UNDERSTANDING THE TIMES

When we have security and money and survival is no longer an issue, we look for ways to spend it on our pleasures. However, our traditional beliefs get in the way. Therefore, we search for a more user-friendly spirituality, one that will not judge us but will affirm and enable us to feel good about ourselves as we pursue our pleasures. In regard to this, the Apostle Paul prophesied to Timothy:

·       For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Timothy 4:3-4 (ESV)

We will no longer be interested in the demanding God of the Bible. Instead, we invent myths, user-friendly God-substitutes. As a result, we have created:

·       Moral Relativism – The belief that the only moral truths are those that we create. However, this belief sets us in conflict with our conscience which informs us that there are moral absolutes.

·       Naturalistic Evolution – This belief has replaced the Creator with an inadequate creator and sustainer and naturalistic explanations: a Big Bang, chance, natural selection, and random mutation. However, this belief has degraded us into an unintended intelligent animal, without any intrinsic purpose or meaning, leaving us parentless in an uncaring world.

·       Secular Humanism – The belief that we humans are at the top and are self-sufficient. We are to trust and hope in ourselves. We must simply decide what is right and wrong, just and unjust. However, we find that we will not be able to bear such a weight.

·       A “Virtuous” and “Truthful” Life - while denying that virtue and moral/spiritual truth exist apart from our own mental constructs. We attempt to live in harmony with our conscience and make-believe that it is more than just an adaptive biochemical machine that conveys truth.

·       Naturalism – the belief that everything is predetermined by the laws of science. Consequently, this belief denies the possibility of free will. Nevertheless, we make-believe that we are “freethinkers.”

However, these God-substitutes do not serve us well. Paul detailed the results:

·       For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. (2 Timothy 3:2-7)

What is happening? The more we violate our God-given moral nature, the more we must harden our heart against the results of this violation – guilt, shame, and confusion.

Why “lovers of self, lovers of money?” By rejecting God’s truth, there is nothing left to restrain our lusts. What remains? A cost/benefit analysis of what serves us best – an inadequate defense against our sinful impulses!

Why “proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit?” As we indulge our passions, we must harden our conscience against knowing that we have done wrong and feelings of guilt. In turn, this hardness enables us to commit even greater immoral offenses – a psychological and moral implosion. Elsewhere, Paul had written that, eventually, God allows us to depart and to pursue the desires of our rebellious heart (Romans 1:24-28).

Why would we then cling to the “appearance of godliness?” This is just another way to assure our conscience that we are morally okay and not under God’s condemnation (Romans 1:32; John 16:8). In His place, we invent gods and goddesses and make-belief that they love us and everything we do.

Nevertheless, as our inner conflicts rage and overflow into our deteriorating relationships, we try to convince ourselves that we have found freedom. However, unless we turn to God, we “go from bad to worse” (2 Timothy 3:13).

However, those who reject God often have very admirable traits, leaving us to question to question if, “They really are as bad as the Scriptures portray them to be.” However, we all wear masks and have even succeeded in deluding ourselves about our true status. Therefore, it is little wonder that those who have rejected God appear to be sincere. They even seem to be seekers of truth and virtue. However, Paul writes about them: “always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7).

Why is truth so difficult to obtain? The Book of Proverbs describes wisdom as calling out in the marketplace for any takers (Proverbs 1:20-21). However, when we reject God, it is like buttoning our shirt by starting with the wrong hole. Consequently, every subsequent button is out of place. Sadly, we refuse to return to examine the first button. When we reject God, we suffer from what we have sowed:

·       Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices. For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them. (Proverbs 1:29-32)

We only need to turn back to God. If you have trouble believing this, just try God out:

·       Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! (Psalm 34:8)

ARE WE BORN CHIDREN OF WRATH, GUITY OF ADAM’S SIN, AND UNABLE TO CHOOSE GOD?

Are we free to choose God? A number of verses suggest that we are not:

·       No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. (John 6:44, 65; 3:3; ESV)

Why can we not choose God? Is this evidence of the Original Sin of Adam – that as a result of the Fall, we were born as children of wrath with a nature that can only hate and reject the Light? Is this why we cannot come to the Lord?

