WE NEED TO EMBRACE THE GREATNESS OF GOD

I am convinced that many of our doctrinal differences arise because we conceive of our Lord too narrowly. For example, Arminians and Calvinists might be opposed more than necessary. 

Is it possible that they both can be true - that we are both the product of our efforts and choices and yet we are still the product of God's plan for our lives?

I think that our view of Scripture embodies both perspectives. For example, we observe that Paul's letters reflect his style, interests, vocabulary, choices, experiences, and personal associations. Meanwhile, Paul asserted that Scripture is still entirely the Word of God (1 Thess. 2:13).

Perhaps this point can be illustrated even more clearly by the Psalms. While they cry out with accusations against God (and are often followed with words of repentance), they are still the Word of God, as even Jesus had often asserted:

·       Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." (Luke 24:44)

I think that this says something about God that we have to accept. He can work through our free choices, even the sinful human outbursts, to fully accomplish His purposes. This means that our efforts and freewill choices are compatible with God’s sovereignty and plan.

In fact, we see evidence of this perplexing association throughout the range of Scripture. For example, Paul declared that he had worked hard, but even his efforts were the result of the grace of God:

·       But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10)

Somehow God’s plan is married to our efforts. Elsewhere, Paul held us responsible for working out our salvation, but explained that it is actually God’s work:

·       Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13)

In contrast, we have a tendency to dismiss one aspect of the marriage in favor of the other. If we are discussing sanctification, we (Calvinists) tend to leave our responsibility out of the equation and simply declare that it is God who sanctifies. Meanwhile, we (Arminians) tend to conceive of God as passively offering all the same thing, making us the key agents in our holiness or sanctification.

Both sides are able to supply verses to support their position. However, God’s truth seems to be more mysterious. We even find this same tension between our respective roles in the Hebrew Scriptures:

• Keep my statutes and do them; I am the LORD who sanctifies you. (Leviticus 20:8)

Did you notice the overlap expressed here? We have to keep ourselves holy by avoiding sin, by keeping His commandments, but it is God who makes us holy (“sanctifies”).

We find the same tension or overlap also in the area of salvation. We are told to believe and to have faith, but we are also taught that it is God who provides faith as a gift (Eph. 2:8-9). Which is it? It is both – our responsibility but, first of all God’s. He has to give us a new heart so that we can believe.

Admittedly, it has to begin and end with God, but we cannot dismiss our biblically prescribed role.

Instead, we strenuously try to squeeze God into our zip-locked understanding, and we should try to do this, but we also must appreciate our limitations. We only see in part. Consequently, we fail to appreciate the magnitude of God and His Word. If this is true, we have to view ourselves as servants of the Word and not its masters.

Our belief in the Trinity exemplifies this. We believe in the Trinity even though we cannot fully understand this revelation. I think that the same is true about our freedom of choice, culpability, and responsibility in view of God’s sovereignty. We have to embrace both. To do otherwise is to put our understanding (theology) above God’s revelation, His Scriptures. Also, to do otherwise is to create needless divisions within the body of Christ.

Resolving the Tension between our Freewill and God’s Sovereign Determinations

Here’s the conflict – although the Bible doesn’t mention the word “freewill,” it teaches as if this concept is beyond any dispute. So much of the Bible is about our responsibility to pray, obey, worship, and to study Scripture and the consequences we incur when we fail to fulfill these responsibilities.

However, there are many equally compelling verses that indicate that, through God’s unchanging plan, sovereignty, and oversight over His creation, He exercises even greater control over human events. He brings nations to the exact place He wants them to be to accomplish His purposes. He sets their national boundaries and times of flourishing. Here are just a few verses that we tend to overlook:

• “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.” (Acts 17:26)

• The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes. (Prov. 21:1)

• Lord, You will establish peace for us, for You have also done all our works in us. (Isaiah 26:12)

• John answered and said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.” (John 3:27)

• A man’s steps are of the Lord (Prov. 20:24); The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD. (Psalm 37:23)

• For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Eph. 2:10)

These verses don’t mean that God causes everything – He certainly isn’t the Author of sin – but it does mean that He ordains everything (Eph. 1:11), either by causing, guiding or allowing things to happen.

