There are really only two religions in the world one of free grace
and one of free will. All false religions, and that includes many
so call Christian sects, fit into the catagory of free will.
But free will is the avowed enemy of free grace
If you hold to the belief that man has a free will then you
must of necessity reject free grace. If man's natural ability
has something to do with his securing the work of Christ
you have a gospel of works and the Apostle Paul says to you
"Let him be anathema".
Many sects such as the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses
as well as many in fundamental evangelical Christianty have
something in common and that is that Christ died for all men
and that we must secure that by doing something. That is why
each of these groups has their own hobby horse. Why? Because
they believe that this is how we make the death of Christ
effective.
But what saith the Scripture?
This is unscriptural because it denies the all-sufficiency of
Christ's work which is where the work of the Holy Spirit flows
from. As one very perceptive writer put it "If Christ had only
paid the penalty for sin without also earning the reward of
eternal life, His people would only have been raised up to
zero point. They would then have been on the same
plain as Adam before he fell, and would still have been under
obligation to earn eternal life for themselves. We must remember
that the gospel is not GOOD ADVICE, but GOOD NEWS."
It does not tell us what we are to do to earn salvation, but
proclaims to us what Christ had done to save the His people.
That is why the apostles never offer Christ to sinners- they
PROCLAIM Christ to sinners. The gospel is a proclamation!
This false teaching of fallen man's ability gives grounds for boasting
on the part of the saved sinner. If the only difference between myself
and a sinner in hell is that when we were both brought to the point of
neutrality I "obeyed it" and he "didn't obey it" than I have
grounds to boast. If the triune God cannot take all
the credit then it is not all grace. And if it is not all grace
then it is not grace at all. The obedience of the elect sinner
flows from the electing love of the Father and the securing work of
Christ and then is applied to the heart of the elect sinner by
the efficaious work of the Holy Spirit.
Faith we are told is a gift from God and it is a GIFT BESTOWED not
a gift offered as is salvation.
The words of J. I. Packer on this are also very perceptive: "Now when
you preach the gospel your false preconceptions make you say just
the opposite. You want to proclaim Christ as Savior, yet you end up
saying that Christ, having made salvation possible, has left us to
become our own saviors. It comes about in this way. You want to
magnify the saving grace of God and saving power of Christ so you
say that his redeeming love extends to all men and that Christ has
died to save every man and you proclaim that the glory of God's
mercy is measure by these facts. But in order to avoid saying that
everyone will ultimately be saved, you must depreciate all that
which was just stated by saying that nothing that Christ or God has
done will avail anything unless we add something to it. The
decisive factor which actually saves us is our believing or our
obedience in some way.
What you have actually come to say is that Christ saves us with our
help, but what that actually means is that we save ourselves with
Christ's help. This is a hollow anticlimax. But if we start by a
affirming that God has a saving love for all, and Christ died a
saving death for all, yet balk at becoming universalists there is
nothing else we can say. In doing this you have not exalted the
grace of God but have cheapened it. You have limited the atonement
far more than us Calvinists have, who assert that Christ's death as
such, saves all whom it was meant to save. You have denied that
Christ's Death is suffcient to save any for whom he died."
You will then say to me, "Isn't salvation to all who believe?" It
most certainly is but the faith that saves is not inherent in any
sinner. Faith is the gift of God that flows from the finished work
of Christ. To say that God provided everything but the faith is to
say we are saved "because of faith" instead of "through faith" and
the Bible NEVER says we are saved "because of faith." Faith is the
vehicle by which Christ's atoning work is applied to the sinner.
When Jesus said "all that the Father giveth me shall come to me and
he that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out" he meant just that.
The Father gave certain ones to the Son and the Holy Spirit will take
what Christ has done and apply it to their hearts so they WILL "be
willing in the day of His power."
Please direct your comments to
Mike Krall.
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