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A (Reluctant) Response to Rey
Normally, I just ignore Rey, but this time he brought up an interesting point. In a comment on my previous post, he said:
If we are really born at enmity to God and He is causing this to happen as his punishment of Adam’s sin, then He is as much at enmity with us by His nature as we are at enmity with Him by our nature. We both are then equally guilty, and shall not the equally guilty just mutually forgive one another if they are rational?
I agree that our natures are equally at enmity, but it doesn’t follow that we are both equally guilty. To be sure, there is a breach between the nature of God and the nature of man. We need to ask ourselves: who caused the breach?
There is a cause, and Scripture clearly reveals it. Therefore, it follows that someone caused it. Causes, and their resultant effects, follow in a logical chain. An agent caused the Fall, and we turn to the pages of Scripture to find out who caused the rift.
Go back to the text in Genesis 3. Read it carefully. As far as I can tell, humanity bears full responsibility for causing the breach between God and man, and therefore putting enmity between the nature of man and the nature of God. God, in all his wisdom, tried to prevent that and protect us by forbidding us to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It was by disobeying him that the rift was created, for up to that moment everything in nature had obeyed God’s commands. The first act of disobedience was man’s fault, not God’s. Man transgressed God, not the other way around.
God is not equally guilty with us, I’m afraid. The text won’t allow that conclusion. But it would be evil for God not to offer forgiveness, a way out of this bind.
God does offer forgiveness, Rey. All those who call on his name will be saved (Joel 2:32). Not just some, but all who call on his name. Isn’t that a glorious promise? Repent of your sins, embrace the totality of Scripture, and call on the name of Jesus (Rom 10:9), for there is no other name by which you can be saved (Acts 4:12).
C. Michael Patton Nails it Again
Many atheists complain that God is a cosmic torture monger (in the words of C. Michael Patton), that he sends people to hell for little white lies and other minor sins. That a mass murderer who repents will go to heaven, while a virtuous atheist will go to hell simply for not believing in God.
C. Michael Patton dispels that myth here. The real problem is that people trivialize sin. Sin isn’t first what we do. Sin is first who we are. We inherit the sin of our forefather Adam, and from this flows a disposition of rebellion toward God.
No matter how we behave, we always have one fist clenched toward heaven’s throne, and are in constant rebellion to God. It is for this that we spend eternity in hell, not for going 27 in a 25 zone. It’s like the Jars of Clay song Two Hands, where the songwriter feels like he’s using one hand to pull God close while using the other to push him away. This is exactly what we do when we let sin rule our lives.
Fortunately, there is good news for those who no longer wish to be in rebellion to the Creator. Believe on Jesus Christ, and your sin is paid for, in full. Then live a life of repentance, a living sacrifice to God (Rom 12:1-2). You will spend eternity with your Father in heaven.
Questions? E-mail me or comment below.
P.S. -> TurretinFan disagrees with this here.
I think that it is worthy to note that sin is both action and nature, and that we are punished more for nature than action. Believing in Christ changes our nature, so that we are capable of not sinning against God as our normal nature would demand.
Grace Does Not Give Us Free Licence to Sin
It’s appropriate that Extreme Theology would reprint this sermon from Martin Luther, since Unreasonable Faith is trying to take a potshot at the Christian doctrine of salvation by grace alone.
Eternal life does NOT depend on works. If it did, we will all be in hell. Christ paid for EVERY sin, so how can I or you be judged BY GOD for a sin when the penalty was ALREADY paid. People judge but that does not matter.
Those are the words of George Sodini, the man who opened fire in a Pennsylvania gym, killing 3 and wounding 9 others. He used the above quote as his justification for the mass murder.
He’s right, of course. Eternal life is based solely on faith in Christ and not on works. However, he left the condition of repentance out of the equation. The sinner must repent of his former sins! This is a message that is left completely out of many churches today. Everyone likes the idea of eternal life with Christ, but not at the expense of the moment.
