Some here, some there — November 21, 2014

by Dan Phillips

Here's the first burst. I'll start some major adds after my Bible etc. reading, so check back. Priorities!

If @RickWarren called the Pope "the Holy Father," without air-quotes, how does he retain ANY cred among Christians? (http://t.co/njIleze1lu)
— Dan Phillips (@BibChr) November 18, 2014

• I go to Doug Wilson's site daily. But it may be a week, two or three, before something grabs me. Then when Doug's in the ten-ring, he is just In. The. Ten. Ring. Like this brilliant takedown of Greg Boyd.
• Friends don't let friends indulge their revulsion against God's sovereignty. See Pinnock. See Boyd. See a host of others.
• It often seems to be the case that when Doug is brilliant, he's brilliant by clusters. So the above was followed soon thereafter by Remanded to Sensitivity Camps, which is, well, brilliant. It's a thought from the same seedbed as this post, which even Challies admitted seeing.

You know, it's that 99% of the Charismatics that give the other 1% a bad name.
— Dan Phillips (@BibChr) November 11, 2014

• WORLD Magazine. No less than the New York Times has a profile touting the magazine as being a fearless, clear-eyed exposer of Protestant leaders' sins. I myself was initially a very vocal fan and promoter of the magazine. But their drift forced me to a very different position.
• I noted a bit ago big names who seem to dismiss reparative therapy for same-sex fornicators, but without reported explanation. Now comes a solid piece from Heath Lambert titled What’sWrong With Reparative Therapy?
• Some pastors are responding to the gay mirage fad by opting out of doing civil marriages altogether. (Site may have unsavory side-column images.)
• At the risk of making this a Doug Wilson themed edition, the brother offers his own thoughts on the previous suggestion.
• Today is an historical landmark of sorts, no pun intended:

Incredible to consider it was one year ago today that I interviewed Mark Driscoll about his new book. What a year. #JesusIsLord
— Janet Mefferd (@JanetMefferd) November 21, 2014

• Which makes it hard not also to recall:

I wouldn't recommend authors go on @JanetMefferd's show after she pulled this during an interview with @PastorMark http://t.co/a0zdkIC43P
— BetweenTwoWorlds (@between2worlds) November 23, 2013

• Pause to reflect on the commentary that subsequent history added to both Tweets.
• Now, to be fair: if anyone knows of any retractions and apologies — which is to say, any welcome deviations from PA#2 — let me know so that I can share.
• Not related, and not theological, but still fairly awesome.
• To us:

"Phillip, fetch me the nail gun." - @drmoore to @pbethancourt at the Vatican pic.twitter.com/50VjR7XhIA
— Eric Schumacher (@emschumacher) November 19, 2014

• To the Pope:

Back on American soil. Thank you @Pontifex for gracious hospitality, and the opportunity to have this important conversation.
— Russell Moore (@drmoore) November 21, 2014

• In between? Don't know.
• Used to be that Multnomah Press was a sure sign of Biblically-faithful Christian books. No longer. But in a rarity, the publisher is splitting into two labels, to deal with conservative titles and those that aren't so much. They're being up-front with buyers, that some of their titles are going away from Biblical fidelity. You know, just like Eerdmans, Baker, and Zondervan didn't.

RT @played_well: One of the best fridges ever. pic.twitter.com/A3JY58rPWJ @BibChr @jacigreggs I updated my wish list.
— Fred Butler (@Fred_Butler) November 21, 2014

• Remember how Houston's lesbian mayor Annise Parker was seeking sermons and correspondence from some local pastors touching on homosexuality, her conduct in office, related matters? Remember how her legal team launched it, she doubled down, then she retracted? Turns out it seems to be ongoing.

Of gathering of Jews, Muslims, LDS and others, @RickWarren says "we all love Jesus Christ" — http://t.co/MJ6GK5U0SZ
— Dan Phillips (@BibChr) November 19, 2014

• Butler on Lawson on Watson.
• Yep:

---

Something to Keep in Mind in a Time of General Apostasy

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "Earthquake but not Heartquake," a sermon originally preached Sunday morning 27 February 1887, at the Met Tab in London.

    am often sadly tossed about because of the heresies and false doctrines of this present age. It grieves me to the heart to see the want of spirituality among ministers, and of holiness among professing Christians. It cuts me to the quick to see the utter rubbish and poison which is preached instead of Christianity.

At times it looks as if all things were going wrong; the men to whom one looked as pillars, forsake the faith, and the staunchest give way for the sake of peace.

We are apt to cry, "What will become of us?" But if God is our refuge and strength, we need not be afraid, even amid general apostasy. While God lives, truth is in the ascendant.

I remember years ago meeting with that blessed servant of God, the late Earl of Shaftesbury. He was at Mentone with a dying daughter, and he happened that day to be very much downcast, as, indeed, I have frequently seen him, and as, I am sorry to confess, he has also frequently seen me. That day he was particularly cast down about the general state of society. He thought that the powers of darkness in this country were having it all their own way, and that, before long, the worst elements of society would gain power, and trample out all virtue.

Looking up into his face, I said to him, "And is God dead? Do you believe that while God lives the devil will conquer him?"

He smiled, and we walked along by the Mediterranean communing together in a far more hopeful tone.

The Lord liveth, and blessed be my rock. All long as the Lord liveth our hope lives also. Gospel truth will yet prevail, we shall live to see the old faith to the front again. The church, like Noah's dove, will come back to her rest again.

