentance, consider, that you must assuredly give up that imagination before you can have repentance wrought in you” (Vain Self-Flatteries of the Sinner). If we take this statement by Edwards and apply it to what he has said above, what we end up with is something far different than what is taught in our day. Man has the capacity to do certain things, but man’s fallen nature does not have a spiritual capacity. Man must recognize his deadness in sin and give up trying to obey the commands of Christ from his fallen nature because it does not have the spiritual capacity to obey. It is not until man gives up trying to repent and believe and submit to the work of God in the heart that God may work in man a spiritual capacity to repent and believe. It is not, then, just a minor issue about free-will or responsibility, it is about eternal life and how God works that in people. If man must give up all hope in self in order to be saved, Arminianism is not just a little wrong. It is drastically and fatally wrong.

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