Gal 3:8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.
I love this verse because it dashes to pieces many erroneous doctrines concerning the difference between the Old and New Testaments.
First we see that it does in fact call an Old Testament passage "scripture". Those who claim that the Old Testament is somehow inferior to the New, or less relevant than the New, do not recognize that they are cutting off the branch they are sitting on. Every New Testament writer consults the Old Testament, or calls it scripture, or uses it as a foundation for their arguments. The apostles would not have accepted Jesus Christ as the Messiah except for the fact that starting in the Law and the Prophets he showed them how the scriptures foretold of him. Peter and Paul could not have convinced the Jews that Gentiles now stood on equal ground with them in the sight of God, except for the prophesies that a day would come when those who did not know God would be called the children of the Living God and the prophesy that there would come a day when a light would be shined on those who walked in darkness. Without the Old Testament the New Testament writers would not have had a leg to stand on, so to diminsh the role of the Old Testament is to diminish the foundation on which the New Testament stands.
Secondly, this verse claims that the heathen were saved by faith, and because of that, God spake to Abraham a Gospel of salvation by faith. Abraham, Adam, Isaiah, the thief on the cross and Paul the apostle were all saved the same way I was... by faith! There can be no argument that the law was the avenue of salvation for the Jews unless we cut Galations 3 out of the Bible. Paul makes a very strong argument, Abraham came before the law so how could the law have saved him? And if Abraham was saved by faith, were the Jews after the law saved differently than faithful father Abraham? (Gen. 15:6 says it was Abraham's belief in God that ws counted as his justification before God.) The law was never meant to save, but to show men that they are incapable of saving themselves and must cast themselves upon the Messiah for mercy.
Thirdly, it says the message spoken to Abraham was "the gospel". The gospel is not unique to the New Testament, the Old Testament saints had it as well. They did not know that His name would be Jesus, but they knew a Messiah would come that would be God incarnate and would save his people from their sins, they knew that He would be God with them, they knew He would be born of a virgin and that it would please God to bruise Him. Even Adam and Eve knew that there would be a seed of the woman whose heel would be bruised by the serpent, yet would ultimatly crush the head of that Old Serpent the Devil.
If ever a man or woman has been saved on this earth, it is only because they believed God and that was counted to them for righteousness. It is only through faith that a sinless Messiah would take their sins and pay their penalty. Thank God that you and I have the New Testament to show us that His name was Jesus, but in the words of our Lord, "Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed".
Showing posts with label good works. Show all posts
Showing posts with label good works. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Was king Saul saved?
Was King Saul saved? And if so what does I Sam. 16:14 mean when it says “the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul,”?
The first thing that we must understand when dealing with this question is that we must be careful of attempting to say definitively whether someone was or wasn’t saved, when scripture is silent on the issue. While I say we must be careful in such a statement, I do not say that we cannot discern such issues based on what the scriptures do tell us.
When attempting to ascertain whether or not someone is converted, there are certain characteristics that the scripture tells us to look for. I will give you those traits and then we will lay them against Saul’s life and see how he measured up.
(1) A saved person trusts completely in God for his salvation, deliverance, and sustenance. (Gal. 2:16)
(2) Said faith will manifest itself in actions both personal and observable. (Jam. 2:14-18)
(3) A saved person loves God. (John 8:42, I Cor. 8:3, I John 5:2)
(4) A saved parson loves others, particularly his brothers and sisters in Christ. (I John 4:7-8, 20-21)
So then, let us now look at how King Saul matches up to the litmus test God has given us.
(1) Did Saul trust fully in God for his salvation, deliverance, and sustenance?
I could not find one place in scripture where it speaks of Saul’s faith and reliance on God, in a positive or negative way.
(2) Did Saul’s actions show faith in a personal and observable way?
While I could not find a place in the scriptures where it says that Saul believed in God, I did see two distinct events where he showed great reliance on self and no reliance on God. The first takes place in I Sam. 13, here the Israelites are planning to do battle (though greatly outmatched both numerically and technologically) with the Philistines. God has clearly commanded that there is to be no sacrifice offered but by the priest, in verse 9 Saul disobeys God’s command, bypasses the correct order of worship, and sacrifices himself. The second incident occurs in chapter 15, where God commands Israel to utterly destroy the Amalekites, yet Saul makes the executive decision to save alive the choicest animals and the king of the Amalekites himself. Now, I understand that great, godly, saved men often sin, sometimes in disbelief; but I found two elements that intrigued me concerning both incidents. The first is that both times when confronted with his sin he tried to pin the blame on someone else, in chapter 13 on the Philistines, the people and Samuel, in chapter 15 he again falsely accuses the people. The second correlation was that of no true repentance, the first time there was no repentance at all (I Sam. 13:15). The second time, while there was a show of sorrow, it was evidently to save face and not true repentance before God. (I Sam. 15:30)
(3) Did Saul love God?
