Author: HEAVENLY REMNANT MINISTRIES

For a very long time, including the time I have been in a Charismatic church, I had this unease conviction about the practicing of the “spiritual gifts.” After watching a sermon by Tom Pennington, I am now fully convinced that these gifts have ceased and am now inspired to warn my fellow Christians about these unbiblical practices. If you love God’s truth, you have to hate error. Nothing eternal happens in an individual believer or in a local church apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. You can produce temporal effects, but have no capacity or power to effect eternal reward or eternal events into the life of the church or an individual.Here follows a summary of the content of the video sermon. Although my document is quite lengthy,it should cover all the truths you need to know.

Cessationists only believe the Spirit has ceased one function. He no longer gives today’s believers the miraculous spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues, prophecy and healing.

On the other hand, Continuationists either believe that the miraculous gifts have continued unabated since Pentecost while others believe that the gifts have waned through much of the church age but have now been restored. The chief arguments that they put forward are the following:

– First of all, they say the New Testament nowhere directly states that the miraculous gifts will cease during the church age. But that argument cuts both ways because nowhere have any cases been recorded after the period of the book of Acts.
– Secondly, by far the most common argument that Continuationists put forward is the fact that 500 million professing Christians who claim Charismatic experiences cannot all be wrong. By using that same argument, should we now accept all of the miracles of the 1.2 billion members of the Roman Catholic Church as well? After all, there is far more history to them.

Now let us consider the biblical case for cessationism. Cessationism does not mean that God no longer does anything miraculous. The greatest miracle is when a spiritually dead sinner is brought to life, which is a miraculous work of divine grace. Also, every time someone is healed, solely in answer to the prayers of God’s people in total contradiction to what the medical community has said, it is a divine miracle where He has intervened.

Gifts ceased as normative with the apostles. But the crucial question is why?

1. UNIQUE ROLES OF MIRACLES

The first biblical argument is the unique role of miracles. In reality there were only three primary periods in which God gave uniquely gifted men miracle working power.

The first was that of Moses and Joshua. That period lasted from the Exodus to about 1445 B.C. through the career of Joshua that ended in about 1380 B.C. In other words, that first period of miracles lasted about 65 years.

The second window when miracles were common was during the ministries of Elijah and Elisha, who ministered from about 860 B.C. until 795 B.C. Again a period of only about 65 years.

The third time of miracles was with Christ and His Apostles. Obviously it began with His ministry and lasted at the very longest until the death of the Apostle John, or about 70 years.

This means that in thousands of years of human history, there were only about two hundred years in which God empowered men to work miracles. And even then miracles were not accomplished every day.

FOR PURPOSE OF VALIDATING OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS

The primary purpose of miracles has always been to confirm the credentials of a divinely appointed messenger who speaks for God, not one who teaches or explains the Word of God. One in whose mouth God has put His very words. This pattern began with the very first miracle worker, Moses.

In Exodus 6:28, Moses recounts and expands what happened at his call. “Now it came about on the day when the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, that the Lord spoke to Moses saying, “I am Yahweh, speak to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, all that I speak to you. But Moses said before the Lord, “Behold, I am unskilled in speech, how then will Pharaoh listen to me?”
“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘See, I will make you as God to Pharaoh and your brother, Aaron, shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh.’”

God is actually saying, “I can empower you and accomplish through you what I intend. You are going to be like God to Aaron, he’s going to be like your prophet. You put your words in his mouth, the words I put in your mouth and then he will speak to Pharaoh.’”

In Exodus 4:15 we read it: “You are to speak to him, that is to Aaron, and put the words in his mouth.” Remember, he’s the prophet. You put the words in his mouth and I, even I, will be with your mouth and his mouth and I will teach you what you are to do. Moreover, he shall speak for you to the people and he will be as a mouth for you and you will be as God to him.”

Aaron could not speak for himself, he had to speak only the words of Moses who was in the place of God to him. That is what it meant to be a prophet. God’s own words put in your mouth. When God commissioned Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1, He also said: “I have put My words in your mouth.”

How were the people to know if a man who claimed to be a prophet was in fact speaking God’s own words? Moses, the very first prophet, faced this dilemma. So God used miracles to validate Moses as God’s prophet, and Moses’ message as God’s own words. (Moses’ staff could for instance turn into a serpent). Moses’ words became acceptable as the literal words of God.

This continues to be the purpose of miracles throughout the Old Testament.

CRITERIA FOR VALIDATING A PROPHET

In Deuteronomy, Moses laid down three criteria for discerning a true prophet from a false prophet.

He says that the true prophet’s predictions just ALWAYS come true. That’s how you know if he has in him the true words of God.
In Deuteronomy 13 verses 1 to 5 we find the second criteria, where God says that if he chose to authenticate a true prophet, He would do so by empowering him to work miracles, as He did with Moses.

Also in Deuteronomy 13 He says that the prophet’s message must always be in complete doctrinal agreement with previous revelation.

So in the Old Testament, only those prophets who spoke authoritatively and infallibly for God performed miracles because miracles were their credentials.

One of the most famous miracle comes in the ministry of Elijah and in 1 Kings 18:36 as he is calling down fire on the altar there at Mount Carmel. In 1 Kings 18:36 he said: “…Today let it be known that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant and I have done all these things at Your …”

FOR PURPOSE OF CONFIRMING JESUS AS GOD’S FINAL AND ULTIMATE MESSENGER

Just as it was with Moses, and the Old Testament prophets, the primary purpose of Jesus’ miracles was to confirm his credentials as God’s final and ultimate messenger who spoke infallibly for God.

John the Apostle makes this point central in his gospel. In John 5:36, Jesus speaks: “… the very works that I do testify about me that the Father has sent me.” In chapter 10 verse
37, “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me. But if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me and I in the Father.”

It is clear that Jesus’ MIRACLES WERE NOT PRIMARILY A TOOL FOR EFFECTIVE EVANGELISM. Jesus’ miracles also were NOT PRIMARILY ABOUT ALLEVIATING HUMAN SUFFERING, although we see in His miracles the great heart of compassion that He had.

