Theology for the Masses

God’s Providence Defined

The Scriptures clearly teach that all things outside of God owe their continued existence to the will of God. [1] And in the work of redemption, while the Bible teaches that this providential control is universal, powerful, wise, and holy, it nowhere attempts to inform how it is reconciled with man’s free will. What the Bible is clear on is God’s character precludes Him to govern His creatures and control them in a way where no violence is done to their natures.

God’s Foreknowledge Defined

What God foreknows must be as fixed and certain as what is foreordained. Foreordination makes the events certain, while foreknowledge presupposes they are certain. Another way of saying this is to say if future events are foreknown to God, they cannot take a turn contrary to His knowledge. The Calvinistic doctrine of the foreknowledge of God proves also His predestination. Boettner says:

“Since these events are foreknown, they are fixed and settled things; and nothing can have fixed and settled them except the good pleasure of God – the great first cause – freely and unchangeably foreordaining whatever comes to pass.”

[2]

[1] Acts 17:28 NIV; Col. 1:17 NIV; Heb. 1:3 NIV.

[2] Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company), 46.

I started to write a response to jr. and realized I wrote a paper for seminary on the issue last semester. I thought I’d reprint it in a series called “The Doctrines of Grace.” There seems to be some specific discussion about the “L” of the TULIP acronym – limited atonement – right now.

I am going to start with a preliminary framework and then I will move towards examining the TULIP acronym side-by-side with the doctrines of grace and Arminianism, in light of Scripture. I promise I’ll get to the “L” eventually. Additionally, this is not an exhaustive, 300-page book but rather a “tight” paper on the highlights of the doctrines of grace. In other words, I haven’t turned over every rock, but have tried to turn over the biggest ones…

Here is the first post of the series:

God Has a Plan

It is unfathomable that a God of infinite wisdom and power would fashion a world without a distinct plan for that world. [1] It is one of His perfections that He has the best possible plan, and that He conducts the course of history to its appointed end. And to acknowledge that He has a plan which He carries out is to admit to the idea of predestination. Loraine Boettner, an American theologian and author, in his book, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, says this:

When He did choose to create, there was before Him an infinite number of possible plans…and what can give the Christian more satisfaction and joy than to know that the whole course of the world is ordered with reference to the establishment of the Kingdom of heaven and the manifestation of the Divine glory. [2]

God’s Sovereignty Defined

By virtue of the fact that God has created everything which exists, he is “the absolute Owner and final Disposer” of all that He has made. [3] He exerts not merely a general influence, but actually rules the world in which He has created. [4] And since he permits willingly, all that comes to pass – including actions of men – must be, in some sense, in accordance with what He has desired and purposed. Boettner continues, “God has lost none of His power, and it is highly dishonoring to Him to suppose that He is struggling along with the human race doing the best He can but unable to accomplish His purposes.” [5] To suppose that His plans fail and that He strives to no effect is to reduce Him to the level of His creatures.

[1] Isa. 46:9-10 NIV
[2] Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1932), 24-25.
[3] Ibid., 30.
[4] Ps. 29:10 NIV
[5] Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, 32.

Hopefully this is a little lighter than the fare we’ve had here lately…

I’ve been struggling with theological analogies of late. For some reason, they leave me wanting. I’ve noticed folks who try to put together a parallel story to explain a deep theological trugh. I know I’ve done my fair share. I’m just trying to make sense of how to go about doing this in a way that truly honors the Scripture and a deep doctrine found within in it.

Here are my thoughts:

First, analogies are never air-tight. Second, frankly, analogies can tend to be a bit of a strech.

I read this today on the Emersion Books site, the publishing arm of Emergent [in connection with Baker Books] and I wondered how you might feel about the connection at the end of this story.

I’m the first to love the Christ metaphor. I just watched “Children of Men” last night, and Clive Owen’s character, “Theo,” is a strong metaphor.

