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January 28 - February 19, 2019
One of the great sins of contemporary evangelicalism is that it treats salvation as a one-time past event with little consideration of its ongoing nature in the present and future.
Salvation is not real if it is considered a one-time transaction that supposedly seals the fate of those who have prayed the sinner’s prayer.
no one fully comprehends what it means to receive Christ,
Although sanctification is the real proof of justification, and a continual receiving of Christ is evidence of having received Him unto salvation, we must be careful that we do not steal assurance from the saints by making perfection the evidence of faith or unblemished devotion the proof of salvation.
Those who have supposedly received Him yet never grow into a greater reality of what that means demonstrate little proof of genuine conversion.
He is not asking people to invite Him into some deep recess of their heart through praying a prayer. Instead, He is reproving a group of people who congregate in His name and commanding them to repent of their apathy toward Him (they are lukewarm), their spiritual blindness (they cannot see that they are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked), and their materialism and pride (they say they are rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing).
restored fellowship and eternal reward to those individuals in the church who hear His voice and renew their relationship with Him through genuine repentance.
This is particularly true when we realize that Scripture nowhere commands people to respond to the gospel message by opening their hearts and asking Jesus in. Instead, Scripture commands people to repent of their sins and trust in Christ.
These events are not passive; rather, they demonstrate both action and power, the first on the child’s part and the latter two on God’s part.
It is preposterous to think and heretical to teach that a person could hear Christ’s voice and be raised from spiritual death, yet experience no enduring effects of such an event in his life.
Such a truth guarantees that the person who has heard and opened his life to God’s salvation will progress in personal sanctification and conformity to Christ.
One of the greatest promises of the gospel is fellowship with Christ, yet this seems to have taken a back seat to a more desirable benefit: the sinner’s self-preservation.
The devil discerned correctly when he stated that a man would do almost anything to save his own skin.
If we make the beauty of Christ and the glory of His gospel our main theme, we may draw fewer people, but those who do come will not come in vain.
Blessed are those whose hearts are unalloyed and without mixed or competing loyalties, for they shall see God.
I will teach you, test you, discipline you, and take from you everything that does not please Me.
A denial of such a gospel call is a denial of everything that Jesus Christ ever taught about the radical and demanding nature of true conversion and discipleship.
Furthermore, God has no need of relationship, since the Father, Son, and Spirit have existed in perfect fellowship with one another throughout eternity.
The logic is simple: God saves evil men because He loves them, and He loves them because He is love.
“The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the LORD loves you”
The glory of the gospel is not that God saves worthy creatures whose beauty draws out His love and makes it impossible for Him to live without us.
The glory of the gospel is that God saves vile and wretched sinners who have utterly defiled themselves, evoking disdain and abandonment from all except a God who is love.
In fact, the greatest good God could ever accomplish for His creatures and the greatest kindness He could ever show them is to glorify Himself—to direct and work in all things so that He might display the fullness of all that He is before them. If God is of infinite value, splendor, and beauty, then it follows that the most valuable, most splendid, and most beautiful gift He could ever give to His creatures is the revelation of Himself.
If this bothers us, then we should understand that if God had not acted for His own sake, He would have had no reason to act for ours.
God’s perseverance and unfailing commitment to His people’s salvation has His glory as its end.
It provides us with one of the clearest illustrations of the doctrines of regeneration and conversion found anywhere in the Scriptures.
Thus, God’s ongoing work of sanctification and a growing submission to His will marks the life of the truly converted.
Through the blood of Christ, they are justified, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, they are regenerated, sanctified, and led.5 Although each may grow at a different pace and to a different degree and some may seem to fly to maturity while others barely crawl, they will all, nevertheless, progress toward the upward call of God in Christ and demonstrate in word and deed that they are His people and He has become their God.
Throughout our study, we would do well to ask ourselves to what degree these marks of conversion are discernible realities in our lives. In the words of the apostle Paul, we should test and examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith.
One of the first noticeable results of true conversion is biblical separation from the world—a gradual divorce or withdrawing from all that is displeasing to God and in opposition to His will.
Furthermore, through the work of regeneration and sanctification, God promises not only to take His people out of the pagan nations, but also to take the influence of the pagan nations out of His people.
it is primarily a work of God,
Over the last several decades of Western Christianity, it seems that many great and precious truths have been discarded—or at least forgotten. One such truth is that the church and the individual believer are God’s possession.
Furthermore, the most loving thing God can do for His people is keep them from other loves that cannot truly statisfy and will only lead to their great harm. Founded upon these two truths of a right to ownership and a jealous love, God works in the life of all believers to separate them from the false loves and moral corruption of this fallen world and draws us to Himself
In other words, He will employ the fullness of His deity to assure the completion of the work.
Is God’s work of separation a reality in our lives? From the moment of our conversion until the present, can we trace a history of God’s providentially working in our lives to draw us away from the moral corruption of this world and to Himself? This is the testimony and legacy of every true Christian. If such a work of sanctification is wanting or indiscernible in our lives, it is a call to examine ourselves, even test ourselves, to see if we are in the faith.
One characteristic that all fallen people share is their moral uncleanness.
This is why God’s promise that He will make us clean from all our filthiness and idols in Ezekiel 36:24–25 ought to be a cause for great joy.
Christian religion is unique from all others in that it requires cleansing but negates the possibility that human endeavor can achieve it.
Those whom God justifies, He also sanctifies.
doctrine of justification by faith is one of the most majestic and comforting doctrines in the Scriptures, but it never appears alone in the life of the Christian.
Again, justification and sanctification are always found together. Justification makes sanctification possible, and sanctification is the evidence that we have been justified.
The sins that beset him will gradually be removed, and the idols that beckon him away from God will be destroyed.
Note that during those times when the boy’s mother intervened in the bathing of her child, no one discussed the question of sovereignty and free will. No one would have indicted the mother for abusing her authority or violating the free will of her child. She was simply exercising her parental right over her child, who was often apathetic and careless, and sometimes even reluctant and disobedient.
Someone has rightly stated that the God of American Christianity is the only omnipotent and supreme Lord of all who has no authority to do anything unless He is first granted permission.
He can save His children from hell, but He has no right to demand anything from them lest He violate some twisted notion of human autonomy.
Rather than exalting the forbearance of God, they are portraying Him as an uninvolved or impotent father. Rather than exalting the gospel, they are declaring it void of power. This great error results in the unbelieving world’s blasphemy.
It is not an exaggeration to say that our understanding of regeneration will determine both our view of conversion and our methodology in evangelism.
“enlightening the mind spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away the heart of stone, and replacing it with an heart of flesh; renewing the will,…and effectually drawing [persons] to Jesus Christ: yet so, as they come most freely,
being made willing by His grace.”