The main reason the Spirit empowered Jesus to perform miracles was to confirm that He spoke the very words of God, that He was everything He claimed to be. On the day of Pentecost, a day of miracles, Peter reiterated that was the purpose of Jesus’ miracles.

FOR PURPOSE OF CONFIRMING THAT THE APOSTLES WERE GOD’S GENUINE INSTRUMENTS OF REVELATION

Jesus also gave that same power to the Apostles and their miracles served exactly the same purpose. Hebrews 2:3-4 makes this point. “The message of salvation was confirmed to us by those who heard, that is by the Apostles, God also testifying with them both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will.”

Since this pattern is consistent throughout the Scripture, it is reasonable to expect that with the death of the Apostles, with the end of God’s revelation, with the death of those who spoke God’s own words, the human capacity to work miracles would end as well…just as it had after Moses and Joshua for hundreds of years, and just as it had after Elijah and Elisha.

B.B. Warfield writes, “Miracles do not appear on the pages of Scripture vagrantly here and there and elsewhere and differently, without any assignable reason. They belong to revelation periods and appear only when God is speaking to His people through accredited messengers declaring His gracious purposes.” Scripture leads us to expect the end of the miraculous gifts because of the unique role that miracles have always played, as the validation of someone who spoke God’s own words.

2. END OF THE GIFTS OF APOSTLESHIP

In two places in the New Testament, Paul refers to the Apostles as one of the gifts that Christ gave His church. The first is in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, in the middle of the section on spiritual gifts. Verse 28 reads: “And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second, prophet, third, teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.”

Paul is demonstrating the diversity that the Spirit has created within the body, so the Spirit has uniquely gifted different parts of the body. Here he includes Apostles.

Although not all spiritual gifts are offices, all New Testament offices are gifts to Christ’s church. Christ makes this very plain in Ephesians 4:7 as He lays out how the church is to function. When He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men. Then in verse 11 He tells us what those gifts are. “He gave some as Apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists and some as pastor/teachers.”

One of the gifts Christ gave His church was the apostles. But they were a temporary gift. Most Christians and most evangelical Charismatics agree there are no more Apostles like the Twelve, or like Paul. Why is that? Because to be a true Apostle, you had to meet three qualifications.

You had to be a witness of the resurrected Christ. In Acts 1 after the suicide of Judas, they were sorting through who was going to take his place. It had to be a witness of the life of Christ, and of His resurrection.
Secondly, to be an Apostle, you had to be personally appointed by Christ. In Acts 1 verse 2, the Apostles are referred to as those whom He had chosen. At the end of chapter 1 of Acts, when they’re seeking to replace Judas, in their prayer they said to God, “Show which of those, or these two, You have chosen.”

Thirdly, to be an Apostle in the true sense, you had to be able to work miracles. In Matthew 10 verses 1 and 2, Jesus summoned His Twelve disciples and He gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out, to heal every kind of disease, every kind of sickness, not lower back pain.

2 Corinthians 12:12 says: “The signs of a true Apostle WERE performed among you with all perseverance by signs and wonders and miracles.”

No one alive today who meets those three qualifications. So the gift of Apostleship has ceased. That means is there is a significant difference in the plan of God and the work of the Spirit between the time of the Apostles and today.

It is crystal-clear that the gift of Apostleship ceased without a New Testament statement that it would. That means it is not unlikely that other significant changes happened with the passing of the Apostles as well. The one New Testament gift most frequently connected to miracles, the gift of Apostleship, ceased.

3. FOUNDATIONAL NATURE OF NEW TESTAMENT APOSTLES AND PROPHETS

The New Testament identifies the Apostles and prophets as the foundation on which the church was built.
In Ephesians chapter 2, Paul lays a foundational understanding of the church, in which Jews and Gentiles are brought together. He says in verse 20, “Having been built on the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”

The reference to the Apostles is clear, and largely undisputed. But who were these prophets? Some Charismatics have come up with novel interpretations and argued that Paul meant the Old Testament prophets. But in chapter 3 verse 5, he’s talking about this mystery that has been revealed to him of which he is a steward. And he says, “In other generations, it was not made known to the sons of men, Old Testament times as it has now been revealed to His holy Apostles and prophets.” He is talking about New Testament prophets. Other Charismatics take Ephesians 2:20 and reword it like this, “Having been built on the foundation of the Apostles which are the prophets.”

The context however makes it clear that the Apostles and prophets are two separate groups. In chapter 4 verse 11 he says: “He gave some as Apostles and some as prophets.” two distinct groups. So then, let’s put it together. The church is built on that foundation. Steve alluded to this as well. The foundation is finished and now the structure is being erected on that already completed foundation. We should not expect any more Apostles or prophets. We should not expect any more revelation.

4. NATURE OF THE FOUNDATIONAL GIFTS

If the Spirit were still gifting believers today with the miraculous gifts, they would be the same gifts that we find in the New Testament. However, the Charismatic gifts claim today bear almost no resemblance to their New Testament counterparts.

THE GIFT OF TONGUES

Consider, for example, the gift of tongues. According to Luke in Acts 2, the gift was the capacity as manifest at Pentecost to speak in a known human language. Verses 7 and 8, “They were amazed and astonished saying, ‘Why are not all these who were speaking Galileans and how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born?’”

You come to the second occurrence that’s recorded in Acts 11:15 when Peter reports on the gift of tongues that was given to Cornelius and his household after his conversion: “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as He did upon us at the beginning.” Peter says it’s exactly the same thing that happened to them at Pentecost, and what happened at Pentecost is clear.

When Luke reports of a third episode of tongue speaking in Acts 19, there is absolutely nothing in the context there to indicate that it was any different. Luke when he wrote the book of Acts, knew what Paul had written six or seven years earlier in 1 Corinthians 14. Compare that with today’s tongues which are ecstatic speech. It’s not the same thing.

Also, the New Testament gift of tongues, including 1 Corinthians 14, was a public gift meant for at one level the edification of others. Today’s tongues, on the other hand, are primarily a private prayer language and has almost nothing in common with the New Testament gift except the word “tongue.”

