LIVE Apologia Academy - John Samson on Reformed Theology

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Join John Samson as he continues his lecture series on Reformed Theology. This is the fifth installment of the live stream. For the rest of the series please sign up at apologiaradio.com/all-access-signup

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As we start this session on Reformed Theology, I'd like to start with a quote from Mark Webb, who was teaching something similar on the doctrines of sovereign grace, and he writes this,
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I asked for questions from the class. One lady in particular was quite troubled.
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She said, this is the most awful thing I've ever heard. You make it sound as if God is intentionally turning away men and women who would be saved, receiving only the elect.
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I answered her in this vein, you misunderstand the situation. You're visualizing that God is standing at the door of heaven, and men are thronging to get in the door, and God is saying to various ones, yes, you may come, but not you, and you, but not you, etc.
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The situation is hardly this. Rather, God stands at the door of heaven with his arms outstretched, inviting all to come.
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Yet all men, without exception, are running in the opposite direction towards hell as hard as they can go.
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So God, in election, graciously reaches out and stops this one, and that one, and this one over here, and that one over there, and effectually draws them to himself by changing their hearts, making them willing to come.
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Election keeps no one out of heaven who would otherwise have been there, but it keeps a whole multitude of sinners out of hell who otherwise would have been there.
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Were it not for election, heaven would be an empty place, and hell would be bursting at the seams.
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That kind of response, grounded as I believe that it is in scriptural truth, does put a different complexion on things, doesn't it?
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If you perish in hell, blame yourself, as it is entirely your fault.
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But if you should make it to heaven, credit God, for that is entirely his work. To him alone belongs all praise and glory, for salvation is all of grace from start to finish.
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It's a quote that I think is helpful because it does just lay out the biblical doctrine of election in its rightful setting.
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In this session, I'd like to talk about what theologians call the ordo salutis, the order of salvation.
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And we're going to answer the big question that's on a lot of people's hearts, which came first, the chicken or the egg?
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All right, we're not going to answer that one, but it's a question of order. Order.
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What happened in salvation? The term salvation is an all -inclusive term, and really, to understand our
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Bibles correctly, we need to grasp that fact. Salvation covers the whole gamut of spiritual words like redemption and adoption and justification and regeneration.
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They all fit into this bigger, wider word of salvation. And so when we talk about Reformed soteriology, the doctrine of salvation according to the
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Reformed faith, what we're talking about is what the Bible says about salvation. And that general term of salvation needs to then be studied further so that we look at things like regeneration.
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Where is that in the scheme of things? And in what order do we place regeneration?
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And I'm going to submit to you that what we believe on such things really does matter. It matters tremendously regarding how we view
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God, how we view His grace, how we view His salvation. As we look at this from various different angles, we understand that when
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God does something, He does something perfectly well. He does things so well that He never fails in all
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He seeks to do. That, in fact, is the God of the Bible, and we've established that along the way in our times together so far.
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But realize this. If we get certain things in the wrong order, we not only lose sight of the biblical understanding, but we can be involved in heresy to the point that we're outside the
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Christian faith. For instance, sanctification is an aspect or a component of the wider, broader term salvation.
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But to say that sanctification, which speaks of our commitment to God, being close to God, that that happens before justification is a heresy.
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It goes flatly and blatantly against what the Bible says, and that is that we're saved by grace through faith and not of works.
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Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 spell it out very, very clearly. Works has the idea of actions, things that we do, which is a component of our sanctification, our commitment to God, our prayer life, our study of the
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Bible, all of the fruit of the Spirit, all of these things. And nowhere does the Bible teach that we ought to come up with works to gain justification.
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In fact, it's not of works, lest anyone should boast. Ephesians 2, 9.
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For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, lest anyone should boast.
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Works play a part in salvation, the broader term, but salvation is accomplished by the grace of God alone and our faith in Him alone, and works are the result of conversion.
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As Ephesians 2 and the next verse, verse 10 says, we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works.
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We're saved by grace through faith alone, but works show forth the fact that we are a converted person.
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Works show forth, as James chapter 2 declares very, very clearly, it shows to humanity that our claim to faith, the claim to say
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I have true faith, is actually a genuine claim. So, to say sanctification happens before justification would be to believe that salvation is in some way by works.
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Now, works follow true faith. You see, there's an order. We have faith in Christ and we're justified.
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Romans chapter 5, verse 1 says, therefore having been justified by faith, we have, present tense, peace with God through our
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Lord Jesus Christ. The believer can look back on his justification knowing that the moment, the very moment he had faith in Christ, God justified him.
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Romans 4, 4 and 5 spell it out in the clearest of terms, that salvation, justification is by faith and not by works.
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In fact, if we want what we deserve because of our works, we're going to hell because we have never done one good work according to God on a civil level, on a human level.
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It's very much better for humanity that you and I do works. But in the sight of God, none of us have done a good work in our unregenerate state whereby we can say
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I've done something that's pleasing to God. And that's a shock to humanity and especially the religious person who thinks they can get to God by what they do.
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We conclude, Romans 3, 28 says, that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
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Then in chapter 4 and verse 4, now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.
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We all know the analogy he's bringing out here. The man who works, when he's paid, he does not consider what remuneration comes to him, a gift.
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He's actually earned it and there should be a problem if he doesn't get what he has worked for.
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To the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. But, or and, to the one who does not work but trusts him, or as some translations read, believes in him, who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
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Again, so, so clear. When we talk about the order of salvation, we're talking about the logical, not the temporal order of things.
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I'm sure you've seen on the television perhaps a crash dummy involved in a car crash whereby scientists and those who monitor the situation record the car hitting an object, usually a brick wall of some kind, and the crash dummies inside the car are moving all over the vehicle and the reason for that is to test how secure and safe the car is.
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And good ratings means that in that particular car you're more likely to survive a crash than in a poor rating.
