R.C. Sproul on Human Responsibility

John 3:16 and Man’s Ability to Choose God

FROM R.C. Sproul Jul 03, 2013 Category: Articles

It is ironic that in the same chapter, indeed in the same context, in which our Lord teaches the utter necessity of rebirth to even see the kingdom, let alone choose it, non-Reformed views find one of their main proof texts to argue that fallen man retains a small island of ability to choose Christ. It is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

What does this famous verse teach about fallen man’s ability to choose Christ? The answer, simply, is nothing. The argument used by non-Reformed people is that the text teaches that everybody in the world has it in their power to accept or reject Christ. A careful look at the text reveals, however, that it teaches nothing of the kind. What the text teaches is that everyone who believes in Christ will be saved. Whoever does A (believes) will receive B (everlasting life). The text says nothing, absolutely nothing, about who will ever believe. It says nothing about fallen man’s natural moral ability. Reformed people and non-Reformed people both heartily agree that all who believe will be saved. They heartily disagree about who has the ability to believe.

Some may reply, “All right. The text does not explicitly teach that fallen men have the ability to choose Christ without being reborn first, but it certainly implies that.” I am not willing to grant that the text even implies such a thing. However, even if it did it would make no difference in the debate. Why not? Our rule of interpreting Scripture is that implications drawn from the Scripture must always be subordinate to the explicit teaching of Scripture. We must never, never, never reverse this to subordinate the explicit teaching of Scripture to possible implications drawn from Scripture. This rule is shared by both Reformed and non-Reformed thinkers.

If John 3:16 implied a universal natural human ability of fallen men to choose Christ, then that implication would be wiped out by Jesus’ explicit teaching to the contrary. We have already shown that Jesus explicitly and unambiguously taught that no man has the ability to come to him without God doing something to give him that ability, namely drawing him.

Fallen man is flesh. In the flesh he can do nothing to please God. Paul declares, “The fleshly mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:7, 8).

We ask, then, “Who are those who are ‘in the flesh’?” Paul goes on to declare: “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you” (Rom. 8:9). The crucial word here is if. What distinguishes those who are in the flesh from those who are not is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. No one who is not reborn is indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. People who are in the flesh have not been reborn. Unless they are first reborn, born of the Holy Spirit, they cannot be subject to the law of God. They cannot please God.

God commands us to believe in Christ. He is pleased by those who choose Christ. If unregenerate people could choose Christ, then they could be subject to at least one of God’s commands and they could at least do something that is pleasing to God. If that is so, then the apostle has erred here in insisting that those who are in the flesh can neither be subject to God nor please him.

We conclude that fallen man is still free to choose what he desires, but because his desires are only wicked he lacks the moral ability to come to Christ. As long as he remains in the flesh, unregenerate, he will never choose Christ. He cannot choose Christ precisely because he cannot act against his own will. He has no desire for Christ. He cannot choose what he does not desire. His fall is great. It is so great that only the effectual grace of God working in his heart can bring him to faith.

How Should Same-Sex Marriage Change the Church’s Witness?

How Should Same-Sex Marriage Change the Church’s Witness?

— WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26TH, 2013 —

The Supreme Court has now ruled on two monumental marriage cases, and the legal and cultural landscape has changed in this country. The court voted to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act and remand the decision of the Ninth Circuit in the Proposition 8 case, holding that California’s Proposition 8 defenders didn’t have standing. The Defense of Marriage Act decision used rather sweeping language about equal protection and human dignity as they apply to the recognition of same-sex unions. But what has changed for us, for our churches, and our witness to the gospel?

In one sense, nothing. Jesus of Nazareth is still alive. He is calling the cosmos toward his kingdom, and he will ultimately be Lord indeed. Regardless of what happens with marriage, the gospel doesn’t need “family values” to flourish. In fact, it often thrives when it is in sharp contrast to the cultures around it. That’s why the gospel rocketed out of the first-century from places such as Ephesus and Philippi and Corinth and Rome, which were hardly Mayberry.