Here is one example of how we struggle to combine these concepts of our freewill responsibilities and God’s unchanging plan and providence over our lives.

• If God has really prepared for me the good works I am to do and has promised to direct my steps, I shouldn’t have to look around for a job. Instead, He will provide it. Nor would I even have to pray about this since He has even determined beforehand how my life will play out! (Psalm 139) 

Although we know that this reasoning is faulty - and that we must assume responsibility for our lives and our sins - it is hard to find fault with simply trusting God, if God is truly in control of our lives. But there is really a very “easy” resolution to the conflict between our responsibility (human freewill) and God’s all-embracing, providential and immutable plans. Accept them both! If we trust God, we will do as He says!

This is the Doctrine of Compatibility. It affirms that our freewill responsibilities are somehow compatible with God’s control of His creation. This is one of the truths about our infinite God – like the Trinity – that we finite beings cannot fully rationally understand. However, we believe in these truths because they are so deeply reflected in Scripture.

In fact, we already do believe in Compatibility! We believe that Scripture is fully the product of God – fully God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16). Yet we also acknowledge that, to some extent, it is also the word of man.

Paul claimed that his teachings were actually the Word of God:

• And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.(1 Thess. 2:13) 

Nevertheless, Paul’s writings reflect his own humanity, style, focus, experiences, emotions, and choices in many ways. He wrote about friends, enemies, and gave personal greetings. He chose to include certain personal references as freely as I choose to order a slice with pepperoni instead of mushrooms. (I cannot doubt my free choice without also doubting everything I think and understand. Such skepticism undermines all thought.)

However, I suspect that Paul, as he taught and wrote, always prayed that God would guide his choices, thereby acknowledging that he freely made choices as God directed him – Compatibility!

You will probably respond, “That just doesn’t make any sense. These two concepts cannot be compatible.” However, Scripture consistently regards human responsibility as compatible with God’s providential control. Paul put these two concepts together this way:

• Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (Phil. 2:12-13)

While we have the responsibility to work out our salvation, this is because our Lord is at work within us to give us the right desires and thoughts, to convict us of sin and to illuminate Scripture. Therefore, even if we have labored mightily to understand His Word, He gets all the credit: 

• But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. (1 Cor. 15:10)

Paul even credited God with his hard labors and everything good that he had accomplished. Paul believed in Compatibility! After “many days” at sea on route to Rome in the midst of a great storm, the sailors lost hope of survival. Paul informed them of the revelation he had received from his God: “There will be no loss of life among you, only the ship” (Acts. 27:22).

Coming from God, this prophecy was written in stone, but:

• Paul [subsequently] said to the centurion and the soldiers, “Unless these [sailors] men stay with the ship, you cannot be saved.” (Acts 27:31)

This revelation seems to conflict with Paul’s first revelation that absolutely no life would be lost, period! However, God’s providential outcome and Word are somehow compatible with intermediate human choices to accomplish this outcome. Rather than cancelling out our will, our thinking, or our actions, our God is somehow able to work through these human means to accomplish His infallible purposes, as He had done through the writing of Scripture.

Admittedly, we cannot get our minds around Compatibility, but we mustn’t reject it for this reason. To reject it is to reject our very faith.

Eternally Safe & Secure in Christ: Calvinism vs. Dispensationalism

 Both Calvinists and Dispensationalists believe that the Christian is eternally secure in Christ. As Jesus had declared, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28). However, these two groups have different understandings of Biblical faith, and which kind of faith is associated with our security in Christ. Pastor and dispensational theologian Charles Stanley believes that a saving faith might not be one that endures:

• The Bible clearly teaches that God’s love for His people is of such magnitude that even those who walk away from the faith have not the slightest chance of slipping from His hand. (Eternal Security, 74)

Both groups agree that “God’s love for His people is of such magnitude” that He will keep those who are His. However, the Calvinist would deny that “those who walk away from the faith” completely were ever His, that they were ever in “His hand.”

