Tradition vs Truth
-Hold that thought.
Now as of this moment I'm a little over 4 years old in the faith, but God has taught me some astounding truths in my relatively short walk with Him!
I've learned about: eternal security, true and false conversion, false teachings, backsliding, some church history, lots about marriage and family living, sacrifice, hope, government, democracy, obedience, humility and the list goes on! As God has seen fit to teach, I've soaked it up with much prayer and discernment!
However, there is one topic that has stood out to me peculiarly among the rest. A topic that continues to show itself true to the Bible as time goes on; that topic is Man's Fallen Nature.
A small side note.
My wife and I live in what is known as "the Bible belt."
This is an area in the US where "religion" is popular. As a matter of fact, its very traditional.
This is an area where you see signs like this
...
And like this one.
Here, you can drive 15 minutes and pass several different "stripes" of churches buildings.
This can be a blessing, but it is usually a curse because everybody is a "Christian."
The idea that one can be saved and live their entire lives the way that they did before they were saved is an epidemic here. You ask 10 people if they're saved and you're guaranteed to hear 8 say yes, but you're likely to hear 9 say it. The majority of people wear some sort of cross as jewelry and almost everybody goes to "church." Its a popular thing and in some circles, you may even be shunned if you don't attend some "church" gathering on a weekly basis.
Tradition!
Even prayers around Sunday dinner with family seem to be something memorized, liturgical, repeated every week and passed down through generations.
Tradition!
So much for that side note... I had to give an idea of how close knit things are here. I'm not sure if its that way elsewhere, but when something is brought up that is out of the accepted realm of tradition, well, its shunned, mocked and abandoned; Especially Theology!
Be free for now little rabbit...
Back to the issue
So what's the leaving?? What am I leaving?
Well, I'm not leaving the faith and I'm not leaving town, but we'll get to that in a moment. First, I need to get back to that one issue, Man's Fallen Nature.
What do I mean by "man's nature?" What exactly is a nature?
If I were asked for a definition, it would be something like "The reservoir from which all our traits flow."
I know, I know... that's way philosophical, so here is the legitimate definition:
- Human Nature: "the nature of humans; especially : the fundamental dispositions and traits of humans." -Merriam Webster
- Human Nature: "The general psychological characteristics, feelings, and behavioral traits of humankind, regarded as shared by all humans" -Oxford University Press
So you see, I wasn't far off! *Laughing*
Our thoughts, will and emotions Can Not be completely or continuously contradictory to our nature.
In a previous blog post, I used the analogy of a pig to illustrate this concept.
You can bathe a pig, spray it with perfumes, put a little lipstick on it and dress it up like a little girl, but that in no way makes it an actual little girl! Its still a pig!
In fact, that animal will prove to you that it is still a pig as soon as its hooves reach the ground outside because it'll make a bee-line for the nearest dirt mound or mud hole. Why? Because that's what pigs do. Its their nature.
You'll never see a blue jay or a finch make a nest under water. Why? Because that's not their nature. They're not capable of such a thing, they are fowls of the air that make nest in trees. That's their nature.
Likewise, every human being has a nature and the Bible describes that nature as fallen.
"Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." (Jeremiah 13:23)
"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one." (Job 14:4)
So then, what do I mean by "fallen?"
Bear with me, we're getting there.
This is important ground to cover.
"Fallen" means to be bound by sin.
Jesus said in John 8:34 "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin."
Romans 6:16 says "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?"
To have a fallen nature means that by nature we are inclined to sin against God. We naturally, at our basest level, have a turned back toward God and do those things that are displeasing to Him.
This started with Adam & Eve.
God made them morally perfect, in His own image, with a free will and eternal life; He also made them the representatives of the entire human race.
They had dominion over all the earth and everything in it.
God gave them only one rule:
"And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (Genesis 2:16-17)
In essence He said to them, 'You have everything at your disposal, everything but this one tree. Don't Eat It. I'm telling you now, Don't Eat It or you'll die.'
Well, our representatives did exactly what God told them NOT to do.
As a result, just as God said "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." that very moment, our representatives died; not physically, but spiritually.
So, by their "fall," all of their posterity, including us today and every human that will ever be born, have inherited their curse.
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:" (Romans 5:12)
We are corrupt to the core, at our very nature; so much so that the Bible explains it in these ways:
- "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." (Psalm 51:5)
- "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)
- "And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5)
- "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." (Romans 3:10-12)
- "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23)
- "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." (Romans 8:7)
- "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Corinthians 2:14)
Among many more passages and verses that directly speak of our fallen nature.
But don't stop with proof texts!!
Look at the entire Bible!
It is evident, page after page, of our rebellious, stubborn, turned back toward God.
Just a few examples:
- God sees the wickedness of the earth and uses Noah, not only to build the means of salvation, but also to preach the means of salvation given by God and the imminent judgement to come.
- Out of what is believed to be millions of people, how many were saved?? 8!
- God warned, Noah preached, the people scoffed and the world was flooded.
- (Genesis 6-9)
- Look at Israel.
- In bondage to the Egyptians for hundreds of years. God heard their prayers and sent a deliverer.
- God sets them free with a mighty hand and with great miracles.
- After the 10 plagues, then the deliverance through the red sea, God Himself leads them in a "pillar of a cloud" by day and a "pillar of fire" by night, He kept them from thirst with miracles, from hunger with miracles...
- Then, after the people agreed to covenant with God, He descended in a cloud of smoke and fire and settled on the top of mount Sinai, Moses goes into the cloud to receive the laws upon stone written with the very finger of God... and before he can get back the people of Israel have already broken God's covenant and made themselves an idol to worship.
- (Exodus 1-20)
- The OT is full of our failures and God's patience and provision.
