Avoiding Evil

Spurgeon made three important points when it came to Arminianism. First of all Arminianism confuses scripture. Secondly, Arminiansim leads to legality. Thirdly, Arminianism contains errors.

For the final post on a case against Arminianism I am simply going to leave you with a quote from Spurgeon. I hope that if these posts did anything, they made you think and caused you to seek the truth in God’s Word. My prayer is that the church would not hide from dealing with these issues. We are called to proclaim the whole truth of God’s word, not simply parts of it.

“Sinner, unconverted sinner, I warn thee thou canst never cause thyself to be born again, and though the new birth is absolutely necessary, it is absolutely impossible to thee, unless God the Spirit shall do it… Do what you will, and still at your very best there is a division wide as eternity between you and the regenerate man… The Spirit of God must new make you, ye must be born again. The same power which raised Christ Jesus from the dead must be exerted in raising us from the dead; the very same omnipotence, without which angels or worms could not have had a being, must again step forth out of his privy chamber, and do as great a work as it did at the first creation in making us anew in Christ Jesus our Lord. Constantly the Christian Church itself tries to forget it, but as often as ever this old doctrine of regeneration is brought forward pointedly, God is pleased to favor His Church with a revival…

Unless God the Holy Spirit, who “worketh in us to will and to do”, should operate upon the will and the conscience, regeneration is an absolute impossibility, and therefore so is salvation. “What!”, says one, “Do you mean to say that God absolutely interposes in the salvation of every man to make him regenerate?” I do indeed; in the salvation of every person there is an actual putting forth of divine power, whereby the dead sinner is quickened, the unwilling sinner is made willing, the desperately hard sinner has his conscience made tender; and he who rejected God and despised Christ, is brought to cast himself down at the feet of Jesus. There must be a divine interposition, a divine working, a divine influence, or else do what you may, without that you perish and are undone - “For except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God”… Be it never forgotten by us that the salvation of a soul is a creation. Now, no man has ever been able to create a fly… Jehovah alone creates… No human or angelic power can intrude upon this glorious province of divine power. Creation is God’s own domain. Now, in every Christian there is an absolute creation - “Created anew in Christ Jesus.” “The new man, after God, is created in righteousness.” Regeneration is not the reforming of principles which were there before, but the implantation of a something which had no existence; it is the putting into man of a new thing called the Spirit, the new man - the creation not of a soul, but of a principle higher still - as much higher than the soul, as the soul is higher than the body… In the bringing of any man to believe in Christ, there is as true and proper a manifestation of creating power, as when God made the heavens and the earth… He only who fashioned the heavens and the earth could create a new nature. It is a work that is not to be paralleled, it is unique and unrivalled, seeing the Father, Son and Spirit must all co-operate in it; for to implant the new nature in the Christian, there must be the decree of the Eternal Father, the death of the ever-blessed Son, and the fullness of the operation of the adorable Spirit. It is a work indeed. The labors of Hercules were but trifles compared with this; to slay lions and hydras, and cleanse Augean stables - all this is child’s play compared with renewing a right spirit in the fallen nature of man. Observe that the apostle affirms (Phil. 1:6) that this good work was begun by God. He was evidently no believer in those remarkable powers which some theologians ascribe to free will; he has no worshiper of that modern Diana of the Ephesians.”

Remember. This message comes from the heart of a man whose desire was to see souls brought to Christ. He lived as one of the greatest evangelists of all time and, through the sovereign Word of God, many came to Christ during his preaching. This is the theology that Spurgeon preached in his day, a theology that stood against Hyper Calvinism and Arminianism and made him one of the least popular among the religious community, but one of the most popular among the people both converted and unconverted. Thousands came to hear him preach, and through him God brought many to Himself. This is a message that should not be lost in our generation. This is the point of the book Iain Murray wrote, “The Forgotten Spurgeon.” If you want to know more about this and the other controversies that Spurgeon dealt with I would recommend this book. It is good, but his theology will make you think!