Why I’m a 5 Points Calvinist 3

I want to continue to speak to what the natural state of all men is so that no one can boast about their own righteousness or goodness before God. 

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

We may become self-righteous because we have not acted upon our sinful desires; we may deceive ourselves into thinking that because we can hold back that we are righteous, but in reality it is God’s restraining hand that keeps us from being and doing all the evil that is in our hearts.  In God’s mercy he doesn’t allow us always to act upon every evil impulse or we would all be imprisoned for our crimes against humanity. 

“The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5)

While this passage is speaking about the way of mankind before the flood, Jesus said:

“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot–they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:26-29)

We are in that generation that Jesus talked about.  When compared to God’s righteous, holy standard, we truly are living in times when “the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

“The generations of mankind on the earth did not begin until after the fall. The beginning of the posterity of our first parents was after the fall. For all their posterity, by ordinary generation, are partakers of the fall, and of the corruption of nature that followed from it.” (Jonathan Edwards “The History of Redemption”)

The universal state of human kind can also be summed up in these words from the prophet Isaiah as he talked about the coming Messiah:

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6)

No one, either Jew or Gentile is free from this judgement:

“What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” ‘Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.’ ‘The venom of asps is under their lips.’ ‘Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.’ ‘Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.’, ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’” (Romans 3:9-18)

You will notice that most of this passage is quoting other passages of Scripture some of those references are: Psalms 14:1-3, 53:1-3, 53:1-6 and14:1-7, with some slight variations.

“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23)

Every person who has ever lived since the time of Adam has sinned against God except one; Jesus Christ.  We all were dead in our sins (most still are) and none of us could do, or even wanted to do anything that would free us from the bondage of sin that we were under.  We loved our sin and hated God.  We were totally dead to the things of God and were spiritually dead, “…having no hope and without God in the world.”  Ephesians 2:12

Why I’m a 5 Points Calvinist 2

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. (Ephesians 2:1-3)

I want to spend some considerable time laying a foundation for what the state of natural man is and then attempt to show that because of man’s natural state there can be basis to believe that any man has the ability to draw himself to God.  When I look at these verses, I see a picture of dead body.  Like Lazarus in the tomb, or like Dorcas from Acts 9, or Jairus’ daughter in Mark 5, or even the valley of dry bones of Ezekiel 37.  All of these are examples and pictures of what we all are in our natural state.  You will notice what is universally true of mankind, we ALL have lived or are living in the passions of our flesh and ALL of us are naturally “children of wrath”; children of the devil. 

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness-es are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities. (Isaiah 64:6-7)

The natural man is not capable of doing anything that is not permeated with corruption.  None of our so called righteousness-es are anything more than “filthy rags”, in fact, we do not have any righteousness-es, all we have is a deceitful and wicked self-righteousness which is pure sin.  In both of these passages so far, what we see is that our trespasses, iniquities, and sin are at the root of our deadness.  No one is free from this corruption, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).  Matthew Henry had this to say in his commentary on this passage:

“We have all by sin become not only obnoxious to God’s justice, but odious to his holiness; for sin is that abominable thing which the Lord hates, and cannot endure to look upon.”

I have more to say regarding natural man…

Why I’m a 5 Point Calvinist

As you can probably tell by the name of my blog, I’m a Calvinist.  What I mean by that, if you are not familiar with the term, is that I believe that God in his Sovereignty has chosen those who he is going to save and that he did so based only on His sovereign rule and upon nothing that the individual has done or what He foresees that they will do.  I haven’t been a predestinarian for a long time, in fact, I was firmly arminian in my understanding until a few short years ago.  The main reason for this change is that I never really knew that there was anything else out there, but when I was exposed to the truth of election in God’s word I can’t help but see predestination and election all over the pages of Scripture. 