In another sense, though, the marginalization of conjugal marriage in American culture has profound implications for our gospel witness. First of all, marriage isn’t incidental to gospel preaching.

There’s a reason why persons don’t split apart like amoebas. We were all conceived in the union between a man and a woman. Beyond the natural reality, the gospel tells us there’s a cosmic mystery (Eph. 5:32).

God designed the one-flesh union of marriage as an embedded icon of the union between Christ and his church. Marriage and sexuality, among the most powerful pulls in human existence, are designed to train humanity to recognize, in the fullness of time, what it means for Jesus to be one with his church, as a head with a body.

Same-sex marriage is on the march, even apart from these decisions, and is headed to your community, regardless of whether you are sitting where I am right now, on Capitol Hill, or in a rural hamlet in southwest Georgia or eastern Idaho. This is an opportunity for gospel witness.

For a long time in American culture, we’ve acted as though we could assume marriage. Even people from what were once called “broken homes” could watch stable marriages on television or movies. Boys and girls mostly assumed they had a wedding in their futures. As marriage is redefined, these assumptions will change. Let’s not wring our hands about that.

This gives Christian churches the opportunity to do what Jesus called us to do with our marriages in the first place: to serve as a light in a dark place. Permanent, stable marriages with families with both a mother and a father may well make us seem freakish in 21st-century culture. But is there anything more “freakish” than a crucified cosmic ruler? Is there anything more “freakish” than a gospel that can forgive rebels like us and make us sons and daughters? Let’s embrace the freakishness, and crucify our illusions of a moral majority.

That means that we must repent of our pathetic marriage cultures within the church. For too long, we’ve refused to discipline a divorce culture that has ravaged our cultures. For too long, we’ve quieted our voices on the biblical witness of the distinctive missions of fathers and mothers in favor of generic messages on “parenting.”

For too long, we’ve acted as though the officers of Christ’s church were Justices of the Peace, marrying people who have no accountability to the church, and in many cases were forbidden by Scripture to marry. Just because we don’t have two brides or two grooms in front of us, that doesn’t mean we’ve been holding to biblical marriage.

The dangerous winds of religious liberty suppression means that our nominal Bible Belt marrying parson ways are over. Good riddance. This means we have the opportunity, by God’s grace, to take marriage as seriously as the gospel does, in a way that prompts the culture around us to ask why.

The increased attention to the question of marriage also gives us the opportunity to love our gay and lesbian neighbors as Jesus does. Some will capitulate on a Christian sexual ethic. There are always those professional “dissidents” who make a living espousing mainline Protestant shibboleths to an evangelical market. But the church will stand, and that means the gospel Jesus has handed down through the millennia. As we stand with conviction, we don’t look at our gay and lesbian neighbors as our enemies. They are not.

The gay and lesbian people in your community aren’t part of some global “Gay Agenda” conspiracy. They aren’t super-villains in some cartoon. They are, like all of us, seeking a way that seems right to them. If we believe marriage is as resilient as Jesus says it is (Mk. 10:6-9), it cannot be eradicated by a vote of justices or a vote of a state legislature. Some will be disappointed by what they thought would answer their quest for meaning. Will our churches be ready to answer?

This also means we must change the way we preach. Those with same-sex attractions, who follow Christ, will be walking away from what their families and friends want for them: wedding cake and married life and the American Dream. Following Jesus will mean taking up a cross and following a hard narrow way. It always does.

If we’re going to preach that sort of gospel, we must make it clear that this cross-bearing self-denial isn’t just for homosexually-tempted Christians. It is for all of us, because that’s what the gospel is. If your church has been preaching the American Dream, with eternal life at the end and Jesus as the means you use to get all that, you don’t have a gospel that can reach your gay and lesbian neighbors—or anyone else for that matter.