But for me, using this story as an analogy to the Christ metaphor seems like a bit of a stretch. Let me know what you think…

Some time ago in the UK, Channel 4 showed a documentary (based on the Esquire article by Tom Junod) about Richard Drew’s horrific photograph from 9/11, which became known as ‘the falling man.’ Released and used by some in the press in the immediate reports, it then ’sank without trace’ soon after in an act of seeming self-censorship.

The documentary was a moving and challenging exploration of the history and impact of the photograph. While coroners and others appeared to be trying to revise history and deny that anyone had jumped from the towers, the programme proposed that the image ought to stand as a defining image of the absolute horror of the attacks.

Among the interviews of relatives of those who had died was one with a man who knew his wife had jumped. “After the suffocating smoke, the intense heat and lack of air, to jump must have felt like blessed relief. She would have felt like she was flying.” Others didn’t agree. The jumpers had ‘committed suicide’, and thus condemned themselves to hell. They had somehow been cowardly, not thinking of their loved ones.

Personally, I was deeply moved by the horror of the decision these people were forced to take. In one sense, this became for me a meditation on violence and technology (which I have posted on before here). In the face of an act of horrific violence, with a huge jumbo-jet slamming into a structure that had lifted people 107 stories into the air, with the smoke and heat of aviation fuel, pinned in place by broken lift-shafts and burning stairwells, these people had to chose to whether to stay and face certain death after some unknowable wait among hot steel and choking flames, or let go and chose their own exit.

Perhaps they jumped out of sheer terror. We cannot know. But the ‘falling man’ image, with its almost serene and calm descent, offers us the possibility that it was as a brave act of self-determination that these people stepped out into the peace of clear air, away from the terror and technology that had rounded on them. That rather than be killed by those who brought suggest terrible weapons against them, they denied the terrorists’ desire to kill, and chose to take their own lives.

And thus we are turned to reflect on the other falling man, pinned in place by a terrible and crude technology, who chose to let go, defied our violence against him, opened his hands and exerted this great act of sacrificial self-determination. “It is finished,” he announced, choosing his own moment to descend into hell, “And breathed his last.”

A couple of links to keep your appetites whet while you are waiting on Hank’s next installment on his Objections to Calvinism series:

AJ Vanderhorst: Uncool Implications of Radical Free Will

James R. White: Synergism Belongs in a Car Dealership, Not in Divine Salvation

As we have been dealing with the idea of original sin and imputed sin, there has been some question about what Romans 5:14 means. Here is the verse:

Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

There has been a suggestion that this might imply that the sin of Adam was not physically connected with the rest of humanity.

Here is John Piper’s attempt to exegete this verse:

Paul’s statement at the end of verse 14 clarifies that he does not have personal sins in view as the reason for human death.

In other words, yes Paul concedes that there are other kinds of laws before the Mosaic Law, and yes people broke those laws, and yes, one could argue that these sins are the root cause of death and condemnation in the world. But, Paul says, there is a problem with that view, because death reigned “even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam.” There are those who died without seeing a law and choosing to sin against it.

Who are they? I think the group of people begging for an explanation is infants. Infants died. They could not understand personal revelation. They could not read the law on their hearts and choose to obey or disobey it. Yet they died. Why? Paul answers: the sin of Adam and the imputation of that sin to the human race. In other words, death reigned over all humans, even over those who did not sin against a known and understood law. Therefore, the conclusion is, to use the words of verse 18: “through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men.” (Ibid)

So the purpose of verses 13 and 14 are to clarify verse 12 in this way:

At the end of verse 12 the words, “death spread to all men, because all sinned” mean that “death spread to all because all sinned in Adam.” Death is not first and most deeply because of our own individual sinning, but because of what happened in Adam.

I was finding it too hard to keep my comments brief, so I will turn this into a entry. And it’s also a “Christmasy” post, since I would like to delve into the incarnation, the conception of Jesus, and the impeccability of Christ.

The early church considered the Incarnation to be one of the most important truths of our faith. Because of this, they formulated what has come to be called the Chalcedonean Creed, a statement which sets forth very what we are to believe and what we are not to believe about the Incarnation.

