The Doctrine of Grace

It is good to be with you here this evening. We only have a limited amount of time and obviously that means that our discussion will have to be on the general themes of our topic. But I said a long time ago that it would have been much easier for my ministry if There were certain topics that I never touched.

There would be far more doors open to me far more places to go.

And.

Some of those topics would be for example dealing with subject of Roman Catholicism. Because everybody has an aunt Sally. He's a Roman Catholic. It's just the sweetest lady on the earth. So you don't want to say anything about the current Pope who is a hippie from South America?

Who actually doesn't really believe a lot of Roman Catholicism, but that's a whole nother topic and.

Islam.

We've we've tried to actually do presentations on Islam in a lot of places and they wouldn't allow us in if we didn't have special insurance. Because if you could talk about Islam, we want bomb insurance, you know and stuff like that.

Okay, and that doesn't make I've really found amongst a lot of Christians. It's sort of like yeah, you go ahead and do that. We're not really all that interested in learning how to love our Muslim neighbors.

Though you have Muslim neighbors here. You may not see a whole lot of them. But as I mentioned last time as I was driving in there's a Islamic Center in your town here. So that means you do have. You do have Muslim neighbors.

But undoubtedly.

The First Reformation Debate and the Bondage of the Will

To Address what we're calling the doctrines of grace. How many of you? Would feel confident that you know what the first written debate of The Reformation was. Remembering that we remember four years ago when we were all wearing Luther 500 t-shirts and all the rest that stuff and yeah.

It was it was four years ago that we were celebrating or getting ready to celebrate October the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation. Now, of course that date was arbitrary anyways.

But.

As it may we're all excited. I was in Germany right now. I had the incredible opportunity of preaching from Luther's pulpit in the castle church in Wittenberg a little over four years ago right now and.

So.

1517 is when we date it. That's really an arbitrary number, but the first written debate between a well-known Not now outside of the Catholic fold person and someone within Roman Catholicism was between Martin Luther and a man named by the name of Desiderius Erasmus now Erasmus.

You may have heard of before. Because Erasmus was a a great scholar in languages textual history he was the one to First produce and publish the Greek New Testament in a written form. Luther used his Greek New Testament in his studies that led him to an understanding of justification by faith.

But.

Erasmus was a good Dutch humanist scholar. Humanist didn't mean back then the same thing it means today. But they debated what. Subject. Well Luther's book was called on the bondage of the will and so Luther debated Erasmus on Whether man's will is Autonomous.

Autonomous means what. Well Althaus? He she or it, but when it's used in a certain way.

Self and.

Namath is law self law so an autonomous person is a person who is a law unto themselves. An Autonomous will is a free will that is not under for example the decree of God.

Fate.

Anything else it is an absolute free will autonomy and.

So.

Luther plainly taught that man's will was in bondage to sin that man did not have a free will in the sense of an autonomous will. There's a difference between an Autonomous will and a free will. Now philosophers have used terms in a lot of ambiguous ways and so sometimes free will is simply defined as man acting on the desires presented to his will by his nature and.

So if you have a fallen nature your nature presents fallen desires. But it might. There might be multiple fallen desires. I mean you can think of a fallen person.

Who.

Has conflicting desires on a real basic level. I Happen to think that dark chocolate covered almonds are wonderful. I think they are. There are clear stop that there are clear demonstration that God loves us.

That we have dark chocolate-covered almonds. And so when I'm if I if I'm looking at that those dark chocolate-covered almonds in my camper over there.

I.

Can.

Have two conflicting desires presented by the same nature and if I wasn't a Christian just same fallen unredeemed nature. And that is why they taste really good, and I want to have about 20 more of them.

And then the other desire is yeah, but you're eventually going to weigh 487 pounds and. So both of those desires could come from the fallen nature, and they could be in competition with one another. The issue in the Reformation and ever since then and before then all the way back into the days of Augustan.

The issue was not can man have multiple desires again. Man's fallen nature present multiple kinds of desires. But can man's fallen nature present the desire to do what is right in God's sight for the right reasons.

The the nature may say to us you better do what God says or he's gonna zap you but that's not the right reason.

