TPW 42 Sola Gratia Salvation by Grace Alone

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If any man were to ascribe even the smallest part of his salvation to his free will, he knows nothing of grace and has not learned
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Jesus Christ." End quote. I've always wanted to say things as gently as possible, Luther. Okay, I'm not just a little messed up with a slight bent towards sin,
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I am an enemy of God before he converts me. I am hostile to God.
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I don't want anything to do with him. I want to serve myself and the lusts of my sinful nature.
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That's what we are by nature. That's why it takes a miracle for us to be saved. Welcome to the
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Protestant Witness. This is Pastor Patrick Hines here at the Will Heights Presbyterian Church in Lovely Kingsport, Tennessee.
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And today I'm going to post another sermon that I preached at our Reformation Conference a couple of falls ago when we had the 500th anniversary of the
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Reformation. And this one is on sola gratia, grace alone. And many people
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I think today don't understand what we mean when we say grace alone. Grace alone is a synonym for unconditional election.
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And that's a really important part of the discussion about the Reformation solas.
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If you lose the doctrine of unconditional election, you cannot believe that salvation is by grace alone.
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And I hope that that will be clear as you listen, and I hope that you find this to be edifying. Please take your
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Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 8, verses 28 through 30. This is
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God's Word. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love
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God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
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Moreover, whom He predestined, these He also called. Whom He called, these He also justified, and whom He justified, these
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He also glorified. May God bless the reading of His infallible Word. Let's pray, please.
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Our God in heaven, we thank you for your amazing grace that you have shown to your church in this world, and we are so privileged to be numbered among them.
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We thank you for the gospel. We pray that you would help us to understand the meaning of biblical grace as its true meaning has fallen on hard times in our day, and yet was recovered in such a remarkable way in the 16th century by all of the wings of the
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Reformation. We pray that you would help us to see the simple biblical truth of this matter, and that you would bless us to that end now in Jesus' name.
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Amen. I mentioned that Presbyterians are confessionally bound to all five solas, including this one.
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Question 20 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks the question, did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?
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The answer is God, having out of His mere good pleasure from all eternity elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a
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Redeemer. Martin Luther's monumental treatise that was the beating heart of the Reformation was this book,
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The Bondage of the Will, in which he cites more than 300 passages of the Bible showing the
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Orthodox and Augustinian biblical doctrine of the monergistic regeneration and sovereign unconditional electing grace of God in the salvation of sinners.
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So strong was Luther on this point that even later Lutheran systematicians and theologians after him tended to follow not the very strong position enunciated by Luther in The Bondage of the
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Will, but rather his associate Philip Melanchthon's more compromised views on that matter.
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I still remember reading this sentence from The Bondage of the Will by Luther for the very first time many years ago.
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He said this, quote, if any man would ascribe even the smallest part of his salvation to his free will, he knows nothing of grace and has not learned
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Jesus Christ, end quote. Always wanted to say things as gently as possible as Luther.
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It sounds a bit like overkill, doesn't it? Is that trying to swat a gnat with a sledgehammer?
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Or is he correct? I maintain that he is indeed biblically correct, although I think that there are many sincere
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Christians who do not fully understand what he's talking about or who have simply relegated the discussion of what the will does or does not do into the realm of mystery or into the realm of pedantic points of theology that aren't really practical, which no pious
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Christian should concern themselves with and so forth. What amazes me personally about the written debate between Desiderius Erasmus, the
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Roman Catholic humanist scholar, and then Martin Luther on the question of the will of man is how similar it is to the debates that we still have about those same subjects today.
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Erasmus wrote a treatise called On the Freedom of the Will, in which he defends the autonomy of the human will and its decisive force in the salvation of sinners.
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But while Erasmus defends that view, that perspective very stridently, at the same time, all the way through his book, he dismisses the question altogether as irreverent and inquisitive and superfluous.
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It's a very strange thing to observe. You read his book and he's defending stridently that man's will is the decisive factor.
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It's all man's autonomous free will. That's the thing that makes the whole salvation plan work.
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And all the while, as he's defending it, he intersperses it with, but the whole question doesn't matter anyway. And the whole question is irreverent and inquisitive and superfluous and so on and so forth.
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And because of this attitude displayed by Erasmus, Luther was left wondering why the treatise on the freedom of man's will was even written at all.
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Luther was curious about this. If the question is irreverent, superfluous, why write about it?
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Why defend a view and then dismiss the whole debate as a waste of time? How many of you have ever had a similar attitude? People will go to the mat against us as reformed people.
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It's man's free will. And then at the end of the discussion, but none of this matters anyway. Evidently, we're the only ones that thinks that it's important.
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Luther's response to this attitude is spot on. He wrote this quote, therefore it is not irreverent, inquisitive or superfluous, but essentially salutary and necessary for a
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Christian to find out whether the will does anything or nothing in matters pertaining to eternal salvation.