Stanley clearly believes that even the “believer” who becomes an unbeliever remains in Christ:

• Even if a believer for all practical purposes becomes an unbeliever, his salvation is not in jeopardy. Christ will remain faithful. (93)

Of course, “Christ will remain faithful,” but to whom? Will He remain faithful to someone who had merely a passing “faith?” Or is the real faith – the Biblical gift of faith – one that will endure, however battered it might be? According to Stanley, saving faith need not endure.

Stanley compares the human institution of marriage to our marriage with God. He reasons that because we can be married to our wife without acting as if we are married, we can also be married to God in this unfaithful manner:

• Just as there are married people who act as if they are not, so there are Christians who show no evidence of their Christianity as well. But that does not change their eternal status, any more than a lost man can change his eternal destiny by acting saved. (71)

However, does a mere marriage certificate – think church baptism, membership and signing a statement faith – reflect a Biblical marriage to God, a real connection to Him, and the Biblical gift of faith? In contrast to Stanley, Jesus taught that the water (faith) that He gives would cause the recipient to “never thirst” again:

• Jesus answered [the Samaritan woman at the well], "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:13-14; 6:50-51)

However, Stanley’s position suggests that the “believer” who rejects the faith will thirst, now lacking any fellowship with Christ.

As a result of believing, we become “children of the light,” according to Jesus:

• Put your trust in the light while you have it, so that you may become sons of light." (John 12:36)

However, those who have rejected the faith cannot be called “sons of light,” since they no longer walk in the light. Instead, their fruit identify them as sons of the darkness (Mat. 7:15-20).

A true faith bears fruit (James 2:18).  A faith profession alone does not make us a child of God. A life that is characterized by the willful practice of sin cannot possess saving faith. Although our good deeds do not save us, a real faith should give rise to good deeds. If it only gives rise to evil, the evildoer should be warned against having a confidence of salvation:

• Then I [Jesus] will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' (Matthew 7:23)

According to Jesus, these “evildoers” are not His children. Neither should they be affirmed as such, as Stanley might do.  Of course, Christians struggle against sin daily, often succumbing to its allures and deceptiveness. However, we have the assurance that if we honestly confess our sins, God will forgive and fully cleanse us from the effects of the sin (1 John 1:8-9). However, Stanley’s theology would admit that we can live like the devil – and not confess our sins – and be a child of God. However, this contradicts so much of what we read in Scripture. Jesus gave us a picture of what His sheep look like:

• “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:27-28)

• When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him [Jesus] because they know his voice. (John 10:4)

While Jesus claimed that His sheep follow Him, Stanley claims that this isn’t necessary. This insistence simply contradicts so much of what Jesus taught:

• Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (Matthew 16:24)

Self-denial was more than just a suggestion. It was a requirement. Jesus taught us that our “righteousness” must surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees (Mat. 5:20) and then provided a picture of what this should look like. Jesus also claimed that if we live like the devil, we should not expect eternal life (Mat. 25:46). He also warned that those whose practice had been evil “will rise to be condemned” (John 5:29). Friendship with Him was characterized by doing “what I command” (John 15:14). Meanwhile, those who bore no fruit would be removed from where they thought they stood (John 15:2).

The Book of Hebrews also insists upon an obedient life:

• Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)

Although our personal holiness does not save, it’s something that must accompany faith, if it is a true faith. However, Stanley denies that faith must give rise to some degree of obedience or discipleship.

There are many Scriptural warnings that we cannot live in any manner we wish.

