The Potter's Freedom Part 2

The Real Issue Behind Grace: Sufficient or Merely Necessary?

God's grace works synergistically on free will, that is, it must be received to be effective. There are no conditions for giving grace, but there is one condition for receiving it, faith. Put in other terms, God's justifying grace works cooperatively, not operatively.

Those are the words of Dr. Norman Geisler in his new book, Chosen but Free, and those words, I think, sum up one of the main reasons that you should stay tuned today, that you should get your Bible, and that you should invest a little brainpower today with me as we discuss some things that are very important.

I know it's a Saturday afternoon, it's a holiday Saturday afternoon, a lot of people are away, and those of us who aren't away are probably working in the yard or, by this time in the afternoon, hiding from the heat.

But even though there's many things to watch on television, I'd like to invite you to spend the next hour with me thinking about eternal things, thinking about things that I think have a tremendous impact upon the church today, have a tremendous impact upon what we believe, how we worship, and the message that we preach.

Is it true that God's grace works synergistically on free will? Is it true that God's grace must be received to be effective, that there is something a man must do, or a woman must do, to make God's grace work?

Is it true that, if we put it in other terms, God's justifying grace works cooperatively, but not operatively? That, my friends, was the fundamental issue of something called the Protestant Reformation.

You see, if we went back about 400 some odd years, we would discover that, at the time of the Reformation, the primary viewpoint that was in vogue in Western Europe under the Roman Catholic system was the belief that God's grace is absolutely necessary for salvation.

There are some Protestants that are downright shocked to discover that Rome did, and to this day continues to assert strongly, that you must have grace. You must have grace to be saved. The Council of Trent even anathematized anyone who would say that, aside from God's grace, you can be saved.

That is not an issue. That has never been an issue. That is, never has the argument been over the necessity of grace. At the time, Rome taught very clearly, God's grace is absolutely necessary. The point was that it did not, in and of itself, save.

Oh, everything that was necessary to be added to it could be traced back to it, but the simple fact of the matter was that, apart from some sort of human action, whether it be faith, or the sacraments of the church, or baptism, or whatever else it might be, aside from some human action, God's grace, while necessary, was not sufficient.

That remains the case today. That remains the issue with Roman Catholicism, and that is, it is not whether grace is necessary. The issue is, is grace sufficient? To put it in other words, does God make us savable through a plan of salvation that we then work to gain salvation, or does God save?

Does God merely make salvation a hypothetical possibility for us, or does He actually, in and of Himself, save anyone? Now, you might say, well, if He's called the Savior, it's obvious that He saves. But while that's quite true, for many people, the reason He's called Savior is because He made salvation possible, not because He, Himself, actually has ever saved anyone outside of their quote-unquote cooperation, which normally means that He wants to save people, He tries to save people, but apart from their assistance, He can't do it.

That was the issue when Martin Luther debated Desiderius Erasmus in writing, the first great written debate of the Reformation. The subject was not sola scriptura. The subject was not sola fide, justification by faith alone.

The first great written debate was on the will of man, and the relationship of the will of man to the will of God. And in essence, the question was, is God sovereign, or is man ultimately in control when it comes to this issue of salvation?

Luther, when he wrote to Erasmus, said, you of all my opponents have put your finger upon the real issue in this matter, and this matter was the Protestant Reformation. The Reformers emphasized the sovereignty of God and the power of God to bring about salvation, not merely make it possible, but to actually save, to by His power, by His Spirit, reach down and take a spiritually dead man and turn him into a spiritually living man who believes in Christ, repents of his sin, and has that kind of faith that we identify as being Christian faith.

That was the issue. Not the necessity of grace, but the sufficiency of grace. Now, obviously, if you're hearing what I'm saying, then that means that today, the line of demarcation has moved significantly.

For while the time of the Reformation, the line of demarcation was fairly clear between the Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church, that is no longer the case, especially on this, the key issue. Today, the line is drawn well within what is called Protestantism.

