Regeneration [Theological Rationalism, Part 6]

God has created man to be a free moral agent. The Calvinist should whole heartedly agree with this. Even though every decision from the unbeliever is sinful, it is nonetheless free. The unbeliever is totally free to either stay at home with the family or go rob the corner store. Both of these decisions are made without love for the Trinune God of Scripture and are therefore sinful. But the choice made is a free one.

The mystery is that these free choices, down to the most minute detail have all be foreordained by the All-knowing, All-wise, All-powerful, All-loving, God.

Believer's may choose to read their Bible and perform good works [out of faith] or they may decide to get consumed with things that tangle them up into things that do not profit them spiritually. But they are freely making these decisions. Yes the Spirit of God is working in them both to will and do His good pleasure, but God is not willing for them or doing for them.

But even though they are the ones who ultimately make these decisions God from eternity past has pre-planned [not merely seen ahead of time] everyone of their free choices.

Now...the area I think that causes some Calvinists to border on "Fatalistic Land" is that of God's sovereignty and regeneration.

They think that because God is sovereign over regeneration [and He is] that somehow this takes away from man's freedom.

But it doesn't.

Into the picture walks "Jo unbeliever". God brings His word to this man, and by His sovereign will decides to regenerate him through His Spirit/Word.

Once the man is regenerated is he automatically saved? [In systematic theology terms]

No! Salvation comes by trusting in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior!

Before regeneration he was still free to choose, in that he was free to make choices, but he was also not free, because his will was in bondage to sin, and he would never choose outside of his nature [sinful].

Regeneration is the renewal of the man's heart, and in his new condition the regenerated man can now see the glory of Christ.

His regenerated heart is now enabled to trust in Christ. Whereas before he would never trust in Christ because he hated Christ, and thought the gospel foolishness.

God has enabled him to make a choice. God has freed him from his bondage to his sinful nature so that now he can make a choice.

So who is making the choice? Man is.

To get a better understanding of the decision for salvation by the newly regenerated man I think we would do well to look back at the First Adam, and the Fall of Lucifer.

But alas...this will be for another day.

Fatalism [Theological Rationalism, Part 5]

Yesterday I spoke of those who could not understand how God could fore-ordain or pre-plan man's free choices. Because they see that the Bible teaches that man is responsible and they want very much to defend this truth, they interpret passages that speak about God predestining all things and mold and shape them to fit into their preconceived idea of what man's free will means.

But the problem just doesn't happen in those who want to defend free will.

Many Calvinists have an understanding of God's sovereingty that is very close to fatalism.

I can understand why some people hear some Calvinists and then say,"then we must be puppets".

When someone says "God foreordains the free choices of men", they are saying that this is a mysterious truth. Just like the Trinity and the Deity of Christ.

Some Calvinists can see this when it comes to looking at the other guys dirty shirt, but are blinded to their own stains.

God foreordains mens "free choices". When men make the choices they do, they are totally free [within their natures] to make them.

But some will say,"ya, but God is the one who decides who is going to be regenerate and who He is going to pass over".

And to this I say Amen, God is in control of who He is going to give Spiritual life to [the new birth].

But this doesn't take away from the mystery I have spoken of.

Tomorrow I will show you what I mean.

Inconsistent Brothers [Theological Rationalism, Part 4]

In the last few posts I have spoken about man placing his mind as the highest authority in the universe. We see this in unbelievers when they reject the Bibles teachings on 6 day creation, the virgin birth, and miracles. Because these teachings go beyond their naturalistic ability to grasp it...then it just can't be.

If "I" can't do it, then no one can...not even an Infinite God!

Next we saw that this thinking has even risen from within the church [even though Church history shows us that it was dealt with] Those who denied the Trinity and the Deity of Christ did so [in many cases] because these teachings did not make sense to their man-centered logic and reasoning.

But remember the Being of the Triune God is the actual pre-condition for logic in the first place. Without God you can not even give an account for why you would use logic.

God tells us that His thoughts and ways are above ours. He is God and we are not, deal with that reality and you will begin to understand some very wonderful truths.

Today I would like to focus on some Christians who would agree with everything I have said...they would give a hardy, AMEN!

But then when we come to another area of Biblical revelation they quickly leave their consistency at the door like a wet jacket.

What is this area?

The Bible teaches that God is sovereign over all the affairs of the universe.
So far so good.

The Bible teaches that God has foreordained everything that will ever take place. And that nothing will thwart His holy will.
Still...so far so good.

God has foreordained who will trust in His Son and be saved, and who will reject His Son and ultimately be lost!