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Indeed, as you should know, this is the cardinal issue between us, the point on which everything in this controversy turns.
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For what we are doing is to inquire what free choice can do, what it has done, and what is its relation to the grace of God.
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If we do not know these things, we shall know nothing at all of things Christian and shall be worse than any heathen.
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Let anyone who does not feel this confess that he is no Christian, while anyone who disparages or scorns it should know that he is the greatest enemy of Christians.
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For if I am ignorant of what, how far, and how much I can and may do in relation to God, it will be equally uncertain and unknown to me what, how far, and how much
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God can and may do in me, although it is God who works everything and everyone. But when the works and power of God are unknown,
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I do not know God himself. And when God is unknown, I cannot worship, I cannot praise, thank, and serve
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God, since I do not know how much I ought to attribute to myself and how much to God.
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It therefore behooves us to be very certain about the distinction between God's power and our own,
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God's work and our own, if we want to live a godly life."
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I can only worship when I see my salvation as entirely, and not partially, of God's grace.
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And it can only be entirely of God, if God chose me unconditionally.
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That is to say, if my salvation is truly and actually by the grace of God alone, sola gratia, it must be unconditionally given to us by God.
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The key question before us is this, as the gospel is preached, why do some people believe it and others reject it?
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What makes the difference? Is it something we do, or something God does, or is it a situation where we do our part,
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God does his part, and hence we're saved? Article 7 of the Synod of Dort on its section on divine predestination and election says this, quote, "...election
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is God's unchangeable purpose by which he did the following. Before the foundation of the world, by sheer grace, according to the free, good pleasure of his will, he chose in Christ's salvation a definite number of particular people out of the entire human race, which had fallen by its own fault from its original innocence into sin and ruin.
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Those chosen were neither better nor more deserving than the others, but lay with them in the common misery."
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The very first section of the Canons of Dort, article number one, the first thing that they said in response to the
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Armenians who were trying to reassert Rome's old doctrines of human free will and autonomy and getting rid of the idea of God's absolute sovereignty, the first thing that the
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Synod of Dort said in response to the Armenians was this, it's an article called God's Right to Condemn All People.
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I still remember reading this for the first time when I was in my early 20s, and this was like a hammer blow against my perspective, quote, "...since
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all people have sinned in Adam and have come under the sentence of the curse and eternal death, God would have done no one an injustice if it had been his will to leave the entire human race in sin and under the curse and to condemn them on account of their sin."
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That was the two -by -four moment. Really? God would have done no one an injustice if he had left the whole human race in their sins and condemned them for their sins.
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That's right. There is nothing unjust about him doing that if that's what he had chosen to do. It continues, "...as
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the apostle says, the whole world is liable to the condemnation of God." Romans 3 .19. "...all
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have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 3 .23. "...and the wages of sin is death."
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Romans 6 .23, end quote. For grace to be grace, it must be entirely unconditional and freely given by God to individuals by name who were elected from all eternity to receive that grace.
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Sola gratia. When we talk about salvation by grace alone, that necessitates the doctrine of unconditional election.
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Without unconditional election, the New Testament word charis for grace has no meaning. Without unconditional election, you do not have
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New Testament grace anymore. It is not biblical grace any longer. Romans 11, verses 5 and 6.
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"...even so then at this present time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer of works.
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Otherwise, grace is no longer grace." Isn't that so clear? The election of grace. Without unconditional election, salvation is not solely by grace.
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And so I don't care who says it. If someone says, we believe in salvation by grace alone.
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If they say that, they have to believe in unconditional election. They have to. You could argue that salvation without unconditional election, you could argue that salvation is partially or even mostly by grace.
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But without unconditional election, you can't say that it's solely by grace. Why does
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God choose to save one man over another? The scripture makes clear the fact that it is not arbitrary or like a throw of the cosmic dice.
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Instead, election in scripture is always said to be according to God's purpose. Romans 8, 28.
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And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called ones, according to his purpose.
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Not according to chance or his arbitrariness or a cosmic dice throw or anything of the kind.
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It's called according to God's purpose. For whom he foreknew, he predestined, called and so forth.
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Now I want to go over here this morning with you five common objections to unconditional election.
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We need to know how to answer these because the dominant perspective, at least in conservative circles and Christian circles that are non -Roman
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Catholic in our country today, is not to hold to this truth that grace necessitates unconditional election.
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The first objection is this. Election is unfair to those who are not elected.
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Election is unfair to those who are not elected. And our response to that is, this is the precise opposite of the truth.
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That objection is the exact opposite of the truth. Election is gracious to those who are elected and perfectly fair to those not elected.
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Election is not fair to those who are not elected. No, election is perfectly fair to those who are not elected.
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God is unfair to no one ever. It's not within the realm of his character.
