How my understanding of salvation has changed over the years

The sovereignty of God in our salvation

I am writing this for several reasons. Firstly, I want to help order my thoughts on this issue. I have often struggled with different aspects of it but feel that, over the past two years my understanding has increased and my sense of unsettledness has decreased. At different stages, I have felt revelation from God on the issue. I am so appreciative of that and want to write what I have leant and felt down so that it is not lost.

Secondly, I know that this issue is one that is unclear in the minds of many people, including myself. Even though I am no expert, I feel that I have revelation to share. What I feel God has given me is not meant to be contained. I really believe that it is good news. What I have heard and learnt is humbling but empowering. Love kindling and intellectually satisfying (although not water tight and clear cut by any means-what you would expect of an infinitely complex God). More than anything, I really believe it is true to God's revealed expression, the bible. At the end of the day, that’s what’s important.

Lord, You’ve given us the revelation of truth in the bible and your Holy Spirit to enable us to see that truth. Have mercy on me if any of the conclusions I have drawn do not bring you the glory due your name. I am young and hardly know that weight of the glory I am speaking of. Still, I feel that you can speak to the young so I write this in faith that you have revealed to me truth, or at least a dim reflection of it, and that I should share that truth. Guard me from any arrogance or pretense or conceit. I have already had to fight this off. May this be for your glory alone.

Lastly, I am writing this because it is my joy to delight in the truth of the word which ultimately reveals God. Thus, it is my joy to delight in God! This is not dead doctrine. These are realities which, when seen with the eyes of the heart, reveal more than just spiritual laws and facts. Ah...these truths speak of his great love for us! They show me the depth of my need and the total dependence that I have on him! They show me how he care for me and the lengths that he went to to bring me into his family!

Lord, your steadfast love is better than life, and so the more I see it the better life is. Writing these feelings down leaves me more convicted of the truth and more besotted and enthralled by you. Lord, come and take your truth deep into my heart so I can see you and your works for what they really are. Then my soul will feast!


What is man’s attitude toward God apart from salvation?


1) Dead in our sins: Ephesians 2:1-3

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

2) Lost, going our own way

For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
1 Peter 2:25

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:6

3) All enemies of God

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, a doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him

Colossians 1:21-22

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

Romans 5:10
4) Haters of God

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Romans 1:18-32
5) Lovers of the darkness

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

John 3:19

6) We despised Him

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.


Isaiah 53: 3

What did our will want?

These descriptions of our hearts, desires and natures prior to salvation are really quite amazing. Modern man (and much of modern christianity) often depicts itself as those who, realizing their predicament, choose to cry out to a God for help. That, at least, was my understanding for many years, even after becoming a christian. Sometimes we humans are compared to those who are drowning in sin (a cliche, I know), yet crying out for a saviour.

But is this really the case? Is this what man truly wills? Is it true that humans are all searching for God because they really want to know him and glorify him? Does man sincerely want to be saved from his situation prior to salvation? At the heart of the question is this: Does any man's (or women's) will stir him or her to seek God? The answer from these texts is a shockingly clear. As the psalmist says,

God looks down from heaven
on the children of man
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.
They have all fallen away;
together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one.
Psalm 53:2-3

Well, it seems that these texts give the bible's answer to that question. What does man really will or want or desire? Words such as "hate", "despise" and "hostile" describe the human race's attitude toward God. It seems that if there is something that man really does ultimately desire or will, it's definitely not God or any sort of relationship with him. What becomes clear is that our our will drove us away from God, not towards him.

Now the reason I say this is shocking is that if you look at the world of religion, it seems that man, since the beginning of civilization, has been seeking God. Count the number of religions that exist. Are they not all attempts at finding God? Well, it seems that the answer from the bible is that they are not. It appears that these passages of scripture teach that man, with all his religions, is not seeking God. He may be seeking god, a god of his own psychology that makes sense of his culture and experiences. But what about God. Not the subjective notion of God that people create in their minds, but the objective reality of God.

In essence, it seems that the scriptures teach that mans will is in no way inclined to the loving or desiring or honor of God. Rather, it repeatedly makes plain that man rejects God and this is something that involves his will. It's not only a matter of ignorance of the Objective reality of God. It's a matter of rebellion and enmity!


How could God bring salvation to us?

Now, if salvation requires that we be beings that delight and cherish and enjoy and seek God, then how can any be saved? As we have seen, the scripture teaches that no man on earth, no matter what religion or culture, seeks the true and living God. Beings will according to their natures and the biblical description of our nature is own that will in favor of God.


