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The Gospel By Paul Washer

Saturday, September 27, 2008

THE MORAL LAW A RULE OF OBEDIENCE by Samuel Bolton










THE MORAL LAW A RULE OF OBEDIENCE
by Samuel Bolton

QUERY I: Are Christians freed from the moral law as a rule of obedience?
Our text (John 8.36) is the main basis whereon this doctrine of Christian freedom is built. But many have endeavoured to build their own superstructures, hay and stubble, upon it, which the foundation will never bear. Indeed, there are so many opinions which plead patronage from this doctrine that I conceive it is my great work to vindicate so excellent a doctrine as this is-true Christian freedom - from those false, and I may say licentious, doctrines which are fastened and fathered upon it. I must show you that neither this doctrine, nor yet this text, will afford countenance to, or contribute any strength to the positions and opinions which some would seem to deduce from it and build upon it.

The work is great, for I am to deal with the greatest knots in the practical part of divinity, and men's judgments are various. Scripture is pleaded on all hands. The more difficult the work, the more need of your prayers, that the Father of lights would go before us, and by His own light lead and guide us into the ways of all truth. In this confidence we shall venture to launch into these deeps, and begin the examination and trial of those doctrines which are deduced from, and would seem to be built upon, this text. The first doctrine, and the main one, that they would seem to build upon this text is, that believers are freed from the law. And this shall be the first question we will examine.

In answer to this query as it is propounded, we must confess that we are not without some places of Scripture which declare the law to be abrogated, nor without some again that speak of it as yet in force. We will give you a taste of some of them; and shall begin with those that seem to speak of the abrogation of the law.

Jeremiah 31.31-33: 'Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.'

Romans 7.1-3: 'Know ye not, brethren (for I speak to them that know the law), how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.'

That the apostle here speaks of the moral law is evident from the seventh verse; and that believers are freed from it, see the sixth verse and others. See also Rom. 6.14: 'For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace'; Gal. 3.19, 'The law was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come'; Gal. 4.4-5, 'God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons'; Rom. 8.2, 'For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death'; Gal. 5.18, 'But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law'; Rom. 10.4, 'For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth'; 1 Tim. 1.8-10, 'The law is good if a man use it lawfully, knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man', etc.

There seems therefore to be a great deal of strength in the Scripture to prove the abrogation of the law, that we are dead to the law, freed from the law, no more under the law. These Scriptures we shall have to deal with afterwards. For the present, I only quote them, to let it be seen with what strength the Scriptures seem to hold out for the first opinion, that is, for the abrogation of the law.

On the other hand, there are some Scriptures which seem to hold up the law, and which say that the law is still in force: I say, some which seem to support the obligation, as the others the abrogation, of it. Thus there is Rom. 3.31: 'Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.' This seems contrary to the former; the verses previously given seem to speak of the abrogation, this of the establishment, the obligation, of the law. So also Matt. 5.17-18: 'Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.' Upon these varieties of texts, men have grounded their varieties of opinions for the abrogation of, or the obligation of, the law. There is no question but the Scripture speaks truth in both; they are the words of truth; and though they seem here to be as the accusers of Christ, never a one speaking like the other, yet if we are able to find out the meaning, we shall find them like Nathan and Bathsheba, both speaking the same things.

In order to find out the truth under these seeming contraries, and for the purpose of answering the query, lest we should beat the air and spend ourselves to no purpose, it will be necessary to make two inquiries: (1) what is meant by the word 'law'? (2) in what sense is the word used in Scripture? When this has been done there will be a way opened for the clearing of the truth and for the answering of the queries.

THE SCRIPTURAL USES OF THE WORD LAW'

(1) What is meant by the word 'law'? I answer: the word which is frequently used for 'the law' in the Old Testament is 'Torah'. This is derived from another word which signifies 'to throw darts', and comes to signify 'to teach, to instruct, to admonish'; hence it is used for any doctrine or instruction which teaches, informs, or directs us: as, for example, in Proverbs 13.14: 'The law of the wise is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death.' Here 'law' is taken in a large sense for any doctrine or direction which proceeds from the wise; so, too, in Proverbs 3.1 and 4.2
.
In the New Testament the word 'law' is derived from another word which signifies 'to distribute', because the law distributes, or renders to God and man their dues.

In brief, this word 'law', in its natural signification both in the Old and New Testaments, signifies any doctrine, instruction, law, ordinance, or statute, divine or human, which teaches, directs, commands, or binds men to any duty which they owe to God or man. So much, then, for the first matter.

(2) In what senses is this word 'law' used in Scripture? I shall not trouble the reader with all the uses of the word, but shall confine myself to the chief of them:
(i) It is sometimes taken for the Scriptures of the Old Testament, the books of Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophets. So the Jews understood it in John 52.34: 'We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever'. So also in John 15.25: This cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause' (Ps. 35.19). Similarly, we have 1 Cor. 14.21: 'In the law it is written', wh
ere the apostle is repeating the words of Isaiah 28.ss, and he says they are written in the law.

(ii) The term 'law' is sometimes used as meaning the whole Word of God, its promises and precepts, as m Ps. 19.7: The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul'. Conversion is the fruit of the promise. Neither justification nor sanctification is the fruit of the law alone. The law commands but gives no grace, so that here the psalmist includes the promise of grace in his use of 'law'; or else conversion, as he speaks of it here, does not mean regeneration.

(iii) 'Law' is sometimes taken for the five books of Moses, as in Gal. 3.21: 'If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law'. Likewise, in John 1:45 'We have found him of whom Moses in the law . . . did write'. Similarly in Luke 24.44: 'All things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses', meaning the five books of Moses; see also Gal. 4.21.

(iv) 'Law' is used for the pedagogy of Moses, as in John 5.46: 'Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.' See also Josh. 1.7-8.

(v) Sometimes 'law' is used for the moral law alone, the Decalogue, as in Rom. 7.7, 14 and 21.
(vi) Sometimes 'law' refers to the ceremonial law, as in Luke 16.16.

(vii) Sometimes 'law' refers to all the laws, moral, ceremonial, and judicial, as in John 1.17: 'The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ': 'grace' in opposition to the moral law, 'truth' in opposition to the ceremonial law which was but a shadow. Thus Chrysostom comments on this passage: The ceremonial law was given right up to the time of the coming of the seed promised to Abraham.'

Among all these different usages, the controversy lies in the last-mentioned, where the word 'law' signifies the moral, judicial, and ceremonial law. In respect of two of these varieties of law, we find considerable agreement; the main difficulty concerns the moral law.

