The Fall as Death

I have become increasingly disturbed by the number of Christian authors and church leaders who express a muddled view of Biblical salvation. It is no wonder then, that the average person in the pew is confused as well. Semi-Pelagians will disagree with my Augustinian view of God’s sovereign role in the process. However, if we can agree to respectfully disagree on that issue, there remains a common need to be clear about the true plight of fallen humans and the real nature of sin.

Michael Wittmer’s book, Don’t Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus Is Not Enough proposes to answer some of the controversial questions of our day. By way of explaining his approach to the issues the author says, “But the most basic question, the one which determines to a large extent how we answer the others, is whether people are good or bad.” I believe statements like this one of Wittmer’s are misleading.

There is a more basic question than Wittmer asks. Goodness and badness are relative terms needing a standard from which to evaluate behavior. Problems arise immediately when we attempt to determine how good is good, or how bad is bad. Yet even this argument is specious because the Bible teaches throughout that no one is good enough to merit salvation. Being good or bad is not basic, but secondary to the real issues at hand.

The question that really determines how we answer the others is whether people are alive or dead. The Fall recorded in Genesis is referred to as death: “in the day you eat… you will die.” (Genesis 2:17) The death intended here is not a cessation of existence, rather a separation from God. Paul says humans are dead in sin, but made alive in Christ. He also calls us strangers and aliens separated from the life of God. (Ephesians 2:12, 19; 4:18

Humans don’t cease to exist when they die; they change their state of being. Note that theologians speak of the fallen state. The rebellion of Adam brought about the severance of his communion with God; the new state of existence for humans became one of separation from the Creator. The death Adam suffered was passed on to all his offspring; as the Apostle Paul explains, we inherit death from Adam and life from Christ (1Corinthians 15:22)

Discussing sin as behavior or action misleads; sin is state of being. Sin is a near synonym for death; to be in sin is to be dead. Getting saved is not as much about changing behavior as changing affiliation. To ask if homosexuals can be truly Christian misses the point. If we are not saved by our actions we are not unsaved by them either. This is not to say that sin is acceptable, but rather it is irrelevant to this discussion. Can a regenerated person sin? Clearly, yes. Can a regenerated person continue habitually in what he/she knows to be sin? Probably not. Why not? Because the attitude of rebellion (no remorse/repentance) indicates lack of regeneration.

Wittmer continues his explanation: “Because we start life totally depraved, it is easy to see why we need the dramatic rescue of regeneration. And since Scripture says that the Holy Spirit uses truth to do this job, it logically follows that only those who know and rely upon the basic facts of the gospel can be saved.”

Again, Wittmer misleads. “Depraved” is a theologian’s word; it is not frequently used in Scripture to describe fallen humans. The word “depraved” comes directly from a Latin word meaning to make exceptionally crooked or bent.. The idea of being bent leaves open the option to correct by straightening. Yet the Bible presents no such option for our condition post-fall. Humans don’t need straightening, they need remaking.

The Scripture word for our condition is “dead.” A dead person can’t know anything; a dead person can’t be corrected or bent back to life. The only cure for death is regeneration, a word meaning rebirth, just as Jesus told Nicodemus in John chapter three. Jesus told the Pharisee he had to be born a second time, from above to see or enter Kingdom. Jesus did not instruct his midnight pupil to study more to learn how to come to faith. In another place, in fact, Jesus told the friends of Nicodemus that they studied the Scriptures in vain, for He was revealed there not to them, but only to those of faith. (John 5:39-47) He implied that belief precedes saving knowledge.

Humans are not regenerated because they know something; they know something because they get regenerated. “There is no one that seeks after God…” (Romans 3:11) Scripture does not say that the Holy Spirit uses truth to regenerate us as Wittmer suggests. Scripture says that we cannot know or see or understand the truth until the Spirit regenerates us. Paul told the Corinthians that the carnal or natural (Greek: psychical) man can not understand the things of the Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:14) We do not come to belief because we learn something we didn’t previously know; we learn things about God because we come to believe that He is and that He has previously sought, bought, and re-wrought us.

Salvation, in the final analysis, is a unilateral act of God saving human beings from death, i.e. separation from His presence eternally. Humans are born into this world “dead” because we are children of Adam. David said, “In sin my mother conceived me…” (Psalm 51:5) The only way to escape the fate of Adam’s curse (death) is to be reborn as a child of the Second Adam, Christ Jesus. Neither knowledge nor actions play any role whatsoever in the process of human rebirth through the Holy Spirit of God. We can not choose our spiritual birth parents any more than we can choose our physical parents. One is either in Adam or in Christ; either position is dictated by the sovereign will of God. (Romans 9)

All our bickering about behavior must be at the level of church discipline if corporate, or about fellowship with God if personal. Debating about certain sins as if they are relevant to salvation is to surrender the field to a faulty presumption. Let us have a healthy debate, but let us debate from right premises. The so-called post-moderns Wittmer cites in his book are really post- Christians because they are post-Biblical. A true reading of Scripture reveals that humans are not hell bound because they sin; they sin because they are hell bound. They are hell bound because they are dead. Our only meaningful offering to these lost ones is to make them aware that their Creator has provided an alternative. They must make the ancient choice: remain dead, or choose life through Christ. By God’s grace, through the gift of faith, the elect are enabled to choose life.