The above-linked sermon from Martin Luther points out that, while we Christians are forgiven our sins, this isn’t a license to continue to sin. As the apostle Paul put it:
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Rom 6:1-4)
We are dead to sin through our baptism. The apostle wants to make it clear that we are not to still live in sin. What George Sodini did was a clear sin–followed by the taking of his own life. He did not die in a state of repentance. That means that he is not with Jesus, which will likely come as a major surprise to him. But that’s what happens when bad theology mixes with an unstable mind. James White said it, and I’ll repeat it here: THEOLOGY MATTERS.
I think that is simply dishonest of Unreasonable Faith to draw parallells between Sodini and biblical heroes who also killed. The biblical heroes had a clear command from God to kill when they did. God doesn’t speak directly to us today. He has already spoken fully and finally through Jesus and the Scriptures.
Any quick perusal of Jesus or Paul should be sufficient to tell that we are not to take lives in the way that this man did. This is not living peaceably with others (Rom 12:18). This is not allowing the wrath of God to take its full effect (Rom 12:19-20).
Is every encounter with God therefore false? Probably not, but if it contradicts the revelation of the Scriptures then it most certainly is.
The final objection that can be raised is that even a command from God to kill is wrong, not to mention contradictory. But that is simply false. God gave us life and sustains our existence; he is unique in that he can give life. That gives him the right to take it away when he sees fit, and his judgements in such matters are perfect. We humans are not in the position to both give life as well as take it away. We are also not perfect, and therefore do not have a perfect sense of judgement and cannot know for certain that taking someone’s life is the right thing to do.
God, however, is perfect and can make such a judgement.
So, if humans are so imperfect, how do we know that the commands to kill in the Bible came from God? Could our perceptions not have mucked up the whole thing? Well, that would play havoc with biblical inerrancy, which is something that I subscribe to. Not only that, but the ancients were much more biblically literate than we are today, so they were in a better position to know if a command from God was contradictory to Scripture. Finally, Jesus promised that we who are his sheep will know his voice (Jn 10:27). Therefore, if someone is truly of God, that person will recognize God’s direct command.
But that raises another issue. How do you know something like that for sure? Well, the answer lies with the Holy Spirit and with Scripture. If one knows one’s Scripture, and is truly indwelt by the Holy Spirit, one will recognize that direct command from God. In such cases, our hypothetical person will also recognize false commands that don’t come from God because that person will know that they contradict Scripture.
Atheists: Pro-Life or Pro-Choice?
I’m pro-choice. Abortions should be legal, safe and rare. It is simply a milestone of a civilized, modern society. I keep hoping someday that America will be just that. [Atheist posting as zunedita373 at Proud Atheists]
You know that you live in a culture that has lost its fear of God when you read a comment like that one. The brutal murder of an unborn child is called a “milestone of a civilized, modern society.”
As I had suspected, a vast majority of the atheist respondents to the poll posted by Proud Atheists are pro-choice. As Lorena, another commenter, says:
I think many atheists are pro-choice because, once the fear of hell is removed, it makes sense that a woman should have the right to not bring an unwanted child to this world.
I’ve posted before on the fear of hell–I don’t think that Christians should fear hell. After all, Jesus has died for our sins: past, present, and future. Hell is a concern of the unbelieving, not the believing. So fear of hell is not the reason that we should be pro-life.
Even after removing the fear of hell, it still doesn’t follow that a woman has any “right” over another human being’s life, even if that life is disrupting her day-to-day activities. Applied to its limit, this would essentially give any human being the right to terminate the life of anyone who adversely affected him. I don’t think that this is where we really want to be.
It should be noted that most atheists do not believe that life begins at conception, and Lorena is probably among them. Theists tend to share the opinion that life begins at conception, but the Bible is silent about such matters so it is difficult to have a definitive answer. I believe in erring on the side of caution–that is why I firmly believe that life begins at conception. That, and simple logic: a single fertilized cell (zygote) is capable of performing all the necessary functions of life.