The ceremonial law was an appendix to the first table of the moral law. It was an ordinance containing precepts of worship for the Jews when they were in their infancy, and was intended to keep them under hope, to preserve them from will-worship, and to be a wall of separation between them and the Gentiles. This law, all agree, is abrogated both in truth and in fact.
As for the judicial law, which was an appendix to the second table, it was an ordinance containing precepts concerning the government of the people in things civil, and it served three purposes: it gave the people a rule of common and public equity, it distinguished them from other peoples, and it gave them a type of the government of Christ. That part of the judicial law which was typical of Christ's government has ceased, but that part which is of common and general equity remains still in force. It is a common maxim: those judgments which are common and natural are moral and perpetual.

However, in respect of the ceremonial and the judicial law we find few dissenters. All the controversy arises from the third part, the moral law.

And so we come to speak of the moral law which is scattered throughout the whole Bible, and summed up in the Decalogue. For substance, it contains such things as are good and holy, and agreeable to the will of God, being the image of the divine will, a beam of His holiness, the sum of which is love to God and love to man.

It is one of the great disputes in these days, whether this moral law is abrogated, or, in the words of the query, whether believers are freed from the moral law. All agree that we are freed from the curses and maledictions, from the indictments and accusations, from the compellings and irritations, and other particulars which we named before. But the question is, to put it in plain terms: Are believers freed from obedience to the moral law, that is, from the moral law as a rule of obedience?

Some there are who positively or peremptorily affirm that we are freed from the law as a rule, and are not, since Christ came, tied to the obedience of it. Others say that it still remains in force as a rule of obedience, though abolished in other respects, as Beza says: 'Christ fulfilled the law for us, but not in order to render it of no value to us.' We are still under the conduct and commands of the law, say these Christians, though not under its curses and penalties.
Again, others say that we are freed from the law, as given by Moses, and are only tied to the obedience of it, as it is given in Christ: and though, they say, we are subject to those commands and that law which Moses gave, yet not as he gave it, but as Christ renews it, and as it comes out of His hand and from His authority: 'A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another' (John 53.34). It is a commandment, for Christ is both a Saviour and a Lord; and it is a new one, not that it did not exist before, but because now renewed, and because we have it immediately from the hands of Christ.

I shall not much quarrel with this. Acknowledge the moral law as a rule of obedience and Christian walking, and there will be no falling out, whether you take it as promulgated by Moses, or as handed to you and renewed by Christ.

Indeed, the law, as it is considered as a rule, can no more be abolished or changed than the nature of good and evil can be abolished and changed. The substance of the law is the sum of doctrine concerning piety towards God, charity towards our neighbours, temperance and sobriety towards ourselves. And for the substance of it, it is moral and eternal, and cannot be abrogated. We grant that the circumstances under which the moral law was originally given were temporary and changeable, and we have now nothing to do with the promulgator, Moses, nor with the place where it was given, Mount Sinai, nor with the time when it was given, fifty days after the people came out of Egypt, nor yet as it was written in tables of stone, delivered with thunderings and lightnings. We look not to Sinai, the hill of bondage, but to Zion, the mountain of grace. We take the law as the image of the will of God which we desire to obey, but from which we do not expect life and favour, neither do we fear death and rigour. This, I conceive, is the concurrent opinion of all divines. For believers, the law is abrogated in respect of its power to justify or condemn; but it remains full of force to direct us in our lives. It condemns sin in the faithful, though it cannot condemn the faithful for sin. Says Zanchius: 'The observance of the law is necessary for a Christian man, and it is not possible to separate such observance from faith.' And as Calvin says: 'Let us put far from us the ungodly notion that the law is not to be our rule, for it is our changeless rule of life.' The moral law, by its teaching, admonishing, chiding, and reproving, prepares us for every good work. The law is void in respect of its power to condemn us, but it still has power to direct us; we are not under its curse, but yet under its commands.

Again, the moral law is perpetual and immutable. This is an everlasting truth, that the creature is bound to worship and obey his Creator, and so much the more bound as he has received the greater benefits. If we claim to be free from obedience, we make ourselves the servants of sin. But these matters I shall speak more largely upon in the discourse that follows.

Therefore, against that opinion which holds forth the abrogation of the law, and says that we are freed from obedience to it, I shall state and endeavour to make good two propositions which will serve fully to answer the query, and to refute the false notions. The propositions are these:

(1) That the law, for the substance of it (for we speak not of the circumstances and accessories of it), remains as a rule of walking to the people of God.

(2) That there was no end or use for which the law was originally given but is consistent with grace, and serviceable to the advancement of the covenant of grace.
If these two propositions are made good, the doctrines of the abrogation of the law and of freedom from the law will both fall to the ground.

PROPOSITION 2: THE LAW REMAINS AS A RULE OF WALKING FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD

We shall begin with the first proposition, namely, that the law, in the substance of it, remains in force as a rule of walking to the people of God. I shall not need to stay long over this, for when the second proposition is made good it will be seen that it establishes this also. By the law is meant the moral law comprehended in the Decalogue or ten commandments. By the substance of it, I mean the things commanded or forbidden which are morally good or evil, and cannot be changed or abolished. For what is the law in the substance of it but that law of nature engraven in the heart of man in innocency? and what was that but the express idea or representation of God's own image, even a beam of His own holiness, which cannot be changed or abolished any more than the nature of good and evil can be changed? And that the law thus considered remains as an unchangeable rule of walking to believers I am now to prove.

THE TESTIMONY OP THE REFORMED CONFESSIONS

For this proof, not to mention individuals whose testimony might be produced, even as many almost as men, we have a cloud of witnesses if we look upon the Confessions of Christian and Reformed Churches in their agreement together. The Helvetian (Swiss) Church has this confession: 'Thus far is the law of God abrogated, in that it has no power to condemn believers. ... Notwithstanding, we do not disdainfully reject the law, but condemn them as heresies which are taught against the law, that it is not a rule of walking.' The French Church has this: 'We believe all the figures of the law to be taken away by the coming of Christ, although the truth and substance of them continue to us in Him, and are fulfilled to us in Him. But the doctrine of the law is used in them both to confirm our life and that we may be the more established in the promises of the Gospel.' Agreeable to this is the Belgic Confession.

The Wittenberg Confession includes this: 'We acknowledge the law of God, whose abridgment is in the Decalogue, to command the best, the most just and perfect works, and we hold that man is bound to obey the moral precepts of the Decalogue. Neither are those precepts which are contained in the apostles' writings a new law, but are branches of the old law.' And again, 'It is needful to teach men that they must not only obey the law, but also how this obedience pleases God.'

The Scottish Church confesses: 'We do not think we are so freed by liberty as if we owed no obedience to the law; we confess the contrary.' The Church of England holds a similar doctrine: 'Although the law given of God to Moses in regard of the rites and ceremonies does not bind Christians, neither is any, although a Christian, loosed from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral.' To these testimonies might be added many more.

