Archive for category Doctrine & Theology
The Doctrine of Subsequence: Part 4- The “Second Experiences” of the Book of Acts
Posted by thetenthleper in Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Doctrine & Theology on January 31, 2012
Little bit of a recap on where we are in this series: In part 2 I sought to show from Scripture that “baptism in the Holy Spirit” is an experience that happens to every believer upon conversion, and not something that all believers must still continue to seek. Part 3 was where I addressed the question of why the disciples who had clearly already been believers in Christ didn’t receive the Holy Spirit until the day of Pentecost. My conclusion there was that Pentecost was a unique experience because it was a unique event in history.
But even if you’ve agreed with me up to this point, there’s still three huge “Yeah, BUT!!” examples later on in Acts that seem to completely undermine what I’ve said. The first is in Acts 8, where believers in Samaria aren’t baptized in the Holy Spirit until John and Peter come and lay hands on them. The second is in Acts 10 where Cornelius, who was already “a devout man who feared God”, didn’t receive the Spirit until later. And the final one is in Acts 19 where we come across the disciples in Ephesus, who had not received the Holy Spirit when they believed. ”And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.” (v.6)
So what do we do with these? Do these examples prove the doctrine of subsequence? Journey with me…
1. The Ephesian Disciples (Acts 19:1-7)
“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.”
-Romans 8:9-
When Paul arrives at Ephesus, he comes across “some disciples” and asks them whether or not they had received the Holy Spirit when they believed, to which they responded “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” Probing further, he asked what they had been baptized into. ”Into John’s baptism,” they replied. (vv.1-3)
These men were in fact disciples of John the Baptist, the forerunner to Jesus, and the last of the Old Testament-era prophets. The difference between John’s baptism and Christian baptism is a subject for another entry, but for the purposes of this entry it’s enough to know that they aren’t one and the same. John the Baptist had said, “‘I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, who sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.’” (Matt.3:11, cf. Acts 1:5)
Since John testified to the fact that the coming Messiah would baptize with the Holy Spirit, it’s unlikely that these disciples of his who had made their way to Ephesus were ignorant of the Spirit’s existence. Rather, what they mean is that they were ignorant of the fact that the new covenant era had begun, where those who trust in Jesus for salvation are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19), and where those baptized in the name of Jesus “receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38)
Upon meeting these disciples, Paul, perhaps observing the lack of the Spirit’s presence in their lives, felt the need to ask them whether they had received the Spirit or not when they believed whatever it is that they had believed. Paul’s not asking them if they had been baptized in the Holy Spirit after believing in Jesus. He’s asking them if they’re even believers in Jesus. Since the church was to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the fact that these men hadn’t even heard that the Spirit had come told Paul all he needed to know. In the words of John Stott, these guys “were still living in the Old Testament which culminated with John the Baptist. They understood neither that the new age had been ushered in by Jesus, nor that those who believe in him and are baptized into him receive the distinctive blessing of the new age, the indwelling Spirit.”
Paul then did what came naturally to him. He preached Jesus to those who were ignorant of him. ”And Paul said, ‘John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.’ On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. There were about twelve men in all.” (vv.4-7)
In short, these men received the Holy Spirit at conversion, not subsequent to it.
2. Cornelius (Acts 10)
Corn-Dawg, “a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God” (v.2), lived in Caesarea. He was a Gentile and had great admiration for the God of the Jews, even though he had not submitted himself to be circumcised. (Acts 11:3)
You can read the full story in Acts 10, but basically the guy is visited in a vision by an angel who tells him to send for Peter, who was meanwhile having his own visions. The purpose of Peter’s visions was to teach him that what “God has made clean, do not call common.” (10:15) In non-visiony terms: Don’t call the Gentiles unclean. When Cornelius’ servants arrived where Peter was, he followed them to Cornelius’ place and preached the Gospel to him and his fellow Gentile buddies. And as he was sharing the Gospel with them, “the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word.” (10:44) Since the Holy Spirit fell on a man who had already been “an upright and God-fearing man” (v.22), does this mean that we should seek a post-conversion Spirit-baptism, too?
The answer, like in the Ephesian disciples case, was that Cornelius wasn’t a Christian until Peter preached the Gospel to him. Where do we see this? In Acts 11:13-14. There, Peter recounts his experience with Cornelius to the Church: “‘And [Cornelius] told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, “Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’” Cornelius was to hear a message by which he “will be saved”. Salvation for Cornelius was still future. Additionally, if you look at what Peter was telling them when the Holy Spirit fell on them (vv.34-43), he’s just straight up preaching the Gospel, indicating that these people needed to hear it. Furthermore, the Church concluded that this baptism in the Holy Spirit (11:16) was the result of God granting to these Gentiles the “repentance that leads to life.” (11:18)
3. The Samaritans (Acts 8:4-25)
“Jews have no dealings with Samaritans”
-John 4:9-
Philip had gone to Samaria to preach the Gospel and had some pretty good results to show for it. The crowds had “with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs that he did.” (8:6) But then we see a few verses down that it wasn’t until Peter and John came to Samaria, laid hands on them, and prayed for the new believers that the Holy Spirit fell on them.
Is this just another case of people who we have assumed were believers but really weren’t? I don’t think the text really gives us that option here. First of all, what Philip had proclaimed was Christ. (v.5) He “preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ” to them, and as a result they were baptized in the name of Jesus (vv.12, 16), which meant that they had passed into Jesus’ ownership. Whereas Paul knew the Ephesian disciples weren’t believers because they had only been baptized into John’s baptism, the Samaritans appear to have baptized with a Christian baptism.
Secondly, they “had received the word of God” (v.14) which, as Sam Storms points out, is “identical terminology to [Acts] 2:41 and 11:1, where genuine conversion is in view.”
Finally, whereas Peter preached the Gospel to Cornelius before he was baptized in the Holy Spirit, all that Peter and John do here is lay hands on the Samaritans and pray for them, which then results in the Holy Spirit falling on them. They didn’t preach the Gospel to them first because they had already had it accurately preached to them and believed it. What we have here is genuine believers in Christ receiving the Holy Spirit after they had believed. The question now is why? Is this normative? Or is it, like Pentecost, unique?