- Lets go to the NT. God has done so much and has been so merciful by establishing worship and sending prophets and Israel continued to reject and fail. He now sends His one and only Son. He says as it were 'They want a king, I'll give them the King of kings! They been told for generations of the Messiah, surely they'll see my Son and acknowledge Him.' (See the parable starting in Matthew 21:33)
- What did they do??
- "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not." (John 1:10-11)
- They captured Him, mocked, humiliated and beat Him, then they brought Him before Pilate "And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King."
- Pilate having sent Him to Herod and neither of them finding fault in Jesus, scourged Him to try to please the people. "And they cried out all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas: (Who for a certain sedition made in the city, and for murder, was cast into prison.)"
- Then... "Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again to them. But they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him, and let him go. And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed."
- (Luke 23)
- Even after they crucified the Lord of glory, God sent messengers to the people, one of them was Steven, who was "full of faith and of the Holy Ghost" (Acts 6:5) and who preached the entire story to them. (Acts 6:9 - Acts 7)
- What did they do?? They stoned him to death! (Acts 7:54-60)
That friends... is our nature.
We could go on and on, through and through and we'll always find that humans, by nature, are exactly what the Bible says we are: fallen, sinful, at enmity with God and ABSOLUTELY UNABLE in themselves to do anything about it.
Just Like That Pig.
So what am I leaving?!
Well..
Based on my study of God's Word, following the conviction and leading of the Holy Spirit, I have already left the doctrine of free will, not the doctrine of our responsibility, but the belief that we have a spiritual free will to "accept Jesus" and be saved. I believe the Bible as a whole makes it abundantly clear that concerning the natural, carnal, unsaved man, if Christ is set before him, man will never, yea, CAN NEVER come to Him except God in His mercy, through the Spirit, regenerate him and give him a new nature. (John 3:3-8; Ezekiel 36-37; 2 Corinthians 5:17)
Trust me, this is not a popular doctrine (although there seems to be a resurgence as of late), but I'm not going for popularity, I'm going for TRUTH.
"Let God be true, but every man a liar" (Romans 3:4)
Through my studies, I've found that "Reformed" theology is more accurate, with many differences, but with one main difference: God's sovereignty in the realm of saving grace.
For example: when the Bible says in 2 Thessalonians 2:13 "But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:" A person with a reformed interpretation would allow that verse to mean exactly what it says.
The words 'elect,' 'predestination,' 'chosen' and the like are interpreted for the most part to mean exactly what the context implies. God chooses some to be saved and allows other to continue in their sin.
A doctrine of free will, like what is called "Arminianism," absolutely denies this interpretation and says that God's election is based off of His foreknowledge of who would choose Him. (They refer to a shoddy interpretation of Romans 8:29 for this basis.)
The problem with this is that it makes man the sovereign
and God left to simply ratify their choice.
In other words, to use this idea of interpretation we'd have to read that verse like this:
'... God hath from the beginning ratified you for salvation...'
Because lets just get serious here... if God chooses men because He foresaw they'd eventually somehow choose Him first, then its not really God doing the choosing now is it?!
About a year or so after I was saved, I came to a pastor whom I greatly respect and I asked him about the things concerning Romans 9. He explained his interpretation of the verses in question, which even at that young age in the faith, I knew seemed far fetched; then he said to me, "Now Daniel, there is a heresy out there called "Calvinism." Don't you believe it for a second, that makes God into a monster!"
"Calvinism" stems from the 16th century reformer named John Calvin, who was extremely influential in his "Institutes of the Christian Religion," among other teachings, whose literature is still influential to this day.
My problem with the term "Calvinism" is its root, "Calvin."
John Calvin was a man, who by the grace of God, had an interpretation of the Bible that many people have affirmed as true and right.
It isn't about the man, its about the interpretation of God's Word.
Therefore, Reformed Theology has its root in the protestant reformation from the Catholic church, beginning with Martin Luther's 95 theses in 1517.
This too is another rabbit I must release, to chase another day.
So there we go.
My leaving is one that has been slow, prayerful and one that pertains to what I've been taught my whole life... -Free will- "we must accept Jesus into our hearts to be saved." Which is true, we are indeed responsible to "repent and believe the gospel," but all this "heads bowed, eyes closed" alter call business is simply not scriptural.
Concluding thoughts:
The main drive behind this post is this: Tradition -or- Truth?!
- Do you come to you Bible with a student's mentality or do you come as an editor or teacher?
- Do you come to it allowing the text to speak freely and trusting what it says or do you come saying "Whatever the Bible means by 'such and such' a word, it CANNOT mean this and if it does, well I simply won't accept such a thing!"
- What you've been taught -or- what God wants to teach?
Well, I pray that you come to your Bible as a submissive student of the Holy Spirit, relying His teaching and guidance. That's not always easy. I know. But we don't just shun the topic and avoid it like the plague! We study it out and pray that God might reveal the truth and give us understanding.
God willing, there will soon be more posts going more in depth with the subjects and doctrines mentioned in this post: "Reformed," "Election," "Predestination," "Foreknowledge," "Arminianism," "Calvinism" etc etc.
But for now, this post has turned out to be much longer that I thought it would be!
So, until then, please feel free to comment or email me with any questions you may have and please do visit these great websites for some good Bible preaching and teaching.
Sermon Audio - For preaching, teaching, hymnals and music, mp3, pdf, video... a great resource for almost any type of learning, all for free.
Grace To You - The ministry of Dr. John MacArthur, Pastor.
Ligonier Ministries - The ministry of Dr. R. C. Sproul, Pastor. Along with many other pastors ad teachers including: Steve Lawson and Sinclair Ferguson.
The Reformed Reader - An abundance of helpful articles
Monergism.com - More helpful articles
Study! Grow! Learn!
By God's Grace!
