How to find the truth
I came across this comment on this thread. I’ve come across it a bit recently, so I thought I’d post on it here. (more…)
Dealing with Arianists
This follows this post and this post dealing specifically with Jehovah’s witnesses. (more…)
Jehovah’s Witnesses – The new world translation
This post follows my previous one which focuses on who Jesus claimed and demonstrated himself to be. (more…)
Jehovah’s Witnesses – Jesus is God
A couple of nights ago, I went to see a couple from our church to talk with them about a Jehovah’s Witness friend they have who has been trying to convert them to their church (or rather their cult or religion). We talked at some length and looked at a number of scriptures and I thought I might record some of what we talked about here. (more…)
How do you describe conversion?
I was just reading A H Strongs Systematic Theology and struck the passage quoted below.
If you are saved by Gods grace through the justification that is given by trusting Jesus Christ for salvation – how do you describe your conversion?
Here’s what A. H. Strong said:
Arminian converts say: “I gave my heart to the Lord”; Augustinian converts say: “The Holy Spirit convicted me of sin and renewed my heart.” Arminianism tends to self-sufficiency; Augustinianism promotes dependence upon God. (Strong, A. H. (1907, 2004). Systematic theology. p605)
Many people I know fall into the first camp. However, scripture says clearly that “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God” (Rom 3:10) – therefore the work of salvation must by necessity be entirely the work of the Lord on the heart of a believer and all be for His glory.
Martin Luther on Open Theism
As previously noted I’m reading through Martin Luther’s Bondage of the will at the moment.
Along the way several of his thoughts have jumped out at me on various subjects (not the least of which is his stinging assessment of Erasmus’s book (Bondage of the will was written as a response to a book by Erasmus).
If you don’t know what Open Theism is, it essentially states that God doesn’t know the future. Here is what Luther said to Erasmus when he said that God doesn’t know the future:
…If you doubt, or disdain to know that God foreknows and wills all things, not contingently, but necessarily and immutably, how can you believe confidently, trust to, and depend upon His promises? For when He promises, it is necessary that you should be certain that He knows, is able, and willing to perform what He promises: otherwise, you will neither hold Him true nor faithful, which is unbelief, the greatest of wickedness, and a denying of the Most High God!
(Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, p37)
Grace abounds
The law brings the knowledge of sin (Rom 3:20). But this is not the message of the gospel. Knowing about the law (and sin) is simply a means to the end. The end is to know Jesus Christ.
Rom 5:20-21 is an amazing statement. It reads:
Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
While the more we know of the law, the more we realise we have broken it. However, the more sin there is, the more the grace of God grows. We can see this today in an age where arguably there is more sin than ever before, yet the end has not yet come – Gods grace abounds all the more. Why?
The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance (2 Peter 3:9)
Grace abounds today and indeed exceeds the sin around us, because Jesus is still seeking those who would be saved.
Rather than the message of Christianity being about condemnation by the righteousness and holiness of God, God desires that none perish, and that all reach repentance.
The message of Christianity is abundant grace, justification and forgiveness. No strings attached.
If you haven’t reached out to Jesus for this forgiveness that comes through his death, do so today – now is the favourable time; now is the day of salvation (2 Cor 6:2).
Don Carson on compatibilism
The excerpt below is from Dr Carsons book “The difficult doctrine of the Love of God” – a very good book worth reading if you don’t buy into the love of God that is bandied around in many churches and Para church ministries today…
Christians are not fatalists. The central line of Christian tradition neither sacrifices the utter sovereignty of God nor reduces the responsibility of his image-bearers. In the realm of philosophical theology, this position is sometimes called compatibilism. It simply means that God’s unconditioned sovereignty and the responsibility of human beings are mutually compatible. It does not claim to show you how they are compatible. It claims only that we can get far enough in the evidence and the arguments to show how they are not necessarily incompatible, and that it is therefore entirely reasonable to think they are compatible if there is good evidence for them.
The biblical evidence is compelling. When Joseph tells his fearful brothers that when they sold him into slavery, God intended it for good while they intended it for evil (Gen. 50:19–20), he is assuming compatibilism. He does not picture the event as wicked human machination into which God intervened to bring forth good. Nor does he imagine God’s intention had been to send him down there with a fine escort and a modern chariot but that unfortunately the brothers had mucked up the plan, and so poor old Joseph had to go down there as a slave—sorry about that. Rather, in one and the same event, God was operating, and his intentions were good, and the brothers were operating, and their intentions were evil.
