faith for faith

Most of us have experienced it: the enthusiastic preacher, the classic phrase “If you were to die tonight…,” the bowing of heads and raising of hands, the pronouncements of spiritual birthdays, and a preacher writing in his Bible the name of yet another soul who he had saved after another successful altar call.

If you have not experienced these things, you are among the fortunate, and, hopefully, more doctrinally sound.

For these things are indicative of the doctrinal fallacy that has slowly crept into the post-Reformation church, namely the doctrine of justification by acceptance. This doctrine says simply that one is saved by accepting Jesus Christ as his personal Savior and asking him to come into his heart. This doctrine stands opposed to the doctrine of justification by faith, for it warps the nature of faith from that which not meritorious to that which is meritorious. In other words, it takes faith and shifts its weight. Instead of faith being mere belief in the God who has revealed himself to his people through the Spirit and the preaching of the Gospel, faith, in this “justification by acceptance” doctrine, is fully an act of human reason and free will whereby one evaluates the case of Christ and chooses to accept him by asking Christ into his heart or to reject him by doing nothing.

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I believe that the “whosoever believes” of John 3:16 means that everyone has an equal opportunity to believe the Gospel. According to you, this is not true. Why?

Not that I find joy in flogging an ex-horse, but I must reiterate that we must understand the difference between what a text says and what we interpret a text to mean. In the text of John 3:16, the phrase “whosoever believes” is a modifier that places limitations on the phrase, “will not perish.” Therefore, those who believe in Jesus Christ will not perish, and conversely, those who do not believe in him will perish. However, this phrase says nothing of one’s ability to believe. This verse simply states what is said elsewhere, namely that is through faith that one is justified. Where this faith comes from, to whom it is to be credited, or the universal ability or opportunity for all men to believe is not addressed in this verse at all. Actually, if we study this text in its context, i.e. John 3:1-8, we would likely come to much different conclusion about the interpretation of this text than we typically do.

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If you would take the time to listen to non-charismatic evangelicals on the matter of the Holy Spirit, you would likely find both a willful ignorance of the present mission of the Holy Spirit portrayed in the Bible and a tendency to avoid discussion about him and his work altogether. For many who have stood against the doctrines of charismatics, the Holy Spirit is a subject to be avoided and even one, to some, to be loathed. Therefore, to these, the Holy Spirit is nothing more to the Christian than a glorified conscience that “dwells in” a person (whatever that means) whenever he accepts Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. He aids the Christian in choosing between right and wrong, and he helps the Christian understand the Scriptures.

However, this present view of the Holy Spirit stands in opposition to the teachings of Scripture on him and his works, and they rob him of his glory that is rightly due him.

Who is the Holy Spirit? Simply, he is the third person of the Triune God–the one who proceeds from the Father and the Son to testify about the work of the Son. He is to the elect the one by whom the work of Christ is applied to them. This application by the Holy Spirit is called “regeneration”–the bringing to life that which was dead. Figuratively, this work is called causing one to be born again (cf. Jn. 3:1-8; 1Pet. 1:3), the circumcision of the heart (cf. Rm. 2:29), the removal of a heart of stone and the giving of a heart of flesh (Ez. 11:19), and the writing of the law upon one’s heart (cf. Jer. 31:33). All these things the Spirit does from salvation’s beginning, and the Spirit continues to work in the saved soul till the end, for as the apostle testifies, “[The Spirit] who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

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I have spoken much in several posts on the act of giving up all that one owns for the sake of Christ, but I have spoken little of the driving force behind such a step. Yes, I have spoken of obedience to Christ, and that is indeed a chief motivation, but there is a greater underlying and supernatural motivation that drives one to obedience and then to sacrifice. Jonathan Edwards labeled this underlying force by the title of one of his great essays, viz. “A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God, etc.” If there is to be any true religion, any obedience to Christ, and any desire to love him with our entirety, it must begin with a prevenient work of the Spirit of God.

The prevenient work of the Spirit of God is described in several ways in the Bible. It is called at one point new birth, at another the writing of the law upon our hearts, at another the removing of the scales upon our eyes, etc. There are numerous others, and they all demonstrate that our coming to God is fully initiated by God. Christ said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44).

The necessity of this prevenient work of the Spirit lies not in any lack of our Object of worship and obedience, but it lies in our natural condition in Adam. Scripture declares that all men apart from God’s grace are dead in their sins, blind to the glory and beauty of God, and deaf to the call and demands of the Gospel. Romans 3 declares that no one is righteous, not a single one; all have turned aside and no one seeks God. Elsewhere Scripture declares that even that which we as men consider to be righteousness is in the eyes of God rags of filthiness. There is nothing in us that compels us to call upon the Lord, and there is nothing that we do that commends us to God.

Therefore, even a spark of divine fire to seek after God (as Henry Higgins so eloquently put it) is a spark created by God in the soul.

When God in his Infinite and Providential Wisdom causes this spark of regeneration to happen in the life of the soul, it is nothing short of spectacular–it is life from the dead, it is new birth, it is being given a new heart, it is exchanging sight for blindness and hearing for deafness–it is by all accounts the most spectacular transformation in the universe. The angels in heaven know this and rejoice in unison when a lost soul is brought into God’s fold, even more than they rejoiced when Christ restored physical sight to the blind, or mobility to the crippled, etc.

