Independence Day: Pledging Our Allegiance

TULIP or BEERS: Perseverence of the Saints

It has been a busy but good week. There is much interesting discussion on the other posts to catch up on, but first, l should (finally) finish with the P in TULIP.

Many thanks to my friend Bill for the ideal image for this series of posts!

Perseverence of the Saints

Since God has determined who will get saved and they cannot resist His call, they are unconditionally and eternally secure in that election. Therefore, those who have been chosen to be saved will always stay saved. They cannot resist or lose their salvation. There are no exceptions to the rule. As a result, the Christian has “eternal security.” Since there was nothing a person could do to get saved in the first place, there is nothing he can do to lose his salvation.
(according to biblehelp.org)

Shalom

Salvation is a relationship, not a transaction. Relationships ebb and flow, grow and change. They are not either “in effect” or “void”. Our reconciliation to Christ is accomplished and complete. Our salvation – the degree to which we are rescued from our brokenness – is an ongoing work of the Spirit’s transformation of our hearts. This is a lifelong process, not a one-time deal.

Shalom is the peace that results from healing in our lives, the rest that comes as our hearts are made whole. Shalom, wholeness, the defeat of sin and brokenness in our life occurs incrementally as we learn to live in the freedom available to us. As we grow in truth and understanding, we oppose the lies of the enemy and the disfiguring shame that has alienated us from the love of the Father. This is salvation, our deliverance and restoration from the pain of sin. Our relationship with the Father can and should be one of progressive peace and wholeness.

Conclusion

Is it possible to walk away from a relationship of knowing and being known?  It seems more likely to me that one would abandon a religion than a real relationship with the Father.  Wherever someone is at in this journey, an ever-increasing knowledge of God (knowing Him, not facts about Him) is what salvation is all about.

It seems like “are you saved?” isn’t really the right question to begin with.

TULIP or BEERS: Irresistible Grace

Irresistible Grace

The grace that God extends to the elect cannot be refused. God puts into the hearts of the elect an irresistible desire to turn to Him and accept His salvation. This implanted desire is so overpowering that it cannot be resisted or refused. This irresistible desire insures that everyone who has been elected will go to Heaven.
(according to biblehelp.org)

Response to Grace

We are created to know and respond to our Creator. Sin did not remove the inner desire to seek and know God. Yes, we have blindness and deafness that must be overcome, but the Spirit of God relentlessly pursues and reveals God to us. The Spirit is at work drawing all men to the Father. However, because love requires choice and response, we have the ability to respond to or reject the drawing of the Spirit. Rejection of the Spirit’s invitation leaves us in our broken condition, alienated from the love and grace that is readily available to us.

Conclusion

The obvious issue in this point, besides election which we covered in previous points, is the question of choice or free will.

Also, I would like to see the discussion re-framed from attempts at clearly defining who is in or out with the focus on the afterlife, and instead emphasize the idea of process and journey.

People are in a growing journey with and toward God. Eventually there is choice or response, but that choice is about what will God be in my life now, today, rather than a choice of itinerary between heaven or hell.

I would love to hear your thoughts about this.

TULIP or BEERS: Limited Atonement

Limited Atonement

God limited His atonement to only those who are elect. When Jesus died on the cross, He did not die for the sins of the whole world; He only died for those He wanted to go to Heaven.  Christ died to atone for specific sins of specific sinners. He did not atone for all men, because obviously all men are not saved. 
(according to biblehelp.org)

Extravagant Atonement

When Jesus died for all mankind, He remedied the terminal condition that we are born into and made possible a way for us to be restored, to know forgiveness, and to be loved in a way that has nothing to do with our own merit.  Sin was dealt with decisively on the cross as Christ willingly gave His life to defeat the power of death and alienation that ruled over His creation.  His crucifixion was a cure for sin, the root of brokenness.  Jesus bore the complete weight of the curse of sin and death FOR US and put an end to (condemned) the hold that sin had over mankind.

Conclusion

My first inclination upon hearing and reading about limited atonement was, “you must be kidding!”   But no, the people who hold to this position are serious about it.

If you haven’t gathered it by now, I believe that Christ’s atonement is inclusive and effective for all mankind.  In the next post, we will talk more about our response to this.

There is a helpful list of verses at Biblehelp.org that are applicable to this topic.  You may not agree with all of the categories or summaries (I don’t), but it is helpful to see many of these verses listed together.

TULIP or BEERS: Unconditional Election

Unconditional Election

God has chosen some people to go to Heaven and other people to go to Hell. This choice is not based on any qualities of the person being elected. This selection is not based on God’s foreknowledge of who will “get saved” in the future.  God has elected some for glory and others for damnation. This election is based solely upon the counsel of His own will. His selection of the elect was done long before the universe was ever created.  (according to biblehelp.org)

Eternal Purpose

It was God’s plan from before the universe was created to include mankind in the fellowship of the Father, Son, and Spirit.  He predestined that in Christ man would be brought into fellowship and communion with God, chosen for adoption into His family.  This is His desire for all mankind without selectivity or exclusion.  Inclusion is not conditioned on merit but is simply the result of His extravagant love.

