John Samson Covers the TULIP Today on the Dividing Line

Welcome to today's broadcast of The Dividing Line. My name is Pastor John Samson of King's Church in Phoenix. It's a delight to be on the show covering while Dr. James White is away in Ukraine. And it's good to give a quick update.

He's okay. I've seen the text that has been sent to Rich. I've seen it with my own bare eyes and he's okay. Kiev is known as Kiev by the locals over there. I've actually been there four times to Ukraine.

I've been to the square where all of the violence is taking place. It's a very hostile situation. I'm told he's about 15 miles away and in European terms that's a long way. That's outside the city in fact.

Right on the outskirts of the city. It's very different over there the way cities are built. Very very close buildings. What shall I say? They're very extensive right in the heart of the city and then as the city spreads out you are a long way from the city center where all the action is.

So as long as James keeps out of the city center he should be okay. But please be praying for his safety, for his ministry over there. It continues as of now. We're waiting for news from the State Department as to whether Americans should be leaving the environment there.

There's travel warnings but as yet there's been no decree saying just get out of the country. So please be praying but as of now everything is fine. He's okay. Although it's a very tense situation. I wanted to give that update for everybody who's involved in praying for this ministry.

Please continue to pray for James and for his ministry over there. As I say I'm Pastor John Sampson of King's Church and I would request some prayer. We're really looking as a church just getting started in the Phoenix area.

Although I've been here a while pastored a church and handed it over to someone else. Now restarting a new church and we're just meeting in a home situation right now and we're looking for a location.

So would you pray that we'll be able to find a location on the west side where we will be able to congregate. It's a lot easier to invite people to a location that is more than a home. Just looks better to the prospective candidate who might be looking for a church.

So please be praying for us in that. Today on the broadcast we'll be taking calls hopefully if people are brave enough and willing enough to call in either with comments. That's always encouraging when they are encouraging comments or questions or queries and we're going to be looking at the tulip.

I want to just take us through the scriptures in the time today and hopefully next time as well on the subject of the doctrines of grace. They're known as those doctrines of grace because they really tell us what God does in salvation.

What he has done to save a people for himself. We start off with the infamous acrostic tulip and really it's not anything more than a memory device to help the English-speaking world at least understand what was at the heart of the debate.

Long after Luther had marched off the scene Calvin came along and then a gentleman by the name of Jakov Arminius or Jacob Arminius really led protesters against the Protestants if you like. They were known as the remonstrants.

The doctrines that they had a big issue with were concerning vital aspects in their minds regarding what the Reformers were teaching and they had five big objections and the church got together in the Netherlands at a place called Doort and came back with what they called the canons of Doort and in five articulated doctrines responded to the remonstrants and these are in the English language at least.

Tulip, T standing for total depravity, U for unconditional election, L for limited atonement, I for irresistible grace and P for perseverance of the Saints. I want to deal with the first of these knowing that Calvinism or the doctrines of grace is not everything Calvin stood for.

He never articulated his doctrine in five brief statements or five doctrines whatsoever. These were certainly just a response to those that had some issues with what was being said by the Reformers. So understanding that, that's the context in which these things are addressed.

T standing for total depravity and it's unfortunate that that really is the title given. It works great as an acrostic but I would prefer radical corruption to better explain the biblical doctrine and I believe these things not because I have some allegiance to church history, theologians, Calvin is the guy of all guys, not at all.

There are certain issues I would have with John Calvin but in terms of these doctrines I believe they can be certainly attested to by Scripture. I want to make that point very clearly. Total depravity does not mean that man is as depraved as he possibly can be.

The total there is referring to every aspect of man, every component of man has been affected by the fall. As the book of Romans chapter five tells us, when Adam sinned it had dire consequences for everybody who followed after Adam.

Everyone in Adam died. We were born physically alive but we were born spiritually dead because of Adam. As in Adam all die, Romans chapter five. So in Christ all are made alive. First Corinthians 15 also outlines that same truth.

Martin Luther called the doctrine of the bondage of the will, in fact he wrote a book called The Bondage of the Will, his most important work and for Luther at least, looking back on his ministry, he considered that this particular subject was the most important issue to grasp if you were ever going to understand the grace of God.