THE GIFT OF PROPHECY

Contrary to Charismatic doctrine, the New Testament equates Old Testament prophecy with New Testament prophecy. In the book of Acts there are not even a hint of difference between them. That means that just as the Old Testament prophets spoke direct infallible revelation from God, so did the New Testament prophets. Just like the Old Testament prophets, their words were to be evaluated against previous revelation, but once it was approved, as we saw in Acts 2, their prophecies were added to the teaching of the Apostles to form the foundation of the church.

Ironically in Acts 21 verse 11, one of the favorite texts of Charismatics, the prophet Agabus used exactly the Old Testament prophetic formula when he says, “This is what the Spirit says…” No difference.

The most capable defender of today’s Charismatic prophecies, Wayne Grudem, admits that prophecy as it is practiced in the Charismatic Movement should not be prefaced with “Thus says the Lord.” Instead, he suggests that prophecies today should begin with, quote: “I think this is what the Spirit might be saying.” That is not the New Testament gift of prophecy.

THE GIFT OF HEALING

In the New Testament when someone with the gift of healing used his gifts, the results were complete, immediate, permanent, undeniable, every kind of sickness, every kind of illness. The purported healings of today’s faith healers are unverifiable.

So the displays that are today called the miraculous gifts are just not the same as the New Testament gifts. Even many Charismatics agree with that. Wayne Grudem wrote, “No responsible Charismatic believes that today’s prophecy is infallible and inerrant revelation from God. There is almost uniform testimony from all sections of the Charismatic Movement that today’s prophecy is impure and will contain elements which are not to be obeyed or trusted.”

If that happened in the Old Testament times, the prophet would be dead. Third Wave theologian Jack Deere admitted in his book Surprised By the Power of the Holy Spirit, that modern Charismatics do not claim to have apostolic quality gifts and miracle working abilities.

When Charismatics do post wild claims of limbs restored, or of resurrections, for example, they are almost always hearsay and therefore not verified.

5. THE TESTIMONY OF CHURCH HISTORY

The practice of the miraculous gifts declines even during the apostolic period. Pentecost and the events of Acts 2 happened within ten days of our Lord’s ascension. The second mention of tongues in Acts 10:46 occurs sometime within the next fourteen years before the death of James in 44 A.D. The third mention in Acts 19:6 occurs early in Paul’s ministry at Ephesus. That’s in the early fifties A.D.

First Corinthians, the only book outside of Acts that speaks about tongues, was written in 55 to 56 A.D. Now if you align the New Testament letters based when they were written, 1 Corinthians was only the fourth inspired letter that Paul wrote, following Galatians and 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Paul would write nine other canonical letters after 1 Corinthians to six different churches. There is never a mention of the gift of tongues again.

In the pastoral epistles in 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, the books written near the end of Paul’s ministry as permanent directives for the post-apostolic ministry of the church, there is no mention of the miraculous gifts.

This come to its climax in the book of Hebrews. Hebrews 1:1 says: “God after He spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways, our Old Testament, in these last days,” (an expression the Jews had for the times of the Messiah, “in these last days He has spoken to us in His Son.”) God’s last word is His Son and those whom He appointed.

The book of Hebrews was written almost certainly just before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. That gives us a time frame. The writer of Hebrews says the message of salvation was first spoken through the Lord Himself. Then there was a second generation – the Apostles. The writer of Hebrews is putting himself in a third generation, and that is us. And he says of the second generation, the Apostles, “God also testifying with them…not with us…both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.” Already just before 70 A.D., the writer of Hebrews is saying that was then, this is now.

So in the chronological flow of the inspired New Testament history of the church, you find that even before the Scripture was complete, the miraculous gifts had already begun their decline.

Finally, the miraculous gifts ceased with the Apostles. Fast forward to the Reformation, Martin Luther writes, “This visible outpouring of the Holy Spirit was necessary to the establishment of the early church as were also the miracles that accompanied the gift of the Holy Ghost. Once the church had been established and properly advertised by these miracles, the visible appearance of the Holy Ghost ceased.”

John Calvin said “The gift of healing, like the rest of the miracles which the Lord willed to be brought forth for a time, has vanished away in order to make the preaching of the gospel marvelous forever.”

The New Testament teaches that the result of God’s completed revelation is an all-sufficient Scripture in many places. Second Timothy chapter 3 verse 16, “All Scripture is inspired by God, it’s profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate equipped for every good work.”

Men of God need no additional revelation from God. The Spirit speaks only in and through the inspired Word.

We don’t have to wonder if that message in our mind is from God or not, we have a message from God. Luther also wrote, “Let the man who would hear God speak, read holy Scripture.”

6. NEW TESTAMENT RULES FOR MIRACULOUS GIFTS

In 1 Corinthians 14 Paul lays out specific guidelines for how two of the miraculous biblical gifts were to be practiced in the church.

THE GIFT OF SPEAKING IN TONGUES

First of all, in verses 27 and 28, he addressed speaking in tongues. Two or at the most three, were to speak in tongues in a given service. Secondly, they were to speak one at a time. There had to be order, because that’s like God is. Thirdly, there had to be someone to interpret. No one was allowed to speak in tongues in the corporate worship of the church unless there was someone else who understood that language and could interpret what had been said. In the mouth of two or three witnesses a manner is established. Fourthly, women were not allowed to speak in tongues in the corporate worship.

THE GIFT OF PROPHECY

In verses 29 to 34 Paul goes on to regulate the practice of the New Testament gift or prophecy.

At the most three were to prophesy at a church service. Secondly, other prophets and the congregation were to evaluate those prophecies against previous revelation. They were to speak one at a time, for God is not a God of confusion. Fourthly, women were not allowed to prophesy in the corporate worship.

Tragically most Charismatic practice today completely disregards those clear biblical commands the Apostle laid. In most of the contemporary Charismatic practice, the Holy Spirit is not honored. Instead, He is routinely grieved and disobeyed. The result is not the work of the Spirit, but it is a work of the flesh.