Wait a minute!!

Hold the Train!!

They begin to shout in objection "Men are free moral agents! God doesn't force anyone to do anything"!

To this objection the answer returns "God has foreordained the free choices of men".

What!? But...if...huh? That doesn't make sense.

How can a man's choice be free if God foreordained it?

To this comes the simple answer...I don't know.

Just like I can't comprehend how God is Triune, that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. How God can create the vast universe out of nothing, have a baby conceive without sexual intercourse, open blind eyes, raise a dead corpse to life...etc.

The point is that the Bible teaches that God is Almighty...He can do what we can not.

But our inability doesn't hold back His hand [even our inability to understand].

God has pre-planned every choice in human history, and yet He has done so in such a way as to leave men free.

God's word teaches both sides, by faith we must humbly submit to His revelation.

Enemy Within [Theological Rationalism, Part 3]

Throughout the history of world we observe that the temptation for man to put his own mind as the highest authority, is not something that is reserved for only those outside of Christ's Church.

As we look back into Church history we can see the ugly heads of heretics popping up from within the ranks of the godly.

Teachers who denied the Deity of Christ, and who denied the doctrine of the Trinity.

The Church went to the Scriptures and authoritatively showed these men to be false teachers.

Today we have those in the cults [Jehovahs Witness and Mormons] who still believe these lies!

When you talk to them about the Trinity you can hear where their problems stem from.

Their minds can not grasp how God could be One [Being] and yet three [Persons], it just doesn't make sense.

Some will say that this teaching is not only foolish but it is illogical and contradictory.

The doctrines of the Trinity and the Deity of Christ [Incarnation] are mysterious but they are not contradictory.

For the doctrine of the Trinity to be contradictory the Bible would have to teach that God is One, and then teach that God is NOT One.

Or that Jesus Christ is God, and that He is not God.

But the Bible does not do this. Instead it teaches us truthes that go beyond what our finite minds can grasp.

There is One God who has existed for all eternity in three Persons [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit]

Jesus Christ was [Fully] God and [Fully] man.

But should this surprize us? Our God is Infinite! He has no bounds!

He reveals things to us that we can not fully grasp but by faith we hold them true.

And it is to our peril that we place our minds as ultimate judge over His word.

Howling Wilderness [Theological Rationalism Part 2]

The first degree of Theological rationalism comes from the mind of those who are evidently "outside" the Christian camp.

This people are not trying to give any illusions, they are proud to be "unbelievers".

These people scoff at the Bibles claims to:

1. God creating the universe in 6 24 hour days
2. Virgin birth
3. Miracles of any kind

In the end why do they reject these things. Well...none of these things make sense to their very limited understanding...sooo....it can't happen.

Isn't that amazing, they put their finite understanding as the ulitimate standard of what can or can not happen in reality. Even though if challenged they would have to admit that their understanding of the known universe would be less than a millionth of 1 percent.

So why couldn't the Almighty speak the universe into existence? Because they, as finite men can't, nor can they understand how it could be done?

There is only one way these men could get a woman to conceive, and so...God must be limited to their great powers.

And as for miracles...it is beyond their minds capacity to grasp how a man's eyes could be opened by the use of mud [mud being the means that the Almighty decided to use] so it can't be.

Can you see the common denominator. These Biblical truths can not be true because they go beyond what man's mind can grasp.

By the way, that is not a good argument!

Theological Rationalism, Part 1

Todays title is just a complicated sounding term for saying there is a certain train of human thought that puts itself as the highest authority in the universe.

This type of thinking is very humanistic [man is the highest measure].

God has given man his mind "as a tool", to be able to reason out truth in the world around him.

But God has not given man his reason so that now man's reason is the highest court of appeal.

God reveals Himself to us through the created order [general revelation] and also through His Word [special revelation].

God reveals to us that He is infinite [without boundaries], in His person, knowledge, power, presense, etc. And that man is finite [with boundaries].

God tells us that His ways and His thoughts are higher than ours. As high as the heaven is above the earth so are His ways and thoughts above ours.

As we will see in days to come, when men reject this revelation and instead choose to interpret the world with their own eye-glasses on [eye-glasses that have man's reason as the highest pinnacle] they will find it impossible to believe what God says [to varying degrees].

We will also see that the thinking that puts man at the highest point is very arbitrary, inconsistent and in the end cannot explain the world and how it works.

Do not read your Bible with Scissors in hand.

It is a sad fact but many Christians try to harmonize differing Bible verses by gettting rid of one of them.

