A Consideration of Purgatory

“According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.  For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.  Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.  If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.  If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” -1 Corinthians 3:10-15 ESV

The doctrine of purgatory is an interesting and divisive point between Protestants and Catholics.  The idea being that after death, believers, prior to entering into the presence of God in Heaven, undergo a final act of cleansing, wherein they are purified from any remaining sin that clings to them after death.  Leaving, for the time being, the argument of whether or not the scriptures directly reference a state of purgatory, the Protestant argues that this “cleansing after death” diminishes the work of Christ on behalf of the believer, as though Christ had only provided us with a down-payment for our souls, after which we must then pay the rest ourselves in this intermediate state after death.  Catholics, on the other hand, make the argument that it in no way diminishes Christ’s work, which bought and paid for our salvation, but is part of the processes of sanctification in the life of a believer, the gradual work of the Spirit to conform us to the image of Christ.  We still commit sins, and God punishes His children, not as an unbeliever subject to Hell, but as a Father disciplines His children when they do wrong.  “For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” (Hebrews 12:7, ESV)

The argument from the Catholic perspective is quite rational when one takes a larger look at the course of a man’s life.  As Protestants, we seem to believe that although men are sinners now, and continue to sin after Christ has redeemed us (though we are subject to discipline from God), once we die we are immediately purged of all traces of sin, as though someone entered a dark room and suddenly switched on the light.  Perhaps Protestants believe that all sin is somehow tied to our mortal bodies and that, once they are removed, our saved spirits will shine without trace of wrongdoing.  I cannot accept this, as one look inside of myself reveals that sin is ever present within my heart; not the physical one, but my spiritual heart, which remains broken and damaged, even though it has been claimed by Christ and is undergoing His work of sanctification.  Indeed, the Bible tells us that the heart is “deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 ESV).  I cannot allow myself to believe that all my sins can be blamed upon purely physical causes.  Christ did not die to save me from my physical body, but from a spirit that was altogether dead in sin.

With this in mind, that Catholic teaching on purgatory is simply an acknowledgement that sanctification, the process of becoming like Christ, of being made holy in Him, is gradual and may be observed to work over the course of a person’s life, but rarely, if ever, is it seen to be completed within that life.  So what of the process after death?  Does the man who has walked with God for many years, whose life shows remarkable transformation, enter into the presence of God directly?  What of the man who has only been saved for a short time, whose life is still filled with many unclean things?  Do they both alike enter into God’s presence altogether purified, without any further process of sanctification, merely through the accident of their death?

It may be so, and my point is not to argue for purgatory directly, only to point out that it is not an irrational concept by any means.  As we must be holy to enter into the presence of God, purgatory simply acknowledges that we may not be altogether sanctified at the time of our death, although we have been altogether purchased by the blood of Christ.  One noted Protestant apologist, C.S. Lewis, in his book “Letters to Malcom”, argued for the existence of purgatory by suggesting that without some manner of final sanctification after death, it would be as though we were to enter into Heaven welcomed, loved, fully accepted, clothed in a white spotless garment, and yet still with faces smudged in dirt and offensive breath.  Purgatory, he argued, would be merely the state of having a final wash after arriving from a long journey.  By no means would we be less accepted or loved in heaven, but would any of us, having arrived, desire to enter into the presence of God without first visiting the nearest sink to wipe the last bits of dirt from our faces?

Sometimes purgatory is suggested as a terrifying vision of punishment, somewhat akin to a Hell which only differs in that the believer may eventually leave, whereas the sinner may not.  This cannot be further from the truth.  Indeed, if there is any form of purgatory, it must necessarily be a place of hope and rejoicing, even though it is a place of purification (that is to say, discipline).  The best view of purgatory that I have read is in the second part of Dante’s “The Divine Comedy”.  Many are familiar with the first part of this poetic work, “Inferno”, but few seem to realize that his depiction of Hell is only the first of a three-part work which goes on to speak of Purgatory and Paradise (Heaven).  Purgatory, in Dante’s imagination, is a mountain leading upwards to Heaven.  Along the way as one climbs, the faithful are disciplined for all remaining traces of sin within them, so that they will be altogether free of its stain and influence when they reach the top.  No discipline is pleasant, but the believers rejoice, thank God and praise Him all the while because they know that without fail they will reach the top and enter into the presence of God, and so every moment that passes only serves to increase their joy.  Indeed, with the promise of God visibly before you and the knowledge that nothing can take it away, it would be impossible to have anything less than continual praise upon your lips and joy in your heart, no matter how difficult the circumstances of getting there may be.  I am convinced that if there is a purgatory, it is a silly thing to live in fear of it; when you stand before it, you will want nothing more than to pass through it.

This is not to say that although we should not fear purgatory, as one may fear Hell, we ought to live with a cavalier attitude toward sin.  Anyone who has been reading this blog will realize that I am a full believer in Reformed doctrine (i.e., Calvinism), after years spent defending Arminianism (which is, under observation, a close bedfellow to Catholic doctrine).  As such I firmly believe in the perseverance of the saints, which is sometimes referred to as “eternal security”.  This doctrine teaches that all true believers, having been redeemed, will necessarily remain redeemed and have Heaven as their guaranteed, unalterable future.  It does not, as has historically been accused, mean that one may sin as much as one wishes without fear of consequence.  Indeed, the believer is still subject to God’s discipline and His work of sanctification.  What it does mean, however, is that these processes are sure and will, without fail, ultimately meet their goal in the life of the believer.  However slow the process, the believer will certainly be conformed to the image of Christ.  Much like the souls in Dante’s Purgatory, the believer now may rejoice in all circumstances because the end is altogether sure in their sight, and every moment, however hard, draws them closer to the presence of God.  This future can never be altered.  However, although the end is sure, the severity of God’s discipline in sanctifying the believer depends upon the believer’s cooperation with God.  As His children, God will see us sanctified, but that may be with little discipline or with much, depending upon our obedience to Him.

So it must be with purgatory; one may live without fear of the outcome, and rejoice in the security of salvation, but one must also consider whether one wishes to enter into Heaven after a period of long and severe discipline, or more gently, as obedient children.  It is not necessary for us as believers to experience harsh discipline from God, but if we behave as obstinate children, we certainly will, for He will by no means allow us to pass into His presence unsanctified, any more than He would ever cast us away and disown us.

Upon these reflections, perhaps purgatory is not such a strange idea.  Indeed, as it is a time of being sanctified, perhaps we, as believers, are in it already, as God works within us and disciplines us in order to make us holy in Him.  And what if there is a form of purgatory after death?  Consider the passage in 1 Corinthians 3 which opened this article.  It speaks of a time of judgment for the believer, not for his eternal destiny, which is secure, but judgment of the works one has performed, some of which are described as being burned up by fire.  This may or may not be purgatory in the Catholic sense, but it is certainly a type of purgatory as, at the last, the believer is faced with the reality of their works and how empty many (in some cases all) of them have proven to be.  The believer is saved and is welcomed into the arms of Christ and into eternal bliss, yet is said to “suffer loss”.  It cannot be that loss or regret will enter into the eternal state with God, but certainly there is a very real sense in which, at that moment, they will experience loss prior to entering into their eternal bliss.  It may be that, in addition to simply not receiving a reward for works that will last, they will experience the loss of pride and a sense of true humility before God as they see that all of their actions on earth go up in flames when brought into the light and perspective of eternity, and certainly this will be a final act of sanctification, when the believer sees themselves in proper light before God, and is left with nothing more but to fall upon their knees in exaltation of Him.

