R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 26

How Is Christianity’s Message of Salvation Different from Other Religions?

Christianity is a religion of grace, and God reveals His grace through His Word. From an online youth conference hosted by Reformation Bible College, Stephen Nichols identifies what sets the Christian faith apart from all other religious ideas.

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TULIP and The Doctrines of Grace

The central truth of God’s saving grace is succinctly stated in the assertion, “Salvation is of the Lord.” This strong declaration means that every aspect of man’s salvation is from God and is entirely dependent upon God. The only contribution that we make is the sin that was laid upon Jesus Christ at the cross. The Apostle Paul affirmed this when he wrote, “From Him and through Him and to Him are all things” (Rom. 11:36). This is to say, salvation is God determined, God purchased, God applied, and God secured. From start to finish, salvation is of the Lord alone.

This truth is best summarized in the doctrines of grace, which are total depravity, unconditional election, definite atonement, effectual calling, and preserving grace. These truths present the triune God as the author of our salvation from beginning to end. Each member of the Godhead—Father, Son, and Spirit—has a part to play in redemption, and they work together as one God to rescue those perishing under divine wrath. In perfect unity, the three divine persons do the work that hellbound sinners, utterly unable to save themselves, cannot do.

TOTAL DEPRAVITY

The first man, Adam, sinned, and his transgression and guilt were immediately imputed to all mankind (Christ excepted). By this one act of disobedience, he became morally polluted in every part of his being—mind, affections, body, and will. By this sin, death entered the world, and Adam's fellowship with God was broken.

Adam’s guilt and corruption were transmitted to his natural offspring at the moment of conception. In turn, each of his children’s children inherited this same radical fallenness. Subsequently, it has been passed down to each generation to the present day. Adam’s perverse nature has spread to the whole of every person. Apart from grace, our minds are darkened by sin, unable to understand the truth. Our hearts are defiled, unable to love the truth. Our bodies are dying, progressing to physical death. Our wills are dead, unable to choose the good. Moral inability to please God plagues every person from their entrance into the world. In their unregenerate state, no one seeks after God. No one is capable of doing good. All are under the curse of the law, which is eternal death.

UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION

Long before Adam sinned, God had already decreed and determined salvation for sinners. In eternity past, the Father chose a people in Christ who would be saved. Before time began, God elected many from among mankind whom He purposed to save from His wrath. This selection was not based upon any foreseen faith in those whom He chose. Nor was it prompted by their inherent goodness. Instead, according to His infinite love and inscrutable wisdom, God set His affection upon His elect.

The Father gave the elect to His Son to be His bride. Each one chosen was predestined by the Father to be conformed to the image of His Son and to sing His praises forever. The Father commissioned His Son to enter this world and lay down His life to save these same chosen ones. Likewise, the Father commissioned the Spirit to bring these same elect ones to faith in Christ. The Son and the Spirit freely concurred in all these decisions, making salvation the undivided work of the triune God.

DEFINITE ATONEMENT

In the fullness of time, God the Father sent His Son to enter this fallen world on a mission to redeem His people. He was born of a virgin, without a sin nature, to live a sinless life. Jesus was born under the divine law so that He would fully obey it on behalf of disobedient sinners who have repeatedly broken it. This active obedience of Christ fulfilled all the righteous demands of the law. By keeping the law, the Son of God achieved a perfect righteousness, which is reckoned to believing sinners so that they are declared righteous, or justified, before God.

This sinless life of Jesus further qualified Him to go to the cross and die in the place of guilty, hellbound sinners. On the cross, Jesus bore the unmitigated wrath of the Father for the sins of His people. In this vicarious death, the Father transferred to His Son all the sins of all those who would ever believe in Him. As a sin-bearing sacrifice, Jesus died a substitutionary death in the place of God’s elect. On the cross, He propitiated the righteous anger of God toward the elect. By the blood of the cross, Jesus reconciled the holy God to sinful man, establishing peace between the two parties. In His redeeming death, He purchased His bride—His elect people—out of bondage to sin and set her free.

Jesus’ death did not merely make all mankind potentially savable. Nor did His death simply achieve a hypothetical benefit that may or may not be accepted. Neither did His death merely make all mankind redeemable. Instead, Jesus actually redeemed a specific people through His death, securing and guaranteeing their salvation. Not a drop of Jesus’ blood was shed in vain. He truly saved all for whom He died. This doctrine of definite atonement is sometimes called limited atonement.