---

God Meant It for Good

by Phil Johnson



he beginning and end of Genesis make an interesting contrast. The book starts with "In the beginning God . . . " but ends with the words, " . . . in a coffin in Egypt."

The opening chapter of Genesis is about creation; the closing chapter is about death. At the beginning, Adam is placed in a beautiful garden surrounded by life and divine blessings. At the end, the body of Jacob is interred in a cave with the bodies of Abraham, and Sarah, and Isaac, and Rebekah, and Leah. And Joseph's body is kept in a coffin in Egypt, awaiting burial in that same cave. Pretty dismal stuff, when you think about it.

The rest of Genesis is the chronicle of how sin entered the human race and brought catastrophe and divine wrath again and again. God's judgment against the sin of the human race is a repeated theme. There's a worldwide flood, the confusion of languages at Babel, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

In fact, from a human perspective, the Genesis account often seems like things are totally out of control. Human history begins with the fall of Adam, and everything gets worse from there. It gets so bad that in Genesis 6, God simply wiped out the whole human race and started over again with one family. But even after that, the human race seemed bent on wickedness. So God confounded their languages and dispersed them around the globe. He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for their wickedness. And by the time you get into the heart of Genesis, there are almost no righteous people in a world of paganism and evil. Abraham is the one person who is truly devoted to Jehovah. (According to 2 Peter 2:8, Abraham's nephew, Lot, was a righteous man. But he was so thoroughly worldly that he serves only as a negative example.) Abraham's own family is seriously dysfunctional, and major family troubles persist in every generation, right through to the end of Genesis.

Finally, internal strife tears the chosen family apart when Abraham's great grandchildren sell their brother Joseph into slavery in Egypt. Then a famine forces the rest of the family to seek refuge in Egypt, and the book of Genesis ends (it more or less just grinds to a halt) with the death of Joseph in that foreign land.

The whole story, on a purely human level, is both disturbing and discouraging.

But through it all, there is a subtle thread of redemption, and Genesis gives us enough of the divine perspective to reassure us that God is completely in control. He has a good purpose in the midst of all this misery and strife. Evil may seem to have the upper hand, but God will triumph.

That, of course, is the great lesson of Genesis. It is the very lesson the story of Joseph and his brothers is designed to relate. It's a lesson about the sovereignty of God, even in the face of human rebellion. And it's summed up in that final chapter in Joseph's brief words to his brothers after the death of their father: "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive" (Genesis 50:21).

---

God Is Great; God Is Good

by Phil Johnson



    love Job's immediate reaction to the first wave of tragedies that rocked his life, robbed him of his possessions, and took the lives of his children, all in one single, horrific day: "He said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord'" (Job 1:21).

It's a response rooted in the very doctrines most people today associate with Calvinism. Job was confessing that God is sovereign; that every good thing Job ever had in the first place was a gracious gift from the Lord's hand; and that by definition, Job had no rightful claim to any of God's blessings.

Even more important, in the throes of a grief greater than you and I have ever known, Job was confessing that God is good. It was the very opposite of what Satan claimed Job would do (verse 11): "He will curse you to your face." Instead of cursing, Job blessed God's name. He knew that even in the midst of such unthinkable calamity—despite all the evil that had befallen him—God is good.

Job did not understand God's purpose, of course. He knew nothing of Satan's challenge (vv. 9-11). But he knew the character of God. That is why he was so tormented trying to figure it all out. But you can read all his complaints and protests, and you will see that he never once impugns the goodness of God. In fact, in Job 13:15, Job says, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." He trusted that God was good.

Did you realize that in the New Testament, James says that is the very lesson the book of Job is designed to teach us? James 5:10-11: "As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful."

Even this horrible trial was a token of the Lord's mercy and compassion to Job. I know that is hard to grasp because of our human prejudices, but I am certain that when we get to heaven, we will hear testimony from the lips of Job himself about the great goodness and compassion of God that came to him because of his trial.

See, although Scripture says Job was a righteous man (Job 1:1, 8), that doesn't mean he wasn't a sinner. It means he was a justified sinner. His conscience was clear of any unrepented sin (and Job himself outlines that argument in chapter 31). Some have suggested that there was an element of overconfidence or self-righteousness in Job. But remember that even Satan had nothing to accuse him for in chapter 1. He was justified. He was forgiven. He had devoted his life to the pursuit of holiness, and there was no glaring, gross, or life-destroying sin in his life.

Still, Job was not sinless. He acknowledged his need for a Redeemer in Job 19:25. And at the end of the book, when He begins to have an even greater understanding of God's greatness and sovereignty, Job's response in Job 42:6 is, "I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

But let's not miss the point: God did not afflict Job in order to punish him for his sin. God was testing him, proving him, and strengthening his faith. God's ultimate purpose for Job was good, even though the immediate effect was calamity. This was not punishment for his sin.

Bear in mind on the other hand, however, that Job, as a sinful creature, knew he had no claim on any blessing of any kind. God could justly afflict him, because Job needed to be refined and strengthened. And God's ultimate purpose, as James 5:11 says, was compassion and mercy.

Consider this: Job's loss was temporary. All his afflictions were transient, passing tribulations that would eventually give way to an even greater weight of eternal glory. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:17, Our "light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison."

Suffering is the price and prelude of glory. For Christians, the suffering is always temporary, and the glory is eternal, and infinitely greater. That is our hope in times of trouble.