This is a weighty theological issue. It not only says a lot about humankind, is also says a lot about God. On the one hand, if we were born without the capacity to choose God, then our culpability is either reduced or entirely eliminated. After all, how can we blame people who reject God, when they never had the possibility of doing otherwise? It is like kicking our cat because he cannot speak to us. However, in our case, it is even more than a kick; it is hell.

Even worse, if God punishes us for something we were never able to do – to come to Him – it calls into question His righteousness and love, His very character. This also brings derision upon the Biblical revelation. Skeptics dismiss Christ, saying:

·       God will throw us into hell if we do not believe in Him, but it was never possible to believe in Him. Your god is the worst monster ever invented.

Is this an accurate Biblical assessment? I want to argue that it is not. Why then cannot we come to God on our own? Indeed, numerous other verses claim that God had hardened people so that they cannot come. Paul had quoted one such verse from Isaiah 29:10:

·       What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.” (Romans 11:7-8)

When did God give them a “spirit of stupor?” At birth? Certainly not! Let’s look more closely at the context:

·       For the LORD has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes (the prophets), and covered your heads (the seers)… And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, therefore… the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.” (Isaiah 29:10-14)

Israel was blinded, not because the Fall had made humanity blind and at enmity to God,  but because of Israel’s sins and rejection of God. In fact, we never encounter one prophetic word against Israel based on the addumption they were born children of wrath.

Paul quoted David next:

·       And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them; let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever.” (Romans 11:9-10)

Once again, in this Messianic Psalm, the hardening of Israel is not attributed to the Fall but to their own sins:

·       Let their own table before them become a snare; and when they are at peace, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see, and make their loins tremble continually. Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them. May their camp be a desolation; let no one dwell in their tents. For they persecute him whom you have struck down, and they recount the pain of those you have wounded. (Psalm 69:22-26)

Israel could not see because they didn’t want to see. They loved the darkness rather than the light (John 3:19-20). Consequently, they received the very thing they wanted. God merely allowed them to pursue the very thing that they had wanted – to have things their own way. Paul related the same message:

·       Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. (Romans 1:24-28)

Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, we find that Israel’s hardening and subsequent inability to come to God as a product of their own sins, and God withdrawing from them:

·       “Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but see not, who have ears, but hear not. Do you not fear me? declares the LORD. Do you not tremble before me? I placed the sand as the boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass; though the waves toss, they cannot prevail; though they roar, they cannot pass over it. But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and gone away.” (Jeremiah 5:21-23)

Israel’s problem was born out of their own stubbornness. God had given Moses a song to teach to the Israelites. This song was to testify that Israel had been the problem and not their righteous God:

·       “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he. They have dealt corruptly with him; they are no longer his children because they are blemished; they are a crooked and twisted generation.” (Deuteronomy 32:4-5)

How did Israel become “blemished?” There is never a hint that they were born with a blemish, an adversity towards God. Rather, the blemish was the result of their rejection of God.

We encounter many verses where God claims that He had done everything that He could for Israel, but this was never enough for His people:

·       He [God] dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes… What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? (Isaiah 5:2-4)

Israel had often complained against their God. However, they never once complained that God had created them without the ability to choose Him. This indictment never seems to have ever entered into their thinking. Why not? It would have sounded entirely ludicrous to them. Instead, God always asserted that Israel had had absolutely no justification to reject their God:

·       “Yet I planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed. How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine? Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me,” declares the Lord GOD. (Jeremiah 2:21-22; Micah 6:3-4)

Nor did Israel’s Prophets ever suggest that there were mitigating circumstances, that Israel had been birthed with a fatal flaw. Nor are we doing anyone any favors by cutting them this kind of slack.

Well, shouldn’t we be compassionate? Certainly, but not by mitigating our guilt before God! Instead, compassion should arise from these two facts:

·       We are no more deserving than others.

·       God had mercy on us, and we must have mercy on others.

We all had gone astray, and this didn’t take place before we were born:

·       All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)

It is we who have actively turned from God, not God from us:

·       The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one. (Psalm 14:2-3)

To claim that we were His enemies from before birth is to muddy the entire Biblical revelation and to call question to the nature of God, clearly set forth in Scripture.

