From the 1662 Book Of Common Prayer:

Almighty God, we beseech thee graciously to behold this thy family, for which our Lord Jesus Christ was contented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death upon the cross.

Almighty and everlasting God, by whose spirit the whole body of the church is governed and sanctified: receive our supplications and prayers, which we offer before thee for all estates of men in thy holy church, that every member of the same, in his vocation and ministry, may truly and godly serve thee, through our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.

O Merciful God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing that thou hast made, nor wouldest the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live: Have mercy upon all unbelievers, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy word; and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy flock, that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites, and be made one fold under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end, Amen.

In J. I. Packer’s classic work, Evangelism & The Sovereignty Of God, he refers to two Biblical doctrines, God’s sovereignty and man’s free will, as an antinomy.  As the infallible Oxford English Dictionary defines the word:

noun ( pl. -mies): a contradiction between two beliefs or conclusions that are in themselves reasonable.

Packer helps to draw out the “problem” by thinking in terms of two offices or titles of God; that of King and of Judge.  As King, God directs the whole universe according to His will, including the actions of men.  (Prov. 16:9, 21:1; Matt. 10:29; Acts 4:27-28; Rom. 9:20-21; Eph. 1:11; etc.)  But as Judge, God must dispense salvation or condemnation based on the moral guilt of free creatures.  God’s sovereignty and man’s moral responsibility are taught side by side in Scripture, and as Packer points out, sometimes in the same verse!  (see Luke 22:22)

Packer’s solution?  Simple: accept the tension, don’t stray too far to one end or the other, and wait until the day when such mysteries are revealed.  To stray too far to the side of man’s responsibility, endlessly attempting to map out the workings of the will in such a way as to guarantee that man is totally responsible for his actions, tends to trample on God’s sovereignty.  Oh sure, these folks will admit that God could order all things, including human actions, exclusively by the pleasure of His will, He just doesn’t.  But this fails to fully embrace the force of Scripture on this matter.  To their credit, most people who err on the side of man’s responsibility do so out of a desire to make sure that God is  fully justified and free of any possible blame for the existence of sin and evil in this world, but quite frankly God needs no justifying.  And I’m a big fan of following God’s own lead on this one.  Whenever God’s justice is questioned in the Bible, He never launches into a treatise on the free will of man (the subject is never even discussed in the full corpus of Holy Writ), rather He directs the questioner to His own nature, His goodness, faithfulness, and ultimately His justice.  And His total sovereignty is always and effusively affirmed.

It is quite possible, however, to stress God’s sovereignty too much.   Packer deals specifically with the problem that might arise in evangelism, where one might think, “well, since God is in control, I don’t need to do anything.”  This is obviously contrary to the clear teaching of Scripture, and is usually termed hyper-Calvinism.  I have a feeling that I won’t need to expend much effort to convince my audience that one can err on the side of sovereignty, so I’ll leave it at that.

If you stop to consider it, every denomination or doctrinal system has an antinomy or two.  At some point, everyone just pushes the ‘ole “mystery button” and is content to accept what seems to be a contradiction.  Notice that it really only seems to be a contradiction, however.  In principle there’s nothing logically impossible about the idea that God directs human activity, and yet that we are still morally responsible for many of those actions.  We could spend a lifetime (and indeed many have) trying to flesh out the exact mechanics of God’s directing sovereignty and precisely what conditions must be met in order for man to be responsible for a given action (and, in fact, I’m taking an entire philosophy class on this very subject next semester), but in the end we are probably fooling ourselves if we think we will be able to fully wrap our minds around the complexities of this issue, at least in this life.

For now, the only proper thing to do is to fully affirm both doctrines, and in the midst of the tension between them, to trust in the good and righteous character of God, who works all the things for the good of those who love Him.   (Rom. 8:28)

Read Ephesians 2: 1-10

The Apostle Paul’s description of the human condition is quite bleak. We are dead in our sins. We follow the “prince of the air”, that great deceiver, Satan. And we are “children of wrath.” This phrase should conjure in our minds the typical way in which Israel, and subsequently Christians, are referred to in Scripture, namely as children of God. The promise of our adoption fills us with hope and displays God’s mercy. The promise of wrath for the ungodly fills us with terror and displays God’s holiness and justice. But before this terror can grip us, Paul interjects in verse four, reminding the believers that God is indeed merciful, and that while we were still dead He made us alive again.

The language of death and life make it abundantly clear that we have no part in this work of salvation, for a dead man cannot make himself alive again, but to labor the point Paul says twice in this passage that it is by grace that we are saved. He adds also that our works do not factor in, but faith alone is the vehicle of our salvation. Paul then ends the passage by reminding us that we, as regenerated believers, are the creation of God, and that in addition to being the architect of our salvation, He has also prepared many good works to do in and through us, which we ought to walk in. This concluding remark serves two purposes. First it acts as a caution for the previous statement. Though our salvation does not depend on our works, that does not give us license to act however we please under the guise that we are saved by our faith. James makes it clear that faith unaccompanied by works is a “dead” faith, revealing that such faith makes us no different than those whom Paul describes as children of wrath at the beginning of this passage. Thus Paul ties God’s original work of salvation as a past action to His continuing work of salvation that will continue throughout the rest of our lives. Second, Paul’s language of “walking” in the good works God has prepared exactly parallels the beginning of the passage in which the sinful man is described as walking in his sins and trespasses. Before we walked in evil works, now we walk in good works.

