Grace
“Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners. It is consistent with the free agency of man, and comprehends all the means in connection with the end. It is a glorious display of God’s sovereign goodness, and is infinitely wise, holy, and unchangeable. It excludes boasting and promotes humility.”
V. God’s Purpose of Grace The Baptist Faith and Message
Before the dawning of creation, omniscient God knew that man would sin and need to be saved. This foreknowledge did not mean God caused it. It resulted from man exercising his free will given him by our sovereign God. A pre-creation Trinitarian council concluded the method of this salvation. Therefore, Jesus Christ was “the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world.”
Several things are essential in considering God’s grace. Primary among them is God loves all people and it is His will to save as many as possible. It should not be thought of as God designing arbitrarily to save just a few He selects. Such an attitude leads to fatalism. Such an attitude reduces the incentive to evangelize. Some argue it doesn’t – and it doesn’t for some, but it decidedly does for most. An appraisal of churches where a restricted view of limited grace prevails shows there to be little or no evangelism. Consider the protestant churches of Europe and many in America.
At no place in Scripture is election presented as mechanical with man simply being a marionette on God’s strings. Election is never represented as violating man’s free will.
“No man comes to me, except the Father…draws him”
(John 6:44).
God lovingly “draws.” Man freely “comes.”
God’s sovereignty is clearly taught in Scripture. This means He can do whatever He desires. He is free to establish boundaries and enforce His desire. He has all power to act according to His divine nature. His love and grace prompted Him to create human beings with the authority to choose on their own behalf. This free will is indicated in many Bible accounts.
Evidence of the power of choice is seen in God’s instructions to His ancient people.
“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil….I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live…” (Deuteronomy 30:15 & 19).
On behalf of the Lord Elijah gave the people a choice: “How long will you falter between two opinions” If the Lord be God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him” (I Kings 18: 21). This “either — or” calls on the people to choose. They had freedom of choice.
This freedom of choice is seen in Joshua’s charge to his followers: “”…if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve…” (Joshua 24: 14, 15).
The same courses open to ancient Israel in these instances is available to the “whosoever” of John 3:16. That is, those who believe in Him. It is a choice, a matter of free will given man by our sovereign God.
God in His sovereign will designed man to have a free will. He would not have a free will if God did not allow it.
If this truth is not allowed:
a) man is not a free moral agent capable of fellowship with God.
b) God Himself would be accountable for man’s sinful acts.
C) If all things are arbitrarily predetermined by God there is no need to pray.
Laws of nature illustrate this spiritual law.
God in His sovereign will has designed certain laws of nature. Human beings are free to live according to these laws or in violation of them. Though free man is still responsible for the consequences of his actions.
The same is true of God’s spiritual laws. Man can either obey or disobey them but still suffers the consequence or enjoys the blessings.
Before creation God took the initiative of seeking and saving. The marvel is not that man is seeking God but that God is seeking man: “the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).
God’s sovereignty and man’s free will are both taught in Ephesians 1: 3-13.
God is represented as “He chose us” and “predestined us” (vss. 3,4).
“Chose” can also be translated “elected.” This choice by God was made before “the foundation of the world.” Thus, the word “predestined” means a predetermined destiny. What determines this destiny? The word translated “predestined” translates a verb meaning to mark off a boundary (vs. 11). It was a surveyors term used to distinguish a territory. In love God marked off the boundary as being “in him.” Election is “in Christ.”
In these eleven verses “in Christ” or the equivalent is used 10 times. Christ is the boundary fence. It has been predetermined that all who are “in Him” are predestined to share His destiny.
God did not ask the council of anyone regarding this. He did it of His own sovereign will.
God purposed and provided to make salvation available to all persons. He took the initiative and gave man a free will to make the choice as to whether to be “in Christ.”
God is glorified by the fact man had this hope beforehand (Vs. 12).
Man’s free will is seen in the expression “in whom, having believed” or in another translation “in whom also after that ye believed‘ (Vs. 13). Meaning you freely believed.
Salvation occurs when a person believes “in Christ.” This belief is more than mere intellectual ascent. It involves submitting to Christ as His servant and obeying Him as Master. It is belief that results in a life change, a transformed life that produces fruit of repentance.
The fact God foreknows who will and who won’t willfully be “in Christ” does not mean He makes it happen.