Again the scriptures are silent on this issue, while I could find no place where the scriptures say Saul loved God not, I could neither find a reference that said he did love God. This becomes more troubling when we realize that the scriptures expressly say that the next two kings, David (Psa. 18:1) and Solomon (I Kings 3:3) loved God. Doubts then begin to creep into our mind as to why the scriptures say no such thing of Saul.
(4) Did Saul love others, particularly saved people?
This question has the clearest answer out of the four in my mind. Saul hated anyone that interfered with his plans. He attempted to kill David on multiple occasions, (I Sam. 19:10, I Sam. 24, I Sam. 26) he used his own daughter to further his agenda, (I Sam. 18:21) and even attempted to kill his own son for sticking up for David (I Sam. 20:33).
All of these facts along with the idea that God rejected Saul as a leader of His people, leads me to believe that Saul was in fact unregenerate. Like Pharaoh was set up as king so that God might be vindicated in His promise that Israel would repent that they had ever asked for a king.
As for the second part of the question, “What is meant by ‘the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul?’” All the commentators I could find agreed that this is not speaking of the Holy Spirit, which abides in a Christian for one’s entire life, but of the general graces which God had bestowed upon Saul previously. Clarke writes,
“The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul - He was thrown into such a state of mind by the judgments of God, as to be deprived of any regal qualities which he before possessed. God seems to have taken what gifts he had, and given them to David; and then the evil spirit came upon Saul; for what God fills not, the devil will.
An evil spirit from the Lord - The evil spirit was either immediately sent from the Lord, or permitted to come. Whether this was a diabolic possession, or a mere mental malady, the learned are not agreed; it seems to have partaken of both. That Saul had fallen into a deep melancholy, there is little doubt; that the devil might work more effectually on such a state of mind, there can be but little question. There is an old proverb, Satan delights to fish in troubled waters; and Saul’s situation of mind gave him many advantages.”
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Some difficult passages
I recently had a facebook friend ask me about some hard to understand passages in scripture, as my response was too long to put in comment form I decided to paste it here on my blog. So, enjoy and if you disagree with me about something that is fine, just please be cordial and christian in your comments.
The parables in Matt. 25 are dealing with the world and particularly the church being unprepared for the final coming of Christ. The first parable tells us that some of the virgins (many old commentators think that this is dealing with the professing church, as a virgin would denote professed purity and singularity of heart to a particular person) had slumbered and had not prepared themselves adequately to meet the bridegroom, while others had fully prepared themselves for his coming. The second has similar implications of some servants who had kept the return of their lord in the forefront of their thinking and resulting actions and others who had for all intents and purposes forgot that the lord would come and demand an answer for his actions. If you are asking how this relates to the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone, we must understand that those whom Christ as justified he will also ensure that they grow in grace and truth. (Gal. 3:3, Phi. 1:6, I Cor. 6:9-11, Jam. 2:17-18) when a person is truly converted God begins a sanctifying process in them, a spiritual washing (Eph. 5:26). Someone who claims to be saved and yet lives a life that shows no care for the things of God, that looks exactly like the rest of the world, that has not experienced victory over besetting sins over a period of time, such a person ought to examine himself to see whether he be in the faith. (II Cor. 13:5) Not to see if one has lost their salvation, but to see if they ever really had it at all.
Concerning Heb. 6:4-6, there is no denying that this as a hard passage of scripture to understand and has been debated by hundreds of theologians over thousands of years. My understanding through study is that it speaks of those who have "tried" Christianity out, never fully trusting in Christ but giving him a "trial period" of sorts, when such ones decide that Christianity is not for them, they are without hope. The venerable Dr. John Gill held to this position as well and gave Cain, Pharaoh, and Judas as examples of such. If they make a mockery of Christ's sacrifice for them and cast it off, how else will they be saved? There is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved, so it is impossible for them to be renewed to repentance as they have already made up their mind they will not submit to Christ's finished work.
Hope this helps in some way, I highly recommend John Gill if you can find any of his commentaries, they are available for free on esword.
The parables in Matt. 25 are dealing with the world and particularly the church being unprepared for the final coming of Christ. The first parable tells us that some of the virgins (many old commentators think that this is dealing with the professing church, as a virgin would denote professed purity and singularity of heart to a particular person) had slumbered and had not prepared themselves adequately to meet the bridegroom, while others had fully prepared themselves for his coming. The second has similar implications of some servants who had kept the return of their lord in the forefront of their thinking and resulting actions and others who had for all intents and purposes forgot that the lord would come and demand an answer for his actions. If you are asking how this relates to the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone, we must understand that those whom Christ as justified he will also ensure that they grow in grace and truth. (Gal. 3:3, Phi. 1:6, I Cor. 6:9-11, Jam. 2:17-18) when a person is truly converted God begins a sanctifying process in them, a spiritual washing (Eph. 5:26). Someone who claims to be saved and yet lives a life that shows no care for the things of God, that looks exactly like the rest of the world, that has not experienced victory over besetting sins over a period of time, such a person ought to examine himself to see whether he be in the faith. (II Cor. 13:5) Not to see if one has lost their salvation, but to see if they ever really had it at all.