This creed was the fruit of a large council that took place from October 8 to November 1, 451, in the city of Chalcedon and “has been taken as the standard, orthodox definition of the biblical teaching on the person of Christ since that day by” all the major branches of Christianity.[1] There are five main truths the creed of Chalcedon summarized the biblical teaching on the Incarnation.

1. Jesus has two natures — He is God and man.
2. Each nature is full and complete — He is fully God and fully man.
3. Each nature remains distinct.
4. Christ is only one Person.
5. Things that are true of only one nature are nonetheless true of the Person of Christ.

The first truth we need to understand is that Jesus is one Person who has two natures a divine nature and a human nature. In other words, Jesus is both God and man. We will look at each nature.

Jesus is God

The Bible teaches that Jesus is not merely someone who is a lot like God, or someone who has a very close walk with God. Rather, Jesus is the Most High God Himself. Titus 2:13 says that as Christians we are “looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus.”

Jesus is man

It should be obvious that if Jesus is God, then He has always been God. There was a never a time when He became God, because God is eternal. But Jesus has not always been man.

But what exactly do we mean when we say that God the Son became man? We definitely do not mean that He turned into a man, in the sense that He stopped being God and started being man. Jesus did not give up any of His divinity in the Incarnation. Rather, as one early theologian put it, “Remaining what He was, He became what He was not.” Christ “was not now God minus some elements of His deity, but God plus all that He had made His own by taking manhood to Himself.”[2]

So what happened at the conception of Jesus?

In Mt.1:20, the angel tells Joseph “that which is conceived of the Holy Ghost.” The egg was generated to life as God the Son entered the egg under the superintending ministry of the Holy Spirit. No one has ever or ever will be conceived in this way. This is why Jesus is the counter-example!

The Bible is explicit that the Holy Spirit was the divine agent who caused Jesus conception in the womb of Mary. Jesus became a biological miracle with no fertilization. As this happened, the Holy Spirit protected his sinlessness as God the Son entered the womb and gave life to the egg of Mary.

So what’s the point of Jesus being tempted?

So the new question probably is: How could He truly be able to ’sympathize with our weaknesses’ (Hebrews 4:15)? If He could not sin, what was the point of the temptation?

The Bible clearly says that Jesus did not sin. The question is whether Jesus could have sinned. Those who hold to impeccability believe that Jesus could not have sinned. Those who hold to peccability believe that Jesus could have sinned, but did not.

Which view is correct? The clear teaching of Scripture is that Jesus was impeccable – Jesus could not have sinned. If He could have sinned, He would still be able to sin today because He retains the same essence He did while living on earth. To believe that Jesus could sin is to believe that God could sin.

Again, although Jesus is fully human, He was not born with the same sinful nature that we are born with. He certainly was tempted in the same way we are, in that temptations were put before Him by Satan, yet remained sinless because God is incapable of sinning. It is against His very nature (Matthew 4:1; Hebrews 2:18, 4:15; James 1:13). Sin is by definition a trespass of the Law. God created the Law, and the Law is by nature what God would or would not do; therefore, sin is anything that God would not do by His very nature.

Those who hold to peccability believe that if Jesus could not have sinned, He could not have truly experienced temptation, and therefore could not truly empathize with our struggles and temptations against sin. We have to remember that one does not have to experience something in order to understand it.

Though this sounds simplistic, God knows everything about everything. While God has never had the desire to sin and has definitely never sinned ” God knows and understands what sin is. God knows and understands what it is like to be tempted. Jesus can empathize with our temptations because He knows”not because He has “experienced” all the same things we have.

Closing responses to Henry Micheal’s comments

I am using Jesus here as a counter-example, an exception that disproves the rule.

Jesus was the counterexample that disproves the rule. Do you agree or disagree?

We’re getting into ‘rules’ again, which to me imposes a system of logic and reasoning that doesn’t allow exceptions. Jesus was the exception to this rule.

While we are not iherently damned to hell coming from our good and wise creator, as a result of the Fall and the resulting cultures we have a natural tendency to sin – a lot

Two things:

1) We were damned to hell from moment Adam committed the first [original] sin in our human timeline. I make this distinction about the human timeline because this was no surprise to God as He sits outside of time.

