WHAT IT REALLY MEANS TO BE A CHRISTIAN
An examination of the claims of Christ and the Gospel of God's grace in the light of the Christian Scriptures.
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“Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” (Isaiah 55:6-7)
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As I remember, by the 1950s a new more progressive message had emerged. Preachers were now ashamed of the ‘old’ Gospel, afraid to speak of the wrath of God and of a Saviour from sin. The authentic biblical Gospel preached once by the Apostles, the Reformers, the preachers at the time of the Great Awakening in Britain, and many thousands more in between and since has now largely been abandoned and is greatly despised. The message has been changed, Christ was turned from a Saviour of sinners into a super-psychiatrist who could solve every problem and make people ‘happy’, a ‘healer’ of sorts but making a mockery of the truth. It opened the door to conmen and fraudsters who have used their ‘gospel’ to fill their bank accounts. This saviour is not the Lord Jesus of the Scriptures; this gospel is another gospel, not the Gospel found in the Word of God. Most now preach a watered-down message, or even a misleading and erroneous one.
Godlessness expresses itself in every area of British life.
Understandable cynicism has developed towards corrupt and deceitful governments as they introduce legislation that often seems only to featherbed themselves, secure their own positions, and benefit their friends. Those who dare to challenge publicly the prevailing new morality being imposed on our people, introduced often against the better judgement of a majority, are more than likely to receive a knock on the door from the local police. They “call evil good, and good evil; … put darkness for light, and light for darkness” (Isaiah 5:20). Personal sin has been raised to the level of a new righteousness. Oblique persecution meets any Christian seeking to follow the dictates of conscience. Teachers who look to their own their own conscience on how and what they teach their charges, hotel and guesthouse owners refusing to accommodate homosexuals, doctors who reject abortion and refuse contraception to underage unmarried teenage girls, along with many other professionals in public service, particularly those professing Christian convictions are with increasing frequency being forced to quit. Truly: “The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted” (Psalm 12:8).Freedom of conscience is only permitted where there is no contradiction of the perverse mores of godless parliamentarians. It was Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms (1521) who warned that it is dangerous to go against a conscience informed by the Word of God. The freedom of conscience to hold and express distinctively Christian beliefs won over centuries is being deliberately and systematically eroded.
In most churches it is little different. Despite the fact that around seventy percent of the British people still consider themselves Christian, fewer than a million regularly attend any place of Christian worship and congregations are diminishing rapidly by the week. There is an understandable widespread indifference among the general population towards institutional churches, who have largely thrown off traditional beliefs and practices exchanging them for ‘progressive’ substitutes that rob them of the authoritative voice they once enjoyed in our nation. Spineless bishops and archbishops instead of giving a clear and unmistakeable message in the face of rampant godlessness prevaricate, dither, run for cover in the face of opposition, back down when faced with politically-correct militancy amongst the ranks of its clergy. Little wonder then, that a highly politicized and hypocritical institutional church is silent when it ought to speak out; and when it does speak, it is only to mouth prevailing political fashions and irrelevances. Apostasy rules. Like the prophets of ancient Israel, their spokesmen speak lies in God’s name, proclaiming the very opposite of what is taught in the Christian Scriptures. “Yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart … cause my people to forget my name.” (Jeremiah 23:26-27). The genuine spiritual life and experience that marked the evangelical wing of the mainstream churches in previous centuries has virtually disappeared, exchanged for a vapid, lightweight ‘happy-clappy’ theology-free religion that exceeds what is appropriate in the worship of God, often drifting into the profane and blasphemous. They fill an emotional void and bring understandable scorn and contempt upon the whole idea of what it means to be a genuine Christian believer. The life-giving Gospel preached by Christ, the apostles and faithful men down the centuries is today all but obscured. Established or free, aligned or independent, all the professing church seems to be very much the same with only a very few maintaining anything remotely approaching true Christian and biblical testimony ― precious people if you can find them. There is a crying need to restate with some clarity and boldness the biblical teaching on what it really means to be a Christian.
