23
CHAPTER 2
GOD’S CALL TO
ABRAHAM: THE DISRUPTIVE TRUTH OF MAN’S KINGDOM REJECTED
Perhaps the most offensive part of the gospel to
modern man is that it claims to be the only way to God. “That’s so bigoted!”
they say. To emphasize the point many will say, “What about the heathen who’ve
never heard?” hoping you don’t have an answer. A more subtle “New Age” approach
goes like this: “I don’t believe in missionary religion; every group of people
needs to follow their own culture without outside interference.”
This chapter will deal with answering these objections
using the natural flow of divine revelation in biblical history. According to
that history, the heathen have heard. Every people group once did have the
truth. This so-called “heathen problem” occurs just as so many other
pseudo-problems occur: people take a piece of biblical truth without taking the
whole picture given in the Bible. They hear the New Testament gospel message
that “there is no other name under heaven. . .by which we must be saved” (Acts
4:12), but they don’t hear Genesis 1-11 that shows why there can’t be any other
name. You must learn, if you haven’t already, that the Bible has be taken as a
unit.[1]
As early civilization slipped spiritually into the
bondage of paganism, mankind’s body of special revelation--the “Noahic Bible”
(Genesis 1-9)--suffered more and more distortion. The traditions and memories
of the 70 people groups gradually became filled with mythology and vain
speculations (see Appendix A). The Word of God was no longer universally
available in clear form.
God, however, had promised in the Garden of Eden that
He would send a Savior, the Seed of the Woman, to restore life to man (Gen.
3:15,21). He also had promised in the new world covenant of Noah’s day that the
human race would survive forever (Gen. 8:21). This gospel promise had to be
kept pure and available so that men and women could be saved by faith in it.
How could it be kept available? Noah, Shem, Ham, and
Japheth who knew the whole story would all be dead five centuries after the
flood. The Babel judgment had shut down clear global communication. As the Ice
Age ended, tribes and nations would become further separated geographically.
What God did to advance the gospel plan of salvation was to make a radical and
unexpected move. In this chapter I will examine His new work by discussing His
call to Abraham, His new covenant with Abraham, and the great truths of
election, justification, and faith which would forever be associated with
Abraham by New Testament authors.
The rest of Genesis is taken up with God’s call to
Abram and its consequences through four generations of his family. The familiar
literary “marker” (“these are the generations of X”) occurs in 11:27 (X=Terah),
25:12 (X=Ishmael), 25:19 (X=Isaac), 36:1 (X=Esau), and 37:2 (X=Jacob). This
remaining section of Genesis has 39 chapters of material compared with only 11
chapters devoted to pre-Abrahamic history. Clearly, the Holy Spirit wants us to
see the overarching importance of the Father’s work in this first Jewish
family.
The Old Universal Order. The light of the Noahic Bible
had grown very dim by the time of Terah, Abraham’s father. The new pagans tried
again and again to build social orders uniting mankind in their separation from
God, environments comfortable for fallen man, and safe from God’s
interference—secondary “Babels” if you will. Along with these efforts
historical chronology began to be “inflated” to replace eternity with vast
stretches of time (see Appendix B).
This pagan trend was opposed, however, in various
locations and tribes by faithful believers who continued stubborn adherence to
the God of Noah. The Bible gives us a glimpse of them in the meeting between
Melchizedek, the King-Priest of Salem, and Abraham (then known as Abram) in
Genesis 14:17-21. Here was the ruler of a small settlement in the thoroughly
pagan Canaanite land, yet he remained true to the Noahic Bible. As B. F.
Westcott wrote:
“Melchizedek appears at a crisis in the religious
history of the world as a representative of primitive revelation. . .still
preserved in some isolated tribe. . . .Before the fresh order is established we
have a vision of the old in its superior majesty; and this on the eve of
disappearance, gives its blessing on the new.”[2]
Since the blessing was given by Melchizedek to
Abraham, and not the other way around, this event teaches that whatever God does
in history through Abraham, it is ultimately for a universal, race-wide purpose
and not just for a particular, nationalistic goal. As the New Testament book
Hebrews points out, using Psalm 110, the priesthood of Jesus Christ is not the
national, Jewish, Levitical priesthood but the universal, gentile,
Melchizedekian one (Heb. 5:5-10; 6:20-7:22; cf. Ps. 110:4).
Even today occasional surviving memories of this
ancient Noahic revelation, like Melchizedek, can be found among various people
groups of the world. Don Richardson comments: “God has indeed prepared the
Gentile world to receive the gospel. Significant numbers of non-Christians, therefore, have proved themselves many time more
willing to receive the gospel than we Christians historically have been willing
to share it with them.”[3]
He continues with examples of such remnant survivals
from every continent discovered within the last several centuries. Here is the
answer to the so-called “heathen problem”!
The New Exclusivism. Immediately after Abraham had
received the blessing from Melchizedek (King of Righteousness), he was offered
war booty left over from his defense of the land. This offer came from another
king, the king of Sodom (Gen. 14:21-24). Abraham refused the offer, saying “I
will not take. . .anything
that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram
rich’.” In accepting blessing from the King of Righteousness but rejecting
material goods from the King of Sodom, Abraham clearly aligned himself with the
residual Noahic order over against the growing pagan order.
A profound separatist movement had begun. Genesis
11:27-12:9 provides us the story. Originally from the Mesopotamian heartland
near Babel, Abraham was called by God to separate from that pagan culture to
wherever He would direct him. God was “leaving” the worldwide pagan culture to
its own ways as I showed
in the last chapter (Acts 14:16; 17:30a; Rom.