And what total depravity means is that every aspect, every component of man, his mind, his will, his emotions, his body, everything about man has been affected by the fall to the point that man is incapable of coming to God without divine grace operating.

Man by his very nature is not a God lover nor is he in neutral. He actually hates the God of the Bible and needs divine surgery to remove a stony heart, as the Bible would call it, and have a heart of flesh that beats now to know Christ, to know the true God.

He called his bondage of the will his most important work. And to understand the as we talked about last time is to understand sola gratia and a component of that is to see how bleak man's condition is outside of regeneration coming to Christ because he makes us alive spiritually.

Without that understanding, sola gratia has lost its teeth. The Reformation, magisterial reform is all understood. Man is not sick, certainly he's not well, he's actually born dead on arrival, spiritually dead.

It was to the Christians at Ephesus that Paul wrote in Ephesians to you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins in which he once walked. These were people walking around physically but spiritually were dead.

The Greek word nekros means dead like a corpse. And just as a jeweler in the store will always use a black velvet background to display the splendor of an exquisite diamond. So the intricate dazzling beauty of the gospel is only fully seen when we understand what the Bible says about man's radical condition outside of Christ.

It's bleak, it's dark, but we have to understand that to see the brightness of what God does in his grace. Only when we understand the immensity of our problem will we find the right solution. Man does not need education to solve his problem, he needs a Savior.

He needs a radical intervention from God. If we don't understand the problem we'll come up with all kinds of remedies that don't address the problem. And so it is, unless we understand how bleak our condition is, that we're spiritually dead before God, do not want the things of God unless God intervenes, we'll not appreciate what God does in saving someone.

It's far more radical for God to convert the soul than to heal blindness, deafness, or make the lame walk. God actually makes a brand new person when he converts the human soul. That's why Paul wrote in 2nd Corinthians 5, 17, if any man be in Christ he's a brand new creation.

He's a new creation. All things have passed away, all things have become new. We need more than a moral pep talk, we need more than some medical first aid for our gaping wounds, we need more than an oxygen mask to help us breathe more easily.

What we need is a miracle, what we need is a resurrection. And that's what God does for us in restoring man to himself, giving man a new heart. In Romans chapter 5, I just want to read a few verses I alluded to just a few moments ago, Romans chapter 5 starting in verse 12, the Apostle Paul writing to the Christians at Rome said this, therefore just as sin came into the world through one man, talking about him, and death through sin, I believe the death that is spoken of here is spiritual death that resulted in physical death, death in all of its vile ramifications.

Death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. How is that possible? We were not there in the garden, how can the scripture say we all sinned? Well, we have this doctrine of total depravity because we also believe in something called federal headship.

Adam was the federal head of the human race and just as we might in the state of Arizona send representatives to Washington to represent our beliefs, our views, what we want to see happen in America, we send them there, not so we can just do something with our time, we do that because we want our views represented there and if on occasion they are not representing us well, we can vote them out of office.

Well, it's not that in the Bible what happens is that God has chosen Adam as the representative of the human race and there in the garden he was representing all of us and before you say well I didn't vote for him, the Bible is not a democratic system, God actually picked the best possible candidate as our representative because he picked a perfect man.

No one who's ever gone to Washington has ever been perfect, right? But Adam in the garden was perfect in his moral pronouncements in terms of his he had no sin to speak of and yet he represented everyone who would follow after him and so the Bible says when Adam sinned, we sinned with him.

By one man's sin, death spread to all men. Verse 14, death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass for many if many died through the one man's trespass.

Talking of Adam's trespass in the garden, everyone in the human race died because of it. Much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. People say I don't like this idea of Adam representing me and I get hit on the head and cursed and have spiritual death because of something someone else did.

Well if you reject that, you also reject the other side of the coin which is Jesus Christ living a sinless life, dying an atoning death and his death and his life counting for us. So there are two sendings if you like.

There are two countings. God counted everyone of Adam to be in Adam and all the things that Adam did resulted in the fall affecting all of Adam's progeny, anyone who came after Adam. So Christ is the other federal head and if anyone be in Christ he's a new creation and everything that Christ has done he achieved for us.