No Gospel, no change
It needs to be understood that Christ changes a person’s heart and life and it is from here first that all other changes must follow. There can be no real outward change, no positive social change, apart from the inward change wrought by the Gospel of Christ. Nothing will have changed in our nation unless that change is brought about directly as a result of the preaching of the Gospel as given in the Christian Scriptures. Cosmetic change is a deadly and deceptive device. The Christian Gospel works from the inside out and not the other way round. It is true that the only legitimate laws a nation can have are Christian ones, but imposed from without this alone will not make us a Christian nation or even a nation of Christians, a nation with a Christian ethos perhaps, but little more. In fact, unless within us as individuals, there is an inward change, we are reduced to being little more than actors simply playing out a role. We have then become pharisaic hypocrites presenting an outward appearance that is not supported by any inward reality. Where there is no Gospel there is no change.
One unmistakeable sign of a genuine Christian believer is that he or she will submit to Christ in all things and that submission will stem from a new and inward orientation that has been utterly transformed. One unmistakeable sign of unbelievers is they say, in deed if not in word, in part if not in whole, “We will not have this man to reign over us” (Luke 19:14). It is a false, apostate Christianity that restricts God to ‘grace’ and ‘salvation’ to eternity and ‘spiritual matters’. It is rank and damnable hypocrisy such as that of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11) that keeps some things back for itself, that fences of areas for its own exclusive use and where Christ is not allowed, yet at the same time makes a claim of being a follower of Christ. Sadly, this is all too often the mark of Christian profession. “And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's” (1 Corinthians 3:23).
There are two kingdoms and only two and we are each found in one or the other. There is Satan’s kingdom and that of Christ and true faith in Him. There is the kingdom of darkness, which embraces the sum total of rebellious humanity, and includes within its walls all forms of apostate Christianity that have deliberately turned their back on the truth. We are presented with an antithesis.
“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15)
There is the seed of the woman, the promised Saviour, all incorporated into His body of believers. There is the seed of the serpent, those who still live in enmity with God and persist in apostasy. This is the whole history of mankind. War continues to this day to be waged between these two kingdoms, between the children of light and the children of darkness. Apostasy and rebellion is rooted in human hearts. There is no area of life lying outside this antithesis, it permeates the whole of human existence and is observable in the whole of human history throughout the whole world in all times. Rebellion and apostasy proceed from human hearts. Through regeneration a man becomes a new creature in Christ, his consciousness is changed, his mind enlightened by the Spirit of God.
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (Corinthians 5:17)
There are two kingdoms; consequently there are two kinds of people in the world: believers in Christ who are obedient to Him, and unbelievers who are apostate rebels. The line to be drawn is not between nature and grace or between the temporal and the eternal, but between darkness and light, between apostasy and faith.
Christ claims all things everywhere in every sphere of life as His own and in the Gospel we must call all men to submit to Him in all things. However, no one will submit to Christ unless first there is an inner change of heart; all must begin here, with regeneration, conversion, repentance and faith. There can be no side-stepping this by social action. A call for ‘Christian values’ without being confronted with the claims of Christ is palpable nonsense and worse than useless. Organizations proposing Christian social action have multiplied in recent years. Understandable in some ways as the reign of godlessness increases. Most make one fundamental error that appears to mirror the teaching of Aquinas, suggesting that all men somehow naturally share the same innate morality and that given sufficient encouragement they will surely espouse the good and reject evil. Certainly all men have the Law of God inscribed within (Romans 2:14-15); this is what Scripture tells us. But they hate it; it stirs their conscience, they suppress it. They are each and everyone natural rebels.
The cure for this is the preaching of the Gospel. Wherever Thomas Aquinas casts his shadow there can be no call for submission to Christ and any call for repentance is made into a void. Without the Gospel at the heart of what they do, the arguments of these Christian moralists are reduced to pragmatic rather than biblical ones. For example, where the authority of Scripture is in doubt, where its historicity is doubted, there can be no proper defence of marriage and the family. Instead of a robust explanation of marriage as a divine ordinance for all men that reaches back to the Garden of Eden, we are treated all too often to vain waffle about families being the ‘building blocks’ of our society – whatever that is supposed to mean!