On the Loss of Salvation According to Hebrews 6

"For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt." -Hebrews 6:4-6 ESV

One thing that is doggedly defended by Arminians is the idea that a Christian can lose (or, if you prefer, reject) their salvation after it has been granted.  Having previously accepted Arminianism for the greater part of my life, I understand first-hand the furor with which this point is defended.  Regardless, I think you will find yourself very hard-pressed to find a believer who accepts Arminianism and who also accepts the above verse at face-value and will admit that a person who “backslides”, that is, one who falls from grace after having received it, is incapable of returning to Christ in repentance and once more receiving salvation.  Indeed, my experience growing up with Arminianism is that churches are filled with stories of backsliders who return to Christ.  Unfortunately, the above passage doesn’t seem to allow for this at all.

As a former Arminian turned Calvinist, I have no problem with the above passage.  Although on the surface it does refer to the loss of salvation, there are two ways of understanding it.  One (which I do not accept, but will lay out anyway just to be thorough) states that those who have “tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit” were never believers to begin with, but only had a direct and undeniable understanding of the truth and then rejected it.  To me this seems to be stretching the text in order to avoid the idea that it deals with a true “falling away” from grace.  Indeed, how else does one deal with the statement regarding the impossibility of restoring them again to repentance?  How can they be turned again to repent if they had not already truly repented before God already?  The language in the verse is strong, and I can only conclude that it refers to someone who truly shares in the grace of God, not someone who only understands it.  This brings us to the second possible interpretation: that the passage does indeed refer to a true believer rejecting the salvation given, turning from the Holy Spirit who indwells him.  This I accept entirely, as it seems an obvious interpretation of the statements given.

Now as to doctrine, the verse is not a pronouncement that people will turn from God, but is in fact a hypothetical situation intended to make a point.  In the verses prior to this passage, the writer of Hebrews states that the believers should mature in Christ, and not be continually re-laying the foundational doctrine of repentance and salvation; in effect, he’s saying “you know this much, you understand, you’ve accepted and are saved, now let’s study and learn more of God instead of continuously re-hashing the point where you started; after all, if a believer should reject the salvation given, it is impossible for them to turn and repent again, so now that you have been saved let us move deeper into the things of God.”  By no means does this mean that rejecting salvation after receiving it is possible, but it is a hypothetical statement; if it were possible, and someone did reject their salvation, there’s no hope left for them, so in either case, as believers, move on in your walk with God and seek to learn more than just the fundamental doctrine of salvation, which you already know, accept, and walk in.

Indeed, the difficulty this passage presents is not a difficulty for the Calvinist, who regards the idea of rejecting salvation as a peculiar, illogical notion (how can the new creation become old again?), but it is a difficulty for the Arminian, who must come to terms with the finality of the verse’s pronouncement: if a believer should reject their salvation, then it is impossible, according to the Scripture, for them to be brought back to repentance again.  This means that for one who has truly backslidden, they have, in effect, committed the “unforgivable sin” and the doors of grace are no longer open to them.  What does one do with this?

Of course, any given supporter of Arminianism may come up to me and say that they do in fact believe that if someone rejects their salvation, it is absolutely final.  I have simply never met the believer who rejected eternal security and yet accepted this idea that eternal damnation necessarily follows the “loss” of salvation.  But if we choose to soften the argument, to say that one may fall into sin (indeed, we all sin at various times, and are all still prone to weakness), but that this does not mean that salvation is therefore lost to us, I say bravo, and agree.  The Spirit of God draws His children back to Himself, urging them to repent, and will discipline them in order to restore them to a right relationship with Him.  This is absolutely true.  But at no point in that process do those children cease to be children because of this.  This is not a case of rejecting salvation at all, and so that argument has no bearing on Hebrews 6.

As past defender of Arminianism, my own response to this verse was to pretend that this pronouncement of the impossibility of restoring such a person to repentance (without which there is no salvation) was to ignore it.  It was a fearful prospect, and so I simply hoped that there was something else here that I was missing.  Certainly I couldn’t live under this assumption, especially since my own father was a professed Christian who turned from his faith shortly after marrying my mom.  The idea that he could never be saved was a frightening thought that I simply could not accept.  In the end, my father did return to Christ, and has been following Him now for years.  What do I make of this?  Well, as a Calvinist, I can only conclude that either his professed faith before was never truly within his heart, or else that he never truly lost that salvation but was simply living as a disobedient child for some time.  If the former, then at some point in his life (as many others have openly testified of their own lives) the truth of the Gospel suddenly became real, whereas before it had only been an intellectual acknowledgement or a ritual they had been trained to march in.  If the latter, then his life simply shows the incredible patience of God with His children, whom He by no means rejects but will always restore back to Himself without fail.  But if for any moment I accept that his prior salvation was genuine and his falling away equally genuine, then his restoration would have been impossible according to Hebrews 6.  I thank God that this is not the case.

Indeed, I thank God for the promise of His salvation that was not granted on the basis of my actions, nor can be sustained by them.  If I do good, it is not through myself, but because the same God who turned my heart to Him is also at work in me, “both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13, ESV).  To will, that is, to desire to follow Him, and to do, that is, to perform the actions that please Him.  Remember that Galatians 5:22-23 details what the fruit of the Spirit is, not what the fruit of our own efforts are.  It is the Spirit who bears the fruit of good works and virtues within us, so that those who are saved will necessarily show the grace of God in their actions as He works within them.  It is not our own effort that produces good within us, but the good that our lives produce is a direct result of the eternal salvation He secured for us, a salvation that was given when we were altogether lost so that we might never be lost again.

The Liturgy of Love

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." -Hebrews 13:8, NLT

I love my wife.  I love the small, daily rituals we have, the continual, domestic liturgy of laying down together at night, kissing whenever we first meet after work, sitting down to watch TV in the evening. It is in these small moments of ritual, not in a continual splash of new experiences, that I feel closest to her, that my heart is free to be itself and simply enjoy and relish her presence.

Love is not hindered by ritual, but thrives in it the same way a rose thrives in the day to day sameness of morning, noon and night, water and sunshine.  The ritual itself is not love, but it is within the comforting familiar that our hearts relax.  Those who seek thrills are not seeking love, because ultimately love always settles into a kind of comforting sameness, and thus the thrill-seeker must constantly be running to new "loves" all the time to keep the spark of newness alive.

As believers, we do well if we consider this principle as we approach God.  It is fashionable within churches today to pounce upon anything deemed "religious" as a kind of Pharisaical heresy, a legalistic wall to be torn down.  Liturgy, ritual and traditions are dashed and, despite scriptural uses of the word "religion" being used to describe our faith (as in James 1:27), we treat the word as though it were comprised of only four letters.

If, as believers, we approached the Lord with half the reverence shown by our more devote (and liturgical) Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran brothers and sisters, we would do well.  Unfortunately, the fashion is to chase after new experiences, or after revivals to refresh us and pep us up for another spiritually draining year, or month, or week.  For my own part I put little stock in these things.  We shouldn't be seeking after experiences, thrills or revivals; it is enough to simply know the God who is the same "yesterday, today, and forever."

To know that the same God who commands the day and summons the night, calls forth the seasons in their turn and causes the flowers to grow, to bloom, to wilt, and then to grow again; this God who keeps the world moving by His direct, tireless and continual thought, who never grows weary of making the grass grow or the cycle of the rain continue onward throughout the years; to know, I say, that this same God looks down upon me, a man, a beast, an ultimately insignificant speck in the vast universe He created, and does so with the same tireless, unending, continual love, fills me with awe, as it ought to fill each one of us who are called by His name.