For the simple fact of the matter is, most Protestants have never been challenged to even think about this issue, and even within those who have, when you look at denominations and all those that call themselves Protestant, there are far more within Protestantism today who would stand with Rome against the Reformers on this issue than there are who would be faithful to the historical heritage that is theirs and say, no, man is dead in sin.

Man is an enemy of God. Man is incapable of doing anything in and of himself that is pleasing to God, because he is an enemy of God. Something radical must take place within man before that person will willfully bow the knee before Christ, and that something is regeneration.

That something is God bringing spiritual life to a spiritually dead person. So in essence, the dividing line is between those who say God saves and those who say that God makes salvation a possibility but leaves it up to man.

Saved or savable, done or doable, those are the issues, and they're vitally important issues. And these issues are raised in this new book, Chosen but Free, by Dr. Norman Geisler. And since Dr. Geisler has such a recognizable name, it is my opinion that there will now again be an opportunity to address the issues, these very issues, in regards to salvation itself.

But when we do so, I hope we will recognize what the fundamental issue is. Let me read just a couple of quotations from the book. Whatever else may be said, God's sovereignty over the human will includes his initiating, pursuing, persuading, and saving grace, without which no one would ever will to be saved.

Now you see, most folks are going to read right past something like that. Because what your mind sort of hears is this initiating, pursuing, persuading, and saving grace without which no one would be saved.

But that's not what Dr. Geisler says. He says without which no one would ever will to be saved. All through the book, salvation is presented as being ultimately the result of the free choice of man, a free act of man.

Indeed, without this concept of what I would call an autonomous will, it is Dr. Geisler's position that there can be no salvation whatsoever. On page 95 of the book we read, of course, in one sense, eventually and ultimately God's will prevails and that he sovereignly wills that those who reject his offer of salvation will be lost.

In this sense, God's overruling will is being done through their will to reject him. But with regard to his will that all men be saved, 1 Timothy 2, 4, and 2 Peter 3, 9, it is clear that it can be resisted.

In short, it is God's ultimate and sovereign will that we have free will to resist his will that all be saved. There is God's sovereignty that we have free will to resist his will. That is the assertion.

On page 81 we read, finally, that Christ's death made everyone savable does not thereby mean that everyone is saved. Christ's death, the atonement, makes men savable but it does not save anybody. There is something that needs to be added to it, the act, the free act, the autonomous act of human faith which everyone is capable of doing according to the Arminian viewpoint which is what Dr. Geisler is presenting historically.

We also read, God chooses only to reveal himself personally to the willing. God chooses only to reveal himself personally to the willing. That is, the very revelation of God is dependent upon man being willing to receive it.

Obviously, the idea that God sovereignly moves in a person's heart to give them a heart of flesh rather than a heart of stone, a heart that desires him, is rejected very, very strenuously in this work.

These are important issues. These are vital issues. You might say driving around today in your car, how are these issues important to me? They seem somewhat esoteric. Well, they're not. They're not. The simple fact of the matter is that these issues touch upon how we live our lives, how we worship God, what we do in the church, how we view the church, the decisions that we make.

Really it impacts everything. The reformers believed that. They believed that a fundamental recognition of the sovereignty of God and the utter helplessness of man was utterly necessary to understand truly who God is and who we are.

I hope you will think with me today. I hope you'll take your Bibles because today what I would like to do, next week, before we go into today, next week what we're going to do is I'm going to be on the phone next week.

I am teaching out of town this coming week, but I'm going to be here on the program. I am going to be joined by a very good friend of mine who has known me far longer than he probably wants to admit that he's known me, but Pastor Jeff Neal of Emanuel Covenant Church up in the North Valley, actually up around, well, the church where they meet is out where I used to throw rocks for my dog Daisy Mae and launch model rockets when I was a kid up around 59th Avenue north of Bell Road back behind Costco there.

And there used to be nothing there when we moved out here, but I will actually be speaking at Emanuel Covenant Church at the end of this month, last Sunday this month. But Pastor Jeff Neal will be coming in with Mr. Pierce, the president of the ministry, and we will be addressing one of the issues that is raised in this book, and that is the assertion that Calvin was not as much of a Calvinist as Calvinists are today, specifically the assertion by Dr. Geisler that certainly, and I'm quoting Dr. Geisler, certainly Calvin did not believe what Calvinists believe in regards to the atonement.