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God can't be unfair to anyone. Those whom God chooses to bypass will get their heart's greatest desire to continue in rebellion against God and to continue in sin all their lives.
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The unregenerate man not only always refuses God's love and grace, but is also positively hostile and hateful toward God and his lordship.
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Furthermore, the unregenerate person is not able to repent, not able to believe, not able to subject himself to God or to obey the calls to repent and believe of the gospel.
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They have no ability to repent and believe, nor do they have any desire whatsoever to do so.
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And thus the unelected rebel sinners get not only what they want more than anything, but they also get what they deserve by justice and fairness.
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Election is a matter of grace, not fairness. Fair is that the entire race of men goes to hell.
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Secondly, election means God forces people to believe in Jesus against their will.
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We'll hear this all the time. Election is God forcing people to believe against their will.
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One of the most common and unfounded objections to the biblical doctrine of unconditional electing grace is this.
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God forces or compels or coerces the elect into the kingdom against their wills.
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And biblically, the response to this is this. At no point does God ever force anyone to do anything against their will.
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God has never forced a human being to do anything against their will ever.
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All men, both before and after the fall, both before and after regeneration takes place, have wills, they live by their wills, and they act freely by their wills according to their nature.
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Violence is never done to the will of man by God ever. Men always act freely in accordance with their own nature and their own desires.
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One thing that really struck me years ago in reading Norman Geisler's book, Chosen but Free, and then
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James White's response to Potter's Freedom, is how badly Norman Geisler misunderstands what Reform people are talking about on this matter.
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Listen to Geisler's own words here. In responding to R .C. Sproul's statement from his book, Chosen by God, where Sproul said,
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I don't doubt for a moment that God has the power to save all. Geisler says in response to this, if this is the case, then
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Sproul must doubt that God has the love to save all. That is to say, the extreme
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Calvinist God is all powerful, but he is not all loving. And by the way, that nomenclature, extreme
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Calvinism, makes no sense whatsoever. Geisler identifies himself as a moderate
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Calvinist. He's not, he's a four -point Arminian. What is a moderate
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Calvinist in Geisler's book, Chosen but Free? It's an Arminian. An Arminian who believes that you can't lose your salvation, but he calls himself a moderate
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Calvinist, even though he doesn't agree with Calvin on almost anything. And then we are extreme Calvinists.
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Thoroughly, thoroughly confusing way of saying this. So listen to Geisler again. That is to say, the extreme
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Calvinist God is all powerful, but he's not all loving. And in coercing the elect into the kingdom, the supposedly irresistible grace of regeneration negates
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God's infinite goodness. And then in a footnote, Geisler writes, Sproul speaks reluctantly of the irresistible character of regenerating grace, but tries to soften its compulsive nature by insisting there is no external compulsion.
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But if God produced the will by irresistible force, then it is theological double -talk to say that we do it willingly.
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This irresistible act of regeneration is compared to an act of resurrection on a passive and dead body.
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What could be more compulsive? End quote, says Geisler. Now it's sad to read this because even in the statements that Geisler quotes from Sproul, you can tell that Sproul is trying his best to make this as clear as he can.
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But Geisler is so committed to the free will of man, just like Erasmus was with Luther, being the determining force in salvation that he just can't hear what
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Sproul is saying, what we're saying, what the Bible is saying. Forgive me, but I need to give another long quotation to illustrate this.
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I'm doing this because so many in our day think just like Geisler on this matter, and it needs to be answered.
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Geisler writes this, quote, some extreme Calvinists, which again is just any Calvinist, some
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Calvin, I'm just going to use, when he says moderate Calvinist, I'm just going to say Arminian, and when he says extreme Calvinist, I'm just going to say Calvinist, okay, because that's what it is.
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Some Calvinists, historic Calvinists, use a kind of smoke and mirror tactic to avoid the harsh implications of their view.
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They claim that God does no violence to a rebellious will. He simply gives a new one. In R .C.
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Sproul's words, quote, if God gives us a desire for Christ, we will act according to that desire. This sounds reasonable enough until the implied words are included.
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If God gives us an irresistible desire for Christ, we will irresistibly act according to that desire.
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That clarifies nothing to put that in there that way. Geisler continues, now it can be seen that the extreme
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Calvinists are using word magic in an attempt to hide the fact that they believe God forces the unwilling against their will.
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What Calvinists want to do is avoid the repugnant image of a reluctant candidate being forced into the fold or captured into the kingdom.
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Therefore, they argue that once that desire is planted, those who come to Christ do not come kicking and screaming against their wills.
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They come because they want to come. Of course, here again, it is the implied but missing words that shine a whole new light on the picture.
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What Sproul really means is this, once that desire is irresistibly planted, those who come to Christ do not come kicking and screaming against their wills.
