Faith as The Mode for Knowledge

…but the righteous shall live by faith. –Hab. 2:4

I graduated from Seattle Pacific University just over a year and a half ago with a Bachelors degree in Philosophy. One thing I learned in the Philosophy program was how to develop an argument. I learned how to respond to those with whom I was arguing and how to win, either by pointing out faults in their arguments, or crafting better arguments myself.

This was an invaluable education and I have profited greatly from it, but I learned another lesson from this experience as well. As a Christian, I hold the unpopular view that Christianity is the only true religious system and that hell is real and lasts forever and all humans are going there unless they accept Jesus Christ as Lord of their lives and receive the benefits of His death, burial, and resurrection. As a Calvinist, I hold the unpopular and controversial view that God is in sovereign control of the entire course of history. These two views together account for many of the philosophical arguments I have engaged in over the past few years.

The lesson I have learned over the years is this: no matter how great the argument, no one is going to be convinced that God exists or that He is sovereign over every detail of history. There is simply no argument known to man that will convince anyone of these two truths. Yet the paradox is that they are true and must be known.

So, if two of the greatest truth’s of life are unavailable via argumentation, yet everyone needs to know them, how can anyone learn them?

The answer is faith! “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.” (1 Cor. 1:20-21).   

The great truth’s of life are only accessible by faith, which is God’s gift to His people. One cannot know or accept His Providence except by faith. I know this on a personal level. I have not always held so strictly to the Reformed view of Providence and, when approached for the first time with the doctrine, violently rejected it. Yet the Lord did work in my own heart to convince me of the truthfulness of the doctrine both by the testimony of the Scriptures and of the Holy Spirit working in my own heart.

Though these truths are only available through the discernment of faith, they are not devoid of logic and reason. Indeed, I do believe that as one is revealed these truths, the reasonableness of them becomes apparent for the first time and they do seem far more reasonable than the other options.

Philosophically, the position described above is referred to as fideism, fide being the Latin word for faith. It is not a blind leap, as many would argue. Rather, in my own experience I see it as a longer process whereby God, in His patience, has borne with my weakness and led me to the truth after a while of questioning. This seem to be the normal mode, though there are many cases where, in an instant, God has revealed the great truth’s of the Gospel to a person in a moment.  This whole process is a wonderful display of God’s condescending to humanity to reveal Himself, the Creator and Sustainer of all. 

The Good Fight

Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

-1 Tim. 6:12

Growing up, I always thought that fighting the fight of the faith meant to white knuckle my way through temptation and try really hard to do good things. Recently, however, I am learning that the fight of the faith is not a fight for a morally better life; Christ has achieved the morally best life for us because we couldn’t. The fight, then, is for Christ.

Every battle has an antagonist and a cause. We fight against the antagonists and for the cause. In the faith, we fight every moment of every day against unbelief and we fight for Christ.

This formulation has always sounded vague and “churchy” to me, offering little practical help for the day-to-day life of the Christian. Yet I have been learning how essential this battle is. Every day I must fight against the unbelief, apathy and lethargy in my own heart, the hardness towards God that exists there, living a life of constant repentance.

The curious thing about all of this is that the strength and the desire to fight do not lie in me; they flow as gifts from God. He gives me the desire to fight and the strength to do so. The great preacher, John Piper, put this well in his sermon “Going Hard After the Glory of God” where he says, “The evidence that you have [God] is that you want more of him. Continued indifference to growth in grace is a sign of no grace.”

As I have been learning this lesson, about the importance of the Good Fight, I have also been learning how hard it actually is. This is not a one-time deal! We do not fight one battle and then rest for the remainder of our lives. The battle is not at our conversion, but every day after. Every day I have to wake up and seek God through prayer and the Scriptures, asking Him to draw me closer to Christ and to see His goodness.

Though hard, this fight is essential. We have all been made in God’s image and we have been made to be in relationship with Him. When we do not seek Him we are actually rebelling against our design. When we do seek Him we are living the way we were meant to live and will live lives that are more fulfilled; our lives will not necessarily be easier as a result, they will actually get harder. We will have to make hard decisions as we refuse to follow the world, to give into temptation, and to listen to Satan. In fact, it will be a battle every moment of every day. But we have a Savior who gives us strength and fights for us.   