You will look in vain in the materials of these groups, printed or online, for any real and uncompromising presentation of the Gospel. They may say this is not their purpose. One significant reason for this is likely to be dictated by the need to cast the net widely for financial and other support. This will range from the charismatic and Pentecostal end of evangelicalism to those firmly in entrenched in the staid traditionalism of the incense-swinging high Anglican or Roman Catholic. At neither end of this spectrum will you find the biblical Gospel, instead only a profound opposition to it. Clearly, there is unlikely to be any firm consensus about the nature of the Gospel among such a motley crowd.
At the heart of Luther’s reformation in Germany that wrought so much good and brought unparalleled social change was a struggle not about public morals, but about the nature of the Gospel, and the doctrine of justification by faith alone, later anathematized by the Catholic Church. Much the same can be said of Calvin’s administration in Geneva, Knox in Scotland. Changes that took place in Britain at the time of the Evangelical Awakening under Whitfield, Wesley and others came about because these men travelled the length and breadth of this country risking life and limb at a time when travel was difficult preaching the forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ alone. Changed lives were brought about by an inward change wrought by the Spirit of God. The drinker left his bottle, the thief his dishonesty, the adulterer his sin – they repented only when taken in hand by the Spirit of God who inclined their hearts towards Christ. Any social changes stemmed alone from a response to the preaching of the Gospel of God’s grace.
There is a need in this country to put unadulterated and plain Gospel preaching at the heart of Christian testimony. This may draw upon us the abusive misuse of the word ‘pietism’. It is preposterous nonsense and also offensive to imply that because we place Christ and His salvation at the heart of our message, we do not love our fellowmen or not in any way concerned about the godlessness into which our nation has sunk. What we do say is that failing to preach Christ as the only cure is deceitful and useless. To work alongside those who deny the Gospel to any perceived common end is treachery against our Saviour.
The unbelieving world and apostate Christendom operate outside the Gospel; they have rejected the real cure. We cannot work with them. Everything has been disrupted and distorted by sin and men need to be brought into a right relationship with God before anything can change. In order to see change in the world around us, there is little point to infiltrating existing structures trying to exert some influence. Many try it and will always fail. They will invariably find themselves sidelined because of an inherent hatred of Christ and a rejection, conscious or otherwise, of His claims. These structures and institutions are part of the kingdom of darkness as those of us who have experienced them on the inside can testify. Being outside the Gospel, they operate on an anti-Christian, apostate basis. There can be no neutral ground where Christ claims everything as His own. There can be no truce with unbelief. It amounts to spiritual adultery.
“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” (James 4:4)
There but is one true King, the Lord Jesus Christ. All others cry, “We have no king but Caesar” and crucify Him in their hearts.
“But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away. (John 19:15-16)
The Gospel works not renovation but replacement of that which is beyond repair. Yet we are not lifted out of this world as soon as we become Christians, but have instead a task to complete. We are not hermetically sealed off from unbelievers whom we must confront daily, but our message cannot be tainted or corrupted by paganism and we must operate outside an apostate world.
“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.” (Ephesians 5:11)
We cannot reprove anything of which we ourselves are a part, or with which we ourselves are co-operating.
Christ, redemption, and the nature of the Scriptures
Martin Luther, as did all the Reformers, held a strict view of Scripture, believing it to be verbally inspired.
