In light of the previous post on faith as a gift from God, and some discussion it has generated with a close brother of mine, I felt it would be helpful to add some follow-up that would, I pray, help the church in her preaching, teaching, and evangelism. This includes five exhortations of my own to consider and some penetrating words by John Duncan that was recently posted at Desiring God.
Five exhortations to consider when teaching on God’s sovereignty in granting faith alongside the person’s necessary response of faith for salvation:
- We must resort to the Scriptures, and surrender to all of them, and believe what they mean to communicate regarding the nature of God, the state of man, and God’s purposes in redemption. For example, do not be a “whosoever” kind of guy at the expense of being a “because-God” kind of guy (and vice-versa).
- We must not allow what we (rightly) believe about the meticulously exhaustive sovereignty of God to suppress our plea with sinners to repent and trust in Christ. Rather, it ought to embolden our plea (Read the prayer surrounding Acts 4:28).
- We must not allow the fact that God grants salvation to be a loophole for our unbelief or an excuse for our refusal in coming to him. Here, I am thinking of this attitude: “Well, I am not doing anything unless God does it first.” Rather, we must submit ourselves to his commands, and in doing so prove to be one of his own. God’s own come to him as King and Judge or they do not come at all.
- We must not ever think about God’s sovereignty in granting faith, or love, or perseverance, etc. as an excuse for not doing them. Obey! We must “work out our salvation with fear and trembling, BECAUSE God is at work in us both to will and to do.”
- We must not think that because God grants faith in Christ, that he would ever do this apart from the means of the communicated gospel. Faith comes [i.e. it is generated by] hearing the word of Christ. Preach.
John “Rabbi” Duncan’s answer to “How then shall we preach to those who cannot come to Christ, but must come in order to be saved”:
It would not do to tell a man that he may come to Christ, but that he must come. Some, indeed, would have man to do all, though he could do nothing; and others would have him to do nothing, because all was done for him.
As long as I am told that I must come to God, and that I can come, I am left to suppose that some good thing, or some power of good remains in me, and I arrogate to myself that which belongs to Jehovah. The creature is exalted, and God is robbed of His glory.
If, on the other hand, I am told that I cannot come to God, but not also that I must come, I am left to rest contented at a distance from God, I am not responsible for my rebellion, and God Jehovah is not my God.
But if we preach that sinners can’t come, and yet must come, then is the honour of God vindicated, and the sinner is shut up. Man must be so shut up that he must come to Christ, and yet know that he cannot. He must come to Christ, or he will look to another, when there is no other to whom he may come; he cannot come, or he will look to himself.
This is the gospel vice, to shut up men to the faith. Some grasp at one limb of the vice and some at the other, leaving the sinner open – but when a man is shut up that he must and cannot, he is shut up to the faith – shut up to the faith, and then would he be shut up in the faith. God is declared to be Jehovah, and the sinner is made willing to be saved by Him, in His own way, as sovereign in His grace (Rich Gleanings, 392).
[HT]: Desiring God (posted by John Piper on March 6, 2009)
Posted by Bret 
Posted by Bret 