Same-sex marriage is headed for your community. This is no time for fear or outrage or politicizing. It’s a time for forgiven sinners, like us, to do what the people of Christ have always done. It’s time for us to point beyond our family values and our culture wars to the cross of Christ as we say: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

And that’s good news.

http://www.russellmoore.com/2013/06/26/how-should-same-sex-marriage-change-the-churchs-witness/

Are Those Who Have Never Heard of Christ Going to Hell?

FROM R.C. Sproul Jun 21, 2013 Category: Articles

That’s one of the most emotionally laden questions that a Christian can ever be asked. Nothing is more terrifying or more awful to contemplate than that any human being would go to hell. On the surface, when we ask a question like that, what’s lurking there is, “How could God ever possibly send some person to hell who never even had the opportunity to hear of the Savior? It just doesn’t seem right.”

I would say the most important section of Scripture to study with respect to that question is the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans. The point of the book of Romans is to declare the Good News—the marvelous story of redemption that God has provided for humanity in Christ, the riches and the glory of God’s grace, the extent to which God has gone to redeem us. But when Paul introduces the gospel, he begins in the first chapter by declaring that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven and this manifestation of God’s anger is directed against a human race that has become ungodly and unrighteous. So the reason for God’s anger is anger against evil. God’s not angry with innocent people; he’s angry with guilty people. The specific point for which they are charged with evil is in the rejection of God’s self-disclosure.

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CHRIST IS SENT INTO A WORLD THAT IS ALREADY ON THE WAY TO HELL.

Paul labors the point that from the very first day of creation and through the creation, God has plainly manifested his eternal power and being and character to every human being on this planet. In other words, every human being knows that there is a God and that he is accountable to God. Yet every human being disobeys God. Why does Paul start his exposition of the gospel at that point? What he’s trying to do, and what he develops in the book of Romans, is this: Christ is sent into a world that is already on the way to hell. Christ is sent into the world that is lost, that is guilty of rejecting the Father whom they do know.

Now, let’s go back to your original question, “Does God send people to hell who have never heard of Jesus?” God never punishes people for rejecting Jesus if they’ve never heard of Jesus. When I say that, people breathe a sigh of relief and say, “Then we’d better not tell anybody about Jesus because somebody might reject him. Then they’re really in deep trouble.” But again, there are other reasons to go to hell. To reject God the Father is a very serious thing. And no one will be able to say on the last day, “I didn’t know that you existed,” because God has revealed himself plainly. Now the Bible makes it clear that people desperately need Christ. God may grant his mercy unilaterally at some point, but I don’t have any reason to have much hope in that. I think we have to pay serious attention to the passionate command of Christ to go to the whole world, to every living creature, and tell them of Jesus.

Marveling at the Majesty of God

Moving Evangelicals Beyond Idolatry

By: R.C. Sproul

The central theme of Romans 1 concerns the general revelation that God makes of himself to the whole world. Paul labors the fact that the revelation of the gospel is to a world that is already under indictment for its universal rejection of God the Father. Christ came into a world that was populated by sinners. The most basic sin found in the world is that of idolatry.

Man is a fabricum idolarum. So wrote John Calvin in an attempt to capture the essence of human fallenness. In Germany, a fabrik is a factory. It is a place where products are mass-produced. Calvin’s phrase simply means “maker of idols.”

In cultured civilizations, we tend to assume that idolatry is not a problem. We may complain about the use of statues and focus on certain ecclesiastical settings but where they are absent, we feel relieved from concern about primitive forms of idolatry. In a broader sense, however, any distortion from the true character of God is an act of idolatry. Our theology itself may easily become idolatrous. If our concept of God is incorrect at any point, that point of error is itself an element of idolatry.

The Sin of Theological Error

To commit theological error is to commit sin. We excuse ourselves lightly by appealing to the weakness of the intellect and the difficulty of the subject matter. We pride ourselves in being noble seekers after truth and dismiss our errors as mere “mistakes” along the way. Mistakes are something children make when they err in the sum of 3 + 5. We do not think of such mistakes in moral terms.