1:23-32). For Abraham and his family to have continued living in Mesopotamia
would have meant that they would have to “serve other gods” (cf. Gen. 31:53;
Josh. 24:2).[4]
From this point forward in history, God would reach
out to the world only indirectly through Abraham’s progeny. Here is the
biblical repudiation of every non-Israelite religion. Every religion outside of
Israel (except for possible remnant survivals of Noahic faith) is formed by
human work built upon depravity. Israel’s religion alone is of divine
construction built upon grace. Truth becomes the exclusive property of God’s
elect people, “open minded” pagan objections to the contrary notwithstanding.
Let’s look at the logical flaw in the pagan objection—the so-called “heathen problem”. The argument looks like this: (1) vast numbers of mankind have never heard the New Testament; (2) the New Testament insists upon Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation; (3) therefore Christianity is unjust to insist mankind cannot be saved except through a message they have never heard. The flaw is found in (1) and (3). All people groups originally possessed the Noahic Bible and, therefore, not only were God-conscious but also had the gospel message, whether or not they ever heard the New Testament. It simply is not true that the nations never have heard a Word from God. The truth is, they all heard it and turned deliberately away from it. Because of sin in all men, God has elected to work with a special people group in a special way in order to call all mankind to repentance (Acts 17:30).
Missionary Implications. Besides the exclusiveness of separatistic biblical
religion, paradoxically there is the missionary obligation to go back into the
world with the truth. Abraham was told to “go forth from your country” in order
that finally “in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Gen.
12:1,3). The former head of Missions at Dallas Theological Seminary, George W.
Peters has observed that Israel was to become both a separatist “divine
counterculture” and also “a channel, not a storehouse, of blessing” to the
world. He sums up the Old Testament faith:
“Raised up by God to declare normative religion, it
has been assailed from its beginning and repeatedly threatened with destruction
and corruption, but God has graciously and miraculously preserved both the
books of its content (the Old Testament) and the people as its bearer (Israel).
Indeed the Old Testament is a missionary book and Israel a missionary people.”
Missions and evangelism, therefore, are automatically
implied in the Old Testament. Abraham and his seed were to separate from paganism
so they could accomplish their mission toward it. The gospel message is not
100% new or “foreign” to any “target” culture; it is linked to the residue of
early revelation from Noah still left in that culture. The gospel fulfills the
heart-longings of every heathen nation for what they have buried during their
descent from Noah.
After Abraham responded by faith to God’s call (Gen.
12), God announced a new covenant with him (Gen. 15). God’s previous covenant
or contract with the new world of Noah’s day had four elements: the parties to
the contract, the signing of the contract, the legal terms involved, and a
founding sacrifice. Why this contract form? I said in Part II that “people and
nations make contracts and treaties when either there has been a ruptured
relationship in the past or there is a threat of discord in the future.” A
covenant concerns “a relationship that must be verified with a witnessed record
of compliance to specific terms.” Once made, a covenant is not to be arbitrarily
tampered with as the Apostle Paul noted in Galatians 3:15.
As W. F. Albright observed, of all religions in the
world only in biblical Judaism are there actual contracts between God and
man.[8] The reason, of course, is that only in the Bible is there an
infinite-personal Creator Who speaks words of revelation! Paganism opposes this
truth at the most foundational level. At Babel, paganism said that man must
make for himself a
name and a meaning (Gen. 11:4). To
Abraham God said He, not man, would make Abraham a name and a meaning, indeed,
a “great name” (Gen. 12:2). God profoundly disrupts the pagan agenda. Which is
it to be with you? Who will make your name? Who will define the meaning of your
life? You can’t have it both ways!
God’s covenant with Abraham defines His program of
“disrupting” salvation for the world from about 2000BC forward into eternity.
Because it is a salvation program that requires faith in Him, rather than
autonomous works of man, God offers a verifiable contract to measure His
compliance that our trust in Him may grow. God is known in the Bible as a
“covenant-keeping” God.
The Parties to the Abrahamic Covenant. Whereas in the new world covenant of Noah’s day, the
parties included all descendents of Noah--all the nations of men, in this
covenant the parties are more limited. Only God on one hand, and Abraham
together with his progeny on the other hand (Gen. 17:7) are parties to it. Thus
arises the exclusivism, the rejection of mankind who are not of the “seed of
Abraham”.
There is a mystery here. Paul claims in Galatians 3:29
that every believer saved in Christ is considered as being part of Abraham’s
progeny. If the blessing of salvation is to be limited to Abraham’s progeny
which comes into existence after the 70 nation groups in Genesis 10, how can
“all nations”—obviously not descendents from Abraham—be blessed? How, for
example, could Egyptians or Ethiopians who pre-existed all of Abraham’s
physical children be blessed in him? Just how is Abraham “father” to Egyptians
or Ethiopians who are not descended physically from him? Is Paul merely
allegorizing the Abrahamic Covenant rather than taking it literally? Has the
contract lost its legal force? I discuss this problem below under the legal
terms.
The Signing of the Abrahamic Covenant. Contracts are
signed by the parties responsible for carrying out the terms. In the prior new
world covenant God alone was responsible for carrying out its terms, so God
alone signed it with physical replica of His throne’s glory--the rainbow. [8]
In this covenant, too, God alone is responsible for carrying out its terms so
He alone signs it.
In a dramatic act, God’s revelation of Himself passed
between the halves of the animals Abraham had slaughtered (Gen. 15:7-17).
Passing between halves of cut animals was a way of signing serious contracts in
biblical times (cf. Jer. 34:18-19). This act, along with God’s later solitary
oath to uphold this contract (Gen. 22:15-18), reveals that God alone is
required to bring the covenant’s legal terms to pass. Abraham couldn’t do
anything to sign it; he was asleep! By omitting man’s works, it is therefore a
covenant of sovereign grace.
