Monthly Archives: June 2012

Blessed are your eyes because they see

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Does it help a blind man if we light his room with a bulb ten times more powerful than the one he is used to? Silly question, right? We all know that the problem is not the amount of light available to the man. The problem is that a blind man cannot see.

Obvious though it is to say so, a blind man needs sight BEFORE he can see. Of course, he must have light to see, but a blind person needs A WHOLE LOT MORE than light. He needs new eyes. He needs a miracle. He needs the gift of sight.

Jesus said, “Unless a man is born again he CANNOT SEE the kingdom of God.” – John 3.

Spiritually speaking, man is not near sighted. He is blind. His problem cannot be corrected by an act of human will. He needs the miracle of sight. Jesus said that unless he is born again (born from above) it is impossible for him to see the kingdom of God. Man desperately needs the light of the gospel yet, spiritually speaking, he is totally blind to it until God enables him to “see.”

2 Corinthians 4:3-6 confirms this as the Apostle Paul states, “3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

Paul likens the giving of spiritual sight to the miracle of creation itself. There is nothing more powerful than that. Just as God said “Let there be light” and light came into being, God has said, “Let there be light” in the heart of every true child of God. That is why, “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come.”

As much as we enjoy hearing the testimonies of God’s healing power, the child of God has experienced a miracle far more powerful and far more meaningful than anything on a merely physical plane. God has taken out a heart of stone with its total inability to “see” and in its place, put in a heart of flesh, which, having now seen the immensity of His worth, adores Christ and is enraptured with His gospel of grace. Do you see just how precious this is?

In humble gratitude for the mercy of God, the born again man can only say “amen” to these words of Jesus: “BUT BLESSED ARE YOUR EYES BECAUSE THEY SEE…” (Matt 13:16).

Amazing Grace how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now am found
Was blind but now I see

As the Gospel goes forth today, may God open up the eyes of the blind.

Eternal Security

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I don’t really like the phrase “eternal security” or its popular counterpart “once saved always saved” because both tend to come with a huge amount of unscriptural theological baggage. For many people, “eternal security” means that if a person makes some sort of profession of faith and then lives a lifestyle totally at odds with that profession, even renouncing Christianity altogether, they are still “saved” because “once saved, always saved.” I don’t believe that to be a Scriptural concept in any way at all.

While it is true that a genuinely regenerated Christian can be secure in their salvation for all eternity, this is not because of a one time profession of faith so much as the possession of faith. All those who possess true faith will of course profess it, but a mere claim to faith is not enough. As James chapter 2 makes clear, faith without works is dead and a dead faith never saves anyone.

The Bible makes it clear that there is a false faith that is in no way the genuine article. Faith of the real kind will produce fruit – evidence of the Holy Spirit’s abiding presence in the person’s life. That is why we are told to examine ourselves to see whether we are in the faith (2 Cor 13:5). Rather than simply being told to recall a time in our past when we made a profession we are exhorted instead to examine ourselves to see if there is present day evidence that we are truly His. As J. C. Ryle once remarked, “A tree will always be known by its fruit, and a true Christian will always be discovered by their habits, tastes and affections.”

While I certainly do believe in the eternal security of the believer, I tend to avoid the two phrases mentioned above, preferring the theological term “perseverance of the saints” or even better “the preservation of the saints.” Those who are justified will be glorified (Romans 8:30). True believers will continue in the faith because their faith is a supernatural gift from God and by its very nature, is something that endures. The Apostle John recognized this when he wrote: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” (1 John 2:19). The true saint perseveres because God preserves him! The One who started the work will bring it to completion until the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6).

Yet there is a big picture concept that we need to see involving the work of the Trinity in salvation. From the archives at www.aomin.org, in an article entitled “Eternal Security: Based on the Tri-Unity of God” Dr. James White writes:
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Spoken 110 years ago…

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Geerhardus Vos, in a 1902 address to Princeton Seminary as the school kicked off its 90th year, with words still relevant today:

No one will deny that in the Scriptural disclosure of truth the divine love is set forth as a most fundamental principle, nor that the embodiment of this principle in our human will and action forms a prime ingredient of that subjective religion which the Word of God requires of us.

But it is quite possible to overemphasize this one side of truth and duty as to bring into neglect other exceedingly important principles and demands of Christianity. The result will be that, while no positive error is taught, yet the equilibrium both in consciousness and life is disturbed and a condition created in which the power of resistance to the inroads of spiritual disease is greatly reduced. There can be little doubt that in this manner the one-sidedness and exclusiveness with which the love of God has been preached to the present generation is largely responsible for that universal weakening of the sense of sin, and the consequent decline of interest in the doctrines of atonement and justification, which even in orthodox and evangelical circles we all see and deplore. – Geerhardus Vos, “The Scriptural Doctrine of the Love of God,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos (ed. Richard Gaffin; P&R, 1980), 426

Takeaway: To seek to exalt God’s love without placing it against the full range of who God is and must be nets out as a diminishing, not exaltation, of that love.

HT: Dane Ortlund