We have to remember this was not God’s plan. He created Adam and Eve to live in perfect communion with Him. But because he created human beings and not robots, He gave them the ability to choose right over wrong and they chose wrong.

What is beautiful about this is that even though God knew these things were going to happen [Adam's sin, damnation, etc.], He had a plan in place to come into a point into human history to remedy the situation. This is while the Bible says, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Christ made a way for our salvation by satisfying God’s wrath towards sin through His incarnation and subsequent sacrifice on the cross.

2) The fall did more than just give us a natural tendency to sin-we inherit a sinful nature-or total depravity. The word ‘tendency’ presupposes we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps in our own power and not sin. That is what the Pharisees thought they could do by following the law. I think I remember Puritanbob saying that is your only other option if you don’t believe in total depravity. I agree with him. And the truth is, no one can follow the law perfectly. And since we can’t, we need to be absolved our responsibility to do so by someone who can fulfill it. That someone was Christ. He did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it [Matthew 5:17]

Either way, you have to deal with the question of how a fully human (and fully God) Jesus was not sinful, but the rest of humanity (save for Adam and Eve for a bit) were/are/will be. So, while there might be a work-around under the system – it just needs to be stated

In a sense, we have to accept that if God wants to work outside of a ’system,’ He can. In the conception and incarnation, we have an example of this. I hope I have tried to make an ‘official’ statement here in this post.

1. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (InterVarsity and Zondervan Publishing, 1994), p. 556.

2. J.I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1993 edition), p. 53.

In light of some of our recent discussions on original sin, I found a recent blog entry from challies.com to be insightful. I am going to pull out a couple of quotes from the post and then give the link to the entire post after that…

Here are the quotes I would like to highlight:

The Bible tells us in plain terms that we are not sinners because we sin, but we sin because we are sinners.

The gospel paints us as we really are–as sinners who sin because of our fundamental guilt, our fundamental hatred of God. Only when we see ourselves as sinners can we truly see Christ as Savior.

Read the entire article here: Guilt For Particular Sins.

Friends, it has been a while since I have posted on my series on the Bible. I haven’t forgotten about you. It is the Christmas season in ministry, so I probably won’t be able to continue until the clock turns on 2007.

In the meantime, I want to direct you to someone who knows way more than me and expands on what I will probably be touching on as I continue the series: Dr. Mark D. Roberts. I highly commend you to click on these links and read what he has to say about the Bible.

The truth is, Roberts sums up my views plus some. There may be no need to continue the series…ha!

Here are the links:

The Bible, the Qur’an, Bart Ehrman, and the Words of God

Are the New Testament Gospels Reliable?

Are the New Testament Gospels Reliable? Further Thoughts

The Da Vinci Code FAQ

Unmasking the Jesus Seminar

Roberts is the Senior Pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church in Irvine, California and he studied at Harvard University, receiving a B.A. in Philosophy, an M.A. in the Study of Religion, and a Ph.D. in New Testament and Christian Origins. He also teaches classes in New Testament for Fuller Theological Seminary and San Francisco Theological Seminary.

Enjoy his blog and let me know what you think!

As promised, over the next few days, I am going to be discussing my position on Scripture. Today we look at my first premise in the form of a question: How can we be persuaded that the claims of Scripture to actually be God’s Word and that they are true?

This is a two part premise. Let’s look at the first part: the claim that the words of Scripture are God’s words.

First, this is what the Bible claims for itself. There are frequent claims in the Bible that all the words of Scripture are God’s words, particularly 2 Timothy 3:16, which says, “All Scripture is God-breathed…” This is not to say that every word in Scripture was audibly spoken by God himself but that even the quotations of other people are God’s reports of what they said, and, rightly interpreted in their contexts, come to us in God’s authority.

