By Grace God Is The Monergistic Causal Agent

22Therefore say to the house of Israel, "Thus says the Lord GOD: "I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for My holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went. 23And I will sanctify My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know that I am the LORD," says the Lord GOD, "when I am hallowed in you before their eyes. 24For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. 25Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. 28Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. 29I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring no famine upon you. 30And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and the increase of your fields, so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations. 31Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities and your abominations. 32Not for your sake do I do this," says the Lord GOD, "let it be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel!"

33"Thus says the Lord GOD: "On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will also enable you to dwell in the cities, and the ruins shall be rebuilt. 34The desolate land shall be tilled instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass by. 35So they will say, "This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the wasted, desolate, and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.' 36Then the nations which are left all around you shall know that I, the LORD, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted what was desolate. I, the LORD, have spoken it, and I will do it."

37"Thus says the Lord GOD: "I will also let the house of Israel inquire of Me to do this for them: I will increase their men like a flock. 38Like a flock offered as holy sacrifices, like the flock at Jerusalem on its feast days, so shall the ruined cities be filled with flocks of men. Then they shall know that I am the LORD."'"

In the above passages from Ezekiel 36, a unique thing occurs. Something that the Lord says is not done for anything that man has done. verse 32 The sequencing is familiar:

Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

What must happen to a man first so that he believes into Christ is the Dividing Line.

As John Hendryx explains:

God does indeed give a prevenient grace to man: According to Scripture, all people are born dead in sin (Eph 2:1). This simply means that, as a result of the Fall, people are born without the Holy Spirit and therefore, (left to themselves) are hostile to Christ and unable to understand to spiritual things (1 Cor 1:21). It does not mean they can do (or think) nothing in their state of common grace, but it means they can do nothing spiritual or redemptive ... that they will always think God's word is foolish (1 Cor 2:14) until the Holy Spirit, who comes from the outside, works grace in their hearts.

Now, what may come as a surprise to many is that even the most hardened Arminian believes this. Semi-pelagians do not believe this, of course, but Classic Arminians along with Calvinists believe, with the Scripture, in the necessity of some kind of prevenient grace prior to belief. And it is important that we make this distinction so we do not misrepresent anyone's views. So to the question: can any person come to faith in Christ apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, both the Arminian and the Calvinist would definitively answer "no".

As is demonstrated in the Ezekiel passage it is not something with which man must in the beginning cooperate. Quite the opposite. Man in his state of rebellion will not. To be able to will to love God and keep the first commandment, God does a miracle, removing the heart of stone and putting in its place a heart of flesh, verse 26. That is not owing to man, not for his sake, verse 32, not that there is anything worthy in man, for he is no different than all the nations around with hearts of stone. Israel profaned the name of the Lord and caused the nations to do likewise. It is not because of some effort on their part, either, that they are caused to obey. For the following verse tells us from where the power which enables them is derived and how it is that power exerts its influence in causing the keeping of the ordinances of God such as the commandment of repentance unto salvation or any other righteous work required for entrance into the kingdom.

The kind of grace that God gives is not the faulty grace of the Arminian which may or may not fulfill the commands of God. It is bound to the very Spirit of God, verse 27. Just as men of old spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, so also the righteous appeal of repentance and the cry for mercy is a gift carried out in vessels of flesh by the Holy Spirit's efficacious power. He causes and He carries His own to do what he commands.

Not only that, but the sanctification is accomplished by Him and Him alone. It is called circumcision of the flesh, or mortification of the flesh, by the Spirit. See Galatians also where Paul is concerned, not with just definitve sanctification but progressive sanctification which he parallels as being of the same type concluding that if one is saved but submits to rules and ordinances for sanctification and perseverance in salvation, the death of Christ avails nothing. A little leaven leavens the whole lump and eventually the doctrine of salvation by grace is abandoned and the Jewish religion of works takes its place. That is what Paul accused Peter of, introducing accursed heresy which usurps the Gospel's rightful place, replacing it with a gospel of bondage again to the law. It is a gospel, which is no gospel, of a god who is no god able to save.