This supernatural transformation wrought in the soul by the Spirit of God is by most accounts not what is being preached in American pulpits today. Most teach of a conversion that involves praying a prayer, walking an aisle, accepting a Savior, but they do not teach its supernatural and transforming elements. This method of preaching might create many converts and might increase the number of names on church rolls, but it does not save souls. Any acceptance (what a horrid word to use for being saved by the God of the universe!) of Jesus Christ as Savior without seeing him as glorious and beautiful and without full surrender to him and his commandments is not salvation neither in this life nor in the one to come. God does not save prostitutes and heathens so that they remain prostitutes and heathens, but so that they will be transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ to the glory of the Father.

This prevenient work of the Spirit continues in the sustaining work of the Spirit, for “He that began a good work in you will carry out till the day of Christ Jesus.” This good work that the Spirit continues in us, which is commonly called sanctification, is nothing more than the desire for and the accomplishment of obedience to God’s commands. On God’s side, it is his Spirit working and willing his good pleasure in us; on our side, it is our seeing Christ as our glorious and beautiful King and regarding all the world’s pleasures as rubbish when compared to him.

This is why Christ commands that we forsake all for him, for only those who see him as he really is will do it. When the rich young man turned away from Christ grieved, the disciples marveled not at the rich man’s leaving but at Christ’s command to him. “Who then can be saved?” they asked. They recognized that no man, regardless of his wealth, can deny themselves for the sake of Christ. But Christ responds, “With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” God can do it. God has done it. He has done in all those whom he has called to himself, and it is to those that he commands, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor,” “Take up your cross and follow me,” and “Lose your life so that you might gain it.” These commands on not burdensome to God’s children, not because they are not humanly difficult, but because God is so much better to them than the world’s treasures.

This view of the work of God in the soul demands several questions be asked of those who claim to follow Christ: Do you see Christ as more precious than the treasures of the world? Do you say that you treasure Christ but neglect Christ’s commands and hold onto your possessions? If you do not see Christ as better than the world’s treasures or if you do not keep Christ’s commands and sell your possessions, you have nothing on which to base your assurance. The work of God in the soul is a work of God unto obedience, and God does not fail in anything that he does.

Away went Earth’s once White & vestal forms—
Defiled—ravished when Sin’s First Seed was sown;
And now, through Pangs She strains—through wars & storms,
Awaiting Him whose Kin bear Hope, She groans;

Not Her alone, but we the Sons of God,
Whose father’s Seed steeps our marrow & bones;
In Christ, we taste Rest on this war-torn Sod,
We taste but faintly, and with Her we groan;

Although in us we find the Spirit’s hand,
We pray not the Objectives of the Throne,
Nor for the Paths of Love the Father’s planned;
Thus for Harmony Divine, the Spirit groans;

Our Good, we know, is our Father’s delight,
And patiently wait till Faith yields to Sight.

~Romans 8:19-28

So, then brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God (Romans 8:12-14).

At its root, Christianity is a phenomenally simple religion. While other religions go to great lengths and into great detail about how a man by his own power might reach the divine, Christianity offers no such prescription. Instead, according to Christianity, a man can live one of two ways–he can live according to himself and in his own power or he can live according to the Spirit and in God’s power. There is no middle ground, and the Apostle Paul in Romans 8:4-17 goes to great lengths to make this extremely clear.

The nature of Christianity’s simplicity is found not in man but in God. The Christian religion is unlike every other religion in that is fully accomplished by its End, which is to say that God brings the Christian to himself. Thus when the Apostle writes, “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God,” it is tantamount to saying, “Those who live apart from the Spirit of God and his power cannot please God.” For there is no satisfaction in the Father save in the Son, whom he crucified so that “the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

The expression, “walking according the Spirit,” carries with it significant connotations. It is first a conformity. All men are said to be walking in accordance to one way or Another. And it is not the destination to where one is walking that is significant in these verses (though there is indeed a destination), but it is the manner in which he walks. A man can either walk in the manner of his flesh (which is in accordance to his own desires and aspirations), or he can walk in the manner of the Spirit. The manner of the Spirit is said to be the fulfillment of the law and righteousness (v. 8:4) and to be the way of life and peace (v. 8:6).

Walking according the Spirit is secondly an activity. A man who is walking is not at any point standing still. Therefore all men at all times are participating in activities that are either according to the flesh or according to the Spirit. These activities, by the Apostle’s testimony, are not isolated incidences in a person’s life, but they are a declaration of his final destination. The Apostle writes, “For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” Therefore, the activities in which a person consistently participates demonstrate his final end–either fleshliness leading to destruction or Godliness leading to regeneration.

Finally, this activity has a very particular manifestation. The Apostle writes, “If you by the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body you will live.” In other words, walking according to the Spirit means ultimately to put to death the deeds of the body through the power of the Holy Sprit and thereby pursue righteousness. There is no other prescription. Either one lives through the power of the Spirit and actively crucifies the deeds of the flesh, or he lives in his own power and pursues the things of the flesh. This manifestation clearly shows whether one is being led by the Spirit of God and therefore a son of God (v. 8:14) or whether he is led by his flesh and therefore an enemy of God.

How do you walk? Do you walk according to Spirit of God and strive for righteousness, or do you walk according to the flesh and pursue your own personal desires? Know that your answer to this question will show you where your final destination will be.