EFFECTUAL CALLING

With oneness of purpose, the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit into the world to apply this salvation to those chosen and redeemed. The Spirit came to convict the elect of sin, righteousness, and judgment and to turn to the Son all whom the Father gave to Him. At the divinely appointed time, the Spirit removes from each elect person his unbelieving heart of stone, hardened and dead in sin, and replaces it with a believing heart of flesh, responsive and alive unto God. The Spirit implants eternal life within the spiritually dead soul. He grants the chosen men and women the gifts of repentance and faith, enabling them to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Suddenly, all things are made new. New life from the Spirit produces new love for God. New desires to obey the Word of God produce a new pursuit of holiness. There is a new life direction, lived with new passion for God. These born-again ones give evidence of their election with the fruit of righteousness This call from the Spirit is effectual, meaning the elect will certainly respond when it is given. They will not finally resist it. Thus, the doctrine of effectual calling is sometimes called the doctrine of irresistible grace.

PRESERVING GRACE

Once converted, every believer is kept eternally secure by all three persons of the Trinity. All whom God foreknew and predestined in eternity past, He will glorify in eternity future. No believer will drop out or fall away. Every believer is firmly held by the sovereign hands of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, never to be lost. None of Jesus’ sheep for whom He laid down His life will perish. The Holy Spirit permanently seals in Christ all whom He draws to faith. Once born again, none can ever be unborn. Once a believer, none can ever become an unbeliever. Once saved, none will ever be-come unsaved. God will preserve them in faith forever, and they will persevere until the end. Thus, the doctrine of preserving grace is often called the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints.

From beginning to end, salvation is of the Lord. In reality, these five doctrines of grace form one comprehensive body of truth concerning salvation. They are inseparably connected and therefore stand or fall together. To embrace any one of the five necessitates embracing all five. To deny one is to deny the others and fracture the Trinity, setting the three persons at odds with one another. These doctrines speak together with one voice in giving the greatest glory to God. Such high theology produces high doxology. When it is rightly understood that God alone—Father, Son, and Spirit—saves sinners, then all glory goes to Him.

This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.

The Lion and the Lamb

As the promised Son of David, Jesus came to redeem His people and conquer His enemies. But this victory was accomplished in a most unexpected way. In this clip, R.C. Sproul focuses on how the book of Revelation depicts our triumphant Savior who is worthy of unending praise.

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Transcript:

“But then one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep, for behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals.’” Talk about a roller coaster of emotions. Here is John, joyous in anticipation, going to see the scroll opened, plunging into the depths of despair when nobody is found worthy, and now the elder whispers in his ear, “Don’t cry. Don’t despair. There is One who’s worthy. For behold, the Lion of Judah has prevailed, the One who has come from the root of Jesse.” Now beloved, if you don’t know the Old Testament, it’s meaningless. But John knew the Old Testament. He knew what that image of the Lion of Judah referred to all the way back to the book of Genesis, to the patriarchal blessing that Jacob gave to his sons. The promise of the kingdom went to the tribe of Judah, and Judah, the son of Jacob, was known as the “lion’s whelp,” and so he would be the king. But the king that is referred to here is the One who is in the descendancy of David, out of the seed of Jesse. And David was known as the lion of Judah, but obviously what is being referred to here is David’s greater Son, to the Messiah, to Jesus, the Lion of Judah. So, John said, “All right! Okay!” It’s like Telemachus waiting for his father to come and bend the bow. Now John is saying, “All right, where is the Lion of Judah who has prevailed?” And he’s waiting now for Aslan to come pouncing onto the stage with his muscular legs and arms and limbs and his powerful claws and just grab that scroll and rip open the seals and let us see the secrets of God. “And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain.” Let me stop right there. He’s waiting for this magnificent beast, the lion, in the fullness of its strength, to come and open the scroll. But when he turns to see the lion, he doesn’t just see a lamb, but he sees a lamb as it had been slain. He sees a lamb that had been slaughtered. He doesn’t see a figure of power. He doesn’t see a symbol of exultation. He sees the suffering servant of God in His humiliation, in His passion, in His meekness as the sacrifice for the people of God. “In the midst of the elders stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out unto all the earth. Then He came and took the scroll out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures, the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song.” Do you remember when we talked about how songs were composed in the Old Testament to celebrate a new victory that God performed for His people? The Song of Moses, the Song of Deborah, and now we have the “New Song” that is composed by the saints in heaven as they come with the bowls of the prayers of the people of God, those who had been crying from behind the altar, waiting for their redemption. Now they begin to sing a new song to this Lamb. And God, who is seated on the throne, hands the scroll to the Lamb, because the Lamb met the test. Remember the question: “Who is worthy?” And what is the gist of the New Song? “Worthy is the Lamb to receive honor and glory, dominion, and power and majesty,” so that now the whole host of heaven is singing the praises of the Lamb as the Lamb now appears in heaven to receive His reward, to receive His throne because He has fulfilled His mission. He did what He was sent into the world to do. He accomplished His vocation.

