New Testament Archives - Page 127 of 208

There is No Other Commandment Greater than These

Christ Church on June 24, 2018

1. Deut. 6:4-5, “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
- A. The foundation: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
- B. The greatest commandment: You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength
  - Can you legislate love?
- C. Heart, Soul, and Strength?
2. Leviticus 19:17-18, “You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.
- A. The second: Love your neighbour
3. The greatest commandments – not in conflict
- A. Mark 12:35-44 – How not to obey the greatest commandments

Calvinism 4.0: Man as Fallen

Christ Church on June 18, 2018

Introduction

The nature of the problem dictates whether or not there can even be a solution, and if so, what that solution might be. Among evangelical Christians, the nature of the “problem” salvation that salvation solves can be described in two basic ways. Either man is sick in his sin, needing to take the medicine, or he is dead in his sin, needed to be resurrected from the dead.

Our purpose here is to examine which of these two options is the Bible’s teaching on this subject.

Free Agents

As we have already considered, because all men are free agents they are free to do as they please. But because they are sinners, what they please to do is sin. They cannot please to choose contrary to their nature, because if they could, it wouldn’t be their nature.

“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man” (Mark 7:21–23).

The source of all the evil things we do is the unflattering fact of the evil creatures that we are.

As creatures, men are free to do as they please. As sinners, men are not free to do right. If a man could repent his sins and believe in Christ with his old heart, then this would be proof positive that he didn’t really need a new heart. He could do all that God requires of us (repent and believe) with his old heart. Apparently the old heart just needed a little encouragement.

Spiritual Death

Now the Scriptures expressly describe the unregenerate condition as being one of death. This does not mean that unbelievers are dead in every possible respect—but with regard to spiritual things, they certainly are in a condition of death. For example, sinners can be physically alive while spiritually dead.

“And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others” (Eph. 2:1–3).

We walked in accordance with the pattern of the world. The spirit at work in the children of disobedience worked in our conversation (that is, in our manner of living). So clearly we were moving about—all while dead in our trespasses and sins.

Spiritual Slavery

Another picture that excludes “free will” with regard to salvation is the picture of slavery. Dead men do not walk out of the grave, and slaves do not walk away from their masters.

“For when ye were the servants [douloi, slaves] of sin, ye were free from righteousness” (Romans 6:20).

This is a different image, but one that also communicates a sense of utter inability to break free from sin. Dead men can’t reach life. Slaves cannot reach liberty.

No Autonomous Seekers

Now we all know that people do not become Christians unless they seek the Lord. The debate between Christians on this point therefore is not over whether we need to seek the Lord. It is over why we seek the Lord, if and when we do. Men, left to themselves, relinquished to their own devices, will not seek after God. And this is what the Bible explicitly and expressly teaches.

“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10–12).

How many are unrighteous? All. How many seek a way out of their unrighteousness? None.

An Important Qualification

This doctrine I am setting before you is sometimes called the doctrine of total depravity. This is a poor name for it because it makes people think you are maintaining a doctrine of absolute depravity. But we are not saying that unbelievers are the orcs, and we are the elves. It is not like that. We are saying that unbelievers are, apart from a gift of grace, on their way to Hell. We are not maintaining that they have already arrived there.

We are saying that because of Adam’s sin, and our complicity in it, our fall into helplessness was total. There is a total inability to save ourselves, to prepare ourselves for salvation, or to request salvation.

One other qualification. An unregenerate person can love the Lord, but only by radically misunderstanding and misconstruing Him. An unregenerate person can understand the Lord in His holiness, but this results in a simple recoil away from Him. The only way a sinner can understand who God is, and also love Him, is if the Spirit of God has granted him a new heart.

This basic point is seen in the Bible’s description of the minds of unbelievers. They are seen as hostile to God (that is, to God as He actually is).

“Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:7–8; cf. 1 Cor. 2:14).

Who Then Can Be Saved?

The problem with all this is that it leaves us without hope of salvation, right? No, it leaves us without hope of salvation from man. What is impossible for men is possible for God.

“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:44).

“And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father” (John 6:65).

If the Father does not do the drawing, if the Father does not give it, a man cannot come. Another translation for the word for draw (elkuo) is drag or haul. “How did you come to Christ?” “Oh, I was hauled.”

But does this mean that no one ever comes? No—it means that everyone who comes (and remember that the entire world will eventually come) has been hauled in by God.

“All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).