What we see here, at least implicitly, is an imperative that we must always strive to do good works in order to show that we have indeed been made alive by God in Christ. How else can we be assured that we are in fact God’s workmanship if we do not show it by walking in the good works that He has prepared for us? Again, James is clear on this point. It is not simply a matter of letting other people know that your faith is genuine, for a genuine faith cannot help but make itself known. Paul ties God’s work in us in salvation directly to His continuing work in and through us by good works. It is impossible to separate the two.

Now at this point someone might be inclined to think that the point of this passage is that a true Christian will be some kind of saint, perfectly obedient to the will of God and always doing good works. This is by no means the case. We are all still sinners and will continue to struggle with sin for the rest of our lives. Paul is not talking about perfection here. But what we must realize is that true faith cannot come without at least some outward indication. Fighting the inclinations of the flesh will be a harder battle for some than for others, but everyone must at least show signs of engaging in the battle, even if they lose more often than they win.

Abraham Piper has written an excellent post on Desiring God’s blog about being a “kinder Calvinist.” He acknowledges that, regardless of how most Calvinists might actually be, or who they are “on the inside” so to speak, the majority of non-Calvinists percieve them as being arrogant, cold, and generally difficult people. What should a Calvinist’s response be to such a prevalent notion? Mr. Piper has some insightful answers.

Read the post here.

Read John 9:1-41

In this passage, Jesus uses two different titles to describe Himself. The first is “light of the world.” This reference will immediately draw the reader back to the previous chapter, where Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). It is thus fitting that the miracle Jesus is about to perform will bring a blind man out of literal, physical darkness into literal light. In this way, Jesus’ miracle is meant to confirm his claim to being the light of the world.

The second title is “Son of Man.” This is the most common name Jesus uses of Himself in the New Testament. It is also a direct reference to Daniel 7:13, a passage that the Jews understood as referring to the coming Messiah. Jesus will later make reference to this passage when standing before the Sanhedrin on the night of his arrest, prompting outrage from the Jewish leaders (Mark 14:62-64). This is a clear reference to Jesus’ self-understanding of his divinity.

A third title is given to Jesus in this passage by the blind beggar, that of “prophet.” The Pharisees initially deny this. Though they don’t specifically say “prophet” they do conclude that Jesus “is not from God” because he broke the Sabbath. Despite this, when they ask the blind beggar who he believes Jesus to be, he replies, “He is a prophet.” The prophets of Israel were often accompanied by signs and wonders to prove to the people that they were sent by God, and this is likely what the beggar has in mind.

The purpose of Jesus’ miracle is clear: It a sign that He is who He claims to be. As stated above, Jesus bringing literal light to a man who was in literal darkness by way of healing his blindness demonstrates that Jesus is indeed the “light” of the world. Moreover, as the beggar clearly understood, this miracle proves that Jesus was sent from God, for “how could a sinner do such signs?” (John 9:16) This is always the purpose of the miracles in the Bible: To show God’s confirmation of His prophets. This is why Nicodemus reasoned that Jesus must be “a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs…unless God is with him” (John 3:2). By this sign, Jesus proved to the blind man that He was from God. Then, later, He returned to the blind man and revealed Himself as much more than a mere prophet, but as the Son of Man, or Messiah. The miracle had proven God’s confirmation of Jesus, and thus His confirmation of Jesus’ claims about Himself, including His claims to divinity, and so the blind man responds in faith and worships Jesus.

Jesus expects this response from the blind man, because he could not “see”, but now sees. This is the very reason Jesus says that He came into the world, to give sight to the blind. The Pharisees, however, are those who claim to “see” already, despite their blindness to the obvious working of God right before their eyes. This proves that they are in fact the “blind” ones. They have blinded themselves and refuse to accept the true sight, or “light”, that is standing right before them.

I love this time of year. The wearying heat of Summer will soon give way to the crisp, cool air of Fall. Because this is Southern California, I can’t hope for real whether, but I can certainly pray for a bit of rain here and there.Most important of all, school is back in. I have always loved the return to school. But, oddly enough, not because of school. I usually looked forward to going back to school because it meant seeing old friends or gaining some other pleasure that had absolutely nothing to do with the day-to-day of receiving my education. And so, because I did not love school for its own sake, it wouldn’t take long for me to grow tired of getting up early every morning and having to slave away at homework every night (a task that, because I loathed it so much, was rarely ever completed on time).

This rather rapid decent into academic apathy has been the case as recently as my Sophomore year of College. I have found in the last year or so, however, that this sentiment has completely reversed. After completing my first year (two semesters) at Biola University, I find myself genuinely excited about the prospect of school itself. Attending classes, listening to lectures, discussing new ideas with my peers, and, yes, reading lots of long-and-often-hard-to-follow philosophy books! Every thought leaves me feeling an eager anticipation for tomorrow (unless of course tomorrow happens to be a Friday or Saturday…can you believe that??!! I actually dread the weekends!!).

Whatever else education may be, it is most certainly the impartation of truth. Whether learning about the fundamental principles of Chemistry and Physics, or about the rules of Logic, or about the events of History, education is about knowledge and truth. But this realization must be cautioned against. For in one of the more curious ironies of fallen man, it seems almost universally the case that knowledge walks hand-in-hand with hubris. In a strange sort of way, truth becomes the antithesis of love. After all, if I possess knowledge that my friend from high school does not, am I not in some way just a little bit better than he is? After a moment’s reflection, I’m willing to bet you’d find that this thought hits a little closer to home than you’d like it to.

