R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 127

Saved by Grace Alone

In this brief clip from his teaching series A Survey of Church History, W. Robert Godfrey examines the difference between a theology that believes salvation is by grace alone and a theology that believes salvation is mostly by grace. You can watch this entire message for free.

Augustine taught that we are saved by grace alone. He was absolutely unambiguous and clear about that. And the later medieval Augustinians, many of them taught we are saved by grace alone mostly. Now you can see, if you like yourself and think your theology is pretty good, that you would think the difference between saved by grace alone and saved by grace alone mostly is not much of a change, right? That’s what these Medievals, many of them -- there were people who did follow Augustine in the Middle Ages (we’ll come back to that as well) who did say in the Middle Ages absolutely we’re saved by grace alone. But many said we’re saved by grace alone mostly and really thought that they were Augustinian, that they weren’t betraying anything essential. What they meant, and what people like Gregory meant by that is, we cannot be saved except by grace. And you see that is Augustinian to a point. Pelagius had said we can be saved without grace, they don't happen very often but it's theoretically possible we can be saved without grace. After the debate between Augustine and Pelagius, nobody in the West argued you could be saved without grace. In that sense, Augustine had won the absolute victory. You have to have grace to be saved. But the question is, if you have to have grace to be saved, where does it come from? How do you get it? How do you keep it? That's where there was a movement away from the fullness and clarity for what Augustine had said.

For Gregory representing the kind of theology that would be frequently promoted in the life of the Church, Gregory said “Well, you see, grace is received in baptism.” So, of course, you have to have grace to be saved and you get grace in baptism. So you have to be baptized to be saved and everybody gets grace in baptism and then what are you going to do with that grace? You have to make appropriate use of that grace and the appropriate use of that grace is in constantly confessing your sin, constantly hoping by grace to lead a better life, constantly making use of confession and the sacraments of the church to be progressing in the Christian life. And what you had then in the theology of Gregory is a theology in which the whole of life is a struggle, is a repentance to hold on to the grace one has, to seek forgiveness for the sins one continues to commit. A noble lady wrote to Gregory and asks him to pray for a revelation to him from God that she was saved. It’s a very interesting letter where he writes back to her and says “It would not be good for you to know that you are saved. It is good that you live in doubt about your salvation so that it's a motivation for you to keep working, keep struggling, to keep laboring so that you will never be presumptuous in your relationship with God but that you’ll always be seeking more grace. But you see its grace that’s achieved through a measure of cooperation. It’s a grace that’s never stable or secure.”

This is the foundation that Gregory began to lay for the church. A foundation of a stress-on-grace but of a kind of Christianity that is a constant struggle, a constant worry, a constant effort in hopes that you would die in grace and be saved but never with an assurance in this life that that's true.

How Do I Cultivate a Renewed Mind?

If we seek to have a renewed mind and a transformed life, it is vital that we participate in the personal fellowship of a local church. From one of our Ask Ligonier Live events, Burk Parsons urges us to attend to the ordinary means of grace in our pursuit of spiritual maturity. To ask a biblical or theological question, just visit Ask.Ligonier.org or message us on Facebook or Twitter.

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Helps for Doubting Christians

Sooner or later every thoughtful Christian will feel the unsettling, soul-gripping claw of doubt. Some of us might struggle with intellectual doubt. How do I really know God exists? How can I be sure that Jesus is the only way to heaven? Some of us might struggle with circumstantial doubt. How can God be good when there is suffering in the world? If God is my Heavenly Father, why did I lose my job?

In Mark 9, God helps His people process doubt by describing three kinds of unbelief. He contrasts the unbelief of the scribes and His own disciples with that of the father of a demon-possessed boy. As usual the scribes disputed with Jesus and His friends (v. 9), asking trapping, condescending, self-righteous questions, making themselves the prosecutor and Jesus the defendant. This is damning unbelief.