Living like Jesus is not enough, as Wittmer’s title suggests. Living in Jesus is the necessary and sufficient cause to warrant confidence of salvation. This condition is brought about by the effective work of the Holy Spirit and creates a state of being: being in Christ, as the Scripture puts it. It is not initiated by nor sustained by anything any human can do; “not by works, lest any one should boast.” (Ephesians 2:9) The question is not about doing, but about being.

The Object of Repentance

I have written numerous times about the necessity of obedience as a part of true faith. (See related posts) I noticed something in Paul’s words to the Ephesian elders that reminded me of another aspect of saving faith: repentance. No one who reads the Bible with any sincerity will claim that naked faith is saving faith. James makes this point by saying that even demons believe God exists. That is not going to save them from eternal damnation. It’s not enough to believe; saving belief demands obedience, and the first step of obedience is repentance.

The nature of a believers repentance is critical, and it takes two forms. Paul told the Ephesians that he, “Did not shrink from…. testifying both to Jews and to Greeks with respect to repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus.” (Italics mine.) The repentance he spoke of had a particular object in mind: God. Paul expanded on the nature of saving repentance in his speech to King Agrippa telling him, “I proclaimed that they should repent and turn to God, doing deeds worthy of repentance.” The worthy deeds to which Paul referred are the second aspect of saving repentance that mark true belief.

Let me begin by defining repentance as it is used in the New Testament. The Greek word for repentance, metanoia (μετάνοια), means a change of mind. We most often think of repentance as changing our mind about sin resulting in a turning away from sinful thoughts. What Paul makes clear is that not only are we turning from something, but we are turning toward something when biblical repentance takes place. A person without knowledge of or concern for God may turn from sinful behavior for any number of reasons. Anyone might turn away from stealing because it carries potential negative consequences for example. That is not biblical repentance; it does not involve a turn toward God.

Repentance toward God, as Paul puts it, is clearly a change in the direction of our thinking. The first form this takes is very broad in nature as it involves the direction of our lives and our eternal destiny. To repent toward God is to realize that our only hope for salvation is found in God’s gracious provision of His Son, Jesus Christ. Many people are of a mind that their good deeds will put them in favor with God when it comes time for judgment. There are many people who claim to be Christians who think this way. They are wrong. The repentance required of these people is a turn from a type of works salvation toward the grace-gift from God granted through faith alone. Works are a result of saving faith, not the cause of it.

The second form of repentance necessary to saving faith is almost a continuous act. Because our minds, even after regeneration, are constantly drawn toward sin by the world, the flesh, and the devil, true believers must make the effort to repent, to change the mind by renewing it daily. Paul’s instruction to avoid conformity with the world and to seek a renewed mind is another way to say repent toward God. It’s not enough to say I repented on such-and-such a day and got saved. If that initial repentance was genuine and effective, it will be followed by a continual desire to set our mind on things above – heavenly things – not on things of earth. The things of earth include anything that would draw our minds away from God’s glory and ultimately into sin.

Paul adds one more thing to his description of repentance toward God in his speech to King Agrippa: “Do deeds worthy of repentance.” Paul is not preaching works salvation. What he is saying is that worthy repentance, worthwhile repentance, effective repentance toward God involves good deeds done toward men. Jesus said that the entire law and the prophets (all Scripture) hang on two things: love for God and love for your neighbor. He shared the famous parable of the Good Samaritan to demonstrate that by neighbor He meant anyone in our sphere of influence who has a need, and love for that neighbor involves doing good deeds on his behalf.

Sadly, there are too many people who occupy a pew on Sunday who give little serious thought to this second aspect of repentance. The idea that everything exists for our entertainment is endemic to our society. Watching an athletic contest or a movie or a preacher is supposed to give us pleasure. Far too many churches have fallen prey to the idea that their services must be entertaining if they are to attract people. That approach models the things of earth rather than things above. A. W. Tozer laments that, “Cultivation of a spirit that can take nothing seriously is one of the great curses of society, and within the church it has worked to prevent much spiritual blessing that otherwise would have descended upon us.” ^[1]

Too many believers do not take repentance seriously. They have grown comfortable with earthly things, and they have forgotten that the new earth God is preparing for His own requires their attention now. If one does not turn from the pleasures of this world and turn toward God now, that one’s eternal home may not be as secure as it should be. The price of admission to that glorious New Earth was paid on the Cross of Calvary. To be admitted one day, we must get in line and stay in line. Now it’s your turn.

Related Posts: Necessary Obedience; Understanding Salvation; I Don’t Believe in God

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^[1] A. W. Tozer and Gerald B. Smith, Evenings with Tozer: Daily Devotional Readings (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2015), 357.

In Jesus’ Name

Ever since I was a boy, I have heard prayers end with, “In Jesus’ name, amen.” This construction comes from the clear teaching of Jesus that after He was gone, His disciples should make their requests of their Heavenly Father in His name. They did so, and they turned the world upside down. In the centuries since then, it seems the power of Christian prayer has diminished significantly. There are many reasons why a prayer may not seem to be answered in the way we want; I wrote about them in “The Problem of Unanswered Prayer.” I wonder if there is another reason I missed: maybe we have forgotten what the “Name” is in which we pray.