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In other words, once someone is dragged against his will, then he will act willingly.
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But no matter how well the act of irresistible grace is hidden by euphemistic language, it is still a morally repugnant concept.
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The problem with the idea of irresistible grace in Calvinism, according to this analogy, is that there is no informed consent for the treatment.
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Or better yet, the patients are dragged kicking and screaming into the operating room, but once they're given a head transplant, they not surprisingly feel like an entirely different person, end quote.
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That's the non -reformed view of what the entire Reformation and what the scriptures teach about the irresistible grace of God.
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They think that we're saying God forces men kicking and screaming to believe against their will.
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And even when we point out the biblical teaching that God's effectual call is an act of resurrection, a making alive in Christ, that God does upon the dead sinner by his grace alone, we are still told that this is wrong because there is no informed consent.
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You see how strong the commitment is on Geisler's part to the autonomy of the human will and how it must be the determining factor in salvation?
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One way or the other, no matter how we say it, he wants to accuse us of believing that God forces sinners to believe against their wills.
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I'd like to point out that using the biblical imagery of the resurrection of a dead body is completely appropriate on Sproul's part because the
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Bible uses that image over and over again, right? Ephesians 2 .1,
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and you he made alive who were dead in transgressions and sins. Did you hear how pejoratively
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Geisler says these reformed, these extreme Calvinists, they liken regeneration is compared to an act of resurrection on a passive and dead body.
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What could be more compulsive than that? Ephesians 2 .1, and you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins.
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Ephesians 2 .4, but God who is rich in mercy because of his great love of which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
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Colossians 2 .13, and you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him.
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And we are chided for looking at God's effectual call as an act of resurrection on a dead body.
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Remember Ezekiel preaching to the valley of dry bones, Ezekiel 37 verse seven. So I prophesied as I was commanded.
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And as I prophesied, there was a noise and a sudden rattling and the bones came together bone to bone.
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Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them and the skin covered them over, but there was no breath in them.
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And he said to me, prophesy to the breath, prophesy son of man and say to the breath, thus says the Lord God, come from the four winds, oh breath and breathe on these slain that they may live.
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The resurrection of a dead body, breathe on these slain, these dead that they may live.
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And then verse 10 of Ezekiel 37. So I prophesied as he commanded me and breath came into them and they lived and stood upon their feet and exceeding great army.
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Now, can you see why R .C. Sproul would liken the biblical doctrine of effectual calling and irresistible grace to an act of resurrection on a dead body?
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Sproul uses that illustration because the word of God uses it a lot and it captures perfectly what
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God does in the salvation of sinners. He saves them. What good would it do God to await the informed consent of a dead man?
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Geisler's objections to this are as absurd as a doctor who has a potion which he can give a dead man, which will bring him back to life, but refusing to administer it to the dead man until the dead man gives him permission to do it.
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Someone posted a meme on Facebook of the Armenian view of salvation. Someone doing CPR on a skeleton saying, now repeat after me, the sinner's prayer.
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A dead body can neither assist nor resist anything because it's dead.
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We're entirely passive in this matter. Geisler said this quote, irresistible force used by God on his free creatures would be a violation of both the charity of God and the dignity of man.
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God is love and true love never forces itself on anyone, either externally or internally. Forced love is rape and God is not a divine rapist, end quote.
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Now I want you to chew on that one for a moment. Here we have a man who is likening
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God's altogether gracious, kind, and loving act of unconditionally electing rebel sinners who hate him, who have no free will to choose him.
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And then God's marvelous, wondrously gracious act of regeneration is being likened to rape.
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This objection is so offensive and absurd that it's almost not worth responding to. But if Geisler is correct, then at the tomb of Lazarus, when
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Jesus said, Lazarus come forth, we could argue that Jesus forced or coerced
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Lazarus back to life without Lazarus's informed consent. Could we argue that God was through Ezekiel's preaching?
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He was being violent. He was forcing those dead bones back to life, coercing them back to life.
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It's a total category error. It doesn't make any sense. When we speak of God's sovereignty and making dead sinners alive in Christ by his sovereign power, it's a category error to speak of those dead people either resisting or cooperating or giving their informed consent to the sovereign regenerating work of God.
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The dead can't give informed consent because they're dead. They can't cooperate with being made alive from the dead since they are dead.
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And to speak of the resurrection of a dead person as compulsive or of the person being dragged, kicking and screaming against their will is also an error because dead people don't kick and scream.
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God does not ever do violence to a person's will. All men have wills, live by their wills and act by their wills.
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The biblical teaching is quite clear that men are enslaved to sin. They are not able to believe, to repent or come to Christ or bear good fruit or free themselves from slavery to sin or do anything whatsoever that is spiritually pleasing to God.
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The multitude of inabilities of mankind since the fall are spelled out repeatedly, clearly and emphatically throughout the word of God.