“In Scripture you are reading not the word of man, but the Word of the most exalted God, who desires to have disciples that diligently observe and note what He says.” Works (St Louis edition) IX, p.1818
The Bible is the Word of God because whatever it says God Himself says. He speaks in its pages and we can have utter and complete confidence and trust in every single word. All Scriptures are to be ascribed to the Holy Ghost and therefore it is impossible for them to contain error. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16). This was the view held without exception by each of the protestant Reformers. The Scriptures are to be received with the same reverence that we reserve for God Himself. What we have in the pages of holy writ came from God alone with no human admixture. The Bible is not a mélange of the human and the divine any more than in the Person of Christ. It is the very word of God spoken through human lips and written by human pens. It did not drop down from heaven, nor was it given in a mechanistic or dictated manner but by God through the instrumentality of men. It is not a human product breathed into by the Holy Spirit and so heightened in quality, but is itself a divine product given through human instruments whose spirits were borne along in their task by God’s Spirit.
“For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost”
(2 Peter 1:21).
“But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)
“…to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.” (Ephesians 3:19-20)
Scripture writers were carefully prepared by God’s providence. They were given the gifts they needed within God’s overall purpose to redeem the world He created, to be accomplished by God through Christ as Christ Himself directed and controlled His chosen instruments through His Holy Spirit. The Bible is the Word of life to the whole world. The Bible is God’s book given through writers inspired by God and He speaks still to us through its pages.
The Bible is not just a record of what God has revealed but is itself part of the redemptive revelation of God. It is itself a redemptive act of divine origin able to make us wise unto salvation.
“And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” (2 Timothy 3:15-17)
Seeing that the giving of the Bible is in itself a redemptive act, it follows that an understanding of the Bible, if it is to be true, must be Christocentric for apart from Christ there is no way of salvation. This is the first and most important principle of biblical interpretation. In the whole of Scripture there is nothing but Christ, in the Old as in the New Testaments. All of Scripture has a bearing upon Christ; everything applies to Him directly or indirectly. Since God can only be known through Christ, He is the essential content of Scripture.
The key to understanding the whole of Scripture, then, is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son. He came to this earth, died for our sins, has risen from the dead, sits now at the right hand of His Father and is set to return. He is at the centre of Scripture and a rejection of Him will close to us all meaning in the Old or the New Testaments. Men know not Christ because they are ignorant of the Scriptures. Jesus Himself testified:
“And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:44-47)
The writers of Scripture, though divinely inspired, wrote and recorded in a human fashion. This is not to deny its divine element. A maxim of the Reformation approach to Scripture was: Scriptura sacra est Deus incarnates ― sacred Scripture is God incarnate. There is an analogy to be drawn between the nature of Scripture and the person of Christ, between the Word of God written and the Word made flesh. Following the formula of Chalcedon the Lord Jesus is fully man but at the same time fully God. In a similar manner Scripture is fully human and yet fully divine. Like the person of Christ the human element of the Bible cannot be anything other than perfect. Scripture is no more liable to error than is the human nature of Christ.
Roman Catholics along with many evangelical protestants have a view of God’s providence that gives too much place to an assumed sphere of human autonomy so such a consistent view of the authority and inspiration of Scripture becomes impossible. In employing human beings as instruments prepared for their task by God, the words that they speak are at the same time the words of God. What they write will be wholly subject to the will of God without obliterating their own personality. There can be here no mechanistic determinism. Words are at one and the same time both spontaneous and determined by the will of God. Those who have no genuinely biblical understanding of the human personality find that man can only be spontaneous if he is at the same time free from the determinative counsel of God. The truth is the opposite: man can only be truly free when he acts within the determinative counsel of God. This teaching about Scripture is undermined by an unfounded presumption of human autonomy free of God. There is a high co-relation between what the Bible says about the sovereignty of God and the notion of the inerrancy of Scripture. Inerrancy will be rejected where the idea of a self-sufficient God and human responsibility cannot be reconciled. Human responsibility must always be placed and guarded within God’s comprehensive and over-ruling providence. Roman Catholicism and all that derives from it is a mixture of Bible and Aristotle’s philosophy. By way of answer, the Reformers argued for the absolute necessity, authority, clarity and sufficiency of Scripture within the redemptive purpose of God. One’s belief about the nature of Scripture cannot be torn away from one’s whole system of belief as a whole.