Now here is the aspect of the biblical description of salvation that is most offensive to man and his pride. If God wanted to save he would have to act in a way that changed our will and our wishes (which were clearly not desiring God). He would have to infringe on our "free will" to save us because we did not want him to save us. We delighted in sin and encouraged others to do the same. Yet God had a will-He willed, before the creation of the world, that I be saved and, because of His great love for me, God did not hold in ultimate regard my free will. He broke into my life with an act of power. He made all things new. He didn't force me against my will but rather worked at a deeper level. He powerfully, against the will of my nature, changed my will by giving me a new nature! This is what the bible calls being born again. Spiritually we become new creations when God speaks his transforming word. He gave a new spirit. One totally different to the old nature. One that delights in the Creator. A nature with new eyes, eyes that have the capacity to see his glory and respond to it with love and joy unspeakable!

This realization changed my understanding of salvation completely. Previously I viewed salvation primarily as a choice. I thought I had chosen life and God had graciously granted my request to be saved. What I have seen since then is that grace is much more radical than that. Yes, salvation involves a choice but in it's essence, salvation is something that happened to me. The primary will behind what happened to me was not mine but God's. Autonomy is ultimately a realty, but it's not our autonomy, its Gods autonomy.

Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases!

God didn't love and choose me because I first loved him. Grace chose me, despite my hostility, before I ever conceived of choosing Him!
In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

I thank God for this!

What about our “free will”?

If God had not vetoed our “free will” we would be for eternity where we wanted to be, according to the bibles description of our nature and desires. We would be away from God. We would be in Hell. It is because God loved us and bore in love our resistances that we will find ourselves in heaven, seated at the throne of God. Therefore, let us not entertain that we, out of our own free will chose God. “For you did not choose me, I chose you” said Jesus. No, We love God because he first loved us. He took divine initiative in our lives and gave us a new spirit that cries, “Abba, Father!” not because it chose to before salvation (an hence we would deserve at least some credit), but because through salvation it was created to! He created in us a new spirit that can now respond to God with love. When we were saved he placed his Spirit in us. And this is why through the centuries, there have been those that have maintained that we are saved by grace and grace alone. For it was sheer grace that we received this new heart. not because we earned it or even desired it. Luther said that we make no contribution to our salvation but the sin which nailed Jesus to the cross. I thank God that he didn't give me over to my own will prior to salvation!

What then are our human decisions to follow God?

I believe that these are indispensable and inevitable expressions of our salvation. Without them we show that a new creation has not happened. When we choose Christ (initially and everyday), we are expressing what God has already done for us and in us. Obedience and joy in God are now expressions of our new nature. Our decisions are meaningful because they come from our will. Yet our will has only God to thank for it's orientation. He chose us before the creation of the world for salvation. Our salvation is not based on upon our decision but on God’s will, his purpose in election. Let this kindle your heart with love toward Almighty God. Before the creation of the world, He had already decided that he would, though the sacrifice of Christ, rescue you from the inevitable consequences of your own nature and will. From eternity past, he had his eyes set on you, to the praise of his glorious grace. And this he did with the terrible pain of the cross in mind. He made you alive through His death and resurrection. All we can do is stand humbled and in awe! This is how he sets love ablaze in our hearts. When we really see the greatness and sacrifice of the gospel. Praise his holy Name forever and ever and ever!

Give youth more than 'popcorn and peanuts"

Recently I stumbled across this Time Magazine article on youth ministry in the States. As someone who has come through youth ministry and now involved in it, I whole heartedly agree with the main message of this article: That young people are yearning for truth, not flashing lights and silly games. I had the privilege of having a youth leader that emphasized the reality that we don't have to choose between God and satisfaction in life. As we come to know Jesus in the word (which needs to be taught regularly), we see that God is satisfaction. If you are youth leader, don't feel that you are inflicting doctrine on your young people (as if it needed some sort of apology). Rather, realise that what they really need (and actually want) is not a Christianized version on house parties (which are usually lame!) but the truth about the universe, themselves and the Lord of it all, Jesus.

Check it out on: www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1552027,00.html

Charismatically reformed reading

If you like reading the dudes that believe in the absolute sovereignty of God but also in the need for the baptism in the Holy Spirit, here's a great book. The "Doctor's" passion for the fullness of the Spirit is seriously contagious (as well as solidly justified by the scriptures). It's not a short read, but one that is definitely worth it!