But it may be that some men regard these Confessions as of no authority and therefore they have no power with them. And indeed, if these things are not proved from the Word of God, they have no power with us. We respect good men and their writings, but we must not build our faith upon them as a sure foundation. This is against our Christian liberty; we cannot be enslaved to the judgments of any. 'To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.' We shall therefore give some proofs out of the Word itself, and then draw arguments from them.

THE TESTIMONY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

We read in Matt. 5.17-18: 'Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I. am not come to destroy but to fulfil; for verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.' This seems to be very full and very plain for the continuance of and obligation to the law. And yet there are corrupt readings of these words, and as sinister interpretations. Some would have it to be understood that Christ would not abolish the law until He had fulfilled it. Indeed, He was 'the end of the law', as the apostle speaks in Rom. 10.4, but we must understand this to mean 'the perfecting and consummating end', not 'the destroying and abolishing end' of the law. In Christ the law had an end of perfection and consummation, not of destruction and abolition. It is to be noted that in this verse Christ gives a stricter exposition of the law, and vindicates it from the corrupt glosses of the Pharisees, which surely speaks the continuance, not the abrogation, of the law. And agreeable to this is the language of the apostle in Rom. 3.31: 'Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.' How? Not for justification, for in this respect faith makes it void, but as a rule of obedience, and in this respect faith establishes it. Further, the apostle tells us 'that the law is holy, just and good' and that 'he delighted in the law of God after the inward man' and also that 'with the mind I myself serve the law of God' (Rom. 7.12, 22, 25). With this agrees James 2.8: 'If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture . . . ye do well'. What law this was, he shows in the eleventh verse to be the Decalogue or moral law. Likewise: 'He that saith I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar' (1 John 2.4); also: 'Sin is the transgression of the law' (1 John 3.4).

Therefore, since Christ, who is the best expounder of the law, so largely strengthens and confirms the law (witness the Sermon on the Mount, and also Mark 10.19); since faith does not supplant, but strengthens the law; since the apostle so often presses and urges the duties commanded in the law; since Paul acknowledges that he served the law of God in his mind, and that he was under the law to Christ (1 Cor. 9.21); I may rightly conclude that the law, for the substance of it, still remains a rule of life to the people of God.

But I would add further arguments, beginning with this: If ever the law was a rule of walking, then it is still a rule of walking: this is clear. Either it is still such a rule, or we must shew the time when, as such, it was abrogated. But no such time can be shewed. If it is said that it was abrogated in the time of the Gospel by Christ and His apostles, we reply that no such thing can be proved. It was not so abrogated at that time. If Christ and His apostles commanded the same things which the law required, and forbade and condemned the same things which the law forbade and condemned, then they did not abrogate it but strengthened and confirmed it. And this is what they did: see Matt. 5:19 'He that breaketh one of the least of these commandments, and teacheth men so, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but he that shall teach and observe them shall be called (not legal preachers, but) great in the kingdom of heaven.'
Therefore, in that Christ Himself expounded and established the law, by His word and authority, as shown in the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of Matthew, it shows us the continuance of it; for had it been His will utterly to abolish it, He would rather have declared against it, or have suffered it to die of itself; and would not have vindicated it, and restored it to its purity from the glosses of the Pharisees. All this clearly speaks to us of the continuance of, and obligation to, the law.

As with Christ, so with the apostles: instead of abolishing, in their doctrine they establish it, frequently urging the duties of the law upon the churches and people of God: 'Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves' (Rom. 12.19). Why? 'For it is written, Vengeance is mine'. Likewise, in Rom. 13.8-10. There the apostle repeats the commandments of the second table, not to repeal or reverse any of them, but to confirm them as a rule of walking for the saints. He comprehends them all in this: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, for love is the fulfilling of the law.' As Beza writes: 'Love is not perfected except as the fulfilling of the law.' See also 1 Thess. 4.3, 4, 7: 'This is the will of God ... that ye should abstain from fornication ... that no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter; because that the Lord is the avenger of all such.' See also Eph. 6.1: 'Children, obey your parents in the Lord.' The apostle here presses this duty from the authority of the precept, and persuades to it from the graciousness of the promise, 'for this is the first commandment with promise' - a conditional promise (as Beza says), as are all such promises as are found in the law. As full and plain are the words of the apostle in Rom. 3.31: 'Do we abrogate the law? No, we establish it by faith.' Though it carries another sense, it bears this sense also, that though we disown the law in respect of justification, yet we establish it as a rule of Christian living.

Again, in Matt. 3.10 we read: 'The axe is laid to the root of the tree; every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire'; and in Mart. 5.22: 'Whosoever shall say to his brother, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.' In these and sundry other places, so some learned and holy divines tell us, the comminations and threatenings of the New Testament are not of the nature of the Gospel, but are confirmation of the law, and plainly demonstrate to us the continuance of the law under grace. Thus Daniel Chamier1 distinguishes in the Gospel between the doctrine of the Gospel and the grace of the Gospel, between the preaching of the Gospel by Christ and the apostles and the law of faith or spirit of life in Christ. The preaching or doctrine of the Gospel, he tells us, contains two things, first the promise of grace, and second, the confirmation of the law. And he shows that all those comminations and threats which we read in the Scriptures of the New Testament in no way belong to the nature of the Gospel properly so called, but are the confirmation of the law, and declare the continuation of it now under the Gospel as an exact rule to direct Christians in their walk and obedience.

FIVE PROOFS OF THE BINDING NATURE OF THE LAW

Before I proceed to the rest of the arguments, I will mention what objectors say to this. Some of them say that, though the law is a rule, yet it is a rule which we are free to obey or not to obey: it is not a binding rule. There are various opinions about this. Some say that it binds us no further than as we are creatures. I answer: if so, why then are they not bound? I hope they are creatures as well as Christians. Others say that it binds the flesh but not the spirit; it binds the unregenerate part, but not the regenerate part of a man, to obedience, for the regenerate part is free. I answer: here is a dangerous gap, open to all licentiousness; witness the opinions of David George2 and the Valentinians.3 Others say that the law is not a binding rule at all and that believers are no more under the law than England is under the laws of Spain; that Christians are no more bound to the obedience of the law than men are bound to the obedience of the laws of another commonwealth than their own; to speak otherwise, they say, overthrows Christian liberty.

Now if this be true, it strikes down all. If it be a rule, but not a binding rule, a rule binding to obedience, it will be of small use. We will end this cavil, therefore, before we go any further, and show that the law is indeed a binding rule, and that it binds Christians, not as men, but as Christians. I will give five arguments in proof of this:

(1) That which being observed, causes the consciences of regenerate men to excuse them, and which, not being observed, causes their consciences to accuse them, is binding on the conscience. But it is the law of God which thus causes the consciences of the regenerate to excuse or else to accuse them. Therefore the law of God is that which is binding on the Christian conscience.