I have learned a large part about fighting from The Memoirs of Thomas Boston, the reflections of a 17^th Century Scottish Presbyterian minister. Every page of his life is filled with the evidences of this battle. On a side note, this is why the practice of reading biographies of great Christians is so important. Through the testament of their lives they show us how the Truth of Scripture is lived our in every day life. Let us, then, surround ourselves with many seasoned veterans in this Good Fight as we push forward by God’s grace.

Two Men, Two Heads

For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. –Rom. 5:17

I have been thinking about headship a lot lately. Not in the sense of male headship and the relationship between men and women. No, I have been thinking about original sin and new birth.

In Genesis, Adam is responsible for the fall of mankind. He is, in a word, the representative of mankind. In my mind I imagine a triangle, at the top is Adam and the volume proceeding from him to form the rest of the triangle is the mass of humanity. All of humanity, every single person, is counted as being in Adam; this is the doctrine of original sin.

As the representative of humanity, when Adam sinned, the rest of humanity was considered to have joined in that sin, thus we are all guilty of original sin and death rules over us, since the wages of sin is death.

This is a hard concept to grasp. Consider this, when President Bush declared war on Iraq, or when Congress declared war on Iraq, America declared war on Iraq. It was not these few men themselves declaring war on a nation, but an entire nation declaring war on a nation.

In the same way, Adam stands as a representative for the entire human race, much like a king or a president or an emperor. In effect, what he did was declare war on God. Sin is an act of rebellion against God who has created all that exists, who loves His creation, who is almighty. In effect Adam, through his actions decided that he no longer wanted to be governed by God, but wanted to govern his own life.

We see this same characteristic in our own hearts; at least I know I do. So often I want what I think is best rather than trusting that what God has given me is the best. I am not innocent in this; we are not innocent in this. Our sinfulness is almost like a gene that we inherited from Adam that we still bear full responsibility for. We have all declared war on God and must now surrender.

So far the picture is bleak, but the Good News is this: Jesus Christ is the new Head! Just like Adam represented humanity, those who were born into his lineage; so too Christ represents those who are born into His lineage: Christians. This is not a physical birth, but a spiritual birth. In Adam we are dead to God but alive to sin, when we accept Christ and put our faith in Him as our Savior, our old self is put to death on the Cross with Christ and we are resurrected like Christ so that, in a very real but a very mysterious sense we no longer live, but Christ lives within us.

There are also practical implications to this doctrine, it is a key argument against those who say that everyone goes to heaven. They would argue that, if Adam is the old head and Christ the new, then all those who were under Adam would come under the headship of Christ, but that is simply not the case. Adam is head over those who proceed from his lineage, that is, natural man born naturally. Christ is the Head over those who proceed from His lineage, spiritual man born spiritually. One must be born again to have Christ as Head and receive the benefits thereof. 

The Will of God

"For this is the will of God, your sanctification…" -1 Thess. 4:3

I have been giving a lot of thought to the will of God lately. Invariably, when anyone faces a big decision they have some way of reasoning through it to discern what choice to make. For the Christian, the mode is to turn to God and seek Him in the midst of the decision and to make a decision that will glorify Him.

That said, I am not sure if seeking God’s will in the various decisions we make looks anything like we think it will. As I am faced with more and more decisions, I think that I am slowly but surely learning what it means to seek God in all of my decisions.

Too often that has meant waiting for some sign. Too often I think I expect the decision to fall in my lap and be made for me. But that is rarely how decisions are made and it is a lazy attitude to boot.

It has become increasingly important for me to learn that God has already revealed His will for me, for the Christian, and for every person in His Book: the Bible. “[God] desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Tim. 2:4). For everyone this means that God desires that all would come to place faith in Jesus Christ and be saved.

Scripture also teaches that God desires that Christians, including myself, be saved. I began this post with 1 Thess. 4: 3, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification…” but the verse continues further, “…that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the gentiles who do not know God…” (vv.3-5). God desires that we who have placed our faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ would continue to be saved, that we would continue to grow in relationship Him and turn away from our sin in repentance and towards Christ in faith.

I have learned that knowing the will of God for my life means, first and foremost, knowing the Scriptures and what He reveals in them. I have learned several other lessons that have flowed from this first one.

We know that God is a Trinitarian God and has made us in His image. Part of this means that as God has had an eternal community with Godhead, the persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; He has made us to experience community as well.