Can you think of a time when you were talking with someone about politics, history, or religion? These topics are unique from many others in that they are simultaneously objects of intensive study at the graduate and post-graduate levels of academia, and yet they are just as vulgar, topics that every human being must deal with on a daily basis. Because of this, it will often be the case that a simple person will make some simple statement like, “This country has been such-and-such since the days of the civil war.” The person may not mean anything serious by this simple comment, but his slightly-more-educated-in-history/philosophy friend will immediately feel a kind of disdain for the “shallow” picture of history that this person has. And, being the good friend that he is, he will take it upon himself to beat this poor person over the head with his own ignorance of the world. Now, it is all well and good to lovingly correct someone you know who has a mistaken view about something (in a country full of public-school educated people who get 85% of their outlook on life from the media, you’re bound to know quite a few people with mistaken views), but that’s not what I’m cautioning against. The caution is simply not to think yourself so much better that your uneducated friend. If knowledge is power, as the saying goes, it is quite easy for knowledge to kindle a powerful pride, a vicious vanity in those who have it. And these feelings will inevitably lead them to an almost bitter loathing of those who don’t.

Here we encounter another irony. On the one hand, the Christian should not face this dilemma. After all, a child-like faith in the simple truths of the Gospel lead to salvation. For the Christian, you don’t need a PhD to understand the fundamental truths of the universe. In fact, it is the Christian’s humble admission of his own finitude that recognizes that even someone with a PhD in philosophy or physics probably doesn’t really understand the universe half as well as he thinks he does. Compare this to the secular world. By and large, the secular man believes himself to know everything. Darwin got everything right when he naturalistically explained the origin of all things, Nietzsche and Freud got everything right when they explained away morality and religion, and Marx got everything right when he explained the deterministic economic forces the have shaped all of human history and when he outlined how mankind could reach its Utopian future. The secular man sits on his pedestal, the center of his own universe, and scoffs at every generation that has come before him, along with all their quaint traditions. With such an attitude it’s easy to see why secular academics have no love for their uneducated brethren.

On the other hand, this danger is just as potent for the Christian. Because the truths of Scripture are so important, so sacred, and so valuable we are tempted to think much of ourselves when we have studied them in great depth. One can even call to mind stories of impetuous young seminary students who return to their home church for the first time after being away and start picking fights with their pastor…in front of the congregation! Or we could imagine the conversations this young seminary student might have with his atheist friends. I don’t know about you, but I find it disturbingly easy to imagine an entirely one-sided conversation in which the young man repeatedly beats his friends over the head with cosmological arguments and moral arguments and the mounting evidence for intelligence design, all the while thinking quite a lot of himself for having defended the integrity of God to these blasphemers. Needless to say, his atheist friends are none too keen to pay attention to his arguments after a while, and his hubris has now cost him any chance of being a good witness by his character.

And that last part is the most troublesome of all. Christianity’s greatest apologetic has never been intellectual arguments for the existence of God, but the “living arguments” of loving, gracious Christian people. In the grand scheme of history, winning hearts and minds to Christ has never depended on Anselm’s Ontological Argument half as much as it has depended on offering a loving embrace or a helpful hand to those whom the “elites” of the culture have shunned. That is true today as much as it ever has been. As the intellectual elites at the secular universities grow ever more in their disdain for the common man, Christians must work hard to marry their knowledge with the love that we have in Christ, and give that love to those common folk who need it most.

But one final caution. None of the thoughts I’m expressing here are original, and there have been Christians who have responded to this problem by abandoning the pursuit of knowledge and clinging to an emotional, subjective “faith.” This is no better an answer. Love without truth to guide it is just as bad as truth without love to humble it. And while the majority of the common folk may need love more than sophisticated arguments, there can be no denying that it is the intellectual elites who are running this country, and they most certainly need strong, rational, persuasive arguments from Christians if we have any hope of winning back our culture and saving the West from the brink of destruction.

With all these things in mind, may God grant us the wisdom to temper our growing knowledge with Christian charity, as we continue to be a light in this dark world.

John 6 Does Not Require Calvinism: A Response to Donald’s Exegesis

This marks my second debate at Coram Deo. My name is Michael, (call me MG) and I blog at The Well of Questions. As a non-Reformed Christian (Eastern Orthodox) I disagree with many of the tenets of Augustinian/Calvinist theology. John 6 is commonly appealed to as a text that demonstrates (whether by implication or through explicit teaching) the truth of such Calvinist doctrines as effectual calling and perseverance of the saints. Though I have a great deal of respect for Calvinism, I do not think that the arguments made (that I’m aware of) for Reformed theology from John 6 should actually lead us to favor Calvinism as a theological system over non-Calvinism. Instead I believe that John 6 can be given a plausible read which does not affirm Calvinism.

In this post I shall be giving a response to the exegesis of John 6 offered by Donald. My contentions will be as follows:

1. It is possible to give a non-Calvinist interpretation of the portions of John 6 that are usually used in support of Calvinism.

2.This non-Calvinist interpretation is about equally as plausible as a Calvinist interpretation.

I will only be dealing with issues related to election, grace, perserverance, and such; sacramental theology is another (though related) subject which I won’t address, but which I would be willing to discuss in some other context (seeing as how I disagree with some of what Donald has to say about it).

Please note: my argument is not that I have a superior interpretation to Donald’s. My argument is that we have no reason to prefer a specifically Calvinist interpretation of John 6 over and against a non-Calvinist interpretation. This is because I think (for the purpose of this debate) both ways of reading the text are possible. The passages used to support Calvinism can be given a non-Calvinist read without doing violence to the text.

