Dead Man Blogging

The doctrine of election is a hard one. The idea of God sovereignly determining, before time began, that only specific individuals would be saved does not mesh well with the view of God many of us have.

People were made, by God, with a strong sense of justice and fairness. When we look at election, well, honestly, something about it just doesn’t seem _fair_.

One answer is that election is more than fair. God would be perfectly fair and just not to save anyone. The fact that He gave Christ to suffer and redeem even a single person goes way beyond fair.

But this is a rather unsatisfying answer. We’re still left with a God who knowingly creates people who He knows will sin and who He fully intends to condemn. And He has no intention whatsoever of redeeming them.

Can this be fair? Can this be our God?
(more…)

This is from my Theology class. Let me tell you, few things are more … interesting … than teaching election to folks who don’t believe it. It is not conducive to getting out of class on time. We’ve been going on election for 3 or 4 weeks now, and still have at least one week to go. I had been just posting my teaching notes on my Theology 101 site, but I decided to kill two birds with one stone and post an expanded version here.

Election answers the question, “When and why did God decide to save me?”

Did He decide to save me at the instant I put my faith in Christ? Did He decide to save me from the foundation of the world? Did He choose me because He looked into the future, saw what I’d do (receive Christ) and then ordained what would already come to pass? Did He see something special in me, that I was somehow “better” (in any sense) than others, and choose to save me because of that? Or did He choose me for His own reasons?

There are two ways of dealing with election. One is “corporate election” which says that God chose “all who are in Christ” but did _not_ define who was in that group. It’s an undefined group. God chose to save “all who are in Christ” but the membership of that group is decided by humans.

This is in contrast to the idea of “individual election”, which says that God chose particular individuals for salvation. Not only did He choose to save “all who are in Christ”, but He also defined who would be in that group.

The following scriptures support the idea of individual election:

* Acts 13:48
* Romans 8:28-30
* Romans 9:11-18
* Romans 11:5-7
* Ephesians 1:3-12
* 2 Thessalonians 2:10-14
* 2 Timothy 1:9
* 1 Peter 1:1-2
* Revelation 13:7-8
* Revelation 17:8

This is not a comprehensive list, but I think it demonstrates election is not taught in just a few isolated passages. Luke, Paul, Peter, and John all speak of it here. Sometimes it’s just mentioned in passing.

There are ways to explain each of these verses to make them teach something other than individual election. You can “explain away” just about anything you want. But if we just read them, and take them in their plainest sense, taking all of them together, I believe the Bible clearly teaches that, from the foundation of the world, God chose individual people to be saved.

We were chosen because God knew us. This is entirely different than saying God knew about us or knew about what we would do. In other words, God did not look into the future, see that we would believe, and then predestine (elect) us. Predestination is not based on our faith. Election is unconditional. God knew us, so He chose us. And by “knew us”, I mean, He thought of us in a saving relationship to Himself. He did not base His choice on our merit or lack thereof.

When my oldest son was about to turn 3, he announced “I am going to turn three, and then I will be the boss!” And to establish his position as the boss, he began to tell us what to do. But my son is sneaky. He knew if he just ordered us around, it wouldn’t work. So he’d wait until we were about to do something, or even in the middle of it, and then tell us to do it.

God’s election based on foreknowledge of our faith is roughly equivalent to my son’s attempts at being the boss. It’s meaningless to predestine or ordain something that is going to come to pass anyway. God’s sovereign decrees are not meaningless expressions of events that would happen anyway.

It’s helpful to consider the logical consequences if election were based on God looking into the future to see what we would do.

First, it would mean that something other than God was ultimately in control of the universe! If God can know, with absolute certainty, that something is going to happen, then it’s going to happen. But why? What makes it happen? What ensures that God isn’t wrong?

Ignoring the absurd notion of an additional, higher divine influence, we are left with two options: (1) God, or (2) fate / random chance.

If you answer that God causes these things to come to pass, then we’re back where we started. God knew I was going to come to faith, and caused it to happen. That’s not really different from election. You still have God causing some to come to faith, and by definition, passing over others.

If you answer that “fate” is ultimately in control, then you’ve essentially de-throned God. And in His place, you’ve but a cold, impersonal, mechanical fate. Things just happen, for no apparent reason. I came to faith “just because”, and Lost Larry is going to hell for the same non-reason. Bah. As troubling as election can be, at least it gives us some meaning for the eternal damnation of souls. It’s better than “just fate”. At least a loving, personal God is in charge and ordaining events in accord with His good character. Things didn’t “just turn out that way”. He caused them to go that way, for His own good purposes.

