What We Believe: Sanctification

Announcements

Ambassador Baptist College, Sunday night, December 11

Christmas Day, Sunday, December 25 - Only one service @ 11 AM

What we believe @ SALVATION

Previously:

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ “died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried; and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”

We believe that a person is saved when he repents of his sin and exercises faith by accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior.

Continuing on:

We believe that the atonement of Christ is not limited, but that God desires all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth; that it is not His will that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

We believe...

The Atonement of Christ is not limited.

What is the Atonement of Christ?

Noah Webster defines atonement:

An American Dictionary of the English Language ATONEMENT

In theology, the expiation of sin made by the obedience and personal sufferings of Christ.

I know what your thinking,

What does expiation mean?

An American Dictionary of the English Language EXPIATION

EXPIA´TION, n. [L. expiatio.] The act of atoning for a crime; the act of making satisfaction for an offense, by which the guilt is done away, and the obligation of the offended person to punish the crime is canceled; atonement; satisfaction. Among pagans and Jews, expiation was made chiefly by sacrifices, or washings and purification. Among christians, expiation for the sins of men is usually considered as made only by the obedience and sufferings of Christ.

Putting that all together:

Ryrie’s Basic Theology A. The Concept of Substitutionary Atonement

Substitutionary or vicarious atonement simply means that Christ suffered as a substitute for us, that is, instead of us, resulting in the advantage to us of paying for our sins.

Christ died in our place! He took the punishment that, rightly, we should endure.

The atonement is an Old Testament teaching/truth.

We see the truth of the atonement even before God gave Israel the law. It was illustrated/demonstrated when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac.

Genesis 22:7–13 KJV 1900

And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

Notice, in that last verse, it says:

“…Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.”

This truly was a picture of what Jesus Christ one day would do for the world!

The entire Jewish nation was given another picture of this truth on the night that the Lord delivered them from Egypt.

Exodus 12:3 KJV 1900

Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house:

Exodus 12:5–7 KJV 1900

Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.

Exodus 12:12–13 KJV 1900

For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.

Isaiah’s prophecies looked ahead to the substitutionary & atoning work of the Messiah:

Isaiah 53:3–5 (KJV 1900)

He is despised and rejected of men; A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: And we hid as it were our faces from him; He was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, And carried our sorrows: Yet we did esteem him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: The chastisement of our peace was upon him; And with his stripes we are healed.

The atonement was fulfilled by Christ’s death on the cross.

John the Baptist made the connection between the Old Testament law of the substitutionary lamb

John 1:29 KJV 1900

The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

God even gave us one last demonstration of the meaning of Christ’s substitutionary atonement when Christ took Barabbas’ place on Calvary.

John 18:38–19:1 (KJV 1900)

Pilate...went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.

But ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one at the passover: will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews?

Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber.

Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him.

The atoning work of Christ is taught throughout the New Testament.

Romans 5:6 (KJV 1900)

For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

Romans 5:8 (KJV 1900)

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

1 Corinthians 15:3 (KJV 1900)

For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

1 Peter 2:24 (KJV 1900)

Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

Why is Christ’s substitutionary atonement so important?

Romans 6:23 (KJV 1900)

For the wages of sin is death..

We are all sinners; our sin must be punished. There is penalty that must be payed! Without Christ’s atoning work upon the cross, mankind would be doomed to spend eternity in Hell!

Yet, because of Christ’s atoning work, we now have the opportunity to experience and enjoy everlasting life instead of everlasting death!

Romans 6:23 KJV 1900

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now that we’ve looked at the atonement of Christ, let’s look at the second part of that statement:

We believe...

The Atonement of Christ is not limited.

As you look at that statement, you may think:

“Well, that’s obvious,” or

“I don’t see the point,” or

“What does that mean that the atonement of Christ is not limited?”

Previously, as we began to look at our doctrinal statement regarding salvation, I mentioned, and touched on, Calvinism, which is an unbiblical way of thinking about salvation.

Allow me to give you, again, a brief definition of Calvinism:

So, what is Calvinism? It is a theological error of mammoth proportions that undermines the will of God for the lost, that restricts the death of Christ to only an elect few and that takes away the free will of man either to accept or reject Christ as his or her Saviour. Ultimately it robs the Gospel of its open invitation to all men to be saved and dooms most men to a lost eternity with no Saviour to save them. That, my friends, is not the message of the Bible!

The teachings of Calvinism are usually divided into five basic points.