Adam sinned on our behalf, Christ lived the righteous life on our behalf, died the atoning death on our behalf and if we're in Christ we get all of the benefits of Christ not Adam. That's the message there.

The free gift is not like the result of the one man sin for the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. If because of one man's trespass death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Verse 18, therefore as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, there it is in stark plain terms, Adam's trespass led to everybody in the human race being condemned. So one act of righteousness talking about the life of Christ leads to justification and life for all men, all men who trust in Christ.

For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, talking of Christ, the many will be made righteous. There it is in clear terms in our Bibles. The Bible reveals that according to God there are two federal heads of the human race.

One is Adam, the other is Christ. Adam represented us, all the human race, in the garden. When he fell into sin he plunged all of us into sin also. All mankind is naturally born into Adam, born of the flesh, and because of that all of us are born spiritually dead.

Our problem is twofold because a just and holy God has witnessed not only Adam's transgression but our own personal sins, the sins we've committed, as well as the sin nature that gives birth to them. He who commits sin, Jesus said, is the slave of sin.

We do not, we're not counted as sinners, let me get it right, we're not counted as sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners. We're born with a hostility in our hearts towards God and every parent knows this.

You don't have to train your child to be naughty. Now little Johnny, I just want to give you this five-minute brief talk on how to have attention in life and make everyone miserable around you. Here we go, let's go to the chalkboard.

This is how you shout for things, this is how you take things, this is how you steal things, this is how you make life miserable for everyone around you. Let me just go through. You don't have to do that, you have to train the child in the way he should go.

Foolishness is in the heart of the child. A lot of discipline will move it far from him. We have to do training because naturally speaking we're all self-centered and we are not God-centered. We do not want the God of the Bible.

Adam, after he sinned, when he heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, what did he do? He ran and hid and that's what men do and he tried to cover himself, try to cover his own nakedness and every kind of religion is a type of covering of ourselves because we still have a religious bent.

We will worship something even if it's ourselves, our own thinking. Secularism is a religion of sorts. Every kind of religion, if it's not the religion of the Bible, what God has revealed to us is an attempt to run from God.

A lot of people say, oh this guy's really seeking. He was a Muslim, now he's a Sikh and he's interested now in becoming a Mormon. We're watching this progression. This guy isn't seeking, he's trying every kind of covering available to run from the true God.

Only when someone comes to Christ is someone actually seeking him because by nature scripture says, Romans 3 11, there is no God seeker and what the doctrines of grace involve is looking at the scriptures and taking them seriously when they say there is no God seeker.

Well I know someone who's seeking God. Well that's because God has first sought them because by nature we will not seek the God of the Bible. We will seek everything else. We will make choices. Calvinism, doctrines of grace, do not say man has no ability to choose.

What we're saying is he will not choose the true God because by nature he doesn't want the true God. We're not talking about a physical handicap that makes us incapable of choosing. We're saying that our choices are tied to our hearts, tied to our nature and our nature is one that is in hostility towards God.

Death itself is a consequence of sin and that's why even babies who have committed no outward sin die. Think about that. Why do babies die? Not just elderly people who've committed a lot of sins but people that are born within three hours, some of them die.

Why? Because there's death in this world and man has inherited death from Adam. As in Adam, all die. And so the sin of Adam is imputed, transferred, credited, counted to all those who have Adam as their federal head.

And you might not believe in Adam but God says I do and everything that happened to Adam happened as his being a representative of the human race. Likewise the obedience of Christ is imputed to all those who embrace Christ as Savior and Lord.

Paul said it this way or wrote in 2nd Corinthians 5 21, for he God made him Jesus who knew no sin to become sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. So let me talk about radical depravity, total depravity.

What is the nature of this death? We could speculate and get a lot of answers that we make up for ourselves but we don't need to because the Bible has a clear answer to this. Morally no one is righteous.

No one has ever kept God's law apart from Christ himself. Romans 3, as it's written, none is righteous. Oh, is Paul just using a lot of hyperbole? No, he continues. No, not one. None is righteous. No, not one.