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And I want to tell you, these passages right here were the very first step in my own becoming
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Calvinist, becoming Reformed. When you look at the effects of the fall upon us, just listen to these.
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Matthew 7, 18. A bad tree cannot bear good fruit. John 6, 44.
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No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. Verse 65 of John 6.
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No one can come to me unless the father has enabled him. It's not that they won't, it's that they're not able.
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That Greek phrase, ou dounatai, ou deis dounatai is used over and over again.
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Man is not able, not able, not able, not able, not able. And yet Geisler wrote a book called what?
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Chosen but Free. You are able. You can do what the Bible says over and over again you can't do.
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The world is not able to accept the spirit of truth because it neither sees him nor knows him.
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That's John 15. No branch can bear fruit by itself.
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It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you abide in me. I am the vine and apart from me, you can do nothing.
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Romans 8, 7 and 8. The sinful mind does not submit to God's law, nor is it able to do so.
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Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. 1 Corinthians 2, 14.
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The man without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the spirit of God for they are foolishness to him and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
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1 Corinthians 12, 3. No one is able to say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. James 3, 8.
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No one is able to tame the tongue. Revelation 14, 3. No one was able to learn the song except those who have been redeemed from the earth.
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There was a great evangelist long ago in the Anglican church who was invited to speak for the morning and the evening services at a church that was pastored in the
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Anglican communion by a very, very liberal bishop in the Church of England. And this evangelist morning sermon text was
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John 3, 3. Unless a man is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
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And he went on to speak at length of the need for a supernatural rebirth that only the sovereign
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God can give. And after that sermon, that liberal bishop called him that afternoon very angry and told him, you've offended a lot of people in my congregation with that sermon.
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I expect you to fix it with this evening sermon. So the evangelist picked as his evening sermon text,
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John 3, 7. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. That evening, that evangelist got another phone call from that liberal bishop.
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And he said, last night, I was born again. And his book chosen but three
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Geisel attempts to respond to nearly all of these clear passages of scripture and they're not able assertions that they make.
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One passage in particular that is very important is Romans 8, 7 and 8. I'd like you to actually turn to this one if you would, please.
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Romans 8, 7 and 8. Very, very critical text here in terms of what it teaches about the abilities of the natural unconverted man.
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You need to know what this passage communicates to us and what God's word says here. Romans 8, 7 and 8.
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Listen to the text. Because the carnal mind, that's the unbeliever.
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The carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God nor indeed can it be.
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So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
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Now Geisler in his book Chosen but Free has a series of appendices at the end of the book where he attempts to respond to dozens of passages of scripture.
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Listen to Geisler's comments about the passage we just read. This appears to say that unsaved persons are not free not to sin.
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That is sin follows necessarily from their very nature. We sin because we are sinners by nature rather than being sinners because we sin.
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It is true that we are sinners by nature but that old nature does not make sin necessary any more than a new nature makes good acts necessary.
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The old nature only makes sin inevitable not unavoidable. Since we are free, sin is not necessary.
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Furthermore, Paul makes it clear in this section of Romans that our enslavement to sin is our free choice.
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He wrote, don't you know that when you offer yourself someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one to whom you obey?
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Whether you are slaves to sin which leads to death or to obedience which leads to righteousness. Geisler cites that passage as if everyone in their fallen state has the option.
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You could choose to be the slave of obedience or choose to be the slave of sin. And he ends with this, we are born with a bent to sin but we still have a choice whether we will be its slave, end quote.
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That is a direct denial of original sin. It just is.
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We have a bent to sin but we have the free choice whether or not we will be its slave. Jesus said, whoever commits sin is the slave of sin.
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You don't have a choice whether or not you're going to be the slave of sin. You and I were conceived and born as slaves of sin.
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Now I've read and re -read what Geisler wrote here about Romans 7 and 8. And frankly, I have no idea how what he says has anything to do with what the text itself says.
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And so I'd like us to walk phrase by phrase through Romans 8, 7 and 8. Listen to Romans 8, verse 7. Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God.
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Okay, stop right there. The mind of unregenerate, unbelieving men is not neutral.
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Okay, folks, it's not free to decide whether it's going to be the slave of sin or not. It is hostile towards God.
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It doesn't have just a bent towards sin. It is positively hostile. There is animosity and hatred toward God not a mere bent towards animosity and hatred.
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There is real hatred and animosity there. That term that's translated hostile. Ekthra means hostility, ill will, hatred, enmity.
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Does that sound like a bent towards sin? There is open rebellion against God and against God's law as the next phrase says.
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Look at the next phrase. This hostile mind, it does not subject itself to the law of God.
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Okay, stop there. The hateful, rebellious, hostile mind of unregenerate sinners is not in subjection to the law of God.
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Why? Because there is in that unbelieving mind a revulsion to God and his holiness.