(2) That which has power to say to the conscience of the regenerate Christian, This ought to be done, and that ought not to be done, is binding on the conscience. But the law of God has this power. Therefore, though it cannot say that this or that ought not to be done on pain of damnation, or on pain of the curse; or this or that ought to be done in reference to justification or the meriting of life; yet it shows it ought to be done as good and pleasing to God, and that this or that ought not to be done, as things displeasing to Him.

(3) The authority by which the apostles urged Christians to duty binds the conscience to obedience. But the apostles used the authority of the law to provoke Christians to their duty (as in Eph. 6.1-2). Therefore the law is the rule by which Christians must walk.

(4) If the law of God does not bind the conscience of a regenerate man to obedience, then whatever he does which is commanded in the law, he does more than his duty; and so either merits or sins, being guilty of will-worship. But in obedience to the law he is not guilty of will-worship, neither does he merit: 'When ye have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do' (Luke 17.10).

(5) Either the law binds the conscience of Christians to obedience, or Christians do not sin in the breach of the law. But they sin in the breach of it, as says 1 John 3.4: 'Sin is the transgression of the law'. Therefore, the transgression of the law is sin. Or look at it thus: If Christians are bound not to sin, then they are bound to keep the law. But Christians are bound not to sin; therefore they are bound to keep the law. I know that objectors will agree that Christians are bound not to sin, but that they will deny that they are bound to obey the law; but I will prove my point in this way: If he that breaks the law sins, then Christians are bound to keep the law if they are not to sin. But he that breaks the law does sin, as says the apostle: 'Sin is the transgression of the law' (1 John 3.4), and 'Where no law is there is no transgression' (Rom. 4.15). Therefore Christians are bound, if they would avoid sin, to obey the law.

And now, being driven against the wall, the objectors have no way to maintain the former error but by another. They tell us plainly that believers do not sin: 'Be in Christ and sin if you can.' But the apostle tells them that they sin in saying this: 'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us' (1 John i.8). Nay, we 'make him (that is, God) a liar' (v. 10). 'If we say', includes the apostles as well as others, for 'there is no man who sins not' (1 Kings 8.46). 'In many things we offend all' (James 3.2).

FIVE FURTHER ARGUMENTS FOR OBEDIENCE TO THE LAW

But if this will not silence them, then they say that God sees no sin in those who are believers. But what is this? It is one thing to sin, and another for God not to see sin. Indeed, He sees not sin, either to condemn believers for sin, or to approve and allow of sin in believers. He sees not sin, that is, He will not see sin to impute it to us when we are in Christ. But if this does not convince the objectors, then they say: Though believers sin, and though God sees it, for He sees all and brings all into judgment, yet God is not displeased with the sins of believers.
I reply:

1. Certainly, perfect good must for ever hate that which is perfect evil, and the nearer it is to Him, the more God hates it. In a wicked man, God hates both sin and sinner, but in a believer, He hates the sin, though He pities and loves the poor sinner. He is displeased with sin, though He pardons sin through Christ. But we will follow this no longer. Thus much must suffice for the proof and vindication of the first argument.

2. If the same sins are condemned and forbidden after Christ came as were forbidden before He came, then the law, in respect of its being a rule of obedience, is still in force; but the same sins are thus condemned and forbidden. That which was sin then is sin now. I speak of sin against the moral law. Therefore the moral law is still in force to believers as their rule of obedience.

3. If the same duties which were enjoined in the law are commanded believers under the Gospel, then the law still remains as a rule of direction and obedience. But the same duties are commanded under the Gospel as were enjoined under the law, as I have already shown (e.g. Rom. 13.9-10 and Eph. 6.1). Therefore the law still remains as a rule of obedience under the Gospel.

4. If the things commanded in the law are part of holiness and conformity to God, and if this conformity to the law is required of us, then we conclude that the law is still in force. But the things commanded are part of Christian holiness, and conformity to the law is required of us. Therefore the law is still in force. That the things commanded are part of our holiness, I suppose is granted. If so, that this conformity to the law is required of us, it is easy to prove. That which we are to aspire to, and labour for, and after which we are to endeavour both in our affections and actions, in our principles and practices, that, surely, is required of us. But this is all the same with conformity to the law of God. That we are to aspire to such conformity in our affections is clear from Rom. 7.22, 25, where the apostle shows us that he delighted in the law of God, and that he served the law in his mind. Nay, it was his purpose, aim, desire, and endeavour of heart, to be made conformable to that law which he says is 'holy, just, and good'. Though he fell short of it, yet he aspired after it; which shows we too are to aspire after it in our affections. And it is equally plain that we are to endeavour after conformity to it in our actions. Take both together: 'Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently. O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes! Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments' (Ps. 119.4-6). He has respect to them in his heart and affections; and he seeks conformity to them in life and actions. And this was his duty, because God had commanded: 'Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts. O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!'

5. It cannot be part of our freedom by Christ to be freed from obedience to the law, because the law is holy, just, and good. Surely it is no part of our freedom to be freed from that which is holy, just, and good! Consider it in this way: That cannot be part of our freedom which is no part of our bondage. But obedience and subjection to the moral law in the sense I have showed was never part of our bondage. Therefore to be freed from obedience to the law cannot be part of our freedom. I will prove that it was never part of our bondage.

That cannot be part of our bondage which is part of our glory; but obedience and conformity to the law, both in principle and in practice, is part of our glory; therefore it cannot be part of our bondage. Again, that cannot be said to be part of our bondage which is part of our freedom. But to obey the law is part of our freedom, as we read in Luke 1.74: 'That we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.' I shall proceed no further upon this. It is plain enough, that the law in the substance of it remains a rule of walking or obedience to them in Christ. We shall give two or three applications and then come to the second matter.

(i) Application against Papists

The foregoing will serve to show the error of the Papists in their unjust charge against us that we make it a part of our Christian liberty to be exempted from all law and to live as we list, and that we are not bound to the obedience of any law in conscience before God. We appeal to all the Reformed Churches in the Christian world, whether ever any of them did put forth such an opinion as this. It is the concurrent opinion of all Reformed Churches that Christians are subject to the rule, the direction, and the authority of the moral law, as says Chamier: 'Believers are free from the curses, not from the obligations, of the law.' We preach obedience to the law, but not as the Papists do. They preach obedience as a means to justification; we preach justification as a means to obedience. We cry down works in opposition to grace in justification, and we cry up obedience as the fruits of grace in sanctification. He that does not walk in obedience is a stranger yet to Christ; and he that rests in his obedience does not know Christ. Indeed, many are too much like the Jews still. God set up a law as a rule of walking, and they look for justification by it. These poor men are like oxen in the yoke; they draw and toil and spend their strength (for who do more than those who think to earn merit thereby?), and when they have performed their labour, they are fatted up for slaughter. So it is with these: when they have endeavoured hard after their own righteousness, they perish in their just condemnation. These men Luther fitly calls 'the devil's martyrs': they suffer much, and take much pains to go to hell. The apostle tells them what they are to expect: 'For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse' (Gal. 3.10), that is, those who are under the works of the law for justification; and the apostle gives the reason, 'for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them'. These men seek life in death, righteousness in sin. And, alas, we are all too apt to follow this line; it is hard to perform all righteousness and rest in none; hard to be in duties in respect of performance, and out of duties in respect of dependence. We are apt to weave a web of righteousness of our own, to spin a thread of our own by which we may climb up to heaven. Were it not so, what is the need for so many exhortations and admonitions to perform all righteousness but to rest in none? The Scripture does not make a practice of killing flies with beetles,4 or cleaving straws with wedges of iron; nor does it spend many admonitions and exhortations where there is no need.