Making decisions in the context of community as opposed to making decisions in the solitude of my own judgment is the next big takeaway. Talking to trusted friends who know me well and older guys who have gone through life helps me to make a better decision. I have found so much clarity to come from discussions with friends. Clarity has come as friends challenge me in a way that reveals my own heart and desires and reminds me of God’s overarching will for my life and the gifts and passions that He has given me uniquely.

In closing, I suppose the best way to some up what I have learned is this: My big decisions are never made alone but by first looking to God’s revealed will in Scripture, always seeking Him in prayer, and walking through the decision in the community He has blessed me with.

The Gift

"Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." –Luke 10:20

As I was preparing to write this week’s blog post, I was planning on writing about Missions, the subject I had been studying for the past two weeks. In fact, I had already started a draft and knew where I wanted to go with the body of the blog. Yet it would seem that God has other plans. As I have been reflecting on what I have been learning, one clear lesson has jumped out.

I was praying and thanking God for the various gifts He has given me and it occurred to me that I was thanking Him for the very practical day-to-day things He provides, e.g. food, clothes, friends, shelter, etc. but not once did I thank Him for and rejoice in the fact that He had sent His only Son Jesus Christ to die for my sins in my place that I might inherit eternal life which He had prepared for me in eternity past, in short, I was not rejoicing that my name was written in heaven.

So what impact does this have, why does this matter? First, Christ, in the passage quoted above, commands and invites us to rejoice, not in the great things that He gives (at least, not primarily) but in the fact that we have salvation through Him and that, as a result, our names, my name, is written in heaven.

How wonderful us this! That because Christ came down from heaven, leaving the riches of His Kingdom to enter into the poverty of this earth, to suffer and eventually die in my place for my sins because He Himself was the only perfect substitution for me and all others who place their faith in Him; because of this, I have eternal life!

Second, it has been a major oversight on my behalf that I do not rejoice in this daily. I fail to see how great my sin is and how much in need of a Savior I am. I fail to see how much it cost Christ to purchase my salvation, and I fail to see the joy that I now have as a result of being saved.

One thing that was revealed to me as I mediated on this is that, because I was thanking God for these temporary blessings and these only, my joy was based in these. I noticed today that my life has been devoid of the joy that it should have. This is because I am looking for things that are temporary to provide me joy, and, being that they are temporary, they can only provide me joy for a short time. Thus, when they cease to provide the joy I expect, I am rendered joyless.

Yet, the salvation, which Christ has purchased, is eternal and my name is written in heaven, His home, where, when I die, I will go to enjoy eternity with Him and with all my brothers and sisters who have likewise trusted in Him. This joy is not temporary but eternal and is the only thing that can give true joy because it is not a thing, it is a person: Jesus Christ. He will never leave nor forsake any of His children, but is faithful to them forever. This is the gift I have been given; this is the reason I have for rejoicing!

Introductory Remarks

I have resisted blogging for some time now, but I feel compelled to join the many who are blogging today. My goal with this blog is to work towards writing one blog per week, with a word count less than or equal to 600. My goal is to provide succinct summaries of different doctrines or ideas in a clear manner. I hope to improve my writing style as I blog and solidify the lessons that I am learning in my private study. I hope also to develop teaching abilities by teaching others what I myself am learning.

The title of my blog may seem odd, yet it has profound meaning for me. The quote is taken from the theologian B.B. Warfield. I found this quote in Louis Berkhof's Systematic Theology. The full quote is as follows: "[General Revelation] is addressed to all intelligent creatures, and is therefore accessible to all men; [Special Revelation] is addressed to a special class of sinners, to whom God would make known His salvation" (37). I find that this has a twofold application to the Christian. First, we are reminded that we are no different from non-Christians in the sense of our inherent worth. We are all created in God's image and are not superior to the non-Christian; an attitude which I believe plagues the Church at times. The second application is a reminder that we are in no way responsible for our salvation, as if we accomplished it. God, in His grace, revealed Himself to us and took the sole role in salvation such that we have only to respond in faith.

Thus I begin my blog. To any who are so kind to follow, I would encourage any feedback you would have to offer, whether positive or negative, whereby I may learn and grow in my ability to communicate effectively and graciously.

In Christ,

Heath