I was first exposed to Christianity back in the early ’80s when I attended a Charismatic Pentecostal church, and after a long period of “backsliding” (about 20 years), I started attending a Pentecostal church with my wife.  I no longer subscribe to much of the teachings and practices of the charismatic movement.  I find that there is much misunderstanding about the gifts and workings of the Holy Spirit, I also see how much heresy has been perpetrated against the church in recent years within Pentecostalism.

Getting back to the 5 points of Calvinism, The 5 points can be summed up in the acrostic:

T- Total Depravity

U- Unconditional Election

L- Limited Atonement

I- Irresistable Grace

P- Perseverance of the Saints

I would like to share with this post one of the passages of Scripture that I thinks speaks clearly of God’s sovereign plan of election:

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. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved– and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.  (Ephesians 2:1-10)

The first 3 verses show the  “T” of the acrostic.  Total Depravity does not mean that everyone is as bad as they could possibly be, but that they are utterly depraved and have no inclination toward the things of God.  The only thing that keeps people from being as bad or wicked as they are capable of being is the restraining hand of a gracious God.  Everyone is spiritually dead in their trespasses and sins, we have no inclination for the things of God at all.  We all followed the ways of the “world” and the “prince of the power of the air” which is Satan.  We passionately pursued the sinful desires of our wicked hearts without any affection towards God, and were with the rest of mankind children of the Devil and therefore deserving of God’s wrath.

Homosexuality

Here are some excerpts of recent letters to the editor of the Star Tribune regarding homosexuality and the church and then some of my comments:

 “The Christian churches, including the Catholic Church, desperately need to reexamine their understanding of and teachings on human sexuality. It’s time to take a step out of the 16th century and dare to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to the churches in the Third Millennium.”   

To this I say, the Holy Spirit hasn’t changed his mind about homosexuality or any other sin, “God is not a man… that he should repent” Numbers 23:19.  The first chapter of John says that Jesus is the Word of God, and since “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)  Jesus hasn’t changed His mind about sin either.  The truth is that it is time for those who claim to be Christians to get in step with God’s word and reexamine their own understanding of God’s revealed will (the Bible).  It’s time for the creature to submit to the creator and to truly listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to “the churches in the third millennium.”, which is the same message as all other millennia! Stop fighting against the Word of God.  God’s word hasn’t changed!  If you don’t accept the authority of Scripture, then don’t claim to be a follower of Christ.   

“As human beings, all made in the image and likeness of God…” 

Yes, we are all created in the “image” of God but we are not all children of God.  Jesus made a distinction between the children of God and the children of the Devil.  “You are of your father the Devil” (John 8:44)  Those who do the will of the Father are the true children of the Father.  “I suggest that the archbishop remove the log from his own eye before he worries about the speck in others’.”  Some people seem to quote Scripture well when it suit their needs…What about this one: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination” (Leviticus 18:22) or, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality” 1 Corinthians 6:9  

“Why doesn’t the church provide support for our children who enter puberty and find out they’re not heterosexual?” 

The church should be a place where God’s Word is preached in truth, the sacraments are rightly administered, and where church discipline is carried out.  The church is also a place where there is support of brothers and sisters in Christ and where you “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.” James 5:16 

“Sincere, adult, committed relationships strengthen people, regardless of the sexual identities God gave them.“ 

The only sexual relationships that God approves of are those between a man and his wife.   All sexual activity outside the bonds of marriage between a husband and his one and only wife is sin.  Jesus equated even lust (having sexual thoughts about someone) as adultery, “’You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:27-28)  The sexual desires that we have and act upon outside God’s revealed will are a direct result of the fall and thereby our sinful human nature.  Every person, prior to being born-again by the Spirit of God is outside the will of God and separated from God, so all the acts that they do are sin (Romans 14:23) 

The last thing that I have read and heard is that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality.  Apart from the fact that Jesus agrees with all of revealed Scripture, Jesus did talk about God’s plan for human sexuality when he said, “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, (Mark 10:6-7).  So Jesus confirms that God’s plan for sexual relations is within the bonds of heterosexual marriage only!  That is why God created them male and female.  

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