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And if you can think of that crash dummy, it doesn't move until first the car hits the wall.
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There's an order and yet in real time, just in normal speed, it's very hard to determine it, determine what happens before the other thing because it all happens so fast.
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It could all be over within a second or less than a second. The car hits the wall, the dummies move, but it all looks like it's happening at the same time.
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Yet there's a logical order going on there because the dummy doesn't respond to the crash until the crash actually happens and the arms are all flayed everywhere of the dummy after the impact.
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And so when we think of those things and we think which comes first, we need to get these things right because certain things logically have to happen before other things can.
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We need to start with a view of God that allows God to be on his throne because that's the only one that's real and true.
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Then we have to see what God says about man and his condition before God outside of regeneration.
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And that's the first word in this understanding that we need a grasp.
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To be regenerate means to be alive. It means to come alive.
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And the Bible speaks of man in spiritual death before his conversion.
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Ephesians 2 is just one of a number of scriptures we could turn to. Writing to the church at Ephesus, the apostle
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Paul writes, and you were dead. The Greek word is nekros, dead like a stinking corpse.
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There's no other way to translate it. Dead, D -E -A -D. And the Bible speaks of man being
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D -O -A, dead on arrival, not physically, but all men since Adam are born spiritually dead.
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Adam died spiritually the moment he sinned and he never had any children, him and Eve, never had any children until after the fall and he passed on that spiritual death to all who came after him.
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1 Corinthians 15 makes that clear. As in Adam, all die. Not most, not 78%, not 98%, but all die.
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We're born spiritually dead towards God. That means that although we might be religious and although we might have some sort of void in our hearts, as some people like to speak of it, we do not want the true
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God because our hearts are hearts of stone. That's the biblical imagery we see.
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Not a heart that is slightly stony or some people are more stony than others.
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No, every child of Adam is born spiritually dead, without a pulse spiritually.
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Some people just look with observation with their eyes and say, no, no, that guy, look at him, he's really seeking.
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Four years ago he was into Buddhism, now he's into Mormonism, and before that he was into the new age and he's just seeking.
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No, no, no, no. What he's doing is running as fast and as hard as he can away from the true
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God until he finds the true God. He will search in every way for something other than the true
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God. Make sense? Why? Because his nature is to run from God. That was
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Adam's nature after the fall when he heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
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What did he do? He hid himself and he covered himself. And all of man's religion is an attempt to cover himself.
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Let that sink in. So when someone is into so -called Buddhism, he's running from the true
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God. He's covering himself. He has a guilty conscience and he's trying like crazy to assuage that conscience so that he can sleep at night.
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By doing a religious thing, he thinks that will soothe him. Problem is it doesn't soothe or bring any merit in any way to his relationship with God.
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In fact, everything he does is a demerit. And that's true whether he's an atheist, by proclamation anyway, or into Buddhism or Shintoism or Confucianism or any of the cults,
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Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormon faith, the LDS. Anything out there that is not the true
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God and this true gospel is an attempt to run from God. Let that sink in.
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That's man's condition. And so what needs to happen for him to be interested in any way with the true
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God is that God has to intervene from above. And that's what Jesus makes clear in John chapter 3.
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Unless a man is born again or literally born from above, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
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Notice the strong language of Jesus. And again, I want us to go to the language of Scripture, to Jesus, to the
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Apostle John, to James, to Peter, to the apostolic writings of the New Testament, and of course, the
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Old as well, which confirms the exact same thing. Let's find what we believe in Scripture. Only Scripture is
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God -breathed. I appreciate the many theologians of the past and in our present day, but none of them individually, nor all of them collectively can rise to the level of Scripture.
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And I want to see if we're going to believe these doctrines of grace. I want to see Jesus talking about these things, and He does.
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There's a series I would recommend at this point by Steve Lawson, available from Ligonier Ministries called
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The Doctrines of Grace in the Gospel of John. I'd encourage people to either view it online or order the series on DVD or CD.
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Tremendous, going through these doctrines from the lips of Jesus and from the writings of John there in the
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Gospel of John. He limits His teaching to the Gospel because there's so much of it just in John's Gospel.
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And it's a wake -up call to all of us to see just how much Jesus spoke of these things.
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In John chapter 3, Jesus makes clear to Nicodemus that unless a man is born again, he cannot, not he's got a 50 -50 chance, or it's not going to look good.
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The chances are rare. No, he cannot. It's actually impossible. Unless a man is born again, he cannot enter the
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Kingdom of God. All right, let's break that up a little bit. Let's see what those words mean. To enter the
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Kingdom of God, what does that mean? We understand that is to have faith, confidence, trust, reliance in Christ alone, in His Gospel alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
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That is what we do in terms of putting our trust in Him, and on that basis we are justified, declared right by God in His sight.
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And Jesus said, no man, which is a universal statement, no one can, no one can unless he's born again.
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He can't enter. He has no ability to enter unless he's first born again.
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Notice there's an order from the lips of Jesus. Before someone can enter the
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Kingdom, regeneration must take place. Let that sink in, because the most popular view in so -called
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Christendom today is the idea that we put our faith in Christ, and then we're born again.
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But that goes totally counter to what Jesus said on this issue.
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It's explicit. It's talking about salvation. He's not just bringing in a little bit about salvation in a different context.
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The whole discussion with Nicodemus by Jesus is about salvation.
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In fact, it's later on in this chapter we have the most famous words in the Bible which speak of salvation.
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John 3 .16 is in the same chapter of John 3. Obviously, for God so loved the world that He gave
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His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.
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Again, the context continues. Salvation, salvation, salvation. But Jesus made it clear that unless a man is born again, he cannot enter the
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Kingdom of God. Then He said in similar words in verse 5 of that chapter, unless a man is born again, born from above, or as it says in verse 5, born of water and the
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Spirit, he cannot, again notice that phrase, he cannot enter the
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Kingdom of God. And He explains what He means in verse 5 by verse 6, that which is born of the flesh is flesh.