However, there are verses that seem to suggest that we are born sinners. David had confessed:

·       Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. (Psalm 51:5)

This entire Psalm is penitential – David confessing his sins. Therefore, we cannot take it literally that it had been David’s mother who had been the problem, that she had conceived David in sin. Nor should we think that David is making an excuse for himself, claiming that he was a sinner even before he was born – no fault of his own. Rather, David is taking full responsibilities for his sins.

Instead, we should regard this verse as hyperbole. John W., Haley termed it:

·       An Oriental hyperbolic way of saying that he had begun to sin at the earliest practicable period. This language is no more to be pressed literally than is Job’s. (Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, Baker House, 1977, 161)
 

Job had boasted hyperbolically:

·       For from my youth the fatherless grew up with me as with a father, and from my mother’s womb I guided the widow. (Job 31:18)

Certainly, Job was not able to provide for the widows while he was still in the womb. Instead, he was saying that, as soon as he was able, he cared for them. We should regard David’s statement similarly and not an endorsement of the notion that we are born sinful.

Here is a similar hyperbole:

·       The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies. (Psalm 58:3)

Certainly, they couldn’t speak lies at birth. Instead, this Psalm tells us that the wicked gave indications of their wickedness early on, from the get-go.

In contrast to the idea that we are sinners before birth, Solomon declared:

·       See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. (Ecclesiastes 7:29)

Therefore, it is wrong to blame God for our sinfulness. It is we who have sought out our sinful schemes. Instead, James has warned us that we must take full responsibility for our sins:

·       Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. (James 1:13-14)

God has not coerced us to sin by implanting sinful desires within us before birth. Instead, these are our own sinful desires. We therefore, cannot say, “God (or the Fall) made me do it.”

Instead, it seems that these sinful desires grow within us over time as we harden our hearts to God and become more accountable. Therefore, Israel’s infants were not held accountable for the rebellion at Kadish Barnea:

·       And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it. (Deuteronomy 1:39)

No mention of them being guilty of Adam’s sin! This is why Jesus was able to talk about children as exemplars of the Kingdom:

·       [Jesus] said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3-4; Luke 18:16-17)

It is hard to understand Jesus’ teachings if we believe that children are guilty of the sin of Adam from before birth and are vessels of condemnation.

Paul also doesn’t give any indication that children had been guilty of Adam’s sin:

·       Though they (Esau and Jacob) were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— (Romans 9:11)

Evidently, Paul didn’t regard the children as having sinned with Adam. Nevertheless we do bear the consequences of Adam’s sin. For one thing, we all die (1 Corinthians 15:22).

However, Paul also regarded us as “children of wrath”:

·       And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Ephesians 2:1-3 (ESV)

However, these verses do not claim that we were born “by nature children of wrath.” Instead, the context argues that we were dead in our own “trespasses and sins” in which we “once walked.” We were not dead by virtue of Adam’s sin, but by virtue of our own. Therefore, we became in nature children of wrath.

If, instead, we were birthed “children of wrath,” this would also make Jesus so:

·       Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. (Hebrews 2:17)

However, Jesus was without sin. This suggests that we too were born without the guilt of Adam’s sin, only its consequences.

Why then are we unable to come to Jesus on our own? This inability does not seem to be the result of the Fall but our own sins, which have hardened our hearts against the Light.

This means that we are as guilty as sin and rightfully deserve the wages of sin (Romans 6:23). It also means that our righteous God is just in His condemnation of those who reject Him (Romans 1:18-20).

Besides, this understanding should enable us to see His free gift of life as what it is – the sheer mercy of God upon those not at all deserving.

Predestination is not the Real Offense

Predestination is not the Real Offense

The teaching of predestination/election can be troubling, but it shouldn’t be. It merely teaches that humanity is downing, and therefore, God has to jump in to rescue them. However, God is even more gracious than that. He rescues those who are His enemies (Rom. 8:5-8; 5:8-10) - those who even refuse to be rescued (John 3:19-20; Rom. 3:10-16). What is so bad about that? Nothing! Instead, it’s called the “Good News!”

I think that what many Christians really object to is not predestination, but instead the doctrine that requires predestination – our depravity and rebellion, our universal rejection of the light (John 3:19-20; 1 Cor. 2:14). Consequently, since we will not choose God, He must choose us (John 6:40-45; 15:16), if any are to be saved. But we find this dismal assessment of humanity both unbelievable and offensive!