I agree with many of Donald’s statements about how grace and salvation should be seen in John 6. Because of this, I will only be addressing

1. Points of disagreement, and my reasons for disagreeing.

2. Points of agreement with Donald’s statements that are of special import—whether because they require clarification, they have certain implications, or something else.

Thus I will not be giving an exhaustive exegesis; nor will I mention everything that I could say in response to Donald. My post will be a series of numbered points. They address some of Donald’s statements and ideas in the order that those statements and ideas appeared in his post. Now, to begin:

1. I agree with Donald about the fact that this passage is not primarily a doctrinal statement, but a narrative. Of course there are doctrinal implications and assumptions; but I definitely agree that this passage is narrative and not some sort of systemmatic exposition of the technical workings of grace and such.

2. Though Jesus is clearly saying that faith is a divine activity/work (gift/grace) in verse 29, I don’t see why this implies faith alone saves. (at least according to some definitions of faith alone, of which there are several) After all, he doesn’t say “This is the ONLY work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

3. Donald points to Jesus’ statement “All that the Father gives me will come to me” as teaching predestination. Though I think the language of giving/coming sounds more like God’s implementation of the plan of salvation (as opposed to his pretemporal decree about how the plan will be implemented) and hence should be seen as a text arguing for effectual calling, this is unimportant (and I could easily be wrong…). Donald also appeals to the statement “and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” saying that this argues for perserverance of the saints.

But what does “All that the Father gives me will come to me” imply? If we take “all that” to be talking about “all persons” (which is debateable) then this statement definitely implies that Christians are given to Jesus on the basis of God the Father’s activity, and that when God the Father gives them, they do in fact come. There are several unanswered questions at this point, though: what is the ground for the Father’s act of giving a person to Jesus? Is it the unconditional elective decree of God that results in effectual calling? Perhaps. But perhaps there are conditions internal to human beings upon which the Father’s giving is based (in some sense). In order to prefer the Calvinist interpretation, we need to be given an argument for why it is God’s unconditional will (operating according to conditions entirely internal to God) that is the sole grounding for why some are given in this text. Otherwise it could be the case that a freely-chosen act of faith (which is a response to divine grace, enabled by God’s activity) is one of the conditions upon which the giving of the Father is based. Indeed, this seems to mesh rather well with Jesus’ previous statement in verse 35 that “Whoever comes…and whoever believes” is saved. The statement in 35 could be interpreted as implying God’s gracious provision of a universal opportunity for belief and salvation. (though this meaning is not required)

Regarding “and whoever comes to me I will never cast out”, this could be taken to imply perserverance of the saints. But is this reading required? I don’t believe so. Donald’s read of the text seems to assume that the only possible way that a person could lose salvation is if they are “cast out” (in whatever sense Jesus means that here). But there other possible ways a person could lose salvation besides being “cast out”. Perhaps they could leave of their own accord by their own choice (whether sin or unbelief). I take the point of Jesus’ statements that He will never “cast out” to be that Jesus won’t exclude Christians on the basis of his own unfaithfulness as Savior. Jesus wouldn’t be excluding them due to a lack of his own faithfulness (and in that sense wouldn’t be casting them out) but rather they would be excluded on a basis internal to themselves, namely their sin or unbelief. Hence I don’t think the Calvinist reading is necessary.

4. Donald asks an interesting question: Where’s Jesus’ libertarian free choice operative if He came down from heaven not to do his will, but the will of the Father? Now, I won’t claim we have to read this as implying libertarianism. But I think its obvious where the libertarian agency could be: in the personal choice of Jesus to align his human will with the divine will. Saying “I’m doing what you want, not what I want” in no way implies a denial of libertarian freedom; rather it implies an act of self-denial, an abrogation of autonomy. Libertarian freedom is not the same thing as autonomy. Autonomy is a (primarily) modern concept about the place of the individual in the heirarchy of responsibilities and values: the individual is supreme, operates without the control of others, and is unrestrained and without obligation. Libertarian freedom is a philosophical model of how personal agency works: it says that an agent A has freewill in a situation S if two conditions are met:

i. The unmoved mover condition: A is the source of his or her own intentional action in a way such that prior causes do not fully explain his or her choice.
ii. The principle of alternative possibilities: A could have refrained from acting in the manner he or she chose to in S, given all the conditions and influences that were actually in place.

Libertarianism can deny personal autonomy. After all, nothing in libertarianism entails the supremacy of the individual, their independence from the control of others, or their lack of restraint and obligation. Libertarians might disagree with compatiblists (those who think freewill and determinism are compatible) over what it means to be controlled, what kinds of control destroy freewill, and other things; but libertarianism is compatible with a denial of autonomy. Indeed, libertarian Christians should not believe in autonomy. It is unfortunate that some non-Calvinists believe in autonomy and equate it with free will; autonomy is a profoundly anti-Christian concept.

5. Donald mentions the statement “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father; that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

He recognizes the possibility that there is a universal offer of salvation in the statement. In response to this, he says two things. First, the focus is on God, not us; so earning salvation can’t be in view here. Second, because Jesus just got through saying “All that the Father gives me will come to me”, which implies a Calvinist understanding of grace, this statement can’t be in conflict with the previous one; hence it must be compatible with Calvinism.

