The Doctrines of Grace

A few weeks ago I taught about the Trinity in our Basic Theology group. As part of the discussion we covered a number of significant heresies that had dogged the church in its early days (200~500BC). These erroneous beliefs had been declared as heresy and put to rest by various church councils. At least that is what we thought about them. They were well outside of the foundational orthodoxy and heterodoxy of all of the orthodox church landscape. But the work of the evil one is persistent.

One of the key errors concerned the Trinity, and was known as Modalism.

Okay, so there I was visiting a local nursing home this afternoon. I was chatting with a lady, and in brief the significant part went something like this (with the small talk left out):

Me: Where are you from?

Her: The ….. (a Pacific Rim country)

Me: I have a number of friends from there. I know them from church. Are you a Christian?

Her: Yes

Me: Do you go do church?

Her: Back home I did, but not here.

Me: Oh, what church?

Her: The Church of the One God.

And then she added “We don’t believe in the Trinity.”

Well, I don’t know if she saw my ears perk up or the “Say what?” expression on my face but…

Without being too pushy, I trolled a bit more and realized that I was in the presence of a real, live Modalist! I was back in the early church era!

Folks, just to be clear, this is not squabbling about drums in the worship service. This is serious stuff that can affect the very grounds and sufficiency of the Gospel.

Now, admittedly, there are lots of people in today’s evangelical church who hold slightly Modalistic views without realizing it. They have never been exposed to the biblical truth (shame on their church and Pastors – but that is for another post some time later). For example, they regard the Holy Spirit as only an extension of God’s power, rather than a full person of the Godhead with the same being, power and authority as the Father and Son. This, however, appeared to be much more than that. This was flat out denial of the Trinity, period.

I am still somewhat in dis-belief.

I will certainly meet this lady again and I will plum the depths of this some more. At her relatively young age, it is most certainly a result of bad and heretical teaching, but it does show that there are large groups of people who have run seriously amuck and into dangerous territory.

The doctrinal wolves among the sheep indeed.

The local church in this case is saying that we choose Christ, triggering (that is, causing)  Him to appoint us to eternal life. There is not mention of any prerequisite work of the Spirit. This means that we are at some point in the process completely responsible for initiating our salvation and that we are capable of doing so as we stand. This is the error.

This vests the decision of who is save and who is not solely in the hands of a man, making him sovereign in initiating his ascension to eternal life. One can argue semantics but that is what they are saying.

Scripture, on the other hand, is unequivocal that the decision of who is to be save and who will believe is made solely by God BEFORE creation.

Further, Scripture makes it clear that man can NOT turn to Christ in his natural, unchanged state. Only the work of the Holy Spirit BEFOREHAND changes a man’s heart so that he can turn to Christ.

The Scriptural truth places the decision of who is saved, as well as how and when, solely in the hands of  God.  God is therefor solely and wholly sovereign in the ascension of the sinner to eternal life.

By take a ‘high view’ for man’s sovereignty, the belief under review demeans the sovereignty of the Creator. Man is conceived as not only sovereign over himself, but since his action causes God to act, God is in fact obligated to act on man’s behalf subsequent to the belief  ‘decision’.

Man is no longer the humble clay before the potter, but the sovereign clay who controls the potter’s action. This is a recipe for pride and hubris in man and for the believer to feel exalted in himself.

Once a believer casts himself  into this salvation creating role, the proper biblical attitude of obedience and acceptance toward God will surely evaporate over time. Man’s role will expand in significance to one assuming a God who is not omnipotent but limited.

This is an afront to and direct challenge to the God of the Bible. Throughout redemptive history, such attitudes have not been well received before the Lord…

I came across the quote below in the Doctrinal statement of an unnamed emergent church plant…

“When we put our faith in Christ, it triggers a spiritual chain reaction. We become the Temple of the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 6:19). Our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Rev. 3:5).”

Sound pretty good? Appears to be based in Scripture? Looks can be deceiving. Please read it again.

It denies the foundational and critical sovereignty of God as clearly stated in the bible. Let’s see how…

Reducing their statement to the logic and intent we have  “When we put our faith in Christ, it triggers a spiritual chain reaction…Our names are written…”.

Action -> Result 1 and Result 2

You put our faith in Christ resulting in your inclusion in the Book of Life

I honestly can’ t see that anyone could interpret this any other way.

Well, to be blunt, that is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Let’s look at the truth of Scripture in Ephesians 1:4-6
“even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love ⁵ he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (italics mine)

Their statement stays that the believer was were chosen after they believed and because they decided to believe.

Scripture says that the believer was  chosen (and thus written in the Book of Life) before creation. These verses contain no caveats, individual conditions or other provisions for later causation.

These are two opposite positions, and they can’t both be correct. If the Bible is the sole statement of truth (Sola Scriptura), then this doctrinal statement is in error and at completely odds with Scripture.

So what? Next, we will examine why this is significant for all believers…