Jesus went his own way...for us

Look at the story of Jesus' boyhood trip to the Temple in Luke 2:41-51.
 
Notice what Jesus said in v.49. “I must be in my Father’s house.”  Sometimes you read this verse this way, “I must do my Father’s business.”  “I must;” Jesus said this often. “I must preach the good news of the gospel.”  “I must go on my way to be the prophet.”  “I the Son of Man must suffer many things.”  “I must go to your house to day Zacchaeus.”  “I must go to Jerusalem.”  God the Father, Jesus knew, was calling him.  He knew he was on a mission from the Father, and he was beginning to learn that he was the Messiah, the Savior of the world.  Here Jesus as a boy really went his own way…for you and me.  Here we learn that he would have to obey God rather than man, even his parents, and serve God his Father…all the way to the cross so you and I could be saved.

Calvin’s Institutes: We can do nothing for our salvation, Jesus did it all.

We continue with Calvin’s Institutes in this entry.  Reading this section I was encouraged in the glory of God and my walk with the Lord.  In Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Frodo and his team come to Tom Bombadil’s house.  It’s a place of happiness, rest, good food, and song.  Frodo and company needed it on their journey.  Calvin’s Institutes is like Tom’s house.  Tom directed the Hobbits to the beauty and blessings of life…Calvin with the Scriptures tells us of the beauty and blessings of God.

 Book 3, chapter 14 of the Institutes. It is truly rich. 

Is there any kind of righteousness possible with mankind?  Calvin answers this question in this chapter. The answer is yes!  Man the sinner can be righteous, but not of himself.  To understand this, Calvin gives a four-fold classification of man.  I am dealing with the first classification below.

1.         The first class, when judged according to their works are found absolutely empty and dead to any righteousness.  Every man when he is born is born in this state of depravity. [Jer. 17:9; Ps. 94:11; Ex. 20:20; Ps. 14:2; Gen 6:3; Gal 5:19-21]

2.         But what about their moral upright behavior?  These so called good works are gifts of God.  As Calvin writes, AAll these virtuesBor rather, images of virtuesBare gifts of God, since nothing is in any way praiseworthy that does not come from him.@  (Pg., 770)

3.         Without faith in Christ, and without Christ in the life, all these shadows of good works performed by wicked men are not holy at all.  AThose who have no part in Christ, whatever they may be, whatever they may do or undertake, yet hasten all their lives to destruction and to the judgment of eternal death.@  (Pg., 771)

4.         If we put the grace of God up against our natural condition, our depravity is even more clearly seen.  When God=s Spirit comes and illumines our hearts to who we are and who God is we realize that we are nothing.  This is the grace of regeneration, bringing dead sinners to life. [John 5:25; 2 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 2:4-5; Rom 4:17]

5.         Hence it is obvious.  Salvation is by grace alone, not by our works.  AFor, as we have by nature been created, oil will sooner bye pressed from a stone that any good work from us... Let us therefore admit, with this very great instrument of God, that the Lord Acalled us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his purpose and ...grace@ [II Tim. 1:9p.],@ (Pg., 772)

6.         Man the sinner has nothing and can do nothing to attribute to salvation.  He is depraved and therefore without any ability to do anything to save himself. [Isa. 59:15-16; Rom 5:10; Col 1:21; 1 John 4:10] [Rom.13:10ff; Eph. 2:1-3; Rom 8:7-8; etc.]

7.         God, through Christ and by the Spirit, does it all.  His love for us is not awakened by our works.  No, our salvation depends entirely upon His mercy.  AWe are not cleansed and washed of our uncleanness by Christ=s blood except when the Spirit works that cleansing in us [I Cor. 6:11].@  (Pg., 773) (Phil.1:29)

 

Can we help God save us?

Reading the free will issue in Calvin’s Institutes a few weeks ago got me thinking about that classic idea of synergism in salvation. So I wanted to make a separate blog entry. Today I finally got to it.

The issue of synergism in God's salvation work has been with the church is the at least the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Theological positions known as Pelagianism and Arminianism have been the strongest voice for it.

Synergism asserts that man is able to cooperate with God’s grace of salvation. The will is free and able to choose God making faith the action of fallen man. The will of man excited or moved by God cooperates with God by believing.

The Council of Trent (Session 6, Canon 4) Canon 4 declares. “If anyone says that man's free will moved and aroused by God, by assenting to God's call and action, in no way cooperates toward disposing and preparing itself to obtain the grace of justification, that it cannot refuse its assent if it wishes, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive, let him be anathema.”