When God addresses Assyria in Isaiah 10:5ff., he tells them that they are nothing more than tools in his hand to punish the wicked nation of Israel. However, because that is not the way they see it, because they think they are doing all this by their own strength and power, the Lord will turn around and tear them to pieces to punish their hubris after he has finished using them as a tool. That is compatibilism. There are dozens and dozens of such passages in Scripture, scattered through both Testaments.
Perhaps the most striking instance of compatibilism occurs in Acts 4:23–29. The church has suffered its first whiff of persecution. Peter and John report what has happened. The church prays to God in the language of Psalm 2. Their prayer continues (4:27–28): “Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.” Note carefully: On the one hand, there was a terrible conspiracy that swept along Herod, Pilate, Gentile authorities, and Jewish leaders. It was a conspiracy, and they should be held accountable. On the other hand, they did what God’s power and will had decided beforehand should happen.
A moment’s reflection discloses that any other account of what happened would destroy biblical Christianity. If we picture the crucifixion of Jesus Christ solely in terms of the conspiracy of the local political authorities at the time, and not in terms of God’s plan (save perhaps that he came in at the last moment and decided to use the death in a way he himself had not foreseen), then the entailment is that the cross was an accident of history. Perhaps it was an accident cleverly manipulated by God in his own interests, but it was not part of the divine plan. In that case, the entire pattern of antecedent predictive revelation is destroyed: Yom Kippur, the Passover lamb, the sacrificial system, and so forth. Rip Hebrews out of your Bible, for a start.
On the other hand, if someone were to stress God’s sovereignty in Jesus’ death, exulting that all the participants “did what [God’s] power and will had decided beforehand should happen” (4:28), while forgetting that it was a wicked conspiracy, then Herod and Pilate and Judas Iscariot and the rest are exonerated of evil. If God’s sovereignty means that all under it are immune from charges of transgression, then all are immune. In that case there is no sin for which atonement is necessary. So why the cross? Either way, the cross is destroyed.
In short, compatibilism is a necessary component to any mature and orthodox view of God and the world. Inevitably it raises important and difficult questions regarding secondary causality, how human accountability should be grounded, and much more. I cannot probe those matters here
Carson, D. A. (2000). The difficult doctrine of the love of God (51). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.
Learning theological history
One of the desires that has been growing in me for some time is the desire to get my head around the characters, lives and writings of those who have shaped church history over the years.
Doing this has great potential benefits:
- Learn the lessons great men of the past learned
- Understand the context and importance of Christian theology
- Understand the history of theology (the history of inspiration is an interesting one for example)
- Grow my understanding of the greatness of Jesus Christ
- See the hand of God through the ages
To help me do this, I’ve gathered a small group of others who are keen to learn through this same process and we will be reading one book each month for the rest of this year.re
The idea is to read the same book together for a month – reading as much (or little) as you are able and then sit down together at the end of the month to discuss what we’ve read and how its challenged and been used by God to grow us.
We’re starting in March with Martin Luther’s Bondage of the will. We’ll go from there to John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, John Owen and others through to the best of the 20th century.
I’ll post what we are going to be reading here along with some of my observations as we go along. If you are interested in following along and reading with us, join in and leave your comments.
Gods love in us
1 John 3:1 says "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him".
I’ve heard this verse quoted numerous times to support the notion that God loves us so much that he calls us his children. This may be true (John 1:12), but is it really the intended meaning that John intended us to take from the passage?
Why are we Gods children?
When I recently read this verse I read it to say something along the following lines: "See what kind of love the Father has put in us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are" (translation mine). Clearly the Greek word translated "given" can’t be translated as "put in us" however, there are some good reasons to consider that this might be what John is getting at. In other words this is a passage that is designed to show us that God has given us of his love – that this love is in us through the indwelling Spirit of God and this makes us his children. We are not children only because he loves us, but more because we have his nature if we are born of Him (cf Phil 2:15, Rom 9:8, 1 John 3:10).
Why not "God loved us so much that He called us His children?"