So continue to wake, kneel by the bedside and pray to your Father, without concern for whether your prayers are the same as yesterday, for He hears them with the same constant care today as He did then.  Sing your songs of praise without bothering to worry if your Heavenly Father is bored with the lyrics, for He is overjoyed to hear the voice of His child singing to Him.  Walk throughout your day without seeking for newness, without looking for sparks, but instead resting in the continual comfort that comes from knowing that He is near, never taking His eternal, loving gaze away from you.  Within that endless comfort, let our hearts rest and delight themselves in Him.

Avoiding Spiritual Adultery: Preaching an Offensive Gospel

"You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God." -James 4:4 (NLT)

One manner in which we as believers court friendship with the world is in the endless striving to be "relevant" to the world around us, and to make the Gospel message palatable to unbelievers.  This behavior is not left to some fringe of the church, nor is it the sole property of "seeker sensitive" churches; this attitude can be observed in all walks of life and in all manner of churches, from the most liberal to the most conservative, and it can truly appear as a wolf in sheep's clothing as it operates in the name of that most noble goal: saving souls.  How can this be?

If you examine the lives of the Apostles presented in the New Testament, you will find that the message of the Gospel is always presented in a direct, some today might argue "insensitive" manner: It is the message of Jesus, come down from Heaven, his body nailed to a cross and hung out to die in the sun, bleeding and in tremendous pain.  It is also the message of his incredible resurrection; that being God, the grave could not contain Him.  This alone raises eyebrows, not just today, but back then as well.  It is a bloody story about a savior given an ignoble death, and...resurrection?  Even Paul was mocked when he preached that Jesus rose from the dead (see Acts 17:32), but preach it he did, and said with confidence that "The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God." (1 Corinthians 1:18 NLT)

But it does not stop with the bloody and incredible story of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection; no, the reason for His death is the sinfulness of man, and this is the most offensive point of all.  You see, "He [Jesus] personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right." (1 Peter 2:24 NLT)  Jesus died because of our sins...not us as a collective race of animals strutting about on the planet, generally being good but occasionally mucking things up, no, he died for my sins, and for your sins.  We are each, individually, inescapably, sinners before God: "For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard." (Romans 3:23 NLT)

People don't like to hear that they are sinners.  In today's cultural and philosophical climate, all assertions of morality, in particularly the assertion that people may be less than upstanding, is seen as judgmental, condemning, and evil in its own right. Suggest that someone is a sinner, and you have labeled yourself a sinner of the most heinous sort: a man who passes judgment on others.

Faced with this cultural pressure to be inclusive and non-confrontational in our religious convictions, it is easy (oh how easy!) to soften the message to appeal to modern ears.  Indeed, we may soften the message without thinking to ourselves that doing so will avoid social ridicule; we may soften the message, instead, in an attempt to be heard, an attempt to ease our way through people's psychological walls. We rationalize that if we start right out with the cross and the resurrection and (how much worse!) the sinfulness of our hearers, they will shut their ears and immediately walk away. So instead we begin by speaking of God's love, of His gentleness and mercy and of His deep, passionate desire to have a relationship with us.

All true, and all generally meaningless to those who are without Christ.  The culture already spreads a message that, if there is a God, He must be a kind of gentle universal grandfather who loves us and just wants to see us happy.  When we focus entirely on the love of God without ever touching on His justice, we gut the crucifixion of all meaning, and indeed make the incarnation itself an exercise in futility; apart from man's fallen, altogether helpless, wretched state before God, there was no reason for Jesus to die, and apart from faith in Jesus' death and resurrection, there is no salvation at all.  Paul wrote "If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9 NLT) There is no good in talking of Jesus' resurrection if you do not also speak of His death, and that death was meaningless if not to pay the penalty for the sins of every human being who places their faith in Him.

Indeed, it is only when we recognize our great sinfulness that the true love of God can be seen.  Every man and woman must first humble themselves and admit their own sinfulness before they can comprehend the magnitude of the love of God for them, for "God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." (Romans 5:8 NLT)

Thus, if we are to preach the Gospel, if we are to truly place God at the forefront of our lives and seek His will, and not adulterate ourselves by seeking the friendship of the world, then we must preach as Paul preached, as all the Apostles preached: We must preach Christ, and Him crucified (see 1 Corinthians 2:2). And if we preach Christ crucified, then we must also preach that all men are sinners, under the just condemnation of God, for it is in this message that God's love and mercy in Jesus shine out.  We must affirm with the psalmist "God looks down from heaven on the entire human race; he looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God. But no, all have turned away; all have become corrupt. No one does good, not a single one!" (Psalm 53:2,3 NLT)

Someday, someone may stand before you and ask (and people do), "Do you think I am going to Hell?" That is an inflammatory, confrontational question; nevertheless, as sure as there is a Hell your answer must be "Yes." Anything less than this only serve to affirm to the unregenerate that, in fact, there may be some merit left within them, some means of escaping condemnation apart from the work of Christ; that they still have a chance on their own and need not worry too much about the message of Jesus and this awful business about crucifixion, about denying oneself, taking up one's cross and following Jesus (per Matthew 16:24).

Brothers and sisters, it is not judgmental to affirm that someone is hopeless and lost apart from Christ, altogether dead in sin and incapable of gaining favor with God; indeed, it is the most loving thing that we can proclaim, because along with this message we proclaim the tremendous, magnificent news that despite our wretchedness, God loves us, sent His Son Jesus to die for our sins, and offers us eternal salvation. That is the Gospel, and that is what we are called preach to all.

True Spiritual Power: Teaching as Jesus Taught

“Jesus came and told his disciples, ‘I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.  Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’” –Matthew 28:18-20 NLT

The passage above is commonly known as the “Great Commission”.  It was the final command that Jesus gave to His disciples before He ascended back into Heaven.  Note that Jesus did not merely command His disciples to go and baptize people…anybody can be dunked or sprinkled or what have you, but His command is that they make disciples.  Furthermore He elaborates that they are to teach those disciples to obey all the commandments of Jesus.  It’s interesting that He commands the disciples to teach the new disciples, because to be a disciple means to be a student, and it follows that if you are a student, then you are being taught.  But Jesus specifies, lest there be any doubt, that these students that they are to teach are to be taught what Jesus taught.  They are not to make disciples of Peter, or disciples of John, they are to go out any make disciples of Jesus, teaching them the same things that they learned from Him.

What did Jesus teach?  Well, a good place to start is with Jesus’ answer to a question posed in Matthew 22:

“’Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?’ Jesus replied, ‘”You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment.  A second is equally important: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.’” (Matthew 22:36-40)

Jesus taught that God, and the love of God, was supreme, and that our second goal was to love others with the same care and concern that we show for ourselves.  Notice also that these two items are not put up in opposition to the rest of the commandments of scripture; no, Jesus says that these two commandments are most important because they are the foundation of all scripture.  The scriptures are good and profitable and important, as the Apostle Paul points out for us in 2 Timothy 3:16 when he says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.”

Jesus did not come to earth to establish a new religion.  Christianity itself is not a new religion, but is the fulfillment of Old Testament Judaism; it is the unfurling of God’s plan which He set in motion from the beginning of time, a plan he offered glimpses of throughout the Old Testament, even as far back as the book of Genesis when he pronounced a curse on the Serpent (that is, Satan) who had deceived our mother Eve, and told him that there would be hostility between the Serpent and the woman’s offspring, that “He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:15).  This was not a pronouncement of aman crushing the head of a mere snake, but a prophetic foreshadowing of Satan, who had taken on the guise of a serpent, being crushed and defeated by the woman’s most significant offspring, Jesus Christ, who at some point in the distant future would be born into the world.