God eventually gave Job back more than he had lost: Job 42:12-17 gives the end of the story:

And the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. And he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. He had also seven sons and three daughters. And he called the name of the first daughter Jemimah, and the name of the second Keziah, and the name of the third Keren-happuch. And in all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job's daughters. And their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers. And after this Job lived 140 years, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, four generations. And Job died, an old man, and full of days.

When I first read that years ago, I couldn't help feeling that new sons and daughters would hardly make up for the children Job had lost. As a father, I cannot imagine the pain that would be caused by the loss of one of my sons. And a new son wouldn't ease the sorrow of loss or make up for the pain of it. So my first reaction to this passage, years ago, was to think this was scant comfort for Job.

But consider this: Job's children were righteous, too. So when he died, old and full of age, he was instantly reunited when them for all eternity. Even now, they are together in the Lord's presence. Job, from heaven's perspective, can look back on that trial and say it was truly a light and passing affliction, and the Lord restored to him everything he ever lost, and more.

That is our joy and our confidence in the midst of disaster. It may be contrary to the feelings we experience when we suffer loss, but from an eternal perspective, God's goodness is a far more solid rock on which to cast our anchor than the way we "feel" in the midst of calamity.

That's why theology is so important. It teaches us that despite what we may feel, God is still in control; he is just and righteous; and above all, He is good.

That is precisely what the promise of Romans 8:28 teaches us, isn't it? "We know that all things work together for good." How do we know that? Because we know that God is good, and so no matter what He does—no matter how painful or how hard to understand it may be for the moment—we know He will use it for good. And it is the very definition of faith to be able to cling to that promise no matter what.

In the words of Psalm 31:19, "Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the children of mankind!"

Help us, Lord, to trust what we know, even when we cannot see it in the dark.

---

The natural-disaster-out-there dodge (NEXT! #23)

by Dan Phillips

Challenge: How can God cause a(n) [natural disaster] in ____ that kills ____?

Response: You mean, why doesn't He do the same every day in every city on every continent? Why hasn't he done that to you? Excellent question! Those days are coming. But God is showing that He is long-suffering, giving the same opportunity for repentance that the people in _____ had enjoyed.

NEXT!

(Proverbs 21:22)

---

Sovereignty of God conference in Rio Rico, AZ

by Dan Phillips

I had the pleasure of being the speaker at the South Arizona Grace Bible Conference over the weekend. My host was Pastor Jim Kirby, of Sovereign Grace Baptist Church in Rio Rico, Arizona.

Every bit of it was a blessing of one kind or another. Being invited was a blessing, the hours of hard study and prep were a blessing, and the trials that constituted spiritual prep were a blessing.

I told Jim (not entirely joking) that I didn't think I wanted to do a conference on the sovereignty of God again. In addition to the reading and praying and thinking and writing, there was the suffering that God graciously saw fit to send as preparation. Some of it was in the form of heartaches on a personal level, some was in the form of a number of what a pagan would call "misfortunes" — things just going wrong for me and/or my family. The collateral damage even extended to poor Pastor Kirby, whose truck broke down as he came to pick me up at the airport.

It's the collateral damage that is the more painful, as any pastor who loves his family will attest. My dear wife sacrificially made sure I had time to study and prepare, but hardship came her way as well.

But seeing the good brothers and sisters again, and meeting new friends, was a joy; and bringing the messages was also a joy. As an added treat, pianist Sam Rotman gave his testimony, and a brief performance on the piano.

Old septic [sic] that I am, I greeted Sam's promise of a five-minute testimony with a raised eyebrow. But the man was every bit as good as his word, and it was a gripping testimony — as was his piano performance at the next session. (Further inevitable humbling came my way as I went 'way overtime in my own session; I knew I would on this one, though — it should have been two messages, but I felt compelled to give it all.)

The four messages I brought on Saturday had me so worn out that I asked the Kirbys if we were "still in California," as we drove to dinner. Oops. People who think preaching isn't hard work — well, I understand their thinking it, but I think they think it because they haven't done it.

Or if they've done it, and it wasn't hard work, they did it wrong.

My public thanks to Jim Kirby for inviting me yet again, to him and his wife Paulette (who the Lord has used to bring a number of sisters to Himself, though her personal Bible studies) for hosting me, and to the good folks of their church for making me feel welcome.

Jim is a fellow-Calvidispiebaptogelical, and so he also knows how it is sometimes to feel like a lonely sparrow on a rooftop.

In case anyone cares to hear them, the messages are online. Of course you're free to listen to none, any, or all, just as you wish. But there is a designed progression. Each is premised on what proceeds

Here you go:

“The Sovereign God and Creation”

“The Sovereign God and Free Will”

“The Sovereign God and Evil”

“The Sovereign God and the Plan of Redemption”

“The Sovereign God and Salvation”

“The Sovereign God and Christian Prayer and Endeavor”

---

Sovereignty of God conference in southern Arizona

by Dan Phillips

In case anyone cares to join, Pastor Jim Kirby and the gracious folks at Sovereign Grace Baptist Church of Rio Rico have invited me to participate in another Bible Conference.

I'm to give a series of six talks centering around the Sovereignty of God. The conference is scheduled for October 17-18, and you can read all about it HERE.

---

Choice thoughts on choosing

by Dan Phillips

(My thoughts on this Communicating Better post)

To be Biblical, theology at least has to deal with the raw data of Scripture. Any system will have parts it sings with, and parts it groans and sings with — but where you find yourself groaning too heartily, you should take a second look at your system.

