God’s Sovereignty – Appointed to Eternal Life

I am currently reading through A.W. Pink’s book, The Sovereignty of God. Though I am only on page fifty-four (yes, I’m a slow reader), Pink offers up perhaps the strongest and highest view of God I have read in a while. He unashamedly proclaims the truth of God’s unmatched power and control over His creation, and I think this book is one that you should seriously consider reading if you have not done so before now. I have already quoted from this work in a couple of recent posts, and from time to time as I work my way through the book, I will probably post some excerpts and thoughts on what Pink is addressing.

Today, I want to briefly look at one little verse (actually, one little part of one little verse) in the Bible that packs quite a theological punch, and a resulting blow to the belief that man assents to saving faith of his own volition…and that his choosing to have saving faith results in God’s choosing of him. Here is the statement from the second half of Acts 13:48:

“and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.”

Pink says of this truth, “Every artifice of human ingenuity has been employed to blunt the sharp edge of this scripture and to explain away the obvious meaning of these words, but it has been employed in vain, though nothing will ever be able to reconcile this and similar passages to the mind of the natural man.” – p.52

He says we can learn four things from this statement:

1. Believing is the consequence and not the cause of God’s decree.
2. Only a limited number are ordained to eternal life (“as many as”).
3. This appointment is not to mere external privileges, but to salvation itself.
4. That all, and not one less, who are thus ordained will most certainly believe.

Pink then quotes Spurgeon on this verse, “Attempts have been made to prove that these words do not teach predestination, but these attempts so clearly do violence to language that I shall not waste time in answering them.”

Here is what John Gill says concerning this statement. He says this ordination, or appointment,

“designs no other than predestination or election, which is God’s act, and is an eternal one; is sovereign, irrespective, and unconditional; relates to particular persons, and is sure and certain in its effect: it is an ordination, not to an office, nor to the means of grace, but to grace and glory itself; to a life of grace which is eternal, and to a life of glory which is for ever; and which is a pure gift of God, is in the hands of Christ, and to which his righteousness gives a title”

Of this truth, Matthew Henry states,

“Those believed to whom God gave grace to believe, whom by a secret and mighty operation he brought into subjection to the gospel of Christ, and made willing in the day of his power. Those came to Christ whom the Father drew, and to whom the Spirit made the gospel call effectual.”

On the flip side, John Wesley does some gymnastics to align this passage with his man-centered theology. Speaking of God appointing certain ones to eternal life, Wesley writes:

“He is not speaking of what was done from eternity, but of what was then done, through the preaching of the Gospel. He is describing that ordination, and that only, which was at the very time of hearing it. During this sermon those believed, says the apostle, to whom God then gave power to believe…The sum is, all those and those only, who were now ordained, now believed. Not that God rejected the rest: it was his will that they also should have been saved: but they thrust salvation from them. Nor were they who then believed constrained to believe. But grace was then first copiously offered them.”

You read the passage in Acts 13 and see which view is consistent and doesn’t do damage to the text.

Are You Prepared???

but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect

Are you prepared to give a defense of your faith in light of the $2 million documentary that will air on the 4th of March produced by James Cameron? Are you ready to give anyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you in light of the apparent possibility that Jesus never rose from the grave as asserted by this television film? Will you be able to contribute to the discussion around the watercooler on Monday the 5th when the topic of statistical probabilities comes up? You better be. And if you are not, you better get prepared.

I just watched the Larry King segment with James Cameron, Al Mohler and others, and although this story (and the archaeological find) has been around since 1980 (for centuries, really), this subject is not going to go away without a fight. And you need to be able to give a reasonable defense of your faith. So, I have some suggestions for you, and for me.

First – Familiarize yourself with the topic. Know what is being proposed and presented in this documentary. The best way to do that is to make sure and watch it, or tape it and watch it later (it premiers Sunday, March 4th at 9pm). Here are some video clips to get you started:

The movie trailer for the documentary…

Cluster groups. You will hear this term a lot, especially in light of statistical probabilities. Here is Simcha Jacobovici (who put the film together along with James Cameron) attempting to explain the significance of the cluster group found in this tomb and the resulting statistics of the combination of names on the bone boxes:

This Discovery Channel page also contains video interviews of Simcha and James Cameron.

Second – Follow the lead of men such as James White and Al Mohler, and sites such as Pulpit Magazine. There is no need to reinvent the wheel on this stuff, and therefore there is nothing wrong with taking cues from those who are studied and learned and are solidly grounded in their faith and in the information they put forth. This is one of those times (and there are many) that I love being on James White’s side! The man knows his stuff. Read what he has to say about all of this, by checking his blog frequently for updates. The same goes for Dr. Mohler’s blog site.