Throughout the Old Testament, God revealed to His people more prophesies concerning the coming of Jesus, perhaps most clearly in Isaiah 7:14 where we read “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).”  So it should be clear that when Jesus came into the world, when He died and rose again and commanded His disciples to go and make disciples themselves, teaching them to obey His commandments, He was not telling them to establish a new religion, but to teach the same religion that had been taught throughout the scriptures and now had found its ultimate fulfillment in the person of Jesus: that there is a holy God, that He is worthy of all of our love and our praise, and that we, fallen mankind, stand condemned before Him, but that He would make a way through sacrifice for us to be reconciled to Him.  Now, all sacrifice in the Old Testament, sacrifices of bulls and rams and goats, was but a foreshadowing of God’s ultimate plan in Jesus, the one sacrifice that would provide permanent and lasting satisfaction of God’s justice and open the door of fellowship to His chosen people of all tribes and all nations.

Thus it is critical, if we are to make disciples, that we teach them as Jesus taught them.  It is critical that we lay out the scriptures before them, from the Old Testament to the New, explaining and pointing out the truth of God’s Word, showing the work, the love, the justice, and the grace of God from the beginning of creation to the present day.  Indeed, there is a tendency today for many in the church to look upon the Old Testament as though its importance were diminished now that Jesus has shown up on the scene, but it is this very same Old Testament that taught who Jesus was, and which Jesus Himself used when explaining about His coming and resurrection to some of His followers who, on account of His death, had begun to doubt.  Jesus’ response to them was “’You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures.  Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?’ Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:25-27)

These is a great need in this world for people to be taught the scriptures, to be taught the commandments of God and all His history and plan as He has revealed these things to us in the scriptures.  Sadly, many churches and ministries are wandering away from the faithful teaching of scripture.  I am sorry to say that I have heard churches referred to as “teaching churches”, as though these churches were more academic, more prone to digging into the Word of God, than other, more progressive churches.  Yet the sad part is that this was not being offered as praise of one style of church over another, but just as a point of distinction between what is apparently considered two perfectly acceptable forms of church ministry: teaching and…well, not teaching, I suppose.  In many cases I would say, simply from observation, that those churches that are not “teaching” churches are often what you might think of as “power” churches; churches with lively services where supposedly God’s power continuously flows in miraculous ways, yet often leaves little time for the traditional, somewhat drier practice of sermonizing and expounding on the many words of an old book called the Bible.

The problem with that is that a church or ministry that is not primarily concerned with teaching the plain truths of scripture, faithfully, carefully and with integrity, truly has no power at all.  I don’t care how many miracles are performed, how many signs or wonders take place or how many “decision cards” are filled out; that ministry is failing to uphold the commandment of Jesus, and because they are not upholding His commandment, they cannot be considered a legitimate ministry.  They may be made up of people with the best of intentions, but they are nevertheless spiritually immature and show a shocking lack of understanding, and they themselves need to be taught the fundamentals of the faith they claim to represent.

It is worth saying that one man, in one small corner of the world, who is faithfully teaching the scriptures to others, will do more to promote the Gospel in the world at large than ten thousand men and women who travel the globe performing signs and wonders.  The latter may stir up a lot of excitement, may boast of quite a collection of “converts”, but the lone man in his quiet corner is fulfilling the commandment of Jesus, whereas the others, who lay claim to signs and wonders as the hallmark of their ministry, indeed have little to stand on, for these things do not in themselves show favor or approval from God.  Remember that Jesus Himself told His disciples:

“On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’” (Matthew 7:22,23)

It is critical if we, as believers, desire to draw closer to God, desire to fulfill His commandments and desire to make disciples and spread the Gospel, that we dig more and more into His Word; that we study it, meditate on it, and make it our primary goal to teach it to others.  In so doing we will truly fulfill the Great Commission by making genuine disciples, disciples who have been taught the commandments of Jesus and who are themselves equipped to teach others.  We will find as we study the scriptures, as we are taught and as we ourselves teach, that they are not dead, that they are not lifeless, and that they do not require embellishment to be relevant to the world around us, for indeed they are already supremely relevant to all people in all walks of life. If we feel that this is not the case, it is only because we have grown so cold and distant from them that we no longer understand them or know them as true disciples of Jesus should.  Indeed, within the smallest, quietest church that you can conceive, if the scriptures are taught in truth, taught with integrity and held up as God’s revealed Word to mankind, there is true spiritual power, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.

Arminianism - Walking the Line Between Calvinism and Catholicism

I have come to a point in my studies that I suddenly realize there can be no going back to the theologies of Arminianism, though years ago I defended it. The reason is twofold: for one, "Reformed" theology (or Calvinism, if you like) strikes me more and more as being, not a branch of theology per-say, but the theology most plainly taught in Scripture. But setting that aside, were I ever to find reason to doubt this, I still could not return to Arminianism, but would find myself compelled to embrace Catholic theology instead. The reason is this: of the two major branches of Protestant theology (Calvinism and Arminianism), Arminianism strikes me as being the weakest and most ineffectual attempt at maintaining concepts such as free will (as regards Salvation) while still being protestant.  I've heard many people say that Catholic theology is altogether different than "Christian" (by which they mean Protestant) theology because they preach a different means of grace.  I say this is rubbish.  In fact, Catholics preach the same basic theology that the Arminian believer holds, but preaches it more boldly and openly and draws it to its logical conclusions, something the Arminian is unwilling to do.

Catholics teach a melding of God's grace with the works of man.  To be sure, no good Catholic believer will teach that works save anyone; all are saved only by God's grace. But works are the means by which men cooperate with God in salvation, and those works therefore hold significant weight in the process. The Arminian teaches that salvation may be lost or rejected, that a person may lose their salvation if, once being saved, they begin to live in unrepentant sin, cease caring for the things of God, or deliberately choose at some point to reject Him. The Catholic teaches this as well, but with a great deal more sanity.

You see, according to Arminianism, you are saved by grace alone and your works, although of value, do not result in salvation. You cannot commend yourself to God through works, but works DO operate in the negative; you can lose your salvation through persisting in doing what is wrong. It is as thought the Arminian presents the grace of God as a stone which no one else can move, and which cannot be built upon. But this same, immovable rock of grace, which no one can take from you and which cannot be altered, nevertheless may be cast aside like a pebble by the one who holds it.

To the Catholic salvation is more like building a house out of multiple bricks of grace which God provides. As long as you cooperate with God, the master builder, and follow His plan, He provides bricks and instructs you to build up the house. You may cast them away, and you may also repent and pick them back up. Your salvation is a work in progress, only possible through the grace of God, but dependent also upon your works  as you build up the house with Him (or, through sin, tear it all down).

Calvinists, of course, see salvation as a rock which cannot be moved or built upon, neither by yourself nor by others; it is eternal, resting solely upon the action and will of God, paid for and established by Christ, and thus altogether unaffected by your actions, whether good or bad.

I have respect to the Catholic position as, long before Arminianism came to be, they took the basic concepts of it as relates to salvation and boldly carried them out to their conclusions, unafraid to admit that if works may act against salvation, then they must also act in favor of it.  The Calvinist, then, with the same boldness, stood up and said that as salvation cannot be improved or built with works, then certainly they cannot be diminished by them either.  The Arminianist, on the other hand, saw the conflict and attempted to straddle the fence, insisting that whereas works cannot improve or result in salvation, that immovable rock may be carried away by a breeze should man's sin take hold in his life.  In desiring to have it both ways, they make salvation into a peculiar and contradictory beast, one moment unaffected by man's actions, the next, altogether dependent upon them.  A Catholic may urge a man to do good, for in doing so he blesses his soul as he works with God towards his salvation.  A Calvinist may urge a man to be altogether thankful before God, for his salvation is secure from the foundation of the world by the Lord's work on our behalf.  But the Arminianist can only, with any authority, speak in the negative, that a man must keep from sin lest God cast him out of His presence and into eternal damnation, despite the salvation he once bestowed upon him.