Nevertheless, because the covenant involved actual
family units headed by responsible fathers (the divine institution of family),
for a specific family to qualify for full covenant blessings, the father-head
had to see that all males in his house were circumcised (Gen. 17:9-14).
Circumcision was a covenant ritual of obedience showing faith. This ritual was
divinely-designed to point at critical spiritual truths.
1. Circumcision revealed that the fallen flesh is
present from birth so it was administered in Israel to infants rather than to
adolescents as in pagan cultures (Lev. 12:2-3).
2. Circumcision identified sexual propagation,
particularly the male sperm, as responsible for linking all mankind into the
sin of Adam (Gen. 5:3; Rom. 5:12-14; Heb. 7:4-10). This radically devalues sex
as “the” creative force as it universally is considered in paganism.
3. Circumcision did not necessarily imply that the
child was regenerate (Ishmael was circumcised in Genesis 17:25 but apparently
was an unbeliever--Gen. 21:9; Rom. 2:25-29; 4:11-12). Rituals do not always
imply reality.
4. Circumcision testified to an analogy between
surgery performed on the organ of fleshly reproduction of physical life and
miraculous surgery on the organ of spiritual life—the “heart” (Lev. 26:41;
Deut. 10:16; 30:6; Col. 2:11-13). The Legal Terms of the Abrahamic Covenant.
The legal commitments God made can be summarized in three promises, each having
both a particular application to Israel and a universal application to all
mankind. Both are important to verifying God’s performance and thus His trustworthy
nature.
1. Land. God promised that this family would
possess eternal title to specific real estate from near Egypt northward to at
least Syria [9] (Gen. 13:14-17; 15:18-21; 17:8). This promise included land not
only for the nation Israel but also for the location of the eternal location of
the cosmic Temple of God, the everlasting New Jerusalem (Rev. 21-22). This
promise does far more than assure various borders in future history; it
virtually shapes the everlasting planet earth! Planet earth is the theological
center of the universe. The land promise cannot be “spiritualized” and
transferred to some mystical state of the Church. This promise, according to
Jesus, even implies the physical resurrection of believers (Matt. 22:31-32).
2. Seed. God promised that Abraham would father
a family (“seed”) that would become very numerous and survive throughout all
history (Gen. 12:2; 13:15-17; 15:5,13-16,18; 17:1-8; 22:17). This family would
include not only Isaac, Jacob, and the twelve.29 tribes
but also the promised Seed of the Woman. Through Christ as Seed of the Woman,
as the “circumciser” of human hearts, as one descended from Abraham (Matt. 1),
believers from all nations become by adoption in Christ the children of
Abraham. Abraham’s seed would come about, beginning with Isaac, miraculously.
The seed was never merely physical descent. The New Testament fulfillment,
therefore, is not some disconnected “spiritualized” interpretation of the term
“seed”; it flows directly from the miraculously-born physical seed of Abraham.
3. World-wide Blessing. Finally God promised
exceeding blessing upon this family that would reach outward to all men (Gen.
12:3; 22:18). According to Paul the term “blessing” includes all that is meant
by salvation in Christ (Gal. 3:14). The nations, therefore, are blessed “in
Abraham” for it is through him that God reaches out to the world. Throughout
the rest of the Old Testament the God of Israel is worshipped as the God of all
nations (note, for example, the words in Pss. 47:9;
100:1; 126:2b).
The Founding Sacrifice of the Abrahamic Covenant. Just as the new world covenant was founded with a
sacrifice, so also the Abrahamic. A holy God and sinful men can meet only upon
the ground of blood atonement. In Genesis 15:17 animals’ lives had to be taken
in order to consummate the agreement. Not only was there violent dismemberment
of the animals, but there was apparently a malediction, a cursing, upon God if
He did not perform the terms of this contract. The “smoking oven” and the
“flaming torch” were used in the Ancient Near East for pronouncing curses on
people.[10] Both the violent animal deaths and the curse surely point to the
execution of the Son of God and the curse that He became that we might live.
The Covenant and the Kingdom. By now you should be able to see that God’s call to
Abraham was a major shift in history. It established visible opposition to the
growing paganism. From now on there would be war between Babylon and Jerusalem
until the final triumph over evil. On one side there would be the Kingdom of
Man ever seeking to thwart God’s ban on one-world government under fallen
leadership. There would be the ever-present pagan agenda of an autonomous
destiny, free of God’s interference and accountability to Him. Without a creation,
without a fall, without a flood, and without a covenant, man thinks he at last
can be free to make of himself whatever he wishes. On the other side there
would be the growing Kingdom of God program that preserves human history’s
“secrets” that paganism so desperately suppresses. Radically different at the
most basic presuppositional level, this agenda comes from above, predefined
before all human thought. Faith and grace, not works, would be the new modus
operandi dependent upon specific words from God in contractual form for all to
see.
When God called Abraham, he rejected man’s new pagan
kingdom. He chose to do a new thing, something that would involve Abraham and
his progeny all the way to the end of history. His new program would surely
triumph over paganism while at the same time be “dependent” upon men’s
responses to His calling. Thus the Apostle Paul explains how Abraham’s progeny
contains an unbroken lineage of believers until the return of Christ by
emphasizing the doctrine of election (Rom.9-11). Election disrupts the
universalism of paganism by insisting that only some men, not all, will believe
unto salvation.
A second doctrine deeply associated with Abraham is
justification. At Babel paganism had insisted that man would justify himself by
his own efforts (Gen. 11:4). In calling Abraham God countered that He, and He
alone, would be the justifier. From this Abrahamic history Paul teaches that
man becomes justified before God not by his own works, but by faith just as
Abraham was (Rom. 4).