Conclusion

The verses that have been interpreted to limit God’s desire for salvation to a select few in my opinion actually speak of God’s eternal purpose of relationship with mankind.  We covered some of this in my previous post, The OPT-OUT Theory.

The idea of God creating some people for the purpose of damnation tends to go against the grain of what most people sense to be true of a loving Creator.

TULIP or BEERS: Total Depravity

Total Depravity

When man fell, sin permeated his entire being. This fall was so complete that man had no desire for God and righteousness. Man is so totally enslaved by sin that he can only choose evil; he cannot choose good. He is incapable of choosing God and His salvation. Man is totally blind and deaf to the gospel.  Apart from a supernatural intervention from God, the gospel message absolutely has no effect on a person.    (according to biblehelp.org)

Broken Eikons

Man was created in the image and likeness of God for the purpose of love and relationship. We were to be His image-bearers on the earth. In our broken condition, the reflection of God’s image in us is distorted. Even more tragically, sin resulted in the image of the Father being distorted in our hearts and minds. We not only fail to reflect His image, but we fail to know and see properly the image of our Creator. Determined that we would not remain in our brokenness, God did what was necessary for our reconciliation to Him and our restoration to wholeness.

Conclusion

This is brief, and there is plenty we could talk about.  What are the differences?  What are the essential truths?  What is the nature of man and our relationship with God?

Basically each paragraph paints a different picture, not really about points of doctrine, but about the story we believe and the story that we tell others.

Doctrines of Grace

Many thanks to my friend Bill for the ideal image for this series of posts!

After Tom suggested in the previous comments that I was leaning toward Calvinism (not that there’s anything wrong with that), I looked up the five “doctrines of grace.”

• Total Depravity
• Unconditional Election
• Limited Atonement
• Irresistible Grace
• Perseverance of the Saints

I am leaving town for the weekend, and don’t have time to flesh these out now, but in comparison to TULIP, my five doctrines of “grace” are…

• Broken Eikons
• Eternal Purpose
• Extravagant Atonement
• Response to Grace
• Shalom

Discuss amongst yourselves if you would like, and maybe we can talk more about each of these next week.

Distortion

“My experience of His furious love often fills me with a fury as well when I hear well-known preachers and televangelists distorting Abba’s image.”

“His invitation to intimacy is startling, contrary to all the pontifications of certain religious leaders and champions of deuteronomic morality. Their unbending rule-keeping petrifies His furious compassion.”

- Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God

As an extreme example of rejecting a message that does not work, the testimony of Nate Phelps, son of Fred Phelps is truly heartbreaking. The tragedy he experienced because his father distorted the nature and image of God has haunted me since I read the speech he addressed to the American Atheists.

Yes, this is an extreme example, but there are so many subtler distortions.

At men’s group the other night (which has been opened up to women and is currently meeting at my house), in a discussion about suffering, someone mentioned that it was reassuring to know that every awful thing that happens to us is within God’s will.

I considered letting it slide. I tried to talk myself out of commenting.

But I had to say, “Evil is never a part of God’s will for us.”

“Are you saying that God isn’t sovereign over everything? How can anything that happens under His sovereignty be evil?”

“Sickness, pain, disaster – yes these things are evil. They are a result of sin and the fall. The corruption that resulted from the fall is evil.”

“So you don’t believe in the sovereignty of God?”

“I don’t believe that the fall and the evil that resulted caught Him by surprise. He had a plan in place from the beginning to overcome sin, death, and evil. That plan has already been implemented and is in effect even now. While we still experience the results of the fall, ultimately there will be total and complete freedom from the evil in this world.”

“So you don’t believe that God is sovereign over everything?”

Aye, aye, aye.

People worry that by emphasizing the love of the Father, we somehow fail to portray the complete nature of His holiness and judgment. Yet, I don’t believe that God’s judgment is separate from His love. It is because of love and through love that sin, darkness, and evil are overcome and God moves things toward the way they were always intended to be.

Most people don’t need to be convinced of their alienation from God. This seems to be the distortion that we are born into. That is why the message of His love is so important to overcome an already distorted image of the Father and enable us to see Him as He really is.

The OPT-OUT Theory

I believe that we all should be in a lifelong process of working out our theology. A recent tweak in my theology has intrigued me. Real theologians have likely covered this ground and have established doctrines and terminology for the things that I am about to describe.

In my terms, I refer to it as the OPT-OUT theory. Doctrinally, it is similar to the idea of election, except without limitation or selectivity. You might think of it as extreme election.

The basic idea is that everything necessary for our eternal life and fellowship in Christ has already been provided. Our inclusion is an already-accomplished fact not dependent upon our response. We experience the fullness and blessing of life in Christ as we turn our hearts to God. Of course, we also have the choice to not take part in the relationship available to us.

I bounced this idea off of a couple of people, but so far, the reactions seem skeptical – raised eyebrows and a hesitant, “well that is interesting.” So I decided I better keep this to myself.