The purpose of the redemptive work of Christ is that the world which has fallen into sin might be cleansed, regenerated, and reveal the glory of God. Scripture is pivotal in this redemptive purpose. Rather than seek access to the person of Christ in spite of Scripture, it is here we shall find Him. “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39). Indeed, it is impossible to find Christ without the Scriptures. They constitute the last redemptive act in which the revelation of God in Christ for this generation is found and completed. It is utterly impossible to know or understand what God has done for us in Christ without the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit works now within the hearts of men and they believe His Word.
Continuing the analogy with Christ, even as the redemptive work of Christ is a finished work so must Scripture be a finished revelation for God has nothing more to say to us than what He has already said in Christ.
“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.”
(Hebrews 1:1-3)
“But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” (Hebrews 10:12-14)
The Roman Catholic Church has a continuing sacrifice in the Mass. It has a continuing revelation in the church. Such teaching contradicts all that we read in Scripture. However, even as the work of Christ in securing salvation is finished, so the work of revealing Him to us in Scripture is also finished. As there is nothing more to be done, so there is nothing more to be said than what God has already said.
Christian believers find their norms in the final revelation of Christ through the Scriptures. Within the Roman Church revelation continues in the Church and more particularly through the Pope. A similar pattern is discernable among evangelicals, especially among those who have been influenced by the modern Pentecostal and Charismatic movement: the word of God is mediated through the gifts in the Church. Although there is a formal acknowledgement of the authority of Scripture, the practice is very different and effectively undermines Scripture. Revelation continues in their churches through an exercise of charismatic ‘gifts’ and through the ministrations of the leaders of their groups. In other churches the situation is not dissimilar. Liberals say the Bible contains the word of God. The neo-orthodox and many evangelicals will say the Bible is the word of God but only as it speaks to the reader. There is an allegiance to a ‘living continuing’ word in the Church giving expression to new ideals and teaching in line with the times in which we live. At its heart there is a blurring of the distinction between the inspiration experienced by the original writer of the Scriptures and the illumination experienced by those who subsequently read its pages resulting in a mysticism that is cut loose from Scripture. All these so-called ‘revelations’ can be little more than notions dreamed up and developed by apostate men apart from God, apart from the Bible.
The understanding and interpretation of the Bible, is effectively what these people say it is. The Bible is thus made subservient to another voice of authority. In this way, the authority of the Scriptures themselves is reduced to little more than a formality. Wherever there is another voice of revelation, Scripture will always have a diminished role despite protestations to the contrary. They have fallen back upon the wisdom of the natural man, dead in trespasses in sins. This can never be a position held by those who have a proper regard for the Lord Jesus, for those who love and obey Him will also love and obey His Word. Much of Christendom that once acknowledged the legacy of the Reformation has now forsaken it or even rejects it. Virtually all will attribute to man some independence of will from the counsel of God. Many who remain faithful still tone down what they once professed with vigour.
It is because of a sinful heart that we need the Scriptures to find Christ. Any Christ found outside the Scriptures is a false Christ. We need the Scriptures, but also the illumination of the Holy Spirit to understand and accept them for what they are. Without this we shall reject them and everything in them. Those who reject the Scriptures reject the Christ of the Scriptures. Those who fail to put themselves under their exclusive authority show themselves to be still sitting in the darkness of their own rebellion. We need new light and a new power of sight.
Scripture does not become effective until the Holy Spirit convicts and convinces the sinner of his sin and need of salvation. The sinner will not otherwise admit, certainly not from experience, that he is a sinner. He may admit other things, that he is not what he should be, may even admit to being wicked. What he will refuse to admit is that he has sinned against God, against Christ, against His revealed will, set God aside and become a law unto himself. God is brought down to the level of man, and man exalted to become as God. Men do not and will not see any need of God’s grace until by God’s grace they are made to see their own need.