Here is a comment from Dr. White’s latest entry on this:

Like dominos falling, all these arguments [against Christ], spanning hundreds of years have failed. They differ in hypothesis, and many with each other, proving they can’t make sense of the evidence they are evaluating. Now we’re going to get a chance again to tune to the Discovery Channel (home of such notable epics as “The Search for Bigfoot”) to see the same futile efforts. Scholars, philosophers, and historians failed to conquer Jesus and keep Him buried; now filmmakers will be shooting their cap guns at God. At the heart of this new documentary is a worldview positing a denial of sola scriptura.

(UPDATE)

Quote from Dr. Mohler from the Larry King Show CNN transcript:

KING: We are back. Dr. Mohler, what effect could this have on your church?

MOHLER: Well, Larry, the one true thing that we have to affirm here is that if it ever could be proved that Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, if the resurrection was a fraud, then Christianity falls.

The problem with this kind of documentary, which is a commercial product, and as Bill Donohue rightly said, is just perfectly timed for is the season like so often is the case, is, you have to understand, any court of law, you can’t just call anything evidence. It has to be an evidence trail that makes sense. It has to be evidentiary material that fits the context. Nothing could ever prove, there’s no DNA, there’s nothing that could ever prove these bones are the bones of Jesus. It makes no sense.

KING: Haven’t millions of people over the years gone to their death for a belief?

MOHLER: But the point is here, they would have to go to their death for something they know was a lie. If they knew that the bones of Jesus were in this tomb, why would the very people who would be most likely know that be the ones who would give their lives? That’s the big question here.

Finally – Be willing to engage others on this subject. Do not shy away from the controversy, or be embarrassed to talk about this latest attack on the resurrected Christ. To do so may be no less than to admit being ashamed of Jesus and His words, which has dire consequences. Be prepared to fight the good fight.

Working Backwards From Experience to Scripture

I don’t know if this can be stated universally, but I think it is pretty well the case that most – if not all – of us tend to base our beliefs and positions of certain issues upon our own personal experiences and first hand knowledge of things, rather than upon some external, objective source. Granted, there are specific instances where personal, subjective experience is absolutely essential to knowing the truth, i.e., the Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. What I am talking about, though, is the tendency we have to draw conclusions regarding various issues based upon our own personal experiences. To quote from – and make a minor addition to – an infamous slogan: the Bible says it, I believe it (because I experienced it), that settles it. I think we make the error many times of basing our beliefs on certain things upon what we know or have experienced first hand, and I fear that this can sometimes lead us astray from objective truth and what is actually right.

To summarize…I think we have a tendency to start with our own personal experiences and work backwards from there to the Scriptures, rather than starting with the Scriptures and then working forward from there to our own life and personal experience. I believe one way keeps the integrity of the word of God intact, while the other can do damage to what God has laid down in His word. Do I have any ‘for-instances’ in mind? Why, of course I do!

• Global Warming – This is a hot-button issue, so I thought I would use it. But you can include here anything that has to do with the state of the earth…asteroids, UV rays from the Sun, natural disasters, etc. The natural thing to do is to take a look around us, and read what the ‘experts’ have to say, and draw a conclusion that the world is heading for natural destruction. I have been reading Pink’s The Sovereingty of God, so please allow me to pull from his thoughts on this topic. Here is something I posted over at challies.com in response to a review of a book by Tim on global warming:

Fear of, or belief in, something like global warming – according to A.W. Pink – is a belief that the world has been left to its own fortune and the out-working of the “laws of nature”, without God as the controlling factor of everything.

Pink says, “In such a case, we should have a world over which there was no intelligent, presiding Governor, a world controlled by nothing more than impersonal laws – a concept worthy of gross Materialism and blank Atheism.”

Amen to that. Either God is in control or He is not. Dare I say that fear of global warming is really just a lack of faith?

When people – and this includes and really is focused at professing Christians – draw their conclusions from what they see going on around them instead of resting in the absolute sovereignty and control of God Almighty as revealed to us in the Scriptures, then they will begin to fear the ‘natural’ or man-created calamity instead of resting in the hand of their sovereign Lord.

• Heavenly Manifestations – I got this one from Kim Riddlebarger, who reported that there are apparently tape recordings of actual angels singing along with choirs in select churches. I followed the link and listened to them (terrible quality, by the way), but what I found most interesting was how the site hosting these recordings had to preface each of the audios with statements that go something like, “I got this from a pastor friend who is very reliable, and he swears on a stack of Bibles that this is for real!”
  • Perhaps the one that is meant to be the most convincing recording took place at a revival led by Rodney Howard-Browne, best known as the “Holy Ghost bartender”, and chief leader of the Toronto Blessing and laughing revival. He is a false teacher and false prophet, and therefore it is not difficult for me to discount what is claimed to have happened at one of his services as being either false or a downright manipulated fabrication. Why would God have an angelic host of His join with a false gospel such as Browne’s. Not to mention that we have no biblical record of angelic hosts joining in and singing with the early church. Purely subjective experiential claims, but sadly ones on which many will form a belief or position, rather than on the revealed word of God.

