Free Will vs. Total Depravity

Can we choose God? Would we ever want to choose God? Do we have free will?

These questions have caused controversy amongst Christians throughout church history. The reformed doctrine of Total Depravity speaks to this.

Total depravity is the teaching that contends that, since the Fall of Man (Genesis 3), every area of a human beings live is fallen and scarred by sin; no area is left untouched. Sin has tainted our wills, our emotions, our minds, and even our physical beings. The result is that, as Romans 3 says, no-one is righteous before God or understands spiritual things. We naturally seek religion or seek to run our own lives or seek gods of our own making that approve of our sinful lifestyles.

Do we have free will? Martin Luther would say no. Luther would ask you, “Does a lion have free will?” You might answer that he does: the lion could choose to hunt a warthog, or an antelope, or not to hunt at all. But take that hungry lion and put a pile of meat to his one side and a pile of vegetables to the other. Which food will the lion eat? Does the lion have free will to choose either pile? The lion, you see, does not have free will. His will is in bondage to his nature. His will is in bondage to his pre-programmed disposition. You may hypothetically argue that the lion could choose the veg, but in reality he never will. Thus, Luther wrote his book: The bondage of the will.

Human beings since Adam have a prior disposition towards sin, and evil and a prior biased away from God. Our wills are not free. Our wills are in bondage to sin and our fallen state. Romans 3 also says that no-one seeks God. The truth of this doctrine should not lead to pessimistic fatalism, but rather (as God intends) should lead to the sinner flinging him or herself onto the grace of God ultimately demonstrated at the cross; or in the words of the old hymn writer, “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling”.

Finishing strong

I enjoy mountain biking, but I hate being unfit (as I am). The other day, cycling with a friend, I had to stop half way through a route to get off my bike and sit down!

Steve Farrar wrote a very good book for men called: “Finishing Strong - Going the distance for your family”. Farrar points out the danger to men of messing up and not finishing the Christian life as faithful men, or as Paul described, as being “disqualified for the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:27).

We all want to finish strong as Christians. We all want to be effective, productive Christians. We don’t want to slip into sin and addiction. We don’t want to fall in the wilderness as the majority of Israelites did after the Exodus. As Christians, we can’t loose our salvation because God is faithful, but we can live in disobedience and suffer God’s discipline and withdrawal of blessing.

The Bible says that the Israelites all shared the same spiritual privileges, but still the majority did not enter the Promised Land and finish strong (1 Corinthians 10:1-5). Similarly, you may have enjoyed many spiritual blessings, been a member of a good church and even attended a great bible study, yet you may be in danger of slipping up half way. How do we prevent this from happening? The Bible uses the Israelites example as a warning to us to flee from idolatry (1 Corinthians 10:7,14). Idolatry is the root cause of all sin. Idolatry is putting a created thing before the creator. Idolatry is the default position of our hearts. If you want to finish the Christian race strong, guard your heart against idolatry. We can idolize anything: food, sport, marriage, sex, status, money, and ourselves. Idolatry leads you to take your allegiance and worship away from Jesus, and to worship at the altar of a foreign god. If you worship the sex god, you will end up an adulterer or pornographer. If you worship the food good, you will end up obese.

What are you tempted to worship? Jesus, or something or someone else? The Bible goes on to say that God will not permit us to be tempted beyond what we can endure and God will provide a way through the trial in order that we, through persistent trust and obedience, may finish strong (1 Corinthians 10:12-13.)

Truths from the tent

Some sections of the Bible may seem boring* to us. Have you ever tried to read though the book of Exodus? You probably stopped reading in chapter 25 when you hit the orders and measurements for the construction of the tabernacle (tent of meeting). About 15 chapters are devoted to the making of the tabernacle! This is very significant if you consider that just one verse is spent on the creation of the universe (Genesis 1:1). Obviously the tabernacle must be extremely important. What does it teach us?

1. God is present with his people
The tent symbolised God’s presence with his people, whom he had rescued from slavery. Once the tent was constructed, Ex 40v34 tells us, “then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.” Whenever Israelites saw the tabernacle they were reminded that God was with them. The Israelites were also reminded that God is holy for they could not enter the tabernacle compound without a priest and an appropriate sacrifice. In the Most Holy Place stood the Ark of the Covenant which symbolised the very throne of God, where God is surrounded by the angels. The Most Holy Place was separated from the rest of the tabernacle and indeed, the rest of the world, by a heavy curtain, again symbolising the truth that God is awesomely holy and cannot be approached by sinful human beings. Only the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place once a year to atone for the sins of the people by the suitable sacrifice.

John, when introducing Jesus in his biography of Jesus, writes that “the Word (Jesus) became flesh (human) and tabernacled amongst us “and then John writes, “we have seen his (Jesus) glory, the glory of the One and Only”. The Tabernacle pictured God’s presence with his people, while Jesus fulfils what the tabernacle pictured and is God with us. Jesus is our high priest.