 

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Is It True That the Blood of Jesus Takes Away Sickness?

Some Christians say that the blood of Jesus protects against sickness and cures disease. From one of our live events, Derek Thomas examines this claim.

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The Holiness of God and the Sinfulness of Man

One word that crystallizes the essence of the Christian faith is the word grace. One of the great mottos of the Protestant Reformation was the Latin phrase sola gratia—by grace alone. This phrase wasn't invented by the sixteenth-century Reformers. Its roots are in the theology of Augustine of Hippo, who used it to call attention to the central concept of Christianity, that our redemption is by grace alone, that the only way a human being can ever find himself reconciled to God is by grace. That concept is so central to the teaching of Scripture that to even mention it seems like an insult to people’s intelligence; yet, if there is a dimension of Christian theology that has become obscured in the last few generations, it is grace.

Two things that every human being absolutely must come to understand are the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. These topics are difficult for people to face. And they go together: if we understand who God is, and catch a glimpse of His majesty, purity, and holiness, then we are instantly aware of the extent of our own corruption. When that happens, we fly to grace—because we recognize that there's no way that we could ever stand before God apart from grace.

The prophet Habakkuk was upset during one period in Jewish history because he saw the enemies of the people of God triumphing, the wicked prospering, and the righteous suffering. He raised a lament, saying: "Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof" (Hab. 1:12). He went on to a affirm the holiness of God, and how God cannot tolerate evil: "You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong . . . " (Hab. 1:13a).

This is anything but characteristic of the human condition. We can tolerate what is wrong. In fact, if we don’t tolerate what is wrong, we can't tolerate each other or even ourselves. In order to live with myself as a sinner, I have to learn to tolerate something that is evil. If my eyes were too holy to behold iniquity, I'd have to shut my eyes anytime I was with someone else—and they would see in me a man who has besmirched the image of God.

Habakkuk then asked, "Why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?" (v. 13b). He couldn’t fathom how God could endure and be patient with human evil. Yet, we can't tolerate the idea of God's being upset about human evil; we become antagonistic toward the idea of a God who is so holy that He might turn His back from looking at someone or something that is sinful. That is the dilemma that Scripture sets before us: we have a holy God whose image we bear and whose image it is our fundamental responsibility as human beings to mirror—yet we are not holy.

I once discussed the holiness of God with a group of pastors at a theology conference. One of the pastors said he appreciated my teaching about the holiness of God, but he disagreed with what I taught about the sovereignty of God. I said that, though as Christians we should strive to live together in peace and not be argumentative or divisive, the two of us couldn't possibly both be right when it comes to how God’s sovereignty works. And furthermore, whoever is wrong is sinning against God at that point of error.

When we sin, we want to describe our sinful activity in terms of a mistake, as if that softens or mitigates the guilt involved. We don’t think it's wrong for a child to add two and two and come up with five. We know the answer's wrong, but we don't spank the child and say, "You’re bad, because you made five out of two and two instead of four." We think of mistakes as being part of the human condition. But as I said to that pastor, if one of us is wrong, it would be because he came to the Scriptures while wanting it to agree with him, rather than wanting to agree with the Scriptures. We tend to come biased, and we distort the very Word of God to escape the judgment that comes from it.

But to err is human—which is to say, "It's OK." We are so accustomed to our fallenness and corruption that, while our moral sensibilities may be offended when we see someone involved in gross and heinous criminal activity such as mass murder, normal, everyday disobedience to God doesn't bother us. We don't think it’s that important, because "to err is human, and to forgive is divine."

This aphorism suggests that it's natural, and therefore acceptable, for human beings to sin. It's implied also that it is God’s nature to forgive. If He doesn't forgive, then there's something wrong with His very deity, because it is the nature of God to forgive. But this is as false as the first assumption; it is not necessary to the essence of deity to forgive. Forgiveness is grace, which is undeserved or unmerited favor. We are so accustomed to sin that we do it all the time. We can’t define a human being without defining our humanness as fallen, and we can't possibly maintain life itself apart from grace.

How is sin to be understood? Is it accidental or essential to our humanity? The term accidental refers to those properties of an object that are not part of its essence; they may exist or not exist without changing what that object truly is. For instance, a moustache is an accidental property. If a man shaves off his moustache, he does not cease to be a man.