Well, there are a whole bunch of us that don't think that's very certain at all. And all sorts of scholars have written on that subject, and Pastor Neal will be coming in and helping me in discussing that particular issue and some other issues in regards to Calvin's viewpoint on things to help clarify some of those issues.

Scripture, Exegesis, and Eisegesis

But today what I would like to do is I would like to address probably the most fundamental issue that we can in dealing with a book such as this and a topic such as this. If we are all believers in Sola Scriptura, if we all believe that the Scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith of the Church, then the question that must be addressed is simply this, what do the Scriptures say?

What do the Scriptures say? Do we engage in exegesis of the text, that is reading out from the text its meaning as it was communicated in its original form, or do we engage in eisegesis, reading into the text, concepts and conclusions that are not a part of what the original author intended?

Now, Dr. Geisler very frequently in his book accuses Dr. John Piper or R .C. Sproul or Edwin Palmer or other people that he calls extreme Calvinists, but which historically are simply Calvinists, of eisegesis, of reading into the text what they want to see.

He talks about how painful it is to watch the contortions that Calvinists have to go through to come up with their viewpoint. The problem is, as I have read all through Chosen but Free and as I have spent a good deal of time cross-referencing and looking at quotations and checking things out, I have found a tremendous amount of eisegesis in the text.

That is, a tremendous amount of reading into the text things that are not there, or more commonly, reading out of the text things that are there but do not fit with the Arminian perspective. And so today I would like to ask you to open your Bible with me to some of these passages.

We will look at the commentary that is provided, and then we will demonstrate that in point of fact the scriptural teachings on these particular issues has been somewhat watered down, shall we say, in Chosen but Free and not actually dealt with.

John 6 and the Sovereign Giving of the Father

And the first one, anyone who knows me well could probably guess, that one of the very first things I looked for when I began looking through this book and began reading it was how does Dr. Geisler deal with a single passage in all the Bible that I believe is the clearest in regards to the doctrines of grace.

John 6, verses 35 -45, I believe without question is the clearest presentation of the doctrines of grace that we have. I have seen every kind of attempt, I have seen the most imaginative attempts to get around this passage of scripture.

None are able to survive a verse-by-verse examination taking into consideration the grammar and the syntax and just simply what the text says. I've never seen any explanation of John 6, 35 -45 that did not require the person to ignore what the text was saying and run off someplace else and try to gain definitions from someplace else to read them back into this text.

And so I was more than just a little bit surprised to discover that there was very little discussion whatsoever in the book about these passages. The scripture index is very, very brief and does not give you most of the scriptural citations as they occur.

But even then, looking through the book and reading all of it and marking everything, there were only a few brief mentions of various passages in this whole context and there was no serious exegesis offered of any of the key passages in John 6, chapter 6, verses 35 -45.

The lengthiest section is found on page 93 and I suppose we should first look through what John chapter 6 has to say to give you the context and then look at the passage together so you can see what's going on.

Let me begin reading from the New American Standard Bible at verse 35. John chapter 6, verse 35. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger and he who believes in me will never thirst.

But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All of the Father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.

This is the will of him who sent me that of all that he has given me I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in him will have eternal life and I myself will raise him up on the last day.

Therefore the Jews were grumbling about him because he said I am the bread that came down out of heaven. They were saying is not this Jesus the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know? How does he now say I have come down out of heaven?

Jesus answered and said to them do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets and they shall all be taught of God.

Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Well here's the passage and the passage is so tremendously beautiful. It is such a gold mine for any Christian to spend time considering the salvation that is ours.

Jesus begins having identified himself as the bread of life by saying in verse 36 there is this issue of unbelief. They have seen him. They have seen the very bread of life. They've seen the one that they would believe in him.