Scripture gives us these truths in response the above argument. First, fallen man has no inate natural ability to co-operate with God because of original sin.(Gen 6:5; 8:21; Jn 3:6; Eph 2:1-3; Rom 3:10ff; Ezk 26:26). Second, co-operation with God is impossible because the very nature of regeneration. Dead sinners need to be made alive and this is solely a work of God alone. Regeneration is impossible for man (1 Cor 2:14; Rom 8:7; Jer 13:23). Regeneration is being created in the image of God – only God can create us in his own image (Col 3:10). It is a “creation,” (2 Cor 5:17), a “resurrection” (Col 2:12) which are divine infinite acts of God’s power alone. No man can aid in creation or resurrection. Third, faith is a gift of God (Eph 2:8-9; 1 Jn 4:10, 19; Jn 6:44-45; 1 Jn 2:20, 27; Phil 1:29). Last, the Bible plainly says salvation is the work of God alone (Ps 100:3; Jn 1:12-13; James 1:18; 1 Pet 1:3; Tit 3:5).

Don't judge yourself...hope in Jesus

We know we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ (1 Cor 3:13; Rom 14:10). Paul said saints will judge the world (1 Cor 6:2). This obviously includes judging situations in the church (1 Cor 5:12; 6:3-4). Also, ministers will be judged for their work (1 Cor 3;12ff). Obviously we will be judged by our King.

Our danger is we want to judges our service for God to make sure our service is successful and right. How often does the church hang on to statistics and trust in demographics? How many Christian parents are at the edge of their seats waiting to assess whether they have been good parents or not by how their kids turn out? How many preachers judge using preaching as a marker for their personal happiness? How many Christians think they are either good or bad Christians because of the good or bad they do? To judge ourselves is an attempt to save ourselves.

Paul said, "I will not judge myself. It is the Lord who judges me" (1 Cor 4:3-4). In context he is referring to his ministry as an apostle, but all Christians should take his theme to their lives. It is dangerous to judge our service for God because we can rely on it rather than Jesus Christ. Karl Barth had it right when dealing with this subject. He calls Christians to remember that Jesus Christ is the judge. He is our hope. He calls us to again remember God's grace and our limits. Let me quote him.

"Here again we have a limit which the Christian can neither overlook nor overleap. He cannot overlook it because not even he can conceal from himself the fact that even his most loyal concern and strenuous effort to maintain his existence as a witness of Jesus Christ is always a human work like that of his fellows, so that, although he is charged to fulfil it, it cannot be his business to decide whether this fulfilment is good or bad, valuable or worthless, meaningful or meaningless. Nor can he overleap it, because he could do so only by grasping at that which does not belong to him, seating himself on the throne of Lord, judging both himself and the servants of another (Rom. 14:4), and thus trying to anticipate what the Lord has reserved for Himself. Again, it is an intolerably bitter thing for him to be confronted by this limit. For what courage or confidence can he have in the execution of his service when, even though he has the best possible conscience, he can have no knowledge whether even that which he has done with the best intentions and in exercise of his finest powers will finally be approved as serviceable or rejected as worthless, whether he will be accepted or repudiated in that which makes him a Christian? The severity of the question is to be considered. For the issue is quite simply whether the Christian has any option but in his own most proper concern to be like the poor heathen who optimistically or pessimistically can proceed only with uncertainty into a neutral, ambivalent and therefore obscure future. If he could not hope as a Christian, it would be all up with him. But since he may, all is not lost but won. He must not hope in himself. He must not hope that as a worker in the Lord’s vineyard he will finally do enough at least to assure his promotion, not perhaps cum laude, but at any rate rite. He must not hope in a friendly or not too exacting world which might finally hold out the prospect of a magna or insigni or even summa cum laude. He must not be distracted by such illusory possibilities. The Christian hopes in Jesus Christ, in Him alone, but in Him confidently. For He alone, but dependably, is the origin, theme and content of his hope, as of his faith and love. Can it hope in Him as the coming Judge? Yes, in Him as such, since as Judge He is the same as the One who then came in His resurrection and who is now present in the enlightening power of His Spirit. Not an unknown judge of fable, but He who is well-known to the Christian comes as Judge of the quick and the dead and therefore as his Judge. Not the Christian himself, nor the contemporary world, nor posterity, but He will judge and decide concerning his Christian witness, whether it is good or bad, valuable or worthless, meaningful or meaningless, gold, silver, precious stones, or wood, hay, stubble. He will judge and decide concerning the sincerity of heart and integrity of mind with which he has discharged it. There can be no doubt that His judgment is the future of the whole world and therefore of the Christian too."