The disciples display a more familiar, "forgetful" unbelief. They thought they could out-maneuver a demon with mere words without prayer and fasting (v. 29). The disciples couldn't cast out the spirit because of their little faith (Cf. Matt. 17:20; Luke 17:6). John Calvin paraphrases Christ's response to the disciples' inability: "You seem as if you were engaged in a mock-battle got up for amusement; but you have to deal with a powerful adversary, who will not yield till the battle has been fought out." This might sound familiar to us.

Only one person in this story admits his struggle with doubt. He's the weakling, right? After all, he admits that life's struggles shake his faith. Rather, Mark holds up this father as a model of sincere, struggling, saving faith.

This father sincerely wanted to believe that Christ could help his son; otherwise he wouldn't have asked. He did not know of anyone else to whom he could turn to receive the two things he needed, compassion and help. He could hardly believe that Jesus would help him. But he knew Jesus was the right person to ask. With tears he cried out, "I believe!"

But this man also struggled. He seriously wondered if Jesus actually could heal his boy. So long had the demon ravaged his son—since childhood—that the father wondered if even Jesus could do anything (v. 22). This dad had seen his son cast into fire and water. He had probably watched his son struggle for breath, with water-filled lungs. He had doubtless dressed his poor boy's burns, weeping over his disfigured body. He wondered, "Is there any hope?"

Jesus offered this man a simple truth "All things are possible to him who believes" (v. 23). The needy father answered with shocking honesty: "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" (v. 24). Jesus honored this man's honest faith by casting out the demon and making him whole.

Like this father, believers believe. We believe that God exists; that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Heb. 11:6). But believers also doubt.

How do these examples of unbelief help us who struggle with doubt?

1. Be Honest About Your Doubts

God already knows that we are doubters. Our calling is not to pretend we have no doubts, but to trust Jesus even with our doubts. Do you doubt that God can improve your marriage? Have you become content with your anger or rudeness, suspecting that God cannot help? Do you trust Jesus, but puzzle over why Scripture and sermons don't move you? Bring these doubts to the Lord and to trusted spiritual friends. Learn to help others be honest with their doubts by receiving your friends' doubts with Christ-like tenderness.

2. Ask for God's Help

When this father cried out, "I believe, help my unbelief" he had a specific doubt in mind. He needed to entrust his son to God's care. We should ask God for help in our unique arenas of doubt. Remember, God "will deliver the needy when he cries" (Ps. 72:12).

3. Fast and Pray

Through fasting we humble ourselves before God while making requests through prayer. Fasting stimulates prayer by exposing our weakness. The disciples had weak faith because they trusted in the strength of their flesh. Fasting reminds us that all human effort is impotent without God's energizing power (John 15:5).

4. Remember God's Promises

When Abraham faced a colossal challenge to faith, "He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform" (Rom. 4:20-21). Calvin reminds us that "Christ has come to bridle the rage of Satan." Remember that promise when the accuser rages against you.

5. Refuse to Be Overtaken

Doubts need not equal defeat. Refuse to feed your doubts by asking questions that cannot be answered here and now. Embrace the mystery of God. Become comfortable with the phrase, "I don't know…but God does." Assume the posture of a child who doesn't know his parents plans but who trusts their motives. Wrestle with God, not over God. We don't know everything that God is doing in our lives. We don't know why He allows us to be afflicted with doubt. But we can still face our questions with amazed confidence: "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!" (Rom. 11:33).

For today, that's enough to disarm my doubt.

Rev. William Boekestein is pastor of Immanuel Fellowship Church in Kalamazoo, Mi. He is co-author of Why Christ Came.

$5 Friday: John Calvin, Grace, & the Gospel

It’s time for our weekly $5 Friday sale. This week’s resources include such topics as Martin Luther, providence, the gospel, preaching, love, the Beatitudes, grace, John Calvin, and more.

Sale runs through 12:01 a.m. — 11:59 p.m. Friday ET.

View today’s $5 Friday sale items.