I was pleasantly surprised when I recently heard this quote in a sermon by Greg Boyd:

“Now people still have the free will to choose against that if they want – to OPT OUT if they want – and they do so to their own destruction. But the default setting now is that people are in Christ.”

So there you go. Maybe it’s not so extreme.

What do you think?

Q and A with Frank Viola

In promotion of his book From Eternity to Here, Frank put together a blog tour.

In previous posts I expressed my appreciation for the ideas presented in this book. However, there are multiple pages in my book with question marks on them, and this seemed like a good opportunity to ask Frank those questions.

Because he is answering questions for over 50 blogs, I will limit this post to just a few questions.

1. Frank, your thoughts about God’s desire for a habitation and dwelling place with man were thorough and well-stated. However, I struggled with the terminology of God as homeless. Would you further explain this quote?

After the death of the apostles, God lost His house once again. The living, breathing house of God became suffocated by a truckload of human traditions. The vision was lost. And God was again homeless.

Frank: I would agree with historians like John W. Kennedy and others who point out that the eternal purpose, the centrality of Jesus Christ, and the organic expression of church life began to be lost sight of when the church began to be coopted by Greco-Roman culture. This coopting came to its height with Constantine’s arrival and era. Many writers today are discussing this shift in fact … people like Alan Hirsch, Michael Frost, Greg Boyd, G.W. Nigel, George Barna and myself (in “Pagan Christianity”). In fact, I was having a phone conversation with Hirsch recently, and he used the term “dethroning Constantine” in our time, as a mindset and a system. The work of God in this hour, we believe, is that of recovery and restoration concerning the fleshing-out of God’s eternal purpose in Christ in all dimensions.

2. I would like to hear your thoughts on the ideal of the body of Christ experiencing authentic church life versus the reality of the diverse, many-membered church, both past and present, in its imperfection as Christ’s body in the earth. What are your thoughts about the many churches who are unaware of God’s eternal purpose as members of the corporate body and participants in the new species?

Frank: “Church” has become such a muddied word in our day. It means drastically different things to different people. So for the purposes of clarity, I’ll not use it here.

God has always worked and will always work through and in His people wherever they are found and in whatever religious organizations they choose to be a part of. Israel is the summary witness of this. Even when the children of Israel were worshipping in Babylon, God blessed them and used them.

However, God has always had a testimony that represented His full thought when it comes to His eternal purpose. For me, the issue is very simple. If I’m a lover of Jesus, I have got to be interested in God’s eternal purpose in Christ, for that’s His heartthrob and the very thing that provoked Him to create. Therefore, I am responsible to know what His central thought is and to adjust my life to it. I think this is the calling of all Christians. In essence, fulfilling God’s ultimate intention is what following Jesus is all about. It’s nothing less than that. The Kingdom of God and being part of a Kingdom community is certainly a large part of it.

3. Would you please explain where and how you see the fundamental flaw expressed in the following quote occurring in the missional movement?

Failure to understand that God’s ultimate purpose begins in Genesis 1 before the fall, not in Genesis 3 after the fall has been the fundamental flaw of much of the modern day missional movement.

Frank: Note the words “much of.” There are exceptions of course. I speak as one who is part of the missional movement. My entire ministry is built on bringing into view the grand mission of God, which is His eternal purpose.

One of the things I appreciate about my friends and colleagues in the movement is that we graciously receive adjustment, challenges, and fresh thinking from one another. No one is defensive about it as we all realize that none of us sees the entire picture fully or clearly. So we learn from one another and engage in robust conversation sometimes.

Some within the movement (which is growing more and more diverse by the way) view God’s mission to be the salvation of the lost and/or the healing of the world. Other stress it to be the making of individual disciples and trying to imitate Jesus as individuals. As I point out in “From Eternity,” God created humans not in need of salvation and the world not in need of healing. Thus there was something else on His heart … a purpose conceived before time … that is by Him, through Him, and to Him. And it is corporate, not individualistic. Furthermore, the purpose of God cannot be fulfilled by trying or working. It is fulfilled by eating from a certain tree which contains a certain life form. God’s purpose goes beyond human redemption.

Jesus Himself said, “As the Father has sent me, and I LIVE BY the Father. So he that eats me shall LIVE BY me.” The purpose of God finds visible expression when a group of people learn to live by the Lord’s indwelling life together and display together it in their localities. That’s what true discipleship is all about. To separate disciple-making from the community of believers is like separating child-rearing, nuture, and development from the family. This touches the matter of “native habitats” that speak of in the book. To be a disciple of Jesus means to live by Christ, just as He lived by the Father. And that happens corporately for the most part. It’s not just an individual pursuit. Christ is, after all, our indwelling Lord.

I’m glad that we are beginning to hear more about God’s glorious purpose in missional circles right now, and I hope that continues. Interestingly, I was able to expand on this very question at a missional church event at George Fox Seminary recently. It created a lot of great dialogue afterwards that was profitable and brought oneness of mind among many who were present. I’m thankful for that.