I think it's beyond rational debate that the Bible envisions man as by design a deciding creature. "The plans of the heart belong to man," Solomon writes (Proverbs 16:1a), and the word translated "plans" suggests "arrangements." A lot of decisions go into an arrangement: do this, then this, then either this or this, depending on what happens.... This is the assigned lot of man, and rightly so. All over Scripture.

God faces Cain with a choice between doing well and yielding to sin (Genesis 4:7). Through Moses, God presents Pharaoh with a number of choices (cf. Exodus 8:1-2). To the nation, Moses cries, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live" (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Fast-forwarding to the ministry of our Lord, we see many choices laid out, and the ringing command to choose rightly. "Repent," Jesus calls (Matthew 4:17); choose the narrow gate over the deadly broad way, Jesus warns (Matthew 7:13-14); come (Matthew 11:28), go (Matthew 28:19). Choices, choices.

Yet behind and over it all is the sovereign will of God, which is exhaustive and invincible, and which always has both the first and the last word.

So should we be reluctant to use the language of choosing and deciding? Evidently not. The Bible surely does it freely and frequently.

I think where we get hung up is in failing to deal wisely and believingly with Deuteronomy 29:29 — "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law."

Part of the problem, then, is that we concern ourselves too much with the wrong side of the equation. We gum up a critical difference that this verse reveals.

On the one hand, it is absolutely true that we can't do anything apart from God's sovereign will. We can't live (James 4:15) nor breathe (Daniel 5:23), let alone plan (Proverbs 21:1) nor do (Proverbs 16:9b). His sovereign will is a sure thing, and it is a secret thing.

But how does that rubber meet the road? Does that mean we shouldn't do anything unless we know whether it's God's sovereign will? If that's our chosen path, then evidently it's God's sovereign will that we be useless, pathetic idiots.

We needn't worry about whether God's sovereign will is done or not. It will be! Hel-lo, it's God's will! And it's sovereign! It simply isn't in our power to stop it from being done (Proverbs 19:21; 21:30)!

So look at it this way. If you're leery about telling someone to choose to trust in Christ, or decide for Christ — what would you tell him? Do nothing? Is that Biblical? Tell him not to repent, not to come to Christ, not to believe in Him? Is that Biblical?

But God urges him to do all these things! Isn't that sufficient authority for you and me telling sinners that they should? Isn't Jesus' invitation sufficient grounds for our invitation? If the King Himself invites them to come, commands them to repent, urges them to believe — what greater warrant would you ask?

In fact, isn't it tempting God and rank unbelief to refuse to issue such exhortations and invitations?

And if they tell us that they did in fact decide and choose to trust Christ as Savior and Lord, is it a godly and helpful thing to jump all over them and mock them?

Judging by that last, really-superb meta, I think you worked that one out for yourselves pretty well.

PREVIOUS META RULES DON'T APPLY
NORMAL BLOG-RULES APPLY

---

Promises, promises

by Dan Phillips

Reading through Mark last week, Peter's words arrested me: ὁ δὲ ἐκπερισσῶς ἐλάλει· ἐὰν δέῃ με συναποθανεῖν σοι, οὐ μή σε ἀπαρνήσομαι (Mark 14:31a).

Got that? Great! Let's close in prayer....

No seriously; let me tell you how and why this verse caught hold of me.

Peter spoke this during the last supper the apostles shared before Jesus' crucifixion. Jesus had just dropped the bombshell that every one of them would fall away from Him (Mark 14:27).

Peter, the Mouth that Roared, immediately leaps up to say, "Even though they all fall away, I will not" (Mark 14:29). Peter phrases it in such a way that indicates that it is perfectly conceivable to him that those other losers might bail. "But not I," he says tersely and emphatically — strong adversative (ἀλλ᾽) and no verb.

In response, Jesus agrees with Peter — sort of. Peter is right that he will indeed do differently from the others. But not the way Peter insists. Jesus tells Peter that he alone — Peter — would deny Him three times (v. 30).

Bringing us to Peter's retort given above, for which I'd offer this ad hoc translation: "But he very vehemently kept insisting, 'Even should it be necessary for me to die with You, I absolutely will not deny You!'"

Greekers will note the double-negative — a (pardon me) no-no in English, but in Greek a doubly-emphatic negation. Peter is saying that there is no way he will deny Jesus: "Not! Not!"

We all know the sequel, Peter's miserable failure and his heartbroken weeping.

Now, I don't for a moment doubt Peter's sincerity. Do you? Nor do I question the depth of feeling behind his words, nor the intensity of his intention and full expectation to fulfill them. Peter meant every word he said. Yet he failed. He could not deliver on his promises.

How did the Rock crumble? Where did Peter go wrong? In many ways, actually.

Mostly, Peter's estimations were all off. He did not put a high enough estimation on Jesus' words. He badly underestimated the fierceness of Satan's coming attack, and the intensity of the temptation he'd face.

On the other hand, Peter seriously overestimated his own strength of character and will, his resolve, his ability to withstand temptation in his own strength. So when the trial came, the pressure soared and Peter came up short — far, far short.

Now, turn from this to Hebrews 13:5, which I render thus: "Your way of life must be without love of money, being content with what is at hand; for He Himself has said, 'I absolutely will not abandon you, nor will I ever, ever desert you.'"