Second, we are convinced of the Bible’s claims to be God’s words as we read the Bible. It is one thing to affirm that the Bible claims to be the words of God. It is another thing to be convinced that those claims are true. Our ultimate conviction that the words of the Bible are God’s word comes only when the Holy Spirit speaks in and through the words of the Bible to our hearts and gives us an inner assurance that these are the words of our God speaking to us. This by the way is what I think Augustine was talking in interpreting the Bible, in particular Genesis. But as I said in the comment section on Henry’s An Honest Question entry yesterday, this conviction does not come apart from the words of Scripture or in addition to the words of Scripture.

Third, the words of Scripture are self-attesting. In other words, for if an appeal to some higher authority [i.e. historical accuracy or logical consistency] were used to prove that the Bible is God’s Word then the Bible itself would not be our highest or absolute authority; it would be subordinate.

Some may object that the premise that Scripture is God’s Word because it claims to be is a circular argument. Admittedly, this is a kind of circular argument. However, this does not make it invalid because all arguments must appeal to that authority for proof, otherwise the authority would not be an absolute or highest authority. This problem is not unique to Christianity; everyone implicitly uses some kind of circular argument when defending their ultimate authority for belief.

So how does anyone choose among the various claims for absolute authorities? Ultimately, the truthfulness of the Bible will commend itself as being far more persuasive than other religious books OR any other intellectual constructions of the human mind, such as logic, human reason, scientific methodology, etc. It will be more persuasive because in the actual experience of life, all of these other candidates for ultimate authority be seen as inconsistent or to have shortcomings that disqualify them.

Let’s move on to the truthfulness of God’s words. [I will deal with this issue more fully when I talk about inerrancy, but I will treat the truthfulness issue here]

First, God cannot lie or speak falsely. Titus 1:2 speaks of “God, who never lies.” Since God never lies, his words can always be trusted. And further, it is not merely that God cannot lie, it is impossible for him to lie; this would be inconsistent with His character.

Second, all the words in Scripture are completely true and without error in any part. Since the words of the Bible are God’s words, and since God cannot lie, it is correct to conclude that there is no error in any part of the words of Scripture.

Third, God’s words are the ultimate standard of truth. In other words, the Bible is not true because it conforms to some higher standard of truth, but rather the Bible is the final standard of truth.

Let’s deal with the obvious question that might arise after reading these statements: Might some new fact ever contradict the Bible?

First, we need to elucidate the word contradict. It any ‘fact’ is ever discovered that is said to contradict Scripture [if we have interpreted and understood Scripture rightly] that ‘fact’ must be false, because God knows all true facts and has taken that into account that ‘fact.’ So no new fact can contradict the Bible.

Second, it must be said that scientific or historical study [notice that theological study is excluded] may cause us to reexamine Scripture to see if it is really what thought it taught scientifically and historically. And when this happens, we can have assurance that this new ‘data’ will be consistent with Scripture and will conform to the accuracy of Scripture.

Over the course of the next few days, I would outline my position on Scripture. I will talk about in individual entries about the 1) truthfulness, 2) inerrancy, 3) clarity, 4) necessity, 5) and sufficiency of Scripture.

To be continued…

A relevant text to our current discussion from John Piper:

John Piper
January 23, 2006
desiringgod.org

There are several lines of biblical evidence for the historic Christian doctrine that we are all born into the world with sinful natures, due to the sin of Adam.

Scripture says that we are born sinners and that we are by nature sinners
Psalm 51:5 states that we all come into the world as sinners: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” Ephesians 2:2 says that all people who are not in Christ are “sons of disobedience.” Ephesians 2:3 also establishes this, saying that we are all “by nature children of wrath.” If we are all “by nature children of wrath,” it can only be because we are all by nature sinners–for God does not direct His wrath towards those who are not guilty. God did not create the human race sinful, but upright. But we fell into sin and became sinful due to the sin of Adam.

Scripture speaks of humans as unrighteous from infancy
There are also verses which declare that we are all unrighteous from the time that we are born. Proverbs 22:15 says “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child.” Genesis 8:21 declares, “…the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” Jonathon Edwards, in his classic work The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended, remarks that on this verse: “The word translated youth, signifies the whole of the former part of the age of man, which commences from the beginning of life. The word in its derivation, has reference to the birth or beginning of existence…so that the word here translated youth, comprehends not only what we in English most commonly call the time of youth, but also childhood and infancy.”