Can.

Those who are according to the flesh do what is pleasing to God now? It's not fair for me to put it that way because you know the answer that if you've ever read the eighth chapter of Romans. But that's the issue.

And Erasmus being the good Roman Catholic. Roman Catholicism while admitting to original sin and the fallenness of man insists and has to insist that man's will has a measure of autonomy because. The sacramental system is the means by which you receive grace and so you have to have that Freedom of the will to work the sacramental system So as to receive forgiveness of sins and grace to overcome sin and things like that and.

So Luther in writing and if you read the bondage of the will. Well, if you read anything by Luther Just just be aware of the fact that he wrote in a different day than today It has been said. And this is true in the exchanges between one particular one of his enemies.

In.

England a Roman Catholic Archbishop in England. Between he and Luther who they they wrote a number of works against each other. That it's very plain that both of them made an effort to use every Latin term that could possibly describe excrement of each other.

Including some that no one had ever really thought of before but they decided that Luther and this other guy decided to do it anyways, so there's some rough language and Most of you know that that Luther talked about the utilization of flatulence as a Means of getting rid of the devil and attacking the Pope and a few things like that so if you're going to go out tonight and start reading some Luther just be prepared that he grew up as a German peasant and It was not an overly, you know cultured upbringing in that particular context.

But in Luther's response to Erasmus He said this he said I appreciate you Erasmus of all of my Opponents you alone have put your finger on the heart of the issue the hinge upon which This all turns and he was talking about the Reformation.

He was talking about preaching of justification by faith he was talking about the gospel and Luther said you recognize the key issue here is whether man is a slave to sin or whether he's not today the vast majority of those who call themselves quote-unquote Protestants if they even use the term Would stand with Erasmus against Luther.

They would stand there on there on Rome's side. You're in an area where there's a tremendous number of folks from the Church of Christ and the Church of Christ loves to go after Roman Catholicism and and The papacy and all the rest that stuff.

But when it comes to the nature of man and his abilities in the issues the Reformation they stand firmly with Rome. They don't know that. But they do now. This therefore creates quite a division. When we start talking about how we present the gospel the means you present the gospel.

What you believe about the nature of the sinner and how you can communicate to the sinner and what is necessary For the sinner to hear the gospel and to embrace the gospel. That's extremely important.

But what is missing in so much of the discussion today about how we define the gospel? The great danger that we face today is That we live in a deeply secular society the next generation. It stuns me Just how much farther they've gone into a fully secular understanding of the world and of themselves and Because of that there is a focus upon the self self fulfillment self autonomy.

It doesn't really make any sense because in secularism There is no future for you once you die. All that is is chemicals stop fizzing. Chemicals stop doing what chemicals do and you return back to the dust.

There is no judgment. There is no transcendent meaning. There is no value to what you did. True secularists if they will be honest with their worldview will admit that this is the case. And so you've heard all the terminology has been used.

Stardust you're nothing but stardust. You are fizzing chemicals, I like the Star Trek one that I prefer ugly bags of mostly water. That was an alien description of us, but it's an apt one when you think about it.

Moist robots that one's just creepy. That's just a little moist robots. But that's all we are so there can be no transcendent meaning that discussion of the will is actually irrelevant and yet. Combined with that once you once you reject The Western consensus that that was built upon a judeo-christian worldview once you reject all that you have this Nihilism this emptiness, but then on the other hand now you have this well.

Then we need to be autonomous at least while we live and so I get to determine my own reality and if I want to be one of a hundred and forty seven genders today I can be one of a hundred and forty Seven genders today and because it's all me and and all that matters is what I do right now.

Because I might die tomorrow, and then I won't matter at all to anyone ever so I need to get my get the gusto now say and of course that leads to utter chaos. You can't you can't build a society that's going to communicate beauty and value and worth to the next generation.

Because all you care about yourself. We live in a day. We're literally and I'm going to step on some toes here. But literally there have been a lot of people in the younger generation of the day who've been convinced.