On the other hand, essential properties are those that are part of the essence of a thing. Remove that property, and it ceases to be that thing. Sin is not essential to humanity, unless someone believes that God made humanity sinful at the beginning. If sin is essential to humanity, then that would mean Jesus was either sinful or not human. So, sin is not essential. Adam had no sin when he was created, yet he was still human. Jesus has no sin, but He is still human. Believers will have no sin when they get to heaven, and they will still be human.

Sin is not essential, but neither is it merely tangential or on the surface of our humanity. Rather, the portrait that we get in the Scriptures of man in his fallen condition is that he is utterly and thoroughly infected by sin in his whole person. In other words, sin is not an external blemish, but something that goes to the very core of our being.

This excerpt is taken from R.C. Sproul's Crucial Questions booklet How Can I Be Blessed? Download more free ebooks in the Crucial Questions series here.

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The Image of God and Christian Ethics

Here’s an excerpt from The Image of God and Christian Ethics, J.V. Fesko's contribution to the March issue of Tabletalk:

Ethical relativism has seemingly fractured our culture into millions of isolated islands where everyone does what is right in his own eyes. In this world shaped by technology, people create virtual realms tailored to their interests and have extended this mentality into the real world as they create their own morality.

Nevertheless, the Bible teaches us that God has created all human beings in His image, which means that we share this God-given bond. One of the key elements of bearing God’s image is that He has inscribed His moral law on the hearts of all humans; ultimately, we all share the same God-given morality and ethics, though unregenerate people suppress it. We can explore this truth by first examining what the Bible has to say about image bearing. Second, we will ponder the theology of our commonly shared ethical norm. And third, we will think through the implications of what it means to have the law of God inscribed on our hearts. Can we interact with our neighbors on the basis of this commonly shared ethical knowledge?

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The Reason Why the Church Needs to Be Reformed

The church is in continual need of reform, but not because Christ’s atoning work is incomplete or because God’s Word is unclear. In this brief clip, W. Robert Godfrey reminds us why reformation is an ongoing necessity.

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Transcript:

We're beginning a new topic today, and the topic is “The necessity of reforming the church, then and now.” And we're taking that title largely from John Calvin. Calvin's good for so many things. Stealing a title is another good thing to do. John Calvin wrote a treatise, about 120 pages, titled The Necessity of Reforming the Church. And we'll talk about why he wrote it and why he wrote it the way he wrote it. But it seems to me that it is a helpful treatise to get us thinking about the church, the importance of the church, the centrality of the church. We all remember that Christ said, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Establishing the church as the very center and heart of what Christ was setting out to do in His redeeming work. Jesus is gathering a people. Jesus is creating a new humanity, and that is the church that He is building. And when you look at the history of the church, you very soon discover that, over and over again, the church needs to be reformed. The church needs to be reordered, renewed, revived, restructured, reshaped, all the “re-”s. “Re” comes from Latin, meaning “again.” Well, we have to do this again. We have to form it again. We have to make it new again. And this is a continuing need, not because Christ's work wasn't finished and perfect, not because God's Word isn't clear in directing the church, but because—and this will come as a terrible shock to you—the church is composed of sinners. You probably never knew that, but it's true. The church is composed of sinners, and sinners not only get things wrong morally, but they get things wrong intellectually and theologically and liturgically and ecclesiastically and every other kind of “-ly.” It's a problem that the church is constantly going off track.

 

Fighting Fear and Anxiety

When I moved to central Florida in 1992, I was told that this part of the state had not been directly hit by a hurricane since the fifties. We were hit by the outer edges of some hurricanes and tropical storms on occasion, but nothing major. All of that changed in 2004 when this one small part of the state was hit by not one, but three strong hurricanes in the short space of six weeks. Hurricane Charley hit us the evening of August 13. Three weeks later we were hit by Hurricane Frances. Three weeks after that we were hit by Hurricane Jeanne. It was not a pleasant time to live in this part of Florida.

There was one side effect of the 2004 hurricane season that I probably should have expected but did not, and that was the effect it would have on our local meteorologists. As the 2005 hurricane season approached, some of them lost their minds. If I may be permitted a bit of hyperbole, the typical weather report that year could be paraphrased as such: “A tropical depression has formed off the coast of Africa. It is probably going to turn into a major hurricane. It is probably going to hit us, and we are probably all going to die.” They seemed to have one goal—to create a perpetual state of fear and anxiety. I stopped watching after a few weeks of this and asked my wife to let me know if and when there was something I needed to know, such as the need to board up the windows and/or evacuate.