What man cannot do with any success, God can do with no failure. And what is that? The resurrection of the dead.

The Unrighteous Under Punishment

Christ Church on June 18, 2018

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The Text

“…then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, ¹⁰and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, ¹¹whereas angels, who are greater in power and might, do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord” (2 Peter 2:9-21).

Who’s Your Teacher?

In the second half of chapter 2, Peter warns the church about false teachers. Teachers are not only those who stand in front of a class or behind a pulpit. Teachers are those who influence, who lead, who discipline, who catechize your responses. Teachers are those who you follow. And so, who is your teacher?

There are no imperatives in this chapter about false teachers, merely Peter’s raw and brutal and sickening description of the false teachers in the church. Peter describes two aspects of these false teachers 1) The Depravity of False Teachers (vs. 10-16) and 2) The Deception of False Teachers (vs. 17-22). Even in the depravity and in the deception, Peter reminds Christians that “the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment” (vs. 9). The main point is that Peter wants you to know that the Lord knows how to keep the unrighteous, both teachers and disciples, under punishment, and realize that part of the punishment is their depravity and their deception.

The Lord Knows (vs. 9)

Verse 9 provides a helpful summary and transition from the first half of the chapter to the last. The Lord knows how to 1) rescue the godly and 2) keep the unrighteous under punishment for judgment. God knows how to rightly deal with people–– Rescue good guys like Lot and Noah and punish bad guys like false teachers.

The Lord knows the unrighteous and knows how to keep them now under punishment for the day of judgment. They are under punishment now. And part of their punishment is their depravity. Paul makes this connection in Romans 1:18-28). Their depravity is the consequence of their disregard for God and so is their punishment. Heaven is the place man says to God, “As you wish.” Hell is where God says to man, “As you wish.”

The Depravity of False Teachers (vs. 10-16)

Two defining traits of the unrighteous teachers are that they indulge in lust and despise authority. Sound familiar? Will 21st century America please stand up? Our culture both despises the lordship of Jesus and indulges in sexuality. We live in age where our cultural has been secularized and sexualized.

Peter describes that these false teachers are “bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord.” The unrighteous are proud. Strong. Fierce. Woke. A Corinthian dude is having sex with his dad’s wife, and the church allows and even celebrates their progressive and open relationship (1 Cor. 5:1). And when they should mourn and despair and tremble, they stand firm without fear when they blaspheme the glorious ones.

They are like rats driven by their desires. Just like a rat’s passion for food leads to the rat trap, so these false teachers desires for sex, for money, for authority will snap down and break their back. Here is their end––they will be destroyed in their destruction, they will be wronged as the wage for their wrongdoing (vs. 12-13). These false teachers are like Balaam––greedy, blind to their own spiritual danger, and refusing to receive good advice even if it came from a talking donkey. The depravity of the false teachers ends in their own destruction. But not theirs only, but also those who follow them.

The Deception of False Teachers (vs. 17-22)

In these final verses, Peter describes the deception of the false teachers. “These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption.” Christians are given the glorious promise of freedom in Christ. Deceiving teachers then conclude, “Christian, you are free to do what you want. You are free from judgment, free from condemnation of the law, free from restrictive systems of the past. Free to love who you want. Free to express yourself. Free to be you.” No, no, no!

What happens to those who listen to their false promises? “For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse than the first” (vs. 20). You’ve escaped from the defilements of the world. You’ve been rescued from Sodom. And you’ve been told to flee to the mountain. But on your way, you met a convincing man or a passionate woman who says, “Follow me! I know the way.” And they lead you back to Sodom. Don’t go back to the city of worldliness. Don’t cast longing eyes back to that old life. Don’t settle on the plain. Because that is where the Lord keeps the unrighteous under punishment for the coming judgment.

The Knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

Only in knowledge of Jesus as Savior and Christ and Lord, will you find salvation from your unrighteousness and satisfaction for your soul. You must go to Christ crucified. And Christ crucified is where false teachers will never lead.

False Prophets: A Design Feature?

Christ Church on June 10, 2018

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The Text

“But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber” (2 Peter 2:1-3).

(1) False Prophets and New Testament warnings!

(2) God’s purpose (Duet. 13:3, Judges 3:1-2)

(3) What are their methods?

(4) What are they denying?

(5) What do False Teachers want?

(6) What is their destiny?

(7) What’s our job?