Another promise. Another emphatic promise — indeed, a very emphatic promise. The Greek student will count no less than five negatives in the last nine words: "Not, not will I abandon you, neither not not will I desert you." It is, I have heard, the inspiration for the hymn's wonderful words,

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose
I will not, I will not desert to its foes.
That soul, though all Hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no never, no never forsake.

"Another promise," you say. "Like Peter's." Yes; when I read Peter's double-negative, I thought of this quintuple-negative.

But consider the differences. When God makes this promise, is there any chance, any possibility whatever, that His estimations will be off? Is it possible that God did not know how difficult you would be, elect soul? Did He not know about your weakness, believer in Christ? Your flaws, your follies, your defects?

Did He not know of the difficult life you'd have — what kind of a spouse that person you dated would turn out to be? How your job would go? What would happen to your income, your neighborhood, your church, your health?

Is it possible that God overestimated the power of His grace to be sufficient for you? That He thought too highly of His ability to keep you, and control every last one of your circumstances (personal and impersonal; Psalm 115:3; Proverbs 21:1; Romans 8:28; Ephesians 1:11)?

If you have the false god of "open theism," yes, I suppose all of those things (and much worse) are possible.

But if you have the almighty God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for your God, then no. His promises are better than the best solid gold.

You can bank everything on them.

Postscript: This truth is of great personal value. I had just written these words when one with a broken heart came to see me, weeping because of a faithless, treacherous person who had callously betrayed him (and many others) for love of a sin, and arrogant refusal to repent.

I had the opportunity sincerely to sympathize, and to share what a wonderful contrast such a person makes with God. Thank God that God never shifts, falters, flips, nor turns traitor. Thank God that "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved" stands good now and before the Throne, as surely as "I absolutely will not abandon you, nor will I ever, ever desert you."

Thank God that God is God, and not man.

---

Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility. Again.

by Phil Johnson



cts 27 is that great chapter where Luke chronicles Paul's journey to Rome and describes how he was shipwrecked along the way. Two verses in that chapter make an interesting contrast.

In verse 22, Paul prophesies: "There will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship." But in verse 31, when some sailors try to escape the sinking ship secretly, Paul tells Julius (the Roman centurion in charge of his transport to Rome): "Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved."

There you have the twin principles of divine sovereignty and human responsibility perfectly juxtaposed against one another. These are the very truths so many people (ranging from the rankest Arminian to the most rigid hyper-Calvinist) insist are contradictory truths. But here they appear side by side and in perfect harmony in the Bible.

There is no contradiction. Both things are true. Not one soul on that ship was going to die, because God had decreed it. Yet unless the crew stayed on the ship and brought it aground on the island of Malta, the passengers could not be saved.

How can both truths be simultaneously true? Simple. Because God ordained the means as well as the end, and the means He had ordained for saving that ship depended on the crew's ability to steer the ship to the island of Malta and run it aground in the sand and surf. God's sovereignty did not annul the sailors' responsibility. In fact, God's sovereignty is the very thing that established their responsibility.

God works through instruments. And He often uses human instruments. He could, of course, accomplish all His good pleasure solely by the direct agency of His own hands. He could accomplish His will simply by speaking the word,as He did when He first said in Genesis 1:3, "'Let there be light,' and there was light."

But most often, God works by secondary causes—indirectly—through whatever instruments He chooses. He set the sun in the heavens to give light to the earth. Could He have illuminated the earth by direct light from His own glory? Certainly. That is how heaven will be illuminated. Revelation 21:23 says the New Jerusalem has "no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb."

God can work any miracle He chooses and accomplish His will with or without means. But in ordinary cases, He uses ordinary means. That is how He has established His universe, and that is why we are responsible to do as He commands, even though we know He is utterly sovereign and His will cannot be thwarted.

It was absolutely and perfectly true that God's ultimate purpose was for every man in that vessel to be saved from the storm. It was also absolutely and perfectly true that unless the sailors remained with the ship, lives would be lost. The same God who decreed the end determined the efficacy of the means He chose. His sovereign decree to save every passenger did not nullify the duty of the sailors; it established and affirmed their duty.

Verse 22 makes clear that it was God's certain and infallible purpose to save every soul on that ship. Verse 31 establishes the fact that their salvation would be brought about by the actions of the centurion, and on the subsequent actions of the crew. The whole thing was done by the appointment and the decree of God. It was also accomplished by voluntary action on the part of the centurion and the sailors. Both things are true, and there is no difficulty whatsoever, if you understand that God ordained the means as well as the end.

Paul's knowledge of God's ultimate purpose did not prevent him from issuing a warning and directions to Julius. Neither did the knowledge of God's purpose prevent Julius and the soldiers from doing what they needed to do. Remember this: The belief that God wills something is a powerful reason to use every means available to effect God's will; it is not a reason to fold our hands and say, "God will do it, whether we do anything or not."

People often claim that God's sovereignty in salvation nullifies our duty in evangelism. If God has ordained that His elect will be saved, what need is there for preaching and personal evangelism? That is one of the favorite arguments Dave Hunt, Ergun Caner, and most of the rabid anti-Calvinists in the SBC (and elsewhere) like to use against the doctrine of predestination. But it's nonsense if we understand that God ordains the means as well as the end, and the means He chose by which to call the elect is by the preaching of the gospel.

Romans 10:14-15: "How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?" In fact, "knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others" (2 Corinthians 5:11).