Donald’s first point is something that I definitely agree with. Clearly salvation is a God-centered thing, and we don’t earn salvation of our own accord. This does not mean, however, that human response is not one of the conditions upon which salvation is. After all, human responses need not be meritorious. They could easily be non-meritorious as well. (if this requires further clarification I would be glad to supply it)

Second, because I don’t see any reason to think that Jesus’ statement “All that the Father gives me will come to me” would imply a Calvinist understanding of grace and calling (as opposed to a non-Calvinist one), I don’t think it gives us grounds for reading the aparently “universal” statement in a qualified manner.

That being said, I honestly don’t think we must read this statement in a non-Calvinist manner necessarily. After all, the Calvinist could always say “when Jesus says ‘everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life’ the ‘everyone’ spoken of there does not have to imply that any human being can just choose freely to look on the Son; instead it could be that only those God has chosen can (and will) look on the Son”. Of course I disagree with this reading, and see the “looking” as a volitional response enabled by prevenient grace to a universally-accessible offer of saving grace; but it is a possible way of looking at the text.

6. Donald says that Jesus’ statement “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” is the logical equivalent of Jesus’ earlier statement “All that the Father gives me will come to me”.

However, I’m not so sure it is the logical equivalent. Perhaps the Father’s “drawing” and “giving” aren’t the same thing. If this is the case, then even if the “giving” of the Father is limited in scope (only certain people) and effectual (in some sense) the drawing of the Father could be universal and non-effectual—in other words, prevenient grace.

If these statements do mean the same thing, though, this doesn’t require a belief in effectual calling. After all, as with the former statement “All that the Father gives me will come to me”, this statement could involve a condition: the volitional response of a person, enabled by prevenient grace, to the offer of saving grace. This condition (which I see implicit in verses such as 35 and 40) makes it so that before the Father draws a person, that person must consent to be drawn (a decision that is made possible by prevenient grace). So long as this reading remains possible, we don’t have to infer Calvinism from the statement “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him”.

7. Donald’s next point is a response to a potential argument for prevenient grace based on the statement in verse 45 “they will all be taught by God”. He says that because “everyone who has heard and learned (that is, ‘been taught’) from the Father comes” to Jesus, that therefore the scope of the teaching cannot be universal. And of course he correctly predicts that I do not interpret this verse the same way that he does.

Now of course it is isn’t crucial for a non-Calvinist interpretation that this be a statement about prevenient grace. After all, it could be another statement about the giving that follows as a result of the response to prevenient grace. In that case, no understanding of effectual calling is required for this verse. Hence if it weren’t about prevenient grace it would still be compatible with a denial of effectual calling.

But Donald makes a crucial assumption in his argument that I think can be contested: he assumes that “hearing” and “learning” are the same as “being taught”, as implied in his parenthetical/bracketed note. But why think this is so? Why not see hearing and learning as something which is a volitional action done on the part of a person in response to the divine activity of teaching—an action that can be refrained from, and which does not follow irresistibly from God’s teaching? So long as this remains a possibility, we can see the divine teaching as universal, and the listening/learning as a volitional response which is enabled by the teaching.

And as a technical, minor, quasi-anal point of correction, Jesus does not say “whoever comes to me I will never cast out” a second time after he talks about being taught by God. This phrase is only used once, in verse 37 (I’m not sure if Donald’s statement about the immediately following passage is meant to imply this or not; but if it is I’m giving him a heads up as to a minor non-crucial error).
8. Though I do believe that Calvinism is in some sense more individualistic than some other views of salvation, I don’t think I offered that accusation frequently in the Romans 9 debate. I may have said that once while I was giving my actual exegesis; but what I actually kept asserting during the debate is that “there is no reason to read Romans 9 as teaching about the unconditioanl election of individuals to eternal salvation”. This isn’t an accusation about whether or not Calvinists are individualistic (an evaluation of the Calvinist system of theology); rather it is a statement about the content of Romans 9.

I agree that there is talk of individual salvation here. I also agree when Donald says Jesus has repeatedly returned to the theme that divine revelation leads to salvation.

9. However, I don’t see grounds for going all the way and agreeing with everything Donald says when he talks about verses 63-65. Donald makes the following statement:

“God does not only partly reveal Himself to his people and expect them to come the rest of the way. As we see here, Jesus wastes precious little time trying to convince the crowds that He’s right, since, as He continually says, the knowledge of the Spirit has not been revealed to them. In other words, if God doesn’t give it to you, you won’t get it…aka. Predestination. I know that some would say that we’re talking knowledge and revelation here and not salvation, but Christ has intricately entwined those gifts in this passage. If you know, you believe (part of why John often says ‘know and believe’ tobether…as we’ll see shortly), and if you believe, you know; therefore when Christ here refers to one sense, the other can be inferred.”

There is one thing that Donald says which I would like to clarify and qualify; and there is another idea he propounds that I reject (and I will explain why):

a. Concerning the statement that there’s no partial revelation where God expects people to come the rest of the way: I think Donald might be trying to describe the idea of prevenient grace. However, as any good synergist in the tradition of John Cassian would say, God’s grace is cooperative with man’s will at every step of the process of regeneration when man’s will is active. God never ceases from working in us; and when our activities are good in the salvation process, it is always in cooperation with God’s own activity. Our good actions are divinely-preceded, divinely-enabled, and divinely-oriented. Speaking in terms of God expecting humans to “come the rest of the way” can give the idea of synergism an unnecessarily bad flavor because the phrasing seems to imply that there’s some step in the process where unaided human agency just requires” a little tiny boost”. In reality human persons are desperately wicked and cannot draw near to God unless He draws them and comes to them continually. Perhaps Donald didn’t intend to imply that prevenient grace involves “a little tiny boost”; but in case there was some misunderstanding I hope this clarifies to some extent.

b. Donald says that though some would say that Christ’s words are about knowledge and revelation, this is closely tied to salvation. I assume that by this he means that the divine action of giving the knowledge of the Spirit is an instance of efficacious grace and necessarily results in saving faith. This may be correct. In fact it is even compatible with non-Calvinism. After all, some forms of synergist theology holds that though salvation is preceded by the consent of the human will, there are certain steps in the process of salvation in which occur without the consent of man’s libertarian freewill; grace can be “extrinsically efficacious”.