This is a very unusual case in the book of Acts, and before going further with it I feel the need to address some very important rules to interpreting Scripture. The first is always compare Scripture with Scripture. The second is closely related: don’t create doctrines out of obscure texts. Parts 2 and 3 in this series were my argument for why being baptized in the Holy Spirit is something that happens to all believers at their conversion. If you believe in the doctrine of subsequence, your argument with me is over those two entries, not this one. In other words, if I’ve faithfully built a biblical case for why Spirit-baptism occurs at conversion, then the three instances addressed in this entry are, at best, exceptions to the rule and not the rule itself. Or to say it yet another way, the doctrine of subsequence can’t stand on these three passages alone. I say all this because even though two of the three cases can simply be written off as unbelievers becoming believers, this one can’t. And since the rest of Scripture links Spirit-baptism with conversion, we need to be wary of taking the Samaritans’ experience and saying that it should be all Christians’ experience.
Peter had linked faith with receiving the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38), and Paul claimed that if anyone didn’t have the Spirit, he did not belong to Christ (Romans 8:9). Luke, the author of Acts and a companion of Paul, would have been familiar with this link, which is probably why even the way he recounts the Samaritan experience indicates the uniqueness of it. He writes that the Spirit “had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” (v.16) ”Only,” writes James Dunn, “implies that the two things were expected or accustomed to go together.” John Stott explores this further:
…contrary to expectation, water-baptism had been received without Spirit-baptism, the sign without the thing signified. There was, Luke implies, something distinctly odd about their separation. It was because of this irregularity, Professor Dunn writes, that ‘the two senior apostles came down hot-foot from Jerusalem to remedy a situation which had gone seriously wrong somewhere’.
Not only was this the first time the Gospel had been preached outside of Jerusalem, it was the first time it had been preached in Samaria. The reason that God withheld the Spirit from these new converts is most likely due to the relationship between the Jews and Samaritans. These people hated each other. While we can utter the words “good Samaritan” without choking, this was a contradiction of terms in the Jewish mind. When Jews had to pass from Galilee to Judea or vice versa, they would literally go out of their way to get there since a direct path between the two would take them through Samaritan soil.
This incident was most likely God’s way of preventing ethnic-schism between Jew and Samaritan from becoming schism within the body of Christ. The cross of Christ tears down barriers (Gal.3:28), and unifies all believers. Thus, as the Gospel spread into hostile territory, God wanted the leaders of the Jerusalem church to see for themselves the Holy Spirit come upon those who were formerly enemies. This “extension of Pentecost” was a necessary “demonstration of the power of the Spirit to convince die-hards among the Jewish Christians that it was really proper to bring the gospel to the Samaritans.” (Anthony Hoekema) As Geoffrey Lampe writes,
…at this turning-point in the mission something else was required in addition to the ordinary baptism of the converts. It had to be demonstrated to the Samaritans beyond any shadow of doubt that they had really become members of the church, in fellowship with the original ‘pillars’ [John and Peter]…An unprecedented situation demanded quite exceptional methods.
Like Pentecost, this was a unique historical situation. It was the first time the Gospel had been preached outside Jerusalem. And this first time happened to be among people the Jews had traditionally hated. God was making a unique and visible demonstration of his commitment to bring salvation to those “‘in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.’” (Acts 1:8)
In the fifth and final part of this series, I’ll address the question of what it means to be “filled with the Spirit.” And I promise not to wait nine months to write it. (I blame Rob Bell for interrupting this series.)
Seven Ways that Satan Attacks Believers
Posted by thetenthleper in Demonology, Doctrine & Theology on January 26, 2012
I might pump out some entries in the near-ish future concerning spiritual warfare, so I wanted to put up some basic info now. This list is courtesy of Joel Beeke, and I believe it’s a very good summary of the methods that Satan frequently uses in his attacks upon believers in Christ. Stuff like this is important to know, because if we know how our enemy plans to attack us, we will know how best to defend ourselves.
Satan puts blasphemous thoughts into your mind, and then whispers that you cannot be a child of God if you have such thoughts.
Satan gets you to question the truth of the promises of God and the mercy of that God who has never treated you ill.
Satan seeks to persuade you that you have no part in the matter of salvation, for you have only begun with the Lord and not he with you.
Satan argues with you that no child of God could be like you: so weak in faith, so corrupt, so hard and prayerless, so foolish and vain.
Satan comes as your accuser, leading you to despair, or as an angel of light, leading you to presumption.
Satan presents the world to you in fair colours, attempting to move you back into worldly customs, friendships, and vanities.
Satan presses you to indulge in the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
-from Striving Against Satan
Three Theology Debates (That Are Completely Misunderstood)
Posted by thetenthleper in Doctrine & Theology on January 4, 2012
John Piper once beautifully articulated what has become for me a rapidly growing conviction: “Before assessing an author’s position, express an understanding of it in a way the author would approve.” Piper calls this “that great principle of good criticism.”
In the world of theological debates (as in all debates), some are just riddled with bad criticism. What could be healthy dialogue between two sides ends up becoming two sides growing further apart through misunderstanding. When this happens, people are no longer talking to each other, but at each other or over them. Here are three such commonly misguided debates among Christians.
1. Protestant Paedobaptism (Infant Baptism) vs. Credobaptism (Believers Baptism)
The doctrine of baptism is the marijuana of theology. It’s a gateway doctrine. If you’re studying it well, you’ll find yourself studying doctrines that you never thought you’d touch or that you ever dreamed were relevant to baptism. You’re not studying it well unless you find yourself also studying God’s covenant with Abraham, the doctrine of justification by faith alone, the nature of the Church, the role of Israel in the world, and eschatology (to name a few).
This argument isn’t at all about whether or not people should get baptized when they profess faith in Christ. Both sides agree on this. The question concerns what to do with the infants of believers. The Presbyterian church sees baptism as the New Testament version of circumcision and thus to be patterned after it. Just as Abraham believed, was circumcised, and then commanded to circumcize his infant son, so believing adults who have been baptized should baptize their infants. The real debate here is how much continuity and discontinuity there is between the Old and New Testaments, and thus it demands that we bring in all of Scripture, not just those verses in the Gospels and Acts that show adults believing and then getting baptized.
To say it another way, the debate isn’t about who we should baptize but rather the very meaning of baptism, knowing that the meaning will take care of the who. Both Presbyterians and Baptists acknowledge that an adult who is not a Christian and becomes one should be baptized. So quoting verses like Acts 2:38 where Peter tells a bunch of unbelievers to “Repent and be baptized” isn’t the way to argue for believer’s baptism because it doesn’t contradict the Presbyterian position.