Knowing our need, recognizing our helplessness
People today are largely ignorant of the Christian Gospel and only have a very vague sense of any kind of spiritual need. In the Gospel there is an outward offer of salvation but there is also an accompanying inward work of the Holy Spirit bringing with it regenerating power. When men see the need to escape from eternal death through the preaching of the Gospel, they will also at the same time see that Christ has supplied their need. Christ finds them, but they first need to become new creatures before they will see this as a fact.
Many of those professing Christian belief think they have a sound understanding of what they need, but in fact not one of us by nature is fully aware of his or her need. On the contrary, unless God opens the inward eyes, all sit in complete ignorance of their own true state: dead in trespasses and sins and therefore subject to the wrath of God.
“And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” (Ephesians 2:1-3)
“And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.” (1 Thessalonians 1:10)
When we preach Christ as an escape from the wrath to come, the message falls largely on deaf ears as outdated, irrelevant and superseded, not at all what is needed. Yet it stands to reason that a God who is righteous and good will and must oppose and destroy all that is unrighteous and evil. Often the greatest opposition to this message comes not from rank outsiders, but from those professing to be Christians and of whom one would have expected better things. It must be said that the Gospel does offer something already in this life as well as in the life to come. Many feel attracted to a message that speaks of our present life, but at the same time they fail to recognize that they are objects of God’s wrath.
It is not the Gospel for a preacher to tell his congregation that he has what the sinner needs. Those without God neither understand this nor do they believe it. What the sinner may well be prepared to admit is that he has not lived up perfectly to his own ideal of what it is to be good and he fears the possible consequences. He has perhaps some vague notion that reality visits ‘sin’ with its own punishments. He may welcome something to alleviate ‘original sin’ as he understands it. He may even ask how he can be rid of his guilt complex. But feelings of guilt are common and widely distributed over the whole of the human race.
We may go to the doctor when we sense there is something amiss. We may not believe there is much wrong, perhaps just a few minor headaches. Then the doctor diagnoses a deadly disease that will eventually kill us. It is terminal if untreated. There is, however, a treatment available to cure it, should we be prepared to submit to it. We know nothing of the cure until we meet the doctor and allow him to examine us and tell us our need. Indeed, we only have a very vague understanding of our sickness before this point of time. We know nothing about the cure for sin until we meet Christ, not before. However, the reality is far worse, we are not just sick but born already dead to all that is spiritual. We do not hear, we do not see, we do not move, we can do absolutely nothing to respond to anything. That is what it is like being dead. So we remain, until God gives us life. “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1).
Before this we have only a very vague and often misleading understanding of what it means to be a sinner. Everyone gives their own meaning to sin and evil, that is, if they believe that they exist at all. The German philosopher, Emanuel Kant, spoke of ‘radical evil’ in man; Sigmund Freud, of ‘the utter corruption of the race’; Martin Heidegger saw being as ‘being unto death’. None sees sin and wickedness as being against God and His revealed will which fully deserves eternal death. Only the Holy Spirit can convince anyone of what is really wrong. The Gospel brings a quite different meaning to sin, for which there is no way of escape except in repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This cure is beyond all human ability. The sinner needs the Son of God and His death on the cross to remove his guilt. He is by nature a child of eternal damnation. Christ redeems from this.
The sinner has no real understanding of his dire state or of what it is to be a sinner. This the Holy Spirit must make clear to him through hearing or reading the Word of God. There is something more: when by God’s grace it does eventually dawn on him what is wrong, if he is to find his way to God then the sinner must also be brought to realize his own impotence and inability to do anything to change what he is. This cannot be sufficiently stressed. Furthermore, no one can do anything to induce God to save him or to merit His grace. God is under no obligation towards anyone. As things stand, we cannot initiate anything that will make any change.
The reason for all this is, first of all, that we are each and every one undeserving and can make no claim against God. We can bring nothing to God that will justify us before Him or oblige Him to act generously towards us. And in such a situation, assuming God has already opened our eyes to it, we can do little more than throw ourselves only upon His love, mercy and grace, to which He will not fail to respond.