That being said, I find Donald’s statement questionable. After all, it seems like the knowledge of the Spirit has been offered to a group of people that includes unbelievers. For it seems that the “you” is continual from the sentence in verse 63 “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” to the next sentence in verse 64, “But among you there are some who do not believe.” I’m not sure it is necessary that we interpret these sentences in this manner it is referring to the same group; but I find this to be more plausible than saying the pronoun suddenly changes its referents from one sentence to the next. If this is the case, then “you” in both sentences is referring to a group that encompasses both the saved and the unsaved.

Now, if we take Jesus’ speaking the words of spirit and life to the group to involve offering knowledge of the spirit (which seems plausible to me) then this implies that God’s offer is not effectual (in and of itself). After all, some people responded in faith and others didn’t. If they all received the same grace (words of spirit and life) but did not give the same response, then it seems plausible to say the difference between the saved and lost in this situation was due to conditions internal to them (such as, perhaps, libertarian freedom).

10. The last section of Donald’s exegesis I will mention is this:

“As Paul said, our only boast can be in Christ, and Him crucified. Jesus knows this all too well, and He firmly redirects the Disciples’ focus back on to God and His work, reminding them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” And so, Christ reminds His disciples that it is God (or His Son) who does the choosing, for His own sovereign purpose…and the allusion in this passage is that one was chosen knowing that he would betray.”
I agree whole-heartedly about our only boast being in Christ, the fact that Jesus puts our focus back on God in the passage in question, and that God does the choosing for His own sovereign purpose. However, because I think the election of the apostles is analogous to the election of kings and prophets in the OT (selection for an historical task), and is not an election to salvation, I believe this election operates differently.

Conclusion:
Thus far, I am in agreement with much of what Donald says. When it comes to specific verses that appear to imply perseverance of the saints or effectual calling, however, I must depart. I do not see any reasons to favor his interpretations over an interpretation that denies effectual calling and perseverance of the saints. So I end with the standard questions for Donald:

I. Are there any problems with my proposed exegesis of the specific passages? If so, do these problems make my exegesis less plausible than that of your (Donald’s) standard Calvinist exegesis?
II. Are there any features of your (Donald’s) exegesis of the passages we disagree on that make it textually or theologically superior to mine?

–MG

Love and forgiveness shine like the sun in a place where there is no light.

On April 18th, three Christian missionaries in Turkey were brutally tortured and murdered. The Church in Smyrna has released a letter to all Christians, the global church.  The letter recounts the details of the tragedy (at some points graphic), it calls for our prayers, but most importantly it shows us the power of love and forgiveness in a fallen world.  These brothers and sisters in Turkey are a shining example of what it truly means to be a Christian.

(NOTE: A small section of the letter will appear in italics, marked off by stars. That section contains a brief description of the torture that these men endured. It is very graphic, so please skip it if you feel you need to, it won’t affect the rest of the letter)

A letter to the Global Church from The Protestant Church of Smyrna:

Dear friends,
This past week has been filled with much sorrow. Many of you have heard by now of our devastating loss here in an event that took place in Malatya, a Turkish province 300 miles northeast of Antioch, the city where believers were first called Christians (Acts 11:26).

On Wednesday morning, April 18, 2007, 46 year old German missionary and father of three Tilman Geske prepared to go to his office, kissing his wife goodbye taking a moment to hug his son and give him the priceless memory, “Goodbye, son. I love you.”

Tilman rented an office space from Zirve Publishing where he was preparing notes for the new Turkish Study Bible. Zirve was also the location of the Malatya Evangelist Church office. A ministry of the church, Zirve prints and distributes Christian literature to Malatya and nearby cities in Eastern Turkey. In another area of town, 35 year old Pastor Necati Aydin, father of two, said goodbye to his wife, leaving for the office as well. They had a morning Bible Study and prayer meeting that some other believers in town would also be attending. Ugur Yuksel likewise made his way to the Bible study.

None of these three men knew that what awaited them at the Bible study was the ultimate testing and application of their faith, which would conclude with their entrance into glory to receive their crown of righteousness from Christ and honor from all the saints awaiting them in the Lord’s presence.

On the other side of town, ten young men all under 20 years old put into place final arrangements for their ultimate act of faith, living out their love for Allah and hatred of infidels who they felt undermined Islam.

On Resurrection Sunday, five of these men had been to a by-invitation-only evangelistic service that Pastor Necati and his men had arranged at a hotel conference room in the city. The men were known to the believers as “seekers.” No one knows what happened in the hearts of those men as they listened to the gospel. Were they touched by the Holy Spirit? Were they convicted of sin? Did they hear the gospel in their heart of hearts? Today we only have the beginning of their story.

These young men, one of whom is the son of a mayor in the Province of Malatya, are part of a tarikat, or a group of “faithful believers” in Islam. Tarikat membership is highly respected here; it’s like a fraternity membership. In fact, it is said that no one can get into public office without membership in a tarikat. These young men all lived in the same dorm, all preparing for university entrance exams.