The second implication is that salvation would be to some extent based on my merit, not God’s grace alone. If God saved me because of something He saw in me, the you know what? I do have grounds to boast. I was smarter, I was wiser, I was more moral, I was raised better, I was more spiritual. Because after all, God saw something in me that He didn’t see in Lost Larry. In that area, I’m better than Lost Larry. I chose Christ, and Lost Larry didn’t, because ultimately I’m better than Lost Larry. Boasting is indeed justified!

There are only two answers to the question “What makes people different when it comes to salvation?” One answer is “something in man”. The other is “God’s favor alone.” If the answer is “something in man”, then salvation is based ultimately on the presence or absence of whatever that trait is. Which means, ultimately, salvation is based on merit. God gave me grace because I was/am (fill in the blank). Whatever goes in that blank, that’s merit, and that ultimately got you saved.

The Biblical answer, though, is “God’s grace alone.” Which means God didn’t see anything that makes me better than Lost Larry; indeed, He didn’t even look. I am no different, ultimately, than Lost Larry - except that God, incomprehensibly, chose me.

So those are two very negative logical consequences of insisting on election based on God’s foreknowledge of our character or deeds.

Ironically, this incorrect view still doesn’t give you free will. If God knows you will come to faith, then you’re coming to faith. You don’t have absolute free will if God can know the future with certainty. He knows it, it’s happening. If it didn’t happen just like He knew it would, then His knowledge would be imperfect. That can’t be the case. So whatever view you take of election, you simply can’t get free will out of it unless you deny God’s total and correct knowledge of the future and replace it with God the Good Guesser.

Given all that, we must be careful not to reach unbiblical, but seemingly logical, conclusions.

In my class, at this point I work a math problem beginning with “a=b+1″ and going through what appear to be simple algebra steps. In the end, I come up with “a=b” and thus “b = b+1″ and from there, “0=1″. (You can see this problem here.)

Then I ask, “How many of you think I just proved that math is wrong? Or that 0 is in fact equal to 1?” Nobody raised a hand. Then I ask, “How many think I did something wrong?” Of course, all the hands go up. And then I ask, “How many of you can tell me what I did wrong?” And all the hands come back down.

The point of this exercise is that you don’t have to know where I messed up to know that I did. You can see that I start with a perfectly valid beginning, and apply what appear to be some valid transformations. But you know my result is invalid because it contradicts known facts.

Similarly, we can apply logic to the doctrine of election and come up with apparently logical, but clearly unbiblical, conclusions. These unbiblical conclusions do not disprove election. They only mean our logic is flawed, even when we don’t know where.

The doctrine of election does not logically mean that our choices are somehow less than real, or that we are puppets. God is the one who decides whether or not our choices are real, and He says they are. Even though He also takes “credit” for many of the choices we make.

Consider:
Exodus 4:21-23 The LORD said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD, “Israel is My son, My firstborn. So I said to you, ‘Let My son go that he may serve Me’; but you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your son, your firstborn.”‘”

Much ado is made about how often the Bible says “Pharaoh hardened his heart” and “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart”. But in this passage, none of that had happened yet. And God is clear - He is going to harden Pharaoh’s heart, to the point of the Passover. But He also holds Pharaoh responsible for his refusal to free Israel.

Or Proverbs 16:9 “The mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps.” You make your plans, but God directs your steps. And He holds you completely responsible for those steps. They are real, voluntary choices you make. But they are in line with His eternal decrees.

The doctrine of election also does not mean that the lost never had a chance to believe, or that we had no choice but to accept Him. Rather, God always lays the blame for disobedience and rejection at the feet of those who disobey and reject Him. And Jesus treats our acceptance of Him as a free, voluntary decision we make. But He also speaks of God’s sovereignty.

In almost one breath, Jesus says “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.” And then He says “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him;” (John 6:35-37, John 6:43-44)

You can’t come to Christ unless the Father draws (drags!) you, and if God has given you to Christ, you will come. But the invitation and responsibility is still “Come”, and He rebukes them because “you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.”

These things are both true. God drags us, violating our fallen, depraved natures, to Himself. We come to God, making a voluntary decision. Two apparently paradoxical things, both true.

One thing I remember from high school physics is the idea of relativity. Pretend you have a person in a transparent railroad car, moving relative to the ground at 20 mph. There’s also an observer on the ground. The man in the railroad car drops one of those super bouncy balls. He sees the ball bounce straight up and down. The man on the ground sees the ball bounce along a curved path.

Relativity says they are both right. It just depends on the frame of reference of the observer. But they are both right. For the man in the railroad car, the ball did bounce straight up and down. And for the man on the ground, the ball did bounce along a curved path. It didn’t just look like that, it was that way.

I think this is true when it comes to election. From one perspective, yes, God ordains everything that will come to pass and we are following a script. God will harden Pharaoh’s heart. From another frame of reference, we are making voluntary decisions. Both are right. Both are Biblical. It is a paradox.