Ezekiel tells us that all that comes before in prevenience is all that will ever be given, and all that is given is all that is necessary, and that it is complete in reference to the glory of God (verses 33-37) which otherwise would be blasphemed if it should fail to fulfill the thing it was sent to do. Jesus summed this glorification up in John 17. And as Hendryx explains, all those that the Father has given to the Son will be given a new nature in regeneration, and it does not fail, of all that the Father has given no one is ever lost.

Hendryx sums up:

To use some biblical imagery, we cast the seed of the gospel indiscriminately because the Holy Spirit alone can “germinate” the word unto life in Christ. The fallow ground of our hearts must first be plowed up by God, for the soil of our heart is not good by nature, but only by grace. The seed will not find good soil until God makes it so. For Ezekiel the prophet says:

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” (Ezekiel 36:25-27)

Notice that in order for obedience to take place the Lord must first cleanse our hearts, put a new spirit in us and remove our hardened uncircumcised heart. No one believes and obeys while their heart is still stone. Our blind eyes must be opened, our deaf ears unstopped, and our corrupt nature supernaturally changed by the Holy Spirit, before we can begin to have any good thoughts about Christ. The Bible likens the new birth, or regeneration, to the first creation (2 Cor. 5:17). God let light shine into what was darkness. And God breathed life into lifeless man and then man, because of the new principle of life now within him, breathed and walked. Likewise regeneration can be likened to God's first breath in man, and faith, to Adam's first breath. The former is monergistic and the later, while it springs from the principle of grace that now exists within, is participatory. Both the creation and the maintaining are all of grace, but only God's breathing life into us (ex nihilo) is monergistic (that is, it is the work of God alone). When God brings forth something out of nothing, it is monergistic, but when we breathe (or have faith) as a result of God's act, we are now participating, so by definition this is not monergistic, but all springs forth from God's initial monergistic act of giving life from nothing.

"Regeneration is the fountain; sanctification is the river." - J. Sidlow Baxter

This is what I call passive/active sanctification, because as Jesus, Ezekial, Paul explain, except that we abide in Him we can do nothing. Nothing. By definition it is not monergistic if what we are saying is that man acts at all. The import of Hendryx, just as it was with the Council of Orange, and as it has been recognized in the orthodox faith since the patriarchs, is that man is carried along. All that flows from the fountain of monergism is what carries out the work and therefore the glorification of God. It is by grace alone and not the prevenient grace of the Arminian, or of any other form of common grace like that of the Pelagian or semi-pelagian. It is a prevenient grace that is preventive, that will not allow failure to save and that eternally. The grace of Christ, that is the Christian grace, is complete in all that is required of righteousness in man that fits him for salvation. And this all bought by the blood of Christ. His reward given to him by the Father is that we are made to partake in the adoption as sons. It is his righteousness, his deeds, his righteous confession and love of the Father freely given to us grace. It is his drawing, his spinkling of us, his cleansing us. He does it all, even making us active by it.

Our passive/active obedience is well expressed in the Hebrew term in Ezekiel for cause. Like the word receive in 1 Cor 4 it is active but can also be passive, and it can at the same time be both. The one thing that it cannot be is neutral. Like the term in Ezekiel for God santifying Himself in his people, all three are the case. Just as when it is said that his works have been finished from the beginning of the world yet he never stops working. But what always comes first is the activity of God so we also have the Promised One who is in us not by the power resident in us, that is we cannot ascend into heaven to bring Christ down, but by the power resident in Him. We are also in Him by the same power. Likewise we walk by the Spirit, passive/active. But we are at first passive while He takes the active role of causing us to walk according to His commands such that we put to death the deeds of the flesh. Though like Isaiah says he also causes us to walk not according to his statutes for a season, he is always faithful to save his people from utter destruction. His discipline moves us to diligence so we work out our salvation with fear and trembling because it is He who is a work in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. We do not do as we want. Therefore Paul tells us that Christ is our salvation, both our justification and sanctification, in whom alone is the promise, to whom alone belongs the promise, who is alone the promise. He leaves nothing to the chance of our choosing.

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Thank God that from these stones he is able to raise up children.

ENJOY!

Paedobaptist Guest Article

By the power vested in me as a founding Don of the Reformed Mafia, I hereby dub R.C. Sproul Jr. an honorary member of the Reformed Mafia for the duration of this post. With that, I want to share an article Sproul Jr. has written. It was sent out via email from the Highlands Study Center last month. I hope it is edifying as well as thought provoking. [Edit: the article was written in response to a question from which the title cof the piece also comes.]