We should note that this response by a penitent sinner presumes that God has already been at work in his heart. Left to ourselves, we cannot and will not understand our need, still less will we acknowledge our impotence, nor respond in any way appropriately.
We are not inclined by nature to respond positively to the Gospel. Our depraved will is impotent in any matter concerning our own salvation. This assertion so often enrages opponents of the Gospel: the very idea that there is something over which they can exercise no control. But who can indeed change his own heart and life?
“Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.”(Jeremiah 13:23)
No one can change himself, and all who try by their own efforts will be shown up as hypocrites just like the Pharisee in Luke 18. A monkey may think he is a lion, but the truth may dawn upon him when he is eaten up by a real lion should he meet up with one. The truth will then be clear, but too late for the poor monkey! It is far better that we see now what we truly are. Only those who fear God, only those whose heart has been regenerated by God’s Spirit can know a change to what is natural to them. Only they will believe the Gospel. Only they will know themselves loved of God. The rest will not believe it and will perish with blasphemy on their tongues right to the very end.
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good. God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” (Psalm 53:1-3)
Those who hide from God, deny even that He exists, are utter fools. The evidence of their folly is all around us. God laughs at them, as indeed He must (Psalm 2:4; 37:13). There is little point entering into discussion with people like that on their own terms as no one can talk sense with fools. One would achieve more success teaching Einstein’s physics or Wittgenstein’s philosophy in a monkey house.
The Gospel preached by many is doomed to failure from the start by not speaking the language of repentance and unquestioning submission to God through Christ. Were they spoken to in this way godless men would recognize immediately what they know are Christ’s legitimate claims over them. Instead, hearers are presented with a ‘choice’ instead of an ultimatum; a ‘decision’ is called for in the place of a call for submission to Christ and the authority of His Word. The words of the Gospel in Scripture must come as the authoritative voice of God. There can not even a hair’s breadth be given to the thought that there is any legitimacy to the claims made by a fallen human reason or will with respect to their own competence in spiritual matters.
Having come this far, we now face the question: if we can do nothing from our side, how then do we find our way to God? Many and varied are the answers. There are those who believe that if they strive hard enough, employ the proper means ― submit to baptism, attend Church and participate in its sacraments, live a good life to the best of their ability, or show proper repentance for sins of the past, or do whatever they can to gain the mercy of God, this will in the end gain the favour of God. Some seem to glide in without any real recognition of personal sin or need. God is loving and kind, so they reason, and consequently will not turn them away. When they are good enough God will accept them. The Scriptures say no such thing. Search from Genesis to Revelation you will find nothing remotely like that in the Bible. To encourage anyone along this road is highly irresponsible. What the Word of God clearly says is that the wrath of God abides on every single person. Furthermore, it goes on to say that there is absolutely nothing anyone of us can do for our part to remove it. Whether trendy modern preachers or liberal theologians like or not, this is at the heart of the Christian Gospel: the wrath of God hangs over us because of our sin, the cure lies completely outside and beyond us. We can neither provide nor apply the cure; nor do we have within us the strength to receive it. No amount of striving on our part will do anything to gain God’s mercy.
No one comes to faith in Christ by any merit or effort of their own, but by the mercy and love of God. Having once come, all are exhorted to persevere in the faith so they are not cut off. This declares not what they are able to do, but rather what they ought to do.
“Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:5)
“Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?”
( Isaiah 45:9)
“Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand.” (Jeremiah 18:6)
We are entirely in God’s hands, and we are in no position to prevent God’s afflictions coming upon us.