• Prophecy – I have observed very respected Christian theologians and pastors do damage to Scripture in order to justify their position on prophecy, and to validate what they believe people claim is happening today falls under the gift of prophecy. My conclusion is – and granted, I may be wrong – that what they are doing is starting with subjective, personal experiences of the present, working backwards to Scripture, and interpreting portions of that Scripture in a way that suits there position on prophecy.I covered this also in my previous posts concerning Dr. Wayne Grudem’s and John Piper’s view of the gift of prophecy. While Piper never gave any Scriptural examples of this, he stated that prophecy, though the result of a perfect revelation from God, nevertheless comes across the mouths of those so gifted pretty much riddled with error because of the fallen nature of man. Grudem, on the other hand, appears to go out of his way to discredit biblical prophecies recorded in Scripture in order to support his view that prophecy is laden with error and not equal to the canon of Scripture.
  • This was the first time I had ever really examined the claims of someone like Grudem on the subject of prophecy today, and I was totally surprised at the route taken to support his view. To take a prophecy – recorded in the canon of Scripture – such as the one uttered by Agabus concerning Paul’s upcoming arrest and execution in Jerusalem (which Agabus preceded with the words, “This is what the Holy Spirit says…”), and attempt to demonstrate that it was an example of the prophecy that Grudem believes is taking place in the church today is, in my opinion, one of the weakest positions in favor of the gift of prophecy (as given in the early church) still being around today. Agabus’ prophecy was completely true, and came to pass as prophesied.

Although all of these areas are important, I would like to focus my thoughts on the subject of justifying personal experience today as proof of the gift of prophecy. Sadly, I believe that most people today who think they are hearing from God are really just hearing themselves think. The attempt to downgrade biblical prophecy in order to support one’s view that this particular gift (receiving heretofore unrevealed information from God apart from the Bible) still exists today as it did in the 1st century church is perhaps one of the best examples of starting with an experience and then working back to the Bible for support. This method will almost always result in doing damage to the word of God, as Grudem has done damage to Agabus’ prophecy of Paul. The correct process, I Hope, would be to know the Scriptures and then be able to discern things that are going on (or are supposedly going on) today in light of the revealed word of God…not the other way around.

Please permit me to close this post with the words of Arthur Pink:

“Are your thoughts, my reader, concerning this world and God’s relation to it, based upon what you see? Face this question seriously and honestly. And if you are a Christian, you will, most probably, have cause to bow your head with shame and sorrow, and to acknowledge that it is so. Alas, in reality, we walk very little ‘by faith’. But what does ‘walking by faith’ signify? It means that our thoughts are formed, our actions regulated, our lives moulded by the Holy Scriptures, for, ‘faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God ‘ (Rom. 10:17). It is from the Word of Truth, and that alone, that we can learn what is God’s relation to this world.” – Pink, The Sovereignty of God

Noteworthy Archives

WWW: The new monergism.com site is now up and running. It looks great!

BIBLE: Justin Taylor has provided information on a new book called The Jesus Storybook Bible. It looks like a great resource to have for the whole family, not just for the kids, as it highlights Christ throughout the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation.

Your Faith Is Worthless

According to this article and James Cameron, Jesus Christ died and was buried, and his whole family’s burial site has been discovered, which will be the subject of a press conference and television film to air in the near future. According to the ‘evidence’, Jesus did in fact marry Mary and the two had a child. James White also shares some thoughts about this. How would you respond to this if confronted in the workplace, or even at church?

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

On The Lighter Side

Okay, I’m in a weird mood today…here’s a few to enjoy:

I’m not a big fan of Springsteen…but I am of Looney Tunes:

Showing my immaturity…a great scene from The Jerk:

A scene from Monty Python’s Holy Grail:

A longer and less polished version of Who’s on First:

Is the Gospel Harassment By Communication?

Picture this: Arlene and her friend Lynda have a heart for the lost, and want to do something about it. So the two seventy-plus year-old grandmothers (along with nine others) stand on a public sidewalk in Pennsylvania to proclaim the evangel and share their faith…and get arrested. Crazy, you say? Ridiculous? Most certainly…but it’s true. Arlene, Lynda and the others were arrested under a “hate crimes” law and now face 47 years in jail. The “hates crimes” law in Pennsylvania, according to this article in WorldNetDaily, “is nearly identical to H.R. 254 – the “hate crimes” bill reintroduced in Congress and said to be on the “fast track” in the House Judiciary Committee.”