Time magazine on the new calvinism

Here's a Time Magazine article about what they call "Neo-calvinism". According to Time, it is one of the top 10 ideas shaping our world today.

If you really want to follow the development of conservative Christianity, track its musical hits. In the early 1900s you might have heard "The Old Rugged Cross," a celebration of the atonement. By the 1980s you could have shared the Jesus-is-my-buddy intimacy of "Shine, Jesus, Shine." And today, more and more top songs feature a God who is very big, while we are...well, hark the David Crowder Band: "I am full of earth/ You are heaven's worth/ I am stained with dirt/ Prone to depravity."

Calvinism is back, and not just musically. John Calvin's 16th century reply to medieval Catholicism's buy-your-way-out-of-purgatory excesses is Evangelicalism's latest success story, complete with an utterly sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity, and the combination's logical consequence, predestination: the belief that before time's dawn, God decided whom he would save (or not), unaffected by any subsequent human action or decision.

Calvinism, cousin to the Reformation's other pillar, Lutheranism, is a bit less dour than its critics claim: it offers a rock-steady deity who orchestrates absolutely everything, including illness (or home foreclosure!), by a logic we may not understand but don't have to second-guess. Our satisfaction — and our purpose — is fulfilled simply by "glorifying" him. In the 1700s, Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards invested Calvinism with a rapturous near mysticism. Yet it was soon overtaken in the U.S. by movements like Methodism that were more impressed with human will. Calvinist-descended liberal bodies like the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) discovered other emphases, while Evangelicalism's loss of appetite for rigid doctrine — and the triumph of that friendly, fuzzy Jesus — seemed to relegate hard-core Reformed preaching (Reformed operates as a loose synonym for Calvinist) to a few crotchety Southern churches.

No more. Neo-Calvinist ministers and authors don't operate quite on a Rick Warren scale. But, notes Ted Olsen, a managing editor at Christianity Today, "everyone knows where the energy and the passion are in the Evangelical world" — with the pioneering new-Calvinist John Piper of Minneapolis, Seattle's pugnacious Mark Driscoll and Albert Mohler, head of the Southern Seminary of the huge Southern Baptist Convention. The Calvinist-flavored ESV Study Bible sold out its first printing, and Reformed blogs like Between Two Worlds are among cyber-Christendom's hottest links.

Like the Calvinists, more moderate Evangelicals are exploring cures for the movement's doctrinal drift, but can't offer the same blanket assurance. "A lot of young people grew up in a culture of brokenness, divorce, drugs or sexual temptation," says Collin Hansen, author of Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists. "They have plenty of friends: what they need is a God." Mohler says, "The moment someone begins to define God's [being or actions] biblically, that person is drawn to conclusions that are traditionally classified as Calvinist." Of course, that presumption of inevitability has drawn accusations of arrogance and divisiveness since Calvin's time. Indeed, some of today's enthusiasts imply that non-Calvinists may actually not be Christians. Skirmishes among the Southern Baptists (who have a competing non-Calvinist camp) and online "flame wars" bode badly.

Calvin's 500th birthday will be this July. It will be interesting to see whether Calvin's latest legacy will be classic Protestant backbiting or whether, during these hard times, more Christians searching for security will submit their wills to the austerely demanding God of their country's infancy.

Written by David van Biema f0r Time Magazine

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1884779_1884782_1884760,00.html

18th century wrestling and it's difference to WWE

Ever Struggled with what the bible teaches about God being in control...of everything?! This is a scary thought, and certainly one that doesn't sit too sweetly with our "you're the master of your own destiny" culture. Well, if you wrestle with these truths, that's a good thing! Just the fact that they are thoughts that cross your mind is an act of God. The world in general couldn't give a rip as to who actually determines the course of human history and the fate of men's (and women's) souls. So, if doctrines like "election", "predestination", and "absolute sovereignty" disturb you, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Who knows...maybe these things which are now "bitter in the mouth" will become "sweet in the stomach" (as an old theologian whose name I have forgotten once said)

Here's the account of a guy called Jonathan Edwards (American theologian/philosopher 1703-1758) and how he wrestled with the truth that God indeed determines all things according to his plan.

