Monthly Archives: August 2011

Slaying the Dragon

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[Photo credit: Smaug.tk]

“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Galatians 5:24)

John Piper:
Picture your flesh—that old ego with the mentality of merit and craving for power and reputation and self-reliance—picture it as a dragon living in some cave of your soul.

Then you hear the gospel,

I will make you mine and take possession of the cave and slay the dragon. Will you yield to my possession? It will mean a whole new way of thinking and feeling and acting.

You say:

But that dragon is me. I will die.

He says,

And you will rise to newness of life, for I will take its plan; I will make my mind and my will and my heart your own.

You say,

What must I do?

He answers,

Trust me and do as I say. As long as you trust me, we cannot lose.

Overcome by the beauty and power of Christ you bow and swear eternal loyalty and trust.

And as you rise, he puts a great sword in your hand and says,

Follow me.

He leads you to the mouth of the cave and says,

Go in, slay the dragon.

But you look at him bewildered,

I cannot. Not without you.

He smiles.

Well said. You learn quickly.

Never forget: my commands for you to do something are never commands to do it alone.

Then you enter the cave together.

A horrible battle follows and you feel Christ’s hand on yours.

At last the dragon lies limp.

You ask,

Is it dead?

His answer is this:

I have come to give you new life. This you received when you yielded to my possession and swore faith and loyalty to me. And now with my sword and my hand you have felled the dragon of the flesh. It is a mortal wound. It will die. That is certain.

But it has not yet bled to death, and it may yet revive with violent convulsions and do much harm.

So you must treat it as dead and seal the cave as a tomb. The Lord of darkness may cause earthquakes in your soul to shake the stones loose, but you build them up again. And have this confidence: with my sword and my hand on yours this dragon’s doom is sure, he is finished, and your new life is secure.

———————

Piper continues:

Christ has taken possession of our soul.

Our old self has been dealt a mortal wound and stripped of its power to have dominion.

The Christian life, the fruit of the Spirit, is a constant reckoning of the flesh as dead (piling stones on its tomb) and a constant relying on the present Spirit of Christ to produce love, joy, and peace within.

For those whom He foreknew

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28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

In what theologians refer to as “The Golden Chain of Redemption,” God is revealing to us an unbreakable chain that starts in eternity past, goes through time, and on into eternity future. This chain is forged by God Himself, and has five unbreakable links: God foreknows, predestinates, calls, justifies and glorifies.

Notice that there is one ambiguity in the text; something that is not actually stated but is definitely implied – that being the word “all.” Let’s see this clearly by inserting another possible implication by way of contrast, the word “some.”

“For (some) whom He foreknew, He predestined; (some) He predestined, He called; (some) He called, He justified; and (some) He justified, were glorified.” What kind of comfort and security would that give to us? Would we be able to say “who can separate us from the love of Christ?”

I think our answer would have to be, many things could separate us (if the intended implication was the word “some” in this passage). It would make absolutely no sense whatsoever, and certainly would not give us any kind of security in Christ, the very thing Paul is seeking to do in this Romans 8 passage.

I believe 100 out of 100 Bible scholars would all agree that the implication of the text is that all He foreknew, He predestined; all He predestined, He called; all He called, He justified; and all He justified, He glorified.

For those whom he foreknew…

In Romans 8:29, the text reads “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son…” Does this not therefore suggest that because foreknowledge comes before predestination in the text, then predestination is simply based on God’s foreknowledge: because God foreknows or sees in advance (with full and complete knowledge) what a person will do, and who it is that will respond in faith to the Gospel, He simply predestinates those whom He knows will believe?

Certainly this is how I understood this passage for many years and it is the way that many deal with the issue of predestination in our day. Previously, I also pointed to 1 Peter 1:1-2 which talks of those who are “chosen, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father…” and assumed that this verse would add weight to my argument that election and predestination is based on God knowing ahead of time what we will do.

At first glance, it certainly seems to be a legitimate interpretation, because the word “foreknew” comes before “predestination” in the text of Romans 8:29. However, the fact that foreknowledge comes before predestination should in no way surprise us. That’s because God would need to foreknow a person He is going to predestinate to something. God does not predestinate unknown persons, but specific individuals whom He knows. So this not really an argument for either side in this debate. In both systems, foreknowing would need to come before predestination.

The real question then is “what exactly does it mean for God to foreknow somebody?”

Actually there are a number of problems with the way I once understood “foreknowledge”, not the least of which is that scripture reveals very clearly, that left to himself, man will always choose against Christ, because of his hostile disposition to God. Man is dead spiritually, and needs his heart of stone to be removed and a heart of flesh put in before he has any interest in seeking the God of the Bible (Rom. 3:11; Rom. 8:7, 8; 1 Cor. 2:14). Outside of Christ, man is the enemy of God. As A. W. Pink once stated, “God did not elect any sinner because He foresaw that he would believe, for the simple but sufficient reason that no sinner ever believes until God gives him faith, just as no man sees until God gives him sight.”

The interpretation also falls down because the word “foreknew” does not merely mean to know future actions beforehand. It has a much more precise meaning. The word “foreknew” (Greek: proginosko) in Romans 8:29 is a verb rather than a noun. It is an action word, and as the text informs us, it is something done by God.
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A Wall of Separation Between Church and State

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Where does the phrase “a wall of separation between Church and State” come from?

The Constitution?
The Declaration of Independence?
Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptists?
The First Amendment?
The Articles of Confederation?

Did you guess correctly?

The phrase “a wall of separation between Church and State” comes from the pen of President Thomas Jefferson when he wrote to a group of Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut. They were concerned about the possible establishment of a church that they would be required to attend.

Jefferson wrote to ensure them that their free practice of religious liberty would never be interfered with by the government, for that would go against the will of the people and the Constitution. Jefferson closed his letter by thanking them for their prayers on his behalf.

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and Creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association, assurances of my high respect and esteem.” – Thomas Jefferson, January 1, 1802.

What was the original intent of President Jefferson in speaking of this wall of separation?

Notice that the phrase “a wall of separation between Church and State” was used to describe religious liberty being protected by the government. In other words, the Government has no right to impose its will regarding matters of religion, so a separation of church and state would be built for this very purpose – to make sure religious liberty was always protected. The wall protected the Church from the federal government.

The phrase is used by many in our day in the exact opposite manner to its original intention. It is used to exclude the Bible and prayer from public schools, and the Ten Commandments from our Court buildings. We ask God to bless America, but at the same time seek to remove Him from every sector of society.

We are one nation under God, not without Him. The misinterpretation of Jefferson’s words continues to impact us greatly, making us a more and more secular nation with each passing year. Yet with our founding fathers we cry, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD.” Psalm 33:12