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There is a total commitment to self and evil rebellion against the law of God. Geisler says, quote, but that old nature does not make sin necessary.
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The old nature only makes sin inevitable, but not unavoidable. Since we are free, sin is not necessary.
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End quote. Now contrast that with what scripture says. Genesis 6, 5. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
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Does that sound like, well, the old nature doesn't make sin necessary. It just makes it inevitable, but not unavoidable.
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The scripture says we are much worse than that. Okay, I'm not just a little messed up with a slight bent towards sin.
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I am an enemy of God. Before he converts me, I am hostile to God.
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I don't want anything to do with him. I want to serve myself and the lusts of my sinful nature.
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That's what we are by nature. That's why it takes a miracle for us to be saved. Men in their sinful rebellion think far too lofty thoughts of themselves.
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And thus their doctrine of grace is likewise greatly diminished. Romans 8, 7 ends with the following statement concerning the mind of fallen man and its submission to the law of God.
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You see the last phrase? For it is not even able to do so. The mind that's hostile to God is not, it doesn't even have the capacity to subject itself to the law of God.
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It is not able to do so. The unconverted, unregenerate sinner does not have the power or capacity nor the desire to free itself from sin or to subject itself to the law of God.
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It is not able, not able. We are slaves of sin. We cannot free ourselves from that.
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And Geisler simply makes the bald and anti -biblical assertion, since we are free, sin is not necessary.
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And even makes the amazing statement. Paul makes it clear in this section of Romans that our enslavement to sin is our free choice.
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We are born with a bent to sin, but we still have a choice whether we will be its slave.
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I would like to see the people throughout human history who made the choice not to be the slaves of sin.
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Where are they? If there were any, they wouldn't need a savior, would they? It's amazing to think that he's been given a free pass to resurrect out of the pit of hell, this
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Pelagian error for far too long. And this has to be called out for what it is. This is a complete denial of original sin.
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And it's a frontal attack on the biblical doctrine of grace. Dr. White said this in his book, commenting on Romans 8, 7 and 8 and Geisler's response to it.
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White said this, the fleshly mind lacks the ability to subject itself to the holy law of God. The Greek is not ambiguous or difficult.
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It's literally translated for it is not even able. The new American standard providing the assumed phrase to do so.
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It is not even able to do so. The issue is not whether a person can choose to commit a heinous sin or a less heinous sin.
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Everyone agrees that no man is as bad as he could be. The issue is plainly stated by the text.
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Is fallen man free to do what is pleasing to God outside of regeneration? That's the question you need to answer.
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Does the text teach that fallen man is free to do what is pleasing to God outside of regeneration?
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And the answer is an unequivocal and emphatic, no. Yet Geisler's entire system is based upon the absolute necessity of affirming the opposite.
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But Paul nails the coffin closed on free willism. Quote, and those who are in the flesh cannot please
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God. End quote. They are not able to please God. Paul does not say those who are in the flesh at times do things that are displeasing to God, but at other times do things that are pleasing to him.
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He does not teach that men are free to believe in Christ at any time. For obviously such an action is well pleasing to God.
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Men who are in the flesh cannot please God. They can't believe they can't repent. They can't free themselves from their slavery to sin.
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White continues. How can a person in the flesh do such things as repent, believe, turn from sin, embrace holiness, et cetera, when they are still in the flesh?
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Unregenerate man lacks the ability to please God. Something must happen first.
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He has to be translated from the realm of the flesh to that of the spirit. He must be raised to spiritual life so that he can do what is pleasing to God, repent and believe in Christ, end quote.
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So that was the second objection. Thirdly, election makes pursuing holiness meaningless.
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I've heard this as well. You guys are saying there could be a person who truly repents and believes the gospel of Christ and pursues holiness and even serves as a missionary, but dies and then finds out they weren't one of the elect.
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Or there could be a person who lives their entire life as a thieving, lying, murdering drunkard who beats his wife, abuses his children and mocks
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God in the Bible all the way to the bitter end of his life, but then dies and finds out that he was elect and goes to heaven.
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The response to this objection is simple. God does not merely elect men unto salvation, but also unto faith and holiness and repentance.
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Romans 8, 29, we just read it, for whom he foreknew, that means whom he chose to enter into a love relationship with beforehand, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.
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Everyone that God foreknows and predestines he is gonna make them like Christ. He is gonna grant them repentance.
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He is going to begin chipping away at them to make them like Jesus and to make them pursue holiness. Jesus says, the decree of election guarantees faith.
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All that the father gives me will come unto me in John 6, 37. Titus 2, 13 and 14, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great
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God and savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people zealous for good works.
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That's why James chapter two is I think one of the most important passages in the canon of scripture for our day and age.