• If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. (Hebrews 10:26-27)

While Stanley claims that we can “deliberately keep on sinning” and expect to go to heaven, this hope is contrary to Scripture. Clearly a real faith will not continue in this manner. Hebrews assures us that if we are His, we will not do so:

• But we are not of those who shrink back [from following Jesus] and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved. (Hebrews 10:39)

Likewise, we are warned that if we entirely fall away from the faith, there can be no restoration:

• It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. (Hebrews 6:4-6)

Falling away from Christ means falling away from salvation. However, once again, the writer of Hebrews assures us that this cannot happen:

• Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case--things that accompany salvation. (Hebrews 6:9)

What accompanies salvation? The fact that we will never completely turn away from our Savior! However, Stanley claims that we can do so and still be saved, despite that warning that those falling away cannot be restored.

There are many other such warnings in Scripture, which equate falling away from Christ with losing salvation (1 Cor. 6:9-11; Gal. 5:19-24). However, these same warning-verses give us the assurance that we will not fall away.

In fact, God will not allow us to fall away! First John teaches us that we will not continue practicing sin because we have His seed within us (1 John 3:9; 5:18).  John also provides ways we can reassure ourselves that we have saving faith:

• The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. (1 John 2:4)

John provides many tests to reassure the brethren that they have Christ. If those who professed Christ didn’t follow the commands of Christ, they didn’t have Christ, contrary to Stanley’s insistence. Truly, if we trust Christ, we will do what He tells us to do. If our doctor tells us to take the pills he has given us and we refuse them, it probably means that we don’t trust him.

John claims that those who had been part of the church and confessed Christ but then denied Him were really never of Him (1 John 2:19; Mat. 7:23). If they had been of Him, they would have stayed with Him. However, Stanley insists that we can be saved even if we reject Christ entirely.

John also claims that:

• We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us [the Apostles and their writings]; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. (1 John 4:6)

If we reject the Apostolic writings – the New Testament – this is a sign of the “spirit of falsehood,” that the individual is not “from God.” However, Stanley must insist that we can subsequently reject the entire Bible and still be “from God.”

There are many verses that tell us explicitly that a true faith is one which endures. Jesus warned His disciples that they had to continue to have faith:

• All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. (Matthew 10:22)

In contrast, Stanley claims that we need not endure to the end. Old-line dispensationalists claim that this requirement constitutes a meritorious work and not grace, and it therefore imperils the central Gospel message that we are saved by grace apart from any works of the law. However, this danger is sidestepped once we realize that it is God – and not we - who guarantees that we will continue in faith (1 Peter 1:5; Phil. 1:6). Our Lord doesn’t simply give us the gift of faith and then leaves it untended. Our salvation is not guaranteed by simply a one-time giving of faith, but also by a God who nurtures us throughout our lives. The gift isn’t limited to a single moment in time, but represents a beachhead where our God has secured control.

Paul also wrote that a real faith is one that endures to the end:

• But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation-- if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. (Col. 1:22-23)

If we don’t “continue in…faith,” it means that we had never been reconciled. However, there is still hope for those who made a profession and didn’t continue. Any who confess their sins will be forgiven and cleansed (1 John 1:9-10).

The Book of Hebrews issues the same warning as Paul:

• But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast…We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. (Hebrews 3:6, 14)

If we don’t “hold firmly till the end,” it means that we had never trusted and shared in Christ. Because He works all things for good for His children (Rom. 8:28), this would preclude any possibility of disowning the faith. If we deny Christ, it means that He failed to work everything for good. This suggests that we were never His!

We cannot inherit the promise of eternal life if we fail to continue to follow Christ:

• We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience (Hebrews 6:11-12)

We need to persevere in the faith in order to “inherit what has been promised.” However, if our faith is real (and continually nurtured by the Spirit), we will continue to follow Him.

I fear that what I have been writing might be quite chilling. It might raise old fears that we don’t have enough faith or that we aren’t righteous enough. Therefore, I want to allay these fears. Actually, it is our God, who is so incredibly merciful, who wants to allay these fears. Even though Lot was living a highly compromised life in Sodom, He is divinely remembered as “righteous Lot” (2 Peter 2:7-8).

Peter had denied Jesus – and Jesus had warned that those who deny Him, He would also deny – but Jesus returned to him with a special commission to “feed my sheep.”