No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they've become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Oh, I know some people, they're good people. Really? There are many Christians who believe the man is basically good and starting with the wrong premise they end up with the wrong solution and they think well if man's basically good all he needs is a moral pep talk like a halftime team talk from a coach and say come on you can do better.

You can do better. Your performance can be raised. God is actually thrilled that you've turned out as well as you have. You're doing great. All you need is some encouragement. Oh, I'm so excited you're here on planet earth.

Wow, we were waiting for you to arrive. Look how good you are. People think that's what people need and yet the Bible says no goodness there's not one out there. No one does good. Well, excuse me but I've helped 432 elderly people cross streets.

I've given to charity. I don't do anything bad. Really? Have you loved God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength even today? Have you? Hmm. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive.

The venom of asps, snakes is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitten. Oh no, I wouldn't. Perish the thought. I'd never do that. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Oh no, we're sophisticated.

In the sophisticated 20th century we saw more people murdered than in any other century in human history and we did it with government approval. Something called abortion. Feet are swift to shed blood.

In their path of brewing and misery in the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. These are not verses we like to put on our refrigerator but they are verses that Paul is not only writing here but he's quoting from the Old Testament.

Like a machine gun loaded he's firing Old Testament verses at us and saying everyone is under sin. There are none righteous. No one is good and no one seeks for God and no one has done any good. Well, well isn't it better to build a hospital than to go around killing people?

Absolutely but we're talking on a physical human level but from God's perspective no one has ever done a good work that is a hundred percent all for the glory of God. If we build a hospital we want our name on it.

We want people to notice. Well no no no I was self-effacing. Yeah you may have been self-effacing. If you get past that hurdle you just wanted to bless people that's wonderful but did you do it for the glory of God fully?

Was it all for him? All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. God's standard is not how you're doing compared with the best sinner going to hell. The standard is the glory of God. Are we doing all to the glory of God?

Whatever you do in word or deed do all to the glory of God and whatever is not a faith is sin. Are we doing it for God's glory? Are we doing it in faith? If not everything we do is tainted by sin even our best ever efforts and that's why Isaiah 64 verse 6 says all our righteousness is as filthy rags.

So what is our condition? We're sinners. We're not righteous. We have a sinful mind. No one understands Romans 3 says. The technical term for this is the noetic effects of sin. N-o-e-t. Noetic affects us in our minds have been corrupted because we no longer think as clearly as Adam did before the fall.

Oh that's why I'm thinking so so so unclearly. Yes we've been affected. We we would all have got a hundred percent in every test we would ever have taken if it wasn't for Adam. But remember Adam was perfect before the fall.

This lack of personal spiritual perception and not merely a lack of human knowledge is our condition. We don't know the truth. We have to hear his word. God has to reveal himself. We don't know God by nature not in a redemptive relational sense.

We don't understand the beauty of the gospel. We can't see it. Our mind is captive. There is no God seeker. Our wills are captive to our nature. The reason why no one is jumping to the moon from planet Earth is because we cannot.

Our physical limitations put a barrier between us and the moon and so we can take a running jump all we like and some might get a few feet further than someone else. But in terms of jumping to the moon none of us can do it.

The Bible and that's God. The Father seeks those who worship him in spirit and in truth. But in terms of our nature we do not seek God. If you're seeking God God has first sought you and has done divine surgery on your heart.

We only start seeking God at regeneration. The rest of the time we're like Adam after the fall running from him putting up our coverings trying to get by without the true God. We want oh no no no I know some people they they feel guilty and they want to have their conscience cleansed and yes they want the benefits of the kingdom they just don't want the king of the kingdom.

They want to have a freedom from accusation. Their mind is troubling them at night. They want to be free of that. They just don't want the God of the Bible unless and until God intervenes. Man is not healthy.

He's not sick. He's actually dead spiritually. The reason you know the the reason why salespeople don't go to the morgue or to a funeral home to raise sales when they're having a bleak month is because they're not going to get any reaction from anyone.

Sign on the dotted line. I'll give you the best offer completely. I'll make it even free for you for the first eight months. Just sign it. They're not going to get any response because people are dead.