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We have to combat this antinomian false gospel of easy believism. There's no such thing as an unrepentant
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Christian. There's no such thing as a Christian who has true faith in Christ, whose life is not also radically transformed, who does not have works.
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And James says, what good is it my brethren if a man says he has faith but has no works?
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Can that faith save him? And obviously a faith that is not accompanied by all the other saving graces,
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God's effectual call, them being conformed to the image of Christ, the new life, the new desire for holiness, the declaring war upon sin, having a zeal for good works.
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If that's not there, there's no reason to believe that true faith is there either. So election far from making pursuing holiness meaningless, election is the very thing that guarantees we will pursue holiness.
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Fourthly, election destroys our motive for evangelism. Again, the objections that I've heard over the years to reform theology, which is really just to say that the objections
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I've heard to the truth of what the Bible says are very often just the precise opposite of what is true.
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Election destroys our motive for evangelism. Election's the only reason we do evangelism. Election's the only reason
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I talk to people about Jesus. If I didn't believe in election, I'm not going to Bluff City, those kids drive me nuts. Not worth it.
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There's gotta be lower hanging fruit somewhere that'd be easier than that. It fails to understand the biblical teaching that God does not merely decree the final outcome, but also all the means toward that final outcome.
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No one understood this better than Saul of Tarsus, the apostle Paul. Charles Spurgeon wrote this about Paul's incredible missionary zeal.
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He said, I traced Paul's exceeding evangelism to the fact that he was so remarkably converted. He could not be content with the surface of truth.
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He dove into the depths of grace and sovereignty. He saw in himself the boundless power, the infinite mercy, the absolute sovereignty of God.
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And therefore he bore witness more clearly than any other to these divine attributes, end quote. Paul himself wrote in 1
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Corinthians 15, 9, for I am the least of the apostles who am not worthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God.
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But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not in vain.
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Meaning it ignited abundant labor and evangelism. He says, I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not
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I, but the grace of God, which was in me. And then 2 Timothy 2 .10. I wonder how many
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Christian evangelists would make statements like this. 2 Timothy 2 .10, therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect.
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I remember years ago, getting an update from a missionary that we had supported in Kenya for years and years and years.
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And he and one of his coworkers had been evangelizing the Rendili tribe there for decades.
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And this guy had been persecuted. He had been taken down into prison. He'd had his jaw broken before by being beaten for preaching the gospel.
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I'll never forget. It just brought tears to my eyes and just made a chill run down my neck. Some correspondence we got from him talking about the things that they had been enduring and asking us to pray for this, that, and the other thing.
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And the last thing he said in this letter is they had built a Christian school and had brought all these kids from the tribe and were teaching them the
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Bible and the gospel. And he says, and I am willing to endure all things for the sake of those elect children. I think, do people think like that today?
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If they don't, they should because the Apostle Paul wrote that and inspired scripture. So whatever you have to endure to see that people come to Christ, therefore
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I endure all things for the sake of the elect. The broken jaw, that's fine for the sake of those elect children. The persecution, the harassment, they got harassed constantly by nuns and Roman Catholic workers in the area that were trying to destroy their school.
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So I will endure whatever it takes to see that these elect children come to Jesus. That's beautiful.
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That's the way we should be thinking. All these debates are so unnecessary. It's right there in the text of scripture.
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I endure all things for the sake of the elect. Would Geisler ever say that? I doubt it.
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This is why Paul traversed the world and preached and suffered persecution for the sake of the elect.
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I saw a very funny meme on Facebook recently that was the famous painting of Saul of Tarsus having fallen off of his horse and he's got his hand up like this and there's that light shining and the caption said,
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I was on my way to murder more Christians when I suddenly used my free will to become one. I don't think
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Paul believed in such nonsense. He understood what the effectual call was all about. The effectual call for him was while he was still breathing threats and murders against the disciples of the
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Lord, God knocks him down and kills him and raises him up.
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You belong to me now and now I'm going to change the world through you. No match for the effectual, irresistible, invincible grace of God.
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Fifthly and finally, because God elects to save only some and not all of the fallen race, this makes
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God only partially and imperfectly loving. This is a constant drumbeat in Geisler's book. You guys don't believe
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God is all loving. Geisler wrote this illustration and I've heard this,
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I've seen it cut and pasted and repeated all over the place. He wrote this, here's
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Geisler's caricature of what we believe. Suppose a farmer discovers three boys drowning in his pond where he had placed signs clearly prohibiting swimming.
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Further noting their blatant disobedience, he says to himself, they have violated the warning and have broken the law and they have brought these deserved consequences on themselves.
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Thus far, he is manifesting his sense of justice. But if the farmer proceeds to say, I will make no attempt to rescue them, we would immediately perceive that something is lacking in his love.