Don’t allow the Holy Spirit’s work to be hi-jacked by those who abuse His name. Secondly, hold to your confidence in the all-sufficient Word. Reject all forms of continuing revelation, including the favorite evangelical form, subjective impressions from God. Don’t ever say “God told me.”

Finally, respond wisely to the different kinds of continuationists. Challenge those Charismatics who have bought into the prosperity gospel, to examine themselves to see if they are in the faith, are only concerned about their own physical needs being met.

When it comes to Charismatics who profess faith in the biblical Jesus and the true biblical gospel, graciously clarify the nature of the true biblical gifts. Treat them as brothers but do not downplay the serious and significant differences, as the sufficiency of Scripture is at stake.

Do not allow yourself for the sake of peace to simply refuse to come to a convinced position. Be like the Bereans who searched the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

Listen to Martin Luther. “If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”

1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away, and also its lusts. But the one who does the will of God abides forever.”

God is a God of perfect love and His love is a theme throughout all of Scripture. God’s love is manifest in common grace and it’s manifest in redemptive grace.

But because God loves perfectly, He also hates perfectly. The two are actually inseparable. If you love something, you hate whatever threatens that something. The more your affection for what is right, the more your disaffection for what is wrong. Psalm 97:10 says, “Hate evil, you who love the Lord.” Our love for righteousness therefore makes us hate sin.

It was God’s love manifest in Jesus Christ for what was right that made Jesus make a whip and cleanse the temple. The psalmist said, “I love Your Law, but I hate those that are double-minded. I love Your Law, but I hate those people who vacillate, sometimes showing affection for Your Law and sometimes not.” Psalm 119 again, verse 128 says, “I esteem all Your precepts so I hate every false way.” Psalm 119:163, toward the end of the chapter, “I hate and despise falsehood, I love Your Law.”

We love imperfectly and hate imperfectly, but nonetheless it reflects a shadow of what we see in the perfection of God. Proverbs 6 verse 16 says there are six things, which the Lord hates, yes seven, which are an abomination to Him.
16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

For the purpose of this article we are not going into the detail for now.

Pride is listed first because it really is at the fountain of all kinds of sin. All kinds of sin no matter what the sin is reflect pride, attitude of disobedience and rebellion against God’s Law. Isaiah 2:11 says, “The proud look of man will be abased and the loftiness of man will be humbled and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.” God is going to bring about a judgment day to all who are proud.

But here is another thing God hates. GOD HATES THE WORLD and He hates those who love the world. “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

John says, “If you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you.” So that constitutes a clear delineation. Somebody who loves the world is not a believer and does not possess the love of God. Christians are marked by love but it’s the love of others and it’s not the love of the world. This sets them aside from false Christians.

Look at 1 John chapter 4, verse 5. “They…referring to those outside the Kingdom…they are from the world, therefore they speak as from the world and the world listens to them.” The world recognizes its own language, it recognizes its own conversation. It identifies with them. Verse 6, “We are from God. He who knows God listens to us.” You’re either of the world or of God. You either speak the world’s philosophy or the Word of God. If you’re a Christian, you’ve been delivered from the world.

Turn to chapter 5 of 1 John verse 4. “Whatever, or whoever is born of God overcomes the world.” We literally overcome the world. How? “This is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. And who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.” You have moved from loving the world to loving the Lord. They are mutually exclusive realities.

In John 15:19 Jesus said, “If you are of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” You don’t listen to the world. You don’t identify with the world. You’ve literally been separated from the world. It’s more than a separation.

In Galatians 6: 14 Paul says, “May it never be that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” The world is dead to me and I am dead to the world. In Ephesians 2:2 Paul says, “You formerly walked according to the course of this world, you used to love the world, you used to be alive to the world, you used to walk according to the course of the world, formerly…no more. According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that’s now working in the sons of disobedience, among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath even as everybody else.” We used to be like that. We used to be in the world, of the world, loved the world, listened to the world, the world identified with us, the world accepted us. No more.

In James 4:4 we read, “… Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

We are Christians because we have a manifest pattern of obedience in our lives and a manifest love for others that reflects the love of God shed abroad in our hearts. So if you say we do not love the world, what are you saying? Are we talking about the created order and the physical world or are we talking about the human world?

No, neither of those are in view here. God even looked on His creation and said it was good and even in its fallen condition, it still reflects His glory to the degree that it should lead us to give Him praise. In fact, we should love this created world for what it is, a reflection of the glory of God. It is absolutely staggering to understand the majesty and the glory and the wonder of God in the created order.

Secondly, we’re not talking about people. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” This does not refer to the inanimate world, it is the human world. That’s why He became the propitiation for our sins.

Well then if it’s not the created world, and it’s not the human world, the only thing left is the invisible spiritual system of evil which we should not love. It is the order that is run by Satan, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that works in the children of disobedience, the one who leads the course of this world. It is that evil order with all of its elements and all of its components that work against the things of God. This is the system that is run by the enemy.It is Satan’s system that opposes God. “We know that we are of God and the whole world lies in the evil one.”

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, test the spirits to see whether they’re from God for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” The system of evil is just loaded with false prophets, the purveyors of anti-God teaching. “By this you know the Spirit of God.” “And every spirit that doesn’t confess Jesus is not from God, this is the spirit of the Antichrist of which you have heard that it is coming and now it is already in the world.”

Jesus calls Satan the prince of the power of the air, the prince of this world. Ephesians 6:11 and 12 says that Satan has his demons, his evil spirits, principalities and powers working in this evil system. And Satan involves all the unregenerate as children of disobedience in the system. Jesus calls the unconverted, Luke 16:8, “Children of the world, offspring of the world.” But that’s not us. Our citizenship, Philippians 3:20, is in heaven.

This does not mean that we do not get tempted some times by things in the world, material things, lustful things. It does not mean that we are not allured by our own pride and self-interest. While it is true that we have literally died to the world, it is also true that we can find it still alluring and find ourselves being tempted to draw back into it.

The moment you became saved, you became dead to the world because the world is a system that opposes that reality. We hate that system. It does not mean I hate people. Down in the depths of my being, the truest and purest expression of my redeemed soul is that I hate what opposes my Lord. Sometimes we even feel as if we want to make a whip and clean out the places. You hate that which misrepresents God and misrepresents the Lord Jesus Christ.