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And that which is born of the Spirit, capital S, is spirit, lowercase s.
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That which is born of the Holy Spirit is the human spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.
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It's interesting what Jesus does at this point because what He doesn't do is explain seven ways of being born again.
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He didn't say, right, here are seven steps to you being born again. No, He immediately explains the new birth by speaking of the wind and the mystery of the wind and speaking of the divine action of God, the
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Holy Spirit. He doesn't say it's in your hands, you do these three things and you'll be born again, which is the way that modern evangelicalism so -called goes about this oftentimes.
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No, Jesus points to the mystery of the wind and says, that's what's at stake and that's what's taking place when someone is born again.
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The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.
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Hear what Jesus said, so it is with everyone who's born of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit, like wind, comes invisibly and like wind, we don't see the wind, we see the effects of the wind.
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We see the papers in the streets just flying through the streets. We see entire houses when the wind blows strongly crumble under the power of the wind and parts of the roof are flying through the air.
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We see the effects of the wind, we don't see the wind so much. You don't know where it comes from or where it goes and Jesus is making it clear.
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It's not in the power of man to determine this new birth, it's a birth from above.
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It's God himself at work causing new birth, just like it's not in the power of man to cause his own physical birth.
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We were not asked, do you want to be born to this particular mother, this particular father?
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Do you want to be born at this particular time in history, in this particular nation? No, the decision about our birth is out of our hands and in the hands of our parents and that's an analogy for the new birth in a spiritual sense.
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Just back to chapter 1 of this amazing Gospel of John and the
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Gospel writer makes that clear in verse 12. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
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And then it explains that statement in the next verse, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
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Several factors were not involved. These are the not ofs of John chapter 1 verse 13.
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And we need to embrace the not ofs. It was not because of this, not because of this, and not because of this.
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What are the three things mentioned? Who were born not of blood, not because of ancestry, nor of the will of the flesh.
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Man's will was not the deciding factor in our salvation.
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And again, for the synergist, the Arminian, the one who says it's a joint or combined operation between God and man, this regeneration, this born again experience that everybody needs to enter the kingdom.
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The will of the flesh is the ultimate deciding factor in synergism.
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But Jesus makes it clear in John 3 and the Gospel writer
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John makes it clear in John 1 that the will of the flesh had nothing to do with anything that happened in terms of becoming children of God.
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The ultimate deciding factor is God. People will respond, but doesn't it say to all who received him?
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Isn't that an act of man? Yes, yes, but notice verse 13 says the reason that we, humanity, did receive, if anyone did receive him, it was not because of the will of the flesh or ancestry, not because of the will of man, not because of the will of man, but of God.
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And in a logical order, the ordo salutis, we would have to make the claim according to scripture here in John 3 and John 1, the will of man is not the decisive factor here.
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We're born from above, we're regenerated, and that causes us to want what we didn't want, to receive what we didn't want to receive before, because God takes out the heart of stone, puts in a heart of flesh that actually wants the
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Jesus of the Bible and his salvation. A lot of people want the benefits of God, they just don't want
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God. And that's true of all of us outside of regeneration.
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So understanding the order is dead in sin, then first God regenerates the human spirit by the power of the
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Holy Spirit so that new life comes and then actions take place, the receiving of Christ, the believing in Christ, the loving of Christ.
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Those things do not happen. Why? Well, if you think of it logically, it's impossible for hearts of stone to make decisions like this.
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I want to become a heart of flesh, I want to have a different nature. No, hearts of stone by their very nature do not want change, there's nothing in them to grab hold of that's in any way wanting change.
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We want change in our life, maybe different kind of purpose to life, we just don't want the
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God of the Bible or his salvation, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
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So anyone who's receiving him, God says by this verse, it was an act of God.
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It doesn't point to man, it points away from man, that's the whole loading of scripture here.
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It's not as a result of man, it's the result of God at work. Because God was first at work, man is now receiving
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Christ. Because verse 13 explains verse 12.
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So back to chapter 3 where Jesus is making this very, very clear to Nicodemus and all of us who read these words, the wind blows where it wishes, you hear it sound but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes, so it is with everyone who's born of the spirit.
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When we're talking about this auto salutis, we're again talking about a logical, not a temporal order.
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What I mean by that is just like at the crash scene of the car, let's take the car with the two crash dummies inside.
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It could all be over in a second and it's only when the camera slows down or the many cameras from very different angles record it and we watch the whole event afterwards, can we see that one thing happened before the other.
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Because in time it just looked like a, wow, a crash, dummies thrown, wow, that's just hard to take in.
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And it's because there are these sophisticated cameras at work that's allowing us to slow things down that we can see that there was an order involved.
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Now what happens in our salvation is someone comes to Christ. What happens first?
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It's the Bible that explains the logical sequence that must have taken place. Man by his nature does not want
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God and so God has to intervene first to do divine surgery like the power of the wind, the wind blows where it wishes and I can think from my own heart when
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I was 14 years of age, I went to a service I didn't want to go to on a
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Sunday night, it was May the 10th in the year 1980 and I didn't want to be there, didn't like the singing, didn't like the preaching, but halfway through I became interested in what
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I wasn't interested in eight seconds before. I can't pinpoint the time but God knows the time and he knows when any of us move from the condition of death to becoming alive.
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There's a time of our birth. Now some people have this conundrum because they've heard teaching that is very erroneous and it's put them in bondage.
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Truth sets people free, error puts people in bondage. I remember speaking to someone who said because I can't,
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I cannot locate in my mind the day and the time of my conversion, I'm not really saved.
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In fact what had happened was this person went to a service where the evangelist said unless you know the exact day and time when you were converted, you're not really born again.
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I want to just ask where is that in the Bible? It doesn't say any such thing and we can go to the great theologian from Australia, Crocodile Dundee, to get this one sorted out.
