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It’s very natural for our proud human nature to want to take a little credit for our own salvation. Some attribute it to certain deeds performed, other to “freewill” in choosing to believe. I have recently spoken with a few who believe the latter. They claim that faith precedes the new birth, and therefore initiates God’s “free” gift of new life. This “gracious” gift, they say, is granted to individuals only when they meet the required conditions. Aside from biblical inconsistency, this assumption is dangerous for a number of reasons. It undermines the severity of the fall, gives men grounds for boasting, contradicts the very meaning of Grace, and so on. In the video below John Piper looks at one of the many passages which prove that faith is the result of the new birth and not the cause of it.

“Everyone who believes (present tense) that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God (perfect tense)…” (1 John 5:1)

A FORMER Adelaide pastor who inspired hundreds of thousands of young Christians with his with his terminal cancer “battle” has been exposed as a fraud. Michael Guglielmucci, whose parents established Edge Church International, an Assemblies of God church at O’Halloran Hill, is now seeking professional help.

Earlier this year, Mr Guglielmucci released a hit song The Healer which was featured on Sydney church Hillsong’s latest album. It debuted at No. 2 on the ARIA charts.

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And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:10)

What, then, will we say of those who come forward and pretend that they perpetually present the body of Christ in the unbloody sacrifice of the mass? We say that no profane jest from the lip of Voltaire ever had even the slightest degree of God-defiant blasphemy in it compared with the hideous insult of this horrible pretense. It is infernal. There can be nothing more intolerable than the notion, for our Lord Jesus Christ has offered Himself for sin once, and once for all; and he who dares to think of offering Him again, insults Him by acting as if that once were not enough. There would be no language of abhorrence too strong if the performers and attendants at the mass really knew what is implied in their professed act and deed. In the judgment of Christian charity we may earnestly pray, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do†(Luke 23:34).
- Charles Spurgeon, The Key To Holiness

“And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” (John 5:40)

This is one of the great guns of the Arminians, mounted upon the top of their walls, and often discharged with terrible noise against the poor Christians called Calvinists. I intend to spike the gun this morning, or, rather, to turn it on the enemy, for it was never theirs; it was never cast at their foundry at all, but was intended to teach the very opposite doctrine to that which they assert. Usually, when the text is taken, the divisions are: First, that man has a will. Secondly, that he is entirely free. Thirdly, that men must make themselves willing to come to Christ, otherwise they will not be saved. Now, we shall have no such divisions; but we will endeavour to take a more calm look at the text; and not, because there happen to be the words “will,” or “will not” in it, run away with the conclusion that it teaches the doctrine of free-will. It has already been proved beyond all controversy that free-will is nonsense. Freedom cannot belong to will any more than ponderability can belong to electricity. They are altogether different things. Free agency we may believe in, but free-will is simply ridiculous. The will is well known by all to be directed by the understanding, to be moved by motives, to be guided by other parts of the soul, and to be a secondary thing. Philosophy and religion both discard at once the very thought of free-will; and I will go as far as Martin Luther, in that strong assertion of his, where he says, “If any man doth ascribe aught of salvation, even the very least, to the free-will of man, he knoweth nothing of grace, and he hath not learnt Jesus Christ aright.” It may seem a harsh sentiment; but he who in his soul believes that man does of his own free-will turn to God, cannot have been taught of God, for that is one of the first principles taught us when God begins with us, that we have neither will nor power, but that he gives both; that he is “Alpha and Omega” in the salvation of men.

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Sanctification is a work in us, not a work for us. It is a work in us, and there are two agents: one is the worker who works this sanctification effectually – that is the Spirit; and the other, the efficacious means by which the Spirit works this sanctification – Jesus Christ, and His most precious blood.

Imagine, to put it as plainly as we can, there is a garment that needs to be washed. There is a person to wash it, and there is a bath in which it is to be washed. In terms of sanctification, the person is the Holy Spirit, but the bath is the precious blood of Christ. It is entirely correct to speak of the person cleansing as being the sanctifier. It is quite as accurate to speak of that which is in the bath and which makes the garment clean, as being the sanctifier too. So, the Spirit of God sanctifies us through the blood of Christ, through the water that flowed with the blood from Christ’s side… The Spirit renews and changes the nature, turns the bias of the will, and makes us seek that which is good and right, so that every good thing in us may be described as “the fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22), and all our virtues and all our graces are efficiently worked in us by the Spirit of the living God. Never, never, never forget this.
- Charles Spurgeon, The Key to Holiness

I have calmed and quieted my soul. (Psalm 131:2)

“People today are afraid to be alone. This fear is a dominant mark of our society. Many now ceaselessly sit in the cinema or read novels about other people’s lives or watch dramas. Why? Simply to avoid having to face their own existence. . . .

No one seems to want (and no one can find) a place of quiet — because, when you are quiet, you have to face reality. But many in the present generation dare not do this because on their own basis reality leads them to meaninglessness; so they fill their lives with entertainment, even if it is only noise. . . .

The Christian is supposed to be very opposite: There is a place for proper entertainment, but we are not to be caught up in ceaseless motion which prevents us from ever being quiet. Rather we are to put everything second so we can be alive to the voice of God and allow it to speak to us and confront us.”
- Francis Schaeffer

“By its very definition grace, as it is worked out in our salvation, is in direct opposition to all works and worthiness. We discover from this that those who seek to join grace and works together are terribly deceived. They may make high claims concerning their own holiness of life. However, it is clear from the Word of God and from the very nature of grace that they are on a road that will certainly lead to the everlasting ruin of their souls. Perhaps grace will prevent this, that very grace of which they have such false and corrupt ideas.

Divine grace disdains the assistance of men and women’s poor and imperfect efforts in the work of salvation. This is the exclusive right of grace alone. Any attempt to complete what grace begins betrays our pride, offends the Lord and cannot be for our spiritual advantage.

Never forget that grace is either absolutely free or it is not grace at all. Never forget that anyone who professes to be saved by grace must believe in his heart that he is saved entirely by that grace. If he does not, then he is being inconsistent in matters of the greatest importance.”
- Abraham Booth, The Reign of Grace | HT: DefCon

This is an excerpt from Jonathan Edwards’ Freedom of the Will and this was the start of my understanding the absurdity of the will being truly free. This takes a little time to understand and read through but Edwards does a great job in taking apart the Arminian view of the will through logic. I would encourage any to pick up this book and read it in its entirety.
- Seth McBee

If the Will, which we find governs the members of the body, and determines their motions, does also govern itself, and determines its own actions, it doubtless determines them the same way, even by antecedent volitions. The Will determines which way the hands and feet shall move, by an act of choice: and there is no other way of the Will’s determining, directing, or commanding any thing at all. Whatsoever the will commands, it commands by an act of the Will.

And if it has itself under its command, and determines itself in its own actions, it doubtless does it the same way that it determines other things which are under its command. So that if the freedom of the will consists in this, that it has itself and its own actions under its command and direction, and its own volitions are determined by itself, it will follow, that every free volition arises from another antecedent volition, directing and commanding that: and if that directing volition be also free, in that also the will is determined; that is to say, that directing volition is determined by another going before that; and so on, till we come to the first volition in the whole series: and if that first volition be free, and the will self-determined in it, then that is determined by another volition preceding that. Which is a contradiction; because by the supposition, it can have none before it, to direct or determine it, being the first in the train.

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