These 5 points make up an acrostic which spells:

T.U.L.I.P

Those 5 points are:

Total Depravity (or Total Inability)

Unconditional Election

Limited Atonement

Irresistible Grace

Perseverance of the Saved

You’ll notice that the third point is Limited Atonement (which, according to our doctrinal statement), we do not believe. We believe that the Christ’s atoning work on the cross is not limited.

So, to understand why this has been included in our doctrinal statement, we need to understand what Calvinists mean by Limited Atonement and to understand that we must also understand what Calvinists mean by Unconditional Election.

What is Unconditional Election?

In his book, The Dark Side of Calvinism, writer George Bryson quotes John Calvin, the founder of Calvinism:

By predestination was meant God’s decree concerning the eternal destiny of His rational, moral creatures.

And this counsel of predestination was distinguished again according to the different objects as election and reprobation.

Calvinist Loraine Boettner, whom I referred to last Wednesday night, said:

We believe that from all eternity God has intended to leave some of Adam’s posterity in their sins, and that the decisive factor in the life of each is to be found only in God’s will.

Dr. Chris Shepler, in his book, Forewarned and Forearmed, states:

Calvinists see this [Unconditional Election] as meaning that our sovereign God elected or chose those who would go to Heaven and those who would go to Hell without regard to man’s own individual will or choice in the matter at all.

He goes on...

The God-chosen ones are referred to as “the elect,” and the God-rejected ones as “the non-elect.”

In a nutshell, a Calvinist believes that God has chosen certain to be saved to eternal life and conversely, that God has chosen certain to be damned to eternal hell.

To believe this, the Calvinist must severely twist the truth of God’s sovereignty. They do this to the detriment of the truth of man’s freewill.

Is God sovereign? Yes.

Does man have freewill? Yes.

Charles Ryrie states:

Ryrie’s Basic Theology II. The Terminology of Election

No human mind will ever harmonize sovereignty and free will, but ignoring or downplaying one or the other in the interests of a supposed harmony will solve nothing.

Without taking the time to dive into the truth of God’s sovereignty or man’s freewill, allow to share this with you:

Though God foreknows who ultimately will believe the Gospel and who will not, God gave man freedom of choice (his own will) and therefore God is not to be blamed for any man’s rejection of His Son.

In His sovereignty God chose NOT to make that choice for every person, though the Calvinist’s Unconditional Election declares that He did.

We do not believe in Unconditional Election - that God has chosen only certain to be saved and all others He has chosen to send to hell. Instead, we believe God’s Word:

1 Timothy 2:3–4 KJV 1900

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

Which is seen in our doctrinal statement:

God desires all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth.

And...

2 Peter 3:9 KJV 1900

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Which, again, is seen in our doctrinal statement:

It is not God’s will that any should perish.

It is God’s desires that all should come to repentance.

Now, to finish, we need to circle back around to Limited Atonement.

Because Calvinists believe that God has only elected/chosen certain individuals to be saved, they also believe that Christ’s death on the cross was not for all of mankind but instead is limited to only the chosen few.

In other words, Calvinists believe that Christ did not die for all of mankind; He only died for the elect!

However, God’s Word says:

1 John 2:2 (KJV 1900)

And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

Now, I will admit that I have only “scratched the surface” as it relates to Calvinism.

The reason that I have brought it up, even briefly, is because Calvinism is sneaky and has been making its way into churches that would otherwise consider themselves to be Bible-believing.

Also, Bible-believing Christians are allowing themselves to be influenced by Calvinists through books, blogs, etc.

In an article entitled, Evangelicals Find Themselves in the Midst of a Calvinist Revival, we read:

Evangelicalism is in the midst of a Calvinist revival. Increasing numbers of preachers and professors teach the views of the 16th-century French reformer. Mark Driscoll, John Piper and Tim Keller — megachurch preachers and important evangelical authors — are all Calvinist. Attendance at Calvin-influenced worship conferences and churches is up, particularly among worshipers in their 20s and 30s.

Also, an extensive was done among young fundamentalists (under 35 years old) in 2005. Roughly 1,100 individuals participated in the survey. Astonishingly, 58% of those individuals agreed with this statement:

God's election is unconditional. God's choice of individuals to salvation before the foundation of the world rested solely in His own sovereign will. God's choice of the sinner, not the sinner's choice of Christ, is ultimate cause for salvation.

Many people are being more influenced by the thoughts and ideas of men more than they are being influenced by God’s Word.

That’s why it is important that we know...

What We Believe

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Mr. Norberg is at home, resting and recovering.

Tana Christian will be having a heart oblation this coming Friday, December 9th.