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That's because you remember he was asked in the movie, well he went and asked a tribal official when he was a youngster when was he born and the answer came back in the summertime.
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That's all the information he ever had regarding his birth. Does he sit around as Crocodile Dundee trying to work out whether he's really alive?
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No, the evidence of his aliveness is the fact that he's breathing in and out, that there's a pulse, that he's doing certain things and that's true and you and I might go to a scene of an accident and we see the paramedics at work.
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They're looking oftentimes when there's a severe crash for signs of life. They check the pulse, they see if there's breathing and if there is they're encouraged because the person is still alive.
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They don't go and try to ask what time and day were you born? They're asking is this person alive?
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And that's what the New Testament does when it speaks about us looking to see if we're alive spiritually.
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It says examine yourselves to see if you're in the faith. You look in 2nd
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Corinthians, it speaks of that and it means check your pulse. If there's a heartbeat spiritually, if there is evidence of a conversion that will be seen in the activity you're now doing.
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You actually love what you didn't love before. Not perfectly, not even well at times, but there's something in you that still has a heartbeat to know
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God. That's evidence of God being at work. There's something in you that still loves the true gospel and you want to hold on to it.
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That's God showing you that spiritual birth has taken place. That's what we're called to do, not look at a time and place.
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And I was able to, under God, just steer away from the false teaching and say, check yourself.
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Are you alive spiritually? Just like Crocodile Dundee, if you can sense that you're alive, you must have had a birth.
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And that's why it didn't really phase Crocodile Dundee in the movie as to whether or not he was alive because he couldn't pinpoint the year of his birth.
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And a lot of people can show by a dramatic conversion that they were converted on a certain day.
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And they become suspicious of those who say, you know what, I can't point to a day or month or I can't even put it within three years.
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There are some people who say, you know, somewhere between my fifth and eighth birthday, somewhere in there,
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I was made alive spiritually and I haven't looked back since. And I still love this
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Christ and there's evidence that I do love him, but I can't put a date on it. And I wanted just to encourage you.
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You're just as much converted as the person who has the dramatic, almost like the
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Apostle Paul rode to Damascus experience. Are you alive? Well, Reformed theology will really help you at this point.
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You couldn't be alive with evidence to show you're alive unless you were first dead and made alive by God, by regeneration.
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Regeneration is the smaller word. Salvation is the bigger word. And regeneration is the first thing
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God does. And with that, we speak of monergism. We've spoken of that word earlier in this course.
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It's a great word to get hold of, monergism. One power working. It's the power of God and God alone.
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And that's what we should attribute to God in our salvation. The reason I'm a Christian and someone else who might have heard the exact same message
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I did is not, is because of the power of God. Not my ability to intelligently work out who
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Jesus is for myself. Not because of anything found in me.
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Not because my heart was more subtle and more humble than my neighbors.
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No, to be dead spiritually is to be dead spiritually. D .O .A., dead on arrival. That's how we arrive on planet earth.
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The reason I'm a Christian and someone else is not is because of the activity of the Holy Spirit alone.
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It's not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man. But I'm receiving Christ because I'm born of God.
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And one thing happens before the other. And here's three words in a sentence
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I want you to really grasp because I think it will really set the stage for understanding this ordo salutis.
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Three words. Regeneration precedes faith.
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We all understand the word precedes. It means to come before. Regeneration comes before faith.
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You believe that, you're on the way to reform theology and reformed soteriology.
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And the reason I believe it is because Jesus taught it in John chapter 3 and we see it elsewhere in our
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New Testament. So, just summarizing for a moment, there's a logical order of things, not a temporal order.
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All of the salvation in the sense of a conversion could have taken place in a moment of time.
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But if we slow the cameras down and look at the scripture, we need to understand
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I couldn't have entered the kingdom of God unless I was first born again. And I get that from Jesus.
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Another thing we need to understand is to distinguish between justification, which is
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God declaring us right in His sight, and sanctification. Sanctification is the lifelong process on planet
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Earth where the Christian is being made more conformable to the image of Christ.
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And for all of us, that's an ongoing process. And sometimes we think we're doing well in that, and then other times
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God exposes the depths of our corruption, the flesh nature that is still alive and well.
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And it's an ongoing process. And I'm glad Paul wrote what he did in Romans 7, where he spoke about him being the wretched man that he was.
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In fact, he spoke of it in the present tense. I don't believe he's speaking of pre -conversion days.
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He's speaking of his relationship with God and saying, the good that I want to do,
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I don't do. And the good, the bad things I don't want to do, I end up doing, oh wretched man that I am.
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And he's speaking as an apostle of Christ and speaking in the present tense.
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And he says, in my mind I love the law of God, I want God's will, but I end up not always accomplishing it.
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I don't believe he could have said that as an unconverted man. He's speaking in the present tense and speaking of the life of sanctification.
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And he understood that God has to be at work for us to even want the things of God.
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He's very clear on that. So justification is God declaring someone right in his sight.
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You go to the court, guilty before God because of sin. But Jesus as the substitute, the sin bearer, has borne your sins in his body on the tree, according to 1
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Peter 2 .24. And he has taken the guilt and punishment you deserved upon himself.
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And as our sin bearer, he was punished for us. He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.
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The chastisement, the punishment due to us came upon him and by his stripes we are healed.
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All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to our own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity or the rebellion of us all.
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That's the work of Calvary's cross, Christ on the cross for us. Has not only died for our sins, but he lived for our righteousness.
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And all of the positive righteousness of Christ is transferred to the account of the believer at the moment of conversion.
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When he places his faith in Christ, the death of Christ is attributed to him, the life of Christ is attributed to him.
