|
And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love. I shall walk at liberty, for I have sought your precepts. |
GregThe Lord Jesus Christ has made provision for the salvation of mankind by his voluntary death on the cross for our sins. A person receives forgiveness for his sins and acceptance with God when he admits to God that he is a sinner, and when in godly sorrow he turns from his sin-filled and self-ruled life to follow Jesus Christ as Lord (Luke 18:22; Romans 10:9-10; Hebrews 5:9; Romans 6:16). Christ’s death makes salvation possible for all, but his death makes salvation automatic for no one. A person must repent and be converted (Acts 3:19). To be converted is to be born again. The new birth is not the imparting of new abilities or enabling capacities, as if we are not naturally able to obey God. We are not held responsible for what we cannot do, but for what we can do, and should do, but are choosing not to do. Sinners are not unable to follow the Lord, they are unwilling. God does not force people to follow him, therefore regeneration is also the responsibility of the sinner. We are saved by grace (God’s influence on the heart and his kind favor when we yield to him) through faith (submission to Christ). This is why God commands: “Make you a new heart and a new spirit” (Ezekiel 18:31), and why the salvation call is to deny self and to follow Christ (Mark 10:17, 21). This means “being dead in trespasses and sins” is not an inability to follow Christ, it is being relationally and proleptically dead, for the sinner is separated from God and is under the sentence of eternal death. To be born again is to repent, to turn to the Lord, to submit to his rule, to choose obedience to him over self-rule and self-gratification. Therefore, regeneration is not a change in the abilities of a person, but the beginning of a person rightly using the abilities God created him with.
0 Comments
GregRomans 9 has been used by Calvinists to teach that in eternity past God chose to create mankind and he selected some individuals for salvation and some for damnation. I believe this is an egregious and intolerable error. In Romans 9, Paul was dealing with the question of God’s promises to Abraham, Moses, and David, and God’s relationship to the Jewish nation. Many Jews didn't like Paul’s teachings for he claimed that their nationality and observance of the works of the Mosaic law counted for nothing. Because they were striving for "righteousness" based on the external works of the law, and they did not have submissive, obedient hearts, they were now being hardened. Thus, to these Jews, Paul’s preaching made it seem like the promises of God to their forefathers had failed. Paul shows that in God's dealings with Israel, he dealt with them in his wisdom, never intending that all of the natural descendants of Abraham would be counted as children of the promise. So this chapter answers questions pertaining to God’s covenant with Israel, but also, it reveals that being the children of promise (children of Abraham) did not depend on lineage or following the Jewish religious laws, but on faith in God. Therefore, this chapter has nothing to do with God electing individuals to salvation or damnation, and those who look at it this way create confusion and misrepresent God.
How God relates to an elect people, a covenant people like the Jews, is his sovereign right; he can choose whoever he wants to choose and reject whoever he wants to reject. This is illustrated by God’s choice of Isaac over Ishmael and Jacob over Esau. Both choices were made before any of them had done good or evil, but it was not about individual salvation. Just as God had chosen Israel for a certain service, God had chosen to enter into a new covenant with a group comprised of both Jews and Gentiles. This election is about a group, but not who would or who wouldn't be in that group. God gave national Israel an earthly land; this was fulfilled, as recorded by the Book of Joshua: “And the LORD gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein" (Joshua 21:43). This promise was fulfilled, but the Jews continued to rebel against God and Jerusalem was eventually destroyed. Abraham, the father of faith, was looking for an eternal city not made with hands but whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 11:10). This future city will be brought down to the new earth, and the seed of Abraham will live in it forever (more on the seed of Abraham later). God chooses people and groups to accomplish certain tasks, and he did this with Isaac and Jacob. They would be a nation of priests (Isaiah 61:6), and a light to all nations (Isaiah 42:6). Their election as a nation was about service, and God would work through them to seek the salvation of people from all nations. There is no warrant for claiming that Ishmael and Esau were individually damned just because they were not chosen by God to form the Jewish nation. The individuals named represent nations, or people groups. In choosing Isaac over Ishmael God was choosing Israel (the descendants of Isaac and Jacob) over the Moabites (the descendants of Ishmael), and the Edomites (the descendants of Esau), for the purpose of manifesting himself through them. The people groups were not chosen for the purpose for which God chose the Israelites. This is seen in Malachi 1:2-3, a passage that Paul quotes: "I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.” This is referring to the nation of Edom. When the Bible uses the terms “love” and “hate”, it uses them hyperbolically to demonstrate preference for one over another. The meaning of Malachi’s choice of words is that God preferred Israel over Edom to be the people he would work through to reach the world. This did not mean that individual people from Edom could not repent and be saved. When we consider that God has clearly created mankind with free will, and that his election is a group election (Israel, then the Body of Christ), and not based on choosing some for salvation arbitrarily and damning others, and not based on knowing in advance who would be saved and who wouldn’t (since the choices of free will agents do not exist to be known before they are made), it simplifies the matter and coincides with other biblical truths. I believe in a partly open future and corporate election. When one chooses to follow Christ, he becomes a part of God's elect group, making himself