There's just as much value in raising a puppy as a child. Because they don't think of the continuation of the culture or of a nation or of anything like that it's just whatever is convenient for me, and it's a whole lot more convenient to have a puppy than a kid or Two kids or I go to Apologia Church, so on average eight kids or something like that.

So.

This is the situation we face today. It's very focused upon us as individuals and Here's the great danger. Any discussion of what God has done in Christ what the gospel is? What God's purpose is in preaching the gospel and having us preach the gospel day.

A Discussion that starts with man will never ever be able to arrive at the heights of Christian truth about what God is doing. You start at the wrong place if we start with the creature and Try to reason up from the creature will never come to true knowledge of God.

And we will certainly never come to a true knowledge of the gospel and yet. That's what most people do. Most people set up a standard based upon what I observe. What standards. I think God needs to be this kind of God and I remember so clearly meeting with a Lady came over to my office years and years and years ago.

I was very young and She was doing a master's degree at the Keno Institute. It's Roman Catholic Institute and She had to introduce it. She had to interview a.

Fundamentalist and.

So she decided to interview me and.

I.

Was talking to her about the gospel of grace and I I Talked to her about God's sovereign election and things like that. And she said well wait a minute you Are you saying that that that God chooses to whom he gives his grace and I said, yes, ma 'am I have just I could never worship a God like that and I said to her.

I know that's my point Until God works within your heart by his sovereign grace. You never will and she just never even heard of anything like that. If she if she knew her own history if she had read Augustine, she would have known That this has been a topic of conversation for a long time.

But but she hadn't but that rejection on the part of man of the idea of a sovereign God. We really have to start where scripture starts and that is we have to start with God's ultimate purposes and Then move from there to the application in time if we start with man.

We'll never be able to build up to the truth and so when we talk about the doctrines of grace, you've probably heard them broken down into various categories before and I have always insisted that what you must start with is The truth about God that crushes our creaturely autonomy.

The fact is there are passages of scripture that if we will just set aside our traditions and if we will just.

Listen.

Remind us that God is God and we are not God when we read of God's utter freedom. When we read when even a.

Pagan.

Like Nebuchadnezzar After his reason returns to him After his pride has been crushed read Daniel chapter 4 the pagan king comes to recognize there is only one true God and He does whatever he pleases in heaven and earth and no one can ward off his hand or say to him Why have you done what you've done?

And yet isn't that what mankind does every single day? Why have you done what you've done? Why are you doing this? We are so Arrogant because what does the Bible say about us? Well, how do we describe in Scripture?

We are a vapor That just disappears. A flower that blooms in the morning is dead by night. In Comparison to God's eternal existence our entire lifetime is a blink of the eye and. So, how can we even even if we are the most intelligent people in the world?

How could we take in? sufficient information to even begin to understand what God is doing let alone to judge him. And yet how many are willing to judge him Immediately based upon a single event in their life.

We know from Scripture. You think of someone like Joseph man. If anybody had the reason to question God's goodness Joseph did. Think of all the things that happened to him that he could just go. This is not fair.

God is not being loving. My brothers have gotten away from this part of her. His wife got away with this. I'm rotten here in this jail. God obviously is not good. Joseph didn't do that. I'm sure he was tempted to do that, but he recognized by the grace of God.

He recognized by the grace of God. That's in that final analysis. When he finally faced his brothers and they were afraid now dad's gone. We're toast. We're gonna be killed. Joseph's finally gonna take his revenge on us and Joseph weeps and He says to them.

Am I God?

The answer obviously is no and He showed such wisdom when he said he didn't excuse their sin. They had sold him into slavery and deceived their brother that their father that he was dead. They were hard-hearted men.

He didn't he didn't excuse any of that. But he said you intended this for evil. But God intended this for good and to save many people alive to this day. The evil that they committed God intended to take place.

Now their intentions were bad. God's intentions were good their intentions to bring about death his intentions to bring about life, which is what he did. But in the moment Simply looking at the act it would be easy to judge God.

But none of us live long enough and none of us have access to sufficient Information to ever stand in judgment of God, and that's why God can say I Do whatever I please in heaven and the earth. I accomplish all my holy will.