Both of these doctrines form the heart of the gospel
“disruption” to the pagan agenda. To believe truly the gospel you must settle
the issue of God’s call to you and His requirement for your justification.
Since these truths are so crucial in understanding salvation and
sanctification, I will survey both of them in this section.
The Doctrine of Election. To
understand something of this complex truth of election, you must integrate it
with the rest of revealed truth we have studied—the creation, fall, flood, and
covenant. This is always the approach you must use, whether with the heathen
question, election, or anything else. Never try to learn one piece of
revelation isolated from the rest, or you will eventually at some point
compromise the presupposition of biblical faith. That is why this series is
called a “framework”.
Ur and Haran—were known centers of worship of the moon
god Nannar/Sin. As I showed in Part II of this series, such paganism “buries”
the memory of ex-nihilo creation along with the Creator-creature distinction.
All reality is viewed as one continuous scale of being. History appears to be
run for a time by, say, a moon god until another god supplants him. Behind
these wars of the gods lies the ultimate mystery of the tablets of destiny or
fate or chance.
To respond to God’s call to leave the domain of the
moon god, Abraham had to have believed that God was Creator over all and
therefore that His message of election was secure from any interference. It was
God’ sovereign plan, not some tables of destiny, that
would control the history of Abraham and his progeny.
Like Abraham we have to leave our pagan notions behind
when we face the doctrine of election. It must be understood against the
backdrop of creation: that there is a Personal Sovereign behind origins and
history; and that there are two levels of being—Creator and creature—not one.
The Creator’s (Q)uality of sovereignty cannot be identical to the human
creature’s (q)uality of choice.[11] Our choice is only a finite replica of
God’s sovereignty so we ought not to visualize God’s control over us like, say,
some deterministic chemical cause-effect reaction. Such sub-biblical
imaginations always erase personal responsibility because, like Nimrod, they
cannot conceive controlling real people without some form of coercion.
Nor should we visualize God’s control over us like
some accurate prediction of what probably will come to pass. In electing
Abraham and his seed God was not predicting the course of history because He
knew some set of laws independent of Himself or because He foreknew how men
would choose. Men predict with only relative accuracy (Matt. 16:2-3); God
decrees perfectly what comes to pass (Isa. 41:17-29). It is He Who determines
the amount of revelational “pressure” to believe on each person so the faith
that is “foreseen” itself is of Him (note Matt. 11:21). Election, therefore,
must be seen as an act of the Creator Who is incomprehensible (although
knowable), not a bigger version of human choice or natural law. His purpose
stands “not of (human) works but of Him that calls” (Rom. 9:11).
2. Election Rests upon the Fall. Election must
also be visualized against the backdrop of the fall. What made Abraham’s
election necessary? Was it not the rebellion of early civilization? In Romans
9, Paul argues that some of Abraham’s seed, his son Ishmael and grandson Esau,
were rejected from covenantal blessings. Their disbelief and departure were not
a failure of the Abrahamic Covenant; it was a playing out of the elective
character of that Covenant. God chooses whom he wills (9:14-24).
Critics insist that such electing work of God is
“arbitrary” and “unfair”, a sort of cosmic roulette. This criticism occurs,
however, because of pagan principles imported into the discussion. They
visualize God after the manner of finite, fallen man who does what is right in
his own eyes free of any higher, controlling norm or standard. Absence of such
a higher, controlling norm is no problem for the Creator because His holy,
loving nature is the norm.
To explain election Paul uses the “potter” illustration
borrowed from Isaiah and Jeremiah (cf. Rom. 9:21-24; Isa. 29:16;.32 Jer. 18:2-10). The potter, after the original pot had
become marred, decided to transform it into another vessel (Jer. 18:4). God,
after Israel had rebelled against Him, turned it into captivity. In like
fashion, after man fell, God leaves some men “marred” as “vessels of wrath
fitted for destruction” (Rom. 9:22); others He call or elects to a
transformation into “vessels of mercy” (9:23-24).
There is a certain “asymmetry” here in how God works (note in 9:22-24 the shift in voice of the verbs). He is sovereign over all men, but His sovereignty is exercised differently. One group is “left” in rebellion and are responsible for their sad state; the other is called and God is responsible for their salvation. In Genesis 11 God leaves the rebellious postdiluvian civilization in their rebellion and in Genesis 12 calls Abraham out from it (cf. Deut. 4:19-20). God is sovereign over evil in a different way than He is over good. How thankful we can be that He graciously called us out of the world along with Abraham!
3. Election Reveals New Thoughts From God’s Mind.
When God called Abraham and began His special plan of salvation through Israel,
it was a surprise. It would not have been predicted by any man no matter how
much he knew of Genesis 1-11. Election “disrupts” the normal chain of
cause-effect that mankind gets used to seeing. Until the moment of the actual
call, election rests solely in God’s omniscience, hidden from human view.
The epistle to the Hebrews describes God’s working as
causing historical events like the call of Abraham from beyond history. History
does not flow by itself (from “things which do appear”-Heb. 11:3). The pagan
mind of flesh wants ever so desperately to know all things so as to avoid
having to trust God. Historians ever seek to explain history solely in terms of
economics, geography, politics, or whatever. Scientific historians--biological
evolutionists, geological uniformitarians, and astrophysical
cosmologists--search desperately for a “holy grail”, a final theory to explain
everything to man’s finite understanding. All such effort is to no avail
because of the way God has made history and man (Ecc. 3:11b).
One important effect of understanding election as a
surprise is that it accords genuine significance to history. Before creation
the universe was in God’s mind, but it did not exist in itself (i.e., there was
one, not two, levels of existence). God did not merely dream the universe; He
created it! Similarly, God does not merely dream the elect; He calls them into
historical existence through the gospel.