There is one alternative to abortion that should be explored: adoption. It amuses me that this option is often never even considered by most atheists when the pro-life/pro-choice debate comes up. The few times I’ve seen it, it is usually thrown aside by the atheist for various reasons, usually centered around the potential for the child to seek out the mother later in life. Abortion, in the atheist’s twisted reasoning, is the only sure way to prevent having to revisit old wounds like a rape or an incest.
That said, there are many couples out there who would love to have a child, even if said child were the product of a rape or incest; especially if the child was the product of teenage imprudence; or if the child were severely deformed or retarded.
Consider the number of unwanted pregnancies in the United States. Now consider the number of couples who are having difficulty adopting because of lack of babies being given up for adoption. It’s almost as if God chooses to bless odd unions with a child just so the adoption industry can find this child a home. Adoption seems to be the logical, God-honoring solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancies.
It isn’t the fear of hell that should keep us seeking God’s will. It is the desire to please God. In the Ten Commandments, God commands us to not murder. It seems pretty straightforward, if you accept that life begins at conception, that God doesn’t want us to end the life of these precious babies. Especially when there are alternatives such as adoption. It pleases God when we obey him, especially if we sacrifice our own comfort for that obedience.
This post from Proud Atheists demonstrates, once again, that our culture has lost its fear of God. It isn’t hell that keeps us in line, it should be the desire to please God and to live out his will for our lives. But this culture wants to do its own thing, apart from God. This society is in love with its sin, and that will be its ultimate downfall.
Total Depravity at its Finest
Proud Atheists have an interesting post about masturbation. It illustrates that people who are in open defiance of the Lord often misunderstand things to their own destruction.
Before we find out why, we need a truly Biblical perspective on masturbation. For that, let’s look at the Got Questions website’s take on masturbation here. The writers basically agree with my own perspective–masturbation is not a sin, but is often the result of sinful activities. Lustful thoughts, pornography, or anything else that leads to masturbation is what should be dealt with, not masturbation itself.
So let’s just say that masturbation is conduct unbecoming of the Christian and leave it at that. We can argue that any conduct unbecoming of a Christian is sin another time. Masturbation is best left between God and the individual.
That said, it alarms me the number of commenters in the thread who are proud of the fact that they masturbate. They are taking a private matter and making it public knowledge. And they are proud of the fact that they are doing it.
Masturbation, as outlined above, is likely the symptom of a deeper problem. It is this problem that must be dealt with, whether it be lust or pornorgraphy, or something else. Masturbation isn’t the issue that God has in view when he discusses human sexuality; it is those other things that he wants us to abstain from. If those things are dealt with, then suddenly masturbation is no longer a problem.
So if we assume that masturbation is the result of a deeper pathology, then what we have, again, is an example of a culture that has lost its fear of God. People who do not want God to define the rules of human sexuality. These are people who think that they know better than our creator what is for our own good. Masturbation is a sign of sexual sin, and these people are trumpeting from the rooftops that they are involved in it. Not only involved in it, but proud of their involvement.
Total depravity at its finest.
On Original Sin
Many Christians deny the doctrine of original sin on the basis of Ezekiel 18:19-20:
Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is just and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
The question before us is this: are we held responsible for Adam’s sin? If so, why? Does it not clearly say in Ezekiel 18 that the soul that sins shall die, and that the wickedness of the wicked will be on himself?
Christian Hypocrisy
Image via US Magazine
It is difficult for me to fathom the blatant hypocrisy that Miss USA contestant Carrie Prejean has engaged in recently.
As a sister in Christ, she has no business being in a beauty pageant to begin with, since the goal of these is to decide which of the oogle-able women is the most oogle-able (to borrow a phrase from Craig French). As I posted previously, beauty contests are nothing more than excuses for guys to stare at beautiful women, and that is specifically condemned by Jesus in Matthew 5:28. Carrie is creating a stumbling block for her brothers in Christ (condemned by Paul in Rom 14:13-23) by entering into such a beauty pageant in the first place.
But now we have another problem:
Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. (1 Pet 3:3-6)
I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. (1 Tim 2:8-9)
This call to modesty forbids what Carrie did just recently: she posed nude! I can’t believe that any self-professing Christian would think that it is okay to pose nude. Yet here we are.