In reality the view I’m taking shouldn’t change your theology significantly. However, I believe it suits the theme of 1 John better than the traditional view. For starters, only one other place in 1 John speaks of Gods love for us – and that is manifested through the propitiation (wrath bearing) of Christ on our behalf (1 John 4:9-10).
While it is absolutely true that God is love (1 John 4:8), the way love is often presented by well meaning believers is often inconsistent with the righteousness and holiness of God. Seeing the love that God has for us through the cross, means seeing the sacrifice and propitiation of wrath which leads to Gods grace. Without the propitiation of Christ and His atonement, God could not set His love on us. The love of God is generally not a "feel good about us" type of love – rather it is a benevolent, grace filled love that demonstrates the sovereignty and sufficiency of God – and Him alone. There is nothing lovable in us that motivates God – His motivation to love is solely based on His character.
Examining the context
In 1 John one of the themes of the book is the interdependence between the new birth, obedience to Christ and love for the brothers. Together this interdependence brings assurance of salvation which is one of the key purposes of John in writing (1 John 5:13).
If we examine the passage in 1 John 2:28-3:10 the passage starts by asserting that the one who is born of God practices righteousness (1 John 2:29), then John inserts a parenthesis in 1 John 3:1-3 which I believe should be read as Gods love in us. After this, he carries on to assert that the one born of God will practice righteousness and the one not born of God will practice sin (1 John 3:4-8).
In verse 9, John begins to wrap up this section by saying that one born of God cannot make a practice of sinning because he has Gods seed abiding in him. Then in verse 10 he sums up the passage by restating the main point: "by this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil". John is simply restating what Jesus said when he said "by their fruit you will know them" (Matt 7:16-20). He then gives the evidence "whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother". In this summary John states his main point is that one born of God will practice righteousness – but he also includes that believers will love their brothers. However, apart from 1 John 3:1-3 John hasn’t spoken of loving the brothers.
If we take the traditional view of this verse, it simply doesn’t fit this conclusion.
Narrowing it down
Not only this, but even verses 1-3 of 1 John 3 require this understanding of the verse.
Why would John state that the reason does not know us with regard to us being the children of God? If God loves us enough to call us the children of God, then why would it be obvious to the people around us who we are? However, if we have this love in us, then it should be obvious, which would then require this explanation – the world doesn’t recognise the love of God in us because it does not know God.
Furthermore, verse 2 is also helped. Gods love abiding in us makes us Gods children – "what we will be has not yet appeared" suggests that if we already have the love of God in us, what will we be like when we are perfected? What sort of channel will we be to display Gods character? We will see him as he is, so we will be like him – this is purifying.
The big picture
The big picture of 1 John is to assure believers by helping them understand the character of God that is in us (specifically one of righteousness – or obedience and love for those who have been born of God). Understanding that the love of the Father has been given to us through us abiding in Him, and by Him abiding in us.
Tozer on Exalting God and transformed lives
“Be thou exalted” (Psalm 21:13) is the language of victorious spiritual experience. It is a little key to unlock the door to great treasures of grace. It is central in the life of God in the soul. Let the seeking man reach a place where life and lips join to say continually, “Be thou exalted,” and a thousand minor problems will be solved at once. His Christian life ceases to be the complicated thing it had been before and becomes the very essence of simplicity
Some notes on worship
Much of the life we live, we live on our terms without questioning what God wants. However, worship begins with what God wants. God is not simply hoping that someone, somewhere will somehow worship him. We are reminded of this in Leviticus 10:1-3 where Nadab and Abihu offered unauthorised fire to the Lord and were judged by the Lord for it.
In the first chapter of his book “He is not silent” Al Mohler said:
“True worship begins with a vision of the God of the Bible – a vision of the one true and living God”
In conjunction with this, he offers four points on worship:
- How authentic worship begins: a true vision of the living God
- Where authentic worship leads: confession of sin
- Where authentic worship leads: proclamation of the gospel
- What authentic worship requires: a response
This is a view of worship that encompasses all of life. Too often churches simply focus on the last part without considering the first three parts. The vision of the living God is the responsibility of the preachers, teachers and leaders in a church. This should lead to confession of sin – and repentance should be invited where appropriate by the preacher.
Not only the preacher should proclaim the gospel, the entire congregation should be proclaiming the gospel – it is a natural response to God.
