exploringthescriptures's Podcast

Seeing how I've been talking about Calvinism vs. Armenianism in my previous posts, I thought this would be a good resource. Phil Johnson gave an excellent talk on The History of Calvanism. Go to the above link, and it is posted as the sermon for 10/23/2005. He goes through church history and how the church fathers looked at the doctrines of grace or 5 points as they are better known.

I believe the security of the believer follows directly from the fact that salvation is a total work of God by grace through faith. Salvation belongs to our God. We didn't do it, so we cannot screw it up. This is precisely how the apostles encouraged the young church to perservere. God was responsible for their redemption and he would see through the sanctification proccess. Eph 1:13 Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession�¢??to the praise of his glory. The Holy Spirit is our gaurantee that we inherit heaven. An inheritance is given, not earned. And you cannot lose it. Also, we are commanded in Eph4:30 not to grieve the Holy Spirit, by whom we were sealed for the day of redemption. If we could lose our salvation and are thrown into hell, does the Holy Spirit come with us? 2Tim 2:13 if we are faithless, he will remain faithful. For he cannot disown himself. John 10:28-29 Jesus gives us eternal life and will not perish. No one can snatch us out of his hand. 1Thess 5:23-24 23May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. 2Cor1:21-22 21Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, 22set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. Think of the Corinthian man given to Satan to save his soul on the last day. Why would the church kick him out to be devoured by Satan if God wasn't ensuring his soul's survival. If he has to maintain his salvation, what kind of chance does he have without the support of the church. Remember he has already committed a grave sin by marrying his father's wife, and Paul cast judgement on him. Finally Romans 8:37-39 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

My first goal is to establish man's total depravity, or inability to please or seek God outside of His finished work through Christ. First, we can look at the conversion of Paul in Acts 9. Before his encounter with Christ, he was zealously pursuing the traditions of men and pursecuting Christians. His zeal did not bring him any closer to God, and Paul considered all his works before Christ as dung. Christ draws him to himself on the road to Damascus. Notice there is no decision on Paul's part, and Paul says he was set apart at birth. Romans 5:10 says that while we wer enemies, we were reconciled to God through his son. We were not seeking God, but enemies of him. We did the opposite of what was required. Without Him, we have no desire to please God. Eph 2:5, Col 2:13 while we were dead in transgressions, we were made alive in Christ. A dead man does not raise himself, pursue God, or do anything on his own. Only God can raise him from the dead. Eph 2:8-10 by grace we have been saved, not of our works so no man can boast. If we made any effort to accept or pursue God, we could boast over those that did not choose him. We are also called his workmanship to do his works. He is the potter, a pot does not choose his potter or tell him how to create. John 1:12-13 we, the redeemed, we not born of blood, or flesh or the will of man, but of God. We cannot will ourselves to be Christians, God must choose us. In my last podcast "born of water and spirit" Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born again and this is an act of God, not man's will. The Holy Spirit blows like the wind and we cannot decipher where it comes or goes. Only God knows according to his good pleasure. 1Peter 1:3-7 God caused us to be born again to a living hope. We did not cause it. John 17:6 Jesus prays for those God, the Father gave to him. He is quite clear that he is not praying for everyone, only those the Father chose for him to save. Finally, Romans 8:28 ties in sanctification with justification by illustrating those that are being sanctified were chosen by God to be justified, and that is why it is happening. 28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified

This week I am discussing John 3:1-15 with Mike Nevarr, pastor of Provident Bible Fellowship in Reston, VA. We also touch on Ezek 36:25, John 15:3, Eph 5:26, 1 Peter 1:23. Although the "my church" link on the website is Reston Bible Church, I currently attend Mike's church. I still go to RBC's Saturday night service when I can. PBF does not have a website up yet, and I will post it when it's available. The music is from Kewlpack as usual.

Joshua brought an interesting comment on my sanctification post. He suggests that because we are actively involved in sanctification, we must have been, or be actively involved in justification. A similar arguement as my other friend who said that because we were saved by faith and no works of our own, sanctification is a proccess of simply allowing God to continue his work. They come from two different sides, but the same logic. Last post I dealt with our part in sanctification, so next post I will search the scriptures to look at justification. If we play a part in being reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, then do we play a part in maintaining our salvation. Now I did poing out that we are actively involved in our sanctification, I would not go as so far as to say that we are responsible to keep our salvation intact. I believe if it took anything on your part to be saved, then it is reasonable to assume there is something you could do to lose it. A chain is only as good as it's weakest link. I believe the apostles argued there was nothing that we could do to lose salvation, and anyone who left the church, was never among them to begin with. In fact this was a teaching the apostles used to bolster the faith of the believers and allowed them to stay strong under persecution. This is the old "once saved, always saved debate". I believe it's the logical extension of armenianism vs. calvinism. A good book on this topic is "Debating Calvinism" with Dr. James White and Dave Hunt.