In the first few months of church history, the Jewish leadership tried to squelch the disciples preaching in the name of Jesus. Peter refused, telling the Sanhedrin that salvation was offered in no other name. They knew what it meant to use “The Name.” In their Scriptures, their God was often referred to as The Name. God’s actual name, Yahweh, was so revered that they would not speak it out loud. Most English translations of the Bible pay homage to this attitude by substituting “LORD” in the text where Yahweh appears.

By preaching Jesus as the Name, what the disciples were doing was calling Jesus Yahweh. That is what so angered the Jewish religious leaders. They would have been even more upset if the disciples had suggested what some contemporary scholars believe: namely that the Yahweh of the Old Testament is the Yeshua of the New Testament. Students of the Scripture have proposed that there were pre-incarnate appearances of Yeshua, Jesus, throughout Israel’s history. The most fundamental of these appearances is described in the first few verses of John’s Gospel. In the beginning, the Word was responsible for all things that were created. John clearly states that the Word become flesh is Jesus. So, in some way, Jesus is identified with the creator God of Genesis one.

The key to understanding this is found in the word “pre-incarnate.” Before becoming flesh, the Word was pre-flesh, fully divine. Paul explains in Philippians chapter two that to become incarnate, to put on flesh, Jesus had to empty Himself of some of His divinity. The most significant thing Jesus put aside was omnipresence; He could only be where His fleshly body was. Exactly what He retained of divinity is unclear. He knew men’s thoughts, controlled natural phenomena, defied conventional physics, and healed diseases. What we call His miracles were just Him being God incarnate.

Something else He retained was the Name if Peter is to be believed. In other words, all the power of God, the fullness of God is wrapped up in Christ, especially the power to save. That is easy to see when Peter says there is salvation in no other name. What may be harder to recognize is what that means when Jesus tells His disciples to pray “in My Name.” At the very least, we can understand that it means we ask with the authority of Jesus. A military example will make this clear. If a corporal is told by his sergeant to get something from the supply clerk, the corporal asks for it in the name of, by the authority of the sergeant. His request would be granted because of the sergeant’s authority, not his own.

When we go to prayer in Jesus’ name, we are essentially saying, “Jesus told me to ask for this.” It takes a lot of nerve to say that if you haven’t heard from the Lord. I have cited Graham Cooke’s book, Crafted Prayer, before. He says that too often we make a request of God before having sought to know what God’s will is in the situation. We cannot honestly say we are coming to the Father in Jesus’ name if we haven’t first listened to what Jesus may be saying about the topic.

Cooke and others have also pointed out that we can pray with confidence if we are praying God’s Word back to Him as long as we are not taking it out of context. We know, for example, that it is not God’s desire that any should perish, but that all might come to Him in faith. I believe this gives us license to ask that anyone on our list would come to believe in Christ as their savior. I don’t mean to say that such a prayer is a guarantee of the person’s salvation; what I am saying is that we can confidently align ourselves with God’s attitude toward the lost and rely on Him bring about salvation for those He chooses.

There are other prayers that we can know are within God’s plan. He always cares for the poor, the orphans, the widows, and those unjustly imprisoned. He will always be in favor of approaching any situation with a heart toward peace and reconciliation. The Word commands us to pray for our civil authorities so that we may be able to live lives of peaceful godliness. We are called to pray for our church leaders so that they will be empowered to do their ministry according to God’s will. These prayers and others can be found in Scripture which gives us the right to ask for them in Jesus’ name.

However, there will always be situations that have no exact biblical reference to assure us of God’s will. Should I buy that car; should I take that job; should I marry that person; should I donate to that ministry; is it God’s will to heal that disease? How do we gain the confidence to pray in Jesus’ name in those situations? The only way I know is to seek the mind of Christ in quiet contemplation. This is difficult for most of us as A. W. Tozer points out: “Modern civilization is so complex as to make the devotional life all but impossible, multiplying distractions and beating us down by destroying our solitude…. Even the majority of Christians are so completely conformed to this present age that they, too, want things the way they are.” [1] Too often, the way things are is not the way Jesus would have them.

Tozer suggests a remedy: “However, there are some of God’s children who have had enough. They want to relearn the ways of solitude and simplicity and gain the infinite riches of the interior life. They want to discover the blessedness of what has been called “spiritual aloneness”—a discipline that will go far in making us acquainted with God and our own souls.” That is the answer. We must become better acquainted with God if our prayers in Jesus’ name are to be effective. I pray that you can find a quiet place… in Jesus’ name, amen.

Related Posts: The Presence of God; Moving Mountains; Prayer Primer

 ^[1] A. W. Tozer and Gerald B. Smith, Evenings with Tozer: Daily Devotional Readings (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2015), 348. 

THE PROBLEM OF UNANSWERED PRAYER

The following is an excerpt from my book,  A Life of Prayer.         

   Anyone who has begun to pray seriously will eventually question whether God truly hears and answers our prayers. We must turn to the Bible to learn the truth about prayer. We know that God desires communication with His creation. In the very beginning, God spent time walking and talking with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. After they rebelled, humans lost the intimate line of communication they had enjoyed. From that point on, it seems that God primarily spoke directly to those He wished to communicate with either by a mediated presence (theophany) or in dreams and visions.