The prevailing anti-Christ mentality, whether it’s Islam or Buddhism, or Atheism, aberrant forms of Christianity, you name it, whatever it is, the common denominator is that it contains a misrepresentation of Jesus Christ and the glories of salvation and it is purveyed by an endless line of false prophets.
This does not say we cannot enjoy everything that God has provided for us in this world. You should. It also doen not say that we should disdain the people of the world, you should love them the way God loves them. In fact, in Matthew the Lord Himself said, “You are to love your enemies, you are to do good to those who hate you and persecute you and thereby demonstrate that you are the children of your Father.”

Can you be a Christian and stay in a false religious system? In every false belief system on the planet there is operating the spirit of anti-Christ and God does not reward people for functioning in an anti-Christ system. That was settled when you became a believer.

“So don’t marvel, brethren, if the world hates you.” Don’t be surprised. Expect it. They hated Jesus, they’re going to hate those who hold His name high. The world will not listen to us. The whole system is just damning people. Jesus said, “I’m going to send the Holy Spirit,” John 14:17, “but the world can’t receive Him.” He said in John 17:9 to His Father, “I do not pray for the world.”

Very important though, when we say we are dead to the world, it is not to say we do not sin. What it actually means is that we hate the anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-Scripture systems that are infected with the lies of Satan. When you determined by the wonderful working of God in your heart that you were going to love the Lord Jesus Christ, you therefore hate all anti-Christ spirits. You will still stumble and carnal ambition, personal pride and greed will still get in your way. There will be sins of all varying kinds that will occur in the lives of believers. You will be unkind, unloving, and unfair and all of those things are part of flesh. But as a Christian, that is different than embracing the ordered system of anti-Christ evil.

In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul is actually saying that we walk in the flesh, not in the sense of carnality, but as humans. But we do not make war according to the flesh. We are engaged in a spiritual war, it is the Kingdom of God against the kingdom of darkness. It is Christ against Anti-Christ. This is a massive battle. And the weapons to fight the battle with are not human but divinely powerful, mighty unto God.

The Anti-Christ system is pictured as many fortresses. It includes speculations, ideas, and ideologies, systems of belief, philosophy, psychology, and theories. We are destroying all these systems. That is every proud expression of thought raised up against the knowledge of God. And our task is to destroy those anti-God fortresses. “Take every thought and bring it captive to the obedience of Christ.”

1 Peter 1:13-16

Living Before God Our Father
13 Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 14 as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; 15 but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”

What exactly does God mean by saying “Be holy, for I am holy”? As a starting point to answer this question, let us use James 1:18 as a basis.

18 Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.

This verse really explains in a very simple way the meaning of the new birth through salvation.

In order to enter into the presence of God and have a relationship with Him, man must be holy and set apart from sin unto righteousness. However, it is obvious that men are not holy and righteous, but sinful. Sadly, they do not rightly perceive God’s truth, revelation, law or will or themselves. Men do not willingly agree with scripture that they are sinful while they need to be holy. And in most instances, IF they recognize their sins, they’ll blame it onto others, or even God.

Certainly, we cannot blame God by saying, well, He created us or that God made laws that are impossible to keep. In the quoted verse, James says to us that God cannot have any part in our sinfulness either directly or indirectly.

In James 1 verse 14, he says that man is his own problem and is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed. Lust when it conceives brings forth sin and sin when it finally comes forth produces nothing but death. The problem is in the nature of man and in the nature of man his passion for that which is wrong.

Then in verse 17, he says, from God comes every good and perfect gift. Verse 18 basically says that it is God’s will for us to become like Him. So the purpose of regeneration is to give birth into life. To regenerate us to do good not evil and to give us power over sin as a part of a new creation. When God touches your life, it is to produce life, not death, to produce righteousness not sin. To make a new creation, not exercise the old one.

God is therefore not tempting men to sin. James 1:18 is so rich because it introduces us to the subject of regeneration. God leads men out of sin into a new life. Without holiness, no one will ever have a relationship with God and enter into His eternal presence.

In Romans 3, at the end of verse 9 it says that all are subject to the control of sin over their lives. And then he goes on to show this in extent by quoting from some Old Testament passages and he says, “As it is written, There is none righteous no not one.” There is not one human that is right with God and who obeys the will of God in and of himself.

There is none that fully comprehends that which God requires and is fully able to understand it and carry it out. There is none that even seeks after God. John 3 says, men have all diverted themselves from the path that God ordained for righteousness. There is none that does good, not even one. He then describes the nature of their evil. The way of peace have they not known and there is absolutely no reverence of God before their eyes. He gives a definition of sinful man, man without God. And there is no way he says, in verse 20, that through their flesh, they can be justified by God.

In Ephesians 2 verse 1 we find that man is characterized again as being dead, the stench of a corpse and the characteristic of his deadness is a deadness in trespasses and sins. The one who is in charge of a man’s life is the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that works in the children of disobedience, Satan. That means, he is a target of judgment, he is the object of God’s judgment.

Now the question comes up, what are you going to do to change the situation? External changes are not enough. You cannot by some resolution in your own mind determine that you are going to obey the law of God and work your way out of this deadness. You cannot give yourself new life. We need to be recreated. You need a new heart, a new inner person, a new life principle. You need to be born again. So when we talk about the gospel or the new birth, we are not talking about putting a new suit of clothes on an old man. We are talking about a total transformation. To enter into a right relationship with God, demands a total new person. Jeremiah says, “can the leopard change his spots?” (Jeremiah 13:23). But in Jeremiah 31:33, we see the promise “I will put my law in their inward parts. I will write it in their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people …”

In Romans 6, it says, when you put your faith in Christ, you die and you rise to walk in. The best and most graphic illustration of this is found in the wonderful encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3. Jesus answered the question in his heart and said, “Truly, truly I say to you, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”Jesus said, you do not add anything to your life, you start all over again. This has to be done by water and the spirit. It has to be done by a power and a resource outside yourself, outside of you. That’s the water of salvation, promised in Ezekiel 36 verse 25, “I will sprinkle clean water upon you.”