Before creation God established for Himself the standard that He would not violate man’s free will. God Himself elected, that is, chose the plan of salvation.
“Election is not to be thought of as a bare choice of so many human units by God’s action independently of man’s free choice and the human means employed. God has elected, chosen, to reach people through their native facilities, the church, evangelism, education, and missionary endeavor.”
If God’s sovereign election and man’s free will are not considered together we split God’s decree and of necessity leave out one part.
“One is strangely insensitive to the throb and pulse beat of the whole New Testament if he thinks that each man’s fate is determined for him in advance. This is not a rigged television show. God is not playing with toys and manipulating gadgets; He is seeking men who stand in awesome freedom where they may accept or reject the salvation which God alone can offer.” Frank Stagg
This article is a review of:
THE BAPTIST FAITH AND MESSAGE HERSCHEL HOBBS PP
The Big Hole Valley
In recent years my wife and I have been privileged to spend a bit of time each year in the Big Hole Valley in Montana. It is one of the most scenic spots in America. It is a basin sixty miles long and fifteen miles wide bordered by the Pioneer Range on the east and the Rocky Mountain cordillera of the west. Streams flow from virtually every valley to form the Big Hole River which merges with the Beaverhead River to form the Jefferson which merges with the Madison and Gallatin Rivers and flows into the Missouri River into the Mississippi and eventually into the Gulf of Mexico.
The ranch house sits on an table 5860 feet above sea level. The view is right up the river. Mount McCartney, the tallest free standing mountain in North America at about 9,000 feet, forms the ranch boundary to the east with the river on the west. The ranch is about one tenth the length of the valley.
All of this is approximately three hours from Yellowstone over the Beartooth Highway, the highest roadway in North America appropriately dubbed “America’s most beautiful highway.” The elevation is slightly less that eleven thousand feet. The alpine vistas are enthralling. The route home is through Virginia City and Nevada City, two engaging old gold mining towns.
Lewis and Clark along with their Native American guide, Sacajawea camped here. Nearby Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce fought the Battle of the Big Hole River and started their trek toward Canada. On the ranch and nearby are abandoned gold mines. The fertility of the valley has earned it the name “The valley of 10,000 hay stacks.”
Moose, elk, black tail and white tail deer, antelopes, gold and bald eagles, proliferate on the ranch along the Big Hole River known as one of the ten best trout fishing streams in America.
Our friends from Grand Rapids, Michigan who own the ranch have developed a portion of it as a retreat center. They pay all expenses for groups from three colleges and fourteen other groups to each spend a week there in the summer each year. Most who come are from Michigan.
Quality provisions for softball, basketball, soccer, volleyball, and horseshoes provide outdoor recreational opportunities. A spacious game room is provided. Tubing the river and climbing McCartney are priorities. The food is superb. All is free. Everything is first class in keeping with the reputation of Yellowstone Builders, the contractors.
The ranch has been developed to provide a setting for young people to have solitude and engage in spiritual training. It is amazing how attitudes and even facial expressions change within a week. The ranch is in reality an investment in the future of America. Some schools bring their student leaders and others their sports teams captains and coaches. Non-churched inner city as well as urban church groups come.
It is a big investment for an even bigger cause. Living and conversing with the owners I am persuaded they think it is the best investment they have ever made. Their expressed joy and sense of gratification over lives positively influenced provides dividends for time and eternity. It is good to be a little part of something this big. The Big Hole fills an empty hole in a lot of lives.
A Journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem
Have you ever wondered what the few days before the historical event that initiated Christmas would have been like for Mary and Joseph? Walk through them with me.
From Nazareth they would have crossed over the mountains through Cana to the southern shores of the Sea of Galilee. There they would have rendezvoused with others going south.
It was the norm for people to travel these routes in groups to avoid robbers. Usually a self-appointed guide/protector was paid a fee in order to go along with his group.
There is no donkey in the Bible account for Mary to ride. Walking, though drudgery, might have been easier for a woman nine months pregnant than riding a donkey. Mary would have been a teenager at the time and doubtless a hardy one as most people of the time had to be to survive.
The route started on the west shores of the Jordan River. Just south of Beth Shean parties crossed the river into what is now Jordan. The route was easier and safer from there to Jericho where they crossed back. The temperature in this fertile green valley would have been more mild than would be found on the mountains around Bethlehem.