Those who have watched or read the news over the last several years have likely noticed this tendency regardless of where you live. Watch the news long enough and a monologue begins to develop in your mind:

The economy will soon collapse, hampering our war against the terrorists who are on the verge of attacking us again. The only thing that may stop them is a pandemic of bird flu, swine flu, or the black plague, but this pandemic will only affect those of us who haven’t already succumbed to the dire effects of global warming. Stay tuned for a report on what popular food product that you eat every day has been shown to cause cancer in lab rats and chimpanzees.

So, we are faced with a certain amount of fear and anxiety that is media-induced to one degree or another. There is also, however, fear and anxiety caused by actual frightening events. Strong hurricanes are frightening to experience. Other natural disasters such as floods, fires, earthquakes, and tornadoes are frightening. Diseases are frightening, especially when they spread across the world—as the coronavirus has done so far in 2020. Wars and terrorist activity are also frightening.

Complicating matters is the lack of trust that many have in the news media. We know that fear sells because it keeps people glued to their screens and that is profitable. We know bias exists in news reporters as it does in everyone. Due to factors such as these, however, many people have lost all trust in the news media to accurately report events. Social media has intensified this problem because friends and family share stories without always checking the sources. This can cause problems when a truly dangerous event is unfolding and a certain segment of the population writes it off as nothing but media hype, or worse, the fruits of some vast dark conspiracy.

When we are dealing with something that is potentially life-threating, we need to err on the side of loving our neighbor. If a Category 5 hurricane is predicted to hit your area directly, it is not loving or wise to tell everybody on your social media pages that it’s all a hoax. Convincing a neighbor to not prepare for a strong hurricane can result in your neighbor’s death. Similarly, if there are reports of a highly contagious virus spreading, we need to err on the side of loving our neighbor. Many of our neighbors are elderly. Many have chronic respiratory issues such as COPD and asthma. Many have compromised immune systems due to things like cancer treatment. It is not loving to those neighbors to put them at risk of catching something from you that your own immune system can most likely handle. This is true even during a normal flu season. It is not loving toward your neighbor to go to work or to church or to any public place if you are sick with a contagious illness.

There is, then, the matter of loving our neighbor. There is also the deeper matter of dealing with fear and anxiety—regardless of its source. How do we deal with all of the fear and anxiety that we face, whether media-induced or event-induced? An example from church history proves instructive. Saint Augustine (354–430) lived at a time of great fear and anxiety. His world changed dramatically in A.D. 410 when the barbarian Alaric entered Rome. This was the beginning of the end for the western half of the Roman Empire. As refugees fled to northern Africa, bringing all manner of ominous reports, Augustine was forced to deal with the issues as many were going so far as to blame the fall of Rome on Christianity. His classic work The City of God was written to respond to the crisis. One of my favorite quotes from this book addresses the fearfulness of his readers. He encourages Christians who are surrounded by danger on every side, saying: “Among the daily chances of this life every man on earth is threatened in the same way by innumerable deaths, and it is uncertain which of them will come to him. And so the question is whether it is better to suffer one in dying or to fear them all in living” (1:11). These are the words of one who trusts the sovereignty of God. Augustine knew there was no point in being constantly fearful about all of the dangers surrounding him. He knew God was in control and that not a single hair could fall from his head apart from God’s will.

The world is fearful and anxious, but it is fearful and anxious about the wrong things. The world is fearful about the economy. The world is fearful about retirement accounts. The world is fearful about natural disasters and man-made disasters. The world is fearful of terrorism, and the world is fearful of diseases like the coronavirus. The world, however, is not fearful of God. Jesus tells us that we are not to fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead we are to fear God who can destroy both (Matt. 10:28). The wrath of God makes all other objects of the world’s fears seem like nothing in comparison. A truly fearful thing is to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10:31).

Those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ, however, have nothing to fear from man, or from anything else for that matter. Those who trust Christ have nothing to fear from hurricanes, diseases, economic collapse, war, famine, or even death. All of these things are under the control of our sovereign Father in heaven. Of course, this is easy enough for us to say, but we all too easily take our eyes off of God and dwell on the dangers surrounding us.

Is there anything we can do to fight worldly fear and anxiety? I believe Paul provides one important clue by contrasting fear with prayer. He writes: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6–7). A neglect of prayer almost always results in a corresponding rise in our fear and anxiety. This is no coincidence. Prayer is an act of faith in God, and faith in God leads to the peace of God.

This post was adapted from an article originally published in Tabletalk magazine.