one of the elect. Just as God chose Israel to be his elect nation, he chose the Body of Christ as his elect nation (1 Peter 2:9), but he did not choose who would be a part of each group. Remembering this will help us to untangle the lies of men. God is under no obligation to explain his choices to men, but God’s choices do not leave out the responses of mankind. Paul again goes back into Jewish history and shows God having mercy on Israel and punishing Pharaoh. The law had just been given to Moses. Coming down from Sinai, he saw that Israel had rebelled against Yahweh by making a golden calf. Moses smashed the tablets, turned the golden calf into powder, mixed the gold with their water and made them drink it. He challenged them: “Who is on the LORD’s (Yahweh's) side?” Only the tribe of Levi responded. Moses commanded the Levites to destroy those who were in rebellion and Moses then interceded for the rest. God was angry and he told Moses he would no longer lead and bless the nation of Israel; an angel (his agent) would do so. Once again, Moses pleaded with God, and God answered him. Paul quoted that answer to illustrate the sovereignty of God’s will in pardoning this elect nation as a vessel of service. "What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.” God sent Moses to tell Pharaoh to let his people go, but Pharaoh refused. The Bible does say that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, but when we read about the entire event, we see that Pharaoh hardened his own heart first. Pharaoh said: “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go.” God used this situation with Pharaoh, who had hardened his heart toward God, to demonstrate his power throughout the earth. Still, the narrative shows that Pharaoh had opportunities to repent. Pharaoh himself acknowledged his wrongness and even promised to do as God said by letting his people go. Yet, upon the removal of the plague, he hardened his heart again, and God is said to have joined in. Perhaps God’s participation in the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart was passive, that is, he allowed Pharaoh to make his own decisions and God’s judgments hardened Pharaoh’s heart even more. In other words, Pharaoh hardened his own heart in response to God's activity, thus it could be said that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened by God. Or God may have temporarily suspended Pharaoh’s free will and he controlled Pharaoh for a time. Either way, God’s intervention was temporary and did not negate Pharaoh’s free will to harden his own heart against God initially and throughout this event. Paul’s reference to the potter and the clay doesn’t imply that the potter decides everything for the clay, it has the exact opposite meaning. In Jeremiah 18, Yahweh showed Jeremiah a potter who was working on a vessel that didn’t turn out right. In response, the potter changed his plan and formed a different kind of pot out of the clay (Jeremiah 18:1-4). In the same way, since Yahweh is the potter and Israel is the clay, he has the right and is willing to “change his mind” about his plans for Israel if they will repent (Jeremiah 18:4-11). Yahweh said that whenever he intends to judge a nation, he is willing to change his mind if the nation repents. Whenever God announces that he is going to bless a nation, he will change his mind if that nation turns away from him. It’s right there for us to see in the Bible. The point of the analogy is not God’s pre-deterministic control, but God’s willingness and right to change his plans in response to changing hearts. This fits perfectly with what Paul is teaching in Romans 9. While some individual Jews had yielded to the Lord Jesus as the Messiah, the nation as a whole had rejected him, and thus rejected God’s purpose for them. Though God had previously blessed Israel, he had now changed his mind about them and was hardening them. Ironically, the Jews were finding themselves in the same situation that Pharaoh had been in. Pharaoh had hardened his heart toward God, so God responded by hardening him further in order to raise him up to further his own purposes (Rom 9:17). God was now hardening the Jews in their self-chosen rebellion to further his purposes. He was going to use their rebellion to do what he had always hoped their obedience would do: bring the people of the world into a relationship with him (Rom 11:11-12). Rather than showing that God has pre-chosen everything that happens in the world, as if this proves he is sovereign, the Bible teaches that the potter is flexible and infinitely resourceful. Things are not set in stone. Our eternal destiny has not been predetermined. God’s hardening is not predetermined nor is it unalterable. Paul was saying: If the Jews abandon their unbelief, the potter will once again alter his plan and graft them in. If the Gentiles forsake Christ, the potter will once again alter his plan for them and cut them off (Rom 11:12-25). Paul was not saying that God gives mercy or hardens individuals without any consideration of the choices they make. As it has always been, the people God chooses to have mercy on are those who obediently follow him, whether they are Jews or Gentiles, and God may also harden those who refuse to submit to his reign over their lives, for a specific purpose as a witness to others. Those destined for destruction are “fitted to destruction.” But the passage doesn’t say that God so fitted them. Some will point to Proverbs 16:4: "The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble" (NRSV). To claim that God has created and caused men to do wickedly, to show something about himself, is an absurdity that is contradicted all throughout the scriptures. “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord GOD. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.” “Who (God) will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” God has made all for himself, and some of his created beings choose to live wickedly, but the verse does not say that God made them wicked. God made the wicked, but he did not make them wicked, just as God made those who have disabilities but did not make them have disabilities. God created a world of moral order in which good is eventually rewarded and wickedness is eventually punished. In this sense, the end of the wicked meets this purpose. They reap what they sow and meet the purpose of God’s creation of moral order. God does not create people in order to damn them. However, when people behave like Pharaoh, God deals with them so that their wickedness reveals itself in such a way that they become fit objects for his punishment. Why would God be longsuffering toward the wicked if he was the cause for their rebellion? That makes no sense! God wants all to come to repentance, so he is patient with them, but as long as they persist in rebellion, they are clay that can only be fashioned into a vessel fit for destruction. The Calvinistic interpretation of Romans 9 slanders God, for it depicts God as unreasonable and tyrannical, that he arbitrarily molds people into vessels fit for destruction and he punishes them for the way he made them. That passes as “sovereignty” to some people, and they ridicule those who reject it as not believing in the sovereignty of God. I believe in the sovereignty of God, but I reject the deterministic definition of sovereignty. Paul said: “What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone; As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.” Note the words that denote personal responsibility and personal choices (followed, sought, attained). The one thing God has always looked for is a submissive heart. The Jews did not strive by faith, the faith that works by love. They put their hope in their nationality and external works. Many Gentiles sought God by faith. They yielded their hearts to him. As Paul said in Romans 11, the Jews were broken off because of their unbelief and this is why they have been hardened. They made their choice. God gave them over to that choice. The Gentiles, who submit to God by faith, have been grafted in (11:23). Clearly, God’s process of hardening some and having mercy on others is not arbitrary or cruel. “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell (Israel), severity; but toward thee (followers of Christ), goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.” Again, God has mercy on people or he may harden people, but he is willing to change his mind about both the hardening and the mercy, if people change. If the Gentiles forsake Christ, they will once again be “cut off,” and if the Jews who are now hardened will turn from their rejection of Christ, God will “graft them in again” (Rom. 11:22-23). The Jews didn't like what they were hearing. Paul responded: “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?” God is consistent. He gives mercy in response to faith and he will harden in response to unbelief. It’s not the other way around. God doesn't give people faith so he can have mercy on them, and he doesn't make people wicked so he can harden and destroy them. The Jews have no claim to salvation as a national right. The way of salvation was made known to them and they rejected it. They were not right with God, thus they rejected God's Son, his Messiah. They went down the wrong path, but many Gentiles, upon hearing the gospel of the Kingdom, have gladly responded by becoming followers of Christ. For those who refuse to submit their lives to Christ, sooner or later they are going to face the judgment of God. We should not think that we can harden our hearts toward God today, but be able to change later when it is more convenient. God may turn us over to that hardened heart and we will fit ourselves for destruction. Many have been turned over already, they are reprobates. They had their chance to respond to God, yet they hardened their hearts, for various reasons, and God gave them their wish. What about the Jewish nation? Dispensational futurists (I am not one) claim that God still has a plan for the Jews as an ethnic nation, and that the formation of the State of Israel was the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Do the Jews as a people still have a part in God’s project? Or are the promises made to them merged into what is in store for the Body of Christ? That gets debated. I don't know for certain. I have no doubt that God has a prominent place in his Kingdom for certain people of Jewish descent, but supporting the modern day atheistic State of Israel is another matter. Many have turned it into an idol and support all kinds of atrocities in the name of Zionism. The Bible says: “For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.” And to the Galatians: “Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” And: Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” And: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.” All who are in Christ Jesus by faith are the seed of Abraham. It's not about ethnicity. Romans 11:26 says: “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:” But compare this with Romans 9:27: Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:” The first verse says that “all Israel shall be saved.” The other states that only a “remnant shall be saved.” Paul cannot be contradicting himself, so how do we interpret this? Evidently, Paul did not think that all ethnic Jews past, present, and future will be saved. It seems that he is using the term Israel to include true Jews since Abraham, who like Abraham know the circumcision of the heart, not merely the letter (Romans 2:29), and Gentiles who have become children of Abraham through faith in Jesus Christ and have been grafted into the olive tree. This seems to be the biblical answer. Whatever God has in store for ethnic Jews in the future, I do not believe that the godless State of Israel is the Israel of the Bible, or that God is more concerned with a piece of real estate in the Middle East than he is the people who are suffering due to the conflict surrounding that real estate. God is on record saying, not all ethnic Jews are “of Israel”, that is, the people of faith. Jews and Gentiles that have yielded to Jesus have been made one in him and have become a holy nation and peculiar people. “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:” *Many sources have influenced my disdain for Calvinism: the Bible of course, Moral Government Theology proponents, John Wesley, Open Theists, and others. For this post, I acknowledge the influence of an article written by Greg Boyd (at reknew.org). GregThe matter of immigration is a topic that draws out a lot of emotion. Some people advocate for open borders while others push for the borders to be closed. As is often the case, the starting point is wrong, therefore the proposed “solutions” are wrong.