And yet there are many who would say no. No he does not. I've debated many a person who has just directly stated No, God does not accomplish all his will. There's much. He wants to do that he cannot do because he has limited himself and.

Yet.

We then have to ask the question How can there be prophecy of future events? How is it that when the Lord Jesus rose from the dead he could walk with his disciples? And he could open their minds understand the scriptures and show them that from Moses onward they all prophesied of him if there is no divine decree of God.

If Man is autonomous and can do this thing or that thing and either God doesn't know open theism or God learned When he created how could there be prophecy? Cyrus is prophesied by name in The prophet Isaiah right long before he ever comes along.

Which is why a lot of naturalistic scholars say I couldn't have been written by Isaiah because you can't know the future. Which is the whole idea of what prophecy is? But what if what if Cyrus had this autonomous will and The morning when he was supposed to release the Jews to go back to Israel He gets out of the royal bed.

And he steps on a toy and it cuts his foot. And he's angry and he picks up the toy and realizes the toy was made by one of those Jewish toy makers. And so now he's angry and instead of freeing the Jews. He has all the Jews killed.

Well all those prophecies. Isaiah now becomes a false prophet, right? So could that have happened? That's the problem. No, it could not have happened. God has a sovereign decree that he is accomplishing.

That does not make us or Cyrus.

Puppets.

As people like to say if there's a sovereign decree then nothing matters. I say if there isn't a sovereign decree nothing matters. Because you see if God is not accomplishing if he is not the God of Ephesians 1 working all things after the counsel of his will then there is a tremendous amount of meaningless evil that takes place in this world and God either knew when he created that it was going to happen, but had no reason for it or Didn't know when he created it was going to happen and therefore is liable for it for simply being ignorant and creating such a mess.

And for some reason people think that's better than the fact that God decreed all this and has a purpose in all this and We have to trust him that someday that purpose will be demonstrated to his honor in his glory.

Those are the issues. Those are those are the options now, I Love to allow the scriptures to present these things and so I'd like you to Turn the scriptures to the text that I opened up. I Think about 18 years ago down in Florida at a certain church I don't know whether you would have been there probably.

Do you remember that sermon?

No.

You remember me you do remember me preaching there, okay? All right? Well. That's that's actually better than most people would do to be honest with you I happen to remember that sermon because I remember that I had a limited amount of time and so I had to Be very focused and very disciplined to get everything in in the amount of time that that I had.

But I just want to run through with you one of my favorite texts on this subject and tie a bunch of these things together. So that we can sort of come to a conclusion and say this is what sets the doctrines of grace apart From everything that isn't the doctrines of grace, and this is why you shouldn't be afraid of these things and this is why you shouldn't straw man these things and just Accept what traditions say or people who try to fear monger things.

The Bread of Life and Divine Drawing in John 6

John chapter 6. John chapter 6 Gospel of John at least it's in the red letters. There are some people I've met that said hey if it's not in red letters. Don't show it to me. They are hyper red letterists.

There were of course no red letters in the original manuscripts, so and it is a Very deficient view of scripture to think that red letters are more inspired than black ones. Because the Lord inspired all of them.

They are all the Anus toss. But what I love about John chapter 6 is the story as it develops. It's the feeding of the 5 ,000 and There's all these excited men and women and children and and they've been fed miraculously and and then Jesus sends them away.

Jesus sends them away, and I'm sure the disciples who were probably Feeling pretty good about themselves as they're distributing the miraculous bread and things like that you know yes, I'm one of Jesus disciples.

Thank you very much. Yes, just remember my name. You know and They're probably people are looking up at them, and this is their except. They're enjoying themselves and Then Jesus goes and ruins all of it and sends everybody home and then he goes up in the mountain to pray and they get in a boat and they go off to Capernaum now and I've gotten to go to Israel once.

I'm so glad I got to go that one time and the thing That I took away. I took a lot of things away, but the thing that just struck me about Galilee was that if you stand anywhere on the shore of the Lake of Gennesaret the Sea of Galilee.

You can see the other shore. Anywhere I always thought well, it's a sea, so it's huge. You know you can't you know that goes over the horizon no I've stood at Capernaum where where the disciples would have landed in John chapter 6 and You can see the far shore, and that's thought that's lengthwise.