Sometimes you will meet hyper-Calvinists who speak of
“unsaved elect”. They will tell you if they knew who these unsaved elect were,
they wouldn’t bother witnessing to the non-elect. This thinking fails to
recognize the biblical insistence. upon two
levels of existence; it thoroughly confuses the existence of the elect in God’s
mind with the existence of the elect in history. Thankfully few such
hyper-Calvinists take matters to the logical conclusion: why do anything in
history,
including eating, if everything already exists in
God’s mind? Why did God bother to create the universe if merely dreaming it
would have been enough?
A second effect of seeing election as a revelatory
surprise is that it separates our mind from any pagan notion of its own
sufficiency, of the fleshly tendency to “lean upon our own understanding”(Prov.
3:5). Unlike Babel where mankind tried to plan for a global civilization
independent from its Creator, God’s election program with Abraham required him
to look to God for the promises in utter dependence upon Him. His “name” and
meaning, as well as ours, cannot come from a pagan agenda based solely upon finite
human thought. It must come from God’s mind, appearing to us as an ever
expanding “surprise”.
4. Election Is God’s Basic Eternal Promise To You
and Me. In Abraham’s case all three of the promises--land, seed, and
worldwide blessing--were still future when God called. A very important
implication of election is that every other promise God makes to his elect is
contained already in His election promise. If the final state of the elect is
promised, then every need leading to that final state must also be promised.
Jesus used this reasoning when He deduced resurrection from the Abrahamic
Covenant (Matt. 22:29-32).
Election, then, is basic to all else in the Christian
life. Contrary to Arminian claims, we must begin our new life in Christ knowing
of our election, that our names are written in the book of life (Luke 10:20;
cf. I Thess. 1:4; II Pet. 1:10; II John 1). Without this assurance we can never
truly claim any of God’s promises because we can never be sure that they are
addressed to us! Knowing that God has called us and works in us to will and do
of His good pleasure must precede our faith walk as I will show in the last
section of this chapter (cf. Phil. 2:12-13).
The Doctrine of Justification. The second
great doctrine revealed in Abraham’s call is the doctrine of justification by
faith made so famous in the Protestant Reformation. In Genesis 15:6, just prior
to God’s revelation of the Abrahamic Covenant, a circumstantial notice occurs:
“He believed in the LORD; and He reckoned (imputed) it to him as
righteousness.” For God to enter into covenant with Abraham or any man
concerning salvation, the man must legally (forensically) be righteous or holy.
Although the founding sacrifice showed that blood atonement is involved, this
notice shows that faith, too, is involved.
Like election, justification must be understood in relation to other revealed truths; it can’t be learned in isolation. Whereas election disrupted the pagan agenda by asserting God’s sovereignty over against imagined “chance”, justification opposes paganism by asserting God’s holiness over against human ethical judgments. To explain this doctrine I make four points.
1. Justification Rests upon Creation and the Fall.
From creation we learned of the divine institution of responsible labor.[12]
During Creation Week God crafted the universe day by day. After each day’s
work, He paused and evaluated it (“He saw it was good”). In a similar way,
humans are to produce tangible and intangible goods and services which invite
evaluation or pricing. Evaluation comes about by other persons who impute or
credit value to one’s words and works and forms the heart of economics.
However, the Bible insists that human pricing is only
approximate and relative depending upon the one doing the evaluation. God alone
knows the intrinsic worth of one’s words and works so that He alone can “price”
our lives absolutely. Thus the ordinary economic activity of pricing goods and
services is a finite analogy of God’s judgment of our lives. The Bible,
therefore, uses the economic term, “imputation” or “crediting”, when it speaks
of God’s judgments of man’s worth. A severe complication in this evaluation
process occurred with the fall. Man the sinner can no longer produce
righteousness in thought, word, or deed. The first divine institution of
responsible labor within minutes of the fall went about making garments of fig
leaves in an attempt to cover up the results of disobedience (Gen. 3:7). After
the fall the ground was cursed so it would resist normal production with useless
thorns and thistles and would require extra energy to cultivate (Gen. 3:18-19;
cf. Prov. 24:30-33).
The Bible uses the imagery of thorns and thistles to
illustrate the value of fallen man’s total production (Heb. 6:7- 8). “Useless”
and “damnable” is God’s evaluation. Nevertheless, fallen mankind calls evil
good and good evil so human “imputing” or “crediting” is not only inaccurate
but grossly perverted. It comes as a shock to paganism, therefore, when human
works—even what appear to be the best “good works”—are rejected by God. He puts
a “price tag” on all works of the flesh as “worthless” in His eyes. All mankind
is under sin (Rom. 1-3).
2. Justification Must Be the First Step in
Redemption. From the creation and fall, therefore, come two major problems
for mankind that must be solved before any redemptive program can even get off
the ground. First, we have a “negative price tag” because of our sin. We not
only are worthless ethically, but worse than worthless in that we cause
problems for God. Our sins and transgression cost Him
something to fix. Forgiveness costs. Moreover, even when we are forgiven, our
“price” only changes from a minus number to zero. It still is not a positive
number.
The probation in Eden is over. We can’t return to
innocence. History goes on. We can’t plead with God to try the probationary
period again. Therefore to regain the access to His Presence which was lost in
Eden, we have to somehow get where Adam should have been with positive
obedience. Our price tag must go from zero to a positive number due to actual
historic obedience.
To re-enter God’s Presence we must be judged by Him to
have positively obeyed as well as having our transgressions put away. From the
economic analogy of pricing we move to the legal analogy of a verdict. In
Deuteronomy 25:1 the judge was to “justify the righteous and condemn the
wicked”. Only with such a verdict is
our righteousness legally or forensically established.