"From my childhood up, my mind had been full of objections against the doctrine of God's sovereignty, in choosing whom he would to eternal life, and rejecting whom he pleased; leaving them eternally to perish, and be everlastingly tormented in hell. It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me. But I remember the time very well, when I seemed to be convinced, and fully satisfied, as to this sovereignty of God, and his justice in thus eternally disposing of men, according to his sovereign pleasure. But never could give an account, how, or by what means, I was thus convinced, not in the least imagining at the time, nor a long time after, that there was any extraordinary influence of God's Spirit in it; but only that now I saw further, and my reason apprehended the justice and reasonableness of it. However, my mind rested in it; and it put an end to all those cavils and objections. And there has been a wonderful alteration in my mind, in respect to the doctrine of God's sovereignty, from that day to this; so that I scarce ever have found so much as the rising of an objection against it, in the most absolute sense, in God's strewing mercy to whom he will shew mercy, and hardening whom he will. God's absolute sovereignty and justice, with respect to salvation and damnation, is what my mind seems to rest assured of, as much as of any thing that I see with my eyes; at least it is so at times. But I have often, since that first conviction, had quite another kind of sense of God's sovereignty than I had then. I have often since had not only a conviction, but a delightful conviction. The doctrine has very often appeared exceeding pleasant, bright, and sweet. Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God. But my first conviction was not so."

The Fetter Lane Society

They began with the purpose of meeting once a week for prayer and fellowship. Most of their members consisted of Anglicans, most prominently John Wesley, Charles Wesley, and George Whitefield. John Wesley records in his journal for 1 January 1739:

"Mr. Hall, Hinching, Ingham, Whitefield, Hutching, and my brother Charles were present at our love feast in Fetter Lane with about 60 of our brethren. About three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us insomuch that many cried out for exceeding joy and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were recovered a little from that awe and amazement at the presence of His majesty, we broke out with one voice, 'We praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.'"

Being led by the Spirit and the sufficiency of scripture

Ever felt God lead you to do something? "Speak to that person", "Don't go to that place", "Give him some encouragement".

Now if the bible is all the guidance we need from God (sufficient), then should we write off these "promptings" as merely good human thoughts? Could it be that God is speaking to us-and not directly from the bible? Doesn't this go against the sufficiency of scripture?

I found a sermon by Piper (who refers to Lloyd-Jones) interesting on this topic. Here's an excerpt that I found helpful on the reality of "promptings" and the sufficiency of scripture.

Lloyd-Jones' Warning Not to Quench the Spirit

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the strong, Bible-based expository preacher of Westminster Chapel in London for almost 30 years between 1939 and 1968 used the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch to illustrate just this point. He cautioned against misuse, but he said,

Here again is a most extraordinary subject, and indeed a very fascinating one, and, from many angles, a most glorious one. There is no question but that God's people can look for and expect "leadings," "guidance," "indications of what they are meant to do." There are many examples of this in the Scriptures and I take one at random. You remember the story in Acts 8:26ff of how Philip the Evangelist was told by the angel of the Lord, "Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goes down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert". . .

Now there are leadings such as that . . . If you read the history of the saints, God's people throughout the centuries and especially the history of revivals, you will find that this is something which is perfectly clear and definite—men have been told by the Holy Spirit to do something; they knew it was the Holy Spirit speaking to them, and it transpired that it obviously was his leading. It seems clear to me that if we deny such a possibility we are again guilty of quenching the Spirit. (The Sovereign Spirit, pp. 89-90)

The reason I cite Martyn Lloyd-Jones is because he is one who believed in the unique authority and infallibility and sufficiency of the Scriptures. And one of the concerns expressed by people who love the Bible is that being open to supernatural guidance like Philip was might compromise the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. Now obviously Martyn Lloyd-Jones did not think that it did. Why is that?

What the Sufficiency of Scripture Means

It's because what the sufficiency of Scripture means biblically is that Scripture gives us all we need for two things:

1. it gives all the authoritative truth we need in order to be saved and grow spiritually, and
2. it gives all the authoritative truth we need in order to make good judgments about what is right and wrong.

But the sufficiency of Scripture does not mean that God cannot speak through nature (Psalm 19:1) or that he cannot speak through the human conscience (Romans 2:15) or that he cannot speak through gifts of prophecy and wisdom (1 Corinthians 12:8-10). It means that these are not sufficient to save us or nurture us or guide us. But the Scriptures are sufficient, in the sense that they give the only authoritative rule for completing and assessing those other kinds of revelations.

To read the full sermon check out:
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/1991/759_The_Leading_of_the_Lord_in_Personal_Evangelism/