(Not to worry, after this post, we shall remain a solidly credobaptist blog! -RK)

"Do Arminians go to Heaven when they Die?"

by Dr. R.C. Sproul Jr.

From one perspective, to even ask this question seems almost ghastly. From another perspective, asking this question seems like surrender. On the one hand, no one believes in justification by having all our theological ducks in a row. On the other hand, many of our fathers saw the divide between Arminian theology and Calvinistic theology as a decisive one. We want to honor our brothers if they are our brothers, and we want to honor our fathers, if they are right on this issue. Better still, we want to be true to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

My own earthly father has been known to answer this question this way- Arminians are Christians, barely. What he is getting at, one should not be surprised, is wisdom. First, the problem. Why would we even have to ask? The difficulty is two-fold. First, we are blessed with the atoning work of Christ when we repent for our sins, and trust in His finished work on our behalf. How much of our sin must we repent for? All of it. In the Arminian scheme there remains in man a part of him that is still righteous, that part out of which comes his ability to choose the good as it is offered in the gospel. The Arminian is not, according to his theology, fully repentant. Second, we must trust in the finished work of Christ alone. In the Arminian schema, he trusts a great deal in the finished work of Christ, but trusts some in his own ability to choose the good. If a man believes that God does 99% of the saving, and man 1%, then that man is not truly saved. The Galatian heresy is dealing with just this issue. These were people who believed that Christ’s life, death and resurrection, combined with obedience to the ceremonial law, brings one peace with God. Such a belief will not bring you the work of Christ. It will only bring His judgment.

So they don’t make it, right? Well, have any of us repented fully for all our sins? Of course we say we repent for all our sins, but have we truly? Do we know all our sins? Is it not because of our sin that we look at some of our sins as virtues, that which should be praised rather than condemned? Ought we not, after seeking to enter more fully into our sin, after living in sackcloth and ashes, should we not then repent for our repentance? Won’t we all come woefully short of full repentance on this side of the veil? Did not Jesus die for sins such as these?

In like manner, it is one thing to articulate a doctrine of justification wherein we are utterly dependent on the work of Christ. It is altogether another to actually trust fully in that work. I would suggest that heaven is full of Calvinists who affirmed with great vigor sola fide, but who in the dark recesses of their hearts, subconsciously, believed that God was pleased with them because of their fervor for sola fide, or because of their fidelity in keeping their quiet times, or their passion for honoring the Sabbath. We are all Pelagians at heart, even those of us who are dyed-in-the-wool Calvinists.

The long and the short of it is that no human is fully consistent with respect to his saying and his doing. No human being is even consistent within his saying. The Arminian says at the same time and in the same relationship, “It’s all Jesus” and “It’s mostly Jesus and partly me.” They are inconsistent, self-contradictory. In the end, those who most fully believe it’s all Jesus will be with Him forever. Those who more fully believe it’s Jesus and them will hear Him say, “Depart from me I never knew you.” To put it another way, we are justified by trusting in the finished work of Christ alone, not by articulating a doctrine of justification by faith alone. We too, we Calvinists that is, make it into heaven by a happy inconsistency. That is, we all have error in our thinking. And every error contradicts what is true. Were we to adjust the true things we believed to make them consistent with the false things we believe, we would all end up in damnable heresy.

We have to affirm, at the same time, that Jesus came to save sinners, but not all sinners. He will save those sinners to whom His Spirit gives the gift of faith. That will include those who don’t know where the gift came from, as long as they actually have the gift. We ought also to remember that if we are right on this issue, if Calvinism is true and Arminianism false, we are right by the grace of God, not our own wisdom. What do we have that was not first given to us?

Isn't It Enough (Paul Washer's Testimony)

Below is moving account of Paul Washer's testimony and why he is so passionate about Christ. Let him tell you about his Jesus...

A Swine is a Swine

What the true proverb says has happened to them: "The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire." (2Peter 2:22 ESV)

Why does a "backslider" go back into sin? Why do some who profess to know Jesus later deny that God even exists? Why after washing a hog does it run right back to the mud?