Alas, there are multitudes in the world who make a Christ of their own works, and this is their undoing. They look for righteousness and acceptance more in the precept than in the promise, in the law rather than in the Gospel, more in working than in believing; and so they miscarry. There is something of this spirit in us all; otherwise we should not be up and down so much in respect of our comforts and our faith, as is still so often the case. We become cast down with every weakness in ourselves. But we should be all in Christ in weak performance, and nothing in ourselves in strong performances.

(ii) Against Antinomians

We look next at the case of those who are called Antinomians.5 Just as the Papists set up the law for justification, so the Antinomians decry the law for sanctification. We claim to be free from the curses of the law; they would have us free from the guidance, from the commands of the law. We say we are free from the penalties, but they would abolish the precepts of the law. They tell us that we make a false mixture together of Christ and Moses, and that we mingle law and Gospel together. How unjustly they lay this charge against us, let men of understanding judge. We cry down the law in respect of justification, but we set it up as a rule of sanctification. The law sends us to the Gospel that we may be justified; and the Gospel sends us to the law again to inquire what is our duty as those who are justified. Whatever they say of the law, though they cast contempt and disgrace upon it, and upon those who preach it, yet we know that, for the substance of it, it is the image of God, a beam of His holiness. The things therein commanded and forbidden are things morally, and therefore eternally, good and evil; nothing can alter the nature of them. Things not by nature either good or evil are alterable by him that commanded them. But those things which are morally good or evil, God can no more alter them than make evil good, or good evil. That which was morally good formerly is morally good now, and is to be pursued and practised. That which was formerly morally evil is morally evil now, and is to be shunned and avoided. We have a Gospel rule which turns us to obedience to the law. We find it in Phil. 4.8: 'Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsover things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.' And I hope the law is of this number. The apostle tells us that the law is 'holy and just and good'; certainly in it there is nothing commanded but what is good. If we are to learn of the ant, and from brute beasts, certainly are we much more to learn from the law, which is the image of God in man and the will of God to man. We have nothing to do with Moses, nor do we look to Sinai, the hill of bondage, but we look to Zion, the mountain of grace. We take the law as the eternal rule of God's will, and we desire to conform ourselves to it, and to breathe out with David, 'O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!' Certainly the law and the Gospel help one another; they lend one another the hand, as says Peter Martyr.

The law is subservient to the Gospel. Its purpose is to convince and humble us, and the Gospel is to enable us to fulfil the obedience of the law. The law sends us to the Gospel for our justification; the Gospel sends us to the law to frame our way of life. Our obedience to the law is nothing else but the expression of our thankfulness to God who has freely justified us, that 'being redeemed, we might serve Him without fear' (Luke 1.74). Though our service is not the motive or impelling cause of God's redeeming of us, yet it is the purpose of our redemption. The apostle shows this at length in the sixth chapter of Romans; it is the application he makes of the doctrine of free justification. He continues: 'Therefore, brethren, we are debtors' (Rom. 8.12). If Christ has freed us from the penalties, how ought we to subject ourselves to the precepts! If He has delivered us from the curses, how ought we to study the commands! If He paid our debt of sin, certainly we owe a debt of service.

This was the great end of our redemption; He redeemed us from bondage and brought us into freedom, from slavery to service. That which Christ has redeemed us to, He cannot be said to redeem us from; but He has redeemed us unto service, and therefore cannot be said to redeem us from service. Indeed, He has freed us from the manner of our obedience, but not from the matter of our obedience. We now obey, but it is from other principles, by other strength, unto other ends, than we did before.

Previously, the principles of obedience were legal and servile, now they are filial and evangelical. As the law was given with evangelical purposes, so it is now kept from evangelical principles, principles of faith, love, and delight, which causes the soul to obey, and facilitates the whole of obedience. The love of Christ constrains (2 Cor. 5.14), yet is the obedience free. Love knows no difficulties; things impossible to others are easy to them that love. The grounds of obedience differ: heretofore, fear, now love. Previously the strength was our own; now we have fellowship with the strength of Christ. Our works are said to be wrought in God, by union with Him (John 3.21), and by fellowship with Him. As we can do nothing without Him, so we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. And this strength He has promised: 'The Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments' (Deut. 26.18). He tells us that He works all our works in us and for us (Isa. 26.12), the required works of grace in us, and of duty for us.

The ends before were for justification and life; now they are for other ends - to glorify God, to dignify the Gospel, to declare our sincerity, to express our thankfulness. Before, we obeyed, but out of compulsion of conscience; now we obey out of the promptings of nature, which, so far as it works, works to God, as naturally as stones move downward or sparks fly upward. Thus, then, it is that we preach the law, not in opposition to, but in subordination to the Gospel, as we shall show at length later.

(iii) To all believers

Lastly, under this head, let me exhort you all to judge of the law aright, and then let it be your care to maintain it. Let not Moses take the place of Christ; but, at the same time, make a right use of Moses. When works and obedience take their right place, when the law is rightly used, then it is holy, just and good. But if we use it as our life, then we trample the blood of Christ underfoot, and make His life and death in vain. Let the servant follow the Master; let Moses follow Christ; the law, grace; obedience, faith; and then all act their proper and designed parts. Remember what Zacharias said: 'You were redeemed that you might serve' (Luke 1.74), that you might live unto Him that died for you. Reason from mercy to duty, not from mercy to liberty. O beware that the great things of Christ do not make you more careless! Take heed not to abuse mercy. It is a sad thing when Christians abuse the grace of Christ. The justice of God prevails with others; oh, but God would have His tender mercies prevail with you: 'I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice' (Rom. 12.1). The reasonings of saints are to be from engagements of mercy to enlargements in duty (2 Cor. 5:14 and 7.1). Having such precious promises, let us purge ourselves from all corruptions of the flesh and spirit. None but venomous spirits will, spider-like, suck poison from such sweets, or draw such inferences from mercy as may be encouragements to sin.