That's the longest part of the lake you can see the far shore. It's a long ways off, but you can still see it. I Was just stunned at how small Israel is. You can drive The vast majority of it in just a very short period of time.

Certainly in less than a day you can drive from top to bottom quite easily.

So.

Gia sends the disciples off and You have the walking on the water incident and all the rest that stuff takes place and they get to Capernaum and then you have the disciples who are still left on the other side of the lake which is over that direction if you're standing there in Capernaum and When they realize Jesus is gone they get in boats.

And they come over to Capernaum, and they're the ones that come up to Jesus seeking Jesus. Now when you find folks that are willing to roll across the lake seeking Jesus. We pretty much Think these folks are ready for an office in the church.

You know we'll make them Sunday school teachers or something almost immediately. But Jesus doesn't. Jesus begins to speak to them. Notice in verse 26 that they're seeking a sign they saw what happened with the feeding of the five thousand others seeking a sign and Jesus begins to focus them in upon who he is and so he talks about the manna in the wilderness and he starts introducing himself as the bread of God which came down out of heaven to give life to the world and They say to him Lord always give to this give to us this bread verse 34 and Jesus said to them I am the bread of life.

The one coming to me will never hunger and the one believing in me will never thirst. Now just in passing especially if you're dealing with Roman Catholics. Please realize the first time then anything related to hungering thirsting eating drinking is all in regards to Believing to faith.

Not to risk stealing categories of transubstantiation. But then notice what Jesus says in verse 36. But I said to you that you have seen me and you are not believing. You don't believe. You've seen me, but you don't believe because you don't know who I am.

You don't believe believe me for who I am. He identifies even the men who rode across a lake to find him as unbelievers and to them in Explaining their unbelief. He says All that the father gives me will come to me and The one coming to me.

I will never cast out. Now think about those words. All that the father gives me will come to me. Who is bringing about the actions in this sentence? Well, people are coming. So people are doing something.

But they're coming is the result of what having been given by the father to the son. So what must be true about God in a situation like this? God the father must have sovereignty.

That.

Results in Real actions amongst men. All that the father gives me will come to me not come to someone else come to me. Jesus is exclusively the center of these things. So you have the father and the son and You have a certain people who are given to the son by the father and as a result of being given They come to Christ.

Is that not the issue? Is that not the issue? The issue When you when you start putting all the other stuff aside the issue is this. If you've come to Christ Why did you come and someone else does not?

If you and your neighbor went to the same school you have similar jobs. You have similar IQs. You've grown up in the same place. You both hear the gospel. You come to Christ and the other person does not.

Is it because you are better Than the other person. Are you more spiritually sensitive?

More.

Spiritually intelligent. Did you have a better preacher? Why is it that you came and they did not and If you keep it on a human plane, and you only look for the answers within the human Categories. You're gonna have to say there was something about you that gave you a benefit the other person didn't have.

But that's not how Jesus answers these questions in Talking about these men's unbelief. He says all that the father gives me will come to me. They're not coming to him. They're gonna walk away by the end of the chapter.

They're gonna turn and walk away by the end of this chapter. Jesus starts with 5 ,000 excited people and by the end of the chapter He has 12 confused disciples and one of them is a devil from a human perspective.

You might go. I'm not sure that Jesus was overly successful here. He wouldn't pass most of our church growth classes today. That's for sure. All that the father gives me will come to me and the one coming to me I will never cast out now.

We like the last part of that verse. We like the idea that if I come to Jesus, I will never be cast out. That's most of us go. I Like that theology even though there's some theologies that even say then well Christ never cast you out but you can jump out of his hand and lose your salvation or something like that, but We like that that one, but that's the second half of the sentence.

Why is it the one coming to me will never be cast out because the father has given them to the Son? This is a divine Transaction this is between two divine individuals the father is giving a particular people to the Son and as a result of being given they come and when they come They will never be cast out.

They will never be cast out. Well, why would that be? Because Jesus says I have come down out of heaven not in order to do my will. But the will of the one who sent me. So I will never cast him out, which means he has the authority to do so if he chose to do so.