Justification, therefore, is required prior to entering into any redemptive
program with God.
For Abraham to have been placed into a redemptive
covenant with God, he had to have been justified at the beginning. Paul
develops the point in Genesis 15 that Abraham was declared righteous before he
entered the covenant and was circumcised (Rom. 4:10-11). Note that Abraham was
not just forgiven; he was credited with positive righteousness.
This need for
justification “up front” completely baffles convinced pagans. Denying the creation
and fall, they don’t see man’s problem in moral terms. Man is instead seen as
somewhere on the scale of being and a passive victim to ever-present evil in
the world. Salvation is pictured as climbing a pyramid, an evolutionary ascent
up the scale of being to become like God. Mankind’s problem must be, it is
thought, that he lacks power, information, wealth, or security. That a moral
“re-pricing” is required is wholly beyond their understanding.
3. Justification Requires the Righteousness of
Christ. Where can mankind obtain a historic record of obedience to God’s
will after the fall? On one hand, the fleshly mind is not subject to the will
of God and can’t produce the necessary righteous obedience. On the other hand,
until such a record is produced we can’t pass the entry requirement into God’s
Presence to have Him surgically alter us from our fallen condition
(“circumcision of the heart”).
How did Abraham obtain righteousness? Genesis 15:6
says God credited him with righteousness through his faith. Faith in what?. .
.what God had promised him—land, seed, and an eventual destiny of blessing to
the world! Abraham trusted God’s Word that God would provide him a seed and a
place. The promised progeny would miraculously be
provided from Isaac to Christ. In principle he believed in Christ although he
knew far less than we who live later in the history of revelation.
The wonder of justification is that Jesus Christ’s
life of perfect obedience is credited to every believer! Just as His death on
the Cross removed our sins, His life on earth gives us the righteousness we
need to enter the Presence of God. Both of man’s problems are solved through
Christ: our negative price is brought out of the minus numbers, through zero,
and into positive territory!
Sometimes you will hear justification explained as
“just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned”. That is not true. True justification recognizes
the existence of positive righteousness as well as forgiveness. In 1563
Reformation thinker properly identified justification in the great Heidelberg
Catechism:
“God, without any merit of mine, of mere grace, grants
and imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of
Christ, as if I had never had nor committed any sin, and myself had
accomplished all the obedience which Christ rendered for me . [Emphasis
supplied][13]
Note that this statement emphasizes that justification is all by grace. That is the same point Paul makes in Romans 4 where he insists that unless justification occurs by our faith in an “outside” righteousness supplied to us from Christ, salvation could never be by grace. All human works are thus rejected.
4. Justification Cannot Be Confused With
Regeneration or Sanctification. The idea that justification is due to a
righteousness from “outside” of man, rather than from “inside” him, has not
always been welcomed within the Church. Such imputation of Christ’s obedience
to the sinner seems to be a “legal fiction” that ascribes to man something he
really does not have. For a sinner to be credited with perfection he has not
shown in his personal life is seen by many as a threat to godly
living.
Many times in Church history, therefore, teachers have
tried to base justification upon the condition of the sinner’s heart. While
acknowledging Christ as the source of it all, these teachers claim that His
righteousness is actually transfused into the sinner’s heart first as a basis
for subsequent justification. The work of regeneration and/or sanctification
then becomes the precursor of the verdict of justification.
When Protestants like Luther and Calvin taught
justification by faith alone without any such “precursor” righteousness in the
heart, Roman Catholicism fought back. The Council of Trent (1545-63) declared
in opposition to Protestantism:.
“If they were not born again in Christ, they would
never be justified, since in that new birth there is bestowed upon them,
through the merit of His passion, the grace whereby they are made just. .
.justification is not only the bare remission of sins, but also sanctification
and renewal of the inner man. . . .The ban is placed on any who teach that man
is justified through imputation of the righteousness of Christ. . .exclusive of
the grace and love which is infused into the heart through the Holy Spirit.”
[14]
In other words, “infused grace” received into the
heart—regeneration and sanctification—is supposed to precede and be the cause
of justification. When God justifies, according to Rome, He is looking at
actual righteousness in the regenerated heart, rather than the perfect
righteousness of Christ. Within Protestantism similar “heart-centered”
justification teachings arose. One form is “perfectionism”, viz., the belief
that the heart must be perfect before justification can occur. During Methodist
19th century revivals associates of Charles Finney taught “nothing short of
present entire conformity to the divine law is accepted of God.”[15] Another
form is “conditional justification” where in a certain degree of holiness
(usually left up to the imagination of the individual) is necessary to keep
justification after it has been granted. Thus Arminian theologian Robert Shank
teaches:
“There is nothing about Paul’s affirmation (Rom. 8:29-
30) which establishes that. . .all who experience calling and justification are
necessarily elect and will inevitably persevere.”[16]
According to Shank, justification is good only as long
as one is in Christ. Failure to maintain holiness leads to rejection in this
view because justification in the first place is grounded upon the spiritual
condition of the heart.
Another form of Protestant “heart-centered”
justification, although milder than the previous forms, occurs in certain
“deeper life” and Pentecostal groups. Such groups downplay justification in
favor of internal sanctification experiences. Preoccupation with trying to find
a heart-centered, satisfying experience often causes the Holy Spirit’s
sanctifying work to eclipse Christ’s righteousness in justification.
All forms of “heart-centered” justification—whether Romanist
or Protestant--contradict the emphasis in God’s call to Abraham. The primary
concern in Genesis 12-50 is not some capacity inside Abraham or his seed but
the plan in God’s mind in heaven. Not subjective experiences of the heart, but
objective promises of God’s Word, form the focal point of the narrative.