They would never thirst and yet he says in verse 36 I said to the Jews see me and yet do not believe. So Jesus begins to explain why is it that there are those who can see the very incarnate son of God and yet not believe.

Verse 37 all that the Father gives me will come to me. Now think with me just for a moment. What does that say? All that the Father gives me will come to me. That phrase is not addressed in this book.

It can't be addressed in this book because the fundamental presupposition of the presentation of the relationship of God's sovereignty and man's will in the book is that God has no quote unquote coercive power over the will of man.

He cannot decree something. Instead he knows with certainty what's going to happen but what's going to happen as a result of the free choices of men. His presentation of the relationship of God's foreknowledge and predetermination is such that you cannot ask the question what came first.

The problem with John chapter 6 is we are told what came first. We are given a direct logical presentation of the fact that the giving of the Father to the Son. The giving of a people by the Father to the Son results in those people's coming to Christ.

All, Jesus says, that the Father gives me will come to me. Not some, not most, but all that the Father gives me will come to me. He does not say all that the Father has given to me, the Father has seen through his foreknowledge will choose me.

That's not what he says. He says all that the Father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out. So immediately we have the presentation of the sovereignty of the Father.

He can give a people to the Son and the result of this is that all those who are so given will come to Christ. Now who is free in this passage? It's the Father. It's God. God is the one who has the freedom here to give a people unto the Son and infallibly those who are so given come to Christ.

And then as a result of that he says the one who comes to me I will certainly not cast that one out. Why? For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. What is the will of the Father for the Son?

This is the will of him who sent me that of all that he has given me, that's the same people again, that's the elect. I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day. Now how can that be? How can it be if God's grace does not work operatively but only cooperatively?

How can Jesus guarantee 100 success? Obviously what is not going on here is God saying, well, I have certain knowledge of who is going to accept me and therefore I say to the Son, don't lose any of those who are going to do that.

That obviously isn't what's going on in the passage, is it? No. Who is the one that is active in all these things? It's God. And what is the will of the Father for the Son? That of all that he has given me, I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day.

What does it mean to be raised up on the last day? To be given eternal life. The Father's will for the Son is that the Son be a perfect Savior. Perfect. No errors. No mistakes. Not a 99 .9%, 100 perfection as the Savior of whom?

Of those that the Father gives to him. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in him will have eternal life and I myself will raise him up on the last day. What action brings about what action?

It is the giving by the Father to the Son that infallibly results in those people coming to Christ, believing in Christ, beholding Christ. If you're a believer today and your faith has survived trial and difficulty, it's not because you're better than somebody else.

True saving faith is the gift of God. That's why it perseveres. And the biblical order is, God decrees, man responds. Move down to verse 43. Jesus answered and said to them, do not grumble among yourselves.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. We will read Dr. Geisler's comments on the word draw. But what amazed me is there was never any discussion of the phrase, no one is able.

U dunatai. No one is able. No one has the capacity. U dais dunatai, in this particular passage, no individual has the dunamis, the power, the ability to come to me except something happens. But first realize there is an inability on the part of man.

No one has that ability unless the Father who sent me draws him. And someone might very quickly say, oh, well, there's your answer. God draws everyone. Really? The context says that he draws those that the Father has given to the Son to him.

Those are the ones who come to him. Remember verses 37 through 40? And what is more, John 6, 44 doesn't stop at that point. It says that those who are drawn by the Father to the Son are what? Raised up by the Son and given eternal life.

You see, the drawing of the Father works operatively, not cooperatively. It's absolutely necessary, but praise God, it is also always sufficient. See, folks, this is God's grace. And it's not just necessary, but God's grace actually saves.

That's why John 6, 44 stands, I believe, unassailable. I've seen every type of mental gymnastics to try to get around this, but it simply says what it says. Well, how did Dr. Geisler respond to John 6, 44?

Well, we're going to find out in just a couple moments, but first we need to take our break, and we will rejoin you on the other side. Welcome back to The Dividing Line. My name is James White, and this beautiful Saturday afternoon, we are discussing eisegesis.