The young men got guns, breadknives, ropes and towels ready for their final act of service to Allah. They knew there would be a lot of blood. They arrived in time for the Bible Study, around 10 o’clock.

They arrived, and apparently the Bible Study began. Reportedly, after Necati read a chapter from the Bible the assault began. The boys tied Ugur, Necati, and Tilman’s hands and feet to chairs and as they videoed their work on their cellphones, they tortured our brothers for almost three hours.

*

[Details of the torture--
Tilman was stabbed 156 times, Necati 99 times and Ugur’s stabs were too numerous to count. They were disemboweled, and their intestines sliced up in front of their eyes. They were emasculated and watched as those body parts were destroyed. Fingers were chopped off, their noses and mouths and anuses were sliced open. Possibly the worst part was watching as their brothers were likewise tortured. Finally, their throats were sliced from ear to ear, heads practically decapitated.]

*

Neighbors in workplaces near the printhouse said later they had heard yelling, but assumed the owners were having a domestic argument so they did not respond.

Meanwhile, another believer Gokhan and his wife had a leisurely morning. He slept in till 10, ate a long breakfast and finally around 12:30 he and his wife arrived at the office. The door was locked from the inside, and his key would not work. He phoned and though it had connection on his end he did not hear the phone ringing inside. He called cell phones of his brothers and finally Ugur answered his phone. “We are not at the office. Go to the hotel meeting. We are there. We will come there,” he said cryptically. As Ugur spoke Gokhan heard in the telephone’s background weeping and a strange snarling sound.

He phoned the police, and the nearest officer arrived in about five minutes. He pounded on the door, “Police, open up!” Initially the officer thought it was a domestic disturbance. At that point they heard another snarl and a gurgling moan. The police understood that sound as human suffering, prepared the clip in his gun and tried over and over again to burst through the door. One of the frightened assailants unlocked the door for the policeman, who entered to find a grisly scene.

Tilman and Necati had been slaughtered, practically decapitated with their necks slit from ear to ear. Ugur’s throat was likewise slit and he was barely alive.

Three assailants in front of the policeman dropped their weapons.

Meanwhile Gokhan heard a sound of yelling in the street. Someone had fallen from their third story office. Running down, he found a man on the ground, whom he later recognized, named Emre Gunaydin. He had massive head trauma and, strangely, was snarling. He had tried to climb down the drainpipe to escape, and losing his balance had plummeted to the ground. It seems that he was the main leader of the attackers. Another assailant was found hiding on a lower balcony.

To untangle the web we need to back up six years. In April 2001, the National Security Council of Turkey (Milli Guvenlik Kurulu) began to consider evangelical Christians as a threat to national security, on equal footing as Al Quaida and PKK terrorism. Statements made in the press by political leaders, columnists and commentators have fueled a hatred against missionaries who they claim bribe young people to change their religion.

After that decision in 2001, attacks and threats on churches, pastors and Christians began. Bombings, physical attacks, verbal and written abuse are only some of the ways Christians are being targetted. Most significant is the use of media propaganda.

From December 2005, after having a long meeting regarding the Christian threat, the wife of Former Prime Minister Ecevit, historian Ilber Ortayli, Professor Hasan Unsal, Politician Ahmet Tan and writer/propogandist Aytunc Altindal, each in their own profession began a campaign to bring the public’s attention to the looming threat of Christians who sought to “buy their children’s souls”. Hidden cameras in churches have taken church service footage and used it sensationally to promote fear and antagonism toward Christianity.

In an official televised response from Ankara, the Interior Minister of Turkey smirked as he spoke of the attacks on our brothers. Amid public outrage and protests against the event and in favor of freedom of religion and freedom of thought, media and official comments ring with the same message, “We hope you have learned your lesson. We do not want Christians here.”

It appears that this was an organized attack initiated by an unknown adult tarikat leader. As in the Hrant Dink murder in January 2007, and a Catholic priest Andrea Santoro in February 2006, minors are being used to commit religious murders because public sympathy for youth is strong and they face lower penalties than an adult convicted of the same crime. Even the parents of these children are in favor of the acts. The mother of the 16 year old boy who killed the Catholic priest Andrea Santoro looked at the cameras as her son was going to prison and said, “he will serve time for Allah.”

The young men involved in the killing are currently in custody. Today news reported that they would be tried as terrorists, so their age would not affect the strict penalty. Assailant Emre Gunaydin is still in intensive care. The investigation centers around him and his contacts and they say will fall apart if he does not recover.

The Church in Turkey responded in a way that honored God as hundreds of believers and dozens of pastors flew in as fast as they could to stand by the small church of Malatya and encourage the believers, take care of legal issues, and represent Christians to the media.

When Susanne Tilman expressed her wish to bury her husband in Malatya, the Governor tried to stop it, and when he realized he could not stop it, a rumor was spread that “it is a sin to dig a grave for a Christian.” In the end, in an undertaking that should be remembered in Christian history forever, the men from the church in Adana (near Tarsus), grabbed shovels and dug a grave for their slain brother in an un-tended hundred year old Armenian graveyard.

Ugur was buried by his family in an Alevi Muslim ceremony in his hometown of Elazig, his believing fiance watching from the shadows as his family and friends refused to accept in death the faith Ugur had so long professed and died for.