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He goes from the courtroom free, God says not guilty. Not only do I reckon you righteous in my sight, but I reckon you righteous in the righteousness of my
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Son which is perfect, that cannot be added to. And 8 ,000 years from now, 20 ,000 years from now, you cannot be as a child of God more righteous than you are the moment you place your faith in Christ because you've been made righteous with a righteousness that is not your own.
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Luther called it an alien justitium, an alien righteousness, it's from outside of us.
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It's amazing, that's why they call it amazing grace. It's all the act of God and that's justification.
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Sanctification as I say is that lifelong process and it's important that we distinguish between these two, justification and sanctification.
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And get this, our very salvation is on the line in doing this. You confuse this and you end up with a false gospel and it's
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Galatians makes clear, anyone who preaches a different gospel, another gospel is under the anathema of God.
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We are to believe what God has revealed in his word and Galatians makes it clear what that is. Justification is by faith, by faith alone.
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One man said justified means just as if I'd never sinned and that's good as far as it goes.
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I'd like to take it another stage further. Justified means just as if I'd never sinned and just as if I'd always obeyed because the righteousness
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I've been given doesn't merely cancel out my sin but gives me positive righteousness and that's my most pressing need.
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Jesus said unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and pharisees you shall in no way enter the kingdom of God.
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I need more than just my sins taken away but that just brings me to zero. Imagine a man with eight billion dollars in debt and that debt is cancelled.
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He's going to be pretty joyous but he's still only got zero in his account. His debt is cancelled.
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That's wonderful but to get to heaven you need something in the bank account. You need positive righteousness and God gives you
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Christ's righteousness so that you as a believer, poor in spirit, bankrupt in heart knowing that you bring nothing to the table except your sin, look in, check into your bank account.
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It's as if you go online, check your account and you check in the morning you think you know I don't remember making a deposit and it says
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I've got 100 billion in my account. I think I'd remember putting that in as a deposit and then you realize it's what
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God has done for you in Christ. You're loaded. You've been given a righteousness that is not your own and it's perfect.
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It's flawless. It's his. How do we know that? First which again speaks of the monogistic act of God.
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By his doing you are in Christ Jesus who has made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.
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Christ is our righteousness. 2nd Corinthians 5 verse 21.
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For he God made him Jesus who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf that we might be made the righteousness of God in him in Christ.
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There it is. Romans 5 17 tells us it's a gift of righteousness.
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Those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by the one
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Jesus Christ. The gift of righteousness. It's not something you and I produce. It's all of him.
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So here's what we need to make clear. We distinguish and we have to distinguish between justification and sanctification but we do not separate them.
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I'm going to say that again. We distinguish between justification and sanctification.
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Justification is God declaring us just and right in his sight. Sanctification is the lifelong process of becoming more like Christ.
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We distinguish but we do not separate. Let me give you an illustration. If I was to distinguish the difference between your head and your body
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I've done you no harm. I can say your head is this shape, your body is that shape.
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I've done you no harm whatsoever. However if I separate your head from your body it's not going to be good for you.
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We are not to separate these two because here's what we know from our New Testaments.
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Those whom God declares just in his sight by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone are changed people who now want what they didn't want before and there should be some measure of sanctification that we can point to to say there has been a change.
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I do have new affections. I long now for what I didn't long for before. I want to know him.
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I want to know his word. I want to walk with him. If there's absolutely no spiritual pulse it leads me to question whether there's spiritual life.
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Now here's where we need to go with this too. I'm not the judge. I'm not the judge on someone's spiritual condition.
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We're not to be judges of spiritual conditions and say this one's in the kingdom, this one's outside the kingdom.
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Thank God, God knows. The Bible says the Lord knows those who are his and let everyone who names the name of the
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Lord depart from iniquity but the Lord knows. I don't. I don't see into the hearts of people.
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God knows it all entirely. He knows every one of our hearts. So I'm not to judge but I can be a fruit inspector in the sense of Jesus said you'll know the true prophet and the true teacher from the false by the fruit and it's true about the
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Christian life and I can say if I don't see any pulse there's no desire for God, no desire for his word, none whatsoever.
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Although I'm not the judge it leads me to ask this question. Is there spiritual life? You ask yourself is there any signs of spiritual life in me?
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You're not saved by your spiritual activity but if you are spiritually alive there will be evidence.
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The alive person, the one made alive shows signs of life just as in the natural realm.
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Someone who's alive will have a pulse and will be breathing and will be showing brain activity.
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So it is in the Christian life. So we can distinguish justification from sanctification.
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We cannot separate because the one who's justified is also regenerated and has a new nature and there should be some signs of spiritual life in their lives.
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The question we need to ask is can dead rebel sinners exercise saving faith to cause their own spiritual birth?
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Let me ask that question again. Maybe something you want to write down. Think about this. Think what the scripture says on this particular question.
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Can, speaking of ability, can dead rebel sinners exercise saving faith to cause their own spiritual birth?
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I believe the answer is a resounding no. Why? Because of what we call total depravity, radical corruption, man outside of the new birth, outside of God the
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Holy Spirit taking out the heart of stone, putting in a heart of flesh. We are just stoned heart people.
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We have no desire for God. What does the scripture say? Well, let's turn to some of the passages.
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We're in John chapter 3. Let's go again to the words of Jesus in John 6. I just want to look at one verse.
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I'd love to spend some time in John 6. I've done it elsewhere and there's so much we can say.
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In fact, let me say something. I've got my book here. Let me see if I can find the section. May have marked it here in my edition.
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Here we go. Finally, there's a book out there
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I can agree with. I'm actually in this particular section, chapter 6 of the book, 12
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Whatabouts, quoting Dr. R .C. Sproul on a verse in John 6 and it's verse 44.
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Let's read it in our Bibles. Again, it's in context of Jesus looking at a group of people and is totally unconvinced that they believe in him.
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In fact, he says they don't. Earlier in the chapter, they make a profession of faith.
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They say they believe in him. In fact, you can see that earlier in the text. Jesus walks on water and everybody's mightily impressed and it says that they believed in him.