I once raised a pig to show in the County Fair and I can tell you this:

You can clean off a pig and keep it clean for a time, but leave it to it's own desires it will be right back in the mud in no time. As long as a pig remains a pig, it will do what pigs do!

The same is true with sinners...

Thankfully, when God truly saves us, He makes us new creatures!

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Cor 5:17 KJV)

Soli Deo Gloria!


(Found the video Here)

J.C. Thibodaux on Election

A very interesting article indeed. I highly recommend that the Mafia read it!

It's always interesting to me when people will teach that God does indeed choose people to be saved (even if by mere prescience) and yet teach that the person can lose the Salvation that they were chosen to receive... I mean, don't they think God saw that coming too? Why did He choose them to be saved if He already knew they would eventually fall away? By this scheme, did those who forfeit salvation ever really receive the gift of "eternal life"?

Somebody help me out here...

A Greek Word You Should Know

sarx
(flesh)

Throughout the Bible, “sarx” is used as a way of describing humanity. We are flesh, as in “flesh and blood.” As beings of flesh (sarx) we are to be distinguished from God, who is spirit (pneuma). However, especially in the writings of Paul, sarx/flesh takes on a new meaning: it becomes a shorthand way of referring to fallen man’s natural rebellion against God, of which we are all guilty.

Here’s a little quiz for you. It’s multiple choice, and only one question. If you get it wrong, no one’s going to fail you or throw rocks at you or anything:

Out of the four following statements, three are paraphrases of Scripture, and one is a line from a stupid song that is sung in a stupid little cartoon movie that kids love. Can you pick out the line that is not Biblical at all?

1. Men cannot follow their natural tendencies and manage to please God.

2. The imagination of your heart is only evil continually.

3. No good thing dwells in me naturally.

4. Your dreams will fly on magical wings, if you follow your heart.

Okay, let’s see how you did. Number 1 is a paraphrase of Romans 8:8, which says, “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” Number 2 is an application of God’s own assessment of fallen humanity, from Genesis 6:5: “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” As for Number 3, it comes from this verse, Paul’s confession of his own spiritual state without the indwelling presence of Christ: “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing...” (Romans 7:18). The answer is #4. That line is from the movie Thumbelina.

I don’t mean to pick on Thumbelina. It’s no more stupid than any other cartoon that’s ever urged the same advice on kids. That advice is very warm and fuzzy sounding, but it is utter foolishness. “Just follow your heart.”

Okay, just to prove I’m not picking on Thumbelina, I’ll give you a quote that is just as stupid from my favorite movie of all time, Braveheart. At the beginning of the show, young William Wallace has a dream in which his dead father says to him, “You’re heart is free. Have the courage to follow it.” Gag me.

We hear this stuff all the time in our culture. And we hear other wonderful sounding stuff that is just as ignorant of the Truth of the Word of God. How many times for this one: “There’s good in everybody,” or this one, “People are basically good.”

Now, if it shocks you that I list those things as stupid, untruthful lies (which I do) then here is my bet: I bet you’ve never put much effort into reading the Bible. Hey, nothing to get offended about. But if you had, none of this would shock you.

The Bible simply does not teach that all people are basically good. It doesn’t: I’m sorry. Wouldn’t it be nice if it did, and we could all put on our rose-colored glasses and think nice thoughts about each other? But we can’t, because the truth is

God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.

Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
- Psalm 53:2-3

Ever since the fall of Adam and Eve into sin, the human race has been a race of sinful people. Including me. And including you. Again: I’m sorry. I’m not thrilled about being the one to have to tell you this. But that’s the truth.

Hear again God’s own pronouncement about the natural state of mankind, from Genesis 6:5.

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.

Right there is the reason why Thumbelina and Braveheart are dead wrong. They’d tell you, follow your heart and your dreams will come true. Follow your heart, for it is free! But God tells you that the heart is “only evil continually.” I wonder what you’ll wind up with after a lifetime of following something that is only evil continually?

Okay, okay, someone will say. That verse you’re quoting is from right before the Flood of Noah, when the earth had grown especially wicked and God wiped it out. That was then, this is now.

Well, that was then, and this is now, but the human heart has ever remained the same. The prophet Jeremiah wrote (thousands of years after the Flood) that, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer 17:9) The implied answer is, only God can know it.