God commands us to love him with all of our minds. He calls us to diligent discipleship. We are called to meditate on his word day and night. Our errors in theology are rooted in our pride and our slothfulness. We are satisfied with sloppy views of God. We are comfortable with idols. It is our fallen nature to prefer the idols to the real God. Idols are lifeless and worthless. But they are also harmless. That is why we are comfortable with them. We make our own idols. What we make, we own; and what we own, we can control. We did not make God. We cannot control him. That makes us uncomfortable.

Special Judgment for Teachers

Let me be candid, revealing my innermost thoughts about the problem of idolatry. I am a student of theology. I am also a professor of theology who has taught the doctrine of God in theological seminaries. That is supposed to mean that I know something about the subject. Like most students, however, I realize that the more I learn about God, the more aware I become of what I don’t know about him. I realize that I should know a lot more than I do know about God.

I also know that as a teacher, I am supposed to know more about God than the average Christian. That terrifies me. The Bible warns that not many are to become teachers because there is a special judgment in store for teachers. If I am guilty of leading the little ones astray, that makes me a candidate for a millstone around my neck.

A Major Problem Among Evangelicals

I like to think that my theological errors are mere “mistakes.” The truth is, however, I err because I have not done my homework. I have not applied my mind fully to the love of God. So my own failures in theology haunt me.

There is still another matter that deeply concerns me. I see a problem with idolatry in the evangelical world. There is much that is orthodox within current evangelicalism. Sadly, there is also much that is not orthodox. I see the problem of idolatry, not as a slight deviation here and there, but as a major problem. Idolatrous views of God are rampant within current evangelicalism. I find a God who is not immutable, who is not infinite, who is not holy, and who is not sovereign. Such a god is simply not God. It is an idol.

The Roots of Idolatry

In Romans 1, the apostle Paul traces the root of idolatry. He writes,

… although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him … (verse 21)

The problem with idolatry is not a matter of ignorance. It is a problem of human attitudes toward God. The primary posture of fallen man is one of refusing to honor God.

Somehow it seems that to honor God means to sacrifice the honor of ourselves. I do not want God to get the credit for my achievements. This is our most basic sin, our pride that squeezes out any room for the proper honoring of God. The sin of ingratitude is linked to the sin of dishonoring God. Obviously, if we had a proper sense of gratitude to God for all the benefits he has bestowed upon us we would have an intense desire to honor him. Our hearts would be aflame with adoration.

Defining Idolatry

The apostle goes beyond describing the roots of idolatry to providing a solid definition of the nature of idolatry. He writes,

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (verse 25)

Idols are not made from scratch. It involves the distortion of already present truth. The truth is changed into a lie. The lie depends upon the truth it is distorting for its power, just as the counterfeit depends upon the authentic for its value. Our idols of God contain truths within them, making them all the more seductive to us. To be sure, God is love. To reduce God to love, however, is to change the truth into a lie.

If evangelical Christianity is to move beyond idolatry, we must do serious study of the character of God. We, of all people, carry that responsibility. That the “liberal” distorts the character of God is no surprise. That ardent evangelicals do it should shock us awake from dogmatic slumbers.

(http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/moving-evangelicals-beyond-idolatry)

6 Pillars of a Christian View on Suffering

Ever since the ancient revolt, suffering has been woven, with perplexity and pain, into the fabric of human experience. We all live and move and have our being amid Eden's wreckage. Affliction and evil—universal as they are real—haunt us, stalk us, plague us.
In a recent lecture delivered at Houston's Lanier Theological Library titled "Going Beyond Clichés: Christian Reflection on Suffering and Evil" [video below], Don Carson proposes six pillars to support a Christian worldview for stability through suffering. "A Christian worldview rests on huge, biblically established, theological frameworks—all of which have to be accepted all of the time," the research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and author of How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil explains. "And this massive structure is stable and comprehensive enough to give you a great deal of stablility when you go through your darkest hours." His proposed pillars aren't cute musings, in other words, but crucial bulwarks.