            The bulk of the recorded prayers in the Bible are found in the Psalms, most of which were written from the time of David through the time Israel returned from captivity in Babylon. We know that prayer is an important activity because Jesus, the perfect human, spent many hours in prayer to His Father. He also told his disciples that they should pray after He completed His mission on earth and returned to the Father. There are numerous examples of prayers and encouragements to pray throughout the rest of the New Testament. It is these Scriptures that give us the most accurate information about prayer in our time.

The temptation is to take one or two verses of Scripture and apply them universally. Jesus did say, for example, that we can ask anything of Him, and He will do it (John 14:13). The context is about glorifying the Father, so the word “anything” is limited to only that which brings glory to God.  It goes without saying that one who believes in Jesus (also part of this context), would not ask for something that would be displeasing or dishonoring to God.

In his first epistle, John seems to double down on the concept of receiving anything we ask for saying, “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” (1 John 5:14-15) The context here is asking “according to His will.” That is another way of saying that our requests must be only those which would bring glory to God.

Another passage that is often misunderstood is found in both Matthew and Mark. In Mark’s version, Jesus says, “whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). The limiting factor here is that you must “believe that you have received it.” Notice the verb tense of the word “received.” You must be utterly convinced that your request has already been granted in Heaven, and you are simply waiting for its fulfillment here on earth. A person can only have that kind of faith if there is absolute assurance that God has granted the request.

There is a way to be quite certain we are asking for what God wants: ask for those things which align with his revealed character and His will for His people. This can be accomplished by praying God’s word back to Him. For example, the Old Testament has repeated assurances that God will never forsake His obedient children. We can pray, “God, I thank you that you are with me in this situation because you have promised never to forsake me as I seek to follow your way.” Add to this the certainty that God is pleased to be praised and we can say, “God, I praise you even in this circumstance, knowing that you will go through it with me.”

There is a danger here that we may take something out of context and apply it to a situation for which it was not intended. This often happens with the statement by Isaiah which is quoted in the New Testament, “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases” (Isaiah 53:12; Matthew 8:17). Matthew makes it clear that this verse does not apply only to spiritual healing (ie. salvation), but that physical healing was also in view. However, it is illegitimate to insist that the taking of illness must apply immediately in every instance. Jesus did not heal every person in Israel. Not every lost soul will come to faith in Christ. His death on the cross made provision for both spiritual and physical healing, but it is up to God to dispense those benefits as He wishes. We are not out of line to ask for physical healing, but it is still God’s choice to honor the request.

            In his marvelous little book, Crafted Prayer, Graham Cooke says, “Prayer, in its simplest form, is finding out what God wants to do and then asking Him to do it.” (p.8) Cooke correctly observes, “We often find ourselves praying out of the shock or trauma of the situation itself and out of … our concern.” (p.1) I remember someone saying long ago that prayer is not about aligning God with our will but aligning our will with God. Instead of jumping straight into a prayer for healing or deliverance or whatever based on our concern, we should first thank God for His presence in times of trouble and wait for Him to reveal His good, sovereign will in the trouble.

            All of this demands that we study the Scripture to know God’s will and His heart. It also requires a time of silent meditation and listening as a regular practice of prayer. As I said before, mature prayer is a dialogue not a monologue. When we don’t know what to ask, we can still go through the first three steps of the ACTS model (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication), and then wait silently. God told the psalmist to, “Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted in all the earth.” (Psalm 46:10) We do not need to rush into prayer of supplication or intercession; God is already more concerned with the situation than we will ever be, and He knows exactly what to do. We need only to quiet our minds and listen for His voice.

            There is another way that we can pray knowing God’s will is being honored: prayer in the spirit. In Paul’s letter to the Romans he said, “We do not know how to pray as one ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with unexpressed groanings” (8:26). Some people believe this means that as we submit to God’s will in our prayers, the Holy Spirit takes our requests to the Father in accordance with His will. This is undoubtedly true.

However, there may be more to prayer in the spirit than just the Holy Spirit praying since the Greek word used of the Spirit’s praying generally refers to an actual sound. Romans 8:26 might be translated to say the Spirit “makes sounds that are unintelligible.”  Many people believe that a special prayer language utilizing our human voice is the expression of the Spirit of God aiding our human spirit to pray. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14 that when he speaks in a tongue, he is communicating directly with God (v. 2). He explains later in the chapter that when he prays in a tongue, it is his own spirit that prays, although his mind does not comprehend (v. 14). A prayer language is not essential for spirit led prayer because the Holy Spirit can lead our prayers spoken in the language we know. However, a prayer language can be helpful for those who choose to practice it.

I suspect that everyone has times of dryness in prayer or doubts the effectiveness of their prayers. The Psalms are full of cries to God where the writers wonder if God is hearing their impassioned pleas. Note that in most cases where doubt begins the Psalm, an expression of faith that God will hear and act follows. We also have the numerous promises in the New Testament to assure us that God indeed hears our prayers. Mature prayer becomes a trust-building exercise. For example, when James says that the “prayer of faith will save the sick” (James 5:1), we know that is true 100% of the time. What we don’t know is what time God will choose to heal – it may be right now, later in life, or not until the person is taken home to glory. The fact remains, ultimately, all sickness and disease will be healed.