Immigration is not a bad thing, but the circumstances that are created by a corrupt monopolistic State make the matter problematic for everyone involved. I look at this issue the same way that I look at the State school system. People ask if subject X, Y, or Z should be taught in State operated schools, but this is the wrong question. The correct question is should there be a State controlled public school system? The obvious answer to that question is “no.” The State, which preys on the people living within its “territory”, pushes its predatory agenda upon those attending its schools. The public school system is a State indoctrination system where students are regimented for State service, not service to mankind. The State controls territory, and the activities within that territory, by corrupt means. It rules through threats of aggression, force, and theft; we are slaves to the State, plain and simple. We are usually allowed to move around freely in our territorial prison, but no matter where we go, we are still enslaved. So these facts have to be established before we can ask the right questions. As it currently stands, the refusal to stop waves of immigrants from pouring into US controlled territory is immoral. But why? Not because people are wanting to leave one place for another, but because the State, which has no legitimate claims to any piece of territory, steals from the people within its claimed territory and makes them pay for the problems it creates. The State claims to be an arbiter in matters of personal property, but it is absurd to claim that we even have personal property under State rule. If we do not “pay” our taxes to the State for the privilege of being able to live in its territory, we can be evicted and even thrown into jail. Moreover, the State requires that we buy different kinds of insurance, and pay for certain services (whether we want them or not), and then it allows people to invade its territory (for its own political purposes) that do not have the same requirements placed upon them. The invaders get propped up with resources that are stolen from the people that already live there. That is a great evil. It only creates more animosity toward the State for its thieving practices, and it also results in immigrants becoming targets, even if they are peaceful people. Nothing about the current state of affairs is just. It is crooked and the whole matter is caused by the follies of statism. In a free society, all property is private property. There is no “public” property that anyone and everyone can access. Certainly, private property owners can provide access to their land or territory for different purposes, and in fact, many would for various reasons. This would settle the matter when it comes to outsiders immigrating into a territory, for no one has the right to access another person’s property without permission. But it is also true that private property owners can allow anyone at all, without any input from State rulers or anyone else, to access their property, no matter where the person came from. If a person flees State tyranny from across the world, the State calls him a criminal for leaving. That is an outrage. No person should be forced to live under tyranny. He should be able to secede, just as groups of people should be able to do the same. When the refugee enters territory controlled by another State, the State he runs to will call him a criminal (unless he runs to the US nowadays of course), yet the fundamental problem is what I have already stated. The State cannot own property legitimately. Its “lands” are maintained by the loot they steal from us and they have no moral right to claim whether a person can come or go. Since the monopolistic State should not exist at all, as a property owner, I have the natural right to allow access to my property to anyone I choose, or to no one at all. I could decide to allow one hundred people from another territory to live on my property. I am the only person that has the natural right to decide that. Each property owner should get to decide for himself whether he will have “open borders” or “closed borders” and no one on earth has the right to violate his natural rights of ownership. The State does not have these rights, though it illegitimately claims them for itself. Since we live under the fist of a corrupt Government that violates individual property rights, yes, immigration is a problem. But in a Stateless society, a society that has legitimate centers of authority, the issue could be solved rather easily, for decisions would be made by individual property owners. State officials, State politicians, and State policies will never solve the problem because they are the problem. |
Greg and KariWe are a Christian couple committed to following the one true God, the Father, and the one Lord Messiah, his only begotten Son. Categories
All
|