Furious Passion - Reflecting the Image of God

When I say (as I have before) that my wife Amanda is the best of all women, I do not say it to be cute, but because in my estimation it is true. You see, I do play favorites, and the woman I have both chosen and won over, I strove for because there was no one greater to be had. In truth I look at her with a sense of pride and triumph over the rest of mankind, as much as with a deep, passionate love. I prefer her to the rest of humanity, and so you will have to excuse me if I choose her above the rest of you in any (and every) way.

In like manner, the birth of my daughter Emma has also birthed within me emotions that I did not recognize before. I've never looked at any creature with the same affection that I feel for her. It is quite a different affection than I feel for Amanda; there is pride in it, but also a zealous sense of protection. To put it bluntly, her joy and growth is more preferable to me than the joy and growth of any other child. I can only assume all parents feel the same about their own children. If I were to say that I care for all children equally, as might seem a good, humanitarian thing to say, I would be a liar. I care for her first, and then if there is any joy left for the rest of the world, let those crumbs fall to whom they will. I am jealous of her, and should anyone dare to harm her I cannot conceive of any response beside the fury of a barbarous demigod.

One might argue at this point that these emotions and behaviors are a poor reflection of God, who opens His arms to all; that these are small-minded affections, poorly fitted to God’s character. Should I not equally love and care for all children? Perhaps I should. But one look at Amanda and Emma and everyone else in the world suddenly seems unimportant to me. One might argue that, if these affections are a reflection of God's love, then His love must be a terrible thing indeed.

To that last point I say yes; terrible and wonderful. My affection for Amanda and Emma is small, not because it is altogether zealous for them, but because it is limited in scope. I care for them to the exclusion of the rest of the world. I love my family and would prefer their prosperity to that of anyone else; would protect them with extreme prejudice. Yet in this passion exists a brightly burning ember of the flame of God's love for His family.

As men, we are small creatures. It is easy to love the world when the world is just an idea, but when one is sitting at home having a cup of tea and reading a book, the world had better leave you alone; in moments like that, one is far more concerned with the butter on one's toast than with the state of affairs in China. But as a man, I am not called to preside over the world with the faithfulness of God; I am, however, called to show this faithful love to my family. As men and women, we are the gods and goddesses of our family units, and our "small" love in this corner of our world is indeed a reflection of the greater love of God.

God does not look at His children and see multiple family groups, all requiring his equal love and attention; when God looks at His children, He sees only one single family: His own. He looks at them with a passionate, zealous, jealous and protective love.  It is a love which gives to them the world, even His own life. It is a love that is both terrible and wonderful; wonderful for the child, terrible for the one who would harm the child. Gentle Jesus, meek and mild (so the old song goes) warned that it is better for a man to have a millstone strapped to his neck and to be plunged into the sea than for him to harm one of God's children (Luke 17:2). Indeed, such a fate would mean drowning, the burning pain of lungs filled with saltwater until life is snuffed out, but how much more terrible to stand condemned before God for having harmed one of His children.

We would do well to take this lesson to heart.  Our "small" love as parents may seem brutish, but it is not imperfect before God because of its smallness...God loves more, not because He loves more families, but because He loves His one family with even greater zeal, greater passion, and greater jealousy than we in our imperfect state can bestow upon our own small family units.  How much comfort we as God's children should feel knowing that our God is so passionate about us. At the same time, what awe we should feel at knowing that not all are God's children; that God has created all for His own purpose, and that not all who exist were created for honor (Romans 9:21-22). The consideration of the wrath of God against the wicked cannot be taken lightly, for as God's love burns brighter than the sun in glory, so too does His wrath against those who would harm His family.

His Eye Is On The Sparrow and I Know He Watches Me

“The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, and his ears are open to their prayers.  But the Lord turns his face against those who do evil.” -1 Peter 3:12 NLT

Confronted with passage like this, we often think of the Lord watching over us in the sense of protecting us, and keeping us from harm.  But what do we say when we do come to harm?  Has the Lord looked away?  Has His attention been diverted elsewhere, so that His protection slipped and we fell into misfortune?  Certainly not!  Consider the second part: “his ears are open to their prayers.”  Certainly God hears the prayers of the righteous, and because He hears we know that He will also answer.  But the answer is not always what we expect.  Sometimes we receive the thing we asked for, and sometimes, as James points out, “when you ask, you don't get it because your motives are all wrong--you want only what will give you pleasure.” (James 4:3 NLT)  Our requests must always line up with the will of God, and when they do not, we must accept His answer in humility.  In the same fashion we must also consider that sometimes the will of God allows us to experience suffering so that He may bring about some greater good than preventing it would have allowed.

I recall, when I was a child, riding my bike along the sidewalks in front of my house, that I slipped and fell in such a manner that I skinned much of the side of my leg.  The cuts were shallow but took much of the top layer of skin off, resulting in a broad wound that seeped and stung like an open blister.  I remember my mother cleaning it and taping gauze to the side of my leg to cover the wound.  Now, bikes are wonderful exercise and they are lots of fun to ride, but they are also by their nature dangerous things.  I could have been prevented from these (and all other manner of smaller injuries) had my parents forbade that I ride one at all.  Indeed any parent knows when they give a child a bike, or a pair of skates or some other such device, that it will result in many falls and scrapes and cuts as the child learns to ride, so why permit it at all?  Why not spare the child the pain that will come their way?  There are many reasons.  One is that the joy of riding is generally considered to be greater than the small injuries that may come as a result.  Another is that those same injuries are part of how we learn; doubtless as a child I would not have scrapped the side of my leg so badly had I not been attempting to ride as fast as I could across a bumpy sidewalk, and so it was a hard lesson, but a lesson nonetheless.

Looking back on the experience now, I see the injury but I don’t feel any animosity toward my parents for letting me have that bike.  Indeed, I continued to ride a bike for years afterward.  What I do remember, with a warm feeling in my heart, is my mother dressing the wound and making me feel better.  How many of our good memories of those we love come because they were expressing their love for us in the midst of suffering?  A friend whom you can enjoy an afternoon with is alright, but a friend who will visit in the hospital or hold you while you cry is a friend indeed.

Sometimes there are joys in life that open us up to the possibility of pain and suffering, such as loving someone who will pass away in time.  Sometimes God allows us to go through painful experiences because he wants us to learn a lesson that we may not otherwise receive through more pleasant means, and sometimes He allows us to experience suffering so that others will learn a lesson through our example.  Whatever His reasons, His heart is filled with love for us.  He has never once turned His attention away from you, but is watching over you at every moment.  Sometimes He is watching to protect us from harm, and sometimes He is watching to pick us up when we fall, to clean our wounds, bandage us up, and hold us tightly in His arms until the pain stops.  But whatever His purposes in our lives, we should always take comfort knowing that He watches, He listens, and He cares more deeply than you or I can ever fathom.

Fear and the End of Days

There are a lot of differing views of the end times, what will happen, when and how, and how to interpret the book of Revelation.  People get awfully worked up about this sort of thing, and a thread that seems to run through Evangelical circles is a kind of fear of what we refer to as the “great tribulation”, a period not only of intense persecution of believers, but also of the outpouring of God’s wrath on the earth.

