“I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners . . .” (Isaiah 57:18)
Learn your doctrine from texts. It stands up better that way, and feeds the soul.
For example, learn irresistible grace from texts. In this way, you will see it does not mean grace cannot be resisted; it means that when God chooses, he can and will overcome that resistance.
In Isaiah 57:17–19, for instance, God chastises his rebellious people by striking them and hiding his face: “Because of the iniquity of his unjust gain I was angry, I struck him; I hid my face and was angry” (verse 17).
But they did not respond with repentance. Rather, they kept backsliding. They resisted: “But he went on backsliding in the way of his own heart” (verse 17).
So grace can be resisted. In fact, Stephen said to the Jewish leaders, “You always resist the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51).
What then does God do? Is he powerless to bring those who resist to repentance and wholeness? No. The next verse says, “I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners” (verse 18).
So, in the face of recalcitrant, grace-resisting backsliding, God says, “I will heal him.” He will “restore” — the word is “make whole or complete.” It is related to the word shalom, “peace.” That wholeness and peace is mentioned in the next verse which explains how God turns around a grace-resisting backslider.
He does it by “creating the fruit of the lips. ‘Peace, peace (shalom, shalom), to the far and to the near,’ says the LORD, and I will heal him” (verse 19). God creates what is not there. This is how we are saved. And this is how we are brought back from backsliding.
The grace of God triumphs over our resistance by creating praise where it did not exist. He brings shalom, shalom to the near and the far. Wholeness, wholeness to the near and the far. He does it by “restoring,” that is, replacing the disease of resistance with the soundness of submission.
The point of irresistible grace is not that we can’t resist. We can, and we do. The point is that when God chooses, he overcomes our resistance and restores a submissive spirit. He creates. He says, “Let there be light!” He heals. He leads. He restores. He comforts.
Therefore, we never boast that we have returned from backsliding. We fall on our faces before the Lord and with trembling joy thank him for his irresistible grace.
I certainly hope you found this to be a darn good cup of coffee!!
Thanks Steve but we differ only in our view of Gods Grace and what free will means.
ReplyDeleteFrom reading your blog, I see that you've fallen prey to several misconceptions about Calvinism. Specifically, that we don't believe in "free-will."
I believe that our will is free, but only to a degree. Our will is limited by our nature. The Bible makes it abundantly clear that our nature has been corrupted and enslaved by sin, and this includes our will. Our will is to do evil, to disobey God, to reject His Gospel, etc. (Genesis 6:5; Psalm 14:1-3; Jeremiah 4:22; John 8:33-34; Romans 3:9-19; Romans 6; Romans 8:7-8; Ephesians 2:1-3; 2 Peter 2:19). With this knowledge in hand, let's go down the list and look at each of the points you made.
"Jesus said they were unwilling to come to Him. They had free-will; they just rejected Him."
Of course they rejected Christ, but not because they had free will. Their wills were in subjection to sin, and so their choice was only natural.
"Why would Jesus ask, why they disobeyed, if they did not have free-will? If they did not have a choice, Jesus would have commanded them to do His will. They would have had no option, but to obey."
Oh, they had a choice all right. But, since man (and his will) is sinful by nature, the natural choice was to disobey.
"You cannot resist the Holy Spirit if you do not have free-will."
You can resist the Holy Spirit if it's in your sinful nature to do so. Your will doesn't have to be completely free.
"The Lord does not want any to perish. If men do not have free-will, everyone would have already repented. All mankind would be saved. Without the free-will of man the Lord would not need patience."
But our will is not free, but instead, is subjected to sin. If God did not override our sinful wills to save us, then nobody would repent. All mankind would be damned.
"It would be a hollow warning to tell Christians to resist the devil, if men do not have free-will. Resisting the devil would be impossible without free-will."
This is true. Those who have been saved by Christ have had their wills freed from the dominance of sin. We can still be tempted to sin, but we are no longer enslaved to sin. That's why this warning makes sense.
"Without free-will , there would be no sin that could be resisted.
Without free-will, no man could resist the gospel, and all who heard it would be saved."
But man's will is not free. It is enslaved to sin. Therefore, there is no sin that cannot be resisted, no man could accept the gospel, and all who heard it would reject it. Thankfully, God intervenes so that this is not the case. He saves us from our bondage, so that we are no longer slaves to sin. This is the only way anyone can be saved.
So is our will free? Not the way most people think. The will of the unbeliever is enslaved to sin. It is only by God's Grace that we can be saved from our bondage and choose to follow Christ. (Per Jonathan)