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And suppose by some inexplicable whim, he should declare, even though the boys are drowning as a consequence of their own disobedience, nonetheless, out of the goodness of my heart,
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I will save one of them and let the other two drown. In such a case, we would surely consider his love to be partial and imperfect.
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That's Geisler's characterization of what we believe. Now, the problems with this illustration are manifold.
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The problems are not so much what it says, but what it leaves out. First, the farmer, a mere creature, a sinner himself, is supposedly representing
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God in this parable. Perhaps the illustration would be better if the farmer were replaced with the most righteous and good king whose track record of goodness, generosity, kindness, bounty, patience, and holiness knew of no comparison among men in the world.
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Would that be a little bit better example, you think, than a farmer? The illustration also greatly trivializes the heinousness of human sin.
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Three good old boys jumping into a swimming hole with a sign that says, no swimming. Maybe we should replace that with the three boys raping and murdering the king's family, all his servants, and then burning down the king's house while he is away.
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A little more biblical, you think, maybe? Nothing is said in Geisler's illustration of the drowning boy's response to the father's attempts to save them.
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All three of them mock, splash, curse, and spit at the father as he attempts to save them.
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The farmer's desire to save them is called an inexplicable whim. The theologian
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Samuel Storms criticizes this phrase and these words. This sort of needless caricature portrays God's solemn, most blessed, and altogether gracious determination to save us, little more than a bothersome afterthought, with no purpose or design.
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What the author of this illustration calls an inexplicable whim, the scripture calls the kind intention of his will,
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Ephesians 1 .5. And finally, and most amazingly, Geisler's illustration, this is the part that blows me away about it.
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Geisler's illustration makes no mention of the cost of this salvation, his own son.
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Samuel Storm's response to Geisler is so devastating that I'll just allow it to speak for itself. Samuel Storms wrote this, quote,
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Divine biblical love, on the other hand, entails that the farmer cast his own son into the pond, knowing full well that if his son makes an effort to save the boys, he will die.
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The son swims to the three boys, notwithstanding their vehement and hostile cries that he get out of the water and leave them alone.
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As he reaches the three, he extends his arms in love to but one of them, though that one boy is vile and reprehensible.
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In every respect, the son of the farmer brings him back safely to shore, but in doing so, he himself drowns.
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The two boys remaining laugh and mock that the father's son has drowned. Their glee is beyond control.
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The one boy for whom the son gave his life to save is suddenly brought to tears as he senses the magnitude of the love that has been shown to him while he was yet hateful and full of blasphemy.
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The farmer lifts the boy up, dries him off, cleans the mud and filth from his body, and clothes him in the garments of his own dear son who just drowned.
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They embrace an everlasting love. The young boy falls to his knees in gratitude, tears flowing. The two who remain in the water continue hurling their taunts and insults at the farmer, declaring that even if they could start anew, they would dive defiantly into the middle of that pond without a moment's hesitation.
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I will tell you what love is. It is not providing a lifeline to drowning men who have no arms or hands with which to grasp it.
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It is sacrificing your only son to jump in and rescue someone by wrapping that rope around his waist and drawing him firmly but surely to the safety of the shore.
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And what of the two who remain and demand loudly that they be left to their chosen plight?
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So be it, says the farmer. You not only deserve to drown, but take delight in it as well.
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Have it your way. And they do." What do you think? Do you think that's a little bit better in terms of being faithful to the biblical data?
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God is free to make distinctions in his love, just as we do. God has a general benevolence toward all men, but freely bestows saving, redemptive, undeserved, and unprovoked love on whomever he chooses.
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That grace is free, unmerited, and unprompted by anything in us. God has mercy on whom he wills and shows compassion to whom he wills.
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It's freeness that makes grace grace. And without unconditional election, the biblical doctrine of sola gratia disappears.
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Let's pray. Our God in heaven, we thank you for your invincible and marvelous and unconditional electing grace that you from before the foundation of the world elected by name individually, a definite number of people to be saved by Jesus Christ and to be a love gift to him, that he would have a church to worship him for all eternity.
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And Lord, we don't deserve all of the good that you do for us day in and day out. We don't deserve that our hearts that were softened to the call of the gospel, that we saw our sin and repented and turned from it.
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Those are all gifts of your sovereign grace secured by the blood of Christ, including our faith, our repentance and our perseverance in both.
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And so we attribute all of our salvation to your divine grace and to nothing else. And we pray that you would help us to always cling only to Christ all of our days.
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In his name we pray. Amen. This is
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Pastor Patrick Hines of Brittle Heights Presbyterian Church located at 108 Brittle Heights Road in Kingsport, Tennessee.
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And you've been listening to the Protestant Witness Podcast. Please feel free to join us for worship any
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Sunday morning at 11 a .m. sharp, where we open the word of God together, sing his praises and rejoice in the gospel of our risen
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Lord. You can find us on the web at www .brittleheightspca .org.
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And may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.