The emotional responses sought by many churches are good and proper, but this response should not be limited to Sunday morning, but should be experienced often in the life of a Christian. Similarly, when these responses are sought without faithful preaching of the word of God and confession of sin, are they really worship or are they simply emotional highs? In reality it could be both, but in my estimation, often this is just an emotional high.
Following the formula above ensures a balance is kept between the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the word and the preaching of the word and the response of a heart. This cycle is life changing. Mark Driscoll commented during a sermon I heard recently:
Too many people try to stop sinning – the goal is not to stop sinning, the goal is to start worshipping
Authentic worship is the solution to legalism and other forms of religion that doesn’t save or help us change. And it all starts with a right view of God as revealed in His word that changes lives.
Preaching God or preaching Christ?
I just had a Jehovah’s witness knock on my door. Unfortunately they seemed to be in a hurry to move on and weren’t interested in engaging in a conversation at all. However, the tract she left with me is a fairly standard variety from the Watch Tower.
What really concerns me though, about the tract is that it is similar to what many (most?) Christian churches teach. This particular tract has six questions:
- Does God really care about us?
- Will war and suffering ever end?
- What happens to us when we die?
- Is there any hope for the dead?
- How can I pray and be heard by God?
- How can I find happiness in life?
If we start our journey looking for "truth" to suit us, we will find it in religion if we want to – but we won’t find Christ, nor will we find salvation, nor the joy that comes from fellowship with Christ.
The questions above are generally asked and answered from a man centric perspective – as if God will fulfil all our needs. But man is not here for mans sake. We were created for the glory of God, so if we want the truth, we must start with Christ’s own purpose for creating us (Col 1:16, John 1:3), not with my perceived wants or needs.
Scripture teaches that salvation is through Christ alone, not through "God" (John 14:6). Far too much of our "theology" and "philosophy" is man centred, and not Christ centred. Yet, we read the following in Colossians 1:15-20 of Christ:
"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross."
The point of this passage is that Christ is preeminent "in everything" (Col 1:18). The Father has "put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church" (Eph 1:22 emphasis added)
One of the key distinctives of Christianity is that we worship Christ – because He is God alone and worthy of our worship. It is Christ we will worship in Heaven (Rev 5:9-10), and it is Christ we will bow the knee to (Phil 2:10) – and this will be to the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:11) because it is the appointed way the Godhead has decreed things will be.
However, we dilute the Christian message by not talking about Jesus Christ and talking about "God" instead. In the modern (or rather post modern) world "God" is a term that requires defining – that is to say that the meaning of "God" is quite subjective and for that reason almost irrelevant.
We as Christians (myself included), need to be preaching Christ, and Him crucified (1 Cor 2:2) as the cross of Jesus Christ is a clear distinction from simply preaching "God". Only when we do this will we become truly effective. As Peter said tot he Jerusalem council all those years ago:
"This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:11-12)
The cults and false religions are out there spreading the news of Christ, without talking about Christ. This is a deception that leads people to believe that they can be saved without worshipping Christ, when the reality is that all those who are "saved" without Christ are not saved at all.
God calls
The call of God is a fact found repetitively in scripture. Gods call is the basis of evangelism. Christians evangelise because God calls people – and God uses people to make His call known. However, the call of God is also an area of confusion. A few weeks back we looked into the how the call of God is seen in scripture and covered more specifically what God calls us to.
The two calls of God
There are two types of call of God in scripture. The first is the general call of God. We find this in passages such as the following:
"[Jesus] said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." (Luke 24:46-47)
"The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent," (Acts 17:30)
In both these cases (and others) there is a call that goes "to all nations" or to "all people everywhere" which proclaims "repentance and forgiveness of sins". This is an indiscriminate call to everyone. Note that neither of these verses state that there will be any effect on the individuals who hear.
In fact, in mans natural state – i.e. in depravity, we cannot respond to this call at all.
In spite of this, there is an effective call of God – this is the second call that we find in scripture, implied in passages like Acts 2:47 "… the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved". We also find this more explicitly in passages such as the following:
"And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified." (Rom 8:30)
"They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful." (Rev 17:14)
The last verse cited here is important, because not only does it state that those with Christ are the called, but they are also the faithful. This supports the perseverance of the saints – the doctrine that states that Gods elect will not only be called, but will remain faithful to death.