It would be a sad matter if believers should grow more slack and sluggish; if that which should quicken them slackens their hands; if a man should say in his heart, Christ died, I need not pray so much; Christ has done all, therefore I need do nothing. The doctrine we advance should strengthen and not weaken your engagement to duty, should heighten and not lessen your engagement to duty; it should quicken and not deaden your hearts' affections; it should inflame and not cool your spirits.

Worse still would it be if we should draw arguments to sin from mercy received. Should that become a spur which should be the greatest curb? 'Shall we sin because grace abounds?' (Rom. 6.1). 'There is mercy with thee, that thou mayest be feared', says the Psalmist (130.4), not that I may sin, but that I may serve. You whom the law has sent to the Gospel, let the Gospel again send you to the law; study now your duty; abundance of mercy calls for abundance of duty. If God had not abounded in mercy, what would have become of us? And has He abounded in mercy? Oh, then, let us abound in duty; let us obey for God's sake who gives us His Son; for Christ's sake who has given Himself that we might give ourselves to God; for faith's sake which is dead without obedience. It is the cry of faith, Give me children, else I die. Obey for the sake of your profession of His Name. Adorn the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. What a shame if it should be said of us that faith cannot do that which unbelief is able to do! What will Turks and Mohammedans say - 'Look, these are the people who reverence Christ! These are the servants of the crucified God! They profess Christ and yet will forswear and will sin against Christ!' What will Papists say? 'These are they who preach faith, and yet are strangers to obedience, and live in sin.'

No, let the righteousness of the law be fulfilled in us; let us walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit' (Rom. 8.4). The law is a royal law: 'If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture', says James, 'ye do well' (2.8). It is a royal law, that we might live royally above the ordinary rank of men in obedience. 'Receive not the grace of God in vain' (2 Cor. 6.1). If you receive it not in vain, you will have power to will, and power to do; you will prize grace and walk thankfully. It was wittily spoken by one - and there is some truth in the saying -'Live as though there were no Gospel; die as though there were no law. Pass the time of this life in the wilderness of this world under the conduct of Moses; but let none but Joshua bring you over into Canaan, the promised land.'

The saying agrees thus far with Scripture. Moses was a man of the law; he gave the law and he is often taken as representing the law: 'They have Moses and the prophets' (Luke 16.29); 'There is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust' (John 5.45). Joshua was a type of Christ; his name signifies so much; he was Jesus, so called in Heb. 4.8: 'If Jesus', that is, Joshua, 'could have given them rest'. Moses must lead the children of Israel through the wilderness, but Joshua must bring them into Canaan. So while you are in the wilderness of this world, you must walk under the conduct of Moses; you must live in obedience to the law. But it is not Moses but Joshua, not works but faith, not obedience but Christ, who must bring you into Canaan. Do what you can while you live; but be sure to die resting on Christ's merits.

This must suffice under our first main proposition; that the substance of the law is a rule of obedience to the people of God, and that to which they are to conform their lives and their walk now under the Gospel. This we have proved by the Scriptures, by a cloud of witnesses, by the concordant testimony of the Reformed Churches. We have strengthened this by many arguments, and given some applications of the doctrine.

Notes

Chamier (1565-1621) served various Reformed congregations in France. He was killed by a cannon-ball during the siege of Montauban.
David George (d. 1556), otherwise David Joris, was a religious fanatic in the Netherlands and Germany. He formed a sect in which he was virtually regarded as a messiah. He taught that 'a man filled with the Spirit is sinless, no matter what deeds he may commit.'
Valentinians: a second-century sect founded by the Gnostic, Valentinus. It claimed that a Christian was 'law-less'.
A long-handled heavy-headed hammer.
The term ma have been coined by Luther, but its use in England appears to date from 1644. Literally, it means 'against law', and was used to describe professing Christians who claimed that the moral law was not binding upon them. Hence with many it came to signify a person holding loose moral standards, a loose-liver.
____________________________________________
Author
Samuel Bolton (1606-1654), successively a minister of three London parishes before becoming Master of Christ's College and later Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University. Bolton was sufficiently renowned in Puritan England as a scholar and divine, to be chosen as one of the Westminster Assembly of Divines which met in 1643 to introduce a second Reformation in English religion.
This article is taken from the Banner of Truth edition of The true bounds of Christian freedom and appears as Chapter two.


Regeneration: The Key to Believing the Truth

Here is a link to an excellent article on How Regeneration is the key to Believing the Truth.

http://www.reformationtheology.com/2008/09/regeneration_the_key_to_believ.php

Precious Blood

This clip is from the recent conference in 2008 Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology. R.C.Sproul is the Preacher. This is a fantastic sermon on the precious blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus. You will be Blessed.



Friday, September 26, 2008

Why Salvation Must Be Supernatural




Why Salvation Must Be Supernatural

by Stephen Charnock

An extract from The Chief of Sinners Saved

The insufficiency of nature to such a work as conversion is, shows that men may not fall down and idolize their own wit and power. A change from acts of sin to moral duties may be done by a natural strength and the power of natural conscience: for the very same motives which led to sin, as education, interest, profit, may, upon a change of circumstances, guide men to an outward morality; but a change to the contrary grace is supernatural.

Two things are certain in nature.
(1.) Natural inclinations never change, but by some superior virtue. A loadstone will not cease to draw iron, while that attractive quality remains in it. The wolf can never love the lamb, nor the lamb the wolf; nothing but must act suitably to its nature. Water cannot but moisten, fire cannot but burn. So likewise the corrupt nature of man being possessed with an invincible contrariety and enmity to God, will never suffer him to comply with God. And the inclinations of a sinner to sin being more strengthened by the frequency of sinful acts, have as great a power over him, and as natural to him, as any qualities are to natural agents: and being stronger than any sympathies in the world, cannot by a man's own power, or the power of any other nature equal to it, be turned into a contrary channel.