There's a term, eisegesis, reading into the text or reading something out of the text. You don't want to be there. In other words, just ignoring what the text itself is talking about. We were just looking at John 6, beginning about verse 35, looking at what the text itself says.

And I promised you I'd let you know what Dr. Geisler says about the passage. In response to John 6, 44, we read, beginning on page 93. Second, and the first part was just you've got to determine what helcuso, which means to draw, means based on context.

Second, John 12, 32 makes it plain that the word draw cannot mean irresistible grace on the elect for one simple reason. Jesus said, quote, But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself, John 12, 32.

No true Calvinist believes that all men will be saved. Third, the word all cannot mean only some men in John 12, 32. Earlier, in John chapter 2, verses 24 through 25, when Jesus said he knew all men's sin, it was clear that he was not just speaking of the elect.

Why then should all mean some in John 12, 32? If he meant some, he could have easily have said so. End quote. Now, this isn't the main portion of the response I want to deal with, especially today, but I do want to respond to this.

It is very common for individuals to, rather than dealing with the context of John 6 and following the concept of the sovereign giving of the father of a people to the son, the charge of the son, that he lose none of those that are given to him, etc., etc.

Instead of following that through and using the immediate context to understand what's going on in John 6, 44, it is very common for many people to leave John chapter 6, ignore that context, and go to John chapter 12, where the same term to draw appears.

And there, Jesus does say, when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself. And certainly, everyone has seen those words quoted all over the place with the assumption that it means that, well, the cross draws every individual.

But let's think about that for just one moment. Does the cross, according to the Bible, draw men? What did the apostle Paul teach about the cross? Well, he taught it was a stumbling block. In fact, he taught it was foolishness.

He indicated that to those who are being saved, it's the power of God, but to the Jew and to the Greek, it's foolishness and a stumbling block. Hmm. The cross seems to have a different attraction depending on whether a person is, in fact, well, saved or unsaved.

But even more importantly than this, if we go to John chapter 12, the question is not whether we should translate the word all as all or some. It means all. The issue, obviously, is whether the word all means all individual people or whether the word all means all kinds of people.

And so I ask a simple question. Does John chapter 12 talk about all individual people or does John chapter 12 introduce us to different kinds of people? Well, if you look at John chapter 12, this entire discourse in the power of the Lord is prompted by one particular event.

And that was the coming of Greeks, Gentiles, to Jesus. Actually, they came to the disciples seeking Jesus. It was this coming of Gentiles to the Lord Jesus that prompted the discussion in John chapter 12.

So when Jesus says, if I be lifted up, I will draw men to myself, is he saying that means I will draw every single human being, even those who, interestingly enough, have never heard the gospel, never heard of the cross, and died in ignorance?

Or does it much more logically mean that he will draw all men, Jew and Gentile, Greek, Roman, whoever, Egyptian, Scythian, American, thankfully? Obviously, that's what Jesus is talking about in John chapter 12.

And so in John chapter 12, we do not have a passage that really helps us to determine the scope of John 6. But thankfully, John chapter 6 does tell us what the scope is. All that the Father gives me will come to me.

But here is the comment that I really wanted to spend some time looking at, and I will read it exactly as it appears, and then go back and try to understand it. Quote, Finally, their being drawn by God was conditioned on their faith.

The context, their being drawn, 637, was he who believes, 635, or everyone who believes in him, 640. Those who believe are enabled by God to be drawn to him. Jesus adds, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him, John 6 .65.

A little later, he says, if anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God, or whether I speak on my own, John 7 .17. From this, it is evident that their understanding of Jesus' teaching and being drawn to the Father resulted from their own free choice, and free choice is in italics.

Now, I'll be perfectly honest with you, I don't understand this. Not only do I not see how any of this is connected to the text at all, but it seems to be absolutely, positively upside down from any type of exegetical conclusion you can come to from looking at the text.

Let me read it again, and this time take it apart. Finally, their being drawn by God was conditioned on their faith. Where does the text say anything about God's drawing being conditioned on anything?