2. Calvinism vs. Arminianism
If I were to say the word “predestination” and ask which of the above camps the doctrine belongs to, I’d be willing to put money on 99 out of 100 people would say “Calvinism.” And that’s the misunderstanding of this debate.
The debate between Calvinism and Arminianism is not about whether God predestines some to everlasting life and not others, nor is it about whether God is sovereign or not. It’s also not about whether or not we must choose Christ. Calvinists will quote Ephesians 1:4-5 as a proof-text for their position, forgetting that Arminian Bibles leave those verses in. Arminians in turn will quote John 3:16 and 1 Timothy 2:4. Now I’m not saying that these passages are unhelpful in the debate (because they are). What I am saying though is that if you’re just lobbing Scripture grenades back and forth at each other to make your point, you’ve missed the point.
The truth is, both camps uphold predestination, sovereignty, and human choice. Why? Because the Bible affirms all of them. You can’t say that you don’t believe in predestination, because it’s in the Bible (Romans 8:29). If you’re not a Calvinist, say so. But don’t ignore the fact that Scripture clearly says that God predestines people for salvation. And if you’re not an Arminian, say it. But don’t minimize the verses that talk about human choice.
The debate isn’t whether God predestines but the basis on which he does so. Calvinists will say that he predestines solely for his own glory and will, and not in anything in the person himself. Arminians will say that he predestines because he foresaw that they would believe in the Gospel when presented with it. As far as sovereignty goes, that God is sovereign is not a Calvinist doctrine. It’s a biblical one. The question is: which side better understands what sovereignty means? Is God in control even of our decision to trust in Christ? As far as human choice goes, both sides acknowledge that man must choose Christ in order to be saved. The real question is: is man able to make that choice all by himself? Or can he only make it because God first chose him? How man chooses Christ is the key to this debate, which demands that we study the doctrine of humanity and the fall.
3. Spirit-Filled vs. (I dunno…Not Spirit-Filled?)
Earlier this year a friend of mine who I went to church with described two other churches in our area as being more “Spirit-filled” than ours. It wasn’t said as a criticism but more as just a way to describe the differences in local churches to a friend of hers. I asked her to clarify what she meant by that even though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. While the church I was at during this time leaned more on the cessationist view of the “miraculous” spiritual gifts like tonuges, prophecy, and healings, the other churches did not believe those gifts have ceased.
The real debate is whether or not those gifts have ceased, not whether churches should be “Spirit-filled” or not. Like with the Calvinism/Arminianism point above, you can’t assume all Christians have the same definitions for terms that we’re all using. Otherwise understanding just won’t happen. To be full of the Holy Spirit is a good thing (duh). Every sincere Christian and church wants to be full of the Holy Spirit. After all, it’s the Spirit’s presence within us that causes us to grow in holiness and to sin less and less. So to say that one Christian is less full of the Holy Spirit than another is a pretty serious accusation, especially if your basis for saying that is your stance on an issue that very godly people disagree on. To discern what churches are Spirit-filled or not, we must first agree on what that phrase even means.
If a church is more charismatic or less charismatic than others, that’s what we should say. We shouldn’t couch it in terms of personal holiness. Otherwise it’s a back-handed slap, like saying “Why yes I recycle, because I actually do care about the environment…” God wants us to be Spirit-filled, so using a Spirit-filled/Less Spirit-Filled lens when talking about Charismatic/Cessationist churches is another way of using a Godly/ Less godly lens.
The Doctrine of Subsequence: Part 3- Out With the Old, In With the New
Posted by thetenthleper in Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Doctrine & Theology on May 17, 2011
I ended the previous entry by saying that the Biblical texts which speak of a Spirit-baptism point in one direction: that being “baptized in the Holy Spirit” is something that happens to every believer when they become a Christian. This is contrary to the view which says that Spirit-baptism is something that happens after (or subsequent to) conversion, making it something that believers should still seek after. There’s still a big ol’ “BUT” though that needs to be addressed here. It’s not enough to conclude this series with part 2, because although I concluded that the baptism of the Spirit happens to every believer upon conversion, there are clear examples in the book of Acts of the Holy Spirit coming upon people who were already believers in Christ. Soooooooooo…..yeah, what exactly do we do with that?
A major issue underlying the question of what exactly it means to be baptized in the Holy Spirit is whether or not the book of Acts is normative for all believers. For example, the Holy Spirit didn’t come upon the disciples until Acts 2, even though they were already believers. So is that how the Holy Spirit always works? Or is this instance unique to the time of Pentecost? Again, these instances of a subsequent Spirit-baptism in Acts seem to be a powerful counter-attack against the conclusion I came to in part 2. So if all believers are baptized in the Spirit at conversion, what in the world do we do with these stories? To answer, we must first look at…
The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament
It’s kind of weird to think of the Holy Spirit being in the Old Testament, but he’s there alright, and that’s actually pretty important to the discussion at hand. He shows up at various times and empowers people to do various things. Observe my primitive chart full of examples that I’m 99% indebted to Wayne Grudem for providing (his words are in the quotations):
The Holy Spirit…
-”empowered Joshua with leadership skills and wisdom (Num.27:18; Deut. 34:9)”
-”empowered the judges to deliver Israel from their oppressors” (Judg.3:10, 6:34, 11:29, 13:25, 14:6,19, 15:14)
-came upon Saul and stirred him up for battle (1 Sam. 11:6)
-equipped David for his duties as king (1 Sam.16:13)
-hovered over the waters on God’s first day of creation (Gen. 1:2)
-empowered Bezalel with artistic skill for his work on the tabernacle (Ex. 31:3, 35:31)
-empowered the elders appointed to help Moses (Num. 11:16-17)
I could go on and on, but two things need to grasped from this: First, the Holy Spirit was active in the Old Testament. Secondly (and this is extremely important), while he was active in the OT, his work wasn’t as powerful nor as extensive as it would come to be in the New Testament. He was only said to come upon some people, and even then his residence in them wasn’t necessarily permanent. After all, he departed from Saul in 1 Samuel 16:14. And David, in repenting of adultery and murder, prayed that God would not remove his Holy Spirit from him (Psalm 51:11).