So it is. People will always reject which is an active thing. They will reject the true Christ because spiritually they are dead towards God. More than that man is blind to God. Jesus said unless a man is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.

2nd Corinthians 4 the God of this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe. It's not shortsightedness. They come can see a little just can't see everything. No they are blind. They ever had a conversation with someone and they just can't see it.

That's exactly it until the lights come on because they get new eyes. And here's the point when you have a blind person shining a torch as they would say in England or a flashlight you'd say over here in America doesn't help him.

Come on this way let me let me just shine a light. They're blind. They cannot see and the entrance of his word brings light. But light is not enough for someone who's blind to see. They need the word of God.

They need it but what they need accompanied by the word of God is the Holy Spirit to give new eyes to the person so they can see. When they see they see the truth of God's word and they say why could I not have seen this before.

I've met many people who've come to Christ and they say why didn't I come to Christ at age 20 rather than 70. Simply because they couldn't see it back then and now God has opened up their eyes. We need more than to be wooed.

We need more than the Holy Spirit's assistance. We need divine radical surgery. A heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone. Faith is actually the evidence of the new birth not the cause of it. Both repentance and faith are possible only because of the regenerating work of God.

Both are called the gift of God. Both of them. When we speak of depravity being total we do not mean we do not mean utter as in complete but we're saying every component of man has been affected by the fall.

Romans chapter 8 verses 7 and 8. Let's just stay in Romans for a while. Verses 7 and 8 talk about man outside of Christ and it says verse 7 for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God. Hmm that's what I've been saying isn't it?

For it does not submit to God's law. Mm-hmm. Indeed it cannot. Cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. No possibility whatsoever. You however talking to the Christians are not in the flesh but in the spirit if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.

So everybody of Adam is in the flesh cannot please God. Cannot submit to God's law. It's impossible. He's hostile in heart towards God. But if we're in the spirit God has already come to us and done divine surgery.

We're not in the flesh but in the spirit if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you although the body is dead because of sin the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

We're blind to the kingdom. We're deaf to God's Word. John 8 47 Jesus said whoever is of God hears the Word of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God. Not because you can choose to but because you're not of God.

You're still in the flesh. You're still in need of divine surgery. You are not of God. That's why you cannot hear. The reason why you do not hear Jesus said is that you are not of God. Though the unregenerate can hear the sounds of the Bible as it's spoken to the person.

Even understand the words being said. There's a spiritual type of hearing they cannot hear. They're blind to God's truth. Deaf to God's Word. Enslaved to sin. John 8 34 everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

So Paul when he writes in Ephesians 2 and says man all of us were dead. You he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world according to the prince of the power of the air the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience among whom we all also used to walk.

He says I was in the exact same condition dead towards God. We're dead in trespasses and sins. We actively practice sin. We're enslaved following the course of this world by nature an object of God's wrath and then two famous words follow.

But God not but man realizing his last condition realizing his need for the Savior says God help me know while man is spiritually dead God intervenes in the life of his elect to bring them to himself to make them spiritually alive but God being rich in mercy God being rich in mercy according to his divine grace made us alive when we were dead.

I hope you're grasping just how colossal grace is and in talking about the depravity of man it highlights the immensity of what God does to save us. He came and he breathed life into a dead corpse spiritually.

That's what he's done. That's what he's doing whenever he saves someone. Man is capable of civic good good on a human earthly horizontal plane but never on a vertical plane where God says all that is entirely good.

No one does good no not one no one is righteous. Never do we in our fallen state do actions for the glory of God alone. All our righteousness not some of it all our righteousness is as filthy rags. Now there are three views on man's condition that you'll find throughout the history of the church and we can label them because others have gone before us and the first is called Pelagianism.

You might have heard that term which basically has the idea of salvation being all his stance and raise himself up and he can get wherever he needs to go and the belief there is that man is well. This idea of Pelagianism was named after the British monk Pelagius who lived 354 through to 418 AD.

He believed that Adam's sin affected no one but himself. I don't know how he could ever read Romans 5 but that was his belief and that those born since Adam have been born into the same condition Adam was in before the fall neutral towards sin and he believed human beings are able to live free from sin if they want to.