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Look at verse 14. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, this is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.
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I'd say they're making a profession of faith. What I want to submit to you is we are not justified in the sight of God by a mere profession, but by the possession of true faith.
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Many can say they have faith, but whether or not they truly do, that's another question.
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And Jesus looks at these people right in the face and is not in any way convinced they're true believers. In fact, we can pick this up in verse 34.
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Jesus said to them, the crowd, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
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But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. He's looking at the crowd and he says you, the crowd, do not believe.
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Then verse 37. All that the father gives me will come to me. Again, this is divine election with a vengeance from the lips of Jesus.
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All, not some, not 48%, not on a good year, 94%.
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All, 100 % of those the father gives me will come to me.
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Question, which comes first, chicken or the egg? Which comes first, the giving or the coming?
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Look at the text of the Bible. All, that means everyone. All that the father gives me will come to me.
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The giving of the father to the son happens before the coming of the people to Christ.
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And Jesus said, all the father gives me, which is speaking of a relationship in eternity whereby
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God the father gives to the son a group of people. And Jesus says, all in that group, all the father gives me will come to me.
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We all say this. It's the coming to Christ that causes our justification. It's having faith in him.
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That's what it means to come to him. It's not merely to walk up to Jesus in the first century.
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It's talking about trusting in him, believing in him. All that the father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me,
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I will never cast out. Jesus will not lose any in this group. How do we know that?
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Verse 38, 39. For I've come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
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Question for you. Can you and I imagine Jesus ever failing to do the will of his father?
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I can't. No way. In fact, he was able to say, I have completed the work you gave me to do.
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You read John 17. He always does the will of his father. So we need to ask the question, what is the will of the father for Jesus?
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Verse 39 tells us, and this is the will of him who sent me. Speaking of the father, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.
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Raise it up is an expression of salvation, raising it up to eternal life.
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And Jesus says the will of his father is that of all he's been given from the father, he raise it up on the last day.
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He lose none of them, but all of them are raised up on the last day. Speaking of salvation.
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So he's looking a group of people. This is Jesus. This is not John Calvin or Martin Luther or Spurgeon or Jonathan Edwards or any of the greats.
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This is Jesus saying, the father has given a group to me and all he's given me will come to me.
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And it's the will of my father that I lose none of them, but raise it, the entire group up on the last day.
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Wow, that's powerful stuff. Verse 40, for this is the will of my father that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him, he's explaining what the coming to him means, is looking on him, believing in him, should have eternal life and I'll raise him up on the last day.
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You believe in Jesus, you trust in him with authentic true faith. Jesus says,
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I will raise him up on the last day. He's part of a wider group that were given to me in eternity past.
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This is Jesus speaking about divine sovereign election. He's looking a group of people right in the face and saying, you don't believe, but everyone who the father has given me will come to me and I'm going to raise the entire group up to eternal life.
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I can't see how Jesus could have been more explicit about sovereign divine election.
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Verse 41 is the reaction. They didn't like this. The Jews didn't like this message.
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You can understand that and a lot of people don't like this message of divine election in our day.
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But if we want the real and true Jesus, we have to embrace what the real and true Jesus says.
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The Jews grumbled about him because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven.
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They said, is this not Jesus? Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?
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As Keith Green once said, prophets don't grow up from little boys, do they? We know who this guy is.
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How does he now say, I've come down from heaven? Jesus answered them, do not grumble among yourselves.
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Look at verse 44. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I'll raise him up on the last day.
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It's written in the prophets and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me.
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Not that anyone has seen the father except he is from God. He has seen the father. Truly, truly,
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I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. We could go on to verse 65.
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He said, that's why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the father.
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All right. Verse 44. I said we're going to look at one verse. We've looked at a number, but I wanted to see this in its context.
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No one is a universal negative. It leaves no one out. No one can, and that word can speaks of ability.
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Let me again get to this quote by Dr. Sproul. First we notice that Jesus said no one.
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This is a universal negative statement. It does not mean that some cannot come unless the father draws them.
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It means absolutely no one can come unless God does something first. Mankind is so depraved in fallenness that apart from the irresistible grace of God, no one would ever turn to Christ.
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Second, we notice that Jesus said can. Remember the difference between the words can and may.
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Can means is able, while may means has permission.
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Jesus is not saying that no one has permission to come to him. Rather, he says that no one is able to come to him.
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This is the biblical doctrine of man's total inability. Third, we notice the word unless.
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This introduces an exception. Apart from this exception, no one would ever turn to Christ.
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Finally, we come to the word draw. Some have said that draw only means woo or entice.
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That is not the case. However, in James 2 .6 we read, are they not the ones who are dragging you into court?
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In Acts 16 .19 we find they dragged them into the marketplace. The same
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Greek word is used in all three verses. Obviously, enticement is not in view here in John 6 .44.
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Gerhard Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the Testament says that the word translated draw in John 6 .44
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means to compel by irresistible authority. It was used in classical
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Greek for drawing water from a well. We do not entice or persuade water to leave the well.
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We force it against gravity to come up by drawing it. So it is with us. We are so depraved that God must drag us to himself.
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I then make a comment on what Sproul has just written in his book, Chosen by God. The wonder and beauty of God's grace is that while we are in a state of spiritual death, the
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Spirit's work is to make his elect willing to come. He changes the disposition of rebel human hearts, taking out a heart of stone, putting in a heart of flesh so that they come willingly.
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When most people quote John 6 .44, they mention the first part of the verse, no one can come to me unless the
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Father who sent me draws him. But they often fail to quote the rest of the verse, and I will raise him up on the last day.
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Jesus gives us very significant insight here, and it is something we should not miss.
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He states that the one drawn, hear this, he states that the one drawn is also raised up at the last day, signifying being raised to eternal life with Christ in heaven.