I’m not writing this to provide a breakdown or study of Revelation, but there are a couple of things to bear in mind with the book that seem to get lost in many churches today.  First off, there is a tendency among evangelicals to “over-spiritualize” the book.  What I mean by that is that many people read and teach Revelation as though the entire book is one grand spiritual, prophetic allegory, which it is not.  The book opens with Christ asking John to write letters to seven churches.  It is sometimes lost on us that these churches actually existed, and that if you look at each of the cities these letters were addressed to, the manner in which Christ addresses and the imagery he uses connects with important and prominent aspects of the cities in which they lived, as well as the historical struggles being faced by them.  It is true that we can draw spiritual principles from these letters, but they do not exist as pure spiritual metaphor, but were practical letters to real people living at the time of John.

But I think the most important issue to address is the one of fear on the part of believers.  Certainly Revelation details some significant persecution and many incredible judgments that God pours out on the earth.  If these things are to be taken as an indication of what is to come, how do believers deal with it?  For many the answer is to defend the idea of a pre-tribulation rapture of the church.  Now, many can make very good scriptural arguments for this, and for those who do so, bravo.  But in many cases it seems that the idea is often clung to out of a fear lest the end times should occur in their day, and a desire to escape the tribulation described in Revelation.

To those people I am compelled to point out two things: first, the persecutions described by John are nothing new.  Remember that Jesus told us that “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.  But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33).  From the time of the early church until now, God’s people have suffered violence at the hand of unbelievers.  The Apostles knew full-well the sting of persecution, being hunted, beaten, imprisoned and put to death.  Today in many corners of the world the persecution against our brothers and sisters in Christ is severe, and identifying oneself as a believer can be a death sentence.  Consider Iran and North Korea.  Will the “great tribulation” make matters worse for believers in these countries?  There is only so much that man can do, and recognizing this the psalmist writes “The Lord is for me, so I will have no fear.  What can mere people do to me?” (Psalm 118:6).

Let us consider then the judgments of God poured out on the Earth in Revelation.  When God pours out His wrath, who will be able to stand?  God’s children, that is who.  Brothers and sisters, if you are fearful because the wrath of God will be poured out on the world, take heart, because that wrath is not for you.  Paul says in Romans 8:1 that “now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.”  Whatever believers may be on the earth at the time God pours out His judgment, it will not be for them.  Indeed, Jesus Himself spoke to His disciples about the day when God would pour out His wrath, and to them He said “So when all these things begin to happen, stand and look up, for your salvation is near!” (Luke 21:28)  Jesus knew these things were frightening, and the persecutions from man hard to endure, but He encouraged His disciples telling them that not only will they be blessed when persecuted, but that when they see the signs of the end of days, they should look up in hope, because Jesus is returning to take them.  What is judgment for the world is a sign of the impending, eternal and permanent salvation of the believer.

To that end I encourage you all to bear in mind that, whether in the normal course of life or because the end is drawing nigh, persecutions will come in this life, but no persecutions will come that have not been born by your brothers and sisters from the beginning of the church until now, and God will bless us through them.   Jesus said in Luke 6:22, “What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man.”  As for the judgments of God, it is a terrible and frightening thing to consider the wrath of God that will be poured out on the unbelieving world.  But as God’s child, you are not subject to God’s wrath.  As God pours out judgment on the world, He will bring out His salvation for His children.  The words that God spoke through the prophet Isaiah, when he prophesied God’s salvation and judgment against enemies that would march against Israel, ring as true for us today: “Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.  Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you.  I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10)

"I Never Knew You"

“Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’" -Matthew 7:21-23

Note that Jesus answers those who protest that they have done ministry, even signs and wonders, in His name, and who refer to Him as Lord, "I never knew you."  He does not say that they turned away, or fell from His grace; no, He states that they were never His at all.  This is significant.  At no point do the scriptures indicate that one who was saved by Christ's blood, forgiven, redeemed, made new, will ever cease to be redeemed.  Those who turn from God prove that God never indwelt them to begin with.  The Apostle John notes this clearly, saying of those who join with the church and then turn away from God that "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us." (1 John 2:19)

These are the ones whom Jesus refers to in the Parable of the Sower (see Matthew 13), those who "spring up quickly", embracing the message of Christ outwardly, but fall away as soon as persecution or hardship arises.  Likewise they are the seed who spring up, but are choked and become unfruitful because of the cares of this world.  Those who fall away and die are not redeemed, though they seem for a time to rejoice in God.  Likewise those who are unfruitful, who embrace the world and its temptations, though they appear at the first to have accepted Christ, are not redeemed, because God cannot indwell a soul without that soul bearing fruit.  "You can identify them by their fruit" Jesus said in Matthew 7:16. What is the fruit of a true believer? "the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." (Galatians 5:22-23)

This is not to say that the believer cannot sin; he can, and when he does, God will bring discipline, as a father disciplines his child (Hebrews 12:7).  But the believer never ceases to be God's child, and God will produce fruit in the child's life.  Jesus indicates that some will produce more fruit than others (see Matthew 13:8), but fruit they will produce.  A life that is unchanged by the Gospel is a life that has not embraced it, a life that has not been redeemed.  A true child of God may bear fruit slowly, but it is not possible that he will not bear any.

Thus it becomes clear that those who embrace God solely out of a desire to escape Hell, yet live how they please, are presumptuous, thinking that they are cleverly taking advantage of the grace of God.  Take heed, God is not mocked.  It is not possible that a child of God, be he ever so rebellious, can be indwelt by the Spirit of God and yet show no love for God, and there is no love in the heart of one who presumes upon God's grace, all the while caring nothing for God's commands.  Jesus said "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15).  Those who care nothing for the commandments of God prove that they have no love for Him in their heart.  The true believer will be repentant of his sins, not arrogant and presumptuous.

Chosen Children - Answering an Objection to Irresistible Grace

“We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” –Proverbs 16:9

It is interesting that when you bring up the topic of predestination, people assume that if God determines whether or not to give you saving faith, then He has therefore created robots.  This is a very emotionally charged statement as we immediately consider stiff, cold, metal machines incapable of free thought and not worth our affections.  However, this doctrine doesn't teach that we are robots at all; it teaches us that we are children.

The individual whom God chose to save, chose, I say, before time began; that blessed man or woman to whom God said “I will pour out my grace upon you”: that is the individual God treats as a true son or a daughter.  He does not forcibly compel, but grants faith as a gift, and the child receives it as though it had been given a wonderful present at Christmas.  Once gifted with faith, our eyes are open to the majesty and glory of God, the wondrous love He has for us, and our journey of salvation has not only begun, but it is secure.  Those spiritual eyes, once granted the sight of faith, can never be blinded again.  God has not compelled a servant, no; He has taken his sick child in His arms, held it close, applied the cure, and made it well.  It shall never be sick again.

As I write this, I have a daughter who is just about to turn three months old.  She is quite helpless and needs to be waited on constantly as she cannot meet any of her many needs herself.  As a parent, I do not compel her to serve me; rather I serve her every day, feeding her, cleaning her, clothing her, comforting her.  I absolutely delight in doing all of these things for her, because I love her dearly, even though sometimes she smells, spits up, cries and fusses.  None of these things diminish my love for her, and I would certainly give my life for hers.  Isn't this precisely how God treats us?  Indeed, He did give His life for us, and He feeds us, cleans us, clothes us and comforts us, not just physically, but spiritually also.  We are truly His children.

Yet when it comes to salvation, we do not wish to be children; we wish to be adults, purely autonomous beings who make their own decisions for themselves without any outside influence compelling them this way or that.  Yet the Bible doesn't refer to us, in relation to God, as though we are adults.  In relation to God we are children: “See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1)  As any parent can tell you, children are often disobedient, often stubborn, often in need of discipline.  However, the parent is not compelled to bend to the will of the child, but by the very order of things guides and directs the child as he or she grows.  The child may be a free spirit, but that freedom does not give it autonomy; throughout its young life it is subject to the guiding hand of the parent.  A good parent does not enslave the child, controlling its every thought and movement, but neither does a good parent simply let the child go.  No, a good parent sets boundaries, applies rules, and pushes and directs the child in a positive direction, always moving it forward for its own good, protecting the child, not only from the world, but from its own foolishness as well.