In the same way, we know when we pray in accordance with God’s will that our prayers will be answered. This is true of prayers for healing, deliverance, protection, blessing or any other legitimate request. When I am waiting for the answer to something I believe is within God’s will, it comforts me to remember that God is not bound by time as I am. God was in the eternal present tense when He created the universe we call home for the time being. Time is a creation of God as surely as the earth and all the heavens. When God calls this age to a close, as Scripture promises He will, He will still be in His eternal present.

The Bible says God knows the end from the beginning. This is true because He exists at the end and the beginning at the same “time” since He exists independently from time. We must labor through the progression of minutes, days and years as human creatures, but God does not. When He promises that something will be accomplished, He can speak with utter confidence because He sees the completion as if it already occurred, because to Him, it has. Knowing this, I can pray and wait out the passage of human time with confidence that God has already seen the answer to my prayer.

I am not a man who is proud of his prayer life. I grew up in a Christian home in a time when families ate every meal together (imagine that!), and prayer before the meal was a privilege that was passed around: “Whose turn is it to pray?” I’m pretty sure I was taught to pray, “Now I lay me down to sleep…” before bed every night. Then there were prayers in church every Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday night. But honestly, these were all rituals to me; I don’t recall thinking of them as communication with the God who created everything.

When I was in my twenties, a religious revival swept over my family. My older sisters (all three of them) became involved in movements where prayer was something you did because you expected to accomplish something by it. They went to “church” and praised God with full voice and lifted hands and an excitement that was contagious. After a couple years of dancing around the fringes of their experience, along with two years of Bible college and hours of serious personal study and seeking God, I finally joined them. Some would say I was baptized with the Holy Spirit or filled with the Holy Spirit, but whatever you call it, it revolutionized my prayer life.

I wish I could say that I became a pray-without-ceasing kind of guy at that point, but that would be a lie. I prayed more often than I had been, and I prayed with the knowledge that God was actually listening. I completed two graduate degrees from Christian institutions which gave me sound foundational knowledge. I bought books on prayer encouraging praise and intercession and warfare, but there were still too many times when I had the feeling that the ceiling was the height to which my prayers rose and little more.

It wasn’t until I became more disciplined (think spiritual disciplines) that I began to feel as if there was power in my prayers. I began to use charts and lists and prayer partners to drive me to a consistency that had eluded me for years. I am not suggesting that everyone needs that kind of structure, but I did. Then I discovered the concept of “crafted prayer” which takes the Word of God and makes prayers from it. That was revolution number two.

As I read the Scripture daily (through the Bible in a year, typically), I began to find prayers everywhere. Since my three children and six grandchildren are on my daily prayer list, they became the focus of my crafted prayers. I don’t get to see them as often as I would like, so I don’t always know what’s happening in their busy lives. When you don’t know what to pray, pray Scripture. You can’t go wrong with that.

The basis of this book was a series of Sunday School lessons I wrote for the people I went to church with. A computer study and devotional program gave me 21^st century tools to fine-tune my regimen.  Retirement gave me the ability to spend as much time as I needed/wanted on my devotions and prayer. Eventually, I wanted to share what I have learned with others. I still frequently reach that point Paul mentions in Romans 8:26 where I, “don’t know how to pray as I must.” I know that the Holy Spirit prays on my behalf in ways that no program, no list, no earthly thing can accomplish. This is good. It keeps me praying. I pray you might find the same confidence and consistency in your life.

Can You Lose Your Salvation?

Today, as I read John’s record of Jesus’ final words to His disciples before He was taken away, I was struck by how many times in chapters 14-17, He said keep My commandments (4 times) or keep My words (10 times) as an essential element of true belief. I ruffled some feathers a while back when I suggested that just as God gives the word to people, He also takes it away. This begs the long-debated question of whether someone can lose their salvation.

The writer of Hebrews describes people who have fallen away as having, “tasted the good word of God.” Some ask if tasting the Word is equivalent to becoming saved. If so, this verse seems to suggest one can forfeit salvation through apostasy. Perhaps the Hebrew readers would recall Old Testament prophets who were instructed to eat a scroll containing God’s word. I might be stretching the metaphor, but I see eating and tasting as significantly different.

Jesus, whom John proclaimed was the Word made flesh, once told people that they must eat His flesh if they truly wanted eternal life. Jesus’ explanation of that shocking statement made it clear that He was talking about His words. The point is obvious: licking nourishing food won’t give any sustenance; it must be eaten. In the same way, tasting God’s Word will not bring eternal life; it must be eaten – taken into the very soul of existence to do any good. Only those eat, who act on God’s Word are true believers, as Jesus implied by tying obedience to belief.

Rather than discuss what level of unbelief results in the loss of eternal life, I want to look at what proper belief looks like. Throughout Jesus’ last supper teaching, He emphasized the fact that love for Him involved obedience to Him (14 times). A.W. Tozer puts it like this: “Our Lord told His disciples that love and obedience were organically united, that the keeping of His sayings would prove that we love Him. This is the true test of love, and we will be wise to face up to it!”^[1] Our obedience to Christ’s Word is the proof of our love, but what does that look like?