Not the labour of my hands
Can fulfil Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and Thou alone.Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Saviour, or I die.From the hymn by
Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-1778)
Rock of Ages Cleft for Me
Once having reached this point, we need to be most careful. All too often in contradiction to all that has been said thus far, sinners are told there is actually something they can do! After a presentation of what is thought to be the Gospel, the impression is conveyed to the congregation that everything is now up to them, as though within them they have the ability to ‘decide’ for Christ when this is patently untrue. They are given the last word in their own eternal destiny. Such invitations are a massive stumbling block to those seeking peace with God and lead to abortive professions of faith. Anyone who has worked for any time in these circles will know this to be true. People are sent off in the wrong direction. What should be impressed upon them is their totally hopeless and lost condition: and their complete inability to do anything to change this state of affairs. Many for years afterwards, who believe quite sincerely that they are Christians as a result of such a ‘decision’ or by ‘asking Christ into their life’, are left resting on a false hope rooted in an act of will on their part, a totally disastrous mistake to make. It may be a delusion they carry with them to their deathbed only to be lost at the end. Both of the above expressions are not found in the Scriptures and they are quite alien to them in their ethos and teaching. The deep tragedy is that such people drift along imagining all is well when the opposite applies and sadly Churches today are stuffed full of such people. They would be very different places were this not so.
Only when we completely give up on ourselves, only when we despair of ourselves, does the realization dawn upon us that salvation is in every way beyond our powers to obtain. It is entirelyof God. For as long as we are persuaded that there is the least thing that we can contribute in gaining salvation, we shall not find it.
We must be humbled before God in this way, for when we are so inclined God has already begun His work. Only those who then depend upon His goodwill, waiting upon Him to work within, who prayerfully seek a Saviour to trust in the Scriptures, only such are anywhere near to experiencing the grace of God and salvation. Only they will cry out instinctively as did blind Bartimaeus: “Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me”. When told to keep quiet, he only cried the louder. That soul, when in desperation, cries out even more loudly: Thou Son of David, have mercy on me. Bartimaeus’ cry caused Jesus to stand still. God ‘stands still’, as it were, when He hears the desperate cries of needy sinners and grants their requests. Bartimaeus needed no persuading of his helpless plight, he recognized in Jesus, the Messiah, the King, the Saviour of men. He was persuaded of His goodness and mercy. His was a cry of despair but not without hope, also of implicit faith towards Christ (see Mark 10:46-52). Even in the very moment he called out, he knew the Lord Jesus could and would assist him.
Finally, as our salvation is completely dependent upon the working of God alone, this means that apart from Him what we do is not good but is intrinsically evil and is of no help whatever in salvation. It is true that there are many kind and loving folk about, many of whom make no profession of faith in Christ. It is surely true that it must be better that we are all honest rather than dishonest, all kind rather than cruel, and so on. Despite this, whilst we should not diminish the relative goodness many demonstrate, these good works or ‘righteousnesses’, positive though they may appear, are of no help in making us acceptable to God. This is because we can produce nothing that will make us righteous before God or even contribute to it. “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). This clear teaching of Scripture is overlooked, even denied, but it must be shouted from the housetops. Only those will be saved who despair of themselves and are brought to nothing, whose confidence and faith rests in Christ alone for salvation. Those who balk at, those who rail against this teaching, will have experienced nothing of God’s grace for it comes only to those who have given up on themselves. Why otherwise would they be in need of God’s grace? What other meaning can we give to grace?
“And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.” (Romans 11:6)
It can only be the self-righteous who object because they condemn self-desperation and hope to have something left for themselves to do, but in so doing they demonstrate their own reprobation and ignorance of the Gospel. They remain proud enemies of God’s free grace. There is one clear reason for insisting on this teaching and it is that those who fear God, being humbled, might call upon God and receive His grace and salvation through faith in His Son ― thus the glory may be God’s and no mere man may think to share in it.
When God works in us to bring new life where before was death, things operate very differently. The will has been transformed by the Holy Spirit. It responds willingly. Its direction changes and that which it once craved, it now hates; and that which it once hated, it now desires. It remains unshaken by all opposition to its new stance. The more those touched by God’s Spirit are opposed, yet more it drives them to desire to do that which is righteous before God. As any fading and dying embers in a fire are blown into life by a gentle breeze, in the same way the driving, all-consuming compulsion now within is fanned into a living flame by the wind of opposition.
See also SO YOU THINK YOU ARE A CHRISTIAN?
read here
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