Covenant 2.0
Again, the Holy Spirit did come upon people in the Old Testament, but in a far more limited sense. And since cool stuff happened when the Spirit came upon someone, such a limited work was not exactly ideal. That’s why God gets his people excited about the promise and expectation of a day when the Spirit would come in a far more extensive, permanent, and all-around powerful way. Moses, for example, longed for a day in which God would put his Spirit on all people (Numbers 11:29). And the prophets spoke of and looked forward to a day when God would make a new covenant with his people, the result of which would be a far greater work of the Spirit than they had previously known.
In Ezekiel, God says “‘I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.’” (36:26-27) Joel speaks of the new covenant age in this way: “‘And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit…And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.’” (2:28-29, 32)
In Acts 2, Peter says that the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost is the fulfillment of what Joel prophesied. (See Acts 2:16-21) In other words, the age of the new covenant has arrived, an age characterized by an increased work of the Holy Spirit. This means that before the day of Pentecost, the disciples and other believers were still “Old Testament believers” who experienced a very real (though very limited) work of the Spirit. But with the arrival of the new covenant, the Spirit came in all his promised fullness. Old covenant saints became new covenant saints.
So to look at the Holy Spirit coming upon existing believers in Acts 2 then and say that all believers should seek the same thing is to miss the point of the passage. The focus isn’t on a personal experience the disciples had. The focus is on the transition from the old covenant era to the new covenant one. The disciples were living at a unique point in history, thus making their experience unique. The Holy Spirit came upon them as a result of the inauguration of the new covenant, and ever since then God’s saints have been new covenant believers. We don’t start off as old covenant believers and then transition to new covenant ones. We start and end in the new, meaning there is no transition between covenants. And if there’s no longer any transitioning between covenants, then there’s no outpouring of the Holy Spirit subsequent to conversion. Rather, he’s poured out upon believers at conversion.
So to sum up: Pentecost was about a shift in historical eras. It wasn’t primarily an individual event for the disciples. Or to say it another way: Pentecost was about the time they were living in, not about the quality of their faith. People living at that time who were already believers had become believers under the old covenant. The Spirit came on them later, not because that’s what happens to believers later on in their walks with Christ, but because the new covenant came later. They lived to see the beginning of the prophesied new covenant era in which all believers would be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And since everyone reading this has been born in this era, you’ve been baptized in the Holy Spirit if you’ve been saved.
So that clears up why the disciples were baptized in the Holy Spirit after their conversion at Pentecost. What it doesn’t clear up is why even after Pentecost there seem to be examples of the Spirit coming upon believers subsequent to conversion (see Acts 8, 10, and 19). I’ll explore that in the next entry.
The Doctrine of Subsequence: Part 2- The Phrase “Baptism in the Holy Spirit”
Posted by thetenthleper in Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Doctrine & Theology on February 9, 2011
The Phrase in Scripture
In order to determine whether or not believers should look for a post-conversion “baptism in the Holy Spirit”, we need to look at the phrase itself and how it’s used in Scripture. The phrase shows up seven times: once in each Gospel, twice in the book of Acts, and once in 1 Corinthians. In the Gospels (Matthew 3:11, Mark 1:8, Luke 3:16, and John 1:33), the phrase refers to the ministry of Jesus. In all four verses, the phrase is spoken by John the Baptist to say that although he (John) baptized with water, Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit. In Acts (1:5, 11:16) the phrase is used in reference to Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came. From these six verses, we learn that Jesus is the one who does the baptizing, the Holy Spirit is the element with which this baptism is carried out, and that this baptism happened at Pentecost. But from these verses, it’s still unclear what being baptized in the Holy Spirit means exactly.
The Importance of 1 Corinthians 12:13
The seventh and final verse with this phrase comes from Paul:
“For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”
1 Corinthians 12:13 (NIV)
In determining whether the doctrine of subsequence is biblical, this verse is crucial. The million-dollar question with 1 Corinthians 12:13 is “Does this verse refer to the same thing as the other six verses?” because what Paul is describing in this verse is something that’s happened to every Christian. In 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31, he is talking about how each believer is a member of the one body of Christ. And in verse 13 he says that we were baptized into this body “by one Spirit.” If what Paul is describing here is the same thing as the “baptism in the Holy Spirit” mentioned in the other six verses, then the doctrine of subsequence falls because Paul is saying that the Corinthians were baptized in the Holy Spirit when they became part of the body of Christ, which is another way of saying when they were converted and became Christians. In other words, if Paul’s talking about the same thing, then baptism in the Holy Spirit is something that happens to all Christians at conversion and is therefore not something which we should seek after it.
Pentecostals are quick to note the difference in wording between this verse and the other six references to Spirit-baptism. Whereas the other six verses all pretty much say “baptize/baptized with the Holy Spirit”, many English translations of this verse says that we were baptized “by the Spirit.” Their interpretation then is this: the first six verses mentioned above all refer to a baptism made by Jesus with the Spirit. Just as water is the element in baptisms you see at a church service, the Spirit is the “element” of the baptism Jesus gives. However, 1 Corinthians 12:13 refers to a baptism by the Spirit, meaning that the Spirit is the one in this case doing the baptism. Thus it can’t be the same thing.
The problem with the Pentecostal interpretation of this verse is that while it can be somewhat supported from a reading of some English translations, it can’t be supported in the original language. In the Greek text of the verse the phrase translated “by one Spirit” in the NIV is almost identical to the Greek versions of the other six verses. The word translated “by” is from the same Greek preposition used in the other six verses which in English got translated “in” or “with” (two acceptable, interchangeable translations). In the original language, the only difference between “baptized by one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:13 NIV) and “baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5) is the mention of “one” Spirit rather than the “Holy” Spirit. So in 1 Corinthians, Paul is essentially saying that we were baptized in the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ.
It may seem awkward in English to say that “in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” ”In” and “into” are different words in Greek (“en” and “eis”), just like in English, but in English they sound similar and could even mean the same thing. For instance, I could go “in the house” or I could go “into the house”. Here in 1 Corinthians 12:13, the idea is that as a result of being baptized in the Holy Spirit, we therefore have participation (the “into” here) in the Church, the body of Christ. What’s in view in this verse is 1) what we were baptized with, and 2) what we are now associated with as a result of that baptism. Maintaining this distinction, and perhaps to smooth out the English is probably the reason behind the translation “by”. Wayne Grudem says it well:
“…the Holy Spirit was the element in which they were baptized, and the body of Christ, the church, was the location in which they found themselves after that baptism.”