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The words, the original words translated from Koine Greek into English are draws him and I will raise him up, draws him and him
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I will raise up. Let me say it again, the original words into English are draws him and him
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I will raise up. The two hymns, H -I -M, the two hymns are separated by only one
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Greek word. This is important because linguistically there is no way to make the one drawn and the one raised up refer to two different people.
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The same one who is drawn is raised up to eternal life, obviously.
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This is a powerful and effectual drawing resulting in salvation.
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Where else can we see this doctrine expressed? One more we can turn to, there are others, but Romans chapter 8 and verses 7 and 8, the apostle
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Paul writes to the Romans and explains man condition outside of regeneration.
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And he says this, or he writes this, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.
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Indeed, it cannot. Notice we're not speaking again of permission or may, but about ability.
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It cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Romans 8 verse 8.
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To be in the flesh is to be someone who is not yet regenerated, is not yet born again.
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We know this from the next verse. Verse 9. You, speaking and writing to the church at Rome, to the
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Christians, he says, you however are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you.
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Anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him. So he's speaking of the non -believer, the man who's in the flesh.
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I was raised in a church that spoke about being in the flesh in the sense of a charismatic type understanding.
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Oh, you're speaking by the spirit. Oh no, you were in the flesh when you said that. I was in the flesh.
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That's not what is going on in these verses at all. To be in the flesh is to be a person without the
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Holy Spirit, to be an unchristian, not a Christian. Anyone who's a genuine
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Christian is no longer in the flesh, he's in the spirit. He's born into the realm of the
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Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has come to reside in his heart. But those who are in the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.
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They're hostile to God. That mind does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot.
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It has no appreciation or value or desire or delight in the law of God.
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And those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Those who are in the flesh cannot, speaking of ability, please
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God. Question, does it please God when someone repents and puts their faith in Christ?
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The answer is yes. Those who are in the flesh cannot please
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God. It takes an act of God. It's God at work.
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When you see someone born again, it's not because the ultimate deciding factor was their will.
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It's not of will. It's not of Him. It's not of us. It's an act of God.
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It cannot, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. To be in the flesh is to be someone without the ability to hear.
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Christ's sheep hear his voice. 1 Corinthians 2, 14. The natural man, the
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Greek word is psychikos. We don't really have a word in our English language to speak of what the original speaks of, which is the soulish man, the man governed only by his senses, by his soul.
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In some Scandinavian language, some of the Denmark, Sweden, Norway, in some of those countries they do have this understanding of a word we don't have in our vocabulary, soulish.
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And the soulish man cannot see what the spiritual man can see.
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He's blind. In fact, 2 Corinthians 4 speaks of this, the God of this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe.
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That's our spiritual condition as spiritually dead people. And to be blind is not to be short -sighted, to be deaf to the things of God.
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Jesus said those who are not His sheep cannot hear His voice.
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They're blind to Him. They're deaf to Him. What does that mean?
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They can't hear the words of Jesus? No, they can hear the words. They can't hear with spiritual perceptors that allows them to rejoice in what
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God says, in what Jesus said. They fight against it. They do not agree with it. They do not certainly delight in Jesus' words, whether it's about Himself or His gospel.
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This is all very, very clear. And that's why I am reformed in my thinking because the
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Bible, the B -I -B -L -E teaches reformed theology. It really does. Man is not able to do what he needs to do, which is repent and have faith in Christ.
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And that's why when we look at these terms of repentance and faith, they are spoken of in the
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New Testament as gifts from God. It's not within natural man to believe in Christ.
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He is first to be born again. Unless he's first born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
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Can't see it. Can't enter it, Jesus said. In every synergistic system, which is a combination of God and man at work, the order of salvation has to be a man repents and believes, then he's born again.
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Then he's a new creature. But that would go counter to what Jesus said, and it would insist that unregenerate man is capable of something
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God makes clear is impossible. He cannot do it. No one can come to me,
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Jesus said, unless the Father draws him, and I'll raise him up on the last day.
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This is such a powerful drawing. It speaks of irresistible grace at that point that allows someone to believe, to come, and as a result, will be raised up on the last day, which speaks of perseverance of the saints.
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They will stay in that realm where they are saved by God. Unless we have a monergistic view of regeneration, we'll be counter to scripture.
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We need to understand that the will of man is enslaved to his nature. He's incapable of doing anything pleasing to God.
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Cannot is a strong word, and that's why spiritual activities such as repentance and faith are described as the gift of God.
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As we wrap this up, I'd like us to go in our Bibles to Ephesians 2.
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It's to a verse I've quoted, but I'd like us to see it in this context now, see what
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God has done for us. I described something of my journey from the synergistic view
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I had to the monergistic view of God in salvation. You know that scripture,
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Ephesians 2 verse 8, I'm going to read from the New American Standard Bible at this point.
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For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works that no one may boast.
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In these words, the apostle Paul destroys all notion of salvation by works.
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I'm reading from my book Twelve Whatabouts. We are saved by the grace of God, which is received through faith, and works play no part at all.
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As verse 10 makes clear, God has indeed planned for believers to do good works, but as this and many other passages in scripture would affirm, the works are the fruit and not the root of our salvation.
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True believers do good works, but works play no role at all in how we receive salvation, for it is not as a result of works.
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Martin Luther said, God doesn't need your good works, your neighbor does. I like that.
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This much is clear, but questions have arisen as to what exactly is meant by the one word, that, in Ephesians 2 verse 8.
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If you look in your Bible, look and see what your translation says at that point.
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It speaks of that is the gift of God. We know that whatever it is, it is the gift of God, but can we determine exactly what this gift is?
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Some say that the gift is faith, while others say it is grace, still others say it is salvation.
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What may be a point of dispute from the reading of the English translations becomes settled when looking into the original
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Greek text, putting it in terms we can hopefully all understand. The Greek word for that is transliterated into English as tauto and is in a neuter form.