The point of all this is that while on the one hand Christians are to indiscriminately preach the gospel to everyone, we must understand that not everyone will be saved.
"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day." (John 6:44)
Unless God calls someone specifically – i.e. that person is selected and called for the purpose of salvation set out from the foundation of the world, they will not respond to the gospel.
Depravity
Having made the point that man is ruined due to despising the great worth of the creator God, I found while writing another post that I’ve never explained depravity, and given we’ve just done a series on the gospel, it is probably high time I posted on the subject.
What is depravity? Simply put depravity means that not only is man sinful, but that man can do nothing but evil without intervention from God.
Admittedly, this is a strong statement, and many people have a hard time agreeing on face value, so let me explain further.
Sin, religion and good deeds
Firstly, it is critical to remind ourselves that sin is not merely murder, lying, adultery, etc. These are certainly evil, but as we previously mentioned, sin fundamentally is defined with relationship to God – that is that we do not honour God as God, but instead suppress the truth and replace God as the object of our worship with something else. More on this here.
Sin is both overt and insidious. It is overt in that there are things that are clearly evil (as we have already seen), however, the more damning sins are the ones that don’t look quite so bad. We can see this in history. Look at the catholic church for example (or Islam or most other religions – even Christians are not immune). While one can feel very religious by adhering to it’s principles and doing what the religious law decrees, adhering to these decrees does one no good whatsoever – because one or more of the following may be true:
- The object is the law, not the law maker
- We are doing it for personal gain (e.g. heaven, paradise, etc) not for the sake of the one who is worthy of worship
- In the doing we gain a sense of personal worthiness (self-righteousness)
Even doing simple “good deeds” doesn’t necessarily constitute good in and of itself unless it is motivated out of a desire to honour the Lord. Yes the “good deed” may do man good, and it may even be motivated by the second great commandment (“You shall love your neighbour as yourself” – Matt 22:34-40), but man is not the highest good – God is, so unless the “good deed” is done out of a desire to do the highest good to the highest good, it is not ultimately good.
Depravity defined
When the bible describes depravity, it does so in words such as these from Romans 3:10-18:
“It is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.””
Note some of the key phrases from this passage:
“No one does good, not even one”
“None is righteous”
“No one seeks for God”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes”
Each of these must be seen in light of who God is.
When Paul quotes “no one does good”, he is referring to both the deeds and the nature of man (Matt 15:11). When Jesus was addressed as “Good teacher”, he replied “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:17-18). That is to say, that God defines good. Man doesn’t define what is good – God does. God is inherently good – and this good is based on his character.
“None is righteous” must also be understood in light of the perfect righteousness of God. Job asked “Can a person be more righteous than God, or a man be more pure than his Maker?” (Job 4:17) – the same God who said “You shall not murder” set that standard based on His righteous character. Jesus clarified this further in Matt 5:21-22 by saying “everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgement”, but we demonstrate our unrighteousness every time we get angry at someone. Gods laws are based on the perfect righteousness of God – not on an arbitrary standard.
The final two statements I’ve isolated out above (“No one seeks for God” and “there is no fear of God before their eyes”) hit the heart of the problem as they relate to the way we look at God. Rather – the fact that we don’t look at God – in fact, rather than looking at God and looking to God, we shun God and do our best to put him out of our consciousness (Rom 1:18). We have no regard for Him, never mind a righteous fear for Him.
Spiritually dead
The bible calls this state spiritual death (Rom 5:12):
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 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” (Eph 2:1-2).
The analogy fits well. Dead people don’t respond when living people call them. So it is with us. We cannot respond to God – and even if we could respond to God, the best we could do would be to reject Him and go our own way. As I said earlier, when it comes to God, man can do nothing but evil without intervention from God – this is what we refer to as depravity.
However, this is not where the story ends. Just because we cannot respond to God, does not spell the end of the human race. Christ is not only the bearer of our sins, but also the ultimate doctor who can overcome the death of man because of sin. A few verses after stating that we are “dead in the trespasses and sins” that we walked in, Paul proclaims:
“But God, being 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 you have been saved” (Eph 2:4-5)
Only God can make us alive again. This is what Christians are referring to when they talk about the new birth or being “born again” (John 3:3). And this is where we will go in the next post.