Grudem compares this verse with 1 Corinthians 10:2- “and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” The elements of baptism were the cloud and the sea. The location they found themselves in was “into Moses”, meaning participation in the community of God’s people, led by Moses.
So textually speaking, it seems impossible to say that the doctrine of subsequence is found in Scripture. The baptism in the Holy Spirit referred to in the Gospels and in Acts is the same baptism that Paul says every Christian experiences by becoming a Christian, not by an outpouring of the Spirit later on. But if this the case, what in the world do we do with all the references to the Holy Spirit being given to people after they had already been believers? That’s coming next, so stay tuned!
Next: Out With the Old, In With the New
The Doctrine of Subsequence: Part 1- Defining the Doctrine
Posted by thetenthleper in Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Doctrine & Theology on February 5, 2011
I’ve been wanting to delve into the field of Pentecostal and charismatic theology for a while now, and I figure this would be a good place to start. Actually I think the history of the movements would be a better place to start, but I’m more interested in talking about subsequence first, so…here ya go.
Okay, subsequence: what the heck is it? The doctrine of subsequence states that after a person becomes a Christian, he or she may experience a post-conversion “baptism in the Holy Spirit.” So in the Church there are two kinds of Christians: Spirit-baptized Christians and everyone else. All believers should seek this Spirit baptism, which typically manifests itself in the gift of tongues. The traditional Pentecostal view of Spirit-baptism is that once it happens to a believer, he/she begins to speak in tongues. This is the sign that the believer has been baptized in the Holy Spirit, even if the believer doesn’t continue to speak in tongues later in life (the gift of tongues). This outpouring of the Spirit “subsequent” to salvation is said to drastically increase the believer’s spiritual power. Prayer is deeper than it once was, worship is awesome-er, Bible study more productive, etc. Basically a greater and more powerful Christian experience. And what Christian wouldn’t want this?
The line of thought that proponents of this doctrine utilize is this:
1.) Jesus’ disciples were already believers before the Spirit was poured out upon them at Pentecost.
2.) Even though they were already believers in and followers of him, Jesus commanded them to stay in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came upon them. They would then be “baptized with [or 'in'] the Holy Spirit”. (Acts 1:4-5) The result of this baptism would be increased power for ministry. (Acts 1:8)
3.) On the day of Pentecost, the apostles were in fact baptized in the Holy Spirit. They were “all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” (Acts 2:4) As Jesus predicted, the result of this baptism was a great empowerment for ministry.
4.) Following the pattern seen in the lives of the apostles, we as Christians today who have been born again should seek a baptism in the Holy Spirit whereby we will be greatly empowered to do our Lord’s work in our time on earth. The sign that this has happened will be when we begin to speak in tongues.
5.) Support for this is seen elsewhere in the book of Acts. In Acts 8 for example, Samaritans who heard Philip preach the gospel believed and were baptized. But after the fact, Peter and John visited them and prayed that the Holy Spirit would come to them. (Acts 8:12-17) In Acts 19, Paul encounters some disciples in Ephesus. But these disciples, even though they believed the gospel, still hadn’t received the Holy Spirit. After laying his hands upon them, Paul remedied the situation and the Holy Spirit came upon these disciples, who in turn “began speaking in tongues and prophesying.” (Acts 9:1-6) So from the example of the apostles on the day of Pentecost and the numerous other examples of people receiving the Holy Spirit subsequent to their conversion, it is clear from Scripture that all believers should follow this example.
Next: The Phrase ‘Baptism in the Holy Spirit’
Insights in Ephesians- 1:4, “Chosen”
Posted by thetenthleper in Election/Predestination, Insights in Ephesians on January 4, 2011
“just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and unblemished in his presence.”
Ephesians 1:4
Fun fact: This is my first blog post ever with a self-translated header verse. That’s right, the version of Ephesians 1:4 you see above you is from the “New North American Scott Dickson Translation 21st Century Version: Revised Updated Edition” (NNASDT21CV:RUE), destined to make the “New American Standard Bible” look like Rob Lacey’s “Word on the Street” translation, and available in so many shapes, sizes, and cover textures so as to make Crossway’s “English Standard Version” catalog look BOR-ing. I’m especially proud of the “Keep Them From the Evil One” edition for ladies, which houses a mace compartment.
[Insert impeccably smooth transition here.]
The idea behind the word exelexato which is translated “he chose” is that of choosing something out of a group, rather than choosing a group in its entirety. One reference book I consulted when translating this verse says that this word “indicates the rejection of some and acceptance of others…” So the choice God made “before the foundation of the world” is selective rather than all-inclusive.
Yeah, this touches on the in-no-way-controversial doctrine of election. That’s where this is going. There’s a lot of controversy over what sense God has chosen us in Christ. I’ve heard explanations given saying things to the effect that God’s chosen that we should be saved only by coming to Christ in faith, or that he’s chosen everybody but we can choose to get off the train so to speak. But what the text is saying here is that God has chosen a people out of the whole human race (and not the whole human race) to be holy and unblemished in his presence.
He did this “in [Christ]” as opposed to choosing us in ourselves. John Calvin notes that “if we are chosen in Christ, it is outside ourselves. It is not from the sight of our deserving, but because our heavenly Father has engrafted us, through the blessing of adoption, into the Body of Christ. In short, the name of Christ excludes all merit, and everything which men have of themselves; for when he says that we are chosen in Christ, it follows that in ourselves we are unworthy.” By being chosen “in him”, we are only ever saved by being united to Jesus and having him as our representative. Just as every human being is a sinner based on our representative Adam, Christ came to redeem a people from fallen humanity by becoming a new, perfect representative for them. Anyone can, by putting their trust in him, be grafted into him and saved.
Finally, God chose some in Christ “before the foundation of the world.” I’ve heard this explained away by saying that God looks down the corridor of time, sees whether or not we’d respond to his offer of salvation, and chooses or doesn’t choose us based on what he sees. The problem with this view is that it makes God’s choice determined by what man does or doesn’t do, when the Bible makes clear that God’s choice is 1) based entirely on his own good pleasure, and 2) is the cause of whether a person responds to him or not. The phrase “before the foundation of the world” means “from all eternity.” “Its force is that God’s choice of them was a free decision not dependent on temporal circumstances but rooted in the depth of his nature. To say that election in Christ took place before the foundation of the world is to underline that it was provoked not by historical contingency or human merit, but solely by God’s sovereign grace.” (Andrew Lincoln)
So from all eternity, God chose to save some. I haven’t really addressed the whole dilemma of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility, but that isn’t my aim here. For that I’ll direct you to an entry I wrote a while back. And on that note I’ll conclude by pointing out that by bringing this up, Paul’s goal isn’t to start a theological debate within the body of Christ. Rather he is taking this truth and using it to praise God and give thanks to him. He doesn’t try to work out all the subtleties and difficulties of this admittedly difficult doctrine. He praises God for the truth of it though, and so should we. Election is to be a source of gratitude and comfort for the body of Christ.