Now he read one of Augustine's prayers which greatly upset him. Augustine had prayed the simple prayer Lord command what you will and grant what you command and Pelagius thought that if God commanded something for him to remain just man would have to have the ability to do what God commanded even without grace.

There'd be no reason whatsoever for God to grant what he commands. No reason whatsoever. There'd be no need for it. Augustine though defended his view that although commanded he needs to actually grant grace to us that we can be empowered to do what he commands.

Now Pelagianism is humanistic, man-centered and while it presents a very positive view of man it limits the nature and scope of sin and flatly denies the necessity of God's grace and Pelagius's view was condemned as heresy by the church as it's no basis in Scripture whatsoever yet that view never really went away even though it was condemned as heresy it's still prevalent in our society today.

It's the air we breathe in America. You can do it be all you can be you can be anything you want. Mm-hmm pleasing to God. Oh yeah you can do that if you really want to but the problem is I want to. We do not want the God of the Bible or to be like Christ by our own efforts or by our own will.

We're all born Pelagians at heart. That's the air we breathe and we think we can do anything God commands or achieve salvation without the need for grace. There's a second view that's Pelagianism is the first.

The second is synergism. S-y-n-e-r-g-i-s-m. And that is speaking of the actions of more than one or cooperation. And here the belief is not a man is well but seeing certain scriptures they say well you know we're not perfect.

Yeah we're not perfect. Let's take that into account. And we must say we're sick in some sense even mortally sick. We're on the edge of destruction. But there's no need to call in the mortician. Yet we're still able to make the right choice.

We're able to come to Christ. We just need the offer of the gospel. The problem with that is Jesus Paul John Peter Ezekiel Isaiah right through the Bible. Bible passages that tell us that man's condition is one not of neutrality but actually hostility towards God.

I've got a note that I wrote down observing that if man was as healthy as the optimists say then surely war disease starvation poverty and such problems we face today would have been eliminated by now.

Since such problems have not been fixed. Synergists conclude that something's basically wrong with human nature. Yet it's not hopeless. It's bad. It's very bad even maybe even desperate. But it's not hopeless.

We haven't blown ourselves off the planet yet no need to call the mortician. They would say human nature has been damaged by the fall. The will is not enslaved to sin but is capable of believing in Christ even prior to regeneration.

Although and not entirely apart from God's grace. Every sinner they would say retains the ability to choose for or against God either cooperating with God's spirit unto salvation or resisting God's grace unto damnation.

Do I believe man can resist the grace of God. Absolutely. He will. He will resist the grace of God all the way to hell until God intervenes. Stephen in Acts chapter 7 says. You always resist the Holy Spirit.

That's man's condition in his depravity. We will continue to resist the Holy Spirit and in the grace of God until God says that's it. You're coming home son I'm having you today I'm having you. I will overcome your resistance by making my grace irresistible.

Election they would say. The synergist would say is conditional determined by individual choice. God chooses those who may already knew would believe the faith he foresees is not exclusively a divine gift but partly a human decision.

Therefore the ultimate cause of salvation is not God's choice of the sinner but the sinner's choice of God. Under this broad heading of synergism we have two basic schools of thought. Semi Pelagian ism which teaches that man initiates and then God helps.

The Elwell evangelical dictionary said this it's divine grace is indispensable for salvation. But it does not necessarily need to proceed of human a free human choice because despite the weakness of human volition the will takes the initiative towards God.

That's semi Pelagian ism. Then under that heading to number two would be our minion ism. It teaches that God initiates by offering grace and that mankind either does or does not cooperate with that grace.

This belief though very popular in our day would still be classed as synergistic because regeneration takes place through the cooperation of man with God's grace. The third view which I believe is the biblical one would look at the scriptures and look with with or at Jesus walking up to the tomb of Lazarus and rather than interviewing him and saying look I know you're dead but I've got an offer for you.

How about a few more years on planet Earth. Interested sign on the dotted line. We can get this thing done. But remember this. I can't raise you from the dead without your cooperation. Is that what happened.