This is not honest study of the Bible and we must stop it!

An example of this is the debate in Christian circles about God's sovereignty and man's free will.

You will have one side throwing out many verses showing the one side and the other side is furiously shoveling out their verses.

Each side needs to take all Scripture and give an answer for it.

Instead of having the camp that holds to "sovereignty" taking the other sides verses and discounting them from the start because we all know that man is not free.

Or the other side that so strongly wants to defend man's free will that he discounts, from the get go, any verse that may even smack of the truth that God has predestined "all things" [including mans choices].

Another example of this is the debate on "Eternal Security". One side has its verses on "never perishing", and the other side has its verses about "branches being broken off" and "being severed from Christ". On top of just dishing out verses that explain your side, you need to Biblical show how your "side" explains [not explains away] the other sides verses.

We need to put our scissors away, and begin to diligently answer the other guys objections.

God's Just Judgments

When God’s judgments come upon a nation [Hurricanes] how do we account for the fact that there must be faithful believers in the midst of these judgments?

Saint Augustine, in the City of God, explains this with the following words;

Wherefore, though good and bad men suffer alike, we must not
suppose that there is no difference between the men themselves, because
there is no difference in what they both suffer. For even in the likeness of
the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in the sufferers; and though
exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as
the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under
the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as
the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the
same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies
the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked. And thus it is that in
the same affliction the wicked detest God and blaspheme, while the good
pray and praise. So material a difference does it make, not what ills are
suffered, but what kind of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same
movement, mud exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant
odor.
Augustine

From Day to Day

It is easy to see one of the problems of the Church today! Once you give up your foundations then the rest of the structure crumbles. There are many Christians who do not believe that God created the universe in 6 ordinary days.

Why?

Because the studies of men have told them that this is not the case.

When a person looks at how the word day is used in the Genesis creation account, it means an ordinary day.

Why is it that the people who deny that a day was a day in Genesis one, do not do so in the case of Jonah being in the belly of a whale for 2 million years, or Joshua walking around the walls of Jericho for hundreds and thousands of years.

The enemy understands what God has told us "If the foundations are destroyed what can the righteous do?" [Psalm 11:3]

Really a Christian?

God reveals to us the nature of marriage by pointing us to Christ's relationship with His Bride [the Church]. There are some Christians who need to rethink their position of what Christ's relationship is to His Bride, because it doesn't agree with what the Bible teaches about this covenant relationship. Their inconsistency shows up in the fact that their view of marriage doesn't mirror Christ's relationship with the Church. But the Bible teaches us that these two relationships do mirror each other [Eph 5]. Let me show you what I mean.

There is a certain mindset that tries to explain Christ's covenant relationship to His Church, in a "spiritual" definition only.

What this means is only those who are really elect and regenerate [born again] are in covenant with God, or to say it in another way, are really Christians.

Even though the people who hold this view are not God and cannot infallibly look into the heavens to see God's secret decrees, nor can they infallibly look into mans heart to see whats going on, they nonetheless want to define the Church as a "spiritual only" entity.

An impossible task for all but God alone!

If someone "falls away" from the Christian faith, these people would say that they never really were in covenant with Christ, or they never really were Christians.

I haven't heard any real good arguments about all the warnings in the New Testament about falling away, being cut off from Christ, branches in Christ being removed and thrown into the fire.

The Bible teaches that Christs covenant with His Bride is objective, it is something you can observe.
When a person is baptized into the name of the Triune God [Father, Son, Holy Spirit], they are brought into covenant with God and are Christians.

As a Christian he now belongs to a covenant that is two-fold. Blessings for faith and the works that are the outflowing of that faith,or curses of unbelief and the rebellion that is the outflowing of it.

If a Christian falls away from the faith, they really fell away from something!

If a wife commits adultery and is unrepentant in her wickedness, and eventually her persistent rebellious practice leads to divorce, do we after the divorce say "she was never really a wife"?

Of course we don't! It was the fact that she really was in coveanant with her husband that made her actions so wicked.

A person who becomes a Christian and falls away, was truly a Christian, in the same way that the divorce woman was once a wife.

Ignorance is Bliss?

How true is this statement? Ignorance is Bliss. Whoever said this must have truly been a fool, a willful fool [willfully ignorant], and I very much doubt they lived in bliss.

Many people don't want to be bothered with "eternal" things. Why think on things that are just going to complicate your life. Live for today, be ignorant.

Don't worry be happy!

But is their willful ignorance really gaining them, lasting bliss?

Quite the opposite.