2. God is portable
The people travelled with the tabernacle and the tabernacle travelled with the people. God presence is not fixed to one point or building, God’s presence is moveable! God is with you at church, at work and at home, if you are part of his people. We don’t go to church to be in God’s presence. Jesus promised to be with us as we go into all the world.

3. God is precise
Moses, as project manager of the Tabernacle Compound, received very detailed instructions and the tabernacle was built very precisely. Loads of attention to detail. God was saying: This is my house and I get to say how its built, I get to say who gets in, I get to say how they get in and with which sacrifice. In other words, you can’t just approach any way you want to. Same today: You get to approach God his way or not at all. It’s Jesus or nothing. Not Mohammed or Krishna, or your good life or you new enlightened spirituality. It’s not even through the ancestors. If we want to meet with the true God, we need to follow Jesus.

4. God’s presence instils passion
In Exch. 35 & 36 Moses asks for contributions from the people to fund and provide raw materials for the tabernacle and its furnishings. The people are moved to give generously and give more than is needed or expected. Moses ends up having to tell the people to stop giving. God’s people were excited and passionate about doing what they could. God was dwelling now in their midst and they wanted to see his name honoured. God’s people gave passionately, generously, fervently, excitedly, zealously and excitedly. I don’t know how that applies to you. But think about it.


* The whole Bile is inspired and useful to correct, teach, train and rebuke. But we realise some parts are more inspiring to read than others.

Lessons from stone tablets (Why God didn’t use YouTube)

God commanded Moses in Exodus 34v1 to make two more tablets of stone on which he (God) would write his law on. The Ten Commandments engraved on the stone tablets give us some helpful insights into the nature of God’s whole revelation to us contained in the Bible.

a. Human mediators are involved

The law came to Israel via Moses, a human being. God did not bypass humans and write the law in the sky with neon lights. So too, the Bible contains God’s words through the words and writings of human authors; nevertheless it is God’s Word.

b. It is complete and sufficient

Exodus 32v15 says that the Ten Commandments were “engraved on both sides, front and back.” In other words, there was no more space to write. The Law was complete and sufficient for life and godliness at that time in world history. Likewise, the Bible also contains all things necessary for salvation and Christian living, and should not be added to or subtracted from.

c. Authoritative

In Exodus 34v1 God said to Moses, "Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.” The Ten Commandments were not Moses’ words but GOD’s words. Similarly, the Bible is not the church’s word or the apostle Paul’s word or your pastor’s word, but God’s. It is because the Bible is God’s words that is has authority and must be obeyed. Our Sunday gatherings must therefore include an exposition of a passage in the Bible, not merely the pastor's thoughts for the week ahead or the pastor's "God-experiences" from the previous week.

d. Permanent

The Ten Commandments were engraved into the stone! They were not pencilled in or subject to alteration or change. God didn’t give the Israelites version 2.01 the following year. The Bible too is God’s permanent, unchanging, relevant, non-updatable message to us today. We are called to be faithful to the bible, not change the bible to suit our perceived needs.

e. God’s law comes through words

God wrote words for Moses. God did not do a drama or post a video on YouTube. Of course, drama and video may help to illustrate and explain the words, but can never replace the words. In the same way, the Bible comes to us in words to be read and studied and preached and listened to. We can never move on from the priority of a Word-based model of ministry. Explaining the Bible must take priority over drama, spiritual dancing and  video clips. (Although a good video clip may help at times. Not so sure about spiritual dancing!)

Is the Bible just another holy book?

Every religion has their ‘holy book’ and all the holy books say the same thing: Love God and love your neighbour. The Mormons have the Book of Mormon, the Muslims have their Koran, and the Christians have the Bible. Just Jinger was correct in saying that it doesn’t matter what book you read. Is this right?

What sets the Bible apart, if anything? Peter, a friend of Jesus and a pastor in the early church wrote, “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eye-witnesses of his majesty.” (2 Peter 1:16)

Eye-witness
According to Peter the New Testament writings about Jesus do not fall into the common category of religious stories and legends. The Jesus-accounts are based on eye-witness, verifiable, historical events. During first century times (and before and ever since) there were a vast amount of made up, cleverly invented, religious stories. The religious section of Exclusive Books has always been busting at the seams! Yet, as Peter forthrightly says, these are invented stories and anecdotes, not based on truth.

Islam
Take for example Islam. The arch-angel Gabriel allegedly visited Mohammed (born 570 AD) in private and recited the Koran to him. No eye-witnesses. Just Mohammed’s word. The same could be said for all the sacred scriptures of all the world religions.

The Jesus-story is based on the writings of eye-witnesses recording historical facts.

Reliable?
How do we know these writing are reliable? We have over 5000 Greek manuscripts to back up the New Testament, the oldest being the John Ryland’s fragment that dates back to 125AD held at a museum in Manchester. There are over 24000 manuscripts of the New Testament if you include those of other languages. The ancient document that comes in at second place to the Bible in terms of historical reliability is Homer’s Iliad that has 643 existing manuscripts. What the point? The bible is reliable, true and accurate. There is more evidence that Jesus Christ existed than Julius Caesar ever did!