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had all been spiritual failures for most of their lives. Yet their God never abandoned them. However, these weren’t people who had rejected their God as Stanley claims that we can do without loosing our salvation.

Our faith can be of the smallest size (Luke 17:6) and yet still be divinely regarded as great faith. Israel was a perfect example of this. Moments before passing through the Red Sea by faith, they had been rebelling against Moses and God. And yet they are examples of faith (Hebrews 11:29). We see the same with Moses (11:27) and Sarah (11:11). They had greatly feared and yet our God remembers them as fearless – people of faith.

I appreciate Charles Stanley’s emphasis on the assurance that comes from knowing that faith and salvation are free gifts. However, I think that we need to understand our free gift as one that will continue in faithfulness.

Assurance of Salvation

How do we know if God has saved us? The answer can be very simple:

·        Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God… (1 John 5:1)

For some, this assurance is enough. However, others will doubt whether they truly believe. They may respond that intellectually, they believe the Gospel account, but they might not have a compelling conviction or sense of believing. Should this then be a basis for doubt? Not necessarily. Other verses assure us that any who come seeking salvation will find it:

·        "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Romans 10:13)

Jesus echoed this same guarantee:

·        “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away…And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." (John 6:37-40)

However, many are still left with a similar question:

·        “How can I be certain that the Father has actually given me to His Son? I don’t seem to feel any different than I had before, and I don’t seem to be changed.”

   

Just recently, an intellectual expressed her doubt in predestination language:

·        "How do I know if God has chosen me to be saved? I don't know if I'm chosen or not."

I have spoken to many people with similar doubts. They don’t have a strong sense of God, and so the assurances of Scripture seem somewhat flimsy. However, at least they are troubled by this question. In contrast, the unconverted man is not:

·        The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor. 2:14)

For the unconverted the things of the Spirit – forgiveness, reconciliation with God, adoption as children of God, salvation, heaven – mean little. Instead, they are laughable – objects of contempt. The fact that someone is deeply concerned about the things of God strongly suggests that God has been drawing them:

·        "No one can come to me [Jesus] unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:44)

If we are crying out for Him, it means that He has drawn us. Coming to the Savior – the light of the world – is not natural for us. Instead, what is natural is to hate the light, as Jesus asserted:

·        This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. (John 3:19-20)

The fact that we are drawn to the light – the truth – means that there has been a spiritual change in our lives. Otherwise, we detest God. Paul put it this way:

·        There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." (Romans 3:11-12)

If, instead, we are seeking God, it means that He is drawing us. Without this drawing, “the sinful mind is hostile to God” (Romans 8:7) according to Paul. If we are not hostile to God, it means that He is wooing us or has already saved us.

However, for many skeptics, doubt runs very deep. We wonder whether we can really trust these Scriptural assurances. It’s like walking far out on an ice-covered lake. While we stood on the shore or right next to the shore, we weren’t so painfully afflicted by doubt. However, once we ventured further out on the ice, the dread that the ice might not hold us set in. We need assurance that the ice will not break and drown us.

We may not grow in confidence of our salvation until we see substantial changes in our lives. John gives us several ways that we can reassure ourselves that we are truly saved:

·        We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. (1 John 2:3-6)

Ultimately, John instructs us that if we truly are of God, we will love others who are of God. However, this can also become another source of doubt. We wonder whether we truly love. However John explains:

·        This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome. (1 John 5:2-3)

If we now obey Him, this means that we love both Him and His children. It also means that He has chosen us. However, we fall short in many ways. Ultimately, my hope comes from knowing God. I feel I really know Him and know that He will forgive my sins whenever I screw up:

·        If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9)

This truth about God is so critical to me – a person who has struggled with perfectionism and self-loathing from almost from the get-go. It has taken many years for my Lord to bring me to this confidence, but now I am really certain that He thoroughly forgives and cleanses me whenever I cry out for Him. I trust that He will grant you the same confidence as you continue to look towards Him!