After differentiating "natural" evil (e.g., tornados), "malicious" evil (e.g., sexual assault), and "accidental" evil (e.g., a bridge collapse)—and observing that this isn't a uniquely Christian challenge ("No matter your worldview, you must face the reality of suffering and evil")—Carson proceeds to reveal the six pillars.

1. Insights from the beginning of the Bible's storyline.
The scriptural narrative opens with God crafting a world of breathtaking beauty and unfathomable goodness. Paradise pulsates with order, harmony, wholeness, and life. But this garden scene is short-lived. Indeed, in contrast to other worldviews such as Hinduism and dualism, the Bible insists we are now dwelling in a Genesis 3 world marked by sin, suffering, death, and decay. Concerning Jesus' reflection on suffering in Luke 13, Carson observes: "What Jesus seems to presuppose is that all the sufferings of the world—whether caused by malice [as in Luke 13:1-3] or by accident [as in Luke 13:4-5]—are not peculiar examples of judgment falling on the distinctively evil, but rather examples of the bare, stark fact that we are all under sentence of death."

2. Insights from the end of the Bible's storyline.
The believer's ultimate hope is that the created order—now so disordered by the effects of sin—will one day be set right (Rom. 8:18-25). In Christ the King, everything sad will become gloriously untrue. Properly understanding and anticipating the story's end, then, helps us to eschew a naïve (and ultimately crushing) utopianism now. As Carson reminds us, "We have just come through the bloodiest century in human history. This is a damned world. Human life has never been, is not, and will never be 'perfectable-so-long-as-we-get-our-politics-right.'"

3. Insights from the place of innocent suffering.
"Job 42 is to the rest of Job what Revelation 21-22 is to the rest of Revelation," Carson observes. "Not only is justice done, it's also seen to be done."
Until the curtain drops, however, we live in "all kinds of ambiguities where we do not know the mind of God—and we dare not act as if God owes us detailed explanations." There are times when the godliest thing we can do is say with Job, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him" (Job 13:15). Indeed, Carson suggests, "God wants our trust [even] more than he wants our understanding."

4. Insights from the mystery of providence.
Here Carson sketches a brief defense of compatibilism in which he demonstrates two scriptural tensions: (1) God is absolutely sovereign, but his sovereignty never functions to mitigate human responsibility, and (2) men and women are morally responsible creatures, but their moral responsibility never makes God absolutely contingent.

5. Insights from the centrality of the incarnation and the cross.
God was not blindsided by Calvary (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28). In fact, because of his supreme sovereignty, Christians can proclaim that the cross was a throne. With mystery and glory, the bleeding Nazarene reigned from where he hung. Christianity is uniquely comforting because only the Christian God plunged into the suffering we experience. As Edward Shillito once wrote in a poem titled "Jesus of the Scars": "But to our wounds only God's wounds can speak / And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone."

6. Insights from taking up our cross (learning from the persecuted global church).
Though we often think of suffering primarily in terms of "cancer or old age or poverty or war," Carson notes, the New Testament texts that most commonly speak of suffering have to do with Christian suffering—"and they are remarkable" (see, for example, Acts 5:40-42; Rom. 8:17; Phil. 1:29; 3:10; 1 Pet. 2:20-23). As he observes, "There have been more Christian conversions since 1800 than in the previous 1,800 years combined, and there have been more Christain martyrs since 1800 than in the previous 1,800 years combined. And to this you have been called [1 Pet. 2:21]."
A robust theology of suffering is necessary but not sufficient, Carson insists, for at least two additional attitudes characterize mature Christians: (1) they admit their guilt before God and cry to him for renewal and revival (see, for example, Neh. 8-9), and (2) they are quick to talk about the sheer goodness of God.
To be sure, Carson's framework is not necessarily the most helpful thing to offer someone first entering the throes of terrible suffering. "You've just been diagnosed with Stage 4 Melanoma; do you want this lecture?" he asks. Of course not—and you shouldn't. The importance of relational sensitivity and tangible compassion in the midst of crisis cannot be overestimated. Moreover, when the immediate needs are concrete (e.g., water, security, shelter), God's people should be quick to respond in love.
Every believer, Carson concludes, would do well to ponder these six pillars prophylactically—before the evil days come. Only then will we be best positioned to face the complexities of suffering with stability, humility, compassion, and joy.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/06/03/6-pillars-of-a-christian-view-on-suffering/