Abraham looked solely to God Who “calleth those things which are not as though
they were” (Rom. 4:17). Everything was only a promise; nothing had yet
appeared--whether seed, land, or blessing.
Even Abraham’s justification was promissory. God credited what imperfect faith
Abraham had for the perfect righteousness he did not have (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4).
Otherwise, there would have been no basis for an everlasting covenant of
redemption made with him!
Only later in history do we learn of the source of the
righteousness of God, an actual, non-fictional, historically perfect obedience
of the Second Adam. Justification is a verdict reached in heaven between the
Father and the Son, not a work in the heart. The heart, even in regeneration,
is not perfect. If the incomplete work of Christ in the heart were to be
substituted for the completed historic work of Christ made available from
heaven, we could never be certain of acceptence before God! We could not be parties
to any sort of saving covenant!
Those who rebel against God inevitably seek to glorify
themselves, to hide the consequences of their rebellion and justify their pride
to themselves and others. Thus Adam and Eve started the first “cover up” with
fig leaves. Nimrod’s kingdom of man sought to redefine their existence with
glorious architecture and tyrannical civil government. Paul reminds us that
unbelievers bury truths of God and His standards in their hearts (Rom.
1:18-32). These efforts constitute an agenda of self-justifying works.
In sharp contrast, God’s call to Abraham revealed His
agenda of sovereign grace to be received solely by faith. Both election and
justification destroy the pagan “works agenda”. Election speaks of actualizing
a plan of God from “outside” history, beyond whatever plans man might work up.
Justification speaks of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, something
unattainable by fallen man. Man’s response to God’s call, therefore, can only
be one of faith free from “add-on” works.
By “faith” I do not mean the generic term, “belief”,
as it is used in everyday speech (“I believe the answer is. . .”; “I believe he
means what he says”, . . .). Faith, like election and justification, must be
understood inside the biblical world view. The following four points should
help you think about biblical faith.
1. Faith Depends Upon God’s Gracious Initiative.
Biblical faith isn’t the same as everyday belief, say, that the sun will rise
tomorrow. Everyday belief is exercised by all men, believer and unbeliever
alike.[17] Biblical faith cannot be exercised by spiritually dead, fallen
mankind. After Adam’s fall, Adam hid from God. Before his call Abraham’s family
were not seeking to leave the Mesopotamian heartland of paganism (Josh. 24:2)..39 Pagan unbelieving man knows God and His standards
(Rom. 1:19-20,32), and precisely because he does he spends inordinate energies
burying these truths to try to avoid condemnation. Even when arguing for
“moral” positions for others, he secretly avoids submitting to them in his
heart (Rom. 2:1-5). His unbelief is demonically reinforced (II Cor. 4:4).
God, therefore, must initiate reconciliation. He calls
to Adam who is hiding (Gen. 3:9). He calls to Abram in Ur (Acts 7:2). He calls
to men everywhere--though in varying degrees (Matt. 11:20-24). In this Church
Age, through the New Testament gospel, He commands every nation to repent and
believe (Acts 17:30). He maintains His Church through all opposition and the
biblical text in many languages. The principle is stated clearly by Paul:
“faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom. 10:17). This is
biblical, not generic, faith.
2. Faith Depends Upon God’s Illumination and
Inclination of the Human Heart. When God calls, just what does He do? Since
we are spiritually dead, our hearts darkened, and our minds filled with vanity,
He must illuminate and incline our hearts (Rom. 5:5; II Cor.4:6). Through
carefully-tailored circumstances and conversations with others (written and/or
oral) He gives us our own individual “wake-up call”.
What does He say? What is the content of saving faith?
Herein lies great debate! The first Protestant reformers, Calvin and Luther,
insisted through the doctrine of justification by faith alone, that saving
faith was a trust in God’s promise of full acceptance. Fortified with the
doctrine of election that guaranteed that justification was irrevocable, saving
faith was taught as synonymous with assurance. Calvin wrote:
“It is a firm and sure knowledge of divine favor
toward us, founded on the truth of a free promise in Christ, and revealed to
our minds, and sealed in our hearts, by
the Holy Spirit.”[18]
Regarding self-examination commanded in Scripture,
Calvin wrote: “When we so examine ourselves, however, it is not to see whether
our holiness, our works, or the fruit of the Spirit in our lives warrant
assurance of salvation. Rather, it is to determine that such assurance rests on
the proper foundation of God’s mercy in Christ.”[19] Both Romanism and later
Protestantism reacted against this teaching. Wouldn’t such immediate assurance
lead to loose living? By denying the possibility of personal assurance of
salvation, Rome kept her members under the discipline of the Church. Later Protestants,
especially “Calvinists” like the Puritans, tried to defend against Roman
objections by insisting that one could not really be sure he had saving faith
until at the end of his life he was still persevering in faith. Puritans
produced long books on the “morphology of conversion”, morbid treatises
containing numerous tests to determine whether one had truly believed.
In a strange way, then, later Protestantism came back
to denial of the possibility of present assurance just as Roman Catholicism had
insisted all along! Saving faith was no longer seen as assurance. Through fear
of antinomianism, a great truth was compromised. As a result, the biblical
motive for Christian living was lost: gratitude for God’s grace toward me.
Instead the motive for Christian living became trying to gain assurance by
producing enough fruit to “have faith in my faith.” The original Protestant
doctrine of faith was preserved only in small pockets of the Church here and
there, most notably in Lutheran and various Brethren groups. Today it is still
under attack as “easy believism”.