Imagine driving by a house, and it is on fire. The first level of the home is totally engulfed and is about to work its way to the second story.

The people on the second story are watching an excellent movie and are really into it.

You get out of your car and run to the house. It is pouring rain. You pick up some rocks and throw them at the window.
Finally someone opens the window and you yell to them that their house is on fire!

They tell you to go away...they are happy watching the movie, and by the way if they believe what you are saying they are going to have to get all wet.

How long will their bliss last?

Who are You?

A Pastor friend of mine told me this story years ago.
There was an older woman who lived most of her 65 years, as a Roman Catholic. One day this elderly woman was convinced that the teachings of the Roman Catholic church were not faithful to the word of God, so she left to go to another church.

Twenty years went by and this elderly saint faithfully served her Lord. The day came where this woman became very sick and lay on her, to be, death bed.

As she lay in her bed someone came into her room. She asked who it was. The reply was "I am your priest". To this the elderly woman asked the man to bring up his hands closer to her face, so that she may look at them.

The man lifted his hands before the old womans face. After a moment the woman said, "you are not my priest, my Priest bears the holes in His hands that declare His love for me".

Long Term Vision

Think of the times that you have struggled with temptation, depression, sin, what was your focus fixed on at those times in your life?

In many cases your focus was, very likely, short termed.

God's word tell us that our "momentary, light afflictions" are working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory".

What does this mean?

It means that all the struggles that we go through in this life [as Christians] are temporary!

In light of eternity 70 years is but a grain of sand, a shrinking grain of sand.

Think of what 70 years will seem like compared to 1000, 1, 000,000, or 60 Trillion centuries!

It will seem like next to nothing!

This works the other way as well.

Moses would rather "suffer" with God's people than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.

Moses was looking to Christ, the eternal reward!

He knew that sin had pleasures in this life, BUT they were passing, and without forgiveness they are bringing upon the practicer, eternal condemnation.

Keep a long term focus, it will help you fight against sin and depression, the best is yet to come!

The Hand is Quicker than the Eye

Jesus said that if you practiced your good works for men to see then you have already received your full reward.

Think of it! Some persons nod or smile is your full reward! What a rip off!

A lesson we should learn from this is the difference between "Reality" and "Appearance".

A person who is more concerned about appearance over reality is the person who cares that things appear to be fine in their lives, according to the public eye, when in reality they are not.

They keep the reality well covered so that the appearance can continue to give its propaganda message to the masses.

We should be concerned what people think of us, because as Christians our lives are the only Bible that some people ever see.


The God who sees all doesn't gauge us according to our "appearance" lifestyle, but according to our "secret" lifestyle.

But we should be diligent to try to make our "appearance life" and our "reality life" as close as possible.

Otherwise we become hypocrites!!

Eating with the Lord.

Why is it when some people are given the choice of making things right with a brother, or not taking the Lord's Supper [so they do not take it in an unworthy manner], that they decide not to take the Supper so they can cling on to their sin?

Should you take the Lord's Supper while not having things right within the body, no!

But this means that you make things right, forsaking your sin, and then taking the Supper.

And as a side note---Whatever gave us the idea that we have a right to excommunicate ourselves, if we are having doubts we need to bring it to our elders, and let them decide what course should be taken.

No Brute Facts

In our debates with unbelievers, we as Christians need to drill into our own thinking that there is no such thing as a neutral or uninterpreted fact.

Both sides are looking at the same facts!

Both live in the same world, surrounded by the same stuff.

The difference is each side is looking through different eye-glasses to interpret this stuff.

The Christian looks through the eye-glasses of God's revelation to interpret the facts.

The unbeliever looks through the eye-glasses of his own sinful reasoning to interpret the facts.

At the end of the road, the Christians beliefs [as they are consistent with God's word] will be in harmony with his overall view of reality.

The unbelievers beliefs are not consistent with his overall view of reality.

The unbeliever has to actually borrow from God's view of reality to get any of his beliefs off of the ground.

Atheism presupposes Theism!

Self Deception

Self deception is a very hard thing to understand.

Why would the unbeliever "hold down" God's clearly revealed truth [as shown in Creation] when a part of this "clearly" revealed truth shows that God is a Holy God, a just God, a God who will punish the wicked?

The answer: They do so in order that they can be lord of their own little kingdom, even though this kingdom is filled with misery and ends in infinite misery.

The amazing thing is that self deception is not something that only happens outside the walls of God's church. The Bible warns us to be "doers" of the word and not hearers only.