The level of hypocrisy that this move demonstrates is unreal. These types of things just add more ammunition to the gun that atheists fire at us all the time: “Christians are nothing but hypocrites.” Moves like this that ignore God strengthen the atheist resolve that there is no God. “For if there was, Christians would obey him without question.” And here is a self-professed sister in Christ disobeying God openly.
Carrie, as a brother in Christ I call you to repent of your sins and to return to a more biblical lifestyle. As Paul pointed out in Romans 8:38-39, no sin is too big that it will separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Repent and God will forgive you.
Here’s a New Spin on an Old Debate
Rey, who also goes by Beowulf2k8, has been challenging me on how free our free wills really are. Being Reformed, I hold that God can and does influence our free wills for good and for ill. Rey believes that if God influences us in that way, that we are not truly guilty of committing sin.
Let’s back a step up and look at this from a different perspective. John Piper, still thoroughly Reformed, has a different take here. Piper wonders, “Does God lead us into temptation?”
Piper feels that God guides our every step (Prv 20:24). The same Scripture that asks God not to lead us into temptation (Mt 6:13) also says that God doesn’t tempt us (Jms 1:13). He wouldn’t, but he doesn’t have to. As it turns out, every step we take is a temptation to do wrong. God leads us through temptations (cf. Mt 4:1), but he doesn’t tempt us.
Each temptation that God leads us through is an opportunity to glorify him by doing the Christian thing: not yielding to the temptation. Don’t pray for a life free of temptations. That’s unrealistic. Pray instead that you won’t yield to the temptations that will come your way.
Who Has the Higher View of God?
The age-old problem is that if God has an eternal decree, then how is it possible that man has a free will? And yet both are taught in Scripture, so it must be the case that this is somehow true. Rey, also calling himself Beowulf2k8, makes light of this whole issue in a response to a video theologian John Calvin did for me here.
What Rey reveals is a low view of Scripture and a low view of God’s sovereignty. I know that Rey has a low view of Scripture based on this post, in which he claims that the Bible contains a contradiction. Instead of resolving it, Rey gives more weight to James because James wasn’t an adulterer or a murderer (as David quite clearly was). That’s the easy way out. The more difficult way out is to try to figure out what the proper way to understand both texts together would be.
Christians and Beauty Pagents
By now, everyone is aware of the situation with Miss California Carrie Prejean in the Miss USA pageant. She spoke against gay marriage and it cost her the pageant. I don’t want to focus on that incident, nor do I want to focus on the media’s coverage of it. What I want to consider is the Christian perspective of beauty pageants.
We’ll start with the most obvious verse: “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt 5:28). Now, I’m not stretching it much to say that there is only one reason to watch a beauty pageant. That is to watch beautiful young women prance about in bikinis, showing off their bodies. This is a clear violation of Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:28. No one can tell me that they aren’t looking at the young women in the pageant with lustful intent.
A pageant, like Miss USA, creates a serious stumbling block for Christian men. Romans 14:13 tells us never to put a stumbling block in the way of a brother. That is, a fellow Christian. By participating in a pageant like this, self-professed Christian Carrie Prejean putting a stumbling block in the way of her brothers in Christ.
You could always argue that Christians should just do what I do with beauty pageants–not watch them. As someone who struggles with the sin of lust, I can tell you that that may be much easier said than done. Granted, I was on harder stuff than beauty pageants. It took me years to kick the porn habit and I still struggle with it every day. So it may not be a simple matter of looking the other way during a pageant–our hypothetical brother in Christ might not be able to curb temptation.
I’m not arguing for all beauty pageants to be eliminated. But I want my sisters in Christ who might be considering following Miss Prejean’s example to think about the lustful feelings that they will inevitably stir in my brothers in Christ who haven’t yet developed the willpower to look away. Do you want to be responsible for someone else stumbling, sister? Read Romans 14:13-23 and Mark 9:42.
Back Rome Again 