When Jesus was explaining the parable of the sower, He described true receivers of the Word by saying, “these are the ones who, hearing the word, hold fast with a noble and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.” Jesus said after hearing the word, there are four characteristics that indicate true belief: holding fast, having a noble and good heart, bearing fruit, and demonstrating patient endurance. Each one of those things bears a closer look.

“Holding fast” is another way to describe obedience. Those who play fast and loose with God’s Word connive whatever ways they can to circumvent it. Strict obedience is the farthest thing from their mind. Those who hold fast make sure that all they do is in accordance with the Scripture. They run a tight course within the boundaries instead of looking for shortcuts that allow them to skirt their biblical responsibilities. They want to do what the Word says.

A person with a “noble and good heart” is just the type we would love to have for a friend. The biblical definition of noble is commendable and honest. To be good in the biblical sense is to be generous and kind. Each of these traits represents obedience to Jesus’ commands and find their center in the greatest one: to love God and to love one another. Essentially, Jesus said to truly love Him the love of others is required. Another was to say this is that our love must be heartfelt not duty bound.

It is no surprise that Jesus included “bearing fruit” in His description of a true believer. In John 15, He called Himself the vine from whom His disciples would draw the life that made it possible to bear fruit for the Gardener, His Father. Throughout the New Testament the nature of the fruit coming from the True Vine is described as righteousness otherwise known as doing good. This hits the same chord once again: hearing leads to doing if it is genuine.

“Patient endurance” can only be found in those who know and do God’s Word. In fact, patience is part of the fruit of the Spirit which characterizes all true believers. If I didn’t know Who the victor is in the struggle we call life, I would not be able to endure. My patience comes only because I know Whom I have believed, and I believe He is able to complete His good work in and through me. I don’t understand how people who are not caught up in love for God and His Word can get out of bed every day. However, I do understand the epidemic of emptiness and despair that characterizes worldly people.

My advice to anyone who is worried about losing salvation in Christ is to look for these qualities in their life: holding fast to the Word, having a noble and good heart, bearing fruit, and waiting patiently for God’s will to be accomplished. I’ll repeat Jesus’ words once more: “If you love Me, keep my commandments.” There is no salvation for someone who doesn’t love Jesus. There is no true love for Jesus without obedience to His commands. The question isn’t whether you can lose your salvation; the real question is whether you have gained it.

Related Posts: Necessary Obedience; Merely Christian

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^[1] A. W. Tozer and Gerald B. Smith, Evenings with Tozer: Daily Devotional Readings (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2015), 345.

Disrespecting God’s Sovereignty

Arrogant moderns believe they know better than the ancients who were the writers of God’s Word. This attitude reveals two serious errors in their thinking. The first error is that they discount what it means to say that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. A. W. Tozer says this: “Let a man question the inspiration of the Scriptures and a curious, even monstrous, inversion takes place: thereafter he judges the Word instead of letting the Word judge him; he determines what the Word should teach instead of permitting it to determine what he should believe; he edits, amends, strikes out, adds at his pleasure; but always he sits above the Word and makes it amenable to him instead of kneeling before God and becoming amenable to the Word….

“Why such a man still clings to the tattered relics of religion it is hard to say. The manly thing would be to walk out on the Christian faith and put it behind him along with other outgrown toys and discredited beliefs of childhood, but this he rarely does. He kills the tree but still hovers pensively about the orchard hoping for fruit that never comes!”^[1]

The other deadly error that flows from the arrogance of many modern Christians (so-called) is that they deny the complete sovereignty of God. Many people claim that Jesus is Lord. To have a lord means to have a master. This is why Paul often refers to believers as servants and slaves. Paul also said, “no one is able to say, “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.” Certainly, the words “Jesus is lord” can come from the mouth of anyone, but Paul meant that true belief in the statement is not possible by purely human intention. In other words, the Holy Spirit must have quickened, regenerated a person for them to say “Jesus is Lord” with all its ramifications. If one truly believes Jesus is lord as the Scriptures claim, it follows by definition that God is sovereign.

I have written several articles on the subject of God’s sovereignty. (See Related Posts) The most frequent objection to absolute sovereignty regards God’s election to salvation. This aspect has been debated for centuries by sincere believers, and I don’t think the argument will be settled until we sit at Jesus’ feet in the fully realized Kingdom of God. I think we can agree to disagree about election and still end up at Jesus’ feet.

What concerns me more than election is the consequence of denying God’s sovereignty in other areas. When a weak view of the inspiration of Scripture leads to a limited view of God’s rule over all things, a critical line is too easily crossed. I called those who take such a position arrogant because, as Tozer points out, they set themselves above Scripture as its judge rather than being judged by Scripture.

This is how we end up with Christians who believe God can bless same-sex unions. In this way, Christians can find support for abortion. By adopting this error, believers convince themselves it is alright to live together without being married. Sincere believers can remain satisfied with the milk of God’s Word rather than moving on to the meat by daily, deeply studying the Bible. Such thinkers believe that they can be fully functioning members of Christ’s body without regular fellowship with a local expression of that Body.