It is in no sense incompatible with the truth of election or the principle of God's sovereignty in salvation to persuade sinners, plead with them, beseech them—even beg them as ambassadors of Christ, in His stead, to "be reconciled to God" (v. 20). That plea is the very instrument God has ordained to turn the hearts of people to Himself. That's what Scripture means when it says the gospel "is the power of God unto salvation." First Corinthians 1:21: "For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."

If you understand this principle—that God in His sovereignty normally accomplishes His plan through the use of ordinary means, it will clear away most of the confusion and perplexity that is so often associated with the doctrine of divine sovereignty and its twin truth, the doctrine of human responsibility.

Our duty as ambassadors of Christ is to proclaim the promise of forgiveness, to urge men to repent, and to plead with them to be reconciled with God. Those are the very means God uses to save those whom He effectually draws to Christ. He does not save sinners apart from the means He has chosen.

---

An unkind word, which is better than a kiss from an enemy

by Frank Turk

I’ll admit it: yesterday went badly.

Mostly, there was an abject refusal to obey the rules I asked all players to abide by, and while Dan valiantly tried to stem the tide, it all went completely downhill sometime around the place where I posted my reply to Adam O. Calvinists and their deniers were all to blame, so please everyone pause for a moment of repentance and shame.




OK. Now that you are all appropriately chastised, I have a couple-three observations about yesterday’s meta, and then a couple of words regarding why you should just stop pretending that modern-day objections to “Calvinism” are really “Arminian”, really not “pelagian”, and really do any good for you as you think about and proclaim the Gospel.

On the meta:

1. Isn’t it somewhat bizarre that, given the opportunity to simply shine and show off how logical and biblically-cohesive their view is, the non-calvinists/anti-calvinists didn’t have much to say until the meta fell apart?
2. And isn’t it completely telling that, as Dan pointed out, you can’t make the non-calvinist position make any sense in 500 words – you have to go long and hope that the reader isn’t paying close attention?
3. Most importantly, isn’t it most telling that the non-calvinists really wind up being people who don’t receive Paul’s answer to the hypothetical questioner in Romans 9 with any kind of seriousness? You know: Romans 9 where God has apparently failed in His promise and man is sort of just a victim of God’s capricious choice to save or not.

Now, that all said, I know this post has a tone of simple disdain. I know it because I cannot avoid it – I really try to have patience for the non-calvinist, but the truth is that they don’t really have any patience for the Calvinist under any circumstance, and they as a group don’t really listen: they just want to bluster on about God being the author of evil as if the book of Job didn’t exist, or the point of Acts 2 wasn’t God’s final sovereignty over the most heinous act in the history of the world.

But here’s the thing: almost none of these people are really “arminian”: they are post-Finney revivalists who are afraid that the Gospel in Calvinistic terms is too hard on God. It makes God too seriously-involved in the real world so that He might be (mis)construed as the author of evil. But the consequences of that concern have consequences these people do not have any regard for. For example:

1. If God does not (in the Gen 50 sense) “intend” evil in any way, he certainly does not “superintend” the acts of the universe – so the future, while God may “know of it” in some way, is not in His control. The case the Bible makes plainly that God knows even if a single sparrow falls to the ground, and how many hairs are left on your head, and He knows the content of men’s hearts, and He does nothing without knowing the end from the beginning. No “arminian” makes any sense of this problem – which is a foundationally-biblical problem as it is actually the point of most of the Bible.
2. Suffering has to make sense in this world. It is too pervasive a state for a “gospel” which is to be declared to every man to ignore – and the “arminian” who is trying to protect God from being sovereign over ever evil is stripping the Gospel of any credibility in a world where children starve, babies are murdered, old people suffer in pain and loneliness, nations suffer under despotic and vile men, and acts of nature dispossess people of life, liberty, and property every single minute of every day. The rosy world of the anti-calvinist simple, blithely, whistles past the pervasive nature of evil and pain in this world. If God is not in charge of it in some meaningful way, the universe He is allegedly running is running away from Him.
3. The death of Christ cannot be explained if God did not intend it is some direct and specific way. It was an evil act: make no mistake. Peter says in Acts 2 it was an act of evil men. But He also then says it was God’s plan accomplished by God’s means. There is no meaningful explanation of the crucifixion of Christ unless it is to say that God intended it specifically and particularly.

These other explanations dismantle the Gospel and make Christ’s work, and the whole world, about how man can do better – and you people haven’t been reading Pelagius, so I don’t imagine that you’re enamoured of him and want that to be your patron saint. But what you have (unintentionally) done is become influenced by the children of Charles Finney.

Finney was himself a virulent anti-calvinist, so much so that it is hard not to call him a full-blown pelagian. His view that the faith should be about new methods and moral reform plainly spell out the problem: he doesn’t see man as essentially unable to be faithful to God – and frankly, that's Pelagius version 2.0. We sort of admit in humility that we are “sinners”, but that label doesn’t imply, for example, real enmity and rejection of God: it only means we make mistakes.

The Gospel comes, and Christ is sacrificed on a cross, not because you didn’t try hard enough. Christ’s work wasn’t made so you had an example of how to live a better life. The wall of enmity had to be torn down, and the only power strong enough to do it was perfect obedience and God’s authority. So I am sure you people will run the meta into the ground again today – because you didn’t really know this about yourselves, and it’s hard to hear. Listen: I’m on vacation. I’m not headed back this way today. You make sure you abide by the normal rules of this blog, and you can have the last word.

And go ahead and be in God’s house with God’s people on God’s day this week, and you could there repent of thinking God isn’t really great enough to be in authority over evil without being the author of evil. I forgive you – if you repent. God offers you the same deal – and it’s his opinion which should matter to you.