A friend of mine emailed me a response to the recent podcast,"flying solo". In short, he believes that the we don't actively fight against our evil desires, but rest in Christ. The fight according to him, is to allow God to do the work. Here's my response to the "let go and let God" fallacy. I believe that sanctification is 100% god and 100% us. We are actively involved, not on the sidelines. Holiness does not come through osmosis. Let's look at some verses to see how this plays out. 1 Cor6:18 "flee immorality". This is active. He is talking to members of the body saying they should not be joined with a prostitute. Your body is not your own and it was not intended for fornication. His admonition is to not engage in this act, not that they do not trust Christ's work on the cross enough. The problem the Corinthian church had was not that they were trusting in themselves too much, but they were not even trying to live a holy life and bragging about their evil acts. Actually, I think this comes from the Greek idea that body and spirit are seperate and opposite. the physical world is fallen and evil, the spirit is holy and perfect. So one could do all the evil acts with his body and remain holy in the spirit as a christian. Paul destroys this idea and says not even to associate with someone who does this in the hopes that those that are truly born again will repent and return, and those that are not will fall away and not contaminate the church. Paul's admonition is strictly for those in the church. Those unsaved pagans naturally pursue these things and need to hear the gospel. 1 Cor 10:12-14 12So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! 13No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. Here is a warning for proud christians who think they are above falling. So we should not actively engage in things that could cause us to stumble. Our holines is purely God's grace, not our own knowledge or spirituality. God allows a temporary time of testing, we are to resist the devil and God provides a way out and restores us. 1 Timothy 6:10-15 10For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. 11But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. 12Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 14to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15which God will bring about in his own time Paul here warns Timothy of the trappings of this world. People ministering the gospel fell into a love of money and left or changed their focus and teaching. Paul says to actively flee this temptation and stay focused on the eternal glory of Christ in his life and in his teaching to the body. 2 Tim 2:19 "The Lord knows those who are his,"[a] and, "Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness." 20In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. 21If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. 22Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Here Paul is instructing Peter to teach sound doctrine and not into pointless arguments. If you confess the Lord, you must turn from wickedness. You actively remove the ignoble articles in your life so you can be an instrument of God. You are to actively pursue the things of God, and run from your evil desires. James 4:7-10 7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. James is speaking to quarreling in the church. These come out of selfish desires, wrong motives, and a love for the things of this world. James says to actively fight against these sinful desires and humble yourself before God. 2 Cor8:9 8I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. 9The reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. I like this one because the testing is to the obedience of forgiving a brother as Christ has forgiven us. We are not allowed to hold grudges in the kingdom. So despite someone's sin, we are still forbidden to discipline out of anger and resentment. It can never get personal, always perfect judgement and justice is required. Vengeance is a temptation we must actively fight. And Paul acknowledges this as Satan's scheme to break up the body. 1 Peter 5:8 6Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 8Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 10And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. This almost brings our two points of view together. Our trust is entirely in God, not in our abilities. So we are completely humble in a trial, and completely confident that God will deliver us. If we are not alert and self-controlled, we are easy prey for Satan. I like the predator/ prey analogy. We resist, suffer for a time, then God restores us. We are not winning God's favor. We already have God's favor by grace through faith. The Lord disciplines those he loves. This is a sovereignly ordained trial, just as Jesus in the desert. Job is tested by Satan to curse God. God invites Satan to test his servant and puts parameters, or hedges of protection around Job. After each trial is passed, God allowes less protection. Finally when the trial is over, Job is given manifold more than he had at the start. Job is able to do this because he knows "his redeemer lives" and he knows the character of God despite his present circumstances. The great sin committed by Job's friends is they spoke what was untrue of God and questioned his character. Job was to pray for them. Joseph actively flees Potipher's wife, and does not want to sin against His God by committing adultery. It's interesting that he says against his God and not against Potipher. Finally, there is Romans 5:1-5 (there is much more, but this is what i was able to come up with for now). This shows the active proccess of sanctification. We rejoice in our sufferings because they produce character which produces hope in our God. This is a proccess we are actively involved in. I don't think the suffering is do to not letting God do the work, or accepting the atonement on the cross. Paul accepted it, embraced it, preached it and still had more suffering than we could imagine.

Since Rob has relocated to Florida for work, I will be doing the show solo. I will try and have guests on in the future as well. In today's show I am trying to recreate a discussion with Rob and myself that came up after our last show on Christian freedom. Rob asked which sin was worse, self righteousness or gross immorality. It seemed Rob was willing to sacrifice the pursuit of moral purity for fear of self righteous attitudes. I countered that it is a false dichotomy, and that the scriptures command purity under the backdrop of our complete moral depravity outside of the blood of Christ. As a side note, Kewlpack said in an email that he likes the show, and offered to do special music for us in the future.

Although this site was originally intended for Christian scriptural discussion, I thought I would weigh in on the recent Islamic outrage over the cartoon depiction of their prophet, Mohamed. I believe the two issues are 1. The cartoons portray Mohamed and Islam in a negative light. 2. You are not to have any picture of the prophet, Mohamed. I can understand being angry when poked fun at, but I cannot understand the second one. I believe not making a graven image commandment is restricted only to God. Also, blaspheming, a crime punishable by death is also restricted to God as well. By taking offenses against Mohamed, and applying the punishment reserved for blaspheming God, they are in effect deifying Mohamed and committing idolatry. I do not have a Quran to quote, but I believe Muslims acknowledge the Torah, and the 10 commandments to be divine.