Calvinism 4.0: The Liberty of the Creature

Christ Church on June 3, 2018

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Introduction

The theologians behind the Westminster Confession said something that was curious, and it was this: They did not want to say that God’s absolute sovereignty was merely consistent with the liberty of creaturely will, but rather that God’s sovereignty was what established the liberty of that will. God does not offer violence to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established (WCF 3.1).

In order to understand this rightly, we have to be careful to define our terms carefully. What do we mean by the freedom of the will exactly?

The Text

“Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things” (Matt. 12:33-35).

Summary of the Text

Jesus begins by noting that the nature of the tree determines the nature of the fruit. Good tree > good fruit. In the same way, if the tree is corrupt, then it follows that the fruit will be corrupt as well. Bad tree > bad fruit. Because this is the case, we are encouraged to reason from the fruit to the tree. The Lord then calls them a generation of vipers, poisonous snakes, and says that what comes out of their fangs will be venom and not sweet water. In this first comparison, the words a man speaks are the fruit, and the heart of that same man is the tree. The contents of the heart determine the contents of the speech. The Lord then switches to a third example. You can only take out of a chest that which was already in the chest. A good man has a good treasure chest for a heart, and consequently good choices come out. A bad man has evil treasure, and this is what determines what can be taken out.

Two Definitions

In evangelical circles, there are two differing definitions of freedom that are common. One definition says that free will is the “power of contrary choice.” In other words, take that moment when you were standing at the crossroads, deciding whether to go right or to go left. This definition says that at two different times, with all the antecedent circumstances being the identical, you had the full and complete ability to go either right or to go left.

The other view—and incidentally, the one the Lord was assuming in the text—is that a man is free to choose whatever his heart wants. He is free when he is not externally constrained. You choose what it was that you wanted, and what you wanted was determined by your nature. There are complicated examples of this principle, but there are also very simple examples.

If Smith points a gun at Jones and tells him to take the road to the right, then Jones is not free. But if Jones goes down that road because he loves the view that way, and detests the view on the other way, and has loved and detested them for as long as he can remember, his choice being constrained by nothing other than his desires, then we would say that his choice is unconstrained.

Now if you were to hold your breath right now, and were to do so for over a minute, would you want to breathe? Would the fact that God created your lungs and gave them to you keep that desire to breathe from being yours? Not a bit of it. You choose to breathe, and you choose to breathe because you want to. You want to because that innate desire was a gift to you from God. Some people reason that this desire couldn’t really be yours if it was given to you by God. Others, and we should be among them, should reason that if God gave it to us, then it must be ours.

The Metal Hand Will

So picture one of those games at the fair where a glass bin is full of not very expensive teddy bears, and there is a metal hand there, a metal grappling hook, that the carnie will let you manipulate for fifty cents. The human will is that grappling hook. It has no power to determine or alter the contents of the bin. Its only power is that of identifying “the largest teddy bear.”

Our choices do not decide for us. Our choices reveal us. If what they reveal is unsavory or unflattering, then we are driven to turn to the only one who can do anything to help us.

Think About It for Another Moment

Suppose the elders were to confront a straying member who was getting drunk every weekend. They asked him to explain his behavior, and suppose that he said that every weekend, his strongest desire was to read his Bible and go to church. Instead “mysterious forces” would land him in the bars. But he should not be faulted because what he really wanted to do was study Leviticus.

The reply would be that his will revealed what his strongest desire was. The ability to choose contrary to what you want is not liberty, but rather insanity. “Why did you throw the vase against the wall?” “Because I wanted to go for a walk in the garden.”

Transformation occurs when the contents of the heart are changed. Transformation across a series of decisions occurs when we do things that the Holy Spirit uses to alter the contents of our hearts. He alters it radically in conversion, and then steadily over the course of our sanctification through the various means of grace that He has appointed.

The Plain Necessity of the New Birth

If you could repent and believe with your old heart, then you would not really need a new heart. If you could love Jesus with your old heart, then you didn’t really need for Jesus to give you a new heart.

Our foundational problem, apart from Christ, is therefore not what we do, but rather what we are. What we do does matter, but in the sense that our actions reveal what we are. And this should drive us to adore God’s kindness, for we know that we have no control over our nature. Apart from Christ, we think we have full control over our actions, like the kid playing with a plastic steering wheel in the back of a shopping cart.

God gives us new eyes and then we see. God gives us ears, and it is then that we begin to hear. God gives us a heart that loves Him, and so we turn away from sin in disgust, and toward Him with true affection.