Is humanity really that bad? Not according to us! But we do not see the inner man. We – even the most spiritual - are duped by appearances. The prophet Samuel certainly was! God had to warn him against judging according to the “outward appearance” (1 Sam. 16:7).

Perhaps all of us judge superficially, and therefore cannot appreciate the depths of sin and God’s abhorrence of it. Jeremiah had a hard time accepting God’s dismal evaluation of Israel. God therefore challenged him:

• “Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, look around and consider, search through her squares. If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city.” (Jer. 5:1)

Jeremiah too had a high estimation of humanity, especially of his own kind, and thought that it would be easy to find one honest man:

• I thought, “These are only the poor; they are foolish, for they do not know the way of the Lord, the requirements of their God. So I will go to the leaders and speak to them; surely they know the way of the Lord, the requirements of their God.” (Jer. 5:4-5)

Because Jeremiah had had a high estimation of the educated Israelite, he found God’s assessments and judgments unbelievable and unduly harsh. However, Jeremiah found that all Israel was in rebellion against the Lord. Even his own family wanted to kill him for bringing the message of God. (It is interestingly to note that even though Israel’s rejection of their God had often included every Israelite, the Prophets never blamed God for their rebellion.)

However, once Jeremiah began to see the extent of human rebellion, he too began to reassess humanity and affirm God’s righteous judgments. In fact, he began to plead with God not to forgive.

If we could only see the extent of human rebellion and our hatred towards the Savior, perhaps we might really regard predestination as Good News, which it truly is, and appreciate the extreme generosity of God’s mercy.

It is imperative to understand these depths of our hatred of the light, our enmity against God, however offensive this might be. When we understand the extent of God’s forgiveness of our sins in light of this, we will be truly grateful. Failing to perceive this, we tend to disregard God’s grace.

Jesus was invited to a top-of-the-line pharisaic lunch. A woman He had forgiven entered uninvited and anointed His feet in expensive oil. The host was appalled both by this woman and that Jesus allowed this base creature to touch him. Jesus therefore explained that she was more blessed than the host: “He who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:47)

The woman loved much because she knew that she had been forgiven much. Often, we do not know the extent to which we have sinned and have been forgiven and, therefore, love little and disdain God’s just ways. If we only understood the extent of Christ’s forgiveness, we would not be offended by God’s judgments, knowing that they are just. Instead, we’d fully accept the Bible’s judgment that sin deserves death (Romans 6:23; Deut. 27:26). We would also gladly embrace whatever mercy that God might offer – predestination.

There is also another danger when we fail to appreciate the extent of our rebellion against the light – boasting! For my first 15 years in Christ, I believed that I had chosen Christ and not the other way around. Why had I chosen Christ? I had convinced myself that it was because I was more spiritual than others. In doing this, I exalted myself and looked down on others (Luke 18:9-14). Consequently, I had to suffer for years before I could recognize that I had been boasting and that this had been offensive to the One who had given me the faith to believe.

The same had been true for King Nebuchadnezzar, the great Babylonia empire-builder. Understandably, he was convinced that he was great and that his greatness was all about him. However, he had a disturbing dream which changed everything. Daniel interpreted it for him:

• It is a decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord the king, that you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. You shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and you shall be wet with the dew of heaven, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will. (Daniel 4:24-25)

For seven years, Nebuchadnezzar lost his mind, thinking that he was a cow. Why had God punished him in this manner? Because of his warfare? Taking Israel into captivity? His treatment of the poor? No! It was simply to learn a theological lesson – that his success wasn’t about Him but about God, who chooses “whom He will!”

At the end of the seven years of grievous suffering, Nebuchadnezzar got the point and gave all of the thanks to God for choosing him. If this pagan, unenlightened by Scripture, was held to account for his boasting, we will, even more so, be held accountable.

Why? Because God actually deserves the credit! If someone gives you a magnificent painting from their studio, you hang it up in your house, and others ask if you had painted this masterpiece, should you take credit for painting it? If you do, would not the real artist be offended? Likewise, if faith is God’s gift to us (Eph. 2:8-9; Philip. 1:29; Acts 18:27; 16:14; 13:48) and if we take credit for it, as I had, would not God be offended?

Instead, it is only fitting to credit God for our salvation and even for the faith to receive it – God’s predestined salvation!