Humanity is Often Described in General Terms as Unrighteous
Unrighteousness is often spoken of in Scripture as something belonging to the human race as a whole.This implies that it is the property of our species. In other words, sinfulness is considered a property of human nature after the fall. Thus, it must be concluded that we are all born sinners, since we are all born human and sin is regarded as a property of humanity. In this vein, consider Ephesians 2:1-3:

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

Paul is here reminding Christians of what they were like before their conversion to Christ (“you were dead in your trespasses…in which you formerly walked”). Thus, all people, until and unless they are converted, are sinners. Paul goes on to make it absolutely clear that all Christians came from this state (“…we to all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh”) and that all non-Christians are still in this state (“…and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”) Thus, Scripture regards all people before they are saved by Christ as sinners and thus deserving of punishment from God. Which is to say that from the inception of our existence, we are sinful.

In Psalm 14:2, 3 we read: “The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Here again we see unrighteousness as a property of the human race: “they have all turned aside…there is no one who does good.”

Job 15:14 similarly declares that sinfulness is a property of humanity: “What is man, that he should be pure, or he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?” Verses 15-16 then speaks of the human race as a whole in shocking terms expressing our general corruption: “Behold, He puts no trust in His holy ones, And the heavens are not pure in His sight; How much less one who is detestable and corrupt, Man, who drinks iniquity like water!”

Jeremiah 17:9 says that “the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it.” This seems to assume original sin–wickedness is a property of the human heart. Ecclesiastes 9:3 declares a similar truth: “…the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil, and insanity is in their hearts through their lives.” Again, the human heart is sinful, and therefore all humans are sinful.

These texts indicate, then, that human nature is corrupt. Therefore, even infants are corrupt because they are human. And if infants are corrupt, then this is the same as saying that we are born corrupt–which means we are born with original sin. One may, however, object that these texts speak nothing of infants, only those who are old enough to make moral decisions. All of those people are sinful, but this doesn’t mean that infants are.

This is an ingenious objection, but it does not succeed. First, the texts do not seem to restrict themselves to people who are old enough to make intelligent decisions. They seem to speak of human nature as a whole, a classification under which infants certainly fall. Second, as Jonathan Edwards pointed out, “..this would not alter the case…For if all mankind, as soon as ever they are capable of reflecting, and knowing their own moral state, find themselves wicked, this proves that they are wicked by nature.”

In other words, even if these verses were only speaking of people old enough to mentally understand sin, they would still be teaching original sin. For on that view, these verses would be saying that all people, as soon as they know good from evil, find themselves sinners. But if all people, as soon as they are capable of moral decisions, find themselves sinners, this proves that they are that way by nature.

Third, Edwards also says, “why should man be so continually spoken of as evil, carnal, perverse, deceitful, and desperately wicked, if all men are by nature as perfectly innocent, and free form any propensity to evil, as Adam was the first moment of his creation?” (Edwards, The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin, 188).

Infants die, therefore they are not innocent
Death–both physical and spiritual–is a result of sin (Romans 5:12; 6:23). Thus, death only comes upon those who have sinned. Since infants die, they therefore must be sinners. It could be objected that Christ was sinless, and yet He died. But He willingly gave up His life, and He did it to conquer the curse of death that we were under. In fact, God imputed to Christ our sins on the cross, and Christ died in punishment of those sins.

If humanity is not born in sin, wouldn’t we expect there to be some people who have “beaten the odds” and never sinned?
If we are born innocent and good, why aren’t there at least some people who have continued in this state and remained sinless? The fact that everybody sins needs some explanation. The best explanation is that we are sinners by nature. Someone might argue that the reason all people sin is because society is sinful, and thus society renders it impossible for anybody to keep themselves entirely pure. But that only pushes the question back one step. How did society get sinful in the first place? If people are born morally good, then how did it come about that they congregated into socities that influence all people to sin?

I recently was asked to officially state my position on God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility in salvation by a national ministry. They asked to keep it in a summary form [because we all know one could write volumes on the minutiae of the topic]. Please find below my best shot at describing my viewpoint.