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The way to determine what it refers to is to look for the other neuter in the immediate context.
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You understand this in some languages, some words are masculine, some are feminine, and some are in a neuter form, somewhere in the middle.
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So the way to determine what the that refers to is to look for the other neuter in the immediate context.
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That's how the issue would normally be resolved, except that in this particular case there isn't one.
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Now hear this, grace in this Greek word is feminine, the phrase have been saved is masculine, and faith is also in a feminine form.
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In this case then, what the that refers to is all in the preceding clause.
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The grace, the salvation, and the faith, all of these things are the gift of God. Paul is making it clear that nothing in our salvation comes from ourselves.
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Salvation, grace, and faith from start to finish, all of this is the gift of God, not as a result of works.
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God has designed salvation in this way for the very purpose of eliminating all grounds for human boasting.
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Boasting is not merely discouraged or kept to a minimum, it is completely removed.
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That is because the entire work of salvation is God's work from start to finish.
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This is not your own doing, it is the gift of God as the ESV renders it. The grace by which we are saved and the faith that is the mechanism through which we receive it.
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Yes, even this faith are the gift of God. Salvation is of the Lord and all the glory for it goes to God alone.
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I hope you're getting this. I hope it's coming alive on the inside of you as it did for me.
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Philippians 1 .29 tells us it's been given you to believe. 2nd
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Timothy 2 .25 says God may perhaps grant them repentance. Repentance and faith are spoken of as gifts from God in the
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New Testament. Understanding this, we can now look at this auto salutis with new fresh understanding
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I believe and see the two contrasting views. One gives all the glory to God and the other puts man in as ultimately the deciding factor in our salvation.
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One other scripture that would affirm this concept that regeneration precedes faith is 1st
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John 5 .1 where it says everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.
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In the original Greek, the verb tenses in this are very revealing. A literal translation reads as follows.
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All the ones going on believing, pestuan, a present tense, continuous action.
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All the ones going on believing that Jesus is the Christ, the
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Messiah, has been born. Genesanta, perfect tense, which speaks of an action already complete with abiding effects.
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It's something that's happened that is having an effect now because it's happened. All the ones going on believing, they're continuing to believe that Jesus is the
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Messiah, has been born of God. Perfect tense, an action already complete with abiding effects.
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Let me comment on this. The fact that someone is presently going on believing in Christ shows that they have first been born again.
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Faith is the evidence of regeneration, not the cause of it. Since both repentance of faith are possible only because of the work of God, regeneration, both are called the gift of God in scripture.
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Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. It didn't come from inside of you.
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It was a gift given you from God. Let me quote J .I. Packer, regeneration is the spiritual change wrought in the heart of man by the
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Holy Spirit in which a person's inherently sinful nature is so radically impacted, his disposition so affected, his mind so illumined, his will so liberated, that a person can and will respond to God in saving faith and willingly live in accord with the will of God.
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What's the order of salvation? Well, while man is dead in sin in terms of planet earth, that's his condition as he enters this world,
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God, first in eternity past, elects some but not all to salvation.
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God's choice of a people to be saved took place before the world was made, we're told in Ephesians 1 verse 4.
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He chose us in before the foundation of the world. So one would be election, two would be predestination, which is the pre -assigned destination marked out for those he chose.
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Third is the gospel call, the outward call of the gospel. We've spoken of this before.
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Outward in that it happens outside of us, the preaching of the gospel heard with the physical ear.
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Fourth is the inward call, where God the Holy Spirit speaks life to the elects, dead, human spirit, even as they hear the outward call of the gospel.
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Fifth would be regeneration. Just as Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus come forth before Lazarus came to life.
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Logically speaking, number four, the inward call has to come before number five, regeneration.
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The inward call has to come before spiritual life is imparted. That's it.
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Then we see the results of these things. Conversion, we repent, we believe.
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Why? Because we're now alive. Human activity takes place but it's the result of divine activity.
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Justification, God's declaration of the person is just in his sight. Adoption, he is brought into the membership of the family of God.
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Behold what manner of love the Father has lavished on us that we could be called the children of God and such we are.
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Sanctification then, set apart to God, an ongoing process in this life but perfected the moment we step from this life into the next.
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And lastly, glorification, the golden chain of redemption has five links.
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We saw this last time, foreknown, predestined, called, justified, glorified, and God loses no one along the way.
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I'd encourage you as you are continuing on in this course to get hold of the required reading, the book by James Montgomery Boyce, Whatever Happened to the
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Gospel of Grace, this second book of his, The Doctrines of Grace, which he wrote with Philip Graham Rikin.
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My book, Twelve Whatabouts, there's a section in this Doctrines of Grace, page 144 in the hardback edition
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I have, that speaks of the order of salvation. I'd encourage you to read through that to the end of the chapter.
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There's much that will be of help to you. I'm so thrilled that we don't need to be in the dark on these things and to get this right is so important to understand just what
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God has done in saving us. It's an amazing work and it starts with God and it ends with God achieving all his objectives.
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Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for this teaching. We thank you for your clear word.
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We ask that the Holy Spirit who has inspired these words to us would continue to come alongside us as we wrestle and grapple with these things.
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Lord, let us help. Help us, Lord, to be released from our own traditions, should we have them.
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We're all blinded by our own traditions, but Lord, expose our traditions to the light of your word.
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We ask this that you would do this for the people watching and listening and that as we read through your word that these things would become very dear to us, these precious doctrines of grace, to understand just what
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God has done in the salvation of anyone, to realize it's much more powerful than any kind of physical healing to raise a man or a woman, a boy and a girl from spiritual death to spiritual life.
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It's as if Jesus has stood at the tomb of our dead spirits and says, John, come forth.
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Alan, come forth, whatever your name is. Come forth and we come because there's power in that call.
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Lord, we thank you for irresistible, effectual grace. Thank you in Jesus' name.