When God chooses to save an individual, it is not a spur-of-the-moment decision, a question that was hanging in the balance until that point in time when someone got down on their knees to cry out to Him.  No, God always knew those on whom He would pour out His saving grace: “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” (Ephesians 1:4-5).  He knew them because they were made to be His own, and because they are His own He guides and directs, disciplines, protects and instructs them.  Are they free?  Certainly, but they are free as a child is free, subject always to the oversight of a loving Father who will always be watching over them, protecting them and keeping them.  A little child cannot disown the parent, though he may throw a tantrum now and then.  Neither can we, who were adopted by the grace and choice of God, disown our heavenly Father.  We are children, not robots, because we are chosen, cared for, protected and kept by His almighty will, grace, and love.

Divine Foreknowledge and Irresistible Grace: A Look at Romans 8:29,30

"For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified." -Romans 8:29,30

This verse is often used by those who subscribe to Arminianism (or just generally reject the doctrine of predestination, or what Calvinists refer to as "Unconditional Election") as an argument that ultimately, whether an individual comes to Christ or not rests solely on that individual, acting freely and without compulsion.  Their reasoning goes that when the text says that those God "foreknew" he predestined, what is meant is that God saw ahead of time which individuals would, entirely of their own will, choose to accept Him, and those individuals God then "predestined" to be made like His Son.  Human choice comes first, and then God sets the stage.

The problem, and it is a significant one, is that this does not fit the flow of thought in this verse at all.  Had Paul left this passage in that spot, foreknowledge then predestination, there would be ground for this argument.  But He goes on and builds from that same starting point, and as he extends his reasoning it ought to become clear to us that Paul is not referring to foreknowledge in this light at all.  I must admit, however, that I myself never considered this point until it was shown to me by John Piper.  Consider the flow of the verse:

Those He foreknew He predestined, those He predestined He called, those He called He justified, those He justified He glorified.

Each point leads directly into the next.  It's on the second point, where Paul states that those whom God predestined He called, that Arminianism’s position breaks down.  Arminianism argues that the call of God is that the Gospel is preached to all without prejudice, and then it lies in the heart of the individual how to respond to it.  The Calvinist agrees with this position, but insists that this "general" call will always be rejected, and thereby lead to the condemnation of the hearers, unless God directly intervenes in the lives of some to cause them to positively respond to it.  This is the Calvinist doctrine of "Irresistible Grace": the call of God is always rejected by sinful man unless God first changes the heart...and once the heart has been changed, redemption has already taken place.  For this reason Calvinists insist upon what we might call the "effective” call of God.  This is not just a general presentation of the Gospel, or a general tug on the heart of men and women, but it is God effectively, irresistibly calling His own (the predestined) to faith in Christ.

As a Calvinist, the above progression makes sense.  Those God predestined He calls, and those He calls He also justifies; in other words, their sins are wiped clean and they are declared guiltless before God on account of the atoning sacrifice of His Son.

According to Paul's line of thought, the call follows after predestination and leads directly to justification.  Those who are predestined are then called, and those who are called are then justified.  This creates a significant difficulty for Arminianism, but for the Calvinist, there is no issue.  It is because you were predestined that God, at some point in your life, intervenes and calls to you with an irresistible call to grace.  On the other hand, the Arminianist can argue that this is just a simple timeline...naturally the call follows predestination, but it's not a particular, irresistible call, it is the same call the rest of the world receives, the same general pronouncement of the Gospel message.  Fair enough, until you reach the next point: "those whom he called he also justified".  Clearly, the whole world, which receives the same general Gospel message, is not justified.  Paul does not say that SOME who are called are justified, but links the call directly to justification.  You are predestined, therefore called, therefore justified.  Driving the point even further home, Paul continues that those who God justified "he also glorified", i.e., they are with God forever in eternity.

The problem that Arminianism has at this point cannot be understated.  If the call here is the same general call, then all those called should be justified, and all of those justified are glorified.  If this is so, then Paul is proclaiming Universalism.  But unless you want to take that third road, we are left with few options.  Those called ARE justified, and those justified ARE glorified.  It's ironic, but this whole passage, which Arminianism has long used as an argument against Calvinism, is instead Calvinism in a nutshell, providing the process of salvation, even a nod to eternal security, in simple fashion.

So what of the beginning of the passage, where Paul speaks of God's foreknowledge?  Foreknowledge has never been an argument against predestination, indeed, predestination depends on God's foreknowledge.  The fact is, God has been aware of the plan of salvation from the beginning of creation, when He foreshadowed Christ in Genesis 3:15, telling Satan that the woman would bear offspring and that "he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel".  He was aware of each of us as individuals, having purposefully pieced us together, as evidenced when God told the prophet Jeremiah "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5).  Jesus Himself, confronted with the unbelief of the Pharisees said, in John 10:26-28, "you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand."  He did not say they did not believe because they were stubborn, but because they were not His sheep.  Those who are God's sheep hear his voice and respond.  God knows those who are His, knew them before they were born, purposefully created them, and predestined their salvation through Jesus' sacrifice.

To the Arminianists out there, I urge you to come up with another argument.  To the Calvinists out there, I urge you to start using this verse to explain your position.  Finally, to the Universalists out there, I urge you to keep studying the rest of scripture as a whole, which indeed I urge us all to do regardless of our present theological leaning.

Abundant Life: Blessing and Suffering

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” –John 10:10

When we hear the words of Christ speaking of “abundant” life, how often do we pause to consider the negative?  “Negative of what?” you may ask.  Why, the negative of having “more” of life.  Often believers focus strictly on the blessings inherent in this statement.  Sometimes we even go overboard and treat it as a divine allowance given for the sake of our worldly pleasure.  What I have rarely ever heard mentioned, however, is the downside of having more life.

Ultimately, of course, the abundant life promised to the believer finds its fulfillment in eternity, where we shall live forever in the light of Him who saved us by His grace, for His glory.  That is truly abundance, a life that does not end combined with the unimaginable blessing of the presence of the God who loves us.

Now, certainly those blessings also extend to this present life.  The problem is that in this life we ought to consider that many blessings will often bring hardships as well; we live in a fallen world, and in a fallen world that opposes God, God’s children will also be opposed and oppressed.  Jesus is up front with us about this, warning us in John 15:20 “Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”  As followers of Jesus we are guaranteed persecution, just like Jesus was persecuted.  This is a special hardship that life presents to believers.  “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” (John 15:19)

Nobody likes to focus on hardship.  We don’t like to suffer, don’t like persecution.  We, like the rest of the world, like blessing.  We all want to live the “good life”, and there is a danger to assume that because we are children of God, that’s what we’ll have.  After all, God takes care of His own, right?  So who better to have a good, “abundant” life?  Doesn’t God promise to bless His children?  Shouldn’t we, of all mankind, experience health, wealth and happiness?

Certainly God promises blessing.  He promises blessing beyond what your earthly mind is capable of conceiving.  What He does not promise is that we will receive all of these things in the present life.  Often we, as believers, behave more like the prodigal son, who desired his father’s inheritance immediately, and demanded it without willing to wait for the proper time.  Likewise, we often desire and even claim entitlement to the blessing God has promised us, without regard for God’s own good timing.  But we cannot blame God for this misconception; He is open to all who come to Him that hardship will present itself to us in this life.