‘Fluere’: Who Hardened Pharaoh’s Heart?
Posted by thetenthleper in Election/Predestination on March 25, 2010
“But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had spoken to Moses.”
-Exodus 9:12
“But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the LORD had said.”
-Exodus 8:15
This is one of those classic, difficult episodes in the Bible which finds its concentrated battlefield in Romans 9 where Paul succinctly states that God has “mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.” (verse 18) So…which is it? Did God harden Pharoah’s heart because Pharoah hardened it first? Or did Pharaoh harden his heart as a result of God’s hardening it? I’ve long since learned that the wrong approach to answering any question like this is to focus on one set of verses that support your conclusion while ignoring those which seem to contradict it. The Bible explicitly states both truths in the question at hand. God is said to be the hardener of Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus 4:21, 9:12, 10:1, 11:10, 14:4, and 14:8. But its said that Pharaoh hardened his own heart in Exodus 8:15, 8:32, and 9:34. Both are true. But this begs a really, really, REALLY weighty question: which came first? (For the sake of clarity, it is clear that both Pharaoh and God had a role to play in hardening Pharaoh’s heart. For the purposes of this entry, whenever I refer to Pharaoh hardening his heart or God hardening Pharaoh’s heart, I’m referring to the one who hardened first, i.e. the reason for the hardened heart.)
From the content of Romans 9 (along with more numerous examples), it is definitely understandable why one side would see the scales tipping in the direction of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. Romans 9:14-18 for example doesn’t exactly leave a taste in your mouth of God acting in response the actions of a historical figure but rather determining by his own will how that figure will play into his own pre-ordained course of history. Yet that doesn’t exactly seem fair. It seems to impugn our free will and relegate us to puppets. God obviously holds us accountable for our actions, and again, Scripture does also say that Pharaoh hardened his heart. Hence the reason for the other side which says that as beings accountable for our actions, God can only have hardened Pharaoh’s heart as a result of Pharaoh’s free, willing, and sinful choice to harden his own heart by disobeying God. So here we have two sides with valid points and each with Scriptures to back it up. Again, which is it?
Honestly, I don’t believe the question of which came first even matters. “How can you say that? Of course it’s important!” one might respond. After all, if God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, then there are tremendous implications about God’s sovereignty. Not only does he guide history according to his own pleasure, but included in this guidance is his choice over who will or will not be saved. On the other hand, if Pharaoh hardened his heart, this would seem to make man the ultimate determiner of his eternal destiny. This side says that Pharaoh must, like every other person in the world, choose God of his own free-will. God can’t force him to make a choice, lest it cease to be a choice. Therefore, Pharaoh freely chose to reject God, and only then did God respond by hardening Pharaoh’s heart. These are two very different options, so where do I get the idea that who hardened this guy’s heart is ultimately irrelevant to the issue at hand? Because whichever side you land on, whichever path you choose to walk on, I think you’re bound to end up at the same destination.
Let’s say that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. God spoke to him through Moses, commanding him to let his people go and Pharaoh, through his own free will, chose to say no. God gave him several more chances to obey but he refused to do so. So as a result, after numerous offerings to repent, God decides to harden the heart of Pharaoh. Now at this point it must be asked what that means. In what way does God harden hearts? I like the way Jonathan Edwards puts it:
“When God is here spoken of as hardening some of the children of men, it is not to be understood that God by any positive efficiency hardens any man’s heart. There is no positive act in God, as though he put forth any power to harden the heart. To suppose any such thing would be to make God the immediate author of sin. God is said to harden men in two ways: by withholding the powerful influences of his Spirit, without which their hearts will remain hardened, and grow harder and harder; in this sense he hardens them, as he leaves them to hardness. And again, by ordering those things in his providence which, through the abuse of their corruption, become the occasion of their hardening.”
So God didn’t actively create unbelief in Pharaoh’s heart. He either withheld his own influence from Pharaoh, or he orchestrated circumstances in which Pharaoh would harden his heart. To illustrate the latter, the Puritans had a great saying: “The same sun that melts the ice hardens the clay.” In other words, preaching the Gospel will melt the hearts of some causing them to believe, and it will further aggravate others and drive them further from God. Both elements of hardening that Edwards mentions are probably at work here. God withholds himself from Pharaoh, and sends Moses to preach to him and further harden the clay.
Of course, Edwards’ explanation of how God hardens hearts rests on a large assumption: that man, on his own, without God’s influence, will not choose God. And I do mean “will not,” as in “no possible way.” This certainly flies in the face of popular opinion concerning free will both in the church and in the public sphere. I’ve often heard that God is voting for me and Satan is voting against me, but I am the one who must cast the deciding vote. But this too rests on a large assumption. It assumes that man is essentially a blank slate, with equal capacity for choosing God and choosing what is against God. The Bible isn’t so optimistic though. Paul for example writes that “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.” (Romans 8:7) Even our wills and desires are corrupted by sin, so we can’t just choose God on a whim. We must choose him because we want him, but wanting him is the obstacle.
I have no real problem with saying that Pharaoh hardened his own heart first and that God in turn responded by hardening Pharaoh in that he gave him exactly what he wanted. But here’s why I believe that the question that titles this entry is ultimately irrelevant: the passage isn’t so much concerned with how Pharaoh got a hard heart as it is with what God did in response. However it is that we harden our hearts, even if we have done so by the unrestrained, unbridled exercise of our autonomous wills, God doesn’t have to rescue us. If we reject him, he can do what he did with Pharaoh and abandon us to our own selfish ways. Or in his incredible mercy he can choose to intervene and give us a new heart which does desire him. We are all born sinners, hostile to God and his ways and without desire to turn from our ways and surrender to him. All we can do in response to God is harden our hearts, for how can we want him whom we hate?