Galatians 3:28

Here’s an excerpt from Galatians 3:28, Aaron L. Garriott's contribution to the August issue of Tabletalk:

Paul's statement in Galatians 3:28 has been cited to support sundry erroneous positions, but it is typically misinterpreted in one of two ways. The first is to misread Paul as if he’s saying all human distinctions are obliterated. The second is to underrealize the significance of what Paul is saying.

First, some people appeal to Galatians 3:28 to defend egalitarianism, transgenderism, comprehensive cultural assimilation, ethnic indifference, classless societies, and more. But those ideas are irrelevant to Paul’s point. The parity he’s advocating is with respect to salvation; it’s not a wholesale blurring of all human distinctions. In fact, certain distinctions were established at creation—such as between the Sabbath and ordinary days (Gen. 2:2–3; Ex. 16:22–26; Mark 7:19), between labor and rest (Gen. 2:15; 2 Thess. 3:10; James 5:4), and in gender roles (Gen. 2:18; 1 Cor. 11:3–16). This reality informs the general abiding validity of the three categories Paul mentions: gender roles (male-female), socio-labor distinctions (slave-free), and ethnicity (Jew-Greek).

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Faith Is Not a Leap into the Darkness

In this brief clip from our 2012 National Conference, R.C. Sproul explains that faith is not a leap into the darkness, faith is a leap out of the darkness and into the light.

Transcript

The late great Augustine made the comment that there is a symbiotic relationship between faith and reason, one that is so important that if you try to have faith without reason, the faith that you will display will not be authentic biblical faith, because a faith without reason, Augustine said, is not faith but credulity. It’s the kind of silliness that affirms that belief in the existence of little green men who live on the other side of the moon whose nonexistence as a negative can never be proven.

And you can argue saying that we’ve had people on the moon who have never encountered these little green men, and we have the Hubble telescope who have never been able to capture in their lens these little green men. And these people who are steadfast believers in the little green men will say, “Wow, that’s because these little green men that live on the other side of the moon have a built-in allergy to telescopes, to scientists, and to astronauts, so that they make themselves carefully hidden whenever a telescope is pointed in their direction.” Well, they can argue their point, but their faith is credulity. It’s foolishness.

Now, Augustine says that there is such a relationship between faith and reason and that it is no virtue to rejoice in an irrational faith. No, faith, though it is the substance of things unseen, is not a leap into the darkness. God never calls people to make a blind leap into the darkness as a exercise in faith. In fact, the New Testament always and everywhere calls us to leap out of the darkness and into the light.

7 Ways to Grow in the Art of Communication

We need to understand that communication is an art that we all must learn better. It does not come naturally. Here are seven principles to help you to grow in this art, that you might teach your children:

We should draw out the thoughts of others. Communication involves not just talking but drawing out the thoughts and feelings of others. Solomon said, "Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out" (Prov. 20:5). Blessed is the parent who knows how to draw out such thoughts in a child. Good communication is not a monologue; it's a dialogue. We don't talk to our children; we talk with them.
We should let our conversations be ruled by the wisdom of Scripture. We need to be careful not to replace God's wisdom with man's wisdom. For example, we need to call a sin a sin and call a lie a lie. We shouldn't buy into our culture's tendency to say "weakness" when it is sin, "fib" for a lie, "an affair" for adultery, or "strong-willed" when a person is disobedient. Our children need to recognize that we think biblically, speak biblically, and act biblically without cramming religion down their throats.
We should use discernment in what we communicate. Sometimes we overload our children with teaching. We should take care not to load too many issues on them at once. I believe communication is most effective when we deal with one issue at a time rather than bringing up everything a child has done wrong during the past week. We have to know when we've said enough. We should be neither a fire hydrant gushing out on our children nor a leaky faucet constantly dripping on them.
We should speak respectfully. The abusive way some parents speak to their children in public—both in content and in tone—is a confession that they have lost control of those relationships. I'm embarrassed for them. Part of speaking respectfully means not yelling. How often have you yelled and later regretted it? "The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God" (James 1:20). It's necessary to raise our voices at times—for example, if one of our children is running toward the street. Otherwise, we should speak respectfully to our children. That's how they learn to speak respectfully to us. There are times when our voices can show more earnestness, emphasis, or concern, but we should refrain from yelling. When we reprimand a child, it is far better to say: "I love you very much but I am disappointed in this behavior. This is not what God wants from you, and you know it." That kind of loving rebuke carries more weight with our children than yelling at them.
We should show genuine interest and warmth. During family time around the dining table, we should strive to keep the conversation positive and upbeat. We want to show interest in each child and be positive where we can; if we do, our children will listen better to us when we have something negative to say to them. We need to make a conscious effort to tell our children how much we love them. We should tell them every day. I don't care if they are eight or eighteen years old; it's important for them to hear how much we love them.
We should show gratitude for the things they do. My mother did this with me, and it meant very much. Therefore, in our home, we thank each other. I thank my wife for the delicious meals she prepares. We thank our children for simple kindnesses. My wife thanks me for how hard I work. The children witness this behavior. We should let the "attitude of gratitude" permeate our homes. It should permeate everything—our conversation, our activities, even our hugging of our spouses and children. We need to let them sense this attitude of appreciation and enjoy the love that floods our homes.
We should make eye-to-eye contact. When we're engrossed in a book or staring at a computer screen, it's easy to block out the spoken word. We should strive to make eye contact when we communicate with our children to make sure they are getting our message. Good teachers know the value of eye contact in the classroom. If we don't insist on eye contact, we may think we were heard when in fact we weren't. We may miss important nonverbal messages as well.

This excerpt is taken from Joel Beeke's book Parenting by God's Promises.

1 Corinthians 13:13

Here’s an excerpt from 1 Corinthians 13:13, Joe Holland's contribution to the August issue of Tabletalk:

“But that isn’t loving,” is an objection often offered to undermine clear biblical teaching. “A loving God wouldn’t punish anyone with eternal judgment,” is an evil hermeneutic that attempts to gut the justice of God. Love has become unmoored from its biblical foundation, is set adrift in culture, and now passes for the new religion of cultural niceness. But even when we step out of culture and into the pages of Scripture, we can still misinterpret the biblical meaning of love. And one of those misinterpretations is drawn from what is arguably the most popular chapter in the Bible on the topic of love: 1 Corinthians 13.

In 1 Corinthians 13:13, Paul writes, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love,” leading some Christians to conclude that love is more important than faith or hope. This might not seem to be a problem, unless, of course, these three attributes—faith, hope, and love—are designed by God to be mutually reinforcing, built in such a way that to diminish any one of the three is to undermine the integrity of them all. A baker will tell you that the critical elements of bread are yeast, water, flour, and salt. If we agree that unsalted bread is rather bland and conclude that salt is the greatest of these four, then we will run into problems with our bread as we pay less attention to adding flour, yeast, and water. Likewise, love that is not balanced by faith and hope undermines the very definition of biblical love.

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Why Should Christians Study Christology?

Who is Jesus Christ, and what did He accomplish for His people? From one of our live Ask Ligonier events, W. Robert Godfrey looks at these important christological questions.

To get real-time answers to your biblical and theological questions, just Ask.Ligonier.org.

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We’re Called to Make Disciples, not Simply Converts

We should take notice of what Jesus did not say in the Great Commission. He did not say, "Go therefore and make converts of as many people as possible."

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matt. 28:18-20)

One of the most exciting times of my life was when I was first converted to Christ. I was filled with a zeal for evangelism. However, much to my consternation, when I told my friends about my conversion to Christ, they thought I was crazy. They were tragically amused, remaining unconvinced despite my sharing the gospel with them. Finally, they asked me, "Why don't you start a class and teach us what you have learned about Jesus?" They were serious. I was elated. We scheduled a time to meet, and I got there a little bit early—but they never showed up.