And I lack my normal sig file, so you'll have to suffer through ...

[Perhaps I can help — DJP]

---

One Arminian's Proof-Texts

ere's an exchange of e-mail messages I had with an Arminian who wrote me to insist he had irrefutable arguments against the sovereignty of God in the salvation of sinners. It turned out he had a real gift for distilling Arminian presuppositions into neat sound-bites and supporting them with unusual proof-texts, but his points were hardly "irrefutable." (His messages are in the yellow boxes; mine are the bluish ones.)

I have a few verses I would like to get a Calvinist interpretation of. To me they don't seem to be compatible with many of the Calvinist doctrines; they deal with God commanding us to repent and turn to him and with us forsaking Him after we have been following Him. Why would God command something that is impossible?

God clearly does command us to do that which is impossible for fallen sinners: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). Moreover, the law of God itself demands to be obeyed perfectly, flawlessly (James 2:10)—thus demanding a level of obedience that has proven utterly impossible for every person who ever lived, except Christ. Therefore the fact that God commands us to do something is no proof that we have intrinsic power in our fallen state to obey Him. (Cf. Romans 7:15-16). One major reason God gives us moral standards we cannot obey is to reinforce our knowledge of our own spiritual impotence, so that we have no option but to turn to His grace as we seek salvation from our sin. (Cf. Luke 18:13-14). Nothing but sheer arrogance and a blindness to one's own spiritual poverty would lead anyone to think he is capable of obeying God or saving himself through human will power. (cf. Luke 18:11; Romans 10:3.) It is also a serious mistake to imagine that inability nullifies responsibility in the moral realm. The fact that sinners are spiritually dead and therefore morally unable to obey God does not remove them from the moral obligation to obey Him. I think you misunderstand the Calvinist objection to "free will." Every true Calvinist believes sinners are responsible moral agents, free from any external force or coercion in the choices they make. They choose freely. But they inevitably choose wrong, because their choices are determined by their own nature and their nature is sinful and corrupt. We can discuss this further if you're interested, but the point is simple: A call for the sinner to "choose" something good is in no way incompatible with Calvinist theology. Those simple points ought to take care of most of the verses you thought were incompatible with Calvinism. Why not give me a handful of your strongest proof-texts and let me respond to them?

OK. Job 34:4: "Let us choose to us judgment: let us know among ourselves what is good."

Scripture often calls us to make choices that involve a decision for good rather than evil. That in no way suggests that we are morally neutral, or inclined neither to evil or to good. Choosing "good" goes against the sinner's nature (Romans 8:7-8), so unless God graciously intervenes to awaken and empower us, we will always make the wrong choice (Jeremiah 13:23). And we do so without any external force or compulsion. In that sense our choices are perfectly free. But apart from divine grace we would be hopelessly enslaved to our own lusts (Romans 6:20). So the sinner's "choice," though free in every meaningful sense, is always predictably wrong.

Job 33:27-28: "He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; He will deliver his soul from going into the pit and his life shall see the light."

Note that this verse plainly teaches it is God who enlightens and saves the sinner; the sinner doesn't turn himself around apart from God's enablement. I don't know what in this verse you imagine is incompatible with Calvinism.

Job 40:14: God states; "Then will I confess to you that thine own right hand can save thee."

Well, just read what goes before this verse. The Lord speaks to Job out of the whirlwind and says, "Do you have an arm like God?" (v. 9). Can you thunder with a voice like His? Can you deck yourself in majesty equal to His? (v. 10). Can you disburse your wrath in a way that humbles all who are arrogant? (vv. 11-13). If you can do all that in the same way God can, "Then I will also confess to you That your own right hand can save you." In other words, God Himself is saying it is arrogant to think you can save yourself. That's exactly the same point I made above.

Deuteronomy 30:19: Moses tell them to choose life rather than death. If there is no choice in the matter why would he say this?

See above. They do have a choice. They just can't make the right choice without God's gracious enablement.

1 Samuel 15:11: Saul "turned back from following" the Lord, so he had to have been following Him at some point in time. As far as what I have learned one of the doctrines that Calvinists teach is the irresistibility of grace. Here it does not seem to irresistible.

Again, you don't understand Calvinism very well. God's grace toward His elect will always ultimately triumph over their resistance. (In other words, "irresistible grace" does not mean God's grace is never resisted, because many of us resisted it at first, but it ultimately proves irresistible.) However, God's goodness to the reprobate ("common grace")—which is what you see operating in Saul's case, I believe—is always rejected and resisted.

Joshua 23:8-16: Joshua warns Israel to cleave to the Lord their God as they have done and not to turn back. If they could not turn back in the first place why would God have Joshua warn them in the first place?

God's warnings are often the means He uses to secure our perseverance. See John Murray's comments on this in the chapter on perseverance in Redemption: Accomplished and Applied.

Galatians 4:9, 11: Paul asks the Galatians why they would desire to be in bondage again by turning to the weak and beggarly elements after they have been known of God. If grace is irresistible why would they have to be warned?

See previous answer. The warning itself is a manifestation of grace.

Jude 24: The expression is "able to keep us from falling"; not "will keep us from falling." Able in Greek means "maybe" "might" "can" anything but "will."

Wrong. "Able" in Greek is from a root that means "power"—dunamai. Literally, "God has the power to keep you from falling." Moreover, Peter makes it explicit: we "are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Peter 1:5). God's own power is the keeping agent, not my own weak and fragile "will power."

