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Sung To The Tune Of "Beautiful Day"

February 08, 2006

This morning when I woke up and looked outside I was elated to find a beautiful layer of white snow covering the trees, grass, and street at my house. I love snow, especially when it is a new, pure, untouched snow. It reminds me of David's pleading to God, "wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." Looking at the snow that is covering the tree just outside my office I am sitting here pondering just how white and pure snow is. Then over time people drive over it, the salt trucks dump their salt on it, it gets walked on and trampled, and all kinds of impurities enter into the snow making it discolored, black and in effect something that was pure and desirable becomes tainted. Who can take that dark, black snow that is filled with impurities and make it whiter than when it originally fell upon the earth?

I often have specific encounters with Scripture throughout the week and many times I keep coming back to the same verse of Scripture over again. Sunday evening during the Super Bowl half time I read Psalm 51 to the youth and talked about sin and the cleansing power of Jesus Christ and then suddenly today I am confronted with snow which again leads me to Psalm 51, David's prayer.

"Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." Psalm 51:1-7

Sin is a universal contamination that affects everyone, everywhere. It's not something that is attacking us from the outside as if we are clean and pure and then something enters into us, but in fact sin is something that is already festering within us, even from birth. Sin is "an irrational, negative, and rebellious reaction to God" and none of us can escape it. We have a damaged or stained heart from birth; David realizes this and prays to God "Create in me a clean heart, O God" Psalm 51:10a. We are not sinners because we sin, but we sin because we are sinners, born with a heart that is inclined to do no good. Our moral and spiritual nature is utterly corrupt beyond repair and thus we are said to be totally depraved, unable to do any good at all. We are lost and unable to do anything about it.

"For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God." Romans 8:7-8

Being utterly lost and totally depraved we are hostile to God and we CANNOT submit to His law. A lost soul CANNOT please God. This is absolutely clear, if you are a lost sinner (which we all are) then you CANNOT submit to God's law and you CANNOT please God. That is the cost of being spiritually dead.

The Westminster Confession says: "Man by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto."

We cannot fix ourselves; we cannot do anything to merit mercy or grace from God. We deserve death and eternity apart from God and there is nothing within us that can change that. It is at this junction that I part ways with many of my brethren who hold so strongly to the irrationality of the freedom of the will in regards to Salvation. I do not think that you can believe in total depravity and still hold to the idea that man has the ability to choose God or reject Him. If man is left with the option of choosing God or not choosing God while he is still totally depraved, then the totally depraved man will always choose to reject God. Why? He CANNOT do good, he CANNOT please God, he CANNOT submit to God's law (Romans 8:7-8). Even Jesus says "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." Believe it or not, there are some things that man and his ever troublesome free will cannot do. As a totally depraved, lost sinner you cannot do good, you cannot please God, you cannot submit to the law of God, and you cannot even come to Jesus on your own free will unless you are drawn by the Father. Let's face it, God is in complete control and his sovereign will trumps even the strongest of human wills that exist or have ever existed.

Does that make us a bunch of walking robots, pre-programmed to do whatever God has decided? Umm, no. That is a silly argument. Of course we have our own God given ability to make choices. The problem is not that we don't have the ability to make a choice, it is that we are so corrupt with sin that we will always make the wrong choice. We cannot choose good because of the chains of sin that bind us. Once we are freed from those chains of sin that bind us, then and only then are we able to do good. Thus, we do choose Jesus, but only when we are called by the Father, regenerated by the blood of the Son, and filled with the Spirit of God. It is the righteousness of Christ, not our own righteousness, that gives us the right to become Children of God and this righteousness is something that is given, not earned.

All this to say that in Jesus we are made whiter than snow. How beautiful it is to look upon the mercy and grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and know that our Salvation is in his hands, and to have the assurance that "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day." (John 6:37,39)

Comments

Posted by: Stuart
February 14, 2006 10:12 AM

Craig, I always enjoy reading your entries on this topic. They always challenge me to think and consider my own beliefs. Similar to the kneejerk reaction of "...we must be robots" is the belief that anybody who believes in a choice in one's own salvation is irrational. Certainly, many consider reformed theology to be equally irrational. I agree completely that we are unable to to come to God on own behalf, we simply are unable and unwilling. However, I believe that with the conviction of the Holy Spirit, God does enable sinners to make that choice. Perhaps where I deviate from reformed theology is "irristable grace." It seems logical that anybody who really understood the gift that they are being offered would not reject it. I realize that Adam did not have a corrupt spirit before the fall, yet he still had the ability to reject God. Even admist perfection in the garden, he still rejected God. I suppose it could be argued that it was God's plan for Adam to reject him, but again I would not agree with this.

Posted by: Pressed
February 14, 2006 11:54 AM

Well, I never said that it is irrational to believe in a choice. The point was that it is a contradiction to believe in both total depravity and the ability to choose good while being in a totally depraved state. I too believe that by the Holy Spirit that we are enabled to make the choice, meaning once the Spirit has worked in us and changed us from being totally depraved to spiritually alive then we are able to choose good, but not before.

I'm not sure that I understand what you are saying about irresistible grace. Irresistible grace says that once you see the gift, or the gift has been offered that you will not reject it and you just said that it seems logical to you, so how does that differ from reformed theology? Adam didn't have a corrupt spirit before the fall and adam wasn't offered a gift or salvation either and thus irresistible grace, the calling of the spirit, and the offering of the gift of salvation doesn't apply to Adam before the fall since Adam.

Posted by: Stuart
February 14, 2006 02:47 PM

What I was trying to convey is the controversey within my own mind over the issue of irresistable grace. From my perspective as a believer, I wonder why anybody who truly understands the gift of salvation would reject it, yet many "taste" the truth and refuse it. My rationalization that someone could reject the gift of salvation is that Adam was in perfect communion with God, yet still chose to disobey. He walked with God, yet somehow chose the irrational. I realize that it is far from a perfect comparison, but my point is that we can choose to reject God even when we realize the truth. I don't pretend to have the answer, but the concept of "irrestible grace" is an unresolved issue in my mind that perhaps prevents me from fully embracing reformed theology.