Can I just be real honest and confess I do not understand this? I don’t. I’m a programmer. I like if-then-else, do-while, and so on. I like to make diagrams showing how my code should work. I like nice and simple cause-and-effect. Even multithreaded applications bug me, because I don’t like to deal with concurrent data access.

But God doesn’t work that way. These things are both true. You can’t diagram it. It won’t fit in my cause-and-effect box. And I just have to deal with it, just have to believe it without understanding. Much like I deal with the Trinity. Or the eternity of God. I just know it’s true, and have to leave it at that.

This is a lot more than I plan to usually post, but I couldn’t find a good breaking point. It took me a couple of weeks to get through all this in class. The next topic I address will be, is election fair?

1 Timothy 4:1-5 (NAS)
1 But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,
2 by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron,
3 men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.
4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude;
5 for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.

You know, I could probably explain these verses away. In fact, at least one way of doing so comes immediately to mind. A plain and straightforward reading does not mesh well with what I like to think I believe. Rats.

Observations:

# Asceticism for its own sake is a doctrine of demons and totally devoid of Biblical faith.
# These false teachers are hypocrites who do not live the pious lives of self-denial they preach.
# There is a simple test here to evaluate whether or not something is good: Can I gratefully receive it as a gift from God? Would the Bible and prayer be out of place in the context of me enjoying this? (I assume some level of spiritual maturity is required; elsewhere the Bible talks of us _learning_ to distinguish good and evil by constant practice.)
# There are plenty of moral commands in the Bible that are directly or indirectly but clearly applicable to my life. I don’t need to invent new ones. God will teach me, as I obey Him in the obvious cases, how to discern the questionable and subtle ones.
# I think this is different from restrictions you impose on _yourself_ for purposes such as avoiding temptation (even though a great deal of people might benefit from the same restriction and it might be awfully good advice) or teaching yourself self-discipline (mortification of the flesh). Paul said he regularly beat his body to bring it into submission; the motive is what makes the difference.
# This is not permission for excess or licentiousness. We are still called to live seriously, soberly, and wisely. Moderation is always a good idea. We are called to redeem the time, to test everything, to be good stewards of our lives. We do everything to the glory of God. We’re to discipline ourselves for godliness. So this is not a call to _carelessness_ or _lawlessness_, but _liberty_.
# Psalm 119:45 says that seeking God’s precepts is a key to walking in liberty. This passage in 1 Timothy (or any other passage for that matter *cough* Galatians *cough*) is not telling us we can disregard God’s law and the principles it teaches us. This is going beyond what is written (1 Cor 4:6)
# 1 Cor 4 teaches us that these things are indeed important, and matters that will be judged, but not by us and not now. God will judge our actions and motives. There’s no need for us to try.

I’m a big believer that you do the obvious stuff and then the harder stuff will become clearer. If God’s word is a _lamp_ for our feet, it’s only going to illuminate a little ways in front of us. To see more, we have to walk forward. God’s not in the habit of giving advice to double-minded men who are not committed to following what He has shown us.

I experienced this two days ago when studying 1 Timothy 2. It sounds weird, but the rest of the book was absolutely closed to me until I obeyed what I saw right there - prayed for our government and leadership. I could not get one non-obvious thing out of the rest of the book until I did that.

Sometimes I think the final destination is so far from where we start that we wouldn’t recognize it if we could see it at the beginning. Like when my small Bible study group started discussing the duty we have to rebuke and correct one another. We started coming up with all sort of what-ifs that seemed very strange. IMHO, if we start with the obvious stuff - “Hey, Robert, you really shouldn’t beat your wife and smoke crack.” - we will figure out the less obvious stuff - “Hey, Robert, TWO pieces of bread is gluttony.”

I think the same is true with God’s law. Start with the obvious stuff. I’ve often said that if I even took one single chapter of Proverbs and ripped it out of the Bible and tried to conform my life to just that single chapter, it would be an enormous challenge and my life would be unrecognizable at the end. I think as I do that obvious stuff - don’t lose your temper, don’t be rude, be generous, read your Bible, pray, submit to authority, do a good job at work, treat your wife and kids right, teach your kids about God, be nice, and so on - then I will be in a better position to understand the less obvious stuff (Hebrews 5:14).

Michael Spencer discusses the danger of making the message of the gospel so acceptable to the world that they are able to appropriate and even affirm it while entirely missing the point.

I particularly like the proposed new verse of “I Can Only Imagine”.
While Michael limits his discussion pretty much to corrupt contemporary Christian music, I think it’s relevant to many of our attempts at influencing the culture or our notions of what it means to be salt and light.