I have nearly 100 scriptures that seem to be incompatible with many of the Calvinistic teachings. I would greatly appreciate it if someone could interpret these scriptures with a Calvinist point of view.

Well, that knocks off eight of them. How else can I help?

---

Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "The Father's Will," a sermon first published in 1873. We start with the text Spurgeon was preaching from:

"This is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:39-40).

he two phrases set forth the divine side of salvation and the human side of salvation.

You know, beloved friends, that the general custom is, with the various sects of Christians, to take up one part of the Bible and preach that part, and then it is the duty of all divines on that side of the question not to preach anything but that. Or if they find a text that looks in rather a different direction, these gentlemen are expected to twist it round to suit their creed, it being supposed that only one set of truths can possibly be worth defending, it never having entered into the heads of some people that there can be two apparently irreconcilable truths which nevertheless are equally valuable.

Think not that I come here to defend the human side of salvation at the expense of the divine; nor am I desirous to magnify the divine side of it at the expense of the human; rather would I beseech you to look at the two texts which are together before us, and to be prepared to receive both sets of truths. I think it a very dangerous thing to say that the truth lies between the two extremes. It does not: the truth lies in the two, in the comprehension of both; not in taking a part from this and a part from that, toning down one and modulating the other, as is too much the custom, but in believing and giving full expression to everything that God reveals whether we can reconcile the things or not, opening our hearts as children open their understandings to their father's teaching, feeling that if the gospel were such that we could make it into a complete system, we might be quite sure it was not God's gospel, for any system that comes from God must be too grand for the human brain to grasp at one effort; and any path that he takes must extend too far beyond the line of our vision for us to make a nice little map of it, and mark it out in squares.

This world, you know, we can readily enough map. Go and get charts, and you shall find that men of understanding have indicated almost every rock in the sea, almost every hamlet on the land; but they cannot map out the heavens in that way, for albeit that you can buy the celestial atlas, yet as you are well enough aware there is not one in ten thousand of the stars that can possibly be put there; when they are resolved by the telescope they become altogether innumerable, and so far exceed all count that it is impossible for us to reckon them up in order and say, that is the name of this, and this is the name of that. We must leave them: they are beyond us. There are deeps into which we cannot peer; even the strongest glass cannot show us much more than a mere corner of the starry worlds.

Thus too is it with the doctrines of the gospel: they are too bright for our weak eyes, too sublime for our finite minds to scan, save at a humble distance. Be it ours to take all we can of their solemn import, to believe them heartily, accept them gratefully, and then fall down before the Lord, and pour out our very souls in worshipping him.

---

Election Day

by Dan Phillips

Today I'll be casting my vote for president (among other things). Many factors go into my decision, and these elections have consequences. It could be argued that today's election is unusually fraught with consequences.

But it casts my mind back to another election, a vastly different election. I'd like to offer a number of contrasts.

Today's American election takes place (normally) every four years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November.

The election I'm thinking of took place once only, before the foundation of a world (Ephesians 1:4).

Today's election involves votes cast by millions of people of wildly varying circumstances, characters, levels of intelligence, and worldviews.

The eternal election only had three participants: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, each the quintessence of perfection in power, wisdom, holiness, and goodness (Ephesians 1:3-14).

Today's election requires that I take into account the career, character, accomplishments, stated convictions, and proposals of the candidates. My vote must be earned, in my estimation.

The eternal election actually is not only irrespective of (Romans 9:11), but contrary to the deserts of its objects. It is an election "that we should be holy and blameless before him" (Ephesians 1:4). If that is the objective (or outcome) of the choice, then what were we before that choice, if not altogether unholy, and blameworthy?

Today's election involves but a handful of candidates, and I can only choose one.

The eternal election considered every man, woman and child who would ever live; and from them, it selected not one, but a vast multitude that no man can number (Revelation 7:9).

Today's election offers me the opportunity to cast a vote that can be defeated by two contrary votes, or by fraud.

The eternal election was executed by the God who "does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, 'What have you done?'” (Daniel 4:35).

Today's election results will go down in the history books, but may well ultimately be forgotten.

The eternal election has as its object "that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:7).

Today's election will result in the praise of the victor and his campaign (— and maybe a few remarks about the media, either way).

The eternal election results in the praise of God's glorious grace, with which He surrounded us in His beloved one (Ephesians 1:6).

Today's election could be reversed or invalidated by evil acts, catastrophes, disasters, or other utterly unforeseeable events.

The eternal election is as certain and sure as yesterday, and there is no power in any part of the universe that can reverse its results (Romans 8:29-39).

Today's election is centered in the kingdom of man.

The eternal election consists of the gift of a chosen people by the Father to the Son (John 17:6), given to Him that He might save them (Matthew 1:21), wash, cleanse, and wed them (Ephesians 5:25-27).

Hopefully, we'll know the results of today's election by tomorrow.

The results of the eternal election are known every time the Word of God comes home in power to someone's heart, and he welcomes that word in repentant faith (1 Thessalonians 1:4-5; 2:13).

How people vote today makes some difference, under God's hand (Daniel 4:32).

God's eternal election makes all the difference (Psalm 103:19; 115:3).

NOTE about the meta: in keeping with the Pyro focus, please refrain from partisan comments in the meta. Other blogs are going there, which (in my opinion) is just fine — but not here. Seriously, don't make me delete comments, please. I hope you all "get" that this post is not about politics.

---