Necati’s funeral took place in his hometown of Izmir, the city where he came to faith. The darkness does not understand the light. Though the churches expressed their forgiveness for the event, Christians were not to be trusted. Before they would load the coffin onto the plane from Malatya, it went through two separate xray exams to make sure it was not loaded with explosives. This is not a usual procedure for Muslim coffins.

Necati’s funeral was a beautiful event. Like a glimpse of heaven, thousands of Turkish Christians and missionaries came to show their love for Christ, and their honor for this man chosen to die for Christ. Necati’s wife Shemsa told the world, “His death was full of meaning, because he died for Christ and he lived for Christ… Necati was a gift from God. I feel honored that he was in my life, I feel crowned with honor. I want to be worthy of that honor.”

Boldly the believers took their stand at Necati’s funeral, facing the risks of being seen publicly and likewise becoming targets. As expected, the anti-terror police attended and videotaped everyone attending the funeral for their future use. The service took place outside at Buca Baptist church, and he was buried in a small Christian graveyard in the outskirts of Izmir.

Two assistant Governors of Izmir were there solemnly watching the event from the front row. Dozens of news agencies were there documenting the events with live news and photographs. Who knows the impact the funeral had on those watching? This is the beginning of their story as well. Pray for them.

In an act that hit front pages in the largest newspapers in Turkey, Susanne Tilman in a television interview expressed her forgiveness. She did not want revenge, she told reporters. “Oh God, forgive them for they know not what they do,” she said, wholeheartedly agreeing with the words of Christ on Calvary (Luke 23:34).

In a country where blood-for-blood revenge is as normal as breathing, many many reports have come to the attention of the church of how this comment of Susanne Tilman has changed lives. One columnist wrote of her comment, “She said in one sentence what 1000 missionaries in 1000 years could never do.”

The missionaries in Malatya will most likely move out, as their families and children have become publicly identified as targets to the hostile city. The remaining 10 believers are in hiding. What will happen to this church, this light in the darkness? Most likely it will go underground. Pray for wisdom, that Turkish brothers from other cities will go to lead the leaderless church. Should we not be concerned for that great city of Malatya, a city that does not know what it is doing? (Jonah 4:11)

When our Pastor Fikret Bocek went with a brother to give a statement to the Security Directorate on Monday they were ushered into the Anti-Terror Department. On the wall was a huge chart covering the whole wall listing all the terrorist cells in Izmir, categorized. In one prominent column were listed all the evangelical churches in Izmir. The darkness does not understand the light. “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.” (Acts 17:6)

Please pray for the Church in Turkey. “Don’t pray against persecution, pray for perseverence,” urges Pastor Fikret Bocek.

The Church is better having lost our brothers; the fruit in our lives, the renewed faith, the burning desire to spread the gospel to quench more darkness in Malatya …all these are not to be regretted. Pray that we stand strong against external opposition and especially pray that we stand strong against internal struggles with sin, our true debilitating weakness.

This we know. Christ Jesus was there when our brothers were giving their lives for Him. He was there, like He was when Stephen was being stoned in the sight of Saul of Tarsus.

Someday the video of the deaths of our brothers may reveal more to us about the strength that we know Christ gave them to endure their last cross, about the peace the Spirit of God endowed them with to suffer for their beloved Savior. But we know He did not leave their side. We know their minds were full of Scripture strengthening them to endure, as darkness tried to subdue the unsubduable Light of the Gospel. We know, in whatever way they were able, with a look or a word, they encouraged one another to stand strong. We know they knew they would soon be with Christ.

We don’t know the details. We don’t know the kind of justice that will or will not be served on this earth.

But we pray– and urge you to pray– that someday at least one of those five boys will come to faith because of the testimony in death of Tilman Geske, who gave his life as a missionary to his beloved Turks, and the testimonies in death of Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel, the first martyrs for Christ out of the Turkish Church.

Here are the prayers for Easter Sunday!

From the Lutheran Book of Prayer:

O almighty and eternal God, who through the death of Your Son has destroyed sin and death, and by His rising to life again restored innocence and everlasting life, that being delivered from the power of the devil, I might live under You in Your kingdom, grant that I may be forever comforted by true faith in the resurrection of Your dear Son. Do not let the thought of death fill my heart with terror, but give me the blessed assurance that, just as You raised Christ from the dead, I will not remain in the grave but will rise again at the end of days. And when, by Your grace, I have finished my course, let Christ’s resurrection be for me a sure pledge that an inheritance that does not fade is reserved for me in heaven. While I live, guide me with Your holy counsel, and while I die, give me the crown of life, that with all the holy angels and the elect I may praise and glorify You, world without end, Amen.

From The Book of Common Prayer:

O God, who for our redemption didst give thine only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection hast delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through the same thy Son Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

Here are the prayers for Holy Saturday.

From the Lutheran Book of Prayer:

Heavenly Father, I am silenced at the gave of Your Son, who knew no sin, yet was made sin for us. You permitted Him to die, exchanging His innocence for our guilt. In love He came to save us, but He was rejected by hate. He taught us obedience, but men rebelled against Him.

I confess that a great mystery confronts me at this tomb of sin and death. He was buried behind the great seal of my sin and my death. By faith I know also that He who dies is also the one who unlocked the great secret of Your love. His tomb is my tomb. He carried with Him to the grave my sin and my death, that He might break their hold on me.

Trusting in the Lord’s promise that He would rise again on the third day, I come not to mourn Him but to confess the sin that He would leave burried. Have mercy on me, O God! Have mercy on me. Amen.

From The Book of Common Prayer:

O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of Thy dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Longing for the third day!