This is a sovereign act of God. It comes through the Holy Spirit. Just like Ezekiel prophesied, clean water, cleansing your filthiness. Paul writing to Titus talks about the washing of water through the word. The water of regeneration, verse 26, “a new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you, take away the stony heart out of your flesh, I will give you a heart of flesh, then this, I will put my spirit within you and cause you from the inside to walk in my statues. You shall keep my ordinances and you shall do them.”

Then he says, the wind blows where it wants and you hear the sound and you can’t tell from where it comes and where it goes and so is everyone that is born of the spirit. You can’t tell how or when the Holy Spirit does this, but it is a sovereign act of the Holy Spirit. The spirit of God moves in where he wills and gives new birth to whom he wills, through the washing of the water of the word in regeneration, cleanses the heart and plants that spirit within a man. 2 Corinthians 5:17, says all things have become new.

Going back to James 1:18, it leaves us with four questions about regeneration.

First question: What is it? Regeneration is that act of God by which the principle of new life is implanted in man and the governing disposition of his soul is made holy. That is a total transformation. In fact, Peter says, we become partakers of the divine nature. God gives us his own life, his own self, his own righteous character, his own holiness is implanted in us, just a tremendous thought. 2 Peter 1:4 says we are partakers of this divine nature. This is completed in a moment of time. It is not a process. It is an event. That’s why we can’t, in the words of Jesus, tell the wheat from the tares, because this particular act is known only through its effect. That is a divine miracle unseen by any human eye.

But it plants in the person a new disposition that is enabled and driven to keep the law of God. No longer are we subject to sin, Paul says in Romans chapter 6, sin no longer has dominion over us. We now follow a new master willingly and eagerly. Jesus said in John 10, “I am come that they might have life.”

Second question. Who does it? The sovereign will of God is the root of this new life. It is the grace of the Giver, not the desire of the receiver. That desire of the receiver is prompted by the grace of the giver. So it is wholly the choice and the work of almighty God.

Look at verse 12 of John 1, “As many as received Him to them gave He the right or the authority to become the children of God, even to them that believe on his name.” So didn’t I initiate it? Look at verse 13, “nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,” You believed and you received because it was the will of God. Behind it, all was the sovereign, determinative, gracious will of God. No man comes unto me Jesus said, except the father draws him. Even the very faith we exercise, is granted graciously by God.

God in his grace and love predetermined to have an eternally intimate love relationship with you just because that’s what he wanted. We love him because he first loved us. And because God has willed to save us and to give us new life and a holy nature, it is absolutely impossible, James says that he could ever lead us into sin. He longs for us to be in his presence and to make us like his own son and he will pour out eternal blessing on us forever and ever and ever. 1 John 3, “Behold what manner of love the father hath bestowed on us that we should be called the children of God.”

Third question. How does it happen? By truth’s word. That means the word of God, the scripture. God regenerates, washes and cleanses us and plants a spirit in us through the power of His word. If you don’t hear the word, you don’t hear the message that saves, in 1 Thessalonians 2:13, Paul says it is the word that works with a believing heart. God Sovereignly moves to redeem. A person responds to the exposure to the word with faith and salvation takes place.

2 Corinthians 6:7 says, by the word of truth, by the power of God. In Colossians 1:5, it says, “Of which you heard before … in the word of the truth of the gospel.” 2 Timothy 2:15 also mentions the word of truth, so the word of truth in general is the word of God.

So what’s the gospel? The good news that Jesus came, died and rose again, so people are saved when God sovereignly sets out to give them new birth and plant His spirit in them. But how important it is to preach it? Romans 10:17 says that faith comes by hearing and believing the gospel of Jesus Christ that he died on the cross and rose again, that comes through the revealed word of God. 1 Peter 1 also states that we are being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible the word of God, which lives and abides forever.

Now, if anything is to change in us, God must do it, but we must respond as well, to the gospel.

Now the forth question. Why is it done? God wants a new kind of creation and we are the first fruits of that. But what are first fruits? Exodus 23:19, Leviticus 23 as well as Deuteronomy chapters 18 and 26 in the Old Testament tells about first fruits. First fruits meant two things, I want the first in order and I want the best. The first of a full crop that’s coming later.

Do you realize that the world will not continue the way it is right now? Do you know that we are headed to a total transformation of the world as we know it? Do you know that this entire operation on the earth will burn up and the Bible tells us that the Lord will recreate this earth, to his own liking? He will make a new creation, everything will be born again, everything. Men and women and everything, in fact, as He will make a new heaven and a new earth, there is coming a whole new creation and we are just the first evidence of it.

As Christians, we are a sample of what’s coming. He recreates us as symbols and as illustrations, of His coming new creation. We are just the first fruits and the promise of the full crop. God says, I want to take you to be my special possession. I want to take you to belong to me. We are therefore to stand out in the world as living examples of where this world is headed when He will recreate it.

Creation, it says in Romans 8 is groaning waiting for its recreation. And we also are crying out for the recreation, not of our soul, we have had that, but of our bodies where the flesh hangs on.

There is no way that God wants you to sin. No way is he pleased with your sin. He created you to be a model.

PRAYER:
Our father, we have been made new in order that we who were unholy might be holy. Father we thank you so much for making us the symbols of your new creation. And father, we pray that we might shine as lights in the world.
That we might, who have been redeemed be so grateful that we might live in such a way as to properly represent that whole new creation of which we are but the first fruits. Help us to realize that it is your desire to recreate us unto holiness. And help us to pursue that with all our might and the power of the spirit. Thank you Jesus Christ, that we may experience that glorious sovereign mercy and grace and the joy of being first fruits and living examples of the coming recreation. Oh God, help us who know you to live up to who we are. And rightly represent to this world what is coming in the future. We pray in Christ’s name, amen.

(Main source: Grace To You)

Sola scriptura (Latin: by Scripture alone) is a Christian theological doctrine which holds that the Christian Scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith and practice.