Concerning Heb. 6:4-6, there is no denying that this as a hard passage of scripture to understand and has been debated by hundreds of theologians over thousands of years. My understanding through study is that it speaks of those who have "tried" Christianity out, never fully trusting in Christ but giving him a "trial period" of sorts, when such ones decide that Christianity is not for them, they are without hope. The venerable Dr. John Gill held to this position as well and gave Cain, Pharaoh, and Judas as examples of such. If they make a mockery of Christ's sacrifice for them and cast it off, how else will they be saved? There is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved, so it is impossible for them to be renewed to repentance as they have already made up their mind they will not submit to Christ's finished work.
Hope this helps in some way, I highly recommend John Gill if you can find any of his commentaries, they are available for free on esword.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
The mirror of God's word.
Psa. 119:133 Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have any dominion over me.
Have you ever met someone that was just photogenic? Sometimes they are not even strikingly good looking in real life, but you just can't get a bad picture of them. I hate those people, okay I don't hate them, but I sure do envy them. I do not know what the opposite of photogenic is, but I'm it. A good picture of me is as rare as hen's teeth, hard to find and harder to believe. I don't think of myself as a bad looking person, my ego tries to tell me I might even be bordering on good looking, but a quick trip to the photo album quickly relegates my head back to it's normal size. I'm either slouching, or the angle makes my nose look huge, or they catch me blinking. Maybe the problem is with the cameras, yea, someone needs to invent a camera that makes me look good. Oh boy, you got your work cut out for you. You would think that somewhere in a hundred pictures there would be at least one good one of me, you would be wrong. I thought I found one once, but then I realized it was someone else standing in front me that made me look good.
Unfortunately, it's not only the camera that catches me at my worst. I read my Bible on a regular basis, and each time I look in it's pages I see a new angle of me that I don't like. I like to think I'm a pretty good person, my ego tries to tell me I might even be better than most, but a quick reading of God's word quickly shows me other wise. I don't know what it is, but I just can't seem to find a passage of scripture that puts me in a good light. I thought I found one once but then I realized it was Jesus standing in for me that made me look so good. There is one major difference between the two. As far as the cameras go, I'm stuck with this mug for life and it probably won't get any better, but when it comes to the scriptures, with each new flaw I find, I have a chance to make it right. That's what I'm hoping in, though I may look pretty bad right now, I pray that with God's help I can correct the flaws with time. The challenge is humbling myself enough to realize that the problems are just that, and then being dedicated enough to do what I have to do to fix them. All too often I want to think the problem is with the Bible, and if I could just change that, I'd be okay. If only the Bible could be changed to make me look good. This is the solution many people have come up with, and have either reworded or redefined the bible to fit their agenda. The problem is, that while all of heaven and earth will one day melt away with a fervent heat, God's word will stay the same forever (II Pet. 3:10, I Pet. 1:25). So I guess that means that the only option left is for me to change. Oh well, that will give me something to do while I wait for you to invent that camera that makes me look good. Good luck.
Have you ever met someone that was just photogenic? Sometimes they are not even strikingly good looking in real life, but you just can't get a bad picture of them. I hate those people, okay I don't hate them, but I sure do envy them. I do not know what the opposite of photogenic is, but I'm it. A good picture of me is as rare as hen's teeth, hard to find and harder to believe. I don't think of myself as a bad looking person, my ego tries to tell me I might even be bordering on good looking, but a quick trip to the photo album quickly relegates my head back to it's normal size. I'm either slouching, or the angle makes my nose look huge, or they catch me blinking. Maybe the problem is with the cameras, yea, someone needs to invent a camera that makes me look good. Oh boy, you got your work cut out for you. You would think that somewhere in a hundred pictures there would be at least one good one of me, you would be wrong. I thought I found one once, but then I realized it was someone else standing in front me that made me look good.
Unfortunately, it's not only the camera that catches me at my worst. I read my Bible on a regular basis, and each time I look in it's pages I see a new angle of me that I don't like. I like to think I'm a pretty good person, my ego tries to tell me I might even be better than most, but a quick reading of God's word quickly shows me other wise. I don't know what it is, but I just can't seem to find a passage of scripture that puts me in a good light. I thought I found one once but then I realized it was Jesus standing in for me that made me look so good. There is one major difference between the two. As far as the cameras go, I'm stuck with this mug for life and it probably won't get any better, but when it comes to the scriptures, with each new flaw I find, I have a chance to make it right. That's what I'm hoping in, though I may look pretty bad right now, I pray that with God's help I can correct the flaws with time. The challenge is humbling myself enough to realize that the problems are just that, and then being dedicated enough to do what I have to do to fix them. All too often I want to think the problem is with the Bible, and if I could just change that, I'd be okay. If only the Bible could be changed to make me look good. This is the solution many people have come up with, and have either reworded or redefined the bible to fit their agenda. The problem is, that while all of heaven and earth will one day melt away with a fervent heat, God's word will stay the same forever (II Pet. 3:10, I Pet. 1:25). So I guess that means that the only option left is for me to change. Oh well, that will give me something to do while I wait for you to invent that camera that makes me look good. Good luck.
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