To this point the route would have traversed mostly smooth terrain. From Jericho to Bethlehem would have required going through the barren Wilderness of Judea. Here especially the protection afforded by group travel would have been essential. It was along this road the Good Samaritan encountered the man who had been beaten and robbed.
Once they arrived in Bethlehem it afforded them no Regency. An “inn” was simply a caravansary. There was one in Bethlehem which King David named for one of his generals. Such consisted of a plot of ground cleared of most stones out of which a perimeter “fence” would have been made. It restricted animals within it.
An inn was in no way anything like a hotel or motel. It was an outdoor walled off place where people and their animals slept together as they often did in the field. Within they were protected and had a bit of shelter.
The mountains around Bethlehem are porous providing many caves. Some of these caves were used to shelter livestock. Often a cave would have more than one chamber. The animals were kept in the outer chamber and provided warmth for the family deeper within. This is similar to what Eskimos allegedly do with their dogs in their igloos. Such caves were called mangers. There is no innkeeper in the Bible narrative but there must have been some proprietor to allowed Mary and Joseph to use the manger. It afforded more privacy than would have the inn itself.
I have visited that cave in Bethlehem more than fifty times. It is a humbling thing to stand there and think here, right here, the Word became flesh and came and dwelt among us.
Just outside that night an angel appeared with a special message that was good tidings of great joy. It entailed the potential for what we all long: “PEACE ON EARTH GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN.”
Hail Mary
One of my all time favorite teens was a little country girl from a town with a population of less than 150 residents. Even more intriguing she was a cave dweller in a primitive area. Her home town was so insignificant that in a listing of 250 towns and settlements in the area it was not even included. Josephus was the historian making the list.
We know that young girl by the simple and beautiful name to which she added honor, Mary. Just Mary. If applications had been taken for virgins Mary probably would never have been found.
She was one of only two Bible character to have seen an angel in over 400 years. When one did show up he brought an unimaginable message. She was going to have a baby without conception. Yeah, right. Later secular records say she was at the well getting water when the angel came. The Bible doesn’t say where she was. That is not important; what message was conveyed was important.
Now she was “betrothed” to Joseph the son of a carpenter. I have read all sorts of prose and poetry about his work as a woodworking craftsman. Few trees grow in the area of Nazereth. It was a settlement of cave dwellers. The caves can still be visited today. Does it make sense that in that environment a wood worker could have made a living. The word translated “carpenter” is understood by us to mean one who works with wood. The word was also used to refer to a stone mason. Very probably Joseph was a worker with stone not wood.
Historians calculating all the variables conclude that at the time of the annunciation Mary was between 13 and 16 years of age. That was not an uncommon age for marriage in that era.
The law of the day said a woman pregnant out of wedlock was to be stoned. She and Joseph both knew this. The firestorm about to come down on them is unimaginable.
First, there must have been at least one gossip in town to start the rumors flying. Think of what it must have been like for Mary to tell her parents of the embarrassing news that was sure to disgrace them. After all, Mary, your cover story of an angel and the Holy Spirit causing the pregnancy isn’t very pragmatic. You have got to do better than that.
All of this happened during the time they were “betrothed.” That defined a period of about one year between when a couple became engaged and the marriage was actually consummated. During this time though single and never alone together they were considered as married. It was a time to prepare for life together.
Against such a backdrop this teen stepped on history’s stage and said to God, “Let it be to me according to your word.”
That took faith. Faith that it could happen and faith that God would see her through the ordeal. It was faith not knowledge that motivated her.
It must have been an inspiring moment when the angel appeared and she made this commitment. Remember this, “commitment is the capacity to carry out the intention of a decision long after the emotion that inspired it has faded.”
The historical Christmas narrative inspires courage and gives hope to all. Mary believed the angel when he said, “With God nothing is impossible.”
A Review of Calvinism and Southern Baptists
The Way We Were is a well researched work by Dr. Fisher Humphreys on trends in Southern Baptist theology through the years. This is a review of the portion of the book dealing with “Calvinistic Belief,” a current hot topic among Southern Baptists.
He dates the initial encounter between the emerging Baptists movement and the synod of Dort in the Netherlands (1618-1619) and the five articles crafted there. From the beginning the Baptist made it clear they opposed the confessions adopted there by the Dutch church. The five Canons of Dort are summarized by the acronym TULIP standing for:
Total depravity
Unconditional grace
Limited atonement
Irresistible grace and the
Preservation of the saints.