For instance, some people kind of treat the Bible as a self-help book. The Bible contains lots of good instruction on how to manage your finances, handle conflict resolution, how to have a healthy marriage, how to raise your kids or get along with your parents, and so on. You can teach about the importance of guarding your tongue, controlling your tempter, and being self-disciplined. And this is one approach to spreading the gospel. Give people real practical sermons that meet their needs, then they will see that Christianity “works” and be open to the gospel.

At least, that’s the theory. But as you extract the topical sermons from the Biblical text, you can easily miss the theological and spiritual foundations. Christian teaching on marriage is explicitly and inseperably tied to Christ’s sacrificial, atoning death on the cross and to good ecclesiology. It can’t be fully understood aside from that, and Paul presents it in just such terms. Peter doesn’t just tell husbands to honor their wives, but to honor them “as heirs together of the grace of life”.

If you remove the theological underpinnings - or even if you don’t - the principles can be applied to an unbeliever’s life without a corresponding change of heart. Just like the lost can sing and love “I Can Only Imagine”. Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.

The gospel cannot be parceled up into bite-sized tasty bits to make it easier for people to digest. The goal of the gospel is not to produce good music, good books, good philosophy, happy people, good finances, strong marriages, or healthy interpersonal relationships, and we must not communicate it that way. The message of the gospel is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. The pressing need to be met is resolving a spiritual enmity against God and the prospect of eternal damnation. Let’s meet that need; it’s the only one worth our time and energy and worthy of our call.

Any approach to evangelism or influencing the culture that is anything other than bringing people to repentance and faith in Christ is going to miss the mark.

(Link via Karl Thienes.)

Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. - Jeremiah 6:16

Bill at ughleethoughts wonders about “the proclivity of many in our 21st century U.S. culture to view anything that is old as something to be discarded”. This is as true in the church as it is outside of it. If something doesn’t seem to “work”, we assume that _it_, not _we_, is wrong and we discard it in favor of a new philosophy, hermeneutic, program, approach, or whatever.

We abandon a plain way of understanding the Bible. We abandon the way we “do church” in favor of house churches, emerging churches, purpose-driven churches, and seeker-sensitive churches. We redefine “discipleship” to mean something other than “keeping Christ’s commandments” and come up with new definitions and new kinds of Christians. We decide that centuries of instruction on practical steps to live a Christian life is “legalism”, and decide that if you just love Jesus enough you’ll automatically stop sinning, start reading your Bible, praying, and fellowshipping with others. Theology becomes dry and wooden; church is stifling; preaching against sin is moralizing behavior modification legalism; the music is dull; the traditional Bible translations are too hard to understand. We’ve even changed the actual format of the Bible because two columns of words are boring - the Bible now looks like Cosmo!

If you have something that has apparently been successful for a long time, and then it is apparently unsuccessful, it’s silly to conclude that it’s just broken. The problem is more likely with _you_.

I want the old paths. Give me that old-time religion.

I’ve been reading 1 Timothy for my devotionals the past few days. What struck me last night was this:

1 Timothy 1:18-19
This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience

OK, so living the Christian life is analogous to fighting (or warfare in the KJV). Sounds awfully dramatic.

But then Paul goes on to discuss such apparently mundane things as spending time in prayer, the proper behavior of Christian wives, the qualifications for elders and deacons, caring for widows, and so on.

This is _warfare_?

Apparently so. This is where the battle is fought - in our ordinary, day-to-day lives. I don’t generally like Bible paraphrases, but The Message renders Romans 12:1 as “Take your everyday, ordinary life–your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life–and place it before God as an offering.” The battle is that everyday, ordinary “sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life”. That’s where the battle is fought, that’s where the service is rendered. It’s not primarily about sacrificial giving, exceptional acts of service like going into foreign missions or being a preacher, or any of that. God is far more concerned with my ordinary, day-to-day life than He is with my giving, church attendance, and theology class.

I was skimming the first few chapters of “A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life” the other day, and the author makes an outstanding point. We all understand and agree that our prayer lives should be thoroughly devoted to God. You shouldn’t let your mind wander; you should block out distractions; you should pray “not my will, but Thy will be done” and ask for things in accordance with God’s will instead of your own desires (James 4:3). But if our prayer life is to be that devoted to God, shouldn’t the rest of our lives be, too?

As William Law puts it, “For any ways of life, any employment of our talents, whether of our parts, our time, or money, that is not strictly according to the will of God, that is not for such ends as are suitable to His glory, are as great absurdities and failings, as prayers that are not according to the will of God.”

It must look ridiculous for me to look for ways to serve God in great ways when the real battle is serving Him in my ordinary, everyday life. The real battle is in the seemingly little things.