Additionally, pastors in Pennsylvania are now seeking liability insurance (that’s another topic for discussion for another day) . “They are reacting to Pennsylvania’s addition of “sexual orientation” to the state’s hate crimes laws. Of particular concern was the expansion of the definition of “harassment” to include ‘harassment by communication’ – which means one could be convicted based upon spoken words alone.”

From the Pennsylvania Code:

§ 5504. Harassment and stalking by communication or address.

(a) Harassment by communication or address.–A person commits the crime of harassment by communication or address when, with intent to harass, annoy or alarm another, the person:

1. communicates to or about such other person any lewd, lascivious, threatening or obscene words, language, drawings or caricatures; or
2. communicates repeatedly in an anonymous manner;
3. communicates repeatedly at extremely inconvenient hours; or
4. communicates repeatedly in a manner not covered by paragraph (2) or (3).

Hmmm…Harassment by communication. My knee-jerk reaction was one of doom and gloom and fear for the spread of the gospel. But then I began to think about this a little more in light of what is primarily being put forth to the world today by professing Christians as the good news. So, in light of my post a few days ago which drew a distinction between two types of gospel presentations, I pondered the ramifications of this type of law against harassment by communication on the two different gospel presentations. Here is a quick recap of the two gospels:

1. God loves you and has a plan for your life. He desperately wants a relationship with you. If you will accept Jesus into your heart, you will be saved.
2. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

It didn’t take long to realize that most churches (and preachers) today have nothing to fear from laws that might be used to persecute proclaimers of the gospel…because most are not proclaiming the gospel. One of the gospels above is all about love and acceptance…one of them is all about repentance and coming judgment and the need for faith and trust in a Savior for the forgiveness of sin. Notice in one the focus of ‘you’…and in the other the focus of God. The ‘you’, or man-centered, gospel contains no bad news. It’s all about self-betterment and living happily ever after. What’s harassing about that?

The good news that has no bad news is no good news at all, and what many churches are pushing today is good news with no bad news…which ends up being nothing but bad news, because it isn’t really the good news…the true evangel.

Blogspotting

Frank Turk, a.k.a Centuri0n, has a very thought-provoking post over at TeamPyro on the subject of whether one should leave a church or not, even when it may be apostate. I may not agree with all of his conclusions, but his position deserves careful examination, and you (and I) should know what we believe about this and how to respond to someone who is struggling with any number of issues at their church…from the petty to the eternally significant.

By Faith, or By Sight? Who Said It?

See if you can tell who wrote these words. Any cheating will be dealt with swiftly with a bolt of lightning. Think about what is being said here in light of how so many today validate their positions and beliefs through personal experience, or by what they have been told by others:

“Are your thoughts, my reader, concerning this world and God’s relation to it, based upon what you see? Face this question seriously and honestly. And if you are a Christian, you will, most probably, have cause to bow your head with shame and sorrow, and to acknowledge that it is so. Alas, in reality, we walk very little ‘by faith’. But what does ‘walking by faith’ signify? It means that our thoughts are formed, our actions regulated, our lives moulded by the Holy Scriptures, for, ‘faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God ‘ (Rom. 10:17). It is from the Word of Truth, and that alone, that we can learn what is God’s relation to this world.”

The Results Are In…I’m A Reformed Evangelical. What Are You?

Peter Nelson over at Doxoblogy took a theological worldview quiz, and so I thought I would take it as well to see how I rated. I must confess that the results you see for me are after I researched a couple of the terms in the quiz. When I took it prior to knowing the terms/persons I scored higher on – GASP! – classic liberal, charismatic/pentecostal, emergent/post-modern, and roman catholic than I did on the second time through it (I still scored higher on charismatic/pentecostal and emergent/post-modern than I am comfortable with!). So, if you don’t want to shock yourself by your initial results (as I did), scan through the quiz for any unfamiliar terms and/or persons, quickly research them so you know what the quiz is referring to, and then take the test. Follow the link below my results to take the quiz yourself. Here are my results…feel free to post comments here to let me (and others) know how you scored:

You scored as Reformed Evangelical. You are a Reformed Evangelical. You take the Bible very seriously because it is God’s Word. You most likely hold to TULIP and are sceptical about the possibilities of universal atonement or resistible grace. The most important thing the Church can do is make sure people hear how they can go to heaven when they die. Reformed Evangelical 93% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 71% Fundamentalist 71% Neo orthodox 57% Classical Liberal 36% Charismatic/Pentecostal 29% Emergent/Postmodern 14% Roman Catholic 7% Modern Liberal 0% What’s your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com