God defines those who hear only and do not do, as self deceived.

It is a frightening reality but there are Christians who live their lives in such a way that they act like God is not in the "secret places".

They speak and act in a certain way when mens eyes are present, but will act in a very different way when alone or when what they say or do can not be "proven".

There is coming a day when all self deception will be destroyed. The atheist will be shown that he really did know the One, True God, and will be without excuse.

And the hypocrite will beg for mercy saying "Lord, Lord" but will be turned away after being shown that he really did not trust in the Lord Jesus.

This unbelief is manifested by his continued practice of lawlessness.

The Truth Shall Set You Free

I have the honor of going into the prison to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with young men who desparately need it. Last night we went through the Gospel of John, Chapter 10.

The young men were very attentive and had many questions about God's word.

Not the questions of a skeptic or critic but questions of those trying to understand eternal truths.

I cannot express the joy that fills my heart to witness this.

I wonder at the grace and mercy of my God!

The Lord had saved me from a criminal lifestyle almost 15 years ago, and now I have the joy of being one beggar showing other beggars, where they can find bread [and wine].

God's free gift to sinners, His Son Jesus Christ!

Love

The Bible tells us that God is love. Love is essential to God's character. The Bible doesn't merely say that God chooses to be loving, it says that He "is" love!

Unless a person submits their understanding to God's revelation they will not properly understand this wonderful truth.

Many of the teachings in the Christian Scriptures are mysterious. This is not to say that they are contradictory! There is a vast difference between the two.

The teaching that God is eternally One, and yet in this One God there exists three Persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is one of the foundational doctrines of the Christian church.

If you deny this teaching then how could God be love? Before God created the universe what was the object of His love? The Bible shows us that love is a verb, it is something that is shown and given to another.

In the Godhead, the Father has had an eternal "love" relationship with the Son and the Holy Spirit, and vise versa.

God did not need man to become more "whole"!

God is perfect in all His ways and needs nothing!

But because God is love, He created us, and saved us from our sins [those who have trusted in Christ], not because He is going to benefit from this relation, BUT so that we will eternally benefit from it.

This is love!

Hungry for God???

Do we believe that God is the standard of all truth? Why is it that many Christians would rather accept the sinners self-diagnosis of his own condition rather than that of the Great Physician, who created man.

God declares that all men do know "Him", and not just some generic deity, through the creation that God has made. But the sinner surpresses this clear truth because of his rebellious heart.

And yet many Christians act as if the unbeliever really doesn't know the Creator God.

God tells us that there is "none" that seek after God. And yet you will hear Christians speaking all the time about certain unbelievers who are seeking after God [as if God were hidding]

Why is this?

It is because Christians talk with unbelievers and hear the unbelievers proclaim that they do not believe in nor know the God in whom the Christian speaks of, and the Christian believes the sinner instead of God!

Some Christians observe unbelievers seeking after love, joy, beauty, goodness, happiness and every other blessing in life and wrongfully jump to the conclusion that they are seeking after God.
They jump to this conclusion because they rightfully realize that God is the source of all blessings. But because they are ignorant of the unbelievers willful supression of God's existence they mistake the unbelievers seeking after God's gifts, as them seeking after God.

In Romans 2 God tells us that God pours out His gifts of goodness to bring the unbeliever to repentance BUT that if the unbeliever remains in his unthankful and hardened condition then he will receive God's justice and wrath on the day of wrath [Judgement Day].

Gifts to God

Those who believe that their good works are something that merit them favor with God need to have children. If they think that their good works are performed apart from God's gracious hand then they need to ponder a little more on what grace really is.

When my young children make "Dad" a picture they are doing it "as a gift", and this pleases Dad.
But little do they realize that Dad's money provided the paper, the crayons and felts. Without Dad's intervention the children would have no food or drink. So we see that the children truly do offer a gift, but it is a gift that can be only offered because another is enabling them to do so.

The Scriptures teach us that in God we live and move and have our being. God sustains us, He is our life and every blessing we have comes from Him. Everything we offer to God as a gift can only be offered because God has graciously given first to us. This is grace. Every good work ever performed is a by-product of God's grace, and is therefore not something that earns or merits God's favor.

Some old, same old

Isn't it amazing how quickly we, as creatures, can tire of the same old routine? We dislike rituals and ceremonies because they "smack" of just going through the motions.

But when we observe our God, we see that He does not struggle with this tendancy to boredom.

God does not tired of making "sunrises" and "sunsets", day after day, century after century, millenia after...you get the drift...and they are both so beautiful, each and every time.