Is faith in God’s elective and justifying call really
“easy believism”? Does His illumination and inclination work in my heart give
me license to sin? Is this gospel message the cause of false professions? Not
if it is understood properly within the biblical framework! The object of
belief, biblically, is my offended Creator and His gracious invitation to “take
the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:17). If I trust that message, then I’m
buying into a wholly different presupposition, a completely different heart
disposition, and radical repentance. The problem today is that the message
doesn’t come across clearly to an increasingly paganized American public. The
words “God”, “sin”, “believe” are perverted in meaning. Thus saving faith will
come about only if we take extra care in living and speaking the gospel message
so that it is very clear to a society that is being rapidly paganized.
Compromising the assurance of saving faith by adding “extras” only further
blocks the clear call of God for men to believe biblically.
3. Faith Depends Upon A Cleansed Conscience.
What function does God’s illumination and inclination message perform in the
heart? Jesus insisted that faith was impossible without a disposition toward
seeking God (John 5:44). No belief would occur as long as a man persisted
trying to cover his sinful rebellion (John 3:20). God’s message, therefore,
must cause repentance at the deepest level, man’s basic choice of life’s
direction.
Obviously, we are dealing here with a miraculous disruption of an unbelieving heart! The inner conscience which has been violated, defiled, and seared must be cleansed (Heb. 10:22). God gave Adam and Eve new clothes to replace their fig-leaf “cover up”; Abraham had to have a clean conscience so he could believe God was really for him. The truths of general revelation buried in my subconscious must be linked with the new truths of the gospel so that it all “fits” me personally. Only by such cleansing can I believe unto salvation. No psychotherapy can ever reach this deeply!
4. Faith Can Only Indirectly Be Observed.
Although the genuine believer has receive assurance internally, the presence of
saving faith can be seen externally only through his words and deeds. This
point is made in the epistle of James where Abraham is discussed. Interested in
showing faith to outside observers, James says Abraham was justified by works
when he offered Isaac as a sacrifice in Genesis 22 (Jas. 2:17-23).
Critics of the Bible love this passage, thinking here
they can cite a contradiction between how Paul speaks of justification by faith
without works and how James speaks of justification by works since each author
is talking about Abraham. They often fail to note the obvious fact that Paul
uses Genesis 15 at the beginning of Abraham’s belief whereas James uses Genesis
22 much later in Abraham’s life. In Genesis 15 Abraham was justified before God
(cf. Rom. 4:2,17); in Genesis 22 Abraham was justified before man (cf. Jas.
2:18 “show me”).
Biblical faith as the presupposition of submission to
God’s total authority (Rom. 1:5) will inevitably motivate behavior.
Unfortunately, in the history of Christianity there have been those who have
arbitrarily selected some specific “fruit” as the infallible sign of saving
faith. The Church of Christ, for example, holds that water baptism under that
church’s authority is the indicator of saving faith. Without it, saving faith
cannot exist. Saving faith will show fruit in different areas in different
people.
In Abraham’s life, for example, he demonstrated trust
in the land promise by leaving Ur and wandering throughout Palestine without
ever actually owning any of it (Heb. 11:8-10). Even when Sarah died He had to
buy a burial plot (Gen. 23). His trust in the seed promise was shown by having
sexual relations with his wife for 25 years in spite of their infertility (Rom.
4:13-21). When he finally did have a son and God asked him to sacrifice him, he
inferred resuscitation based upon this promise (Gen. 22:5; Heb. 11:17-19).
Yet his faith wasn’t perfect. He particularly failed
to believe the seed promise at least twice along with his wife (Gen. 16:1-16;
17:17; 18:12-15). Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit in the New Testament claims
that Abraham was “fully persuaded” (Rom. 4:21) and that Sarah “judged him
faithful who promised” (Heb. 11:11). Saving faith is not necessarily constant
or consistent. Moreover, saving faith can become so weak that fruit is
practically invisible as seen in the lives of Abraham’s great grandsons (Gen.
38-49).
END NOTES FOR CHAPTER 2
1. See Part I of this
series.
2. B. F. Westcott, The
Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1965), p. 199.
3. Don Richardson, Eternity in
Their Hearts (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1984 rev. ed.), p. 33.
4. For Jews to be located
outside the Promised Land was “to serve other gods” (I Sam. 26:19; cf. II Kings
5:15-18; Ps. 137).
5. George W. Peters, A
Biblical Theology of Missions (Chicago: Moody Press, 1972), pp. 90,94.
6. Ibid., pp. 129f.
7. See Part II, Chapter 6.
8. W. F. Albright, Yahweh
and the Gods of Canaan (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1968), p. 108.
The second, erroneously numbered footnote [8] refers to Part II, Chapter 6.
9. See discussion of
northern boundary of the promised land in Walter C. Kaiser, J., The Uses of the
Old Testament in the New (Chicago: Moody Press, 1985), p. 161f.
10. See discussion in E. A.
Speiser, Introduction, Translation, and Notes (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday,
1964), p. 113f.
11. See Part II, Chapter 2.
12. See Part II, Chapter 3.
13. Answer to Question 60 of
the Heidelberg Catechism (“How Art Thou Righteous Before God?”). Philip Schaff,
Creeds of Chistendom (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House paperback edition,
1977), Vol 3., p 326f.
14. As cited in Reinhold
Seeberg, Textbook of the History of Doctrine, trans. Charles E. Hay (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1964), Vol. 2, p. 436.
15. John Morgan, Holiness Acceptable
(Minneapolis, MN: Bethany Fellowship reprint, 1957), p. 51.
16. Robert Shank, Life in
the Son (Springfield, MO: Westcott Pub. Co., 1961), p. 365.
17. See Part I for
discussion on “belief” of unbelievers.
18. See any edition of John
Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, Chap. 2, Sec. 7.
19. See comments in Charles
M. Bell, Calvin and Scottish Theology (Edinburgh: The Handsel Press, 1985),
p.30.