Wow. That’s amazing isn’t it? “Deceitful above all things.” “Only evil continually.” “Desperately wicked.” At least we can’t accuse the Word of God of beating around the bush!

Let me ask you something. If you were going to try and communicate to someone that something was as bad as bad can be, could you use any stronger language than Scripture has used to describe your own heart?

So, you might ask, what does all of this have to do with the Greek word, “sarx?” Just this: Paul uses sarx, or “flesh,” as a shorthand way of referring to everything we’ve just looked at. Especially in Romans, chapters 7 and 8 (a couple of enormously important chapters as touching the central truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ) when Paul uses “flesh,” the stuff in this chapter is what he’s talking about. Flesh means the corrupt, natural human way of doing things, of talking, and of acting, both toward God and one another.

[We need to make an important pit-stop here to clarify something. The Bible does not teach that there is anything inherently evil or sinful about the physical material out of which our bodies our made. Our physical, flesh and blood bodies are not what’s being talked about when the Scripture uses “flesh” this way. In fact, on the day that God gave Adam and Eve physical bodies made of bones and blood and tissues and sinews... “flesh”....He pronounced the work of that day to be “very good.” Some ancient false teachers of the first century plagued the true church severely with their false doctrine, called “Gnosticism.” One of the tenets of Gnosticism is to believe that physical matter is evil, while all things “spiritual” or immaterial are good. To this way of thinking, then, the only way a human could be good was to be liberated from his physical body. Okay, that is not Christianity. Evil does not live in your physical tissues. It lives in your thoughts, your desires, your motivations, your words and deeds, etc.]

We’ve said all of this in order to get to the point of asking a few questions. You don’t need to tell anyone your answers...but God knows.

1) Have you ever figured that you would go to heaven because, “I’m basically a good person.” ?

- If so, you need to ask yourself who is right in their judgment of you. Is it you, or is it God? God has already called you “flesh.”

2) Have you ever figured that you would go to heaven because, “I’m a better person than most other people, even religious people.” ?

- You may in fact be better than most people, even the religious ones. Thing is, both you and they are “flesh.” Both you and they have hearts that are “desperately wicked.” To say you’re a better person than them is like saying you’ve got the best seat on the crowded bus...and the whole bus is headed off the cliff.

3) Have you ever figured that you would go to heaven because, “God knows I’m doing my best.” ?

-> Is “doing your best” anything similar to “trying with all your heart?” And would that be your “deceitful” heart, that is “only evil continually?”

4) Have you ever figured that you would go to heaven if you could do more good deeds than evil deeds?

- > If, as a person of “flesh,” your heart is continually evil, let me ask you, when in that continuous evil do you think you might manage to do enough good to tip the scales?


I think the apostle Paul must have asked himself these same questions, or some similar, and very honestly realized that his answers didn’t hold any water. He realized that he had no reason to put any “confidence in the flesh” for his going to heaven. (Philippians 3:2-7) He realized that as a man of “flesh” he simply couldn’t do enough good things to make himself right with God (Galatians 2:16).

Finally, he realized that what he couldn’t do, as a fleshly man, God did for Him, by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. Jesus lived as a human being the perfect, good, and holy life that none of us can, due to the weakness of our “flesh.” (Romans 8:3)

Friend, this is the truth. If your life up until the point was the service that you were performing for God as an employee, the only thing you’d deserve to be paid is destruction. When you looked at your pay stub, in the box where it says, “Net pay due this period,” instead of a dollar amount, it would simply say, “Death.” As flesh, that’s all you can earn.

But right now, even as you read these words, God is making you an offer. Trade in what you have earned, in exchange for what Jesus alone has earned, eternal life with God in heaven. Christ died to pay for your sins, and rose from the dead to offer you everlasting life in Him.

God has “made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21

Right now, you can make the first step toward real freedom, freedom from the continuously evil desires of your heart and mind. Your sins, the works of your flesh, can be cleansed through the blood of Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of God can come to dwell within you, so that from now on, you will have a new power with which to overcome your sinful nature.

Just stop right now. Right where you are, just bow your head and let God know that’s what you want. There are no “right words” that you need to say. However you express it will work, as long as you do so believing that what you’ve seen here is right and that God can and will make a change in you through Christ. Just let God know.