Perhaps the saddest result of not trusting in a sovereign God is what it does to our souls. True born again, blood bought believers can forget the reality in which they are supposed to live. When a difficulty arises, they are fooled by the enemy of the soul to think they face it alone. Until we achieve our resurrection (Maranatha! Come quickly Lord Jesus), we are stuck in this world within reach of the one whom Jesus called the god of this world. But the evil one is not our god; we have been transferred from his kingdom into the kingdom of the one who is Light. The correct approach to any problem is to start by looking to God in His Word and through prayer. Once we have settled our position relative to the God of Heaven, we can work our way through the earthly layers of our responsibility. By seeking God first, we ensure that our soul is protected from its sworn enemy, and we can go forward in peace, knowing Who holds the future.

Immediately after Jesus made the startling statement that true commitment to Him required a person to eat His flesh, an argument arose and many of His disciples ceased following Him. In a classic understatement, someone said, “This teaching is hard. Who can accept it?” Jesus’ answer is instructive. He said in part, “The Spirit is the one who gives life. The flesh doesn’t help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life…. This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the Father.” Coming to Jesus involves both believing what He said and doing what He said. Both believing and doing are Holy Spirit empowered things granted by God.

Arrogance (aka pride) is the original sin. Adam and Eve made themselves the judges of God’s word and reaped the consequences: they were kicked out of the Garden and sentenced to a life of toil and trouble. God also put a cap on their longevity; they would not live on the perfect earth forever, nor would the earth remain perfect. An essential component of believing in God’s sovereignty is condoning what He did to Adam and conceding His right to do it. That places the entire human race in opposition to God until each individual reconnects with Him by the grace of the Holy Spirit’s intervention. The primary way that happens is through God’s Word; as Jesus said, His words are spirit. Until a person fully submits to that sovereign Word, his eternal destiny remains uncertain, and his soul will be troubled. How much of life can be unsubmitted and still retain eternal life? Do you really need to know?

Related Posts: Election: God’s Choice; Calvinist or Arminian; Understanding the TULIP Doctrine; Why Bother With Church? Light Shining in Darkness

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^[1] A. W. Tozer and Gerald B. Smith, Evenings with Tozer: Daily Devotional Readings (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2015), 339.

Political Exhaustion

Robert B. Charles made an insightful point in his post in the AMAC newsletter after the 2024 Presidential election, “Prepare for Emotional Exhaustion.” His main point was that after fighting long and hard on whichever team you play for, post-election catharsis is inevitable – exhaustion. I am certainly tired of the political ads that filled the airwaves for the last several months. They seem so pointless to me. I don’t know anyone who makes a voting decision based on advertising. Thoughtful people have better ways to examine the candidates and form an opinion. This was especially true this season because one party repeatedly made numerous false, defamatory accusations and the candidate was usually unable to articulate a cogent position on anything. I am particularly tired of that!

But it was Charles last point that really struck me. He wrote, “In this case, the election was brutal, arguably off-base, historically out of line with American politics.” Brutal: repeated impeachment threats, multiple lawsuits, and two assassination attempts against Donald Trump are definitely “off-base.” Like out of the ballpark off-base. He said they were “out of line with American politics,” but I have to disagree, sadly. Politics in this country has become increasingly partisan and divisive. Part of the reason for this, in my opinion, is the emotional factor being employed: scaring seniors with false threats to their Social Security, making pro-choice voters think abortion would be criminalized (as perhaps it should be), predicting huge increases in the cost of living all played on emotion rather than offering rational policy solutions.

I am aware that as far back as the election of George Washington, candidates tossed political firecrackers at one another. It seems that now they are using hand grenades and IED’s. When anyone calls their opponent Hitler for nothing worse than a policy disagreement, we have gone a step too far. When one party’s supporters attempt to assassinate their opponent, we have abandoned the American way of free expression of political ideas in the most egregious way. And when a candidate tells someone at her rally that the Christian message on a sign shows that the person is at the wrong rally, religious freedom is also being attacked, and a philosophical viewpoint is being proclaimed.

As Christians, we don’t have to insist on electing only fellow believers. What we must insist on is that any candidate we consider voting for cherishes freedom of religious expression. I have written previously that religious freedom is under attack by the progressives in this country. I have warned as Martin Niemöller did during WWII that if we don’t speak out against religious discrimination now, we will eventually forfeit the right to speak at all. There are already signs that the silencing process has begun.

It is now considered hate speech and punishable criminal behavior to use the wrong pronoun in reference to a person suffering from gender dysphoria in many public schools. Many employers threaten termination of persons who express religious opinions that are not appreciated by a fellow employee. The right to stand on a public sidewalk a respectable distance from an abortion clinic and protest the murder of the unborn is a chargeable offense. Wearing a tee shirt with a religious message to a public school will almost certainly get the student sent home, and discipline up to expulsion is not unusual. Need I continue?

The damage that the progressives are inflicting on the First Amendment is not their only attack. Second and Fourth Amendment rights are being trampled on a daily basis. Their explanation for these infringements reveals a fundamental difference in the Constitutional views of the two political parties. Most Democrats believe the Constitution must be continually revised to account for changes in cultural norms and expectations. Most Republican jurists hold the view that the document that governs us was written in such a way that all eventualities can be judged by its historical form. The way this works out is the Democrats are constantly reinventing meaning while the Republicans seek to understand the original meaning of the Founding Fathers.