Despite my profound desire for evangelism, I was a failure at it. This realization came to me early in my ministry. Yet, I also discovered that there are many people whom Christ has called and whom He has gifted by His Spirit to be particularly effective in evangelism. To this day, I'm surprised if anybody attributes their conversion in some part to my influence. In one respect, I'm glad that the Great Commission is not a commission principally to evangelism.

The words that preceded Jesus' commission were these: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." He then went on to say, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations." When Jesus gave this commission to the church, He was speaking authoritatively. He gave a mandate to the church of all ages not simply to evangelize but to make disciples. That leads us to a significant question: What is a disciple?

The simplest definition of disciple is one who directs his mind toward specific knowledge and conduct. So, we might say that a disciple is a learner or pupil. The Greek philosophers—people such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle—had disciples. Socrates described himself ultimately as a disciple of Homer, the person Socrates regarded as the greatest thinker of all of Greek history.

We tend to think of Homer as a poet rather than a philosopher. But Socrates saw him as the supreme teacher of ancient Greece. Then, of course, Socrates had his own student—his chief disciple—whose name was Plato. Plato had his disciples, the chief one being Aristotle. Aristotle also had his disciples, the most famous being Alexander the Great. It is astonishing to think about how drastically the ancient world was shaped by four men: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great. In fact, it is nearly impossible to understand the history of Western civilization without understanding the influence of those four individuals, who in their own way were each disciples of another.

Aristotle, in particular, was known as a "peripatetic" philosopher. That is, he was a nomadic teacher who walked from place to place, not teaching in a fixed location. The students of Aristotle would follow him as he walked the streets of Athens. In one respect, Aristotle's disciples lived life with him, learning from him in the course of a normal daily routine.

The aforementioned concepts help illumine the nature of discipleship. However, they fail to capture the full essence of biblical discipleship. Discipleship in the biblical sense involves walking with the Teacher and learning from His words, but it is more than that.

Jesus was a rabbi and, of course, the most important peripatetic teacher and disciple-maker in history. Wherever He walked, His students would follow. At the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, He chose particular individuals to be His disciples. They were required to memorize the teachings that He spoke as He walked. What's more, people didn't file an application to get into the School of Jesus. Jesus selected His disciples. He went to prospective disciples where they were, whether in the marketplace or at their place of work, and give this simple command: "Follow me." The command was literal—He called them to drop their present duties. They had to leave their work, their families, and their friends in order to follow Jesus.

Jesus was more than just a peripatetic teacher however. His disciples called him "Master." Their entire way of life changed because of their following Jesus not merely as a great teacher, but as the Lord of all. That's the essence of discipleship—submitting fully to the authority of Christ, the One whose lordship goes beyond just the classroom. Jesus' lordship encompasses all of life. The Greek philosophers learned from their teachers but then tried to improve on that teaching. Christ's disciples have no such warrant. We are called to understand and teach only what God has revealed through Christ, including the Old Testament Scriptures, for they point to Christ; and the New Testament Scriptures, for they are the words of those Christ appointed to speak in His name.

The Great Commission is the call of Christ for His disciples to extend His authority over the whole world. We are to share the gospel with everyone so that more and more people might call Him Master. This calling is not simply a call to evangelism. It isn't merely a call to get students for our seminaries, our colleges, or for Ligonier Ministries. Rather, Christ calls us to make disciples. Disciples are people who have committed in their hearts and minds to follow the thinking and conduct of the Master forever. Such discipleship is a lifelong experience.

When we're involved in discipleship, we do not graduate until we get to heaven. Discipleship is a lifelong experience of learning the mind of Christ and following the will of Christ, submitting ourselves in complete obedience to His lordship. Thus, when Jesus tells us to go to all nations, we are to go into all the world with His agenda, not our own. The Great Commission calls us to flood this world with knowledgeable, articulate Christians who worship God and follow Jesus Christ passionately. Our mission at Ligonier is discipleship in the biblical sense. By God's grace, we want to help the church raise up a generation of people who are dedicated in heart and soul to the Master and His authority. We want to call people to obedience and to following Christ in their daily lives.