[This can be considered an extension of the Calvinism & Free Will & The Heritage of Sin entry]

First, predestination is a doctrine plainly set forth in the Bible. If we desire to build our theology on the Bible, the issue is not whether we should have a doctrine of predestination, but what kind should we embrace.

With that said, I believe that predestination, in its most elementary form, is that our final destination, heaven or hell, is decided by God before we are born [Ephesians 1:4-5]. In other words, from all eternity, before we ever live, God made a choice-he chose some individuals to be saved unto everlasting blessedness in heaven, also known as the elect, and others he chose to pass over, to allow them to follow the consequences of their sins into eternal torment into hell, also known as reprobates [Romans 8:29].

The cry against predestination usually culminates in the determination that it is not fair. If by fair, we mean equal, then the protest is accurate. Probably what is meant by fair is just. But if all men are guilty of sin in the sight of God, and from the mass of guilty humanity, God sovereignly gives mercy to some, what do the rest get? They get justice. The saved get mercy and the unsaved get justice. No one gets injustice. Or better, justice is not injustice, as some might argue.

What follows is usually a concern about protecting the dignity and freedom of man. But we first must observe the importance of God”s sovereignty. The reason we must start with God”s sovereignty is that if God is the supreme authority over heaven and earth, all other authority is lesser authority. As a part of God”s sovereignty or authority is the idea that God foreordains whatever comes to pass [interestingly, this is not an idea unique to Calvinism, but simply a tenet, and a necessary one at that, of theism].

Moving on to the idea of free will, I would define it as Jonathan Edwards has in On the Freedom of the Will. Edwards calls it “mind choosing” which means that before we ever can make moral choices we first have some idea of what it is we are choosing. Our selection is then based upon what the mind approves or rejects. If the mind is not involved, then the choice is made for no reason and with no reason. It becomes an arbitrary and morally meaningless act.

According to Edwards, a human being is not only free to choose what he desires but he must choose what he desires to be able to choose at all. This means that every choice is free and every choice is determined. But determined does not mean that some external force coerces the will. Rather it refers to one”s internal motivation or desire. In short, our choices are determined by our desires.

So how do we “get an idea” of what we are “choosing” when it comes to salvation? Though I believe that the will is a natural ability given to us by God to make choices, the problem is we lack the moral ability to choose God. Before we can choose Christ, we must first have a desire for Christ. And in the Fall, man lost his original desire for God. The only way for man to have a desire to choose Christ, he must first receive that desire from God. Regeneration precedes faith [John 6:65].

So how do we interface God”s sovereignty with human freedom? First, it should be said that these two ideas are not contradictions that we must embrace [since the Bible teaches both things]. If in fact they were contradictions, that would reveal that the Bible is errant.

I believe that the “interface” reveals that this is a mystery, as opposed to a contradiction, of great proportions. Mystery refers to that which is true but we do not understand. It is easy to confuse mystery and contradiction. We do not understand either of them. All contradictions are mysterious. Not all mysteries are contradictions. Christianity has plenty of room for mysteries, but none for contradictions.

Check out my ‘piggy-back’ entry on the metaphors of worship leading from U2’s Vertigo Tour DVD. I’ve reprinted it here for your ‘edification.’

Dusting off an oldie, at least in internet time…

Steve Taylor of emergingkiwi.org.nz and resident New Zealand emerging church guru, pastor and author wrote a masterful entry entitled, “7 things I learnt from Bono about worship leading’ back in March ‘06. His inspiriation: U2, the Vertigo Tour Live DVD.

Now what could Steve have learned from Bono and his compatriots? Well, I’ve posted below [with my comments in italics] and you’ll see, it is rich with metaphors for the contemporary worship leader.

continue reading…

I have two questions for the authors of this site:

1.) What is the Biblical definition of righteousness?

2.) Does this mean that whatever God does is automatically righteous?

Romans 5:12-21

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned – 13 for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. 16 The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. 17 For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. 18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. 19 For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.