But I will never do it because I came out of heaven to do his will. Well, what's his will that's what verse 39 says and This is the will of the one who sent me In order that of all which he has given to me.

I lose none of it singular. It's looking at the whole group. I Lose none of it. But I will raise it up in the last day. Now follow the use of raise up in the last day. That is one of the ways Jesus refers to giving eternal life.

To bringing someone into the presence of God to bring them into heaven to completing the work of salvation, etc, etc but here we are told that the will of The father the will the one who sent him here is another indication of the distinction between father and son obviously is That Jesus be a perfect Savior.

Isn't that what he says? This is the father's will. That of all that he's given me. I lose none of it. If you lose none of it Then what are you claiming to have the ability to be? Perfect Savior. You don't your your salvation rate is 100

That means you're a perfect Savior. You lose nobody not a one. How many Christians I wonder really believe That Jesus is able to save a specific people given to him by the father 100 because you see if salvation is this synergistic Cooperation between the autonomous will of man and God trying to save.

Does God get 100 there is? God trying to say now here's question Is God trying to save every piece of every person equally we want to say well, yes, of course.

But just.

Look at the Bible was God trying to save Pharaoh's army the same way who's trying to save Israel. Did God send prophets? To the Amorite high priests before sending Israel in to wipe them out man woman and child.

No, well, but that's not fair. And as soon as you say that you demonstrate that you don't understand not only the wages of sin for all people. But you also don't understand the categories of justice mercy and grace.

Fair is a category of justice. You don't want justice you don't want justice. You want mercy that's a different category. Grace if it is to be grace must be free if It can be demanded if it has to be given equally to every single person.

It's no longer grace. And so what man really chase at is the universal righteousness of God in judging sin? That's what we don't like and If you give somebody a chance if you save that guy If you take out his heart of stone and give him a heart of flesh, then you've got to do that to everybody.

That's the only way to be fair you see but Jesus says the will of the Father for him is that he He saved a specific people and lose none of them, but raised him up on the last day and someone say well Yes, but you need to understand the people that the father gives to the son are the people that the father foresaw would believe in him.

See, that's not that's how it works. That's a that's how we get rid of all this troubling stuff. But remember we saw in verse 37 all that the father gives me will come to me. Not the father will give to me all that he sees coming to me.

It's a vast difference between those two. The vast of our coming is the result of the father's giving. That's grammatically necessary in the language, by the way, it's not just my interpretation. That's what the language says.

Synergism this idea that we have to cooperate together and make this work. Synergism Reverses that it's not the only place for this happen. Just keep your come back to John chapter 6, but if you if you go over to John 8 It's really interesting how people read this in 8 43.

Why is it you don't understand what I'm saying to you because you are not able to hear my word you are not able to hear.

My word.

And then down verse 47 the one who is of God. Here's the words of God. Because of this you are not able to hear because you are not of God. How would most people actually rephrase those. When people hear those words from Jesus, how do they retranslate them?

Within their own traditions. Well, why don't you understand the things I'm saying to you because you don't choose to do so. Your your will is not involved it says. Because you're not able to hear my word.

Who is able to hear his word. Well those who are those who are of God those who belong to God. That is that God has chosen. They hear the words of God. For this reason you're not hearing because you're not of God.

Why don't you hear the words of God because you don't choose to. That's not what Jesus said. You hear the words of God because you are of God and that's something that God did. And so Jesus in verse 39 of chapter 6 perfect Savior for this is the will of my father in order that everyone looking upon the Son and believing in him might have eternal life.

And I will raise him up in the last day. Now what has happened? I know Norman Geisler did this and people do this all the time instead of following the flow through. People will jump down to verse 40 and try to read it backwards into the preceding verses.

That doesn't work. The will the father for the son is that he saved all those he's given to him. That will is then also played out in the fact that in for everyone looking upon the Son and Believing in him well who has the ability to do that.

Well Jesus is about to explain. Everyone looking to the Son and believing in him will have eternal life. And I will raise him up in the last day. Where did he also talk about raising him up on the last day?