In an email discussion a friend of mine wrote, “God wants to be in a love relationship with His creation through Jesus and if it is not of our will to choose to be in relationship with Him would this be a love relationship or a dictatorship relationship?” So many Americanized ideas come with the term “love”. It is truly hard to know what many mean by love in today’s world. Let’s look at the first part.
God wants to be in a love relationship with us in Christ. Technically, this is true. Adam was created to be in a relationship with God. This was to be a loving relationship.
When I think of love Biblically, the first thing I think of is Deuteronomy 6:5
Deu 6:5 "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
Please notice where this verse is. It immediately follows on the heels of the Ten Commandments. The reason this is so is that to keep the commandments is to fulfill the Law. For evidence of this read Matthew 22:36-38
Mat 22:36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"
Mat 22:37 And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.'
Mat 22:38 "This is the great and foremost commandment.
Is this not consistent with Paul’s argument that true saving faith works in love?
Gal 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.
So I must agree that faith working in love is God’s desire and command for His people. Yet is man able and free to choose this? Is man’s will the one thing God cannot touch?
I am just about finished with Owen’s exegesis of Hebrews 8.
Heb 8:10 "FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS. AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.
Heb 8:11 "AND THEY SHALL NOT TEACH EVERYONE HIS FELLOW CITIZEN, AND EVERYONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, 'KNOW THE LORD,' FOR ALL WILL KNOW ME, FROM THE LEAST TO THE GREATEST OF THEM.
Heb 8:12 "FOR I WILL BE MERCIFUL TO THEIR INIQUITIES, AND I WILL REMEMBER THEIR SINS NO MORE."
Owen speaks to the necessity of God writing His commandments on our hearts. If it is not so, then
“The Lord Christ would be made by this means the mediator of an uncertain covenant. For if it depends absolutely on the wills of men whether they will accept of the terms of it and comply with it or no, it is uncertain what will be the event, and whether ever any one will do so or no; for the will being not determined by Grace, what its actions will be is altogether uncertain.”
A parallel thought to this passage is from Ezekiel.
Eze 36:26 "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
Notice in both these passages, God is the one doing an action. He is taking a sinner with a stony heart and dead to God’s Law and converting Him against the will of his stony and unregenerate heart.
I thank God He converted my will by His power. If He did not, I would be lost in sin and death. Instead of leaving me in my rebellion, while I was his enemy, Christ died for me and took my sins upon His own body on the tree. It is Christ who freely chooses God and obeys Him perfectly in my place. Therefore in Christ, I am now truly free to Love the Lord My God.
May God alone forever be praised.
3 comments:
Compelled, will-preempting devotion forced upon the devotee is not love in the same sense that compelled, will-preempting service forced upon the slave is not fealty.
This does not negate the fact that God chose us and we did not choose Him. Nor does it negate the fact that God has appointed that we should bear fruit. It is not an either/or thing. Our cooperation in obedience is plan of God contingent upon our will to doit.
Consider the following:
--- As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants (doulos = aslo means "slave), because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.
"I no longer call you 'slaves' but 'friends'. You are my friends," says the Lord, "if you do as I command," not, "because you do as I command;"
1) Jesus wants us as his friends, not his slaves.
2) The distinction lies in our own obedience, not compulsion.
"This does not negate the fact that God chose us and we did not choose Him. Nor does it negate the fact that God has appointed that we should bear fruit. It is not an either/or thing. Our cooperation in obedience is plan of God contingent upon our will to do it."
This is where the language barrier often clouds issues. We agree that God chooses, but we differ greatly in what is meant. My post I think is clear that an unregenerate man will always "will" to never obey Christ (inwardly speaking).
In your view, does God choose us and write His Law upon our hearts and minds? Is this efficacious and sufficient in God's grace alone, or is it truly as you seem to be saying only efficacious when we cooperate. I think it is the latter...yes?
This is why Evangelicals such as the source of the quote are not able to withstand Rome's apologists. They either become Fundamentalists or converted.
You are going to have to deal with the substance of my argument if you are trying to gain ground with my viewpoint. Simply using terms that sound like what I believe isn't going to work anymore than a Mormon who says he believes Jesus is the resurrected Son of God.
God Bless
Those who would read the first response must understand that when TOA says, "Our cooperation in obedience is plan of God contingent upon our will to doit." is with Rome's understanding of Justification. The Infusion of Righteousness as RCs cooperate goes towards their Justification. This has nothing to do with Paul's understanding of Justification, nor does it deal with the substance of my argument.
God Bless
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