All have sinned and are falling short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We are all in a sense Pharaoh. However we got a hard heart is irrelevant to the question at hand. The point is that a hard heart we have, and therefore we need help. God can harden our hearts by giving us exactly what we want causing us to drift further and further away from him. Or he can have mercy and collide with us. Whatever he does he does out of his own good pleasure. To say this all in another way: the point isn’t how we got ourselves into the mess we’re in. The point is that God alone gets people out of it by his own mercy which he can choose to have or not. We have only ourselves to blame for our separation from God, and we have only God to praise for our reunion with him. If you believe that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart only as a result of Pharaoh hardening it first, you still have to swallow the fact that God could have had mercy on him, but he chose not to (Romans 9:18). To those who have hardened their hearts (all of us), God can choose to have mercy on us or to further harden us. Salvation is God’s gift to dispense as he will. We can’t comprehend it. It’s offensive to our sensibilities. But it’s actually pretty liberating when we accept it.
If you know him, praise him for having mercy on you. If you don’t but you want to, praise him for taking the first step and putting that want in you. Then confess that Jesus is God’s own Son, sent into the world to be the penalty for your sins so that you won’t have to suffer for them. Confess that Jesus’ righteousness is the righteousness that makes you acceptable to God so that you reap the rewards of the one man who lived a perfect life. All who come to God through Jesus will be welcomed by God in Jesus. He’ll turn none away.
“So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.”
-Romans 9:18
“‘All that the Father gives to me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.’”
-John 6:37
__________________________________________
A Couple O’ Extra Thoughts
There’s a couple o’ thoughts I want to throw on here for clarification.
1. I intentionally shied away from using the term above, but the theology I promote in this entry is straight-up, unapologetic Calvinism. I believe that a lot of the American Church’s rejection of Calvinism (though it has certainly been on the rise in recent years due to popular preachers like John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Tim Keller, and Matt Chandler) is due to a misunderstanding of what it really teaches. That was my case before I came to accept it as biblical. I tried to smooth some of those misconceptions out in this entry, but feel free to check out an entry I wrote a while back specifically addressing them.
2. I talk more about this in the link posted under the first point, but God’s determination of who he will and will not save does not negate choice. In hardening sinners, God leaves them to a life of choosing whatever their sinful hearts desire. In having mercy on sinners, God gives them new hearts which desire him and thus freely choose him. The idea that Calvinism means God saves people against their will or that some people who follow Jesus don’t get into heaven because they aren’t on God’s “elect list” is a distortion of what Calvinism really teaches. God will NEVER turn away a sinner who repents.
3. Loraine Boettner wrote down in a helpful paragraph what I’ve fleshed out into a couple of pages here:
“The hearts of the wicked are, of course, never hardened by the direct influence of God, – He simply permits some men to follow out the evil impulses which are already in their hearts, so that, as a result of their own choices, they become more and more calloused and obstinate. And while it is said, for instance, that God hardened the heart of Pharaoh, it is also said that Pharaoh hardened his own heart…One description is given from the divine view-point, the other is given from the human view-point. God is ultimately responsible for the hardening of the heart in that He permits it to occur, and the inspired writer in graphic language simply says that God does it; but never are we to understand that God is the immediate and efficient cause.”
Resting in the Righteousness of Jesus
Posted by thetenthleper in Doctrine & Theology, General on November 29, 2009
“If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.”
-Proverbs 28:9 cf. Isaiah 1:15
“Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”
-Isaiah 59:1-2
The beautiful frustration of the Gospel is that Christ bears our sins for us and that we don’t have to. It’s beautiful because he removes our sins from us. Its frustrating because he does this on his own initiative and with utter finality, which means that we can’t take credit for our salvation nor can we add to it or take anything away from it. We can’t make him love us more, because he loves us supremely. Nor can we make him love us less. Okay, not a lot of people actively strive to have God love them less, but we often act on the assumption that he could start to love us less. We assume this when we begin to feel that we must do…something in order to keep or maintain that love for us. “I must obey God,” we say “so that he continues to love me.” But this isn’t the case. God loves us on his own initiative, and this is frustrating, because its tough for us to accept something without doing anything to earn it. And even if we can get past this, we usually can’t get past the desire to return the favor.
As I sat in my prayer closet a few days ago staring at some verses I had on the wall, I thought of this idea in its relationship to prayer. It occured to me that the requisite for prayer that gets heard is righteousness. Where righteousness is, God’s ears are too. But this presents a problem for us, among whom none are righteous (Romans 3:10-11). Our natural minds are hostile to God and unable to please him (Romans 8:7-8). We have all turned aside from him (Romans 3:12). As a result, there is a disconnect between us and God. Since we are unrighteous, left to ourselves we can’t pray prayers that get heard by God. One verse I love is Psalm 66:18 which says that “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” As an unrighteous person, I have no basis on which to talk to God. Contrast this with the righteous person. “The LORD is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous.” (Proverbs 15:29). And Peter, quoting David writes “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
So often in my prayer life, I’ve felt the need to get righteous before I come to God, or at least make myself “feel” more righteous. Staring at the verses on my wall and meditating on the contrast between the unheard prayers of the unrighteous and the heard prayers of the righteous, I began to wonder: “If we are all unrighteous, then how do we become righteous and therefore get our prayers heard? How can I make this time with God effective?” First, a word about what we don’t (or rather, can’t) do. We can’t be righteous on our own effort. Isaiah writes “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” (Isaiah 64:6) As sinners, even when we do good, we’re still stained with sin. Also, being righteous on the basis of our own works is what the Pharisees tried to do, and Jesus explicitly said that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, we won’t enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:20). In other words, we can’t just “work off” our unrighteousness. Or even more simply, to possess the righteousness which God requires in order to hear our prayers, we can’t “do” anything. And that’s frustrating.
But in comes the beautiful solution. I can come to God, not because I am righteous, but because Jesus is. And by virtue of being united to Jesus by faith in him, God credits his righteousness to me. He no longer sees me apart from his Son. Since I’m united to Christ, I am righteous in God’s eyes because Christ is righteous. He lived a perfect, sinless life, and now I’m reaping the benefits of that. This is a huge weight off the shoulders. I don’t have to “feel” holy and righteous, because I’m not. And I for one am sick of trying to fake it. You can only fool yourself for so long pretending you’re righteous and holy. But because I am in Christ, verses like 1 Peter 3:12 become a promise which I can bank on. “The eyes of Lord are on [me]. His ears are open to [my] prayer.” In going to God, we should make sure we have a clear conscience. We should repent of sins. I don’t think I struggle too much with that one. I’m usually quick to repent of my sins. My problem is, like I said, the lack of feeling like I’m worthy to talk to God. I assume that I must have all these holy affections stored up in my heart before he’ll listen to me or take me seriously. I feel like I have to jump up and down for several minutes trying to catch his attention before God will start to listen to me, that I must “prepare my heart” before I’ll be effective in God’s presence. But thankfully that’s not how it works. We can come before the Father because Jesus can come before the Father. The righteousness that’s required to come before God is the righteousness of Jesus which has been given to us.