Peter then writes in v21, referring to the Bible, “prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” What this means is that the Bible is not made up stories, cleverly crafted religious legends or the writer’s opinions about God. The Bible is nothing other than God’s word to us.

Does it matter what book you read? It matters more than you might think.

My idol factory

Growing up I never took seriously the Bible’s warnings against idolatry as I thought there were not that relevant. Maybe in Thailand where bus drivers take their hands off the wheel to say a silent prayer at every Buddha shrine they drive past! Very few of us have private shrines in our homes to other gods. How wrong I was. Idolatry is, according to Roman 1, the underlying sin of our age as people have “worshipped and served created things rather than the creator”. Our hearts are idol factories.

Ten Commandments

Have no other Gods before me, is the first commandment. The Bible is not politically correct and the competition commission would certainly not be happy. But God demands that we treasure him alone for he is the only God. This means turning from rebellion towards God and trusting in Jesus.

Have no idols, the second command, clarifies the first. To have other gods before God is idolatry. An idol can be ANYTHING that takes the place of God in your life. ANYTHING that demands your devotion and where you seek your security and significance. ANYTHING you treasure instead of God.

It could be the sex idol. You know you’re serving this god when you demand sex - when you want it, how you want it and you’re angry when you don’t get it. You’re even willing to hire an escort, watch porno or swing with someone else’s wife.

The work idol demands that we spend all our daylight hours in the office and only see our children on weekends

The money idol demands that your happiness is caught up with the JSE.

The leisure idol allows you to worship Jesus at church only when the weather on Sundays is too windy to go the beach or not wet enough to stay in bed.

The worship of the acceptance idol calls for your Facebook status to be changed every hour and it is also because of the worship of this idol that girlfriends allow boyfriends to take naked photos of them.
Of course there are also religious idols like my right-doctrine idol or my moral-record idol, and even my ministry-achievement idol.

The media calls you to worship these and other idols by “worship-calling”, known also as advertising.

So, do you worship Jesus alone, or some other idol? Do you strive to keep the first two commandments?

Are you a (irritating) compulsive grumbler?

Have you been to a braaivleis recently? Did you come home depressed because of the compulsive grumblers? I did. Too much corruption in the government! Too much unemployment! Too much crime! The petrol price. The schools. The youth. The weather! You name the subject, it gets grumbled about. Perhaps even more seriously, we grumble privately to ourselves: Life is so unfair. My salary is too low. If only God would… Grumble, grumble, grumble. Grumbling should be declared our national hobby! What astounds me is that Christians are often the biggest grumblers.

It may astound you too to know that in the Old Testament after God had supernaturally, miraculously and powerfully rescued the Israelites from Egypt and killed their enemies (read Exodus 15!) they grumbled about how unfair life was at the first opportunity. The Bible reveals some deep insights into the truth about grumbling:

1. Grumbling is always against God
Moses reminds the discontented crowd in Ex 16:8 that they are not grumbling against him, but against God. Interesting point. The God the Bible presents us with is the Sovereign God who controls and purposes all things, even calamity (c. Ex 4:11, Ps 115:3, Eph 1:11). Therefore when you grumble about the government you are really grumbling against God who ordained and appointed that government. When you grumble about South Africa want to emigrate, you are grumbling against God who ordained that you were born in South Africa. King David sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite with adultery and murder. Yet, David could say in Psalm 51 that he sinned against God and God alone. Why? Sin is ultimately always against God! And therefore ultimately only God can forgive sin. The same with grumbling.

At the Lausanne Congress the sobering point was made that there are no countries “closed” to Christianity, only "countries where Christians are not currently willing to pay the price to take the gospel there." I may add “or to stay there”.

2. Grumbling is evidence that we make much of ourselves and not of God
The ultimate purpose of God rescuing the Israelites and killing the Egyptian army was not to that the Israelites could make much of themselves, but that God would be made much of. God acted to “gain glory” for himself (Ex 14:4, 17, 18). God was and is at work in the world and in our lives, not so that we may think we are something, but that we and the world may see that God is worthy of all glory. When we grumble about circumstances we show that we are more concerned about our happiness and comfort, than showing our confidence in the sovereign God to an unbelieving world. When we grumble we show that we are concerned for our own glory and not God’s.

3. Grumbling shows how spiritually immature we are
“Why do you keep on testing me?”, God asks the Israelites (Ex 17:2, 7). Did I not control nature for your rescue? Did I not open the Red Sea? Did I not destroy your enemies? If I have done all this for you, do you not think that I can and will keep on providing for you? Grumbling shows that we do not trust God in our present situation and that we are failing the maturity test. God ordains tough times for us so that we will keep trusting in him for our joy and his fame; instead we often distrust God by grumbling and rob ourselves of joy and bring dishonour on God’s name.

Romans 5:10 speaks to this: For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

If God did so much for us when we were his enemies, how much more will he keep doing for us now that we belong to Jesus? Stop grumbling and start trusting.