The Scriptures’ meaning is mediated through many kinds of secondary authority, such as the ordinary teaching offices of the Church, the ecumenical creeds, the councils of the Christian Church, and so on. However, sola scriptura rejects any original infallible authority other than the Bible. In this view, all secondary authority is derived from the authority of the Scriptures and is therefore subject to reform when compared to the teaching of the Bible. Church councils, preachers, Bible commentators, private revelation, or even a message allegedly from an angel or an apostle are not an original authority alongside the Bible in the sola scriptura approach.

Sola scriptura is a formal principle of many Protestant Christian denominations, and one of the five solas. It was a foundational doctrinal principle of the Protestant Reformation held by the Reformers, who taught that authentication of Scripture is governed by the discernible excellence of the text as well as the personal witness of the Holy Spirit to the heart of each man. Some Evangelical and Baptist denominations state the doctrine of sola scriptura more strongly: Scripture is self-authenticating, clear (perspicuous) to the rational reader, its own interpreter (“Scripture interprets Scripture”), and sufficient of itself to be the final authority of Christian doctrine.

By contrast, the Anglican Communion and the Methodist Church, though generally considered a form of Protestantism, uphold the doctrine of prima scriptura, with Sacred Scripture being illumined by tradition, reason, and in Methodism, experience as well. The Eastern Orthodox Church holds that to “accept the books of the canon is also to accept the ongoing Spirit-led authority of the church’s tradition, which recognizes, interprets, worships, and corrects itself by the witness of Holy Scripture.” The Catholic Church regards the Apostolic preaching and writing (a.k.a. Tradition and Scripture) as equal since both came from the Apostles. The Catholic Church describe this as “one common source … with two distinct modes of transmission,” while some Protestant authors call it “a dual source of revelation.”

(Main source: Wikipedia)

By grace, we are brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ. By grace, we are part of the bride. By grace, we are part of the real Church. By grace, we are a remnant. By grace, Yahweh has brought us together, all for the glory of His name. By grace, we can learn from each other and encourage one another.

Please help me by sharing some Biblical topics you would like us to drill deep into together over the next few months. Any other suggestions you might have are also welcome. This can be done by means of comments below.

I will then take one topic at a time and obtain as much Biblical information on the topic as possible. It will then be posted as an article where after we as a group can all discuss it and learn from each other.

Alternatively, if you have done any Bible study on your own, on whichever Biblical topic, and would like to share it with the rest of us, you are most welcome to email the material to me for publication.

As our (which include YOU)blog / site is still new, we need to accept that responses might be a little slow at this stage, but don’t be discourage. On the 24th of May, I also need to go for eye surgery, which could have an impact on our activities for a week or two.

I am looking forward to our fellowship, where we could freely get involved in our Father’s business without the interference of the enemy, the scoffers and the worldly.

Kind regards

Gerhard

Affirming the will of God to save all, while also affirming the unconditional election of some, implies that there are at least “two wills” in God. In spite of criticisms (mainly from Armenians) the distinction stands, because it is inescapable in the Scriptures.

ILLUSTRATION OF THE TWO WILLS OF GOD

THE DEAD OF CHRIST

The betrayal of Jesus by Judas was a morally evil act inspired immediately by Satan (Luke 22:3). Yet in Acts 2:23 Luke says, “This Jesus [was] delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.” There is a sense in which God willed the delivering up of his Son, even though the act was sin. Luke expresses his understanding of the sovereignty of God by recording the prayer of the Jerusalem saints:
Truly in this city there were gathered together against thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do “whatever thy hand and thy plan had predestined to take place.”

The appalling death of Christ was the will and work of God the Father. Isaiah wrote, “We esteemed him stricken, smitten by God . . . It was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief” (Isaiah 53:4,10). Also refer to Hebrews 2:10. But, it was not the “will of God” that Judas and Pilate and Herod and the Gentile soldiers and the Jewish crowds disobey the moral law of God by sinning in delivering Jesus up to be crucified.

THE HARDENING WORK OF GOD

Another example is that God wills to harden some men’s hearts so that they become obstinate in sinful behaviour, which God disapproves.

In Exodus 8:1 the Lord says to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD, “Let my people go, that they may serve me.”‘” In other words it was God will that Pharaoh would have let the Israelites go. Nevertheless, in Exodus 4:21 God said to Moses, “… I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.”

This illustrates why theologians talk about the “WILL OF COMMAND” (“Let my people go!”) and the “WILL OF DECREE” (“God hardened Pharaoh’s heart”).
In view of these illustrations, it is difficult to imagine that the “will of God” is always only to be thought in terms of loving desire, without addressing God’s effective purpose of judgment as well.

Paul pictures this divine hardening as part of an overarching plan that will involve salvation for Jew and Gentile. In Romans 11:25-26 he says to his Gentile readers, “Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brethren: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved.” God holds out his hands to a rebellious people (Romans 10:21), but ordains a hardening that consigns them for a time to disobedience.

GOD’S RIGHT AND POWER TO RESTRAIN EVIL AND HIS WILL NOT TO

Another line of Biblical evidence that God sometimes wills to bring about what he disapproves is his choosing to use or not to use his right to restrain evil in the human heart.

An illustration of this divine right is given in Genesis 20. Abraham says to king Abimelech that Sarah is his sister. So Abimelech takes her as part of his harem. But God is displeased and warns him in a dream that she is married to Abraham. Abimelech protests to God that he had taken her in his integrity. And God says (in verse 6), “Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also kept you from sinning against me; therefore I did not let you touch her.” What is apparent here is that God has the right and the power to restrain the sins of secular rulers. When he does, it is his will to do it. And when he does not, it is his will not to.

Psalm 33:10-11says, “The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nought; he frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the LORD stands for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.” Sometimes God frustrates the will of rulers by making their plans fail. Sometimes he does so by influencing their hearts the way he did Abimelech, without them even knowing it.

An illustration of God’s choosing not to use his right to restrain evil is found in Romans 1:24-28. Three times Paul says that God hands people over to sink further into corruption. Verse 24: “God handed them over to the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.” God has the right and the power to restrain this evil the way he did for Abimelech. But part of God’s punishment on evil is sometimes His willingness that evil increase.