The only condition of God's drawing is his giving of the person to the Son. The text says that no one can come to him unless the Father who sent me draws him. So, are we to think that coming to Christ is different than believing in him?

That's certainly not what the context indicates. Coming and believing are the same thing. So, since coming and believing are the same thing, John 6 .44 is saying no one is able to do this, but this book says, finally, their being drawn by God was conditioned on their faith.

There's nothing like that in the text. The context of their being drawn in John 6 .37 was he who believes in 6 .35 or everyone who believes in him 6 .40. No, it's not. No, it's not. Those phrases appear there, but the context of their being drawn is the giving of the Father to the Son, which is nowhere mentioned in this discussion.

Those very words from 6 .37 do not even appear on these two pages where this passage is discussed. You could read this and never know that John 6 .37 says, all that the Father gives me will come to me.

That is not the context. But then, this is the one sentence. It's in blue on my little phenom here in front of me. I've outlined it and I've discussed it with friends and with others to try to see if they could make heads or tails of this.

Here's the sentence. Those who believe are enabled by God to be drawn to him. There seems to be the idea that there needs to be an enablement by God of people to be drawn to Christ. But the problem is, according to this, you have to believe first.

Those who believe are enabled by God to be drawn to him. Now, where does John 6 .44 say that? Where does anything in John say anything even remotely similar to that? The text says, no man is able to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

So the very ability of man to come or to believe is dependent upon the enablement of the Father. And all those who are so enabled are raised up on the last day. But Dr. Geisler is not a universalist and neither am I.

That's why I'm a Calvinist and not an Arminian. Those who believe are enabled by God to be drawn to him. No, those whom God draws to the Son are enabled to believe. That's the conclusion of the text. That's what the text says, but what we have here is 180 degrees opposite of what the text itself actually says.

And yet, as with so many of the biblical discussions in this book, it ends with, from this it is evident, a quotation is given from John 7, which is not even in the context of John 6. It is a whole other incident.

From this it is evident that their understanding of Jesus' teaching and being drawn to the Father resulted from their own free choice. Where did that term free choice come from? Well, it did not come from the text that we're examining.

That's for certain. There are other passages that likewise give us a good example of what takes place in regards to biblical argumentation. On page 183, in an appendix that is asking the question, is faith a gift only to the elect?

We have Philippians 1, verse 29 quoted, which says,. For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him. This is taken to mean that faith is a gift of God to certain persons, namely the ones who are elect.

Dr. Geisler's response says, There are several indications here that Paul had no such thing in mind. First, the point is simply that God has not only provided us with the opportunity to trust him, but also to suffer for him.

The word granted, Greek ekariste, means grace or favor. That is, both the opportunity to suffer for him and to believe on him are favors with which God has graced us. Further, Paul is not speaking here of initial faith that brings salvation, but of the daily faith and daily suffering of someone who is already Christian.

Finally, it is noteworthy that both the suffering and the believing are presented as things that we are to do. He says it is granted for you to do this. It was not something God did for them. Both were simply an opportunity God gave them to use on the behalf of Christ by their free choice.

There's that line again there, free choice. Well, Philippians 1 .29, For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him. We're being told that this does not indicate that faith is a gift from God.

Even though it says it has been granted to you to believe on him, what we're told is that, in point of fact, all that means is is that God has provided us with the opportunity to trust him. Is that what the text is saying?

Well, let's take a look at it a little bit closer. But first, we need to take a break, and we'll be right back right after this. Philippians 1 .29, Paul's talking to the Philippians, and he's talking very seriously about something called suffering, something that Christians don't like to talk a lot about, but it's all through the New Testament.

And there Paul says, Because to you it has been granted, it has been given in behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him. Now, it seems that Dr. Geisler's perspective on this is that, well, this is Christian faith.

This is faith in the Christian life. Okay. But does that mean it's somehow different than faith in Christ that is what we call initial faith? Are we being told that, in point of fact, what we have here is that every man, and Dr. Geisler does say this, every man has the ability to believe in Christ for salvation without God having to give him any special gift.