Forgive Us These Faults

For decades Kathy and I  have profited immensely from the pastoral wisdom of the converted slave trader John Newton. As an 18th-century Anglican minister, Newton was a good preacher, but it was as a pastor, counselor, and adviser that he excelled. His pastoral letters are a treasure chest. In one of his letters (entitled "Some Blemishes on Christian Character") Newton points out that while most Christians succeed in avoiding more gross sins, many do not actually experience much in the way of actual spiritual growth. 

Newton lays out a convicting and specific example of the kinds of Christian people who coast on their strengths but do nothing about their weaknesses and so rob themselves and others of joy and God of his glory. These blemishes are often seen by their bearers as mere "foibles." Newton says they "may not seem to violate any express command of Scripture" and yet, they are "properly sinful" because they are the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit that believers are supposed to exhibit.  
These "small faults" mean that large swaths of the Christian population have little influence on others for Christ. While our faults always seem small to us due to the natural self-justification of the heart, you can be sure they don't look so small to others.  
Over the years I've gone back again and again to this list in the manner he directs to use in my personal self-examination (not as a way to find fault with others). As a result I've seen things in myself that I've sought to stamp out with God's grace. And as I've worked through the list I've expanded it—often breaking some of his larger categories into smaller ones in order to be more incisive.   

Here I'll share my expanded list—based heavily on his Newton's original one. Since Newton gave each case study a slightly humorous Latin name, I've done the same.

Austerus is a solid and disciplined Christian but abrasive, critical, and ungenerous in dealing with people, temperamental, seldom giving compliments and praise, and almost never gentle. 

Infitialis is a person of careful and deliberate character but habitually cynical, negative, and pessimistic, always discouraging ("that will never work"), unsupportive, and vaguely unhappy.  

Pulsus is passionate, yes, but also impulsive and impatient, not thinking things out, speaking too soon, always quick to complain and lodge a protest, often needs to apologize for rash statements. 

Querulus is a person of strong convictions, but known to be opinionated, a poor listener, argumentative, not very teachable, and slow to admit wrong.  

Subjectio is a resourceful and ambitious person, but also someone who often shades the truth, puts a lot of spin on things (close to misrepresentation), is very partisan, self-promoting, and turf-conscious.  

Potestas gets things done but needs to control every situation, has trouble sharing power, has a need to do everything him or herself, and is very suspicious and mistrustful of others. 

Fragilis is friendly and seeks friends, but constantly gets feelings hurt, easily feels slighted and put down, is often offended and upset by real and imagined criticism by others.  

Curiosus is sociable but enjoys knowing negative things about people, finds ways of passing the news on, may divulge confidences, and enjoys confronting too much. 

Volatilis is kind-hearted and eager to help, but simply not reliable—isn't punctual, doesn't follow through on promises, always over-extended, and as a result may do shoddy work.  

Look at these and ask which one or two most describe you. Have the courage to ask someone else you know, too. In future articles we'll look both at why so many of us seem to be stuck in these character flaws instead of growing and changing to be of more godly character.

This article originally appeared in Redeemer Presbyterian Church's monthly Redeemer Report.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/05/24/forgive-us-these-faults/

TGC13 Media!!!

Here's the uploaded sermons and stuff from The Gospel Coalition National Conference 2013

Becoming Fully Human

By David H. Kim
from Center for Faith & Work from Redeemer Presbyterian

David H. Kim - Becoming Fully Human from Redeemer Video on Vimeo.

Every Disciple Making Disciples, Every Church Multiplying Churches

TGC started posting up some videos! David Platt's workshop was one of the video I was waiting for after hearing how good it was at the conference. So, thought I should share with everyone!

David Platt Workshop 2 from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.