HOW EXTENSIVE IS THE SOVEREIGN WILL OF GOD?

Behind this complex relationship of two wills in God is the foundational biblical premise that God is indeed sovereign.
There are passages that ascribe to God the final control over all calamities and disasters wrought by nature or by man. Amos 3:6, “Does evil befall a city, unless the LORD has done it? Isaiah 45:7, “I am the LORD, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make peace and create woe, I am the LORD, who do all these things.” Lamentations 3:37-38, “Who has commanded and it came to pass, unless the Lord has ordained it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and evil come?”

“Let those who suffer according to God’s will do right and entrust their souls to a faithful Creator” (4:19). In this context, the suffering comes from hostile people and therefore cannot come without sin. On taking leave of the saints in Ephesus Paul said, “I will return to you if God wills,” (Acts 18:21). To the Corinthians he wrote, “I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills” (1 Corinthians 4:19). And again, “I do not want to see you now just in passing; I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits” (1 Corinthians 16:7).

This is remarkable since it is hard to imagine one even thinking that God might not permit such a thing unless one had a remarkably high view of the sovereign prerogatives of God.

James also said, “Tomorrow we will do such and such . . . you ought to say, `If the Lord wills, we shall live and we shall do this or that'” (James 4:15).
Jesus also said in Matthew 10:29, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.” We also read:

“Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases” (Psalm 115:3).
This means that the distinction between terms like “will of decree” and “will of command” or “sovereign will” and “moral will” is not an artificial distinction demanded by Calvinistic theology. The terms are an effort to describe the whole of biblical revelation. They are an effort to say Yes to all of the Bible and not silence any of it. They are a way to say Yes to the universal, saving will of 1 Timothy 2:4 and Yes to the individual unconditional election of Romans 9:6-23.

HOW DOES THE TWO WILLS OF GOD FIT TOGETHER? WHAT ABOUT FREE WILL?

The most important thing to start with is to affirm is the fact that “God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself does not tempt anyone” (James 1:13). It implies no contradiction to suppose that an act may be an evil act, and yet that it is a good thing that such an act should come to pass. As for instance, it might be an evil thing to crucify Christ, but yet it was a good thing that the crucifying of Christ came to pass.

With reference to 1 Timothy 2:4, God wills for all to be saved. But then God is committed to something even more valuable than saving all. The answer given by Calvinists is that the greater value is the manifestation of the full range of God’s glory in wrath and mercy (Romans 9:22-23) and the humbling of man so that he enjoys giving all credit to God for his salvation (1 Corinthians 1:29).

In 1 Timothy 2:4 there is no mention of free will. If all we had was this text we could only guess what restrains God from saving all. The assumption is that if God wills in one sense for all to be saved, then he cannot in another sense will that only some be saved.

The divine mind is such that God has the capacity to look at the world through two lenses. When God looks at a painful or wicked event through his narrow lens, he sees the tragedy or the sin for what it is in itself and he is angered and grieved. “I do not delight in the death of anyone, says the Lord God” (Ezekiel 18:32). But when God looks at a painful or wicked event through his wide-angle lens, he sees the tragedy or the sin in relation to everything leading up to it and everything flowing out from it. He sees it in all the connections and effects that form a pattern or mosaic stretching into eternity. This mosaic, with all its (good and evil) parts he does delight in (Psalm 115:3).

God’s emotional life is infinitely complex beyond our ability to fully comprehend. For example, who can comprehend that God is angry at the sin of the world every day (Psalm 7:11), and yet every day, every moment, he is rejoicing with tremendous joy because somewhere in the world a sinner is repenting (Luke 15:7,10,23)? All we have to go on here is what he has chosen to tell us in the Bible. And what he has told us is that there is a sense in which he does not experience pleasure in the judgment of the wicked, and there is a sense in which he does.

As God took counsel with Himself and deemed it wise and good to elect unconditionally some to salvation and not others, one may legitimately ask whether the offer of salvation to all is genuine.
The corresponding point in the case of divine election is that the absence of volition in God to save does not necessarily imply the absence of compassion. God’s infinite wisdom regulates his whole will and guides and harmonizes (not suppresses) all its active principles.
In other words, God has a real and deep compassion for perishing sinners. Jeremiah points to this reality in God’s heart. In Lamentations 3:32-33 he speaks of the judgment that God has brought upon Jerusalem: “Though he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the sons of men.” Jeremiah was trying, as we are, to come to terms with the way a sovereign God wills two different things, affliction and compassion.

In God’s great and mysterious heart there are kinds of longings and desires that are real which tell us something true about His character. Yet not all of these longings govern God’s actions. He is governed by the depth of his wisdom expressed through a plan that no ordinary human deliberation would ever conceive (Romans 11:33-36; 1 Corinthians 2:9). There are holy and just reasons for why the affections of God’s heart have the nature and intensity and proportion that they do.

As per John 3:16 and 1 Timothy 2:4 God loves the world with a deep compassion that desires the salvation of all men. Yet God has chosen from before the foundation of the world whom he will save from sin. Since not all people are saved we need to believe that God’s will to save all people is “restrained” by his commitment to the glorification of His sovereign grace (Ephesians 1:6,12,14; Romans 9:22-23).

There is nothing in the Bible teaching that human beings have the ultimate power of self-determination.
To conclude, God’s will to save all people is “restrained” by His supreme commitment to uphold and display the full range of his glory through the sovereign demonstration of his wrath and mercy for the enjoyment of his elect and believing people from every tribe and tongue and nation.
(Main source: John Piper / DesiringGod)

Welcome to our blog! We are living in a day and age where most churches are dimming their lights, to accommodate the darkness of this world.

Skewed, half and false Gospels are being preached from the pulpits and carnal Christianity has created their own god – A god who does not have any commandments, holiness, justice or wrath, but only love. Biblical teachings on truth and the reality of judgement and hell have also become “hate speech.”

As the elect of God, let’s separate ourselves from all the half-baked teachings and learn from each other, about the things the remnant in these latter days needs to know.

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