The Bible teaches us to obey the law, submit to earthly authority, honor those to whom honor is due, and pay our taxes, etc. Despite all the naysayers, America was founded on Judea-Christian values. Those values are enshrined in our Constitution. Rewriting it or ignoring it when it restricts some newly discovered freedom (like freedom to murder innocents) is precisely what the progressives want. As Christians, we ought to be deeply concerned when the foundations of the Founding Fathers are being dynamited. I believe we elected a protector of religious freedom yesterday. If you were praying for that eventuality, don’t stop praying now. Like Robert B. Charles said, you may be exhausted, but I say you need to stay alert and keep praying because the roaring lion hasn’t been caged – he might be fettered, but his reach is still extensive. As the song says, “We are strongest when we are on our knees.”

Related posts: And Freedom for All; How to Boil a Frog; What Price Freedom?; What Does it Mean to be an American?; Strict Obedience

Vote! Please!

After all the rancor surrounding the 2020 Presidential election, I vowed to concentrate my writing on general Christian living and Bible teaching. However, today, three days before the 2024 election, I feel I have to say something. Every national election is important to a degree, but this one will have monumental consequences for everyone, not just Christians.

If you are like me, you are so DONE with political advertising. I wouldn’t be as fried if the candidates were actually outlining their policies; they could even differentiate their views from their opponents, and I wouldn’t mind as much. Unfortunately, neither party is spelling out much of what they plan to do in any detail. In my market (Arizona) the only issue that seems to matter to the Democrats is abortion. They are making outrageous claims to frighten pro-choice voters onto their side. If you read my blog during the last election, you know that I cannot abide the Democrat position that a woman has the right to murder her unborn child. It is seldom wise to vote on a single issue for something as wide-ranging as presidential authority, but I would be remiss if I didn’t say that a vote for the Democrats is a vote for murder.

Polls indicate that there are two main issues voters in this election care most about: the economy and the border. By “economy” I suspect that most people mean inflation. A true measure of prices for things everyone needs to live has gone up between 17% and 20% over the last four years. If you didn’t know this, you must not do the shopping in your house. Harris has said that there are no Biden policies she wound change. You have to decide if that is good for your budget or not. One thing is certain: we cannot afford to bring unlimited numbers of immigrants into this country and give them financial help when we are already struggling under significant inflation and tremendous national debt. (For more on that, read “Man the Lifeboats.”)

Unbridled immigration is a more complex problem than just its economic effect, and the positions of the two parties are clear to anyone who listens. Most of Trump’s immigration policies were reversed by Biden as soon as he took office. He installed Harris as his border czar, and the disaster that ensued is undeniable. The most frightening thing about their current position on immigration is their insistence that non-citizens (illegal aliens) be allowed to vote. This strikes at the heart of our representative government. Only legal stakeholders should have a say in government policies. True, the Democrats are making illegal aliens stakeholders by granting them living assistance of every kind. But to my mind, that just doubles down on the original mistake of letting so many come across the border. They become guaranteed Democrat voters to keep their gravy train running.

Another issue that is flooding the airwaves in my area concerns Social Security positions. The Democrat ads shamelessly mislead seniors by claiming that Trump would cut their retirement benefits. It is true that Trump (and most Republicans) realize that if something isn’t done to reform Social Security, it will implode in the near future. However, to scare seniors now collecting benefits by suggesting that Trump would reduce their checks is a bald-faced lie. None of his policies that I am aware of affect current beneficiaries. His plan would raise the age of initial eligibility and offer a hybrid investment plan with individual control of one’s own money. The kind of changes Republicans are suggesting are necessary to save Social Security for the long run. The Democrats have no such plan. (For more on my take on SS, see “Social Insecurity”)

Finally, independent, non-biased accounting estimates that the goodies Harris promises if she is elected would inflate the national debt by trillions of dollars. If you don’t understand why the national debt is your problem, read “Imaginary Money.” Using a household budget as an analogy, our current situation is like having so much debt that you have to pay every penny you earn to cover the interest – just the interest; you would not be paying one penny on the principle, and there would be no money for food, fuel, clothing, and anything else that you need to survive. It is a sad commentary on the intelligence of American voters that we have come to this untenable position. Our entire system is hanging by a thread, and Harris wants to add more weight to the burden.

Many people were dissatisfied with Trump as a person back in 2016 and 2020. They wouldn’t vote for him because they didn’t like him. As I wrote then, the Presidential election is not a popularity contest: I like her better than him (Nah-nah). On one important level, the United States is the world’s largest business entity. Donald Trump has proven to be a very successful businessman. His term in office gave ample evidence that his expertise transfers to his position as President. He also professes faith in God, and he would never tell someone at his rally (as Harris did) that they were in the wrong place because they were supporting Christian values. If enough conservative voters abstain because they don’t “like” Trump, they will assure the election of Kamala Harris.

This short piece will not likely change many votes. Many people have already voted early, and those who have not yet cast their ballot will probably not be convinced to change. My only hope is that I may encourage someone to vote – either way – so that our next President represents the citizens properly. By that I mean properly elected by a majority of informed, legal citizens. The next four years will be radically influenced by who wins the top of the ticket.

Related posts: Vote Anyway; Politics Stinks; Honor the King; The Circle of Well-being