If you want proof of this, you need look no farther than the Apostles, who followed Christ to the end…an end that in most cases was filled with hardship, pain and death at the hands of persecutors.  Hardly the “good life” we wish to claim, but they looked to a greater reward, with no false notion that it would be received on this side of Heaven.  Indeed, the future reward was so great in their eyes that Paul exclaimed “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18).  Who better to make that claim than Paul, who was beaten and imprisoned multiple times and ultimately executed for his testimony?  Yet, why is it that Paul endured so much suffering?  Was Paul’s faith not strong enough?  Did he not lay claim to the promises of God for his life?

Certainly he did.  He laid claim to God’s promise for his life until the very end: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11,12)

Often we fail to realize that as long as we’re on this planet, life will always carry hardship and suffering.  Being a child of God does not exempt you from that; indeed, scripture is clear that being a child of God will invite more suffering into your life.  Does Jesus give us abundant life?  Certainly, abundant in every respect: the blessings of being God’s child combined with the hatred of the world.  If we read abundant in the form of blessing only, we are correct only if we read it in the future tense.  If we read it in the present tense, then we must consider it alongside the statement of Jesus in Mark 10:30: “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.” (emphasis mine).  Certainly we are blessed by God, right now, as His children, but persecutions, trials and sufferings will come alongside those blessings, and in the future, we will experience the full outpouring of blessing, blessing that Paul exclaimed was not worth comparing to the suffering we experience now.

Should the believer long for the abundant life that Christ gives?  Absolutely.  But he should do so with his eyes open.  It is like when a man asks for patience, but does not want to endure the hardships that cultivate it.  If we long for the blessings of God, then in this life we must also be willing to endure hardship.  Jesus promises us trouble in this life, but the wonderful thing is that He also promises to walk through our trials with us, to take us by the hand, lead us, guide us, and strengthen us through the troubles that life brings. “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33b)

If we come to Jesus so that we might receive the blessings God promises, and if we expect those blessings now, in full, health and wealth and freedom in this life, then our hearts are like the rocky soil Jesus described in Matthew 13, which receives the word of God gladly, then, “when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away”.  Let us look instead to our heavenly reward, which is far better, and hold fast our faith in God for the abundant love He has shown to us sinners by giving us the gift of His Son, for this is the truest, greatest blessing we will ever receive, whether in this world or the one to come.

Infants Secure in the Father's Hands

"So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him." -Matthew 7:11

If we think of ourselves as men and women who do both good and bad things, then we fail to understand our relationship to God. The fact is that apart from God granting us grace and faith in Him, we can do no good deeds. A man may do something with a good effect, such as helping the poor or saving a life, but although these things outwardly conform to God's will, inwardly the heart that does anything without acknowledging God's sovereignty is acting in rebellion to its created purpose, and thus all actions are sinful, whatever good effect may result from them. Still, even to think of ourselves as men and women who do evil fails to grasp our position before God, because as we stand before God, we are not men and women at all, nor are we children; we are infants, dependent upon Him in every respect for our life, unable to grasp the understanding and reason that is His.  This being the case, why does He care for such infantile, wicked creatures?

The reason behind His love and grace I cannot explain, except to say, as Scripture does, that His ways are higher than ours and beyond finding out.  But an illustration came to me this morning which was useful to me in considering how incredible and true the love of God is: I have a daughter who is just one and a half months old.  She is dependent upon her mother and myself for everything. She cannot eat, cannot dress herself, cannot keep herself clean or warm, cannot move from place to place unless we carry her. Even communication is beyond her grasp, as her greatest articulation is an inarticulate cry. She is altogether helpless, and if her mother and I were to remove our care from her, it would be her end. This being the case, why should we care for her? What does she provide us? It is all well and good to say that she provides us joy, but she also provides a great deal of work, sleepless nights and days spent entirely providing for her needs, each and every moment. The fact of the matter is, we were happy before she was born, would have continued to be happy without her, and there is nothing that we do not have that she provides for us in any practical sense. Despite this, my wife and I love her with every fiber of our being, would willingly place ourselves in the path of any harm in order to protect her, and begrudge her none of her complete dependence upon us. There is no pain, even unto death, that we would not endure for her sake.

Even this is an imperfect illustration of God’s love for us, for though she does not provide us with any practical benefit, yet she does have the advantage of being altogether adorable. In the midst of her needs, her cries, her spitting up and soiling her garments, the look of recognition in her eyes when she sees us, the smile that parts her lips and the occasional laugh provide a joy that cannot be explained. She is helpless, but she is beautiful all the same. Yet, as beings created in the image of God we possess an imagination that can see and evaluate things that are not reality, but which could be under different circumstances. I can imagine that my daughter is not beautiful, does not smile, does not laugh, does not recognize me. I can imagine that, from her birth, she would scream and cry and bite if I touch her, irrationally fearing and hating me. I can imagine that her disposition toward me is so sour that keeping her clean from her own waste is nearly impossible for the trauma it causes and the fight she puts up. I can imagine that she is unsightly, smelly and violent. And yet, for all of this imagining, there is one thing that I cannot imagine: that I should not love her. I find within myself a predisposition to love this little girl that has nothing to do with how beautiful she is in my eyes or how bright her smile. She is mine, my own offspring, and whether beautiful or homely, bright and happy or dark and violent, I find that I cannot imagine any possibility within my heart except love. Indeed, the only effect that I can conceive were her behavior and disposition altogether different from what it is, is heartbreak. Complete, utter, devastating heartbreak that she would hate me, fear me, thrash and scream and cry at my touch. I could be hurt, but I could not cease to love.  And if, in my love and care, that wretched little creature were to collapse in my arms, exhausted, and stop fighting but rest against my chest, I know for certain that my heart would melt within me as surely as it does when my true daughter looks at me and smiles.

This is our condition before God.  We are all of us wretched infants, irrationally fighting against God with every aspect of our being, yet He, our Father, cares for us still, provides for us and sustains us.  If we cease our fighting against Him, by the grace which He works within us (for, irrational things that we are, we cannot understand or cease our struggle without His giving this grace to us), He will hold us tightly and never, ever let us go.  As a parent, He has already placed Himself in harm’s way for our sake, enduring the pain and suffering of the cross, and doing it willingly, as an earthly mother or father would take a bullet for the sake of their child.  As a parent, He holds tightly to His children, loving and saving them despite their own actions.  Once He has given us His grace in salvation, we are capable of truly doing good, of performing acts that bring joy to the Father’s heart, not because they outwardly align with His will, but because they are in response to His love, and express love back to Him.  At that point we have ceased to be wretched, and now, though still infants, are infants in the sense that my daughter lives out every day. We are still dependent, helpless, prone to cry, to soil ourselves and to fuss, but also prone to smile, to laugh and to love. No matter how messy we may become, no matter how much we may cry, no matter the fussing or the fighting, from that point on we are truly God’s own children and offspring, and God will never disown us, never let us go.  To think that God would let a child of His leave His care is like suggesting that I, as an earthly parent, would cease caring for my daughter because she became too difficult.  To suggest that we ourselves, as “free agents” can, having experienced the salvation of God, then willfully choose to walk away from that salvation is like suggesting that my ceasing to care for my daughter is entirely her own fault. No, she is an infant, and I care for her out of my own love, not in response to her behavior. It is not only an irrational argument to place the responsibility for my care upon her own shoulders, but it is insulting to me as a parent to suggest that I would care for her for any reason except out of the unconditional love that I bear for her within my heart. And so it is with God.

Knowing this, let us cease all fear and fighting,  and simply rest against the breast of our Father, knowing that our future, our life, our everything is secure within His loving hands.