Luther called this an “alien righteousness.” Paul prayed that he might be found in Christ, “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.” (Philippians 3:9) This year, I’ve really been learning how to subjectively live in light of the objective, meaning I don’t take my own personal experiences and try to find Scripture that speaks to them, but rather I try to let what Scripture declares determine how I should feel.
I can sometimes be very meticulous with my words. When you have something you really want to say, there’s nothing quite so frustrating as feeling like the words you’ve chosen are an inadequate representation of the reality. Re-reading and finishing this entry, I feel that way. But for once I feel okay with it because what I’m trying to get across is not a thought that I can just hand you and educate you with. It’s a reality that you and I have to fight and wrestle with daily to grasp. The “righteousness of God through Christ by faith” can so easily become mere Christianese; Christian slang that waters down the reality and puts it into bite-sized portions for easy consumption. A lot of what I’ve written here sounds just like that. I really haven’t said anything here that most people who will read this haven’t heard. For me, none of this stuff is new. I know these verses. I hear about righteousness all the time. The difficult part is grasping and accepting this idea. It is entirely against our nature to accept something so great without having done anything to earn it. When someone invites me over to dinner, one of my initial questions is “Can I bring anything over?” (i.e. How can I contribute to this gift?) Similarly, it’s hard to let someone pick up the check at a restaurant. And when out of the blue and out of love someone gives me a gift, I feel a tinge of regret that I have nothing to give to them.
In the prayer closet this spills over. It’s furiously difficult to stop trying to “prepare my heart” and working up enough holy affections in my heart before I feel that God will start listening to me. And knowing all that God has done for me, it’s challenging to not feel like I have to give something back. The most loving thing I can do when someone wants to give me a gift is to accept it, not start thinking of ways I can match it. God prepared a plan of salvation in which his own righteousness is given to me, because there’s simply no way I could ever muster up enough righteousness on my own to get him to even look at me. It was never in God’s plan to accept me based on what I have done. I don’t have to impress him. So this is where words fall short. All you and I can do with all this is to take God at his word and trust him. Look at what he says about the need for righteousness to come before him, and then ACCEPT without reservation the fact that he’s given you that righteousness. Repent where you need to and move on. You’re associated with Jesus, and that is all God needs. It’s frustrating to accept this. But that there is something like this to have to accept…there is nothing more beautiful.
Affections for God are an effect not a cause. He does not respond to what we initiate. He doesn’t start speaking to us when we feel like we’re worthy to be spoken to. Affections are a direct result of what he has already accomplished. “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
-2 Corinthians 5:17
“He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.” -Leviticus 1:4
The Promises of God- An Introduction
Posted by thetenthleper in Promises of God on July 17, 2009
“The best praying man is the man who is most believingly familiar with the promises of God. After all, prayer is nothing but taking God’s promises to Him and saying, ‘Do as You have said.’ Prayer is the promise utilized. Prayer not based on a promise has no true foundation.”
Charles Spurgeon
The above quote is one that has impacted me profoundly in my prayer life. I first read it a couple years back when I read the best book on prayer I’ve yet read: Spurgeon’s The Power of Prayer in the Believer’s Life. It came back to mind a few months back, and I began dwelling on it a lot. I’ve found in my life that the better I know Scripture, the better I pray, and I think the principle behind that is exactly what Spurgeon says above. As I’ve meditated on this quote, I decided to get more serious about applying it. I decided I wanted to have a solid list of powerful promises to look at and be able to bring before God in prayer and say “Do as You have said.”
If you go to any bookstore, you should be able to find all kinds of books in the Christian section with titles like “God’s Promises for Your Life” and “The Bible’s Promises for Life.” They’re small books and are usually organized topically. As I began my endeavor to mine through the promises of Scripture, I naturally thought of these books first since I have a few. But I realized that most of these books can be seriously misleading in their intent. By virtue of their title, many lead you to believe that what are contained in their pages are biblical promises. Yet I’ve realized that in large part these books can’t be considered as such. They’re more subject indexes than they are promise books. For example, one of these books of bible promises has a section entitled “Love of God.” One of the entries is Psalm 89:1- “I will sing of the steadfast love of the LORD, forever; with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations.” The problem with including this verse is that it’s not really a promise. It’s a beautiful description of praise and the worshiper’s response to God. It’s wondefully instructional, but I wouldn’t throw it in the category of ‘promise.’
Another verse under this heading is Romans 5:8- “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This is a beautiful and indispensable verse when we’re talking about the subject of God’s love. It accurately describes the nature of this love. But if I’m looking for a promise that I’m loved by God, I’d be more inclined to look at Romans 8:35-39 where God promises us that there is absolutely nothing that will seperate us from his love, and to his promise that he’ll never leave me or forsake me (Hebrews 13:5, Matthew 28:20).
Under ‘Generosity’, one of the verses I find is 1 John 3:17- “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” Again, great verse. Crucial for instruction. But it’s not a promise. In the same heading I find Psalm 41:1- “Blessed is the one who considers the poor! In the day of trouble the LORD delivers him” and Matthew 25:40- “‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these…you did it to me.’” Now THOSE are promises! If you consider the poor, you ARE blessed, and you’ll be delivered. If you serve even the least, it’ll be counted as if you’ve done it to Jesus himself.
I’ve started keeping a sheet of paper nearby in my quiet-times which has a list of very explicit promises I’m finding in Scripture, and I’ll be expounding on these specific promises in later entries. I don’t intend this list to be exhaustive by any stretch. I intend to be adding to this list for the rest of my life. My hope in writing these out is to encourage you in your walk with Christ to talk hold of what God has promised you, so that you may be bold in prayer by taking these promises back to the one who gave them. It is this confidence, this faith in God, which gives prayer its power (James 1:6).
“No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”
Romans 4:20-21
“…it is impossible for God to lie…”
Hebrews 6:18