(2.) Nothing can act beyond its own principle and nature. Nothing in the world can raise itself to a higher rank of being than that which nature has placed it in; a spark cannot make itself a star, though it mount a little up to heaven; nor a plant endue itself with sense, nor a beast adorn itself with reason; nor a man make himself an angel. Thorns cannot bring forth grapes, nor thistles produce figs because such fruits are above the nature of those plants. So neither can our corrupt nature bring forth grace, which is a fruit above it. Effectus non excedit virtutem suae causae [the effect cannot exceed the power of its cause]: grace is more excellent than nature, therefore cannot be the fruit of nature. It is Christ's conclusion, "How can you, being evil, speak good things?" Matt. 12:33, 34. Not so much as the buds and blossoms of words, much less the fruit of actions. They can no more change their natures, than a viper can do away with his poison. Now though this I have said be true, yet there is nothing man does more affect in the world than a self-sufficiency, and an independence from any other power but his own. This attitude is as much riveted in his nature, as any other false principle whatsoever. For man does derive it from his first parents, as the prime legacy bequeathed to his nature: for it was the first thing uncovered in man at his fall; he would be as God, independent from him. Now God, to cross this principle, allows his elect, like Lazarus, to lie in the grave till they stink, that there may be no excuse to ascribe their resurrection to their own power. If a putrefied rotten carcass should be brought to life, it could never be thought that it inspired itself with that active principle. God lets men run on so far in sin, that they do unman themselves, that he may proclaim to all the world, that we are unable to do anything of ourselves towards our recovery, without a superior principle. The evidence of which will appear if we consider,

1. Man's subjection under sin. He is "sold under sin," Rom. 7:14, and brought "into captivity to the law of sin," ver. 23. "Law of sin:" that sin seems to have a legal authority over him; and man is not only a slave to one sin, but many, Tit. 3:3, "serving divers lusts." Now when a man is sold under the power of a thousand lusts, every one of which has an absolute tyranny over him, and rules him as a sovereign by a law; when a man is thus bound by a thousand laws, a thousand cords and fetters, and carried whither his lords please, against the dictates of his own conscience and force of natural light; can any man imagine that his own power can rescue him from the strength of these masters that claim such a right to him, and keep such a force upon him, and have so often baffled his own strength, when he attempted to turn against them?

2. Man's affection to them. He does not only serve them, but he serves them, and every one of them, with delight and pleasure; Tit. 3:3. They were all pleasures, as well as lusts; friends as well as lords. Will any man leave his sensual delights and such sins that please and flatter his flesh? Will a man ever endeavour to run away from those lords which he serves with affection? having as much delight in being bound a slave to these lusts, as the devil has in binding him. Therefore when you see a man cast away his pleasures, deprive himself of those comfortable things to which his soul was once knit, and walk in paths contrary to corrupt nature, you may search for the cause anywhere, rather than in nature itself. No piece of dirty, muddy clay can form itself into a neat and handsome vessel; no plain piece of timber can fit itself for the building, much less a crooked one. Nor a man that is born blind, give himself sight.

God deals with men in this case as he did with Abraham. He would not give Isaac while Sarah's womb, in a natural probability, might have borne him; but when her womb was dead, and age had taken away all natural strength of conception, then God gives him; that it might appear that he was not a child of nature, but a child of promise.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

A Letter From Hell

Is Mankind Lost in Sin? By J.Gresham Machen


Is Mankind Lost in Sin?

J. Gresham Machen

Machen (1881-1937) was Professor of New Testament, first at Princeton Theological Seminary, and afterwards at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. Excerpts from The Christian View of Man (1937).
We have spoken of the first sin of man, and we have spoken of the question,

"What is sin?" The question now arises what consequences that first sin of man has had for us and for all men. Some people think it had very slight consequences — if indeed these people think that there ever was a first sin of man at all, in the sense in which it is described in the third chapter of Genesis.

I remember that some years ago, when I was driving home in my car after a summer vacation, I stayed over Sunday in a certain city without any particular reason except that I do not like to travel on that day. Being without any acquaintance with the city, I dropped into what seemed perhaps to be the leading church in the central part of the town.

What I heard in that church was typical of what one hears in a great many churches today. It was the Sunday on which new teachers were being inducted into office. The pastor preached a sermon appropriate to the occasion. There are two notions about the teaching of children in the Church, he said. According to one notion, the children are to be told that they are sinners and need a Savior. That is the old notion, he said; it has been abandoned in the modern Church. According to the other notion, he said, which is of course the notion that we moderns hold, the business of the teacher is to nurture the tender plant of the religious nature of the child in order that it may bear fruit in a normal and healthy religious life.

Was that preacher right, or was what he designated as the old notion right? Are children born good, or are they born bad? Do they need, in order that they may grow up into Christian manhood, merely the use of the resources planted in them at birth, or do they need a new birth and a divine Savior?

That is certainly a momentous question. We may answer the question in this way or in that, but about the importance of the question I do not see how there can well be any doubt. That preacher, in the church of which I have spoken, recognized the importance of the question. He answered the question that he raised quite wrongly, but at least he was right in looking the question fairly in the face. I propose that we should imitate that preacher in facing the question fairly, even though our conclusion may turn out to be different from his. Is each man the captain of his own soul, and a pretty capable captain too, or is all mankind lost in sin? Does the Bible teach that children are born into the world good (or at least evenly balanced between badness and goodness), or does it teach that all save one child are born in sin?

When we approach the Bible with that question in our minds, one thing is at once perfectly clear. It is that the Bible from Genesis to Revelation teaches that all men (with the one exception of Jesus Christ) are as a matter of fact sinners in the sight of God. In one great passage, particularly, that truth, that all men are sinners, is made the subject of definite exposition and proof. That passage is found in Romans 1:18 - 3:20. There the Apostle Paul, before he goes on to set forth the gospel, sets forth the universal need of the gospel. All have need of the gospel, he says, because all without exception are sinners. The Gentiles are sinners. They have disobeyed God's law, even though they have not that law in the particularly clear form in which it was presented to God's chosen people through Moses. Because they have disobeyed God's law, and as a punishment for their disobedience of it, they have sunk deeper and deeper into the mire of sin. The Jews also, says Paul, are sinners. They have great advantages; they have a special revelation from God; in particular they have a supernatural revelation of God's law. But it is not the hearing of the law that causes a man to be righteous but the doing of it; and the Jews, alas, though they have heard it, have not done it. They too are transgressors.

So all have sinned, according to Paul. He drives that truth home by a series of Old Testament Scripture quotations beginning with the words: "There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." (Romans 3:10-12)

I think it is hardly too much to say that if this Pauline teaching about the universal sinfulness of mankind is untrue, the whole of the rest of that glorious Epistle, the Epistle to the Romans, falls to the ground. Imagine Paul as admitting that a single mere man since the fall ever was righteous in the sight of God, not needing, therefore, redemption through the precious blood of Christ; and you see at once that such a Paul would be a totally different Paul from the one who speaks in every page of the Epistle to the Romans and in every one of the other Pauline Epistles that the New Testament contains. The light of the gospel, in the teaching of Paul, stands out always against the dark background of a race universally lost in sin.

Is the case any different in the rest of the Bible? I care not at this point whether you turn to the Old Testament or to the New Testament. Everywhere there is the same terrible diagnosis of the ill of mankind.

"Two men," said Jesus, "went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner." (Luk 18:10-13)

Which of these two men received a blessing from God when he prayed there in the temple — the man who thought he was an exception to God's call to repentance or the one who beat upon his breast and confessed himself a sinner? Jesus tells us very plainly. The publican went down to his house justified rather than the other. Ah, my friends, how terrible is the rebuke of Jesus again and again and again for those who think that they form exceptions to the universal sinfulness of mankind!