The last of these is the primary one with which the original Baptists agreed as do most present day Baptists. The other four tenants are held by a vocal minority of Baptists.
Calvinists point out various Christian leaders who adhered to their beliefs. A far larger number can be noted who disagree with them. It is not a matter of who believes what but the validity of what is believed that matters. These held by an articulate minority of Baptists are presented with viable objectivity.
GOD UNCONDITIONALLY ELECTS SOME PEOPLE TO BE SAVED
Calvinists believe in what is known as “double predestination,” that is God predestined how people would respond to Him and foreknew they would respond. Baptists cannot reconcile this idea with such texts as II Peter 3:9 “the Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance…” and I Timothy 2:4 stating God “will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”
In general Baptists believe God chose to save those who would of their own free will put their faith in Christ. They do not believe God in His sovereignty arbitrarily decided who would be saved and who damned. They believe God wants all people to be saved but will not override their free will given them by God.
Southern Baptists in general believe that to hold the Calvinistic view would result in their loss of evangelism and soul winning missions efforts.
CHRIST DIED FOR THE ELECT ONLY
Calvinists believe in “penal substitution” regarding Christ’s death. They believe that Christ died for only the elect. This is called “limited atonement” in that they believe the atonement is limited in that it was intended only for he elect.
Baptists believe in “general atonement,” that is Christ died for all sinners and by their free will they determine whether to respond to it receptively in faith. Only a minority of Baptists believe Christ died just for the elect.
ALL PEOPLE ARE TOTALLY DEPRAVED
Calvinists believe that since all persons are spiritually dead they cannot repent and respond to God. They hold that a person must first be born again then they can respond to God in faith and repent.
Most Baptists agree no one can save him or her self. They believe salvation is all by God’s grace through faith in Christ. Repentance and faith are held by them not to contribute to salvation but are the means whereby the all sufficient grace of God is received. There is no merit in receiving grace. All merit is in grace being given by God.
GOD’S GRACE IS IRRESISTIBLE
Calvinists believe God’s grace cannot be resisted by those chosen by God to be saved. Calvinists believe that if this is not true God is not sovereign.
Southern Baptists in general believe that God’s grace can be resisted and this results in a person not being saved. They also believe in the sovereignty of God and that He sovereignly gave man a free will with which to respond or not respond. They believe that for God to give such freedom and then respect it does not constitute a diminishment of the sovereignty of God but a recognition of the way in which the sovereign God has chosen to relate to human beings.
PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
Southern Baptists are in general agreement on the concept of the security of the believer known as “once saved always saved” or preservation of the saints.
There is a slight semantic difference in what Calvinists believe on this topic. They believe in the perseverance of the saints.
(The following two paragraphs are a sidebar to the book review.)<
Put side by side the difference becomes clear.
| SOUTHERN BAPTIST Preservation of the saints God does it It is based on God’s promises It is absolute |
CALVINIST Perseverance of the saints Man does it It is based on man’s performance It is relative |
Contrary to the concept of “it is all about grace” this last point actually means the Calvinists position on the subject is works based. This leaves some Calvinists hoping they have done enough good work. Baptist know for sure God has done a perfect work.
When the Southern Baptist Convention was organized in 1845 five traditions were represented. One was known as the Charleston tradition, which was Calvinistic. The Sandy Creek tradition discounted Calvinism and emphasized evangelism. The Georgia tradition represented the Southern regionalism of the Convention. The Tennessee tradition emphasized the distinctiveness of Baptists churches. The Southwest tradition stressed evangelical-denominationalism. The Convention sided against the Calvinist tradition and with the evangelical persuasion. The Sandy Creek tradition prevailed. That is the doctrinal foundation of most Southern Baptist churches. Their heritage is other than Calvinistic. There have always been some in the ranks of Southern Baptists with Calvinistic leanings. Some are people of note. However, the denomination in general has always supported the position of its founders who sided against the Calvinistic tradition.
Humphreys concluded that in light of this Southern Baptists who resist Calvinism may be called traditional Baptists in the sense that the first Baptist resisted Calvinism, and in the sense that today most Southern Baptists resist it.
THE WAY WE WERE, by Fisher Humphreys, Smyth & Helwys, Macon, Georgia, revised 2002, pp. 67-73.