A rich young ruler came running to Jesus one day, and asked him, "Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" Jesus repeated to him a number of the commandments. The man said, "All these have I observed from my youth." Jesus said, "One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor." The young man went away sorrowful. (Mark 10:17-22) He lacked something; he was not good as God regards goodness. The point is that every man always lacks something. No man comes up to God's standard; no man can inherit the kingdom of God if he stands upon his own obedience to God's law.

Did you ever observe what incident comes just before this incident of the rich young ruler in all three of the Synoptic Gospels — in Matthew and in Mark and in Luke? It is the incident of the bringing of little children to Jesus, when Jesus said to the disciples, as reported in Mark and similarly in Luke: "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein" (Mark 10:15). There is a profound connection between these two incidents, as there is also a connection of both of them with the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican which in Luke immediately precedes.

Some years ago I heard a sermon on the incident of the Rich Young Ruler. What are the sermons that we are apt to remember? I think they are the sermons where the preacher does not preach himself but where he truly unfolds the meaning of some great passage of the Word of God.

The sermon of which I am now thinking is one which was preached some time ago in a Philadelphia church by my colleague, Professor R. B. Kuiper. He took the incident of the Rich Young Ruler together with the incident of the bringing of the little children to Jesus, and he showed how both incidents teach the same great lesson — the lesson of the utter helplessness of man the sinner and the absolute necessity of the free grace of God. You cannot depend for your entrance into the kingdom of God upon anything that you have or anything that you are. You must be as helpless as a little child. Your reliance cannot be on your own goodness, for you have none. It can only be upon the grace of God.

God has told us that we are sinners; He has told us in His own holy Word from beginning to end. Well may the Apostle John say, in view of the whole of the Bible: "If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar" (I John 1:10). God is not a liar, my friends. This world is lost in sin.


Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Jesus: Sovereign or Failure?

http://www.gracesermons.com/hisbygrace/Homepage.html
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Jesus: Sovereign or Failure?


Larry Brown

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. (John 12:32 KJV)

Countless modern churchmen and theologians easily declare that Jesus failed in his mission because, they say, He did not do everything he set out to do. From the failed God of Sun Myung Moon to the dumbed down God of the Open Theists, many seem to be attempting to avoid dealing with a God who says what He will do and does what He says. To make matters even worse, church members have listened to an easy to believe, convenient, watered down gospel for so long that most are not now willing to hear the truth of what the Bible says about our Sovereign God.

When Jesus declared, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me," He was stating a wonderful truth but he was not stating the obvious as far as the English translation of scripture is concerned.

What you believe this verse means will reveal to a great extent what you think of Jesus. There are a number of decisions that one must make when interpreting this passage that, when understood, will determine the depth of your appreciation for our Lord. It is not enough to take the easy and sentimental approach to exegeting this passage because your conclusions will reveal the kind of God you serve.

What are the questions we must raise in considering this verse?

1. What does "draw" mean? Most people seem to have a rather romantic notion about the meaning of this word. They want to use it as we use the term to say that two were "drawn" to each other, i.e., that there is a sort of magnetism there which attracts people to Him but the Bible knows nothing of that. To the contrary it teaches that the world hates and despises Him - holds him in low esteem. There is no beauty about him that we should behold Him. He is rejected of men (Isa. 53:2-4) . Many think of the term as if the Lord is wooing people to Himself as a suitor woos his intended. But that cannot be the way Jesus intended for this word to be interpreted. Did you ever go to a well and attempt to woo a bucket of water from the well? That would keep a person thirsty for a long time. The root of the word translated "draw," both here and in John 6:44 is a word that means, "to drag." The same word is used in John 21:6 where "he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes."

Dragging a bucket of water from a well makes sense to me, but I don't think I could woo one up. It is certain that no one is ever drawn to the Lord "kicking and screaming", but most assuredly meant here that those he draws will come. Not some of them, not most of them but all of them.
2. What did Jesus mean by the term "all men"? It should at first be noted that the word men is not in the manuscripts from which the scripture was interpreted but was supplied by the KJV translators as it was in several other English versions of the New Testament. Others translated it all things. At least one translation has it all my friends. The meaning of the term "all men” is unclear if you consider only the words presented in the texts.

One would think that the term "all men" should mean that Jesus meant to draw one hundred percent of all people to Himself. Now one who has faith in the One who healed the sick, raised the dead, and resurrected Himself from the grave should be able to say without reservation that Jesus did not mean in any literal sense that He intended to bring one hundred percent of all people to himself. The simple fact is that had Jesus meant to bring one hundred percent of all people to Himself, He would certainly have done it. Isa 59:1

There are some conclusions that must be drawn from this discourse. When the Lord determines to draw us to Himself, He is not trying in some romantic sort of way to gain our permission to become part of our lives. The relationship between God and the Elect is not one of courtship. He is neither trying to win us over nor to wear us down in order to accomplish His purpose in our lives. God does not influence our lives after the manner of men. He does not need to do so. He is God. When God decides to draw a person to Himself, that person will come. Not kicking and screaming as I stated previously but he will come with a heart full of gratitude for the revelation of God Himself. The song of one so drawn shall ever be, "Amazing grace! How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found; Was blind, but now I see."
The second conclusion is this. If you believe that Jesus meant that after His crucifixion that He would draw one hundred percent of all men to Himself you have to accept one of two positions. You must either accept the position of the Universalist, that is, you believe that all people everywhere are or will be saved or else you have to say that Jesus has failed because He clearly had not done what He said He would do. All people have not come to Him and it is clear that all men will not come to Him. There is no middle ground. The instant you accept as fact the idea that Jesus meant that one hundred percent of all men would come to Him, you box yourself into the corner of having to accept one of these two positions.

There is another choice. To be realistic and consistent with the scripture we must either limit the quality of what Jesus has done or we must limit the scope of what Jesus meant. I, for one, will hold to God's promise of Isa. 55:11. "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." What God says He will do, He will do. Since His word will accomplish that which He pleases, we must believe that He intended something other than one hundred percent of all men when He said, "I will draw all men." The context is always a great aid in understanding the meaning of a passage. In John 12:20-21 we read "And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast: The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus." Considering this as the context then, we might well say that the "all" which Jesus would draw unto Himself would be "all people" or "all nations." In that context no one would dare call Jesus a failure. But Jesus may be thinking in even a broader context here. Seven times in John 17, He speaks of "those whom thou hast given me." These certainly will all come to Christ. There can be no doubt. He will draw them and they will come. Those of us who are numbered in that number should always rejoice that He chose us for salvation and we should always work toward getting all that the Lord will call into the Kingdom. To God be the glory forever. Amen.
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Larry W. Brown is Pastor of New Liberty Baptist ChurchMorgantown, KY 42261~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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